Salt Lake Arts Academy

A week from today I will enter Humanities Classroom 300 at the Salt Lake Arts Academy and teach my first-ever course to a group of 18 students. This week I am working feverishly to develop a course outline, and a course description to post on my homepage which can be accessed by the students, their parents, and other teachers. I have a full year ahead of me, and what will my Beginning French students have learned by June 2011? I will only have four hours of their time each week at my disposal, but I do believe we can accomplish and learn very much in that time.

This public charter school seems to be a place where I would be thrilled to send my children. Take a look at their Curriculum, and their Frequently Asked Questions. I hope to integrate their language-learning with the topics they are covering in their other classes. Can you imagine taking a science class, and learning the names of the parts of the body, then learning them in French as well? Or taking a math class and being able to count in both English and French? There are so many opportunities for cross-curriculum learning at this school. I will be pleased to meet these students, their parents, and their other teachers as I try to engage them culturally and linguistically.

~ Madame Ball ~

Proposition 8 at the Tower Theatre

Something big is happening around the world right now ~ something monumental for gay rights, advocating the separation of Church and State in Utah and the United States, and opening minds and promoting acceptance everywhere.

8: The Mormon Proposition is playing NOW at the Tower Theatre in Salt Lake City - 876 E. 900 S.

Please buy tickets to see this film this weekend if it is in ANY way possible for you to re-schedule pre-made plans, or fit this new plan into your budget ~ tickets are NOT too expensive, this is open to the general public, and it will possibly be THE most influential thing you have done all year.

Why might I say this? The Tower Theatre is the ONLY theatre playing this film in Utah ~ Utah, where the film primarily takes place, and where, if people HERE saw it, it would make the greatest positive difference for change.

If we inundate the theatre this weekend, The Tower may be able to afford to continue showing this film for a much-needed extra week, or two, or three. PLEASE. Consider going this weekend to 876 E. 900 S. to show your support for the very vitally life-changing issues that are affecting YOUR Gay and Lesbian family members and friends.

Teaching Writing

This past Saturday I had the most amazing experience as a Writing Teacher. It was my fourth meeting with my newest student, a 12-year-old boy whose parents would like for him to improve his writing, public speaking, and debate skills. He is in his first year of Junior High, his favorite subject is Technology, and his favorite genre to read is Historical Fiction. I am basically trying to teach him as much as possible while having as much fun as possible. Over the next two weeks he will be preparing a Presentation on the Short-faced Bear, a prehistoric animal we read about in an Ancient World History Textbook we've been reading articles from aloud during our lessons. I'll be presenting on the Dire Wolf.

I felt that this lesson was such a success because I had white board markers and chalk, and a few fun writing ideas, and he was able to take up whole sections of the board, climbing over desks in the empty classroom we commandeered, and wrote what I thought was a great, entertaining story. What I love most about teaching is finding enjoyable, laughable exercises and topics that are of personal interest to the student. I learn SO much from those I teach!

Flaubert et sa pauvre Bovary

In preparing to give a presentation on Gustave Flaubert's 1857 French novel, Madame Bovary, I came across this beautiful quote, which he wrote during the years he was writing the story:

" Tout ce qu'on invente est vrai, sois-en sûre. La poésie est une chose aussi précise que la géométrie. L'induction vaut la déduction, et puis, arrivé à un certain point, on ne se trompe plus quant à tout ce qui est de l'âme. Ma pauvre Bovary, sans doute, souffre et pleure dans vingt villages de France à la fois, à cette heure même. "

(my translation) " Everything one invents is true, be sure of this. Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry. Induction requires deduction, and, when one arrives at a certain point, one is no longer cheated of all that is the soul. My pour Bovary, without a doubt, suffers and cries in twenty French villages all together, at this very hour. "

Flaubert impresses me while at the same time confusing me. I am at a loss as to what exactly to think of this man who seemingly wrote a woman character so well. Can a man, really, "write a woman character?" Is there, really, enough human in us that one can take on so different an identity and do it justice? Or can only a woman genuinely write from a woman's perspective? When I read some of the quotes from the personal letters he wrote during the years he was writing Madame Bovary, he was redeemed in my eyes by his many expressions not only of frustration, confusion and inadequacy, but by this very perceptive observation:

" Bovary m'ennuie . . . Bon ou mauvais, ce livre aura été pour moi un tour de force prodigieux, tant le style, la composition, les personnages et l'effet sensible sont loin de ma manière naturelle. Dans Saint Antoine j'étais chez moi. Ici, je suis chez le voisin. Aussi je n'y trouve aucune commodité. "

