Teaching South Africa

One of the English-speaking countries that we teach our students about is South Africa. I don't dislike teaching South Africa - it's an interesting country - but sometimes I wonder if it's a good idea.

First, South Africa has something like eleven official languages of which English is only one, and not even the most common native language. It is the most common in government and media (according to Wikipedia), but it's not the most common language in the country. Also, much of the history and heritage of whites is Dutch rather than English.

Second, most of the information we have and most of the information that we can use focus on apartheid. Apartheid hasn't been an official part of government since 1994. I worry that, because we end up focusing so much on apartheid, we give students the impression and idea that this is still a concern, or that it's the main thing about South Africa.

Third, by focusing on South Africa, we neglect other English-speaking countries, particularly Ireland. Most of the Realia resources that are now being published have Ireland instead of South Africa, making it less likely that our students will need the South Africa information. Also, this makes it even harder for us to break away from the apartheid emphasis that our current resources keep us almost trapped into.

I agree that South Africa and apartheid should not be ignored, just like the Civil War and slavery should not be ignored. But when does remembering the past and maintaining awareness turn into keeping grudges alive?

Generation gaps

The latest issue of The Lutheran has a cover story about baby boomers. (It also has the really, really awesome Luther College ad on page 31. Go Norse!) Now, I have nothing against baby boomers. My parents are baby boomers. They are one of the best-defined generations in the US. I do, however, have a problem with one of the sentences in the article. It reads "These men and women are in a 20-year stretch of life that is filled with transitions."

I do not dispute the accuracy of that statement. I do, however, dispute the implication that this is a new, strange experience unique to the baby boomer generation. Because, honestly, what stretch of life does not have transitions? My generation is in a stretch of life that is filled with transitions/ We are graduating from college and/or graduate school, starting careers, careers, dating and/or getting married, having children, living on our own for the first time, living with someone outside our family for the first time, moving, buying houses, setting up our lives. People in their 30s and 40s are establishing their careers, raising familis - and I defy anyone to say that life with children is not full of transitions - and dealing with any number of physical, mental, and social changes. Not to mention the not-recession that the US is in right now - do you think it's easy fighting for a job at the age of 30/40-something? Children's lives are in a perpetual state of transition. Nearly every day something changes - they just aren't as aware of it until they look back when they're older. And those that are left in my grandfather's generation are dealing with more rapid physical and/or mental changes, the probability of no longer being able to live without assistance, and transitions in their societal role. There is no type of life where you can just sit back and expect things to remain constant. And as someone who is not of the baby boomer generation and yet is experiencing major life changes, I resent the implication that the baby boomers are unique in their transitional status.

I also am not entirely happy with the thought that these transitions are new to the baby boomer generation. Did my grandparents' generation not have to deal with at least some of these same transitions? I bet they did.

Brokenness

It has been a rough few weeks for me, emotionally. I have been in a long (for me) spell of depression - it's been nearly a month and a half, which isn't long for depression but is long for me, and it's only just starting to fade - spurred on by my natural tendencies, the apparent collapse of any sort of relationship with Martin (even friendship, it feels like), stress, Sara's visit, and Megan's rapid decline and death. I feel emotionally broken. (And quite a bit of it is due to the Martin situation. Katie said once that she admired the way I kept falling in love and kept hoping to fall in love, even after Corey, and CD, and Lloyd, and Peter, and everyone in between. Right now I no longer think that's even true. I think that my hope that I will have that kind of love is dead. See also my post on The Office.) Anyway, I feel emotionally broken in a way that I haven't for a while. And I was thinking about it on my walk to the store a few days ago, and how the typical prayer for "brokenness" is "Lord, I am broken; help make me whole." And I do understand the purpose, both emotionally and theologically, of that. But I can't help thinking that it's a little bit unrealistic and sets people up for further disappointment. Because the world is broken and has been since the fall of Adam and Eve. It will not be made whole again until the second coming of Christ. Why should an individual, or people in general, expect anything different or better? We are broken by sin from birth and will not be made whole until we are reunited with God in heaven. So to my mind right now, a better prayer would be "Lord, I am broken; help me to accept my brokenness." Or "temper my brokenness." Or something like that. And if you must have something about wholeness, "lead me on the path to wholeness." But saying "Lord, make me whole" is kind of like going to a parent and saying "Fix it!" Sometimes things can't be fixed with the time and materials available. It is unreasonable to expect wholeness in a broken world. What we can expect, though, and as for, is acknowledgment and acceptance of our brokenness; soothing of our rough edges so that we don't cause further harm to ourselves or others; and perhaps the opportunity to be a puzzle piece in the body of Christ (and how's that for a mixed metaphor?) - something that requires us to be incomplete in ourselves but which adds to the wholeness of God.

