Swimming. Dave. Ayn Rand.

Posted on 9 January 2012 | 2 comments

If you had asked me a few years ago if I would have ever taught a book by Ayn Rand, I probably would have laughed heartily at you. And then I would have given you several reasons about why I wouldn’t have even entertained the idea. Today, however, I began the pre-work and front-loading for the book Anthem. We will be entering our essays, which we will write after reading the story, into a contest sponsored by the The Ayn Rand Institute. We are beginning the whole Ayn Rand process with the students giving group speeches about six different topics: socialism, Soviet Russia, Prometheus, Gaia, dystopia, and Rand. The students seemed to be really excited about this project, and I framed it by saying I hadn’t read the book yet, but that her beliefs might challenge me a little. I think they liked the fact that I am having them read something that I potentially won’t agree with and will be frustrated with. Ah, middle schoolers!

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I swam this morning for the first time in ages. It was a sprint day. Whenever I do sprints (running or swimming), I recognize how out of shape I am. I felt like I was sucking air through a coffee stirrer while trying to wrestle a Leviathan. I hope the sprinting gets easier each week. Wow.

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Dave Pace, Merideth’s dad died on Thursday night. His funeral is Wednesday, and the viewing is tomorrow. Her family has asked me to perform the ceremony/service, and I agreed. I just hope I can keep it together and not make a blubbering fool of myself. He is one of the greatest men I have ever known, and I will truly miss him. I only hope I can honor his memory with my words.

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Posted in Family, Swimming

Turning Over So Many New Leaves

Posted on 5 January 2012 | 2 comments

New Year Day: As I sat there in my overly full, grain-induced coma, I reflected over the past few years of my life, and I realized that I am not so happy with where it is or where it’s going. I decided to put some new resolutions into place, and they are radically different than those before.

  1. Eat paleo. Eat clean meats and vegetables without the gummy, yucky grain foods. Maybe order 1/8 of a bison or half a wild boar. Also, no beer. Or very little.
  2. Watch less TV. Watch more movies instead. Or maybe even read more!
  3. Exercise in a variety of ways (including swimming) while running a race a month. When it’s warm enough, run barefoot. Maybe do a barefoot half-marathon.
  4. Meditate. I always feel more calm when I practice meditation.
  5. Deactivate Facebook and Twitter for the year.
  6. Play more.
  7. In short, do things which bring me joy.

Maybe doing all of this will decrease my blood pressure, which isn’t really high, but feels like it.

It is my hope to start using this space to write about some current events and to write more deeply about those things that are important to me. I also want to care less about my job, but when you’re a teacher, it’s sort of difficult to stop caring, especially when you realize that the lives of your students depend on your care and nurture.

I think this year will bring new and promising events, and hopefully it will bring a much better attitude on my part. We’ll see. I’m going to try to focus on being positive, which is a HUGE goal for me.

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Posted in Beer, Buddhism, Disc golf, Food, Gleaning, Goals, Play, Running, School, Swimming, Teaching, Writing

Giving Thanks. Running. This Whole Vegan Thang. Health.

Posted on 23 November 2011 | 1 comment

Since the first day of November, I have been posting on Facebook those things for which I am thankful. I have not been alone in this. Nearly every person on Facebook has posted about being thankful for something in this month. The thanks range from sickeningly sweet posts to random posts about being thankful for the ability to block people. I’ve tried to not waver too far in either direction. You can decide for yourself if you think I’ve gone thanksgiving crazy!

