Write two pages about …

Posted on 19 October 2009 | Leave a comment

a time when you were reluctant to go home.

When I was in middle school, I took the Lord’s name in vain because big, fat loud-mouthed Laura, whose locker was next to mine, yelled into my ear. I had yet another case of strep throat, my head was already throbbing, and my ears ached from the drainage. She literally put her mouth next to my head and yelled down the hall to her boyfriend, tall, skinny, loser-boy Ivan-Covered-With-Hickies. So I turned to her and screamed in her face, “Jesus Christ, Laura. Shut up!”

My school had just started cracking down on “cursing” with Joey L. being the first victim. He straight-faced told our principal to fuck off. He got paddled. And never shed a tear. I had to sign the referral and made the Amazon on my cheeks. I cried so hard the neck of my sweater got wet.

I know it seems like a ridiculous thing to be afraid of going home because I took the Lord’s name in vain, but I was. I was afraid because of one simple phrase repeatedly uttered by my mother, and sometimes agreed upon by my father: “If you get in trouble at school, you better know you will get in just as much trouble at home. Maybe more.” I was terrified of the maybe more. I wasn’t even sure what punishment the school would dole out to me, but I knew whatever they could possibly come up with wouldn’t compare to the punishment in store for me from my parents.

The next day, I got called down to the office. I have always had a knack for unfortunate timing, and this was no exception. A few Sundays before had been confirmation Sunday at my church. This detail wouldn’t even matter where it not for the fact that my principal happened to go to Grace United Methodist Church as well.

“Young lady,” I loved it when adults called me young lady, “Can you tell me why you are here?” So much like a police officer, my principal looked down his long dumb face at me.

“Well, I said Jesus Christ in the hallway upstairs.” I had never been one to mince words. I did it. I admit it.

“You didn’t just say Jesus Christ, you screamed it.” He sat there smugly tapping his finger tips together. “Weren’t you just confirmed a couple fo Sundays ago?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t see—”

“That has everything to do with this,” he bellowed, “What do you think He would think of this?”

“He would forgive me?” I countered.

“Are you sassing me?”

“No, I just thought Jesus was about grace. I already prayed about it. I think he forgives me.” I think saying this was a two-fold device: I could potentially get out of trouble, and I could slyly let the principal know that whatever punishment he could give to me would not compare to my own mental and spiritual anguish. I think it was more of the former.

“Well, nonetheless, you will serve one day of in-school suspension. You serve on Friday.”

EDIT: This is the beginning of the draft. I will write more later.

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Posted in Just for Fun

Write On! Where the Wild Things Are. A Jog.

Posted on 19 October 2009 | 3 comments

After school today is the second meeting of “Write On!” a writing group that Abbie and I are starting at Burris. The point of the group is to write and edit a literary magazine. Submissions will be accepted from Burris students in grades 8-12, Indiana Academy students, and our faculty. I hope we get some faculty submissions because it is important for students to see their teachers write. I also hope more students show up today than did last week, although I was pleased by the four who showed up last week. Abbie and I pretty much decided they would be the editorial board, although we have to hold elections in a couple of weeks.

My students are working on designing comics or political cartoons because we just finished MAUS I: A Survivor’s Tale. In another week, we will read MAUS II. Then we will go back to Modernism and their textbook. That sentence sounded sort of like I dread moving back to the textbook. I don’t. As textbooks go, this one doesn’t suck too bad. I do supplement the text with links on their class website, so I think we are getting full coverage.

I went to see Where the Wild Things Are over the weekend. It was weird. I think Time’s review is fairly accurate. Here are two other reviews: The New Yorker and Rotten Tomatoes. I loved that this movie took Sendak’s story and made it into something more. I also hated it. I loved that the land of the Wild Things was so well portrayed, but I hated that they had such internal strife. I get that their emotions in many ways were tied to Max’s own emotions, but I wanted the Wild Things and their world to be his escape from reality, not a descent into their reality. Still, I will probably buy it when it comes out on DVD. And, I still may get that Max tattoo.

I have decided to run two miles every morning instead of running three times each week. I started this morning with a run up to McGalliard and back. I think the consistency might help me get faster, but I hope I have enough recovery time between runs. Of course, the shorter distance will help with that. I am going to run two miles on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, then run my long run four or six miles on Saturday. I think this will help to still provide me with a distance/endurance run while still helping me to get faster. Who knows. This could be the shittiest idea ever.