I just feel that asking to be made whole provides (some) people with unrealistic expectations - that when their lives are not instantly better in the way that they want, they will give up hope. I also think that it is unreasonable to expect wholeness (not healing, but wholeness) in a broken world. Nothing is impossible with God - but in our linear time frame, our understanding of it is.

Lord, I am broken. Help me to accept and heal my brokenness.

Carmens I have seen

Georges Bizet's opera Carmen premiered in 1875 to popular disapproval. It was a critical failure, and Bizet died thinking so. The plot is fairly simplistic. A soldier (Jose) falls in love with a gypsy girl (Carmen). He deserts his commission and his fiancee Michaela for her and joins her band of smugglers. Carmen tires of him (or doesn't, depending on how you interpret a couple of things) and Jose becomes violently jealous of her relationship with the toreador Escamillo, ultimately killing her.
It is my favourite opera.

The first time I saw Carmen was at college when a touring company of the London City Opera came through. The performance was fantastic. The staging was beautiful. The singing and acting was incredible. Don Jose and Michaela were perfect, literally perfect. Frasquita and Mercedes were excellent. Carmen....was not.
Personally, I picture Carmen the character in her early 20s. She is old enough to know and enjoy her effect on men but still young enough that she hasn't become disillusioned and/or isn't ready to settle down. The Carmen in the LCO production looked to be in her mid-40s. Vocally she was fine, but not great, but the worst part was that she confused "sex" with "sexiness". Sinuously moving your hips while dancing? Sexy. Humping the bench in the prison scene? Not sexy. Trailing a flower along someone's cheek? Sexy. Trying to mount your boyfriend while doing so? Not sexy. In every way that she could, this Carmen came down on the side of not sexy.
This wouldn't have been as much of a problem if Don Jose and Michaela hadn't been perfect and I do mean perfect. In Act One, you couldn't help believing that Jose and Michaela were childhood sweethearts who were deeply, passionately in love with each other. You believed wholeheartedly that when Michaela was delivering messages from his mother, she was really delivering them from herself. You believed wholeheartedly that Jose was just serving out his mandatory military service and when it was over, he would go back to his village, marry Michaela, and never think of the city again. Jose didn't ever so much as look at Carmen until she smacks him with the flower. There was no reason with the performance that night that Jose would be at all attracted to Carmen, or that he would continue to look at her even after she hit him with the flower. However, Jose's performance was so good that once he was "in love" with Carmen, you believed that he was in love with Carmen. Carmen's performance was just so bad that you didn't believe the reason.

The next time I saw Carmen was in Nottingham. Carmen as a character was much better; Jose wasn't but was still quite good. I really don't remember much about that performance, so it must not have been either really terrible or really great.

The third time I saw Carmen was in Banska Bystrica two years ago, and it totally changed the way that I approach this opera. Carmen herself was physically perfect - exactly the way I picture her. Jose wasn't great. Michaela was pretty good, even though no one has ever come close to the Jose and Michaela of LCO.
The thing that made it incredible was just a little thing, but it totally changed the show. During the second half of the overture, when Carmen's theme is playing, Jose was standing at the front of the stage, facing away from the audience. Through the bars of the city gates, Carmen's funeral procession went by.
This is seriously one of the coolest things ever, and I have not stopped telling people about it since then. By having Carmen's funeral procession at the beginning, and especially by having Jose watch it go by, the whole opera becomes Jose's memory of his relationship with Carmen, rather than pretending to be the actual events. By turning it into Jose's personal flashback, any script believability problems are taken care of. Of course Jose is going to idealize his relationship with Michaela and pretend that it's more about his mother. Of course Carmen is going to be an almost caricatured temptress that cast a spell on him with the flower. It's the way Jose remembers it - must remember it - to justify his actions. It is perfect.

