It's a new dawn, a new day, a new life...

Okay, so what happened to summer? I woke up this morning to find that everything was cold, just a couple of degrees away from frost on the ground and ice in the toilet. Seems I went to sleep in summer and woke up in autumn. It’s been cold for over a week now, and my brain has already clicked into autumn mode.

And so yesterday was the first day of classes at Memorial University. The strangest part about being back on campus was that it felt as if I’d never left. The summer was brutally short—I just have vague memories of a lot of writing and some family events, interspersed with cold weather and occasional warmth.

Walking from my office on the fourth floor of the Science Bldg. to my first class on the fourth floor of the Education Bldg., I was thinking about what I would say to my students. I mean, you walk into a class and see all these new faces, some eager to be starting something new and challenging, a new chapter in life, and others wishing to God they’d stayed in bed and maybe applied for the military or a Academy Canada. Sometimes, you get both, of course—the person who knows this is a great experience but already wishes it was Christmas so they could just go home and be with their families.

But it’s the same every fall. Mostly, the students have trepidations and yet are in this for the long haul, ready to get something out of it, knowing that—unlike high school—these really are the best years of most people’s lives. They really are. I don’t mean that every person’s experience is completely positive. Some people even go through some pretty serious stuff. But everything you do in first-year university is heightened and seen somewhat through a glass, darkly at times. It’s a bit like Christmas in that it doesn’t feel quite real to be here doing all this cool stuff and scary stuff and all the amazing thing you ever dreamed of, planning the rest of your life and hanging out with people of your choosing, rather than just the ones you happened to find yourself sharing a locker with or living next door to.

I know I’m an optimist, but I’m old enough now that I know it’s a permanent condition. Sure, I’m a realist and a skeptic. For example, I take a wait-and-see attitude towards ghosts, aliens, and the Maple Leafs ever winning the Stanley Cup again. And yet I’m optimistic enough to think that both ghosts and aliens could be out there somewhere. I just need to see for myself because I don’t rely much on other people’s experiences to inform my own reality.

But I do believe the best in people, and just from looking at the groups I have in my classes this year, I can already tell it’s going to be fun. It won’t all be great and there will be plenty of times of worry and concern, both for me and for my students, but I’m looking forward to an extremely enjoyable semester. Plenty of students smiled as I called their names and a lot of them stopped and said a few words or, again, just smiled on their way out the door. That lets me know that they’re at least not scared of me or of the situation—or if they are, they are at least willing to give it the old college try.

I’ve been told a lot in my teaching career that you should “never let them see you smile on the first day”. Well, you know what? That’s the most foolish piece of advice I’ve ever heard. To me, the best advice is to try to be natural and yourself, and that way you don’t have anything to make up for, or apologize for, later. Being yourself is probably about the hardest thing there is to be, especially in a public situation—and I’m not just talking about me. I’m mostly thinking about people in general and students in particular.

The hardest thing about it, really, is just figuring out who you are in the first place. And sometimes that is exactly what you’re supposed to be doing at this point, in first-year university: figuring out who you are. Sure, you have a good idea by now, or at least I hope so. But you’ll encounter a lot of course options, people options (should I sit near the same crowd as last time or find a crowd that at least has something in common with who I think I am?), credit card options (to apply, reject, spend, over-spend, pay the minimum, or pay it off completely each month), and what to do with your time (studying, working, playing, relaxing, movies, and any number of adult-type activities). It’s all up to you. And every choice you make, and how you ultimately react to the consequences of that choice, decide not only who you are, but who you are on your way to becoming.

I always pose a question to my students on the information sheet I asked you to fill out and pass in: “Why are you here?” Most just say they want to get an education and get a job. Many say they want to learn to be better writers. Others say they haven’t a clue while others say the course was recommended by a friend or family member. The occasional student says something about wanting to find out what to do with their lives and to experience as much as possible in life, including talking about great literature and great ideas. It’s all good. What I mostly look for is how you interpreted the question and whether you acknowledge or recognize that there are multiple possibilities available to you: choices. How you interpreted it says more about you than what you said.

The answers might change in time; they usually do. But the questions are often eternal.

