Top-five things I Learned from Erin Pendergast

I find myself missing my lunches with this wise and funny teacher-friend weekly.

1. Life makes more sense when there are fewer American taboos.

2. Life requires irreverence. Just laugh.

3. Life requires at least three languages to explain it properly.

4. People are what's really important.

5. Actually, being a mom is pretty awesome.

Top-five things I learned from Jennifer Strahl

Continuing the series, my greatest friends have been my greatest teachers.

Top-5 Lessons I learned from Jennifer Strahl:

1. The line between dressing and costuming is a fine one, and it's worth crossing occasionally.

2. What this situation needs is cupcakes.

3. If some is good, more is better.

4. You can be fearless if you have a map.

5. Never underestimate what Love can accomplish.

When I first started at MVA, people in my life observed some very strange behavior in me. I always had one response to their questions:

1. "Why do you do the school musical/play/Christmas pageant, etc?" Because Jen does.

2. "Why are you on the academic team, again? Why are you 'chasing the Nerd Herd'?" Because Jen does.

3. "Why are you adopting your students as sons/daughters/nieces/nephews/pets, again?" Because Jen does.

4. "Why are YOU listening to Dave Matthews, Paul Simon, Justin Timberlake, and house music?"Because Jen does.

5. "And just why are you going all the way to Winter Park for that?" Because Jen does.

And if you know the two of us well, you know this is only the beginning of the list.

Top-five Things I learned from Troy Urquhart

As a teacher, my greatest blessing is the friends who are also my teachers.

The Top-five Things I Learned from Troy Urquhart:

1. The search for Truth depends on the search for the Right Question.

2. Someone answered that question for you already. Go read.

3. There is no shame in being an elitist or connoisseur.

4. There is no excuse for the unwillingness to work hard.

5. To start with "So basically..." is to indicate you have already missed the point.

Desert Island Books

"If you were stranded on a desert island, what is the one (fill in the blank) you'd want to have with you?"

It's annoying when people say "The

Bible", because we never know if they mean it.

When getting ready to move, this question doesn't exactly count as packing strategy. But the process of selection and rejection is an interesting one. People wouldn't ask about desert islands if what is brought or left wasn't somehow telling.

I don't have to answer "The Bible", because I am moving in with a Pastor. Chances are, there is a bible or two around that house.

I did however take my two beautiful bookshelves and consolidate the travel ones to a single milk crate. If it didn't fit in the crate, it didn't go. Forecasting what I'd need and what I wouldn't was tough. I mostly got it write, with a few exceptions.

The top-five books I'm glad I brought:

1. Discovering Marin, A Historical Tour of Cities and Towns, by Louise Teather.

Every time I go to a place in Marin County, I look up the history of where I went. The book had a 1973 copyright, so it's good for original history, but that's a pretty big gap and a lot has changed in Marin since the 1970's. A friend bought it for me at a book fair. I love the historical information more than I care that this is one of the most boring books I have ever read.

2. Jesus Among Other Gods, by Ravi Zacharias. The more I read this, the more I see it as a manual to presenting the Gospel to the heart and mind of Marin County.

3. Holy the Firm, by Annie Dillard. One of my favorite books of all time, re-reading it comforts me. It is very atmospheric as I'm on the rugged, North-Pacific Coast. It talks about both God and Christian community as she finds them revealed in nature-- and God, Church, and Natural Beauty are intense parts of my experience here.

4. Lonely Planet's San Francisco City Guide. I have been a Lonely Planet fan for a while, but between this book and my GPS, I am fearless. I carry it around with me. A few times I have been in The City with some extra time, so I look in the book to see what else is in my neighborhood, plug it into the GPS, and off I go! Neither device, however, prepares me for the parking nightmare I'll find when I arrive. (On Parking: It seems the City of San Francisco got special help with it. They first employed petulant Olympian deities to grant or revoke them from drivers in an arbitrary way, then they reached out to the Italian mafia to fix the extortionist rates and enforce the meters.)

5. The Moon and Sixpence, by Somerset Maugham. Also, on a whim, I threw the Penguin Classics Letters of Vincent Van Gogh in the crate. The Moon and Sixpence is Maugham's fictional, literary tribute to Paul Gauguin. As I'm reading it, I'm finding the veil of fiction to be a pretty transparent one. This turned out to be my most precise set of predictions. While the Musee D'Orsay in Paris closes down for 9 months, my city is hosting some of it's masterpieces. San Francisco is the only one to get the works, and the exhibit is called

Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay

I have seen these pieces before, but now I have the books to read and prepare so I can actually appreciate what I see when I do!

