I decided this year I wasn't going to be anyone's orphan for Christmas, so I planned a 6 day backpack trip to a nearby hot spring. I've never hiked in to this particular spot before, but I know it usually gets a lot of traffic on the weekends and during the spring/fall.
Since I live in the most ridiculously packed city in southern California I left at 4:30am so I would miss morning rush-hour traffic. Unfortunately, this means that I packed my car in the dark and left my hiking boots on the curb by my house. The drive wasn't bad at all, except that it began at 4:30 in the morning. My second mistake was checking the weather forecast for the nearby town of Ojai and assuming it would be the same for me even though I would be 2,000+ feet higher in elevation and in the mountains. Wroooooong. I could have been warmer, but all in all it wasn't too bad.
Here's a great hiking tip for people who have dogs: they make really great sleeping bag warmers. Seriously, though, if you have a campfire consider finding a clean, somewhat round rock and setting it very close to the heat. After a few hours the rock soaks up that warmth and can keep you toasty for half the night in your sleeping bag. Wrap the darn thing in a towel, though, otherwise you'll cause some serious damage to yourself or your equipment.
The trail to Willett is 9-10 miles long and usually has some challenging stream crossings. Add in the fact that I'm wearing slip-on walking shoes and you've got a recipe for disaster. The hike in was freezing, literally. The streams were mostly frozen, the trail was frozen, my hands were frozen, my boogies were frozen. That first night.... was freezing!!! There are places to camp all along the trail and I wouldn't have known I had arrived if I hadn't run into a big group of people packing up their camp below Willett hot spring. The spring is actually uphill from the really nice camp spots, though there is a small, unprotected site very near the pool. The pool was helicoptered in and is filled by pipes collecting hot water from the spring as it exits the hillside. It's not desperately hot, but warm enough to be divine.
It's apparently a sulfur spring and the color and smell of the pool might give some folks pause before they step in. There's bright green algae that grows in the rivulets around the pool and white sulfurous precipitate that makes the green even more noxious looking. Don't be scared, though, it's truly amazing. Even my little dog was excited to hop in and lay around for an hour or more every morning.
I met some really great folks while I was out there, most of whom came in for overnight trips. I stayed out for quite a while and was very comfortable. The amount of traffic that passed through over Christmas weekend was really surprising, and I'd take some precautions if hiking there alone during a busier time. Toward the end of my stay, the hiker hunger really took over and I found myself slavering over my most boring meals.
Gear analysis time! I love my backpack, a Gregory Jade 50. It's lightweight but mostly comfortable (the shoulder straps kill my clavicles, so I added a bit of padding there). It is small, usually smaller than most people use for extended trips, but I find it helps me prioritize what I need to take versus what I want to take. My sleeping bag is an REI Downtime +10 men's bag (which I bought so I had snuggle room with the dog, otherwise a men's bag is way too big for a woman). It usually keeps me very warm, but I had some trouble on this trip. I attribute most of that trouble to the pad I used. I prefer airfill mattresses and have a lightweight one for warm weather and an insulated one for cooler weather. Guess which one I brought? Yeah, my Big Agnes with no insulation. The ground is darn cold and when that seeps into you from below, it almost doesn't matter what you have on top.
My tent is a Contrail made by Tarptent and I love this shelter because it is sooooo lightweight. The setup is quick, but take everyone's advice when they tell you to practice before doing it on a trip. The biggest problem I have with this tent is how much condensation you get when the conditions are right. I know it's the same amount you'd get in a double wall tent, but with the Contrail the wetness comes in direct contact with you if a) the tent isn't set up properly and sags during the night -- in which case you'll spend time the next day drying your sleeping bag or b) you try to do any kind of activity like get dressed, sit up, think too hard. It's really annoying, but I won't switch to a heavier tent because the weight is too convenient for a small person like myself.
