July 16, 2006
Oh. Man. Help. I just finished a pint of Rabah's Arctic Delight Lemon Ice Cream. After a pint of Arctic Delight Lemon Ice Cream everything looks like crap. This page looks like crap. My hair looks like crap. I'm so full I could burst. Why why why did I eat all that ice cream. I feel like the poor lady next to me on the dreadful flight from Anchorage to Seattle six years ago who, when the plane was careening out of control, kept repeating, "why'd I eat all those pretzels? I wish I hadn't eaten all those pretzels!" Then why'd you eat all those #$%*^&@ pretzels you stupid, stupid woman! Good God and little baby Jesus in your swaddling cloth diaper, keep her stomach down, please keep her stomach down and I'll convert to religion someday and will be an exemplary religious person as long as I'm not required to go door to door and pass out flyers! And I won't go to Africa 'cause it is too hot and I don't want to go someplace where I might get blown up or shot by rebels in the mountains and buried in a mass grave, okay? And no rock throwing. Oh and keep me out of the South. And Texas. You know what Sheridan said about Texas. Oh, um, Amen. But, I did not say any of that. No, I held my tongue, I was strong. I was a comforting angel of mercy amid the carnage and terror. I held her hand and kept telling her she was going to be fine and yes, her life preserver was under her seat. We were like some Greek chorus: why did I eat the pretzels? Why did I eat all those pretzels. You will be fine. Your preserver is under your seat. Why did I eat the pretzels? Why did I eat all those pretzels? You will be fine. Your preserver is under your seat." Repeat until the plane lands on the very small runway in Ketchikan with mere feet to spare before plunging into an icy sea and a terror-filled death beneath the dark and drifting waves. She held her pretzels. Me, well, I had to change my phone number. That God, he is like a creditor, let me tell you. He just won't let up with the calls. I think he got the hint. Lately though, my dreams have been like something out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Isn't that odd? And phrases like "eternal damnation" and "may god have mercy on your poor pitiful soul you sorry-ass sinner" have been springing to mind at the strangest times. Huh. Whatever. I'll get around to him when I'm good and ready and am guaranteed a little cozy grass hut on Vanuatu. Hey, even Pacific Islanders need a little bit of heavenly love, comprender? But what has this to do with Rahbah's Arctic Delight Lemon Ice Cream? Like I know at this point...
Hmmm. I tried to redesign . . . but nothing looks good. I just wish I had a better eye for design. Who cares? Who reads this anyway, right? So let's just move along. School is over for the summer (at least til mid-August sometime) and I've ended up with a 4.0 average for my first year. What a lot of work though. I don't think I work this hard at work, really, which is quite sad, actually. The curriculum study is finished at last and looks decent enough. There are not a lot of resources out there, unfortunately. It is pretty amazing. There are hundreds of books on whitey in the army in Alaska, whitey bushwhacking in Alaska, whitey having problems with wildlife and homesteading in Alaska, whitey not gettin' no respect teaching in the Bush and whitey dying sad and lonely in, oh, a bus let's say, in Alaska. We have stories of whitey exploiting the natives in Alaska since the purchase, whitey exploiting natural resources in Alaska since the purchase, Seattle whitey hiking the Chilkoot Trail for gold and leaving his whitey crap all over in Alaska since the purchase. Finally we have religious zealot whitey writing 'bout the natives and how dirty they are, fin de siecle anthropologist whitey writing about the natives and how noble they are and early educator whitey writing about the natives and how backwards they are. Then round about the sixties when the Great Society business kicks in and sensitivity governs the hearts and minds of our great nation, whitey gets enlightenment and begins to write more positively about the natives and how great they are, ya know, for being natives and all. What we don't have is a good collection of books on Native Alaskans, by Native Alaskans, either for Native Alaskans or for whitey. Why? I guess misguided and mentally ill white trustafarians dying in abandoned buses near the nearly civilized town of Cantwell fascinate us more, huh?
So, that's my rant. On to something else, yes? A friend and I at work are doing a little project involving fireweed blossoming and going to seed. Her boyfriend doesn't believe that when the fireweed seeds, it signals fall and the coming of school. It truly does. Just like the vining maple in Washington State, the fireweed seeds right before school begins. More importantly, it heralds the coming of cooler weather and is accurate within about a week. It seeds mainly in the second week of August, right at the time that the drastic and noticeable changes take place. Temps drop from the mid-60s to the mid-50s and sometimes cooler. The winds pick up, the birch leaves begin to change to yellow and drop off the branches and sometimes the first termination dust appears in the Chugach. Anyway, we are documenting the changes on film using my Nikon Coolpix. I'm too cheap to spring for a digital camcorder. Besides, it would take forever to upload the stupid things to the web site. As it is, it took about fifteen minutes each to get two of them on the other night. It was worth it--they are pretty awful! They amuse Stephanie and I, of course. I can see so many applications of using a camera in the classroom for oh, say, science units or social studies. I mean, how much fun would that be to have your students create their own documentaries and put them together in imovie, complete with titles and stills and narration. Too cool. It is such a great way to draw them into the lessons and give them an active role in their learning. Authentic assessment would be easy with this kind of project and it would appeal to visual learners, verbal learners, kinesthetic learners, almost everybody. If you had four students per project, that would be about six groups and part of their assessment would be based on helping one another with writing, story-boarding and editing. Between this and podcasting, they'll never be bored! Well, maybe. I need to figure a way to use this in math..Sooo, I am going to post the links to the movies on this page for the time being. I need to redo the "life" page completely, new photos and all, but until that time, they'll be here.
And finally. . .Seana left this weekend and did just as I requested: she did not call to tell me goodbye. We didn't have to go through the "goodbye" thing and that is good. Joe sent an email from Dawson to say they are making good time and will call everybody next week when they get to Bainbridge. Sure, I'm sad. I just lost a good friend of ten years and my Saturday lunch buddy but we can still talk to each other online. Why else do we both have the fancy imacs if not to use them for ichat? I'll be in Seattle in early August, but it will be too soon to visit and I haven't seen my family in a year, so...in the meantime, things are pretty much the same here. It is part of being in Alaska that a lot of people have to deal with: losing friends to the Outside but I've been lucky in that most of my friends are from Alaska and have little reason to leave. I guess having two best friends who already have moved or plan to move sometime in the future just makes it a little more likely that I'll move away some day too. What's keeping me here, apart from the landscape, school, my condo and something I can't quite put my finger on yet? When I figure out what that last thing is, that is when I leave too. I hate the politics; I dislike the uncontrolled development of Anchorage recreating every other small town in America instead of taking advantage of the natural beauty of the region; I don't like the military; and the winters keep growing longer and harder to experience. Well, until it is time, I'll go kayaking with friends, follow the life of our fireweed, paint some rooms, change out a broken faucet and enjoy my time out of school. Then we'll see what happens next month. I've been reading a lot lately (unintentionally) about living in the moment, something easier said than done. But I'll keep trying. Seattle is just a couple weeks away and though I can't wait to see everybody, I guess today is the most important day. Very kumbayatic. I need to get some more lemon ice cream...
