Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Dream 11/2/2009

I'm in Washington, D.C. I have gotten a job with some people. I am with said people on the way to the office. We arrive. It is in a huge building. The building is office building. We find the office. Everything is greey and silver and metallic and modern. We are four. We are mixed between girls and boys. The numbers don't matter.

It is my first day so I am to create a name project. The project has nothing to do with the aims of the business. It is extraneous. I am to use glue and wire to build and display my name. The wire turns into string midway through the project. I am all over the floor with my materials. A girl that works there is also on the floor. We are flirting and it is working. I would rather have sex with her than finish my name project. She would rather me have sex than finish my name project. Consequently, my name project is taking way too long. I finally finish. I have misspelled my name. I have to fix it. As I fix it, I hope nobody notices the errors I have made.

I speak with a lady at a desk. I get the feeling she is the boss. She tells me that before we move on, I should fix the name of a coworker whose name was incorrectly displayed. I find that it is quite a bit more difficult than all that. It seems nobody agrees how to actually spell her name. She is actually a real coworker from my life. From an old job.

The lady behind the counter transitions into Hulk Hogan's wife or daughter. It doesn't matter which. The office transitions into the Hogan home. It isn't actually what I remember their home looking like, but it's their home. I spend a lot of time here. The girl from the office for whom sex was an option is here at the house. She looks different, but it is her.

The house is made up of the following memorable elements. Long, stadium-like, concrete ramps, a massive, concrete parking lot, a twenty-foot wall around the thing, some sort of central room (possibly a kitchen or living room), and an old clubhouse. The clubhouse felt like it must have been something from my past, though it looked different than anything I remember. It had deteriorated. It was musky and moldy. No children wanted to play in it.

Hulk Hogan's son, hereafter HHS, had taken it over. He looked older than Hulk. HHS was doing dark, devilish things in it. At times, I would be running down the ramp and the son would roll things after me to try and knock me down. He wore a Jason mask, or an old hockey goalie mask (see Terry Sawchuck). It soon became evident that he had some nasty business he was involved in. He wanted to earn credit to sell things to the underworld. I imagine he had no money. I assume this because of what he did to Hulk Hogan, his father.

I was standing on the ramp. Hulk Hogan was standing below me. HHS, above me and to my left. HHS looked much older than his father now. His father was still quite large. His hair, both cranial and facial, had become purple. He looked somewhat cartoony. There was a showdown on the ramp. It involved mostly screaming. After a fit of hollering, it was clear HHS had won the duel. From Hulk's body came an unbelievably and enveloping white light. From this white light spilled some type of coin. The coin was the capital for the underworld business. I got the shit out of there.

I was in the bed of a truck on the way to a party. My fellow bedmates were screaming. They were really excited about the party. We arrived. It was daytime. The party was to be held inside and outside. There would be booze, a grill for food, and informal sporting. The partygoers were actual friends of mine. I'll not name any names, although they did act appropriately.

I remained outside while the majority of my truck entered the house to begin raging. I felt that this isolated me. My isolation, however, was comfortable. The weather was nice. I found a bunch of unwanted potatoes on the ground. I also found a nine-iron golf club, unmanned. I decided to use them both. My plan was to rocket the potatoes into the neighborhood. I assumed they would explode on contact. They would cause no harm.

I then became conscious of the possibility that a potato might not explode so easily. It might just rocket at a home. A flying potato would surely shatter a neighbor's window. I turned to find more reasonable targets. I found, to my surprise, a group of small golf flags stuck in the lawn. They were near the grill, which was also left without supervision. I prepared my first shot.

From behind me came screetching down the road another truck. It looked like it held bandits. They were all hooting and hollering about something. As they got closer, I could hear they were screaming their plans upon arrival. They planned to beat someone up. I imagined that they were talking about a friend who they were going to play with. I didn't feel any threat, either personally or vicariously.

The truck came to a halt. The bandits popped out in all directions. They ran to the party room, hereafter PR. The PR was next to the golf flags. It had just materialized. It was a PR from Embassy Skate Center. I actually worked in Embassy Skate Center, cleaning the PRs. The PR was about 12 by 20 feet and the walls were dominated by tall windows. You could basically see what was happening at any one moment in the PR. When the bandits rushed the PR, there were already things going on. These things included talking and drinking. Nobody had paid much attention to any other activities, though presumably there were some.

It was clear soon that the bandits hadn't lied about their violent intentions. As it turned out, there was one person whom they wished to pummel. The initial rush caused a fair amount of chaos in the PR. A girl, seemingly uninvolved previously, took a huge swing at the group. Her swing showed no regard for who she might hit. Who she hit I do not know.

Within about thirty three seconds, the mob was dispersed. The bandits, for the most part, had left the PR. They became as uninvolved as I. The involved reduced to two young men. It was clear that the two had some history that they wished to resolve, though said history was never made clear to me. Neither one of them had shirts. Both wore board shorts. Both wore flip-flops. One wore glasses. He was the one with long hair, hereafter LH. I did not recognize either one.

LH was clearly the superior gladiator. He stuck with jabs. He weakened with body shots. He finished with hooks and uppercuts. His knee made an appearance. With the arrival of his knee came the arrival of the other kid's blood. The match was decided within a few moments. It had been a resounding victory for LH.

The other kid was being interviewed. I had camera lens view of the thing. He didn't look as bad as before. He wore glasses. On his head rested a backwards cap, hereafter BC. Somehow he was still cocky. The cameraman told BC to check his teeth for loose ones. BC replied that they all felt fine. He seemed to think that having been overwhelmed by a group meant that his relative bludgeoning wasn't a loss. I seemed to think differently. I felt bad at first when he was attacked, I really didn't feel anything during the one-on-one, and I wanted him to really get it during the interview.

