NaNoWriMo. Dieting. And Running.

Posted on 1 November 2010 | Leave a comment

Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. I have several seventh-graders who are attempting to write 50,000 words during the month of November. I told them if they succeeded we could have a pizza party, and if their parents are willing we might even be able to go to Chuckie Cheese for a celebration. Writing that much in one month, even if is crap, is an accomplishment. Oh, and the other end of that deal is that I have to try it, too. That’s around 1,666 and 2/3 words each day this month. I’ll give it a whirl, knowing that it will be a really bad novel since I’ve never attempted fiction before in my life. I think I am going to try to write a six-page short story each day, so that they all fit together into one big story. We’ll see. Supposedly the whole point is just to get people to write, then encourage them to revise and edit in December. Mine may have to be revised and edited over the summer if it’s even worth keeping.

*

Today is the first day of the big ol’ diet.

Breakfast: banana, 8 oz. juice, 8 oz. soy milk, two flax-seed capsules, one cinnamon capsule

Lunch: peanut butter sandwich, vegan vegetable soup, apple

Snack: yogurt, two twizzlers

Dinner: I have somewhere between 100 and 400 calories left, so dinner will be slim pickings!

*

I went to my follow-up appointment for my ankle today, and the doctor essentially said I can run as far and as fast as I can. I don’t have to wear my heel cups when I run, and I just have to do my exercises for about another six weeks. This is excellent news for the half-marathon training and for the full-marathon training! 🙂

Leave a comment

Posted in Fat, Food, Goals, Running, Writing

Some Excerpts. Some Emerson. A bit of self-reflection.

Posted on 31 October 2010 | 2 comments

excerpt from “Mormon Missionaries Pay Me a Visit”
by Ken Hada

I’m sitting on my lawn
enjoying a nice blunt cigar
watching children ride scooters
up and down the street
twilight gently falling,
swallows circling,
Mississippi Kites high overhead,
tree frog, sounds of sweet shadows

[. . .]

If I convert do I have to give up this cigar?

They are not sure
but soon get back on track
like a loose wheel wobbling
until they finally bid me good evening.
I watch them roll away
and wonder
what gives them the audacity to interrupt me
while I am at worship

excerpt from “Fix You”
by Coldplay

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

excerpt from “Some of Us”
by Starsailor

Some of us laugh, some of us cry,
Some of us smoke, some of us lie,
But it’s all just the way that we cope with our lives.

My wandering soul found solace at last,
I wanted to know how long it would last.

As usual I have been way over-thinking the nature of human interactions. For whatever reason, this week each of the three excerpts above really encouraged me to think about how I react to my life, to my experiences, and to other people and their lives and experiences. By this I mean that I have been challenged once again to re-evaluate those relationships in my life which are difficult and to think about how I can more fully respond to those people in my life who take a lot of energy.

I especially like the first excerpt, because it makes me stop and think about the ways in which different people worship, thereby interacting with our Creator. Hada writes about how he wonders “what gives them the audacity to interrupt me while I am at worship,” and I wonder how many times, especially when I was younger, I have interrupted someone who was already worshiping in order to explain to them how my understanding of God is better than theirs or to try to sway him or her into my way of thinking. This rings particularly true of me in middle school and early high school when I was so involved with the right-wing evangelical Wesleyan Church. I would drop everything for the chance to pray the “Sinner’s Prayer” with a wayward soul, so I wonder how many times people wished I would just leave them alone to worship in their way. Sometimes I look back and think I was little like Hilary Faye on Saved!.

I needed someone, when I was at a younger age, to help me understand that our different faiths are not weapons to be used against each other. I needed to realize much earlier that I should be more like the character of Mary. At this age, today, I am slightly envious of those people who grow up without this extremely conservative and mixed-up phase in their lives. I meet so many fantastic students today who will likely not look back, wondering what the heck they were doing in middle school. They will look back and ask about other things, but not why they were proselytizing their friends in such ridiculous ways.

I have come to realize, possibly way too late in life, that one person’s porch-sitting, cigar-smoking, enjoyment of life and nature is another person’s going-to-church, wearing-Sunday-best, singing-some-praise-songs worship. Both are good, but many times the former strikes at Ralph Waldo Emerson’s point in “Self-reliance”: “If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, — under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. [. . .] But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a blindman’s-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument.” Too frequently, as Emerson notes, we let our leaders speak for us, and we merely become parrots of their party line.

