1. I had a great talk with Val on the phone at noon. She told me how she plans to write the five page research essay growing out of her reading of Rising Tide, a paper she will submit as a part of her application to earn a Master's degree in history. I enjoyed hearing her ideas about exploring the role of the federal government in responding to disasters in the USA and (even more) I enjoyed feeling like an instructor again. When I was an instructor, I really enjoyed having individual conferences with my students to discuss their writing. Val is my friend, not my student, but her call gave me some good teacher feelings I hadn't had in quite a while.
I sure look forward to reading her essay.
2. The book Fathoms: The World in the Whale is going to take me a while to read. It is not the sweet human/whale story that Grayson was. The content of Fathoms disturbs me and I see myself reading this book in small chunks. Rebecca Giggs writes elegantly and eloquently about the damage pollution of all sorts does to our oceans and how that pollution is absorbed by and does terrible damage to whales -- and, of course, to other marine life. I have written in this blog before that I enjoy reading books and stories that explore connectedness in life, but I also know that this connectedness can be, in fact, often is, damaging. It's painful to read about the human produced toxins whales absorb from the water and the air and to read about the garbage that's been dumped in the ocean that whales ingest. I don't know exactly where this book is headed, but, after reading one chapter, the world this book explores in the whale is, in part, the human world of chemicals, carelessly discarded objects, and other stuff not naturally a part of the ocean's ecological system. It's deadly.
3. I returned this evening to the series, Midnight Diner. I don't want to finish this series too soon. I enjoy watching episodes once in a while so that I have viewing to look forward to -- it's the opposite of binge watching. The episode I watched tonight featured a very unusual situation and, as far as food goes, it was centered on Nikujaga, a meat and potato stew. I just hate to give away any part of this story -- I would have hated to have known anything about it before I watched it.
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