Goodbye to my amazing students... hello summer!

Wow, I am shocked yet not at all surprised that I haven't blogged since graduation in May. June FLEW by as I wrapped up things with drama and all of my classes.  My students worked on a speech project for 6 weeks, which concluded in the last couple of weeks of school with formal speeches on stage, with a podium, under the stage lights, with a real audience.  Incredible things happened really. While a few students did not take it seriously, most students took it quite seriously, learned their speeches well, actually made eye contact, and spoke passionately about topics they sincerely cared about. I've been doing this unit (in different ways) for three years, and this was the most successful I have ever felt.  Not only did students really truly learn how to give a speech, they also spoke about meaningful topics that were also quite personal. They planted seeds of thought in the minds of their classmates, parents, and other invited guests. They bravely shared the consequences of bullying and racial profiling. They encouraged their peers not to give up on school and shared their personal triumphs and tragedies. When one student shared about his struggles coming out of the closet, I was horrified to hear about how he was accepted by his family but rejected by peers and the church, told he was going to hell, and how this emotional abuse lead him to consider suicide several times. This teen has bravely overcome and has not given up on life or his faith in God. Best of all, his speech resulted in compassion and support from his peers, which gives me hope that this world is changing for the better.  You know, that's an awesome benefit of working with teenagers -- you get glimpses of what the future holds. Let me tell you... the future will be a more tolerant place.

A pretty large group of my dedicated drama students graduated this week.  This is the first group I have had since freshman year (well, I've had three of them since freshman year). This group was particularly sweet. They were all so humble and hardworking, which really is unique among theatre people. It is sort of an odd thing about actors -- being a successful actor in many ways means having a lot of confidence and resilience and believing in your own talent and abilities (more on this late).  I know this and accept this and am quite good at working with actors with big egos.  When they are super talented and know that they are, it just results in great dedication to theatre, so that's a good thing in a lot of ways. The drama class of 2013 however students often did not really see how incredibly unique and talented they were. They worked very hard to improve and were excellent role models for younger students. I am going to miss them very much.

There was something interesting I noticed this year, particularly through working with Janelle. One of the realities of teaching high school theatre is that you are not blessed with ensembles of 100% dedicated students who "get" what it takes to be successful in theatre.  They often come into drama thinking that putting on a play is all about "play." In reality, it is the exact opposite. Putting on a play is actually a lot of work.  Students think that they can just get up there and "do it" and many think that those who are good at acting just have natural talent, but really, its a little bit about talent and a lot about putting the work into memorizing the lines, analyzing the lines, thinking about the character, and most of all, FOCUSING on stage, which is also a lot of work. Janelle would comment about the ones who were really good, and it was pretty much all of my seniors.  They were good because they KNOW, from experience, that hard work = awesome acting.

The exciting thing is that I have a huge group of juniors who grew a lot this year and started to realize how much hard work it takes, and many of them are coming back next year.  It's going to be a good year.

Returning to my comment about prior comment about resiliency... one would think that by now I would be quite resilient, particularly when it comes to theatre.  I am an overall gregarious individual, so one would think that I could go into an audition exuding confidence and maintaining the ability to demonstrate my talent. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that a month ago I bombed an audition and took it really hard, just because I want so badly to get back on stage (it is #103 on my buried list).  I just got really nervous and didn't do very well. Today, I went to another audition. It seems like a really fun show that I would really like to get a part in, but honestly... today's audition was about more than getting a part; it was about getting back on the horse.

I feel good about how I did in the audition today, which is the most important part. I also realized that Los Angeles has a more vibrant theatre community than I ever realized (and I consider myself fairly involved in the L.A. theatre scene) and I have found a TON of local companies doing auditions for shows. If I pushed hard enough, I could find an audition to go to every single week.  But I am going to try to choose carefully and realistically. There are at least 2 or 3 more audition opportunities I am interested in coming up in July, both of which would wrap before I would need to do tech week with my high school students. I am starting to realize that I am bound to find something here soon... and even if I don't, I will probably find something next winter. This week, I even learned a brand new song from the show for the audition, and I really didn't think I had the ability to learn music that fast, but apparently I do.

While auditioning is hard and facing rejection is even harder, I am hoping that all of this just helps me to better prepare my students for what's really out there, so that some day I can cross of #95 from my buried list (seeing a show on Broadway with one of my former drama students in the cast).  Someday. :-)

Now... time to focus on vacation. Woo hoo.  Last weekend we went to Sacramento for Marc's cousin's wedding, and it was a very nice taste of what it is like to be free and on vacation.  I actually really love summer and road trips and traveling.

 We don't have anything terribly exciting planned, but I am REALLY looking forward to our upcoming vacation to Arizona. While most people think we are crazy to head to Phoenix in the heat of the summer, I think there is nothing better than going when it is so hot that floating in the pool at night is beautifully enjoyable.

Transitioning to Decision Making

 
 This week, I graduated with my Masters in English Education.  I have been overwhelmed with the support of my family and friends as they have all wished me sincere congratulations. My parents and my in laws all came to my graduation and even threw me a big party (and bought WAY too much food, I might add).  At first, I kind of felt a little silly to be having a big party and whatnot -- I mean, I am already an adult and I already did the graduation celebration when I got my B.A., but my M.A. did feel like an even bigger achievement to me. I mean, when I started the program, I was one of three mothers with small children at home, but oddly... I was the only one of the three who finished. Really, I could not have done it without the support of my family and friends, so celebrating with them was wonderful, and all of the congratulations have felt really good.  Thank you to all of you who showered me with gifts and well wishes.  I used most of these gifts to purchase myself a Kindle Fire, which has been on my wishlist for  like two years, so I am really excited for it to arrive next week.

    And now, I come to terms with the transitionary phase of entering this new chapter of my life. What to do with myself now?

     For the past two years, I have settled into this routine of teaching, grad school, and parenting, with little time for much else, except on breaks.  When my parents staged an intervention in 2011 and tried to talk me out of going back to school, I had promised my mom that I wouldn't do anything else, and I kept my promise -- no other activities or commitments.  I cut down on church commitments. I resisted the urge sign up for travel opportunities through work. I cut down on my commitments at work, saying "No," more than I thought possible. I did no performing, not even at church (okay, I sang once and did one monologue). In some ways, it has been comforting knowing exactly what my life consists of. Few decisions to be made, as there was no time for anything. Instead of having to decide if I wanted to spend my time on something new (a committee, a conference, etc.), I just said, "No," and the decision was done.  Had I not taken this approach, I probably would not have made it through the program. (I guess mother really does know best).

      Over the past year, as things really got hectic, I even sort of stopped going to the gym regularly (which was not something I planned on, nor that I am proud of).  I haven't been to yoga class in so long I don't remember when the last time was. On my break in January, I had started taking some jazz classes and thought I might continue on nights when I got out of grad school early (unfortunately, they were on the same night), but I was always so tired after that I just went home.
   
      I thought perhaps it was serendipitous that the local cultural arts center was planning auditions for one of my favorite musicals the same week as my graduation. I saw this as my opportunity to break the fast, if you will, but alas it was not to be.  I got really nervous and blew the audition... and there was also no way I could compete with other hopefuls who have dedicated their lives to theatre. Although theatre is my passion, I have instead followed my calling to teach. I just long to have something for me again, something to nurture my artistic self, which is at the very core of who I am as a person. Thus, getting the "Thanks, but no thanks," call on Thursday night was particularly heart breaking.