August 23, 2006
So, the idea of virtual property... I mean, what is that all about? My friend Stephania and I were discussing it today--she had a rather embarrassing moment during a library web team meeting in which she cast aspersions("That's just stupid!")on those folk, oh let's just say "men," who actually might jump at the prospect of purchasing a few sweet acres from oh, let's just say, Borag the Troll in Myrrhyna, so the he might have a cozy cottage in which to stash his magic stones and rest his unicorn while battling the undead hoards and pesky Orcs. The rest of the web team turned in unison to stare at her outburst. One of the more outspoken of them even went so far as to chide her for what he apparently felt to be her somewhat hasty judgment, stating that purchasing virtual property for real money is neither good nor bad, but merely something that "is." Goodness! What with all the lashing out about freaks buying nonexistent property in nonexistent worlds, we would not want to be too hasty in our judgment of their grasp on reality. Unfortunately, what her fellow library web team members didn't know is that Steph was conned recently by a hot rogue gnome named Dishune and bought what she thought was going to be prime acreage in Tuns Numata, only to find out she'd really purchased some bottomland in Handa Ramma (of all the god forsaken places!) that already had a lien on it held by a night elf, Orrana of Si'ta'i, an Oracle with a volcanic temper. Go figure. Anyway, it's turned nasty, a real "House of Sand and Fog" affair and she's been a little on the virtual edge about the whole thing. In the meantime, here on planet Earth, somebody swiped her Klingon Language Institute tapes out of her car and now she's really just barely hanging on. Sometimes life just sucks. And then you find out you can't even trust a hot rogue gnome. Thank god for her Campus Crusade for Cthulhu meetings every Thursday night--I think they are helping.
Saturday we had a surprise-- termination dust in the mountains! Yes, the torrential, nay, biblical rains let up just long enough to give us all a view of the snow capped hills on the edge of town. It was a dreary Saturday afternoon, made more dreary by the fact that the rains had not ceased in nearly two weeks. It was the kind of day that makes you want to stay in and read a good book or watch a movie like "Shenandoah" or "Drums Along the Mohawk." I was only out and about due to a haircutting appointment and a desire to coffee with Karen for an hour or two. I was really enjoying myself, and sure, Karen too, when she decided to completely dump the whole weekend into the toilet by remarking on the snow capped peaks! What gives?? She knows this year has been difficult for me, that winter was torture, that spring was, well we never really have spring, but she knows that summer was not living up to my expectations and then she goes and points out snow, something I don't want to see or experience for another two months at least! Is this what "friends" are for, to make an inexorably dismal summer more inexorable? I mean, there we were, enjoying the conversation about, oh I don't know, probably the deconstruction of the meta text as it applies to literature & history, and sipping our coffees and laughing, having as much fun as two people can reasonably have while discussing the deconstruction of meta text--and I'm not making that up, we truly were. Granted the discussion went something like,
Me: "Blah blah blah meta text blah blah blah."
Karen: "What is meta text anyway?
Me: "Well, it is the blah blah blah and then they blah blah blah and pretend that they know what it all means blah blah blah. English majors are always so pretentious blah blah blah.
Karen: "Huh, I didn't know it was an actual term."
Me: "Yes, and then they deconstruct it blah blah blah syntactical fervor blah blah blah within the context of Foucault's theory of thematic post-structural realism as illustrated in the early bourgeois novels by Gide and many of the more abstract philosophical tracts by Descartes, including his fulgent yet primal positings in Meditations."
Karen: "Huh."
Anyway, it was interesting if not one-sided conversation. You know, after writing about it, I'm thinking of replacing her--anybody that not only ruins a perfectly nearly-good day by mentioning fresh mountain snow at the tail-end of a dreary summer, in the middle of a dreary Saturday afternoon, during the beginnings of another dreary yet torrential downpour and fails to understand the concept of meta text, I mean really, she's asking for it.
And finally...I traveled to Seattle to visit the family and had a glorious time. I stayed with both my brother and my sister and her family. We walked in Seattle and even went to the Market, something I've not willingly done in many years but it was so great! We looked for food there and then down on the waterfront but ultimately ended up at an organic market in Fremont, eating some salad and crackers--not bad. The market--I forget what it is called--was huge, really huge! We have nothing like that up here and I was, it must be said, impressed. I tried to keep my mouth closed and not gape like a hayseed. I was born and raised in Tacoma, after all, I know the Big City when I see it. My brother and I did a bit of arguing, something we've never done, as he was out of the house with a family of his own by the time I could even think of arguing with him. It felt good. I set him on a task looking things up on the internet that we'd been arguing about earlier in the day and he got so involved, he neglected to tend to getting me my dinner on time! What's up with that! I ended up making everything, although he did grill the salmon. We sat out on his front porch in the mornings with our coffee and watched the freeway traffic go by. We sat amazed as the Blue Angels practiced for Sea Fair, saw the sail boats on the Montlake Cut head towards the locks, and watched the smog clear from the Mountain--wonderful mornings. My sister, nieces and I took a ferry over to Langley on Whidbey Island and walked a bit then stopped for some really excellent pizza at a fairly tiny but crowded place in town. The ferry ride was everything I could hope for. The water was blue, the seagulls were out, I could smell the water and the salt in the air. There is nothing quite so calming as being out on blue water and feeling the wind on your face. I realized a couple of things while in Seattle: I couldn't live in that city and the pull of family is pretty strong. Yet with that pull, it was good to be back in Anchorage, back to a smaller place, less traffic, fewer choices, but a certain something that keeps me here. Anchorage is sort of like a bad relationship: when I'm here, I think about going someplace else because the choices are few and the politics are rotten but when I'm someplace else, I can't help but think much of the time of home, of the clean air, the sparse traffic and just the general good feeling of the place. Eh, c'est la vie. We sometimes want what we do not have. We can be a very dissatisfied species. Except for all the rain, it is good to be home.
November 12, 2006
It snowed last week and it's snowing again and we've really only just started. My voice gave out two days ago and doesn't seem to be in too big of a hurry to come back again. Why do people want to talk to you when you have no voice? I mean, wouldn't it seem like they'd think about asking you questions and such...but maybe not. A little kid at school did the clogged nose open mouth sneeze (twice) and my first thought was, "oh no, a cold." Consequently, my first reaction was to find that cold and keep it with me all weekend and, it would seem, into this weekend. Fun. What is it with little kids not being about to cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough? They do this big "aaaaaaaaaaaaaachoooooooo!" and go about their business, wiping their noses on their arms or sleeves. Occasionally another child will say something about how gross the sneeze was and I've even heard a couple of them say, "go wash your hands!" but other than that random demand for cleanliness, nobody seems to care . It makes me cringe, visibly, noticeably cringe. I love them dearly, they are so cute and so much fun to be around, even the emotionally disturbed ones are pretty precious when they aren't slapping the crap out of the kid in front of them just for being in front of them. But good god, when they sneeze and snort and carry on that way, I could send them all home to their parents who must not mind when the furniture, dishes, food, bathroom, and/or tv remote are covered in snot. We were telling kids-booger stories during our lunch break one day last week. I couldn't decide if Matt's large-dried-kindergarten-booger-under-the-nose story was worse than my smeared-dried-first-grade-booger-on-the-back-of-a-book. It was a toss-up really; one dried booger is much like another, unless, and this might be the tie-breaker, unless it is a bloody-dried-booger-on-the-back-of-a-book! Take that Matt! First Graders rule! The Third Graders have yet to produce any good body waste-products stories but I've still got three weeks to go...