The milk crate wasn't a total victory, however. There are a few things I am sorely missing.

The top-five books I wish I'd brought:

1. Orthodoxy: The Annotated Edition - Paperback (Aug. 1, 2002) by G. K. Chesterton and Craig M. Kibler

2. Soul Survivor: How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church by Philip Yancey

3. Spirit Rebellious, by Kahlil Gibran--a vintage volume about the strife in Lebanon, on revolution and Society.

4. Everyman's Poems by William Cowper. I had a vintage copy from the 1930's that was the best collection of his work I have seen, especially with some rarely-printed favorites. I found myself trying to recall some of his lines the other day with no way to look them up.

5. The Maytrees: A Novel by Annie Dillard. I have time to read and I left my unread copy of this back in Florida. I keep seeing it featured everywhere here.

For the brief time I lived in that apartment, I sure did love having all of my books around me.

Arizona Top Fives

Arizona was a special state that deserves it's own post. It was the best state we visited for these five reasons:

1. Listening to On the Road by Jack Kerouac with Megan. I can't believe she actually liked it!

We would pause it to discuss what the author was saying, cultural history, and who was who, and she would have me write down lines for her. It was such a pleasure to share such a wacky thing with her, and when we got to San Fran, she felt right at home and was quoting Kerouac. I could only think my dad was going to kill me for sending home a beat-poet-listening, California-lover.

2. Flagstaff Coffee Company:

This was truly the best espresso I ever had, and I got it for free because I gave the counter girl an art history lesson about expectations and perception in surrealist art. Her name was Jessica and she made a mean iced coffee, too. She was so charming and energetic, I was the happiest I had been for the whole trip after stopping there. Of course, that could have also had something to do with the immense amount of caffeine she supplied.

3. Meeting my new niece, Gabriella. My sister is such a good mom, and my brother-in-law loves his little girl so much. It was a pleasure to see their home and my little niece, who was three weeks old and such a sweet baby!

4. Seeing family I haven't seen in 12-20 years. I hadn't seen my grandparents since the week of my 16th birthday. I haven't seen my aunt and uncle since I was 7 or 8 when we went back to Arizona for a wedding. Our visit coincided with both my grandparents birthdays, too. It was such a wonderful celebration and homecoming, I can't wait to go back to Arizona. I'm just going to try not to go again in August. It was very poor planning to choose this month to visit the desert.

5. The Grand Canyon - Truly, everyone should see this before they die. I had never been there before, but I am so glad I did. It was such grand majesty and splendor, I didn't think it was real. And we got to see it just the way I liked it: Great beauty with very little hiking and out-doorsyness required.

Top-Five Road Trip Highlights

It's been a big month full of change and adventure! I have lots of catching up to do, and though I posted the photos on Facebook, here's some running commentary:

Top-Five Roadtrip Highlights:

1. Jackson Square and Cafe Du Monde, New Orleans.

After dinner at Maspero's, Meg and I wandered the Old French Quarter and listened to a Jazz band while eating beignets and drinking Chickory coffee.

2. Fort-Worth, TX home stay. We were blessed to rest at the Keeler residence in Argyle Texas, where we found great food, comfortable beds, cheerful encouragement. Meg wanted to stay in Texas and become a Texan. I barely got her out of and we can't wait to go back.

3. Driving through New Mexico's plateaus and Canyons. Between Albuquerque and Phoenix, the rose-colored canyons and plateaus were stunning. I was quite proud of us that we didn't stop to buy any silver and turquoise "Indian" trinkets.

4. Los Angeles Celebrity Morning. We didn't really see any celebrities, but we sure felt like them! We stayed at my uncle's house in Hollywood, and we could see those white letters

from his doorstep. We toured the CNN Los Angeles building with my aunt who is a producer there. We got to watch part of a segment taping and take pictures at Larry King's desk. (I promised on my life and my aunt's job that I wouldn't post them anywhere). It was fascinating to see how stories are produced and how many people contribute to the production. I wish I'd had that kind of insight when teaching my government students about the media. Then we had breakfast at a cafe/coffee roaster in Larchmont, where I met Sal their roaster. He talked me through the precision of the roasting process, and I saw the completion of a French Roast.

