Summer Reading

If there were an updated version of this not all-history book, Generations by Strauss and Howe, I would swallow it up and read it with a quickness. 

 

 As I said, this book is not all history.  It is perhaps only at most 20 percent history; the book touches on and mentions historical events but rarely goes into explaining what they are.  A person with a shallow history knowledge base would find this book confusing.  The rest of the book is a proposed social science theory that throughout all of the US's history there are four types of generations cycling to create a particular, unique constellation of characters on the US at any given moment.  The four generational types each have identifying qualities they use to filter current events and happenings within them and in their world.  The authors use the 4-generation type model to show how sometimes we experience history "repeating" itself.  Huge amounts of data have been compiled into this work and organized in a way that even someone without a Masters Degree in History could work through this book.  If you take on the challenge of reading this book, don't lose heart in the first few chapters which focus on the theory of the 4-generational cycles; what it is, how it works, why the authors feel it fits over other models of generational theory.  Once you get into the second part it will flow much faster.  The second part breaks American History, from the Puritans (starting at the beginning of their lives in Europe) through a "prediction" of the future up to 2069 (I'll talk about this prediction in a bit), into five distinct cycles that have occurred and are happening right now.  At anytime during these cycles there are four generations playing key roles; one in early childhood imbedding experiences and nurture/non-nurture of older generations, one in rising adulthood beginning to assert activity that directly impacts the shape of history (sometimes, especially in the case of those who are sent off to a war, shaping themselves), one in midlife adulthood at the political and social zenith of their strength and influence, and one in elderhood holding onto glory from past days and serving as stewards and wisdom to the youths now coming to power.  And while there are always four generations moving, they are of four different generational types, explained in significant depth in the first part of the book (so don't skip it!), and the interaction between all four types of generations depending on where they are at a point in their life cycles, has determined the cause of American history, its major and minor events and how each different generation views them and reacts (or not).  Don't get glued into the boundary years for the generational cohorts, even the author explains there are outliers within the group-the study just doesn't focus on the outliers.  The present for the book, published in 1991 (the last president in office at press time for this book is George H.W.Bush and there is no talk of upcoming elections or candidates), ends with my supposed generation, the Millenials, in youth.  I won't give away the future the authors predict.  I don't want in any way to make it seem like the authors are fortune tellers looking into their crystal ball to come up with specific events.  There is nothing specific; Strauss and Howe just project their model and make suggestions of vague happenings of what the next cycle might include (awakening, outer-driven social motion, secular crisis, inner-driven social introversion).  It is a book worth diving into and giving it some time to read about the varying perspectives of those closest to us (children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents).  Why do they not always see what we see?  A plausible answer is strongly argued for in this work.

Highly Anticipated Olympic Moments

So I missed a good chunk of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in London while I was at work; what was on TV was not audible.  I watched the (very) few videos on NBC's website.  If there were a written story/director commentary to go along with the stuff I saw I think I would have been really entertained by the whole thing.  I lack cable at home but trust me there will be sporting moments I do not miss.  I am trying an Olympic live video app for my Ipod with notifications of events I bookmark.  Speaking of the events, here are the things I am most looking forward to seeing/watching at this year's Olympics.



Will this man be as wickedly fast as he was the in the last games?  He was electric to watch and he was a newcomer to the running/track world.  I am interested to see what a few years of coaching and direction will produce.



Gymnasts make gracefulness look so easy!  You know what is going through my head if I am Miss Douglas here?  Not whatever is making her look so cool and collected (like catching that bar on the way back down at a rapid speed was just like yawning or blinking).



There are more women on the US Olympic team this year than men.  This girl (Missy Franklin) is 17.  17!!  I am looking forward to seeing more US ladies on the swimming podiums this year.  Let's get some relays, gals!



Yes, he has smoulder, but he will provide some of the greatest races because he will be up against...



I'm not picking a favorite here, I just want to see the fastest races possible.



This guy just won the Tour de France!  And no he's not taking a break, he is competing.  I have to catch me some of this action.



How fierce are these women diving off for the Tri?!  And while it's all about the biking, I will be rooting for the girls who conquer in the first leg in the water.