This semester is alternately incredibly long and amazingly short, depending on what assignments are due during the week. Some of the lessons are nerve-wracking, others are just time consuming to put together. Most of the lessons I've done in third grade have been part of my reading group--the Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Babe Ruth Baseball reading group. I jumped right in and headed a group, the largest group and the most vocal one as it turns out. These kids are wonderful. They are able to extract a great deal of information, whether present or not, from each chapter and make some accurate and some rather far out predictions about how the story will end. When you ask them to name a suspect--the whole unit was about mysteries and the spelling words were all derived from mysteries--you don't just get the suspect's name, but also a rather lengthy run-down of the story so far, the possible outcomes and speculation as to exactly how Cam will go about solving the mystery! We had some fun discussions; they really do get a lot out of the books they read and when they are engaged, they have a great time talking about them with one another. We had a few brisk arguments, including some that actually pertained to the book; good discussions about some of Cam's tactics, a couple of which are potentially questionable and hurtful; and pretty accurate predictions about the book's ending. I thoroughly enjoyed heading the group, although there were times when I felt wholly incapable of doing so. Possibly the hardest thing to learn, for most of us teachers-in-training, is classroom management and that includes small group, large group and even at times, one-on-one. Kids are tuned in to your management abilities and will target you if they feel you could use some work on honing those abilities! Anyway, they can be a handful, especially when they get excited about learning. I've also done a group of lessons that make up a unit on bones. These are the first lessons that have required me to do follow-up lessons, doing reviews, pulling in information from previous lessons and so on. It is hard (insert whiney voice here)! I've managed to turn four lessons into five, somehow, although my host teacher did say that she breaks each lessons into two separate ones,which means I should have eight lessons! Well, I've managed to make five seem like eight! It has been the unit from Hell, one I'm sure she wishes she'd never assigned to me! Hopefully, it will be closed out tomorrow when they start their posters, detailing some aspect of bones or the skeletal system by creating an advertisement selling things like "what three things third graders can do to protect their teeth?" Yea, authentic assessment!
Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I'm trying to figure out whether or not I want to try the Tofurky for dinner this year. Last year's dinner was some sort of "meatloaf" by Morningstar Farms, I believe, and it wasn't bad, really! It had a sort of turkey-ish taste to it, the right spices, I suppose, but I supplemented the meal with potatoes, cranberries, yams and stuffing too. This year, though, may be the year of the Tofurky. At worst, it could all get tossed after one bite, right? Dinner is a must. This is my favorite time of year and I miss being around family for the dinner, the whole thanksgiving aspect of the day. Our family never did the "what are you grateful for" exercise, for which I am grateful--there is nothing worse than being put on the spot at dinner with seat-of-the-pants statements about your personal moments of gratitude. Funny thing, most of the men I've hung with in my life have had families who do that sort of thing and I suppose that is much worse: being put on the spot for off the cuff statements of gratitude by somebody else's family. Should I have taken this as a sign of the impending failure of the relationships?? Anyway, if I can't have my brother and sister, I can at least have the "turkey" or something resembling the bird of the day, right? I'm hoping for an invitation from Seana again this year. It has become something of a tradition for her to issue the invitation and for me to say no. It is, after all, also the time for traditions and even though she is now fifteen hundred miles away, traditions must prevail. I sent an email asking her to do so sometime this week. I haven't heard back yet, although she did send an interesting recipe for acorn squash (yum) stuffed with wild rice (ick) dried fruit (ick) and hickory-smoked tofu (wha??). Now, the acorn squash is great, the wild rice might be good in this context and the dried fruits are figs and cranberries or cherries and the three of these could possibly taste pretty good together, but the hickory-smoked tofu? OMG. Curry tofu, teriyaki tofu or lemon tofu all are great, but hickory-smoked just sounds wrong. Wrong! Only bacon should be hickory-smoked, people! If I do try something different like this recipe, there will be a definite absence of hickory-smoking. I guess there are two more weeks before the Thanksgiving dinner dilemma becomes critical so, for now, I'll relax and enjoy my time at Lake Hood and try to finish that never-ending lesson on bones.
December 19, 2005
Welcome to happy green tea, the site that has nothing to do with tea. Well, I mean apart from the fact that I drink a great deal of it daily...probably too much of it...maybe I really should cut back. Anyway, this site started as a project for my ED 663 class at Alaska Pacific University (APU) and has turned into something enjoyable, a puzzle, a challenge, even! I am a "non-traditional" student enrolled in the Master of Arts in Teaching program at APU. I just finished my first semester (yippee!). The program is even better than I'd hoped, the instructors are really great and dedicated to their students and my cohort is the best. Wow, will the enthusiasm still be this apparent during my final semester in about two years? Let's hope.
These web pages are fairly simple, as I am only just learning how to properly use Dreamweaver 8. I'll be making changes as my schedule allows and hopefully adding more interesting elements. For instance, I will be adding a pre-service teaching portfolio (and who isn't fascinated by that...), but have to first figure out how add it and how to password protect it. But for the moment, I suppose, just stick to the basics, yeah? The book I'm using, Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 in 24 Hours by Betsy Bruce, is great. Unfortunately, I keep skipping ahead in order to figure out how to do something, only to miss other information that I end up skipping back to later. I have no self-control!
Actually, it would be great to share things of interest to my family and friends, future students and the poor people who wind up here because they think it is about tea. But, until I get it figured out, it is going to be all over the place, with no real rhyme or reason and doesn't that sound like fun. For now topics and links will include my obsession with Hong Kong films (lovehkfilm.com is the absolute best site for information and reviews), science sites that are fun/interesting, pages that I've used to create these pages, education pages, podcasts and RSS pages of interest, old family photos for my aunt and cousins to access, history sites and who knows what else.
For now, though, thanks for visiting. I am redesigning and reconstructing my pages at the moment, so things on other pages will look odd and the link names might not match. It incentive for me to get things put together quickly so that it is not completely nonsensical and messy. Please excuse the pictures of my cats, it is sort of clichéd, the whole single woman/multiple cats thing, but they are a big part of my life and they are shelter cats from Friends of Pets here in Anchorage. For a while I was going through cats at the rate of one a year, (all of them indoor cats too) but these two are still with me, two years later and I'm grateful. I think I need another cup of jasmine green tea.
March 18, 2006
Welcome to happy green tea, the site that has nothing to do with tea, blah blah blah. Yeah, I drink a lot of it every single day right after that tan morning mocha. Stop naggin' about it, already! Anyway, this site started as a project for my ED 663 class at Alaska Pacific University (APU) and has turned into something enjoyable, a puzzle, a challenge, even! I am a "non-traditional" student enrolled in the Master of Arts in Teaching program at APU, moving towards the blessèd end of my second semester--yea! The enthusiasm I felt over Christmas break has lessened a bit, but should return with fall and my entry into the classroom. Right now my cohort is shrinking, the classes are a bit vague and I'm a little lost. Harumph.
Don't let anybody tell you otherwise: assessment sucks. This semester is nothing like the first and, to tell the truth, I'm not having much fun. School should be fun and learning, not just beating your head against the wall trying to figure out what is going on. As a pre-service teacher I can do parental involvement, I can discuss it, read about it, watch it in action and analyze it. But when assessment is thrown into the mix and the class involves both, forget it. By assessment do we mean test or do we mean rubric? Do we create a test and the rubric? How do you coherently discuss assessment when you've never been involved with it in any way but seven others in your class have been? My frustration grows. Spring break will be one long work session of catching up.
