Six Points and an Anecdote February 4, 2010

Trying to join the 5 A.M. club challenge with girltalkhome.com and it’s not going so well.  As though I have an excuse to not rise early and meet with God because I’m suddenly a little more busy than I have been for the past four years. 

One, all of this that’s making me busy, I chose it.  I brought it on myself, if you will.  When a statement like that comes out of my mouth, what I mean is I chose this so I deserve to be punished by the consequences I am experiencing.  Several months ago I had a conversation with my aunt and she totally called me on this.  Something along the lines of, “You do not deserve to be punished because you made a choice that turned out to be hard.  You do not deserve to be punished even when you make a choice that you know is wrong.  You do have to deal with the consequences, but you do not need to wallow in the idea that you deserve the pain.”  Or something like that.  It was several months ago.  If she is reading this, she should feel free to leave a comment and correct me if I paraphrased her wrongly.  

Two, I need to get the legalism out of my head and remember that I do not please God by getting up early and praying and reading my bible.  I do not make God love me more, I do not make myself more acceptable to Him.  All that is finished already, and I didn’t do any of it.  What I do is open a door for Jesus to make me more like himself.  It doesn’t justify me with God, it sanctifies me to more godliness.

Three, from past experience with this particular practice, I know that a half hour with God is more beneficial than a half hour of sleep.  Even if my choice were to sleep 4 hours, or sleep 3 1/2 hours and spend 30 minutes praying and reading scripture, the second choice is the better one.

(Three-and-a-half:  If I lived somewhere with that view over my cup of coffee, it might be easier to wake up early!)

(But here’s the one that shows how I usually feel instead:)

(Or this one:)

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Tonight I spent 90 minutes watching a Teen Mom finale special on MTV. 

Four, Catelynn and Tyler rock.  Tyler made a great point when he said, “Catelynn and I could have done this.  We could have raised Carly.  We made a choice that we knew would be better for Carly, not because we didn’t think we could do it.”  Adoption is awesome.  I see that the adoptive parents are doing a good thing for the baby, of course.  But mostly I see that Catelynn and Tyler are giving so much of themselves for their daughter and for these strangers who want a child.  They are taking a situation that’s not so ideal, and turning it into a huge positive, through great personal sacrafice.  Maybe it’s “easier” to not have a baby as a teenager, to not juggle school and work and parenting before you’re mature enough to do those things well, to sleep nights and have money to spend on movies and junk food instead of diapers…But it looks harder. 

Five, Farrah is still pissing me off.  She is such a teenager.  She is from the school district where I teach, which somehow gives my coworkers and me the “right” to criticize her every week.    I realize it’s all edited to make a story for t.v., but she comes across as being unwilling to communicate.  She just wants everyone around her to be perfect, to be exactly what she needs, without her telling them what she needs.  And her idea of responsibility is leaving her child with her mother so she can go out all night and look for a guy to take care of her and the baby.  Ugh.  Such a teenage girl.

Six, it’s time to get the cable t.v. out of my house!!!  MTV is junk food for the brain.  So is 90% of what I pay for in my cable bill.  I spent 90 minutes “letting my brain eat junk food” instead of doing homework that I have.  T.V. is the worst time-suck that I have.  It’s one of the reasons I am thus far failing the 5:00 Club Challenge!  It’s time to get rid of it.

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I learned on Tuesday night that I am 13 points toward right-brained-ness.  (That means nothing to you unless you’ve done the test.  I’m slightly right-brained.  Not extreme, but not so close to the middle that I can easily flip, either.  According to the test.)  When the professor was talking about right-brained people and left brained people, it all made sense for awhile.  Right-brained people who play instruments prefer playing by ear over reading music.  Check.  Right-brained teachers are more likely to like working with little kids than left-brained teachers.  Check. 

Right-brained teachers would rather not do lesson plans, might not have written lesson plans in 15 years, and write their best lesson plans after they’ve taught the lesson.