I always bring 1-2 "luxury" items on any backpacking trip. Without fail, one of them is a book (which begs the question of what makes it luxury if I treat it like a necessity). This time I brought an old favorite "Shogun" by James Clavell. I devour books, so I go for whichever one packs the most in the smallest bundle. One trip I accidentally grabbed a Twilight book (which I had bought to use as a white elephant gift) when I realized after I had gone to bed that I forgot to pack a book. Do you see the pattern here with me packing in the dark? For three days that's all I had to read. It was a very painful trip and I left the book at my campsite when I hiked out. I thought I'd bring a book on tape as well, but I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I imagined. I really do like to hike in the silence, which helps me identify when my scruffy lapdog chases a lynx up a tree, not knowing that this particular kitty could kick her scrawny butt.
All in all, it was a great trip. Call the ranger station at Ojai before going in the rainy season since there are many stream crossings, but this is a destination I'm going to keep in my repertoire especially during the chillier months.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Storytime, Part 2
I threw myself down in my hiding spot-- an overturned root ball that still clung stubbornly to some boulders and formed a nice cave. I closed my eyes and thought hard to remember the rhyme my mother had been singing:
What was the rest? I crawled to the mouth of my den and rolled to my back when the throbbing in my head eased. The sunlight filtered lazily through the high forest canopy and dappled soft patterns on a remarkably ensnared rock overhead. It was then that I saw him.
It surprises me that I felt excitement at being the first to spot the Mountain Man instead of feeling anything else. Neither of us moved for a time. He shifted from one foot to the other.
"You got food?" His voice was soft and deep.
"I don't need it." I said in a rush of 7-year old independence. He smiled. Then he laughed, grasping his knees. It almost embarrassed me to see him do this, as though I were witnessing something too intimate for my young eyes. He swung his big bag down easily and sat on a nearby rock. I could smell the deerskin. He removed a bag of homemade jerky and popped a few shreds into his mouth.
"Take." He held the bag out. I had to rise in order to walk to him. I took the bag and sat on the ground near his feet. I, too, put a few pieces in my mouth and sucked their saltiness. We sat that way until the sun began its descent to the unseen horizon, the prick of cold reminding us that winter had not yet released its hold. Finally, he rose. He motioned me to keep the bag of meat. I tried to refuse. He insisted.
"Strong spirit."
It was only after he walked away that I realized he had used the translation of my Tlingit name.
Mares eat oats,
And does eat oats,
And little lambs eat ivy,
What was the rest? I crawled to the mouth of my den and rolled to my back when the throbbing in my head eased. The sunlight filtered lazily through the high forest canopy and dappled soft patterns on a remarkably ensnared rock overhead. It was then that I saw him.
It surprises me that I felt excitement at being the first to spot the Mountain Man instead of feeling anything else. Neither of us moved for a time. He shifted from one foot to the other.
"You got food?" His voice was soft and deep.
"I don't need it." I said in a rush of 7-year old independence. He smiled. Then he laughed, grasping his knees. It almost embarrassed me to see him do this, as though I were witnessing something too intimate for my young eyes. He swung his big bag down easily and sat on a nearby rock. I could smell the deerskin. He removed a bag of homemade jerky and popped a few shreds into his mouth.
"Take." He held the bag out. I had to rise in order to walk to him. I took the bag and sat on the ground near his feet. I, too, put a few pieces in my mouth and sucked their saltiness. We sat that way until the sun began its descent to the unseen horizon, the prick of cold reminding us that winter had not yet released its hold. Finally, he rose. He motioned me to keep the bag of meat. I tried to refuse. He insisted.
"Strong spirit."
It was only after he walked away that I realized he had used the translation of my Tlingit name.
*******
Darkness had fallen when I heard my mother's footsteps softly picking her way through the forest. She lit her way with an old silver Mag-Lite flashlight. I was still sitting where the Mountain Man had left me. I don't know how she knew where I was because I always made sure I left no trails for Charlie to follow in his spiteful moods. Mom knelt in front of me and turned off the flashlight with a click. When our eyes had adjusted to the dark I saw with a shock that a meal had appeared between us.
"Dessert first," my mom said. We ate big slices of yellow cake with our hands, the tangy cranberry syrup filling dripping off our fingers. The frosting was crisp on top and buttery smooth beneath. We didn't bother wiping our hands afterwards, just grasped warm patties of fry bread. Next we had blanched curls of Fiddlehead Fern-- which I later learned tastes much like asparagus. Mom passed me a flask of homemade herb tea sweetened with honey.