Have a truly great semester.

If you’re one of my students this semester, keep checking back here now and again. There’ll be lots of stuff on here that might interest you or help you out a little in your endeavours to become a better writer and thinker.

If you’ve been following all along and are no longer a student of mine (or never were), hang in there. I’ll still be riffing on everything from why anyone should care about Jon and Kate marathons to why is Bob Dylan doing a Christmas album. Or maybe the questions themselves serve my purpose. Maybe it’s best not to dwell on certain subjects. Could lead to a headache.

Talk to you soon.

GC

Could be fun.

"Summer has come to pass/the innocence can never last/ Wake me up when September ends."

Yeah, I guess that's my mood at the moment. Where the heck did summer go?

Oh yeah, I was busy. Can't believe I never did take a vacation this year. I started out with good intentions. Back in early May, I had eye surgery to make me see better, but that didn't quite work out. For two months, I couldn't drive and, worse, wasn't able to read. The driving has come back, but the reading is still pretty iffy, though it's a lot better than it was. Might still need reading glasses when all is said and done just to get through all those essays and, of course, the literature itself when I start teaching next week. It's a bummer, but that's life. So now I can see the color of a mosquito's irises 100 yards away, but if he comes up close I can't even tell what kind of creature he is. Sort of a good news/bad news situation.

Somehow during June, I was able to finish my short story collection. I wasn't able to read/revise/edit my own work very well, but I managed, and I hope prospective editors will forgive any grammatical and spelling errors. First time in my life I've ever really had to contend with those. But I feel good about getting the collection (called Moonlight Sketches, as I've mentioned before) out to publishers. It makes for a good summer's work.

The novel is coming along, but it obviously won't be done before Sept. 9 when I start teaching, so I'll be working on that as the semester goes along (yeah, right).

Other than that, I did do some acting this summer. I spent one entire 11-hour day on the set of The Republic of Doyle, doing some stints as a security guard. It was kinda cool, dressing in the uniform, wearing the bulletproof vest (might like to have one of those for those really hard days), the walkie-talkie, the big ol' hat, and all the rest. They shot me in a couple of scenes that included Shaun Majumner from "This Hour Has 22 Minutes"), but I have no idea if they'll actually use them. They promise they'll call again, but they've only called once and I wasn't able to make it. The best part was hanging out on the set all day, though it was pretty long and occasionally boring. I met lots of new people who all had different reasons for trying their hand at being an "extra" on a nationally broadcast t.v. show. Some were serious actors while others were just looking for a cool experience. As for me, I was just looking for the experience and to see if I liked it enough to want to do more. I did like it and, in fact, spent an entire week this summer rehearsing lines for an audtion for a speaking role. I didn't get the part (for various reasons, I'm sure) but it was fun to try and to stretch myself in that way. I've always wanted to give it a go, wondered if I even had to capacity to remember lines and to give them the proper inflection and facial expression to be an "actor". Now I don't have to spend the rest of my life wondering if I should give it a try. The answer is: of course.

I'm also working on a short film for a director-friend, but that has yet to really start shooting. Probably this fall.

So for those of you wondering what I did all summer, now you know: writing, acting, hanging out, lots of barbecues, beaches, long walks, playing some music, and, of course, running. Love running in warm weather. Not so fond of the cool weather jogging. It makes me wish I was wearing mittens and a snow suit.

So now it's September, and it's back to teaching. What a bizarre transition that will be, not just for me but (I'm sure) for all my students as well. More to say on that next week. But for now, I just thought I'd say hi to all of you who've been reading this blog all summer--despite my neglect of it-- and welcome to autumn. It's my favorite time of year, so that makes up for a lot. Plus, I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of the old familiar faces and a multitude of fresh, mostly eager faces as well.

Could be fun.

GC

How I’m Spending My Summer Vacation

Well, it’s the end of another summer month and, though I still haven’t taken a vacation, it’s been a pretty good run. The weather’s been cracked, but that’s not new. Mostly, I’ve spent the summer so far working on my writing. I finally got my short story collection finished once and for all and shipped off to a prospective publisher. It might take a while to publish because short story collections are a tough sell. So you might ask: why write one if it doesn’t sell?

