The other month after a field trip to a local religious site for services, the group invited me and my students to stick around and help cut up plastic bags to weave into sleeping mats for the homeless.
While doing this, one of my students confessed to me that he never did very well in the required fabrics and textiles course.
"I broke all my needles," he was like. "Then I borrowed my roommate's, and I broke all of his too."
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Friday, May 22, 2015
A revelation about Apartheid:
"Apartheid" *must* mean something like 'separation' in Dutch and then Afrikaans.
"Apart-" is like our English 'apart', and "-heid" *must* be an abstract noun suffix cognate with the German "-heit", as in "Gesundheit" (= 'soundness'/'health').
How different that concept would be, if everyone always called the South African policy "Separation"!
"Apart-" is like our English 'apart', and "-heid" *must* be an abstract noun suffix cognate with the German "-heit", as in "Gesundheit" (= 'soundness'/'health').
How different that concept would be, if everyone always called the South African policy "Separation"!
Thursday, May 21, 2015
A city cabbie on Ueber.
The other week after attending a Sunday service for my one art school religion class with some students, I set up at a Starbucks nearby to do some work.
Although it's in a decently yuppie neighborhood, a lot of different types of people go there, including a lot of odd curmudgeons who show up to use the chessboards there.
One (old) (white) guy there got really loud when he was talking about the effects of Ueber on the local taxi industry.
"Do you know how many Ueber drivers were out there on New Year's Eve?", he was like. "Thirty-five hundred! Thirty-five hundred!".
Although it's in a decently yuppie neighborhood, a lot of different types of people go there, including a lot of odd curmudgeons who show up to use the chessboards there.
One (old) (white) guy there got really loud when he was talking about the effects of Ueber on the local taxi industry.
"Do you know how many Ueber drivers were out there on New Year's Eve?", he was like. "Thirty-five hundred! Thirty-five hundred!".
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Urban Kids on the Woods.
Last month at a minimum wage rally march, me and a guy I know from the mayoral campaign ended up marching near this (younger) (taller) (scruffy) white guy who was walking a bike and, as it turns out, helps lead local urban kids on wilderness excursions with some local non-profit that he's a part of.
He said like about once every trip, they're in the middle of the woods, and some kid wonders if they're going to see someone out there with a knife.
Because the kids only know the woods from horror movies, usually, some assume it'll be like what they see on TV!!!
It's funny how not only do non-urban people stereotype the city based on media consumption, but urban people stereotype rural areas.
He said like about once every trip, they're in the middle of the woods, and some kid wonders if they're going to see someone out there with a knife.
Because the kids only know the woods from horror movies, usually, some assume it'll be like what they see on TV!!!
It's funny how not only do non-urban people stereotype the city based on media consumption, but urban people stereotype rural areas.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Another Disturbing Dream: Cleaning my ear with a q-tip.
A few weeks ago I dreamt -
I'm cleaning my ear with a Q-tip.
Then, I pull it out and look at it, and on the tip there's blood.
I'm cleaning my ear with a Q-tip.
Then, I pull it out and look at it, and on the tip there's blood.
Monday, May 18, 2015
My reward for the annual park clean-up:
I found a nice metal spoon, just lying in the dirt.
I brushed some of the dirt off, put it in my back pocket, then went home and soaked it in soap and water, and now it's part of my everyday silverware.
I brushed some of the dirt off, put it in my back pocket, then went home and soaked it in soap and water, and now it's part of my everyday silverware.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Neighborhood doings, at the park clean-up.
A few weeks ago I headed over to the quarry park to put in a few hours at the annual park council-sponsored spring clean-up.
I met 2 heads of the local park councils, and a lot of other people to boot.
As soon as the park council head gave me a bag and went to go out from the fieldhouse to the park with me, we get out of the doors, and a few people are standing around looking at a long-billed brown bird on the ground by the window.
As it turns out, it hit the window, then they poke it and it starts up but can't fly, then they take a cell photo and send it to a suburban wildlife refuge who ID it as a migratory woodcock and send over a volunteer, then a couple people get a box and manage to maneuver it into it, etc.
All the while, I'm standing around thinking of these (white) people from the neighborhood who grew up around there and really don't know anything about the outdoors, and they're standing around outside a park building looking at a woodcock.
They also talked a lot about gang activity in the neighborhood - for example, one middle-aged (white) woman called the local Wings 'n' Rings "Wings 'n' Kings".
Another, an older (white) woman, said that some people give kids $5 on the park playground to go deliver a bag of drugs to a person on the other side of the lot.
"And as a kid that's a lot of money," she was like. "Though as a kid, I would have bid them up to ten."
She also said that it's a shame how some of these kids don't want to go home, and one kid she tutors down at the local youth club, her mom's a prostitute and a druggie and she didn't want to go home and was asking if she could move out now that she's eighteen, though she had asked her mom and she had said she couldn't and she'd sue her.
I met 2 heads of the local park councils, and a lot of other people to boot.
As soon as the park council head gave me a bag and went to go out from the fieldhouse to the park with me, we get out of the doors, and a few people are standing around looking at a long-billed brown bird on the ground by the window.
As it turns out, it hit the window, then they poke it and it starts up but can't fly, then they take a cell photo and send it to a suburban wildlife refuge who ID it as a migratory woodcock and send over a volunteer, then a couple people get a box and manage to maneuver it into it, etc.
All the while, I'm standing around thinking of these (white) people from the neighborhood who grew up around there and really don't know anything about the outdoors, and they're standing around outside a park building looking at a woodcock.
They also talked a lot about gang activity in the neighborhood - for example, one middle-aged (white) woman called the local Wings 'n' Rings "Wings 'n' Kings".
Another, an older (white) woman, said that some people give kids $5 on the park playground to go deliver a bag of drugs to a person on the other side of the lot.
"And as a kid that's a lot of money," she was like. "Though as a kid, I would have bid them up to ten."
She also said that it's a shame how some of these kids don't want to go home, and one kid she tutors down at the local youth club, her mom's a prostitute and a druggie and she didn't want to go home and was asking if she could move out now that she's eighteen, though she had asked her mom and she had said she couldn't and she'd sue her.
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