The Synergistic Pen

ok...so I teach science and have a particular appreciation for all scientists out there...

I purchase the ocassional pbs documentary on a science topic and show it to my students. I make a point of trying to find something with some people with color in their skin for my kids to see... I don't care how much color...just some color...

well, lately, mah boy over here...Neil Degrasse Tyson... has been a media darling. He's one of the commentators on the "Universe" series and has done a few PBS "Nova" docs...he even sat down on the Daily Show... yanno...just making the rounds...

and to top all that off...he's still holding down his regular gigs as the director of the Hayden Planetarium and research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History in the nyc...

busy man....


after a long week of post Hurricane Ike rain and local flooding/Indiana State Testing/visitors in the building...(sigh) I threw one of his dvd's in the machine Friday for my freshmen biology class ...

I mentioned what the show was about and went to my desk to attempt to find the top of it...

someone said..."whoa" so I looked up. Neil was talking, nothing in particular so I looked in the direction of the exclamation...

"what's wrong?"
"he's....he's... a scientist?"
I looked at the screen. "yeah."
"what kind?"
"astrophysicist."

a couple of people ran to the computers to google astrophysics. (I don't give definitions, I provide the materials to find definitions)

"so... where's he from?"
"New York."
"Brooklyn?"
"the bronx I believe, not sure"....
"so... he's like.... us?"
I stopped, looked at Neil talk about time and space and how vast the universe is and I smiled...
"yeah, he's like us."
"cool."

I watched the show a bit, noticed a few people actually taking a few notes. One got up and googled his name (after asking me who he was) and went to his website. I sighed and went back to work.

I think I love you Neil Degrasse Tyson.... thank you.

I once had a pastor friend of mine tell me I would know that I am maturing spiritually when the words I speak to someone who has asked for my advice will NOT be taken well, because I will be able to see into their soul....

I didn't understand that at the time... yet, recently, I've had total strangers call me everything but a child of God (which is ok actually) because of advice I've given...I've shaken a few to the core... and they have no choice but to lash out at me...

The thing I've noticed is... most of them are between 10 and 20 years younger than me... and they remind me of who I was between 10 and 20 years ago... stubborn, headstrong, self centered and overwhelmed...

Upon reflection on who I was then versus who I am now, I can say this... I WAS a child... in a woman's body... I had responsibilities, made choices I was not sure of and wondered if I was missing out on something because of the choices I was making.

Nawh... I made the right choices, I survived the personal, professional and spiritual storms I was supposed to go through at that period in my life... and I've come out stronger, braver, more aware of ME... and I find myself content on a level that can't be explained to someone in their 30s...trying to get where I am...

Maybe its just me... but this generation wants instant gratitfication in a way we never did... in nanaseconds... like buying stuff on ebay or something...

But...it doesn't work that way... all things worth having...as they say, are worth working for, waiting for, experiencing in their fullest... I appreciate all the things that make "me"..."me"... there's no way I would have 20 years ago...

A dear friend uses the analogy of the farmer and his crop... the farmer being God...the seed being our life experiences and encounters, the crop...being us...

there is the preparation of the field... the hard work of breaking up the soil and making it receptive to the seed that the farmer will drop into it... and then, after the seed is dropped...feeding it... and then... waiting...

when we finally leave our parent's homes, we have to spend time..breaking the soil...that is "us"... our parents have packed all that they feel we should have into us... formed us... influenced us.. and some of that... is good for us...some isn't... so..we open up the "soil" that is our spirit... break up the ground...letting some air in...this is 20something...

then the seed is dropped...by the people we encounter in our lives, the ones that are "sent to us"...to help mold us, help us to grow, add color to our life experience. Tears of joy, pain, peace, and discord water our seeds... and hopefully the "sun"... shines on us... this is the hardest decade...because its the one that is the "slowest"... this is the time we want everything RIGHT NOW...yet, are unwilling to wait for it...these are the most stubborn years... the years when we think we know it all... don't understand why it isn't like in the books we've read...want it all...and do it all...these are our 30s.... we're frustrated, overwhelmed...angry..

by the time we are 40, we are either scared out of our minds about what we THINK we didn't accomplish in our 30s... or have finally stopped to breathe...realizing that the end of one period in our lives is coming to an end... yet, a very exciting new experience is about to begin.

in your 40s... you have just enough experience under your belt to look back and smile at the things the "youngins" are doing... and laugh at how "evil" they can be... and insist we were never like that...(who are we really trying to convince now..seriously!)

