Not Bad Apples

Workshop has begun, and I can feel my school head settling in. I already miss my carefree summer head. Just get me into the classroom with kids, and I'll be fine.

I know it's "that time of the year" when I approach the back door and smell the crabapples that have dropped beneath the tree. Their rich scent ushers me into fall evey year.

Sunday Morning Silliness

These quizzes are everywhere on blogs. I took this and liked the result, so I'm posting it- ha! Although I don't like to admit it, the time out part is probably true. I think that means I can be a stickler for nice behavior. Hmmmmm. I've been told I'm "Teacher-y." That's probably the nicest way to say it.

A Wikipedia character study reports this about Kanga: "Piglet says she 'isn't clever'" and also that she can write her name, but "there's no other indication that she can read or write." This, for an English teacher. Yikes.

So Kanga's not the brightest bulb in the box. But she's "caring" and "kind-hearted." I'll take it.

Try the quiz yourself, and see who you are, in the 100 Acre Wood of Pooh.


Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

And then there are the rewards...

I've spent the last several days working on a freshman orientation program we will begin this school year. The best part of it was being with the kids. Doing this kind of work can be frustrating in many ways, but the kids always save me from throwing up my hands and running out the door in a fit of drama. Imagine what it's like to be greeted with hugs and sheer delight in seeing your face, after a couple of months of vacation. That's the kids. Gotta love 'em. And I gotta remember this, oh, say about next March.

Since vacation is ending, I thought I'd post this piece I wrote a couple of years ago, after helping with a move in another of the district's schools. It explains how I became a teacher, why I still am one, and how I'll change my life if I win the lottery, even though I don't play.

I Love School

Recently, we high school teachers helped those at other schools in the district get ready for construction work that will take place this summer. I worked for several hours moving boxes and furniture and wrangling garbage. It's the kind of work that erases all bitterness about having to make student loan payments at age 50.

My journey to college is a long, complicated story of missed opportunities and poor decisions, the result of which is a splendid, now 30-year-old daughter, and a lot of experience checking groceries, framing art, and performing office tasks. I spent 10 years as a medical office manager, for which I was paid a ridiculously low wage and, get this, was offered no medical insurance. Hence, by the time I got to the university at 41, I really wanted to be there. I agonized over whether to begin my studies at the local community college, where tuition and expenses would be considerably cheaper, or go for the complete university education I longed for. Here's how my decision-making process functioned in this instance:

A slip of junk fluttered from my car insurance bill, offering back-to-school scholarships of $5,000, $2,500, and $1,000 to hopefuls who could explain, in a limited number of words, why they wanted college. I wrote my essay and decided that if I got any of the three offerings, it was a "sign" that I was to follow my dream and shoot for the university. I got the $2500. So I loaded up the truck and moved to university. Bigger school, junky car.

The University of Iowa offered me a full-tuition scholarship based a 23-year-old ACT score, no money in the bank, and my promise to maintain a 3.5 gpa. I was given decent PELL grants (remember decent PELL grants?) and a part-time job in the university payroll office, thanks to a dear friend whose uncle ran the place. She liked me and also wanted the office job I would be leaving (thank you, thank you, sweet Michelle).

Despite my good fortune, being a "nontraditional" student (wtf kind of label is that?) has its financial disadvantages, even compared to kids whose families can't afford to help much. No riding the coattails of parents' health insurance, or car insurance, nothing to do but stay and spend summer earnings on high u-town rent. No free laundry or going home for long periods of freeloading in general. As a result, I'm now a 50-year-old teacher with six years of experience and a student loan to outdo many of my 25-year-old colleagues. Not pretty.

But I'm not complaining, I can't begin to express what my time at the university did for me. Not here, not in a thousand words, probably not in a War and Peace-length tome. Besides, I learned that if I die before I finish repayment, the loan is cancelled, freeing my daughter from the burden of an encumbered estate. This discovery is making grad school more and more attractive.

