Teaching Someone to Write

Recently I was asked if I would be interested in tutoring a student who is having difficulty writing college essays.  Since I have not yet met the student, I am not breaching any confidentiality by writing this piece.  My mind immediately began working on the possible reasons for a student to have difficulty writing essays.

First, there might be difficulty with basic mechanics.  Students do actually graduate from high school still unable to construct a complete sentence and with no concept of varying sentence structure to make their writing more interesting.  Through the miracle of spell and grammar check, some of these problems can be found and corrected, but these checks are not perfect.  Some understanding of the basics is still required.  Having recently encountered multiple English teachers who do not know how to identify a direct object, it does not surprise me that the students they produce have difficulty.

Second, a well-written essay should have some structure and logic.  When I home-schooled my son, I would say, “Nail your argument to the wall!”  In other words, prove your premise with enough supporting statements that the reader can logically follow along with your thinking.  I have sometimes said that if I ever taught any subject in a classroom again, I would be tempted to begin with a lesson or two on logic which seems to be sorely lacking in our society.

There is, however, another possibility.  The student may need to “psyche out” the teacher in order to receive a decent grade.  I took a creative writing course while in college and spent the first half of the course totally frustrated at my inability to get an A.  Eventually, I started thinking about the teacher’s personality and the way in which she presented material.  She wasn’t into hard edged logic.  She was a soggy sentimentalist.  I decided for my next assignment I would write syrupy drivel, although it nearly gagged me to do so.  When the paper came back, there was my A, along with the comment, “What happened?  You have finally become a writer!”  I groaned inwardly, “Oh, no!  Is this what I have to do to get a good grade?”

So, at this point, I don’t even know if I will be tutoring this particular student, but maybe this analysis will be helpful to someone.

Suicidal Thoughts

The news this week is full of the fact that Robin Williams committed suicide.  Discussion centers on how someone who brought so much joy and made so many smile could be in such despair himself, that he would take his own life.  Anyone with suicidal thoughts is urged to reach out for help.

I have had suicidal thoughts during two eras of my life.  On both occasions, I decided that if I could prevent myself from trying to figure out how I would do it, then I wouldn’t do it.  I consciously rejected making a plan.

As a teenager, I struggled with despair that was more intellectual than emotional.  My increasing ability to understand the world and its potential for evil and tendency toward futility caused me to wonder why anyone bothered to put up with life.  It was my personal belief in a God who could and did give meaning to existence that caused me to reject the notion of suicide.  I could see that life could be without purpose and significance, but that it didn’t have to be.  I exercised faith that God had a plan for me, and that He would guide me into a life which conformed to His greater plan.  I believed that if I daily prayed and sought for His will, He would make my life fit into the big picture which He could see even though I could not.

Decades passed with no thoughts about ending my life.  But in 2000-2001, I had an experience which rocked me to the core.  People who I had totally trusted and believed to have my best interests at heart chose to believe a gossip version of some of my words and actions.  This was especially devastating, because it happened in a church setting…..a place I had attended for over 30 years.  This time the belief that my life had purpose and meaning didn’t work, because the whole point of the accusations was that, in the view of my “friends,” I had not been fitting into God’s plan…I had been “destructive” and hurtful.  Incidents going back decades were dredged up in altered form.  I didn’t recognize my own life.  I certainly didn’t like the person they were describing.  They gave me no way of making any of my supposed “misdeeds” right.  They would not tell me who my accusers were.  None of this was in keeping with biblical principles or the policy of our denomination.   Further details of all of this aren’t important.  The crucial point is that I found suicidal thoughts floating through my mind during sleepless nights and days of turmoil. 

In a way, my faith played into such thoughts this time.  I trusted God.  He knew my heart.  He knew the intentions with which I had lived my life.  I was not afraid to face Him.  It was everyone else I really didn’t want to be around anymore.  My friends were inflicting pain.  I was sure God was merciful and would welcome me home.

But…..

