On Sunday my father informs me, "your grandmother would like to see her great-grandchildren before she dies." Excellent. Remind me not to call Grandma for awhile.
Don't get me wrong, I love my grandmother. And usually I can tolerate her syndrome where everything she thinks comes out her mouth without being processed through her brain first. This time, however, she is hitting too close to something that has currently been a hot button issue for me: significant others, relationships, and people's "need" for us all to have one.
When did it become a bad thing to be single? I like single, it works for me. There are many benefits to single: I have the time necessary to devote to my work, I can do whatever I feel like on a Saturday night, I don't have to juggle between my boyfriend and my friends - I can do whatever I want whenever I feel like it. Being single is independence, and I relish it. I don't really understand dependent people, just like I don't understand people who devote 110% percent of their time to their significant other, essentially cutting out their other friends from their life. When I made this point to my mother she said someday I would understand, and I told her I hope not. This is not to say that someday I would not like to find someone to share a relationship and a life with - but I hope I never become the kind of person that drops almost all communication and all time with friends in order to spend every free moment with that "special someone." I get mad at people who do that. In fact, I was recently very mad at a friend of mine for being a bad friend and (unintentionally) hurting a mutual friend of ours because my friend was so wrapped up in being with a significant other. It didn't really matter that I was treated as a bad friend - I have come to accept that the friendship I thought existed between us does not, and I will always get bad friend treatment. Our mutual friend, however, deserves better than that, and I was furious on their behalf for their feeling somewhat blown off because of the relationship our "bad" friend is in. It is unfathomable to me how you can do that. How do you turn away from the people who have been there for you through so many ups and downs because of someone who has been in your life for just a few months? How do you just stop spending time with people you enjoyed spending time with - if they haven't changed, why wouldn't you want that fun anymore? It is something I just can't understand, and as such, something I have never done. Perhaps this is part of what has ruined past relationships: I refuse to devote all my time to the relationship and give up every opportunity to be with my friends. Of course, I'll never know if that is true, as the only people who could tell me with authority will never be asked.
Somewhere in here I have digressed. Like I said, this is a hot button issue for me at the moment, which causes me to rant. The point is, there's nothing wrong with being single. If I'm happy, why not just be happy for me? Let's talk about what I do have in my life, instead of lamenting and plotting to get what I don't have.
I'm happy. I like my life. Be happy for me. Support the way I choose to live (ie. happy) - don't make me feel inadequate for not having the life you think I should.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Sounds like Looks like Feels like Reminds me of...
reaching to pull in something evaporated
the richness of colors in an autumn forrest
the warmth of an old afghan wrapped around me on a chilly evening
solitude
the richness of colors in an autumn forrest
the warmth of an old afghan wrapped around me on a chilly evening
solitude
Sunday, June 25, 2006
A Pirate's Life
It's been a few days since I've written, which I don't feel bad about at all since I never said I would post daily. But, a few good and interesting things have happened in the past few days, so I'm going to share before life gets overwhelming and the details are forgotten.
Friday was mainly spent on human learning, reading about behaviorism. I hate behaviorism. Well, it's not so much that I hate it, as I don't see it as an valid all-encompassing learning theory. There is definitely some merit to operant conditioning, and probably even to classical conditioning. But I don't think it's the ONLY way that people learn. First of all, if you are a behaviorist (which my professor and the writer of the book claim to be) then you wouldn't write the book or assign it as reading with the belief that I will learn anything. According to behaviorism, I did not learn by reading those 2 lengthy chapters. There was not increase in any sort of target behavior due to my reading. In fact, other than the need to get up and walk about the apartment more often than necessary, there was really no change in my behavior at all due to the reading. Therefore, by behaviorist standards, I did not learn. That also means either I have inherent knowledge on the subject (something else behaviorist vehemently are against) or else something freaky was happening that caused me to ace the brief quiz on the readings, since I hadn't learned anything. Thus we come to my problem with behaviorism. True, learning can be indicated and even motivated by behavior. But I think it is also true that knowledge and learning is in part cognitive, otherwise no one should expect me to learn from a book or listening to a lecture. As a teacher I know that those 2 things alone don't lead to the most solid understanding and learning of information, but reading and listening don't count for nothing either. Would any of the behaviorists out there like to explain that to me? Didn't think so...
