I love the verb defenestrate. It is so nice and specific. Some verbs, like 'go' and 'make' can have many meanings, depending on context. Make can mean anything from catching a spy to peeing to sculpting. But defenestrate...that is nice and tight, nothing more than one meaning.
Here is Huck Finn. For free. ...One of my students is reading it, and I said it was a great book. And that it had been banned for a while. I then had to explain what a banned book was, and then I had to try to explain to a 10-year-old why it was banned...I told him that people back in the day didn't like how it showed a friendship beween a black slave and a while boy, and I think he understood. Kids understand skin-color and culture issues here, because there are soooo many colors here compared to the mainland.
Do any of the Covenanteers remember all the Racial Reconciliation chapels we had? We must have had one a semester, at least. It was all about how Whites and Blacks need to acknowledge differences and get along. (It was deeper than that, but that is the summary.) ANYway, I remember Elissa M. writing to the Bagpipe and talking about all the other colors besides White and Black, and that we need to make room in our Reconciliation Discussion for those colors too. At the time I thought she made a good point but never realized what she really meant till I got here. There are so many colors of people here! Filipinos, Native Hawaiians, Chinese, Japanese, Haole (that's White), and many, many mixes of all the above. It's remarkable. I get what you mean now, Elissa, and I am glad I am here.
Slippers are flip-flops. There are no flip-flops here. Pau means finished, like "I'm pau with the project." Package means bag...you put your groceries in a package when you leave. Haole (as I mentioned) means White.
Three hours of great TV tonight!
Posted by at October 23, 2003 06:39 PM
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