Drama Teacher Quotes

So, Grace, how's school?" I asked myself. Dad nodded, eyes on the baby koala now struggling in the guest's arms. "Oh, it's fine," I continued, and Dad made a mumbling noise of agreement. I added, "Nothing special, aside from the load of pandas they brought in, and the teachers abandoning us to cannibalistic savages-" I paused to see if I'd caught his attention yet, then pressed on. "The whole building caught fire, then I failed drama, and then sex, sex, sex." Dad's eyes abruptly focused, and he turned to me and frowned. "What did you say they were teaching you in school?

Teacher,” I said. “Can you feel love?

Educate not Legislate Refusing to pass unnecessary laws requires a converse – encouraging education and understanding. We started by slashing the salaries of legislators (Dubbed “Bloodbath on the Beltway”). That move provided funds to instigate incentive programs for high school teachers – to attract the best and brightest. The result was a generation of bright, energetic 18-year-olds graduating high-school, equipped to tackle the future.

Are we not all actors playing parts in another person's play?

From her desk, she observed Willy demonstrating his ability to blow snot bubbles out of his slightly runny nose. Emma politely ignored him; Maggie’s face showed disgust at his grossness; Harley giggled; and competitive Joseph tried his best, with no luck, to make something, anything come out of his nose.

Mr. Beaconsfield is the Year Eleven drama teacher. He’s one of those teachers who likes being “down with the kids”—all gelled hair and “call me Jeff.”He’s also the reason our version of Romeo and Juliet is set in a Brooklyn ghetto and Juliet is leaning out of a trailer rather than a balcony.

Is there a problem, Ms. Parker? Something you want to say to me?" Reaching for his tie, he began to loosen it, unraveling it with his fingers, angry eyes still locked on mine. "I'm not sure I like being your pet. Or science project, I don't know which." "You have a smart mouth." "You make smart observances." "You're going to make this invitation difficult, aren't you?" "If you're dishonest with me, yes." "You'll regret it if you don't accept." "Is that a threat?" "That's a promise.

To our law enforcement community, our first responders, the young student, staff members, and teachers who responded so bravely in the face of danger, we applaud your courage and thank you for your selfless actions.

No parent should lose a son or daughter, no teacher should lose a student, no sibling should lose a brother or sister, and no student should lose a best friend or a teacher.

I guess when you’re a drama teacher, you’re used to memorizing long speeches.

I have filed a lawsuit; I am not engaged in a legislative battle. I am very proud my son will help spearhead an effort to put forth a survivor’s legislative agenda with many of his fellow students, teachers, and other survivors of this tragedy. Kenny and his colleagues are now voting age or will be before the next election. Pro-gun politicians need to address the problem, or they may find themselves looking for work.

You have become so good that every mistake you make has a spotlight on it.

Fire and fury! These people didn’t appreciate my art, laughed at my clothes, my looks, and made fun of my protruding ears. ‘Floppy,’ they called me. And the teachers and principals let it all happen. They didn’t give a shit. Whatever got them through the day without conflict or controversy worked for the teachers, but where were the parents? They taught their kids to be elitist snobs. These deaths are on you, assholes!

Strange that the greatest compliment an actress could receive was that she had disappeared into somebody else. Acting is not about being seen, a drama teacher told her once. True acting meant becoming invisible so that only the character shone through.

David sat in the teacher’s lounge. Two other shlemiels sat on the other side, getting coffee. Sports, movies, conversation. He would have to join the group. The new assistant principal was to join them this afternoon. Just say hello. He got up and got coffee. David held the hot coffee and pretended to drink it. Didn’t want to spill on his white shirt. Then a tall slender woman walked in with the main campus principal, Edmond, and she looked around. Now would come the meet and greet. Fresh meat. Edmond turned to him. “This is David Bar David, Doctor Bar David. Math.” The thin woman reached out her hand and David shook it. “My,” she said, “such a warm hand.” “But a cold heart,” he said.

O VENENO ARDENTE DO DESGOSTO. THE WHITE HOT POISON OF ANGER. When others make us angry at them- at their shamelessness, injustice, inconsideration- then they exercise power over us, they proliferate and gnaw at our soul, then anger is like a white-hot poison that corrods all mild, noble and balanced feelings and robs us of sleep. Sleepless, we turn on the light and are angry at the anger that has lodged like a succubus who sucks us dry and debilitates us. We are not only furious at the damage, but also that it develops in us all by itself, for while we sit on the edge of the bed with aching temples, the distant catalyst remains untouched by the corrosive force of the anger that eats at us. On the empty internal stage bathed in the harsh light of mute rage, we perform all by ourselves a drama with shadow figures and shadow words we hurl against enemies in helpless rage we feel as icy blazing fire in our bowels. And the greater our despair that is only a shadow play and not a real discussion with the possibility of hurting the other and producing a balance of suffering, the wilder the poisonous shadows dance and haunt us even in the darkest catacombs of our dreams. (We will turn the tables, we think grimly, and all night long forge words that will produce in the other the effect of a fire bomb so that now he will be the one with the flames of indignation raging inside while we, soothed by schadenfreude, will drink our coffee in cheerful calm.) What could it mean to deal appropriately with anger? We really don't want to be soulless creatures who remain thoroughly indifferent to what they come across, creatures whose appraisals consist only of cool, anemic judgments and nothing can shake them up because nothing really bothers them. Therefore, we can't seriously wish not to know the experience of anger and instead persist in an equanimity that wouldn't be distinguished from tedious insensibility. Anger also teaches us something about who we are. Therefore this is what I'd like to know: What can it mean to train ourselves in anger and imagine that we take advantage of its knowledge without being addicted to its poison? We can be sure that we will hold on to the deathbed as part of the last balance sheet- and this part will taste bitter as cyanide- that we have wasted too much, much too much strength and time on getting angry and getting even with others in a helpless shadow theater, which only we, who suffered impotently, knew anything about. What can we do to improve this balance sheet? Why did our parents, teachers and other instructors never talk to us about it? Why didn't they tell something of this enormous significance? Not give us in this case any compass that could have helped us avoid wasting our soul on useless, self-destructive anger?

They said her duck recipe and the Chinese music were so dramatic everything else sounded anemic.

Acting is not about being seen, a drama teacher told her once. True acting meant becoming invisible so that only the character shone through.

What grade does she teach?” “Eighth. Where kids make the jump from nice, innocent kids to something a lot more complicated and emotional drama runs deep and hormones are out of control. Some days she comes home looking like she got hit by a bus.” “In my book, all teachers are underpaid,” said Decker.

She doubted a generation that had grown up with WAP, murder hornets, Covid, cataclysmic social unrest, and being forcibly home-schooled by a bunch of depressed day drinkers really understood the threat of pool halls, but Leigh had to hand it to the drama teacher for putting on a gender-neutral production of The Music Man, one of the least offensive and most tedious musicals ever staged by a middle school.

Having neurons wire together can be a good thing. A positive experience with a math teacher can lead to neural connections that link math with pleasure, accomplishment, and feeling good about yourself as a student. But the opposite is equally true. Negative experiences with a harsh instructor or a timed test and the anxiety that accompanies it can form connections in the brain that create a serious obstacle to the enjoyment not only of math and numbers, but exams and even school in general.

