I Heart Verbs
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Dance.
I only danced once, but it was a good one. I have no evidence for you, so you can imagine it far better than it was (how all things like to be imagined and remembered).
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Roast.
It was cooking till past 11, and around 10:30, I started watching the movie, Waiting for Forever which totally sucked me in! I couldn't stop watching it! It wasn't that amazing of a film, but I completely fell in love with the protagonist, and felt very invested in the outcome for him. After the movie ended, I carved the turkey (hacked is a better verb for that, really) and put it away for tomorrow.
Now it's almost 1. I am going to be super-exhaust tomorrow... but a far more exciting Tuesday night than anticipated. It's kind of stupid that an exciting night is one in which I stay up to watch a movie... such is the life of a teacher!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Read.
These are my favorite quotations by Paulo Freire:
"I hope that many of us are learning how difficult it is to make history, and how important it is to learn that we are being made by the history we make in the social process inside of history. Fortunately, I am not naively optimistic, idealistic, but I am critically optimistic...
We are in the sight of a process. I always say that the deepened transformation in society never arrived on a second Monday morning. Never. No, the radical transformation of society is a process, really, and it comes like this."
"If we could change a society like we can change the position of the furniture of this house, it would be fantastic. It would be just a question of muscular power, no? That is, I can take this chair and put it over there> We could change everything here in ten minutes. History is not like this. It takes time in history to make history. You cannot make it today, but the change comes up in all directions and dimensions of the life of society."
"It is a time of confrontation, this transition, the time of transition of the old society to a new one that does not exist yet, but it's being created with the confrontation of ghosts. There are many ghosts in society fighting against the dream of a much more open society. Generally revolutions have this in common. We cannot decide this period cannot exist. We have to understand that it exists historically, culturally, socially. We must fight also."
"One of the fears we have here as educators is the fear of experiencing new things, of exposing ourselves to mistakes. In the last analysis we have real freedom. We are afraid of risking. And it's impossible, just impossible, to create without risking. It's absolutely impossible, but it takes time to begin to risk."
"One of the most important tasks I think for a revolutionary government or a progressive government...is to think seriously about the formation of the educators. But understanding formation not as something that we do in some weekends or some semesters, but formation as a permanent process, and formation as being an exercise, a critical understanding of what we do. This is, getting the practice we have, the experience we have, and then reflecting on the experience and the practice in order to understand theoretically what it means."
"When I talked with [President Nyerere], he used to say to me, 'Paulo, it's not easy to put into practice the things we think about.' Yes, it is not easy, but it's not impossible. This is my conviction."
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Bake.
Today I baked banana bread! I am proud of myself cause I didn't let my old bananas go to waste, and also cause I innovated a bake pan (annoyingly, a lot of things went missing in the move), and also cause I innovated an oven light (e.g. Flashlight) so I could take this picture! I am amazing!
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Watch.
Today PY and I went to the zoo, and used our zoo passes for the first time since we purchased them in August. We were looking for coffee, and in the meanwhile, spent lots of time watching monkeys, bears, koalas, and gorillas just do their thang in their little exhibits. I think we watched the gorillas for the longest, because they were being very active. All of the animals were being especially active, as though they knew it was Saturday and everyone wanted to come to their show.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Show.
I rarely show films in class, but as my teaching partner is going to be away for three days this week, I am taking liberties, and also advantage of the fact. In retrospect, The Great Debaters is the perfect hook to our debate project and I am not only rested, I am ingenious. Too far? Maybe. Whatever the case, it was delightful watching this with my classes today. They are wildly empathetic, and got wicked into everything. I love them so much. They are fabulous people.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Remember.
There were other verbs. So many other verbs. This verb project is only a failure in form, but not in practice. In practice, I am living so many verbs that Write seems something I always have not-enough-time to do.