5. The 101 California drive up the Pacific Coast. We were so happy to have the Pacific on our left for the first time instead of in front of us. The drive took us through Santa Barbara, Salinas, rolling hills, vineyards (Welch's) and produce fields. We really felt like we got to know California by driving this way.

And here is the view of our arrival in my new city:

Allen met us in The City as we got close at the Starbucks on 19th. He led us on his Harley the rest of the way "home".

D is for Dublin

From Ireland 2009

A year ago I was in Dublin, completely alone. But no one is ever alone for long in Dublin. It is, by far, the most hospitable city I know. I had never been there and knew no one, but it never felt like that was the case.

A corner cop helped me locate my hotel, The Pembroke House. It's around the corner from the American Embassy, and it had an Italian concierge who laughed and smiled the way Italian men do at American women, but he also made sure I came back safely that night.

I walked all the way to Temple Bar to find a place that served food in the evening. Irish pubs, unlike English pubs, have kitchens with very limited hours. Touristy Temple Bar made dinner a possibility, it also made watching the USA-Brazil World Cup Qualifier with my countrymen, and Irishmen, a possibility. Dempsey and Donovan both scored and we were up at the half, which is NOT like anything we've seen in the World Cup itself. Guinness, football, "live music" by a cover-playing troubadour, friendly bartenders, and cheering work magic on the self-consciously alone. It was also my first taste of the Dublin magic that made it seem I had been there already before.

My first morning, I walked to Insomnia coffee on my way into the city. I was reading Paul Johnson's Ireland: A History when I was interrupted by Martin, "You're American, then?"
Damn. I was trying to blend in. "It's not you're fault, I lived in the States for years, I can spot an American with no trouble." I know. That's how I am with English people. I call it UKdar. I guess his would be USAdar.

I swear I am not making this up: Martin, a little younger, maybe, than my dad, worked for my dad's former company and knew my hometown. They knew some of the same people. Oddly, I felt like the fake, because all he was saying about his American experience was so familiar to me, he must have thought I was making up the points of commonality! Unlike Dublin, America is incomprehensible in size. How does someone meet a former Seagate employee and Bloomington MN resident an hour (ok, two if you count my lengthy morning routine) after waking up in a foreign city? It's Dublin.

The next day, I went to the National Gallery of Art. Now, I like to be alone in galleries. I wanted to travel alone in the first place so I wasn't rushed or interrupted. But it's Dublin. So I met a man who's as much a fixture of the museum as the Yeats National Collection, volunteer guard, Noel Clarke from Co. Sligo. He had to be 70 yrs old. His was the best small talk I've ever heard--polite chit-chat otherwise meaningless but for its ability to convey such genuine warmth. He says "there ought to be enough space in this world for people to say 'hello' to each other." He said he didn't know a thing about art, but he did know the stories of the paintings. His kind of hospitality with a worldwide presence in Art Museums would improve everyone's opinion of both art and museums.

I also met Barry, from High Fidelity--I mean, from Road Records, Dublin's installment of Championship Vinyl. His name was really Barry. He recommended a couple of cds and directed me to the indie music site, Whelan's Pub, that had previously hosted Damien Rice, Snow Patrol, and Glen Hansard. So the next night, I joined Dublin's open-mic singer-songwriter scene for the evening, even though I was the only one in the crowd who couldn't play the guitar and wasn't Irish. I made friends with a nurse, named Moira, who invited me to a pub "up the road" after the show. One difference between a folk night at Wheelan's and one at The Social: the whole place was drenched in sincerity. Folk-indie music fans everywhere, and not a smug hipster in sight. Half the perfomers were pretty good, half weren't, but no one was too cool to be there. Moira ventured it was because Dublin was so poor for so long, that no one learned how to put on pretense. Sincerity and friendliness were innate to the culture. Any Singer-songwriter scene has an intense localism to it - you know the ones that belong to your city, that you can see. In Dublin, it was all the lovely localism but, for me, none of the nativism.

The show ended early and I walked home, only to be drawn into another pub where trad music spilled onto the street. The bar had a dozen pints of Guinness in a line, already half pulled, just begging someone to come request the rest. What's more welcoming than that? The source of the music was half a dozen musicians around a table in the corner, who finished up their tune, then introduced themselves to each other. They had just made great music together as total strangers! The anthem of Dublin hospitality! I stood with a stomping, clapping crowd until the pub closed.

Truly, no one is alone in Dublin.


