Saturday, December 31, 2011

Three 2011 Highlights

2011 was a blessed year.  A lot of good things happened to me and to my family.  So, I decided to narrow those good things down to three categories and to choose one highlight for each category: Hamilton County Council of PTAs, Tennessee PTA, and work.
HCCPTA: At the Principal Dinner, I was installed as the president-elect of the council and was presented with my National PTA lifetime achievement award certificate.
TNPTA: This was tough--so many good things to choose among.  The successful planning, designing, and creating the new website was a huge accomplishment.
Work: Another tough one to choose only one thing, but this is my top one in this space -- co-authoring an article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Library & Information Services In Distance Learning (See the ERIC entry here)

Friday, December 16, 2011

Don't go back to fill-in-the-blank and waste another year

A Facebook friend recently had a newsfeed item of liking a YouTube video from REM of the song "Don't go back to Rockville."  That video rekindled some memories from the eighties for me.  I remember driving the two hours from Cincy to Indy to catch a REM concert.

This song is about love in the wrong places/spaces.  One partner goes back to Rockville to work at a factory to make more money rather than staying in the relationship back where nothing is happening for jobs.  Over 25 years later, not a whole has changed it seems.

The hook line in this song has been going through my head and for some reason I started substituting Rockville for other cities.

Don't go back to Knoxville, and waste another year, or
Don't go back to Nashville, and waste another year, or
Don't go back to Anyville, and waste another year.

Even though this is a REM song, Natalie Merchant in a 10,000 Maniacs cover did a soulful, emotive cover. Reminds me of an alternative country-rock cover. The embedded video below doesn't show anything but it gives you a chance to listen to Merchant's delivery of song full of sadness wrapped around a hope for a better life.