You know, today started off great. I finished the book I'm about to review. I went to the grocery store and the bank. I got ready for work and I was looking alright and my hair, for once, wasn't being weird...
And then, on the way to work, a dump truck merged into me on the highway. I am ok, but my car is pretty messed up. Messed up to the point where we have a rental car. A rental car with NO CD PLAYER. So I'm stuck with no CD player during NPR pledge week. Really, facing down a week of Diane Reihm telling me about how awesome the WAMU travel mug is, that's the worst part of this whole thing.
ANYWAY! The book I finished reading and want to tell you about!
Are y'all gearing up for National Novel Writing Month? (aka NaNoWriMo, or just NaNo) Have you even heard of NaNo?
Basic premise is that the biggest barrier to writing your novel is spitting out that first draft, and given that all first drafts are shit anyway, it's just about getting it out. So, in November, tens of thousands of people try to write a 50,000 word book. In one month.
It's pretty intense and pretty fun. I have yet to "win" (I usually peter out around 20-25,000) but it is lots and lots of fun.
And, if you're reading to belly up to the challenge this year, you first must read
No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days Chris Baty
Baty is the founder and head of NaNo and this book is less a "how to write a really good book" type book and more of a "how to write 50,000 words in one month book."
You don't *have* to read this if you want to NaNo, but I think you should. (It's chock full of stuff I wish I had known the other years I participated.)
The first half of the book explains the premise and ways to succeed. The second half has a chapter for every week with pep talks, ideas, and common stumbling blocks for that week. It's silly and irreverent, much like the NaNo experience itself.
NaNo is a lot of fun, and I know a lot of teachers actually have their entire class participate. I highly recommend it, and if you're thinking about it, be sure to check out this book to pump you up and help you out.
Is it November yet? I'm ready to go!!!
Nonfiction Monday Round up at
Picture Book of the Day.
Mark Peters, the genius behind the blog Wordlustitude in addition to being a Contributing Editor for Verbatim: The Language Quarterly, and a language columnist for Babble, and the author of Yada, Yada, Doh!: 111 TV Words That Made the Leap from the Screen to Society is our guest blogger this week. Check out his past OUPblog posts here. In the post below Peters explores the word “nano”.
Ever been called a nano-brained nitwit who knows nano-squat about nano-something-or-other?
Probably not, but even if the only nano you know is your iPod, very little training is required to coin or understand words like nano-squat, nano-brained, and nano-something-or-other.
But before we get to such nano-tomfoolery, a little nano-history: Literally, nano means one thousand-millionth. The OED traces this meaning back to nanophanerophyte and nanoplankton—loan words from French and German spotted in 1907 and 1912 respectively. Since the forties, nano has been producing plenty o’ new words, including the OED-recorded nanoamp, nanoequivalent, nanodevice, nanowatt, nanotube, and nanohenry (that’s a tiny measurement, not a tiny Hank, for readers about as science-savvy as yours clueless). Recent news stories have featured nano-catalytic, nano-cavities, nano-fabrication, nano-needles, nano-optics, nano-sensor, and nano-silica. How many nanobots can build robo-condos on the head of a pin is yet to be determined, but there’s definitely a scientific nano-word for every one of them.
Likewise, nano has been a busy little prefix in the colloquial regions of the language, meaning either 1) The inverse of a metric bazillion-load or 2) shorthand for nanotechnology. Though the slangification of nano goes back to at least 1966 and a New Scientist article that mentioned a nanoskirt, the use of nano as a slangy prefix is still uncommon enough to feel fresh and minty, yet common enough for me to squeeze an article out of it. Plus, nano-slang encompasses a positively robust bunch of words—including indefinite words, fanciful neologisms, insults, and exaggerations—and those words deserve more than a tiny paragraph at the end of the OED’s nano entry.
Indefinite words—such as thingamajig and hickeymadoodle—are evidence that us talking apes will never stop talking, no matter how little we know about the object of our words. Indefinite nano-words tend to play on the mysteriousness of nano-technology to Joe and Josephine Average. These include nanoanything, nanoblahblah, nanodoohickey, nanomajig, nanosomethingorother, and nano-whatsit. My favorite comes from a Bionic Woman thread on Television Without Pity: “And in what universe would the girlfriend of one of the scientists ever be a candidate for nano-bionic-Whateverization?”
Nano-bionic-whateverization—which just might make my top-ten-favorite-words-ever list, against a competitive field—is also part of the next category: fanciful word coined for humorous purposes, especially silly contrivances imagined by bloggers and other web-wordsters. Even in Battlestar Galactica’s fraked-up world of Cylons, a nano-cylo-std is imaginary— that’s short for nano-Cylon-sexually transmitted disease, for the innocent of hard drive. I also haven’t been able to locate a nano-douche-bot or nano-destructo-mat at Wal-Mart yet, though perhaps it’s my shopping skills that are to blame. Similar examples include nano-ooze, nano-puddle, nano-slime, nano-werewolf, and nano death ray blower upper thingy —not to be confused with the equally practical nano death ray of doom. Also just in time for Christmas is the green-glowing-nano-slime-ammo-pack, which could prove a useful addition to anyone’s utility belt.