My Dublin Top-five:

• Guinness Storehouse (not so good in the morning - I don't care what the Irish say, Guinness is not for breakfast).
  
  
• Kilmainham Gaol - the political prison for everyone who participated in the Independence movement
  
  
• Trinity College Library - The Book of Kells is really worth all the fuss it gets
  
  
• St. Patrick's Cathedral - the temple to Dean Jonathan Swift
  
  
• O'Connell St - one of the main locations in the Easter Uprising, monuments and bullet-scars galore
  

Top-fives

We went to a great bookstore today, even if we had to drive to Timbuktu to get there. It was so terrific, I hardly knew I was in Central Florida. It got me thinking of a few other places, where, though it's far away, help me forget I live in a place I hate:

My top-five almost-too-good-to-be-in-Central-Florida-places:

1. The Social -
2. Brightlight Books
3. Sam Flax - the best art supply store in the area. Real art supplies, not a Craft store like Michaels
4. Total Wine
5. Winter Park Farmer's Market


Megan was posing conversational questions the other day, and she asked, "Who would you want to sing you to sleep at night, if you could pick anyone?" I couldn't narrow it down, but I could give it a top-five:

1. Bono
2. Chris Martin
3. Sting
4. Sam Beam
5. Sufjan Stevens

Top-five Literary Men

I was thinking about things I wanted to bring back from Ireland, and a souvenir named Conor Larkin is among them. That will be difficult because Conor's an Irish, rugby-playing, artisan blacksmith and poet from Northwest Ireland--and also from Leon Uris' fictional work Trinity. I can't bring home a fictional man, obviously, even if he is the man of my dreams.

He's also not the only literary male on whom I've had a small crush. Fiction or no, I find the following men very attractive:

• Mr. Rochester, from Jane Eyre
  
• Hector, from the Illiad
• Rob, from High Fidelity
  

And then a couple authors--probably bad news, but....

• John Keats
• T.S. Eliot
• Pablo Neruda
  

Travel top-fives

I've spent a lot of time in airports this week, which got me thinking about my travel routines, particularly when I travel alone.


Five things I always do in an airport:

1. Buy magazines. I rarely indulge my appreciation for the Economist or The New Yorker.
2. Buy a bottle of water-- because I can't carry one through security.
3. People Watch. I usually travel alone, so while I am in the airport, there is a constant internal commentary on the people I see and the fiction I impose on them.
4. Wish I were carrying less.
5. Try not to look like an amateur. I don't know why I care or where this comes from. I always walk with purpose and go through security with the efficiency of a person who does this every day. I really don't, but this mindfulness let's me internally judge all of the other apparent "amateurs".

Five things I consider irreplaceable
I can't live without them.
Ironically, they are the five things I must have when I travel, which is where I am most likely to lose them.

1. My makeup bag--It's taken me years to find just the right versions of everything and to acquire that designer collection.
2. My Notebook--It's always worse on the way home, because I'd have lost my most recent travel notes.
3. My ipod. I shouldn't have to explain this one.
4. My pen. Since I spend so much time by myself, I always want to write more. This requires a good pen, but then if I lose one of my pens here, I'll never get it back.
5. My red messenger bag. I got this one in Florence, Italy, after years of searching and saving. It has all of the right travel pockets, including one for my boarding pass, drivers' license, and phone. I often get compliments on it; it's distinctive and beautiful, as well as (for me) uncommonly utilitarian.

Live Music

I am really looking forward to Brett Dennen and Erin McCarley on Friday.

And I was thinking, with deep gratitude for my musically savvy friends ( him and her), how much incredible music I've had this year. A Paste article inspired me to make one of my top-five* lists.

My Top-5 Shows in 2008

1. Iron and Wine, at The Plaza Theatre in April. There was a version of "Trapeze Swinger" and one of "Resurrection Fern" that a handful of us can't get over.

2. Tilly and the Wall, at the Social in July. People can't get the impact of a Tap-dancing percussion section until they've seen this dancer have the time of her life dancing/playing with a kick-ass band.

3. Manchester Orchestra, at the Social. It's touch to pick a single show, because I saw them three times. They are always great to see, but the worst one was at House of Blues, where they opened up for Say Anything. I think the energy of the January show was best, but I was most familiar with them at the June show. I can't pick, but I do know I'm not the same after getting their discography. They answered my cry a year ago for needing new music.

4. Kevin Devine at the Social, September. It was one of the smallest crowds I've ever seen at The Social, and I couldn't have expected something so intimate. He gave a really meaningful show and had a lot of face time before and after. I really want to be his friend.


