Looking Over the Blogs.......Critiquing the Prof

I've just been browsing all the blogs of my USU classmates.  I'm interested in almost all of them.  OK, that's just being kind - I'm mildly interested in most, really interested in a couple and just minimally interested in some.  No, I'm not going to say which ones; these kiddos might read this, and I'm not going to be so cruel as to say - "Oh, give me a break; this is soooooooo boring.".

I had someone ask me the other day how different was it to be the student instead of the teacher.  I've been pondering that.......  Here's what I have come up with:

Decided to add one of my 'school' pix just for fun

1)  Less pressure.  I'm not responsible for 90 minutes of being 'on' 

2)  Tendency to mentally critique the teaching of the professor - I spent so many hours mentoring new teachers, sitting in on other teachers' classes that during class I'm carrying on an interior dialogue simultaneously with being a student.  There's a tape inside my head going:   "Don't do that!"  "Yikes!!"  "Good analogy"  "Come on, say it a different way." and stuff like that. 

3)  Find myself wanting to help him out when he asks a question and there's dead silence

4)  Restate what he's trying to get across in a different way when I see that several of the kids just don't get what he's trying to teach.   (I'm sure he doesn't appreciate that.)

5)  Find myself wanting to be the 'devil' student - haven't done it yet, just daydream about it

6)  I realize I have responsibilities as a student, and I try to fulfill them because it makes it easier on the prof - who I identify more with during class than the other students

7)  Envious as hell.  The Prof doesn't have to convince students to a) quit fucking around, b) listen, c) participate

8)  Difficult to not have the POWER in the class

9)  Wondering if I missed something by not teaching at the college level.

10)  So grateful every morning that I'm actually learning something NEW

Strawberry Fields

I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  It's not quite as black prairie as Kansas in that it is slightly hilly and actually has TREES, but it was ringed with truck farms.  In 1960 the small towns that were 20 miles from the center of Tulsa were the farms towns.  The farmers grew items that could be hauled to market in trucks, sometimes even pick up trucks - thus, 'truck farms'.  There was corn, tomatoes, every kind of bean, pea or squash, cucumbers,  eggplant, peppers and strawberries.  As each crop ripened, you got your paper sack, walked out into the fields and picked what you wanted.  Each farm wife had a small cash box on the worn front porch of the farm house. I can remember these make up free, slightly frowsy women in their house dresses covered with worn aprons  pushing open their creaking screen doors to take the quarters and dimes with their work hardened hands.  At my house going to pick fresh vegetables was as big a part of summer as the slip and slide.  It was also the only time of the year we ate fresh vegetables.  Other than potatoes and onions, and sometimes carrots, all our other vegetables were canned because fresh was expensive.  

I did love eating the vegetables, but I hated picking.  There were BUGS, and if the goal was corn, there were corn worms - fat, sluggy worms that seemed to always find my arm to crawl up.  Another rough spot of picking is that if you didn't arrive almost at the crack of dawn, it was hot; breathless, beating down sunstroke hot as you walked up and down the rows looking for whatever was ripe.  

As we have been vagabonding, I've been fortunate to live in three farm valleys.  The best by far was the Skagit Valley in northwest Washington.  They produced EVERYTHING (except tomatoes - too cool), and they especially produced berries.  I developed a taste for the just picked berry, and believe me, that's not hard.   The Satsuma Farm actually had an ice cream stand on their farm and mixed the freshly picked berries into the most divine shakes I've ever tasted.  

I was extremely happy to discover the Mt. Naomi Farm just north of Logan (1285 South 4500 North, Hyde Park) www.mtnaomifarms.com .   Immediately I signed up for their email notifications telling me when the berries would be ready to pick.  This past Saturday we went a strawberry pickin'.  If you haven't ever had berries fresh from the vine, then you won't know how remarkable it is to find a farm like this one. 

We met Brenda "Grab Life by the Berries" Meikle who owns this farm with her husband.  This was a portion of the second generation family farm that wasn't devoted to the dairy business.  They also grow alfalfa and hay, in addition to the berries. This is the third year that the strawberries have been planted, and they are finally making enough berries to sell.  There will also be blackberries later in the season.  Run don't walk to this farm for some of these luscious berries.  They are open for picking Saturdays in 7:30 - noon or other days by appointment.

Cache Valley is one of those unique places that has fertile land perfect for farming, just as the Skagit Valley is in Washington or the land around the Franconia Notch in New Hampshire or the farms around Tulsa in Oklahoma.  The farms no longer exist around Tulsa.  From 1960 to 1980 Tulsa doubled in size, and the city fathers didn't encourage high rise or multi-family housing, instead, it was large subdivisions and freeway development.  The farmland is gone and can't be reclaimed.  Farmland is a natural resource just like forests, mountain vistas and national parks.  I can already see the beginning ravages of suburban 'sprawl' creeping into the farmland of this valley.  I think the residents here need to be asking themselves what they want this valley to look like in 50 years.  Neglecting this question will result in losing something irreplaceable.   

Why Do I Write?

I'm doing my homework, good little student that I am, and suddenly after seven pages of reading the personal essay book, I have to stop and answer the question:  Why Do I Write?  Oh, this is not something I really wanted to get into.  You would think that because I'm a former English teacher, I would LOVE to write - wrong.  It was actually my least favorite part of teaching the subject; mainly because I wasn't very good at teaching GOOD writers.  (I'm really dreading having to comment on the other students' writing in this USU class.  I feel like such a fraud.  Can I just correct their grammar?)  I was actually very good at teaching kids who had never put a word on paper to learn how to do it. 

I know the reason I write now is different than the reason when I started this blog in 2007.  Initially, I was in the midst of having to accept some hard truths about myself and my health, and I used writing to help me sort out, accept and make sense.  I explored faith and the role it played in my life.

In 2008, I stopped writing.  I posted exactly two times about nothing;  It's a wonder my audience stayed with me.  I think if I had written, it would have helped me come to grips with new responsibilities and the re-ordering of my extended family's life.  I wish I could truthfully say I sorted through my mother's death, but that would take 3 more years.  I did come to a peace about my brother's death, and I spent a lot of time in 2008 accepting my father's dementia and the horror of relocating him against his will, and closing down their lives  Writing would have helped me, but I was too outwardly focused to use it.

In 2009, I found the passion again when we decided to cut ourselves adrift from the lives we had led for 20 years and take off adventuring.  No, we aren't climbing mountains or taking to the sea in a small boat, but we are opening ourselves to new places, new communities, new people.  Writing about the process of making this happen gave me the feeling I had something interesting to say.  I guess that says why I write in one sentence:  The feeling I have something interesting to say.

In 2010, 2011, and up to the present, I found my voice.  Yes, my entree to my audience is ostensively a travelogue, but I get the most responses from my readers when I write on a more personal level or when I muse and comment about people I've met - both individually and as as groups.  Another reason I've chosen this form is I'm acutely aware that many people read my stuff who can't (or won't) travel, but love to hear the word descriptions and see the pix.
I have to admit that while I do write for myself - a life chronicle, I'm flattered that I have an audience.