There's a lot of breathing in choir. That may seem like an obvious statement, so I'll move on quickly. It turns out, that if you get sick during a mid-semester break, after you have been consistently exercising your diaphragm (through almost 3 hours a week of singing), that the muscles you then strain while coughing are muscles that you use for darn well everything. Standing up straight, for example, and biking. And walking, and balancing in heels. And a different facet of breathing.
The little random stabs of agony have almost gone away, and I can stand up straight again, and walk again at my normal clip, and I have managed not to acquire an ibuprofen habit while getting to this point. I have to laugh though--choir, in addition to its multifarious advantages (like getting to sing for almost 3 hours a week :-D), has given me new and more interesting ways to hurt myself.
Once my intercostals, or whatever muscles I managed to strain, are fully healed again, you can bet that part of my regimen will be strengthening them so I don't go through this again. Ow.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
And now for something completely different
Backrub chains are one of the best perks of choir (though getting to watch conductors during performances is pretty awesome too). The director--Dr. Z, Dr. L, or sometimes Graduate Assistant Extraordinaire Ian G. (to be hereafter called Ian, cause that's one heck of a title ::laughs::)--says, "Okay, massage this way," and the choir as a body turns to the left and rubs shoulders, and then the director says "Switch," and the choir turns to the right and rubs shoulders that way. You see, for singers, your instrument is your body--all the effort has to be mental, because if it creeps into your neck, shoulders, back, legs, it's going to affect the sound. It's wonderful, by the way--two of my favorite activities, singing and relaxing, rolled into one.
Yesterday, instead of having a backrub chain in the warm-up, we had one in the middle of the practice for Elijah, which means that Ian and Dr. L were lending their voices to the tenor line, since we have all of 5 avowed tenors. *ahem* All right, the point of all this lead-up is that Ian gives very good backrubs (he wears overshirts which make it very difficult to rub properly, incidentally, but on his other side was Dr. L, who undoubtedly did a much better job than I did)--I practically floated back to my seat because I was so relaxed, and I can drop my shoulders fully without agony now (apparently some aspect of college life has installed a permanent knot in my right shoulder which, until yesterday, meant that it was painful to drop my shoulders, and in fact I couldn't entirely). See, this is why he's Graduate Assistant Extraordinaire.
Yesterday, instead of having a backrub chain in the warm-up, we had one in the middle of the practice for Elijah, which means that Ian and Dr. L were lending their voices to the tenor line, since we have all of 5 avowed tenors. *ahem* All right, the point of all this lead-up is that Ian gives very good backrubs (he wears overshirts which make it very difficult to rub properly, incidentally, but on his other side was Dr. L, who undoubtedly did a much better job than I did)--I practically floated back to my seat because I was so relaxed, and I can drop my shoulders fully without agony now (apparently some aspect of college life has installed a permanent knot in my right shoulder which, until yesterday, meant that it was painful to drop my shoulders, and in fact I couldn't entirely). See, this is why he's Graduate Assistant Extraordinaire.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Self-Justifying--A Model
So, just to be perfectly clear, this post is not picking on my roommate. I'm not mad at her, nor upset by her behavior--sure I wish she would change, but mostly for the sake of the people who will live with her (I can testify from personal experience that it is not easy). If she never changes, I can still cope--in large part, admittedly, because I only have to deal with her until the end of the semester. :-D
I freely admit to mocking her though--just a little bit.
Some time ago--I think it was a Friday--we had a little altercation, which might be named To Lock or Not to Lock by someone who was a little too fond of literary allusions. Ahem. In summary, it boils down to roomie coming in after I've locked the door so I can change into pjs, complaining about how inconvenient it is that I lock the door before she comes in (despite that she, on occasion, never comes in at all), me pointing out mildly that I was going to change, her objecting that "no one is going to just walk in without knocking," and me NOT saying, "like you were just about to?" That was strategy, as my next move was to bring up that she doesn't lock the door, like ever, and I'm not comfortable with that, and her answer to that was, oh so surprisingly, that no one is going to come in. She then called me passive-aggressive for not bringing it up until then, and I countered by admitting that it was p-a, a bit, but trying to imply, or in general say more gently than blurting it out, that I was not and am not comfortable talking to her (because she does not freaking respond. At all. Really creepy to someone from a highly verbal family), and she responded with the incredibly profound cliche, "it's a two-way street."