The action research pilot project class is okay, a little vague. Have you ever thought of yourself one way only to discover, possibly to your horror, that you are the exact opposite? I've gone through life foolishly thinking I'm happy-go-lucky-don't-need-a schedule-who-cares-about-an-example kind of woman. I've found, through the course of this class, I'm a box woman, I think in the box, I live in the box, I function best in the box. I need a schedule, I need a rubric, I need an example! Sure I can get that proposal done if you show me what the format looks like. Need the intro draft? Show me what it looks like and give me a date! I'm so disappointed in myself. I'm a person in a box. Think out of the box: what, what?? Devil may care, seat of the pants? Not me!
These pages are now up to date and relatively complete. I will certainly be adding more but still need to figure out how to do it all. The days in Anchorage are growing longer and lighter, the weather is. . .well, it is mid-March and still five degrees, but the sun is out more. I'm looking forward to spring this year, looking forward to the impending changes in my job and looking forward to next semester. Soon my friend K and I will be able to shed the winter thigh fat by walking outside and maybe my pants will even loosen up and be comfortable again. I've put on Kummerspeck this winter, a German word meaning weight gained due to emotional over-eating. Big sigh. For now though, back to the box in which I thrive and those pesky assessments.
April 4, 2006
Welcome to happy green tea, the site that has nothing to do with tea, blah blah blah. Yeah, I drink a lot of it every single day right after that tan morning mocha. Stop naggin' about it, already! Anyway, this site started as a project for my ED 663 class at Alaska Pacific University (APU) and has turned into something enjoyable, a puzzle, a challenge, even! I am a "non-traditional" student enrolled in the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program at APU, moving towards the blessèd end of my second semester--yea! The enthusiasm I felt over Christmas break has lessened a bit, but should return with fall and my entry into the classroom. Thing are back on track and running smoothly with half the homework! Reprieve at the last hour by Dr. Juettner! She cut our workload almost in half and the relief is intense. What a baby I am.
I've been thinking about this space. I can either just update it every couple of months or so, or update it once a week--how often to do it? My lips purse and my forehead puckers. The idea of once a week is appealing and is sort of a nice pattern to get into and yet that is a lot of writing on top of homework, work and time spent napping, reading and eating. Whew, big commitment there. Every couple of months or so seems too long between updates, yeah? The other night, while pondering this dilemma and avoiding homework, it occurred to me: nobody reads this anyway, nobody but me and my sister and maybe a friend or two so who cares! That led me to other thoughts about web sites, namely that creating your own is the most self-indulgent activity in which one can partake.
I mean, a personal web site is all about you, created by you and read by you! You post pictures of yourself and your friends and reveal all sorts of things about you and then add more things about you! Really, it is sort of sad when you think about it. So for a couple of days I walked around feeling sort of depressed and narcissistic until I realized that if I don't expect people to read it, (and I don't,) then is it so bad? No, it is merely a waste of time. At worst! So I added a calendar and an archives page just because I could and not feel oogie about it. Really, it is more out of fun that I have this site. It is great to sit down and play with a calendar template that can be used to keep the parents of future students in touch with classroom activities. It is play, it is work! This will hopefully develop into a classroom web site but 'til then, call me self-indulgent. Feh! What do I care!
I still need to look into online portfolios, passwords, RSS and some other stuff that would be fun to try out. This is all about playing. Problem is, I won't have time to really play like I did over Christmas break until August. Summer school--I get to go, yea!--runs from May to August and then, due to an earlier start by the Anchorage School District, I have to be back in school sometime around August 17th. No rest, no play! What have I done to my life? This is what happens when you spend your first forty years fooling around: you spend the next forty in school. Actually, I am more ready at forty-three for all of this then I ever would have been at twenty-three. So I will now go back to the books, work on some assessments and clean up my portfolio. Life is good, the sun isn't out but at least it is daylight. There are a few flakes around, but no snow is falling. Ha ha ha! Thank you! I'm here all week! Try the veal!
April 24, 2006
Aiya!Will this semester never end? How much longer must it be endured? One more week? Argh. The whole bloody thing is oozing into the May block exceptionalities class I’m taking. And just when I think I can wade through the final assignments, my ambition takes a holiday and I am stuck watching the first, second and third seasons of Quantum Leap all weekend, worrying about all the homework left to be done before next Friday, which means I'm really not enjoying "Leaping" as much as I'd like to because I'm focusing on worrying. Other people must do this too, right? I mean I can't be the only person out there who not only procrastinates, but then worries about procrastinating, right? When did people really start to procrastinate, anyway? It seems like it would be something that came along with the advent of "leisure time" because if you are busy just trying to survive, you can't procrastinate, right? Very interesting question, but whatever. I'll think about it later.
Quantum Leap, John Peel...Along with hours and hours of Quantum Leap, I've been reading two books, one of which is Margrave of the Marshes, John Peel's posthumously published autobiography that was finished by his wife and family. It is very engaging, very sweet and very funny, just like he seemed to be, but badly in need of an editor. What is going on with editors these days? There are so many books that I've read in the past year that have prompted the same reaction--where's the editor? Now, I'm not a good editor, my eyes auto-correct spelling errors--there's a word for it that is used in reading assessment that we just learned about in class . . . I forget what it is, but anyway, if I'm spotting errors and having difficulties following the writer's train of thought, there is a problem. Margrave flows from thought to thought, not quite stream of consciousness, more . . . conversational. It is like he recorded his thoughts and then transcribed them word for word without consideration for flow. Text flow problems aside, however, it is a very enjoyable book, very honest, and every time I pick it up I'm a little saddened that he is no longer around.
...Julia Child The second book I'm reading is the new (and I suppose, final) Julia Child book, My Life in France, co-authored by her grand-nephew. Wonderful. Like John Peel, she seemed to be a very amiable, appealing and unaffected person. Because Julia Child had the same great editor for many years, the book is refreshingly well-edited. (Get me, like I know editing!) She had such a love for France and it is so clear in the way she writes about her time there, from her first landing at Le Havre to the final vacation spent at a much-beloved house she and her husband refurbished. You know, it is just so wonderful to read about people who love what they do in life, people who have found, to use Joseph Campbell’s word, their bliss. It just occurred to me that both of these books were written by people who found their bliss. Stories about people who have found fame and fortune are fine, but stories about people who have made the journey their goal and found some way to express themselves are so much more remarkable. Those are the people that make a difference while on earth and they are the ones most missed.
Just go to bed already! It is almost 2am and I've still not started on my homework. Only three more days to finish it. I'm not sure how to do it, not sure how to write it all out. I'm not sure what to say. Gosh, I'm just not sure. I'm feeling scattered and slapdash and it is showing here at home and in my approach to school. If I want this semester to end, why don't I just finish the work? Because, I suppose, I'm a masochist and want to extend my agony as long as possible--ARGH! Every semester it is the same story. I'm on the road to finding my own bliss, but flogging myself with nearly every step! Crazy. Or, maybe just lazy. If I were Type A all semester instead of during the final week of classes, I'd be unstoppable. Unstoppable!! Oh well, I'll worry about it next semester.
May 7, 2006
Sometimes things just don't go the way you expect them to--whether it is whole days or whole years. The past nine months have been an adventure, certainly, but they are not working out the way I'd expected. I'd hoped that by this time school would be such a positive force that I'd be too excited to wait for fall semester to begin. I expected that I'd all be looking forward to starting a new year full of learning with at least one other member of my cohort. I expected that there'd be a short break between spring and summer semester. I expected that my friend Seana and I would be able to take some time this summer to learn World of Warcraft and play together. These are not major expectations, nor are they, I believe, outrageous.
