Who taught: Pat

Yesterday, I had this year’s first Thanksgiving dinner with my students and colleagues. Also, there was a small lecture about the history of Thanksgiving given by my boss. During the lecture, I learned about one lady whose name is Sarah Josepha Hale.

She is very famous among Americans not because of Thanksgiving but because of her nursery rhyme, “Mary had a Little Lamb.” But, very few would think of her on Thanksgiving day. I think she deserves to be remembered. Why? Because she was the one who spent 40 years writing to congressmen and five presidents to persuade them to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday. And, finally, in 1863, President Lincoln did declare Thanksgiving a national holiday because of her letter.

Can you believe it? For 40 years! To five presidents! She was pretty persistent, wasn’t she? But, the point is she achieved her goal eventually.

So, this Thanksgiving day, you should talk about her to your family or friends and remember her.

A few months ago, I was having some chats about work with Pat using IM. I cannot remember exactly what we talked about but I mentioned about something I did for a customer which was kind of crazy stuff to make things work. As I said this story, he said, “Man, that is over my head.” I did not quite get it. So, I had to ask him. He said, “It is like something hard to understand or beyond my ability.”

To remember this expression, I decided to draw a picture in my imagination. If something is located directly over my head, then I cannot see it at all or cannot see what is happening there. That is what I think of whenever I hear the expression. Or the other way would be trying to find something, you think, very hard to understand like physics, then connect this expression with it. Then you would not forget it at all. Do you know how hard to remember and eventually use a single expression? It is pretty hard. Personally, I would like to make up my own expression, “over my brain.” But I am sure that expression does not exist yet. But, I can try to use more and more until most people use it for 40 years just like Sarah Joseph Hale did. 🙂