Sally Ember's Blog, page 119

sallyember:

I have also found striking linguistic and phenotype similarities between the the Navajo and Tibetan peoples, particularly in the syntax of both languages, influencing the tonal and syntactical ways many of the ones I have spoken with speak English as a non-native language and in their facial features. Can’t be coincidences.

Originally posted on Tibet Talk:

“From the Roof of the World to the Land of Enchantment:The Tibet-Pueblo Connection”

Excerpt by Antonio Lopez

“”In the incongruous atmosphere of the Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, an extraordinary encounter took place in 1979. During the Dalai Lama’s first visit to North America, he met with three Hopi elders. The spiritual leaders agreed to speak in only in their Native tongues. Through Hopi elder and interpreter Thomas Benyakya, delegation head Grandfather David’s first words to the Dalai Lama were: “Welcome home.”

The Dalai Lama laughed, noting the striking resemblance of the turquoise around Grandfather David’s neck to that of his homeland. He replied: “And where did you get your turquoise?”

Since that initial meeting, the Dalai Lama has visited Santa Fe to meet with Pueblo leaders, Tibetan Lamas have engaged in numerous dialogues with Hopis and other Southwestern Indians, and now, through a special resettlement program to bring…

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sallyember:

What do you think of this? I’m ambivalent.

Originally posted on The Search For Enlightenment:

My friend and fellow vegan Juliet defines the vegan practice thus: Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

Enlightenment is a state in which we are aware of the ultimate truth and meaning of everything. As a Buddhist, I strive for enlightenment and also try to avoid, as far as possible, bringing harm or suffering to any other living creature.

When we are aware that each moment of each day, each gesture and step we take, is truly mystical and full of wonder, we will live our lives with greater thought and care. We will also have greater respect and appreciation for the lives of others.

The two overlap in many ways, and although you don’t have to be Buddhist to be vegan, or vegan…

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sallyember:

A forward-thinking, innovative fellow indie author ! Get to know Nonnie and her work!

Originally posted on Bruce A. Borders:

Today, I’m happy to welcome author Nonnie Jules! She is the founder and President of




Rave Reviews Book Club

 and is stopping by on her latest blog tour. And now, here’s Nonnie:


~ ~ ~

Hello, and welcome to Day 8 of my 15-day, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY:  ARE YOU WATCHING NONNIE WRITE” Blog Tour.  I’m so pleased that Bruce has welcomed me here today.  I’m equally excited to be sharing with all of you, his readers and followers.  Bruce and I are fellow Board Members at RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB,where we promote and support Indie Authors and readers alike.  If you’d like to know more about RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB, visit us here www.RaveReviewsByNonnieJules.wordpress.com.

This month marks the one year anniversary of my burst onto the social media scene and it’s also the one year anniversary of my blog “WATCH NONNIE WRITE!”, and during that time, I…

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sallyember:

MORE work to do!

Originally posted on Savvy Writers & e-Books online:

99 Top #Forums/Blogs to Post Your #Book for FREE

http://bit.ly/HAWFmr

#Marketing

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sallyember:

Got more work to do!

Originally posted on Savvy Writers & e-Books online:

Could you answer all these questions that I listed? What did YOU do to research your future book




http://bit.ly/1qWBtq7

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sallyember:

Useful info for newbies (and for me!).

Originally posted on Savvy Writers & e-Books online:

.

Falkland Island Penguins Photo Stephan Westphal

.

Want to become successful on Twitter and network with as many followers as possible? Here are are some basic principles to keep in mind when you tweet 140 characters to millions of people. Keep in mind that not only your followers, but also their followers can read it. Make your Twitter profile an irresistible force to your ideal audience. Who I would NOT follow:

.

1. “Contributed” Twitter Accounts
Twitter accounts that are not run by the owner, but by his/her “team” – who sprinkle annoying advertisements between the tweets they schedule: “Contributed Tweets for @xxxxxx are delivered by @….Team https://……co” I don’t want to deal with a “team”, rather with real people.