If I win the lottery, I'm going to pay off my student loan and spend the rest of my life weaseling my way into the great universities across the country, starting with UC Berkeley in the West, moving on to Boulder and Ann Arbor, and finishing up in the east coast institutions of the Ivy League, probably crouched under a desk. Because I'm certain I wouldn't meet their admission standards, and I'm not legacy anything, even with a gazillion lottery bucks in my bank account. When I get too old to army-crawl in and find my seat on the floor, I'll play the age card, feeding on the pity and authority complexes of liberal professors who wouldn't dare to damage their reputations by ejecting an elderly, earnest, note-taking grandma for her refusal to conform to the restrictive policies of the man. For insurance, I'll use my lottery windfall to slip each of them a bribe; maybe a lifetime of weekly meals at the best restaurant in town. But I digress...

Last May, when I was doing the exhausting work of the decent people who were my supervisors for the three measly hours I spent doing their jobs, I wondered how my life might have turned out, had I not taken the chance to further my education. Instead, I'm a grateful teacher with student loan angst and a lottery dream. Cuz I love school.

Rainy Day Haiku

In an empty space
Once filled with jagged heartache
I now keep soft stuff.


(art by Kazuya Akimoto)

Woo hoo!

A little over a week ago, I bought a lap top. Today, I installed a wireless network at home. Now, I'm imagining being able to sit...in my living room, or in bed, or at a wired coffee shop, and lots of new places to grade creative writing student assignments submitted to the online program we use at school. This is a very exciting prospect, as there have been times when the walls of my home office have closed in on me while reading and grading those virtual piles of student writing.

I'm a bit amazed by all of this, as I'm not very tech savvy. I think I'll take it as a sign that my life is meant to be easier. This completely discounts the absolute nightmare I endured obtaining the "deal" I got on this equipment. Seriously, the fiasco meter was approaching ridiculous...and now I wait for the rebates. Let's hope the memory of the experience fades fast, while I sit back and enjoy the fruits of Circuit City hell.

The other day, I laid my tiny cell phone next to my little lap top and thought about how much less space these devices occupy than just a few short years ago, when a clunky wall phone hung next to a big ol' desk top computer. What a world!

A Card-Carrying Member of the Guild

Another goodie from The Writer's Almanac:


The Worriers' Guild
by Philip F. Deaver

Today there is a meeting of the
Worriers' Guild,
and I'll be there.
The problems of Earth are
to be discussed
at length
end to end
for five days
end to end
with 1100 countries represented
all with an equal voice
some wearing turbans and smocks
and all the men will speak
and the women
with or without notes
in 38 languages
and nine different species of logic.
Outside in the autumn
the squirrels will be
chattering and scampering
directionless throughout the town
because
they aren't organized yet.


Recently the subject of squirrels came up when my older brother was present. He called them "rats with bushy tails" and I felt compelled to defend them, as I love seeing them out in the world doing their squirrel thing. I wish I had known this poem at the time of the squirrel conversation. I'd have reminded him how those little rats with bushy tails serve as an example for us members of "the guild." While we attempt to worry our way toward answers, the little creatures who "aren't organized yet" are busy doing. Don't they have it all over on us?

Saving the Planet

In a recent post, I mentioned listening to Barbara Kingsolver discuss her new book about eating locally grown food, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. There is a movement afoot that promotes eating locally grown foods partly as a measure to lower carbon emissions created by the vast amount of food that is shipped across the miles. Did you know there's a name for people who eat only locally grown food? They're called locatarians.

In the New York Times there's an article that describes a study refuting this idea. It says that taking all aspects of food production into account, eating only locally grown food may not be the most responsible approach. This is completely counterintuitive to me, but that's why research is done, to discover the "truth" of what often seems to be a perfectly logical reason/answer/solution. Here's the address if you'd like to read The Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/opinion/06mcwilliams.html?th&emc=th

In my efforts to help preserve the planet, I often find myself flummoxed by the contradictions and complications of responsible consumption. An ex-boyfriend told me he saw a study that found when reducing total carbon emissions is the goal, it is more responsible to throw away rather than to recycle. He made the point that since global warming is the single most catastrophic threat to the planet, recycling is a poor choice. Though this made some sense, it shocked me to think that all of us who strip labels off cans, flatten food containers, sort, squeeze and schlep are having an overall negative effect. I still recycle; it just feels wrong not to. So much for hard data.