 

Divers are gymnasts on speed.  To do something so beautiful while falling through space, I don't even have the proper words to show how awe-inspiring good diving is.



I like this picture of the marathon trials in Houston.  Look at their hands; I love the skimpy running suit with the gloves because it is probably freezing!  It won't be freezing during the August marathon in London.  I will be excited to watch the runners and find out where the course takes them.

That is just the short list of what I really want to watch this year.  There are others I always enjoy-syncro swimming, fencing.  

Movie Favorite

On a crazy hot day interspersed with wicked thunderstorms, I am sewing and watching Roland Emmerich classic The Day After Tomorrow.  Happy rain showers everyone!

What Should Scholastic Sports Do?

I am an athlete, I am a teacher, I am a learner, and I am a person.  I would be lying if I said I was not affected by what has happened in State College over the past several months, and honestly, I think we all should be affected some, or else how do we learn.  I have been watching the news come out of Central PA this week and most of my feelings are a mix of sadness, anger, and hope.  I have listened to all of those predicting the economic and emotional apocalypse that will occur as a result of the NCAA sanctions against the PSU football program.  I was lucky to be a scholastic athlete through all of my schooling years, and while I am dominated most by my rationality, I am an idealist.  I know what the situation is in Happy Valley and in many DI schools; how the big three of college sports (basketball, football, and baseball) are no longer really about how they improve a player's scholastic experience but rather how decisions, both top-down and bottom-up, are determined by the bottom line.  Someones are making big profits off of these programs influencing every decision made from "how do we get our forward off of academic ineligibility for March Madness" to "this child abuse thing is bad, but why don't we handle it in house so we can avoid the bad press."  As I said, I know how it is.  But, I am an idealist too!  I know what it should be like.  How do I know this?  I lived it; my four years swimming for Westminster I learned so much about myself, about scholastic athletics, and about what a good program can do for its athletes, its school, and its community.  So let me stop dwelling on the failure of one program to shine a bright, proud light on another and offer up some tidbits of wisdom I took away from the Westminster Swimming Program.

What a scholastic sport should do:
1.  It should be a supporting pillar for the school and its academic mission.  By the ending of my first (well not technically first, but I'm not counting swim camp) meeting with Coach Klamut about the possibility of swimming at WC, I was keenly aware of a few very important facets of the program.  One of those was school came first.  And I learned he team serious about it.  The boys' GPA was in the tank my first semester and Klamut was setting up new study hour minimums for first years and for GPAs that needed boosting.  If we didn't show up for study hours (benefits debatable but that is another blog for another day), we sat on the pool deck with a desk and our materials and did work then had to make up the practice later.  Our coaches sent out grade slips each semester to our professors to collect our grades and progress, and we were called in if there were concerns.  Finally, the top 5 GPA earners got recognized to the team, which may not be everyone's slice of pie, but competitive athletes are sometimes competitive about other things too.  Our conference, the PAC also has an honor roll for academic high achievers, so while my picture did not hang in the building for breaking records, it was there for being a kick-ass student.  After some web surfing it seems that how a sports program supports its school aims can be seen on their websites.  While the DI pages I perused contained almost no articles regarding academic accomplishments, there was a nice balance of academic and athletic accomplishments (sometimes more academic) on the Westminster athletics website.  It takes a strong, insightful coach to recognize that the sport is probably not the end-game for all of their athletes.  The coach has to realize their athletes are probably heading in other directions at the end of some very short amount of time and then a great coach takes that time to emphasize the teachable moments within the sport that will give them some tool to help them later.  And even if one of their proteges goes pro, the average pro tenure is three to five years (again, another very short time).  So when Michael Phelps retires this year after the London Olympics (he is 27), are there skills he acquired through is swimming career that will lead/help him to his next career?  If his coach did the job then I'm sure he is ready.