I suppose the other two excerpts, while helping to illustrate Emerson’s point, simply serve to remind me that each person we come in contact with carries baggage, each person hides scars, and each person lives with guilt, shame, and remorse. Each person is a wondering soul, looking for solace. Each person has lost something that can’t be replaced. But, there is hope, there is grace, there is love. By coping with life, we each tap into that deeply human part of life that we all share. Those dark recesses of the human mind, those highlights of the human soul, they work together to help us recognize the humanity in each other, however difficult it is to detect.

*

Being the horrible fat studies scholar that I am, as of tomorrow, I am going to try to lose 30 lbs. by February 14 when I start training for the marathon. I think it might help me to be less injury prone, and I know it will help me to run faster. In order to try to lose this weight, I am going to keep running four times a week while only consuming from 1200-1500 calories a day. This will be a huge cut for me, since I generally eat 1800 to 2000 calories per day. I plan to do this by eating more whole grains, more vegetables and fruits, no soda, no unnecessary sugars, no lattes, no hot chocolate. I am not generally a “dieter,” but I NEED to finish this marathon. I NEED to do it for me. Selfish? Yes. Also, I suppose people will get tired of hearing, “I am sorry I can’t meet with you, but I have a XXX-mile run today.” My new goal marathon is Grandma’s Marathon in Minnesota. It’s on June 16, and I will have to make a weekend of it, but it’s worth it to (sometimes) run along the shore of Lake Superior.

2 Comments

Posted in Goals, Relationships, Religion, Running

Sleeping and Waking. Injuring and Running. All in a days work.

Posted on 16 October 2010 | 4 comments

I would teach from nine to four, sleep an hour, and write from six until midnight, night after night.—Marguerite Young

I wish I was this motivated.

I should be. There is no reason I am not.

But, I am not.

So, instead, I teach from 8AM to 3PM—or 4 or 5 if I have a meeting—everyday, coming home to walk dogs, eat dinner, grade, then couch. Instead of writing, I fondle the remote control, waiting for some titillating piece of cinematic prowess to stimulate my mind into wanting to write or read or do anything productive. What I do instead of doing anything remotely academic or intellectual is I fall asleep watching Jeopardy before 8PM. Then I get up at  an ungodly hour in the morning to grade or to read or to plan my day. It’s sad, really.

I thought this weekend would be different. I thought I had a no-fail plan for catching up on all those things I should have done during the weekends when I was otherwise engaged, be my engagement in conferences or traveling or whatnot (side note: I cannot believe whatnot is in the computer dictionary, and that there is no little red line telling me it’s spelled wrong or not really a word.). I thought this would be the work weekend to end all work weekends, but my neighbors and their dog had another plan.

As I slept peacefully on the couch downstairs where I had fallen asleep watching Bones, I heard a loud commotion outside. I discovered that much like every other weekend since they moved in, my neighbors were having a drunken conversation on their front porch. This conversation was taking place in that I’m-trying-to-be-quiet-but-since-I’m-drunk-I’m-really-being-louder-than-usual radio newscaster’s voice. All monotone and spacey.

They were talking about the beers they were drinking; at least they’re drunken beer snobs, so I get to hear all about different, good beeers, instead of then pontificating about the ins-and-outs of beer pong or Asshole. At any rate, the dog must have had to go pee, because they let her out. Normally, she stays in their yard, does her business, and then goes back inside. But, I am sure, since she’s a smart dog, that she recognized the fortuitous twist of fate, the fact that they were so drunk they didn’t realize they hadn’t put her back in the house, and decided to come over into our yard for a bit. Which wouldn’t have been a bad idea if she would have simply stayed quiet and in the front yard.

However, she decided that it might be nice to go to the back and start snooping around, sniffing by the garage door, and nosing around in our back yard. This one, seemingly miniscule, action resulted in my being up from around 115AM when they awakened me with their revelry until about 5AM when they finally got their dog back in the house, and I finally calmed mine down for the third time. Yes, there were three cycles of Jane (their dog) barking and carrying on, which incited Sydney, who got Celie all riled up, who then got Lily all howly, and then I would come thumping down the stairs to quiet them down. On round number two, I took our dogs outside to pee so they could see that it was just Jane who was in their space. They didn’t really care. They didn’t want anyone in their space at 2AM.

Finally, after this second round, after I startled one of the neighbors while he was peeing in a bush, and after he decided to get Jane into the house, I stayed downstairs, sleeping on the couch until the third round of barking which must have been inadvertently stimulated by a squirrel or something in the backyard. Once those dogs get wacky, there’s almost no calming them down! I fell asleep watching Criminal Minds around 5AM. I should have used the time to write or read, but as per usual, I couched and remoted. I woke up about an hour-and-a-half later and went back upstairs to bed. I got up at 815ishAM. Needless to say, I am worthless today, so I am going to try to read the rest of the books I need to read. It’s about all I’m good for.