Fact is, I didn’t start out wanting to write a short story collection. Heck, about seven or eight years ago, I didn’t even consider myself a short story writer. I write novels, so I figured the best way to learn how to write novels is to actually write novels. Writing short stories will only teach you how to write short stories.

That might still be true, but it does teach you to be a better writer. There’s a challenge in writing a short story that is totally different from writing a novel. Don’t get me wrong—writing a novel is still a lot harder simply because of the sheer effort, discipline, and sustained creativity it takes. But the short story requires focus, storytelling skills, and attention to the perfect word choice.

A few years ago, one of my stories (about a fictional town called Darwin) won an arts and letters award. Then, the next year, I wrote a novel about Darwin that won the Percy Janes Award for an unpublished manuscript. But I still had tons of Darwin stories to tell. Three more years in a row (2006, 2007, and 2008), I wrote brand new Darwin stories just before the deadline and submitted them to the arts and letters awards, and each one of them won. So, really, around 2006 or so I started realizing that I was working on a collection. Last year, I got an arts grant to finish the project, and I did. I wrote a bunch of new stories, and this year, still not satisfied with the quality, I wrote several new stories. On and on it went until, at last, I finished it this summer. Now the waiting begins. It won’t be easy to sell it, but I’ve got a list of publishers I want to sell it to.

Meanwhile, I’ve had interest from an agent in B.C. about a gothic novel I’m working on called “The Two Sisters,” so that’s what I’m working on now every day. For an unpublished novelist, it’s a rare thing to get that kind of interest for a book that hasn’t even been written yet, so I’m stoked to try and get it done by the end of summer.

Beyond that, I’m acting in a short film for a friend who’s making her very first film. It’s a good match because it’s my first time acting. I’m not sure I’m any good at it, but I’m at least enjoying it. It’s a film noir kind of thing, set in a 1940s sort of St. John’s, a bit of a parody of classic films like Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. Just my kind of thing. There’s other acting stuff too, and hopefully I can talk about that in a later blog.

It’s been a busy summer—looking for a house too, which is time-consuming, but the thing is to just roll with it and enjoy the process, like everything else. Que sera, sera.

There’s a whole month left in this thing, and I intend to enjoy every bit of it. Hope you do too! I’m looking forward to the fall semester, but as The Trews say: “I’m not ready to go!”

The Show Must Go On

I figured it was about time I blogged again. It's been a strange summer, but then living in St. John's, Newfoundland, it's always a strange summer. The weather has been more like autumn, and not a very nice autumn at that. Tons o' fog and drizzle, heavy rain, some thunder and lightning, and even a few really nice days.

All this blah weather does strange things to the head. This morning, I'm trying to write a new short story for an idea that's been stuck in my head all week. I'm all finished my short story collection called Moonlight Sketches, but I can't help feel that it needs one more story, something that it's missing to make it feel more complete. My brain is stuck in sleepy mode, though, with the road crews working outside my office window, and I just can't seem to get anything worthwhile down on the screen. So I figured a little blogging wouldn't hurt.

I've sorely neglected this blog for a few weeks now, not for lack of anything to say but simply for lack of time. The media seems enthralled by the whole Michael Jackson fiasco, but I find I can't work up any enthusiasm or feeling. He died while I was out having coffee with a friend of mine who's going through a rough time of it. I got home about ten thirty or so to find out that MJ had kicked the proverbial bucket. My response was "Oh." No surprise. I guess he was talented, but his carnival personality over-shadowed all that. It gets really hard to separate one from the other, and so my feeling is that, yeah, he had a lot of talent for music, but he didn't endear himself to me with anything else, so why should I give a rat's behind?

The thing is, I genuinely care about humanity--the lost tribe. Most people, as Thoreau said, do live lives of quiet desperation, and I think Michael Jackson was one of those. How could he not be? Assuming he's human, of course. He'd write songs saying, "Leave me alone!" and then he'd dangle a child over a balcony like she was part of a Cirque du Soleil trapeze act. (Great show, by the way. The Cirque, not Michael, I mean.) He'd complain, "Nobody understands me!" and then he'd pose for pictures with Bubbles the Chimp on the Neverland Ranch or go shopping with his mask on and a full entourage in the middle of Beverly Hills. Or he'd give interviews and then refuse to answer questions, or just give daffy answers that made you think the guy was mental.