Then there are nano-insults, a category close to my 12-year-old heart. The OED lists a lovely one from a 1983 Verbatim article—“a microcephalic, nanocerebral ninnyhammer”— a favorite epithet of the late lexicographer Laurence Urdang. Erin McKean recalls Urdang’s words in paraphrased form in a Facebook update on Sept. 4, 2008, as his “habit of describing people as ‘cretinous, nanocerebral, gormless ninnyhammers.’” At lunch with Erin recently, she remember the insult as nanocephalic, providing even more ammo for wordsmiths at the technical journals and playgrounds.
As with Urdang’s examples, most nano-insults diminish body parts or qualities, especially those that opinion polls suggest should be massive and ginornous enough to properly shine glory on America: nano-balled, nanoboobs, nano-brained, nano-mannered, nano-minded, nano-schlong, nano-souled, nano-testicles, and nano-wand of love fit this pattern. There’s plenty of room for mixed meanings, and the different senses of nano can be hard to parse. Nano-minded can mean small-minded, or it could mean overly obsessed with the iPod nano, which clearly boosted the stock of the word nano as well as the company Apple. Then there NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month, which is popular enough to inspire insults such as nanofailure and nano-lame-o. I’ve tried to keep these senses of nano out of my carpet and this article, but I’ve probably misjudged one or two.
Along with insulting and soccer, exaggerating is a popular sport worldwide, and nano has been a solid exaggeration-maker for years, particularly in the common word nanosecond, which was first used hyperbolically back in 1965, in a W.H. Auden poem: “Translated in a nano-second / To a c.c. of poisonous nothing / In a giga-death”. Some writers take nano-second a step further with nano-minute, nano-moment, nano-inch, and nano-ounce, while others have coined nano-intestines, nano-jot, nano-qualm, and nano-sleaze.
Occasionally, exaggerations do a quadruple backflip off the diving board of language and land in deeper waters, where unlimber minds reach haplessly for a floatie of meaning. I’m thinking of a word that’s so delightful it makes my toes quiver a little: nano-eternity. Here are a few uses of this oxymoron for the ages, this restaurant-quality Zen koan:
Each second became a nano-eternity. He visualized all the faces. All the lies. All the broken hearts.
(Aug. 6, 2004, Literotica Discussion Board,)
Plus It would give me something to look at while I’m waiting a nano-eternity for a the Brooks Bros logo to load…
(Nov. 1, 2007, Dealbreaker,)
Her eyes met his and for a nano-eternity her entire being, her self, was eaten by her son’s blank, black, depthless eyes.
(2008, Ten Nails the E-Book,)
Christ on a crouton, what a word! What a concept.
I’m no eternity-ologist, but I would think that one thousand-millionth of eternity would be… eternity, right? So is a nano-eternity short or long? Is it full of pain or pleasure? Paper or plastic? Am I a dude dreaming I’m a goliath bird-eating spider, or am I a goliath bird-eating spider dreaming I’m a dude?
Nano-eternity… Now that’s a word, folks. I could ponder it for a nano-eon or two, and I hope you’ll sprinkle it liberally in your tasteful erotica, Italian sonnets, and campaign speeches.
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The NEA Representative Assembly really was like being at the Grand Canyon -- my "snapshots" can't do it justice. The Grand Canyon gives the awe of natural beauty; the NEA RA gave me the overwhelming sense of awe that I am one of so many people who believe in public education.
Like the Grand Canyon, the NEA RA is huge. The 3.2 million members of NEA elect 8-9,000 representatives who come together in July to take care of the business and set the policies of the organization. We dealt with/debated/decided 95 new business items, and amendments to the bylaws and constitution. There were both radical conservatives and radical liberals in attendance. Everyone had the right to speak, and for the most part, the radicals balanced out the radicals and we wound up somewhere in the middle.
I encourage you to visit the NEA website to view short videos of the eight presidential candidates' speeches. In the sidebar on the same page, you can also check out NEA's day-by-day description of the action, view the amendments and new business items, and view slide shows on different topics throughout the week.
I don't want to give the impression that the NEA RA (Representative Assembly) was all work and no play. And I certainly don't want you to think that we survived on bread and water! Finding good food in Philly was part of the fun of the week!