To our children, specifically, I say: In America, you are never alone. Your family, your neighbors, your fellow citizens all over these United States are with you, love you, and will do whatever is necessary to comfort and protect you. Turn to your family, teachers, clergymen, or police officers for help. Answer cruelty and hate with love and kindness. Work to create a culture where the sanctity of life is sacrosanct, and the blessings of friendships and families will help to begin the healing process.

There is a difference between people who strive and those who merely work hard. Levittown was full of hard workers, hourly wage-earners who eagerly stepped forward for overtime shifts and spent what extra money they had to repave their driveways, build rec rooms, or buy RVs....it was full of people who felt they had *arrived*.

Theater gives them what a computer takes away, what no classroom teacher can teach. They learn to work with other people. They learn patience and tolerance and how to be deferential to each other. They learn to be good citizens. It’s unifying. It has an impact on kids that can’t be quantified. Educators don’t know how to measure it.

Teachers find many children emotionally distracted, so upset and preoccupied by the explosive drama of their own family lives that they are unable to concentrate on such mundane matters as multiplication tables.

On the opening night of the Hazzard County High School production of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Buster was going to play Romeo. His sister, Annie, was to play Juliet. Other than Buster, no one backstage seemed to understand that this was a problem. "Let me ask you something, Buster," said Mr. Delano, the high school drama teacher. "Have you heard of the phrase the show must go on?" Buster nodded. "Well," Mr. Delano continued, "this is the kind of moment for which that phrase was coined.

Everyone and everything needed to be raised to its highest level – the teacher must become a mage, the husband a knight errant, the labor a hero in a sacred drama – intensified, rarefied, baptized in the turbulent waters of restlessness, curiosity, and ardor.

Drama and activities of that sort have nothing to do with your academic work, you find your own time to do them. As a result, such pursuits flower, fruit and flourish as nowhere else. If I had had to submit to some drama teacher casting me in plays, directing me or telling me how it was done I should have withered on the vine. The beauty of our way was that everyone was learning as they went along. The actors and directors were all students, as were the lighting, sound, set construction, costume, stage management, production crew, front of house and administration. All were undergraduates saying, ‘Oh, this looks like fun.

Darkness seems to have prevailed and has taken the forefront. This country as in the 'cooperation' of The United States of America has never been about the true higher-good of the people. Know and remember this. Cling to your faith. Roll your spiritual sleeves up and get to work. Use your energy wisely. Transmute all anger, panic and fear into light and empowerment. Don't use what fuels them; all lower-energy. Mourn as you need to. Console who you need to—and then go get into the spiritual and energetic arena. There's plenty work for us to do; within and without. Let's each focus on becoming 'The President of Our Own Life. Cultivate your mind. Pursue your purpose. Shine your light. Elevate past—and reject—any culture of low vibrational energy and ratchetness. Don't take fear, defeat or anger—on or in. The system is doing what they've been created to do. Are you? Am I? Are we—collectively? Let's get to work. No more drifting through life without your higher-self in complete control of your mind. Awaken—fully. Activate—now. Put your frustrations or concerns into your work. Don't lose sight. There is still—a higher plan. Let's ride this 4 year energetic-wave like the spiritual gangsters that we are. This will all be the past soon. Let's get to work and stay dedicated, consistent and diligent. Again, this will all be the past soon. We have preparing and work to do. Toxic energy is so not a game. Toxic energy and low vibrations are being collectively acted out on the world stage. Covertly operating through the unconscious weak spots and blind spots in the human psyche; making people oblivious to their own madness, causing and influencing them to act against–their–own–best–interests and higher-good, as if under a spell and unconsciously possessed. This means that they are actually nourishing the lower vibrational energy with their lifestyle, choices, energy and habits, which is unconsciously giving the lower-energy the very power and fuel it needs—for repeating and recreating endless drama, suffering and destruction, in more and more amplified forms on a national and world stage. So what do we do? We take away its autonomy and power over us while at the same time empowering ourselves. By recognizing how this energetic/spiritual virus or parasite of the mind—operates through our unawareness is the beginning of the cure. Knowledge is power. Applied knowledge is—freedom. Our shared future will be decided primarily by the changes that take place in the psyche of humanity, starting with each of us— vibrationally. In closing and most importantly, the greatest protection against becoming affected or possessed by this lower-energy is to be in touch with our higher vibrational-self. We have to call our energy and power back. Being in touch with our higher-self and true nature acts as a sacred amulet, shielding and protecting us from the attempted effects. We defeat evil not by fighting against it (in which case, by playing its game, we’ve already lost) but by getting in touch with the part of us that is invulnerable to its effects— our higher vibrational-self. Will this defeat and destroy us? Or will it awaken us more and more? Everything depends upon our recognizing what is being revealed to us and our stepping out of the unconscious influence of low vibrational/negative/toxic/evil/distraction energy (or whatever name you relate to it as) that is and has been seeking power over each of our lives energetically and/or spiritually, and step into our wholeness, our personal power, our higher self and vibrate higher and higher daily. Stay woke my friends—let's get to work.

If life had been a calligraphy contest she’d be the right-handed dummy attending her first lesson with the left hand. She sympathized with the clumsy because she’d always felt like one, it was her own built-in teacher feature. Not understanding where she fit in came with a lot of drama and a lot of days in the rain with no umbrella.

When we imagine Jesus’ teaching in his own time and place, W ca we cannot use profiles of teachers from our own world to understand the nature of his work. Our culture is heir to the Greek tradition, where abstract reasoning and verbal prowess are the measure of the teacher. Jesus’ world was different. He communicated through word pictures, dramatic actions, metaphors, and stories. Rather than lecture about religious corruption, Jesus refers to the Pharisees as “whitewashed tombs.” Rather than outline the failings of the temple, he curses a fig tree. This means that we should think of Jesus as a “metaphorical theologian” for whom drama, humor, and storytelling were all a part of his method.

Not only had fear been banished from the establishment, not even a remarkable event was able to upset the balance of our little world. That was the absolute proof of our invincibility. We had become so used to living without the unexpected. The moment a dangerous breech opened up in the walls of our world, we turned in on ourselves without ever losing our sense of solidarity as a group, the better to rethink the 'incident'. Only by stripping it of its drama were we able to forget it in the short term, and restore a sense of continuity. Each of us returned to his own task, swathed in that very particular corporate radiation that immunised us against reality. For us teachers, it seemed that the only way of surviving was to rein in our own perspectives as far as possible, day after day, to live as close as we could to our centres.

The way out of the drama triangle, as many spiritual teachers, therapists and coaches have suggested, is the creative orientation. This is where we exercise full responsibility and accountability. In this, we become artists and activists of our own lives, and focus our attention on the changes that we’d like to bring into being. As we move beyond old habits of blaming, complaining, excuses, and wishful thinking, life begins to open up. This becomes a world of opportunity, power, and freedom.

What I know now is that I would be a different person, or at the least a better version of myself, more rounded, more fulfilled, more in touch with myself and everyone around me. In so many ways, theater teaches the opposite of what I learned in sports, in which the model is that there is no self, no emotional landscape or core. Team sport is all about grit and team, about submerging self. To look within, to feel or imagine, is not encouraged. At the time, I couldn’t conceive of myself being up onstage.

The classroom is a place of high drama. You'll never know what you've done to, or for, the hundreds coming and going. You see them leaving the classroom: dreamy, flat, sneering, admiring, smiling, puzzled. After a few years you develop antennae. You can tell when you've reached them or alienated them. It's chemistry. It's psychology. It's animal instinct. You are with the kids and, as long as you want to be a teacher, there's no escape. Don't expect help from the people who've escaped the classroom, the higher-ups. They're busy going to lunch and thinking higher thoughts. It's you and the kids. So, there's the bell. See you later. Find what you love and do it.

