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SNAP COUNTRY USA
WHY READ THE INTERNET
ANYWHERE ELSE
DING
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June 30, 2009
Hi. Again, it's been a while since I have put anything whatsoever on this website. It's something that I don't really want to feel bad about,
so I'm going to choose not to. I am going to say that I do feel as though a chapter in my life is coming to a close. This is the chapter where
I have worked as a Field Instructor for the county, and I have lived on NE 26th Ave, and I have sustained extended periods of being really tired,
and then extended periods of empty days. This is also a chapter of my life in which Michael Jackson was alive.
I knew as it was happening that it was going to be an event that everyone would
have in their flashbulb memories for the rest of their lives. The term "flashbulb memory" is something I gathered from a psychology textbook my brother
owned when he was a freshman at Loyola Marymount. The picture they used to accompany the text was of the two towers collapsing on September 11. I
will readily acknowledge that I don't really know much more about psychology, or even if that's the appropriate application of the term "flashbulb memory."
I'm sure if I ask you in 10 years where you were when you found out the Michael Jackson was dead, you could tell me your story.
Anyway. In my program, which just started last week, there is this week long writing class that all of the student teachers participate in from 9am to 4pm, every day.
The course
entailed a lot of free-writes. Every day our instructors would open class by just being like "And, let's just do a free-write." The first time that happened
I started freaking out, not knowing what a free-write is. And, as I am prone to doing in classroom settings where I don't know what's going on, I: looked at
my neighbor's paper! I saw her writing "I woke up -" and that was enough for me. I was like "Oh, yes. I can do this."
The class continued to explore ideas through writing, and it was awesome, and I'm so glad I got to do it. A basic expectation of the course was that everyone
write an essay about, really, anything they wanted. I ended up writing an essay called "Starkeys at Starky's" about my brother and I, and memory, which I really enjoyed.
On Thursday afternoon we read the essays aloud in our cohort meetings. I went fourth, and then listened to twenty other essays as we went around the room. Many
of my peers wrote their essays on their laptops and brought their laptops to class, reading directly from their computers. My neighbor on my left opened his
computer around 3.45, with about 15 minutes left in class. I wasn't intentionally looking at his screen, but I noticed that he was checking his email. Then
he went to yahoo - and there it was: Michael Jackson Dies at 50. The attention that I had been giving each essay reading was ebbing and flowing, but at this moment I
so badly wanted to raise my hand and say "STOP. MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD!!!" I couldn't, though, because it would have a) been kind of rude, and b)
totally implicated my classmate in looking at the internet while someone was reading their essay. So I kept it in. And then I got in the car with my other classmate
Laura after class ended,
and right before we embarked on a traffic-filled drive back to NE Portland, I was like "OH MY GOD!!! I FORGOT TO TELL YOU!"
We changed the station to Z100 and got to
hear Thriller played two times in seven minutes, and THEN they talked with Paula Abdul over the phone. (It's like - Tragic Celebrities on: Tragic Celebrities!!!)
Paula said that Michael Jackson was "the fabric of the world," and I laughed in that way that like, if you had coffee in your mouth you would spray it all over the place.
I think I had an immediate visceral response to such a generalized sweeping statement, just because it was like, "Oh Paula, you're exaggerating." But actually?
He was a cultural icon that transcended so many different countries all over the world - BEFORE THE INTERNET. So yes, Paula, I see what you mean.
As an aside, Michael Jackson was my celebrity birthday twin, and I'm sad we won't be getting older together anymore. Now all I have is John McCain. Ugh.
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