Home Coming

Today is electric, today V comes home. I haven't seen her since before we lost our baby, and the distance of the only person other than my wife I feel open to has been a small weight on my mind. A tickling itch, with no satisfaction to be had. The week visit will be over all too soon, and she will be back in that other country Texas.

V coming made J cry. Every friend that she hasn't seen since the baby forces her to re-acknowledge what happened. The tears could have been from her long day too, most of the time I feel like I don't know what stabs at her core anymore. There is some depth to her now that she chooses not to share anymore and I don't know how to get back into that space. I gave J a homework assignment to try find an opening even thought I think it is very unlikely she will do it.

Eco Kitchen concept

Via Engadget

I don't know why I find this so interesting, even when some shortcomings jump out quickly. The smell of decomposition is very hard to contain, especially if you continue to add to it over time. Even with great venting, and tight seals there will be some smell. The compost tea harvesting for watering plants is really a neat idea, and as drawn might even be workable. I am less sure about the integrated recycling, especially the glass breaking part. I just see that piece needing very careful maintenance, and I don't believe that my recycling provider would appreciate the broken glass. If the broken glass went into some sort of container that was refillable or replaceable that I could put into my recycle bin that might be more tolerable for current urban recycling programs. Either way I think it looks neat, and think some of the ideas could be rolled into real kitchens with a little work.

EKOKOOK

Working from the inside

image via Gapingvoid

Hugh was recently writing about the way that blogs where considered boring, but how he had never been making more money from his blog now than back when blogs where exciting and sexy. I didn't really ponder on the post itself, but the print he chose really stuck with me. I suppose it was mostly the post just before it talking about purists being the only ones without any skin in the game, that really set me to think about a teacher friend of mine in Texas. She and I where chatting about how discouraged she was feeling about how her school didn't have any school spirit, or investment in their identity as a group and that was part of why the students had no interest in school or even graduating. She was feeling penned in because the State is amazingly narrowly focused on teaching to pass the standardized tests, and she wants to try to take steps to help the culture of the school to encourage interest, rather than alienating the students. Her administration told her that when the students reach their desired levels of achievement on their testing they would consider different approaches to improving the school spirit, until then her job was to get the children to meet state testing requirements.

She finds this to be soul crushing and is lamenting not only wandering from her friendly Blue State into the buckle of the Bible Belt, but her career and the interminably long road it will represent for her. I asked about working with in the system for change, and she pointed out that all the "Great" teachers that they make movies about finding and overcoming adversity work so hard they burn out and move on to other careers before those movies are made about them. Maybe teaching is too big of a problem to tackle on her own, but I suppose I am pushing my own rock up a hill here with State Government. I am a firm believer in change from the inside, and all you can do is pursue what you believe to be right.