Now, what I find fascinating about this whole thing is that we were both responding according to our conditioning--at least I was. It's an absolute in my house that no one is perfect. So I gave ground at the accusation of being passive-aggressive, expecting a similar response from her, because that's how discussions (i.e., not yet fights) work in my house--but instead, I smacked into a brick wall. Roomie, on the other hand, sort of approached things with an "I'm never wrong" attitude, and managed to very quickly self-justify out of any fault on her side. I don't know what background gave her that attitude, but the odds are rather better than even that that is how her family of origin acts during discussions.
So, fast-forward to a night the next week. I was changing clothes, but hadn't locked the door, because I'll let no one say that I'm not reasonable on issues that do not darn well matter. She walked in, while I was in an in-between stage (just pants, thank heaven), and I said, in a voice which my family would recognize as protest but not outrage, "You could knock!" I then listened, with far more patience than I would have had if I actually had been upset, to her righteous indignation about not expecting to knock to walk into her own bedroom. I thought, after the fact, that her word choice there was interesting--I would never say, "my bedroom" when referring to my dorm room, because it isn't "my bedroom," it's my home away from home. My home on campus stops at the door which she so often does not lock--but for her, this same space is chiefly a place to sleep.
She objects to me locking the door, because it's inconvenient for her, and never considers that any other perspective could be possible. She objects to my reasoning, because "no one would do that"--herself excepted. She rejects my concerns about unlocked doors because "it's passive-aggressive not to have brought them up earlier." She could be a model for the wonderful new how-to show, "How to be right in any argument, no matter how reasonable or well thought out the other side is." It's really fascinating to discover how someone's mind works--and I mean that not at all sarcastically! I probably have a better idea of my dear roomie's motivations than she does right now--it's largely academic, since even given her motivations I have no clue how to deal with her, but I do feel better knowing that I am not her real problem.
I freely admit to mocking her though--just a little bit.
Some time ago--I think it was a Friday--we had a little altercation, which might be named To Lock or Not to Lock by someone who was a little too fond of literary allusions. Ahem. In summary, it boils down to roomie coming in after I've locked the door so I can change into pjs, complaining about how inconvenient it is that I lock the door before she comes in (despite that she, on occasion, never comes in at all), me pointing out mildly that I was going to change, her objecting that "no one is going to just walk in without knocking," and me NOT saying, "like you were just about to?" That was strategy, as my next move was to bring up that she doesn't lock the door, like ever, and I'm not comfortable with that, and her answer to that was, oh so surprisingly, that no one is going to come in. She then called me passive-aggressive for not bringing it up until then, and I countered by admitting that it was p-a, a bit, but trying to imply, or in general say more gently than blurting it out, that I was not and am not comfortable talking to her (because she does not freaking respond. At all. Really creepy to someone from a highly verbal family), and she responded with the incredibly profound cliche, "it's a two-way street."
Now, what I find fascinating about this whole thing is that we were both responding according to our conditioning--at least I was. It's an absolute in my house that no one is perfect. So I gave ground at the accusation of being passive-aggressive, expecting a similar response from her, because that's how discussions (i.e., not yet fights) work in my house--but instead, I smacked into a brick wall. Roomie, on the other hand, sort of approached things with an "I'm never wrong" attitude, and managed to very quickly self-justify out of any fault on her side. I don't know what background gave her that attitude, but the odds are rather better than even that that is how her family of origin acts during discussions.
So, fast-forward to a night the next week. I was changing clothes, but hadn't locked the door, because I'll let no one say that I'm not reasonable on issues that do not darn well matter. She walked in, while I was in an in-between stage (just pants, thank heaven), and I said, in a voice which my family would recognize as protest but not outrage, "You could knock!" I then listened, with far more patience than I would have had if I actually had been upset, to her righteous indignation about not expecting to knock to walk into her own bedroom. I thought, after the fact, that her word choice there was interesting--I would never say, "my bedroom" when referring to my dorm room, because it isn't "my bedroom," it's my home away from home. My home on campus stops at the door which she so often does not lock--but for her, this same space is chiefly a place to sleep.