November 1: I am thankful for steadfast family and friends.
November 2: I am thankful for my soon to be acquired punching bag and boxing gloves.
November 3: I am thankful for Burris’s FCA huddle. What amazing students!
November 4: I am thankful for carbohydrates that will fuel tomorrow’s insanity.
November 5: I am thankful for the ability to even think about completing a marathon.
November 6: I am thankful for being able to recognize beauty.
November 7: I am thankful for students who are open to new ideas and who aren’t afraid to speak their minds.
November 8: I am thankful for coffee, vegetables, and wild rice and the farmers, truck drivers, and grocery store workers who bring them to us.
November 9: Today I am thankful for waking up.
November 10: I am thankful for falling asleep at 7 last night and waking up at 330 this morning. I think I could get used to that schedule. Maybe that’s why opening shift at Starbucks always worked so well for me!
November 11: I am thankful for all of those who choose to serve our country and to guard our liberties, even when they don’t necessarily agree with trivial wars or the choices made for them by their superiors.
November 12: I was thankful when all the sour milk smell was finally off of me after Harvest Fest. There are so many reasons I have never had children, and I think that smell is one of them.
November 13: I am thankful for the beauty with which we are surrounded. I saw two deer while I was running this morning; they ran on the trail with me for about 100 yards and then turned abruptly, jumped over the fence, and scampered up the hill.
November 14: I am thankful for my rainbow toe socks and cabbage/broccoli stir fry.
November 14: Again today, I am thankful for Julie M., who provides me with fresh herbs. Tonight I am making whole wheat linguine topped with butternut squash caramelized with sage and olive oil.
November 15: I am thankful for options. Being able to choose makes me happy.
November 15: I am thankful for the high school choir, who just kindly seranaded my classroom with a musical rendition of “Jabberwocky.” Only at Burris.
November 16: I am thankful for the small things: tootsie rolls, incense, Coke Zero, and gel pens. I am thankful for the big things: compassion, kindness, love, and peace.
November 17: I am thankful for Burris FCA. The faith of these students is amazing. And, we always have good breakfast.
November 17: I am thankful for driving and spending a weekend away. I am thankful for new babies and their beauty and innocence.
November 17: I am thankful for mini-vacations and for Chicago, the city that makes my heart sing.
November 18: I can think of nothing I am more thankful for than running to the end of Navy Pier watching the sun rise over Lake Michigan, then turning around to see the light shimmering off of the windows of all those skyscrapers. Natural and manmade beauty collide, and I love it.
November 19: I am thankful for family in all shapes, sizes, and relationships.
November 20: I am thankful for long drives and a nice comfortable bed at home.
November 21: I am thankful for two days until break, otherwise known as the grading marathon.
November 22: Today I am thankful for my Facebook friends. Some of you I barely know in real life, but you make my days better and my mind stronger. I am thankful for those of you who challenge my beliefs and for those of you who camp in the same thought camps that I do. I am also thankful for my students who come to my room early (or on their lunches, or during their study skills classes) every day to try to solve the puzzles my secret pal bought for me!
November 22: I am thankful for Faith Pennington-Serf. I always leave our meetings with sore abs from laughing so hard, and I never leave wondering why I am a teacher.
November 23: I am thankful for long walks by the river with my dogs. Two miles with the sun coming up and the river burbling is the perfect way to start a long day of grading.

Today, as I sit here typing this in Starbucks, I am also thankful for grace. I look around and realize that I don’t deserve any of the amazing blessings I’ve been given. I am so blessed, but it’s easy for me to lose sight of that blessing when I get bogged down in the rut of my days. I am not a Christian who tends to revel in her brokenness, so it strikes me when I find myself reflecting on how undeserving I am. I sometimes wonder how fair it is to even call myself a Christian anymore, but that’s a conversation for another time and another post.

I tend to try to live in the renewed life and love that we are given as new creatures in Christ, but I sometimes forget that everything is a gift. It’s humbling, you know, when I consider that I could have been born into any circumstance and grown up into any circumstance. But I wasn’t and I didn’t. I was born into an awesome family and given awesome friends. I was encouraged to grow up into a unique little snowflake. 🙂 Every day I am challenged and supported. Every day I am given grace and inspired. Every day I am loved and I love, which is a blessing.

All my problems are trivial and finite, but grace is significant and eternal.

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My brother and I are running a 5K trail race on Saturday, and I am quite excited for it. Running has been going really well, since I didn’t finish the marathon. My mile times have been up to two or three minutes faster than they were leading up to the marathon, and my feet and legs haven’t felt heavy or tired for a couple of weeks. Since it’s gotten colder here, I haven’t done any real barefoot running (minimalist instead), but I am going to start going to the BSU track in Ball Gym to get in some serious barefoot miles. I have moved my running from the morning to the afternoon and that seems to have helped both my ability to deal with the early sunset, and my ability to run well. Maybe being more alert helps the speed. I am so not a morning person!

