The Talens' Tales

Our computer is fixed! Yeah! After spending sometime with tech support, Wilbert finally called Dan, our computer tech friend, and we had the answer, for free, about two minutes. Hurray! I am currently listening to A Prairie Home Companion and they are doing this monologue on a movie called Steele Away and The Steele Sisters are singing together. It is extremely funny! Lots of Minnesota humour and parodies of songs. Monday it will be on the web-site . Listen to it. It will make you smile.

Our computer isn't broken...yet. It certainly has been attacked by a virus of some sort. And it is all my fault. In a moment of weakness, I opened an attachment that I should have know was junk. But, it looked like a e-card and I thought someone really sent me one. And that made me happy. It made me feel good to know that someone wanted to send me a little note. But, I was duped. And now we have a virus attacking our computer. Now, please do not take this as a pitiful cry for e-cards to be sent. It showed me that I could be taken in by something that looked like it would build me up. It made me feel important, needed, wanted. And I fell for it. And now, we are paying the consequences. I hope that this is a lesson I won't soon forget. The things that are really important in life, the things that should be valued, the things that should matter are things that cannot be held in anything tangible. Or any e-mail for that matter.

It is November 11th. A Tuesday. Roughly 9:00 a.m. And we are home. Today marks the first snow day of the school year. A bit early for my tastes, but when the roads are covered in a sheet of ice with more ice/snow on the way it really isn't good to have any more people on then needed, especially lots of kids who just got their drivers license. I would rather have snow days in January when students and teachers alike are sick of school. The sad part is today was not even going to be a normal school day. We were going to go to a Veteran's Day program at the public school and then to a seminar on youth culture led by Walt Mueller. We were really looking forward to this because it was going to be a day where we didn't have to teach, but the students were probably going to learn a lot of things. Wilbert did say I gave him the best birthday present ever when I told him we had no school today. Happy Birthday!

Wilbert's birthday is coming up next week, so I planned a special night out for him. We had a half day of school on Friday, which made it the perfect day for us to go out. I didn't tell Wilbert what we were doing until we were ready to get in the car. The plans included dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and then we went to see the opening night of the play "The Crucible" at the Orpheum Theater. It was so nice to see a play that we had nothing do with. We were able to just enjoy it and get some ideas for things to do in school's future productions. The theater is so old and cool looking and we had excellent seats. If you are not familiar with the play "The Crucible," it is set in the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts when it was a Puritan colony. The whole base for the play is the witch hunts that took place in American History. On the way home, we talked about this play was a clear example of escalation. The Puritans allowed their fears to escala...

My students all asked who I was going to vote for. After a short discussion about why you cannot and should not tell people who you vote for, they changed the question to who do I think will win. And I honestly replied that I had no idea. This was the first election that I could remember well where I did not have a clear idea of which candidate would win. And now it's over. Some people are extremely happy and some are extremely upset. I have simply decided that I am putting my faith where it really belongs - in God. Despite all of the rumors and predictions about what is going to happen to the country, I firmly believe that God is in control. He has a plan. That doesn't mean it is going to be perfect or a walk in the park, but God has things in control. I cannot even begin to see the big picture like God sees it. I just have to trust and pray for the President and all of the leaders to seek God's will and the wisdom found only in him. What bothered me the most about today ...

This time of year always brings to surface some interesting facts about life in the midwest. Some people have to deal with traffic noise, or airplanes that fly low over head. The noise pollution here comes from grain dryers running 24/7 as the farmers bring in their seemingly endless supply of grain. We all have experienced our minds playing tricks on us were we think we see one thing until we look again closer and realize it is something totally different. Today is was 70 degrees out, but as I was coming home from school, I saw little white flakes floating through the air. Since it is November, my mind immediately said "snow." It took me a minute to realize it was chaff from the grain elevator. It is always windy here. Okay, maybe I exaggerate, but it sure seems like it. But, the wind does bring one blessing. We have yet to rake our leave once since we have been here. They just blow down the road to the corn field. Only in the Midwest will you find such things.

So I am one of the sponsors of a group at school that not only plans chapels but also social events at school. These events include dances. Last year, the group put on one dance, but it was very poorly attended. At the beginning of this year, the kids were pretty frustrated and they didn't really want to put the work into having one. A survey was done of the student body and the majority of the student body really wanted a dance. So we planned a "Mystery Masquerade" for last night. And, thankfully, it was a success. Sitting at the admission table, watching the the football players, duct tape model, fairies and cowboys come in, I couldn't help but thinking about my high school days and dances. Watching those kids, I was whisked back to my days in high school. They were mostly good, but dances always had a weird aura about them. Dancing with all of my friends, oblivious to what we really looked like. Hanging out on the "girls side" during the slow dances looki...