Last Bell (take #2)...

About this time last year, I commented on my last bell experience at Emporia.  I had a couple of good classes, but was thankful to be done with the semester.  Don't get me wrong--I enjoy it, very much so, but a lot of work goes into a semester course.  I imagine I will experience a similar feeling this coming Friday.

Yesterday, however, I had a very different experience.

I am a cultural geographer by trade.  For those outside the discipline, it's often hard to fully grasp how different geographers can be.  We study Red States & Blue States, hurricane storm tracks, mountain glaciers, and satellite imagery (not to mention Paul and Babe).  We are a field that is so diverse that we often find ourselves relating more to those outside of geography than those within.  Case in point: I have much more in common with most anthropologists and historians than I do with colleagues in my own department.

Given the situation, it should come as no real surprise that we are asked to teach courses outside of our speciality on a semi-regular basis (or at least early on).  This past fall, I taught Geography & Development a course in economic geographic (a course, which should be noted, I myself have never taken) and I also taught Physical Geography both fall and spring semesters.  But this spring, I was presented a break from this routine for the first time in my life.  My department granted me the opportunity to teach a course in my speciality: cultural geography.

The class meets once a week for 3 hours and yesterday we met for the last time.  I was fortunate to have a good collection of students, both graduate and undergraduate, and I had fun teaching the course.  I structured the course in a manner in which fieldtrips with related readings were assigned on a weekly basis.  I enjoyed keeping my students in the dark as to what we would be doing the following week.  It worked well as they had no other option than to follow me and trust I knew what I was doing (which is a debatable move on their part).

At any rate, I enjoyed teaching the class and at the end of class yesterday, they clapped.  I've never experienced this before as a teacher (or as a student for that matter).  It was tremendously flattering.  My roommate asked if I took a bow afterwards.  Let's just say we are very different.  Instead, I just continued going about my business as I prepared to leave the classroom one last time.

A very nice blessing.  I can't wait to teach it again next year.

Am I the only one?

Note: This is a follow up of sorts to my previous post.

Do I just not get it?  Am I, as a former roommate of mine liked to proclaim, a 'pinko-commie'?

I really don't understand the uproar in this country in regards to taxes.  Yesterday, thousands of angry taxpayers took part in 'tea parties' scattered across the nation.  Anyone who knows me knows that I have a strong civil disobedient streak running through me and that I love peaceful protests.  But I don't get this.  To me, the protesters seem angry about nothing and everything all at once.

If the protests were targeting the overly complicated existing tax codes, I would be very sympathetic.  But they're not.  Those who partook in the demonstrations were protesting government and government spending and the taxes that go to support said governments.  I think I struggle to understand these protests because they seem selfish to me, materialistic if you will.  These protesters want more money for themselves.  They are not starving or living on the streets, but they insist they need more money.  For what?

Maybe its because I've lived overseas and served in Peace Corps.  I don't know.  But I really do believe I have it pretty good.  I have all the essentials:  food, shelter, and a Mac (not to mention health care that comes with my job).  What's not to like?  I would actually be willing to pay more if it guaranteed me and my neighbors health care.  The way I see it, it's not our money to begin with.  What do we have that we did not receive?  (1 Cor 4:7)

Maybe it's time I move to Canada.  I hear they have hockey there.

What is it with old guys?

I remember talking to people about Paul Bunyan and his blue ox.  I also remember interviewing residents of the Northwoods about felling trees and living in the logging camps back in the day.  What I don't remember is the random stories that often filled my limited days and nights on field visits.

Laramie is the closest I've lived to my parents since high school.  I teach Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, and with class being canceled today, I was able to pay Mom and Dad an extended Easter visit this year.  To make the most of it, I decided to conduct some fieldwork on ghost schools on the trip home.

An older man from my Sunday school class had alerted me to a ghost school marker that decorated the landscape a little west of Chugwater, Wyoming (a remote, rural outpost most known for its annual chili cookoff).  A route less traveled took me to this headstone and I was feeling good: it was early in the day, I had found my marker, I had coffee in hand, why not talk to some locals?

When it comes to my fieldwork, I have an uncanny ability to gloss over hardships and remember the good times.  Case in point: open-ended, semi-structured interviews.  What I had forgotten over the course of a couple of years was this: old men like to remind me how horrid our government is and how evil taxes are.  'Angryoldwhiteman' syndrome as I like to call it.  Sure enough, the first person I struck up a conversation with yesterday had much to share on the subject.

As this man began to rant and rave about all that was wrong with our government and those who govern us (not to mention life in general), I began to wonder:

Does this man know I support universal health care?

Does this man know I opposed the invasion of Iraq?

Does this man know that I am a tree-hugger?

And most importantly:

Why do those who suffer from 'angryoldwhiteman' syndrome always feel the need to share their hardships with me?

Thoughts?

Are you kidding me?

Kyle Orton for Jay Cutler?  Things have gone from bad to worse.