Received the new ish of National Geographic yesterday... and utterly delighted to see the cover feature is on the tunnels under Paris! What perfect timing! I will have some free time when I am there next month and thought mother wants me to visit with relatives - free food! - I really want to go see the catacombs and the museum of Le Moyen Age.... and looking at the stacks of bones in the pictures, well, creepiness takes over family and food! Side note... I believe I received the magazine on time from my unreliable p.o. only because they send it in a sealed bag thus it cannot be taken home and read by the employees... grrrr....
An old friend I ran into in Portland this summer still takes pictures... his stuff includes unexplored places and he mentioned Detroit in a post - a plethora of crumbling history! I am so eager to get back to exploring this summer and taking the camera with me. Really want to get to Hungary but a recent article about the new leader there is not good... Would love to get to the places there that have not been Americanized... before they are.
Funny how my reading has changed. I have tried some other magazines - Vogue stinks (fire Wintour), Interview is narcissistic, Elle is vapid, the Sun was too lovey-dovey mush, Smithsonian was not pushing the envelope enough... Just so much mediocrity and playing it safe. So I have switched to the politically, historically, aesthetically and socially relevant... let's see how long this goes on until the new magazines let me down... Hey, at least I read...
Czeps, Casale and I were talking about the changes in the student body since we started teaching. There is such a lack of attention span, lack of drive, lack of ambition, lack of interest in gaining knowledge. I remember when I was in school, being intelligent was a matter of pride, gaining knowledge was something to be proud of. We all read. We all were not in honors courses, but at least those of us who were did not coast. I feel like the rapid fire news, media, etc. creates a short-attention-span child. And I try to model better things for my students but it may work in the classroom for 45 minutes - sometimes - but it clearly does not carry over once they leave the room... I NEED to find a way to get them to learn that you can like the rapid-fire media and doo-dads in life while also enjoying reading, watching long documentaries, having long meaningful conversations and learning things and retaining that information... More research to do...
So I will get all English on you here and apologize for something I should not apologize for, but, so sorry for the rant... it has been one heck of a couple of weeks to say the least!
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