A Little Holiday Love and Gratitude Video for You

 

Notable Films Watched in 2020: February, March, and April (all streaming)

I Am Not Your Negro (2016):

In Raoul Peck's powerful documentary, Peck brings to life the book writer James Baldwin never finished, Remember this House, providing an opportunity for Baldwin to tell the story of race in modern America. 

Horse Girl (2020):

Horse Girl illuminates the inner world of socially isolated and PTSD sufferer Sarah (Alison Brie), a craft store assistant with a love for horses and supernatural crime shows and increasingly lucid dreams that begin trickling into her waking life.

The Farewell (2019):

Lulu Wang's amazing comedy drama The Farewell centers on Chinese family members who discover their grandmother (Shuzhen Zhao) has only a short while left to live. With Awkwafini leading the cast as Americanized Billi, emotions run deep when the family decides to keep their grandmother in the dark, scheduling a wedding so everyone can gather for a final secret farewell before she dies.  

Crip Camp (2020):

In Crip Camp, directors James Lebrecht (a former camper) and Nicole Newnham reveals the joy and activism that sprung from summers spent at Camp Jened, a ramshackle camp in the Catskills specifically for teenagers with disabilities. At Camp Jened, teens with disabilities enjoyed activities typically reserved for "the able bodied" in the 1970s and built bonds with one another that endured as they migrated to Berkeley, California, a promised land for a growing and diverse disability community. With our own Joseph Heumann's sister Judy at the helm, these friends from Camp Jened spearheaded the disability rights movement that helped secure life-changing accessibility. 

The Death of Stalin (2017):

A comic drama set in 1953 Moscow, The Death of Stalin highlights what happens after Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) takes ill and dies--the members of his Council of Ministers scramble for power. 

The Juniper Tree (1990):

Writer director Nietchka Keene turns fable into art film in The Juniper Tree, landscape sets the mood for story of two sisters, Margit (Bjork) and Katia (Bryndis Petra Bragadottir) fleeing persecution after their mother is killed for practicing witchcraft. More than the complicated love story, Iceland takes center stage in this atmospheric film. 

Notable Films Watched in 2020: January

 

Notable Films of 2020: January

The Laundryman (Dir. Chung Lee, 2015): A-Gu (Tang Su) enlists a group of contract killers while disguised as the owner of a laundry service. One of them, code-named "No. 1, Greenfield Lane" (Hsiao-chuan Chang), is haunted by the ghosts of his victims. He seeks help from Lin Hsiang (Regina Wan), a psychic. Lin helps him get rid of the ghosts, but the laundry hides secrets more than she bargains for. What "No. 1, Greenfield Lane" runs away from turns out to be the ghosts from his past. 

Yomeddine (Dir. Abu Bakr Shawky, 2018): Coptic leper Beshay (Rady Gamal) and his orphaned apprentice Obama (Ahmed Abdelhafiz) leave the confines of their leper colony for the first time and embark on a journey across Egypt to search for what is left of their families. 

 Whisky (Dir. Juan Pablo Rebella, Pablo Stoll, 2005): When his long-lost brother Herman (Jorge Bolani) resurfaces, Jacobo (Andrés Pazos), desperate to prove his life has added up to something, looks to scrounge up a wife. He turns to Marta (Mirella Pascual), an employee at his sock factory, with whom he has a prickly relationship.

 In the Theatre: 

1917 (Dir. Sam Mendes, 2019): During World War I, two British soldiers -- Lance Cpl. Schofield (George MacKay) and Lance Cpl. Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) -- receive seemingly impossible orders. In a race against time, they must cross over into enemy territory to deliver a message that could potentially save 1,600 of their fellow comrades -- including Blake's own brother. Stylistic elements make this derivative war drama worth watching.

Love and Gratitude this Holiday Season!

Hi Dear Ones,

Despite the pandemic, the year 2020 has brought many joys here in Charleston, beyond dog walks, schoolwork, meetings, appointments, research, and workouts. 

In this season of gratitude and love, I am thankful for small things like these:

• curbside pickup and online ordering 

• climate pledge friendly products 

• the sun 

• peanut butter 

• year-round work in the garden 

• An election day holiday in Illinois!