Fine. He was mental. He possibly did have severe psychological problems. To which I say, so what?

As for the child molestation charges, I don't know what to believe, but I can't deny that they have tainted whatever opinion I might have had about the man. I try to be objective, but who can manage that, given all the circumstances and conjecture? If he was the kind of person who was capable of looking you, or the camera, straight in the eye, and explaining how it all went down and that he was perfectly innocent in every sense of the word, then I could probably say he was as victimized as anyone. Fact is, I don't know that.

So I'm left feeling nothing about whole thing. Not conflicted, not bemused, not perplexed or even numb. Just indifferent.

May he rest in peace. And may that be said for any man or woman or child who ultimately succumbs to the inevitable good night. Farrah Fawcett (I remember doing a jigsaw puzzle with her and the other Angels on it). Ed McMahon. That "pitch" guy who died last week. Karl Malden (my dad and I used to watch him on "The Streets of San Francisco" when I was a kid). And anyone else I may have missed. Oh, and then there's David Carradine. I hope he's thanking MJ, wherever they both are. For a while, the media was about to swallow its own tongue in excitement over the whole Carradine auto-erotic asphyxiation thing (allegedly). But as soon as MJ died, they forgot all about the sordid Bangkok affair, at least for now.

And now MJ sells more albums in death than he did in life. Now who could have seen that one coming?

Who among us would be totally shocked if it turned out next week that MJ actually faked his own death so he could be like Elvis, the other "king"?

I'm not saying he did, but I'm just saying that this circus has gone on way too long, and I wouldn't put anything past him or his money-grabbing people. Nothing.

Enjoy the show.

I think I've cleared my brain enough to be able to do some fiction writing now. No crowds, please, and no pictures. Nothing to see here. Just a man at work.

GC

First Taste of Summer

found myself on a beach
skimming flat stones
on the surface
against the inrushing north atlantic
one threatening august afternoon
while smelly kelp wrappers clung to my heels like memories of you to my head
and broke
with a hiss on the sand
stealing pebbles unnoticed
leaving flotsam jetsam driftwood and more
than it could ever take
while smelly kelp wrappers clung to my heels like
memories of you to
me.

(from "Found Myself On a Beach" by Gerard Collins, August 2002)

At least for now, it feels like summer. It’s been the warmest and sunniest Victoria Day weekend we’ve had in a lot of years, and I took full advantage. We didn’t go camping or anything silly like that. As much as I love the outdoors, the idea of sleeping on the ground has lost its appeal for me. It just doesn’t make sense to me like it did when I was younger. Back then, I didn’t care where I slept—the more uncomfortable and less familiar, the better. But now, I like familiar, comfortable sleeping accommodations, preferably a good motel or a five-star hotel.

Sure, I used to see the appeal of camping. There’s nothing like a couple of days of getting away from civilization and all its trappings to remind you of your place in the world, of who you are, and you who started out to want to be. There’s also the wide open space, the big sky, and, of course the fishing—trouting, to be more exact. Even though I haven’t eaten red meat or poultry in over ten years, I still love a good meal of trout, preferably cooked over an open fire or at least on a barbecue. Of course, there’s also the time alone, without cellphones, iPods, cameras, computers, or four-slice toasters. Yeah, right. I’m sure most people still take all of those thinks with them when they camp, especially if they’re travelling in a recreational vehicle.

I think it’s mostly the lack of rules, the breaking of the daily tedium that appeals to most people. That said, my wife and I went to the beach Sunday morning, just because it was early and we figured no one else would be there. For close to an hour, we had it all to ourselves. But it was a beautiful day and by the time we left, there were dozens of people and their dogs, all trying to capture a little bit of the outdoors, all looking to break up the routine and get some sun on their faces. Can’t say I blame them.