2.  A scholastic sports program ought to instill/promote feelings of  community/team-connectedness over exceptionalism.  I did a cursory glance over the New-Herald article about Mike Wallace not showing up for Steeler training camp.  Not really one to follow the daily dealings of the NFL (because I generally don't care for pro-sports at all), I found the headline catching.  Perhaps all the dollars and press and "potential" delude players at that level of playing and see their accomplishments as something they could have acquired without their team support system.  Sporting accomplishments are results of a much more complicated equation than just the individual; part athletic input (hard work/commitment), part team support (from both coaches and fellow players), part opportunity, part motivation, and a variable of competition (all of that stuff but in the other lane or on the opposite side of the ball-whichever sport you are following).  While I could possibly recreate my 500 free time from February 2007 with individual training, I can never recreate the whole PAC experience of that year and I am certain that accomplishment would not have happened had it not been for my teammates, my coaches and my competitors.  Would Bradley Wiggins have won this year's Tour de France had it not been for his training team, his coaches, his competitors and the right moment?  And while accomplishments are noteworthy at the time, they do not translate into what an athlete offers a program in the present or even in the future; all of that is unpredictable.

While the WC swim team is its own community, it also operates within larger ones.  PAC SAAC (student academic advisory committee) states in its goals encouragement in campus and community projects as well as promoting social responsibility.  Once a year, during Christmas break training, Coach Klamut took us on a trip to have dinner at a local Nursing Home.  We learned that while we were connected to each other through our sport, we are connected to our community, even to those who do not share our passion for that sport.  Sometimes, I have learned, it is not about us.  A scholastic sport should strengthen our ties to the community we came from, teach us how to connect to the community we are in, and preserve that community spirit for people who will come into it someday.                           

3.  A scholastic sports program should foster growth of personal responsibility, self-discipline, values, and integrity.  These usually are found in a school's mission statement.  Usually they include words like "citizenship," "community," "socially-responsible."  And while this seems self-explanatory, these individual assets are hardly easy to obtain.  I suspect after watching the debacle of the PSU cover-up of the child abuse scandal, integrity et al are extremely difficult concepts to pin down let alone master.  They are hard because we acquire them through personal failure.  If I never fail (trust me-not true), I don't grow or learn.  If I fail and don't see it as a failure within myself, I don't grow or learn.  If I fail, see that failure in myself and let it keep me from getting back up and persevering through the failure, I don't grow or learn.  Failure is hard; it tears us down, it attacks our spirit.  A great scholastic sports program teaches us how to see our failure, admit our ownership of it, adapt and try again (I would say adapt and overcome but that would be too simple, sometimes we adapt and fail all over again).  At WC we signed a contract with specific agreements both coaches and athletes made and a set of consequences implemented if we failed to meet the agreements.  We are human, we are not perfect, we fail.  I am thankful that when I failed to meet my agreed obligations to the team, that I was held accountable through the consequences, and I learned that through my failure (in the pool and out of it) I can become better that what I was before.

I would be mistaken to say that WC swimming taught me all about life.  It didn't, and I call BS on anyone who says their decade or so of scholastic sporting taught them about life.  Life is long, and it requires more than we are capable of in the pool, on the field, or on the track.  Life cannot be taught, only lived.  I lived some pretty awesome moments in my four years at WC and many of them revolved around swimming.  In living those moments, I was allowed to acquire a way to view and see the world around me and a skill-set with which to live in it.  Seriously, I got the best of the best from WC swimming, and I would hope there are other scholastic sporting programs just as good.

               

   

Zoo-tastic

So it was a trifecta of fun for Peter and I as we had the whole day to adventure-ise with each other.  We started with the Pittsburgh Zoo, then took a trip to the Ross Park Mall, and finally had some late lunch/early dinner at Chili's.  Here are some of my photographic gems from the day!

Theme for the whole day was "sleepy animals."  Most of the big cats were asleep along with a handful or other animals.  They must have had their Christmas in July feast and were conked-out.

A non-sleeper; this proud puffy ostrich.  She was super full of herself (a girl near us explained how a girl ostrich has grey dull feathers while males have shiny black feathers).

I am obsessed with this color pink.  I am looking at sewing patterns to try on my sewing machine and I think if I find fabric in this shade it will be all mine.

This guy was new at the PPG Aquarium.  He is an angler fish.  I loved the lighting of the tank.

