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It was cold behind the English House this morning. I could feel it mostly on the tips of my body. The leaves on the trees and the ones on the ground were not as colorful as they were last time. It was not as hard to take it all in. Everything seemed a bit more dull. The leaves were not falling as quickly as they were last time, probably because there were not as many that needed to fall. I sat on the little wooden stool this time instead of on the ground. As I looked out over the yard I considered whether or not it was a wild place. Wild like a human mother who embraces her inner mother bear, and who is not afraid to rise to anger, or settle into intense love. I decided that it wasn’t. Because I think if the back yard of the English House had a choice it would not grow that way it’s growing now. It wouldn’t be so neat. Now it’s  tame yard, similar to a woman who has been taught that it’s not feminine to show aggression. But for the yard, I think that’s okay.

Last time we talked,
Your two year old twins,
Your cramped condominium,
Your nonprofit job insecurity,
You found a guy with my name,
My face, my job, your husband, he was away,
Far away, away in the desert at burning man.
You cried and you used the L word twice.
You missed me still and I felt the same.
Fifteen years and I still felt the same,
And you were still the same and
If I had said the word, Come,
You would have, I know,
But I wouldn't
And I didn't.
I didn't.

My mind was filled with memories. I just talked to my childhood friend. Our friendship started since the carefree summers when we were playing on the rice field in the neighborhood everyday. It felt so good to immerse myself in nature, with grasshoppers, with wild flowers and with a good friend. So today I decided to reconnect with nature again, the way I used to do. Having put off my shoes, I started walking barefoot on the grass lawn behind Rhoads. It did not feel really comfortable at first, with the little itching and tickling feeling as grass touched my feet soles. That there might be something like an insect in the grass added to my reluctance. But as I kept on walking, and breathing in the fresh air, listening to the sounds of nature, I felt connected. Without shoes, I felt myself getting closer and closer to the earth, to the nature. Without a barrier between my skin and the ground, I felt more balance and control over myself, too. And my feet experienced more freedom. Walking barefoot with the cool and soft grass was like a massage, so refreshing and pleasant. The experience was very much different from those I had as a child playing with her friend, yet a physical contact with nature made me feel younger…

One of the students in my other class did some research on Erdman, and discovered that Louis Kahn, the architect who designed it, said, “A dormitory should not express a nostalgia for home, it is not a permanent place, but an interim place.” Can an interim place be a niche?

For me, A Patriot’s Journal was Williams’s most compelling essay.  I’ve been thinking about patriotism this week because I have strong and contradictory sentiments about the current escalating military conflict in Gaza/Israel.  The images from this most recent iteration of the war are disturbing--they always have been.  As usual, these pictures have prompted me to think about the images we don’t have from this country’s similar military conflict.  My country’s war which resulted in European control of this land.  This land which I feel so lucky to call my home.  This land that I love.  

"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

                                                                        ~Galileo Galilei (But probably in Italian…)

The city is different during the night than it is during the day. It is the not the same city. Carmen Papalia partially vocalizes this in Caning in the City when he discusses his own night-blindness, but what we all fail to acknowledge is that all our visions are affected by the shift from night to day. Our visibility is impaired, which leads to a whole range of effects that makes night seem so much more inherently daunting than the day, and in many ways it is a very gendered experience. Papalia’s way of seeing is very different, as necessitated by his inability to see during the night. But it’s also beautifully effective and absolutely incredible that his vision has evolved so. I wish we could appreciate our night vision in this way, instead of being so mistrusting of the night.

This week at my site I wasn't quite sure what to do or what to think about.  So I decided that I would just play around.  I took off my boots and socks and walked around barefoot and played with shadows.  Despite being not much of a nature girl, I love feeling the grass and the earth underneath my feet.  During the summer I am constantly in my parents' backyard with no shoes on.  The earth was cool underneath my feet. It was hard but at the same time it had a comfortable give.  I felt cushioned.  The hills and valleys hidden in the grass were also a lot easier to sense with barefeet which I thoroughly enjoyed.

What? When we are outside at recess, this one little girl comes up to me at least 10 times each minute and says “Teacher Abby! Watch me! I want to show you something” and then does some sort of swinging motion on the monkey bards for me to watch. I come over and watch every time, but the action itself rarely changes. Eventually, I try to go to a different area of the playground, but she follows me insisting that I watch her “do this” and “do that.” Every time, I feel the need to say “Good job!”

After Monday's trip to Morris Woods, I have starting noticing more plants that seem to be invasive or are clearly taking over with no natural enemy. Because of this, when I got to my spot, I realized that I had never actually noticed the English Ivy. Looking now, it is probably one of the stone circle's most noticeable attributes and I am kind of confused as to why I simply looked over it. This place is such a mess of different plants that I assumed that all of the green vines were parts of various ones, but after paying attention to the Ivy in Morris Woods and thinking about how it clearly does not belong there, the vines in the circle seem more noticeable, prominent, and out of place.

There is a concept in science fiction which allows a device to be created to hide things in plain sight. The device limits your perception of things by making you simply fail to notice them and occasionally notice something else instead. This can only be broken when an outside source draws your attention to what's being hidden. I just experienced real life science fiction! I know, not really, but the concept behind the technology is real. I didn't even see the English Ivy and I even perceived it as belonging to multiple plants until somebody else told me in a different situation to attend to the invasiveness of it. When I got to my site today, the presence of the ivy was almost creepy as I had never seen it before, but I had been seeing it every week at the same time.

At my field placement the 8th grade girls have been spending each class working in the same group on a series of projects.  It wasn't until this placement, however, that I realized the projects were all interrelated and revolved around the same core.  The girls chose their own groups and decided on a research topic that interested them, then together conducted empirical research by surveying their group of subjects (i.e. classmates.)  The girls first entered this data into Excel and then designed it into an aesthetic graph/visual representation.  At my most recent placement, they used the "green room" in the back of the computer lab to record and present their findings. 

Some data projects included: favorite Starbucks drinks; favorite vacation spot; which eyeshadow goes best with which complexion; favorite Broadway show.  There's obviously a lot of socioeconomic dynamics at play here (i.e. the assumption that everyone in their sample group will have seen enough Broadway shows to have a favorite) and part of me just instinctively cringed a little when I saw these bright, developing girls with so many incredible resources at their disposal choose to talk about eyeshadow. 

I originally wasn't sure how I felt about the value of teaching these girls Excel, etc, but now that I see it all fits in with a theme for the larger trimester it's easier to justify the excel unit.