She objects to me locking the door, because it's inconvenient for her, and never considers that any other perspective could be possible. She objects to my reasoning, because "no one would do that"--herself excepted. She rejects my concerns about unlocked doors because "it's passive-aggressive not to have brought them up earlier." She could be a model for the wonderful new how-to show, "How to be right in any argument, no matter how reasonable or well thought out the other side is." It's really fascinating to discover how someone's mind works--and I mean that not at all sarcastically! I probably have a better idea of my dear roomie's motivations than she does right now--it's largely academic, since even given her motivations I have no clue how to deal with her, but I do feel better knowing that I am not her real problem.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
German Practice to Life Truth
Whatever is the world coming to? Two posts in one week?--It's only because I have a score which I need to number my measures for (oh, I forgot to tell the blog since I haven't posted since the end of last semester--I'm in choir, taking it for 1 hour of credit; half the room is charming, musical women and the other half is charming, musical eyecandy I mean men), so this is basically an avoidance method. Not to mention, I had a thought which wouldn't fit into 140 characters. Amazing, ne?
So, Tuesdays and Thursdays are my fun days, with choir starting at 11:30 and running till almost 1, and then 4th semester German at 3pm. Herr S is a lot of fun, and since we have two oral exams (in which the point will be not to be grammatically correct but accurate in pronunciation and able to get the point across to a native speaker), he makes a point of making us get up and talk--always about hard questions that you can easily say a lot about. One of today's topics was, "What are your personal faults--what do you have trouble with in your relationships?"
After a little bit, I came up with, "Ich will immer, dass ich im Zentrum sein [probably should be bleiben, but I was talking]. Weil ich sehr ruhig bin, ist es nicht deutlich [again, probably not correct usage, but I didn't have a dictionary--that's sort of the point of these], aber ist's so." The rough translation of that is, "I always want to be the center of attention. It's not obvious, because I'm very quiet, but it's nevertheless so!"
So this evening I was thinking about this--things which you say tend to stick in your mind, for good or bad--and I thought, "I managed to basically sum up every human fault, or at least the root of every human fault, in two sentences and in a foreign language, no less." Joe (I feel safe putting his first name on here, since it's very common--there are even two Joes in our classroom) came up with, "I'm very stubborn, and I always want my way and never to give in"--more or less the same thing. You might have to substitute a word or two--I'm thinking chiefly of "center of attention" here--but basically it expresses the same outlook. "I am the center, the most important thing, don't mess with me, don't try to substitute your clearly inferior way/person into the space where my way/person so obviously belongs......"
Almost any conflict between humans--I don't mean rationally expressed differences of opinions, but real fights about ways things should be done--can be put into these terms, I think, of each thinking himself the most important person.
Profoundly misguided, when you consider the self-evident truth that the sun would stop shining without my existence...... ;-)
So, Tuesdays and Thursdays are my fun days, with choir starting at 11:30 and running till almost 1, and then 4th semester German at 3pm. Herr S is a lot of fun, and since we have two oral exams (in which the point will be not to be grammatically correct but accurate in pronunciation and able to get the point across to a native speaker), he makes a point of making us get up and talk--always about hard questions that you can easily say a lot about. One of today's topics was, "What are your personal faults--what do you have trouble with in your relationships?"
After a little bit, I came up with, "Ich will immer, dass ich im Zentrum sein [probably should be bleiben, but I was talking]. Weil ich sehr ruhig bin, ist es nicht deutlich [again, probably not correct usage, but I didn't have a dictionary--that's sort of the point of these], aber ist's so." The rough translation of that is, "I always want to be the center of attention. It's not obvious, because I'm very quiet, but it's nevertheless so!"
So this evening I was thinking about this--things which you say tend to stick in your mind, for good or bad--and I thought, "I managed to basically sum up every human fault, or at least the root of every human fault, in two sentences and in a foreign language, no less." Joe (I feel safe putting his first name on here, since it's very common--there are even two Joes in our classroom) came up with, "I'm very stubborn, and I always want my way and never to give in"--more or less the same thing. You might have to substitute a word or two--I'm thinking chiefly of "center of attention" here--but basically it expresses the same outlook. "I am the center, the most important thing, don't mess with me, don't try to substitute your clearly inferior way/person into the space where my way/person so obviously belongs......"