WHAT????

My anxiety rose, my actual physical anxiety, while he was talking about that one!  Not have a lesson plan?  “I want to go stand over there now!” 

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“Graduate Student” January 31, 2010

Two weeks into it…I like being a “graduate student!”    I put quotation marks because I’m not sure it counts when you’re pulling in a full-time paycheck while you do it.  It’s not quite the raw experience of having not had a good income for six years or more.  You know, crappy apartment with roommates, college car, ramen noodles, doing free things on Friday and Saturday nights.  My period of being a “graduate student” is definitely not an extension of college living.  I live in my same apartment and drive my same car as I did a year ago.  I still go to restaurants and theaters and I plan to go on vacation.  (Not that I didn’t do those things in college, I suppose…)

But I like it because I thrive on being busy.  I love it.  I’m hoping it makes me go to bed at night, because I had no problem with that in college!  So far, not so good in that respect, but I’m still transitioning into this new season in my life.  I had parent-teacher conferences this week, plus I had late assignments to work on because my textbooks for one class had not arrived yet.  But I am hopeful that I will fall into a rhythm that includes sleeping.

(That’s not why I did this.  But sleep is the bane of my existence for the past few years, and I’m hopeful that anything can help at this point!)

So, why did I do this?  It’s just time.  I’ve been talking about it for 3 or 4 years now, it’s time to get to it.  I just know I’m supposed to.  It feels right.  God wants me to.  Women’s intuition.  In other words, I don’t really know.    It’s just the same thing as last year when I knew I wasn’t supposed to.  Last year, thinking about starting on my masters gave me an actual physical stomach ache, even though I couldn’t find any valid reason not to do it.  This year, when I considered the possibility, I felt peaceful and quiet, and a strange sort of engagement and excitement.  If I’m being honest, I wonder if it’s a distraction from the focus on weddings and babies that has been in my life recently.  If so, that’s fine.  I’m not distracting myself with heroin or porn.    Grad school might be just as expensive as those habits could be, but much more beneficial!

The pay raise will be nice.  With all the rumors going around about pay freezes and whatnot, it might be the only way I’ll get a raise next year.  And the year after that.  Either way, I’ll make more than I would have without a masters.  If I do want to buy a house on my own, this is really the only way to do it, apart from a change in careers. 

I really am learning things that I can use right away in my classroom, which is another perk.  At the moment, learning styles and the learning cycle, and the research behind various methods of classroom management.  So far, in just two weeks, I predict that the learning cycle class will be very beneficial.  I predict that the classroom management class will be interesting, but in general I don’t have issues with management.  I chose the classroom management class just because I don’t have a name or an official method for what I do, and I guess I want to know how to describe it.  I like what I do, but if there are things I can learn to make it even better, that would be awesome.

{Side story:  One thing I’ve been reading about is the “level of power.”  I have discovered that in comparison to other methods, I want very little power in my classroom.  Structure is wonderful, control is not.  In my opinion, anyway.  I did not see that, because I would have guessed that I have more power, because I’m satisfied with the management of my classroom.  I figure I’d rather my students do the right thing whether I’m looking at them or not.  Therefore, I don’t particularly want power.  I want them to have power, and I want them to know what to do and why.  In the end, it’s their choice that matters, not my level of control over them.}

{I’m sure there will be a hundred more little discoveries like that before the semester is over.}

Bold & Authentic January 21, 2010

11:34 P.M., 8% computer battery left, only time for bold, authentic blogging!  Ready, set, GO!

I love how when I get busier, I feel more balanced and less stressed.  I spend less time in front of the t.v. and more time going and doing.  Work, visiting Tara & Tessa (friend & new baby), choir practice…today added up to one of those days where I was going, but doing fun things all day.  It’s turning into those kinds of days a lot lately:  grad classes, yoga, friends, family, everything is wonderfully full and busy.

