Category Archives: School

I Suppose I Can Say This

Posted on 7 April 2010 | 4 comments

I suppose I can say without any negative repercussions, except possibly admitting later that I didn’t get either  job, that I have applied for two jobs at Burris: a middle school language arts position and an elementary position. I am torn as I try to decide which one I want more.

I love small children because they are wide-eyed with wonder at the world. They haven’t had a chance to become cynical. They still rely on you to present information to them and then to challenge them to think critically about it, and they don’t approach everything you ask them to do with suspicion or incredulity. For the most part they are eager and interested in what’s going on around them. Also, when you teach elementary school, you have the option of teaching everything together. There is no distinct line drawn in the sand between English and Social Studies and Science; they all blend together and one subject supplements the other, like they do in real life.

However, I would also love the middle school job. Middle schoolers are in this amazing in-between place where they aren’t quite grown-ups and they aren’t quite children. Or they are clumsily trying to navigate between the two. I would love this job because there are so many fundamentals in language arts that happen in middle school. In fact, they have released a new study, which says that what students learn in middle school is more of a determinant of their future success than what they learn in high school. That makes sense. A good base is the key to any educational endeavor. Besides, even though they are sometimes snarky and hateful, middle schoolers need teachers who love them unconditionally, but who also enforce the rules and challenge their intellectual abilities. I think the early teenage years, more than most would like to admit, are THE most important years of human development. Children are either made or broken in grades six through eight.

I do know that I grow tired of the drama surrounding the selection process for the jobs. I have an incredibly low tolerance for drama, and my threshold has been reached. I appreciate it when people are honest. For the most part, when people find they have to manipulate others, their desire to do so comes from their own insecurities. I know this, but sometimes it doesn’t make it any better. I will never get why we can’t just be honest with each other and why people need to play games. I simply will never understand it.

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My training for the Indy-Mini, which is coming up one month from tomorrow, is going better than I had anticipated. Last week was the best training week so far. I ran 28 miles, and felt amazing at the end of the week. This week is a “rest” week in which I will only run 17 miles. It should have been 21, but I took today off. I woke up late and have just been exhausted. I have probably been exhausted because I haven’t been eating well, and I am overwhelmed with life right now. Teaching, working on my dissertation proposal, and worrying about all the job stuff wears on my body and it comes out in my physical exhaustion and inability to run hard. I have also started playing racquetball, which contributes to my body’s weariness.

Maybe that’s the best word for my state of being right now: I am weary.Weary.

On a more exciting note, I have almost committed to training for my first marathon. I think I have chosen the 15th Annual Indianapolis Marathon. I am looking for volunteers to run this race at the same time I run it. I say run at the same time because I am so slow (I move at about a 12:30 to 13:00 mile); I would hate to inflict anyone with the burden of actually running with me. Running with me as opposed to running at the same time implies that we would have to stay together while running. We would not. Any takers? The race takes place on Saturday, October 16 and it only costs $50 until July 31.

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I am thankful for rest.

Exercise: racquetball for an hour, walking around campus a bit, walking the dogs

Food: banana, orange juice, tall dark cherry mocha frappucino, Puerto vegetarian D and chips and salsa, two pretzels, seven mini Cadbury eggs, medium cherry/grape Artic Rush

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Posted in Just Random Stuff, Politics, Running, School, Teaching

Another Spring Break is Gone

Posted on 14 March 2010 | 3 comments

One of these years, I am going to actually take a Spring Break, one where I go somewhere and do something different than what I have been doing for the other 51 weeks of the year. If BSU’s spring break came a little later, I’d go on a motorcycle trip, but I am afraid I will leave and then it will snow. Then I wouldn’t be able to come home, because I am not riding in the snow. As it is, I never accomplish everything I wish to accomplish in the week anyway, so why don’t I learn to take a break. This year, for example, I had a list a mile long, but I did not complete the most important thing on that list. Because I had been putting off grading and my teaching related concerns to put out other little forest fires, I spent the entire break grading and planning for the rest of the school year and not working on my dissertation proposal.