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Posted in Running, Teaching, Writing

I Misspoke or I Was Taken Wrong

Posted on 14 October 2009 | 3 comments

I have been told that many people read this blog, which is true. I can tell by the number of hits it receives. Apparently, I need to correct a few things I have said and one big idea that some people misinterpreted from my blog because they have been taken incorrectly by the people I have said them to, or who have read them.

  1. Do not simply study twelve texts for your comprehensive exams; however, you will only use twelve on the actual test. You should study several from each time period and be intimately involved with at least three or four from each time period outside of your own. By intimately involved I mean that you should know everything you possibly can about them, writing down what questions you could use them for would be helpful. Hopefully, the rest of your education will fill in the gaps that are left. This is risky, so make sure you are well-rounded in your knowledge to start with.
  2. Make sure you study the periods, movements, genres, forms, and other general information. This is the key to success. You don’t want your oral exams committee to wonder if you really know about Modernism because you have to stumble over yourself, cobbling together the main tenets of that particular literary movement.
  3. I did study, but I wish I would have studied more. I wish I would have studied more thoroughly and smarter. I wish I wouldn’t have had to paint my house, remodel my house, go on two separate week-long vacations, have people staying at my house, and most importantly, I wish I could have majored in English in my undergrad so I would have had a better foundation for all of this. My insecurity in passing my exams lies in the fact that I am afraid: one day will everyone discover that I am a fraud?

Having said all of that, I wish adult life could be less similar to middle school. I wish we could stop talking about each other and telling stories about others to make ourselves feel better. I wish we could each be secure enough in our attributes to recognize the beauty in each other rather than exploiting the shortcomings.

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Posted in Just for Fun

10K. Another 10K. Italian Food. So Much of It.

Posted on 11 October 2009 | 1 comment

On Saturday, I ran my first 10K. For those of you who read this blog regularly, you know that means I really jogged a 10K, but saying jogged isn’t nearly as sexy as saying ran. So, I ran my first 10K. I finished. Last. Dead last. All said and done, the run took me an hour and twenty-four minutes, which is approximately 13.5 minutes per mile, not so bad for a fat kid. I came in third in my age group. I won a ribbon, a ribbon I promptly lost on the way home. Because I don’t have a car and so my legs wouldn’t be rubber today, I rode my bike to the race. On my way home, my ribbon fell out of my sweatshirt pocket. I am not sure where. I didn’t bother to go back and look. I love it that I came in dead last, but still got a ribbon! Magic. And all good things.

Today is Bec’s fiftieth birthday. The big 5-0. We celebrated by spending time with Ed, Abs, and Iz yesterday and by going to the Salamonie Reservoir to hike about 5.5 or 6 miles today. We started this new tradition last year when it was almost 80º. This year it was less than 50º, but the hike was still excellent. Actually, it was perfect. We walked along the tree trail, which is a trail that has all the tress marked for the students who are supposed to do leaf collections for school, and then cut over to the Kon-Ti-On-Ki Bike Trail. I suppose Kon-Ti-On-Ki is some pseudo-American Indian name, but I think it means Government Mind-Fuck or Big Brother is Watching You because the trail just folds over on itself again and again. Each time we walk it, I swear there is someone hovering slightly above the trees, checking to make sure we follow the path. I am waiting to get shocked for stepping out of bounds.

Once we finished hiking, we drove to Fort Wayne and had dinner at Casa! Ristorante. The food was fantastic, but there was so much of it that we both have at least two meal’s worth of food left over. Right now, I am sitting here watching the Travel Channel’s Extreme Pigout and wondering why we find it necessary to make foods like the ones shown. One restaurant offered two pancakes, each a foot in diameter, topped with a half pound of strawberries, two bananas, and a half-cup of chocolate chips. The order of pancakes is over 2000 calories. For breakfast.  Do we need to wonder why people keep getting fatter? When did it become cool to stuff yourself silly? I mean, the Romans did it once in a while at an orgy, but overindulging every day for every meal is almost certainly an American invention. I get tired of going out for dinner, paying an exorbitant price, and then having food left over that won’t taste anywhere near as good the next day. Pasta and pizza are passable, but most foods are simply not edible (or tasty) a second time around. I would much prefer to pay a bit less and get an actual portion of food. And one that tastes delicious. Don’t get me wrong, our food today was great. In fact, it was one of the best Italian meals I’ve had in a long time, but there was so much! It’s in the fridge now for tomorrow’s lunch. And Tuesday’s lunch.

