I’ve been busy with PUSH this year (not a bad thing) which has given me much less time to do other things. However, There will probably be a little more online activity from in a few weeks. I’ve talked to Darren about some new things I’d like to be doing with PUSH and I’ll be trying them out over the next few weeks and months. I’ll let you know more when time gets closer happen.

Another hindrance is that my computer is currently powered by a cord I literally have to hold together. It broke a few months back, was repaired but has now broken again without hope of repair. I have ordered a new one, but I’ll be surviving on the broken version for a while.

And since typing takes two hands (one of which cannot be holding my broken cord together, I need to conserve my almost depleted battery!

Signing o………………………………………………………

The only background I’ll give out is that debate tournament are usually massive affairs where hundreds of people from different schools are competing all at once. Just keep that in mind.

Oh. You should also know this is a true story (the story, not the speech), and the trophy was enormous.

Here’s my Kevin’s essay - republished without his consent - but hey, you’re getting credit Kev!

“How I Won It”

Reclining coolly in a chair at the awards ceremony Jonathan thought back about the tournament that he had just won. His mind meandered through the most thrilling parts. His wandering mind dreamt up a speech. A speech he might say if they decided his award merited a speech. What would he say in this victory speech he pondered in his mind? He’d probably explain how he had won this tournament. Yes, that would be a wonderful speech.

It would start like this. “Hello everybody, my name is Jonathan Lowery, through hard work and extreme determination I won this tournament. For the benefit of other debaters I shall give a short explanation of how I triumphed over everyone else in this debate tournament.” That was a very catchy beginning to a speech. He smiled to himself as he dreamt up the explanation of his shocking victory “I was one of many participates who entered this tournament hoping to take away the big trophy. I fought my way through four matches in the preliminaries. My tireless efforts earned me a spot in the quarterfinals.” The preliminaries had been the hardest thing to win in the entire tournament, but he knew for sure that it was in the preliminaries that he had done his best debating.

“Through my hard work and ardent arguments in the preliminaries the officials decided to give me a bye for the quarterfinals. I went straight to the semifinals.” Shear luck Jonathan thought. That’s what got him through the quarterfinals without debating. “Once I reached the semifinals my prodigious reputation gave me the edge over my opponent. That edge combined with hard work earned me a spot in the finals.” Mr. Dulaney had almost had a stroke over the semifinals. Mr. Dulaney was enraged when he discovered it was against the rules to debate someone form your own school. He vehemently debated with the officials for ages over that rule. He wanted his students to debate for a spot in the finals. Eventually, Mr. Dulaney gave up and chose Jonathan for some arbitrary reason.

“Having so effectively progressed through the preceding rounds. My opponent became faint of heart and could not face me. All I had to do was wait for his argument to fall apart.” The other finalist had simply been unable to attend since he was taking the ACT the morning of the finals. So he had progressed through three rounds of debates sitting on bench in an empty cafeteria.

The speech was so ridiculous Jonathan didn’t bother to think up a conclusion. In the end he was glad that he was not required to give a speech for his award. Though, his imaginary speech would probably be a hit at parties especially if people knew the real story. That was where his speech belonged, in party. At that party he would tell people of his amazing triumph. How he had won a tournament through loopholes and dumb luck, yet, he thought, as he received his enormous trophy that would be a funny story speech to write down sometime. It would have a catchy title like “How I Won It.”

There will be no claims to poetic genius, but I think using poetry here every now and again might be fun. I figure this is probably a good way to get a sense for how I view life. Hope you enjoy. Oh, and feel free to comment.

On to the first one:

Angels of the Garden

Summer flowers alight in the wind
Dancing amid the gusty tides

Fluttering, not tethered now
Petals flown without a string

Heaven carried now to earth,
On winds no leaf considers

Seraphim to the dandelions
Revelations to roses in the thorns

Message given, pure flowers bound
On Mercury’s sandals to rejoin the dance

Two petals meet, doubling
Their joy in intricate blur

Drinking deep the currents of the sky
No earthly nectar may hold them long

White butterflies on bright wings
Angels of the garden, amidst the weeds

I just checked my calendar from last year and today, September 23, 2008, it is exactly one year to the day since I arrived in Rochester. I’ve changed a lot.

I just went back and re-read my posts from last September to now. Time capsule journeys always seem to highlight major themes and guess what? (Cliche!) This one was no different.

There’s a lot personal reflection I do in public - which is a habit formed through a variety of circumstances - and I won’t saddle the world with it just now. What I do want to leave with you is a thought that emerged from this reflection:

A wheel is essentially two circles: a hub and an edge. One cannot function without the other and the two must be connected. The hub supplies the power and the edge applies the power to the road.

While you can turn an edge and move the wheel, it is much harder to control and sustain. Working the circles from the inside out makes the whole machine more efficient.

If I had to pick a major theme from my look back, it would be discovering the process of aligning the wheel properly. I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’ words “Further up, further in!” in The Last Battle. The wheel is more like a wheel than it was before. And it will continue to refine and become more like a wheel the more I try to keep those two circles working together.

Metaphors are wonderful things.