i am convinced

severus. sever us.

dumbledore's last words: severus. severus please.

it was a command, a request, for snape to sever dumbledore's life.

it was a sacrifice snape didn't want to make: he didn't want to commit murder, he didn't want to be hunted for murder, and he didn't want dumbledore to die. he was the one who had to kill dumbledore, though, for several reasons.

many of the given and surnames in harry potter have meanings:

lupin from lupis -- wolf
slughorn -- a fat slug
sirius black -- black dog
neville longbottom -- a kind of tea leaf
voldemort -- flying death (i think that's what that one means) or it could mean returning from death... or flying from death... vol de mort
malfoy -- mal = bad

dumbledore -- i think 'dumb' might be about how little he ever tells anyone, he operates on a
need to know basis.

and so why can't 'severus' be directly taken to mean 'sever us'?

i think that at the end, when snape is escaping with malfoy, he is still instructing harry... first of all, he saves harry's life by reminding other death-eaters of their orders to leave harry for voldemort himself... but then as snape duels with harry and snape blocks every spell harry tries, he says "blocked again and again until you learn to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed"

until harry learns this skill of occlumency, he will never stand a chance against voldemort. snape wants harry to improve his occlumency skills.

hmmm... what's in that frying pan???

i have a squirrel in my class... very energetic, spirited, and humorous without ever trying to be.

she has kept her more nervous/fidgety behaviors tamed, but this past couple of days she's been all over the place. yesterday, for some reason while the rest of us were discussing the weather at calendar time, she decided to crawl from the carpet to the 'bookshop' and crouch behind the bookshelf - i saw her i think from when the idea popped into her blond little head - and watched in awe that she would be so unaware of the situation; or was she the one who was more aware of everything right then...?

anyway, i've had several close confrontations with her in the hallway outside the door about why she would choose to do things like this, and she seems to be looking back at me wondering why the hell i have a problem.

today, after a particularly confusing and pointless conversation with her about my expectations for her, i asked as a "by-the-way," 'what happened to your chin?' she had a long horizontal scab on her chin that she'd been feeling all day with her fingers.

she said, 'burned it.' very matter-of-fact. and i could see it all so clearly, it was the perfect shape. something smelled good. she wanted to know what was for dinner. i could see the hands on the edge of the stove and her face leaning forward as she bounced up and down to see what was in the pan.

'did you burn it on the stove?' a head nod. her face became serious as though i were her mother/father giving her hell for messing with the stove. i chuckled and stifled my urge to laugh outloud - not at her pain, but now knowing that if i were to call home and report her school-behavior to mom&dad, i'd get knowingly exasperated responses. kinda like 'what-else-is-new?' and because it was so easy to visualize, and so believable about her, and because this is a landmark in her life: "the day i learned the stove really is hot, even if mom and dad say it is."

learned helplessness

i'm in a class now on the internet and have had the urge to write my professor several times with questions and then thought... maybe i should try to find the answers on the class webpage... and then i find the answers... i'd rather not make an ass of myself, but i come so close so often.

here at panera, yes again, i am sitting on a bench that is mounted to the wall. i sit here cuz it's comfy and cuz there's an outlet for my puter. i was thinking, though, that it's got a disadvantage in that i have to lay my coat next to me and that takes up a seat next to me and if it gets crowded people may be annoyed. so i was gonna ask about coathooks. then, an hour later, i realize there's a chair on the other side of the table where no one will be sitting, and i put my coat there.

how stupid would it have been to ask for a coathook??

i don't know how i learned helplessness, but i think i have learned it well... in this short time of working here i almost made a stupid ass of myself to my college prof. and the panera workers. who knows what other stupid things i've done without realizing it?

oh, i also woke up at 8:24 yesterday when i was supposed to be at school at 8:15. i woke with the usual expletives and rushed to work. luckily i had these circumstances going for me:

- friday jeans day
- showered the night before
- had a can of chunky soup and yogurt at school
- light traffic

so i made it to school at 8:43, two minutes before the tardy bell, which rings 1/2 an hour after i should have been there. notice how acutely aware of minutes i am when running late, whereas usually i would say i arrive at school somewhere between 7&7:30, but could never say within 10 or 15 minutes when i got there.

i got up and got busy working on grades & lesson planning this morning. i finished my lesson plans first and then got to grading and averaging. the 2nd quarter ended yesterday.

i am simultaneously loading my cds onto my BRAND NEW IPOD which has 2x the capacity and shows videos, and was virtually free, aside from renewing my maintenance plan.... my previous ipod's battery died and because i invested in the replacement plan, i got the original purchase value toward a new ipod (or whatever i wanted in the store, and i chose a new ipod.) due to progress and economic factors, this new ipod cost the exact value of the one i bought 2 years ago.

so i am at panera working on all this stuff, and drinking coffee and i look like radio shack opened a kiosk at panera. i didn't feel like drying out my skin by taking a shower this morning, so i smell a pleasant shade of not clean with coffee and a kind of spicy oil bread dip.

free ipods put me in a good mood. and the fact that i just made it before the end of the 2 year guarantee makes me feel like i got especially lucky. i recommend to ipod owners: if you have the replacement plan, chuck your ipod against the ground 729 days after you buy your ipod and then head to the store where you bought it.

the corporate takeover of language

Entire dialects call cola either coke or pepsi. Or diet coke or diet pepsi. Some dialects say cola, some say soda, some say pop, some say soft drink.

