My birthday was rad... my students plied me with cards, letters, tres leches, ice cream cake, and love. They rule. Julie took me out to dinner, and she rules as well.

Annoyed right now, as I have to get up butt-ass early to go to a Florida Vocal Association meeting an hour and a half south of my house. Said meeting starts at 10:00 AM, and blowing it off isn't an option as this is the only time to sign up for district chorus evaluations. This has already been a long day, since I had to complete my grades, and drive up to a coworker's house in Davie and pick up her grades as well (she got sick, and couldn't drive down. great will be my reward in heaven).

One of the few things that made today tolerable was going with Julie to see Chicago, which deserves the hype it's received. Easily the best Hollywood musical since South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut.

Another excellent movie I saw recently- Intacto, with Max Von Sydow. It creeped me out more than any other movie I've seen since Memento.

Revolution

For quite a while, I had planned on casting the I Ching on my thirtieth birthday, late in the evening (as I was born at almost 10:00 PM on January 22, 1973). For the non-cognoscenti, the I Ching (or "Book of Changes") was one of the Five Classics of Confucian China. It is a system of divination, first brought to my attention by the writings of composer John Cage (Carl Jung also refers to it, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections). By casting coins, interpreting the results numerically and transforming the result into two trigrams, you then derive a hexagram from the coins that will hopefully serve as a source of emlightenment. If this explanation was poor, then find a decent translation of the text. I used a contemporary translation by Brian Browne Walker, but will be comparing my results in other translations (especially to the Wilhelm/Baynes translation, which is apparently the standard reference). [Edit: Since writing this, I've picked up the Wilhelm/Baynes. I'll modify the entry accordingly]

The results:

Lower trigram: Li (fire).
Upper trigram: Tui (lake). Lines 5 and 6 were "changing lines."

Hexagram: Ko (originally "molting," currently interpreted as "revolution")

Some sample quotes from the text:

[Edit: I'll edit in the Wilhelm/Baynes stuff later]

The changing lines yielded these additional insights:

[Edit: ditto]

By modifying the changing lines, you derive a second hexagram which is to be read in light of the first one. My secondary hexagram was Li (fire)

Amazing, seeing as how many of these concepts (especially concerning the idea of inner revolution necessarily preceding outer revolution) have been on my mind quite frequently these past couple of months. There's quite a bit to think about here.

Men at Thirty

Thirty today, I saw
The trees flare briefly like
The candles upon a cake
As the sun went down the sky,
A momentary flash
Yet there was time to wish

Before the break light could die
If I had known what to wish
As once I must have known
Bending above the clean candlelit tablecloth
To blow them out with a breath
(Donald Justice)

Less then an hour left of my 20s.

Unless, of course, you consider the fact that I wasn't born until almost 10:00 PM on Jan. 22. Which I do. Snoogans.

I get spam

For several months, I have been deluged with offers via email to, ahem, increase the girth of my genitalia. Some of the standout subject lines: "Grow Your Member Big" (from grow@yourmemberbig.whatever); "Increase your penis size Safely and Natturally (like I'm going to entrust a medical procedure to someone that can't spell), and my personal fave "USE YOUR DICK TO HIT PEOPLE!!"

Who's been going around telling people that I have a small package? 'Cause I think they got some bad information.

Well, in a couple of days I turn thirty.

I keep telling myself that it's no big deal- people only get worked up over numbers divisible by 10 because we live in a base-10 mathematical culture. If by some quirk of evolutionary fate humans had 12 fingers (and developed a base-12 mathematics system), or if I lived among the ancient Mayans (base-20), then thirty wouldn't be a rough birthday at all. Therefore, the angst that people go through regarding the "round-number" birthdays is totally arbitrary in the grand scheme of things and I should just get over it.

And if I say that often enough I just may start to believe it.

When I was a student at Chula Vista High School lo these many years ago, we used to make fun of our crosstown football rival's mascot- the Castle Park "Trojans."

So I suppose some sort of wierd karmic justice dictated that I end up teaching at H-ML Senior High, home of the- you guessed it- "Trojans." The inflated condoms flying around at pep rallies are kind of funny.

This is no big deal, though. I would have transferred, or just possibly shot myself, if I had the misfortune to attend Idaho's Butte County High School, proud home of the Pirates.

That's right, kids. The Butte Pirates.

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 2004: That link is broken. Try this one. Alas, the word "Pirates" is difficult to see in the more recent picture that now adorns the site, and they've made it so that you can't "save picture" in a form where it can be blown up (hint: try a screen capture instead). But it is there.

Midterms. Bleah. Fortunately, I have a long weekend to grade 'em.

The best thing about living in Florida: you can go to the beach on the Martin Luther King holiday. So I'll probably be there for a while on Monday- maybe take the grade book and sit out on the sand doing my grades.