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I am wavering back to my commitment to being vegan. I’ve had lots of dairy in the past two or three weeks, and I am starting to think that my body likes the extra protein. However, I can’t stand the fact that my consumption of dairy leads to the dairy farms we pass while driving in Wisconsin and Minnesota. I can’t stand to see so many animals jammed into such a small, muddy, shitty space with no fresh green grass or pasture. More disturbing are the veal huts set up on the opposite side of these farms. Little baby cows chained to tiny little huts, standing in straw and manure, mooing for their mommies. Yeah, I am a bit cheesy about stuff like this, but I can’t stand it. It breaks my heart, and I absolutely hate driving past the dairies. Then, when my gut is full of cheese or milk, I want to throw up at the fact that I am implicit in this operation. It makes me sick. Almost literally.

I suppose I just need to figure out how to get more protein while still being vegan. Maybe I could add in more nuts or beans. I know I need to get more fresh vegetables, so I am going to try a two-month juice fast from January 1 through the end of February. I am hoping to use that time as a time of bodily cleansing and intellectual purification before going back to being vegan. Of course, the juice fast will be vegan, but it will also be an exercise in discipline. And, of course, I will need to have it finished by the time Elizabeth, Sarah, and I embark on AWP in Chicago!

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Last, but not least, I have started taking niacin and vitamin C again. The two nutrients are a homeopathic remedy for mood disorders, and since my mood swings have gotten out of control, I decided to take matters into my own hands and take some proactive measures to get things under control. I figure some niacin and some vitamin C is a whole lot cheaper than the $100 an hour a psychologist would cost. (It’s probably cheaper than going to court because I punched someone in the face, too.) Supposedly our insurance provides psychiatric care, but I imagine that it would be equally excellent coverage to our medical care, which is almost like not having insurance at all. Our pharmaceutical coverage is excellent, though, according to the pharmacist. Doctor $$$ > Drug $$$ = The health care system in the US is fucked.

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Posted in Christianity, Family, Fat, Food, Grace, Mental Health, New Year, Religion, Running, Vegetarian or Vegan

There Are So Many Other Things I Should Be Doing Right Now…

Posted on 13 November 2011 | Leave a comment

but I decided instead to write about my week this week. It was an excellent one. Last Sunday, I started taking my niacin/vitamin C again, and I can tell that it makes a huge difference. I haven’t thought once this week about killing myself or someone else. And the way things were going that is a huge step in the right direction.

I’ve also decided to try to remember that people can do whatever they want, but it only affects me if I let it, and usually people’s weird reactions and mean actions have little to nothing to do with me, but with their own state of mind and the other things happening in their lives. I’ve also thought quite a bit about passive aggressive behaviors and how there is no way to control the way other people act and react, and I can say, for this week at least, it worked to view my interactions with others in this manner. If I don’t let the mean things other people say and do interrupt what I am doing, they can’t get to me and make me feel bad about myself. I like that. There’s a saying, which can’t really be attributed to one source because so many famous people have shared the sentiment, that holds quite a bit of wisdom in this regard. It goes like this: “It’s not what happens to you that matters, but what matters is how you react to it.”  I am learning new ways to react, particularly when it comes to people whose actions are abusive or detrimental to my character.

Running has been really good this week. On one of my runs, I somehow managed to run a ten-minute mile after running weeks and weeks of 13- to 14- minute miles. And, today I ran 5 miles at the Mounds on some hilly, rocky, uneven terrain at about a 14-minute mile pace. I wore my nice VFF Trek Sports that have the little, baby lugs for trail running, and they have a bit thicker sole than the classics. These have become my go to shoes for anything that isn’t on the sidewalk or street. My classics serve me well when the pavement is too rough or when the weather is too cold. I have a pair of Flows, too, but I really don’t like them very well at all. They are stiff and my feet get sweaty hot in them, which I assume will be a huge plus when the snow falls and the ice comes. For right now, though, the weather is still good enough that they are bit overkill. I wear them to school sometimes, and my students call them my dress shoes!

Not finishing the marathon has somehow lit a fire under my behind to make it impossible for myself to fail in the spring when I sign up for the next go at it. I am thinking of running an early spring marathon before the pollen starts up. It’ll be challenging to strike the delicate balance between cold air and pollen, both of which are not so great for my lungs. At any rate, I am feeling pretty good about my running life. I’m trying to lose some weight before then, too, but I am not sure how well that will go. I seem to have difficulty ever losing weight, and I just get discouraged if that’s my focus. I have to remember that running and feeling fit are my first priorities. Losing weight is like third or fourth fiddle to all the other things I do for my body.

