Fort Worth Blogs

Lately we’ve been on a passage to India around here almost every night — Bollywood India. I wrote about it before — see the reviews of Om Shanti Om, Eklavya, and Jodhaa Ackbar. Now most recently we have watched Veer-Zaara (2004) the story of a star-crossed love between an Indian pilot and the daughter of a Pakastani politician.

The usual Bollywood elements — beautiful scenery, exotic characters, plot-driven narrative, song and dance numbers — are all present. What makes this film most unusual is its utter unpredictability. You really don’t know what is going to happen next. And you do care, because the characters somehow, despite their initially stock nature, do seem more human than the usual. The framing of the story from 22 years later, after one character’s life has been, it would seem, utterly destroyed only adds to the suspense, as does an included courtroom drama involving an ethical woman lawyer and a member of the “old boy” network of India.

Also typically Bollywood in its length — about three hours — the star of the film is Shahruk Khan, Indian movie star and billionaire film producer known for posing with his shirt off in tight jeans as well as for portraying romantic heroes for whom no suffering is too great.

Bollywood seems flooded with love stories, seemingly doomed love stories between Muslims and Hindus, rich and poor, people whose families hate each other, people who were already promised, by their parents, to someone they hardly know — the plot possibilities are endless, especially when you throw in the Hindu belief in reincarnation. But I can’t remember any such movie we’ve watched — we must have seen more than a dozen now — with more surprises than this one.  And it’s the surprises, somehow, and the characters, that make movies worth watching.  So hats off to Indian film for providing these dramas that last longer than American films, believe in more than American films, and aren’t afraid to layer on the glamour and pathos — sometimes you need a little bit of that. Viva Bollywood! Here’s the trailer — only in Hindi, sorry, couldn’t find an English version. The movie itself, of course, is subtitled.

Well, I asked my grandmother for a topic and I got one: what am I doing to prepare for med school? This should be easy, since the topic fills my brain, either on a front or a back burner, a lot of the time.

So, what am I doing?

1. Treating my transcript like a “sacred shrine of gold.”

My mother’s words, not mine. This means paying what can seem like way too much attention to my classes, and, by extension, to my grades. It means paying attention and staying organized. It means getting things done before they have to be done – that’s new this semester. It means going to class, analyzing what I’m doing right or wrong, and preparing for exams as thoroughly as possible. But, above all, it means giving my classes the highest conceivable priority. If it’s important for school, I take care of it. Work, social activities, goofing off, hobbies, or things lower down on this list will just have to wait. Years, possibly, maybe more than a decade. I can take it.

Thanks to jesuscm at Flickr Creative Commons

2. Planning ahead…way ahead.

I have been doing this for a long time, but recently I sat down with my adviser and made a plan, from now until fall 2012, when I will hopefully begin med school. We made a chart of when I will take all my important classes and what I will do in each  summer. We chose an MCAT test date over a year in the future, carefully early enough and late enough, so that I will have the information I need but also have time to take it again. I have been attempting this kind of planning for a long time, always thinking ahead  to “what’s next?”

3. Volunteering:

This is one aspect I truly enjoy. In high school, community service was done “because I have to.” Now, it’s not mandatory, and perhaps for that reason, I get a great deal out of it. The main things I have done so far are being involved in TCU Leaps and, very recently, volunteering at Cook Children’s. My plan is to continue both, and hopefully get more involved in the summer.

4. Getting experience talking with and observing actual doctors

I have done and plan to do this mostly in two ways, both through the Health Professions group at TCU. Firstly, going to meetings where doctors come to speak about their specialty and other aspects of their profession; also, “shadowing,” where an interested student follows a doctor around their place of work to get an idea of the day to day aspect of that specialty, and the health field in general. I have done this once, in 2008; I actually shadowed a nurse practitioner and a registered nurse at a children’s hospital in Austin. I plan to do more next semester.

5. Staying involved in health-related opportunities in the community

Slightly different from straight community service, this is also something I enjoy a lot. Fulfilling this goal could encompass going to meetings and presentations about health fields, such as this fall, when I attended the 2009 Synergy Infant Mortality Forum, which concerned the high infant mortality rate in Tarrant County. It could also be getting involved in organizations I am a part of in a health-related way; for example, I just completed training to be a Hospital Minister for my church, and soon will start visiting patients in a nearby hospital as a representative of my parish.

