A fresh new year on the calendar – 2015! – or, as we knew it growing up, one of those dates which might be found floating, informatively, above some space station or post-apocalyptic wasteland as the soundtrack swelled and the sci-fi feature began. The first time I saw Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001’ (I was probably in 8th grade myself at BCD, c. 1985) it still had the whiff of something wonderfully futuristic, even if it was clear by that time that we weren’t going to return to the moon anytime soon, much less build an orbital palace which might gently tumble through nothingness to the delicate strains of Strauss.
I assume our kids will feel similarly when, say, 2039 rolls around. (An aging Channing Tatum will have just been cast as Dr. Heywood Floyd for the remake, which the studio will have helpfully re-titled ‘2101’ … Justin Bieber’s son, the unfortunately-named ‘Eager,’ is thought to be a shoo-in for the role of Bowman, his father having recently been attached to voice HAL.)
And in honor of the first month of a new year, this teacher has decided (resolved, really) to observe the surprisingly venerable tradition of the New Year’s Resolution — which historical consensus traces to roughly 2,000 BCE, when Babylonian custom was to resolve, amid the festivities, to use part of the new year to make amends for the wrongdoings of the past one. So, while I hesitate to follow the hints of Gilgamesh and ancient hanging gardens which the word ‘Babylon’ has always connoted for me with this detestable modern coinage, I’ll do it anyway, for BCD: I hereby resolve to blog.
To blog regularly, even … see how awful that sounds? An inelegant abbreviation of an already clumsy portmanteau (‘weblog’) … and if you feel the foregoing makes me a language snob, ask me sometime for a few choice words on ‘vlog.’
In my mind’s eye, I intend to call them simply, ‘posts.’
What a year this has been in English 8E!! I could write daily about the many extraordinary moments we’ve shared in Ryan 23 (and might, had I the time) yet fail to impart the range of what I’ve seen these students accomplish, individually and as a group — and always marked with a bravery, and a level of mutual support, which to witness is moving each and every time. We should all live in such a world, in which every cry – from “You’re mean!” all the way to “Oh my god, now I get it!” – is followed immediately by kind laughter, and a big group hug from your friends.