      I have given up a lot of myself over the last five years. My mom always criticizes me for trying to "have it all."  A couple of years ago, I would have told you that there is nothing wrong with me trying to have it all. In some ways, "having it all," becomes a feminist manifesto, and like it or not, I guess I am more of a feminist than I ever intended to be; however, as my favorite modern feminist, Sheryl Sandberg points out, "No matter what any of us has—and how grateful we are for what we have—no one has it all. Nor can they. The very concept of having it all flies in the face of the basic laws of economics and common sense. Being a working parent means making adjustments, compromises and sacrifices every day... Just as expectations about work hours have risen dramatically, so have expectations of how much time mothers will spend focused on their children. An employed mom today spends about the same amount of time reading to, feeding and playing with her children as a non-employed mother did in 1975. " (from her book, Lean In).
      She is right.  Life is naturally about compromises and sacrifices, but I have spent much of my life fighting this reality. When I was 18, I read a book, Let Your Life Speak, by Parker Palmer, and it sparked a change in my life that has been molding me ever since, guiding me to become who I am. I have since discovered that this profoundly wise man is a teacher, and in his book The Courage to Teach, he says, “By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am.” As I have grown as a person, more fully accepting who I am, I acknowledge this about myself -- my inner being longs to change the world.  Teaching is the business of changing the world, one student at a time, and it is an incredibly gratifying job... overall. The day to day life of a teacher is, however, rather thankless. My days are long. I take work home (lots of it, although I am getting better at getting it done at school, which I didn't even think was possible in my first two years of teaching).  I plan constantly in my head. And students can be very harsh sometimes. Like this month. This month has been hard. 

      During teacher appreciation week, my friends' photos of thank you notes and pictures were hurting my heart because my students were in a foul mood. I had just assigned their final project of the year -- a speech -- which they deemed to be "too hard" and were punishing me for assigning and fighting me for not "helping" them more.  I put this in quotation marks because I provided them with a TON of guidance and opportunities for tutoring and extra help, but students today tend to be a little put off by projects that involve creative thought.  They'd far rather you tell them what to do and give them a formula to do it.  When you assign something like, "Give a 2-5 minute speech about something you feel passionately about," they panic.  If you gave them a worksheet to fill in the blanks and asked them to just say the speech, they'd be okay, but asking them to produce original thought about topics we discussed in class... that involves quite a bit of thought and so they fought me on it, although I created videos modeling my thought process and gave them tons of samples and guided them through types of evidence to use as support, several of them kept saying things along the lines of, "Can't you just give me a list of choices?"  This is the problem of a bubble-test driven world. 

    But little by little, they've come around.  They've written unique, creative speeches on the importance of making friends with Muslim people, and the benefits of participating in traditions from other cultures, and the problem with society's objectification of women. One student is sharing her personal experience with the dangers of "sexting" and another student is talking about how he does not define himself by his homosexuality and so his peers shouldn't either. I didn't ask or even suggest this kind of bravery, but the students have come into their own and are excited for this. When they were practicing with their speeches this week, one group of typically low achieving boys started yelling and cheering, while one member of the group appeared to be doing a victory lap of some kind with his head wrapped in a towel.  I went over to see what was up, certain one of them had just made a terribly inappropriate joke.  When I got there, they shared that the student with the towel on his head had worked on his speech a lot since the day before, adding a visual aid (his towel wrapped head), to make a point about people's often incorrect stereotypes of Middle Eastern people. Although they had given him some harsh criticism the day before, today they had all agreed that his speech was a "Yes" on all areas of the feedback sheet (hence the victory lap).  I laughed as I walked back to my classroom to print an article I thought he would enjoy. 

      It's moments like these when I remember why I do what I do.  The seniors are giving their distinguished grad speeches this week and one senior, who will enter UC Berkley this fall as at least a sophomore, if not a junior, spoke about moments that had changed her life, like learning that you truly can climb a mountain if you put your mind to it (literally and figuratively) as part of my honors English "Buried Life" unit (its related to literature and research and a bunch of other English type things, I swear) and learning responsibility and leadership by assistant directing plays in drama. She spoke about teamwork and the importance of the entire ensemble and what being supportive really means, and she spoke from a place of sincerity and grace that I have seen a million times as she has happily understudied any missing cast member at any given time.  I have learned so much from this amazing young woman's outlook on life, yet there she was honoring the learning experiences I had facilitated.  When I look at the $24K in student loans it has taken to get me to this point... I can honestly say it is worth every penny. (Of course, I'm still in the deferral stage, so you might want to ask me if I feel the same in six months). 

     Perhaps the most touching graduation congratulations I received was from a former student who told me that he was proud of me and that I inspire him to pursue ambitious goals. Wow...  I thought about that all day.  It is one thing to tell students that they can do anything they put their minds to and another to show them that it is true. 

     So what am I putting my mind to now?  #103 on my buried list.  Get back on stage.  

     I need to act again.  So I am trying to thicken my skin, recover from rejection, and move on... 

Spring Blues

      This past week has felt like a month for a lot of reasons.  This has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of the students are experiencing end of the year blues.  My students are normally very responsible and very respectful, but there have been a lot of discipline issues this week. Even students who aren't necessarily doing anything wrong are just really dragging. It is hard to explain, but this is the best way I can explain it:
      Yesterday, as we transition from silent reading time (first ten minutes of class) to our work for the day, I instruct students, "Okay, get to a good stopping point, then please take out your homework, your speech packet, your notes from yesterday, and a piece of paper."  This is fairly routine for my class. They finish reading and I let them know what they need for the day, which is also on the board with our agenda for the day and our objective for the day.  I have a sign that says: "What's Due?"  under which I always write whatever is due that day first, so they know to take it out.  It is May.  These routines are clearly established.  Yet, yesterday, several students finish a paragraph in their books, put their books down, then just sort of stare at me. I see the glazed over look in their eyes, so I repeat my instructions.  Students start to reach for their backpacks, spending a ridiculous amount of time digging for their papers.  By this point in the year, few of them have any school supplies left, and parents in my community don't budget for this in May, so they all get up and wander towards my supply shelf, where I eye the packages of notebook paper, trying to estimate if what I have left is even going to last all day, partially irritated that they didn't grab this on the way in the door anyway. Despite my circulating, urging students to expedite this process, at least three minutes pass before all students have their materials out and are ready to learn. That might not sound like a lot, but I prefer my transitions to be much quicker. 
      Another source of frustration has been my honors class.  I have frequently been told by my previous honors students that the class really feels like a family by the end of the year.  That didn't happen this year. In fact, it is just the opposite, but I have no idea why.  I didn't do anything differently.  I still did all of the projects that I designed to create a sense of community. In fact, if anything, I thought I did better at them this year, but this group is just really competitive and doesn't want to be a family.  They don't like each other... and I don't really blame them.  There are a lot of strong personalities in there that aren't really compatible, and they don't really want to help each other.  I was a junior in college before I figured out that working together with my classmates was really the best way to ensure success.  We all "get" different things in class, and we all have different ways of explaining them, which is to the benefit of all of us if we share.  My masters cohort is really good at this.  When our professor's instructions for an assignment are unclear, someone usually starts a "What are we supposed to do?" email, to which everyone replies all, and eventually we all get it.  Having had these experiences myself as a student, I design my advanced classes to really support this learning attitude, but it just didn't "take" this year, which I am finding sort of depressing. It's even to the extent that I am going to need to dump the final project I had planned.  It just isn't going to work with this group.  I find this both depressing and stressful, as I am going to have to adjust my planning, and as mentally exhausted as I am right now, I just don't have the mental energy to plan something new right now, but I'm going to have to.  Sigh.
         This week was also, as many of you know, production week for my drama class.  I attempted a full-length (albeit slightly abridged) Shakespeare production this year, which was for sure the hardest show I have ever produced.  The majority of my drama students speak English as their second language, and although they are mostly proficient in English, Shakespeare is a horse of a different color. It was like teaching them an entirely different language, while also teaching them method acting and stage movement and all those other important things.  Even with Janelle's assistance, this was still an incredibly difficult achievement, which was not made any easier by the enormous cast size, or by the fact that I double cast many key roles, which gave me half as much time to work with those actors. However, the show went off without any major hitches, and the students did a solid job, at least for high school students anyway.  Their comedy got thunderous laughter last night and Borachio and Margaret's scandalous scene got quite an uproar.  When Claudio disgraced Hero at the wedding scene, the audience collectively gasped in horror for her, which is totally the intended impact of that scene, so that was really cool.  Overall, I am really proud of our collective achievement.... and really exhausted. 
      This show has just drained me so much that I came home every night utterly exhausted and too mentally drained to get any work done on my last few projects of my masters program. I even turned in an assignment late, which was a first for me.  I don't think I have ever been late on any assignment before, at least not in my masters program or my credential program.  I think I was late on one assignment in my bachelor's program, but that was because I gave birth to Vinny that week (and the professor excused it).
         I am just a few assignments from being really done with it all, but I got nothing done on any of them this week.  As I lay on the couch after rehearsal mindlessly catching up on episodes of Smash, I was mentally chastising myself for not working on it all, but I really could not mentally function at the level required to write papers.  Now, it is the weekend, and I am recovering, but I am probably going to need to spend this whole weekend making up for it, which really sucks, because I'd much rather spend this beautiful weekend spending time with my kids, who I really missed over the last week.
      Tech week/production week means I leave before my kids wake up and get home after they go to bed, so I really, really missed them this week.  I am going to be so excited to be done with this program just to spend guilt-free time with my kids. Just another week.  Pretty much everything is due this Thursday.  Now, if I can only get through the next four days.