Mom was never without a mug of steaming tea. She collected berries and dried them when they were ripe, Labrador tealeaves when they turned in the fall, and put them all together to form a soothing drink. She claimed it could cure anything.
"Happy birthday," she said to me. She began to cry. It scared me to see her like this, but she wouldn't let me speak. She shuffled on her knees until she was close enough to touch me. Using the warm tea and her apron, mom wiped my hands and up to my elbows. She wiped my neck, and then my mouth. For a moment she hesitated, then dabbed my face. To my surprise, I flinched in pain.
I thought Charlie had only caught me in the face with one of his famous cuffs, but my face had actually hit one of the nearby rafters on my way to the floor.Her hands smelled of fry bread and cranberry filling as she cleaned me by moonlight. She sang her rhyme softly,
Mares eat oats,
And does eat oats,
And little lambs eat ivy.
A kid'll eat ivy, too,
Wouldn't you?
We slept that night in the safety of my earthy cave. Mom sniffled in her sleep, and I lay awake for a long time watching the stars careen across the sky. When I finally drifted off, it was to the tantalizing smell of warm fry bread and with the taste of frosting in my mouth.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Storytime Part 1
In the past weeks I've had some extreme emotional upsets. I'm sorry for not posting. To make it up, I'm going to be publishing a few short stories I've written in the past. Enjoy!
"He's here! He's here!" shouted a brown-faced child as his feet pounded the pressed rock of our main street. The sound receded when the boy entered his house but began anew as he exploded down the front steps and headed to the post office. "Hurry! He's almost here, I saw him!"
The quiet street fluttered to life. Tiny pressboard houses spilled out their inhabitants and people began to make their way to the post office at the end of town. With a twinge of envy I trotted along a weedy path past empty salmon drying racks near the river. I hadn't far to go; at six years old my boundaries didn't extend far from home. The post office was only a short distance from the Tlingit salmon camp where the natives stayed during the salmon run. Mary Hutchins ran the office in the front half of an old gas station whose service bay had been converted to house our one grocery store. Many town folk envied Mary for her federal job, but no one could dislike her. She was short and stocky with auburn hair braided halfway down her back. She constantly smiled.
I pressed through the first-comers until I reached the flip-up counter that marked the boundary for all the adults in town. Mary let kids behind the counter-- especially on these occasions. She lifted me up to sit on her stool in the corner. In minutes, it seemed that the entire town had managed to squeeze itself into the office. We listened to each other breathe and glanced excitedly through the grimy window toward the street.
A figure passed by the window causing everyone to suck in his or her breath. The service door to the grocery store jangled open. The man who walked in was average in every way. He was neither too short nor too tall. He was not overly muscular, nor could you call him skinny. His dark hair and tanned face made him neither handsome nor homely, and no one had yet guessed where he came from. This man could walk through a hundred other Alaskan towns and cause no one to look twice. One would have to look twice to see him, in fact. His weathered clothing blended as well with the surrounding forest as the changing feathers of a ptarmigan. The fist person to see him in our town had the honored job of shouting the news to everyone who could hear, a task every child fiercely competed for.
Throughout history, wanderers have been called by many names. People feared the wandering Gauls for their pillaging, and later despised bands of traveling gypsies for their strange ways. Early settlers of the New World met tinkerers who walked the mountains and served as the first handymen. Ours was simply referred to as The Mountain Man.
Out of his colossal deerskin pack came the most delectable morsels a mouth could encounter. My favorite was the sweet smoked salmon. Thumb-sized nuggets of red salmon meat had been marinated in a secret recipe and smoked over a combination of hardwoods. I ate these morsels on the floatplane dock that bobbed in the river behind the post office. Jerked and smoked meats, sourdough starter, dried and smoked salmon, dried berries, syrups, bear lard, sweet seal blubber, roasted pine nuts, field greens, and sometimes candies were among the things we could expect to see. Any time Ziploc came out with a new bag size, it would inevitably wind up filled with goods on our post office countertop.