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2. Missing or No Bio Information
Why should I follow someone who doesn’t even show anything to entice me following him/her? Twitter gives you 160 characters to fill in your profile…

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Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

19th Serialized Excerpt, 4/14/14

CHAPTER SNAPSHOT #2

Snapshots of Clara’s Daily Life: Fourteen Octobers, 1963 – 2017

October, 1968

(continued)

“I get sent to the office on several occasions because my skirt or dress is deemed ‘too short.’ This designation is made first by a teacher. Once at the administrators’ office, accused offenders have to kneel on the floor. If our skirt or dress does not touch the ground, we are to be sent home to change (meaning, someone has to come pick us up in a private car, since there is no reliable or close-enough public transportation), unless we opt to wear our hideous ‘gym suits’ the rest of the day.”

“Ironically,” Clara goes on, showing me with her hands how this outfit works, “this jump suit is a sleeveless top with shorts, so it shows more of our legs than any permissible skirt would. Since my mom is home with my youngest sister and often one of them is sick, I can’t get picked up, so gym suit it is.”

“‘Getting suited’ occurs on numerous occasions for many of us ‘popular’ girls. This circumstance, wearing our horrible gym suit around school for the rest of a day, becomes like wearing a badge of honor. We are the ones who dare to wear a skirt that we know in advance is too short (some of us roll the waistbands after leaving home in order to achieve a shorter hemline) and which ‘dooms’ us to wearing our gym suits. Everyone knows this must be intentional. My friends and I make ‘getting suited’ cool.” Clara laughs. “We’re such trend-setters in 1968!”

“You won’t believe the P.E. [Physical Education] classes’ misogynistic and unfair fashion policy: Here it is, summary fashion,” Clara says. “The boys get to wear a comfortable, regular T-shirt and shorts (in white and blue, respectively, our school colors) for P.E. Girls, however, have to wear these ridiculous gym suits. This detested thing is a one-piece, blouson number in an almost-royal blue color. It has an elastic waist and snaps on the too-loose sleeveless bodice with medium-length shorts attached. It has to have been designed to make every girl look terrible in it regardless of body type, which I suppose is a great leveler.”

“As I explain earlier,” Clara reminds me, “if girls forget this monstrosity at home or don’t wash it, don’t have it or don’t wear a clean-enough suit to every class (each girl is issued two and must have one to wear for each P.E. class, every day), we are marked down in our grade and also, made to stay after school (like, a detention).”

“These administrators are so uptight, they treat these infractions the same as forgetting homework or vandalizing the bathrooms. Earn enough detentions and we have to come on a Saturday, too (like the movie, The Breakfast Club), just for “not suiting up.” If we get marked down enough, we could flunk this required class and have to take it again in summer school. I am not kidding!”

Clara is still indignant, these 45 years later. “Lowering academic grades for appearance issues, particularly failing a student for noncompliance to a dress code, becomes illegal, but not yet.”

“Back to the dress code,” Clara goes on. “The only short skirts girls are allowed to wear to school have to be culottes, which are split skirts or skirts with shorts inside (sound familiar?), but only cheerleaders are allowed to wear them. Now you’re starting to understand some of the reasoning behind my wanting to be a cheerleader,” Clara tells me.

“In a typical fall or winter month, once a week all through 9th grade (on “game days,” meaning, a day the 9th-grade boys’ team of the season has a football or basketball game, usually a Friday), I get to wear my cheerleader’s outfit. The rest of the year I am at war with the skirt police and usually ‘get suited.’”

“I wear my gym suit proudly, regularly showing it off in defiance of the school’s absurd policies. There are usually a group of us on any given day. We walk down the halls showing off our legs and laughing at the adults for being such dimwits,” Clara explains. “We show more of our legs wearing these gym suits than we do in any skirt!”

I say mildly, “Quite the rebel, eh?”

Clara misses my light sarcasm, so intent on telling her story of these years. “Some teachers think I’m ‘interesting,’ ‘intelligent’ and ‘fun.’ I know because they tell me or my parents. Others detest me and the feeling is mutual.”

Clara grimaces. “Wearing short skirts and being a ‘smart-aleck’ are what passes for rebellion for a teenage girl in my era, in this town. So, yes. I am a ‘rebel.’”

Guess she does catch my sarcasm. I move to apologize, but she smiles at me and goes on.

“I earn a reputation for ‘being sassy,’ a term only applied to girls who talk back to authority in southern-bordering or actual southern states. In contrast—more sexism, here—a boy who talks back is told to stop ‘giving me lip’ by the adult who is being challenged.”