But restaurants, I think everywhere, are being forced, by the soda companies that they buy from exclusively, to make their customers at least consent to having a “pepsi” or “coke” served to them by name. Apparently it’s harmful if your brand name becomes generic to the product: the way that Kleenex is a name applied to all brands of tissue. You ask for a pepsi and they have a monogamous relationship with coke, so they ask, “is coke alright?” I’ve never cared one way or the other between pepsi and coke, but because pepsi and coke are at war with one another, I am requested to not utter one cola’s name in another’s territory.

I was always surprised that some people would hold a can of pepsi and say that it’s a ‘coke,’ and vice versa. I don’t imagine that people will ever start asking for bread, potato chips, or cereal by brand name. For breakfast I had Kelloggs. For lunch I had Brownberry and Oscar Mayer with a side of Frito Lay. Oh, and I had a Vlasic on the side. To drink I had prairie farms with hershey's.

Corporations are also playing with comparative adjectives. When you’ve decided on the name of the cola you’ll be drinking, and if size is an option, some corporations have removed the “small” choice. They have regular and large. “I’d like a small coke.” “I’m sorry, we have regular and large.” I’d like to take this person on the other side of the counter back to the early days of language learning. I’d like to show them their earlier, more independent self, distinguishing between, not just three, but maybe 6 or more of those multicolored cups that stack inside each other. Or maybe they had nesting dolls, or a book called, “Big, Bigger, Biggest.” Does this person not realize that I have not been given the corporate line? I’m sorry, I saw two distinctly different-sized cups, but I didn’t know how you were naming them. When I said small, I meant that I’d like the one that is not big, relatively speaking. If that means regular to you, then give me the regular cup.

Undoubtedly, this effort by corporations is to make you think that you are getting “lots” for your money. Of course it’s all perception and semantics, sales and profits… and it’s not really the fault of the employees, but they should realize that their ability to think and speak independently is being taken. I don’t know, maybe I fear this kind of freedom loss more than the fact that corporations have taken over the government. I mean, they are writing (and getting away with breaking) the laws in Washington, and now they want to control our speech. What we say, how we say it – is being decided by people who measure the effect on sales depending on how things are phrased.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

dementor attack at maplewood ave.

i have a new theory about my 'skin infection'. at the worst of it, i was very cold. nothing i could do would bring any warmth. i also felt kind of sad. i wasn't in a grumpy mood at any time, but i felt depressed, and everything i thought of had a sad tone to it. i thought of friends, and remembered every embarrassing or stupid thing i've done in relation to friends. i thought of family, and i wished i was back home and it was still the holidays. i thought of teaching, and couldn't imagine doing a good job; i figured i was probably stupid for thinking i could be a teacher.

i believe i narrowly escaped a dementor in my house! luckily, this dementor must have been sent away by a patronus, and i did not receive the dementor's kiss.

then, while i tried to seek treatment, wizards must have entered my room, performed the necessary magical healing spells, erased the memories of doctors, nurses, and me, and vanished. whatever had to happen, i am feeling better. it still throbs when i walk, but not as bad as it did. i slept until 12:30 today, and waking up i felt the first improvement when walking. i didn't have to limp so much, and it was probably 50 percent less painful.

cellulitus... sp?

well, it turns out the reason my leg was hurting was not that i pulled a muscle, i have a skin infection... woo hoo. they kept asking me at the hospital if i had been cut or bumped or if i'd tried a new kind of soap. i had not, as far as i could tell. i told them that i had stretched and felt a pain there, and i asked the dr. if this would be a muscle pull/tear. she asked, 'why would it be puffy and red?'

'i don't know,' i said, 'i'm dumb i guess.' i think i shouldn't try to diagnose myself anymore.

so i guess when i had stretched and felt that pain, it was the early infection i felt, not pulling a muscle. i do feel better about that, i'd hate to think it was self-inflicted.

my groin hurts. and i'm sick. that sucks.

i do this thing when my hips are sore, where i stand on one foot and lift the other leg, and it kind of pops. i shouldn't do it, and i usually don't when i get regular visits with the chiropractor... but i had a week without, and i started to get kinda achy. but then i pulled a muscle. and then this bug was going around at my mom's house, and i must have caught it.

harry potter

i have new theories:

okay, of course it is possible that snape is a death-eater and dumbledore was wrong. but...

hagrid overheard dumbledore and snape on the grounds, and they were arguing... snape was saying that dumbledore took "too much for granted" and maybe he didn't want to do what he had said he would. there isn't a clue about what this is, except that dumbledore says snape "agreed to do it and that was all there was to it."

this is what he says to harry when they are in the cave and he wants harry to force-feed him the liquid in the basin containing the horcrux. he had made harry promise unconditionally to follow any orders, especially those that would save harry's life and leave dumbledore in danger. when harry protests about having to make dumbledore drink this potion, dumbledore recalls harry's agreement to protect his own life over dumbledore's.

so... snape had to help malfoy kill dumbledore or die because of the unbreakable vow. perhaps dumbledore was ordering snape to kill him. dumbledore weighed his ability in the war against voldemort, and it came up short to that of harry's potential (because of the prophecy and perhaps some other talents dumbledore saw in harry). maybe he also weighed himself against snape, and saw what advantage snape could offer, having convinced voldemort of his loyalty...

this is a lot like a chess game, because victory is not won until either harry or voldemort (the king of either side) is killed. dumbledore was the most able wizard, but his death did not mean total loss. he was like the "queen," very versatile and powerful. he was sacrificed for, hopefullly, a gain. maybe, when he was pleading for snape at the end of his life, he was pleading for the end of his life. perhaps the potion was torturing him from within, and only death would relieve him. he had said that the person who drank the potion would not die, because voldemort would want to 'question' him. maybe the only merciful thing for the potion drinker would be death, and dumbledore knew that it would be best if snape killed him, to at least let snape stay alive and in the fight against voldemort.