TV

For some reason, watching movies seems a daunting task to me. They're too long. I can never finish one. Everyone is always needing to be run somewhere, even late at night, or helped with something.

Also, TV shows are now widely available without commercials on Amazon and Netflix, and we subscribe to both. So, I've done something I figured I would never do and started watching TV shows again.

Ellen is a HUGE fan of Downtown Abbey and got me watching them. I've seen 5 episodes. I liked the first one quite a bit, but they're sort of going downhill for me. I like some of the relationships, like the one between the older women. Maggie Smith is absolutely spectacular. She had a line about foreigners dying in the fourth episode that still has me chuckling whenever I think of it. And I like most of the male characters. But the sisters and mother seem faintly ridiculous. While relationships between many of the characters develop naturally, the sisters' relationships--both with each other and with others outside the family--veer off in wildly unpredictable directions that seem forced and artificial. And I never really like characters who are pure spite and evilness, like those two servants. A little character complexity would be welcome. I'll probably stick with it for a while longer, but may not last.

My favorite show at the moment is Sherlock, also produced by Masterpiece Theatre. It's interesting the BBC has had two huge hits here in the past two years. Sherlock only had 3 episodes its first season but has a bunch scheduled for this season, beginning in May. I'm pumped. It's witty, interesting, complex, and well-paced. I generally like well-plotted murder-mysteries and also like excellent dialogue, and this show does them both very well.

In a BBC mood, I tried the first episode of Dr. Who last night, the 2005 version. It was lots of fun as well. Dr. Who has had a couple of different incarnations on the BBC as I understand it, and is a bit like Star Trek in the sense that many are die-hard fans of the classic version. This 2005-present version apparently has lots of fans as well, and I can see why. It's entertaining, lively, quirky, and has some intriguing characters.

Finally, because book reading has ground to a halt with the busy-ness of the semester, I've decided to try some documentaries. Jazz, by Ken Burns, is great. The story of jazz is the story of America. And Planet Earth, the top-rated TV show of all time, is also pretty mesmerizing, I agree.

Evaluating Teachers

Whenever the question of merit pay for teachers arises, I hear teachers claiming that it is difficult to evaluate their work. I don't agree. To clarify, I think it is generally difficult to evaluate intellectual or creative work, but it is probably no more difficult to judge teaching than any other intangible work. I understand that standardized tests should not be the only measure, but it should be part of the equation.

I think I've read where New York does about 50 percent standardized tests and 50 percent evaluation from the principal. That seems a reasonable formula. Some might argue that principal evaluations are subjective. The way to solve that problem is to have more people involved in the evaluation.

At universities, we rely on committees to evaluate each other's teaching. Why can't secondary and elementary schools do that? The principal would select a committee of five or so of the best teachers and they spend time evaluating the teaching of others as well as the teaching of those on the committee (where the person being evaluated of course does not participate).

In many cases, it's not that difficult to identify better and worse teaching. Let's take my son's English teacher last year and this year. Both taught Shakespeare. The one last year had them listen to a recording. The one this year draws names out of a hat at the first of class and allows those students to choose a part. Each student then reads his/her part with others following along. They stop regularly to discuss what is happening. Then they watch the portion of a film that corresponds to the section they just read. Which technique is superior? That's easy. Moreover, adopting the second technique is EASY. Without merit pay, teachers can be extraordinarily lazy, painfully so. I wonder which teacher enjoys her job more? Wouldn't an evaluation and pay for better teaching make everyone's life easier and not be that difficult to implement?

Generally, I'm an underdog kind of guy, and that should potentially extend to unions. But the more I learn about teaching unions--and that's the only one I know anything about, to be sure--the more dismayed I become. Unions do seem to be the enemy of learning and improvement, to the extent that they oppose evaluations and merit pay.

Winter Adventures: Silver Lake

I definitely have winter adventures, but haven't blogged much about them. Many of them are at night, snowshoeing all over creation. Others are in adverse conditions, making picture-taking difficult. We were soaked to the bone on one memorable adventure up Maple Mountain. Taking pictures was not a good option. But this past Saturday, we had a glorious day AND I remembered my camera. We skied up the road from Tibble Fork Reservoir about 3.5 miles to Silver Lake Flat Reservoir (no water in it) pictured here. We intended to hike to Silver Lake, about 2 miles farther on, at the base of that mountain in the middle of the first photo, White Baldy. The mountain is part of the boundary between American Fork Canyon and Little Cottonwood Canyon.

This next photo is a look back at Timp from Silver Lake Flat.