Albert Einstein, considered the most influential person of the 20th century, was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. His parents thought he was retarded. He spoke haltingly until age nine. He was advised by a teacher to drop out of grade school: “You’ll never amount to anything, Einstein.” Isaac Newton, the scientist who invented modern-day physics, did poorly in math. Patricia Polacco, a prolific children’s author and illustrator, didn’t learn to read until she was 14. Henry Ford, who developed the famous Model-T car and started Ford Motor Company, barely made it through high school. Lucille Ball, famous comedian and star of I Love Lucy, was once dismissed from drama school for being too quiet and shy. Pablo Picasso, one of the great artists of all time, was pulled out of school at age 10 because he was doing so poorly. A tutor hired by Pablo’s father gave up on Pablo. Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the world’s great composers. His music teacher once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.” Wernher von Braun, the world-renowned mathematician, flunked ninth-grade algebra. Agatha Christie, the world’s best-known mystery writer and all-time bestselling author other than William Shakespeare of any genre, struggled to learn to read because of dyslexia. Winston Churchill, famous English prime minister, failed the sixth grade.

Drama and comedy are the polite genres, founded on collectively agreed-upon ideas, perceptions and truths. But life, as subjectively experienced, is not like comedy or drama; it is much more disorganized and grand, intimidating and embarrassing. It is much more like opera and farce. Opera shows how we really feel at our most pained or selfish or exultant, and farce reveals how we receive the world in its raw, unsifted form. Or to put it another way, opera is how we really feel about ourselves. Farce is how we really feel about strangers. And both genres tell the true story of life as it is lived. The Piano Teacher, neither comedy nor drama, was both opera and farce, with Huppert as both diva and farceuse. Throughout, Huppert believes and gives passionately, and yet stands back, in full awareness. Life is more than we think, bigger but also ridiculous.

... And I said: 'What kind of trouble with your drama teacher?' She said: 'Well I'm having difficulty with the feelings.' I said: 'The... the f-feelings?' She said: 'You know...' ...she said: 'You know the, the feelings.' Like I would know. I said 'You saw me in a play?' She said. 'Yeah' 'And you thought it was good?' And she said 'Yeah, thought it was absolutely marv- ... ' I said 'Well, I can absolutely guarantee you that I'm not feeling anything. I'm at work. D'you know what I mean? I'm a bit busy. I'm a bit pushed. I have to do - I have to achieve about... 1500 things over a period of two and half hours or whatever the play length might be. I have to make love to a woman, smoke cigarettes, reach the door handle, hit the door handle when that verbal cue comes coz otherwise the lights will go funny, I have to, you know, get semi-naked and eat chilli con carne. You know. I'm occupied. I can't be feeling stuff. You know, that I do on my own time.' And you can't phone up on a wet Wednesday and say: 'D'you know what? [shakes head sadly]... I'm not feeling it. So I don't think I'll come in today.' People who teach acting they have to talk for a very long time. Sometimes two years of talk. Or sometimes three. And there isn't that much to say. And they start making it up, sometimes. Or they'll concentrate on things that are undeniable. Like you can't say: 'I am feeling it.' 'No you're not. No, I can't... you know, you're not feel-... I can't... you know, I'm sorry but I just - you're not feeling it, you gotta feel it.' 'Yeah I am. I think I'm feeling it...' You know, it's all completely unnecessary. The audience have no interest in what you might be feeling. You're supposed to give the appearance of feeling something. Like you did when you were a kid. It is an extension of what you did in the back yard when you played the bank robber and the other guy played... the policeman.

Even at this point, say Ressler and others, these potential hosts of monsters can be turned around through the (often unintentional) intervention of people who show kindness, support, or even just interest. I can say from experience that it doesn’t take much. Ressler’s theories on the childhoods of the worst killers in America have an unlikely ideological supporter, psychiatrist and child-advocate Alice Miller. Her emotionally evocative books (including The Drama Of The Gifted Child and The Untouched Key) make clear that if a child has some effective human contact at particularly significant periods, some recognition of his worth and value, some “witness” to his experience, this can make an extraordinary difference. I have learned that the kindness of a teacher, a coach, a policeman, a neighbor, the parent of a friend, is never wasted. These moments are likely to pass with neither the child nor the adult fully knowing the significance of the contribution. No ceremony attaches to the moment that a child sees his own worth reflected in the eyes of an encouraging adult. Though nothing apparent marks the occasion, inside that child a new view of self might take hold. He is not just a person deserving of neglect or violence, not just a person who is a burden to the sad adults in his life, not just a child who fails to solve his family’s problems, who fails to rescue them from pain or madness or addiction or poverty or unhappiness. No, this child might be someone else, someone whose appearance before this one adult revealed specialness or lovability, or value. This value might be revealed through appreciation of a child’s artistic talent, physical ability, humor, courage, patience, curiosity, scholarly skills, creativity, resourcefulness, responsibility, energy, or any of the many attributes that children bring us in such abundance.

You might expect that if you spent such an extended period in twelve different households, what you would gather is twelve different ideas about how to raise children: there would be the strict parents and the lax parents and the hyperinvolved parents and the mellow parents and on and on. What Lareau found, however, is something much different. There were only two parenting “philosophies,” and they divided almost perfectly along class lines. The wealthier parents raised their kids one way, and the poorer parents raised their kids another way. The wealthier parents were heavily involved in their children’s free time, shuttling them from one activity to the next, quizzing them about their teachers and coaches and teammates. One of the well-off children Lareau followed played on a baseball team, two soccer teams, a swim team, and a basketball team in the summer, as well as playing in an orchestra and taking piano lessons. That kind of intensive scheduling was almost entirely absent from the lives of the poor children. Play for them wasn’t soccer practice twice a week. It was making up games outside with their siblings and other kids in the neighborhood. What a child did was considered by his or her parents as something separate from the adult world and not particularly consequential. One girl from a working-class family—Katie Brindle—sang in a choir after school. But she signed up for it herself and walked to choir practice on her own. Lareau writes: What Mrs. Brindle doesn’t do that is routine for middle-class mothers is view her daughter’s interest in singing as a signal to look for other ways to help her develop that interest into a formal talent. Similarly Mrs. Brindle does not discuss Katie’s interest in drama or express regret that she cannot afford to cultivate her daughter’s talent. Instead she frames Katie’s skills and interests as character traits—singing and acting are part of what makes Katie “Katie.” She sees the shows her daughter puts on as “cute” and as a way for Katie to “get attention.