In the radio program Ms. Kingsolver talked about eating meat that was "harvested" locally as less disturbing to her conscience that eating bananas grown in tropical climates and shipped great distances in order for her to enjoy eating them. When my daughter was visiting, she mentioned that giving up meat would be the most practical personal choice she could make for the environment, due to the many ways meat production negatively impacts the environment and the principles of efficient land use for food production. Giving up her daily commute of around 60 miles would be fraught with complications, but eating a vegetarian diet is something she feels she could do rather easily, as she's done it in the past for extended periods. It seems a kind of epic justice occurs when the mass production and slaughter of animals for human consumption harms the environment we humans depend on for our own survival.

When I visited her awhile back, a group of us were discussing the pros and cons of our various efforts to help protect the environment, and how we often felt confused about how to be responsible stewards. Her husband made a comment that struck me. He said the kindest thing a great number of us could do for the environment is to simply drop dead. Most of the people involved in that discussion weren't yet born when the book The Population Bomb was published in 1968. I thought about how having only one child was her dad's and my mostly unconscious contribution to zero population growth.

At least I did something right.

Shaken

Yesterday's collapse of the I-35 Bridge in Minneapolis brought feelings of shock and grief. I was having dinner out with friends, a belated birthday celebration for me, and as soon as we learned of the tragedy I felt an urge to get home, so I could follow the news. I found myself calling dear ones in the city to check on their wellbeing. According to news reports, many others were also doing this; cell phone connections were spotty. From 45 miles away, I felt personally shaken by the news.
I thought about how I was experiencing a small taste of the horror those in and around NYC felt on September 11. Of course we all felt it that day, but proximity definitely heightens the senses.
I thought about how seeing the ugly aftermath, and then the empty span of space for the next several years will keep these feelings closer to consciousness long after they will have passed for those who don't live around here.
I had a young friend who was so excited to have been accepted at NYU and had moved to New York for graduate school just before the 9/11 tragedy. She was a smart, capable young woman with serious ambition and an adventurous spirit. I later heard she had "come home" to Iowa within the semester. My heart went out to her as I imagined her trying to negotiate the landscape of that experience. I remember wondering whether to contact her, if perhaps she was weary of having to "explain."
The oppresive heat and humidity has lifted here today. The sun is shining and the air is Minnesota fresh. Television coverage from the wreckage has me thinking of the number of wounded and broken hearts that hover over the bright skies of the scene.

More Code Monkey

Does anyone remember the post about Jonathan Coulton who wrote the Code Monkey song? I posted the Youtube video of a dance that had been created for it. I still love this sweet, silly song, so here's video of Coulton singing it in a club in Seattle (where there are lots of code monkeys). This acoustic version is really nice. Listen carefully, and you can hear the audience singing along with the chorus.

Don't Even Think About It

I read about the workings of the subconscious mind in today's New York Times. The first few lines of the article piqued my interest; here they are:

In a recent experiment, psychologists at Yale altered people’s judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee.
The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee — and asked for a hand with the cup.
That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.

We've all heard about how our subconscious can push us to behave in certain ways without our "knowing" it. Remember hearing about movie audiences who bought more of certain snack foods when imperceptible images were flashed on the screen? The article says that one was made up, to promote the business of the ad man who claimed to have done it. Remember imitating Mr. Subliminal on Saturday Night Live to the amusement of "unsuspecting" friends?

According to the article it's more complicated than that. Isn't everything? But after reading it, I'm taking a fresh look at what's posted on the walls of my classroom. I'm thinking of replacing the poster that says "Question Authority" with "Suck Up." Ha!

