2 weeks into it...noodles...

The new school-year is two-weeks-old now here in Tucson...but I have nothing particularly insightful to write on this Monday afternoon...

...other than that on the way home this afternoon, listening to NPR, I gleaned this piece of trivia: today is the 50th anniversary of instant ramen; yep, on August 25th, 1958, the first package of chicken ramen went on sale in Japan. I've eaten my share of ramen (who hasn't?)--doctored up Korean-style with egg and hot sauce, and so I'm thankful that five decades ago, the convenience-noodle-revolution began.

I still have a hard time saying "ramen" though; I grew up hearing the Korean pronunciation, which is more like "l/rah-myuhn."

When I lived in Paris, one of my favorite cheap-meal hangouts was on the Rue Ste.-Anne: le restaurant japonais Higuma. (photo below courtesy of the link)

It was a true Asiatic noodle-house, full of Japanese and Korean ex-pats, (I could even get kimchee there!), just a few blocks away from the wedding-cake-esque Opéra Garnier. No 'instant' here though; you could sit at the counter (kind of like at Waffle House!) and watch the guys cooking the noodles and broth...and voilà! un bol chaud de ramen!

=============

The other night we saw some friends from out-of-town, who were staying at a house that belongs to some of their relatives. We went over, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of the pool with my cell-phone-camera:

...evening among the saguaros in the foothills west of Tucson, ahh...Desert-modernist-palace chic...

===========

Yesterday, a drive up Mt. Lemmon, to escape the heat. It was 100 or above all last week, and for most of the first two weeks of the school-year the a/c in my classroom was not working properly. Thirty adolescents in a humid classroom day after day--less than 'fresh.' So the drive up the mountain was a relief. About halfway up is this vista point, looking toward Thimble Peak (5323'); the mid-elevation grasslands are still green from the monsoon rains...

And today, the clouds returned; a cool day in the 80's with occasional drizzle (!) to get me back into classroom-mode.

Noodles: Nouilles: Fideos.

The night before...

It's the night before the first-day-of-the-new-school-year...
A couple of local editorials for you:

People often forget that public school is a vast social experiment--still relatively 'new'--just a century or so, compared to millenia of civilization--let's take all our children, isolate them from all other contact for most of the day, most of the year, for most of their youth, and see what happens...

...well, peer pressure, for one thing, happens...and youth alienation...

(People want schools to somehow be a miracle, to make up for all the of the other failings in society...and then the public blames schools constantly; it becomes a national pastime...)

Ready? Bright and early tomorrow...

Ahh, some 'zen' for the youtube era.

And some thought-provoking links:

here's a link to an article about the 'mindset' of incoming freshmen (college)

and here's another link about the same subject.

Talk about a generation gap...

school-related cartoons, etc...

From today's paper:(... speaking of different attention spans, here's an excellent article from the current Atlantic Monthly magazine, entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" More and more studies show, too, that we really don't 'multitask'--we just juggle back and forth rapidly from one 'monotask' to another, thereby decreasing our effectiveness...sometimes with dangerous results, e.g., accidents caused by drivers who are texting!

Anyway...

And below are a few more cartoons I've clipped over the past couple of months--yep, I guess I'm a teacher...)

Tucson children return to school next Monday. Ahh, the joys and the adolescent angst of scheduling: And the parlance of youth...The many meanings of 'dude,' for example...Who said English wasn't a tonal language, eh?
And a ghastly pun, but as a French-teacher, I find it irresistible:

=======================================================

Today being the last day before I return to the classroom, I went for a morning bike ride in Saguaro National Park East. I went solo, to pace myself on the up-and-down loop (you can see it in the map below this cell-phone-photo); one day I'll be able to keep up with 'the big boys' on those 8 miles...

As irritating as some things about Tucson might be, how many cities in the country can claim a location sandwiched between national parkland, with mountains all around? There are, indeed, worse places to be...

There is, alas, no utopia, just varying degrees of Wal-Mart-per-capita ratios...
======================================================

Random jump, now...While in Montréal a few weeks ago, I came across this public health sign, and as a foreign-language teacher, my eyes are always judging the pedagogical usefulness/'interestingness' of graphics:

Now, I am all for hand-washing...but I've never seen such a detailed 'instruction manual.' (Have you? Even if you don't read French, the exhaustiveness of this poster--'rub palm to palm, fingers interlaced'--is stunning, non?) Oh là là, the municipal authorities of Montréal really want clean hands in their populace.

...Finally, at a restaurant, while S. and I were having coffee, we were amused by this little packet, evidence of the occasional absurd translation that results from the federally-mandated bilingualness of Canada:
No, I wouldn't like a creamer for my coffee--but a milker would be dreamy...Merci!

==========================================================

And last but not least, today's word du jour: FARTLEK.

Really, yes. I came across it in the paper. Look it up. (It has to do with fitness... )

a bit more of summer, one color at a time...

Just a few mornings left before the tyranny of the school-bell-schedule takes over...
So, an opportunity this morning to take a look at things through non-commuting eyes.
Again, the 'color accent' tool on the camera, breaking down the spectrum into its elements:

the ripening of prickly pears...
======================================================

the light yellow-green of agave and cactus...

================================================

the tiny yellow blooms of the creosote bush--the distinctive scent-giver when rain first falls in the desert...

=======================================================

more prickly pears--and the echo of their color in the rocks of the mountains...

always the sky, almost always blue...

===========================================

palo verde trees between the adobe and the mountains...

stark adobe...

...and the full-color version.

=======================================

purple...
green...
rust...
...all come together.

Canyon colors...one at a time

Sabino Canyon--one of Tucson's best places: Sonoran mountain wilderness at the city's northern edge, 15 minutes from our house...

After the floods and landslides of 2006, the canyon road and trails have finally been repaired and reopened, all the way to 'the end.' So, earlier this week, before returning to pre-school-year meetings, I went--after living here for just over a year now, I'd not yet been to the upper end of the canyon.

The late July sun can be harsh, so I thought it would be a bad day for photos, until I decided to experiment with a feature on my camera I'd not yet tried--'color accent.'


...and so, blue of sky...



...spots of violet in the wildflowers...


...yellow among the nopal paddles...



...and the intense purple of the ripening prickly pears...


And with the rainy season (which has taken a HOT break this week; it's going to be 105 today, with the monsoon returning tomorrow), lots of green:

(For more info on Sabino canyon: www.sabinocanyon.org & www.sabinocanyon.com )