it's never someone you know, right?

i recently learned that my seventh grade english teacher is serving a five-year prison term for molestation of a former student. i was shocked. i loved that teacher. but then again, maybe i shouldn't be shocked? i hear that teachers exposed to be sex offenders were often the ones that everyone liked.

after reading several newspaper articles about the ordeal, i wanted to write him a letter. i'm sure he's gotten plenty of letters telling him what a rotten person he is, but i wanted to write a different letter. i wanted to tell him that whatever his failings and wrongdoings, he influenced me for the better. i haven't found out how to write to him yet, but in the meantime i stumbled across a facebook group dedicated to his arrest and court case. i wrote the following on the wall:

so, I may be the only one who feels this way...but here goes:

he pled guilty and was convicted. i don't have any doubts about what he did. it scares me that i was in his 7th grade english class at frost in 1998 (around the same time that the first offense happened). HOWEVER, i personally owe a lot to him. i gained a lot of appreciation for the arts because of his influence as a teacher. i know and love jim morrison (of the doors) and edgar allen poe because of mr. ballmann.

he did some really sick and wrong things. and he hurt people in ways that can't ever be made fully right. the good he did does not in any way undo the bad he did. BUT the converse is also true: the bad he did does not in any way undo the good he did.

i hope that both mr. ballmann and the victims can heal from this awful experience, and that there is a bright future for all parties. and may you read this and in your own way forgive the man as well.

雑草

　雑草が好き

　自然の声が聞こえる

　くそったれ

これは、２ヶ月前ブログに書いた詩の翻訳だ。前の投稿にオリジナルの「i like weeds　they must be nature's way of saying　fuck you」と環境について書いたが、今回は詩だけを訳しようと思った。

just some thoughts

in combining blogs, i want to actually repost a poem i wrote for "tanuki poetry" a few months ago:

i like weeds

they must be nature's way of saying

fuck you

one day as i was walking home from the bus stop i noticed all the weeds growing between the cracks in the pavement. concrete and glass dominate the landscape. a few token trees are planted on grass islands. but nature still muscles its way through the cracks, frustrating mr. has-the-best-lawn-in-the-neighborhood.

(warning: i'm about to wax poetic) people talk of pioneers "making the desert bloom". what do i see? i see stems of steel, flowers fluorescent. i watch sprinklers flood the fields.

nature, let's be friends. i won't stamp out your weeds.

U•N•I•T•E

i have too many blogs, so i'm now posting everything on this new unified "tanuki talk" blog. the old ones (http://mytgissues.blogspot.com and http://thoughtpoetry.blogspot.com) are still up, but i won't be adding anything there anymore.

i will be adding an intro page in japanese and english.

今から、自分が書く三つのブログを一つにする。「My TG Issues」、「tanuki poetry」、「tanuki fix」はこの新しい「tanuki talk」というブログになっている。英語も使われるけど、言語によって性格が少し変わるから、翻訳はしない。