I have seen Carmen twice (time numbers four and five) at the State Theatre in Kosice. Both times were fine. The first time I went with Katie, and it was only the second opera she'd seen. The first had been The Magic Flute, and she was amazed at the level of story-telling in this one compared to the Mozart. The second time I went with one of the Slovak teachers. We were sitting in a box on the left side and had a perfect view of the percussion section. There was this one guy playing the triangle that was pretty cute. He had this look on his face of "I am a classically trained percussionist.....playing the triangle." It wasn't an unhappy face - more sort of resigned and wry.
The other thing about the State Theatre is their main dramatic tenor. I like his voice fine, but when he sings, he only sings out of one side of his mouth. It makes it look like he's had a stroke.

The sixth time I saw Carmen, this past week, it was done by Monumental Opera, a touring company out of Germany. It was performed at the hockey arena, so in terms of acoustics it was like when Kirsten and I saw Simon and Garfunkel at the Excel Center. Luckily we were sitting essentially straight in front of the stage, so we could hear fine (except when Michaela's microphone cut out during her first scene. Normally I object to microphones during operas, but at a hockey arena it is inevitable).
The staging was very simplistic. Most of the set pieces were chairs, with a bench in Lilas Pastias's bar and barrels in the mountains. There was a door in the back screen with steps coming down from it for certain entrances and exits, but most of the visual setting cues came from projections on the back screen. It was pretty interesting and they did some creative things with it. For example, during Michaela's song about how much his mother misses him, they showed baby/childhood pictures of Jose and the countryside where he grew up. During the tarot card scene, they showed the full moon going through an eclipse and growing larger and larger until it took up almost the whole screen. In this computer/digital age, it makes sense to do something like that to have fewer large set pieces to create, load, and unload, especially for a touring company.
I thought that the acting during the show was pretty good (Angelica disagrees with me). During the fight scene in Act One, for instance, it seemed that the girls were actually trying to kill each other (as opposed to at the State Theatre when they were more like "Oh, no, keep me back.....eh") Vocally, people were fine, except for Carmen's vowels which got very flat more often than they should have, in my opinion. Escamillo was superb: very metrosexually flamboyant and confident and perfectly on pitch and in character. The one thing that was distracting was Don Jose. He was.....well, there's no better way to say it. He was rectangular. He was a head stuck on a cube (technically, I suppose, a prism), with no neck. His voice was fine, but when he walked out to relieve the guard, the first thought that came into my mind was "No WAY is that Jose." And then he started singing Jose's part and I had to admit it. It was like if Chris Farley had been an opera singer. And half a foot shorter. There is almost no way that he could have been less physically right (in my mind) for the part. I hate to sound that shallow, and his voice was fine, and I got used to it by intermission, but ... he had no neck. And he was a cube. Or technically a prism.

So I suppose my ideal Carmen, based on the six that I've seen so far (oh, I will definitely be seeing more during my lifetime), would have the Jose and Michaela from LCO, the Escamillo from Monumentalna, any Carmen except the LCO one, the interpretation of Banska Bystrica, and the triangle player from the State Opera. And myself as either Frasquita or Mercedes, of course. Priorities must be kept. :-)

The Office: The Chairmodel/Parking

I have other things to post here, too, but before it gets too late (and another episode airs) I just wanted to talk about last week’s episode of The Office. Now I am not going to talk about Michael being an absolute, complete, and total ass who is still living in a dream world – I mean, come on, I’m only in my late 20s and I’ve accepted that the movie/romance novel scenario is not going to play out in real life. Although the bit where he accidentally calls Jan is hilarious and I do think that it was subconsciously deliberate (if that’s not a contradiction in terms) and that they’ll be on again by the end of the season. I am also not going to talk about Dwight being sweet for Michael in a rather creepy, Dwight-like way. Or how awesomely pathetic Kevin is. Aw. I love Kevin.