Yet…

I am tired of feeling like I’m letting everyone down at work.  I need to figure out how to get more done in the hours that I have there, so as not to feel this way anymore.

I want to run a 5K in April or May, among all the other things on my plate.  Need to figure out how to fit in running several times a week.  Need to downgrade the gym membership so I can still go to yoga, but I no longer have time to use the membership I currently pay for.  Need to downgrade the cable that I no longer have time to watch.  And that extra money will go toward tuition. 

The last time I was “happily over-busy,” I think I was a senior in college.  I wish I could remember if I got enough sleep back then.  This coffee addiction and this dread of morning couldn’t possibly be only in the past 5 years, but I think it might be.

I dread the morning.  I hate how I feel the first 30 minutes or so.  I want so badly to stay in bed and sleep through those 30 minutes.  I don’t mind waking up naturally, but for me it involves 30 minutes to an hour of waking up and falling back asleep several times.  Can’t really do that during the week.

I am feeling the crunch of knowing what I need to have done a week from now, and knowing what I should have done by today but don’t.  I need to focus on putting one foot in front of the other.  My coworker Amy says, “Just keep swimming!”  Everything is organized.  If I stop thinking about what I need to do next Wednesday, I won’t forget to do it all together.  Likewise, if I continue to rehash the last five days and try to figure out when I could have done that paperwork that a literacy strategist really needed from me by today, it won’t make that paperwork get done any faster.  What is right in front of me, on the table for tomorrow?  Nothing else matters at this moment.

In the morning:  Lunch is packed.  Clothes are ready.  Stop at Scooters.    Go to school.  Check mousetrap.  (Don’t ask!  But you may agree, it absolutely must be done FIRST!!!)  Gather up science materials from Wednesday that are set out to dry overnight.  Prep Thursday morning materials.  Do the paperwork for the lit strat.  Rearrange conference schedule and write notes to parents who need to be rescheduled.  Book totals for the principal.  Nutrition timesheets.  Prep Thursday afternoon materials if time. 

IN THAT ORDER!!!  I don’t need to think about the nutrition timesheets when I’m doing the literacy paperwork.  They will still be there.  I won’t forget to do them.  I often say that I am hard to work with because 90% of my day happens in my head.  I plan and think ahead, but I don’t always share with others who need to know.  Other teachers will come to a grade-level meeting with their binder and their data, and I come with just my calendar, and I can still talk about how my kids are doing, and who is where, and who scored what on what assessments, and who is struggling with this or making progress on that.  Well, my to-do list can be an actual physical list.  The entire list doesn’t always need to be in my head!  There is enough up there! 

Two goals occur to me: 

One, do the work at work and leave it there.  Go early or stay or whatever, but then be done with it.  I mentioned this to a friend much earlier in the school year, and he told me soon after that he loved it.  I need to start taking my own advice again.

Two, get a bit more sleep.  I am a horrible complainer about how much more sleep I would like.  I need to stop complaining and take action.  I don’t want to sleep 10 hours a day.  (Really.  I don’t want to.  My body doesn’t want that much sleep, unless I’m long-term sleep deprived.)  But I don’t want to feel like this in the mornings anymore, and I don’t want to be dependent on the caffeine cycle to get me through.  A solid 8 hours most nights would be bliss.  A solid 8 hours for about 10 days in a row, to catch up, and I know that I will start waking up before my alarm, because my body wants a very solid 7 1/2 hours a night.

Maybe starting tomorrow night.    Tonight it’s now midnight, and I have 5 1/2 hours before the alarm rings.

Reflections on the Fast January 17, 2010

So you may remember, last Sunday I had a 24-hour “fast” from internet and t.v.  I haven’t had a chance this week to write about it, until now.

