Advanced Placement

Angel in the House

Google Images

A woman's place is in the home is where the heart is a lonely hunter.

As for the illustration, I'm as surprised as you are . . .

Aussie Home

Downside Upside Down

Google Images

Manly Manners

Don't leave your manners on the doorstep. Track them into the house!

Deva Hupaylo in the News: "1976 Salem graduate speaks to Salem students"

Deva Hupaylo Speaking to Salem Students
Area Wide News
Photo by A.K. Barnes

My long-time Ozark friend Deva Hupaylo is again in the news, the local news this time. Staff writer A.K. Barnes reporting for the Area Wide News, writes of her by noting that a "1976 Salem graduate speaks to Salem students" (April 15, 2015):

Salem Graduate Deva Hupaylo visited her alma mater April 8 to visit with students about her successful career with the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Netherlands. Hupaylo's organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013.

Hupaylo graduated first in her class in 1976. She was involved in any activity she could be. She involved herself in journalism, band, home economics, theatre, chess, . . . cheerleading and many more. "My class was very highly motivated and [as for] the things that weren't available, we asked for them," Hupaylo said. She noted that organizations such as drafting class, chess club and golf were nonexistent until her class made arrangements for these. "We took advantage of the opportunities that were available to us and asked for more sometimes," she said.

Hupaylo told students that just because they live in a small town . . . does not mean that there are not opportunities. She told them that there are plenty of opportunities if you look for them. She encouraged students to learn as much as they can while they are still young. She referred students to use a free online learning site to take online classes. The site is Coursera and it offers free online learning in endless fields of study. "My encouragement here is that you take advantage of all the opportunities that you have and if you don't see what you want, ask for it," Hupaylo said.

Deva's right that her class was highly motivated, far more so than my class was even though we were a year above hers, and Deva was the most motivated of them all. I recall her being so active that I scarcely saw her! She was very organized, however, and managed to keep everything under control.

That same skill at management has been honed to perfection in her career, and she has developed patience to match, two characteristics that have led to her success:

When asked what she is most proud of in her career Hupaylo said, "Getting the United States and Iran to agree on a decision concerning a certain aspect of the Chemical Weapons Convention. At that time the US and Iran were not agreeing on anything. So I was very happy to have gotten the US and Iran to agree on this decision. My objective when I came to this company was to be trusted by some of the significant states parties . . . not only [by] the US. I had to work very hard to gain the credibility with them. I've gotten many agreements with states parties that I have been proud of, they were possible because of the trust I earned. After a while the other parties learned I wasn't working for the U.S. I was working for everyone."

After closing, Hupaylo stayed with the seniors to encourage them to anticipate. Success has to be planned. Make a plan and take steps to accomplish your goals. "Never let someone tell you that you can't do something, not your friends or family. They don't know," she said.

I like her closing advice. I've never let anyone tell me that I can't do something, and that's a virtue that's gotten me some distance in life. My flaw is that I didn't make a plan . . .

Table Talk: Homesickness?

Kaye Blegvad, Artist
New York Times

Susan J. Matt, a professor of history at Weber State University (Ogden, Utah), but writing an op-ed for the NYT (March 21, 2012), tells of how "The New Globalist Is Homesick":

In nearly a decade's research into the emotions and experiences of immigrants and migrants, I've discovered that many people who leave home in search of better prospects end up feeling displaced and depressed.

This might not seem especially surprising, for everyone has experienced homesickness, but a statistic provided by Professor Matt did catch my eye, namely, that "20 to 40 percent of all immigrants to the United States ultimately return to their native lands"! Migrants returning doesn't surprise me, but immigrants? Surprising. Even more surprising was the shift in attitudes about admitting to homesickness:

In the 19th century, Americans . . . admitted that mobility was emotionally taxing . . . . Stories of the devastating effects of homesickness were common . . . . Today, explicit discussions of homesickness are rare, for the emotion is typically regarded as an embarrassing impediment to individual progress and prosperity.

Think about that. Those tough men and women of the 19th century gave voice to their emotions. I'd always imagined them stoical, but we contemporary folk seem more closed-mouth about our feelings than they were . . . with respect to homesickness, anyway.

I'm also silent about feeling homesick, but that's because I don't feel any homesickness at all, despite my many years abroad -- indeed, probably because of them. I'm used to being away from home. My only adult case of homesickness occurred during my first year at Baylor University, way back in 1975 to 1976, when I was still adjusting to life in the 'big' city of Waco, Texas and powerfully missing the Arkansas Ozarks.

In Korea, by contrast, I feel no homesickness at all. Neither voluble nor stoical about any putative homesickness, I am perfectly satisfied, even happy here.

There must be something wrong with me . . .

Ozark Ice Storm: More Icy Images

My sister-in-law Sandy Hodges -- married to my youngest full brother, Pastor John -- forwarded these pictures taken by her friend Karen Willett and revealing, in the most stunning detail yet, just how severe the ice was in my hometown of Salem and the surrounding area.

The first is obviously just outside of somebody's home, perhaps Ms. Willett's, early in the morning after the storm.


The next photograph shows the drive out of someone's front yard, possibly again Ms. Willett's place. Note the broken limb dangling dangerously at the top center. That's surely come down by now -- either by cutting or by the recent windstorm.


The following photo is similar, again a driveway with trees and their bent limbs, but also revealing the heavy ice pulling on the powerlines. Note those long, sharp icicles!


