Kestrel

College Campus 1984 v. 2007

2007-12-07T16:43:23Z

Interesting changes:

Food: 1984 - mystery meat, segmented tray, all things served with ice cream scoops
2007 - food court style, real, identifiable food available, extensive salad bar.

Attitude: 1984 - eye contact, brief mumbled 'hi' to everyone that passed (at least), comraderie
2007 - Me an' my Ipod don't see or hear you... what are you lookin' at? I'm not talking to you, that's my bluetooth phone I said Hi to.

PDA: 1984 - beginning of AIDS Scare, PDA rampant, had to backpedal out of dorm room regularly, cause roommate was 'busy.' Kissing in the park, if not more...
2007 - people don't even hold hands in public, walk in on roommate and girlfriend sitting in chairs on opposite sides of room. Safe sex posters in dorm hallway.

Education: 1984 - take notes, notes, notes, and still sure I missed something. Read like mad every night to keep up. Guess what might be on test. Study 10-20 hrs/wk.
2007 - download lecture, maybe glance at it before class, highlight main points during lecture. 'objectives' section lists exactly what is to be tested. Study 3-5 hrs/wk

Environment: 1984 - Huh? we got a park...
2007 - Recycling dumpster next to smaller trash dumpster. Protests against use of lab animals. Yellow bikes! Every other liberal arts paper must have environmental subject.

Sidewalk art: 1984 - "F-U" / "'name' is an 'expletive deleted'"
2007 - "Be the change you want to see in the world."

I 'spose it's mainly an improvement... but I worry about undereducated electronical stimulation replacing real relationships....

Just as long as that's not a "Bush" de Noel

2007-12-07T15:42:18Z

You Are a Yule Log

While you do have holiday spirit, you have a secret, heathen past.

What Holiday Food Are You

last update 211 weeks ago

2007-10-31T13:15:46Z

good grief! it keeps count! have I really been off line for 4 years? What have I been doing?
I'll just make a list:

did a stint as a housing case manager - placed homeless in transitional housing - got fired for being too nice
worked my way from secretary to principal of a charter school - got canned by No Child Left Behind - can't be principal without college degree anymore.
drove a schoolbus
built two porches on my house
built seven cabins and most of a bathhouse (will be done by spring)
Went to Northland Pioneer College to take care of basics and boost my grade point
Donna retired last week! She's now a full-time author and caretaker of DesertMonastery. (see desertmonastery.org)

ongoing:
still blissfully married - Donna is a true spiritual partner!
still in regular contact with Avalon, enjoying the heck out of watching Zarah grow up,
and keeping track of Malachi while he's happily with his Dad in Houston.
Got accepted to Northern Arizona University where I'm studying speech-language pathology.
Missing my friends!
spiritual preparation for end of Mayan Calendar/Shift of Ages - what's in store??!!??

Coming up:
I'll be in Austin between the 18th and 28th of December
graduate may 2010 - already got a job waiting that will pay for grad. school!
work and go to grad school.
private practice after work obligations are met.

OK let me catch my breath - I just went from 4 years ago to four years from now in under five minutes.
back soon!
Kevin

kestrel777 @ 2003-10-09T18:31:00

2003-10-10T01:31:18Z

Remember way back when I got busted for not getting high? I had just had surgery, left my house without pain meds. A friend (nameless, of course) had pretty much the same meds, but they were codeine instead of hydrocodone (synthetic equivalent). She gave me three, I didn't want to get too loopy, so I took just two, as prescribed. Two months later, the third one shows up during a search of my car during a routine traffic stop (brake light out). I get jailed overnight, pay $1000 bail. My uncle, the lawyer, agrees to take the case for free; I get what I paid for.
Because I won't rat out the person who simply didn't want to see me in pain, I get railroaded. Class B Misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance(they wanted Class A, but I pointed out to my lawncle that class A was defined as more than exists in any one pill) $800 fine, "deferred adjudication" aka probation for a year at a cost of about $1000 more.
Paid my fine, did my time, record expunged. It's all over, now, right?

American Heritage Dictionary:
Expunge: tr.v. 1. To omit, erase, strike out, or obliterate (a word or sentence, for example). 2. To eliminate physically, annihillate... -- See synonyms at erase

No, wait!

The very vocabulary of our language has been altered. Shades of 1984. Orwell, you bastard, you were only a little ahead of your time.

Couple of day's ago, the kid's school offers me a job. Reasonable pay, excellent environment. The monastery's a little tight on cash, so I agree. The catch: in order to work with children, one must have a level one fingerprint clearance. Keeps them from hiring bad guys. I'm told by the local constabulary that when the FBI pulls my file, I'll come up as a bad guy! yeah! Misdemeanors don't count against you, unless they're drug-related. I say hey! that record is supposed to be expunged! They say, yup, says so right here after the description of the charges: "expunged" Right there on my record. Right where it's supposed not to be any more. But that doesn't count in a level one clearance request. Request likely to be denied, for the sake of a single codeine pill almost a decade ago, so I wouldn't get loopy. OK, I was loopy for not eating the damn thing!

There is an avenue for protest. I'll be taking it, this time, if necessary, with a lawyer who does know what he's doing. They'll fill the job before it's done, probably, but this one needs to be fought on the principle of the thing.