I have to say, 24 hours isn’t enough.  I really think I need to find a good time to take, like, a week off from the screens.  The problem is, I could easily give up t.v., but internet is one way we communicate.  If someone emails me needing a response (or facebook or whatever), I wouldn’t know about it.  I would go about my internetless life, unaware that someone needed something from me, and they would think I was blowing them off or being rude.  So maybe sometime I should give up t.v. and internet for a week with a caveat that I will check my email every other day or something.

The first thing I noticed was that while I was typing the words that I was taking a break from t.v., I felt anxious.  Physically anxious.  My heart beat a little faster, I took a tense breath.  I realized I’m afraid of silence.  Strange, right?  I like being with people more than I like being alone.  Alone=pretty much the worst thing in the world.  This is definitely something I need to work on.  But what I realized is that the noise of t.v., the distraction of internet, they numb that realization of being alone.  When there is nothing to listen to, my apartment sounds empty.  When I’m not sucked into a t.v. show or a website, I can see that I’m the only one here. 

It sounds silly, or even crazy, doesn’t it?  As though right now, because I’m dinking on the internet and watching CSI, I think there are other people in my apartment?  Of course I don’t.    But as long as alone is such an unpleasant state, I think my brain does whatever it can to not be aware of it.  So the bigger goal might be to experience the alone, and figure out how to get comfortable with it.

But this did begin as being about t.v., and I will talk about that.  I love movies and t.v. shows for the same reason I like reading fiction.  I like stories.  I like getting swept up in some fictitious life that is vastly different from my own.  I like the idea that these characters and their worlds were created by someone’s imagination.  But t.v. is like junk food.  A little bit is a nice treat.  Too much makes me feel worse, not better.  Too much sitting in front of the screen makes me sleep worse.  Too much gives me a headache.  It also sort of sucks you in, and once you turn it on it’s hard to stop.  It might be 11:00 p.m. and I’m falling asleep, but I’ll still keep flipping channels.  So then the next day I’m not only dealing with poor sleep because I wasn’t active, and the leftovers of a t.v. headache, but also not enough sleep.

When I don’t watch t.v., such as last Sunday, I do things.  Even if I don’t officially workout, I clean the house, and walk the dog for longer, and maybe clean out closets or something.  I sleep better when I’ve done things.  (I sleep even better when I workout, but that’s another conversation.)  I eat better, because I stop eating when I’m full rather than experiencing the mindless eating in front of the t.v.  I feel productive, because things get done.  I’m less stressed, because whatever I needed to do was done.  (Do you catch a theme here?)

There are just a few things.  I can’t stand folding laundry, so I tend to do it while watching t.v.  On Sunday, I avoided folding several loads for many hours.  Actually, I seriously considered breaking my “fast” so I could get the laundry folded!  In the end I just folded it in the silence, but I hated it.  Other things like that are correcting papers, paying bills, and organizing church choir music.  (A bigger job than it sounds, trust me!) 

I’m not about to completely give up t.v. or anything.    But I like how I feel when I watch less.

Huh… January 15, 2010

You’ve got to be kidding me!  According to an apologist at catholic.com, regarding Communion:  “Chewing gum is among those things that are placed in the mouth but are not food. Other examples include chewing tobacco, breath mints, cough drops, toothpaste, and mouthwash. Even if some portion of one of these things — or its juices — is swallowed, it does not break the fast because it is not food.”  So all those times in high school I went to mass at school, and came back up the aisle with Communion on one side of my mouth and gum on the other– I actually wasn’t being wildly irreverant???

Also…  In answer to a question about the phrase “Oh, my God”:  “Unfortunately, the holy name of “Jesus” is used in disrespectful ways. But
phrases like “Oh, my God!” and “Oh, God!” and “Lord, have mercy!” and “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” are never used to blaspheme. Simply because we may blurt out one of these phrases without the full awareness of their significance, does not render them disrespectful. In fact, they can help us to be aware of our need for divine help at such times.”

What do you know…

(Not, of course, that the opinion of a Catholic apologist trumps scripture, of course!)