Rays are just too cool.  They are spacecraft animals, moving so smoothly and swiftly in the water.

Look at this plant and think of the first thing that comes to mind; if you though Millennium Falcon than we can be friends.

Perhaps by now everyone has seen the internet meme of the otters holding hands while they slept.  It's true!  And look how the one guy has his toy so it won't float away either!

 

And finally, enjoy this video of the recently adopted/rescued sea otter pup.  He is now five months old (he's big in person).  The squealing is him as he plays.  I shut off the camera just before he started doing flips in the water chasing his tail (OMG).

Hodgepodge Weekend

I have worked the past two evenings at the restaurant and thought I would swoop on in to a funny insightful post about tails of waitressing adventures.  It was less adventurous (and lucrative) than hoped, however this is better than extra stories of waitress-woe which can sometimes occur.  My highlight was a little girl customer Saturday evening.  She was seven-ish and having dinner with her father.  She was a peach (in resemblance and demeanor).  First she wanted to do all the ordering for the two of them; not in a pushy, bratty way, but more in a sweet, assertive "see what I am able to do" way.  Then she was practicing folding napkins and asked if she could get a job folding our napkins because she did such a nice job.  She also wanted to order two pounds of chicken wings.  Dad told her to start with one and see how she felt after those.  I found her charming and spunky and I can imagine in a classroom she would be fun to watch learn and grow.  Thankfully I do not have a tail of customer-cantankerousness to balance out Sassy-Seven year old.  Our manager/bartender was surly Friday eve, but if I were doing two jobs for the price of one I would be snippy too.

Things I don't like; weird, creepy Rolling Stone cover this month.  I have never been a big fan of R.S. magazine in general and I am putting this awful picture/headline at the number one reason why.  "Hot, ready, legal"?  Really?!  I am not sure there is enough money in the world for me to pimp myself out the way the Biebs is here.  It is so assaulting to my brain and shouldn't it be so to people with working craniums everywhere?  Hot?  Debatable (his hair bump higher than a Snooki bump is probably the most visually offensive).  Ready-for a relationship?  Is this a personal ad that he himself did not have to pay for but got paid to pose for?  Legal?  I am not even going there.  I just find this whole package, picture/headline/article, to really give me the heebee-jeebees.  And it makes me sad to see a human being that has been transformed into a product.  I cannot wait to trash this issue.

Isn't this cover creepy?!

I have been swallowed up in reading articles on the Huff. Post website and many of the ones I have been drawn to this weekend are the reactions to the Colorado theatre tragedy.  When a terrible thing happens we all think there should be ways for this not to happen again, and while we agree on the feeling, that is the only place where there is agreement.  Gun control and staunch second amendment "defenders" take up the call to further promote their positions and get into the heated battle of "if this had been this way, then blah, blah, blah."  I hate these past tense hypotheticals.  I find them patronizing to the victims/families/friends of the present who are hurting now.  Who is helping them?  Certainly neither the "put concealed weapons in everyone's hands" people, nor the "take all the guns away from everyone, even the hunting weaponry" people.  The unfortunate thing is there are people in the middle with better plans but they are being drowned out and blocked from view by the all or nothing crowds.  And the voices that ought to be the loudest (our presidential candidates) are saying the least if anything at all.  Tens of thousands of gun deaths a year; it's shameful.  I am not so naive to believe that number should be zero or that terrible crimes like this are ever 100% preventable, but we should be trying to implement plans that at least attempt to get us closer to it.

That was my rant for the day.  I am still miffed about all the idiocy swirling out in the inter-webs today, but I am hopeful that more and more people will stand up for reason and rational thinking over "my way is the better way so there" argument.  I think this calls for an upbeat song to put us back in better moods.  Spotify radio is pretty swell and I get more than I used to with Pandora.  But here is Mat Kearney's (not related-I believe) "Hey Mama."  It is pretty jamming and fun. Enjoy!

