Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Pass the cinnamon sugar!

A couple of hours ago I was in a meeting of department heads, sitting around this very fancy table with fake-fancy chairs, and I could feel that dastardly feeling of defeat crowding in over us as we considered a couple of issues and how we (as a school, institution, organization, bureaucracy, etc) have failed to think about every aspect of school life. As the mood veered dangerously away from the giddiness of that New Year’s promise I wrote about last Tuesday, I retreated into my little daydream world while people volleyed ideas and cracks about when certain reports should be filed, when advisees should be notified of something or another, or when or if seniors should write final exams. Yes, it is all important, but I sensed that feeling of normalcy (or is it apathy mixed with cynicism???) creeping upon us, so I retreated into my head for a few moments.

I remembered when I was about 10, and very much in the stage of my life when I wanted to be a celebrity chef and restaurateur and my mother called the Frisch’s corporate office to ask on my behalf how I should go about starting a restaurant. She never acted like 10 year olds should not be doing such things, so it seemed pretty normal for the life I knew with the vibrant Mary Martha. (For those who remember, Frisch’s is in that Big Boy chain of restaurants, and it was my mother’s haunt for breakfast/coffee/fellowship for my childhood and adolescent years—indeed, they owed her a little attention for all the mornings in that establishment on Glenway Avenue…) They gave her a corporate document that was essentially a check-list of everything one needed to start your own franchise of Frisch’s. I knew the menu well, and so I studied this very detailed list of like 400 things you needed before you could open your doors and start your business.

I certainly did not have any of the booths, or chairs, or glassware or fryers; indeed, as I studied this list and planned how I would open this restaurant, I really only had one item available that was on that list to open the doors: cinnamon sugar from our family pantry. But, you know, in my 10 year old head, I was not deterred that I didn’t have the hundreds of other items on this corporate check-list. I had one of the items and I had will and desire. In my mind, let’s get going and plan and organize how to open that restaurant!

As I sat in this meeting, not unlike dozens of other meetings I have attended this year and other years here, I felt that lethargy, no, maybe worse—like a torpor kind of feeling engulfing us and maybe just stopping us in our tracks. There were still so many things we hadn’t considered in the opening of a school! Like when would the seniors finish classes, or what would we do with them on Graduation Day (the date had been set last year—it is June 3!). As I came back to the meeting, leaving my childhood reverie and Frisch’s checklist in the annals of time, I wondered about that New Year’s feeling, and didn’t want to concede to Time yet. It is still early! It can’t be that normal feeling on just January 12! We need to keep the fires and excitement of New Year’s going! I almost felt the need to pull some of my colleagues by their collars and remind them of the beauty of a New Year. Or at least remind them that we have more than cinnamon sugar—we need not be so deterred in working on the school and revising and clarifying our plans and thoughts and hopes and actions and policies!

Anyway, as the meeting lurched onto another topic, I found another reason to escape into my head. I remembered my favorite movie of the Christmas break I saw, a kind of small-ish, independent kind of movie entitled Me and Orson Welles. I saw this with two of my oldest and dearest friends, Shelley and Doris, teachers in Cincinnati, former performers all of us together and friends since 7th grade.

I loved this movie! It was set in New York in 1937 (my favorite city, a great era for music) when a brash 22 year old named Orson Welles mounted his first theater production in New York. He worked with a maniacally devoted group of theater pros to put up a visionary production of Julius Caesar with the characters dressed in the uniforms and long coats of the Italian fascists. We see Welles through the eyes of a cocky seventeen-year old, Richard Samuels, a New Jersey kid who bluffs his way into the company. The movie is set in that frantic week as the production lurches toward opening night and Welles experiments and seduces and bullies everything and everyone, trying to achieve theater alchemy.

I liked it for many reasons—the theater part, the New York part, the fact that I saw it with two friends with whom I shared a coming-of-age in suburban Cincinnati in the 1970s and 1980s. But what enthralled me the most was watching this nascent organization come to life. Watching this theater company come to life and figure out its way reminded me of this school. And don’t forget the words I chose—“maniacally devoted” and “visionary.” This is a movie of great spirit and considerable charm—much like this place, KA, here in the desert of Jordan. But the point that moved me the most was that this film was about the giddiness of promise, the awakening of young talent, arriving at the moment (after considerable labor and nail-biting) when anything seems possible.

As my colleagues’ faces drooped throughout this hour-long meeting, I retreated to this movie reverie enjoyed two weeks ago. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have the conversation with them, but I felt the enervating mood, and I don’t want to lose that excitement and gratitude for a new year. So I thought about the movie, and that giddiness of promise… and I thought about how a restaurant and a movie and a school require thousands of inter-locking details, long-range planning, consistency and reliability. Okay, let’s leave the movie-land and trip down memory lane, and get back to the business at hand.