The Mountain Man didn't care who took how much of what. At the end of a visit he would re-pack his bag and sling it on his shoulder. He and Mary would walk through the grocery store while we all remained behind. His list varied constantly. Sometimes he would want a few cans of this and that, some dried goods such as flour, sugar, or salt, but on many occasions he would trade for cartons of ammunition. Mary gave him what he needed and sent him on his way. She tallied the price of everything he took and divided the price between the people in the post office. In this way, prices always varied.
It seemed that the Mountain Man didn't care how much or little his supplies cost; he would trade everything he had for 50 feet of cord and two pairs of wool socks. He did that once, in fact. Mary slipped a folding pocketknife into one of the socks on that occasion to try to make up for the difference. he came back three days later to return it. Mary tried to make him keep it, but he adamantly refused.
"Don't need it," he said. It was the first time I had every heard him speak. I was sitting on the stool in the corner, mouth full of his tangy sweet smoked salmon. We didn't see him again for eight months.
*****
I turned seven that spring. My mother was elbow-deep in flour baking me a birthday cake. She sang silly songs to me while I sat on one of our low-slung rafters. It was the only time I was every allowed up there and I felt like a Queen. Bundles of herbs hung from the beams by bright twists of ribbon. I liked to swing my feet between them and smell their aroma.
My house sat in a clearing with tall fir trees looming every closer. Given a few years, it would probably be overrun with them. A few more and the cabin would probably melt into the ground-- it was trying to do just that even when we lived there. I poked moss and mud into all the cracks I could reach, but each winter would reveal more by allowing the chill wind to blow through. I woke up many times with a skiff of snow on my blankets.
Mom kept the house warm with her cooking. Charlie-- mom's husband and I dare say my father, though I never considered him that-- liked good food and would allow mom to keep the wood stove piping hot all day long. She filled plates with warm fry bread and constantly had a bowl of sourdough rising or cooling in the window. When sourdough pancakes were through cooking in the morning, mom would immediately start a soup or stew that required cooking all day long. Only in the summer would she let the fires burn low.
My birthday was a special occasion for mom. I chose what we would eat for dinner and she would let me misbehave a little while she made me a cake. She had just finished one of her rhymes when Charlie nearly knocked the door off its hinges. He was a sour man on a good day. Mom told me he hadn't always been like that; that he used to bring her flowers and say sweet things to make her smile. Be that as it may, I usually found reasons to steer clear of him.
I knew from one look at his grim face and smell of sour mash whiskey that I should leave. I didn't quite make it off the rafter and was instead dragged down by my ankles. I hit the ground running, but Charlie still used his foot to shove me out. I knew he and mom were both yelling, but couldn't hear them for a strange ringing in my head. Like an animal, I tore through the brush-filled clearing, my footfalls muffled by the loamy soil. The salmon camp passed on my left, but still I ran. I ran until the darkness of the fir trees closed over me. My breath came in great heaves.
"He's here! He's here!" shouted a brown-faced child as his feet pounded the pressed rock of our main street. The sound receded when the boy entered his house but began anew as he exploded down the front steps and headed to the post office. "Hurry! He's almost here, I saw him!"
The quiet street fluttered to life. Tiny pressboard houses spilled out their inhabitants and people began to make their way to the post office at the end of town. With a twinge of envy I trotted along a weedy path past empty salmon drying racks near the river. I hadn't far to go; at six years old my boundaries didn't extend far from home. The post office was only a short distance from the Tlingit salmon camp where the natives stayed during the salmon run. Mary Hutchins ran the office in the front half of an old gas station whose service bay had been converted to house our one grocery store. Many town folk envied Mary for her federal job, but no one could dislike her. She was short and stocky with auburn hair braided halfway down her back. She constantly smiled.
I pressed through the first-comers until I reached the flip-up counter that marked the boundary for all the adults in town. Mary let kids behind the counter-- especially on these occasions. She lifted me up to sit on her stool in the corner. In minutes, it seemed that the entire town had managed to squeeze itself into the office. We listened to each other breathe and glanced excitedly through the grimy window toward the street.