Almost any conflict between humans--I don't mean rationally expressed differences of opinions, but real fights about ways things should be done--can be put into these terms, I think, of each thinking himself the most important person.
Profoundly misguided, when you consider the self-evident truth that the sun would stop shining without my existence...... ;-)
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Hypothetically
Once upon a time, there was a very bad blogger, who went for, oh, about 2 and a half months without blogging at all. (This is particularly heinous because in this blog break fell Christmas, and our blogger made out like a bandit, yet didn't show any pictures of the loot.)
Now this blogger was a college student, and she cordially disliked her roommate. It was nothing personal; they just had nothing in common. The blogger was a very quiet person, keeping regular hours for bedtime and mostly sticking to her room. She also, and this is important to the story, needed quiet while sleeping--not absolute quiet, but for the room to be mostly dark and mostly quiet. ("What happens on the other side of the door can stay there, and I'll ignore it, but don't let it come in," was her general philosophy.) But the blogger's roomie, whom we shall call X in the time-honored fashion, was a social butterfly, often not coming back till the wee hours were getting quite large, especially on the weekend, and then turning on her light (admittedly necessary, as her chair tended to migrate into the middle of the walkway), go through her bedtime routine fairly quietly, and then, then, my friends, she would turn on the TV.
For you see, this X could not sleep without noise from the TV. Our blogger vainly suggested music, podcasts, perhaps even episodes on Hulu--something which could come through earbuds!--but to no avail. As humans often are, X was persuaded that only the way to which she was accustomed could possibly work. (This opened our blogger's eyes to that particular bad habit in her own life, and she thereafter tried to take advice that went against her inclination but that she knew was good for her.) At the time of this story, our blogger's college had just reconvened after Christmas break, and there had been an extra-long weekend because of a nasty storm which piled snow atop ice.
The scene was the wee-to-largeish hours of Monday morning. The blogger is quite certain of this, as she finished a particularly gripping book around 11:30, and thus wasn't in bed until midnight. She vaguely heard X come in, put on her "black-out shade eyelids," turned herself away from the light, and restarted her podcasts, so she wouldn't be drawn into the stories issuing glibly from the TV. The TV was louder than usual, the hour was later, the blogger's sleep more fragile as she had recently been on break--for any or all of these reasons, the blogger spent nearly 2 hours half-awake, until the sleep timer mercifully shut the TV off--eight or so minutes after which, her trusty Clip ran out of battery. Our blogger reflected later that the timing could not have been more perfect.
When morning broke, more than it had already, our blogger turned off her alarm and promptly fell asleep again. When she was jolted out of sleep by X's phone alarm, her words were--and I believe this is accurate, though the blogger would be unwilling to testify its truth in a court of law-- "Crap crap crap!"
She climbed hurriedly out of bed, thanking heaven she had laid out her clothes the night before, and whisked through the shower in 12 minutes flat, leaving her precisely on schedule despite the unexpected half-hour sleep-in.
Our blogger thinks, despite everything in her which tells her that the relationship was thoroughly dysfunctional, that she is grateful to have had the experience of someone who is utterly careless of anyone's comfort but their own.
"It gave me confidence that I can recognize dysfunctional relationships, steer clear of them while they aren't large commitments, and that I can cope with one if forced into it," says the blogger. "I have concrete experience now of how selfish people can be, and reason that I should not get emotionally involved with anyone with these characteristics--and reason to never let myself get there, to change while the habit is small. Furthermore, I got all of this experience without the messiness of romantic attachment or being married!"
She has a point, don't you think? How much easier to get learning experiences from a roommate, whom you aren't committed to, than even a boyfriend!
Now this blogger was a college student, and she cordially disliked her roommate. It was nothing personal; they just had nothing in common. The blogger was a very quiet person, keeping regular hours for bedtime and mostly sticking to her room. She also, and this is important to the story, needed quiet while sleeping--not absolute quiet, but for the room to be mostly dark and mostly quiet. ("What happens on the other side of the door can stay there, and I'll ignore it, but don't let it come in," was her general philosophy.) But the blogger's roomie, whom we shall call X in the time-honored fashion, was a social butterfly, often not coming back till the wee hours were getting quite large, especially on the weekend, and then turning on her light (admittedly necessary, as her chair tended to migrate into the middle of the walkway), go through her bedtime routine fairly quietly, and then, then, my friends, she would turn on the TV.