Also, I follow health-related news on a regular basis.

6. The nitty gritty.

This is basically bookkeeping, tying up ends and making sure things go smoothly for the above to work. This includes some crucial tasks, such as:

-Getting enough sleep every night. It may seem absurd as I am a college student, but I get to bed regularly before 10pm and wake before 7am. This allows me to actually be conscious most of the day, and to get to school early.

-Making sure I have enough money. I have worked during school when possible, and over breaks similarly. Last summer I worked, and while I have not done so this semester as it just wasn’t going to jive with number 1 above, I will start working again this winter break, likely as soon as finals are over. Also, this fall I made the decision to live at home, taking into account financial realities: by saving money on housing, I can take classes in the summer.

-Staying stable: This is paramount. Getting enough sleep, eating enough, trying to exercise somewhat regularly, and so on, are important to all of the above. Keeping up connections with supporting friends and family is very helpful in this regard, also.

In closing, I would like to make two points. First, doing well in my classes is important for many reasons, too many to count. The “sacred shrine of gold” concept is fairly tongue in cheek. The first thing on the list is simply making “preparing for the next step” a priority in general. Secondly, for the most part I do the things above because I like to, not because it “fits the bill.” To be sure, I love my classes, and when I look at the requirements for my plan, I see classes I am excited to take, that I would probably choose out of interest anyways. Volunteering is something else I just really enjoy; I love being at the hospital, I find it fascinating and fitting, “the place I want to be.” I am hard pressed to come up with something that fits the heading “I am only doing this for my preparations, I wouldn’t do it otherwise, and I don’t like it.” Even things like working or studying in the summer, while difficult decisions to make, jive fairly well with my inclinations.

So, that’s it. Hopefully I haven’t bored anyone to tears. My grandmother suggested the topic. I hope this fits your idea, GA!

I have been considering a question lately: is the road to success paved with working on what you love?

Some seem to believe that you should only do what you like – implying that  it is done to the exclusion of things you don’t like to do. In the abstract, this sounds about right – who would spend hoards of time doing something they hate? One argument is that anyone who has been forced to work out of some necessity will likely scoff, as necessity is the mother of the unpleasant.

However, if the work is to be tenable in the long run, it must be relatively pleasant, lest it become the bane of one’s existence – a situation that I could relate to, a situation that could hardly be defined as success in any way.

However, let us point out, success is NOT “doing your dream job.” There are not enough dream jobs in the world for that to work. For example, take writers. There are mountains of people who would love to write for a living, yet every major city generally only has one newspaper; every state only so many magazines. Only so many books can be printed as people will only demand so much. Thus, those who wish to write for a living are generally foiled. Some succeed; most don’t. Or take poets. Is it humanly possible to make a good living writing poetry? How about writing music? Even these pursuits must encompass some of the tedious, the belabored, the demeaning. And even those who find more ordinary jobs and manage to love them – can they really love every minute? If they don’t, are they a failure?

I wrote this post because I feel there is sometimes resentment against pre-med or Med, I suppose) students. We are seen as the opposite of those doing only what we love, instead we are sometimes seen as competitive raptors, chasing a high salary and relatively high social standing, those gods of men. We are narrow-minded, greedy even. We somehow choke down all the information we must know to proceed, all for a one-way path to financial success. However, there are other ways to financial success, ways that probably don’t require the entire decade spanning your 20′s to fulfill. It’s true, without having some toleration for the material and the work, one might be doomed. without aptitude for it, certainly. The chances of someone who loathes all things medical, biological, chemical, and statistical making it out of their residency at the usual age of about 30 are pretty slim. They might even be pitied, as their life, one of disliking their work, will not be success. On the other hand, one who loves those studies will likely still find they embark on unpleasant activities all the time.

Our decision to go down that path is multifaceted, bound up in interest for work itself, perhaps feeling a penchant for it based on experience. Yes, we know the other benefits, but that is not all we are after. For we pre-meds have a job in mind, one that we want, and one that we are pretty sure we’ll enjoy. We want to be doctors, and we do what we must to get there.

I’ve now completed three and a half weeks at my new school. Since I am now in a self-contained 2nd grade, I have to prepare instruction in all the subjects — and there are six, readng, spelling, writing, science, math and social studies — every day. We have team planning so I don’t have to write up the lesson plans, but I do have to interpret the other teacher’s plans for my students. And then do all the grading.