Once the evil behaviorist class work was done, it was on to more important things: preparing for the barbeque. The church held a send-off barbecue cook-off for our 2 priests who will be leaving us this week. In order for my pescaterian friend to be able to eat, we chose to cook a non-red meat: shrimp kabobs. Being potentially over-the-top in all things, we had a theme to go with our food, and thus "Baarg-B-Que" was born. In case you're unsure what that means, I will explain by saying that I spent the afternoon dressed as a pirate, serving tasty victuals, putting booty in our treasure chest, and handing out pirate stickers. I also managed to get a splendid sunburn in the process. It looks like it could be on its way to becoming a nice tan though, even if it does leave me with some serious tan lines.
To be fair, I must state that most of the nautical antics, and the shrimp kabobs that went in less than an hour, were not my doing. For that my friend must take the credit. Many of the cool things we found were due to the Friday night shopping "spree" through the party store, followed by staying up all night (and I mean all night as in no sleep until 6 am) drinking and sharing stories. I love listening to people's stories. I think the stories of a person's past can tell you so much about that person, more than they even realize. Learning about the events in someone's past helps you see who they are now, at least it does for me. I think in that regard it has always bothered me when people I've felt close to have not wanted to share their stories with me - it's like they don't want me to really know them. Thankfully this was not the case on Friday.
Due to the all-nighter on Friday, Saturday was spent sleeping. Three cheers for having no internal clock - let's hear it for 2 years of summer swing shifts! I occasionally feel jealous of people whose body automatically wakes them up around a certain time every day. Especially during the school year, it would probably make getting up for work a lot easier if my body just felt "now it is time to give up." But then days like Saturday come along, and I am eternally grateful for the capacity to sleep whenever my body is tired.
Sleeping all day Saturday helped shorten what would have otherwise been a long and agonizing wait for the Rascal Flatts concert on Saturday night. Still can't really believe I finally got to see them in concert... Several people have asked me how it was, and my best explanation is to say it was one of those moments you just never want to end. During one of the songs I remember standing there thinking, "this could go on forever, and I'd be quite all right. I never want to leave this moment." Sadly, it did end, and (for once) I don't even have pictures to prove it was real. But, at least I finally got to say them, and whatever negative comments you would like to make (I have suffered through a few in the past couple of days) it was well worth the money spent, and like everything that happened this weekend, I can't wait to do it again (with the exception of the behaviorism reading).
Friday was mainly spent on human learning, reading about behaviorism. I hate behaviorism. Well, it's not so much that I hate it, as I don't see it as an valid all-encompassing learning theory. There is definitely some merit to operant conditioning, and probably even to classical conditioning. But I don't think it's the ONLY way that people learn. First of all, if you are a behaviorist (which my professor and the writer of the book claim to be) then you wouldn't write the book or assign it as reading with the belief that I will learn anything. According to behaviorism, I did not learn by reading those 2 lengthy chapters. There was not increase in any sort of target behavior due to my reading. In fact, other than the need to get up and walk about the apartment more often than necessary, there was really no change in my behavior at all due to the reading. Therefore, by behaviorist standards, I did not learn. That also means either I have inherent knowledge on the subject (something else behaviorist vehemently are against) or else something freaky was happening that caused me to ace the brief quiz on the readings, since I hadn't learned anything. Thus we come to my problem with behaviorism. True, learning can be indicated and even motivated by behavior. But I think it is also true that knowledge and learning is in part cognitive, otherwise no one should expect me to learn from a book or listening to a lecture. As a teacher I know that those 2 things alone don't lead to the most solid understanding and learning of information, but reading and listening don't count for nothing either. Would any of the behaviorists out there like to explain that to me? Didn't think so...
