Dr. Seuss Responds to Gregor Samsa

I've been pondering and savoring this: 

Dr. Seuss responding to Gregor Samsa (from "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka) after Samsa solicits medical advice from the Doctor:

"Samsa, I need you to marshall your will.

There isn't a purgative, poultice or pill

or anything else on the pharmacy shelf

that will make you so healthy as much as yourself.        

You think your new body has made you a bother.

You hold yourself guilty while blameless your father.

Gregor, we'd all die if physical beauty

was needed for others to render their duty."

by David Rakoff

from This American Life episode #470

replayed Aug. 4, 2013

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/470/show-me-the-way

Project: Bike Shelter

My new bike shelter is finished! It took more work than I thought, probably mostly because it was danged awkward working with 6 foot pieces of lumber ("lumber" is too strong a word...change that to "scrap wood").

I think it looks pretty awesome. Probably because of the shiny aluminum roof. The whole shelter cost me about $25: $7 each for 3 sheets of 2.5' x 6' aluminum, $4 for sheet to wood screws. The scrap wood I got from different people who had posted in the free section of Craigslist.

Project: Fun Sparkly Hair Chain

I saw hair chains in the store the other day and I thought, "I can make that." I found a necklace that had broken and some random beads from earrings that lost their mates or from pendants that had broken.

Here's a little explanation of what I did:

I glued the bead I wanted at the end in place with E-6000 industrial strength glue which you can find at Michael's or Amazon. The other two beads are free to move around but will fall down against the last one when the chain is in my hair.

I used fine gauge wire to attach this pendant that had broken off another necklace. I wrapped the wires back down toward the star so that they will not catch anything. 

I used a very small bead to anchor this larger bead onto the wire. The long end of the wire you see is going through the chain. They I bent it with pliers back down into the hole of the bead. Same for the short end, but it just went over top of the chain not through.

I attached the end of the chain with wire again. I wrapped it around the end of a bobby pin and then twisted it up after taking it to the back of the bobby pin. Then...

I wrapped ribbon around wire, gluing it down along the way, again with the good ol' E-6000.

Haiku of the Day - July 19, 13

quiero aprender
la vida que es mía
la que m'encanta

Embarking on a new school year

I’m going to be teaching PPCD Kinder this year. I’m excited, but also nervous. First time on my own. It should be good. We’ve already started with inservice/training/staff development/etc. Our school is going through the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” training. Pretty good, I must say.

The ones we’ve covered so far…

Habit 1: Be proactive.

Habit 2:  Put First Things First - OR - Figure out what you really care about.

Habit 3: Start with the End in Mind.
…
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw - OR - Be nice to yourself, because you only have one of you.

I may have the actual habits mixed up or not worded right. I could google it, but why would I do that when I accept myself the way I am, flaws and bad memory and all?

Books read in 2011

My Grandma told me to write down every book I read so I can remember which ones I liked. This year I read 64 books. The ones highlighted with dark green you absolutely must read, at all costs. There are only 3 on this list so you can do it. The ones with light green are also excellent books. Unless otherwise noted the rest should be yellow. See Book Ratings Guide. These are listed in the order I read them.

1. Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
2. A Dog Named Slugger - Leigh Brill
About a woman with cerebral palsy and her service dog. Interesting at the end, when the dog helped train his successor.
3. Pilgrim’s Progress - John Bunyan
4. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
Fairly good story for fans of the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. A bit slow-paced.
5. Love & Freindship (sic.) - Jane Austen
Written by a 14-year old Jane. Interesting because it is not much different from her more mature stories; the characters have the same ridiculous traits, but more pronounced.
6. The Tale of Despereaux - original story by Kate DiCamillo, graphic novel by Matt Smith & David Tilton
Newbery Medal winner 2004. Charming fairy-tale-esque story with an excellent plot and characters and all the loose ends get tied up in the end.
7. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Good for fans of Austen.
8. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Classic. Several loosely connected short stories.
9. The Hungry Stones and Other Stories - Rabindranath Tagore
Interesting and sometimes weird short stories.
10. Picadilly Jim - P.G. Wodehouse
Highly entertaining story in Wodehouse’s typical style of miscommunications, bumbling errors upon errors.
11. Surprised by Joy - C.S. Lewis
One of my favorite books of all time. So beautiful and genuine. Autobiographical.
12. Rex: an autistic child - Cathleen Lewis
A blind and autistic child musical prodigy.
13. Beauty Restored - Me Ra Kah
14. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Don’t bother with this. Just read the children’s book “The Treasure” by Uri Shulevitz. Same basic story, less kooky, a lot shorter, and a Caldecott Medal winner.
15. Phantastes - George MacDonald
Fairy tale/fantasy that is not for the phaint of heart. The book that led C.S. Lewis to Christ. See if you can figure out how/why and then tell me.
16. Regarding Ducks and Universes - Neve Maslakovic
Interesting idea, poorly written.
17. The Complete Father Brown Mysteries - G.K. Chesterton
Great mystery stories, similar to and yet totally different flavor from Sherlock Holmes.
18. Gitanjali - Rabindranath Tagore
Beautiful poems translated from Bengali about worship and devotion and pursuit of God and goodness.
19. Imaginary Jesus - Matt Mikalatos
Surprisingly acceptable even though I barely ever can stand to read contemporary Christian fiction, especially if it’s moralistic.
20. Matilda - Roald Dahl
Children’s classic must-read.
21. Anthem - Ayn Rand
Short story that I think sums up some of Rand’s philosophy, but I haven’t read anything else by her so I can’t say for sure.
22. Thinking in Pictures - Temple Grandin
Memoirs of Grandin growing up and succeeding in her field of livestock handling despite being autistic in a primarily nonautistic world.
23. A Study in Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
24. In the Year 2889 - Jules & Michel Verne
Written in 1889 by father and son about what they imagined the world would be like one thousand years from then. Interesting ideas, some not too far off from present day. And it’s short
25. Lady Susan - Jane Austen
Shorter and less gripping than her other novels.
26. The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World - E.L. Konigsburg
27. Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know - ed. Hamilton Wright Mabe
And every adult should know.
28.Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis
Another favorite book of all time. Heart-breaking story where you will see what is at the root of each person.
29. Bud, Not Buddy - Christopher Paul Curtis
Newbery Medal winner 2000.
30. Love Among the Chickens - P.G. Wodehouse
Slower moving than his other books, but still a good read.
31. The Story of Pip - C. Collodi
Bizarre, yet entertaining.
32. The Story of Pinocchio (abridged) - C. Collodi
Bizarre, yet entertaining.
33. The World’s Last Night and Other Essays - C.S. Lewis
All excellent essays, especially one about prayer.
34. Perelandra - C.S. Lewis
Gripping story, makes your imagination go to work.
35. Clouds of Witness - Dorothy L. Sayers
Mystery novel by intellectual friend of C.S. Lewis.
36. I Loved a Girl - Walter Trobisch
Subtitle: A private correspondence between two young Africans and their pastor. Excellent true story that addresses race, culture, gender roles, and the meaning of relationships.
37. Medea - Euripides
38. Their Mutual Child - P.G. Wodehouse
The most mature of his stories that I have read. Deals with serious relational issues, not just light greivances between people. Yet still very entertaining.
39. Same Kind of Different as Me - Ron Hall & Denver Moore
About a rich white man and a poor black man who both started out geographically and economically in a similar place and were drawn together by genuine love.
40. Alfred & Emily - Doris Lessing
The author imagines what it would be like if WWII had not happened and her parents’ lives were different. And yet, her parents lives weren’t much better and the young men still found wars to go off to, so I ask, why?
41. Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaffer & Annie Barrows
Warm story with historical insight into lives of people during WWII
42. Under the Greenwood Tree - Thomas Hardy
Supposedly about social change. Not that remarkable to me.
43. Condorito: La Aventura Comienza
My first book in Spanish: punny comic strips.
44. The Magician’s Elephant - Kate DiCamillo
Good magical story, includes theme of forgiveness and restoration.
45. Howards End - E.M. Forster
Good story, just plain well-written. You could start reading anywhere and it sounds like poetry, but read straight through because the plot as a whole is good.
46. St. Athanasius: the father of Orthodoxy - F. A. Forbes
Historical biography.
47. When You Reach Me - Rebecca Stead
Newbery Award winner 2010. Nice magical story with a tidy ending
48. Amish Grace - Donald Kraybill
Somewhat of a treatise on forgiveness in general and specifically about the massacre of Amish girls at their school by a gunman.
49. Gathering Blue - Lois Lowry
Disappointing supposed prequel to “The Giver.”
50. The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog - Bruce D. Perry
Stories from a child psychiatrist. Very informative about brain chemistry, child development and disorders.
51. All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes - Maya Angelou
Learn about some history from the perspective of an eye-witness person who fits into two “minority” categories: black and female. Good story for anyone who feels like they are searching for home.
52. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Classic must-read for children and adults, but maybe not small children.
53. Whose Body? - Dorothy Sayers
Less of a springing surprise than Sherlock, more a story of the development and unfolding of a solution to a mystery.
54. 26 Fairmont Avenue - Tomie DePaola
Great children’s chapter book for fans of DePaola. Autobiographical.
55. Animals in Translation - Temple Grandin
Very interesting information for those who love animals and those who love autistic people.
56. Amos Fortune: Free Man - Elizabeth Yates
Newbery Medal winner 1951. I wouldn’t have given it a medal, but maybe it was the first of it’s kind: a book from the perspective of a black slave. Now they are a dime a dozen.
57. A Damsel in Distress - P.G. Wodehouse
Cute, fun, entertaining love story.
58. Letters: C.S. Lewis, Don Giovanni Calabria - translated and edited by Martin Moynihan
Good insight into Lewis’s personal side.
59. Letters to an American Lady - C.S. Lewis
Very good insight into Lewis’s personal side.
60. The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy has very fine-tuned perception of people’s feelings and mindset in general and about death.
61. Call it Courage - Armstrong Sperry
Newbery Medal winner 1941
62. Mike - P.G. Wodehouse
Cricket story, boys boarding school story. Makes you like cricket.
63. Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Interesting, extremely emotional
64. The Everything Harmonica Book - Lichterman, Brocksmith, Dorfman
Best parts are about harmonica theory and legendary players of harmonica