Expectations die hard. School has been very trying this spring. Fall should be interesting. Three of this cohort will move on to student teaching , leaving me to push onward alone. <sigh> Erika left the program and Brittany will not be coming back. Those of us that remain are all a bit apprehensive about starting school next fall given the somewhat uneven and unpleasant experiences of this past semester. I'm sticking with APU's MAT beacuse I still feel it is the best teacher-training program in Alaska. We could all have used a short break between semesters, however. We all would like a short break. We received no break and went from one set of classes to the next without breathing space. One class even has the audacity to ooze into this semester leaving everybody a bit miffed. And to brighten my burgeoning spring, my friend Seana, one of only two that I call my dear friends, broke it to me that she and her husband are moving to Washington in August. No, this year is not going the way I'd planned at all.
Red Robin is not the place to break it to a friend that you are moving out of state, especially if that friend is a little high-strung and cries when shocked with bad news. There was no hysteria but I'm sure Seana was uncomfortable. And so she should have been! Leave Alaska--why that is absurd! I've been anticipating the relocation of my other dear friend this year too. Gosh, it just promises to get better, doesn't it. Seana felt so bad that she bought lunch. I told her we are going to lunch every Saturday until she leaves so that we can spend some quality time together, dammit! And if she buys out of guilt, so much the better. Friends are tough to find and hard to keep up with in the best of circumstances. When you find a friend or two with whom you are compatible it is hard to say good-bye to them. This is why women should not marry. They do stupid things like leave their friends bereft in another far-flung state while they trot off with "mr. right" who is usually some lame excuse of a man. Unfortunately, both of these women are married to genuinely nice guys that I like, so I can't say much about their lack of commitment to our friendship.
thought I already knew about the absurdity of expectations. Apparently this is my year to learn those lessons all over again. I need to find a way to look forward to the lonely and miserable existence the rest of this year promises for me. I need to make some new friends who will never leave the state, maybe some invisible ones who talk only to me. Or maybe I'll realize that things always happen for reasons that we don't always understand. While Seana and I were talking she mentioned she is ready for some changes and would have been transferring to a different school anyway due to some other changes going on at her current school. It is like a chain reaction really. Who knows where we will all end up next fall with all the changes taking place now. She may end up in her dream school, I may have a couple of good new friends and love school again and even more than before. Sometimes things don't go the way you expect them to go, but sometimes they can work out pretty well.
May 30, 2006
Ah, the Alaskan summer is here and it is wonderful. The trees leafed out last Wednesday, the weather warmed up over the weekend and by Tuesday it was warm enough to walk outside without a coat. I haven't put one on since! This year I told myself I was going to note the exact day I stopped wearing my winter coat (April 6th) the last day of snow (May 9th) the day the trees leafed out (May 17th) and the first day without a coat (May 23rd). These may seem like strange things to note, but every year, there is one day you stop doing certain things and start noticing others but you can never remember when they happened. In states with mild climates, you don't notice because your coats don't really change weight. You simply switch around from fleece to jacket, back to fleece, back to jacket, back to fleece and that is over the course of a month. Easy. In Alaska you switch from heavy coat to fleece to no coat to fleece to heavy coat over the course of a year.
Trees and grass change color overnight, honestly, they do! One day the trees have little buds and the grass is brown and the next day--leaves and green! It is amazing. Fall happens upon us just as quickly. One day everything is green and warm and the next day--very cool and rainy. Within two weeks, the leaves turn yellow. It's great! Wandering around outside without a coat is so strange, so wrong! Leave my coat at home?? Why, that's crazy talk! But you gradually warm to the idea (no pun intended). With each season--winter, summer and fall--you think about what you were doing a few months ago. For example, one January morning I was standing at the bus stop in snow with a wind chill of twenty below, thinking about the previous summer's attire of choice: skirts and sandals. Today I'm thinking about that freezing January morning and marveling over the fact that it could ever have been so cold, so miserable. Who cares! For now it is warm, beautiful, the mountains have dabs of snow on them and the cats are eating my newly potted outdoor plants--does life get better than this?
Well, school is out 'til Thursday and it feels great to be able to read whatever I want to read. Unfortunately, I've nothing special to read right now. I've read a collection of political cartoons called Sutton Impact by Ward Sutton. They are satirical cartoons that really go after the Bush administration and its many, many failings. After finishing that I turned to No Collar, No Service, a collection of Pooch Cafe cartoons by Paul Gilligan. These two books kept me entertained for three whole days! And now, nothing. Not even a lousy regency romance! I don't even have any Netflix to watch! Last week's big news, speaking of Netflix, was that they are building a new hub in Anchorage! How great is that! My movies in one day! Get OUT! Anyway, with nothing to do I've been emailing old boyfriends, reporting customer service issues with some new shoes that are falling apart and making a general nuisance of myself with people who either do not know me at all or haven't heard from me in twenty years. Why is it that my critical thinking facilities always kick in after I've done something stupid like email an old boyfriend? Aren't they supposed to help you make the decision and not wait until afterwards to stroll into the room and ask, "good god and the little baby jesus, what have you done??"
What have I done?? As it turns out, not much. I emailed a simple note; he emailed a simple note back. I agonized for a day about whether or not to email back. I asked for advice from a wise woman I know who never answered--you know who you are, Alexis--and then emailed him back. This time I gave him an out so that if he didn't want to email, he wouldn't have to feel obliged to do so. Nice of me. What a game! What did I expect to come of it? Who in the world knows! That was what my critical thinking guys wanted to know and for them, I had no answer. You can't go home again, you can't live in the past, you can't pick up where you left off, you can't recapture your youth, you can't blah blah blah. What can you do? Move on and let it all go, I guess. Another week, another lesson learned--it's a little like living in a wholesome family sitcom. He has chosen not to respond--he's moved on and bravo for him. I, apparently, am learning how. "This week on Punky Brewster, Punky learns a valuable lesson in moving on with her life." Oh well. But now it is summer and I have some good weather to enjoy.
June 26,2006
Rainy June=Crappy Solstice It is cool here, beautifully cool and green. The flowers are blooming on the deck, though not, alas, without tragedy. For the second year in a row, I've lost one of my hanging baskets over the edge of the deck. What is up with that?? I was watering it, humming a happy little watering tune, when suddenly the hanging wire snapped! The pot spun in the air, spiraled silently and slowly towards the ground, landing with an ominous thump. I peered reluctantly over the railing, expecting mayhem (carnage, even,) but there was surprisingly very little damage. I trotted myself down to the grassy knoll to recover the lost pot. It was so light from lack of water that I think it was spared more serious damage! Hurray for not watering! Hurray for my lazy plant attitude! My plant was safe! Oh yes, there was some loss of limbs and leaves, but very little. It is once again hanging (watered) from the deck and looks lovely. In the process of watering it, however, I managed (excellent gardner that I am) to do more damage to it than had the fall. I would share more pictures of the flowers, but they are rather sparse for this time of year. and I don't expect that our rainy month of July is going to be any sunnier.
Rainy June=New Shorts! Wouldn't you know, I buy my first pair of new shorts in four years and it is a cloudy, wet summer. Typical. The new shorts are really cute too, with little surfboards on them 'cause you know how much I surf. Actually, even if the weather had been better, it has been much to cold in the classroom to wear them. I'm not sure what APU is doing to its buildings, but the classrooms are absolutely freezing and the six of us sit huddled in our coats and long pants, sporting blue lips and fingertips. One guy brought in space heaters but they unfortunately blew out the fuses along two walls. Oops. The heat came on for the last week of class, but too little, too late I say. Our last class was held at Cafe Del Mundo simply so that we could sit and discuss things and enjoy our final class together instead of missing whole sections of discussion because we were in and out of hypothermic comas. Perhaps I exaggerate, perhaps. Anyway, Del Mundo's was loud and busy. It was difficult to hear each other. The coffee was okay but not Kaladi quality. The discussion was good--I'm going to miss this class (multiculturalism). It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun and I learned so much!
Multiculturalism=Great Class A few thoughts on our approach to a multicultural class: when white kids take a foreign language, it is considered a great thing even though most students will never be fluent in the language. When non-English speaking students join our classes, their foreign language skills are considered a hindrance to learning and we expect them to speak English only even though they will eventually become proficient enough in the language and be truly bilingual. Fairness does not mean everybody gets the same thing; it means everybody gets what they need to excel. As the Court ruled in Lau: equal is not "the same." Schools were, ideally, created to uphold the high standards of Horace Mann and John Dewey by equalizing society and changing it for the better. Instead they perpetuate racism and inequality, maintaining the status quo--what can one teacher do to change this? Teachers, students and parents--the three most important players in any school--are inherently limited in their roles and ability to foment change. If you limit students in their ability to participate in the classroom, you lose them. If you limit teachers in the ability to teach, you lose them. If you limit parents in their ability to participate in their childrens education, you lose them. If our society truly wants excellent schools, why do we limit the creativity, talents and voices of those they serve? Who is more important to society--well-educated students or fat administrators?
And finally. . . school is officially out for summer as of June 30th. Yippee! I have to finish a Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian curriculum study for a new Native Alaskan charter school and a few more writing assignments, but I am nearly done for a month! This year has been so great, with a few minor glitches this past spring. I can't believe I still have two more years, I mean all this year's work should certainly count as two years of school! But it will, I've been assured, go very very quickly. Friday marked the last day I'll be with my starting cohort (Emily, Kat & Michael) and that makes me a little sad. We've lost two people now (Erika & Brittany) and the other three are off to student teach but we've promised to stay in touch through the year and keep up with important happenings. We will see each other from time to time at APU, but it will not be the same. I've appreciated their support and their patience and loved discussing issues with them in all of our mutual classes. I can only hope that the new cohort is as much fun and as like-minded as we were. It makes the year go so much faster and so much easier when you like the people you are with four days a week, sometimes six hours a day. I pray they all have good senses of humor, because they will need them over the next two years, especially when hearing their classmates talk about their passions ad nauseam. A drawback to the cohort system is that you hear people yak about the same things over and over; a plus for the cohort system is that you hear people yak about the same things over and over and you become invested in their interests and feelings. Change sucks. Change is exciting. Deal with it.
May 20, 2007
I can't believe its been since November. Time has passed by pretty slowly, but it has been busy. Too busy for frivolous things like updating pages. I survived the Third Graders--they were just the coolest and it was very hard to leave. We did a final lesson on Haiku and, as usual, I turned one lesson into three. The first lesson went well, we talked about Haiku and read about Haiku; I was so ready for the second lesson! It was awful. Worse than awful. It was a nightmare. They were all over the place, under the easel I was using, under the chair I was sitting in, braiding each other's hair, having side conversations--awful! After multiple times of trying to get them focused, I lost it. LOST IT! Everybody was going to pull a card if one more...just ONE MORE person did anything--ANYTHING! There was a moment of silence as they processed. They sat there, stunned--their real teacher never loses her cool. I was just as stunned---I couldn't believe what had just come out of my mouth. Finally, one child, one boy that was my big challenge during those six weeks, one too-bright child that I affectionately referred to after school as my nemesis decided to let me know that he'd personally done nothing and my management of the situation was not fair. Technically, it was the "one more thing" about which I'd warned them. I turned to him look at him, and with my best icy voice, told them all we were done. "DONE! Do you hear me! DONE!" If they weren't ready to learn more, we'd just go do worksheets. I'm sure my nostrils were flaring and smoke was coming out of my ears. They quieted down but it was not my finest hour. The funny thing was, their Haiku's were beautiful. We made torn paper pictures illustrating their Haiku the next day and they put them all together into a book, my very first class book from the sweetest group of kids. The next week we had a goodbye party and they gave me a book they made up themselves of more Haiku about my time in their classroom. The bones lesson turned out to have been a big hit! My nemesis' pages were decidedly cool in tone, but even he was a sweetie. Classroom management is easier now, after middle school, but despite the challenges they presented, Mrs. Gould's Third Graders from 2006-2007 will be my favorite group of kids.
I'm so behind this month and I don't care! I'm screwed but who cares! There are other wonderful things going on in my life that are much more exciting, things that are probably not good for me in the long run, but that are pretty special right now. Couple those things with my excitement about the trip to Homer in over July 4th week and actually being able to work a forty hour week and I just have no time for this month's class. There are six things sitting on my desk waiting for me to take care of and have I? Naw. Who cares! I'm going to flunk out of grad school with $60,000 in loans--who cares! I'm going to end up living in my car with two cats and no hope--who cares! I'm going to be homeless, penniless, a vagrant; my car will be impounded, my cats repossessed by Friends of Pets, I'll have nothing--who cares! I am soooo tired of school, god, please make it end. When school actually makes the job you are trying to get away from seem like a dream job, then I think it is time for school to end. I like my current job: it is flexible; I have weekends free; I work for the state, essentially; I know how to do the job with my eyes closed (not always a good thing...); and I enjoy the people I work with. Gosh, I'm just going to quit school. If I look at work now, it is really great! Sure it is a dead-end job that requires no creativity or independent thought--who cares! My family will still love me--I'll move in with them. Actually, I'm hoping to pull all my assignments out this week and just finish them up, including the presentation/lesson/paper on accommodations. It just sounds like fun, doesn't it. I keep telling myself just one more week but I've spent almost an entire year telling myself just so much longer before something ends and, honestly, I'm tired of living this way. I spent the entire semester counting down to the end of April, the final week of April counting down to May and now all of May counting down to the 25th. If life is about living in the moment, the past five months have been everything that life should not be. I'm ready to go back to at least day by day living, if not moment by moment. A life with lived with constant obligations is not my kind of life. Unfortunately all those obligations have been school related and the sooner school ends, the happier I'll be. Wasn't it just last year that I couldn't get enough school?
Summer is upon us and the weather this weekend was beautiful. The sunset, though not as multicolored as in the lower 48 was wonderful to see. The crescent moon has been shining every night outside my window and makes me feel a little restless but in a good way. I haven't felt that horrible restlessness in over a year, the kind that makes you want to run away and live an entirely different life. I used to dream of running away to the desert, spending my days rock climbing and meditating. There are three problems with that dream:
- Desert=HOT Miserable Death
- Rock Climbing=Painful Certain Death
- Meditation=Impossible
Needless to say, I always came to my senses before surrendering to the moment and running away. Working towards teaching has given me something to look forward to and less of a need to run away from my life. So now I look at the moon outside my window and I can smile. The air in town was wonderful to breathe this week--it is clean and sweet and makes me love being in Anchorage. The nights are coming much later now--I forget from year to year how great this is. The sun was out until about 10:30 and dusk settled in around 11:00. In a week or two, it will be warm, the days will be long, the flowers will be planted on the deck and I'll remember every minute of the day why I live here. It is time to do some housecleaning, do some pleasure reading, listening to music,and making plans to go home for a few days in early August. With just five more days of school to go, I'll try to enjoy the moon, the air, the flowers, the longer days and the really wonderful things that reintroduced themselves to my life this month. It is all about day to day.
July 6, 2007
Sometimes, parts of your life suck and don't work out the way you want them to work out, leaving you feeling sad, miserable, unhappy, miserable and sad. The thing I was so happy about in May has turned unhappy--I said it wasn't good for me!--and now I'm sad. Oh well. I'll live. And I won't do that again. (Shyeah-right!) My life has always been about learning lessons the hard way and apparently, I just never learn that it doesn't have to be that way! So what--I'm stupid! Actually, I have this bottomless well of hope that keeps me going from day to day, from good decision to bad decision. I wake up and hope that something will be different every day; I wake up and hope that something fun happens, something unusual; I make perfectly rational, smart decisions and hope for the best; I make perfectly irrational, stupid decisions and hope to be graced by some miracle of the perverse universe in which we exist. Hope gets me in so much trouble! And yet, I can't live without it. What really gives us hope, I mean why do we have it and why, when we need it most, is it so easy to lose? The problem in this situation is such, that for me to continue to hope that my happiness be recovered, means that another has to lose it and I'm not willing to wish that on any person. So what I find myself hoping for is a continuation of hope and recovery of happiness for others and a quick resolve to the pain that I'm feeling. How very grown up of me, to be sure. Sometimes I guess love enables us to make those good decisions that hope can't help us make. Still, I hope all will turn out well in spite of the situation--I'm nuts that way. Anyway, I recently rediscovered an Afro Celt Sound System song that I've always loved and it's been helping me move myself along to something new: letting go and remembering, yet again, that the moment is all we can expect.
When I'm out here on my own,
and it all cuts through me.
I see you're safe alone,
oh then it hits me.
And I know
You're here in this moment,
right where it's flowing.
You are what you want to be
right here with me.
Big fat argh! Once again I'm behind, just like last month. The research proposal class just didn't give us enough time to really get things together and consequently, I've had to take an extension on the class, also known as an incomplete. Bad! Anyway, the proposal will get done now that the distractions are mostly out of the way and my life will reorganize itself, get back on track and become as teutonic in its timing and attention to detail as it was prior to May. The thought isn't cheering me up. Bitch moan, bitch moan. Get over it already! Moving right along, the summer is proving to be a lousy one. Okay, just a little more bitching--it's been cold and wet and damp and awful. After this winter, wouldn't some sun be nice? Some hot, blazing friggin' sun?? Is that asking too much? Is that so wrong?? I've actually been frequenting a tanning salon simply to try to get some sun. Granted, most Alaskans do it all year long, during any season, but it is so...fake. This year though, who cares! I'm tan, I'm warm for fifteen minutes and it feels great afterward. Well, apart from that initial burn it feels great. You know, everything looks better when you're tan. Your face, your wrinkles, your fat, your whole body just looks so much better. Everybody should be tan, really. It would make the world a much better place. Granted, you'd still have dumb tan people, silly tan people, loud tan people, tan people driving and talking on their cell phones, tiny tan barristas with huge hooters, extremely beautiful tan people--you know, everybody that is annoying now, but you'd feel so much better being tan that it wouldn't matter. Well, everybody but the barristas wouldn't matter. What is up with that anyway? Now, I love my barrista at Cafe Loco--I go almost every morning for my dose of half 'n' half with a little Americano thrown in. She is great--what is her name? Anyway, everybody at that place is small boned, skinny skinny skinny and all of them have fantastic tans and huge breasts. Is this a new race of women we've been breeding and have loosed at last upon the male coffee-drinking population? Does this physique sell more coffee? Does this explain all the pickups and Hummers and multitude of other penile-compensation cars waiting in lines at coffee shacks all over town for a stupid cup of coffee? Do you have to be a certain cup size to work there and are your tanning sessions paid as part of your benefit package? And why can't these women seem to find full-length t-shirts? Is this a genetic failing? I have so many questions.
Now that I've unleashed my inner Eeyore, it must be said that there are some things about this summer that are great: my friend Karen and I went to Homer early this year and had a great time for three whole days. We ate too much,drank too much (but not toooo much) and spent too much. The best dinner we had was at Finn's on the spit, a tiny pizza place with draft beer and wood-fired, blue pear pizza! We had it two nights in a row and still wanted more. The weather in Homer was overcast with a few sunny breaks but certainly not warm by any stretch of the imagination--certainly no shorts, no sandals. Outsiders were dressed for winter in jackets and sweaters. It was fine for walking and reading which we did in abundance. We saw some eagles scrounging around on the beach on a couple of different mornings, picking at nasty, oogie things that washed up with the tide. It's always a good feeling to see our national symbol on our national day tearing away at a partially decayed head of halibut or mutilated crab shell while being attacked by screeching seagulls. It was nice to get away and hang out with a good friend who listened to my problems and then told me what she honestly thought. Karen blasted through three books while I started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I've wanted to read it since 1985 but just got up the courage to dig in and do it. Why'd I wait so long? I'm not often intimidated by a book but this one has intrigued me yet put me off for twenty years! The magical realism aspect is wonderful and Marquez has such a great descriptive style that you just get sucked into the story. It isn't an easy read, requiring a lot of time and attention, something I haven't given a book in many months. It felt so good to relax, nap, eat, talk, walk and just listen to my thoughts for a change. The thoughts were not profound, certainly, but there were some provocative ones, nonetheless. Unfortunately, I was so relaxed I've forgotten most of them. Blue pear pizza, extra garlic/anchovy caesar salads and a good porter will do that to you. Homer will do that to you. Ho hum. Sometimes parts of your life really suck...and sometimes parts of your life really are pretty good. Getting caught up in the sucky parts leaves you melancholy but going with the good parts takes the melancholia and sweeps it away, if only for a while.
August 1, 2007
Whew.July is over at last and good riddance I say. What a month. Lots of drama, lots of tears. August is here! This month, fall strolls along and changes our world week by week. In two weeks, temperatures will drop and we'll all be wearing our fleece jackets and wondering where the summer could have gone. The trees, now hiding their skinny branches in the deep green of an Alaskan summer, quickly turn bright yellow in the chilly air and strip slowly down to the bare gray wood of fall with each strong gust of wind. The high bush cranberries covering the mountains surrounding the bowl turn red, a deep wine red that you can smell as you walk outside. It is a heady combination, the earthy cranberries, wood fire smoke and the sweet, chilled breath of the air. It signals the end of warm days and cool nights and promises a light dusting of powder over the tops of the mountains by the end of September. It is a promise of winter and cold, unforgiving weather. Finally, as fall comes, our fiery summer obsessions cool down, banked by the north winds coming home from their travels, blowing change once again into our lives. We welcome the change, knowing that fiery obsessions never last, but comfortable friendships can last beyond a lifetime. For some, fall is a time for settling in, coming off that summer high, putting the toys away and remembering the summer in stories and pictures. It is a time to dream about next summer's adventures. For me, fall is about starting again. The cooler weather clears my head and re-centers me, pointing out the right direction. Fall is when I can start over again and wipe all the previous year's mistakes away. So, when I look around and see the spindly brown trees, smell the cranberries on the hill and notice that first light touch of snow in the back peaks, I know that my life is just beginning again--it is do-over time and I cherish, every fall, the opportunity to make it all right, find the center and enjoy my new friendships from summer as they should be enjoyed--with love and without expectations.
