What It's All About

I know that I've been poo-pooing going back to teaching after my sabbatical, but I think I've finally come around.

And all it took was this:

"Hi Sarah. I am your new advisory teacher for 7th grade. I just wanted to call to introduce myself and to see if you have any questions before school starts tomorrow."

"You're a girl?"

"Um. Yes. I'm a girl."

"Oh. I'm so happy. I like girls better."

"Well, Sarah. Then, I guess you are in luck."

Turns out that sometimes making a difference isn't so hard.

Who Has Time for Punctuation

I am sure that no one will feel sorry for me when I say this, but I much prefer being on sabbatical to working. Not only was I at school for eleven hours today, but I also got relatively little on my to-do list done in that time. When you are working, there are people who are the boss of you and tell you to go to meetings and fill out forms and then go to more meetings to create forms and everyone has to agree or not agree and then some are mad while others don't care and really you just want to go back to your classroom to finish putting the posters on the walls because how can anyone learn in such a bare place but you can't do that because even when you go there someone is knocking on your door which is actually good because you can't get any information from your email or your phone because something is seriously not right with them but if you ask to have them fixed people will tell you about more meetings and forms and disagreements.

On sabbatical, things m o v e m o r e s l o w l y.

Even sentences are shorter.

Why I Don't Cook

My rice is currently stuck in the pot because I used the wrong sized lid and can't get it off. I put the whole thing in the freezer thinking that the metal might condense or some other chemical/physical thing might occur that will make the lid removable. Even if that doesn't work, it's nice to have the evidence of my culinary stupidity hidden from plain view.

My Own Version of "A Thing to Fling"

Walking around the lake at the start of the summer, I told Jodi that I planned to have a summer fling. "You know, just something casual. Fun. No strings." Minutes later we bumped into destiny as a smart, kind, and rather handsome fella from our college alma mater ran by. "There's your fling," she stated.

She was right. How does she do that?

Now, with fall just around the corner, my summer fling has ended, just as all true-to-definition summer flings must. And it served just the purpose in my life that I thought it should.

Yet, while it's being over was rather expected and means, as well, that I can break the blog silence, I can't help but feel it's just one more thing marking the end of a different me. The one who took more risks and lost a little control. The one who took more time to enjoy herself and the people around her. The one who took life less seriously and the one of whom I had grown quite fond.

The Nemesis

Jodi and I sometimes talk about how it would be cool to have our very own enemies, and today, I think I found mine. Let's call her The Vicious Venter. Her poison, if you will, is bitching at length about things she cannot, or will not, attempt to fix, i.e. "The kids suck. The administrators suck. And thank god for all of you that I am here to tell it like it is for once."

While many of her kind come out during beginning of the year staff meetings, I am not sure I've ever been so weakened by the likes of such kryptonite. Even worse, she was taking other teachers down with her, two of them new to our building. Wanting to save the innocent from her sourpussiness, I, The Passive Aggressor, reached into my own bag of tricks and shot back with, "Perhaps the two new teachers have some questions for us. Despite what it seems, we do like to do more than vent at these meetings."

Ooooh. Her glare could have melted me. Little did she know that the optimism and hope that I had been storing up during my sabbatical was just the necessary antidote to her optical spears. Pow! Blam! Take that!

Later, in the hallway, I'm pretty sure I heard her talking about me to another teacher. Even though the middle schoolers don't arrive until next week, an aura of immaturity is already in the air.

Signing My Life Away

I took the final plunge into adulthood and made an offer on a house tonight. Somewhere in the pages upon pages of snooze-inducing language, I was struck by a line in the purchase agreement that read: "Time is of the essence." What is such an idiomatic phrase doing in a legal document? Can we assume that all readers know what that means? Luckily the contract explained: "Time is of the essence in this purchase agreement." Aahh. So much clearer. Personally, I think something less abstract would be better. What's wrong with "Both parties shall haul ass in this process" or "No dillydallying, assholes"?