I was a country kid who went to a public school, and she was more of a middle-class girl who attended a private school. I was into hunting and fishing, and she liked drama and singing in the choir at school and church. Our lives up until that point were totally different. But Missy and I had a very deep spiritual connection, and I thought our mutual love for the Lord might be our biggest strength in sustaining our relationship. Even though Missy was so different from me, I found her world to be very interesting. Looking back, perhaps another reason I decided to give our relationship a chance was because of my aunt Jan’s bizarre premonition about Missy years earlier. My dad’s sister Jan had helped bring him to the Lord, and she taught the fourth grade at OCS. One of her students was Missy, and they went to church together at White’s Ferry Road Church. When I was a kid we attended a small church in the country, but occasionally we visited White’s Ferry with my aunt Jan and her husband. One Sunday, Missy walked by us as we were waiting in the pew. “Let me tell you something,” Jan told me as she pointed at me and then Missy. “That’s the girl you’re going to marry.” Missy was nine years old. To say that was one of the dumbest things I’d ever heard would be an understatement. I love my aunt Jan, but she has a lot in common with her brother Si. They talk a lot, are very animated, and even seem crazy at times. However, they love the Lord and have great hearts. I actually never thought about it again until she reminded me of that day once Missy and I started getting serious. Freaky? A bit. Bizarre? Definitely! Was she right? Absolutely, good call! Missy still isn’t sure what my aunt Jan saw in her. Missy: What did Jan see in me at nine years old? Well, you’ll have to ask her about that. She was the only teacher in my academic history from whom I ever received a smack. She announced a rule to the class one day that no one could touch anyone else’s possessions at any time (due to a recent rash of kids messing with other people’s stuff). The next day, I moved some papers around on one of my classmates’ desks before school, and he tattled on me. Because of her newly pronounced rule, she took me to the girls’ bathroom and gave me a whack on the rear. At the time, I certainly would have never thought she had picked me out to marry her nephew!

Soon after I arrived on the island I had a run-in with my son’s first grade teacher due to my irreverent PJ sense of humor. When Billy lost a baby tooth I arranged the traditional parentchild Tooth Fairy ritual. Only six years old, Billy already suspected I was really the Tooth Fairy and schemed to catch me in the act. With each lost tooth, he was getting harder and harder to trick. To defeat my precocious youngster I decided on a bold plan of action. When I tucked him in I made an exaggerated show of placing the tooth under his pillow. I conspicuously displayed his tooth between my thumb and forefinger and slid my hand slowly beneath his pillow. Unbeknownst to him, I hid a crumpled dollar bill in the palm of my hand. With a flourish I pretended to place the tooth under Billy’s pillow, but with expert parental sleight of hand, I kept the tooth and deposited the dollar bill instead. I issued a stern warning not to try and stay awake to see the fairy and left Billy’s room grinning slyly. I assured him I would guard against the tricky fairy creature. I knew Billy would not be able to resist checking under his pillow. Sure enough, only a few minutes later he burst from his room wide-eyed with excitement. He clutched a dollar bill tightly in his fist and bounced around the room, “Dad! Dad! The fairy took my tooth and left a dollar!” I said, “I know son. I used my ninja skills and caught that thieving fairy leaving your room. I trapped her in a plastic bag and put her in the freezer.” Billy was even more excited and begged to see the captured fairy. I opened the freezer and gave him a quick glimpse of a large shrimp I had wrapped in plastic. Viewed through multiple layers of wrap, the shrimp kind of looked like a frozen fairy. I stressed the magnitude of the occasion, “Tooth fairies are magical, elusive little things with their wings and all. I think we are the first family ever to capture one!” Billy was hopping all over the house and it took me quite awhile to finally calm him down and get him to sleep. The next day I got an unexpected phone call at work. My son’s teacher wanted to talk to me about Billy, “Now what?” I thought. When I arrived at the school, Billy’s teacher met me at the door. Once we settled into her office, she explained she was worried about him. Earlier that day, Billy told his first grade class his father had killed the tooth fairy and had her in a plastic bag in the freezer. He was very convincing. Some little kids started to cry. I explained the previous night’s fairy drama to the teacher. I was chuckling—she was not. She looked at me as if I had a giant booger hanging out of a nostril. Despite the look, I could tell she was attracted to me so I told her no thanks, I already had a girlfriend. Her sputtering red face made me uncomfortable and I quickly left. Later I swore Billy to secrecy about our fairy hunting activities. For dinner that evening, we breaded and fried up a couple dozen fairies and ate them with cocktail sauce and fava beans.

The rest of us do “high school theater.” Lou does “theater.

She likes to use the word “realistically” which I come to realize is a rationale, an excuse, to not plan ahead because much of what she might want for herself, upon reflection does not seem realistic.

Cynicism is romanticism turned sour.

If you’re comfortable you’re doing something wrong - you have to be in it for the heart.

At one point when I was in the middle of the first season, I asked myself why I would want to watch a conservative Democrat destroy teachers’ unions and have joyless sex with a woman who looks like a very young teenager. I still had not answered the question when Claire pushed things to the next level in a scene so intensely creepy that it might count as the most revolting thing I have ever witnessed on television. A longtime member of the couple’s Secret Service security detail is dying of cancer, and Claire goes to visit him alone. On his deathbed, he reveals that he was always secretly in love with her and thought that Frank wasn’t good enough for her. Her response is almost incomprehensible in its cruelty—she mocks and taunts him for thinking he could ever attain a woman like her, and then puts her hand down his pants and begins to give him a handjob, all the while saying, in true perverse style, “This is what you wanted, right?” Surely Claire doesn’t have to emotionally destroy a man who is dying of cancer—and yet perhaps in a way she does, because she uses it as a way of convincing herself that Frank really is the right man for her. Not only could an average, hardworking, sentimental man never satisfy her, but she would destroy him. By contrast, Frank not only can take her abuse, but actively thrives on it, as she does on his. Few images of marriage as a true partnership of equals are as convincing as this constant power struggle between two perverse creeps. Claire is not the first wife in the “high-quality TV drama” genre to administer a humiliating handjob. In fact, she is not even the first wife to administer a humiliating handjob to a man who is dying of cancer. That distinction belongs to Skyler White of Breaking Bad, who does the honors in the show’s pilot. It is intended as a birthday treat for her husband Walt, who is presumably sexually deprived due to his wife’s advanced pregnancy, and so in contrast to Claire’s, it would count as a generous gesture if not for the fact that Skyler continues to work on her laptop the entire time, barely even acknowledging Walt’s presence in the room. In her own way, Skyler is performing her dominance just as much as Claire was with her cancer patient, but Skyler’s detachment from the act makes it somehow even creepier than Claire’s.

August Murder creates a fast-paced thriller about terrorism, murder, politics, and one man who doesn't believe the report of events surrounding his son's death in Puerto Rico, and who assembles a posse of lawyers and investigators to uncover the truth. The focus on political investigations and a web of intrigue and conspiracy, combined with a heavy dose of Puerto Rican politics and cultural insights, lends to a creation which serves to both entertain and enlighten. It takes a talented hand to wind nonfiction facts into a fictional mystery, grapple with a myriad of characters which prove compelling and recognizable in their own rights through the story line, and maintain a flow of action and drama that easily holds reader attention. August Mystery succeeds in all these aspects, and is a compelling saga of conflicting evidence and motivations for murder, crafting an especially astute eye to capturing Puerto Rican daily lives and experiences: "Mr. Miller, policemen in Puerto Rico don’t make a lot of money. The average salary for a police officer is around $30,000, about the same as the average salary for a teacher. For that kind of money, they risk their lives in dangerous places. They have to deal with young delinquents in the projects who may make $30,000 in one week, and who are much better armed than any policeman. It’s amazing that more of them are not taking money to look the other way or do worse." T. Miranda's ability to enlighten readers about the underlying culture, social issues, and political pressures in Puerto Rico contributes to an outstanding thriller especially recommended for modern readers who would gain a sense of the island's processes and peoples. D. Donovan, Senior Editor, Midwest Book Review

Volpe expands their worldview and shows them that struggle and suffering are universal, but so are hope and resilience.