It was an AMAZING day! I'm not sure the temperature, but I was very warm. Probably around 30 degrees, but we were working hard! Lots of sun. I should have had my hat. I definitely wore sunscreen.

Surrounded by beauty on the way to Silver Lake. I had to turn around to get back to Nathan's basketball game and so didn't make it to the lake. Still, my grand total miles were about 11, with a 1500 foot elevation gain. I did it in four hours flat. Theo came along but didn't hold still long enough to be in any photo.

Heading up to Silver Lake, about the spot where I turned around. It was 3 hours up, 1 hour down. The snow was a couple feet deep up here at 8,000 feet. Not nearly as deep as last year, when this would have been a sink-to-your-waist struggle the whole way. Perfect conditions; no avalanche danger.

Adele and Lin

People I am in love with this week include Adele and Jeremy Lin. I can't really claim to be unique. Everyone seems to be in love with Adele and Lin. But here's the thing: I don't fall in love easily, though the rest of the world seems to. This, for me, is momentous. Loving two celebrities at once is probably unprecedented, in my case.

I'm trying to think of the last time I loved a female vocalist. Maybe never. I suppose maybe Diana Krall and, back when I was in grad school when I first discovered Ella Fitzgerald (whom I still adore). There have been a few others. I certainly like a lot of them and can name a bunch, from pop to jazz. But love? Where I read about them on Wikipedia and can recount what I learn? And track down Youtube videos, and watch one of those videos ("Someone Like You," performed in Adele's home) more than once? Nah. I don't do ANYTHING more than once. Not even stuff I love, like hiking or canyoneering or mountain biking. I'm always looking for a new route. But I've watched "Someone Like You" three times. That's true love.

And Jeremy Lin. He may not endure; I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure Adele will last, both in popular culture and as someone I admire. Lin may be a flash in the pan. I'm not sure. He doesn't look like a passing fad, but it's tough to know. And the last NBA player I loved? Um, probably never. I don't think I would like to meet most of them. Gordon Hayward seems like a decent fellow. Among former Jazz players, Thurl Bailey, John Stockton and Jeff Hornacek would be fine dinner companions, I'm sure. Malone, on the other hand, doesn't seem my type. Chris Paul and Blake Griffin are certainly admirable and fun to watch, as are many others. But making me excited to watch or to feel happy for them? Nah. Only Lin.

So what do Adele and Lin have in common? Both seem immensely talented folks who have been true to self while battling some adversity. Adele was the daughter of a teenage mother who got noticed when songs for a class project were posted to myspace. Lin got turned down at the college level for scholarships and so went to Harvard, hardly the best way to launch a basketball career. They are the quiet, determined underdogs who succeed without ridiculous antics and without playing to stereotypes of female sexuality or male machismo. That's a sure way to my heart.

Nonfiction for Youth

Ellen's adolescent literature class has introduced me to an amazing world of nonfiction literature for youth that I had no idea existed. I had seen nonfiction books written for youth in the library, of course, when helping children with research projects. But they were pretty nondescript: nice summaries of events or people written to reach a youth audience.

The books Ellen is reading are different. They are like the best nonfiction for adults in the sense that the high-quality writing is part of the accomplishment. But they actually exceed adult nonfiction in bringing their subject alive because they employ graphical material in such a superior way. By graphical material I mean photos, illustrations, maps, and layout design. The two most amazing I've seen so far are "Black Potatoes" about the Irish potato famine and "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" about Shackleton's exploration of Antarctica. Even less conventional is Maus, a graphic book (it's nonfiction in the sense that's it's essentially an oral history) of the Holocaust. All three books have blown me away with their writing and use of graphics.

The thing I worry about is why Language Arts teachers in high schools are responsible for teaching nonfiction writing and historical analysis under the new core standards that Utah and others are adopting. I'm not sure English teachers are well-equipped to help students understand these kinds of texts. I would hope that History teachers would start adopting texts like these or that English teachers would collaborate with History teachers in using these texts.

Biking AROUND Mt. Timpanogos

One of the more insane things I did in 2011 was biking all the way around Mt. Timpanogos in late November. It was something like 35 miles and 8,000 feet in total elevation gain. Only the first few miles were on road. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever do it again because, well, there are more fun long rides. It was epic and it was brutal. The photos below are in order. They show the mountain from the road on the way up (east side). We rode around the north side and then all along the west face. We had gorgeous weather and there were still leaves on some of the trees. Then we dropped down the southwest face back to our starting point on the south side, with one last photo of the beastly mountain we had conquered! Now I've been on top of it and around it. I declare victory and quit!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Eternity and Exaltation

My lesson in high priests quorum the week before Christmas was on exaltation. The promises of exaltation have mystified me for some time. D&C 132:19 promises "thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions." As one quorum member observed, it sounds like a lot of work, and as another observed, these rewards are not very motivating. In fact, I had started the lesson asking each quorum member in turn what they valued, before they knew what the lesson was about. No one valued ruling others, which is the essence of the blessings, at first glance. After all, as I suggested, who wants the United States and its headaches, let alone a place like Afghanistan.

