Friday, May 8, 2009

Khamsini

This week the Khamsini winds blew through Jordan. For those of you not up on your meterological, or maybe it is climatological, or it could be just an Arabic word—but a khamsini is a kind of spring wind depression which sweeps through Jordan every spring, presumably for about 50 days.

On Monday I awoke to see a slate-y gray sky, very unusual, especially for Spring in Jordan. But it was more than just an eerie gray sky (the kind of sky one expects in the United States on the how-long-will-winter-last days in February); there was sand wisping through the air. The sky looked like the kind of canvas Brueghel or Monet would conjure up, just because of the challenge of capturing the weather in paint.

When I went outside it was different than usual, and not just the lack of blue sky and sunshine. There really were grains of sand being whipped through the air.

Now, before I moved to Jordan, I did envision that I would live in the Lawrence of Arabia desert, but as I have relayed to the blog readers, the topography is not sandy in this area of Jordan, but rather like the scrabby land out in Nevada. I learned that this sand-dust cocktail was coming over from as far away as Egypt and even Morocco. It’s just exciting thinking about the weather patterns coming from such exotic locales!

Monday’s sandy-dusty storm is supposedly the last of this year’s khamsini winds, but there is much folklore celebrated about the annual windstorms. People attribute good luck to it, and naturally, these winds become the scapegoat for anything bad that happens too. When I studied abroad in Salzburg, Austria in college, I discovered such a spectacular wind phenomenon there as well (not the sand and dust part—just mythic spring winds) and the Austrians called it “Der Fohn” (I don’t have an umlaut to go over the ‘o’ on my keyboard, so make sure you say the umlauted-o and when you say “Der Fohn” in Austria it has a chilling ring to it—almost like when in Mel Brooks’ movie Young Frankenstein, you say the name “Frau Brucher” and the horses whinny in panic). This “Der Fohn” (again, cue the shivering sound) would be blamed for flat tires, bad grades, burned apple strudels—you name it, the Austrians would shake their fists at the winds and wonder what “Der Fohn” would cause next.

Our windstorms did not produce quite the same frenzy; however, the following day in The Jordan Times newspaper they reported how Khamsini had covered the Kingdom in a blanket of sand and dust, closing some major roads across the kingdom, especially in the south and east (I am in neither of those areas in Jordan), with “visibility nil” on some roads. The paper did a nice job of explaining some of this annual phenomenon as a “dusty, sandy, cyclonic-type wind that originates in the Atlas Mountains which stretch from Morocco to Tunisia and Egypt.” I found it a little funny that the paper, and Jordanians as well, report that it is limited to only 50 days. I like that these phenomena are that well-planned and well-executed that we can count on the duration of these “cyclonic-type winds” at 50 days from start to finish!

The paper also reported that “no major weather-related accidents occurred.”

This was a week where besides the khamsini winds raging outside, there were mini-khamsini winds everywhere, it seemed, at KA.

The AP test season began this past Monday with two students taking AP French, and then several other tests occurred. My AP test is next Thursday when my 41 scholars will answer questions across 10,000 years of time and space. Some are studying quite well, and then there are the few who may find that textbook and open it yet! But it takes a certain tenacity to weather these AP tests. Last year at this time, when we began to plan for this year and the introduction of such AP tests, I was the only person on campus who had taught an AP course before. This year we offered French, Psychology, English Literature, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and World History. Of course we won’t know what the scores are until July, but as the students are beginning this barrage of tests and college-appropriate material, no major accidents have occurred yet.

And then there were the windstorms that careened through dorm life this week. Spring is often the time when a few more bad things happen, and you just have to deal with it. The messiest storm this week involved a half-dozen young men caught in a nearly empty dorm smoking. We have some empty dorms on campus because when the school was built, the Board of Trustees decided to go all the way and build the entire campus for the 600-student school they envisioned. They planned that it would take four years to achieve that 600-student school, but they created the whole campus anyway. I live in a dorm with many, many people (the reason why I will never be really bored or lonely!) but a few faculty live in dorms with no students. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where to go to do some bad things. And yes, the dorm rooms in those unused dorms are supposed to be locked, but, well, they are not always.

So imagine my friend’s thoughts as she comes out of her apartment and hears the kind of scuffling that rarely reveals secret studying of academics! Oh, she probably sighed, and thought, “well, I better deal with this.” She marched down the hallway toward the noise, and then opened the door. Imagine their surprise at being caught! What would you do? This gang proceeded to run away.