I'm more than halfway through my 40s... its been a fabo ride... I've had total strangers tell me I'm an ass, a bitch, bitter, angry, self important, etc... when I give them the advice THEY requested... which is ok... I know I'm not any of those things... I know the ones that fix their mouths to tell me I am... are.. and that's ok too...

they'll get over it... they'll grow spiritually and look back at those behind them... and smile...like I do now... at the insanity of it all...

nawh, its not just me... its all of us...

ain't life grand?

ok so...I just do this little blogging thing cus I'm a frustrated writer who has all this noise in her head and no time to write any of it down...
and to aggravate my condition its election season...and I'm getting a bit antsy....and I need to get a few things off my chest...that's all...

then along comes mah girl over at Sojourner Place... lifting me up for what I rant about... and I need to say thank you babygirl...

its just me.... noticing stuff...thank you for noticing me... I 'preciate it!

the Blogging Star award originated over at "Skittles' Place" so I need to thank Barb for believing in giving honor where honor is due...


let me pass along this honor to some I believe deserve it...

the black synergist...
a day in the life of a sista

here's the dealio...

it ain't gonna hold til november 4th... no matter what bushbaby does to try to prevent it...

why not cut the losses...recognize that greed is gonna send us into a spiral we won't get out of without hitting the ground...and start from scratch...again...

oh well... welcome to the crunch boys and girls...this is where we find out who the real leader is...

ok...so the post just ahead of this one was the one I wanted to post, but then I noticed a video by this woman... this...brookings institution fellow...whose on Obama's advisory committee... so I watched this video...and googled her...and read up on her...

and damn... ladies and gents...I do believe I'm looking at the next secretary of state.... or at the very least... the next national security advisor...

listen to this woman please....PLEASE...

Susan E Rice

that's my daughter and her cousin in the picture...in case you care...









Parenting does not come with a manual. I knew that when I went into this business.
I come from a long line of "mothers"... women who have either chosen or falling headlong into the job of nurturing fetuses in their wombs and then giving birth to babies. We then spend the next 18 - 22 years preparing these children, getting them to a place where they are responsible, mature adults, able to care for themselves and are no longer dependent on us.

Its the hardest job I'll ever have.
There have been days when I've hated this job.
Today, I discovered I love what I do.
Today, I discovered I did a good job with at least one of the babies I raised.

My daughter is a sophomore at the University of Illinois. That in itself is a surreal statement for me, as I recall quite vividly the day I found out I was pregnant with her.

She was the precocious one; you know, talking all the time, full of wonder and interest in the world around her. The "second mother" to her younger brother and all the cousins that came after her (she's the eldest grandchild). The trendsetter, the fashionnista, the opinionated, argumentative one who has never had a problem with telling, politely, any adult EXACTLY what she thinks.

She has been emailing me about the apartment she and her best friend will be renting next school year. Apparently, at the University of Illinois and in Champaign in general, you need to take care of the details of such things nearly a year in advance. She's researched a few places, done a couple of walk throughs, had me and a law school buddy go over some leases and has chosen a complex she likes.

She called today.

"Ma, ok, this is what I need for you to do. I need you and Mushu (her best friend) here on the 27th to check this place out and we can decide if this is a good place and if it is, we can sign the lease, ok? Is the 27th good for you?"

"Hello. How are you? Did you get my message the other day?"

"Oh, hey ma."

We both laugh.

After about 5 minutes of her talking and me saying ok in the right places in the discussion, she gives her standard post script:

"I know you hate talking on the phone (I REALLY hate talking on the phone) so let me get off... I have all my homework done so I'm going to read this book I got from the library. Love you, bye."

And, she's gone.

I sit here a moment and process what has just happened.

When I was 19 years old, to even consider having a "Ma, I'm getting an apartment" conversation with my mother was so totally not something I would have thought about, and here I was, completely comfortable with knowing that my child is perfectly capable of handling the responsibility of paying rent and bills and keeping some food in the refrigerator. She is my child....yet, she is NOT me... not at all.

She's always been the independent one. So independent, we rarely saw her senior year in high school. If she wasn't at school, she was at either swim practice or track practice or tennis practice or her parttime job or, according to her boyfriend, sleeping in some movie he'd just paid a lot of money for them to see. Which was ok with us.

My husband and I have always looked at our jobs as parents as merely being the "keepers" of one of God's creations... she doesn't belong to us, we're just the ones who are preparing her to go forth and do HIS will in this world. There was no way of knowing how she'd turn out. All we could do was be who we were, pass on what we know, be the appropriate examples and guide her as she learned to make decisions about what she believes should happen in her life.