Here's the link so you can read the entire article:
www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/health/psychology/31subl.html?ex=1343620800&en=d63e52cd16496308&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Sometimes there's magic

My daughter is here with me; she's asleep in the next room. She's an adventurous, grown-up woman with a husband, a home, a job, and a life completely independent from mine, but there are times when I look at her, and I still see the little girl who was my closest companion for so many years.

Last night, she lit up as she delighted in explaining the birthday gifts she brought for me:
A little nature box with a glass top and sides that she painted herself and inscribed on the bottom-"Put your precious finds in there, and you can look at them later. I have one myself."
Citrus incense- "Citrus always reminds me of you."
A miniature music box that plays "Imagine" when a tiny crank is turned- "Listen, Mom, can you guess the song?"
Tibetan prayer flags- "So you can let the wind carry your prayers"
Two books, one about peace and one about the origins of color- "So you don't already have this one? Whew!"
A small bag that is a replica of a Persian rug- "Doesn't it look like a magic carpet?"

Do you have times when you remind yourself to remember a particular moment, to memorize everything about it, so you can enjoy the memory of it over and over again? Last night was one of those times.

A Wish

I suppose it's evident from the content of this blog that I have an affinity for poetry. It's such a treat to have a poem from The Writer's Almanac delivered to my inbox and read by Garrison Keillor every day. Sometimes, when I read a poem, I find myself rereading particular lines again and again. Here is part of today's poem called "Kindness" by Naomi Shahib Nye. The italicized lines are those that drew me back today.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.


I have this quote from Theodore Isaac Rubin on the wall in my classroom:
“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.”

I am making a wish for us; here it is: That both the delivery and receipt of kindess goes with us everywhere, like a shadow or a friend.

Kiss the Cook

This is today's poem from The Writer's Almanac. I love it. Do you ever feel like a schlump-a-dink in a sea of accomplished people doing meaningful work? This poem is the perfect antidote to that feeling. It's good to remember how something like making a satisfying meal contributes to the lives of those we love. And having just listened to Barbara Kingsolver talk about mindfully growing, purchasing, preparing, and eating our food, I am reminded here that we need to be grateful for the bounty (especially the local bounty) in our lives.

Acceptance Speech
by Lynn Powell

The radio's replaying last night's winners
and the gratitude of the glamorous,
everyone thanking everybody for making everything
so possible, until I want to shush
the faucet, dry my hands, join in right here
at the cluttered podium of the sink, and thank

my mother for teaching me the true meaning of okra,
my children for putting back the growl in hunger,
my husband, primo uomo of dinner, for not
begrudging me this starring role—

without all of them, I know this soup
would not be here tonight.

And let me just add that I could not
have made it without the marrow bone, that blood—
brother to the broth, and the tomatoes
who opened up their hearts, and the self-effacing limas,
the blonde sorority of corn, the cayenne
and oregano who dashed in
in the nick of time.

Special thanks, as always, to the salt—
you know who you are—and to the knife,
who revealed the ripe beneath the rind,
the clean truth underneath the dirty peel.

—I hope I've not forgotten anyone—
oh, yes, to the celery and the parsnip,
those bit players only there to swell the scene,
let me just say: sometimes I know exactly how you feel.

But not tonight, not when it's all
coming to something and the heat is on and
I'm basking in another round
of blue applause.

Alaska Dreamin'

Some day, I WILL see Alaska in person. Until I get to go, I'll always be a sucker for slide shows like this:

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/travel/20070722_ALASKA_FEATURE/blocker.html
(sorry, I still can't get this program to link to an address, so you'll have to paste this to your browser- I promise it's worth the effort)

Proofreading

This is Taylor Mali, the guy who is known for his spoken word performance, "What do teachers make?". I wish I could show this to students, but the language makes it "unacceptable for the classroom." It's funny, though, especially to an English teacher:

Summer Love

This summer I am involved with a group of high school students who are parents, or are about to be. I began the group by inviting six girls and two guys, former students in my creative writing class. In class, I saw how they loved to write about and share their experiences with pregnancy and parenting, and I thought it might be a good idea to continue to provide a place for them to do this. The only thing I was sure about when we began was that though I was more than willing to be a supportive adult presence, I had no desire to play “teacher,” in the sense of assigning or critiquing their writing, and that, within appropriate limits, they would direct our time together. What has developed is a small group of mostly girls that meets every other week in a local coffee house.