Once the evil behaviorist class work was done, it was on to more important things: preparing for the barbeque. The church held a send-off barbecue cook-off for our 2 priests who will be leaving us this week. In order for my pescaterian friend to be able to eat, we chose to cook a non-red meat: shrimp kabobs. Being potentially over-the-top in all things, we had a theme to go with our food, and thus "Baarg-B-Que" was born. In case you're unsure what that means, I will explain by saying that I spent the afternoon dressed as a pirate, serving tasty victuals, putting booty in our treasure chest, and handing out pirate stickers. I also managed to get a splendid sunburn in the process. It looks like it could be on its way to becoming a nice tan though, even if it does leave me with some serious tan lines.
To be fair, I must state that most of the nautical antics, and the shrimp kabobs that went in less than an hour, were not my doing. For that my friend must take the credit. Many of the cool things we found were due to the Friday night shopping "spree" through the party store, followed by staying up all night (and I mean all night as in no sleep until 6 am) drinking and sharing stories. I love listening to people's stories. I think the stories of a person's past can tell you so much about that person, more than they even realize. Learning about the events in someone's past helps you see who they are now, at least it does for me. I think in that regard it has always bothered me when people I've felt close to have not wanted to share their stories with me - it's like they don't want me to really know them. Thankfully this was not the case on Friday.
Due to the all-nighter on Friday, Saturday was spent sleeping. Three cheers for having no internal clock - let's hear it for 2 years of summer swing shifts! I occasionally feel jealous of people whose body automatically wakes them up around a certain time every day. Especially during the school year, it would probably make getting up for work a lot easier if my body just felt "now it is time to give up." But then days like Saturday come along, and I am eternally grateful for the capacity to sleep whenever my body is tired.
Sleeping all day Saturday helped shorten what would have otherwise been a long and agonizing wait for the Rascal Flatts concert on Saturday night. Still can't really believe I finally got to see them in concert... Several people have asked me how it was, and my best explanation is to say it was one of those moments you just never want to end. During one of the songs I remember standing there thinking, "this could go on forever, and I'd be quite all right. I never want to leave this moment." Sadly, it did end, and (for once) I don't even have pictures to prove it was real. But, at least I finally got to say them, and whatever negative comments you would like to make (I have suffered through a few in the past couple of days) it was well worth the money spent, and like everything that happened this weekend, I can't wait to do it again (with the exception of the behaviorism reading).
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Red pen
I experienced something today that shot me back to my high school days. The writing class (it's really more an extended workshop than a class) that I'm in puts together an anthology of the participants' writings. Everyone has 3 pages to submit whatever piece or pieces of writing they would like published in the anthology - a chance to show some of the work we have accomplished during our time together. The pieces are "due" tomorrow, but I already had a few pieces that were completed and I really liked, so I turned them in early to the appropriate committee member.
Imagine my surprise when one of the pieces was handed back to me, with 'corrections' marked all over it.
I was more than a little irritated, and tried to politely make my irritation known (then went ranting and raving to my writing group). Suddenly, the piece I had worked so hard on and was so proud of seemed unacceptable and meaningless. Those pencil markings (which is exactly what my high school teacher had used on our papers) said to me, "you're writing isn't good enough." And I realized that perhaps this was why I had stopped writing in high school and college unless it was required of me. I had mastered the art of the essay to the point where comments left were usually positive, but somewhere before that I had stopped writing creatively, for fun. I thought my work wasn't good enough.
And then another thought dawned on me: is this how I'm making my students feel by constantly fixing the grammar in their writing?
I'm a big advocate of editing things with my students and trying to make suggestions, explaining why another approach might be better. But there are probably still times when I "mark up" their papers. Am I stifling their creativity by requiring them to have near perfect English? Am I turning them off to writing, an activity deaf children aren't too fond of to begin with? Am I placing too much emphasis on the grammar? That would be slightly hypocritical, since it's certainly not my forte, and the piece today was marked for grammar things, to which I replied, "Who cares if it's in past tense or past perfect?!?!"
