“A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live… When we are not living up to our true vocation, thought deadens our life, or substitutes itself for life, or gives in to life so that our life drowns out our thinking and stifles the voice of conscience. When we find our true vocation – thought and life are one.” Thomas Merton LAGUNA BEACH, CALIFORNIA: SUMMER OF 1998 The second half of my second decade in this world was filled with frustration, ugliness, striving, suffering – and death. That these afflictions were mostly of my own creation led directly…
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Blast from the Past, Part II
“There’s too much music everywhere. It’s horrible stuff, the most noise conveying the least information. Kids today are violent because they have no inner life; they have no inner life because they have no thoughts; they have no thoughts because they know no words; they know no words because they never speak; and they never speak because the music’s too loud.” — Quentin Crisp SUMMER OF 1998: MY GOAL “Illi mors gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi.”* Seneca *Death lies heavily on the man who, too well known to others, dies a stranger to himself. My life as a writer and thinker never much coincided with my…
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Blast from the Past, Part I
In reviewing pieces I had written many years ago, I read with much interest the exasperated musings of a beginning teacher and the grade chase. On the other side of that hill now as a veteran teacher, I am satisfied that I have made my peace with “the system” without having lost my soul to it. I read my words with a mixture of amusement and surprise – “How earnest and edgy I was!” Without further ado, coming to you from all the way from back in 1998– NON SCHOLA SED VITA DECIMOS* *We learn not for school but for life. Grades and grading are for me a pest invested…
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The Frog in the Caldron…
PRESSURE I teach four high school Advanced Placement courses in two different disciplines, in addition to two other college prep English classes. Starting January I will also teach one undergrad college course on Monday nights, and in February I will teach a Masters’ Degree class on Wednesday evenings. (This is after my day job.) Around that time I will also be giving my final exams to my daytime classes and have to have them graded by the end of the next week. I have a whole slew of regular essays to grade, in addition to 57 research papers to read and assess which average about 25 pages each. I have…
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Welcome!
This is a new blog offering on my domain. I am not sure to what use I will put it, but I have some ideas… If you happen to be around, go ahead and leave a comment! I will read it with much interest. Until Laters, Rich Geib