Natural Inspiration

During a time when vacation means using any extra funds to return to the East Coast to visit family, during a time when vacation means flying across country, driving between states, filling days with plans made weeks in advance, and negotiating many people’s schedules, the idea of not over-planning or over-doing sounds so sweet!

Next week, at some point still undetermined, my guy, Kevin, and I are going to pack up and leave town for a while. We’re thinking warm, peaceful, and calm. Perhaps Death Valley or Joshua Tree National Park. I’ve never been to either, and I’ll be thrilled to visit one or both! I think I’ll read the following poem everyday till we leave:

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Spring Break and Charades

Everyone, including myself, seems absolutely zonked the last week or so. It’s that time of the semester when exams and essays threaten to take over our lives and the workload is almost too much to bear. People are just a little crankier than usual and a whole lot more apathetic. Understandably so.

Anyway, there is a silver lining to our collective mid-semester rain cloud—SPRING BREAK! Just think, in ten days or so, you’ll be lying on a white sand beach, sipping frozen beverages with teensy umbrellas, and reading trashy novels while working on your tan. Oh, you’re not having an island get-a-way this March? Well, neither am I actually. No matter. Whatever you have scheduled (perhaps scheduling nothing at all might be the best way to spend the week), let’s keep in mind that a little break is just around the corner. Maybe that can help us all stay somewhat focused and maintain our sanity.

Speaking of this upcoming break, we have to figure out what’s on our class’s agenda for Thursday, March 13^th. As of now, our schedule reads “Surprise!” for that day. No, I’m not throwing a surprise party for everyone. But we can pretty much take that day to do something fun and not strictly related to the standard English 105 curriculum. Personally, I’m always up for food, costumes, and game--you know, bobbing for apples, musical chairs, charades and the like. The floor is open to nominations and a vote. If you have an idea post it here and we’ll pick one or hybridize a few into a non-rhetorical-analyzing, thesis-free day!