About a week into this class I had already determined that my entire approach to teaching writing would be different next year. This event sealed the deal on how I would handle editing/proofreading. Never do I want a student to feel the way I felt today.
As it turns out, I was not the only person whose work had been 'corrected' by the individual collecting writing for the anthology. Even given that information, it took both members of my writing group plus one of the facilitators telling me "it's good, it's yours, leave it how you want it" for me to decide my writing wasn't inadequate and leave it the way I'd intended. Not that I wanted to change it - I still think the corrections made are nitpicky, stupid, and not in line with my style. So it stays the way I wanted it, and I'm proud of it. Proud because it is mine, the way I want it to be. Proud enough that I'm willing to show it to you....just don't correct my grammar.
Backstage
The moment had finally arrived. After months of practicing and preparing, it was here. Ashley looked around the dressing room, a twirling, twisting dance of emotions going on inside of her.
She saw the older girls over in the corner getting ready. How she longed to be one of them someday! A smile crossed her face as she thought of being in the company, doing the opening dance for the recitals, having different costumes…and the shoes! High-heeled tap shoes, and pointe shoes like a real ballerina! She looked down at her worn, second-hand, flat ballet shoes that her mother always wanted to have a cute little bow at the top. It didn’t matter how many times Ashley had explained that real ballerinas didn’t have bows; her mother always asked where the bow was. The older girls don’t have bows, thought Ashley. And they don’t need their mother to put on their makeup!
One of the girls was applying a thick layer of dark red lipstick, while another expertly stroked on her eyeliner, a pack of fake eyelashes sitting in front of her. Ashley watched in envy, thinking of her own makeup experience earlier that day. By now she was used to gently shutting her eyes while her mother applied the dark brown eye shadow, making big circles of blush on her cheeks, and forming just the right open-mouth face for the lipstick. But this time there was eyeliner too. Ashley had panicked when the black pencil came at her eye. After a few rounds of yelling at her mother not to take her eye out, her mother yelling back for Ashley to calm down, and her father yelling at the both of them to quit bickering, Ashley finally found the perfect spot to look while her mother drew a line under her eyes. The part Ashley liked best was the fishtail at the corner of her eyes. It made her feel older, more dramatic, more like a real dancer.
The hair, too, was true “dancer hair.” A sleeked back bun, no bangs. At first, the ponytail had been so tight she felt the skin of her face was permanently stretched back. Now, it was slowly starting to adjust. Half a can of mousse had gone into her hair that day, along with at least 15 bobby pins poking her scalp. To the touch, it felt more like a helmet than hair. Tomorrow she would spend a good 10 minutes in the shower, just washing out all the gunk. But it was worth the hassle. Once before pieces of her hair had started loosening, her bun starting to come undone on stage – no way would she let that happen again. Just to be sure, one more round with the hairspray.
As the older girls began to get dressed, Ashley turned away. Didn’t they know this was a big open room? People could see them! When I’m one of the older girls, I’ll find something to change behind. In her bedroom at home, Ashley had struggled to put on her own costume. Yet another painful process. After sewing on the straps, her mother had failed to remove all the straight pins. Pins poked. Sequins scratched. She knew her armpits would be raw by the end of the night, thanks to the row of sequins that went all the way around her arm.
“All right girls, everyone in the first two numbers needs to be backstage now.” Quickly, Ashley ran through her mental checklist. Shoes double-knotted? Check. Hair sprayed down? Check. Hairpiece pinned tight? Check. Tutu straight? Check. No makeup smudges? Check. Re-applied lipstick? Check. Ashley’s class was the first class after the opening, so they were lucky enough to sit backstage and watch the older girls’ first number. As Ashley watched, a multitude of emotions danced over her: awe, wonderment, fear, excitement, anticipation. They were so good! Could she ever look like that? Would she do well in her own dance? She was still having trouble spotting her turns – what if she fell, or turned right into the curtains?! Then a girl next to her started to twitter with excitement, and her fears were forgotten. She felt a rush of exhilaration as she thought about going out onto the stage. It was almost their turn!
