7.29.2005

Spread this meme

Put an ICE contact on your cell phone. This has been spreading from the East Anglian Ambulance Service in Hellesdon, England, UK, and starting to show up on blogs. It's one of those ideas that you can't believe you never thought of, but you didn't. I didn't either, but I put "ICE Day," "ICE Night," and "ICE Work" contacts in my cellphone database once I heard about it. Do it. It will be so responsible of you.


posted by mktackabery @ 15:26 0 comments

Finishing

Richard and I went out to see the Chavis games Wednesday night. It was our last chance to see all the Wolfpackers before next week’s playoffs. There was no reason to worry, however, because they will all be playing in those games. Style won the division, and was playing for an undefeated season, which they had no worries about from what we saw, even though we left at halftime. Plastic bleachers plus three and a half hours = numb butt. We had had enough pain by halftime and Style was way up. Anthony Grundy was on fire though. When we left he had sunk four or five of five to six of his three-pointers. He just couldn’t miss. I saw on the message boards yesterday that he ended up with 36 points.

Josh Powell, a Wolfpacker who did not stay in school, got a job with the Dallas Mavericks last week. Great for him, and I hope he does well. It made me wish he had stayed in school.

Of course I wish Josh had stayed and played for us. Our seasons, which have been progressively great, could have been that much greater. Woulda coulda shoulda – I know all about it. With the new NBA regs keeping teenagers out of the league until they are 19, there’s been a lot of sport-talk debate about the pros and cons of the decision. On the one hand, I agree that the guys in question should have the right to profit from their talent, and in college they have no way to profit from their success. College coaches prop up the old tired arguments about the benefits of an education. I realized Wednesday that what’s missing in that debate is the argument that people who finish what they start gain a clear advantage over people who don’t learn early how to finish.

I watched the games Wednesday and I really enjoyed watching our new freshmen recruits on the court. It’s fun to wonder what kind of success they will have and picture them making things happen in our system. As I watched their eagerness to do well, look good in front of the crowd, and learn from the older guys they were playing with, I glanced down at my college ring which I wear every day. My college ring is a symbol representing all the complicated feelings of my college experience. Some of those complicated feelings are painful and still twinge. But on the whole, my college ring represents the first major accomplishment of my adult life, because it is something I garnered wholly on my own.

I look at my high school diploma as a joint effort on behalf of my mother, my teachers and my priests to give me an education and help me grow. I didn’t do it alone. Technically, I didn’t do college alone, either, but it was the first thing I attempted that I was solely responsible for. College is a test on many levels, and one of those tests is how you can succeed given the complete lack of external academic pressure. No one is kicking your butt out of bed to go to class. No one is kicking your butt into the library to do research. And absolutely no one is encouraging you to study and prepare for exams, papers and presentations. You have to do the work on your own, and if you don’t do it, you suffer the consequences and nobody cares if you fail. It’s not their responsibility to either care for you or see that you do well. That’s up to you.

Doing well, succeeding, getting my degree, earning stellar grades and graduating with honors – that was all me. I did that. I did the work, made the sacrifices, gave up the partying (sometimes) and made the extra effort. Now I have something that no one can take away from me. I learned how to succeed.

A lot of hoo-hah was made about Julius Hodge finishing his degree. He does deserve praise for that, and not just because he did what his Mama told him to. He finished something. Julius promised he would win us a championship. He didn’t get us one, but nobody tried harder than him to get it, and he got his team farther than anyone believed, dreamed or even hoped he would. He also has a kind of success that no one can take away from him and no loss, no matter how heartbreaking, can ever diminish. He has achievements under his belt, milestones he achieved with the sweat and determination of his own effort. Learning how to achieve, and having the proof, makes you a different, better person Maybe if Josh had finished what he started, he would be farther in his career than he is now; perhaps not, and indeed, who can say? But finishing what you start gives you a confidence and a shine that enables you to keep on finishing what you start, and keep on succeeding. The guys who leave early, a lot of them don’t get the big paycheck they dreamed about. If they had forestalled the promise of that payday just a little longer, maybe they would have something else right now. A ring that means something. I don’t know if Coach Sendek uses that argument in his living room speeches, but he should. I believe he probably does say it a lot: “FINISH.”