The coming week is sure to be less hectic than the last, but I am sure it will have its own busy moments. I have several social meetings this week, as well as a couple of new school-related appointments. Tomorrow, I am having coffee with a woman from church after Abs and I have our first meeting for our creative writing group at Burris. Tuesday, I am meeting my friend, Stephanie, at the Blue Bottle for coffee if I don’t forget again! I am supposed to have narrowed down the books I plan to use and start a literature review for my dissertation, so I can meet with Debbie in a week. I know I need to read one book, because I think it will fit in well with my proposed topic. Finally, I need to get the book, Judith Butler’s Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?, for the group I am in so I can start reading it. Also, I just finished grading my students’ first set of papers, and their second set is due on Tuesday. Just when I thought things would slow down, they have sped right back up again.

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Posted in Dissertation, Fat, Food, Reading, Running, School, Teaching

Well, I’m up. What more do you want?

Posted on 9 October 2009 | 2 comments

As nights of no sleep go, this night takes the cake. I went to sleep at 10 PM and woke up sometime around 1:30 AM. I drifted in and out sleep until 2:30, then laid their until I finally got out of bed at 3 AM. Of course, I did what I always do when I can’t sleep. I went downstairs and watched Roseanne.

The two I watched this morning were episodes I had never seen before, so I consider this little bout of insomnia worthwhile. I didn’t realize that Tim Curry was in an episode, playing a con-artist business man, Roger. He plays the skeeze like a master. The best part of the episode was that Sandra Bernhard was in it as Nancy. She wanted to have Roger’s baby, but she hadn’t told him her plan. When he skipped town with $5000 of Nancy’s money and an equal amount of Dan and Roseanne’s, Nancy was only upset because she hadn’t yet ovulated during their relationship.

The second episode was the one in which Darlene and David have sex for the first time, which ends up not really factoring into the episode at all. Instead, the focus is on the fact that Darlene gets accepted into a writing program in Chicago while David does not get accepted into an art program at he same school. Of course, Roseanne flies off the handle because she told Darlene she couldn’t leave Lanford. I guess this was a good way to spend my morning.

I just discovered the most wonderful thing: Roseanne is on for an hour on FOX, then half and hour later, it is on for an hour on Nickelodeon.

It’s almost five now, and I am no less sleepy than I was when I went to bed last night; however, I am wide awake.

I had to stress over my Burris students and the logistics of getting them to read the second MAUS book. Foolishly, I didn’t order the two in one books, which would have been the easier solution. Maybe Rachel’s students will let them borrow their books.

I also had to stress over the way the assignment they are going to do for this unit will unfold. Should I have them work in pairs? By themselves? In groups of three? Should we spend an entire week of class doing the assignment? Will they turn out as well as I visualize them? Will they have deep enough concerns to facilitate a deep-consideration of their topic in comic form?

I had to stress over the race on Saturday, spending the better part of an hour visualizing myself coming in dead-last and trying to maintain a well-adjusted countenance about it. I pictured myself just running to my house and calling Bec, Ed, and Abbie to tell them I chickened out. I could never do that, but being a poor sport has its appeals, like saving face.

I had to stress out over getting a whole new set of papers on Tuesday when I just finished grading this one. I also have all the group presentations for my high school student to grade.

I had to stress out over my dissertation proposal. I kept telling myself that I have no idea what I am doing, so I should just give up. And then I told myself that I will be fine, that no one knows how to write a dissertation or its proposal until it is written, and that I should be able to get it done in three months if I can simply buckle down and do it.

I had to stress over my remaining conferences, because I have two of the most difficult ones today. And I had to sit here thinking about writing the assignment sheet for the next assignment and how the research/position paper is everyone’s least favorite assignment. I thought about how dry, but essential, it is to teach citations, source validity, and researching, in general.

Essentially, my morning has been spent psyching myself up and down about various things in my life and walking up and down the stairs to go to the bathroom. Fantastic.

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Posted in Dissertation, Religion, Running, School, Teaching