Two Questions, One Answer January 12, 2010

According to one of the people Elizabeth Gilbert met during her stay at an ashram in India, all of the world’s fighting can be attributed to two questions:  “How much do you love me?”  And, “Who’s in charge?”  (Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert)

I know the answer.

Do you?

A Beginner’s Fast January 10, 2010

Starting now, I’m taking a 24-hour technology fast.  No t.v. or internet until Monday morning.

If you really need me, call me on the phone.  It’s that funny little thing with numbers on it, and when you put it to your ear, you can hear your loved ones’ voices.   

After three snow days and a weekend, I feel like I’ve binged on the bright, enchanting screen.  T.V. and internet are like junk food sometimes.  They don’t make me feel good, too much makes me feel decidedly bad, but I just can’t stop once I’ve had a taste.  So I’m taking a break.  Just a quick one.  At some point I think I need a longer break.  Especially with the t.v.  I think I need a week without t.v. sometime soon.  But at this moment, a day might be all I can take.  You can do anything for 24 hours. 

So I’m going to enjoy the silence.  Or listen to some music.  But I won’t be checking my email, facebook, or blog.  I won’t be reading other peoples’ blogs.  I won’t be watching t.v., t.v. on DVD, or movies. 

24 hours.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Movies about the Journey January 7, 2010

I love movies about a journey out of pain, or through pain, to a better place.  They often start with divorce or death or unexpected pregnancy or something, and we see the characters move through all these experiences that allow them to find themselves back again.  Often there is a gentle love story, but it’s not about that.  The successful love story is just a symptom of the healing that has taken place.

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Under the Tuscan Sun

Woman buys a villa in Italy that needs a lot of work.  So does she.

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Catch & Release

Woman finds out she never really knew her fiance after he dies.  Might be the best ending to a movie that I’ve ever seen!

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P.S.  I Love You

Woman’s dead husband sends her mail, and other surprises, after he is long gone.  (No, not in a paranormal way!  He planned it all when he was dying.)

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Dan in Real Life

Man and his daughters go on vacation with his family.  Another beautiful ending to a movie!

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Nanny Diaries

Woman doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life.  I think you might have to “get” little kids to appreciate her journey.  And the puppy makes me cry, every damn time.

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Juno

A journey for everyone involved.  And the best advice I’ve heard about finding love, from Juno’s dad:  “Look, in my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person is still going to think the sun shines out your ass. That’s the kind of person that’s worth sticking with.” 

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Away We Go

I’ve only seen this movie once, and I fell asleep for about 20 minutes in the middle.  So the fact that it made an impression on me is all the more significant.

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What other “journey movies” can you think of?

Lisa Leonard Designs January 7, 2010

And now, for something a little bit lighter and more fun…

Sara at Walk Slowly, Live Wildly is having a giveaway!  The prize is a gift certificate to Lisa Leonard Designs.  If I win, I’m getting the open circle bracelet.  Or the be still necklace.  Or the sweet & simple birdie necklace.  Or the…   

Go to Walk Slowly, Live Wildly to enter!

Drafts January 6, 2010

Let me tell you about saving drafts of things before posting them or sending them.  Good for emails that you want to get just right.  Good for anything you’re writing for an audience.  Wonderful to go back after letting it sit in the back of your mind, and getting it just how you want someone to read it.

But for this blog, which isn’t for an audience, drafts are crap. 

If I write something and put it in drafts, it’s probably not coming out.  I totally understand that there is an audience.  Yep, there you are, reading my blog.  Of course.  But this blog isn’t for you!  It’s for me.  If you don’t get that, well, then you just haven’t been reading it long enough.  I don’t know what my orignal purpose was for blogging, but over time, the purpose has become extremely clear:  catharsis.  “A purging or figurative cleansing of emotions.”  Getting things out that I just can’t carry around anymore.  The fact that there is an audience makes it all the more effective, if you ask me.  It sort of forces the processing to continue, rather than shoving it all back in again.  If I write it but put it in drafts, I chicken out about posting it.  The next time I read it, I feel differently, and I realize just how vapid or selfish or angry or just stupid I was in that moment, and I don’t want to reveal that to the world.  And instead of acknowledging, accepting, and processing that moment, it’s stuck in this limbo-land where I can’t shove it away, because I already wrote it all down, but I can’t move forward, because I’m unwilling to reveal it to the world.