Four days more...

      The lyrics to "One Day More" from Les Miserables are running through my head as I build my proverbial barricade and try to survive the next four days and somehow win this battle.  Let's hope it turns out better for me than for the students' revolution. 

     Thursday is opening night for Much Ado About Nothing.  I also have two papers due that night.  Fortunately, after spending six hours on it last night, one of them is essentially feeling done.  Thank God it was a paper on the benefits of the arts in education. Somehow writing about the intense language learning that happens while rehearsing Shakespeare made me actually believe that, even though I will pretty much not see my daughter until Saturday, I am doing something worthwhile with this next week... not just yelling at teenagers to "PROJECT!" 

     If you look up "Hell Week" on urban dictionary, you will find that the first explanation refers to that point around finals when college students experience various stages of distress and anxiety.  The third explanation referred to it as "the week of a theatrical performance, when the cast and crew practically live at school and communicate with their family members through notes." This made me laugh, as I glance at the jambalaya recipe I have taped next to the stove (annotated to remind my family of the pre-diced veggies in tupperware in the fridge). Like I said... building my barricade, since this week is "hell week" for me by both urban definitions. Ironically, I don't particularly like the term "hell week."  When Marc made reference to it yesterday, I commented that it isn't a term I normally use, since "hell" indicates "bad," when the results of hell week are often rather good.  Some of the best work gets done when you turn up the heat (no pun intended). 

     And so, this weekend, I have attempted to build the barricade by making dinner plans and stocking the fridge and freezer so my husband and kids don't resort to drive-thrus, by straightening my hair so I don't have to think about how crappy it looks when I wake up in the morning (although it inevitably still will), by attempting to finish the papers early, by setting all the bills that are due to pay automatically, and by watching Smash to remind myself that even theatre professionals feel like everything is falling apart. 

At the center of what it means to be human

      Have you ever had that moment of realization where you come face-to-face with your finite nature and realize that your season for something has truly passed?  I have had many of those moments lately; they can be truly depressing.

      When I was little, I wanted very much to be an actress.  (Okay, when I was four years old, I went through a stage when I wanted to be a doctor, and I went through a brief stage where I thought I wanted to be a physical therapist, but mostly I wanted to be an actress).  Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, for me, that meant, of course, I wanted to be a movie star.  Until I got just a little older and realized that I hate watching myself on camera. Like, seriously, hate.  I still do. So, I went with my heart and soul and became a teacher. 

      Not that I don't love being a teacher. And sincerely, I am called to be teacher. Looking back, I've known it all along.  There is this book by Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, in which he talks about how who we really are at the core is who we were as children, before we started adapting our passions and dreams to the worlds expectations. When I look back at myself as a child, I was a born teacher before I was even a students.  When I was like 3, I lined all my stuffed animals up on the porch swing for a "class picture," my dad, the amateur photog, of course obliged with his fancy camera.  He even blew the picture up and framed it.  But that is besides the point.  I just know that I have always, at the core of my being, been called to be a teacher. 

     But then, there is this other part of me, the part that, in my teenage years, discovered the stage, that is  still so enamored with the stage. I love acting on stage so, so, so much -- it is like a drug.  The rush I get from performing for a live audience is like nothing I could ever explain to someone who has not experienced it. Those of you who have know exactly what I am talking about. In November, when I went on a cruise with my in-laws, I auditioned for this show they have on the last night where some of the cruise guests get to be in the show.  I ended up getting to perform on stage as Gloria Estefan.  It was so cheesy and the costume was, well, horrific (don't expect to see clips of it -- I will NOT be posting them, as I said, I don't like myself on film), but I hadn't felt that good in a long, long time.  There were hundreds of people in the audience, and I just totally gave it my all, and it just felt, well, phenomenal. 

     Aside from the rush of the huge audience, there's this cathartic element to acting too. The energy, the escapism, the chance to completely dive into a fictional character's life and problems. That part of acting is therapeutic to a person's soul.  A few weeks ago, when a scene I am directing was falling flat, I got up on stage and took an actresses place so that she could see where the energy was falling. I rarely, rarely do that, but in this case, it worked.  When I got off stage after, I was shaking and out of breath from the intensity of the scene.  I had almost forgotten what that felt like. 

      When I do things like that... when I watch shows like Smash (which sometimes manages to hit me right at my emotional center and leave me breathless), I find that part of my soul aching.  I recently did a research project on the arts in education, and I found this quote that defined the arts better than I had ever been able to define it in my own head: theatre "[taps] into deeply cultural and expressive aspects of people's lives that are at the center of what it means to be human."  

    When I am acting is when I feel most in touch with what it means to be human. On stage, I am in touch with parts of my innermost being, and those parts are so terribly out of use these days that they almost physically hurt. 

     And then I have those moments where I think to myself? Why not? Is it ever really too late to chase a dream? Why not chase the Broadway dream?  I've always been a dreamer.  I've always believed that, if you can dream it, you can do it. But who am I kidding...  I would never, ever, ever leave teaching to pursue a career on Broadway, and even if I wanted to, even in my most optimistic moments, I could never fool myself into thinking that it was even close to a reality. I am, in Broadway terms, old, and terribly inexperienced.  And I do not really know how to dance. Even learning simple choreography takes me a long time. And I have a career... as a teacher. I'm a teacher. 

     I rarely feel old.  I usually look at my life and think, "I'm not even 30... I've got my whole life ahead of me," but when it comes to certain things...  that's just not true. 