He does not tell her how. He never does. It is the essential aspect of his genius as an educator. The world is full of people who cannot wait to tell you what they know. What animates Volpe is creating moments for his kids to figure it out for themselves. His ego, though not small, allows for great patience. Very few high school directors could be more versed in theater, more knowing about what the finished product should look like. But he lets his kids find their own way there. His

Jameson, the teacher who ran drama club, would call her name any minute to audition for the lead role! That

Maybe that kid was in the back of the ensemble and he wasn’t even good, or he was an abomination. I don’t care. He was onstage and he was having a ball, and I’m absolutely thrilled because I’ve taken that kid to a place he never imagined and may never be again.” •

Everything now has to be fully accountable,” Peter Plagens, a New York painter and art critic, told the online magazine Salon in a 2012 story on the declining status of the artistic classes in America. “An English department has to show it brings in enough money, that it holds its own with the business side. Public schools are held accountable in various bean-counting ways. The senator can point to the ‘pointy-headed professor’ teaching poetry and ask, ‘Is this doing any good? Can we measure this?’ It’s a culture now measured by quantities rather than qualities.” Jonathan Lethem, the novelist, lamented

In April 2012, The New York Times published a heart-wrenching essay by Claire Needell Hollander, a middle school English teacher in the New York City public schools. Under the headline “Teach the Books, Touch the Heart,” she began with an anecdote about teaching John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. As her class read the end together out loud in class, her “toughest boy,” she wrote, “wept a little, and so did I.” A girl in the class edged out of her chair to get a closer look and asked Hollander if she was crying. “I am,” she said, “and the funny thing is I’ve read it many times.” Hollander, a reading enrichment teacher, shaped her lessons around robust literature—her classes met in small groups and talked informally about what they had read. Her students did not “read from the expected perspective,” as she described it. They concluded (not unreasonably) that Holden Caulfield “was a punk, unfairly dismissive of parents who had given him every advantage.” One student read Lady Macbeth’s soliloquies as raps. Another, having been inspired by Of Mice and Men, went on to read The Grapes of Wrath on his own and told Hollander how amazed he was that “all these people hate each other, and they’re all white.” She knew that these classes were enhancing her students’ reading levels, their understanding of the world, their souls. But she had to stop offering them to all but her highest-achieving eighth-graders. Everyone else had to take instruction specifically targeted to boost their standardized test scores. Hollander felt she had no choice. Reading scores on standardized tests in her school had gone up in the years she maintained her reading group, but not consistently enough. “Until recently, given the students’ enthusiasm for the reading groups, I was able to play down that data,” she wrote. “But last year, for the first time since I can remember, our test scores declined in relation to comparable schools in the city. Because I play a leadership role in the English department, I felt increased pressure to bring this year’s scores up. All the teachers are increasing their number of test-preparation sessions and practice tests, so I have done the same, cutting two of my three classic book groups and replacing them with a test preparation tutorial program.” Instead of Steinbeck and Shakespeare, her students read “watered-down news articles or biographies, bastardized novels, memos or brochures.” They studied vocabulary words, drilled on how to write sentences, and practiced taking multiple-choice tests. The overall impact of such instruction, Hollander said, is to “bleed our English classes dry.” So

In high school, I developed a new love: acting. I went to a predominantly black and Latino school in Compton and, outside of television, this was my first true immersion in black culture. I had an inspiring drama teacher, a Jewish man who found the most amazing, hidden plays of color. There was On Striver’s Row, a play about an upper-middle-class black family in Harlem. Maricela de la Luz Lights the World, a fanciful and mystical Latino drama by José Rivera. And so much more. Every year for four years I was introduced to new diverse works, all while working with a multicultural cast. I only wish Hollywood could take a lesson from Compton. The

Classical education was only half the old system of European education--below it and above it there was the religious education that was common to the whole people, and the higher theological education that was peculiar to the clergy, who provided the majority of the teachers in both the other departments of education. Now the lowest level of this structure, which has been least studied and least regarded, was the most important of them all. It is true that it differed considerably in different parts of Europe, but for the religious rather than material reasons. In Protestant Europe it was founded on the Bible and the catechism, whereas in Catholic Europe it was based on the liturgy and on religious art and drama and mime, which made the Church the school of the people. But in either case it provided a system of common beliefs and moral standards, as well as the archetypal patterns of world history and sacred story which formed the background of their spiritual world.

One part of the study looked specifically at the impact on students involved in theater. Between ninth and twelfth grades, their reading levels increased at a rate of 20 percent more than a cohort of similar students—as measured by academic ability and socioeconomics—who were not getting arts education. The authors theorized that the theater students benefited by spending time “reading and learning lines as actors, and possibly reading to carry out research about characters and their settings.” In 2011, the President’s Committee

some ways, this is the most difficult aspect of the role; it demands that Mariela portray a wealthy, professional, and mature woman, accustomed to control and decorous behavior, whose world has just been upended by her own child. One of Volpe’s favorite things

There are amazing stories of people who made it from the bottom to the top. But what happens on average? What is the chance of somebody from the bottom making it to the middle or somebody from the top who doesn’t work going down? In terms of basic statistics, the U.S. has become less a land of opportunity than other advanced industrial countries . . . All markets are shaped by laws and regulations, and unfortunately, our laws and regulations are shaped in order to create more inequality and less opportunity.

series The March of Time visited

I’m sorry, but this is musical theater, guys. Okay? You’ve just got to do it all.

Even at this point, say Ressler and others, these potential hosts of monsters can be turned around through the (often unintentional) intervention of people who show kindness, support, or even just interest. I can say from experience that it doesn’t take much. Ressler’s theories on the childhoods of the worst killers in America have an unlikely ideological supporter, psychiatrist and child-advocate Alice Miller. Her emotionally evocative books (including The Drama Of The Gifted Child and The Untouched Key) make clear that if a child has some effective human contact at particularly significant periods, some recognition of his worth and value, some “witness” to his experience, this can make an extraordinary difference. I have learned that the kindness of a teacher, a coach, a policeman, a neighbor, the parent of a friend, is never wasted. These moments are likely to pass with neither the child nor the adult fully knowing the significance of the contribution. No ceremony attaches to the moment that a child sees his own worth reflected in the eyes of an encouraging adult. Though nothing apparent marks the occasion, inside that child a new view of self might take hold. He is not just a person deserving of neglect or violence, not just a person who is a burden to the sad adults in his life, not just a child who fails to solve his family’s problems, who fails to rescue them from pain or madness or addiction or poverty or unhappiness. No, this child might be someone else, someone whose appearance before this one adult revealed specialness or lovability, or value. This value might be revealed through appreciation of a child’s artistic talent, physical ability, humor, courage, patience, curiosity, scholarly skills, creativity, resourcefulness, responsibility, energy, or any of the many attributes that children bring us in such abundance. I had a fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Conway, who fought monsters in me. He showed kindness and recognized some talent in me at just the period when violence was consuming my family. He gave me some alternative designs for self-image, not just the one children logically deduce from mistreatment (“If this is how I am treated, then this is the treatment I am worthy of”). It might literally be a matter of a few hours with a person whose kindness reconnects the child to an earlier experience of self, a self that was loved and valued and encouraged.

