Some random thoughts

* I looked out over class today and caught a lot of people on smartphones, even as I try really hard to make the information interesting. And it occurred to me:

we've seen a drop in grades and assessment-test scores in recent years.

I am wondering if the attention-stealing effects of smartphones are partly to blame. I don't care who you are, you can't read/send texts or browse Facebook or whatever it is people are doing AND pay attention to the charts and graphs and stuff on the screen.

And yeah, yeah, I know: "Say something about it." I have. I have commented on it many times. They're grownups. I can't force them to pay attention and obviously I'm not good enough or compelling enough to compete with smartphones and it's just too disheartening to reference it Every. Single. Day. because every time I mention it I feel like "If you were a better teacher, they wouldn't feel the need for them" (though maybe that's not true. One of the reasons I resist getting one is I don't want the temptation - more than I already have - to dink around on the Internet)

* I have all but decided to run out tomorrow afternoon after classes (I have to get ground beef for the chili anyway) and see if I can find a real or fake tiny cactus in a pot (Lowe's had those "ruffle cactus" things, which would be hard to carry around) and find my matching vest-and-skirt combo, and wear a long-sleeved button-down shirt, and I found some name badges in my office, so I can write "Hello, my name is JANET" on one, and go as Janet for Halloween.

Because it makes me sad not to do anything, and I don't have time right now for anything more elaborate, and I don't want to spend money (except maybe on a tiny cactus). And Janet works because it won't be offensive to anyone (I look much like her already, and she's a virtual being anyway, and I'm doing a character not a stereotype). I might also get a tiny bottle of hairspray or something; some of the images of her have her with her hair down, and I could do that, but my hair gets awfully flyaway and maybe if I can control and smooth it a bit it would serve the illusion better. I don't have light-colored pumps to wear but I so have sort-of-wedgy light colors sandals I could wear. And I will be wearing hose (it's supposed to be chilly that day).

If I really commit to it, I might get a new eyebrow pencil and darken my eyebrows, because the actress has slightly darker heavier brows than I do. I don't know.

I can almost do the head-tilt she often does, too, so that might help "sell" it a little.

I think the cactus is an important part of the gag and I really hope I can find one. Possibly Wal-mart would even have some little fake ones in their home-dec department. (If I get more than one, maybe I could hand one or two out, like if a student asks me a question, hand them a cactus)

Failing that I could print out a bunch of cactus photos and carry them around in a file folder, that was part of the gag too.

Yes, it's dumb. But I think innocent fun dumb things are what I need right now.

(It's a pity there's not a skinny Filipino guy in my department I could convince to dress as Jason....)

Edited to add: found the skirt and vest! I haven't worn it in a LONG time because it does look a little costumey - the fabric has a slightly vintage feel and I got scared off of dressing "eccentric" one semester when I had a rude class but here it is:



The blouse isn't perfect and the skirt is a bit long for Janet but it's pretty close given it's stuff I had in my own closet. So I am totally doing this because I am excited for it now and I really do hope I can find a mini cactus to carry around.

(If I have time Wednesday morning I will take a photo of me in it and post it.)

* And yeah, I admit I wend through some soul-searching last night over "is it even okay to dress up this fall?" because *gestures at everything going on.*

But I also think of someone talking on the anniversary of Sept. 11 about "At first it seemed wrong to me to do 'normal fun' things like go to the movies or out to dinner, but then someone told me, 'but you know, if the people who died then were given another day, they'd probably go to the movies or out to dinner' - that in a way it's life-affirming to do things you enjoy even during sad times."

I don't know. I guess in a way I feel the same about decorating for Christmas - as I said the other day, the world's in a damnable mess, but really? My not decorating for Christmas isn't going to fix what's wrong with the world, and that kind of asceticism doesn't seem like it solves much.

(And now I think of this old poem by Edward Arlington Robinson:

While you that in your sorrow disavow
Service and hope, see love and brotherhood
Far off as ever, it will do no good
For you to wear his thorns upon your brow
For doubt of him. And should you question how
To serve him best, he might say, if he could,
“Whether or not the cross was made of wood
Whereon you nailed me, is no matter now.”

Though other saviors have in older lore
A Legend, and for older gods have died—
Though death may wear the crown it always wore
And ignorance be still the sword of pride—
Something is here that was not here before,
And strangely has not yet been crucified.

Yes, true.


* I finished reading "The Murder at the Vicarage" last night, which, if I remember, was the first Miss Marple mystery.

A couple of thoughts:

- Early Christies like this one seem better plotted than the later ones. (I read somewhere that she was still writing while in the early stages of dementia, and that's why some of the later mysteries are...not quite as good)

- I wonder how old Miss Marple was meant to be? In the movies/tv shows, she's OLD, like in her 70s or 80s (old for that era) but I'm wondering if maybe a lot of the "spinsters" of the 1930s weren't closer to my age, in that a lot of women who went unmarried in the 1920s were women whose boyfriends died in WWI, or, there just weren't enough men who came back after WWI - I think one thing we don't fully appreciate, both in this era and in the US (which only joined the war very late*) is just how devastated some French and British towns were in terms of young men who went away and never came back, or came back so changed that they were never really productive again.


(*Thinking again about my grandfather, and the funny little coincidence that he went to New York to prepare to ship out for Europe - having completed his pilot's training - and how he got to New York in time to hear news of the Armistice, so he never had to go)

- Miss Marple isn't as nice or sweet in this book as she's often portrayed on screen; she talks a lot about all the bad things that go on under the radar in small towns, and she seems more sharp-tongued and perhaps not as well-liked by the townspeople.

- Christie may NEVER have written "young people" well. I don't "get" Lettice Protheroe (gads, what a name to be saddled with! I'd probably insist on everyone calling me "Lettie"). She is portrayed as "vague" and I can't get if she's acting dumb or playing a role or what. She's supposed to be teenaged but at times she seems a bit "old" for that, I don't know.

Not sure what I will start next. I SHOULD finish the other mystery I'm reading (though there are so few Mordecai Tremaine mysteries that I've been dragging my feet on finishing it; when I'm done with it I'll have read 60% of the books featuring him) and Miss Mackenzie. But maybe I start one of the Rosemary Sutcliffe novels, or one of the King Arthur themed ones.....

* Right now I just am seeking some peace and fun. Dressing up for Hallowe'en will help, but I also have half-a-plan to go to Sherman this coming weekend (I wrote the exam for next week, or at least most of it, today) and, I don't know, go to the bookstore and maybe the yarn shop and the Target, maybe, and just try to wrap up my Christmas shopping but also maybe look for some kind of dead-simple craft kit at the JoAnn's where I can sit and glue pom-poms to something or pin sequins to styrofoam balls, something mindless that will be done in not too much time. Sometimes I need that.