We puzzled on this a while. Obviously, countries are not what is promised, but I suppose worlds might be, and those are pretty similar. But as we talked about it, I began to realize, thanks to the comments of others, that this scripture must tie in with D&C 121:41-46. In these verses, we are told that if we live righteously, we will influence others for good. Perhaps the promise of exaltation, then, is that we will live so well that others will want to be like us and will improve their own lives as a result.

This is an amazing blessing! I think of all the times that I make imperfect judgments, that I hurt (or at least fail to lift) others through misplaced words or ill-considered actions, or that I am too slothful or short-sighted to see the needs of others and how to aid them. If I can rid myself of these imperfections and instead influence others for good, without compulsion, just by example, then, yes, this is something that is motivating and worth lots of work.

The scriptures also talk about priesthood power being used to move mountains or rivers. I think mastery of elements must come along with the sort of righteousness necessary to achieve exaltation. Such mastery is also motivational to me, but for more prideful reasons. I just think it would be really cool to manipulate elements to see what is possible.

In the end, all of this ties into the idea that the glory of God is intelligence. Exaltation must therefore be about perfect intelligence: an ability to fully understand people and nature, their makeup and trajectory. As a social scientist keenly aware of our limitations in understanding and predicting human behavior, such a state of affairs does indeed seem heavenly. As a human being who marvels at nature and who takes deep satisfaction from the shape of ice in a stream and the color of a flower, it is doubly awesome. I can really place my hope in such a vision of heaven.

Chilling over the Holidays

Well, this is the first time in a long while that I’ve bought a technological gizmo in its first month or two of release. For Christmas we got two new Kindle Fires. I’ve been hearing about apps and games like Angry Birds forever, but until now had never actually played any such game or used any apps. It turns out the Fires are pretty fun toys. The games are pretty entertaining. I think Cut the Rope is especially clever. Ellen loves sitting in bed watching episodes of TV shows, her latest love being Downton Abbey. I like checking my sports teams without having to kick someone off a computer. I’m also enjoying reading news and analysis from various sites as compiled by Pulse.

I really miss reading a newspaper or news magazine regularly. I need to make more time for that. I used to read the NY Times pretty regularly, but haven’t since I’ve been department chair. I still enjoy the Times when I catch glimpses of it, but would also like to branch out a bit to the Economist, the New Yorker, the Atlantic and perhaps others. I’m not much of a blog person. I try out blog sites from time to time, but usually find the analysis pretty superficial, and often referring to some more in-depth story published in one of these sources or something like them.

Orderville Canyon

Charlie, Nathan and I hiked Orderville Canyon on Labor Day. The trees grow in amazing ways in the sandstone and some of the rocks are really interesting. As you descend the canyon, springs crop up frequently and water starts to run down the bottom of the canyon, feeding beautiful wildflowers. There are maybe a dozen short dropoffs that required climbing or jumping down, often into pools of water at the bottom. A couple required ropes as handlines. All were tons of fun, as each presented a different challenge in order to get down. The water wasn't too cold, though the day was none too warm. All of the dropoffs were gorgeous!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mt. Nebo Hike

I've had lots of adventures this fall, but have been too busy recovering from them to blog about them! So, we finally have enough cold and snow to shut down mountain biking and not enough to ramp up snow sports. Plus Charlie went to Japan this week, leaving me a lone man.

One of my favorite adventures this fall was hiking Mt. Nebo in mid-October. Mt. Nebo is the highest peak in the Wasatch Mountains, at nearly 12,000 feet.

Here are Charlie and me early on in the hike. We had picture perfect weather. The first snow of the season had dusted the summit the previous day, but the day was warm and inviting, perfect October weather.

This is our first: "Whaaaaat? We're hiking that?" moment!

Charlie has that moment too.

Heading toward Wolf Pass, a gorgeous meadow at the shoulder of Nebo and North Peak. We hiked North Peak, another 11,000-foot peak, on the way back. The trail takes you within a couple hundred-foot scramble of the summit.

Wolf Pass looking up the trail toward Nebo summit. This is the trail to the northernmost and the highest of the three Nebo peaks. The trail doesn't look nearly as daunting up this close.