    But, the passion in my soul longs not for Broadway fame and fortune. I long only for the drug-like delight I find on stage. And so, as soon as I finish this darn Masters degree, I will pursue my passion again.  I will audition for community theatre. I will not give up so easily. I will not make a million excuses for not auditioning. I will return to the jazz class I had started taking in January, so I don't always get rejected because of my lack of dance training.  Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Sacrifice

      At around nine o'clock this evening, I dragged myself from class to the parking lot, thinking of nothing but my pajamas and a glass of chardonnay. As I climbed into my car and turned the key, the CD player awoke to blast the album that has pretty much become the theme of my life lately: Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown.
     And then it hit me. Tonight is Green Day's LA concert. As I looked at the clock I thought, they probably just took the stage. The past six months flashed before my eyes -- buying tickets to the Las Vegas concert, realizing we were too broke and too busy to afford it, selling back the tickets, Green Day announcing the LA concert, Marc asking me about buying tickets, me checking my calendar and saying, "No, we can't, I have class until late that night and it's the last one before the paper is due... besides, we can't afford it."

      Sacrifices.

     Like the fact that I haven't even met my new niece yet. Or that I didn't even see Tiana's beautiful face at all today. And that I am not taking a personal day tomorrow to spend with Marc and the kids (Vinny has no school tomorrow). Priorities.  There is just too much to do.
      So, as I pulled out of the parking lot, I pumped the volume up to an intensity that would allow me to feel it in my bones, and pretty much cried the entire way home.
      Ironically, as I pushed the knob towards a certainly dangerous decibel, a providentially appropriate chorus filled my soul:

"Well I, I just want to see the light

And I, I don't want to lose my sight

Well, I, I just want to see the light

And I need to know what's worth the fight." 

      What's worth the fight?  My students are worth the fight.  The obvious progress they make each and every day -- worth the fight.  My education is worth the fight.  The impact my masters program has had on my teaching -- worth the fight.  Finishing strong and keeping my commitments -- worth the fight. Pushing my drama students to strive for excellence in exceedingly difficult endeavors... like performing Shakespeare -- worth the fight.

     And I do see the light at the end of the tunnel, I truly do. It's just that life is an insane marathon of work right now.  Much Ado About Nothing hits the stage on May 2nd, and we are far from ready, so there is much work to do on that front.  The next round of report cards is due May 7th and I have a huge pile of papers to be graded (and more on the way).  My graduate school work is all due May 9th.  I have this feeling of impending doom, like, if I let my guard down for a minute, one of my carefully cooking pots is going to boil over and burn past the point of salvaging.

Here's to friends willing to read a 32 page paper.

     And honestly, a tunnel is truly not the best description of my current situation. The light really is not at the end, but all around me.  The light is in friends from afar who post encouraging comments on facebook.  It is in my truly dedicated comrades who spent hours last Thursday sitting around my kitchen table, reading and responding to my thesis paper. The light is my devoted husband who arranged for his parents to bring my son home from youth group last night so I could have a few uninterrupted hours to work. It is in my daughter who understands that mommy needs to be on her computer and is willing to bond by just cuddling beside me on the couch in the evenings. The light is the friend who cheerfully gives of her last few days in California to help my students do Shakespeare well. The light is my incredibly selfless mother, who cleans my house and does my laundry and does whatever she can to make life... well... possible.  I see the light.

     And, I, don't want to lose my sight.

     Because it truly does take a village.  And when I get that ever-loving piece of paper on May 23rd... it is going to mean so incredibly much more than I had ever really imagined to me and to them.

Because that is the power of community.

Stiff Neck, OCD, and College Ministry - My Weekend in a Nutshell

I'd like to start off by saying that this blog is dedicated to my mother, whom I would be utterly miserable without. 

This was an interesting weekend.  Long.  You know all that stuff you hear about the physical effects of stress?  It is so true, and I wish I could just choose not to stress, but sometimes there just is no avoiding it.

Friday night, Marc and I spent hours working on my grading. He graded vocabulary homework and entered grades for hours, while I tackled the last of the essays I've bee trudging through for weeks.  Around midnight, exhausted from hours hunched over papers, we finally went to bed.

Those hours hunched over papers took a toll. I woke up Saturday morning feeling unable to move.  You know that feeling where, the second that you get out of bed you feel stiff and sore all over?  I felt it before I even got out of bed.  I woke up and went to roll over in bed for a little more sleep, and I couldn't roll as usual. My neck felt so stiff I had to try to roll my entire body in one slow, smooth motion to avoid any twisting. I laid there, contemplating getting out of bed, and could barely make myself do it. When I eventually did, every single robotic motion hurt. This happened to me last time I had grades due too.  The only difference is that last time, it happened literally THE DAY, grades were due.  It took me nearly two weeks to recover.

After several cups of coffee and many hours of cuddling with Tiana, I attempted to get up and grade papers or clean my house or something, but alas, all I could do was call my mom to complain.  In the process of complaining, my mom insisted that I take the pre-paid massage appointment that she had scheduled for that day.  I felt so guilty and refused until she absolutely insisted. 

Fortunately, this woman was amazing.  (If you need a really good massage therapist, ask me about her).  Within that hour, I regained some of the motion in my neck, which was fantastic. I was feeling good enough to actually enjoy my cousin's birthday last night, even if I did have to move my entire body to look at the people to my left and right.  I didn't feel completely better yesterday, and woke up a little sore again still today, but by this afternoon, I was feeling pretty much normal, which is AMAZING, considering the fact that last time this happened it wasn't nearly as bad and it took me about ten days to get back to normal feeling and range of motion.

Anyhow... moving on to the other elements of my interesting weekend -- 

For those who do not know, Vinny has OCD.  We have good days and bad days, but mostly we function alright. The saddest part of all is that even the months in therapy did not help us to overcome Vinny's super protectiveness of his bedroom.  It is his space and his sanctuary, and I respect that, but at the same time, the feelings of panic he gets really ruin things for him, and as his mom, I want to see him live life to its fullest, so that's hard.  Today, he was setting up his stuffed animals as an audience for his show. He is always putting on a show. Tiana says, "I want to be your body-ence!" but he shoved her out.  I tried to talk him into it, but he wigged out and was all upset simply because she was looking around his room at his stuff. You could tell that in his head he was afraid she might misplace something simply by thinking about touching it. I ended up putting her down for a nap and taking Vinny aside to talk.

We talked about how a lot of the things that he says to her when she goes in his room are really mean and hurtful and most importantly, how he is missing out on a really cool relationship that he could be having with his sister. He actually agreed. He compared it to an episode of a cartoon he watches, where a brother and sister used to share a room and then they fought and stopped sharing a room, but they ended up missing each other and wanted to share their room again. I said, "See, you could have to share a room with her, but you don't."

His reply?   "Actually, that might be kind of fun."

I was shocked at this openness, which he has never exhibited about his room, particularly not in regards to Tiana, so I decided to run with it.  I suggested that he and Tiana temporarily share a room so that he could see what it was like. He was thrilled with the idea, even though I insisted that he would need to let her just be herself and do what she wants and not follow her around grabbing everything she touches. He excitedly agreed, so we went about clearing a space for her. 

This change in attitude meant a great afternoon for the two of them. They played happily together all over the house and yard, two peas in a pod. He let her see his pet fish and play his keyboard and didn't bat an eye.  Okay, he probably batted an eye, but he let it be, and that was the goal.

Until bedtime tonight. Things were mostly okay, but the meltdowns started. I think it was the thought of him not being able to control her in there if he fell asleep before she did.

During the meltdown period, Marc was pretty upset. "Why are we doing this again?" 

