A Eclectic Collection: Poem, Rant, Humor, and Tiredness (in that order)

Persistence

There is a stubbornness
to these old trees,
ugly in their contortions
but beautiful in their persistence,
wrapped around rocks
and rooted in nothing
as they project from the sides
of sheer red sheets.
There is a coldness
to the baking boulders,
which, when forced free
by tree roots,
fall and fracture
into manageable masses.
These treacherous traverses
tumble the tired
on their untrusted legs,
hinder progress, and force retreat,
but it’s worth the twisted ankle
and the wrenched knee
to see the rest of the scholarly,
the sophisticated,
turning back.

Poem:
I guess this is another poem about going places out west m0st other people don't make the effort to go. I like this one because of the analogy to the trees, which really are impressive in their ability to stick around in the strangest places. And their ability to shape the rock faces with their roots is a testament to their stubbornness. I edited this to be more focused on concrete detail. The original was more concerned with the abstract concept of persistence and nature's ambivalence to human contact, but I thought this still captured a good deal of that, and the description makes it more intelligible.

Observation:
I'm dropping my philosophy of technology class. Here is a rant to explain why. I walked in today to a very full classroom. I think all but one or two desks were full, and the room was pretty packed. This is a larger class than I like for philosophy, since it encourages professors to adopt a more lecture-based approach rather than center the class around discussion. The professor for this class has only been here a short time, and from the beginning of the period it seemed like the class was going to be tedious. He began by trying to get to know every person's name. He would read a name, and then ask for a fact to associate with whoever was called to help him out. With some effort, this occupied a good 15-20 minutes of class time. During this process, he felt obligated to offer his own opinions at random. When one girl said she enjoyed showing dogs, he asked her what her favorite breed was. When she replied she had an Irish Setter/Spaniel, he just said "Wrong. The only answer is Golden Retriever. They are the best dog."
I was displeased.
So with twenty of our ninety minutes gone, he introduced his lecture topic. It happened to be the definition of technology. Now, this concept is a bit more complicated than it might appear at first, since when you're in a philosophy class, all definitions are quickly deconstructed and analyzed based on their subjective interpretations. So I acknowledged the need for this defining to take place. But rather than get on with it and either give us a definition to discuss or ask for our input, the next thing he did was break us up into small groups. I don't like small groups, and this was no exception. After the process of rearranging the class needlessly had been accomplished, he gave us two questions. The first asked for a feature common to all technology, and the second asked for two types of technology that weren't electronic.
These questions would have taken me less than a minute to answer on my own. He gave us fifteen. And the worst part is, it took us fifteen. I said what I thought was the right answer, and my group ignored me. I stated again that I thought all technology was comprised of tools used for a specific purpose or the facilitation of certain tasks. My group somehow interpreted this as a segue into whether or not technology had to be physical. So they spent the next six minutes discussing this random tangent, and I sat there and fumed. Eventually they put down some random thing as an answer that was incredibly vague. I think it was that technology is something used to solve a problem. That was fine. It was quite similar to what I had said at the outset of our group's little discussion, but as long as it wasn't obviously wrong, who was I to complain?
The second question somehow took an equally long time. I said, "just write down combustion and medicine." They interpreted this to mean go back to their discussion about whether the non-physical could be a type of technology. At one point they had on the piece of paper that philosophy was an example of technology. I was on the verge of tears. Eventually I convinced them that the question wasn't hard and that the obvious answers I had provided would serve the purpose admirably.
Forty of our ninety minutes had passed.
The next fifteen were not occupied by a class discussion of our groups results. That would have been the obvious thing to do. Nope. Naturally, the next thing we did was, on the count of three, point to the person we thought had contributed most to our group's discussion. We weren't allowed to point at ourselves. We did this three times. We were in groups of six, so this meant that half of the members were given extra points. Not a single person in my group pointed at me. Not once. I was baffled. Only after we had rated each others' helpfulness did we learn how accurate their contribution was. This seemed backward to me. How were we to know who was most helpful without knowing who was closest to being correct? But we were finally going to get to the point of the lecture, so I shut up and stuck it out.
I was wrong.
We spent the next ten minutes shouting out what we had come up with. The first group's response was that technology consisted of tools used to solve problems. The rest of the answers, while phrased differently, neatly fit into that definition, but we took the time to go through and say them all anyway. Then we tested them to see if they were all right. Finally, we got to the definition the professor was going to use. "A tool used to accomplish a task." The revelation was unsurprising. It had taken us 75 of our 90 minutes to arrive at this single point. The next fifteen were spent clarifying the point. At the end, he told us he was very glad with our discussion, and he could tell this was going to be a great class. Oh, and never mind what we thought, the Patriots were going to win the Super Bowl. I'm not sure why he bothered to ask our opinion to begin with.
I have no idea how this passes for teaching. We literally learned one thing in ninety minutes. It's an embarrassment. If wasting time is something that passes for a teaching strategy, I'm pretty sure there is something wrong with our methods. I'd much rather just walk in, sit down for twelve minutes, get the information I need, ask any questions, and leave. This was a waste of my time. And the group work? I had given correct answers within the first 30-45 seconds, but received no credit for participation because I refused to partake in substandard conversation.
It's no surprise I've dropped. I'm just sad I won't be able to fill out a teacher evaluation form at the end of the semester.

Exercise:
"Dream Solution"
Your character has a nightmare. But in the middle of it, he or she creatively solves the problem. For example, Ted dreams that he is being backed to the edge of a cliff by someone coming at him with a saber. All of a sudden, Ted realizes that the saber is made out of the same tin foil his wife used to wrap up the peanut butter cookie dough for the freezer. Hey, have fun! What is your character's nightmare, and what is his or her "dream solution"?

Poor Gladys had never been fond of mirrors. It might have had something to do with her unshapely figure, or her perpetually unkempt hair, but mostly it was because she couldn't stand looking herself in the eye. So when, one night, her dreams led her to a funhouse filled with reflections, she was in quite a predicament. When the mirrors fell away and the reflections were left standing, she started to scream. As the various contorted versions of herself advanced, all desperate for eye contact, she came to the sudden realization that, since she was almost completely sure this wasn't a viable scenario in the world she usually frequented, she was probably dreaming. Unfortunately, this realization did little to help. Gladys, you see, had never been quick to think on her feet. She wasn't really quick to think in general, but standing was obviously her worst position. So she sat down. This helped matter immensely. Not only was her mind instantly more agile, but she no longer had to contend with the eyes. Except for those of the particularly squat version waddling over from her left. But, in full control now, she concocted a solution. In front of each of the lumbering figures appeared a mirror, perfectly flat and perfectly accurate. Gladys sat in the middle of the circle, happy to realize they were constructed of one way glass. She delighted in watching the facial expressions of her doppelgangers as they were introduced to their harsh reality, and woke up still chuckling.

Me:
My legs are tired, and I'm approaching that state myself. It's one of those times where if I were more alert I might have the energy to bore you with philosophy, but as it is, I'm not quite up for it. Instead, I will simply comment that I enjoy chocolate to an unhealthy degree, that it is convenient I'm dropping the only class I didn't order every textbook for, and that I have yet to find a main dish that doesn't benefit from some amount of sunflower seeds. When I acquire what I deem a large amount of a new additive, I start trying it on everything. Most recently these additives are sunflower seeds and lemon juice, both of which come in quantities far superior to the amount anyone needs in the near future. Lemon juice is not as universally appealing as sunflower seeds. In case that wasn't obvious. Good night.