7/10 SI: "Marks" and Technology and Technology

This is a blog in two parts.

Part I:  "Marks" by Linda Pastan

"Marks"

My husband gives me an A
for last night's supper,
an incomplete for my ironing,
a B plus in bed.
My son says I'm average,
an average mother, but if
I put my mind to it
I could improve.
My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass.  Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out.


First, why are women constantly assessed by everyone in their lives?  We are or are not good mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, grandmothers.  We are or are not good drivers, dressers, dessert makers.  We are or are not too thin, too fat, too cranky, too bitchy, too silly, too straight-laced, too wild.  Are men judged like this?  Are they?  I just don't think so. (And I want to know what she did to get the "plus" in bed?)

The other thing this poem raises for me is the way my students must feel.  My students have five or six evaluaters -- and all of us are valuing different things.  It's very likely that my students feel overwhelmed too and just want to quit. DON'T QUIT!!!

Part II: Technology Demo from Ashley

I could have talked all day about Ashley's demo on technology and its effects on society.  In my daybook, I explored ideas about alienation and loneliness as they connect (no pun intended) to technology.  I agree with something that Nicholas Dearmas said today, about how everyone wants to think that their generation is the most . . . whatever (fill in the blank). While we may think our generation is alienated due to an over- dependence on technology, consider that  Eliot's The Wasteland, written in 1922, is all about alienation.  And think how untechnological the world was in the 20s, especially compared to now. Alienation and loneliness are a central aspect of the human experience and that those very feelings are what drive us to do all sorts of things in an effort to avoid the abyss. . . so we engage in communities, we marry, we have children, we do what we can to feel connected.  And before instant chat and Facebook we wrote letters, we visited people for weeks at a time, we belonged to churches and other social communities.

I think of my great-grandmother Wertz who lived on a farm in Saluda, S. C.  They had hundreds of acres and also ran a saw mill on their property.  There were 12 children in that family, all of whom worked the land along with the hired help.  They lived out in the middle of nowhere -- seeing folks when they attended Trinity Lutheran Church on Sundays -- and maybe on Wednesday evenings as well. But they certainly were alienated from society.  Now, they probably were not lonely because they had such a large family, and no doubt steady saw mill customers.  But my point here is that life before technology was not necessarily more connected or less lonely.