It was hard to explain, but I was, in some ways, doing it FOR the meltdown.  I knew that sharing his space would mean that Tiana would disrupt his order and his routine, but he somewhat needs to experience these disruptions, and then see that nothing terrible happens. Before we went to therapy, we used to spend all of our time trying to meet Vinny's demands -- illogically zipping zippers that were already zipped and putting books back in the same exact spot as before -- but out therapist explained that this is terrible for someone with OCD because it reinforces this emotional sense they have that disaster will strike if they don't (fill in the blank).  By doing whatever it is that the OCD sufferer wants done, you actually reinforce the thought that something bad would have happened if it hadn't been done, which makes the urge that much stronger the next time. If I can just get Vinny to see that nothing terrible will happen if Tiana touches his stuff or disrupts his routine, then he will hopefully learn to relax and allow himself to enjoy her company as much as I can tell that he wants to. Sigh. Tiana isn't sleeping terribly well in Vinny's room, but even a day or two of this will probably be enough to help Vinny make some progress.

Tonight was also interesting because Marc and I had the first meeting of what we hope will become a regular college ministry. We used to lead a college small group Bible study at our last church and we really enjoyed it.  Our new church is small, but we started to sense the need for one. 

College ministry has a special place in my heart.  It's interesting to me that most churches actually don't have a college ministry, despite the fact that college age people, in many ways, have the most freedom to really live life together in the way that the people in the first church did. College is when my faith became my own and when I truly realized the importance of fellowship, and I credit a strong college ministry.  Even through rough times in my faith in future years, I never desired to walk away from the church -- even if I felt rejected by it -- because I knew that fellowship could be life changing and faith sustaining, so I refused to walk away. Even when it was hard.

Today was so not the ideal day for this though.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I told Marc to schedule it for today.  With how crappy I felt yesterday, my house was a disaster and grades are due in two days, so my plate was full to say the least.  But, again, Mom to the rescue. My mom rushed over and spent an hour cleaning my house. As my mom commented, and I unfortunately must agree, she can do in 45 minutes what would take Marc and I two hours together.  I am a remarkably effective grader when sitting in my kitchen watching my mom do my dishes. Why is that?  I got SO much done. Now, if only the grade system wasn't down so I could enter all this stuff...

Suburbia

      When we were house shopping four years ago, we sat down with the realtor, and she had a stack of papers with houses in our price range. As she laid them out on her desk, I immediately nixed about 8 perfectly good houses at excellent prices. Why? Because they were on main streets. I grew up in a neighborhood where the neighborhood kids and I climbed trees in my front yard, played kickball in the streets, and rode our bikes around the neighborhood and to the neighborhood park. Although I always loved school, my fondest memories of childhood are certainly not from school -- they are of my friends and I walking to the Foster Freeze down the street from my house and dumping piles of loose change on the counter to get ice cream cones. I figured that, if we would not be living the exotic expatriate life I had imagined for myself, then I wanted my children to at least experience the advantages of living in a suburban neighborhood in one of the safest cities in the country. Living on a main street really isn't conducive to that. 

      We looked at a couple of houses that just needed too much fixing up and were in neighborhoods I just didn't feel like matched my personality. Then, we drove down this street, and the realtor had to slow for a kid riding a bike in the street. A bit further down, a few kids were playing basketball in a driveway.  I knew almost instantly that I wanted to live here. At the very edge of town (so much so that we are technically in an unincorporated area of the county), the neighborhood is on the edge of woodsy rural area, and the local elementary school, less than a quarter of a mile away, is tucked away in a tiny nook of the hillside we view from our backyard. It has just enough of an anti-establishment feel to suit my tastes, and as the streets appeared to be brimming with kids, I imagined an elementary age Vinny (he was then only two years old) playing in the streets with his friends. 

     Up until now, that hadn't really happened yet.  But this week, Vinny made a friend.  He lives a few houses down and is a couple years older than Vinny, but they have become very fond of each other.  The two have spent the afternoons this past week riding up and down the street on their scooters, running from our house to his house, playing gleefully without sweaters in this early springtime heat wave. 

      I'm so glad he has a friend, but I just can't believe he has grown up so quickly. It seems like just yesterday he was a tiny toddler in my arms and my visions of him dribbling a basketball on the driveway were distant dreams, but that's precisely what he is out front doing right now.  Where does time go?

What "leaning in" looks like for me

To say this past week has been full would be an understatement.  I can hardly believe it has only been a week.
     Last Sunday, Marc and I were passing the baton in this game of tag team parenting that we know so well, literally unpacking Marc's stuff (from winter camp) to pack my stuff (for the charter schools conference).  On a side note, you would think by now we would own at least two decent suitcases, but truth be told, we have one really sturdy one.
     Monday, I had a frantically packed day at work. Not only was I trying to wrap up my sub plans for the week and prepare my students for the high school exit exam they were about to take on Tuesday, I was also, being the tenth grade level lead teacher, coordinating all the nitty gritty details of administrating a test that only 25% of the school takes. This gets complicated and somewhat stressful, to say the least, even when I am on campus, so knowing I was going to be away from campus just upped the importance of getting it all right. To top it all off, there was a department meeting during my prep period.  Unbelievably, my colleague and I still managed to hit the road for San Diego by 4:30.  (Be impressed).
     Fortunately, we got some great advice on the best way to take down during rush hour and actually managed to make it within three hours. We sat in very little bumper to bumper traffic, and since I enjoy the company of the teacher who came with me, I would almost call the drive pleasant. Almost.
    One of my administrators was invited to present at the conference, and he asked me to join him as a co-presenter. I was grateful for the opportunity, since I had been thinking about submitting an application to present, but I had a lot of grad school work due right around when the applications were due, so I never got around to it. Presenting at an educator's conference is actually on my buried list, and has been for quite some time. It is even in the top 50, and I wrote the top 50 all in the first day, right after seeing the first episode of The Buried Life on MTV, back in 2010.
     Well, anyway, he and I stayed up rather late preparing for our presentation. We are both perfectionists, although polar opposites in artistic preference and personality style, which makes for truly interesting collaboration (not being sarcastic here). We literally spent time discussing the angle of photos in the powerpoint slides. (I like to play with the angle button -- I think placing pictures at an angle is stylistically eye catching -- but he prefers them neat and tidy).  We are both flexible enough to compromise and laugh off our differences, so ultimately, the result was a presentation we felt well prepared for, and I think we were proud of the positive feedback.
      The weather in San Diego was absolutely beautiful, and although we spent most of the time inside, I have to say that it really did add to my enjoyment of the conference. I went to some great presentations where I learned a lot, and the keynote speeches by Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada were truly inspiring.  Michelle Rhee made a point that it's okay to not always be liked by everyone. I am a leadership-minded, outspoken individual, and in my career (okay, in my life in general), I have occasionally stepped on toes or turned people off with the things I have said or done. Over the past year, I've done a lot of self-doubting and holding back, frustrated with myself and the mistakes I've made in "teaching like my hair is on fire" (will explain this metaphor later). I will not say that I have no regrets (because that's not true), but Michelle Rhee made me realize that when a passionate woman is willing to put herself out there, she truly can make a difference.  That doesn't mean that there will not be mistakes and that there will not be pain, but, as they say, no pain, no gain. She also reminded me that the stakes are just too high to not occasionally take risks, because every student is someone's little boy or little girl, and every mom wants the best for their children, but not every mom has the same opportunities. Until that is no longer true, we must continue to, as Geoffrey Canada reminded me, refuse to accept failure. He spoke of what most educators unfortunately already know: that children in classrooms all across America continue to fail quietly while teachers try to excuse it away, instead of making each and every failure a crisis.
    When I thought of that word, "crisis," I was reminded of an award winning teacher I once heard about on TV.  He has a book called Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire (which, incidentally, I have not yet read). He explained that he decided to title the book that because he once, in trying to help a student with a science project, accidentally lit his hair on fire, but didn't even notice until the students started screaming. It's a great metaphor, if you really think about it. Saving those students who are quietly failing requires turning every failure into a crisis and without being too afraid to sometimes make mistakes... like accidentally catching your hair on fire.
     