A figure passed by the window causing everyone to suck in his or her breath. The service door to the grocery store jangled open. The man who walked in was average in every way. He was neither too short nor too tall. He was not overly muscular, nor could you call him skinny. His dark hair and tanned face made him neither handsome nor homely, and no one had yet guessed where he came from. This man could walk through a hundred other Alaskan towns and cause no one to look twice. One would have to look twice to see him, in fact. His weathered clothing blended as well with the surrounding forest as the changing feathers of a ptarmigan. The fist person to see him in our town had the honored job of shouting the news to everyone who could hear, a task every child fiercely competed for.
Throughout history, wanderers have been called by many names. People feared the wandering Gauls for their pillaging, and later despised bands of traveling gypsies for their strange ways. Early settlers of the New World met tinkerers who walked the mountains and served as the first handymen. Ours was simply referred to as The Mountain Man.
Out of his colossal deerskin pack came the most delectable morsels a mouth could encounter. My favorite was the sweet smoked salmon. Thumb-sized nuggets of red salmon meat had been marinated in a secret recipe and smoked over a combination of hardwoods. I ate these morsels on the floatplane dock that bobbed in the river behind the post office. Jerked and smoked meats, sourdough starter, dried and smoked salmon, dried berries, syrups, bear lard, sweet seal blubber, roasted pine nuts, field greens, and sometimes candies were among the things we could expect to see. Any time Ziploc came out with a new bag size, it would inevitably wind up filled with goods on our post office countertop.
The Mountain Man didn't care who took how much of what. At the end of a visit he would re-pack his bag and sling it on his shoulder. He and Mary would walk through the grocery store while we all remained behind. His list varied constantly. Sometimes he would want a few cans of this and that, some dried goods such as flour, sugar, or salt, but on many occasions he would trade for cartons of ammunition. Mary gave him what he needed and sent him on his way. She tallied the price of everything he took and divided the price between the people in the post office. In this way, prices always varied.
It seemed that the Mountain Man didn't care how much or little his supplies cost; he would trade everything he had for 50 feet of cord and two pairs of wool socks. He did that once, in fact. Mary slipped a folding pocketknife into one of the socks on that occasion to try to make up for the difference. he came back three days later to return it. Mary tried to make him keep it, but he adamantly refused.
"Don't need it," he said. It was the first time I had every heard him speak. I was sitting on the stool in the corner, mouth full of his tangy sweet smoked salmon. We didn't see him again for eight months.
*****
I turned seven that spring. My mother was elbow-deep in flour baking me a birthday cake. She sang silly songs to me while I sat on one of our low-slung rafters. It was the only time I was every allowed up there and I felt like a Queen. Bundles of herbs hung from the beams by bright twists of ribbon. I liked to swing my feet between them and smell their aroma.
My house sat in a clearing with tall fir trees looming every closer. Given a few years, it would probably be overrun with them. A few more and the cabin would probably melt into the ground-- it was trying to do just that even when we lived there. I poked moss and mud into all the cracks I could reach, but each winter would reveal more by allowing the chill wind to blow through. I woke up many times with a skiff of snow on my blankets.
Mom kept the house warm with her cooking. Charlie-- mom's husband and I dare say my father, though I never considered him that-- liked good food and would allow mom to keep the wood stove piping hot all day long. She filled plates with warm fry bread and constantly had a bowl of sourdough rising or cooling in the window. When sourdough pancakes were through cooking in the morning, mom would immediately start a soup or stew that required cooking all day long. Only in the summer would she let the fires burn low.
My birthday was a special occasion for mom. I chose what we would eat for dinner and she would let me misbehave a little while she made me a cake. She had just finished one of her rhymes when Charlie nearly knocked the door off its hinges. He was a sour man on a good day. Mom told me he hadn't always been like that; that he used to bring her flowers and say sweet things to make her smile. Be that as it may, I usually found reasons to steer clear of him.
