Silent Anniversary

On occasion someone will cross your path who profoundly affects your life by awakening your senses and challenging you to take on new and different opportunities.

Today I'm reflecting on a dear friend whom I met one year ago today.

Is there anyone like this in your life?

Enjoy them - they're rare.

Charge!

It's done.

It's printed.

It's assembled.

There's no turning back now...

...with 2 hours to spare...

CHARGE!!

The wall of concentration-frustration

This feels really weird. I'm on the brink of my first project deadline for school. The deadline looms dangerously close. Under normal circumstances, this would cause me to flip into a panic and instantly become super-motivated and focused on getting through it.

I find the opposite is true. I'm becoming increasingly distracted and my level of concentration seems to be diminishing. These distractions include but are not limited to:

I'm tired
I'm hungry
Oh yes, the long list of things OTHER than this that require my attention

I truly thought that I would become so engrossed in the paper that the outside world would just fade into the distance. Not true. The outside world is serving as an annoyance - frustrating me because... when I hit that brick wall of writer's block, my mind zips to something else I'd SOONER be doing than being in writer's block. I'd really rather be slamming words to the page, yammering on and on defending my thesis statement.

Alas, no... I'm just trying to avoid the feeling of writer's limbo by stuffing a distraction in the way.

Chatted with my friend M. yesterday - or was it the day before - about a 5000 word essay he wrote years ago that caused him to stay up all night, drink copious amounts of rye, and meet daylight and his Dad at the breakfast table with a completed work in Canadian History that earned him an 85% grade.

Maybe that's it. I think it was Sare who said "Remember, Turtle... 4AM is the new 1AM..."

So, to Sare's Uncle J. (AKA Anvilcloud) I know I promised a draft by yesterday, and you've been more than kind to offer your experienced quil of guidance, but alas... I'm stuck. I'm going to have a nap and see where it takes me. Then, maybe 4AM will bring with it some inspiration.

And to Jeremiah and Susie too... thanks for the offer... I've hit my wall and need to regroup.

Turtle speaks out

Turtle's First Audio Post

Be forewarned... this piece is not scripted. Today's blogcaster tends to ramble and bump into things like microphone stands.

Turtle Nerd.

I have a confession to make.

I've turned into a nerd.

"A nerd?”, you say...

Yes. Quite.

You see, over the past number of weeks I've taken much delight in school... in English. Delight to the point that... well... I'm afraid to say it... well... OK.

I had work in Olds - a town about an hour north of Calgary - on Saturday night. As I went through the motions of what appeared to be quite a routine event, a wedding reception at the Olds College, I began to feel an itch.

It was an itch to crack the books.

So, once set up, I parked myself in Tim Hortons. I sat myself down with a long john, a blueberry apple fritter and a cup of coffee, double cream.

Here it comes... the nerd part:

I began to read - not in the fashion of the reference text it was, (looking up only that which was important) but rather, beginning at the first page as one would read a novel - the Broadview Handbook to Writing.

Yes, folks. I'm reading reference texts... for fun.

I say again...

I'm reading reference texts for fun.

I didn't make it "cover-to-cover" in the hour and a half I had at my disposal, probably because I was savouring each and every tasty morsal of "this is our idea of good and proper sentence structure".

I won't go into the disappointment I felt when I got home to discover my Speech text from the Radio course (1993) was not where I expected it to be!

*sigh*

Yes, I crave a re-visit to the days of thinking about WHAT one is going to say and HOW one is going to say it - BEFORE one opens one's mouth.

Turtle Nerd out.

"Happy Anniversary, what would you like?" .... "I think I'll take a new washing machine, please."

I'm attempting a short post here, so please excuse the point form.

-Last week my washing machine died.

-What repair guy in his right mind EVER says "You're best to buy a new washer, dude."?

-Turns out October 2006 is my 13th. anniversary here in this particular Turtle Shell.

-Is that why the washer crapped out? Maybe.