Authors of whose books I read more than one this year:
C.S. Lewis (6)
P.G. Wodehouse (5)
Kate DiCamillo (2)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2)
Dorothy Sayers (2)
Temple Grandin (2)

MKs and Hyperactive Elementary Kids

It’s been a while since I last updated people about what’s going on. So I wanted to catch you all up on what’s going on in my life. While you’re reading this letter, please pray for the matters in bold throughout the letter.


Missionary Kids (MKs)
Every Monday night we have a youth group for Wycliffe MKs that are in the Dallas area whose parents are involved in Bible translation all over the world. Some of their parents are based here in Dallas and support Bible translation through creating computer programs, or doing linguistic research or other support ministries. Other families are here for a year at a time on furlough. During our youth group meetings we have a time of worship, a message, and then we divide up by age and gender into small groups to discuss things and pray. I’m a small group leader for freshmen, sophomore and junior girls.

We’re planning a retreat on Labor Day weekend for all of the kids. It should be a really great time of getting to know them and an excellent start to the school year. I’m in charge of planning the games for the weekend.

We as a staff are currently working on writing new curriculum which addresses specific MK issues, like identity. I’m really excited about it! I hope it will be a great learning experience for the kids as they talk about all these things.

Coach Staab
This past semester, I subbed in the Dallas suburb of Duncanville. For the last five weeks of the school year, I subbed for a PE coach, thus, for the first time in my life I was called “Coach Staab.” This is a religious area of the country, but my guess is most people are not saved even if they say they are. Praise God that I’ve been able to share the gospel many times to many classes. Probably about 200 kids have heard the gospel in the past few months. Please pray for me as I consider how to lead them to the next step of faith.

This summer I’m working on getting into a program which will allow me to do a teaching internship and then get certified to teach. I’ll hopefully be teaching Special Ed as an intern in the fall at the school where I was formerly known as “Coach Staab.”

I’m subbing and getting a teaching certificate to support myself at this time, but my heart is really in the MK ministry. I wish I had more time to devote to that, but right now I have to work in order to have money to continue serving in this MK ministry. Would you please consider helping me out financially so that I will have more time to devote to the MK ministry? Your support will allow me to serve the MKs and further the work of Bible translation. One-time donations are very much appreciated, and monthly donations even more so. If you are able to donate, please go to this page of my website: www.rachelstaab.com/donate. Because of my volunteer status, these donations will not be tax-deductible.

I really appreciate your praying for me as I serve in this ministry! Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.