She looks at me, making sure I understand, then continues. “Disobedient girls are ridiculed and patronized; impertinent boys are given grudging respect by being viewed as threatening. See the difference?”

I nod.

Clara goes on with her reminiscing. “At one point in my dress-code and behavioral scofflaw years, my cheerleader’s status is jeopardized because I refuse to back down in some argument with the chorus teacher about where I am supposed to sit. I dimly remember that she is trying to separate me from my friends because we are ‘disruptive,’ meaning, we are talking and having fun in class. For these ‘bad behaviors,’ she wants to move my seat. I am an alto but she wants to move me to the second sopranos, which is not the part I sing. I refuse to move, declaring that we are now engaged in a ‘sit in’ (which are big in the civil rights and anti-war movements by now) to protest her unfair discrimination against my having friends, or something to that effect.”

“What happens next?” I ask. I am curious how much trouble she gets in.

Clara laughs. “She sends me to the office. I go off, waving derisively at her and happily at my friends. When I get there, the harried assistant Principal threatens to suspend me from being a cheerleader because he has nothing else to hold over me. What’s so ridiculous about this threat is that we’re already in March by now and the only sports ‘season’ left for me to cheer in is track and field, which we really don’t do cheering for, anyway. The Principal can tell his threat is not upsetting me, but he doesn’t know why.”

“When I get home, I tell my father. He decides to come in and threaten them with a lawsuit (he is an attorney by training but not by trade at that point), just for fun (for him, that is). My dad is not very involved in my life or even around much, but he does love a good fight.”

“The day of their meeting, I sit outside the Principal’s office and eavesdrop on the ensuing discussion. It is very funny, to me. My dad talks circles around these guys. They really do not have a leg to stand on, so to speak, since I have done nothing to get myself suspended from being a cheerleader, applying their own rules, my dad points out perfectly: I never smoke, drink alcohol, have public sex, skip classes, vandalize school property or commit any other school ‘crimes.’ There isn’t a policy that calls for a suspension of privileges for being disrespectful or having a ‘bad attitude,’ but they wish there have one, I’m sure.”

“As I see it clearly, now, I am an ‘impudent’ female who regularly gives certain adults much-deserved backtalk and ends up ‘getting suited’ for wearing short skirts (along with dozens of other girls) several times every month. I also have excellent grades and attendance and never forget my gym suit. I am a very good ‘bad’ girl and they don’t have a punishment for someone like me.”

“My dad prevails, but this does not endear me to my chorus teacher or the administrators. I’m glad to get out of that school and on to high school a few months later.”

“What is high school like at the end of the 1960s in the USA Midwest?” I ask.

Clara responds: “In the fall of 1969, losing the fashion battle and the legal war, unintentionally catching up to the rest of the country (at least, the coasts), the Roanne school board President announces that all dress codes are to be discarded across the school district.”

Clara is gleeful, remembering this “victory.”

“Within a few months of entering high school, we girls are wearing cut-offs, halter tops, going barefoot and bra-less to classes. The biggest change for boys is that no one forces them to keep their hair short enough not to touch their collars any longer.”

Clara recalls: “My sophomore year is quite fun and such a shocking contrast to the years of ludicrous restrictions by the fashion police that we are giddy with freedom. People are smoking pot in the courtyard, hanging out the windows playing rock music in the hallways, and generally being rowdy and undisciplined. I love it, but I don’t get into the wildest behaviors, myself.”

“It’s difficult for me to imagine having those restrictions at all,” I say, shaking my head. “By the time I get to kindergarten, we wear whatever we want. 1987, for me.”

Clara shakes her finger at me and exhorts: “Thank a feminist!”

“Thanks!” I tell Clara. I mean it.

************

“Here is the poem that won my spot in the statewide poetry magazine in 1969.” Clara reaches into a paper file folder and hands a yellowish page to me.

The poem is written in cursive writing on manila lined paper in blue ink. It has her teacher’s red-inked comments on it. I point to one part, silently asking Clara to explain.

“Mrs. Hay crosses out the last stanza all together, so I do not include it here, since it is not part of the winning poem’s form,” Clara tells me. Here is the poem.