     And so, slightly worn from long days of walking around the convention center, but invigorated, I returned home Thursday to attend class, pushing towards the prize of my master's degree, which is so close I can almost taste it. Friday, I worked another long, full day, then rushed home to make it to mother son bowling night with Vinny. Watching him and his little friends chuck those balls was just too cute. He's growing up so fast.

       Somehow, in the midst of all the work I am terribly behind on, I found time to read the minutes to the last local school board meeting and email one of the school board members, to sign up for Educators 4 Excellence, and to write a letter to my Congressman.
   
       Then, Saturday, Marc and I headed out to the Holi festival.

I may never have caught my hair on fire, but I can now say that I have had it covered in powdered colors. I do a unit each year where my students study India, which has, in previous years, involved a Saturday trip to eat lunch in Little India.  When I found out that there would be a Holi festival in Little India this year, I assigned extra credit and encouraged my students to attend.  So, yesterday, I danced bhangra yoga around my students while I sprinkled bright yellow dust over their heads and gave them tips for starting conversations with Indian people to learn more about life in India.

      Today, I promised myself that I would get serious about action research report.  I've been staring at the research and trying to make sense of it all for several weeks now. I have results. I have an idea of what it might look like in writing, but I just need to make it happen. I thought that, if I really devoted my afternoon to it, I could make a serious dent in it.  Sigh.

      My research report is essentially a twenty page paper in which I describe my action research project. It is divided into the following sections:
- Intro to my topic
- Background (review of professional literature about my topic)
- Procedures (what I did, where I did it, the data I collected while doing it, and how I analyzed the data)
- Findings (the results)
- Discussion (what I think the results mean)
- Conclusion

      The intro, background, and some of the procedures were essentially "done" when I did my research proposal a year ago.  Or so I thought...    My plan today was to spend just a little bit of time "polishing" those sections, and then to explain the data analysis and move on to write up the findings. I figured that was a totally do-able amount to get done in one Sunday.

      Boy was I wrong.

      When I really started to look at it all today, it needed much more revision than I realized.  Things in my action research project ended up looking somewhat different than I had initially imagined them, and although the differences between the proposal and the implementation were slight, they were enough to involve loads of revision on the sections that I thought were basically "done."

     Between the time I got home from church today to the time I clicked "save" and closed the file before starting this blog tonight, I spent probably six hours on the darn report today, and all I did was revise. I didn't even get to starting the part I thought I was going to finish today. On the plus side, I feel really good about what I have so far.  On the downside, I know I still have a lot of editing to do -- it is supposed to be a 20 page paper, and I'm already on page 19 with half of the required sections not yet written. Graduate school is significantly harder than I had imagined.

      But I'm fired up and feeling good. Feeling... empowered. Last night, I read this great article in Time magazine by Sheryl Sandberg, an executive at Facebook, "Why I Want Women to Lean In."  She reminds women that "no one has it all. Nor can they. The very concept of having it all flies in the face of the basic laws of economics and common sense. Being a working parent means making adjustments, compromises and sacrifices every day. For most people, sacrifices and hardships are not a choice but a necessity—and tougher than ever because of the expansion of working hours. In 2009, married middle-income parents worked about 8 1⁄2 hours more per week than in 1979. Just as expectations about work hours have risen dramatically, so have expectations of how much time mothers will spend focused on their children. An employed mom today spends about the same amount of time reading to, feeding and playing with her children as a nonemployed mother did in 1975."

      I keep seeing all these Facebook shares telling moms to put down their phones, their computers, their to do lists, and just enjoy their children. I did not ignore my children today. I took them to church. I laughed with them and joked with them while I took them grocery shopping with me. I ate lunch with them. I helped Vinny print new sheet music and find piano tutorial videos on YouTube. I listened to him play the same three songs about 500 times. I took my niece and my daughter on a walk and sang "Bippidi Boppidi Boo" for like half an hour. I had my niece over for a sleepover and gave them a bath together and got them in their jammies and tucked in to bed. 

      I'm not a bad mom because I left for a conference for a few days or because I poured six hours into my computer today. I'm just leaning in towards my future and theirs.




Read more from the Sheryl Sandberg article above at: http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/07/why-i-want-women-to-lean-in/#ixzz2NsFZeq3t

Much Ado About Drama

Vinny's wisdom sometimes blows my mind. To process it... I must write it.  I hope you will read it. 

Wednesday night, I was preparing for a discussion I was supposed to be semi-leading on arts in education, and I thought that Supertramp's "The Logical Song," would be a good intro.  Vinny heard me listening to it and was captivated.  He has been watching it over and over again on YouTube since. 

(The rest of this will make much more sense if you listen to the song before or while you read it).

We had a pretty interesting discussion about the song that night, but right now I want to talk about what happened tonight.

      He hands me his tablet. "Mommy, can you help me find the song about the guy who thinks life is a miracle and then gets sent to jail for being crazy?"  Um... what?  Eventually, I figured it out. So, he's watching it and he says, "When I grow up and become a director, I'm still going to think everything is a miracle, but don't call the cops on me, okay?"  This was just too funny.

     Then, we're eating dinner and he says, "Why doesn't he know who he is? Doesn't he have a name?"
I decided it might be interesting to take this deeper.  "I don't know. Who are you?" 
"I'm Vinny."
"Are you?  Or is Vinny just your name?  Is it really who you are? Aren't there other Vinnys?  What makes you... you?"
"I'm an actor."
"Well, isn't that just what you do? Is that really who you are?"
"I don't know.  Maybe that guy's confused because he doesn't know what he wants to do when he grows up."
"Maybe. Or maybe he already grew up and still doesn't know what to do."
Vinny then thinks for a minute and says, "He really should be an actor, because then you can be whoever you want whenever you want."

     And with that, Vinny told me who I am.

     What is life without acting?  How does one survive life without the magic if?  How do you not tell so-and-so off for being such a you-know-what unless you are able to imagine what you would do if you were that person in that person's given circumstances?

      At Bible study a couple of weeks ago, someone brought up the golden rule ("Do to others what you want others to do to you"), and then someone else said, "I prefer to think of it as, 'Do to others what you think they would like done to them,' because not everyone is like me."  Wow. What wisdom in that statement. I stored that thought in the back of my memory until earlier this week, as I was frantically grading an intro level character analysis assignment that my drama students did last week. The final question on the page was, "Do you like your character?  Why or why not?" 

      A few students had asked me what that meant. "What do you think it means?" I replied. 
 
       One student responds, "Like, would I be friends with this person?"
       "Sure," I replied.
       Another student suggests, "Or maybe it's more like, do I like being this person?"
       "Sure," I replied, again.
      "Well, which is it?" the first student inquires.
       "Yes," I replied with a sly grin.

      They gave me that look that students give you when they really dislike the fact that you are making them think. 
     As I graded the papers, it became clear that many of the students do not "like" their characters yet, and for understandable reasons. They were only at surface level at this point. We'd only really begun identifying consistent traits. Now that we've begun to dive deeper into their characters' backgrounds and histories, they are starting to "get" their characters. As they process their characters' circumstances with their own individual personalities, they react in ways they find surprising themselves.
       One student, a rather sweet and gentlemanly boy, was initially bothered by Benedick's utter disdain for women. I know this kid and his family rather well, and I'm not surprised he dislikes Benedick's attitude. This kid is surrounded by amazing women, so it is no surprise he treats women well. As I've pushed him to understand his character and to create a background for himself, he's started to get into it. At the end of rehearsal yesterday, totally out of the blue, he looked Beatrice in the eye and called her a wh****.  He was kind of joking, but I am fairly certain it stemmed from a character development exercise I'd used to begin class. He caught everyone so off guard that he rendered most of the class speechless.