Such fun!

kestrel777 @ 2003-09-26T12:13:00

2003-09-26T19:14:24Z

Anyone out there have contact info for Dart? I have a bad email address, apparently. Contact me offline at kestrel@desertmonastery.com, or kestrel@animatedhuman.com, or forward this message to Dart. Thanks!

kestrel777 @ 2003-09-26T11:34:00

2003-09-26T18:34:46Z

INTP - "Architect". Greatest precision in thought and language. Can readily discern contradictions and inconsistencies. The world exists primarily to be understood. 1% of the total population.

Take Free Myers-Briggs Personality Test

Hmmm... used to be INFP wonder why 50% yields to Thinking rather than feeling?

insight

2003-09-26T17:59:29Z

While lying flat on my back on heavy pain meds, I began (finally!) to have this realization about myself...
instance: I tried to do three building projects this summer and completed one.
instance: I tried to dig a three-day trench in three hours and caused hernia complications which necessitated moving my surgery date up a month.
instance: I made a commitment to myself to write, while all my energies were focused elsewhere.
instance: The last time I made such a commitment (Will: to stop smoking) it took the better part of two years to bring it to fruition.
instance: my meditation practice is _still_ sporadic.

Conclusion: Kestrel regularly bites off more than he can chew: Emotionally, Physically, and Spiritually; and my focus is scattered due to trying to accomplish too many things at once.
...And I came out here to be a monk!

Doing my best not to get all negative about this... realizing the problem is a first step toward its solution.

Time to actually BE a monk. Do the spiritual work, and the rest will fall more naturally into place, I believe.

Any comments or suggestions are very welcome.

Why I never write... and what I'm going to do about it

2003-04-10T05:27:09Z

I spent a _lot_ of my youth writing. It was one of my favorite ways to pass the time. I started my first poetry notebook when I was all of five years old. I still have it, I do believe. About a year ago, I cracked it open and got a smile. Silly stuff, of couse, but not bad for a kid. Reading and writing, my first loves. I wrote for a decade, and aside from that first notebook, I have only a few excerpts still around.

It was in highschool that that love was betrayed. Writing for a grade was bad enough, but probaly wouldn't have coused any lasting damage on its own, but someone invented intermural writing as a competitive sport! what a NASTY little idea.

I'm not particularly competitive by nature, but when I get that bug, it's horrid. Soccer and writing were my two sports. In soccer I was center-full in a defense that was _never_ scored against for three years running. I played in the rain, in snow, in poor health. I ripped the ligaments out of my left knee, and was back on the field within two weeks of my surgery. I had no sense whatsoever! In writing I was just as obsessive, but the results were much more insidious. Soccer damaged my body in ways that I could see and feel. Competitive writing damaged my soul.

Soon I was crunching out poems, essays, paper by the truckload, it seemed,but it didn't take long for the life to drain out of it. I could make an A+ on every assignment for an entire semester, win first place in state competion, get a piece printed, framed, and displayed in the NY Museum of Modern Art, and hate every minute of it. Why? I had stopped writing for me, for the muse that gently drove me. I never wrote just for the enjoyment of putting words on paper. It had to be perfect! Every time! I wrote because it was required, because it was assigned, or because I was gonna put some other pompous, arrogant fool into second place if it killed me. And it did! I didn't realize it then; heck, I didn't even realize that I had stopped having fun until my senior year.

Then it hit me, and I stopped. Cold. The last semester of my senior year, I didn't write a word. I turned in my 'rejects' from the semester or year before. For my valediction, I tweaked a poem that I had written as a freshman. Took off for college... and Flunked out! I wouldn't write a word.

Writing home became an assignment from my parents. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't write a thank-you letter to a scholarship donor, and lost the money. I had completely turned off the fount that had begun to flow when I was a child. I had killed the golden goose. I didn't put a single word on paper for over a decade. And I had a real, if generally secret, attitude about it. By god, I wasn't gonna write for anyone's pleasure, not even for my own.

What a whacko! It took a whole decade for me to realize that I was being childish and that this attitude was not serving me. Sometime in my late 20's, I began to let myself write again, but the best I've been able to do is mere dribbles. An article here, an email there. Unless I was ranting, writing was a bit of an ordeal. My concentration was never on task. A 20-line email could take an hour or more, 'cause I was always finding something else to do: bathroom, drink, pace, edit and re-edit, etc. This difficulty continues to this day.

Sooooo.... I've let this thing go to long, get too big, and eat up some of the best parts of my life. It's become a phobia, an anti-obsession, damned near a psychosis. It's become an excuse, and it's spilling over into my abilty to communicate in general.
Blah, Blah, Blah. Whine, Whine, Whine.

OK, enough catharsis, already. I see it for what it has become. It is fear; It is failure; and it is no longerwelcome to be part of me!

I AM THROUGH WITH IT!!!

333-55555-333

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

What is thy will?

It is to write regularly.

To what end?

That I may express my inner self, and release an inner bond that does not serve me.

To what end?

That I may communicate with my brothers and sisters, friends and loved ones, that we may guide each other and share ideas on our paths toward accomplishing the Great Work.

Love is the law, love under will.

1

To this end, I commit, for one year and one day, to write in this forum, at least once per week, for at least one hour.
It matters not if it is not polished or even coherent, just that I do it. I deliberately set this as a Magickal Assignment, that I may laugh in the face of my long held resentment of writing as an assignment. I'm betting that before the end of the the year and a day, I'll meet that muse again, and won't need an assignment to enjoy the hell out of this. For now, fake it 'til I make it!