Dear Ms Brusso, I can only imagine how difficult yesterday was for you. I wanted to again convey my sympathy for you and your family on the terrible loss of Julia. Please know that in the short time we knew her we all found her to be an intelligent and lovely young woman. I hesitate to give you this information but my wife insisted I text you. She feels that, as a mother of daughters herself, she understands your desire to know all that you can about your daughter’s life. This may mean nothing at all but I did see Julia with an older man over lunch one day. It wasn’t on a day she was working for us, but rather a Sunday. She was in the city for lunch with the man and my wife and I happened to run into her near the restaurant where we were meeting friends. I assumed the man was her father but Julia introduced him to us as her former high-school drama teacher. I’m sure it was just a friendly visit but I thought I would let you know about it. Best wishes, Colin Rider I knew it, I knew it, I think, feeling fury course through my body. I had been right all along.

David Attenborough searches through the feral with the tamed protocols of an insightful teacher. He flaunts his chutzpah with the endorsed temerity of ever-lingering ecstasies of the determined. His voice is ruggedly baritone and is steeped on visages from the drama of the exsanguinated. Step into the wild today and be with David, and with such delicate intricacies patterned around the glitz of fossilized paws and spoors.

I’ve ruined things for you,” I said, eyes hot and tears threatening to fall. “I fucked up and now you’ll end up with a record. You’ll never have your dream because of me. I’m so sorry.” Wrapping me in his strong arms, Nick sighed. “I punched him and made the first move. It’s not your fault.” “You had to punch him. He was calling me names and you’re my man.” Nick smiled down at me. “Yeah, I couldn’t let him trash my girl.” “I should have just ignored him or been polite.” “I love you enough to know ignoring him and doing the polite shit was never happening. It’s not your way and I don’t want you to pretend. Maybe other people need that from you, but I love all of you even the crazy temperamental parts.” “I ruined your dream though.” “I’ll get a new dream.” My heart broke at how easily Nick accepted his lost dream. “You wanted that one so bad.” “I want you more.” “Maybe we can run. I have money. Let’s run and hide. You’re giving up your dream. I can give up my home, so we’ll be even.” Nick grinned then looked behind me. “This is my home now too and I’m not giving it up.” Turning to follow Nick’s gaze, I saw my parents approaching. Pop tossed his cigarette on the ground then laughed. “I always figured Sawyer would be the one to attack a cop,” he said as Mom smiled. “He called me a bitch and Nick punched him.” “Seems fair.” “Then he was going to arrest Nick, so I had to do something.” “I can see that,” Pop said, hugging me. “Did he rough you two up?” “No. Well, his face might have hurt Nick’s fist.” “I’m fine,” Nick said, giving me an amused look. “Pop,” I mumbled, panicking despite attempts to find the situation funny. “Dickhead is going to ruin Nick’s future as a teacher. You have to do something.” My pop grinned at Mom then shook his head. “All this drama is Coop’s problem now. I’m retired.” Frowning, I wanted Pop to wave his hand and fix things like he normally did. Instead, he expected me and my brothers to behave like adults. Had he never met us? “It’ll be fine,” Nick said, lacing his finger in the loop of my shorts and tugging back against him. “Darling can file charges if he wants, but he’ll put a target on himself too. It’s his choice.” My dad smiled and nodded while Mom threw a ball at the dogs. “Nick ain’t wrong. Dickhead might have a big mouth and show off, but he knows his place. He went to school with your brothers and understands what happens when the family feels threatened.” “Okay,” I said, still worried. “I can’t believe I lost my temper like that.” Mom and Pop laughed first then Nick started up. I just rolled my eyes.

Most Americans—professing Christians—for a fairly long time thought that slavery was simply “where people are these days.” Is it really loving to set aside the truth about sin and judgment and even to downplay the person and work of Christ as its answer simply because these are not the questions that are being asked by unbelievers? Imagine our elementary school teachers deciding that they will no longer teach the alphabet because the children aren’t interested in learning it.

You’ll like Drama,” Alex promised a couple of hours later. We were walking across a wide swath of green lawn that separated the school’s Little Theater from the main classroom building. “Mr. Barnes, the teacher, is great. He makes the whole thing really interesting and fun. Even the performing part isn’t too humiliating.” “Gee, that’s a relief.

This drama was based on the true story of Constance Jeanne Sammarco, who, in 2012, was a 62-year-old, senior Caucasian teacher who was employed at Fairmont Heights High School, a 99% African American public school. She was charged with teacher incompetence by her Principal, Nakia Nicholson, who was an African American, and took leadership of the school when she was 35- years- old. In 2014, the 99% African American School Board of Prince George’s County in Maryland, officially fired Constance Jeanne Sammarco, an advanced placement teacher, and declared her an incompetent teacher.

High school girls are high maintenance. They’re full of drama. They talk about fucking straighteners and parties for hours. The hot ones make you go to Jennifer Lawrence movies. No. There’s nothing fun about high school girls.

All over the world there are students, teachers and parents that face serious challenges every day. They need help with real problems that have life-altering consequences—and a group of intelligent professionals brought together to advise and educate stakeholders in need of help ought to be able to do so without behaving like a middle school drama queen.

Challenging students threaten staff unity. They expose our differences, often cultural and familial, in the areas of discipline and respect for institutions and traditional authority. These challenging students become our fears of the future. They are representing us in our own dramas regarding parents, siblings, teachers, and judges. This is why a student may evoke compassion and engagement in some teachers, yet other teachers may find him irritating and disrespectful.

my early youth, I remember it as an Austrian way of life. Those traditions stayed on and were nurtured in the home as if Romania was only an incidental whim of history. Though the theater changed into the Romanian National Theater, which aimed to propagate Romanian literature and drama, yet all this made a difference only to the young, who learned the new language in school and became gradually knowledgeable of Romanian culture. The administrators, officers and teachers who had been sent from the "Old Kingdom" to make the regime work, they became a new intelligentsia and started to effect a gradual changeover from a German to a Romanian life style.

Friday afternoon without warning. It doesn’t help that I almost can’t look directly at Ren for more than five seconds; it’s like looking into the sun. Besides all that, he’s the head drama teacher at Piedmont, and I’m just a newly hired English teacher—and yes, okay, so we’ve been ducking into supply closets for make-out sessions for a few months now, and I’ve met his friends, and I see him every weekend for fabulous sex—but I’m certainly not at his level, if you know what I mean. If he’s a ten, I’m probably a seven on my very best day, and even then only if my straight iron doesn’t cause a fuse to blow. “No, I mean it,” he says. “I want us to get married. Why are you so surprised?

The life which [Jesus] now lives in the Gospels is simply the old life lived over and over again. And in that life we have no place; in that life we are spectators, not actors. The life in which Jesus lives in the Gospels is after all, for us, but the spurious life of the stage. We sit silent in the playhouse and watch the absorbing Gospel drama of forgiveness and healing and love and courage and high endeavor; in rapt attention, we follow the fortunes of those who came to Jesus laboring and heavy laden and found rest. For a time, our own troubles are forgotten. But suddenly the curtain falls, with the closing of the book, and out we go again into the cold humdrum of our own lives… with our own problems and our own misery, and our own sin, And still seeking our own Savior. Let us not deceive ourselves, A Jewish teacher of the first century can never satisfy the longing of our souls. Clothe Him with all the art of modern research, throw upon Him… modern sentimentality; and despite it all, common sense will come to its rights again, and for our brief hour of self-deception - as through we had been with Jesus - will wreak upon us the revenge of hopeless disillusionment.

Lewis often told his students that living itself could be an art form. So it made sense that his life, as their teacher, would be a demonstration of this principle. If this was Act One, Lewis still had control. He could still direct his own story. What happened after intermission would be in nature and God's hands, if there was a god. And if there wasn't, Lewis would blame life, the chaos, the living drama.

