A few thanks…

In about…*pssshhht*…three or so hours, I’ll be winding my way through the Great Leviathan of Inconvenience that is the security screening checkpoint of the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport getting ready to board a large metal flying tube destined to land in Japan half a day later.

Needless to say, I’m pretty stoked.

Not about the flying bit, mind you. I just managed to get over my fear of flying sometime last year by thinking of Battlestar Galactica. You know, if we do find ourselves entrenched in a terrible, bloody war with a race of sentient robots, I might have to fly a plane and shoot those Toasters down. But you didn’t come here to read about my special overcome-your-fears-through-a-series-of-increasingly-improbable-series-of-events theories, did you?

My wife and I have been planning this trip to visit our friend that teaches English in Japan for quite some time (since October 2010, to be specific), and this trip could not have come at a better time. For the last year, I’ve been challenged as a teaching professional and as a writer more than I have ever been, resulting in a latent stress level that only long flights and culture shock can correct. In many senses, this blog was created with all of my summer’s travel in mind.

In the spirit of brevity (a spirit that does not often fall from either my fingertips or lips, as you might know), I just want to extend a sincere thank you to all of the people that will make this experience absolutely amazing. First, let it be known that my magnificent wife is the Queen of All Travel and without her I wouldn’t be brave enough to go anywhere, let alone somewhere that requires a passport for entry. She’s a brilliant woman and the best traveling companion I could ever hope for. Second, a huge thanks goes out to Mr. Jehu Love, a man with a ridiculously appropriate nom de plume that will be our guide in the Land of the Rising Sun. He’s welcoming us into his home-away-from-home and shuttling us around from temple to ramen bar to sushi joint, so he receives the highest of all fives.

Lastly, thanks to all of my wonderful friends and readers back home who give me a reason to share all of the awesome stuff this month abroad (Japan followed by Europe) is bound to produce. So stay tuned, you beautifully literate people…neat stuff is about to happen.

-B

I’ve seen…

I’m pretty sure if I Googled what I just ate, I would find a scarier calorie count than I’m truly prepared for. On this, the third (or fourth…time and space are mysteries whose comprehension requires more energy than I am prepared to give) day of our student trip to San Francisco and Thereabouts, we’ve managed to shuffle our gaggle of kids around Alcatraz and Fisherman’s Wharf with the Golden Gate Bridge to come.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised how few behavioral issues we’ve had to remedy this trip. If in the course of a school year the biggest issue I had to deal with was a runaway sense of negativity, I would be able to spend much more time actually teaching my content area than I currently do. If wishes were horses, right?

One thing that I’ve been trying to push my budding writers to do on this trip is to spend more time writing down careful observations of people they encounter or see on the trip in lieu of the standard tell-me-about-your-day style of journaling. Right now, here at the Wharf, nothing would make me happier than spying a few of my students staring into a crowd of people only to latch on to one or two passers-by and record every salient fact and observable quality.

In a sense, I’m trying to quietly pass on one of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever received. Observe, record, interpret, repeat. While writing this post, I’ve spent nearly half an hour watching people walk up and down the Wharf carrying ice cream cones, coffee cups, small children, and plenty of extra baggage. I’ve seen an old man who can’t walk five steps without having a serious internal battle about whether or not he should ogle the seemingly endless supply of teenage girls. I’ve watched a whole slew of small clone families stuff any number of spawn into a smaller number (confusing, I know) of luxury strollers and baby holsters. I’ve watched at least two people try to eat chowder out of bread bowls while walking (with, sad as it is to say, no comically scalding results). I’ve watched an old man smoke a Peterson pipe, a young woman drop her phone three times, and a twenty-something-year-old man pour about a cup of cocoa powder into three different cups of coffee (from different coffee stands, no less).

In a word, I’ve seen nearly everything this small stretch of boardwalk has to offer. I wonder how many other people are doing the exact same thing.

Personally, I don’t want to venture a guess.

-B

If you’re going…

I’m writing this while sandwiched in between a student wrapped in a black fleece jacket and an electronics panel wrapped in industrial carpeting on a bus destined for California. With 40 students, ten (or so) adults, and a bus full of barely used camping equipment, I plan on spending the next few days documenting the trip via this blog, that way everyone can see just what it is that is keeping me from writing.

By this time tomorrow, I should be sitting near a campfire with a marshmallow on a stick and a mild sunburn, unless organic chemistry has anything to say about either one of those things.

As far as road trips go, this one should be fairly mundane…that is, if shuttling around a group of students from one attraction to another is ever mundane. We’ll camp for two days, hit up San Francisco for four, and head back to Denver. All the while, my students will be writing.

This isn’t a vacation, after all. If you were hoping for a souvenir, think again. We have field lessons on history, math, art, science, reading, and writing that take place all throughout the city. I’m pretty excited to see the kids writing at every given opportunity, but then again, what kind of writer would I be if I wasn’t excited?

After this trip, I’ll be joining my wife on a westbound plane destined for the Land of the Rising Sun where we will be visiting an old, dear writing colleague (mentioned before in this blog) for a couple of weeks while we see the sights of rural and metropolitan Japan. It’s interesting to think that on this trip to California I’ll be trying to instill in my students the practice of writing whilst sleeping in somewhere other than your home.

Wait…that sounds like I can sleep AND write simultaneously. Fun fact: I can’t. But I can hole myself up in a cafe, pub, or library in another city and get some work done (hence the blog post on a bus). I can’t wait to hear, years down the road, who still takes in the foreign air of distant lands as inspiration and fuel for their writing craft. I’m excited to see how careers are shaped by plane tickets and shared experiences.

Also, I’m excited to see just how well I sleep on this bus. Maybe I can use this kid as a pillow…

UPDATE: barely slept. Every time the bus driver stopped throughout the night, the noisy gaggle of teenage girls whose voices register only in the higher frequencies decided to wake up each other and, by proxy, the rest of the bus. The other adults rejected my proposal to tie them to the top of the bus. Also, I apparently need new knees.

UPDATE 2: Sweet Jeebus…we still aren’t there due to our driver’s temperamental bladder and his preference not to use the on-bus gas station. I have now read all of my comics…*pssshhht* seventy times and have exhausted my Angry Birds skills on the recent, frustrating update. This afternoon we hike to see the Sequoias, so I should have some really neat pictures up soon.

Also, we’re showing the kids “SpaceBalls” because we’re awesome.

UPDATE 3: Climbed Mt. Doom. Okay, maybe these waterfalls (see picture), but those stairs were downright Tolkeinesque. Today I must make it a priority to buy a new ass because, apparently, I burnt this one out on the hike. On a serious note, it was wonderful watching my students get to the summit (I stayed at the end of the line to cheer on the less physically confident) and crack their journals to reflect. Wonderful camping opportunity and a great time to share the outdoors and it’s nearly endless source of inspiration with the kiddos.

-B