           

 

Summer Reading

One of my New Year's Resolutions for 2012 was to read more books this year.  I have always been a reader and whether it is a magazine article, or an internet news-story or a book, I try to spend sometime everyday reading.  Reading, in my opinion, is probably one of the most taken for granted skills we possess.  Look no further than my customers at the restaurant.  I have not done a formal count, but I would estimate that at least half are not going to read the menu, specials board, or any piece of written information I place in front of them.  I am sure when I go into work this evening I will be asked, "what looks good?" at least three times.  This phrase is a wide open door for my salesperson skills, yet it tells me that this customer cannot be bothered to use their eyes to find a description of something yum-tastic in print.  If you are that customer, do not be surprised when I sell you the most pricey items on our menu (filet, veal, something beefy-and you should know I am an animal loving vegetarian).  Reading will save you money (if that is your goal). 

Anyways, reading more books; that's where I was heading.  As the wife of someone who owns lots of books I have not read, I started there and have picked up some things I either found terribly entertaining, or learned some kernel of information I did not have before.  I also own a Nook and from time to time I find a title while shopping online that is too irresistible to pass up (if you are the loved one of a Nook owner, there are almost no better presents than Nook gift cards that can be used to purchase Nook books).

I started off my summer in the middle of Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer.  Half history, half criminal justice; the book tells the development of the Mormon faith in America (with a strong focus on the fanatical fundamentalist section) while telescoping on the story of a double homicide by fundamentalists  Ron and Dan Lafferty.  It is a fairly quick paced book and moves back and forth between the two focuses.  It is a worthwhile read especially at this point of time when Americans will be heading to polling places and possibly putting their votes toward a Mormon Presidential candidate.  I try to be aware of what is going on politically, but amidst the hate filled barbs each party throws at each other, and the hidden agendas driven by the candidates' high priced lobbyists, it is hard to get a true, clear picture.  In fact as voters at the bottom of the economic totem poll, we are probably not supposed to see the truth, but rather I think the candidates want us to vote using the emotions they have stirred up within us.  I find it sad that a story about a Christian faith and the political battle between two candidates who fervently defend their own Christian backgrounds are really both extreme struggles of power.  While strong positive leadership is a great thing, especially in a country where so many people depend on the decision making of leaders, power is the opposite of the message of Jesus Christ.  Wasn't Christ a strong leader through his weakness?  And in being more like Christ aren't we supposed to give up our own power and also take to the cross (be weak like Christ)?  Maybe perhaps this is why, at the biggest levels of government, we are seeing all this power and yet so few progress/results to help people.  I am sure there are no easy answers to fix what I see as a broken system drunk on its own power, but I have to believe there is something better than the hate filled struggle for power that preys on peoples' emotions rather than appealing to their rational ability to think.  This is why I read, because I am hopeful that when I learn more, I can be better for myself and better for others.  Maybe political leaders need to pick up more books.        

Thoughts and Prayers for Colorado

I was sad to read about the tragedy in Colorado.  It is truly beyond my comprehension how a person could hurt other people in the way the shooter did, and while I hope there is swift, thorough justice, I also hope there is healing, body and mind, for those who are suffering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colorado Theatre

Beginning blogging (again): Dental adventures

Look how happy this tooth is; the last time my teeth felt like this was when I still believed they all had happy smiles and I was given toys by my dentist (because he is my godfather).

I was so much better at this in college.  Anyways, today is as good as any to get back into the habit of trying to write daily.  And it is a great time because I can capture the experience that was this morning's dental adventures.  I have to explain a little bit of back-story here; two years ago, I was in dire financial straits and yet no matter how many times I explained this to my aching teeth, they were obnoxiously sore from years of not having seen a dentist that I gave in and called Aspen Dental.  They are super convenient in their free consult exam and took me in pretty quickly.  However as a full time part-timer at two jobs, the cost of root canaling two teeth (bicuspid and rear molar) plus some other cavity business was going to cost me upwards of 5 G's.  My mother helped with some and I slung some onto my credit card debt and was able to take care of the "cheaper" bicuspid.

My money tree died like all the other plants I have ever had.