I knew from one look at his grim face and smell of sour mash whiskey that I should leave. I didn't quite make it off the rafter and was instead dragged down by my ankles. I hit the ground running, but Charlie still used his foot to shove me out. I knew he and mom were both yelling, but couldn't hear them for a strange ringing in my head. Like an animal, I tore through the brush-filled clearing, my footfalls muffled by the loamy soil. The salmon camp passed on my left, but still I ran. I ran until the darkness of the fir trees closed over me. My breath came in great heaves.
Friday, October 26, 2012
the New Breed of College Student
I teach college level anatomy and physiology courses and have recently noticed a radical shift in the attitude of my students. Note, most of my students are moving into pre-med and pre-nursing programs in order to work in the medical field. Needless to say, most of us would prefer to have competent people taking care of us.
Lesson number one of anatomy: Anatomy is hard.
Not like it's difficult to grasp-- anatomy isn't nuclear physics. It's hard in the way that learning to read was hard. That learning to write was hard! (though, judging from my students' handwriting and rudimentary grasp of the English language, that lesson wasn't quite learned) Do you remember way back in 1st grade when you spent an entire morning writing row after row of the letter G? Or struggling through your first reading assignments? Probably not, but I'll remind you. IT WAS HARD!!! This is the kind of hard that anatomy is; you're basically memorizing a new language plus recognizing structures, vessels, nerves, functions, etc.
Now people all over the country, all over the world even, go through this course and come out the other end all the smarter for doing it. Somehow, somewhere my students have forgotten (or failed to learn?) how to study. They are the most entitled generation of students I've ever seen. I warn my students each and every week that they should be reviewing past material and studying new material every day if they wish to get an A or B in the class. The first exam average was around a 65%.
My A students are no big deal. These students will get an A come hell or high water regardless of the challenge. The rest, however, are up in arms that I would have the audacity NOT to pass them by giving them all extra credit. I wish you could have seen their faces when I told them I would rather my doctors and nurses get where they are based on knowledge and would not be passing people out of the kindness of my heart.
I don't teach high school, but I sympathize with the challenges that those teachers face in the classroom and also from the powers that be. That being said, I'm wondering if our society has reached the point of giving credit for education when nothing has been learned just for the sake of pushing people through. The other day I had to stop class to teach my students how to use an index rather than flip through their books page by page. I have students who come to my office to argue for half an hour over a point on an exam or quiz while standing next to my A students, who are actively studying for the next exam. They don't seem to realize that they could have gotten 5 or 10 more points on their next exam if they had just studied for that half an hour instead of argue with me for partial credit on a wrong answer.
It's sometimes absurd to the point of being comical. Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that this isn't a practical joke, this is my new breed of college student. So what is the solution? Do we maintain the bar of success and turn out a handful of well qualified people while flunking the rest? Or do we lower the bar to include everyone we possibly can in the joy of getting a degree (and not always an education)? It's a real dilemma for me. I take teaching very seriously. I don't dock points for technicalities, I accommodate working students and athletes to give them every opportunity to succeed, and I hold far more office hours than I am required by my institution. You can lead a student to school, but you can't make them learn.
This disconnect between me and my students is worrying and frustrating. I simply cannot find a way to inspire my students to succeed. They will perform absurd tasks for extra credit, but they will not apply themselves to studying in order to get additional points on an exam. It makes me feel like a failure of a teacher. My top students are all wondering why I'm trying so hard when they are clearly succeeding and the failing students are wonder why I'm trying so hard when they think they should pass regardless of their performance.
Funny, though. I may not have to worry about this for too much longer as it's my job on the line this coming election.
Lesson number one of anatomy: Anatomy is hard.
Not like it's difficult to grasp-- anatomy isn't nuclear physics. It's hard in the way that learning to read was hard. That learning to write was hard! (though, judging from my students' handwriting and rudimentary grasp of the English language, that lesson wasn't quite learned) Do you remember way back in 1st grade when you spent an entire morning writing row after row of the letter G? Or struggling through your first reading assignments? Probably not, but I'll remind you. IT WAS HARD!!! This is the kind of hard that anatomy is; you're basically memorizing a new language plus recognizing structures, vessels, nerves, functions, etc.
