freezer

I’ve got a lot to say.

Thing one: How, in the name of whatever you consider holy, did one of the worst public speakers I’ve seen since junior high school become the president of the United States of America? George W. Bush has just about the least poise of any political figure… ever. His vocabulary is astonishingly bad, his communication skills are atrocious, and I’m actually more afraid of him now than I was before the debate began.

Thing the second: I think this must be a simple, fundamental difference between me and our president… as near as I can tell, he believes that every life has value except for the lives of the enemy. In my mind, every single person’s life has value and every single person has the right to life… even those people who believe that they have the right to end others’ lives. Those people should be contained… they shouldn’t be allowed to kill… Apparently, though, Bush believes that we are right and just as a nation in hunting and killing suspected and confirmed terrorists. Killing, it would appear, is the perfect response to killing.

Thing three: I can’t conceive of a way in which the world can be made a safer place when people (especially our own leaders) think that a continual offensive strike on “evil” will magically create peace. Does no one remember the Golden Rule? An eye for an eye leads to a blind world. A tooth for a tooth leads to a boom in the tapioca market.

Thing the fourth: Part of what we expect our children to learn is that being a bully is a bad thing. Correction… one of the things I expect my children to learn is that being a bully is unacceptable. Two bullies (the “good guys” and the “bad guys”) battling each other is not an ideal situation. Two groups sitting down to discuss differences and come to a peaceful understanding is.

How did we get here? More importantly… how do we bloody well change it?

I’m not about to suggest that Kerry will make the world a better place.

I do, however, believe that Bush will continue being Bush… I cannot in good conscience vote for him as the leader of our country.

Help… please?

The results are in and I got myself a solid B. Given how difficult a time I’m having at dictation, I think that grade was to be expected.

I’m excited about learning new vocabulary. Today we started talking about our families. I know how to say mother and father, for instance. The word for paternal uncle is not the same as the word for maternal uncle… nor is the word for their children. Wheeee!

On a whim I decided to go ahead and convert my old sbum.org posts to the new WordPress database. I’d like to look at a plugin that will summarize years instead of listing every single month in which there is a post.

[EDIT] I found out that there is a way to limit the number of months that are shown. That’s something, at least. I’ve set it to 12 for now, but I suspect I’ll want to figure out something else someday.

We’re all feeling tired lately, or so it would seem. I’m in a lot of pain (neck and upper back) and missed work yesterday because of it. Today I’m at work, but wishing I were lying flat on my back.

Is there something in the air? Is it the change of seasons? Is it the MS150? I have no idea. I just know that I need a break and that it needs to happen soon. Fall break starts on the 14th of October. I don’t think that’s soon enough, personally.

Today I had my first Arabic exam. I’m pretty sure I got an A or B, but good gracious was the dictation ever difficult. My friend sent me a link to an NPR story about the (huge) shortage of Arabic instructors in the United States. At this point, given how hard it is for a Western ear to hear the sounds produced in Arabic… I’m not surprised at the shortage.

Yowza.

The MS150 was on Saturday and the threesome I rode in did 46 miles. It’s not nearly what I’d hoped to do, but it was a definite accomplishment. We were pretty gimpy about twenty miles out with knee and cramping problems. At any rate, I really enjoyed the time out on the road and hope to train better for next year’s ride.

Incidentally, it’s my birthday today and I’m somewhere in between excited and tired.

I’ve got a case of butterflies this morning. I know I’m nervous about the bike ride tomorrow. I know I’m excited about it, too. Things have been so busy… hectic… chaotic… It’s time to slow down a bit and reconnect with what’s important… the people I love.

I hope that the people who read this have dozens of reasons to smile today.

Cheers!

It turns out that I’m going to be coordinating the after school Spanish program for the boys’ school. The first day was yesterday. Wheee! The majority of the work was already done by another volunteer, and now it’s more or less my project. We’ll see how that goes.

The boys both seemed to enjoy their first day of Spanish this semester, though. I walked from classroom to classroom, checking roll and whatnot… the teachers this time are excellent.

Things have been strange over the last four or five days. David’s sister is in the hospital to correct a problem with her five/six-week-old stomach ligaments. David has been a bit emotional of late because of this. [Quick update: His sister is on her way home now. YAY!]

We went to Worlds of Fun on Saturday. Yay, right? It might have gotten a bigger “YAY!” from me if we’d been able to find a Price Chopper (don’t ask) without driving through Raytown and Independence… and it would have been infinitely better if I hadn’t then driven us up to Kearney (sp?) , MO before realizing I’d overshot Worlds of Fun by several parsecs.

It was a weird weekend… We had a family discussion to figure out where some conflict was coming from. That was good. The bad news, though, was that the same stuff happened the next day. We went on a family bike ride and that went fairly well… we were on a mission of mercy, though… our home was in desperate need of chocolate chips, soy butter, and rice milk.

I’ve been studying Arabic at KU for about a month now. A month, it would seem, is enough time to pick up the alphabet. Well… mostof the alphabet. I have a twenty or thirty word vocabulary and could probably have an amazingly boring conversation in Arabic with just about any preschooler.

In slightly better news, I’m getting better at hearing the difference between the plain and emphatic consonants.