I had every good intention of sitting down for a long spell with the thing and really hashing through it. That will have to happen in the evenings of this week. I have to get this thing finished and turned in as soon as possible. I am tired of looking at it. The part that sucks about having to do it this week is that Bec is leaving for Minnesota on Saturday, so I won’t be able to spend any quality time with her before she goes. I hate that. At least she’ll be back on Wednesday (?), and I should have everything finished by then.

However, I will have my lifeguarding class all weekend next weekend, so I won’t get to spend any time with her then either. When I say all weekend, I am not exaggerating. It meets on Friday from 6pm to 10pm and Saturday and Sunday from 8am to 2pm. I guess I will be running in the evenings for the next two weekends. And, they are long runs, too. Eight and nine miles for the next two Saturdays.

Yesterday I ran seven miles at a 12:30 to 12:45 minute per mile pace, but I still had difficulty sleeping last night. I think it was a combination of all the life-stress I am experiencing right now, the stupid daylight savings time change, and the fact that I drank a tall regular bold coffee. I haven’t had that much caffeine in a long while. At least I didn’t get heart palpitations this time. I did it because Starbucks is doing a bold coffee promotion in which you get a little card that has all their bold coffees listed. If you drink a tall of all eight of them, you get your choice of a free pound of bold coffee. In the end, you pay as much for the eight tall coffees as you would for the pound of coffee, but since you end up with both in your belly, it sounds like a deal to me.

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I am thankful for time well-spent and weird Lily Tomlin movies.

Food:
Breakfast: banana, juice, pop tart, chocolate milk
Running: shortbread
Lunch: almonds, Pure bar, coffee with honey and soy milk
Dinner: onion rings, Scotty’s French Quarter Quesadilla, 23 oz. Guinness
Snack: small bag of Cadbury eggs

Exercise: walked the dogs two miles, ran 7 miles

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Posted in Beer, Coffee, Dissertation, Food, Insomnia, Running, School, Teaching

I Can See…

Posted on 16 February 2010 | Leave a comment

the bones in my wrists. You know the radius that’s all sexy and round on the outside of the back of your wrist. It’s just a bit toward your elbow from your wrist on the same side as the number 5 metacarpal (pinkie finger). This may not seem like a big deal to you, but for a life-time fat kid, seeing the collar bones and the bones in the wrists is an infrequently accomplished goal. What dumbfounds me is the fact that I still haven’t lost anymore weight. It is seriously getting annoying, but the muscles in my legs are getting more defined, and I feel better, so I keep telling myself I am doing something worthwhile by running and eating well. I am, right? Right?!?

As I indicated yesterday, I was going to take Rachel’s class today, but it was one catastrophe after another. First, the movie they were supposed to watch was checked out of the library. Then, I tried to download the movie off of the Internet and it made my applications file duplicate every time I tried to open the file. Then, I felt bad because I made the student come back to meet at the Writing Center for an orientation. If I had known it was going to be so short, I would have just asked the Writing Center to reschedule it for Thursday when Rachel would be back. Instead, the students dutifully found something to do for an hour then met me at the Writing Center. I love a good comedy of errors.

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I am thankful for productive long days.

Food: banana, juice, chocolate milk, almonds and M&Ms, peanut butter sandwich, leftover pasta, a few cookies

Exercise: walked the dogs, walked from RB to library and then to Lafollette then to Burris and back, ran 3 miles

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except for to  be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.

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Posted in Fat, Food, Running, School

Better But Not Full Steam

Posted on 4 February 2010 | 1 comment

Today was a better day after I had the chance to ditch the Louisville conference. Saying no to one thing lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. Now I get to spend the weekend working on my dissertation and grading the papers for the classes I am teaching. It isn’t as if I am not interested in the topic of my proposed conference paper. I am. I just don’t have it in me to go spend three days away from getting meaningful work done on my dissertation proposal and my classes. I have to capitalize on the little bit of spare time I do have to work on interests that will further my academic advancement, and I don’t have enough time to spare to work on things that are drawing my attention away from those pursuits. In short, I just am overbooked and something had to go. Sadly, it was a conference opportunity.

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I am thankful for sound advice and good friends.

