"Like the study of science and art, accounts of historical events can be intrinsically fascinating. But they have a wider significance. I believe that people are better able to chart their life course and make life decisions when they know how others have dealt with pressures and dilemmas---historically, contemporaneously, and in works of art. And only equipped with such understanding can we participate knowledgeably in contemporary discussions (and decisions) about the culpability of various individuals and countries in the Second World War. Only with such understanding can we ponder the responsibilty of human beings everywhere to counter current efforts at genocide in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to bring the perpetrators to justice."
"...we humans are the kinds of animals who learn chiefly by observing others---what they value, what they spurn, how they conduct themselves from day to day, and especially, what they do when they believe that no one is looking."
----Howard Gardner, from The Disciplined Mind, published in 1999

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Happy First Day of School; or, Neroli's Little Helper

Dear reader, as you might imagine, our kiddos often require their teachers to bring as much energy to the day as they can muster.
Sometimes music is just the thing to bolster one's energy levels.
Here's the music that was running through the back of my head today, on the first day of school: it saw me through cartwheeling in the classroom to shoes removed and thrust in my face for smelling to insulin checks to the understandable impatience of a kindergardner who wants his pizza, please---all the while having to wait for a twenty-minute-long-wait in line in order to get it.
Happy first day of school!

I'll talk with you soon, dear reader.
Take good care.

4 comments:

Diane O'Connor said...

God! I'm exhausted!!
(ha ha)

Diane

neroli said...

*laughing*!
Diane, believe it or not, watching Bollywood clips has been of some help with my insomnia---with the clip in the post, or this clip, for instance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oMMYtehsDY
the images and the sounds obviate all that mind-churning and restlessness: they tend to play over and over internally---
a meditation, really.
(and I am totally in awe of the depth of Madhuri's talents. Amazing, that lady! Such things make happy thoughts for me, and then also tend to discourage that insomniac thought-train :)

Pelicano said...

Oh, to be in love again...

What a gorgeous production that was! I love watching these large-stage musical numbers- so much like classic American ones which I love as well. Thanks for sharing.

neroli said...

Pel, you're welcome---I like those oldie but goodie US numbers as well!
And I was just watching Anthony Bourdain the other night: he was in a nightclub in Brighton Beach, and saw a show that made my jaw drop, what little they showed on film. I'll have to go rewind the tape, and come back with the name and his description for what he experienced...but it was fun!