When the curtain had gone down the girls took their places and the excitement set into Ashley’s bones. Up came the lights and the curtain, the music blasting into the auditorium, and there was Ashley with a giant smile plastered to her face. Not a fake smile to please her teachers or her audience, but a genuine smile. A smile expressing her joy in the dance; a joy that could not be contained.
Imagine my surprise when one of the pieces was handed back to me, with 'corrections' marked all over it.
I was more than a little irritated, and tried to politely make my irritation known (then went ranting and raving to my writing group). Suddenly, the piece I had worked so hard on and was so proud of seemed unacceptable and meaningless. Those pencil markings (which is exactly what my high school teacher had used on our papers) said to me, "you're writing isn't good enough." And I realized that perhaps this was why I had stopped writing in high school and college unless it was required of me. I had mastered the art of the essay to the point where comments left were usually positive, but somewhere before that I had stopped writing creatively, for fun. I thought my work wasn't good enough.
And then another thought dawned on me: is this how I'm making my students feel by constantly fixing the grammar in their writing?
I'm a big advocate of editing things with my students and trying to make suggestions, explaining why another approach might be better. But there are probably still times when I "mark up" their papers. Am I stifling their creativity by requiring them to have near perfect English? Am I turning them off to writing, an activity deaf children aren't too fond of to begin with? Am I placing too much emphasis on the grammar? That would be slightly hypocritical, since it's certainly not my forte, and the piece today was marked for grammar things, to which I replied, "Who cares if it's in past tense or past perfect?!?!"
About a week into this class I had already determined that my entire approach to teaching writing would be different next year. This event sealed the deal on how I would handle editing/proofreading. Never do I want a student to feel the way I felt today.
As it turns out, I was not the only person whose work had been 'corrected' by the individual collecting writing for the anthology. Even given that information, it took both members of my writing group plus one of the facilitators telling me "it's good, it's yours, leave it how you want it" for me to decide my writing wasn't inadequate and leave it the way I'd intended. Not that I wanted to change it - I still think the corrections made are nitpicky, stupid, and not in line with my style. So it stays the way I wanted it, and I'm proud of it. Proud because it is mine, the way I want it to be. Proud enough that I'm willing to show it to you....just don't correct my grammar.
Backstage
The moment had finally arrived. After months of practicing and preparing, it was here. Ashley looked around the dressing room, a twirling, twisting dance of emotions going on inside of her.
She saw the older girls over in the corner getting ready. How she longed to be one of them someday! A smile crossed her face as she thought of being in the company, doing the opening dance for the recitals, having different costumes…and the shoes! High-heeled tap shoes, and pointe shoes like a real ballerina! She looked down at her worn, second-hand, flat ballet shoes that her mother always wanted to have a cute little bow at the top. It didn’t matter how many times Ashley had explained that real ballerinas didn’t have bows; her mother always asked where the bow was. The older girls don’t have bows, thought Ashley. And they don’t need their mother to put on their makeup!
One of the girls was applying a thick layer of dark red lipstick, while another expertly stroked on her eyeliner, a pack of fake eyelashes sitting in front of her. Ashley watched in envy, thinking of her own makeup experience earlier that day. By now she was used to gently shutting her eyes while her mother applied the dark brown eye shadow, making big circles of blush on her cheeks, and forming just the right open-mouth face for the lipstick. But this time there was eyeliner too. Ashley had panicked when the black pencil came at her eye. After a few rounds of yelling at her mother not to take her eye out, her mother yelling back for Ashley to calm down, and her father yelling at the both of them to quit bickering, Ashley finally found the perfect spot to look while her mother drew a line under her eyes. The part Ashley liked best was the fishtail at the corner of her eyes. It made her feel older, more dramatic, more like a real dancer.