I'll admit, last year was hard; she wasn't here. I worried about her eating and wandering in a strange place, sometimes alone. She missed her bus one evening after going to see a French movie as part of an assignment for her French class, and called her father. They talked and laughed while she walked, alone back to her dorm, nearly 2 miles away. When she got "home", he chastised her quietly and then came to bed, a few more grey hairs on his head. Freshman year was hard.

I hoped she'd find new experiences, make new friends, not end up with a wild crowd. I don't know why I worried: the day her grandmother and I took her down for orientation, she immediately hooked up with 5 girls in her academic department and got their email addresses and they've been inseperable ever since. That's MY child...the social diva.

This year, we took her down, she got settled in and she and her roommate shoo'd us away within 2 hours. We drove the 130 miles home in silence. Our baby girl is on her way.

I think we did a good job of it...

Now, if we can just get her brother to put down the video controls and go find a job...

ugh...

I swear I have low tolerance for the braindead...

while perusing one of my favorite forums, I came across a thread where folk were lifting up McCain and knocking down Obama...

why?

because McCain said the word "God" and Obama said "that's out of my pay grade"...

the irony of this thread was, the originator of it... admitted right up front that the only reason she even watched McCain's speech the other day was because her mother wanted her to (this is a grown woman, mind you, not a 18 year old just getting into the political mix). She freely admitted that she doesn't plan on voting at all...

but now, because of the words used by two men running for office, she's gonna "think about" voting....

amazing...

according to her, the republicans have it right...

fornication and the sometimes subsequent abortion is a bad thing
no prayer in school is a bad thing
not fighting for our freedom is a bad thing...

this from a 30 something year old, with children, living a comfortable life apparently, who wants us all to be kind to her because, yes, "our people fought for the right to vote"

who may not show up on November 5th....

and if she does,it will be because some old man said "God"... and that pleases her...

politics and religion don't mix... Democrats know this...so do Republicans...

yet, every major election, one group or the other evokes the name of God in the attempt to endear themselves to the populous...


the really sad thing about THIS particular instance of braindeath is...

fornication is bad, yet one of the candidate's children is underaged and about to become a mother...

not having prayer in school is bad, yet the only other time some pray is when it will get them the vote...

not fighting for our freedom is bad...but after 7 years of fighting... they FINALLY found someone whose kid is ACTUALLY gonna go fight...

hypocrisy is a mutha...ain't it?

wonder if I should run for public office, promising to have God in the chair right next to me....? wonder if I'll get the job?

this issue about vice presidental candidates, pregnant daughters, pro life, abstinence and sex education is schools has gotten me to thinking....

how you gonna not want sex ed in schools, think abstinence is enough and then applaud not getting an abortion... when the person involved is 17 years old???

I have a 19 year old daughter... she's is a "legal adult"...so,although I spent a great deal of time and energy being her mother and preparing her to one day become someone's wife, I have given her to God and hopes she thinks before acting...

when she was 17, I KNEW she thought things through....her favorite line was... "negros want babies... I want a LIFE...."....

I tend to be a conservative when it comes to the topic of sex... I suppose the difference between me and Ms. Palin is... I walked the walk and didn't just talk the talk...

I've had a few people say, well, accidents happen... no offense but, no, accidents don't happen to a 17 year old who is being RAISED... and isn't just taking up space in your home....

and it helps to have some backup... I know I have some...to the point of insanity. My sisters are on what my daughter calls the boobie cover up squad....PLEASE don't get me started!!!

the irony of being a conservative, being pro life, believing in abstience and then not wanting folk to teach sex ed in schools is this...

they are the very people who let their kids run amuck...

I'll be quiet now...

later...

just in case you've been hiding in a cave with osama bin ladin or something exciting like that... there's drama on the republican side of the aisle...

it seems Ms. Palin wasn't pregnant afterall... or something Palin's Pregnancy?
and now, it seems that the daughter, reports have determined WAS the pregnant one... or something... Bristol's Pregnancy

well...nevermind the lie mom told to protect the daughter...
nevermind the attempted coverup...

let's look at a 17 year old being impregnated by a 22 year old for a moment...shall we?

in the state of Indiana...where I live... and, as far as I know in ALL the other 49 states in thie Union... a 17 year old having sex with a 22 year old is statuatory rape....

does anyone care?
*sigh*

Mom says they're gonna get married... isn't that special?

don't cha just love politics?