Checklist item #23

I was taking Mollie for a walk the other evening in the Virginia Highlands neighbourhood. We approached a house with a bright red door, lots of wind chimes and interesting lawn art...but that's not what caught my attention. There was a small picnic table out front, and atop it was a tupperware container of what looked like dog kibble. The kibble was being examined by a possum. It sat so still I thought it was a sculpture at first, but then it gave us a look with its beady dark eyes. I was pleased to finally see a live possum, as it is on my checklist of Southern Experiences, right between Civil War reenactment and snake handling. As I examined the scene more carefully, I noticed two marmalade cats sitting contentedly in front of the house. They didn't seem bothered by the possum, and it seemed to feel the same. I wonder if they are friends or if they just tolerate one another -- itself a Southern tradition.

Severe Weather Alert

Atlanta is beside itself because it is snowing. I'm hoping it continues through the night so I can show up to campus tomorrow in my parka and gloat about being Canadian. A number of my students showed up today in flip-flops and I asked if they were trying to be tough. They confessed that they were just too lazy to dress properly. At least they weren't too lazy to come to class and get frostbite on the way.

Jewelry as Activewear

I started taking a pilates class on campus today, and I love my instructor because she wears big dangling earrings while she teaches. I always take my jewelry off when I exercise because private schools and Girl Guides programmed me thus, but she was rocking some green and yellow beaded chandeliers (which, of course, matched her pilates instructor outfit). Maybe I need to get some rhinestone drops to complete my look while doing the 100.

Professional Ethics

Today in class I made my first attempt at learning students' names. My technique is to ask them to tell me their names and give me an interesting fact about themselves. The results are always fascinating. In one class there are multiple trombonists, while another has a high guitarist population. One student disclosed that he has six toes on one foot. I was thrilled to hear about his morphological anomaly. One of my students chimed in: "Dr. Whitney, you know you want to ask him to take his shoe off. I can see you holding yourself back." I admitted that she had read me right, but I explained that I thought it would be too weird for me to demand that a student take his shoe off in class. Another student piped up "But it's not weird if we ask him!" The six-toed student happily obliged, and everyone crowded around to have a look at his extra digit. The student who followed him said "My name is...and I have ten toes."

I shared this anecdote with a colleague who said that his style in the classroom is very formal, and while he thinks my approach is great, the thought of a student taking his shoe off in class is unfathomable for him, as he likes to retain a certain distance from his students. However, he insists that his students address him by his first name. Meanwhile, I am a last-name enthusiast, and everyone in my classes is Mr or Miss/Ms, which is my way of keeping things professional and distinguishing the classroom from the outside world. We all have our ways, but I prefer my approach to professional ethics, where every person has a title, but also feels free to show off their glorious mutations.

Big Blue

I was walking Mollie in the park today and had the opportunity to watch a Blue Heron wading in what's left of Lake Clara Meer. The bird was very bold, not paying us humans-with-cell-phones any mind. It had a methodical way of walking, and I enjoyed watching it place its slender feet, deliberately, in the mud and murk. Mollie waited patiently for me.

Generation Gap

The majority of my students have never seen Blade Runner. This makes me feel like a geezer. I was contemplating not putting it on my syllabus, figuring that today's young science fiction fans would be so over Blade Runner. But now I feel like a missionary, bringing the gospel according to Ridley Scott to the darkest corners of the undergraduate landscape.

Singing Stones

I thoroughly enjoyed my stay the Quality Hotel in Hillsville, Virginia. I took advantage of the small but mighty fitness centre, where I watched The Searchers from the elliptical machine. The room was configured in a strange way, so I had to watch the movie's reflection in the wall of mirrors. It is interesting to watch a film backwards – some wise person suggested that we should watch films upside-down in order to appreciate their abstract beauty.

Earlier that evening I stopped for a pizza in Salem. The toddler at the next table kept turning around to stare at me. Maybe I had ordered something more interesting than his parents did.

Intrigued by the many highway signs promoting Luray Caverns, I decided to stop and experience subterranean Virginia. The main attraction was the organ that plays stalactites – indeed, a "stalacpipe" organ. You can arrange for a live performance if you book the chamber for your wedding (as over 700 couples have done), but for our purposes, the tour guide pressed a button to put it into player-piano mode. It played A Mighty Fortress is Our God. The sound was more delicate than I had expected - like a xylophone, specifically, the metalophone that I remember from grade four music class at Elmwood – it was my favourite and I was always so happy when I got to play it. It made me so smile to think of the organ's inventor crawling around the cave with his mallets and tuning forks, hunting for singing stones.

In the final stretch of tunnel, there was, of all things, a war memorial, listing men from that county who had died in WWI and II, Korea and Vietnam. The tour guide explained that they have this memorial because nearly 500,000 people come through the caves every year, so lots of people will see it. This is an interesting line of reasoning.