weekend #3

and on and on we go

the seconds tick the time out

there's so much left to know

and i'm on the road to find out

cat stevens

Ah, Homecoming weekend!  Autumn stirs the air, teenagers yell and dance and celebrate the annual rite of high school jingoism and pride, and we beat on, boats against the current, endlessly drifting into the deeper September ahead.

GO SCOUTS!!!  she screams into her mute computer screen, knowing it will never respond, not until they actually invent those science fiction marvels that populate our futuristic movies and television programs.  GO SCOUTS!!!  she hollers once again, the sentiment temporarily molding itself into visible form before her in her imagination, words hanging in blue and gold in mid-air between her lips and the flickering pixels before dissolving into the vapor that had shaped them.  

She won't go to the game.  She won't go to any of the festivities.  She prefers the certainty of the 17" screen to the uncertainty of those who label themselves her friends but too often act in ways that betray motives bordering on treason.  Click! and the screen takes her to today's important news.  Damn.  When is he ever going to figure out that they won't give him any votes no matter what he does?  She scrolls away from the scowling photo of the President.  Click! and she's staring at her favorite celebrity site.  Yes!  They moved up the premiere!  Three fewer weeks to wait!  Smiling now, she allows her eyes to drift to the email still open in a small window near the bottom of the screen.

She can do it now.

Clicking on the small window, she types quickly.

Can't make it tonight.  Sorry.  Not feeling well. Might be a stomach flu.  GO SCOUTS!

Carey

After she clicks "send," she stands, drains the coke sitting next to her keyboard, and heads downstairs to put on a movie.

Your weekend homework information follows now:

CW: Compose at least two poems using different styles and techniques.  These poems must have as a focus a specific object found in your room.  (It will be the same object in each poem.)  While the object need not be the entire subject of the poem, it does need to have significance within the poem; i.e. it should not merely be named in passing.  Due Monday, normal submission.  And now, for your enjoyment (and for a letter in return which I will find in my mailbox next week), Letter #2!  And finally, CW-ers, your CONFERENCE SCHEDULE IS READY!!!  It begins next week!!!  Check when yours is by clicking on the link above marked "conferences."  NOTE: If your conference falls within the class period, that means that you have top priority for a teacher conference as time permits during the week in the order listed.

E3H:  Archibald MacLeish's "Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monuments" is a response to Shakespeare's poem of the same name (as one can tell by the quotation marks if one is attentive).  Join forces with at least one classmate and, in a series of emails or in an on-line chat or IM session lasting at least half an hour, discuss ways this poem comments on the earlier one.  Print out the final email (with all of the other ones embedded) or the record of the IM/chat session and bring it to class Monday.

E2CP: We've got all those great Transcendentalist quotes (which we've agreed have nothing to do with dentistry).  But what they do have to do with is our relation to society, nature, and the spiritual.  This weekend, I want you to join forces with at least one classmate and, in a series of emails or in an on-line chat or IM session lasting at least half an hour, discuss at least five quotes from these writers that you think connect to each other in some way and how they connect.  Print out the final email (with all of the other ones embedded) or the record of the IM/chat session and bring it to class Monday.