The Reading Terminal Market across the street from the Convention Center is like our North Market...only on steroids! It has been open since 1893 and is home to more than 80 merchants, two of whom are descendants of the original standholders from a century before. This market has Thai, Mexican, Amish, gourmet, and local foods (just to name a few). There are fresh flowers, fresh fruits and vegetables, crafts, wines, and cookbooks (just to name a few more). What a great asset to the thriving downtown of Philadelphia!
Yes, we ate the requisite Philly Cheesesteak. The governor of PA visited the convention and he told us what makes the Philly Cheesesteak the Philly Cheesesteak. (He had been mayor of Philly before becoming governor.) 1. Stringy, fatty meat. Many people try to improve on the Philly Cheesesteak by using good meat, but that nullifies the authenticity. 2. Cheese Whiz. Again, don't bother with real cheese, because it won't melt right and get down in the cracks of the stringy meat. 3. Don't drain the fat off the onions. Yup, to be a REAL Philly Cheesesteak, it needs to be greasy. The ones we ate were authentic in every way. And I'm sorry, Philly, but I like the fake version I get at Cap City Diner!
Even though we worked really hard for the 5 days of the Representative Assembly, we somehow found the time to make it over to the Reading Market in the mid-afternoon for a still-warm cookie, or some to-die-for candy!
The best meal of the week was at La Fontana Della Citta. I had the best arugula salad ever, and great creme brulle. The Eggplant Parmesan was good, but not the best ever.
On the first day we were in Philadelphia, the day we did all our sight-seeing, we had lunch at Soho Pizza. I had a typical slice of pepperoni, along with an experimental slice of broccoli/spinach. YUM! Whoda thunk? But it worked. I may try to replicate it here at home!
NEA invited ALL of the presidential candidates to speak at the Representative Assembly. NEA always invites all of the candidates. (1/3 of NEA members are Republicans.) This year, for the first time in NEA history, a Republican candidate accepted that invitation, and he received the same enthusiastic Team NEA welcome as the other candidates:
Mike Huckabee was a great storyteller, 
and he made us laugh with the one about the Harvard student who got the only A+ in Harvard history for his one sentence essay utilizing the concepts of Religion, Royalty, Sex and Mystery.* He also told us about growing up in a patriotic home.** When he spoke about education, though, he was very serious. He equated education with national security, and talked about the importance of health care for children. One of his passions is to make sure that art and music are mandatory parts of the curriculum, and he illustrated this point with a story from his childhood about the importance to him of the guitar he received one Christmas.
Barack Obama spoke about the "these kids" syndrome
-- in which the more we talk about the kids who are failing in our educational system (or who are being failed by it) are spoken about, the more they increasingly become someone else's problem. He would have us remember that they are OUR KIDS and we need to do whatever it takes to help them succeed. "Our Kids" was then one of his catch-phrases throughout his speech. He called No Child Left Behind "one of the emptiest slogans in American politics," pointing out that what we really left behind was the money to fund it, along with common sense.
Joe Biden didn't claim that he'd be The Education Parent
, he pointed out that his family is the Education Family -- his wife is a teacher, and he teaches a law course every Saturday. He scoffed at an earlier candidate's promise to select a teacher as Secretary of Education (Who? I can't remember now...). He said, "How about a teacher living in the White House and sleeping with the president?!?" He spoke on all of the main issues: education is more than just the teachers, it is also the Education Support Professionals (ESPs), keep art and music, drop out rate/access to college, importance of preschool, and teacher pay/retention.
*"My God," said the Queen. "I'm pregnant! I wonder who did it?"
**"My father laid on the stripes, and I saw stars!!"
Today has been a mixture of business, voting, and special recognitions.
We had to get through debate (sometimes ad nauseum) on ALL 4 of the proposed bylaw amendments because tomorrow morning we will begin voting on them at 9:00 a.m., before the RA is actually scheduled to convene. So that business needed to be completed.
We voted on 5 candidates for Educational Support Professionals to become at-large members of the NEA Board of Directors. I am happy to report that there were no hanging chads in this election, and it was completed very efficiently!!
The members of the AFT who are present at the RA were recognized, as were the 13 international educators who are guests of various state delegations to the RA. There was a very inspirational recognition of the Little Rock Nine on the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
And we heard from two more presidential candidates.
Dennis Kucinich was at his idealistic best. 
He spoke on his anti-war platform, in terms of the money that could be saved for/diverted to education. He used the image of a statue over the front steps of the House of Representatives at his metaphor: the statue is of a woman standing with one arm straight out. Below her outstretched arm and protected by it is a child with a stack of books. The title of the statue is "Peace Protecting Genius." Kucinich believes that both education and health care should be civil rights for all Americans, especially our children.