Ms. Davenport loves being in on student drama. She calls it having her finger on the pulse, but really, she’s just a gossip. If you give her an opening, she’ll burrow in for as much dirt as she can.

I think everybody should have a job, and the Government should see that they get a job. That WPA deal, that was a darn good idea. I was one of the lucky guys that didn’t need it, but this is what I believe. Everybody should work, but do what they want. I don’t mean this as a communist thing, maybe it’s socialism, I don’t know. Like I’m a musician. Just pay me to do concerts for nothin’. Let people listen for nothing. The Government should work something out so people have something to do. There are so many things to be done in these cities. You feel much better if you’re workin’ instead of gettin’ a handout. You’ll get self-respect, which is number one. Drama, dancing schools, musicians. . .. You could give guys like me jobs as teachers, to teach jazz. So you perpetuate what I’ve learned in my lifetime. You could give that to some younger person and let them carry on, make their own choice, but at least they’d have the background. It’s like studying history. It’s like being part of history. . . .

The next hurdle is the recognition that we have many deeply ingrained habit patterns that take time—a lot of time—to change. At first the typical neophyte is sure that he or she has a tremendous capacity and will grow more quickly than others. Then the sobering realization dawns that the degree of self-transformation is equal to the effort made. If neophytes have persisted thus far, they will almost inevitably encounter doubt (samshaya)—doubt about their own capacity; doubt about their teacher; doubt about the efficacy of the teaching. It is not far from the truth to say that practitioners who do not befriend doubt are bound to become self-deluded. If there really is no doubt or self-delusion, then they are quite simply enlightened. Another obstacle, not often identified, is the fact that practitioners’ karmic tendencies (read unconscious or semiconscious habit patterns) are magnified because awareness is enhanced through regular practice. This can be likened to a bright searchlight shining deep into the well of the mind. In the depth of the unconscious reside all kinds of unpleasant realities that get flushed out by steady application to self-inspection and self-understanding. At times, the unconscious materials that drift into the conscious mind seem overwhelming, and then it becomes clear that spiritual life is a form of brinkmanship. The Indic tradition speaks of the razor-edged path. Gradually spiritual practitioners learn to overcome their intrinsic materialism (i.e., constantly thinking in terms of the visible reality only). There is a progressive loosening of the ego knot or “self-contraction” (ātma-samkoca) by which the ordinary individual anxiously seeks to hold everything together. Spiritual practitioners learn to be humorous about everything, including themselves. Life is seen from a new perspective: as a strange play in which we are willy-nilly involved and which we can either misunderstand and suffer or understand and transcend even while being fully engaged in its drama. Practitioners must prevail over spiritual materialism—the false sense of accumulating “higher” experiences. They can realize inner freedom only to the extent that even the goal of liberation is renounced. Liberation, or enlightenment, is not a thing to be attained or acquired. It is living in the moment from the most profound understanding and without egoic attachment to anything. Those who parade their extraordinary spiritual accomplishments in front of others are possibly the least illumined of all. They merely substitute material commodities for “spiritual” merchandise. The Indic heritage knows of many adepts who after years of intense practice achieved a high state of consciousness or astounding paranormal ability only to promptly plunge from grace. The higher the adept’s elevation, the steeper the drop into oblivion and misery. Therefore the authorities of Yoga ever admonish practitioners to be circumspect, to keep their attainments to themselves, to focus on the cultivation of moral integrity, understanding, self-transcendence, and not least service to others.

Jake pulls out the phone. The buzzing sound is a text from Kenny. Where are you? English classroom, Jake advises.  North side, right? Right. Stay there. Lock the door. Tell the teacher. Someone has a gun and is shooting people on the south side. Shit! Seriously?

In the summer of 1971, she told her drama teacher that she was in love with him, a declaration she reiterated in letters to several friends at the time. “She told me that she wanted to marry me,” Ed said, though she added that this would, of course, have to occur at some point in the future. “She was very matter of fact about it.” Illiano knew that Pat had several boyfriends, none of whom her father approved of. He dismissed her talk as adolescent prattle. All the same, he was strangely taken with the girl. He found himself paying more attention to Pat than might have been considered appropriate in a male-female teacher-student relationship. They met in innocent social situations, such as when group members would adjourn to a local diner after workshop. Knowing that she now loathed calling her father for a ride home, Ed began driving her, even though he lived in the opposite direction. And sometimes, when Pat wanted to talk things over, they began taking the long way home, and then even pulling over to sit and talk. It was just talk.

to be rescheduled. I’m already feeling like a bad mom when her teacher starts our conversation by asking, ‘Did you know Lucy has trouble reading?’ Kev’s not here, of course. He never comes to meetings like these. ‘What do you mean by trouble?’ Mrs. Bryant puts on reading glasses and takes Lucy’s test, pinched between two fingers, like it’s Exhibit A from some courtroom drama. ‘According to the tests I’ve done this year,’ she informs me in a cool tone, ‘Lucy has the reading level of a seven-year-old, if that.’ The ‘if that’ catches me on the raw. She sounds so accusing, so judgmental. ‘You weren’t aware of this, Mrs. McCleary?’ ‘No.’ My jaw is tight, my hands clenched in my lap. Mrs. Bryant is one of those stern, iron-haired teachers who looks down on pretty much anyone, at least anyone she suspects is stupid. Maybe she knows I didn’t finish high school, never mind that I have my GED now. And then there’s Kev too, with his straight

Newspapers, politicians, teachers, television dramas and Thomas Hardy novels had all taught me that getting pregnant was what stupid, careless, or conniving women did. It was what mad women did to trap men, what poor women did to get council houses, what stupid women did because they Hadn't Known Better. Getting pregnant was something selfish, disgusting, or unfair that ruined men's lives, curtailed their youth and was the woman's fault entirely.

The crucial significance of bonding has only recently been proved scientifically. One hopes that it will soon be taken into account in practice, not only in a few select maternity hospitals but in larger hospitals as well, so that everyone will benefit from it. A woman who has experienced bonding with her child will be in less danger of mistreating him and will be in a better position to protect him from mistreatment by the father and other caregivers, such as teachers and babysitters.

Along the way, he published a novel about the music business with the title Sweetie Baby Cookie Honey.

Are you sure you want this, Dennis?” asked Raj. “Vogue is mainly read by ladies, and your drama teacher Mr Howerd.

The drama hollow was to be avoided. These were hard little bastards, twelve-, thirteen-year-old chain-smokers; they didn't give a shit. They really didn't give a shit–your health, their health, teachers, parents, police–whatever. Smoking was their answer to the universe, their 42, their raisin d'être . . . . One fag could be split in myriad ways. It worked like this: someone (whoever had actually bought a pack of fags) lights up. Someone shouts "halves." At the halfway point the fag is passed over. As soon as it reaches the second person we hear "thirds," then "saves" (which is half a third), then "butt!," Then, if the day is cold and the need for a fag overwhelming, "last toke!" But last toke is only for the desperate; it is beyond the perforation, beyond the brand name of the cigarette, beyond what could reasonably be described as the butt. Last toke is the yellowing fabric of the roach, containing the stuff that is less than tobacco, the stuff that collects in the lungs like a time bomb, destroys the immune system, and brings permanent, sniffling, nasal flu. The stuff that turns white teeth yellow.