     It is easy to dislike those who do things we don't understand. It is harder to try to understand them. Even when we do, we might not dislike them any less, but it just puts us in a place of looking at the world, at life, and appreciating circumstances.

     So, what do you do when all you've ever learned tells you to be sensible, logical, responsible, and practical, but you just don't feel like being dependable or clinical or intellectual? Do you become cynical?  Do you let them make you presentable?  Give in like a vegetable?  

Or do you become an actor? 

     I'm raising my kids to be actors.

      

Goodbye February

I feel like I should have all sorts of interesting things to say, but I don't really.  As usual, I just have some amusing reflections.

Tiana is so... Tiana. Most strong-willed kid ever. It's funny, we sort of let Vinny name her after the Disney Princess Tiana, because we were toying with the name "Giana" (I wanted something nice and Italian to match Vinny), but he kept saying, "No, Princess Tiana."   Besides that, I kept getting irritated at the fact that it is rising in popularity and that everyone I would say the name to would say, "Oh, I have a (cousin, niece, goddaughter, etc.) named Giana, and we call her 'Gigi.' "  I dislike the nickname Gigi profusely.  I dislike it for numerous reasons. For starters, I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but it sounds a little bit like a phony name that an exotic dancer might use.  Second of all, when Vinny and his cousin were born and became the first great-grandchildren on my dad's side of the family, his mom thought it would be soooo cute to have them call her "G.G" for "great-grandma."  I was not a fan of this concept.  I didn't like it because, before they died when I was a teenager, I called both my great-grandmothers just "grandma" like my mom and dad did, and I always called my dad's mom "Grandma," and I wasn't about to start calling her "G.G" at that point. It just felt weird. Neither of the kids latched on to it (they both just call her grandma), and she was not happy. I think she still signs Christmas cards "G.G" Whatever... but I certainly wasn't gonna let my daughter be called Gigi. Giana had to go.

      I was washing my hands in the bathroom at prom the spring before she was born and one of the students asked me, "Does she have a name yet?" I said, "We think it's going to be 'Giana," and she misheard because of the water running and said, "Tiana?  That's a beautiful name!" I mentally gave in at that moment. "Yeah... it is," I replied. From that moment on, she was Tiana. And so very much like the movie character she truly is.  My mom and I were talking about little strong-willed Tiana last night and I said, "She is going to be one determined woman. She will be able to get whatever she wants in life."  For now, however, she is just an incredibly determined two year old, which means that, if she doesn't want to get dressed, and you are the one attempting to dress her... heaven help you.

The yellow is last year, the green is this year. 

      Last week I was feeling rather disappointed in myself in the fact that we have spent above our budget in almost every category.  I set very strict budgets this year that would allow us to really truly only spend what we earn, and we didn't quite make it this month. We didn't go further into debt either, but I was not pleased at our spending... until I clicked the button on Mint.com that allows you to see a comparison to the same month the prior year.  We have actually spent less this month than we did in every area last year.  That is what comes from at least having a strict budget, I suppose. The most significant difference was in shopping. We basically haven't shopped. We essentially barter for everything we need - although not directly. If we need something material, we sell something used of ours, then we take that money, and buy whatever we need used. Its a wonderful advantage over traditional consumerism. While we may not have stayed under budget this month, we did improve, and for that, I am pleased.

      There are all sorts of exciting things happening on my career-educational front these days, but I'm not even really ready to process them all yet. My happiness action research project is, so far, appearing to actually have really worked... as far as the data I have analyzed at this point suggests. I still need to look at the actual correlation in chart form to see if there really is a trend, but I am optimistic.  I am also applying to speak at an educator's conference, which is both an item on my buried list and an assignment for school. I am excited about the potential of getting accepted, even if it is a crazy last minute shot, since the applications are due Monday.  Yikes.  (And I'm blogging instead of writing a proposal... right?)

Vinny and I went exploring last Sunday.  It was a lot of fun spending quality time with him out in nature.  He is growing up to be an interesting young man. I'm glad I got these pictures of him when I did.  His long hair can get kind of messy, but when it is brushed to the side just above his eyes, I think it's adorable. Unfortunately, he decided definitively this week that he was done with long hair. Yesterday, my mom took him to get it cut.

 This weekend I feel kind of bad because Vinny wants to have some sort of adventure, but it just isn't in that cards.  I have grades due on Tuesday and that proposal due on Monday, and the whole thing is just too overwhelming to try to plan some big excursion this weekend.  Oh well... maybe next weekend.

   

Gratitude

I am permanently convinced that the secret to a happy life is gratitude.  So, today I am reminding myself of how grateful I am for all the things I love in life.

Things I love....

• when my new Time magazine arrives each week (yes, I'm a geek. News excites me)
• feeling a sense of community with my family, friends, and neighbors
• having a mechanic in the family 
• supporting local artisans by buying homemade goods
• my mother's enthusiasm for knitting
• my mother's enthusiasm for everything
• when Tiana wraps her arms around my neck and says, "Mommy, I really love you!"
• the taste of coffee in the morning
• the relatively little effort involved in making a cup of coffee with my Keurig
• thinking about Maui
• deep dish chocolate chip cookie ice cream pies
• the sun
• wearing a tank top in February
• being barefoot
• my friends, because quality is most certainly more important than quantity
• the Honda family (not the car -- people at my church)
• Joel Stein's column in Time magazine (99% of the time.  I kind of want to write him a nasty letter about the misinformation he spread about the Common Core Standards in a December issue). 
• that the brilliantly sarcastic student in my sixth period class has figured out I intentionally  don't hear the things he mutters under his breath
• Flocabulary
• the kindness of strangers
• that Tiana loves our minister and yells, "Paater Gey Ree!"  whenever she sees him
• my bi-weekly produce delivery from "Farm Fresh to You"
• how my husband will pretty much do anything for me
• my crock pot (by far the best kitchen gadget ever invented)
• salsa 
• garlic
• the view from my back porch
• my son's tiny neighborhood school
• teaching at a charter school
• Kelly Gallagher's book Write Like This
• having thirteen cousins and a huge extended family
• dark chocolate covered raisins from the bulk bins at Sprouts
• that I got lucky with one boy and one girl
• family photos, especially when I occasionally look good in one
• the feeling of sand between my toes

Perspectives, Dreams, and Home

Feel the need to take a break and blog, despite the pile of stuff in my bag that is calling "grade me."

Happy Mardi Gras! I celebrated by working until 5:30, then heading to the pancake dinner at church (pancakes before lent -- apparently an old English tradition... who knew?). My adorable kiddos were so adorable and loving tonight. Tiana was giving Vinny kisses and saying, "That's my brother! I love my brother."  While they were playing with all the other little kids, my two were practically inseparable. She was hanging on his sleeve most of the time.  Just so darn cute.  She was in a particularly affectionate mood this evening. She didn't even resist when her little two-year-old boyfriend went to give her a hug (in fact, she even gave him a kiss on the cheek and giggled -- doesn't normally go down that way).

Today was a good day overall.  Busy and exhausting, and I had to threaten to keep my sixth period after school (I hate making threats, particularly because I never make a threat I won't keep my word on). In the morning, during break, a couple students came in to get cozy and read. One of them told me that my classroom is "home."   :-)   She pretty much made my week.