Food: banana, juice, chocolate milk, muffin, apple, grapefruit, tall decaf soy vanilla latte, tall soy hot chocolate, biscotti, bean and rice wrap with waffle fries

Exercise: walked the dogs, ran 3 miles, rode bike to school

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Posted in Coffee, Dissertation, Food, Running, School, Vegetarian or Vegan

Codename: Kids Next Door

Posted on 3 February 2010 | 1 comment

While waiting for my lunch/dinner to bake in the 400º oven for 60-75 minutes, I just watched the strangest cartoon I have seen since I was a kid and Q-bert was part of the Saturday morning line-up. The episode of Codename: Kids Next Door that was on involves a box of Rainbow Crunch Puffs or some such cereal. There is only box left, and everyone wants it. After multiple fights in which various villains/good guys destroy the grocery store in their overzealous attempts to conquer their foes, a character who looks like an old private eye, complete with a pipe and a cap, but shrouded in a dark, reclusive silhouette uses fire power to pop corn and then burn it up. By doing so he exposes several children dressed as superheroes who are hiding under all the popped corn.

I can only assume said children were the “Kids Next Door,” but they didn’t have the cereal either. Of course, the person who ends up with the cereal only wants it because he wants to destroy it.”It’s bad for your teeth, you know,” says the retainer-clad, head-gear-wearing villain. Somehow, everyone in the grocery store combines forces, overpowers Retainer Head and eats the last box of Rainbow Crunch Puffs in a communal breakfast. Just weird. Now, of course, Misadventures of Flapjack is on. Weirder.*

Today wasn’t such a great day. I feel like I am spinning my wheels lately. I am having that feeling that I have every once in a while. I get this notion in my head that I can’t succeed, well, not simply succeed but excel, at anything I am doing. I feel like I am being torn in too many directions: teaching at BSU, teaching at Burris, grading for BSU, grading for Burris, helping edit a high school literary journal, writing a conference paper, writing my dissertation proposal, spending quality time with people who are close to me, trying to find a real job for next year, running, swimming, and sleep. Instead of being able to put “my queer shoulder to the wheel” and get stuff done, I get overwhelmed and can’t do anything.

It’s like I slip into this rote compulsive mode: check Facebook, check email, check phone, check Facebook, check email, check phone, and on and on. It’s quite ridiculous, but I really can’t help it. It’s like I am driven to distract myself from feeling like a failure. Then I get sleepy and just want to sleep. What’s so strange about all of this is that I don’t feel depressed. I just feel overwhelmed and like I want to avoid the things I have to do. Even though I was sick over the weekend, it isn’t like me to sleep for fourteen hours. Eight or nine, yes. But fourteen, no.

Part of what I am going to force myself to avoid are the conflicts around me that I have no control over. I can’t control what other people do. Some people are simply jack-asses. I keep thinking that one day I will discover a group of people who can get along like I think adults should be able to get along. You know, show grace, compassion, respect, integrity, kindness, equality, and responsibility. Is it too much to ask for adults to be able to exhibit the characteristics we expect from children?

I just need to stop being delusional. People aren’t naturally good. People are fallen, and no amount of my thinking they are good at heart is going to make them so. People are selfish, egotistical, and greedy. They don’t look out for each other. Why can’t I just recognize this and go on? Why do I insist on trying to see the good in people who clearly aren’t good? I want them to be, I think, so I keep hoping they will be. I guess I can still hope. I can always hope, but I need to stop basing my faith in the lies of other people. I need to remember where my true hope lies and focus more on that. All this worldly stuff just makes me bitter, like bad coffee.

I can’t afford to focus on these things, however. I have a dissertation proposal to write, papers to grade, a conference paper to write, and lessons to plan.

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I am thankful that my mostly dead cat is not completely dead.

Food: banana, juice, muffin, chocolate milk, apple, bean/rice/veggie pot pie, ginger ale

Exercise: walked the dogs, ran 3.5 miles

(Yesterday: ran 3 miles, walked dogs, walked from Burris to RB)

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Posted in Coffee, Dissertation, Food, Grace, Relationships, Running, School, Writing