This is a demanding list of duties, but luckily I have a comrade in arms in my classroom all day every day — a Promethian board. This board is a touch sensitive computer screen about 6 x 4 feet in size — and is my blackboard. Every evening, I write out page after page of “flipcharts” which are the individual screens you can show on the computer.  There’s  one for procedure when students first come in, one introducing the message and words of the day, one reiterating our rules and another about who will go into what independent work center. There will probably be a chart or two I’ve cooked up for science or social studies. The longest one-day flipchart I’ve made so far was 17 pages.  Each night I go home, with the laptop that goes with the board (which because of it’s size stays at the school) and write up the next day’s directions and diagrams.

Some teachers don’t take the laptop home. The idea is that if the laptop won’t go back into the “docking station” or place where you attach it into the Promethian board, you’d be in trouble. So, what am I going to do if that happens?

Not sure. My general attitude right now is if I can’t access my flipcharts I am so dead. I do have an overhead and the math and writing and reading are still done on paper at the indivudual students’ desks. But in modern education theory, planning is everything, and if planning is everything the Promethian is huge. It makes planning communicable to students in a way never before possible. I didn’t have one at my earlier school, but I can’t imagine doing without it now.

Without the board, I’d feel like a bird with clipped wings.  Because at least for today, my instructional method is all Promethian, all the time.

Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, Dallas, Oct. 23, 25, 28, 31, Nov. 5 & 8, 2009

Review by Dean Cassella

Well, this HAD to be good, and good it was!  The event in question was not only the commencement of a new Dallas Opera season, but the premiere of the company’s new venue: the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House (see below).

The cast of this new production of Verdi’s Otello (based on the Shakespeare’s play of jealousy and revenge) is perhaps the closest I have ever seen to being perfect.  Dramatic tenor Clifton Forbis, who sings the title role, has a voice that is phenomenally rich and penetrating.  One can dream of hearing him sing Tristan, which has done with distinction in Paris and Chicago.

Baritone Lado Ataneli, a native of Georgia (the country, that is!), in the role of the scheming materialist/agnostic Iago, was the perfect lower register match for Forbis, and their duet at the end of Act II (‘Si, pel cielo marmoreo giuro’) falls short of being described as a “match made in heaven” only because of the subject matter.

Otello is very much a ‘guy’ thing, as it deals heavily with masculine responses to jealousy and ambition.  Consequently, there are only two female roles in the work, and the prima donna part, that of Desdemona, the ill-fated wife of Otello, does not really come into its own until Act III.  There, Montreal native soprano Alexandra Deshorties sang beautifully, although on a few occasions her resonant voice was in danger of being drowned out by the orchestra.  Her duets with Forbis were as well-matched as were Forbis’ and Ataneli’s.

All supporting cast members, most notably tenor Sean Pannikar in the role of Cassio, were outstanding, and no doubt deliver fine performances in heavier roles elsewhere.

Conductor Graeme Jenkins was in generally superb form, and gave the distinct impression of enjoying the sound of ‘his’ new theater—perhaps a little too zealously, at times (heaven forbid that we have been harboring a repressed Herbert von Karajan all this time!!).

The sets, designed by Brit Anthony Baker, update the story from fifteenth-century Cyprus to Verdi’s own nineteenth century.  This is vaguely reminiscent of a similar updating of Wagner’s maritime opera Die Fliegende Holländer by Harry Kupfer at Bayreuth in the early 1980’s (and available on DVD).  The stark, concrete and iron sets are also reminiscent of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, done by FW Opera last season.  (N.B. a new Heggie work, Moby Dick, will be premiered later in the Dallas Opera season)

With the Winspear, Opera House, located in the AT&T Performing Arts Center in the Arts District of Dallas (directly across from the Meyerson Symphony Hall), the Dallas Opera has ended over six decades of wandering in the desert (i.e. Fair Park Music Hall), and at last has come to the promised land.  As most of my readers are aware, there has always been a sense of competitiveness between Dallas and Fort Worth.  One area of pride for aesthetically sensitive Fort Worthians has been in the fine arts.  For those of us who patronize both the Fort Worth Opera and the Dallas Opera there could be no doubt that, although the former is a smaller company, there could be no comparison in regard to venues: Bass Performance Hall is a real opera house, while Fair Park Music Hall is a bloated monstrosity, best left to heavily amplified fare.