This was always my goal for my classroom, and I feel like I have achieved it. My glass menagerie is a place where students feel camaraderie, and where they feel comfortable and taken care of.  They know where the leftover cereal is kept and feel comfortable helping themselves. During winter dry skin season, they know that there is usually lotion in the bathroom drawer. They stop by in between classes to order books. If it is cold outside and they just want a quiet place to read at break, they know I'm usually there, just setting up for the next class. They occasionally fight over the most comfy spots, but it's first come first serve and they know the early bird catches the worm.

When I was doing my credential, one professor put this question on the final exam:
"Describe your ideal classroom set up. Include more than just the seating layout. Describe the atmosphere you hope to create."

I answered that my ideal classroom would be warm and cozy. There would be couches and rugs and cozy chairs where my students will cuddle up with good books. The desks would be in a circular shape, so students face each other and me, on an equal level, to remind them that I am not a "sage on a stage," but that we are all partners in an educational journey. There would be crayons and markers and paint within arms reach, because art and color belong in all classrooms, not just elementary classes or art studios.  It will always smell like coffee or hot chocolate, like home.

The professor commented, "Cute ideas, but not very realistic."

Really?  Why not?  And I thought he said "ideal" not realistically acceptable?  And why can't I have my ideal classroom?  His comment bothered me almost as much as the fact that he marked me down for not remembering his acronym for the signs of teens considering suicide. (Never mind the fact that I  accurately described the signs and gave detailed examples of each. I mean... who cares what you know about depression if you don't have an acronym to fit it into). But I digress....   My point is -- I am a dreamer, which I say with no shame at all.

When I was 19 years old, I heard a man named Tommy Barnett preach on a tiny verse, easily scanned right over... Proverbs 29:18, which basically reminds us that (paraphrasing my own version of the modern point behind this) without dreams, life is pretty pointless. He wrote a really great book, Dream Again (which, incidentally, I have never read all of, but still want to someday - I wonder if it is sitting in Marc's office -- further digression, but it's that kind of night), about the fact that miracles happen everyday, and that God wants to give us the desires of our hearts.

   Well, my heart desires to create a safe haven, where students learn, love, and grow, through literature that opens their eyes and changes their perspectives.

      Speaking of perspective, that reminds me of a conversation I overheard yesterday.  While the students were previewing picture books they will be analyzing tomorrow, one student said, "These have all got to have something in common, but I can't even imagine what..." Another rather insightful student, an exceptionally bright underachiever replies, "That's because she [meaning me] did an amazing job of picking books. She wants us to see different perspectives."

Exactly.

"Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize." 
-- Chimamanda Adichie 

Walking the Walk

     This week, I have unintentionally turned Vinny into a radical environmentalist.  He was complaining again about the kids at school making fun of his reusable snack bags. They told him they were for "babies," whatever that means. I'm so sick of hearing this, and so very much desire for Vinny to be comfortable being different, that I decided I needed to just explain it to Vinny. 

     "Vinny, do you know why mommy sends those?" 

     "No." 

     "Because I don't want to send you with plastic baggies that will end up in the landfill. Do you know what a landfill is?" 

     "No." 

     "Let me show you." 

      At that point, I got on the internet and together we looked at pictures of landfills. The first thing he noticed in the photos was how many birds there were, so I pulled up some pictures of birds who ate plastic. We talked about how sometimes trash gets picked up by the wind and ends up in storm drains.  I showed him pictures of the great Pacific garbage patch, and this upset him a lot.  He is particularly fond of sea animals.  "Mommy, does my favorite sea animal eat plastic?"  

      Vinny loves sharks.  I've never heard about sharks endangered by plastic, but I decided I would give it a look.  Sure enough, we found a video of a shark with plastic wrapped around his mid section, cutting into his skin.  It had created a gash about 3 inches deep.  A man was trying to rescue the shark and was eventually able to catch the shark, get the plastic off, and release him.  Yikes. 

     We had some great conversations that night about the fact that people just don't realize the damage that they are doing, and about how its important to do what we can to help.  He has always understood recycling, so we also talked about how recycling raises some issues with pollution, but is still better than nothing.  I was glad to see him go to bed that night feeling secure and confident in his ability to deal with his friends.  He said, "I'm gonna tell my friends that I'm not a baby, I just don't want to fill the earth and the ocean with trash because I love birds and sharks."  Haha.  The type of person Vinny is, he probably will go on to educate his classmates about the importance of reusable containers. 

      The next morning, we packed Vinny's lunch like usual and off he went.  He came home, opened his lunch box, and said, "Mommy, I brought home my trash so we can recycle it."  I try to send waste-free lunches, but there are some things that the kids like that involve trash.  He took out the leftover container from his squeeze applesauce and a wrapper from a breakfast bar.  

      "Those aren't recyclable, sweetie. They go in the trash can." 

      He looked at me with this look of utter distaste and confusion. "Then why did you send them?" 

     "Because they are what you like.  But we can try to find alternatives if you want.  I mean, Tiana really likes the squeeze applesauce, but you can bring your applesauce in a container with a spoon tomorrow next time, if you want." 

      "Yes, do that.  I don't want to make trash!" 

     I sighed and realized I had opened a bigger can of worms than I had intended to.  I would truly need to be more conscious of my shopping.  I've tried to take this one step at a time -- I mean, five years ago, I didn't even recycle because I was too lazy to get a second trash can and walk the extra ten yards to the recycling receptacle in our condo complex -- but Vinny doesn't really take anything one step at a time. 

       Trying to do the best I can, I decided to check out Sprouts, since I heard they have a bigger selection of bulk items than Whole Foods.  I packed for the trip and brought lots of containers for my bulk items.  It turns out they are much less "bring your own" friendly than Whole Foods, since they apparently have no way to remove tare weights.  It was kind of a hassle.  I'm just going to have to find cloth bags that are equally lightweight, because their system just automatically removes the bag tare. They were really apologetic though and did their best to accommodate. Ultimately, their bulk section is really something amazing. I'd heard that they have bulk spices to fill your own spice jars too, but I couldn't find them. They do have all kinds of bulks snacks and cereals and dried fruits and candies and grains and coffee and well... you name it.  I got a snack mix somewhat like the Cheez-it snack mix that the kids like so much.  I also got dried cherries and chocolate covered pretzels and some dark chocolate covered raisins (which are totally going to be my undoing since they are amazing). Tiana wanted to sample all of it.  So cute.  She insisted that we get wasabi peas.  A worker overheard my insistence that she wouldn't like them and offered to let her try one. Oh man.  Am I terrible mom for thinking that was funny?  She first said, "Yum," then started to panic and looked like she was going to cry. He handed her a chocolate covered pretzel and she eventually got over it.  Needless to say, we didn't get wasabi peas. I also got a ton of their French vanilla granola with the intention of trying to make my own granola bars so Vinny doesn't have to feel bad about throwing the wrappers away.  It was a very long shopping trip, but we really stocked up on stuff, which was good. 

      So, today, I am trying to do more than talk the environmentalist talk, but it turns out that walking the walk can often be harder than it looks. Until you really start thinking about all the trash your groceries produce, it's easy to ignore, but as I unpacked my groceries today, I couldn't help but think about the fact that, despite my efforts, the groceries I was putting away would eventually produce quite a bit of trash. Sure, we could go waste free if we stopped buying things like cheerios, of if I could make everything myself and never buy things like frozen pizzas or frozen burritos, but I work full time. I hate to admit it, but there are boundaries. There are not enough hours in the day for me to homemake things like bread and crackers. And I envy people who speak of great grocery stores where they will cut off a block of parmesan and stick it in your cloth, but I have yet to find a local grocery store with such a bulk cheese section. Oh well. I bought locally farmed organic cheese instead. Can't have it all, I suppose. What is it that that song says?

     "Keep on waiting, waiting on the world to change."