Devil-ish Etc.

Good morning, UAMA! I'm feeling a little devilish. Waaahahaaaaaah! Well, I'm dressed as a devil at least. I'm wearing horns, clothes of red and black and I come bearing a pitch fork!

Surrounding me are Michael Jackson, a green-faced witch with a great cackle, an active citizen, a teacher with a big fat fake fro, an Asst. Principal who scarily represents Sarah Palin, a math teach who is rockin' Napoleon Dynamite, lots of Gothic kitty cats, a Gothic zombie, vampires, some Beyonce-like dancers, a decadent 1700s queen, a 1980's Flash dancer, and at least one cute little angel. I'm sure there are are more great costumes I haven't yet seen. I can't wait!

Happy Halloween--2 days early!

And hugs to Ms. B whose glorious photo greets you above. Best part is that she cackled all day and used witchy voice...sometimes with serious intent. Hahahaha. So great.

Husky Voice

So I'm not really sure what to blog here. I was told all day Thursday that I had a deep, sexy, husky voice by multiple people. LOL I thought I was getting sick, but I also hoped it was from yelling too much. It's not in my nature to be a yeller, but I've lost the ability to deal with my lovely, enthusiastic, talkative students at times without a serious raising of my voice. And I really can't do it. Project my voice, that I can do, make it carry. But talk over everyone, that's harder.

I used to work at a museum and lead tours and I was always on the verge of losing my voice at the end of the day. I was hope hope hoping that was the case with my recent vocal strain, but it fully appears not to be. My glands are the size of golf balls and by today (Sunday) the sexy, husky voice has waned into a goofy growl and I can't even giggle without coughing. My roommate is mocking me too. She keeps doing this sing-song version of "Well, you know, Airborne was created by a teeeeeaaaaaachhhhher." I'm taking my vitamins, I'm sleeping 14 hours a day and I'm pretty sure I sound like a tranny who smokes 2 packs a day. If only I would don a Tina Turner wig...I think I could pull off this voice.

Snuggles

Okay, so I'm eating my words and almost taking down my previous blog post because I really fell in love with those little babies BUT not until midnight. Weird right, I adored them AFTER they woke up from their sleep and kept me up half the night. Their late night needs and antics made me more aware of their humanness (not that pooping isn't human, those little poop machines). Alex (age 2) had a cough that I kept hearing on the baby monitor and he finally woke himself up about midnight with a mini-meltdown. He wanted his momma and he wanted to be comforted, to be held. Dammit, I feel like being held and comforted sometimes too. Sometimes I also wake up thirsty and freezing cold. It sucks and it'd be great to have someone take care of that for me! Sheesh, yes, sometimes I wish my momma would just come do things for me again. Dinner? Laundry? Our needs change (sometimes) but we all still like to be taken care of sometimes.

The mini-meltdown part woke up a sleeping JoeJoe (age 1) who was fussy for a few minutes and then smiley. Within a half hour, we were all three sacked out on the sofa comfortable, snuggled, bellies full of whole milk (well, and one chamomile tea). When I tried to put JoeJoe back in his crib, he'd wake up and cry out. He was totally playing me, but there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it because I wanted the other 2 to stay sleeping. So he got his way, over and over again. He woke up every time I tried to put him down. He'd whine until I picked him up and then he'd just smile, cause he knew he'd won. It was pretty damn funny, and to be honest, I really liked just holding him on the sofa and dozing off as he slept, spoiled and happy.

What does this mean? I have no idea. I think, for now, I'll stop analyzing.

Poop

So I'm babysitting right now. Yep, that's right, I'm doing something that reminds me a whole lot of being in high school. I'm babysitting. Not like taking care of my friend's kid or something at my own house or hers, but like full-on hanging out at a stranger's house taking care of 3 kids, only 1 of whom I actually know. It's a favor for a family who's son/brother/uncle is getting married. Taking care of these 3 little munchins has been sweet and fun but mostly irritating. I'm not sure I like small children or ever want to have them. The one who is like family to me is pretty cool. He just turned a year old and is all snuggly, cuddly and stuff. But the other 2 were really just annoying to me, and the truth is that they're actually really adorable, well-mannered kids. I think I'm just not into babies. Also, I don't like poop. And children under the age of 2 make a lot of poop. Poop that someone has to clean up. Ewww.