posted by mktackabery @ 09:10 0 comments

7.24.2005

Awesome tool on Google

Google Print. It's still in Beta.

posted by mktackabery @ 16:32 0 comments

7.23.2005

Meat's back on the menu

I'm not sure when it happened, but the theology program is back at my alma mater. Some years ago there was word that they were doing away with the minimum theology course requirements and the program back at the Abbey, and I was pretty upset. Not only because well, that was my major when I was there, but just that a private Catholic institution not teaching theology seemed completely contrary to its mission. It may have been just a rumor, but there was little evidence of theology in Abbey communications. Well, it's back now, no matter when it left. I'm thrilled that Fr. Chris is teaching as well. He is the ideal professor for that entry-level class and one of those few who truly belongs in a classroom.

The Abbey has a new website, too, with which I'm impressed, with reservation. It is immediately obvious when visiting the site that the Abbey is different from other institutions, and it should be. You should get the point that it is a Catholic college right away, and I think it accomplishes that with the graphics, content and the pictures of the campus. The Abbey is definitely one place where the architecture and surroundings have much to do with the experience of being there, and I think the designers managed to translate that. Also I think the interface is clean, neat and easy to get around.

There are things that suck about it, however. The search functionality is awful. That may be because it's new and hasn't been knocked around enough. A search for "kirchgessner," Fr. Chris' last name, did not return any page with his name on it. The faculty are supposed to be broken out into divisions, but the divisions link is a self-referrer - there is not an actual divisions listing. Also the entire faculty is in one long alpha list with no breaks or easy way to find a professor by department or name. Sheesh. It's a small place, but still. There is also little or no biographical information about the faculty. I think it's very obvious that this site is brand-spanking new and doesn't have quite the content depth it should. Perhaps this will be remedied over time. God knows they have the money to spend on it. I believe tuition cracked the $20k per year mark several years ago. When I went there room and board was about $12k, so a student is looking at about $34-36k per year to go there. I won't even spend that much on all of my grad school years put together.

posted by mktackabery @ 08:05 0 comments

7.13.2005

Nice article about Chavis, and food for thought

This one gets all the facts straight. I tagged the wrong Globetrotter, though.

Food for thought on blogs. While the professor remains anonymous, a cop-out, his opinions on blogs and the interview process were sound and really made me think. I've been in a situation where what I wrote in this blog caused an issue at work. We are still tip-toeing around it. I've been tip-toeing since I started this thing. Journals are tricky things, and I am always reminded of the life of Anais Nin when I think about the tension between personal truth and tact. She constantly wrote and rewrote her entries, and really wasn't able to push the whole truth into the world until after she and everyone else in her life were gone. As a writer, and someone who wants to be an artist - I think other people have to recognize you as an artist, it's the height of arrogance to call yourself one with a straight face - I feel the need to push the truth as far as I can despite the harm it might do to other people to hear it, but I'm always pulled back by that. Is it worth hurting the person to push the truth out? In terms of what's happened to me personally, and my struggles with PTSD, I am hoping that the truth that I am able to tell will get the word out to the extent that we can find a way, collectively, to put an end to the circumstances that caused my PTSD - childhood sexual abuse. I know not many people are reading my blog, but by publishing it in a public forum I am opening myself up, allowing the public record to dictate how long my words will be out there. With search engine technology, they could be out there a very long time, and even if I take a website down, it's still published via search engine archives and tools like the Wayback Machine. As much as I might not want it to be true, cyberspace grants permanence to a lot of things that might not deserve such status.

The tension is one of the reasons I don't blog about a lot of the things I'd like to. I like my job, quite a lot, and I have goals at this company I want to reach, successes I want to make happen, that precludes me bitching about the tiny irritations that in the long run are meaningless. Some of the more juicier aspects of my interior life, though, are not going to make it to this blog because I don't want to hurt people. Do I push them aside, and post away? Not if it endangers my professional life to such an extent that I can't afford to publish anymore at all.