I could not hurt my husband and my son by leaving them.  They were both never-endingly loving and supportive through those horrible days.  Suicide would have been cruel to them.  Neither of them ever gave any indication of believing the accusations against me.  They lived with me and knew my heart.  As even some family members turned on me, I came to feel they were the only two men in the world worthy of my trust.

Years have passed and as it turned out, God did have a plan.  After months of agony, I came out of the dark valley.  My husband and I found a new church.  I found a challenging job.  I made new friends.  The passage of time gave perspective to some of my old friends.  The hand of God was underneath me all along, and I was bound to life with the steel cable of love from my husband and son.

I grieve for those who have no faith in a loving God. 

I grieve for those who do not have family ties.

I grieve for those so blinded by despair that they forget God’s plan and the love of their family.   

I grieve for the family whose loved one temporarily forgets their love and carries out the irretrievable act leaving them to feel the pain of unnecessary loss.

It is interesting to ponder that at this exact moment in time some in the world struggle to survive, while others look for a way to die.

Fired!

I would not be writing this particular blog, if I was worried about an employer seeing it.  But, I am an old lady who is retired and only working part-time for the fun of it, sooooooo…..

In the late 60s, I was in my senior year in college and paying my own way by working about 16 hours a week as a registered nurse at a local medical clinic.  It was a unique practice with a surgeon, internist, and obstetrician/gynecologist all seeing general medical patients and referring to each other as needed.  I worked two evenings per week and on Saturday ….almost always with one other nurse.  We might have one or two doctors to keep up with during a given time period.  We did all sorts of lab work right there, took X-rays and EKGs, helped put on casts and had many other nursing duties.

As the academic year was drawing to a close, and I was soon to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree, I resigned from this position.  I also had a wedding to plan, so my life was pretty full at that point.  However, I received a call from the person who hired the clinic nurses and coordinated their hours.  Although I had given plenty of notice, they had not been able to replace me in time.  She pleaded with me to work just one more Saturday, and I agreed.

The other nurse that Saturday had graduated one year after me from the same nursing school that I had, and we knew each other pretty well at that point.  We prepared for the day, but Dr. N who was the surgeon in the group and the only physician assigned that day, had not yet arrived, so we went into the employee lounge at the back of the clinic.  A window in that room gave us a view of the parking lot, and we saw Dr. N, who had a reputation for having a very short fuse, emerge from his car red-faced and scowling.  One of us commented that it wasn’t looking like it would be an easy day with him.

I had never had an incident with him before and felt I had always behaved professionally when working with him.  This included the time he came out of a patient’s room looking a bit dazed and said, “I think I am in atrial fibrillation.”  He turned to go to the next patient, but I went into I-am-the-nurse-and-I-am-in-charge mode.  I sat him down, checked his pulse and blood pressure, and then called the other doctor who was there that day.  I was relieved that it happened to be the internist.  The internist gave him medication and called Dr. N’s wife to take him home and make him rest.  Other than that, I had never challenged him, and that challenge had seemed the right thing to do.

On this Saturday, Dr. N strode in and went into the first patient’s room.  We waited in the nurses’ station for him to come out with instructions, but that is not what happened.  The clinic had just been renovated, including installation of a new intercom system.  The last time either Alice or I had worked, it had not been operational.  Neither of us knew that it was now ready for use.  Neither of us had been given any instructions regarding its use. His voice hollering “Nurse” boomed out of the box, which was loaded with buttons and switches, and we were clueless as to how to work the thing.  He was clearly upset and there was no time to be fiddling around, so we raced down the hall to the room he was in.

By this time, Dr. N was in the hall in a rage, because we had not answered him on the intercom.  After he had thoroughly ripped into us regarding our incompetence, and Alice looked like a deer caught in the headlights, I calmly (or at least, I remember it as calmly) said, “Dr. N, I don’t think you should be treating us this way.  Neither Alice nor I have been instructed how to use the new intercom, and we didn’t even know it was ready to be used.”

“You are nothing but a smart-mouth,” he roared.  “Get out of here!  You’re fired!”