The new Dallas house now changes that dynamic, and does so in very interesting ways.  The Winspear almost seems to function as an alter ego of Bass Hall in a manner completely in keeping with the two cities’ contrasting outlooks.  Bass Hall, for example, is predominantly white, inside and out, and has a decidedly retro art-deco look.  The Winspear, by contrast, is decidedly post-modern (or post post-modern, if you will).  At night, the predominant colors are deep red and black, and the interior of the hall is very dark indeed.

And whereas the ceiling of Bass Hall sports a fresco of the daytime sky, the Winspear’s ceiling has a chandelier that, when retracted, looks like evening stars.

According to chief architect, Spencer de Grey, the transparency of the building is an attempt to break down the intimidation factor with potential new audience members.  The idea is to make opera more accessible to a wider audience.  I am not convinced that they are successful in this, because even I, a veteran culture snob, found the building to be a little intimidating upon first entering.  And although I am happy to see the giant-sized candy bars and skittles left behind at the Fair Park concession vendors, their replacements: comparatively rarified snacks such as chocolate covered strawberries, etc., only serve to up the ante in the feel of exclusivity.

In regard to acoustics, the Winspear has some of the finest I have ever heard.  During the opening ceremonies, Don Winspear asked the members of the audience whether they had ever heard opera at Fair Park.  In response to the giggles, the orchestra played a very quiet rendition of the opening bars of the Prelude to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger.  This was followed shortly thereafter by an open-throttle replay that, should the theater have been open-air, would have felled birds unfortunate enough to be flying overhead.  I don’t think that I have ever heard an orchestra located under the stage produce such well-rounded volume.  No doubt, this will keep those fortunate enough to sing at the Winspear on their toes!  By the way, the acoustics at the Winspear cry out desperately for WAGNER!!!!  It is definitely the time for the company to strut its stuff with a new production of the Ring cycle and perhaps (hint, hint. . .) the triumphant return of Clifton Forbis as Tristan.

Why haven’t I written more about teaching in the last month or so? Well, as one of my colleagues in the alternative certification program said last week, “I work 24 hours a day.” I remember when they told me I would be working nights and weekends trying to keep up with lesson planning and administratative requirements, and I thought, “that may be true for some new teachers, but I work faster than most people so it won’t be me.”

Me. It is me, and that’s the reason for the silence over the blog lines. And then there’s a second reason for not saying so much. That is that so much of what occurs during the day when you’re a teacher is protected by confidentiality requirements.  You don’t want to tell anybody’s name if you’re blogging about school, or any other identifying details. I write a lot of about the process of learning to teach — I think I’m learning to teach, at least — but it’s all in a paper notebook, where no one can see it. I feel safe writing there. Here, I have to be more careful.

I thought I might try saying things about my subjects, writing and science, in upcoming weeks, and how I am teaching them. The curriculum that we use has changed this year, apparently, and I’m rather pleased to see the way we do things is, surprise surprise, pretty close to the way I would do things if I had designed it myself. We do something called Writing Workshop and Science Journals.

But writing about these things will demand that I start to wake up earlier. I’ve decided to go to bed at ten so I can get up and write at 5. I set my alarm. But getting up is not effortless like it used to be. This morning, I was deep in a dream of some long forgotten love song when the alarm beeped its way into my consciousness.  I had an awful moment of really really not knowing where I was — in the dream, in the song, in life, and what’s more for some reason I was sleeping in the easy chair, not in the bed. This is pretty much how my life goes these days. As I said at the top of this blog, I can barely get out of bed, and when I do, something else happens.

A short list of everyone else’s work is all I can handle these days, with teaching and all, so look for more of these mini-roundups. I will be going down my roll sequentially, so if I haven’t noted your updates yet, and you’re in the bottom half of the blogroll at the bottom of this page, that is why.