• To-do lists 

• That huge buck running through a backyard 

• Hikes in the woods 

• My favorite prayer: “Help us all to walk more gently on your earth and live more gently with each other. Amen.” 

 • That hum my dog makes in the back of the throat when she eats or feels me hitting just the right spot behind her ear. 

• four beans growing on the plant I saved from the frost now sitting in my backroom window 

• changing the part in my hair 

• And you! 

Thank you for all you do. Please know Dolly and I are sending you much love!

A Few more Statements of Thanks

11/16/20: Can I be helpful for cooking? Chili, quinoa, and broccoli to go with tofu dogs. 

 11/17/20: So glad I finished a video for the Green Team today! Thanks, indeed, for the time to complete this. 

 11/18/20: Thanks for students and their hard work! 

11/19/20: Today I am so thankful for a warm sunny day and Jazzercise online. 

 11/20/20: Thank you for the wonderful hike at Fox Ridge State Park! 

 11/21/20: I am thankful for today’s e-devotion from Wesley Methodist Church: “Help us all to walk more gently on your earth and live more gently with each other. Amen.”

Thanks for the First Half of November

 

11/1/20: Thank you for continuing virtual church services, even after you resume an in-person meeting! 

11/2/20: Thanks to an understanding Zoom book study group for How to be an Anti-Racist, who all allowed me to turn off my video after talking with family members planning to celebrate Thanksgiving in a large group during Covid. 

 11/3/20: Today I am thankful for peanut butter, yummy peanut butter that makes apples transform into decadent treats. Spread a little peanut butter on a flax, oat bran, and whole wheat pita, add a little all fruit jam, and you have a dessert made in heaven. Delicious! 

 11/4/20: Our Illinois Governor and legislature voted in election day as a holiday this year, so I am thankful I was able to enjoy the unseasonably warm November day, cleaning out vegetable beds in the garden and trimming a few branches. It felt good to be outside, even getting in a short bike ride to mail a card and benefits form and enjoying my long dog walks even more! 

 11/5/20: Thank you for summer in November for happy dog walks and time to work in the garden after school. 

 11/6/20: Thank you for a fun RISE Conference committee, who all make it a celebration on Zoom when we meet. Thank you for long drives and new discoveries and spurts of research creativity, too!  

11/7/20: Thank you for a quick morning without ablutions to prepare me for a fun morning of raking and blowing leaves for our Helping Hands day. 

 11/8/20: Thanks to the continuing good weather, I’m digging into my summer clothes for church dresses and shorts. 11/9/20: Thanks for one more day of sunny 70s giving me a perfect day to wash windows, mulch leaves with my mower, and naturally fertilize my garden beds with compost! 

11/10/20: Thanks for a good Tuesday of excellent grading, class prep, and reading. 

11/11/20: Today I am thankful for completing tasks and checking off items on my to-do list. 

11/12/20: I am thankful for sunshine today and good walks and students who show up for conferences. 

11/13/20: I am thankful for time today. With grading completed, I started creating a video for the Green Team at.Charleston’s Wesley United Methodist Church. 

 11/14/20: My thankful moment today happened on a drive into the country where we saw a huge buck running through a backyard in that rich neighborhood on the hill above the horse farm.

11/15/20: Thanks to November rain and wind to blow it away and blow in the sun for a few more days of fall. 

Life in Two Lines

Even though work overwhelms me now, each day begins with journaling--in my list journal I fill in as the day progresses and my two-line journal recently filled with little things I give thanks for. 

That means this blog has been on hiatus, overshadowed by online teaching responsibilities, student Zoom conferences lasting till 10:30 at night, constant responding, and revised lesson plans. Because our tenure includes service and research here, my weeks are also filled with meetings--Making Excellence Inclusive RISE Conference meetings, creative writing committee meetings, department meetings, English education meetings, and too many others to count. 

Yet, I still add to this meeting list each week, participating in a church book study reading How to be an Antiracist and two church committees--Church and Society and Green Team.

So, I'm making excuses for missing two weeks of blogging in October and waiting until November 15 for my first blog this month.

That's all I can say.