TO DIE IN VAIN
by Clara Ackerman, 2/21/69, age 14

Sitting on a stool of self-pity

I glance up, casually,
To see if anyone had seen me
Dying.
(I wasn’t really dying, only dreaming of how much
They
would miss me) If I did
Die.

*******

“You could not pay me enough money to be 14 again,” Clara says emphatically.
“Nor me, either.” I agree wholeheartedly.

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Filed under: Serialized Excerpts, Serialized Excerpts, The Spanners, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II of The Spanners Tagged: Clara Branon, Esperanza Enlaces, feminist, paranormal, Sally Ember, sci-fi, The Spanners Series, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever

sallyember:

More about internet security and “Heartbleed” issues.

Originally posted on LibrarianShipwreck:

Periodically when a person uses a computer one may receive notifications that contain phrases such as “do you trust this connection” or “do you trust this site.” While it is unlikely that such prompts are intended to send users tumbling into an existential abyss they nevertheless carry a very important question bundled in the guise of a simple yes or no (“allow” or “don’t allow”) moment. That question: “do you trust…”

Well…do you?

Using technological systems in contemporary society (in particular “high technological” systems) is often premised upon an oft unspoken level of trust, which relies as much (if not more so) on subconscious consent. We trust that our devices will function the way we have been led to expect them to function, we trust that the applications we use will do what they advertise, we trust that the passwords we use are being kept secret by the sites to…

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BBC America’s The Real History of Science Fiction starts April 19!

“Co-produced by BBC America and BBC 2, The Real History of Science Fiction series is narrated by Mark Gatiss, the writer and actor who appeared on Doctor Who and created last year’s An Adventure in Space and Time, the TV movie about the creation of Doctor Who. He also acts and has co-created the BBC series Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.”

image from http://balldini.wordpress.com

On BBC America on 4 Saturdays starting 19th April at 10 pm ET

SEASON PREMIERE: EPISODE 1 – ROBOTS

Episode 2 premieres Saturday, April 26, 10:00pm ET

EPISODE 2 – SPACE

Episode 3 premieres Saturday, May 3, 10:00pm ET

EPISODE 3 – INVASION

Episode 4 premieres Saturday, May 10, 10:00pm ET

EPISODE 4 – TIME

“The four-episode programme will appear on BBC Two (times and dates to be announced).”

“Among those taking part are:

William Shatner (Star Trek),

Nathan Fillion (Firefly),

Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek),

Steven Moffat (Doctor Who),

Richard Dreyfuss (Close Encounters of the Third Kind),

Chris Carter (The X-Files),

Ronald D Moore (Battlestar Galactica),

John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Schlock),

David Tennant (Doctor Who),

Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future),

Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner),

John Carpenter (Dark Star, The Thing),

Karen Gillan (Doctor Who),

Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Stardust),

Kim Stanley Robinson (Mars Trilogy),

Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap, Star Trek: Enterprise),

Ursula K Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness),

Syd Mead (Blade Runner),

Kenny Baker (Star Wars),

Anthony Daniels (Star Wars),

Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek),

Peter Weller (Robocop),

Edward James Olmos (Blade Runner, Battlestar Galactica) and many more.”

“The documentary focuses on everything from Star Wars to Star Trek and of course Doctor Who. Gatiss reminds us how good sci-fi engages audiences on a emotional level. It isn’t just jaw-dropping special effects and aliens but a way to address social issues, big ideas and human issues.”

For more details, episode summaries, trailers and more, follow the link, below, and see the BBC official website on The Real History of Science Fiction.

Read full article, watch trailers and get links to more info here:

http://www.peter-capaldi-news.com/blog/new-trailer-real-history-science-fiction/?utm_source=whonews&utm_medium=whonewsapp

Filed under: Blogging and others' content, Science Fiction and Fantasy Tagged: science fiction, TV

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

18th Serialized Excerpt, 4/12/14

CHAPTER SNAPSHOT #2

Snapshots of Clara’s Daily Life: Fourteen Octobers, 1963 – 2017

October, 1968

Age and Living Circumstances/Location:

9th-grader in Roanne Junior High School, Missouri; living in Bayonne, suburb of large city in family home with her: father, Isaac; mother, Rose; older brother, Thomas; and, two younger sisters, Cassie, 8, and Violet, 3; and, a dog.