5. Coldplay- my first arena show, and I'll probably never see anything like it again. I have been a longtime fan of this band, and I know they're the kind that anyone can like, but they play an outstanding show--fantastic production and musicianship, with a French post-revolutionary Neo-classicist art theme. Amazing.


Honorable Mentions include Band of Horses at a rainy skate park in Tampa, and Inkwell at the Back Booth. These are both good bands, but these shows make the list more for their sociological experiential qualities: One makes the list for introducing me to the violence of hipsters, the other for introducing me to the vile quality of some clubs and openers in Orlando. I'm never again ready for auxiliary percussion and bathroom queues with musician-punting Breanne.


I didn't mention a good HOB show by Jimmy Eat World, because it took place in December of 2007. They are one of my favorite bands, and it is funny to note that Megan was irritated by the garage-band quality of their performance and forswore live music because of it.


* It is important to note that "Top-Five" does not indicate any kind of priority order. In fact, it is quite the opposite: a refusal to pick a single favorite.

Teaching and Drinking

Top-five Things I Love About Being a Teacher that Have Nothing To Do with Instructing:

1. The process of getting coffee on campus: having to wash my mug in the bathroom, going to get the coffee in a colleague's room, then having to go get milk from the workroom fridge becomes less about obtaining the beverage and more about all of the detours on the way.
   
   
2. Summers off.
   
   
3. The excuse to buy school supplies every year, only being able to get more sophisticated ones like fountain pens, ink bottles and paperclips. Don't think I don't still grab that 24-cent box of crayons and a bottle of Elmer's glue, though.
   
   
4. Dressing up on Wednesdays--I'm a sucker for ceremony, and here we have pomp and circumstance and ceremony weekly.
   
   
5. Birthday celebrations. I always felt bad in school for kids who did not get to celebrate their birthday with the class because it fell over a school holiday. Mine is right at the time of the term when we need a celebration, and I get to celebrate birthday week in 5 classes!

Top-five Historical Figures with whom I'd Really Like to Have a Drink: (in no order, and subject to change)

1. Benjamin Franklin
   
2. James Madison
   
3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
   
4. William Wilberforce
5. William Gladstone
   

Because Jen Does

An interactive birthday list:

• A fine art umbrella
• a polarizer
• a subscription to Smithsonian magazine
  
• Moleskine City Books, Boston and Dublin
• Moleskine large plain notebook
• Long-sleeved J-Crew tees, XL
• personalized stationery
  
• anthropologie Aloha candle
• an electric kettle
• New car adapter for my ipod.
  
• a new French Press (mine broke)
  
• anything from my Amazon Wishlist
• stovetop espresso maker
• Prog by The Bad Plus
• Some Cities by Doves
• On the Outside by Starsailor
• NARS lipgloss in Bad Education
• mug trees for my classroom
  

Losing Things in Bulk

The holiday's leave plenty of time for losing things, running expensive errands, snacking, long showers, and reflecting on current employment (because NOT working leaves time to think about it). So naturally, a few more top-five lists emerge:

My Top-five Most Annoying Things to Lose:
(Based on degree of annoyance and frequency of misplacement, these are the things that wreck all concentration until I find them)

1. Fingernail clippers
2. Fountain pen
3. Driver's license
4. Phone charger
5. my lists!

Top-five Coolest Things to Buy at Costco:
1. Post-it notes--a pile of 24 for 10 bucks!
2. Wine--Banfi Chianti Classico Riserva for 12 bucks!
3. Peanut M&Ms--who wouldn't want five pounds of these??
4. Cheese--Gruyère, Gouda, and a Dublin cheddar!
5. Dog bones--even George Herbert understands the significance of buying in bulk.


Top-five Favorite Cheeses:
1. Sharp English Cheddar (aged)
2. Muenster
3. Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella
4. Feta
5. Brie (with no rind)

Top-five Favorite Shampoos
1. Paul Mitchell's Tea Tree Shampoo
2. Bumble and Bumble's Gentle Shampoo
3. Redkin's BlondGlam
4. Aveda's Rosemary Mint Shampoo
5. Bumble and Bumble's Creme de Coco Shampoo

Top-five Dream Jobs
1. Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (with a season ending at The Proms)
2. Accessories/Cosmetics product selection for Nordstrom's
3. Editor of my own magazine (The New Yorker meets InStyle meets The National Review meets Paste meets CondéNast)
4. Ambassador to Britain under Tony Blair
5. U.S. Senator (Foreign Affairs Committee, Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee)

Christmas List

I checked the refrigerator today when I got home for "tree-festooning," and all of my siblings had their Christmas lists posted. The problem with posting things on the fridge is that you can't add hyperlinks; one may look at a written list, but there is no compulsion to click on it. So I posted mine in the family pile, but here is where you can add specifics and pictures.