Almost two years later I debated and judged how much aching I could take on the right side of my mouth.  I had let the tooth break sometime last summer and was trying to pay off the first R.C. in order to be mostly debt free when I took on R.C. #2.  Well finally two weeks ago I called and said I had endured enough hurt and was ready to get this S.O.B. taken care of.  And being Aspen (I have nothing but good things to say about them, despite reading some not very nice reviews on their business practices, they have always treated me like a human being who has strong financial concerns and were not selling me on something I didn't need at all), they arranged for me to come in today because I already had a cleaning in the books.

I have learned that not all dentist relish making their patients feel like good-for-nothing, teeth hating, 4-year olds.

I had the same chipper hygienist as all my other cleanings and things looked pretty good with the rest of my mouth.  As the non-medical member of my family, I am generally clueless as per the jargon, but I do know and am not too proud to ask how I can be taking better care of my teeth.  Since they are such a pain in the ass anyways (literal pain and financial), I figure I should be doing the best I can to only need to see the dentist on my six-month cleanings (where they will tell me what a good job I do taking care of my pearly whites-gold stars for me).  However, today I learned there are some things a person really has no control over no matter how religious and dedicated they are to their brush, floss, and rinse routine.  As a grown-up child with no dental coverage, I assumed being faithful to at home dental hygiene would keep me set until I was covered by some provider so I wasn't shelling out a few hundred dollars every six months to be yelled at by my former dentist (Aspen dental does no scolding and talks to me like I am the 27 year old I really am).

Healthy gums go all the way up between each tooth.

 Well, it turns out that not getting plaque/tartar removed twice a year is the main reason periodontal disease (aka-gingivitis) occurs, and the disease is painless so I don't notice a problem until the infection affects my teeth. And once major sad gum pockets form, there is no reversal, just maintenance.

Mild periodontitis-see the small sad space in between the teeth.  Those are not supposed to be there.  They form from plaque/tartar buildup.  These black and white pics are the least gross of the images that I found.  Teeth are so ugly.

 I only have one really sad gum pocket and it is not so sad that it needs dental antibiotic intervention, but there is no home remedy or step I can add to my dental routine that will reverse the damage.  The second thing I learned I have no control over when it comes to my mouth are the lengths of my pulp horns.  WT?!...Well, the root canal doctor explained that pulps generally form a box shape inside each tooth, but sometimes (actually he said 60% of teeth get these) the pulps extend upwards in the tooth to look like long horns.

Normal tooth pulp inside-the pulp shape is box-like. 

Pulp is extended a bit towards the cusp (top) and since the nerve is there it will be more sensitive being closer to the top of the tooth.

There is no cause for this formation, he explained, and there is nothing to do about it but know that the tooth may be extra sensitive because of the nerve's close proximity to the top of the tooth. 

1.)  Sad tooth with cavity invading root and nerve (ouchies) 2.) Drill to the canals (some teeth have just one-mine had three) 3.) The "plumbing" of the canal (most tedious part) 4.) Sealing and filling

So there is nothing I can do about my pulps, onwards with the flippin' root canal.  The graphic below (again the least disgusting one I can find) is a good diagram for the steps of an R.C. for a person who has never had one.  It does not include what I believe the worst part is, the novacaine at the beginning.  First the doctor used a gel number to ease the pain I would feel on the injections (plural because the molar I was having R.C.ed has two nerves going into it-perfect).  This gel-ly stuff was supposedly strawberry flavored (if strawberries were grown in hell and dipped into acid).  Then he did the injections (yes, needles, plural), and I got to sit for a bit and flip through tv channels (which is why I don't need cable tv ever-I'm a notorious channel flipper).  Finally we were able to get down to business; actually, I had no business to really do but lay back and get used to my lips drying out, my tongue feeling half asleep, and my jaw muscles getting tired.  My dentist is great; he fills me in every step of the way and makes sure I am feeling pain free and is sassy about the boring-ness of a routine R.C.  Boring was fine.  I was done in about an hour (ish) and with the filling dried and in place, the hole I have lived with for about a year was gone (woo and hoo).

The novacaine lasted through starbucks coffee and lobster bisque at the 'Slobster and was most of the way gone by the time we were driving through Meadville.  I am a two on the soreness scale of one to ten and will take the night off band to prevent any vibrational pain.  In two weeks I will return to Aspen for my crown prep.  So dental adventures, to be continued!...