Our fourth chakra is our heart chakra that gives pure love, compassion, good parent quality, self-confidence and detachment. Our spirit is most importantly in our heart, and the spirit is nothing but love. Its ruling planet is Venus, which represents the signs of Taurus and Libra as love, beauty, art and rule. A Venus which works well creates harmony and beauty wherever it is. It makes you feel nice to people. Strong Venus in a birth chart adds significant beauty to a male. The uniqueness stretches out from a person's inner nature and focuses on a person's behavior and attitude. Benevolence and sweetness encourage us to create positive emotions in people and help us transform them. When our heart opens, we become more connected with our subconscious. The spirit of pure love that is ignited in our heart naturally extends to our surroundings and also sparks similar emotions among the people around us. •       The Vishuddhi is called the fifth Chakra. This chakra located in our throat area helps us to feel that we are part and parcel of the whole. When this chakra is open we feel that we are a part of the whole. When this chakra is open, we experience the sensation of being one with the universe, with nature and with other humans. Saturn is the ruling planet for that center of energy. Saturn also rules the Capricorn and Aquarius signs. In our birth chart difficult aspects of Saturn make us feel lonely in life. Saturn is something of a disciplined teacher. Saturn's position in our birth chart offers us life field checks and lets us develop our shortcomings. It reveals the human character parts which need to be completed. It sometimes limits, creates hurdles and makes initiatives useless. Saturn is doing this so we are learning the lesson it is trying to teach. Once we learn our limitations and discover them, Saturn gives us stability, robustness and detachment. The fifth chakra also governs the ability within us to discern between right and wrong. During moments that Saturn is questioning us, with the aid of this chakra, we will use our power of judgment to realize what is right and wrong. This center of energy also gives us a state of witness. This allows us to enjoy life while playing our role and as a drama experience all the tragedy and difficulties. In this game the earth, the whole universe and planets play a role and put it on stage. Saturn creates a pessimistic personality when functioning badly, who cannot see the good things in life and feels sorry for himself.

As I was saying,” Ashlynn said loudly, “your Drama Club teacher asked me to do an acting exercise with you.” “Excuse me!” Jazmine raised her hand. “Excuse me!” “Yes?” Ashlynn looked over our way. I scrunched down again. “We’re not all Drama Club students,” Jazmine said. “Many of us have an important mathletes competition. Perhaps our time would be better served if we left now to go study.” Jazmine started to stand up. “Sit down, Ms. James!” Mrs. Burkle’s voice boomed. “This cultural experience is valuable for all Geckos. You will remain.” Jazmine sighed and sat back down. “Ha-ha,” Sydney sang under her breath. “I’ll share a theater exercise I learned in my exclusive acting class with world-renowned acting coach Harriet Greenspan,” Ashlynn said. “Hm, I will need some volunteers to assist me.” I could not have slumped down any farther without being under my seat. “First, the girl who already volunteered,” Ashlynn said. She pointed at Jazmine. “What?” Jazmine sputtered. “I didn’t volunteer.

I keep pretending to be all of those images, and from years and years of practice, I become a great actor. If I have a broken heart, I tell myself, “It doesn’t hurt. I don’t care.” I am lying. I am pretending. I could almost win an Academy Award for my performance. What a character, what a drama! And I could say that the drama of my life begins when I agree that I am not good enough — when I hear my teachers, my family, the television tell me, “Miguel, you have to be this way,” but I am not.

Bondage and liberation is another important issue that Kashmir Shaivism has clarified in a unique manner. Most of the other schools of Indian philosophy assert that all beings are responsible for their own misery and can only attain liberation through their own efforts. But Kashmir Shaivism, while advocating personal effort for the attainment of freedom from limitation, finds the basic source of both bondage and liberation in the divine creative expression of God. In this philosophy, the world and our lives are often described as a divine drama or play in which Paramasiva is the sole producer, director, and cast of characters. He is everything wrapped up in one. It is He who, in the initial parts of His divine play, obscures His divinity and purity, appears as an ordinary person with limitations, and becomes progressively denser and more ignorant as a result. But in the final part of this play, He bestows His divine grace on the person He appears to be. This person then turns away from misery, becomes interested in spiritual philosophy, comes into contact with a teacher, receives initiation into spiritual practices (sadhana), attains correct knowledge of the theoretical principles of absolute non-dualism, practices yoga, and develops an intense devotion for the Lord. Finally this person recognizes that he is none other than the Lord Himself. — B. N. Pandit, Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism (3rd ed., 2008), p. xxii

Paul suffered and struggled mightily in the service of his faith. Perhaps you could argue that he simply wasn’t the best example after which to model our own behavior. What if we look at the ultimate example of a Christian teacher and expositor, Christ Himself? Surely then we’ll see how to handle this unappealing message of a crucified Savior whom only the dregs of society preached. Surely at last we’ll see a glimmer of success. But by worldly standards, when Jesus began preaching His own gospel in His own hometown, He was an even more spectacular failure than Paul! This episode in Jesus’ life is one of the most gripping and powerful portions of the Bible. His words in Scripture capture the shock and emotion of the moment, and they still stun us with their power and their force. The riveting drama begins in Luke 4, verses 16 through 21: So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Imagine going to church next Sunday, expecting to hear your pastor preaching, and having the Lord Jesus Christ appear in person to tell you that He had come to fulfill all the prophecies of His second coming—all the prophecies of the glory of His kingdom of salvation on earth! Imagine that you had gone that morning, and Jesus was standing in the pulpit to tell you that the time was now for the fulfillment of all divine promises connected to His return. Well, that’s something like what the Jews in the Nazareth synagogue experienced that day. They had attended that synagogue all their lives, and they had heard reading after reading of the Torah, the Law, and the Haftarah, the prophets, and sermon after sermon on Sabbath after Sabbath throughout their lifetimes. They had heard much teaching about the Messiah, and they had been reading many Scriptures about His coming and kingdom. But all of a sudden, on this Sabbath in the year A.D. 28, in an obscure synagogue in a nothing blue-collar town called Nazareth, He was there!

I was studying at Besant Girls’ School at Mangalore. The teachers were also training us in various extracurricular activities. Some of us friends were in the dance and drama training class. Shivarama Karanth was our dance teacher! The appointed day for staging some play was approaching. We were rehearsing hard for the day. That was not the first time I had seen Karanth. Many a time I had been the target of his short temper during our drama rehearsals. I had also argued back with him more than any other student in the class. On this day he had called all the girls to help him in making the costumes and jewellery needed for the play. Lots of gold and silver foils, coloured crepe papers and beads were spread out before him. With his nimble fingers literally dancing, Karanth wielded the scissors to cut out papers and foil, sticking them to create crowns, waistbands, armbands and such other costumes. He was so fast and so deft! I was mesmerised by those artistic hands. In the past, I had argued as well as chatted with him happily, along with my friends, without feeling such an emotion. But this was a very decisive, strange moment in my life. Until then I did not know what I really wanted to possess in my life … On that day, at that moment, I felt I had to possess those magical hands, forever. A strong desire filled my heart to make those hands exclusively mine. Those magical hands began to haunt me day and night after that moment. Being a girl, the only way I could possess them was to marry the man. Traditionally, a girl’s mother is the conduit to carry a daughter’s desires to her father. I wasn’t that fortunate: I had already lost my mother. How I wished my mother were alive! After brooding over my dilemma for two days, I could see no other option than boldly opening my heart to my father.