I always thought I wanted kids in the abstract but now I'm not sure. Now's the time when all of my friends are having them, and um, it's just weird. My best friend is pregnant and I'm the one who is freaked out, she's elated. I always knew I didn't want to be a pre-school or elementary school teacher, but I always thought I wanted to be a mom. The older I get, the less sure I am of that though. I wonder if I'll like babies more if their my own, or if I'm just not ready, or if maybe there are just these social pressures that I'm feeling and maybe I'm really just a person who is not cut out to be a mom. Yet that seems weird because I'm pretty much a mom all the time, just to ages 16 and older. But, then again, I don't have to clearn up their poop, I just have to take their crap from time to time. And that I can handle.

writingwritingwritingwritingwriting

Today I'm getting a taste of my own medicine. I don't want to be blogging. I really don't. But I've run out of stupid things to do online. More importantly, I don't want to be one of those teachers who says "Do as I say, not as I do." I need to work on making my own writing habit more healthy. And since that means, just do it, I'm going to go all Nike on y'all and "just do it." I know I'm losing readers by the second because this is not the most interesting writing.

Here's what I've been preoccupied with today:

--Thinking about how engaging it was to watch the debate with my students. Gosh, were you all opinionated in smart and interesting (and entertaining) ways.
--Watching and re-watching the Batman/Penguin youtube debate clip I showed in class.
--Reading about Joe the Plumber, who apparently makes pretty good dough and is not a licensed plumber.
--Getting excited that Missouri is still a swing state and only slightly red. I think there's not prayer for the blue crew in the "show me" state, but who knows. I'd be very proud. And I'm still submitting my absentee ballot there. And yet I still feel cynical.
--Processing how to convince my beautiful darlings that they are too smart and interesting (and entertaining) not to go to college! And trying to convince them that we can figure out how to make it not break the bank.
--Wondering if I will ever get through the mountain of grading that I let pile up.
--And wondering why I ate soooo much Thai food that my stomach feels like it might explode. But oh it was good...
--Procrastinating setting up my new wireless router. I don't have the energy or brainpower for it, but I probably just need to get it over with.

Peace out.

Writing is Hard Work

Yes, writing is hard work, but somehow blogging doesn't really feel like hard work. Right now, I'm starving. I had a reasonable breakfast and only popcorn for lunch. (Yes, the food stash in my desk is running a little low.) After school and a cinnamon snack (thanks Tyrell for the McD's run), I went and had an hour long salsa class where I burned a lot of calories (and oddly, learned some hip hop dance moves too!). My point: I'm starving, one of my favorite shows is on television, and I'm blogging, for no apparent reason, other than that it feels good to get my thoughts out. It's become part of my process of unwinding. Imagine: writing helps me unwind. Uncanny.

I'm starting to love blogging, for the first time. I think part of what I like is that I feel like I've become a part of a blogging/writing community with my students. I like that I have an audience...I'm so vain, I know. Yet I deeply believe that "all writers need readers." (Yes dear students, that's why I ALWAYS require a peer review.) Most importantly though, when I write in my blog, somehow it now feels productive. I like letting my students (and whoever else cares to read this) know what I'm thinking about teaching and learning. It feels productive. I hope that this blog I'm writing might open up some conversations that otherwise might not have happened. But that's not the only reason. The truth is that I just like writing. I like having my fingers on the keyboard and, for once, being able to write about whatever I want to write about. Writing what I want and only what I want is so not often the case.

I'm now off to writing my dissertation...which may be what I was procrastinating after all. No more pontificating on the value, productivity, and fun of blogging for me. Work time. Peace.

Brunch is Lovely

Today was fabulous. The weather was gorgeous. Gorgeous. Did I say gorgeous? It was absolutely beautiful. Just the right temperature, a nice, soft breeze, and plenty of warm sunlight. A bunch of my lovely friends joined me for brunch on my patio and it was divine in the way that only a special crew of people paired with a spread of food can be. All I need to be truly happy is good food and conversation with loved ones. And there's something extra special about brunch--that rare mid-day meal--that makes it sweet. We had pancakes with blueberries and M&Ms mixed in, muffins, tempeh, brie and french bread, sweet potatoes, strawberries, a freshly cut pineapple, red grapes, a green salad, orange juice, and french pressed coffee all served on my special new, melmac dishes.