Connecting the Dots

I don't know if it was the weather, lack of sleep, or stress, but I came back from the Pacific Northwest with some major zits. Seriously. It's gross and I know it, but I don't know how to make them go away. In fact, I'd prefer not to leave the house until my constellations have moved into another hemisphere, but I do have to start work tomorrow. Come to think of it, the thought of going back to work is probably what made me break out in the first place. When people ask how I feel about going back after a sabbatical, I tell them I'm excited, but it's a boldfaced lie. Sure, I like teaching for the interaction with the kids, but the thought of administrators, test scores, and grading papers (oh lord, grading papers!) is just, well, giving me zits. Perhaps all will be better after a good night of beauty rest, but the only thing I can really count on, or at least count, is the blemishes on my face (which is up to around thirteen).

Footnote

Seven hours after my last post I realized my error: Well-quaffed should be well-coiffed. I could have just gone in to edit the mistake, but Jodi pointed out that it's not as bad as the line in her recent post describing a close, albeit long-distance friend as "Molly, whose company I rarely enjoy." At least I didn't offend anyone. Except maybe the French.

Personal Growth

I decided a few months ago that I needed to learn to accept compliments. Instead of dismissing kind words from others, I simply began to say thank you. Now, I excel at such etiquette and take all compliments as my own.

Here are a couple of examples:

"What a beautiful sunset." My reply: "Thank you.

"I love African art." My reply: "Thank you."

I recommend that everyone try this. You'd be surprised how many compliments go unthanked once you start taking credit for all the good things in the world. And it feels pretty gratifying to have others acknowledge all the work that you didn't know you had done.

Final Vacation

"We are beginning our descent into Seattle. Outside the left window you'll see Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier. On the right you'll see the Cascade Mountains. We will be on the ground in 20 minutes."

So unfair. Gotta get me some mountains where I live.

BWCAW Photo Essay

On the water.


Campsite #1. A lovely day.


May not look like it, but here we are stuck and comtemplating how to get back to Campsite #1 through the motherf-ing wind.


Rocks rock.


We're supposed to go through that?


All-Around Super Camper and Canoer Award winners, Greg and Andrew.


The laughter. Oh, the laughter.


Smiling through the pain. How I hate the portage.


But it's always worth it.


Campsite #2. After the rain.


Ma Biscuit and Pinch-A-Loaf.


Sunset. Our last night.


Sunrise. Our last morning.

What Do You Mean There's No Wireless Here?

Back from the Boundary Waters and wiped clean out.

Off to float in my bed and dream about next year's trip.

The Visit

My sister is going to be here any minute now and here's what I predict for her weeklong visit:

1) She will wear my clothes. I will wear hers. She will try to leave with some garment from my wardrobe. I will search her bags before she leaves.

2) We will argue, only once, and it will be ugly. She will win, even if I'm right.

3) We will eat the weight of both us put together for just about every meal. I will blame her for making me eat so much. She will blame me. And then we'll have ice cream for dessert.

4) She will laugh at all of my jokes, even the really bad ones. I will laugh at all of hers, even the really gross ones.

5) I will injure myself in the Boundary Waters, most likely while falling into the lake, and in her big-sister tone, she will ask if I'm okay before she crumbles in fits of laughter.

6) She will swear. A lot. I will follow her lead. And everyone I know will wonder when I became such a potty-mouth.

7) We will lie awake talking late into the night. When we are too tired to remember what's so funny, we will giggle until we chortle and chortle until we snort. Again. And again. And again.

At The Movies

I watched Ebert and Roeper last night. They gave The Dukes of Hazzard two thumbs down. Waaaaayyyy down.

Um. Rog. Rich. Some of us didn't have to see the movie to come to the same conclusion. Which I'm sure they realize. Such movies are such a huge waste of their time that they have to be overly emphatic about what a disgrace they are to the craft of filmmaking. I'd do the same thing.

From the way they spoke about her acting talent, or serious lack there of, I think they wanted to give Jessica Simpson a different finger. Roeper couldn't say enough about how bad she was. Apparently, even her blinking was painful for him to watch.

When I hear stuff like that, it makes me kind of want to see the movie. But I think I'll wait until she co-stars with Keanu Reeves and Andi McDowell so I can really torture myself. Maybe I'll even start work on a script right now. Something dramatic. Everybody gets a soliloquy. And a death scene. . .

Getting Out

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Thinking that we needed to get out and meet new people, Jodi and I headed to the Loring Park area for dinner. Hip. Trendy. Sure to find cool people like us.



Who were we kidding. . .