The hair, too, was true “dancer hair.” A sleeked back bun, no bangs. At first, the ponytail had been so tight she felt the skin of her face was permanently stretched back. Now, it was slowly starting to adjust. Half a can of mousse had gone into her hair that day, along with at least 15 bobby pins poking her scalp. To the touch, it felt more like a helmet than hair. Tomorrow she would spend a good 10 minutes in the shower, just washing out all the gunk. But it was worth the hassle. Once before pieces of her hair had started loosening, her bun starting to come undone on stage – no way would she let that happen again. Just to be sure, one more round with the hairspray.
As the older girls began to get dressed, Ashley turned away. Didn’t they know this was a big open room? People could see them! When I’m one of the older girls, I’ll find something to change behind. In her bedroom at home, Ashley had struggled to put on her own costume. Yet another painful process. After sewing on the straps, her mother had failed to remove all the straight pins. Pins poked. Sequins scratched. She knew her armpits would be raw by the end of the night, thanks to the row of sequins that went all the way around her arm.
“All right girls, everyone in the first two numbers needs to be backstage now.” Quickly, Ashley ran through her mental checklist. Shoes double-knotted? Check. Hair sprayed down? Check. Hairpiece pinned tight? Check. Tutu straight? Check. No makeup smudges? Check. Re-applied lipstick? Check. Ashley’s class was the first class after the opening, so they were lucky enough to sit backstage and watch the older girls’ first number. As Ashley watched, a multitude of emotions danced over her: awe, wonderment, fear, excitement, anticipation. They were so good! Could she ever look like that? Would she do well in her own dance? She was still having trouble spotting her turns – what if she fell, or turned right into the curtains?! Then a girl next to her started to twitter with excitement, and her fears were forgotten. She felt a rush of exhilaration as she thought about going out onto the stage. It was almost their turn!
When the curtain had gone down the girls took their places and the excitement set into Ashley’s bones. Up came the lights and the curtain, the music blasting into the auditorium, and there was Ashley with a giant smile plastered to her face. Not a fake smile to please her teachers or her audience, but a genuine smile. A smile expressing her joy in the dance; a joy that could not be contained.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The Beginning
So, as you can clearly see, I have started a blog. It's something I have been contemplating for awhile. Today's class gave me the last nudge I needed, but attempting the cool new thing we did today is not the only reason for this most recent foray into the technology world. There are several benfits to my blog:
1. It keeps me writing. There needs to be more writing in my life beyond IEPs and emails.
2. It allows me an easy way to keep those physically far away informed on the minor things and random thoughts going on with me. Not that I will use it in lieu of phone calls and personalized emails. Just as a supplement pertaining to the more random, everday side of life. Living alone affords me less opportunity to share those things.
3. It is an outlet for the running commentary that often goes on in my head.
Whether or not I will be able to keep it up, or keep it through this blog site, or post on a regular basis, is yet to be seen. There is no set schedule or topic for my blog, hence the title: Here, there, and back again. At any given moment it can go in any direction it wants topic wise. I also like the duality of the title, when you look at the fact that "here" and "there" are always changing, depending on where you're sitting. There's also the aspect of "here" and "there" in terms of time, and space, as well as location. It's multifacted, like me. Not a bad beginning.
1. It keeps me writing. There needs to be more writing in my life beyond IEPs and emails.
2. It allows me an easy way to keep those physically far away informed on the minor things and random thoughts going on with me. Not that I will use it in lieu of phone calls and personalized emails. Just as a supplement pertaining to the more random, everday side of life. Living alone affords me less opportunity to share those things.
3. It is an outlet for the running commentary that often goes on in my head.
Whether or not I will be able to keep it up, or keep it through this blog site, or post on a regular basis, is yet to be seen. There is no set schedule or topic for my blog, hence the title: Here, there, and back again. At any given moment it can go in any direction it wants topic wise. I also like the duality of the title, when you look at the fact that "here" and "there" are always changing, depending on where you're sitting. There's also the aspect of "here" and "there" in terms of time, and space, as well as location. It's multifacted, like me. Not a bad beginning.
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