For you see, this X could not sleep without noise from the TV. Our blogger vainly suggested music, podcasts, perhaps even episodes on Hulu--something which could come through earbuds!--but to no avail. As humans often are, X was persuaded that only the way to which she was accustomed could possibly work. (This opened our blogger's eyes to that particular bad habit in her own life, and she thereafter tried to take advice that went against her inclination but that she knew was good for her.) At the time of this story, our blogger's college had just reconvened after Christmas break, and there had been an extra-long weekend because of a nasty storm which piled snow atop ice.
The scene was the wee-to-largeish hours of Monday morning. The blogger is quite certain of this, as she finished a particularly gripping book around 11:30, and thus wasn't in bed until midnight. She vaguely heard X come in, put on her "black-out shade eyelids," turned herself away from the light, and restarted her podcasts, so she wouldn't be drawn into the stories issuing glibly from the TV. The TV was louder than usual, the hour was later, the blogger's sleep more fragile as she had recently been on break--for any or all of these reasons, the blogger spent nearly 2 hours half-awake, until the sleep timer mercifully shut the TV off--eight or so minutes after which, her trusty Clip ran out of battery. Our blogger reflected later that the timing could not have been more perfect.
When morning broke, more than it had already, our blogger turned off her alarm and promptly fell asleep again. When she was jolted out of sleep by X's phone alarm, her words were--and I believe this is accurate, though the blogger would be unwilling to testify its truth in a court of law-- "Crap crap crap!"
She climbed hurriedly out of bed, thanking heaven she had laid out her clothes the night before, and whisked through the shower in 12 minutes flat, leaving her precisely on schedule despite the unexpected half-hour sleep-in.
Our blogger thinks, despite everything in her which tells her that the relationship was thoroughly dysfunctional, that she is grateful to have had the experience of someone who is utterly careless of anyone's comfort but their own.
"It gave me confidence that I can recognize dysfunctional relationships, steer clear of them while they aren't large commitments, and that I can cope with one if forced into it," says the blogger. "I have concrete experience now of how selfish people can be, and reason that I should not get emotionally involved with anyone with these characteristics--and reason to never let myself get there, to change while the habit is small. Furthermore, I got all of this experience without the messiness of romantic attachment or being married!"
She has a point, don't you think? How much easier to get learning experiences from a roommate, whom you aren't committed to, than even a boyfriend!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Mail Call!
This post will be sans pictures, because I do not have the patience right now to take 13 pictures and have 2 turn out, upload them to the computer, decide which ones to use (despite the majority crappiness), upload them to Blogger, wait 20 minutes for that to finish, then rearrange them, composing all the while, so that pix and text flow nicely together. Not gonna happen today, kay? Later.
To set the scene: It's bleeding cold today. Not cold as in only getting to 45, not cold as in staying in the thirties all day--cold as in the high is below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Just lovely. The fountain in front of one of the dorms has frozen--there are icicles. On the fountain. Anyway--cold. I suffered through walking to Logic this morning, riding three-fourths of a mile to history, and dealing with pedestrians on my way to and from German, and I finally came home after English. It was 3:30 by now, and I was starved, so I decided (after setting my bras to soak, because there's only so long anyone can go without doing some semblance of laundry) to get pizza from the Cate.
I came downstairs and around the corner, and decided on the spur of the moment to check the mail. After all, I was expecting two packages, and the campus post office is on the way from my dorm to the Cate eating area. Sure enough, there was a pick-up slip in my box! When I got to the post office, I pulled out my ID and pink slip at the same time, and the guy behind the counter said,
"Hey, I think there might be two packages for you! Lemme check while you sign and date the slip." Sure enough, he came back with two packages and another slip. "The slip for this one got put in [other dorm] by mistake. If you'll sign and date this one too....."