So, without further adieu, the interactive Christmas List:

• long sleeve JCrew tshirts. (XL, holiday red, black, and sapphire)


• a weekly London Engagement Calendar


• bookends


• a pretty inkwell


• The Blair Decade, PBS video


• Moleskine City Books, Boston and Dublin


• Moleskin large plain notebook


• Magnetic Poetry (I have never owned a set and always wanted one.)


• Levenger Ink in cobalt blue and emerald


• Style 101, from InStyle


• Elements of Style by Strunk & White (mine has dissappeared)


• This is Not a Book, by Michael Picard


• England, England, by Julian Barnes


• Joshua Tree, U2


• Under the Table and Dreaming, Dave Matthews


• Crash, Dave Matthews


• Stars: The Best of the Cranberries, 1992-2002


• Stella by Stella McCartney


• Weekly Subscription to The Washington Times


• A Subscription to Paste magazine.


• Anything from my Amazon Wishlist


• Anything from my Sephora Wishlist

I seem to have posted a series of shallow, materialistic lists. I will make a real post later.

Thanksgiving top- fives

It is hard to categorize my restful and heart-warming experience for this trip to the Midwest. But one of my "core-competencies" is list-making, so this is probably the best way to make notes about my holiday. Here are some more Top-Fives:

Things I miss about the Midwest:

1. Caribou Coffee
2. The smell of the cold
3. heavy, fluffy scarves
4. the lack of a need to lock doors
5. being able to find cold storage anywhere outside during the winter

Favorite Christmas decorations:

1. white lights
2. red ribbons
3. red berries and evergreen
4. sparkly tinsel
5. **mistletoe**

Places to drink in Sioux Falls
Going out is unbelievably inexpensive here! Pint of imported (read snobby) beer: $2.75

1. McNally's Irish Pub
2. Braccos
3. Paramount Piano & Wine Bar, on Phillips Ave
4. Long Shots (Main Ave)
5. Kaladi's

Favorite Sioux Falls Stores

1. World Market (Cadbury dark chocolate Flake bars, and McVittles Plain Chocolate "Digestives" [cookies] )
2. Zandbros (new fountain pen converter, Pelikan Blue ink, Dover collection of W. Somerset Maugham short stories, Christmas cards with a Dickens Quotation)
3. Barnes and Noble (one of the largest I have ever seen, purchased a renewed Victoria magazine, Ian McEwan's Atonement, Barnes and Noble's History of Ancient Rome for dad )
4. Ten Thousand Villages (jewelry from India and Chile, Bangles from Bengal, experienced "singing bowls" for the first time thanks to Chase)
5. The Red Shoe (purchased absolutely nothing, but this is a common reaction of mine to Stuart Wietzman and Cole Haan)

*You Left Your Heart Where?!?

For Thanksgiving, I am going to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Can I just say how much I love this city? I usually get the wierdest looks when I talk about how excited I am to go there, but you have to go there--maybe you even have to go there with Dave--to see how charming it is. Dave pretty much grew up there. I cannot count the number of hours I have spent with him, driving around the "country's biggest suburb," admiring all of its quaint eccentricities.

For instance, Sioux Falls has the highest number of restaurants per capita of any where in the country--it is a great place to go out. It has a thriving local theatre and arts scene, my favorite coffee shop chain, Caribou Coffee, as well independent coffee shops scattered all over the city (inc. a tiny Ethiopian one on 10th where I think my friend Mike and I were the only white people to have ever been there). It has a Magnolia tree, which is strange because you are not supposed to be able to grow Magnolias that far north (Magnolias are my favorite tree). It has one of the largest green spaces in the country, with a park that on either side of the river that surrounds the city. This city's people have a ridiculous amount of civic pride; it has a long history, and they celebrate it (with the kind of brass placards nerds like me have to stop and read). And the people are friendly in that mid-western, down-to-earth, genuine sort of way. In case you get a chance to go, here is a list of things to do when you get there.