Bill Richardson is the first Latino 
to run for president. He is bi-cultural and bilingual. He brought back collective bargaining for public employees in New Mexico when he was elected governor, and his stand on NCLB can be summed up thus: "School reform has made our schools look like reform schools." Richardson has done amazing work for teachers in NM, raising both teacher salaries and teacher quality. He promises to institute a nationwide base salary of $40,000 for all teachers if he is elected for president.
All of the presidential candidates were invited to address the delegates of the Representative Assembly. Today we heard from Hilary Clinton, John Edwards, and Christopher Dodd.
Hilary Clinton
was an amazingly dynamic speaker. She focused almost exclusively on the importance of public education. In the question and answer session following her speech (just two questions for each candidate) she clarified her stand on charter schools -- making clear that she supports public charter schools, but not (NOT.in.any.way.shape.or.form.) vouchers.
John Edwards
embedded his comments about the importance of public education within his campaign focus on ending poverty and eradicating the "two America's" and the "two public school systems" about which he often speaks. The look on Edwards' face was priceless when he was asked how NCLB can close the poverty gap. He simply couldn't answer that question! (Who could?!?!)
Christopher Dodd 
doesn't just "talk the talk" on education issues, he "walks the walk." He pointed out to us that in his 30 year career in the senate and congress, he has a 100% voting record with NEA. His belief in organized labor drives his candidacy, and his answer to the question, "What's the number one problem in America?" has been, for 26 years, "The education of America's children."
I took pictures as the meeting hall was filling up with the 15,839 people who are attending the NEA RA.
I took pictures of the signs the Communications Committee members carry up and down the aisles of ever delegation to remind the members what the recommended vote of the caucus is for each issue (red C and arrow up or down), or, in the case of an issue that comes up on the floor, the on-the-spot recommendation of the leadership team on an issue (green L and arrow up or down).
And I took pictures during the opening speech of NEA President, Reg Weaver.
But it's a bit like taking pictures of the Grand Canyon. If you aren't here, you simply can't completely imagine the enormity of the room, the noise of the cheering, the vision of the confetti fountains in the lights, and the feeling that you're a part of something huge.
NEA was started 150 years ago in Philadelphia by 43 teachers. There are now 3.2 million (MILLION) members. NEA is one of the largest democratically elected representative bodies in the world. NEA's history is entwined with the history of civil rights and women's rights in our country. NEA elected a woman president before women had the right to vote in our country.
As President Weaver said, "You didn't join because we fight, you joined because we fight for what is right."
Every morning from 7:00 to 9:00, before we leave for the Representative Assembly at the convention center, we attend the state caucus meeting. At this meeting, we receive the recommendations of the state's leadership team, aka the resolutions committee. They have studied the new business items, and the amendments (to bylaws, standing rules and the constitution) and they make recommendations about how our state should vote on each issue. After they make each recommendation, there is lots of debate amongst the membership. (All strictly following Robert's Rules of Order!) Ultimately, each member decides how he/she will vote, regardless of the recommendation.
Lest you think this is all work and no play, I submit the following photos of our state association president, sporting topical headgear. A hat from Sunday on the theme of "When Pigs Fly," and a hat from today, Monday, that recognizes the 15oth anniversary of the formation of the National Education Association here in Philadelphia:
I am starting to get some idea of the enormity of this event. There are 350 in the Ohio delegation. We are housed in two hotels. Here is a glimpse of our caucus this morning. Today's caucus was more of a briefing. The rest of this week we will be hearing about/discussing Ohio's positions on various items that will be covered that day in the Representative Assembly.
We met a woman from California as we left the convention center after registering. There are 1800 (EIGHTEEN HUNDRED!) members in the California delegation. They are housed in 10 (count 'em -- TEN) hotels!!
Tomorrow we will have our first day of the Representative Assembly where we'll see all these people in the same room at the same time.
Because we all had the afternoon free today, it was like touring with a small city's worth of other teachers. Here are the highlights:
Great interpreters throughout the city. These are at the Visitor Center.
Christ Church.
Elfreth's Alley. Our nation's oldest residential street.
Betsy Ross' house.
Liberty Bell. Worth the half-hour wait in line and having our bags searched before going in.
Independence Hall.
Jennie:
I have NO time, but NaNoWriMore is calling me too!! What should I do?
Jennie, add me as a writing buddy! I'm abbydarling on NaNo. :D
Kelly--
Do it! Even if you don't get all 50,000, you still at least have 15,000 or 20,000 or whatever more than you would have!
Also, when I tried that excuse last year, Molly came back with "E. Lockhart wrote her first book while writing her dissertation."
I have way too much going on in November, but I'm still doing it. Last year it was a reward--if you finish reading this article, you can spend 30 minutes writing!
Abby--I will add you once I figure out how! If I never figure it out, add me! I'm kidsilkhaze!
I like the idea and was thinking about it! Sounds tempting when so many people are doing it as well :-)