When we met last night there were three girls, three babies (two on the outside, one who will be born within the month) and me. The boyfriend of the still-pregnant Angela has been attending. He was there when I arrived but left soon after, explaining that he had to go. Tiffany brought a portfolio of poems she had been promising us we’d get a look at. She also brought her son, a sweet, sleepy baby we had visited in the hospital just two days after his birth 16 days ago. I met his father in the hospital that evening. Tiffany asked me to phone her mom and verify that she was with me, so I did.

I had been leaving reminder messages for Emma before each meeting, and she joined us for the first time last night with her darling five-month-old son. Emma still communicates with the father of her child, but he lives somewhere in the South and has yet to meet his son. All of the mothers express that whether or not the fathers of their children will be in their lives for the long term is questionable. To greater and lesser degrees there are issues of mistrust, unreliability, and immaturity that are discussed regularly, but they all remain attached. All of the girls live with either one or both of their parents.

Angela’s baby has dropped, and she is experiencing some new back pain and other discomfort associated with late pregnancy. When I asked about a writing topic for the next meeting she volunteered “Labor and delivery.” She openly expressed increased anxiety as the big event draws closer. She works as a personal care assistant to a disabled young man, and when we talked about circumcision she expressed that though her unborn baby is a girl, if she were to have a boy she would definitely have him circumcised. She has attended to the problems her client has with his uncircumcised penis. She has plans to become a special ed teacher. She is determined to complete her first online college psychology class, which is set to begin 1O days after her due date. We’ve had conversations about her goals, and I do all I can to encourage her to believe she has the ability and strength of character to accomplish them.

Emma handles her son with the ease of an experienced mom and tolerates his extreme attachment to her with the patience of a knowledgeable parent of a five-month-old. When I asked her what she has been doing this summer, she said “Taking care of him and spending time with my family.” Throughout our time in Creative Writing class, her sweet, sunny personality was a constant, something I haven’t experienced with most of the teenagers I’ve come to know through teaching. She must have had bad days, but never let it show.

Tiffany tells us her son is doing what he has done since she brought him home from the hospital: sleeping and crying only when he’s hungry or needs a diaper change. She is the most outspoken of the group, telling Angela (rather loudly, but that’s just Tiffany) that sex with her boyfriend late in the pregnancy contributed to her quick labor and delivery. I have known Tiffany since she attended a summer class I taught to get struggling eighth graders ready for the demands of high school. Her matter-of-fact demeanor and the openness with which she shares the ups and downs of her life are familiar to me.

As I left the group last night, I pondered the purpose of our meetings and questioned what they offer to these girls. As a writing group, we lack structure and discipline. Sometimes our meetings turn to bitch sessions about the boyfriends or the gossip common among any group of teenagers. If things get too intense, I make an effort to redirect, but I mostly sit back during those times and keep still. Should I be doing more to aim their energies toward their writing? Should I be encouraging them to think less about their daily dramas and more about their futures? If I am supposed to be the all-knowing sage, dropping perfectly formed pearls of life-altering advice on these girls at precisely correct teachable moments, I am failing them miserably. Freedom Writers we ain’t. But what are we? To be honest, I don’t know.

Then I thought about what I do know, and that is that I love these girls. Yup, love them, and they know it. Whatever need in me this group fills, I’m pretty sure that it fulfills some of their needs too. Acceptance and stability can be scarce commodities in the lives of these young mothers. Though the shame and insecurity previously associated with teenage pregnancy has abated, the need for acceptance and assurance is universal. Showing up, for ourselves and each other, is what we do best. As long as they continue to show up, I’ll be there too, loving them and doing what I do and don’t do, still wondering if it’s enough.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy

Not that I am...