No, the reason I watch the show – the reason I kept watching the show, rather, after the shuddering cringing horribleness of the first couple of episodes (I hate Diversity Day, I don’t care what people say) – is Jim and Pam. I adore Jim and Pam. I want to be Pam and have a Jim (although, see above about the movie/romance novel scenario).

I read a bit about The Office. Not living in the US, it’s the only way I can legitimately keep up with the show. This week, I read ew.com’s analysis, and the weecap and forums at televisionwithoutpity. Most of the commentators and posters seemed to think that the fact that Jim had bought an engagement ring for Pam a week after they started dating was creepy and spelled DOOM for them. I could not disagree more. (And luckily for me, one of my favourite internet television commentators agrees with me, calling it “legitimately romantic….more romantic than a proposal.” I definitely agree, and swoon.)

Jim has been in love with Pam for ages - not even in love with an idealized Pam although that was certainly a risk, but in love with Pam, herself, even when she was engaged to Roy, even when he tried not to be by dating Karen, even in episodes like "The Fight" or the end of "The Client" when she wasn't speaking to him for a little while. Once they actually went on a couple dates, and he realized that this was not just a case of wanting what he can't have, of COURSE he's going to start planning how to propose. I have absolutely no fear that they will break up, at all, whatsoever. It's just a matter of waiting for Pam herself to be ready - which is the other thing.

Some people commented that her face when Jim "ties his shoe" is terrified, not anticipatory, but I just don't see it. I think it was more of an "I'm not ready for this yet and the cameras are here" not "I don't want him to propose at all." I mean, she was with Roy for so long - and engaged to him for what, almost five years? Just because she wants to take this a little bit slower doesn't mean that she doesn't think that she and Jim are going to get married eventually. I think, if anything, she's not letting herself think that far in advance, BECAUSE of what happened with Roy. She doesn't want to start taking Jim and her relationship with Jim for granted; she wants to enjoy what it is right now before they move on to the next level (which makes relationships sound like a Nintendo game or something, but you know what I mean). It's not that she doubts that they're going to move on to the next level; she just wants to enjoy this one first. And Jim KNOWS that and accepts that, which is why he has the ring already - being prepared for the next level - but hasn't proposed yet - because she's not ready for that yet. But it is important to him and to them as a couple that they both are consciously aware that yes, this is serious, and yes, they will be getting to that point. And that’s what this episode was about, in their relationship – him letting her know that he is in it the whole way, and that when the timing is right – meaning when they are BOTH ready – it will happen.

Or maybe I’m just reading too much into fictional characters.

Vagueness and Internet Privacy

I'm never sure how vague I want to be online. How many details do I give out, not just about me but about other people? Do I use nicknames, initials, first names only? I'm still working on that. I hear all sorts of horror stories about internet stalkers and whatnot, but honestly I think the only people who are going to read this are people who already know me, and there shouldn't be anything too personally inflammatory in it. If there is, I'm doing it wrong. I think I'll do first names only - people who know me then will know who I'm talking about, but people who don't....won't.

Inanity

I'm not really sure about this. On the one hand, I don't really need yet another blog to forget about, another way to avoid actually staying in touch with people. On the other hand, I've been thinking about doing this for a while - kind of ever since Tim set up through a glass dimly. I've been wanting a place where I can ramble on about the randomly philosophical stuff that I think about or the TV shows that I watch or the books that I read. I could do it on my livejournal or on myspace, but so many of my students are on myspace, and I kind of use livejournal as a mass communication tool rather than an introspective tool. I also kind of want a place that will help me get back into discipline and deadline mode - I always really struggle with self-imposed deadlines, so this will kind of be an experiment for whether and for how long I can maintain it. I also struggle with actually formulating coherent thoughts after experiencing certain things, so this will also be an experiment in that. We'll see how long it lasts. Here's my deal for myself - if after, say, six months, I have not kept up with this blog, I'll copy over the entries and delete the thing. I will set myself an absolute deadline of one post every two weeks, and hopefully it will be more than that. Since I already have at least four things to write about, I think the first little while will be okay. I anticipate boredom setting in about three weeks or a month, though. Here's hoping I can push through it.