Dancing Days Are Here Again

Some vignettes from the past week:

--Here's another strange juxtaposition of modern, multicultural life.  On Wed., I headed over to my church to help set up the annual pumpkin patch:

Photo by Pastor Keith Spencer

My Hindu writer friend's high holy days also started this week--lots of dancing for those who are able.

Hindu dancing, a Christian pumpkin patch--could one rework a Cinderella tale here?

--Yesterday in my Composition II class, I went over what I hoped my students had already learned about structuring an essay.  I am old-fashioned--I wrote on a white board.  My students took photos of the board with their smart phones.

Now their smart phones will also know how to write an essay--how computers learn!  That, too, seems like it should be a nugget I could use in my writing somewhere.

--One of my students came up afterwards to show me his notes that he took in an old-fashioned way, with a pen on paper.  He told me that his notes were gold, that he had learned more about writing from the morning's class than in the last year and a half.

Cynical types may say that he was insincere--but if so, he's got great acting skills.

--I am listening to newscasts that use the word "deconfliction."  Did this word exist two months ago?

It sounds like a word that describes some sort of peace process.  But it seems to be used to describe talks between Russia and the U.S. so that their respective war planes don't crash into each other over Syria and so that troops shoot Syrians of various factions and not each other.

--I prefer my church's vision of deconfliction--put pumpkins in our yard and welcome the world.

Photo by Pastor Keith Spencer