Next, an entire tree seems to have come down, along with several powerlines.


In the following image, taken during a drive, note the many powerlines hanging dangerously low.


Below, a frozen road, broken tree, icy powerlines, and wispy clouds.


Bowed and broken trees in a penultimate image.


Finally, a close-up for everyone to see what two inches of freezing rain will do to a tree branch . . . and note the dusting of snow that followed the ice storm.


If you want to see more images, Ms. Karen Willett has them available on Kodak Gallery, where you can click on the slideshow and see them all.

Home is so Sad?

Home is Where I Want to Be!

"The cows are doing ok."

(Image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday, in a roundabout way, we learned from Philip Larkin that "Home is so Sad," but he was speaking of an empty home, which "stays as it was left, / Shaped to the comfort of the last to go / As if to win them back," whereas my family and I will be returning, in precisely one month, to a full, Ozark home for my children's first visit to the States.

Among other experiences -- such as hiking up knobs, descending into caverns, circumabulating my little town -- I want them to visit a farm or two to learn a bit about my childhood, partly spent on farms.

In that vein, I'll share an early morning email from my Uncle Cranford Hodges, providing today's farm report in real time. First, the weather:

After some cold days, it is back up near 60 [= 15.5 degrees centigrade] this morning. There is a chance of rain, which would help our ponds, but there is also a chance of stormy weather, which we always dread.

Sixty degrees fahrenheit is quite mild for early January, but it often presages stormy, even violent weather, possibly tornadoes, so I'd rather hear of temperatures around freezing, but if the winter stays mild and without storms, then February should be fine for our Ozark trip.

Next, the health report:

Everything is about the same here. Everyone seems to be on an even keel for the moment, and no colds or flu so far. I had a little time, so our woodpile has been replenished and should do us until sometime in February. My old body doesn't want to exert itself so much any more, so I try to keep about four weeks ahead.

Cranford must be near 70, for he was born a couple of years later than my father, who was 20 years older than I, and I'm 50. A youthful 50. Or maybe just immature. I hope that in about 20 years, I'll still be physically able to chop and stack firewood. Not that I want to actually be doing that, merely that I'd like to be able to.

It was hard work...

I remember woodpiles and putting up ricks of wood for winter, often having to replenish a rick midway through a cold winter. Just thinking of that, I can almost smell the freshly split pieces, which we would stack under the eastern eave of our old rock-walled house to shelter them from westwind-driven winter storms and thereby keep them dry for the woodstove. I can even now feel those cold winter mornings, with me getting out of bed to watch Grandpa Perryman take a poker and punch up the embers to get a new fire going to warm the house.

Enough nostalgia. Back to the future. Uncle Cranford reports on his old tractor, which the kids will love to see, maybe take a ride on:

I had to get some things done on my diesel tractor. New fuel line, fuel pump, filters, power steering, lube job, a new alternator, oil drips sealed, and a tank heater mounted to heat the water. It should make it a lot easier to start on cold mornings. Until now I had to put a heater blowing over the engine, and a magnetic heater to heat the oil. That took over an hour and the tank heater should do a better job.

This reminds me of the philosophical problem of identity. If you gradually replace every part of some object over a period of time, do you still have the same object that you started with? Is Uncle Cranford's tractor still the same tractor, or is its identity slowly changing? Perhaps my uncle merely thinks that his old tractor is now easier to start on cold mornings. Possibly, however, he's starting up a different tractor. I may need my cyber-buddy and maverick philosopher Bill Vallicella for insight into this one.

But that can wait, for the next detail in the farm report is always of pressing importance:

The cows are doing ok.

That's good to hear, but what about the pigs and the chickens? Don't laugh! These are important questions . . . like checking to see if one's stocks are up or down. It's serious stuff, despite the lyrics to Jollity Farm...

Uncle Cranford's work includes more than labor on his farm, for he also does some carpentry, or used to (along with some preaching), so I'm assuming that he's referring to that line of work in his allusion to "projects":

I still have a few work projects, then maybe some time off to do some things at home.

News on two of my cousins:

Matthew & James are both in their new assignments, so we keep them in our prayers.

They serve in the military, and their new assignments happen to be Iraq, which isn't as dangerous as it was for a while, but which is still no picnic, as Andrew Olmsted, who used to blog about the war there, now reminds us from the great beyond.

Spare a thought for him...

News on Kevin, the brother of Matthew and James:

Kevin is doing some job interviews, and we pray for wisdom on what he should do. All the offers so far require a relocation to another state. The slowdown in housing caused his previous employer to have a big layoff.

The slowdown that Uncle Cranford is referring to would be due to the subprime crisis, about whose effects I have previously blogged.

Finally, the signoff:

We hope this finds everyone being in good health.

Same to you and yours, Uncle Cranford. As for me, I'm feeling somewhat better than yesterday (no thanks to Mr. Larkin), though still not perfect, but well enough to face today's editing, the galley proofs of a tome on Northeast Asia and the Two Koreas: Metastability, Security, and Community, a book of articles to which I have contributed by having co-authored one article with Myongsob Kim, having translated another scholar's article from French into English, and having proofread all of the articles numerous times. I hope that I'm up to it again this cold morning. Maybe I need one of my uncle's magnetic heaters to help start up my brain...

Anyway, there it is, a report from home, which is also where I want to be...