To that end, the weight loss, I’ve decided to start eating milk products again. Despite how morally reprehensible the whole dairy industry is, I think I need the extra protein that low-fat milk and low-fat cheeses provide me. I am trying not to add back in too many animal products, but only those which I feel my body needs to maintain the weekly mileage I am trying to achieve; I’d like to be at a maintenance level of 17 to 30 miles each week by Christmas, running 3 to 5 miles on weekdays and  5 to 10 miles on weekends. That’s definitely doable, and it will make running a marathon seem like something more attainable without making the training seem like a drudgery. Don’t get me wrong, I love running, but the training (especially the 50-mile week) was a bit challenging to complete during school.

Also, it’s my goal to run at least one race each month this year. I am starting with the Leftover Turkey Trail Run on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, then running the Santa Hustle on December 17 and the Rudolph Run on Christmas Eve. Now I have to find a good race for January. 🙂

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Posted in Fat, Food, Goals, Mental Health, Running, Vegetarian or Vegan

Last Minute Jitters Turn Into Legitimate Concerns

Posted on 8 November 2011 | 2 comments

Menses alert (like a spoiler alert, but more important): As if it wasn’t enough to attempt to move my fat body 26.2 miles, I get to do it while Mother Nature does her thing to my uterus. Thanks, lady, you’re supposed to be on my side. You are a woman after all!

If nothing else, though, I have plenty to think about on this 6-hour journey. I can replay recent disappointments with friends to investigate what I have done to offend. I can revel in recent—and fantasize about future—growths in my professional life. I can contemplate my (partially) new-found spirituality, reviewing the texts I’ve been reading as I run. I will repeat a mantra: “Just keep swimming.” I can pray for personal and universal plights and rejoice over successes. I can consider social justice issues and the ways in which I can . And, if I finish, I will feel like I’ve accomplished something big.

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Well, it’s the Tuesday after the marathon, and I didn’t finish. I didn’t accomplish something big. This time. I was going strong until mile 10 when I noticed my chest starting to tighten up, and I started to have a difficult time breathing. I’ve run 15-mile training runs, so there should have been no problem. But there was.

I don’t have a formal asthmatic diagnosis, unless you count the exercise-induced one from when I was still young enough to go to the pediatrician, so I hate it when I can tell my lungs are starting to spasm and constrict. I can’t do anything to fix it because I don’t have an inhaler. By the time I turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, I could tell I wasn’t going to last much longer. Maybe it was the gingko trees, maybe it was my imagination, but my breathing was difficult. I started crying, and then I started walking. I made it to mile 11 where I promptly got scooped up by the slow wagon.

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I learned a lot about myself through this huge disappointment. I know I need to start my allergy shots, and I am hoping I am part of the 50% of the population they work for. I know I need to train much more diligently and much more thoroughly for the next go around. I know could stand to lose some weight, which would only make running 26.2 miles a little less painful. I know I need to be more careful about what I eat between now and then, maybe adding in a bit more protein and fewer “treats.”

I learned I need to give myself more grace when shooting for lofty goals, like I need to give myself grace for not having time to work on my dissertation. I learned I need to count on my friends and family who are steadfast and true and revel in their love for me.

I don’t know what else to say about this whole journey, except that I lost it on Saturday when I stopped running. The bottom of my world fell out, and all those dark feelings came rushing in and I was drowning. I came back (or to put it evangelically, I was redeemed) when I decided that not making a goal I set for myself isn’t the end of the world, and that I always have next time. Sounds trite, sounds cliché, sounds sickeningly like something I wouldn’t want to hear, but it’s true. I don’t have a terminal illness. I am not incapacitated in some way. There is always tomorrow.

While I was running,  I thought a lot about the legacy I want to leave behind, and the one I was heading toward leaving behind wasn’t exactly it. Recently, I have spent way too much time wallowing in self-pity. I haven’t spent nearly enough time thinking about, dwelling on those things I have to rejoice about. For my legacy, I want to leave behind peace and compassion, not anxiety and anger. I may not be happy in every situation, but I can still be grace-filled and experience each moment for what it brings.

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Posted in Dissertation, Fat, Goals, Grace, Running, Vegetarian or Vegan