The whole dream, though mostly the party scene, had a strong lemon flavor and tone.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Paulo Freire Poem

I found this incredible poem in Freire's book Daring To Dream: Toward a Pedagogy of the Unfinished, published by Paradigm Publishers in 2007

"Some time after his arrival
the foreigner said to the men in the valley
one dusking afternoon:
Thus far I have spoken to you only
of the songs of birds and
of the tenderness of the dawns.
It was necessary to undertake with you some
fundamental learning:
to feel out the uncertainty of tomorrow,
living out the negation of myself,
through a work that is not our own.
Only so, speaking to you would be a form of
speaking with you.
Now I can tell you:
We do not believe in those who proclaim
that our weakness is a gift from the Gods,
that it is in us as the fragrance in the flowers
or the dew in the mornings.
Our weakness is not the ornament
of our bitter lives.
We do not believe in those who state,
in hypocritical intonation,
that life is really like this
-a few having so much,
millions having nothing.
Our weakness is not a virtue.
Let us pretend, however, that we do believe
in their discourse.
It is important that not a gesture of ours
reveal our true intention.
It is important that they leave happy in their lie,
certain that we are things of their own.
We need time
to prepare our own discourse
that will shake up the mountains and valleys,
rivers and oceans
and that will leave them stunned and fearful.
Our different discourse
-our action-word-will be spoken
by our whole bodies:
our hands, our feet, our reflections.
All within us speak
a life-bearing language
-even the instruments that
our hands will use,
when, in communion, we
shall transform our weakness
into our strength.
Poor us, however, if we cease to speak
simply because they can no longer lie.
Therefore, I tell you:
Our liberation discourse
Is not the medicine for a passing illness.
If we go silent as the present lies quiet down,
new lies will appear,
in the name of our liberation.
Our different discourse
-our action-word-
As a true discourse
will be made and remade;
it never is or will have been,
because it will always be being.
Our different discourse
-our action-word-
must be a permanent one."

-Paulo Freire
Geneva
April 1971

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Quote

"There is no tolerance without respect, no respect without knowledge."

Dream 9/31/2009

I climb stacks of records. Public records. All the way to the sun. The higher I get and the closer to the sun, the older the records become. The earliest are when humans started to ask what the sun was.
I'm terribly sunburned. I am really close to the sun. I have given my life to the quest of conquering the records of our species' past. I am really sunburned.
I take some photos of the sun. No one has ever taken such amazing photos of the sun. This holds true even in the face of their bad quality. It's the context. Get it?
Riley is on a balcony on the other side of the sun. I don't know what planet or body he is on. It doesn't matter. He takkes pictures of me. The flash hurts my eyes. This is funny becuase I am really close to the sun.
I make it down from the stack of records.
I stay at Hostal Residencial Sucre. I actually stayed there in Quito, Ecuador, for over a month.
At the hostal, someone steals my camera. It is called the Little Blue Camera That Will. I yell. I yell becuase they've stolen the photos of the sun. The same photos that would have changed the course of the world.

Dream 9/15/2009

Friend, Chris, hereafter CL, shows part of a movie. It is the opening scene of the film. We are a group of 19 or 20. Most of us know the movie. I don't. It is late evening. Dusk. We are in a beautiful spot. Earlier, Kate and I tried to decide where to place the hammock. The scene is some really powerful speech. During the thing, I lay on the ground. Someone is talking. I miss the words in the speech. The talking ruined the speech. Later in the film, there is a little spaceship. The little spaceship is in a descent. It smashes the ground. Little dudes get out via ejection. They fly into a ravine. It is explained that they died really violent deaths. CL explains this as a desire to canonize and martyrize them. This wouldn't, naturally, be as effective if they survived for a time, were happy again, maybe even successful at fixing their little ship and escapping. At the end of the explanation, the movie is stopped. I comment that I would like to see it again sometime. A feller throws us all Snickers candies. For some reason, we're all really close. I really love all these people.

Notes of Race to the Top Program

Part of American Recovery/Reinvestment Act of 2009 (referred to as the State Incentive Grant Fund).
$4.3 Billion for competitive grants to states
4 "Assurance" areas:
-Implementing standards/assessments
-Improving teacher effectiveness and achieving equity in teacher distribution
-Improving collection of and use of data
-Supporting struggling schools
50% of funding must go to LEAs
Priorities
-Absolute Priority-comprehensive approach to the 4 areas aforementioned
-Proposed Priority-emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)
-Invitational Priority-expansion and adaptation of statewide longitudinal data systems
-Invitational Priority-coordination and vertical alignment
-Invitational Priority-school level conditions for reform and innovation
There cannot be barriers linking student achievement to teacher effectiveness
Provide alternative certification path (including "Significantly limit the amount of coursework required or have options to test-out courses;)
Compensating and promoting (809)
Effective teacher-means a teacher whose students achieve acceptable rates (say at least one grade level growth in one academic year) of student growth

Find America COMPETES Act

Dream 9/3/2009

Listening to De Contrabando by Jenni Rivera. I am with Raquel Welch, hereafter RW. My friend Justin is with me and RW. We are fighting ghostly horsed warriors.

We three board a plane. The plane has had it's head cut off. That is to say, it is a drop-top. It is short and stubby. The plane flies to the battlefield. We land on a cliff. The ass of the plane is hanging off.

In the plane and on the battlefield we conduct battle with the Mother Ship, hereafter MS. We defeat the MS.