It's much more our style that the rest of the restaurant looked like this:



Still, Jodi's good company and we have plans for the next grand outing: dancing lessons.

The City

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Did some searching online for a house today and am very excited about the possibilities. Nothing with this view, but that's why I have a camera.

Words to Live By (and a nice picture)

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I received this advice from a friend yesterday...


a wise man, bob marley, once said,

life is to be lived, ba ba bum

let man live life, ba ba bum

sister pi-ahta

brother pi-ahta

yah, bust dem shout


Oddly, it was just what I needed.

bust dem shout , Isque, bust dem shout.

No Place Like Target

Why don't they carry these in my size?

The Big-Ass Paper

Gotta say, I'm loving FlyLady's fifteen on / fifteen off approach to thesis work. (Yes. This is my fifteen off.)

So far today I've written a tentative outline, developed some questions to guide my continued reading, and taken notes on the single most important text in my research. More than I've done all summer, really. Ugh.

Since I can't go back in time, I am determined to move forward with renewed, er, new enthusiasm from here on. Perhaps I was just bored with my topic for a while there, but now that I'm in the thick of it again, it's sort of fascinating.

I'm interested in helping students view themselves as more active agents in their own meaning making when they read. I want them to be able to articulate the origin of their responses, situated as they are in social, cultural, and historical influences. This articulation is especially crucial, I think, when students respond with resistance to texts, which they do most often to texts that disrupt traditional and dominant patterns, such as those that represent the world or life of an "other." And I think that using literary theory, the virtual donning of multiple lenses with which to view the world and text, will help them recognize and voice their ideological stances. And that's interesting and important, when you think about it.

Wow. This feels a bit like on time to me -- but no short cuts today. So with three off-time minutes left, it's to the bathroom, Robin.

Two posts in one day? No way.

Yeah. I know it's blurry. But it looks like I meant to do that and gives you an idea of how much Aimee Mann likes to RAWK OUT!

She put on an excellent show at the zoo this week. The songs from her new album tell the story of the cross-country adventures of a Vietnam vet and his young lover. It's called a "concept album." Didn't know there was a name for such a thing, but if I ever write an album, I'm going that route.

And I gotta say, it makes me so happy to witness a good drunk stumbling around the stands or to hear an obnoxious fan wailing like an injured Frankenstein at the end of each song. Just not a complete concert without them.

The Best Medicine

Admittedly, I'm a little apprehensive about my return to teaching this fall. I'm afraid that I've forgotten how to teach twelve-year-olds and that I won't find the work as intellectually stimulating as graduate school.

Thank goodness for Kaj. He's the eight-year-old that I tutor in handwriting. Even though the workbook is BORING, he does the lessons and only calls them stupid every now and again.

Most importantly, he reminds me to laugh -- something I haven't done nearly enough this year. And when I heard him tell these jokes today,

What did the fish say when he hit a wall? Dam.

What do you call a bear that stinks? Winnie the peeeww.

How is a teacher different from a train? A teacher says, "Spit out your gum!" and a train says, "chew, chew."

I laughed pretty hard. And remembered why I love what I do.

And so it goes...

I just sat down at my local Dunn Bros. to invest some serious time into my thesis work. Had to drive today because I'm dogsitting Sam in the burbs. He's a sweet, old English springer spaniel who follows me around everywhere I go even though his arthritis causes him great pain to do so. I always tell him I'll be right back and he need not follow me out of the room, but I guess he doesn't believe me or something. It's tough to watch.

Anyway, I decided that in order to get some serious work done I would need to begin my outline and take some notes. This would require my laptop, which I don't usually allow because, let's face it, I'll end up on the internet instead of writing or reading. But with my new FlyLady plan to work fifteen minutes on and fifteen off, this couldn't distract me for long.

Here's the problem I've just now discovered: The only thing I actually brought with me is the laptop. No books. No articles. No handwritten notes that I've taken so far. Only the laptop.

I guess I'll be starting with fifteen minutes off.

When I finish writing this blog, the next fifteen won't count because I'll be driving back to the burbs and driving is not committed work time.

Then, finally, the next fifteen will be serious on time, with Sam at my feet.

And after that it'll be time to stop because I need to walk Sam and feed us both dinner before my plans tonight.

Sigh.

There must be a support group for this process.