Monthly Archives: October 2011

Giddy, Happy Ken (GHK)

Hey, hey, hey,
Get your GHK,
Try some today!
You’ll see the world,
In a different way,
No coloured glasses,
Necessary,
When touched by the
GHK faerie,
You’ll jumble up,
What you believe,
With the GHK way,
To perceive,
Life be grand,
Reperceive your troubles,
We only make,
Non-bursting bubbles,
Fill your life with colour,
Dropkick your grey,
Fortify yourself,
With GHK!

This Wind!

Wow! This wind today is really blowing!
It sure gets the autumn spirit going,
Time for hats, gloves, scarves, and a thermal cup,
And maybe even turn your collar up,
Because this wind here is no warm summer breeze,
It’s a blast designed to blow leaves off trees,
Items now should be placed in winter’s store,
Before this wind blows around even more,
It could take your chairs, your outside table,
Challenge a shingle or two, and gable,
Maybe reach further, blowing things away,
There goes a thought that I had yesterday!
Blowing branches, leaves, all kinds of rubble,
And whoosh! There goes a big pile of trouble!
It’s really cleansing, this autumnal blast,
Whoosh! There go some old pieces of my past!
Batten the hatches! Autumn is coming!
Seems like all kinds of changes are coming!

Survival of the Fluffiest

I wonder sometimes
Whether cats in warm climes
Put on heavy fur coats when it’s winter.
Though not necessary
Evolutionary biology
Says it’s needed at that time of year.
My cat puts on her
Heavy layer of fur
When the weather begins to get colder.
Fluffs up in the fall
And in spring sheds it all
Never once going out in the weather.
Is it also true that
The Equatorial cat
Has fur coats for both winter and summer?

Second Chance?!?

Step right up! Get your second chance!
Second chances here today,
Another might not come your way,
No way to tell, no way to say,
Some never get a single one,
Count your old self lucky son!
The universe just gave you two,
Hope that you know what to do,
Do whatever it demands,
Grab that chance with both your hands,
Hug it hard, don’t let it go,
It’ll not come by again you know,
Use your hands, your head, your heart,
Give all you’ve got right from the start,
Then if all goes well, these words you heed,
A second chance will be all you need!

Not to belabor the point but…

I wrote this as a response all the unenlightened comments on this photograph posted on the Occupy New Brunswick page on Facebook.

I’m sure he saved as much as he could (as he mentioned) but, being a teacher making crap wages, it wasn’t nearly enough. Don’t worry, though. Teachers are used to taking abuse from everyone. We’re used to being held accountable for bad grades and never thanked or appreciated for good ones. We’re used to hearing about how our jobs are “easy” and how overpaid we are because we get summer and Christmas vacations off. We’re used to being hated by students, criticized by their parents and undervalued by everyone.

We’re used to it but we do our jobs anyway.

We stand up in front of a room full of distracted kids and somehow manage to engage their increasingly elusive interest for a few minutes. We ignore the eye rolling and the clock watching and get on with our jobs.

I work as a high school English teacher in Sweden. Maybe conditions are different here but I normally start work before eight in the morning and finish after five. Working ten or twelve hour days is a frequent occurance. A minor percentage of our working day is spent actually teaching. The rest of the time we spend in meetings, marking essays and making lesson plans. The students get week-long breaks in fall, winter and spring, but I (and the rest of my colleagues) work during all of those. I get a few days off around Christmas, and I get the standard amount of time off during the summer to which all Swedish workers are entitled by the government.

Yeah, I’m stressed out and tired. I’m exhaused. But I cannot let my students down. They are the reasons I get up in the morning and go to work everyday. I do my job for them.

I’m a teacher. That’s what I do and I’ve never wanted to do anything else.

What is your dream?

Let us say that money is no consideration and that you had an unlimited amount of it:  What would you do, where would you live?

Hemingway's desk in Key West by squirrelist

I would move to Key West, Florida and live like Ernest Hemingway — drinking and writing, writing and drinking.  My wife and I are in love with Key West, in fact that is where we renewed our vows.  There’s something magical about that place, as though the heat and humidity, the people and scenery prompts your inner muse.

So, what is your dream?

 

Traditional book burning and eBooks

photo by April Sikorski via WikiCommons

To a totalitarian censor there is nothing more satisfying than a good, old-fashioned book burning.  Putting a match to paper and starting a literary funeral pyre with the acrid smoke billowing towards the heavens is a true delight to the bibliophobe.  But how the times have changed with the advent of the electronic reading age.  Kindles, Nooks and iPads have made life miserable for the traditional book burner.  The fact is that hitting a delete button is not very satisfying.  Deleting hundreds and thousands of words in a second is fleeting enjoyment, nowhere near as fulfilling as watching piles of books slowly ash away.  I truly feel for the poor bibliophobe and totalitarian censor.  One can only hope that they can find a more productive outlet for their mania.

A bibliophile’s dream house!

If I ever become a millionaire I want to build and live in a house like this! The Kazuya Morita Architecture Studio’s shelf-pod concept is brilliant, and I can only imagine that Miss Kitten’s cats would enjoy such an abode as well.  For more images check out the original post.