One boyfriend, ongoing since beginning of 8th grade, and many local friends from school, Camp Cedar and same Sunday School as earlier.

Writing:

stories, articles, songs, poetry (poem selected as winner and published in Missouri’s Youth Writes).

Books:

Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke; More than Human, Theodore Sturgeon; Pilgrimmage: The Book of the People, Zenna Henderson; Sword of Aldones, Marion Zimmer Bradley; The Time Machine, Jules Verne.

Music on the Radio:

“Hey, Jude,” The Beatles; “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” Otis Redding; “Bend Me, Shape Me,” The American Breed; “Born to be Wild,” Steppenworlf; “Build Ne Up, Buttercup,” The Foundation; “Can’t Take My Eyes off You,” Andy Williams; “Chain of Fools,” Aretha Franklin; “Do You Know the Way to San José,” Dionne Warwick; “Hello, I Love You,” The Doors; “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” Iron Butterfly; “MacArthur Park,” Richard Harris; “Mrs. Robinson,” and the Bookends album, Simon & Garfunkle; Piece of My Heart,” Big Brother & The Holding Company (Janis Joplin); “Stoned Soul Picnic,” The Fifth Dimension; “Sunshine of Your Love,” Cream (Eric Clapton); “The Weight,” The Band (Bob Dylan); “Young Girl,” Gary Puckett and The Union Gap; Bonnie Raitt; Linda Rondstadt; Bob Dylan; Peter, Paul & Mary; Little Stevie Wonder.

Popular Songs in Sheet Music:

“I’ve Gotta Be Me,” (sung by Sammy Davis, Jr.); “The Look of Love,” Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66; “Eli’s Coming,” Laura Nyro; “For The Good Times,” Kris Kristofferson (sung by Rita Coolidge); “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” Burt Bacharach & Hal David (sung by Dionne Warwick)’ music from Cabaret (Kander & Ebb), Hair! (Jerome Ragni, James Rado), Man of La Mancha ( Joel Darion, Dale Wasserman); Yellow Submarine (The Beatles).

Activities:

► Taking Honors classes, including Spanish

► Cheerleader

► Member of chorus and selected for performance ensemble

► Taking weekly piano lessons; wins 2nd place at regional classical piano competition for ages 12 – 14.

► Attending Jewish religious classes every Sunday morning (Sunday School) (under duress); wins engraved Bible in essay competition

► Playing outdoors, tennis, softball, soccer, field hockey

► Indoors, competing on balance beam/gymnastics

► In summers, bike riding; waterskiing, canoeing, Israeli folk dancing, swimming at Camp Cedar (Jewish residential camp, Lake of the Ozarks) and local outdoor pool

ESPE: For junior high school, Clara tells me, her 7th-grade year is pretty awful. She has braces on her teeth, her hair is curly when having straight hair is fashionable, she is slightly overweight, she has no boyfriend, she is in all Honors classes with almost none of her former friends. This school serves students from five other elementary schools, so it is quite large and most of the people and the entire set up are unfamiliar to Clara.

Each student is assigned a 9th-grader as a “Big Sister/Brother” for the first month or so. Clara gets one of the cheerleaders as her Big Sister. One Friday, which are “game days” for football in the fall, Clara immediately timults herself as a cheerleader: she sees herself walking down the hall, laughing and talking with her friends while wearing her uniform, just as she sees her Big Sister, Cindy, doing on that Friday between classes. It is the first time Clara is aware of timulting something about her “future” which turns out to occur.

After losing the extra weight during 7th grade and having a very successful summer at Camp Cedar, Clara is set for a change. At the beginning of 8th grade, Clara gets the braces off, she learns to straighten her hair, makes some new friends. Her social life changes to the point that she becomes “popular” and a leader, again.

Clara says she gets a “great” boyfriend with whom she “goes steady” through all of 8th and half of 9th grade, when they break up amicably because they’re “both tired of each other,” she tells me.

Near the end of 8th grade, Clara practices for months so that she and nineteen other girls are nominated by adults (from “try-outs” of over fifty girls) to be voted on as cheerleaders in the election for class officers and other positions.

Clara, with seven others, is elected to be a cheerleader. As one of the leaders of her class, Clara also ran for “Pep Club” President. Clara cultivates many friends in order to get selected by the committee to be a finalist and elected by the students.