The next four hours were our own little khamsini with these young men, cajoling the story out of them, explaining the disciplinary process that would follow, and just like the khamsini outside the other day, for some of them, the visibility into the future was nil.

Few adults actually enjoy that process of interrogation, but obviously it is imperative to act swiftly, fairly, kindly, and firmly. From the get-go three of the young men were forthright and earnest in their honesty. We spent a good deal of time talking about the offenses, the danger of smoking in buildings, and the cowardliness of running away. (What else do you do in a khamsini??). We would be calling parents, but suggested they may want to call and inform them themselves. Some of the talk was devoted to how important in Jordan (anywhere maybe?) it is to for young men to be seen as manly and smoking is one of those definitive ways of achieving the veneer of manliness. Oh—so many issues in this windy, sandy storm—health issues, safety issues, adolescent issues, manliness issues, family and shame issues…quite a lot of sand kicked up.

One of the three young men not as interested in honesty made a point of asking me if I thought he looked like a smoker…and like a liar. He had a clever ‘MO’ of trying to make me feel guilty for even accusing him of something unseemly. Of course, I have been at this school game for quite some time, and I am less shocked than in the callow days in Gastonia. His story was quite interesting though—why he was there—although it was full of plausibility holes. The following morning he did confess that he had lied.

It was a difficult night—but I think about those three young men, the ones quick to honesty, but also how they looked quite pained and tortured by what this storm could cause. Would colleges have to know? Would the fathers have to be told? Suspension? What damage would it do? But one of the most tender moments of the evening came when a sensitive colleague (with me during these interrogations) told this one boy whose emotions had become their own storm—“This is a manly thing you are doing. Acknowledging your guilt and responsibility is a manly thing, and far more manly than smoking.”

As I said, it was a long, grueling evening fighting the storms, and the disciplinary committee will meet tomorrow night, but I believe I can report, no major accidents occurred.

Okay, I am in the middle of my own little khamsini right now. Department heads have been working on “curriculum maps,” devilish little strategies that must be devised for each course so the school can offer them to a coming-soon Accreditation team, and the kind of thing you love to discuss but do not want to sit down and type them out. These are more than lesson plans—it is like your whole raison d’etre for a course. In this map one is to include the aims, the essential questions, the pedagogical skills, and the assessments for the course. We are to submit a year-long one and a month-to-month one. (I think/hope/pray that I am spared the weekly map—I saw that once in a memo but I squeezed my eyes shut imagining it was a mirage—see how the desert gets to you!)

Well, these maps were due yesterday. My To-Do List was all set for Wednesday when I would devote two hours in the afternoon and, if needed, another three hours in the evening. As Steinbeck said, “the best-laid plans…”. Wednesday turned out to be a double whammy of a Student Life day with two mini-storms in the afternoon, and then the big storm in the evening. I e-mailed the boss in the late evening and said, sadly, those maps will not be submitted tomorrow. Too much going on!

So those curriculum maps are due, like now. Guess what? I can’t seem to work the template out to type in the information. Ahhh—the little jabs of fear are tingly! The sand and dust is kicking up. No more khamsini! The 50 days are now up! So this blog entry was really a wonderful delusionary tangent for my procrastination this morning. I gotta end this entry, and I gotta go and type those curriculum maps. And I gotta get this storm finished! Let’s hope there are no accidents to be reported!

3 comments:

Mary said...

Hey, John Boy,
Loved hearing about your week. Don't you just love kids and their schemes to get out of trouble which just turn their troubles into more troubles? One of the great lessons in life. Just admit it and get on with it.
Just a note of clarification--
Steinbeck did not say "Best laid plans of mice and men." He just used the quote as his title for his book. The original reference for that quote is from a Robert Burns poem, "To a Mouse." Look it up. Just didn't want you to misspeak. Don't thank me...I live to serve!!
Love you much,
Mary

John said...

You know Mare--
As I wrote that attribution to Johnny Steinbeck, I thought, dang it, I should check on that, but laziness ruled the day instead! Thank you Mare for serving all of us! Thank you for the drama productions, the mashed potatoes, the passion for gerunds--you do serve! You serve us all!

Love you Mare! Hope to talk to you tomorrow on Mama's Day, and hey, a birthday is coming up! Dinner at the City Club? That's what we did 20 years ago on your birthday!

Love you,

Johnny

trial said...

and Calculus AB...
:))