I suppose it totally supported his contention that I was a smart mouth, but I returned, “Actually, I don’t think you can fire me.  I quit a week ago.  I only came in to be helpful today, since I was told you were short-staffed.”

I then turned and walked away, went to the nurses’ station and collected my purse, said ‘good-bye’ to the receptionist, and started out the employee exit at the back of the building.  On my way out, Dr. N was in the mechanical room fooling around with something.  I’m pretty sure this was a pretext for accidentally seeing me as I left.  He apologized and asked me to stay….which I did.  I choked back tears most of the day, but I did my best not to let him or any patients see it.

That was the only time in my life I was fired.  It is also the only time I was rehired in less than 10 minutes.  Roller-coaster ride!

Walking Out Alone

Clean gleaming floors stretch before me,

Corridors leading to elevators,

Which lead to more corridors.

I walk alone toward an exit.

I have walked out of this hospital

And left my mother as a patient,

My father, my mother-in-law,

And most recently my father-in-law.

Each in their turn,

I have left behind in a bed,

As a patient in this hospital,

And I have walked out alone.

But this time is different,

Painfully, achingly different.

My husband is in the bed.

The love of my life is the patient.

We did not anticipate this event,

He eats healthy, he exercises,

He is still a runner.

The last person you would expect.

I cannot wrap my head around it,

The slurred speech, the drooping mouth

The symptoms don’t compute,

It can’t be happening.

But this is the reality,

He has had a stroke,

I walk toward the exit alone.

More alone than ever before.

I feel his mortality,

I feel my mortality,

I am walking in a dream.

And I am by myself.

Weeks pass and he is better,

The stroke was minor,

The residual is minimal,

A haunting melancholy remains.

A flashback of walking out alone.

Productivity Lost

Before the age of television, computers and video games, people had to find a way to spend their free time without such entertainment.  Even in the age of radio only, a person’s hands were free to work at something.  Of course, one could read, but suppose a woman wanted to fill her evenings in some quiet activity other than that.  Women in the pre-electronic era busied their hands with knitting, crocheting, tatting, and quilting.  Eventually they actually had a tangible product…something to show for even their “down time.”

Today we have many modern conveniences to give us more free time.  Automatic washers, dryers, dishwashing machines, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens and other marvels reduce the time spent in tedious drudgery.  But, we have less to show for our free time.  No product results from an evening of television watching or web-surfing or online gaming or X-boxing.  These activities so absorb our focus that we don’t even think of them as wasted hours with no tangible outcome.

I have been thinking about this recently, because we are cleaning out my in-laws home.  In a box under a bed upstairs, we found four hand-pieced quilt tops.  My mother-in-law did not do this type of work, so we are fairly certain that they came from her mother.  It is mind-boggling to look at all of the tiny handmade stitches that went into their construction.  Various family members have expressed interest in these works of an ancestor’s hands.

So, I am wondering, what will members of the present generation have to pass on to their descendants?

Hecuba by Euripides

Hecuba is the widow of King Priam, who was killed by the Trojans.  She has become a slave to the conquerors, although she was previously a queen.  At the outset of the play, she believes that although some of her children were killed in the Trojan War, she still has 3 living children:  Cassandra, who is revered as a prophetess has become the wife of Agamemnon (the conquering Trojan king), Polyxena, who is with her mother in slavery, and a son Polydore, who was sent to live with the neighboring king of Thrace in order to escape the Trojans.

Odysseus arrives with the message that the Trojans are seeking to honor their hero Achilles by sacrificing Polyxena on his grave.  Hecuba begs Odysseus to spare her daughter, reminding him that she once spared his life.  He argues that the dead must be honored, and the sacrifice must occur.  Polyxena bravely accepts her fate and goes off with Odysseus.  

Hecuba begs for, and is granted, the privilege of preparing her daughter’s body for burial.