ARTS AND LEISURE

Lauren W. Smith has taken a trip to Portland and reports on their municipal gardens. What concerns me most: they have a Chinese garden and we do not. This could be corrected, City of Fort Worth … Eleiva at Chronotopia has opened up the discussion of the most-effective topic for a university literature survey course – are the new, modern cross-cultural and non-canonical courses as good as traditional, one-author or region/time courses, such as “U.S. Literature after the Civil War,” my own introduction to the adult study of English? She notes that the nefarious Stanley Fish weighed in in an essay for the New York Times a couple weeks back …

NEWS

In case you missed it, Eve-Marie has this story with links at the Extra Credit blog: Arlington schools refused to show the president’s address to school children, instead bussing them to an event to see former president Bush …

FOOD

Francis visited Sukhothai in Arlington and enjoyed the food and the BYOB aspect, among other things …  and Fort Worth Hole in the Wall visited Chef Love at the Love Shack hamburger stand. This is the third blogged review I’ve noted for the Love Shack this summer (actually, fourth because Francis went there too) so this place must really be good. Guess I should check it out.

In the past few weeks, a very exciting thing happened nearby: new playground equipment was installed at Kellis Park, near the junction of Trail Lake and Granbury, which is just down the street from Foster Park, known around here as “The Duck Pond” since, well, it has a pond with ducks in it. Here is a map:

I have noticed an increase in the number of kids playing there since the new eqiupment was installed - and we have been there quite a few times ourselves. I am very happy the city is working to improve our parks in this way (down the street at Foster Park they are planting new trees and redoing the sidewalks and bridges over the creek)

Ang trys out the new structure

New swings were part of the improvements

 

After a long day of teaching, when I feel like, as we say in this house, “Anywhere but here” a good Indian movie is just the thing. We have recently gone through not just “Jodhaa Akbar” and “Eklahva” which I reviewed, but “Jai Santoshi Ma” and “Ashoka” and finally, most recently, “Om Shanti Om.” The last two star Shahrukh Khan — an Indian actor and producer whose top-dog status in Bollywood led to him being named one of Newsweek’s 50 most powerful people in the world in the world in 2009.

Why our current fixation on Bollywood? There are a number of reasons. First of all, we enjoy the multicultural experience. Anything procuded in Bollywood is bound to involve something new and different. Then, there’s the length of these movies. At three hours long, average, a Bollywood movie can last us, who watch for a half hour or hour before bed, for days, prolonging the reflection and discussions you can get from viewing with your spouse. Then, there’s the interesting family and spiritual storylines of Indian film — in this cosmology, mothers and mother in laws really are conniving and try to control children and wreck marriages, and religion and God or gods are part of the action — there is reincarnation, goddesses coming down from heaven, karma, dharma, all kinds of interesting things. Perhaps most unexpectedly, we have begun to enjoy the trademark musical numbers, long, drawn out song and dance routines reminicient of 50′s era Hollywood musicals. Over all, it adds up to a very amusing package. 

A teacher setting up the classroom

I have now completed two weeks of school, and it has been a busy time. I met my students and wrote my first lesson plans. The scariest was probably worrying about meet-the-teacher night.

Why would meet-the-teacher night be so scary? Perhaps because it was my first real confrontation with the “responsibility” aspect of teaching. As one of my colleagues put it, “if the classroom instruction and administrative work doesn’t exhaust you, there’s always the weight of having a kid’s life in your hands.”  Meet-the-teacher night made me ask: was I qualified to take these children and teach them?

What if — God forbid — I didn’t do it quite right?

Our teacher training program has emphasized that beginning teachers need to develop effectiveness over several years before they reach their real potential. Were my students perhaps getting a less-high-quality experience because they have me, a new teacher, rather than someone who’s done this before? Oh, the anxiety! But the new teacher does have several tools to use, including:

1. Beginner’s enthusiasm and energy ,

2. Extra-effort,

3. Self-reflection and self-correction, and

4. Support and encouragement of other teachers, both old and new.

So: I talked to my colleagues in the teacher training program, I got my room as well-decorated as possible before meet-the-teacher night. I prepared a short talk to give the parents, and told them about the school’s attendance policy, the dress policy, and a of couple of general ideas on how to help their kids improve school acheivement (go on family “field trips,” such as to the park, the zoo, or longer journeys, and give them books.) I offered to meet after school with anyone who was concerned about their child’s performance . The parents seemed to accept the message. No one jumped up and questioned whether a new teacher would be okay for their child.

I suppose that in the cosmic scale of things, new teachers must be part of the mix. And they say humility is to know your place, and take it. So — every morning, I get up, I worry a little bit, and I go down to the school. I keep adjusting course whenever I see myself make mistakes. I ask for help. I congratulate myself if I do something right. And I sail onward into the school year, day by day.

Photo vis Flickr Creative Commons, by Editor B