Now people all over the country, all over the world even, go through this course and come out the other end all the smarter for doing it. Somehow, somewhere my students have forgotten (or failed to learn?) how to study. They are the most entitled generation of students I've ever seen. I warn my students each and every week that they should be reviewing past material and studying new material every day if they wish to get an A or B in the class. The first exam average was around a 65%.
My A students are no big deal. These students will get an A come hell or high water regardless of the challenge. The rest, however, are up in arms that I would have the audacity NOT to pass them by giving them all extra credit. I wish you could have seen their faces when I told them I would rather my doctors and nurses get where they are based on knowledge and would not be passing people out of the kindness of my heart.
I don't teach high school, but I sympathize with the challenges that those teachers face in the classroom and also from the powers that be. That being said, I'm wondering if our society has reached the point of giving credit for education when nothing has been learned just for the sake of pushing people through. The other day I had to stop class to teach my students how to use an index rather than flip through their books page by page. I have students who come to my office to argue for half an hour over a point on an exam or quiz while standing next to my A students, who are actively studying for the next exam. They don't seem to realize that they could have gotten 5 or 10 more points on their next exam if they had just studied for that half an hour instead of argue with me for partial credit on a wrong answer.
It's sometimes absurd to the point of being comical. Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that this isn't a practical joke, this is my new breed of college student. So what is the solution? Do we maintain the bar of success and turn out a handful of well qualified people while flunking the rest? Or do we lower the bar to include everyone we possibly can in the joy of getting a degree (and not always an education)? It's a real dilemma for me. I take teaching very seriously. I don't dock points for technicalities, I accommodate working students and athletes to give them every opportunity to succeed, and I hold far more office hours than I am required by my institution. You can lead a student to school, but you can't make them learn.
This disconnect between me and my students is worrying and frustrating. I simply cannot find a way to inspire my students to succeed. They will perform absurd tasks for extra credit, but they will not apply themselves to studying in order to get additional points on an exam. It makes me feel like a failure of a teacher. My top students are all wondering why I'm trying so hard when they are clearly succeeding and the failing students are wonder why I'm trying so hard when they think they should pass regardless of their performance.
Funny, though. I may not have to worry about this for too much longer as it's my job on the line this coming election.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
the High Sierras
The view was phenomenal and if I could have heard anything over the pounding of my blood in my ears I would have been overwhelmed with the silence. There is something about the High Sierras that has never translated well to me by photographs. I have always been unimpressed with the snowy, rocky, treeless vistas that people seem to blather on about but figured you had to experience it in person at high altitude to appreciate it.
I would have continued to drool over my surroundings, but the snow had begun to melt into my clothing and I needed to make some attempt to right myself from my face-down, spread eagle position. This is when I realized that my left knee was jammed between two boulders and my right nipple felt like I had just gotten a surprise piercing by one of those enormous kindergarten sized pencils. I've never fallen face-down while backpacking before and I have to say it was a curious experience. My pack wasn't very heavy while I was walking upright, but it managed to push me gently toward the slippery boulder and sit on my back like a friendly paperweight. A backpacker-weight.
The entire route up to 11,500 feet had been brutal even though relatively short. My right knee apparently hadn't bothered to repair itself completely after a sprain/ligament strain sometime in August and decided that 3 miles into this hike was the proper time to alert me to its condition. However, the fates decided that I should bury my good knee in a snowy boulder pile to even me out.
We were nearly at Muriel Lake, so I limped along with both sets of trekking poles while glaring at my 17-pound mutt who had hitched a ride in my friend Dave's arms. The Sierras made up for screwing with my knee by putting on a 20 minute sunset show which basically turned Muriel into an infinity pool below our tent. I'm not a great photographer, but it was impossible to take a bad picture of this sunset. The temperature dropped into the 20's just after the sunset ended and it was into our down sleeping bags for everyone!
For those of you who have not had to share a fully-zipped mummy bag with a dog, I suggest you wait for this experience until the temperature drops well below comfortable. That being said, I am so glad Zoe was snuggled into my stomach because I'm halfway convinced I would have frozen to death otherwise. Plus, the comedic value of watching my sleeping bag vomit her out the face-hole every morning was a great way to start the day.