Her popularity ensures that she is elected to both positions. However, the Principal makes her choose between these rather than allowing her to be both.

Viewing being a cheerleader as the pinnacle of female achievement for that era and since she already timults that outcome two years before this, Clara chooses to be a 9th-grade cheerleader. Bonus: one of her friends, her “opponent,” becomes Pep Club President.

However, Clara tells me, “After learning all the cheers and being so excited to be elected, turns out that being a cheerleader is usually quite boring for me because I don’t actually like or care about team sports. Joke is on me.”

“I continue to want the status and there are not many routes to status for girls in 1968 in Missouri public schools. We aren’t allowed to run for President of the Student Council or our Class. Secretary; for ‘higher office,’ is the top slot we can run for, and only Pep Club is considered appropriate for a girl to lead. But, Pep Club is hardly the same thing as those other two, which actually have governing functions. Plus, sitting around in meetings seems much less interesting than going on buses with the team and being the center of attention as a cheerleader. I am a Leo, after all! These experiences help build up the feminist in me, as they do for Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan and many other second-wave feminists, all cheerleaders!”

What happens when Clara gets to high school?

Clara explains: “Although the entire squad of us tries out for the sophomore squad, which is to be at the high school in which we will be combined with the other junior high school for tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades, only one of our school’s squad (not I) along with seven out of the eight cheerleaders of the other junior high school’s squad become the cheerleaders selected by the panel of adults. There is no election since the two 9th-grades’ students don’t know each other, yet.”

“Patently unfair,” Clara says to me, “but, not being selected to continue being a cheerleader is the best thing that ever happens to my personal development. I become more involved in debate, chess, theater, music, books and writing. These are much better choices for me. I become a ‘hippie-intellectual’ instead of a ‘jockette.’ Since I am very good in school, this is a more comfortable role. I can get excellent grades and make a better, more suitable group of friends in my honors classes than I can ‘on the field,’ so that is what I do in high school.”

Here is a poem Clara writes (after studying Julius Caesar in English class) about her feelings and experiences during and after this social transition. Clara goes from occupying the “popular” slot due to being a cheerleader to becoming involved in “cool stuff” due to her other (forced) choices. The “insider” becomes a different kind of “insider,” almost an “outsider,” but this time, mostly by choice.

Clara wants me to remind everyone that she makes no claims to being a great poet. However, it is significant to note that this and another poem she writes in 10th grade are submitted by her English teacher to a state contest. The other poem wins the Missouri’s Youth Writes competition and is published in the state students’ literary magazine in 1970, which is Clara’s first publishing credit.

Clara says: “It’s quite funny to me that I am first published as a poet, since I think my poetry is mostly mediocre to horrible.”

The poem is written on blue, lined spiral notebook paper (the left edge where it is removed from the notebook is ripped in spots) in cursive writing.

RUBICON SURPRISE
by Clara Ackerman, 11/11/69, age 15

Walking on my road

the way is easily seen.
Around the bend, the light
dims
and is gone.

Continue to walk, though

the way grows steep and feels
unfamiliar,
yet exciting.

Forge on through the dark,

stumbling over rocks and into
gullies
and potholes; what
is that swaying sensation?

Ah! The light returns,

only to show the way
already traveled to have been a
bridge,
smoking to ashes as I watch.

The light again dims,

but remains a dusk-glow,
enough to show me the
mockery
free will and decisive action
really are.

What else about your junior high years do you want people to know?

“I experience more misogyny, more restrictions, more unfairness due to gender than in grade school. I have two years of male science teachers and all three years of male math teachers who despise girls, even or especially those of us in Honors classes,” Clara complains.
“Furthermore,” Clara remembers, getting somewhat agitated in the remembering, “our 9th-grade biology teacher is so mean to the only three girls in a class of twenty-four boys that we generate ‘solidarity,’ which is great. We stick together even though we’re not previously close friends. Those girls and I create an informal support group, my first one.”
Also, Clara reminds me, there are more clothing issues; again, only for girls.

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Filed under: Serialized Excerpts, Serialized Excerpts, The Spanners, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II of The Spanners Tagged: Clara Branon, ebook, Esperanza Enlaces, paranormal, Psi, Sally Ember, sci-fi, The Spanners Series, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever