In the eyes...

This week couldn't have come and gone much faster for me. The kids are getting crazy at school. I had four meetings in two days on top of teaching 170 kids, trying to hook up technology (after hunting down a LCD projector on the other side of the school from someone who never returns his stuff), correcting, lesson planning, making new materials. Oh, and having to do follow up on the meetings, getting work ready for an inbound kid, emailing updates on EBD kids, and trying to reply to parents who are wondering what msising work their little lovelies have. Then Thursday night, Stephen and I spent some quality time in the Emergency Room (7:00 - 11:30). After a CT scan, I learned that I've had an ocular migraine since Monday. So I got some pain meds and am already scheduled to go to my eye doctor this coming Wednesday. But it still hurts and my vision is weird in my left eye. It kinda sucks, to put it eloquently.

Yesterday, I was at a district workshop to see Dr. Dick Allington, who has some very interesting things to say on literacy and the research that has been done and the research that has been skewed by the current administration. Most I had already heard, but it's always nice to hear reiterated how fucking stupid G.W.B. is about education and testing and reading and, well things he obviously didn't pay much attention to when he was a wee lad. Gawd, why can't someone intelligent be running the country? And if you're going to answer that, then please tell me why professional athletes make so much more than teachers. I mean, c'mon. YOU tell ME... who has the highest amount of stress???

But, we got to babysit for my niece/goddaughter last night... and it is a nice sunny Saturday morning. Too bad I have mounds of correcting to do. You try that with one good eye... Now about that pay raise?

Must do: Add Dylron to list of links...

Hot Toddies

So I just linked up with Amanda on Friendster and am feeling happy about that. We were in a p-rock band a decade ago, Madaline. Her profile says that she needs a vacation and that she is single. I think she needs to come spend a weekend in Mpls! And we need to talk about this single thing. Really? I did get to see her over the holidays in Minot (at Ebenezer's) when Stephen and I were hanging with Jen, the third girl in Madaline, who is an art teacher now in Fargo/Moorhead. Maybe, just maybe. A Madaline reunion? Don't get your hopes up. I gave the bass to Wade when we divorced. Figured he'd need it more than me as he yearned to play guitar by the sea. And Stephen sold his bass to move here when Kari decided to move here with Abbey. So... not so sure.

Anyways, I'm not doing a good job of getting out of the house today. I wanted to sleep in since I don't get to very often, but then it just got out of hand and I felt like I was wasting time. We had planned on going to the Fineline with Lisa and Nick last night, but Lisa has been sick, too, so they decided to not go, and Stephen and I ended up watching fine TV... 3rd Watch (which I do like) merged with Medical Emergency (which I hate.) I guess Paul and Anna and some of their friends were headed to the FL, too, but when it came down to it, I just wanted a night inside, lounging around, doing nothing, eating frozen pizza.

Thursday pm we ventured out into the COLD to the light rail station on 50th. Stephen had printed a photo he'd taken of Kieran (of the Local and Kieran's) and Mary Robinson (of, um, Ireland) and had Mary R. sign it at the Peace Prize Forum. (She was the main guest of honor at the Local deal we went to the Thursday before.) So then he framed it, and we went to deliver it to the manager. It's a really long walk between the LTR and the Local when it's finally MN winter COLD. After hot toddies and some bread pudding (I called it our real Valentine's dinner since I was pissy on Monday about Stephen working too much for Augsburg) we headed back to south Mpls...

One last thing. Yeah. The Mpls police officer accused of raping a woman... That's the Lifetime Stephen and I go to the most. Highland Park. Feelin' good about that one. I'm already a freak about locking my car doors the second I get into my car; I'm convinced that this fear of kidnapping was cultivated by growing up in the late 70s/80s, when kidnapping seemed to be a big deal. Then you add Dru Sjodin to the mix, whose kidnapper/murderer looks like, well, a nice little grandpa. I guess I'll go Eagan LTF to work out today. They've got a steamroom anyways.

And that's that. I need to get out of the house while it's still sunny.

Racing to catch up

So TODD wrote this the other day,

"whats been irking me lately is that our generation (this is a large generalization) doesnt know how to eat and excersice nor do we know how to manage our finance. i feel like im relearning lessons that humans have known forever but america has just bred all the good stuff right out of us. truely rolling your sleeves up and going to work doesnt mean the same thing as it did 100 years ago. learning to cook, learning to garden, to run, to be active, to read the classics. . . i dont think this stuff comes as naturally as it did and now im racing to catch up on the brink of 30 years old. its like a reverse midlife crisis. instead of a convertable, i want a stuffy degree in art history."

and I found myself relieved that I am not alone in feeling... hmmm maybe like I'm not using all of my potential, nor have I been for the past several years. (This has nothing, by the way, to do with being remarried; it's just a self thing.) I remember running into his blog several years ago and thinking that this was something I should be doing. I needed a way to challenge myself and keep myself accountable to the things in life I love or am interested in. At that point, I felt that I hadn't been THINKING or DOING; I was too caught up in work and trying to survive as a teacher to bring the strong and fun parts of my past into adulthood. This did change when I started graduate school in the fall of 2003 and got back into academia, but I still need to rev it up in the way of creativity, humor, and learning... also in reading. I'm probably the worst English teacher reader I know. I'm a part-of-the-book reader, never finishing much, reading much more of Vanity Fair than anything else. Um, I guess you could also add half of lots of adolescent lit books to the mix, too.

So I don't know if that's what Todd was hinting at, but it's supper time, so that will have to do for now. I think I kind of mentally latched on to the "racing to catch up" part. In case you didn't notice.

Did I mention that Stephen is the cook at our house? =) And that I should learn how to cook sometime...

caught up

Well, time and sickness finally caught up with me; I'm home sick wondering if I can gather up enough energy to go to urgent care to see if this is something worse than a cold/laryngitis/general winter sick. Maybe in an hour or so. Yeah, that's kind of arbitrary.

Sunday Lisa and Nick had Lauren's first birthday party... It's a lot of fun watching her grow. I have experience with parenting from about 4.75 and on, but the baby and toddler stuff I'm NOT so good with. Our parents were in town, Chris and Cindy over, and other people as well. It was nice to be with family. However, I do think I caught the laryngitis from Pa S. My parents were teasing me about all the Augsburg stuff, wondering if they were good enough to hang with =) Really, I don't meet fancy people very often. It just so happened that a lot of things were happening at once...

But now I'm stuck at home not doing much of anything... sleeping, drinking lots of water, searching for houses online, looking at other people's accounts of Valentine's Day. Reading Tony's blog, which usually has something interesting. Speaking of Valentine's Day, it has to be one of the most anticlimactic holidays in my life. The number of crappy VDays we have had definitely outweigh the good ones. Maybe we should work to reverse that trend. Or maybe we should think of holidays as Chris does... Isn't it better to show appreciation any day of the year and avoid the overcommercialization of everything the capitalist outfit reigns over? Does that even make sense? Is a poor sick English teacher losing her grip on the English language because she hasn't the energy to think so clearly on a fine Wednsday afternoon?

Anyways, I'll raise my glass again to the Current, which keeps moving along as a fine, fine new radio station. I knew Mary Lucia had to come back some day... And I knew that with all this damn water...

The long and winding road

It's been a looong and interesting three days! Stephen had the Nobel Peace Prize Forum to cover and invited me to several of the events. We spent Thursday night at the Local; my personal highlights were shaking former Vice President Walter Mondale's hand (yea!) and meeting Peter Agre, recipient of last year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry and former Augsburg graduate. Afterwards, (and after several free drinks!) we walked over to Pizza Luce to see if Chris was working. We caught Chris and Cindy before they headed to a concert... the Santa Fe was quite tasty that night! Good for soaking up some Boddingtons anyways! Friday, there was a nighttime reception at the Augsburg House (pres' res) Kind of fancy! Highlights from Friday... Martin Sabo (MN congressman... good liberal man) introducing himself with a good strong handshake and talking with Ole Mjos, the chaiman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee out of Oslo, Norway. Actually I listened while the man I was talking with at the time asked him some interesting questions on how the process works for selecting a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. I was feeling a little chalk-brained, and I don't know a whole lot about the current peace community, so I didn't ask anything... Wish I was smarter on the issues!

Although I was cool to meet/shake with the politicians, I was really humbled in the presence of Peter and Ole. It's amazing to think of the capacity and potential of human beings and be able to meet and talk to men and women who have made an awesome impact on humankind. Speaking of women, the 2003 Nobel Laureate is Shirin Ebadi, who was honored at this year's forum.

I went to two sessions today after deciding that it was more important to go along with Stephen and actually attend the forum than staying home and piddling away a Saturday. The first one was a presentation by two teachers from Pacific Lutheran University in Washington State who have written curriculum to go along with Liv Arneson and Ann Bancroft's upcoming expedition. So I think I'll be trying the lessons in the near future... it's some great stuff on getting students to think critically about the world and human relations within the world. The other session I went to was a presentation by Deanna Armbruster of the American Friends of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam. She explained the village of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, the "Oasis of Peace." "Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam is a village located midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in Israel where Palestinians and Israelis--all citizens of Israel--live, work and raise their families together." I think Walter (my advisor at Hamline) is involved in curriculum for their School for Peace.

The first major speaker of the day was quite moving-- Dr. Sima Samar of Afghanistan. When someone asked what she felt her greatest accomplishment has been, she answered that she feels it is still being alive... A perspective we don't often think about.

Overall, I was pretty inspired. I had forgotten about attending the Alternate Peace Summit (to the G8 Summit) when I spent the summer in Colorado in 1997 with Jen. I saw Jennifer Harbury speak then and was really interested the struggles in Central and Latin America. I've found that the daily stresses of teaching 170 7th graders has tricked me into living... hmmm... maybe too simple-mindedly and that I've forgotten about some of my past passions, peace-building being one of them.

Time for Stephen to scan some negs. He loves how my "just 5 minutes" are the longest five minutes ever! Of course that's my favorite line when I'm taking a nap... "Just five more minutes?" But it's so worth it!

Is this common?

So I'm here... just me and my Naked Food-Juice. Food-juice? Superfood: Green Machine. I'm trying my hardest to stay healthy. The whooping cough is creeping around school, and frankly, it's not something I want. On the way to the store, I was listening to a fairly new radio station here in the Twin Cities, the Current. I favor the guy who runs his show in the evening. He plays lots of music that I really like. Sonic Youth and WIlco on the way home tonight. Not to mention Will Oldham. And he's also played Elliot Smith.

I feel empty when I think of Elliot Smith killing himself. I plainly love his music... have seen him several times in concert both here in Mpls and in Olympia. And I didn't even know about his death until maybe a half year later, which really makes me feel old and out of the loop. Margaret Cho has a poignant little essay on him and his life. And she asks, "What is heaven like Elliott Smith?" "Do you feel better?"

It makes me realize even more how I think about death every day and how I hope I'm set to outrun it until I'm good and old and ready. Truly, the ever-present thought that I could get hit by a car or run into something myself bothers me daily. Is this common? I don't think I let it get in the way of what I set out to do, but it does take a little of the sunshine away. It is this little worry-hope that everyone in my life will return home fine at the end of the day, continue on, set out again the next day. I know it's cliche, but I do wonder, really, what my future will be like, how long I'll live, what sicknesses I'll endure. Here's to good genes that have kept my Grandma Bert alert at 91... Love you, Grandma.

umpday

Oh, oh...it's magic. It's that middle-of-the-week day. And that's good, because some of these weeks have felt excruciatingly long. I'm not feeling particularily witty tonight, for my second blog post and all. I feel a bit of pressure, like I should be writing something of great importance. I'm sure I'll get over that soon.

Last night I took Abbey to an advance screening of Because of Winn-Dixie. I was excited because it seems that I don't get to treat her too often with cool things. Not that I don't want to, but sometimes it's hard when 1) she's only with us four days of the week, 2) I'm not much of a movie-goer, and she loves movies, 3) with all sorts of family, she gets an abundance of cool things to tide her over. SO we left home around 5:30 for the Riverview Theater. Weren't sure that we'd get seats, but it wasn't a problem. Anna (Abbey's aunt/my sister-in-law) was there, too, and sat by us; we hunkered in for a good time. It was pretty cool to see Dave Matthews and even better to hear him play in a movie. The highlight of the night, however, was that at our very screening, Kate DiCamillo came out at the end to answer questions! Abbey gathered up her courage (she was nervous!) and asked the very final question: if you had one of the sadness lozenges, what would be your sadness? Kate's response (after the whole crowd gasped and murmured that it was a great question) was first, that no one had ever asked her that before. Her sadness, admittedly, would be not getting published. I was so proud of Abbey for the question... so thoughtful!

Overall, I had fun just knowing that it was something she wanted to see and I was able to take her to an early screening. I do have trouble with wanting to get up and do other things while a movie is on... or more truthfully, staying awake for them. Stephen and I have a hard time getting Abbey truly excited/ Usually we feel like quite boring parents, the ones who make her eat broccoli (she likes it!) and wheat bread (not so much, but no complaints), listen to the radio vs watching the tube, practice swimming, save her money and plan her spending. But we love her a ton and try to find little ways to make her smile. It's hard when I feel like we can never really "dazzle" her, but Stephen tells me to be patient... And I suppose as we make a little more cash (will we ever?) in the upcoming years, we'll be able to take her to plays, movies, museums, more often. But we can't forget to do those things now, too, I guess... Isn't the conventional wisdom that you will never feel like you have enough, so you better just enjoy life as it comes? Here's to more wisdom and more fun...

Why is that?

I'm not sure that the saying is really true. Would the best suit up and hunker down for a sub-zero nine-month season we call winter? Even though it has been unseasonably warm? I've always wondered what the GIs who arrive in Minot, ND, in the middle of winter think about that. My dad was one of them. Guess my mom was quite the lure! A good reason to say on the tundra.