*

I finally went to the doctor for my ankle, and I have to wear heel cups, do stretches, and massage it with ice frozen in Dixie cups. I am going to start running again on Tuesday, but I have decided to move my runs to the afternoon, just when I get home from school and after I walk the dogs. I am going to start at the very beginning, so I don’t re-injure my ankle. My hope in running in the evening is that I will be able to run out the stress of the day and run in some energy to read and write for the evening. I figure if I can get to the point where I can get home, walk the dogs, and run by 530PM, I will have an hour for a nap/leisure time before Bec gets home. (I may have to reverse the order of the nap and the run.) Then, I will be more energized. Also, I am going to try to avoid the TV and the Internet between 630PM and 930PM or 10PM. Maybe this will help me get more focused as well.

One thing I will also have to work on is the way I eat. I have been eating like crap lately: lots of cookies, candy, animal products, and soda. I am not sure why I do this to myself, because I feel much healthier when I don’t eat these things. I love grape soda, so I am not sure I want to cut it completely, and a couple of Oreos won’t hurt either. I just need to stop eating ten or twelve Oreos and a couple of sodas each day. On top of regular food! It’s silly, really. And, I will need to stop the caffeine intake, too. No more Americanos that aren’t decaf.

Not only will I need to change what I eat, but when I eat. Seemingly, it would work better to eat more for an early breakfast when I first get up , hopefully by 430 each morning. Then by eating more for lunch, too, I will be able to run five hours later and skip dinner, having popcorn and an apple for a light snack before bed.

*

So here I go again setting goals I may not keep. The goal date for the following is July 22, 2011, my birthday:

  1. Finish a marathon.
  2. Stop shaving my head. Let it grow for Locks-of-Love.
  3. Spend at least half an hour reading the Bible, praying, and contemplating God each day.
  4. Have 75% of my students grow one academic year’s growth.
  5. Finish two chapters of my dissertation.
  6. Run 1000 miles.
  7. Stay vegan.
  8. Learn to say only what is necessary. Listen more than talk.
  9. Read one new book and one magazine from cover to cover each week. Follow the news.
  10. Finish painting the outside of the house.

4 Comments

Posted in Birthday Crisis, Coffee, Dissertation, Fat, Food, Goals, Reading, Relationships, Religion, Running, School, Teaching, Vegetarian or Vegan, Writing

Failure? China. Appointment.

Posted on 9 October 2010 | 3 comments

Epic fail: I am so bad at this full-time job thing. I don’t like it. I like having lots of time to myself. Being around people wears me down. Groups of people wear me down more. Warring factions about put me over the edge. Having a meeting every time I turn around is even worse. I love the students. I love my subject area. I love teaching. But I hate this job.I know I have to have a full-time job, and there isn’t one I’d rather have than this one. But, I really want to just live instead of working and somewhat living.

*

I think I made either the best or worst educational move of my entire life. In my 10th grade English class, we have been reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil-Disobedience.” Naturally when Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize, I seized the opportunity to discuss his act of civil disobedience with my students. I have a Chinese exchange student in my class, so I figured she’d be able to help us understand the whole thing a bit more. Maybe she could even help to explain why China is so upset about his win. I showed these two videos:

But first, we read this article from the BBC. We also discussed some of the comments following the article.

About half-way through the first clip, I looked over at Nancy (my Chinese student) and noticed that she was looking frantically through her computer. She was frowning and looked mostly confused. When the videos were over, I asked the students to discuss two things in their groups: (1) Why were the Chinese so upset that Liu won the award? and (2) How was Liu exercising some of the ideas from Emerson and Thoreau’s writings? One of my other students also wanted to discuss why it is that American and British media always end up making other countries look barbaric in the news. I set my students loose in pairs and groups to discuss these three things.

I noticed that Nancy was still looking through her computer and that she hadn’t joined a group for the discussion, so I went over to her desk to discuss with her. When I approached her desk, I never in a million years, could have predicted what she would ask me. She looked up at me and said, “What happened at Tienanmen Square? What happened in 1989? I have never heard of this that we watched.” I am sure my mouth gaped a bit, but it was more at my own stupidity. Of course, with Internet censorship, she had never heard of the protest and civilian slaughter at Tienanmen Square. Why would she have heard of it? The military won, the people succumbed, and things went on as usual.

