Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Quick ramble


thru the swirling thoughts in my mind. I know I'm being really posty today, but my mind has been whirling with tornadoes of thought and emotion and music. Always music. Like scent, music puts me in a frame of mind to evoke memories and engender thoughts and even author dreams.

Lately my dreams have been a jumble of sex and more mundane things, and yet they are not quite mundane. A vampire romance given to me last weekend created a dream of vampire sex, deep penetrating, dizzyingly orgasmic, and strangely fantastic vampire sex. I don't have a problem with sex or vampires, but I haven't ever been the recipient or the participant of such a strange conjunction of libido and desire. I know where the sex dreams come from and they are quite new. I had almost eradicated them from my repertoire, except for brief forays into momentary need quickly and efficiently relieved . . . that is until my whores started moaning when I came in contact with a very real and very potent sexual attraction. Call me shocked and hungry.

But to follow the sex dreams with dreams of taking over an English class because no one else can be found is something else again. Someone talked me into taking on an English class and gave me no idea of what the students (juniors in high school) would be studying or what was expected of me. I decided to have weekly spelling quizzes to expand the students' minds and vocabulary, especially since there are about 5000 words in the English language and most people barely use 250 of those. Even the more erudite among us use barely 1000 words, one-fifth of the total vocabulary. New words are adopted and used all the time and medical, legal, and technical language have expanded our vocabulary exponentially, but really, one-fifth of the usable language in semi-constant use? Sounds like parsimony to me. Would you believe most of those words are monosyllabic entries and comprise more than 60% of all communication? Check over this post and the posts of friends, neighbors and enemies and I guarantee you can figure out the 20 words that everyone uses most.

Anyway, I decided to base one-quarter of their final grade on the vocabulary and spelling quizzes each week and devised a way to make them thing without just reading off the words. The test would be comprised of definitions and the student would have to spell the word correctly and get the right word. Points would be deducted for spelling the word correctly but failing to put it with its correct definition.

I also decided to have the students keep journals of their thoughts about the class and their learning expedition and had begun to make lists of words I would use for vocabulary tests when I woke up with the urgent desire to find the bathroom and enthrone myself for a good long while. In fact, I was on the throne when the dream woke me. That's always a signal for me to wake up and tend to more immediate business than the dream. Reality intruding in the dream world and yanking me back thru time and space.

Could be my dreams are telling me I am in a teaching situation -- or about to be -- and it is tangled up in and among the sex, but it really doesn't matter in the long run.

Another thought has been nagging me as well--my next Grammar Goofs column: the preponderance of Os in certain words. I won't unveil my column yet, but if you go to Scribe & Quill you can sign up before the rush and get your free copy of the monthly newsletter, which is very late this month. You won't have only my column to read; there are lots of other poems, stories, articles, and information in which to wallow. My column is only one small part of the whole thing. And if you're really brave and interested in all things writerly and pagan, you can check out Pen & Pentacle and see what's up with the witchy set. Yes, I have a column there, too, but it's mostly history of the pagan holidays and a little bit of herbology in the form of incense making. Of course, the poetry and prose in P&P is worth the look-see and you might just learn something if you stay clear of my column, which is only for those who are not the faint of heart types. Wouldn't want to burn your virgin senses with too my information or history.

I guess it's time for me to shut up since I seem to have run out of things to say.

And no comments from the peanut gallery or I'll befriend you and put you on my list.

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