Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

I've always been a reader. My first genre that I remember liking as a genre was biographies. I like learning about how different people led their lives as I tried to make sense of my own life. I gave a little more thought about that going to some family funerals when I was young but mostly I tried very hard to be respectful to the grown-ups around me who were grieving.  At some point once I left home I started going to more funerals. During the start of my teaching career I went many times a year to funerals for students (whether I knew them or not), almost of all of whom died in drunk driving accidents. The eulogies all sounded the same in their attempts not to address the role that drinking and driving played in ending a life full of potential. Eventually our university started a van program that students were encouraged to call and the number of student funerals dropped a good deal. I was first department chair in the 1990's; I felt responsible for my department members and ...

I have started taking cello lessons as a registered (non-degree) student from a member of my university's Music Department. I have been a part of music ensembles for most of my life since the third grade, now over 55 years ago. I played clarinet for thirteen years, classical guitar for nine months, and have been in choral ensembles almost all of my life. For each of these activities I started as a simple beginner and am one again. I think aside from growing personally in music that I adore I like to think that it is useful to students in these ensembles to see me be a student though I am a teacher in other contexts. It is sad to think of all the adults who chose to stop learning, that they know enough. I have long loved the sound, the timbre of the cello, both in ensembles and as a solo instrument. Its range feels right for my vocal range as a bass singer, and so these notes are familiar to me. Something about the agility of the instrument in the lower range seems to imbue its musi...

One of the things I've learned, very slowly, over the decades is that my subconscious is much smarter than I am.  It's very unsettling, like something out of a science fiction story. I'm a lay person with respect to psychology, although 37 years of marriage to a psychologist may help a bit. I use the term "subconscious" to refer to the processing that my mind does that I am unaware of and only observe in retrospect. I've had to do a fair amount of public speaking in my time. It is one of the greatest tensions of my life, being painfully shy but seeking opportunities for service that include a significant component of public speaking.   I prepare a lot for things; my rule of thumb has always been that the more anxious I am about a future experience the more preparation I do for it. For public speaking the preparation involves some time thinking about what I want to say and revising the list to include only what I need to say.  Often my list of wants includes di...