We had clouds on the east and clear weather on the west. It looked like the end of the world as you approached the dropoff!

The ridge taking us to Nebo. A light dusting of snow added a bit of slipperiness but not much.

The dogs LOVE the snow!

The late summer kept the flowers blooming at 11,000 feet, making a pretty sight in the first snow of the year.

The dogs on the summit. A little two-seater plane buzzed us and waggled its wings at us just 100 feet away. It was trippy to be as high as an airplane and a little higher as it dipped down!

Me on the summit looking north.

Me on the summit looking south!

The Festival of Trees

We went to the Festival of the Trees yesterday. I think that’s the first time I’ve been since I was a kid. People donate and buy trees for Primary Children’s Hospital. Only it turns out that people also donate and buy a bunch of stuff surrounding the tree, which can amount to several thousand dollars worth of stuff, like sports memorabilia, digital pianos, ski passes, etc. It was quite a spectacle. I was rather taken in by it all despite the fact that it wasn’t really my cup of tea. Some of the trees and surrounding spreads were decorated in ways that seemed to say a lot about the person in whose memory they were created. There were some outdoorsy trees and superhero trees and sports trees to compete with the more traditional trees and female-oriented trees. I most enjoyed seeing photos of people in whose names the trees were dedicated. It presented the best and worst of Christmas: a charitable cause, giving, and memory of loved ones combined with spectacle, material goods, and glitz. It would be nice to have one without the other, but it seems there must needs be opposition in all things. Then in the middle of it all, I was arrested by one display. It had a rudimentary carpenter’s table with a simple sign: The Touch of the Master’s Hand. I had almost forgotten what Christmas was all about. It IS about giving and family, for sure. But it seems impossible for us as humans to have that without also having the materialism. The only way to overcome our all too human tendency to be attracted by this world is by combining our charitable impulses with Jesus. Charity without centering it in Christ can too easily get off track. It becomes generosity rather than charity. Generosity is certainly praiseworthy, and the Festival is laudable in so many ways. Yet it was much more meaningful once I remembered Jesus and the simplicity of His way.

Ode To Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving Weekend. My favorite holiday. I love Thanksgiving because it offers a lengthy break at just the right point in the semester. I love Thanksgiving because it has not yet been commercialized, and perhaps never will be, since it is simply enveloped by Christmas’ commercialization. It is the internet before all the ads: lovely, uncluttered, a place to connect in unhurried, simple fashion, without harassment. Thanksgiving is family, friends and food. It is playing games, hanging out, going on bike rides, reading a good book, or playing some football.

Great Books My English Teachers Overlooked

Last week, I re-evaluated some of the classics I read in High School. They did not fare well, generally. This week, I highlight a few I missed in school that are definitely worth reading. They generally fare better. The themes are adventure and horror, a new genre for me.

Treasure Island: Great, rollicking adventure. Wonderful story for middle schoolers. Nathan liked it only OK despite the non-stop action, probably because the language is dated and the sentences are complex. I think it's the sort of story that can challenge kids his age but still reward them. There is a reason Long John Silver's name is widely known; he is one of the most memorable characters I've ever read about. He slips between good and evil as well as any double agent.

Last of the Mohicans: It's also a great adventure yarn with some military battles and history thrown in. I definitely see its attractiveness and staying power. Some of the scenes it describes are quite violent and often unexpectedly so. With the 19th-century language, one expects more Victorian sensibilities at times. Descriptions of the American wilderness are perhaps unmatched in anything I've read.

Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde: A wonderful short novel, one that also strikes me as a great choice for middle schoolers or a bit older. The character's internal struggle against evil is rightly celebrated. Stevenson seems to capture well the nature of temptation and addiction's ghastly hold. The character's collapse and the inability of anyone to do anything about it are haunting and memorable.

Dracula: Somewhat disappointing. It is overly long and filled with too many Victorian niceties that sound rather ridiculous to the modern ear. I read an unabridged version; I think an abridged version would be just the ticket. In the unabridged version, the action gets bogged down in too much suffocating dialogue about how dear everyone is to everyone else and what large sacrifices they're all making for each other with their pure love. Any momentary stumbles in their perfect manners are quickly remedied by even more perfect kindnesses and soothing words of various sorts. Bluch. And it's not just that I need action; I generally love dialogue. The action, when it happens, is wonderful.

The Turn of the Screw: A brilliant evocation of possible madness, involving unresolved questions about what is real, and children in peril from both those who care too little and those who care too much. It is extremely well written.

