Friday, August 2, 2002

Posted by David Christiano, 8/2/02 at 11:03:59 PM.

 

 

Link to BAWP Summer Invitational Institute

Monday, March 25, 2002

Here I sit, in the computer lab of our Library media center trying to "steal" a few quiet moments after the usual frantic paced Monday morning opening of the facilities. Today seemed a bit more hectic than usual tho, due to my role as sponsor of the nascent Arab club. We're going to take part in "Spring Spirit Week Open Foods Sales" selling Arabian food. 

It's been quite a road getting here in terms of organizing a group of students from Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine (as well as "honorary Arab" students from India and Vietnam) who all want--in varying degrees and with different approaches--to educate their peers and the faculty here about the many cultures that comprise the Arab world. In the lingering wake of nine-eleven, this seemed like an important effort to support; hence, I've become their faculty sponsor.

This is the first club I've sponsored since my days at Oakland Tech ten years ago when I helped a group of students organize a "World Beat" music appreciation club.

Anyways, getting things organized for the food sales--on top of my usual Monday morning routine (which tends to be anything other than routine, due to unexpected occurrences with the computers and copy machines that reside in my Library Media Center)--had me on the run from the moment I opened the doors at 8:45am til when I began wriiting this. . . .

Now that I've been interrupted three times, I should stop here.

Wednesday, March 20, 2002

Well, everyone, long time no see (nearly nine full days to be precise). Thanks to Chris' gentle nudging and my conscience urging me on, I'm here right now in dXiano's weblog. It might be instructive to see how I arrived and why I'm so late (1 part fatigue, 1 part distraction, 1 part proscrastination, 1 part uncertainty. . . .) So, withn the limitations of this word-processing device, and to the best of my abilities, I'll attempt to replicate an e-mail exchange between Chris and me, that began after I received some music in the mail.

Date: Fri, Mar 15, 2002 21:39:05 Chris, Just wanted to aknnowledge receipt of the Gillian CDs. What a treat! Thanks so much for following thru with it. Hasta, David.

David, You're welcome. I'll trade you two Gillian disks for one weblog post. Sorry, I didn't plan on resorting to bribery. Chris.

Chris: I guess I've been conspicuous by my absence, so resorting to bribery seems like a reasonable tactic. . . .I never intended to be so remiss, and I appreciate the nudge. I guess I "got some 'splainin to do." It only dawned on me yesterday, before receiving you nudge, that I'd let an entire week+ go by without checking in. Actually, it's been a combination of factors, including not having (or is it "making"?) adequate time to weblog while at work (too "swept away" by the rapid and unpredictible currents of student needs ("Mr. C!I need.....; Mr. C! Can you help me do this?"etc (not to mention the demands of my colleagues)). . . . I'm not complaining, mind you, I'm just trying to explain (to myself as well as everyone else) why gettiing on a computer to do some weblogging in my work environment has been fruitless (several times, after I told myself, "Now is the time," I'd get set to post only to get interrupted--very frustrating). Then , upon getting home, I contend with fatigue and the "I don't want to look at another computer monitor tonite!" syndrome, plus, even on those several occasions when I did muster up the initiative to take a stab at posting, the same things began to happen--ie,interruptions--but for different compelling reasons. I apologize for being so long-winded here, because the issue is no longer "why not?" It now becomes "what to do?" So, here's my plan: between now and Sunday nite, I'll review what everyone's been up to as far as their postings and see if I can add to the mix (because, besides all the reasons/excuses I gave above, there's also the lingering sense of not having anything worth posting for everyone else to see. But maybe I'll get over that once I getcaught up in my weblog reading. . . . Again, sorry for being so wordy--I admire your terseness. >--David. Hey David, It occurs to me that the very email you wrote is itself worth a weblog
post. Just take what you've got here, maybe do a sentence or two of
context setting, and plop it into the next day's flip you have a
chance to do. Thanks for writing back. It's words. It means somethiing.
You've got a few readers. Over time, it adds up and means more.

Monday, March 11, 2002

ten pm

Well, not much to say today after getting sucked into the hydra-headed beast aka the Encinal H.S. Library Media Center. Don't get me wrong--I love my job. There's just so much in the way of problems (or, the way I heard it termed one time: core trouble) that somedays, particularly Mondays, can be especially energy sapping and emotion draining.

So, that's what I'm gradually recovering from--aided, in great part, by my Dayan Qi Gong session which faciliates the flow of healthy chi and expels the "bad" chi. I'm just a novice at this point, but I've got three great instructors who teach a grooup of 20+ of us every Monday night at Kaiser Oakland.

I've got to run now. . . .just wanted to check in. . . .to Carol and whomever else I mentioned the burgeoning Chinese language book collection at my LMC: these books continue to move at quite a clip and I've got quite a few students who have suddenly become steady customers, as in checking in every single day. So, Carol, if you can find me the name of the person in San Mateo who sells other Asian language books (especially Vietnamese and Korean), I would appreciate it.

Hasta, David.