Halo awak nak baru!!!

Halo awak nak baru!!!
Salam knal tuk smua nak kanak

Dashain

I attended the Dashain festival at the Franklin side on the north side of Syracuse. The Bhutanese/Nepalese community, recent arrivals to the Central New York region, celebrated Deshain: the longest and the most important festival of Nepal. Generally Dashain falls in late September to mid October, right after the monsoon season, a day of Victory over Demons.

According to the legend, the bloodthirsty Goddess, Durga conquered evils on the Dashain day. Huge amount of animal sacrifices take place during the festival in temples and in home to please the Goddess Durga. Some people may take such animal sacrifices negatively but they might forget how they came by their meat on their plate! There are lots of western countries consuming mass amount of meat, animals are slaughtered in factories by the hundreds and thousands. The final day of the festival is known as `Tika', a day on which the elder ones give `Tika' to the younger ones and to other relatives who come for their blessings.

The main celebration glorifies the triumph of good over evil in a ten day ritual to celebrate the positive karma over the bad. Yesterday, I watched dancing and ate traditional foods, all while hearing immense appreciation for their place in a new country.

Emerson made the blog, not you

Friday, yesterday, was a busy day and I am unsure if I lived it, exactly, or if it was all a figment of my imagination. I was on supercharge from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. and I think there was some karmic sunshine, despite the high winds and rain.

I was at Corcoran High School and I copied a quote from a teacher's room that I really liked. He was working on a unit based upon success. He quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson.

What is SUCCESS?

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people and the reflection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed
social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.

I sort of think this is a rather sharp list to think about on a weekly basis. I shall revisit this to think about, from time to time, just how successful I am.

In loving memory of Ann Brown, Brown School Teacher

Peas

My first four years teaching at the Brown School offered amazing mentorship, support, love, and guidance from all who taught there. Arriving to a school that was created the year I was born, I felt a sense of honor to be employed with such remarkable people. My cousins attended the school in the mid-eighties and upon hearing news of Ann’s death, they called me to say how sorry they were. Ann was their favorite teacher and my cousin, Mike, said she was the reason he stayed in school and graduated from JCPS.

As a teacher, I never took Ann’s class, but I remember vividly how much all my students loved her. One in particular, Dee Dee, would never let a day pass without doing multiple impersonations of Ann and her fear of peas. I’m unsure about the validity of the story, but in Dee Dee’s renditions, Ann was terrified of them. “Peas. I hate them. I hate them. Get them away,” Dee Dee would yell across my room in her best New York squawk.

My first three years, the high school faculty discussed all their issues in Ann’s room and I remember thinking, “Man, these people are vicious.” The safety and beauty of a staff that loves what they do is that they are always 110% honest with how they feel. Their raw emotions were a bit intense at times, but I bonded with them over the passion they shared from teaching kids. In Ann’s room, oi vay, the words would fly. I love teachers who cuss.

I remember once, during a fire drill when the electricity was out and Ann couldn’t take the elevator, Luda and I were asked to carry her downstairs in her chair. I might place that moment as one of the oddest experiences in my life, only because Ann was her usual wise-cracking self, I was not used to putting my triceps into action (although I worked out at a gym), and Luda….well, it seemed very odd to me that Ron Freeman called on Luda to be the other man to help carry Ann Brown down the stairs. Luda was 148 years olds at the time and I was worried about his health more than dropping Ann down three flights of stairs. The moment was completely surreal, but luckily we landed her on the first floor of the lobby, totally in one piece, with her scolding us the entire way. Luda, sang in his baritone voice the entire way.

Then there was the morning I arrived at 6 a.m. to hear Ron having a conversation with Cynthia over the intercom because one of Ann’s iguanas was missing and running the building. She wasn’t at school yet, and Ron was coaching Cynthia to find the dinosaur in the hallways of Brown before the students and teachers arrived. From the intercoms and walkie talkies, it was like a bad, Brown scene of Jurassic Park. The iguana, it turned out, was still in its cage. It never was missing. That was the beet Brown School morning ever.

I thought very highly of Ann Brown. Away from the school, I learn more and more about why 546 S. First Street is one of the most special places on earth. I’ve yet to find any school in the United States that has such wonderful karma, spirit, and soul. It is my hope that Ann will guide all the students who attend there in the future with the same zest she brought to her classroom and while she was teaching with all of her might.

I am thinking of Ann’s family and friends and sending my love and appreciation for all she stands for, believed in, and achieved as a miraculous woman…a one of a kind human being. She will never be forgotten. Because of her, I avoid peas as much as I can.

Caveman

For the last few years, I often channel Captain Caveman when I do workshops as a way to make a point that before we had an alphabet, individuals used art and pantomime to communicate their ideas. I usually ask someone in a group to get others to guess at an item I write on a card: "Hurry, Quick! In the Hallway. There's a big woolly mammoth! Food! Let's eat."

In a few minutes, individuals usually guess at the improvisation. I then can move to cave drawings, hieroglyphics, and the politics of language in the 21st century and how some forms of communication are held as superior to others (at least at the University).

Why am I posting it? Because the karma of hearing "Captain Caveman" sing in my ears all day made me wonder if someone posted it on YouTube. They have.

With the changing leaves...

...comes the changing pressure in my head. With the cold temperatures and the promise to the self not to turn the heat on until November, also comes the high use of a wood burning stove. Changing leaves and burning wood cause extra pain in the temples.

Karma is the reminder that my head never works just right and when it isn't working, I feel useless. Even so, I did get a post out of it, and I spent the last four hours writing.

Sometimes I wonder what it is like to live with a noggin' that isn't so susceptible to swelling and pain. I wish it was a balloon and I could just let out all the air for the night.

This makes me sad

The KFC Yum Center has opened for the Louisville Cards down the street from the J. Graham Brown School and across the river of where I lived. It was a whispered rumor when I left, a foundation when I visited in 2008, and now a reality for the fighting Cards! I envy the fact that others are there, in the thick of it all, capable of seeing this and enjoying it. Oz has been built for the basketball program in downtown Louisville and now we shall see how it pays off.

The city deserves its karma.