"Life is hard. Can't get to heaven on rollerskates, can't take a taxicab to Timbuktu." - Timbuk3


posted by mktackabery @ 09:01 2 comments

7.12.2005

When I see things like this, I realize how much I love boring, bald, over-intellectualizing, mathematical, priest-behind-the-bench, blind-kid memorializing, never-tell-you-what-he's-really-feeling basketball guru Herb Sendek.

posted by mktackabery @ 15:26 0 comments

Fire Karl

Sign Kerry's letter.

posted by mktackabery @ 15:24 1 comments

7.10.2005

My Weekend

Richard and I went to the games at Chavis Friday night. Evtimov's team creamed their opponents by like 15 points; the guys around me were mad at Evtimov because he wasn't doing "anything" even though he is an "ACC boy." I'm not sure what they meant as he sunk about seven free throws or something, hit one or two big threes and delivered some very artistic assists, including one of my favorites, the behind-the-back no-look pass. The black guys around me seemed to be cheering for his opponents because they were underdogs, that is, mostly white and mostly smaller; I suppose there are some things I will never understand.

Hey, it was cheap entertainment; that's why we were there. I thought Ilian seemed to be having a good time and not taking the game too seriously, which seemed like a good plan on a Friday night when a good portion of the audience was going in and out to partake of mind-altering substances and spending the rest of the time heckling the players non-stop, which was the real entertainment, anyway. The guys in front of me obviously hit a jay at one point, because they reeked a bit when they leaned back towards me, and the man next to me exhaled gin and juice.

The "Men at Work" garage guy, who we found out is named Mike, was there and of course loud, wandering through the crowd to get everyone going by yelling out inflammatory rhetoric (yes, I'm a communications major. So sue me). At one point in the second game one of the guys up against Evtimov hit the deck and didn't get up for a minute, and Mike rushed over and made a big show of picking him up and then everyone clapped. I can't decide if he's the last Harlem Globetrotter to be cut, or the Spike Lee of St. Aug's.

The NC State fans were noticeable because they were mostly white and mostly grouped together. Richard and I sat right near the center so I could see everything in either direction, which meant we were not grouped with the other State fans. We spotted Jordan Collins, Gavin Grant and Andrew Brackman there; Andrew took off with two of his boys midway through the last game of the night, which was too bad because it was the more interesting of the three games. Chuckie and Ced's team mostly held on to the lead but almost lost it there a few times, and the joint was really jumping by the last four to five minutes of the game. One of the guys in front of me, a fan of Style, Chuckie's team, was attempting to entice the "haters" into a little (un) friendly wager by flashing a few twenties and insisting that his $100 bank was "open!" through the final seconds of the game, but nobody took him up on it. Style pulled it out at the end though. I believe they are leading their division and Evtimov's team, the Black Devils, is 4-1. Monday night's 6:30 game should be interesting, as Evtimov's team is playing Reaching Your Goals, the team that Gavin plays on with some of our new freshmen. I'll miss that, though, as I'll be struggling to stay awake in BUS 504. Which is going to be a constant challenge, as its text is the first truly somnolence-inducing book I've ever read.

I've heard people kid that certain books put them to sleep; this one honestly makes me sleepy when I read it. I may keep it at my bedside for the rest of my life it it manages to be this way for the rest of the course. Reading it Saturday night was a real gas. I'd read three paragraphs and yawn three times and have to stop and shake the cobwebs out of my head. Of course, it may just be that patent applications aren't sexy enough to keep me awake, either.

I'm saved in class, at least, because Amelia Vogler and Rick Kissiah, two fellow ETCers, are also in class with me and I think we will maintain a pact to keep each other awake. The professor likes to swath the room in darkness as he drones through his PowerPoint slides, but the spotlights in the ceiling highlight the students enough that truly sleeping is just impossible. Luckily he does let us break once an hour. I've decided to take copious notes to keep myself awake, but the last hour after 9 pm is really hard. The weird thing is that I do feel like I'm learning some interesting stuff. It's just that there is so much of it, and I'm really concerned about doing well in a class in which the first real test of the professor's grading is a midterm that counts for 20% of the final. The exams are all essay and true/false. I'm just bothered that there are no writing assignments to turn in that will give us some idea that we are learning the material as the professor expects us to, and "getting it" before we have to plunge into a test. I do much better on papers than tests. Which is why I'm in an English program, natch.

p.s. Hodge was the leading scorer in his second summer league game. I wish the pictures were a little better.

posted by mktackabery @ 19:03 0 comments

7.07.2005

Hodge Links

Great article on Jules from the Charlotte Observer, of all places (requires free registration).