Processing emotions is a slippery task.  Just when you think things are going in the right direction, you find yourself back in the dark hole again.  Not to mention all the factors that affect them!  For me, things are always harder when I’m tired, hungry, or sugared up.  (By which I mean, actual dietary sugar, not people being nice to me!    You should be nice to me.  Please, sugar me up!) 

A few things I’ve heard or learned about processing emotion:

-The story must be told.  In some college class that I can’t remember the purpose of, a guest speaker came one day to talk to us about helping children process grief.  She said that the story must be told like 50 times or something like that, before the grieving person can truly heal.  I think that goes for many other emotions as well.  (From another source:  “Nobody should have to go through that and not be allowed to talk about it.”)

-You have to work through those moments until you can remember the event and emotion without experiencing the reaction all over again.  The scary thing is when you can’t remember what happened, because oh my word, what is it going to feel like if you do allow yourself to remember?

-You also have to be able to experience emotion without thinking you are going to die from it.  (“Horrible things do happen.  Happiness in the face of all that?  That’s not the goal.  Feeling horrible and knowing you’re not going to die from those feelings, that’s the point.”)

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Back to the point.  Which is, believe it or not, related. 

I believed my entire childhood that showing emotion, that feeling anything, was wrong.  I shouldn’t be sad or upset, because whatever it is, it’s not as important as I think it is.  But I shouldn’t be happy or excited, because then I’m just being annoying.  And again, whatever I’m happy about, it’s not as important as I think it is.  What I feel is not important.  The things that affect me are not important.

I am not important.

But I can’t be anybody else.  No matter how hard I try.  One of the fundamental things about me is that, right or wrong, I live and die by my emotions.  I can’t not be happy, and I can’t not be sad.  There must be something fundamentally wrong with me, because I have emotions.  So I need to be myself, with my emotions, but I need to do it in my little box, live in private, so that no one else will have to deal with me and my emotions.

At this point, I think I really am broken.  I don’t know.  I read those last thoughts and I realize on a logical level that it’s just not true.  But how to fix it?  I can’t go back and undo 28 years of experience.  I can’t just tell myself, it’s all a lie, go out into the world and let someone else get close enough to deal with you and your emotions.  Part of me thinks that I am doomed to be alone, because I don’t know how to be together.  All I really know is how not to be a pest.  Which means I make an awesome roommate, but not such a good friend when we’re not roommates anymore.  Which means nobody is ever going to get close enough to me to want to live with me for the rest of their life.

Part of me thinks I should have married the man who gave me a ring but was mean and controlling.  Or I should have fought harder for the man with whom I was madly in love, in the way that only 18-year-olds can be, even though being with me for a solid seven months scared him into cheating on me with the girl that he was with before me.  At least I wouldn’t be alone.  Now I have higher standards, dang it anyway.  But people with higher standards want nothing to do with me.  And more importantly, I can’t let them in or let myself feel anything for them, lest they get annoyed with me and go away.

It goes for friendship as well.  God forbid I call someone after she gets married or after she has a baby, because clearly she has more important things in her life, and I’m just being a pest.  That is how distance grows in a friendship, and they probably think I’m trying to “friend break up” with them or whatever, but I just can’t get up the courage to call, because I don’t want to give them a reason to “friend break up” with me.

It is quite the irony.  “I’m going to stay away from you so that you don’t leave me.”

I am such a mess.

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No drafts here, just straight from the heart, out the fingers.  Authentic living.  Blogging boldly.

…There might be something to this authentic blogging business…