Re-evaluating the Classics

I've been reading classics lately, the past year or two, along with other books. I'm reading classics in part because Ellen is studying to be a secondary education English teacher and so she has lots of them around and partly because I'm curious what they're like now that I'm mature enough to understand them better and more deeply. I do wonder if a lot of them are mostly lost on secondary students and if it's even worth it to slog through some of them.

I've read three authors in the past year who I also recall from High School: Dickens, Conrad, and Hemingway.

IN HIGH SCHOOL:

Dickens: I remember mostly disliking Tale of Two Cities in ninth grade as I read a bunch of it, but then really coming round to admire it in the end as I saw the whole plot and scope of the story. The romantic in me loved Sydney Carton and his sacrifice.

Conrad:I remember thinking Heart of Darkness was kind of cool in, what, 11th grade when I read it, especially as classics go.

Hemingway: I don't remember any book in particular of his, and it's quite possible we didn't read any as a class but that I read him on my own just to attain requirements for number of pages read. I remember he was popular to read because it's so easy to chew up pages in Hemingway with his style. I remember liking his simple style and wondering why others couldn't write like that.

NOW:

Dickens: Writes great, but Tale of Two Cities is too sentimental. I still have some romantic in me, but couldn't come to see Carton as a believable character. Alas, the book de-motivated me to try others. The sentimentality in Dickens is a common criticism, and, alas, all too true. It is of course possible to look beyond this, and I'm sure rewarding to do so. Perhaps I'll try another Dickens at some point.

Conrad: Heart of Darkness is fabulous. It works completely on multiple levels and is a clear work of genius. The symbolism is rich and effective and the layers of meaning are fun to think about.

Hemingway: I decided to try his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. It is absolutely wretched. I tried hard, but simply could not finish it. The characters are interchangeable, the writing is bland and dull, and the plot is slighter than in a 1950s musical. I understand the way in which the spare writing style and plot line is modern and the characters represent a world that has lost its way. I certainly agree that modern society has indeed lost its way. I just didn't realize that losing one's way could be so deathly boring. I always figured it was kind of interesting to become bitter and disenchanted with the world. Turns out I was wrong. Perhaps I remember little about Hemingway because, in the end, there is nothing worth remembering.

Capitol Reef Trip

I may have had the best birthday present ever when I did the Cassidy Arch canyoneering adventure on my birthday this year. I went with Brian Hill’s BYU canyoneering class. The canyon is in Capitol Reef National Park. The first rappel at the top is 150 feet straight down over a cliff edge right beneath Cassidy Arch. It was astonishing. The gut-check at the top was pretty intense. You sort of had to ease yourself over the top by laying on your side and kind of rolling off, dropping your right foot to a tiny ledge where you could sort of get both feet out and then start rappelling. The next drop was another 150-footer with a much easier start but still more or less under Cassidy Arch. Then there were 5 more rappels. One was about a 100-footer where you passed by another arch and dropped into a bit of a cathedral—a big open quarter-sphere of rock. People who have done many canyons said that these drops are as beautiful as they come. It was amazing. The day before we hiked Sulpher Creek, which was a fun little adventure with pretty waterfalls and lots of tromping through a nice creek and a couple of downclimbs.

This past Thursday and Friday I went with Wade and Stirling down to a cabin between Torrey and Boulder outside Capitol Reef. We hired a guide and went fly fishing Thursday. He essentially has a private stream in a beautiful canyon on Boulder Creek. It’s forest service land, but you have to cross private property to get there, and only he has permission. It’s a gorgeous piece of stream, but it was cold, running high and had a lot of “color” (dirt, etc.), so the fish weren’t biting much. The guide taught me a lot, but I didn’t catch a fish and neither did he. This embarrassed him somewhat. The next day we hiked Upper Muley Twist, a five-star hike I’ve been eyeing for a while in my hike book. It was spectacular. We saw a total of about 8 arches. We followed the canyon floor on the way up and it got pretty narrow, and then we climbed to the top of the Waterpocket Fold, about 200 feet up, and the view from the top was non-stop. We could practically see all the way to Lake Powell. Also astonishing.

And the weekend before I took a canyoneering class designed to train scout leaders. I learned a ton about how to rig anchors and rappelling devices and tie knots and rescue people in the middle of a rappel and so forth. It was very cool. I really want to go out and practice a lot! But I’m also still learning and so cautious. . . . I need to go out and do a canyon in a small, competent group so I can practice and they can observe me. I also should really take a climbing class so I can get better at climbing. Lots of places require some downclimbing or upclimbing. So much to learn! So fun!

In between, I’ve enjoyed Nathan’s soccer games and loved playing Dominion, the awesome new card game I got for my birthday and everyone is totally addicted to.