-I decided to buy new - this being my... FIFTH washer in the same 13 years.

-Time to go shopping... washing machines are $600 to $2500 CDN Ouch.

-Top load, start, stop... I'm good. $600.00. (I need not fly to the moon with a full-sized window to watch the planets go by!)

-New washers are light. This, too, pleased me. I guess having met with success lightening Hide-A-Bed sofas, why not try it with washing machines too?


After getting it downstairs, the rest was a piece of cake...



...doesn't match, but who cares?


I read the instruction on the peel-away plastic, but felt so warm and fuzzy over a NEW washing machine, I've left it in place, just for now.




...and just for the record, this is the inaugural load.

I love that word, inaugural

[in-aw-gyer-uhl, -ger-uhl]

adjective

1. of or pertaining to an inauguration: Harding's inaugural address.
2. marking the beginning of a new venture, series, etc.: the inaugural run of the pony express.

noun

3. an address, as of a president, at the beginning of a term of office.
4. an inaugural ceremony: to attend the presidential inaugural.

Is this a University class or a Literature Club?

Yesterday's class was cool. We spent much of it bantering amongst ourselves in open discussion. Quite literally, it felt like I was a member of a book club, not a student in a formal classroom.

With the exception of a mini-lecture on Chaucer, the bulk of the class was dedicated to discussing what we'd been assigned to read:

The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
and
The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

There's something about my prof. that I absolutely love. She makes me laugh. She's a stickler for all things good like grammar, spelling and proper pronunciation. Also, you'd be best in her class to choose your words carefully BEFORE you open your mouth. She's forever stopping a student, drawing attention to what they've just said and asking them point blank if there's a better way to say it.

This kills me.

I get such a charge out of it!

Call me crazy, but I'm quite literally entertained by that!

The many examples from last night's class escape me except for one... because it was mine. At the beginning of the class, dear Professor M. asked if we all felt we were in the "right" class.

"Is there anyone here who doesn't recognize this room? Are you in the right class?"

She'd realized that there were a couple faces unfamiliar to her - hence the question.

I put up my hand.

She looked puzzled.

"David, you're in the right class, you've been here from the beginning."

"Yes," I said, "but I have a better word."

"A better word?", she inquired.

"Than 'right'", I said. "How about... 'correct'?"

Oh boy. Did I start a discussion!

"Is David right? Is David correct? Which is better?", she queried the class.

She looks to me, "Explain, please."

"Well, 'Are you in the correct classroom?', to my way of thinking is more... precise because 'right' could also be confused with direction." , I said, rather proud of my quick response - which I really didn't have enough time to comfortably formulate before spitting it out! (Once a Turtle, always a Turtle...)

After much debate (and I seriously didn't intend to open a Pandora's Tool Box of Speech) we came to the conclusion that 'right' was perfectly correct as she had used it.

The arguments were flying left, right and centre, and I was a little foggy when the dust had finally settled. From what I remember, the reason she was correct in using the word 'right' is that there is a hair to be split here. Could I remember? Nope.

This morning, I emailed M. to get the straight goods.

DAVID: "...I was reflecting on our discussion from last night regarding the use of the words 'right' and 'correct'. I was trying to sort through by memory all the different arguments that floated about over the course of this discussion. I can't for the life of me remember accurately the conclusion we came to on the difference between 'right' and 'correct' (in the context of "Are you in the 'right' (or 'correct') room?".) Could you jog my memory for me, please? I seem to recall something of "societal" VS.. "permission"? Perhaps I'm still in a fog. I need tea..."

PROF. M.: "...'Right' has, in addition to the usage which is synonymous with 'correct', a moral connotation that 'correct' lacks.

Correctness is about facts, it seems to me, whereas rightness is about being properly (another synonym!) located, morally & ethically.

All this, of course, is semantics!"

So there you have it: one of the things that makes the English language unique and far from dead. Also a fine motivator for all things good... like tea and coffee.