Top Five things to do in Sioux Falls, SD

1. Zandbros: a variety store/independent bookstore. It is where I bought my first fountain pen, they carry the Bloomsbury Review (the sign of a good bookstore), and the type of quirky, home-decorating stationary things where people always ask. "Where did you get that?" Bonus: there is an antique-soda-fountain-turned-coffee shop in the back.
   
2. The Washington Pavillion. Instead of tearing down an old highschool, they turned it into a civic arts center. It has a performing arts center, and both a permanent visual arts collection and rotating exhibits. The last time I was there, they had an exhibit about Harold Edgerton (that is now in Arizona.)
   
3. Falls Park. They light it up for Christmas and it is gorgeous. In the summer, when the falls are low, you can climb all over them; and in the spring, when they are full of the melting snow, it is a powerful experience.
   
4. The Sculpture Walk. Some really great pieces have come from here. The city votes on their favorite, then the city buys it each year and puts it out for everyone to enjoy. It started out as local artists, but now it is a national competition. Local corporations also buy pieces and put them in places for the city to enjoy.
   
5. St. Joseph's Cathedral (See photo above). You can sit on the steps for one of the best views of the city.It is a beautiful piece of architecture--stained glass windows and all.

*title taken from a NYTimes Article.

Some top-fives

I was reading the Guardian, and one click led to another, taking me to this. What a masterpiece! And this was the commentary: "The elegance and logic of Harry Beck's design - its combination of bustling intersections, sprawling tributaries, long, slanting tangents and abrupt dead ends, all sucked into the overturned wine bottle of the Circle Line - seems to spark other connections and appeal to the brain's innate desire for patterning and structure."

"The brain's innate desire for pattern and structure".... might explain my top-five lists.

I have been mulling over these lists for a while, and in lieu of a real blog entry, here are some of my recent top-fives:

Favorite Things Men Wear:

1. well-cut, single-breasted black suit
2. closely-coordinated shirt and tie
3. Pea-coat
4. The Jeans--the kind that sit just right
5. cologne--particularly Armani

Renaissance Art Works:

1. Michelangelo's David
2. Botticelli's Primavera
3. Ucello's Battle of San Ramano
4. Rafael's Entombment
5. Donatello's St. John the Evangelist

Favorite Beers:

1. John Smith's
2. Old Speckled Hen
3. Southshore Red
4. Newcastle
5. Guinnesss

Favorite Actors:

1. Cary Grant (hands-down favorite)
2. Colin Firth
3. Jimmy Stewart
4. John Cusak
5. Anthony Hopkins

Things I'd like to own someday:

1. A really expensive, beautiful fountain pen engraved with my initials
2. An overstuffed reading chair that permits me to sit sideways
3. A full wine rack
4. A tailored leather jacket
5. a DSLR
   
   Ok.. so this list is way longer than five...


6. A diamond ring
7. an espresso Machine
8. A British Passport

Other artful things of note:

• I love my Levenger bottled ink. I can't believe I ever used any other kind. It is strong and vibrant, and it has made the most stubborn pens smooth and sure.


• I found a new lip gloss by Laura Mercier that replaces my discontinued favorite from Guerlain.


• I have a new travel mug from Starbucks that epitomizes the travel mug. It has a non-leaky top that flips open and is non-intrusive. It keeps my coffee warm through 5th period, and it is a pretty raspberry color.

Our Students

And while we are generating top-five lists:
Here are the top-five most annoying student questions (in no order):

1. Do we have to write this down?
2. Do we have a quiz today?
3. Can I go to the bathroom?
4. Is this going to be on the test?
5. Did we have homework last night?

And in the running...
6. Oh, am I late?

top fives

After reading High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and seeing the movie some years ago, I have found myself, like Rob, putting my life in terms of "top-five" everything. eg. top five travel destinations, top-five greatest naps, top-five most embarrassing moments, top-five reasons why I need to spend less time at school, top-five favorite pairs of shoes, top-five worst ways to start an apology, etc. It is handy, because it provides a non-committal twenty-something the ability to emphasize importance without having to actually select anything.

So because I mentioned it the other day, here is my list of top-five-all-time-favorite-albums in no order: (subject to change, but really haven't in a while)

1. Pride and Predjudice--soundtrack
2. Futures-- Jimmy Eat World
3. A New Day at Midnight-- David Gray
4. Transatlanticism-- Death Cab for Cutie
5. 11th Hour -- Jars of Clay