I like this guy's stuff- his name is Jarvis Cocker (no relation to Joe) and especially this cool, bitterchick anthem. The video is *funny too.
*No human beings were harmed in the making of this film.



Completely off topic, if there is one, but how cute is this?

Worlds Apart

There's a house for sale two doors down from my apartment building. It's a cute ranch that needs some work and the price has just been reduced from $125k to $119,500. Just for fun, I recently put my numbers into an online mortgage load calculator- my number came up at 74k- HA! There isn't a shack on a dirt road for sale at that price within 1,000 miles of me. But I digress... The house is empty, and I have peeked in the windows and sniffed around the back yard- it even has a sweet screened porch that looks onto a pretty, private back yard. I've fantasized about what I might do to make it a home I'd love to live in. This morning, I read this in The New York Times:

While real estate in much of the country languishes, property in Manhattan continues to escalate in price, and that includes parking spaces. Some buyers do not even own cars, but grab the spaces as investments, renting them out to cover their costs.

Spaces are in such demand that there are waiting lists of buyers. Eight people are hoping for the chance to buy one of five private parking spaces for $225,000 in the basement of 246 West 17th Street, a 34-unit condo development scheduled for completion next January. The developer, meanwhile, is seeking city approval to add four more spots.

Come on! 225k for a parking place?!?!?!!!

I'm all about the idea that people are usually far more alike than we are different. That folks are just folks, we all put our pants on one leg at a time, and we are all one in The Great Family of Man. Yadda yadda yadda. Then I imagine myself trying to make small talk with someone who travels in the circles of the $225,000 parking space, and I realize I have way more in common with those I see yelling at each other on The Jerry Springer Show, or working on a counterfeit social security number, or standing in the street with a cardboard sign than I do with the parking space magnates.

While I count myself among the blessed, I wonder how it is that some can have so much while others have so little. The peace-loving, nice lady, do-gooder in me thinks about minding my personal responsibilities to the poor, while the radical in me cries out for bloody justice and I wonder if any of those eight Manhattanites on the waiting list for a $225,000 parking spot would consider cabs and rental cars in exchange for shelter for a needy family or a debt-free college education for a working class kid. And if I traveled in the circles that would put me on that list, would I?

Heavy thoughts, articulated more intelligently by minds much greater than mine. Speaking of great minds, today is the birthday of the brilliant 20th century poet Pablo Neruda. The radical in me loves this poem of his:

THE HEAVENLY POETS
What have you done
you intellectualists?
you mystifiers?
you false existentialist sorcerers?
you surrealistic poppies shining on a tomb?
you pale grubs in the capitalist cheese?
What did you do
about the kingdom of anguish?
about this dark human being
kicked into submission?
about this head
submerged in manure?
about this essence
of harsh, trampled lives?
You didn't do anything but escape
you sold piles of debris
you looked for heavenly hairs
cowardly plants, broken fingernails
"pure beauty" "magic".
Your works were those of poor frightened folk
trying to keep your eyes from looking
trying to protect their delicate pupils
so you could make for your living
a plate of dirty scraps
which the masters flung to you.
Without seeing that the stones are in agony,
without defending, without conquering,
blinder than the wreaths
in the cemetery when the rain
falls on the motionless
rotten flowers on the tomb.

Chipper stuff, huh?

It's also the birthday of Thoreau, who died in 1862. My do-gooder nice lady likes this Thoreau quote:

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

Today, I am more than grateful for not having to hang with the crowd making a grab for a $225,000 parking spot, nor ever having had to suffer in the kingdom of anguish. Now if I can just remember, every day, not to question my ability to elevate my life by conscious endeavor.

Weird Science

Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised - New York Times

A Photo and a Thought

Sharing this beautiful photo and a thought today:

"Never mind what I have been taught. Forget about theories and prejudgments and stereotypes. I want to understand the true nature of life. I want to know what this experience of being alive really is. I want to apprehend the true and deepest qualities of life, and I don't want to just accept somebody else's explanation. I want to see it for myself."
From an explanation of Vipassana meditation practice, by Bhante Henepola Gunarantana