I happily carried my packages over to Cate, ordered my pizza, and sat down gloat--er, open the mail. First, I opened the box, which contained a scrumptious skein of Yarn Love, Juliet base, colorway Robin Hood, a whole passel of Mint Truffle Kisses, and a sweet little Happy Holidays card. After I oohed and ahhed over that for a suitable length of time, I opened the envelope, which was, to say the least, crammed full. Its contents were a handful of Kisses with meltaway centers and two cowls, both Poinsettia by Anne Hanson--one, green Cascade 220, the other, cream Alpaca with a Twist.
The first package was a prize from YarnTails AKA Brandy, for winning a blog contest--the yarn is gorgeous, Brandy, and I can't wait to eat the mint Kisses!--and the second was from my partner in the Plurk cowl swap, zbaerenlovesme AKA Robin. Robin was concerned after knitting the first, green, cowl, that it might be too long, and possibly scratchy, and so she very sweetly knit me another! I love them both, Robin--the alpaca is so soft, and the wool, while a little on the tall side, is perfect for days like today, when even I, the die-hard non-scarf-wearer, wish I had something to cover my face. As it so happens, the green cowl is just long enough to come up to my nose and stay put reasonably firmly. It's amazing how much warmer I was wearing it home--either the bit of wool around my neck really made a huge difference, or the cowl magically made the wind drop. Either way, I'm totally crediting the cowl! ;-)
To set the scene: It's bleeding cold today. Not cold as in only getting to 45, not cold as in staying in the thirties all day--cold as in the high is below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Just lovely. The fountain in front of one of the dorms has frozen--there are icicles. On the fountain. Anyway--cold. I suffered through walking to Logic this morning, riding three-fourths of a mile to history, and dealing with pedestrians on my way to and from German, and I finally came home after English. It was 3:30 by now, and I was starved, so I decided (after setting my bras to soak, because there's only so long anyone can go without doing some semblance of laundry) to get pizza from the Cate.
I came downstairs and around the corner, and decided on the spur of the moment to check the mail. After all, I was expecting two packages, and the campus post office is on the way from my dorm to the Cate eating area. Sure enough, there was a pick-up slip in my box! When I got to the post office, I pulled out my ID and pink slip at the same time, and the guy behind the counter said,
"Hey, I think there might be two packages for you! Lemme check while you sign and date the slip." Sure enough, he came back with two packages and another slip. "The slip for this one got put in [other dorm] by mistake. If you'll sign and date this one too....."
I happily carried my packages over to Cate, ordered my pizza, and sat down gloat--er, open the mail. First, I opened the box, which contained a scrumptious skein of Yarn Love, Juliet base, colorway Robin Hood, a whole passel of Mint Truffle Kisses, and a sweet little Happy Holidays card. After I oohed and ahhed over that for a suitable length of time, I opened the envelope, which was, to say the least, crammed full. Its contents were a handful of Kisses with meltaway centers and two cowls, both Poinsettia by Anne Hanson--one, green Cascade 220, the other, cream Alpaca with a Twist.
The first package was a prize from YarnTails AKA Brandy, for winning a blog contest--the yarn is gorgeous, Brandy, and I can't wait to eat the mint Kisses!--and the second was from my partner in the Plurk cowl swap, zbaerenlovesme AKA Robin. Robin was concerned after knitting the first, green, cowl, that it might be too long, and possibly scratchy, and so she very sweetly knit me another! I love them both, Robin--the alpaca is so soft, and the wool, while a little on the tall side, is perfect for days like today, when even I, the die-hard non-scarf-wearer, wish I had something to cover my face. As it so happens, the green cowl is just long enough to come up to my nose and stay put reasonably firmly. It's amazing how much warmer I was wearing it home--either the bit of wool around my neck really made a huge difference, or the cowl magically made the wind drop. Either way, I'm totally crediting the cowl! ;-)
Monday, November 16, 2009
Ah, college.....
College is seriously interfering with the blogging time, but it does supply plenty of material! Today, I'm going to post a version of Little Red Riding Hood, which was an in-class exercise during English today. It's completely unedited, and I didn't finish the story (though I got to the climactic moment), so be warned.
Riff on the LRRH fairy tale
by Constance
This morning I decided to bring Grandma some of her favorite cookies, and Mama as always warned me to stay on the path and not to talk to strangers.
"You never know when a friendly person may turn out to be some sort of predator," she warned me, like she had a million times.