(my translation) " Bovary annoys me . . . For good or bad, this book has already been for me a prodigious tour de force; the style, the composition, the characters and it's whole effect are so far from my nature! When writing Saint Antoine I felt at home. Here, I feel I'm at some neighbor's place; a neighbor's where I find no conveniences offered. "

Here and in other quotes, I see a writer rather than "a man," a person who stepped into the shoes of the "other" and told a story beautifully. I hope for a day when as many women are able to write (and paint, and direct film, and the list goes on) as there have been men telling the human story over time. I hope for fairness. But it is still inspiring to read stories written by "old white men" that still somehow ring true to a young, lesbian, me, today.

Children

As I look around myself in wonder,
awe and fear couples with joy.
The observable joy outweighs,
but will it always?

What world will I bring my children into?
What world will I show to those I raise?
Will they too know more joy than fear?
And their children?
And theirs?

With each generation my faith in goodness
outweighing the negativity we humans have brought to this earth
fades.

How I long to read Dickens, Austen, Tolkein and more
to a new generation ... how I long
to explain to them history, social satire,
fantastic depictions of human emotion,
truth and beauty.

But can the canon hide from them
the disintegration of resources
facing our race every day?
When will those who have no water
travel to where it is, and fight?

Will my children travel elsewhere,
to build wells and educate the poor,
while clutching their life-saving
purified water, guiltily?

If I traveled elsewhere,
could I continue to clutch my own water?
Or would I too disintegrate
into the fathomless deprivation
that is our world,
our home?

I will continue the struggle
to recognize the fear in the world
despite my personal place of peace
so that somehow I may promote
the future survival of our children,
together as one human family.

The Utah Pride Center

I work as the Development Intern at the Utah Pride Center, at 361 N. 300 W. in Salt Lake City, UT. Granted, then, I provide a "biased" opinion on the greatness of this place for which I am so delighted to volunteer . . . what I do there and everything else that goes on there means so much to me that I plan on continuing my work there indefinitely. They embody so much of what gives me hope and joy in this world! So please, allow me to explain.

First ~ hope. This website explains: "Of the estimated 1.6 million homeless American youth, between 20 and 40 percent identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT)." Also, "In one study, 26 percent of gay teens who came out to their parents/guardians were told they must leave home." At the Utah Pride Center, they work so diligently to provide amazing services to all LGBT Youth, including providing a Homeless Youth Drop-in Center. Having as supportive an immediate family as I do, few things break my heart more than to know that every day there are youth brave enough to come out and be true to who they are, only to be thrown from their once-loving homes. The services provided for and by youth at the Utah Pride Center give me immense hope that these occurrences will not continue, but that through honesty and education, our children's futures will be better.

And next ~ Joy. One only needs to recall the recent joy taken from an entire high school group of students denied their class prom by a school board unwilling to accept one student's desire to take her partner of choice, to understand what genuine joy is given to LGBT youth every year by the Utah Pride Center's Queer Prom! This is only one event that happens every year that, I believe, simply offers joy that would not otherwise be present in some people's lives.

I am working to improve and expand the Membership Benefits offered to those who join the Utah Pride Center's network of allies for all the causes they work for, benefiting thousands and more here in Utah ... One-year Memberships only cost $35, or $50 for a family, and are even less for students and seniors. Tax-deductible donations are also always accepted, and please believe me when I say, every single dollar changes lives. Drastically. What an absolutely, absolutely amazing organization!

Studies on Autism and PTSD

I'm writing a short paper today about an event I went to that gave me helpful outside information for both my Intro to Sociolinguistics and my Human Exceptionality classes. Dr. Gilbert W. Kliman came and spoke to a group of students and faculty at the University of Utah last Thursday, about his ongoing research and methodology working with children with Autism-spectrum disorders, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders. The presentation was wonderful, and I look forward to learning more about his revolutionary Reflective Network Therapy method of working with traumatized and autistic children.

I also recently picked up an impressive magazine called The Autism File U.S.A. - Covering Autism, Asperger's, ADHD, ADD and Other Related Disorders. This magazine has taught me a lot as well and I've been most inspired by the articles written by parents of children diagnosed with Autism-spectrum disorders. Everything I am learning in my Human Exceptionality class and from my brother and sister-in-law, with whom I am working to learn more about their diagnoses, is opening my eyes so much to the human condition and what so many people experience daily that we all to often ignore or do not know enough about.