Is there a better legacy? When the Wolfpack needed somebody to find an open man, you found him. When N.C. State needed a rebound, you grabbed it. When it needed a stop, you provided it. When it needed an NCAA tournament game-winning basket and free throw, you made them, as Connecticut will attest.

And when your teammates needed a quick lecture, you delivered it. Sometimes you even delivered a lecture when they did not.

Julius in summer school with Luke Schenscher.

Pictures from the Reebok Summer League (none up yet). The Nuggets first game is at 5 pm Vegas time today.







posted by mktackabery @ 08:23 0 comments

7.04.2005

Another one opens the terrible door

When trauma is experienced, a door to a more primitive self opens in the mind. The door enables the primitive self to take over in order to preserve the person under attack from the trauma. In a healthy, functioning adult, the primitive self can be controlled by behaviorial and societal restraints that remind the adult about the appropriateness of some self-preserving behavior. Otherwise, we'd all be killing each other, but we don't; we put the tiger back into his cage after he's done protecting us.

But consider the mind of a child, which has not yet learned behaviorial and societal constraints. Has not yet learned that ethical issues override self-preserving behavior; that there are consequences from self-preserving actions that can be experienced for a lifetime, like prison, or wallowing in self-doubt, guilt and remorse. That child's mind is a tender, growing place. When trauma opens that door, and the primitive self charges out to protect the child, vital connections in the brain are snapped. The door will not close, and the tiger is left to roam free in the mind. Easily startled.

When I heard the story of Shasta Groene, I knew that another child had been taken by PTSD, and I mourn for her. For what she has witnessed and experienced, she will know a lifetime of grief and suffering. She will always feel apart from other people. She will never really trust or love another human being more than herself, because her first obligation will always be to survive.

My other thought was for the man responsible; a registered sex offender who was released on bail after being charged with murdering another child. I've always had a hard time with this of course; my victimizer was my father and the feelings are complicated. My father did not exhibit signs of being a pedophile, and it's possible that the sexual abuse was an infrequent, and possibly as rare as one instance, event. But sex offenders who have gone as far as killing will not ever stop. They will never stop fantasizing, dreaming, plotting, scheming, and hurting. I hope the Detroit Lakes, MN, PD has a really good reason for letting him go, because they are responsible for the rest of Shasta's life: nightmares, exagerrated startle response, and everything else. I've finally gone over and I agree with Andrew Vachss on this one: they need to be put down like dogs.

On another note, I'm really disturbed to find out that the offender was a blogger.

"When it comes to damage, there is no real difference between physical, sexual and emotional abuse. All that distinguishes one from the other is the abuser's choice of weapons." - Andrew Vachss, "You Carry the Cure in Your Own Heart," Parade, August 28, 1994.

posted by mktackabery @ 07:06 0 comments

7.01.2005

On Helprin

Harvard Magazine profiled Mark Helprin this past month, a man whom I believe is the greatest living American writer. It is impossible to talk about his books without demeaning them; they are historical, fantastical, super-natural, and superbly literary. Winter's Tale is without a doubt my favorite book ever. It's power and passion never fails to completely annihilate me; for a writer, he is Camelot. Once you read him you realize you will never write anything as beautiful or as powerful, because there can only be one. In Winter's Tale there exists the perfect chapter, entitled "Nothing is Random," that I swear explains everything.

I really didn't know that much about him other than that he went to Harvard. I had no idea he lived in Virginia or that he was such a conservative, but in true Helprin fashion, his conservatism is not easy to explain either. Best to read the article. I can't agree with him on his complete classicism - I think there is much to be found in contemporary art that is worth praising, it just takes some time to dig it out of the muck of popular everything - but please, if you do nothing else in your life, read a book by Helprin. I promise you will be annihilated.

posted by mktackabery @ 16:28 0 comments