To discuss the event would mean to have to explain that they do, in fact, want their citizens to conform to a certain way of thinking. And, to discuss the event would mean owning that they killed a few hundred unarmed protesters. It would be like honestly discussing what happened to the homeless in New York or who gave the orders for the National Guard/ROTC to start shooting at Kent State.What’s even stranger about the whole situation is that even after Liu won the Nobel Prize, when Nancy tried to search for him on Chinese websites, all she could find was that he was a political prisoner. Maybe then it would be a bit more like doing a search for Mumia or Leonard Peltier and only being able to find what the government thinks of them, not what their supporters think of them.

So, I’ve either given a young woman a reason to question authority, or I’ve given her government a reason to be suspect of her. Either way, I hope she continues to ask questions about this, because it’s an important moment in history.

*

On Monday, I finally have an appointment to see a doctor at Central Indiana Orthopedics. Hopefully, he can help me get this ankle back in running shape so I can shoot for a spring marathon. We’ll see. I’ll update next weekend.

3 Comments

Posted in Running, School, Teaching

Sometimes a Body Needs Silence

Posted on 26 September 2010 | 2 comments

It was enough just to sit there without words. —Louise Erdrich

Today promises to be chock full of goodness, like that candy bar that’s chock-full-o-nuts, whatever candy bar that is. I am again at Starbucks, but today I am working on my fat studies presentation. In an attempt to get this finished before I leave for the conference, I have set aside today to work. I should be grading my students’ essays, planning for next week, and commenting on the many rough drafts that are in my bag. Instead, I am setting all of that aside in order to work on this paper. I am writing about the way middle school and high school students perceive their fat teachers and peers.Unfortunately, none of the research I have done really has anything to do with what I want to write about. Most research I am learning pretends that people don’t exist until they reach college. Middle schoolers and high schoolers and their teacher (by default I suppose) are non-entities. We simply don’t exist on the academic radar.

Even the data base known as ERIC contains no articles that I can find about the status of fat kids, their teachers, or their school environment. However, in my search I found countless articles about how schools are trying to contain the obesity epidemic. I have a few thoughts about that: (1) Stop making PE one of the first classes we cut. Just because of the nature of the subject, PE gives students time to exercise and unwind from the pressures of school. Statistics show that people eat more when they are stressed. (2) Make all students have PE everyday. Most schools only provide PE once a week. For example, the school my mom teaches at gives their students 20 minutes of PE once a week. (3) Stop cutting recess in order to provide more instructional time. We learn how to be people at recess. When we cut recess, we not only cut exercise time, we also cut the time in which children learn self-governance, discover problem solving, and figure out how to interact with their peers in a non-contrived environment. (4) Feed students healthy food. Vegetables are as inexpensive as meat. Beans and rice are less expensive than any other foodstuffs. If each student got some beans and rice, a green vegetable, and a pint of milk, they’d have a pretty decent meal. And it wouldn’t be “fat topped with cheese floating in grease,” as Bec’s kids used to describe school lunch. (5) Allow children to walk to school and to play outside, and give parents the training they need to provide excellent snacks and meals at home. Sometimes the very things we fight against come from ignorance, lack of time, and a weak support system. So, I suppose instead of penalizing people for things beyond their control, we should help them avoid those things.

I came here craving silence and found myself having a conversation with someone I generally can’t stand. This conversation, however, was pleasant and fulfilling. I still crave the silence of reading and writing, but I am glad I didn’t pass up this opportunity. This ends up being on of my biggest problems: I’d much rather have good, enriching conversation than do anything else. It’s probably something I should work on. Or I should have found an occupation where that is an admirable quality instead of a deterrent to success.

The outlook for silence looks bleak. Next weekend (October 1-3) I will be in MN with two of my closest friends. The next weekend (October 8-10) holds my father’s and Bec’s birthday celebrations, and a friend is coming in from Kentucky. October 15-17 is a potential silent retreat, but the next weekend is filled-up with fall break, a ghost tour, and a Halloween party, all of which I am super excited about. I am going to spend the day with my mom in her classroom on that Friday. The next weekend is empty for now, but November 6 (when I was supposed to run my marathon) is Amy’s big birthday bash. The weekend after that, November 12-16, means that Bec and I are going to MN to see the boys. I need about 75 fewer things to do. 🙂

As busy as I have been, I have still find to contemplate spirituality. I always find time for that. What I am finding is that I need to listen more (hence the need for silence) and talk or comment less (hence the need for silence).

2 Comments

Posted in Just for Fun, Just Random Stuff