There is nothing like a beach—unless it’s the quiet of the woods (which I actually prefer)—to help you get your thoughts straight and help you shed a few layers of civility. Beaches never fail to make me nostalgic and to clarify my thinking about something I’m working on or didn’t know I was working on. With their proximity to the ocean, and the surf rushing in on the tide, there is something cleansing and spiritual about a beach. I don’t mean “God” exactly; I mean, if I was looking for my soul, I think that’s where I would find it. I could sit for hours, just listening to the rush and hiss of the water to the shore, and the receding of the waves back to where they came from. And in the process, life somehow looks different. Either sillier or less important, or just different.

After a day at the beach, a pancake brunch at my sister-in-law’s, and an evening barbecue at my brother-in-law’s, I feel tired but revitalized. I’m writing this week, as I have been for the past couple of weeks. I had a novel that I thought was finished, but had a sudden epiphany about it, and so I’m working on that. Sometimes you just don’t know where life, or summer, is going to take you.

Peace.

First Week

Where was I? Oh, yeah. It’s the end of the semester, and I can’t believe the end of April is in sight. The last couple of weeks have been a blur.

After grading the final exams, I have to say that, overall, I was very impressed. A lot of students wrote the best essays they’ve written all semester, which made me feel good. Believe me, it was hard keeping that information to myself. If I wasn’t forbidden from doing so, I would have e-mailed you just to say, “Guess what you did?”

Granted, there were others who were verging on a crash all semester long and who did a free-fall on the day of the exam. For some reason, people sat for two and a half hours and only managed to write a few lines for both essays. As I’ve said from the first day of classes, I can only grade what’s on the page, and if you didn’t give me enough to justify passing you, then I’m sorry. I have to live with my decisions and to be able to sleep at night. I don’t take these matters lightly. But, on the other hand, if you’re one of those students who knows in your heart you just didn’t give it your best effort this term or on the final exam, you are hopefully adult enough to understand that there are no free passes. There is only a certain amount I am willing to take responsibility for. What’s mine is mine, but sometimes there’s stuff that’s not mine. That’s what helps me sleep, especially when I’d prefer to just give everyone an automatic pass anyway.

But that wouldn’t be fair to those of you who worked awfully hard right to the very end of the term. For some of you, the final exam was your chance to show all that you learned in three months. If you attended classes nearly every day and always came prepared, tried to have an opinion on the literature, honestly tried to understand and to come and talk to me if you were having a problem, then you passed. It’s just natural selection.

Enough of all that. I’m tired. You’re tired. It’s time to move on. Grades are available on line this week (possibly today, though I’m not completely sure), and my part in your life will officially be over. I can’t say I’m always happy about that. I like for the semester to end so that I can get on with other things in my life. But I like it when students maintain a connection over the years ahead. It happens a lot, but not nearly enough.

A special note for my English 1080 class this semester: You were easily one of my favorite classes of all time. Most of you, I will never forget. You know who you are.

For those of you whom I got to know this term on a more personal level, it was absolutely my pleasure both to help in any way I could and to get to know you. I enjoy that part of my job more than any other.

It’s been about a week since my grades were finalized and my part of the winter semester of ’09 was done. Since then, I’ve been shredding papers, organizing files, getting my life together. It all tends to be put on hold while I’m teaching and now is time to move forward, into the great wide open.

I attended a book launch last week. Mike Heffernan’s astounding book , Rig: An Oral History of the Ocean Ranger was officially released. I had the pleasure of introducing the author, as well as speaking to many fine people in the local publishing and writing community that evening, including the indomitable Helen Porter (writer), the gracious and talented Lisa Moore (novelist), the affable and also immensely talented Russell Wangersky (writer and publisher), and several people with direct connections to the Ocean Ranger itself. The story these latter people have to tell is still just as enthralling and just as vital as it would have been twenty-seven years ago, which is why Mike’s book is so important to our culture. Mike has become a friend in the past couple of years and I hope we can find some other project to work on in future. I also met his father at the book launch, and he reminded me a little of my own father—a quick wit and a twinkle in his eye, he seemed like a very kind man.