We need to fix our attendance policy—heck, we need to re-invent the wheel it seems at understanding how to take attendance, collect attendance, ensure it is correct, enforce the “rules” of missed classes—really, this one area may be the end of it all it seems! I spend too much time on this as a dean, and it can overtake you like ivy choking out a young seedling. We need to think about advisor reports—when do we do them, how to communicate information, how do we decide on graduation robes and music and school plays and soccer tournaments. When everything is new, you need to go back to the checklist.

The funny thing about the checklist is that the board of trustees created an entire campus before the doors opened to educate the youth of the Middle East. Of course, that gives the illusion that everything is else is complete. There is so much more to creating a campus, and creating a school, supposedly unlike other schools in the region. The list is long—it feels never-ending.

In my pantry here in the kitchen is a paltry amount of spices. But one thing I always buy in a new home is a new bottle of cinnamon sugar. Somehow if I have that, and the will, and capitalize on the giddiness of promise—really, everything else is possible.

The New Year’s euphoria continues…

And boundaries are being watched and monitored…

More to come…

1 comment:

قمم التميز said...

شركة مكافحة حشرات
تهتم شركة قمم التميز باعمال الرش والقضاء على الحشرات المنزلية فمهما كانت المعاناة ومهما كانت كمية الحشرات التى تعانى منها فتعاون مع افضل شركة تهتم بهذه الخدمة الان مكافحة صراصير بالقصيم
الحشرات المنزلية من المشكلات التى تعانى منها البيوت ، وخصوص فى المناطق المرتفعة فيها الحرارة ، وحيث تنشر الحشرات فى المنزل وقد تسبب متاعب كثيرة وأمراض خطيرة .
وللحماية منزلك من الحشرات ومنع دخولها ويمكن ان نطرح بعض النصائح :
*الحرص على النظافة الدائمة للمنزل ،
*التهوية الجيدة لغرف المنزل ودخول أشعة الشمس لقتل الحشرات التى لا ترى إلا بالعين المجردة . شركة رش مبيدات بالقصيم
*التخلص من القمامة أول بأول حتى لا تكون عرضه للأنتشار الحشرات .
نتظيف خزانات الطعام وتهويتها جيدة، والتخلص من الفضلات ، وغلق المحكم للبرطمانات للطعام التى تواجد فى خزانة حتى لا تكون مصدر لتسرب الحشرات .
*وضع سلك شبكة صغير الحجم على النوافذ والأبواب ، وسد الثقوب والشقوق بالأسمنت اوجبس ،لكى لا تتسرب الحشرات منها .
*تنظيف الأطباق وأوانى الطعام بعد استعمالها مباشرة ، لأنها قد تسبب فى خروج الحشرات من المكان التى تعيش فيه .
*عدم ترك فضلات الطعام على مائدة الطعام ، وتنظيف بصفة دورية تمنع من أنتشار الحشرات والوقاية منها . مكافحة النمل الابيض بالقصيم
وهناك حشرات متعددة قد تسبب للأنسان أزعاج دائم ومنها : النمل والصراصير والبق والذباب والناموس والفئران .
النمل نوعان * النمل عادى مصدر غذائه فضلات الطعام ويعيش فى ثقوب وشقوق المنزل . شركة مكافحة فئران بالقصيم
والنمل الأبيض يسمى ( العتة) وهو يحتاج إلى طعام الدائم لكى يبقى على قيد الحياة ، مصدر غذائه السكر (الجلكوز) الموجود فى الخشب ، و المتواجد فى الأبواب والنوافذ والأثاث ، وقد يسبب خطر كبير على منزلك فالنمل الأبيض يعمل ممرات ويقوم بتأسيس بيت له أسفل المنزل ، ويكون دمار بمرور الوقت وأضرار فادحة لايمكن اصلاحها إلا بعد فوات الآوان .
ويمكن التخلص من النمل الأبيض برش مبيدات كيمائية مخصص لها أثناء بناء الأثاث فى الأرض ، وعند تركيب الأبواب التأكيد من أغلاق جميع الفتحات فى جوانب الباب وألأفضل تركيب الأبواب بالمفاصل وليس بالمواد اللزقة ، وعند شراء الأثاث الضغط على الخشب وتأكد مدى قوتها وعدم أصابتها بالنمل الأبيض .
أما النمل العادى التى يتواجد المطبخ يمكن التخلص منه بقليل من الصودا المخلوطة بالسكر وضعها فى الثقوب والفتحات التى تخرج منها فالنمل يموت فى الحال .
فى خزانة الطعام نضع فيها قليل من القهوة المرة أو الفلفل غير المطحون فهو يخلصك من النمل نهائيا وكذلك الحشرات الأخرى . شركة مكافحة حشرات بالقصيم
ممكن عمل كرات من الدقيق بها مواد سامة أى معجونة بالمبيدات الحشرية ووضعها فى المكان الذى تكثر فيه الصراصير .... وتكون بعيده عن منتاول الأطفال . شركة مكافحة البق بالقصيم
العثة تكثر فى فصل الشتاء بسبب الرطوبة العالية وفيجب تهوية المنزل ، و تهوية الغرفة من المفروشات والوسائد ، والشمس لها أثر فعال على قتل الجراثيم والميكروبات