Sitting on the patio sipping coffee with my friends (most of them teachers) was quite a treat and rejuvenated me. I think the best part was watching how much my friends who hadn't met each other before ended up liking each other and finding things to talk about without any facilitation on my part. They were mostly teachers (or people used to being stuck in a group of teachers) so finding common ground was pretty easy.

Anyway, so keeping to the theme of this learning blog, I've been thinking a lot about what rejuvenates me and makes me happy. I feel like I'm slowly learning the appropriate ratio of social and alone time for me. Pretty sure I'm going to keep learning that one, because sometimes I isolate and sometimes I let myself get drained by attending too many social events. Ahhh, BALANCE. I think I found you at least for today. Off to dissertation writing...I actually want to write right now. Also, I'm finding that this little bit of personal writing I'm doing on my blog is really good at getting my fingers moving. And now I need to keep these fingers writing on into my schoolwork. Wish me writing luck, dear blog.

A Writing Community

Something really cool happened in class--at least in my mind. Today our Creative Writing class took its first real step in becoming a writing community. Kitty brought in and shared her short story “When Mary Liptin and I were best friends." We decided to read it together as a class. As her colleague read the story, we all followed along with bated breath as we worried about her characters, were humbled by the realness of the school setting, and started caring more deeply than we could imagine about her character. The short class period (and her long story!) didn't leave us as much discussion time as we'd all have liked but the story stayed in the air for the entire day. The little notes that we wrote to her at the end of class were just the beginning of the conversation about these characters and the world they lived in. Several of us talked with Kitty about her story throughout the day, puzzling through scenes and pondering each character's actions again and again. The conversations felt really alive. As I overhead them (and participated in them!), I understood that something beautiful was happening. We were becoming a writing community--an invested committed group of people, excited to talk about our writing together, excited to give and receive feedback and to live in one another's created worlds. To live within one another's imagination is a exquisitely beautiful.

This feeling of a writing community who really cared for one another struck me and reminded me of the title of this blog, something I wrote about over 2 years ago as my first blog entry:

ReScattered
A site just for my own stuff, named in honor of the women who helped me understand the importance of how we talk about our lives, how much the stories and the ways in which we tell those stories matters. Scattered was the title of a collection of poetry and stories created by a group of exceptional women I once knew who were recovering from life's disappointments.

As I feel this writing community swelling and taking shape, I can't wait to meet with these young women (+one good-natured young man!) again. I'm ready to talk about making a UAMA publication that will help us celebrate our hard writing work in some way. I have all these ideas spinning in my head for the conversations I want all of us to open up with Kitty about her story, about the conversations I want to make a space for in my classroom. And now I am remembering that yet another Fire Drill is scheduled for this coming Wednesday at the exact time of our class and I will have to wait an entire week to meet again with this amazing crew. Graaarrrrrrr!

Learning is Kewl...LOL, or Dulce

I feel like my whole life is big bucket of learning these days. Today I taught my grandma to chat on gmail (an instant messaging program like AIM, Yahoo, MSN, whatever). It took just a second and she was super excited. As I talked her through it on the phone and messaged her, she asked if my "lol" meant "lots of love" and, well, it sort of did, even though her question created another "lol" in me. I'm always so motivated by my grandma's interest in learning new things in her late-60s. She reads more than anyone else I know and is far more technologically literate than any of her children (my parents and aunts and uncles are scary bad with computers). She's also becoming increasingly liberal and open-minded. Again, cool.

Anyway, so that's my cute story for the day. But my other story involves my own learning with my new interest in (or better, obsession with) SALSA. I never learned to dance as a child...like not at all. I've been made fun of for my bad dance moves and lack of rhythm more times than I can count. I'm currently trying to overcome my feelings that I'll never be a good dancer. And in that process I'm learning a lot about learning. My dance teachers really push me to try new things and they scaffold new steps sometimes more clearly than other times. Let me tell you, I'm very grateful for the times when they walk through the new stuff slowly and patiently and then come over and give me personal assistance when I'm stumbling through. It's humbling but also empowering in a way. But I'm also noticing something else really powerful: the sweet feeling of success, of getting the step right and knowing you've got it. There's also that moment before you totally get it right when you get super-close and you know you're going to get it. The enthusiasm that bubbles up is really rich and, well, dulce! So how does this relate to my life as a teacher? Well, it reminds me that I need to do my best to create opportunities for that sweet feeling of success to bubble up.