Perhaps it never ends.

This morning, I made it to the bottom floor and realized that I had forgotten something in the apartment. On my way back up, I found myself in the elevator with the Honolulu Advertiser guy. He, who when last we met thought my "Hawaii" shirt said "Harvard," was nice enough to give me a free copy of the Sunday paper. When I put it on my bed to look through and find the comics, the Nation section fell open and what do I see but the faces of kids from my C and G period classes, all smiles and looking funny in a four-color kind of way. Everywhere you go, there's a grad!

This has been a nice lazy-day Sunday. After church I went home, had some Subway, and ended up taking a serious nap. No swimming today, though I'll get back to it tomorrow. Spent some quality time flipping channels, which reminded me that sometimes television doesn't have all of the answers. Now I'm watching the end of the recent Democratic Candidate debate. It's all frustrating to me, politics. But I want to be involved, to at least know the faces and the key points. The Republican candidates are all very "slick," which is interesting to me.

No school tomorrow, which is nice. I still have at least one or two things to do before the semester is a total wrap. That's what Tuesday is for.

The school's graduation commenced this afternoon. It was my first time to have a class graduate that I actually taught, which I find makes a huge difference. Somewhere along the way, I lost my Master's tassle. Thankfully, I was able to borrow a friend's and be "in dress code." What's funny is that a kid or two really thought it was cool that the faculty got all fancied up in their caps and gowns. I suppose it had a bit of a Hogwarts feel.

It was good seeing the kids, most of whom I had not seen since last week. I really enjoyed "making the rounds" before the ceremony began. Got to catch up with a couple of kids that I'm really going to miss.

The ceremony went well. All of the student speeches went well. There was a good balance of humor, sentimentality, and challenge in them. The main speaker did an amazing job. This class really inspires anecdotal stuff, more than any class I remember since I've been here. It was great watching the kids walk across stage and receive awards and have their "thank you" messages read aloud. And then, for pretty much the first time since I started teaching, I got to enjoy the whole "mingle outside as the students get all kinds of leis" thing. Got to speak to the kids again, shake hands, give hugs, take pictures. I even got a few leis myself, which was cool. Got invited to a Doctor Who viewing party, which I think is funny (especially since I just finished season two last night). Then, when it was all over, it was time for the mostly annual "faculty dinner," which is different all of the time depending on who is advising and who has left. Sometimes it's almost a dozen, sometimes it's two, tonight it was seven.

So it's all over except the final faculty meeting and luncheon. Even shaved my beard tonight. I had planned on doing it over spring break, but decided to go on and keep it through the end of the school year. Over and done now, though.

Never thought I'd connect with a bunch of kids twelve years my junior. But I did. And that's a cool thing. I'm really glad that it happened.

Not sure you'd heard this yet, but word is that the gates of Hell were recently opened. According to the news, "history's worst villains" have escaped and there's chance that Jack the Ripper is coming after each of us. . .

On top of that, seems like there's a new wireless bra that allows its wearer to access the internet.

And then there's the man who just hang glided into heaven.

At least that's what this week's issue of the Weekly World News (the world's only reliable newspaper) had to say to me this morning at the store before my church council meeting. I was so taken aback by it (as it is both hilarious and disturbing) that I had to buy the thing. Anything that gets the imagination going, eh?

I wasn't kidding when I said that this past Sunday felt like a "finishing" moment for me: in so much as you can try to divide time and compartmentalize life, which doesn't work very well. Life, I feel, is really just a series of dangling plot threads that keep popping up. Still and all, last Sunday was a moment for me, and some of the "moments" of this week have been like after-shocks. I've gotten to see some seniors a few times. One was out last night, which was interesting. Twice this week I saw speech-making students as they were working on their own parting words to their classmates (tomorrow's graduation should be interesting). I got to write one final message to the kids yesterday, the results of which I will never know.

I was trying to explain to a friend tonight this sense I have of "finishing" and the need to "begin again." To say that I have no new tricks to share is a bit misleading: I don't think anything I've done has been a "trick" in any proper sense of the word. But I do feel the need to do something. . . not reinvent myself, though that phrase has come to mind. I think this summer will be about revisiting some things that have shaped me. Life's not just about dangling plot lines, I think. A lot of it comes down to losing and finding yourself and being reminded of who you are at the heart of things. It's a constant rediscovery, I think, and it's a good thing. Even listening to friends talk recently has reminded me of how we are who we are and what it means to be who we are. Or something like that.

So tomorrow is graduation. It will be a good day, I believe. And even though there will always be a lingering (and a good lingering, I hope), the bulk of the what is over and done. Threading in and out, I suppose. And what becomes of what is next? That's an exciting thing to imagine!

Caught this one at the end of a season two episode of the new Doctor Who series. . .

“What I wanted to say is . . . you know, when you’re a kid, they tell you it’s all grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid, and that’s it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It’s so much darker and so much madder. And so much better.”

We've had this "secret project" going on at school this week that I've gotten to work on a little bit at a time. This morning I wrapped up my part in it by finding myself revisiting the first "important book" that I read here in Hawaii: Dave Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity!. And I ran across this quote that I love and would like to share:

I believe in fact, and in the plain truth told wholly-- that the truth retold can be a net thrown around life at a certain time and place, encompassing all within, and that people can go out there, live as actors, work within their staging ground, do so with a soft heart; I want others to go out in the world with an idea, with intentions and means, and come back with a story about how their actions affected the world and how they themselves were shaped by the results. . . there's nothing to be gained from passive observance, the simple documenting of conditions, because, at its core, it sets a bad example. Every time something is observed and not fixed, or when one has a chance to give in some way and does not, there is a lie being told, the same lie we all know by heart but which needn't be reiterated. Friends, I urge you to find us hopeful. I urge you to find that we tried something, knowing nothing of the results. . . there is a chance that everything we did was incorrect, but stasis is itself criminal for those with the means to move, and the means to weave communion between people.

That, Charlie Brown, is a bit of what it's all about.

While flipping through this week's TIME magazine, I ran across an obituary that surprised me and made me sad. Turns out Lloyd Alexander, writer of my third favorite fantasy series, passed away on May 17. Not sure how I missed it, but it makes me sad nonetheless.

I saw The Black Cauldron movie sometime while growing up: probably back in elementary school when they showed Disney movies in the "little theater." I'm not sure how I came across the series of books that the movie was based on. It happened in Fort Worth, of this I am sure. I remember buying a good number of the five book Prydain series at Half-Price Books. The first three books were pretty good. The fourth book, Taran Wanderer totally blew me away: the story of an assistant pig-keeper and his many friends as they fight evil and learn about the world around them. In that fourth book, Taran learns an awful lot about himself in an amazing way. The last book, The High King crescendoed on a Return of the King level. In fact, in my humble opinion, the Prydain series is the perfect link between The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. The humor is there. The innocence is there. And the sadness of a world passing is there as well.

I do not want to do Lloyd any disservice by saying that his work is in any way inferior to Tolkien or Lewis. His recasting of Welsh myth is equally brilliant and amazingly accessible to the young reader (and to to not-so-young adult reader like me. I'm sad to see him gone. And I'm sad it took me more than a week to find out.