Attending this event was important for me in another way, too, though. It means I am getting back to my other self—the self I am when I’m not teaching. I’m a writer, and sometimes it’s good for me to surround myself with people who think the same way (more or less) and understand what it’s like to be someone who aspires to put the world into words, to dress it in the language that best describes it.

I will be a writer all summer long. It’s been slow going in the past week, but today I’m off to a good start. Just writing this blog entry is a sign that the fog is beginning to lift from my brain and I’m beginning to see things more clearly. Clarity is necessary in order to write well.

And, of course, writing is necessary in order to achieve clarity sometimes. At least for me it is.

Over the coming weeks of spring and (dare I say) summer, I’ll be writing more about writing. I have a couple of novels to finish, as well as a short story collection that still needs a good story or two, and, if I’m lucky, I have another story that needs telling in the form of a novella. More on these as the days go by. I’ll also likely have a few observations and opinions to share about life, politics, culture, t.v., sports, the movies, and anything else that comes into my head.

For now, I’m just glad the sun is shining and fleeting time seems to have paused for a while.

Have a fantastic summer. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

GC

Famous Final Scene (A Twice-told Tale)

Maybe you don’t need a pep talk at this point.

Maybe you've seen too many of them lately.

I mean, who could put it better than William Wallace in Braveheart when he tells his battle-ready troops before heading off to war with the British: “Every man dies, but not every man lives.”

Of course, I guess he meant women too, but then, who knows what lurks in the heart of Mel?And then there’s Aragorn at the final battle in The Return of the King, leading his weary fellowship against Sauron’s fading might: “I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, stand, Men of the West.”

Or, a couple of years ago, Mats Sundin to his battle-scarred Leafs on the night of the season’s last game: “There’s nothing left to say. We’ve got to just go out and play hard and try our best to win.” Of course, we know how that test turned out.

But then there’s the wise and magnificent, Yoda: “There is no try, only do or do not.”

Which brings me to me. What advice have I left? Do I even have it in me to say the words that you need. (Imagine me saying this with a half-smile on my face, while maintaining an air of earnestness.) What can I say at this point that will make a difference?

Let’s try some sports clichés, shall we? It’s do-or-die. Backs against the wall. No holds barred. There is no tomorrow.

Except there actually is a tomorrow. And nobody ever died from writing a mediocre exam. And your backs won’t be against the wall. Your seats just past the middle of the gymnasium, to the right, really. So, no, sports cliché’s won’t do. You’ll need something more.

The thing about English is this: just speak truth. Know your characters (or, in poetry, know your speaker), but know yourself first and how you respond to those characters and the truth that they represent.

That’s better, but not quite it.

How about this: when I was your age….no, no, no! Can’t say that. Can’t even think that.

Hmmm….If I was writing either of these exams tomorrow (either 1101 or 1080), I simply would know the novels, stories, and/or poems really well. You can pretty much guess what the questions will be, more or less.

Go through each character in each story and ask yourself what they stand for and how can you possibly prove it. Get inside the minds of these characters and ask yourself what they most want, what they most fear, and whether or not they get what they want. Or, as the Stones would sing, do they sometimes just get what they need? That goes for the good and the bad characters. In 1101, that's the Draper Doyles and the Aunt Phils, the Dr. Jekylls and the Mr. Uttersons and the Edward Hydes. In 1080, that's the Grandmothers and Misfits, the Elisas and the tinkers. And who are all those minor characters? The thieves in The Road and the Father Seymours? The Henry Clervals and the Elizabeth Frankensteins (1101), not to mention (in 1080) Mangan's sister and the Red Sammy Butt! What do they all desire, and do they get it? What do they each fear? I think, in the end, we all just want……truth?

No. Truth can hurt sometimes. We often can’t handle the truth.…could it be...freedom?

Maybe? Is it freedom we want more than anything? Freedom to do what? To be what? Freedom to choose, to be who we want to be, without restrictions, without anyone else playing the authority figure over us, telling us what to do and how to do it, or what to be. Freedom from persecution. Freedom from lies. Freedom to face the truth on our own terms and decide for ourselves how to deal with, what to do about it. That’s what these characters want, isn’t it? Self-determination! Freedom! Peace of mind! As elusive as it is. As impossible as it is.