However, she is delayed from this task by the arrival of a young maiden accompanying a covered corpse.  Hecuba thinks it must be Polyxena, but learns, to her horror, that it is her son Polydore, who she thought to be safe in Thrace.  It turns out the Polydore was sent to Thrace with a large amount of gold, and the King of Thrace, Polymestor, decides the gold is worth more than keeping his promise to protect Polydore.  He has killed Polydore and thrown his body into the sea.  It washed up on the shore and was found by the young maiden who is bringing it to Hecuba.

Agamemnon arrives to inquire what is keeping Hecuba.  She convinces him to look the other way while she seeks revenge on Polymestor.  Agamemnon doesn’t see how a woman can do this, but of course, there is strength in numbers, and Hecuba enlists the help of the other captive women.

Polymestor and his sons are invited to visit Hecuba.  She inquires about Polydore’s well-being, and Polymestor lies and says he is well.  Hecuba claims that she wants to inform him about the whereabouts of additional gold, so he goes with her into a tent without his guards.  There his sons are killed and he is blinded by the captive women.

Polymestor appeals to Agamemnon, but it doesn’t get him anywhere.  Then he prophesies the death of Agamemnon and Cassandra.  Agamemnon thinks he is a raving maniac and doesn’t believe the prediction.  The play closes with Agamemnon anxious to catch the favorable wind and sail for home, where unbeknownst to him his wife Clytemnestra will indeed kill him for several reasons….one of which is that he has brought the lovely Cassandra home to replace her.

While Polyxena is praised for the bravery with which she faces death, Euripides once again displays negative attitudes toward women.

*Agamemnon inquires, “How are women to master men?” 

Hecuba responds, “Numbers are a fearful thing and joined to craft a desperate foe.”

Agamemnon:  “True; still I have a mean opinion of the female race”

*Polymestor commenting on women:  “for neither land or sea produces a race so pestilent, as whomsoever hath had to do with them knows full well.”

Other interesting quotes:

“’Tis never right that those in power should use it out of season, or when prosperous suppose they will be always so.”  (Hecuba)

“Ah!  There is not in the world a single man free; for he is either a slave to money or to fortune, or else the people in their thousands or the fear of public prosecution prevents him from following the dictates of his heart.”  (Hecuba)

“’Tis strange how each extreme doth meet in human life!  Custom determines even our natural ties, making the most bitter foes friends, and regarding as foes those who formerly were friends.”  (the Chorus)

“For the gods confound our fortunes, tossing them to and fro, and introduce confusion, that our perplexity may make us worship them.”  (Polymestor)

As I’ve said previously, I don’t have any use for the Greek gods!  They are morally no different than humans…they just live forever, supposedly.

Two Young Women

I sat in a doctor’s office today thinking about the contrast between two young women who were in the waiting room with us.

One was propped up in an adult stroller.  Her arms and legs were in abnormal positions and appeared to be permanently distorted. Her hands were semi-closed and claw-like.  Drool was running from the corner of her mouth.  She was accompanied by two care-givers who did everything they could to comfort and quiet her.  Initially, she just grunted and moaned as though she was either in pain or having difficulty breathing.  Eventually the sounds escalated to anguished wails which filled the waiting room.  One of her care-givers took her outside.  The day was sunny and warm and being outdoors seemed to relax her, but as soon as she re-entered the waiting room, the cries began again.

The other woman was able-bodied and appeared to be the mother of two children she had in tow.  She paid minimal attention to them, occasionally interrupting her love affair with her electronic device to reprimand them.  Most of the time was spent either texting or talking on the cell phone.  The empty-headed conversation to which we were “treated” was about some guy who had said something about some girl on Facebook, and how she had responded. Maybe those of us over-hearing it were supposed to think she was clever.  It didn’t work on me.  Not only was it none of our business, but we had NO desire for it to be our business.  Listening to this meaningless blathering was worse than listening to the wails.

My heart went out to the first woman.  I wanted to stroke her arm or hug her, but comfort was probably more acceptable coming from a known caregiver than from a stranger, so I thought better of it.

I wanted to smack the second woman upside the head….but I thought better of that too.