I was attached to the campsite for the duration of the trip, thanks to my knees, but enjoyed myself immensely. The fishing, while not incredible, was entertaining and the lake yielded surprisingly large trout for the altitude and water temperature. The cool thing about this area is that some of the lakes were stocked with native brown trout in order to preserve the genetic lineage. These lakes are difficult to access, making them some of the last remaining "pristine" brown trout habitats.
Dave and I didn't have any trouble with wildlife, but made sure to use our bear canister and hang whatever other smelly things using the PCT method. Of course, any trees at our altitude are woefully short and I'm sure if a bear did happen by it would have viewed our bag as a giant cupcake dangling at eye level. We heard plenty of coyotes and saw so many tracks thanks to the snow. Some of them belonged to my dog, but we soon learned to tell the difference.
The hike back was bittersweet. The views literally didn't stop until we were halfway back home in the car, my knees behaved themselves admirably the entire trek back, and I couldn't wait to sleep on a mattress that wasn't the texture and temperature of the frozen ground below it, but all the same it was difficult to leave. In just a matter of hours I had gone from my mountain ringed Sierra infinity pool to a traffic jam miles deep on the 405. Sigh! I guess that makes these trips all the sweeter!
I would have continued to drool over my surroundings, but the snow had begun to melt into my clothing and I needed to make some attempt to right myself from my face-down, spread eagle position. This is when I realized that my left knee was jammed between two boulders and my right nipple felt like I had just gotten a surprise piercing by one of those enormous kindergarten sized pencils. I've never fallen face-down while backpacking before and I have to say it was a curious experience. My pack wasn't very heavy while I was walking upright, but it managed to push me gently toward the slippery boulder and sit on my back like a friendly paperweight. A backpacker-weight.
The entire route up to 11,500 feet had been brutal even though relatively short. My right knee apparently hadn't bothered to repair itself completely after a sprain/ligament strain sometime in August and decided that 3 miles into this hike was the proper time to alert me to its condition. However, the fates decided that I should bury my good knee in a snowy boulder pile to even me out.
We were nearly at Muriel Lake, so I limped along with both sets of trekking poles while glaring at my 17-pound mutt who had hitched a ride in my friend Dave's arms. The Sierras made up for screwing with my knee by putting on a 20 minute sunset show which basically turned Muriel into an infinity pool below our tent. I'm not a great photographer, but it was impossible to take a bad picture of this sunset. The temperature dropped into the 20's just after the sunset ended and it was into our down sleeping bags for everyone!
For those of you who have not had to share a fully-zipped mummy bag with a dog, I suggest you wait for this experience until the temperature drops well below comfortable. That being said, I am so glad Zoe was snuggled into my stomach because I'm halfway convinced I would have frozen to death otherwise. Plus, the comedic value of watching my sleeping bag vomit her out the face-hole every morning was a great way to start the day.
I was attached to the campsite for the duration of the trip, thanks to my knees, but enjoyed myself immensely. The fishing, while not incredible, was entertaining and the lake yielded surprisingly large trout for the altitude and water temperature. The cool thing about this area is that some of the lakes were stocked with native brown trout in order to preserve the genetic lineage. These lakes are difficult to access, making them some of the last remaining "pristine" brown trout habitats.
Dave and I didn't have any trouble with wildlife, but made sure to use our bear canister and hang whatever other smelly things using the PCT method. Of course, any trees at our altitude are woefully short and I'm sure if a bear did happen by it would have viewed our bag as a giant cupcake dangling at eye level. We heard plenty of coyotes and saw so many tracks thanks to the snow. Some of them belonged to my dog, but we soon learned to tell the difference.
The hike back was bittersweet. The views literally didn't stop until we were halfway back home in the car, my knees behaved themselves admirably the entire trek back, and I couldn't wait to sleep on a mattress that wasn't the texture and temperature of the frozen ground below it, but all the same it was difficult to leave. In just a matter of hours I had gone from my mountain ringed Sierra infinity pool to a traffic jam miles deep on the 405. Sigh! I guess that makes these trips all the sweeter!
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