"Yes, Mama, I'll be very careful," I answered like I had the other million times.
Well, my definition and her definition of careful don't precisely coincide. I mean, it's not like I go looking for strangers to pour out my life story to, but Mama raised me to be polite. So people just spontaneously come up to me and ask me things (I don't know why), and I answer them. It's the polite thing to do.
On this particular walk to Grandma's, I was walking sedately along the path and singing to myself, and suddenly a wolf, who looked just like my dog, only bigger, popped his head out of the bushes.
"Where are you going, little girl wearing red?" he asked sweetly.
"I'm going to my grandma's house, sir," I replied. It always pays to be polite to people with large, sharp teeth. "It's just down the road--quite a small cottage, but most comfortable! She made my cloak; don't you like it?" I twirled, to show it off. "I love my cloak, with its pretty red hood, and I never take it off!"
"And what are you taking her, little girl?"
"I'm taking her some of her favorite cookies! Mama only baked them this morning."
"It sounds delightful, little girl! Enjoy your visit to your grandma's, and I hope I will see you soon!"
"Goodbye, sir! It was very nice talking to you!" I called after him, and then continued my walk.
When I arrived at Grandma's house, imagine my surprise to see a very hairy, very toothy grandma cuddled into bed.
"My, Grandma, what big eyes you have," I said doubtfully.
"All the better to see you with," Grandma said raspily.
"My, Grandma, what big teeth you have," I added, even more doubtfully.
"All the better to eat you with!"
******************
That of course is not the end of the story, but it's as far as I got with it. Just in case you are anxious about the end, both Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood survive, being rescued by the lumberjack, and I'm not sure about the wolf. He did eat Grandma, after all.......
After writing the story (that represents about 20 minutes of class period), JM had us read our stories aloud and discuss how each used rhetorical devices to produce remarkably different stories from the same few plot points. After I read mine, the instant response from my classmates was that I should be a professional storyteller, because I actually read the story like it was people talking and interacting, not in a monotone. ::laughs::
Riff on the LRRH fairy tale
by Constance
This morning I decided to bring Grandma some of her favorite cookies, and Mama as always warned me to stay on the path and not to talk to strangers.
"You never know when a friendly person may turn out to be some sort of predator," she warned me, like she had a million times.
"Yes, Mama, I'll be very careful," I answered like I had the other million times.
Well, my definition and her definition of careful don't precisely coincide. I mean, it's not like I go looking for strangers to pour out my life story to, but Mama raised me to be polite. So people just spontaneously come up to me and ask me things (I don't know why), and I answer them. It's the polite thing to do.
On this particular walk to Grandma's, I was walking sedately along the path and singing to myself, and suddenly a wolf, who looked just like my dog, only bigger, popped his head out of the bushes.
"Where are you going, little girl wearing red?" he asked sweetly.
"I'm going to my grandma's house, sir," I replied. It always pays to be polite to people with large, sharp teeth. "It's just down the road--quite a small cottage, but most comfortable! She made my cloak; don't you like it?" I twirled, to show it off. "I love my cloak, with its pretty red hood, and I never take it off!"
"And what are you taking her, little girl?"
"I'm taking her some of her favorite cookies! Mama only baked them this morning."
"It sounds delightful, little girl! Enjoy your visit to your grandma's, and I hope I will see you soon!"
"Goodbye, sir! It was very nice talking to you!" I called after him, and then continued my walk.
When I arrived at Grandma's house, imagine my surprise to see a very hairy, very toothy grandma cuddled into bed.
"My, Grandma, what big eyes you have," I said doubtfully.
"All the better to see you with," Grandma said raspily.
"My, Grandma, what big teeth you have," I added, even more doubtfully.
"All the better to eat you with!"
******************
That of course is not the end of the story, but it's as far as I got with it. Just in case you are anxious about the end, both Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood survive, being rescued by the lumberjack, and I'm not sure about the wolf. He did eat Grandma, after all.......
After writing the story (that represents about 20 minutes of class period), JM had us read our stories aloud and discuss how each used rhetorical devices to produce remarkably different stories from the same few plot points. After I read mine, the instant response from my classmates was that I should be a professional storyteller, because I actually read the story like it was people talking and interacting, not in a monotone. ::laughs::
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