It might even be that the thing we fear the most is freedom. Because that would mean we are also responsible for ourselves. We can blame no one for our state of being, whatever is, but ourselves. And yet we invent ways to give our freedom away. To a certain extent, as in Blake's "London," we are born into it--like the Harlot's Infant (or, appropriately, Draper Doyle in The Divine Ryans) in that poem--but we are also slaves to our mind-forg'd manacles, to our ideas of right and wrong, God and faith, good and bad.

Sometimes a character attempts to go beyond his boundaries (Young Goodman Brown and the boy in "Araby," or Victor Frankenstein and Henry Jekyll), and what they find is that there are no boundaries--no actual limits, but the transgression of percieved limits comes with consequences. Of course it's only a transgression if you think of such self-imposed or culture-prescribed limitations as moral boundaries. Freedom of thought and action comes with built-in responsibility--unless you're The Misfit or the bad guys in McCarthy's novel. But there still is freedom, if only you can see it. The manacles are forged by the mind, for sure, but when the institutions to whom we've entrusted our freedom fail us, where else can we look to for answers but ourselves? That's what most characters, of novel, of poetry, or of story, face: when you look into the deep, dark woods, who is looking back at you?

And if you see yourself looking back, judging, assessing: who are you, exactly? What does Gabriel Utterson see when he looks into the mirror, in the form of Henry Jekyll? Who does the Grandmother O'Connor's short story think she is? Who is the man in The Road, really, and why does Young Goodman Brown really go into those woods? They are seeking and yet all hiding, at the same time. What we all want most to be understood, but what we all fear most is to be understood. Even by ourselves. Do our thoughts decide who we are, or do our actions define us?

Speaking of which, tomorrow you'll be asked to illustrate comprehension about some stories and/or poems you've read, as well as about the human condition. Seize the opportunity. Carpe diem! Don’t be afraid to say something wrong. Say what’s in your heart to say. But say it in an intelligent, controlled, articulate way: otherwise, it’s like a king in the back row, a bullet that never gets fired, a staff that never gets taken—power that’s wasted. You’ve spent the last four months improving your powers of communication. So now’s the time to just say what you’ve been wanting to say all semester long about these pieces of literature. If you’ve got nothing to say, well, you’re just not trying (or "doing," as Yoda would say). You know these novels, stories, and poems by now. You’ve lived with them for weeks. You know who their characters are, what they want, what they fear, and how they live. So what do you have to say about them?

“This is no place for Hobbits,” Gandalf the Grey has said. And it’s true.

The exam is meant to offer you the chance to show what you know, not what you don’t know.

So write what you know.

See you tomorrow. Have some fun with it. And use your nervous energy to blaze truth, fork some lightning, and wager philosophy. Do not go gentle in that good exam room; rage, rage against the oncoming darkness. Mostly, though, rage against your darkest thoughts and reach for a sliver of greatness.

Don’t play defensively. Come fully armed and ready to wrestle truth to the ground. But then, I’m not much for speeches.

May the force...oh, never mind.

Gerard

Office Hours Monday

I'm having office hours (SN-4062) Monday, April 13 from 1 o'clock until 2:30 p.m., in case anyone has questions about the exam.

The exam for both 1080 and 1101 is Tuesday, April 14 at 12 o'clock noon in the Physical Education gymnasium. Sleeping in will not be accepted as a reason for missing it. Few things would be.

GC

New Rock the Vote!

I just posted an updated version of the poll at the top right of this blog. If you were one of my students this semester, I'd really appreciate you taking the time to answer the few questions that are. Some questions are meant for either 1080 or 1101, exclusively, so if the question doesn't apply to you, just skip it. Oh, and it's all anonymous. I can't tell who you are, so please be honest with your answers. Thanks! :-)

GC

Famous Last Words

Oh, and I don't know what my own last words will be. I haven't thought about it, to tell the truth. But on my metaphorical tombstone, it will say: Back in a Minute.

I say "metaphorical" because ain't no one buryin' me in the cold, cold ground.