One morning you pause
in your daydreaming to see
winter coming down
from the mountains with its coat
of snow buttoned to the neck.
--Tom Sexton--
Autumn in the Alaska Range
Tomorrow I get to go to the Oral Surgeon! I know, it doesn't sound like much fun but I am so excited! Well, sort of...I mean it is the start of a two-year process involving braces and six hours of surgery but the outcome should be pretty fantastic. I had the molds taken of my teeth two weeks ago. That was an experience I'd rather forget. They use this gummy stuff, plaster I suppose, and then add your favorite flavor to it, as if the taste of cinnamon in while I'm gagging is going to make me enjoy the experience any more than I already am. I've noticed that everything to do with the dentist now involves a choice of flavors. You know, it doesn't help. Floss is still waxy, gritty polishing compound is still gritty, and nasty fluoride is still nasty even if they taste like oranges and sunshine. So I chose watermelon. Why? I've no idea. Watermelon is only appealing to me when it takes the pleasing form a sour Jolly Rancher or makes an appearance as well...watermelon. But I chose watermelon. The bottom mold was okay. I won't say it went well, but as well as can be expected when you have a mold, plaster, a mouth and the air pressed from in between them all. I sensed impending disaster. The technician pulled the mold after it set up and nearly pulled my bottom teeth out. If she'd just broken my jaw, I'd've been set! She tried again, no luck. She told me to blow air out of my mouth. This is easier said than done when your entire mouth is filled with plaster. I blew, she pulled, I felt it give. She jiggled it back and forth, yanking my jaw back and forth also. I started gagging as it pushed back on my throat but it mercifully gave way before a full choke set in. I didn't even want to contemplate the upper mold. Oh God. I knew I was going to die but what can you say? No? I figured she'd been hired because she was competent. As the mold moved towards my mouth I thought I'd scream. I was suddenly feeling inexplicably claustrophobic. She pushed it up and as I felt all the air give way I prayed. Oh god, please let it come out, please, please, please! How could she not know that without an air pocket that thing was never coming out?? Even I knew what was going to happen! We waited. I sweated. She pulled. nothing. She pulled again, harder. It came off one side, gave a weird suctiony sound and came off the other. Whew! Then I heard her say she didn't get the palate and the surgeon was going to want that.
OMG. I'm dead, I thought. This is it. I was sitting in a chair with plaster ringing my mouth and I was going to die the same way. Please, clean my mouth off after I die, I thought. Don't let anybody see me this way. If I have to die with a mold protruding from my mouth, at least clean the plaster off. She put another mold in with the watermelon flavoring. She pushed hard against the roof of my mouth and I heard ALL the air go. It left. Was gone. No air pockets. In order to get it out, we're going to need an air pocket. I heard her say something about some air being up there somewhere. What she apparently didn't realize is that I have a very narrow, deep palate. Oh god. I really started to panic, honestly panic. I had visions of paramedics coming in and cutting the mold out of my mouth. It reminded me of an episode of Emergency! when a lady got her toe stuck in the bathtub faucet and Gage and DeSoto had to go in and free her toe without looking at her. Now why I thought of this episode, I've no idea but there I was with tears in my eyes, panic in my heart and Gage and DeSoto on my mind, knowing I was going to die because I'd end up choking myself. When I had ear surgery I woke up thinking of Will and Grace, so it shouldn't have surprised me that I'd be thinking of a TV show as I was preparing to die. The mold was ready and I thought I could detect a small frisson of fear run over her body--she knew she'd pushed it up too far! She pulled and nothing happened. She pulled harder and yanked my mouth down but nothing happened. She told me to blow air up my palate. You can't do it! I blew and my cheeks puffed up. You can't direct air up the palate when the mold is pressing on the back of your throat. She told me to just keep blowing. I tried really hard because I knew the outcome would be bad if I didn't. I sounded like a cat with hairballs--that windy, racking sound they get when they are trying to expel it from their bodies. I did this for about a minute solid. I could tell she was worried. She grabbed the handle on the mold and yanked again, but nothing happened. I made some noises trying to get her attention to let her know it had to come out now or I was going to start screaming--I could feel it rising in my throat and I had no idea how to stop it from coming out. It would have been, fortunately, merely a pathetic little whimper, seeing as how I couldn't get any sound out at all. She grabbed the top of my head with one hand and the mold handle with the other and started bearing down, all the while saying "there's got to be an air pocket somewhere..." It was absolutely suctioned to the roof of my mouth. I started planning for a life without food, water from a tube, no means of communication, no friends, no job, homeless on the streets with a mold hanging out of my mouth. She was practically in my lap pulling down on the handle and I felt one side give way just a little. She yanked the other side and it made a sucking sound but loosened up. It took her a good minute to shift the mold from side to side in order to pull it out. I nearly passed out. Her first words were, "Huh, I've had them get stuck worse. I wasn't very worried about it but you were, weren't you?" I managed a very weak smile, and felt a little plaster flake off of my mouth. That was my trip to the orthodontist during which I nearly died a humiliating, choking death with a mouth full of plaster. Thank god it tasted of watermelon. Had I known it was nearly my last meal, I would have taken more care and consideration with my flavor decision! The oral surgeon won't be half as bad, right? I'm looking at it as the start of a new me, at the start of the new season, fall, when everything begins again.
August 30, 2007
The Alaska State Fair and Charlie Daniels. It was so much fun! I haven't been to a concert in a few years--I don't count the opera or the symphony--and going to see a live, nationally know band from the Outside was like being in Seattle again. It's been a rainy, cool summer and we had no idea what to expect on Saturday night but it turned out to be a beautiful, warm (or hot, depending on your tolerance for heat) day. We left early so that we could walk around a bit, enjoy the fair, but it took us three hours to make a forty-five minute drive, most of the time being spent within two miles of the fair grounds, trying to get to the parking area. We got there just in time to find something to eat and get in line for the concert. The band played every popular song they've done and had us all on our feet many times. The beer garden folks were always on their feet--it was packed on that side and they didn't have room to sit down! The only song I had trouble with was an overly (for me) patriotic song that was almost jingoistic in its tone. Songs like that just embarrass me and make me want to sink into the ground. Fortunately, it was the only one and when he played The Devil went down to Georgia, everybody stood and everybody sang. Alexis and I discovered yet another mutual enjoyment besides Chinese/Hong Kong films: Country Western music--new to me, as I've never really enjoyed it before--and now we are going to see the professional bull riding show when it comes to town in two weeks! I'm so excited. I've always been a closet cowgirl, but now, I'm gonna start living the life. Well, not really. I'm more of a Levis 501 person and I don't care for those weirdly patterned, multi-colored shirts they wear and I look a fright in hats of any kind. But those cowboy boots are coming out of the closet more often!
I love student teaching! School started last week and I'm loving my life right now. I have a great host teacher, Laura Barrons, a great class of fourth graders and a pretty nice school, Abbott Loop Elementary. For a semester, I'm a Wildcat. The kids are a lot of fun, but they are also extremely wearing. I come home totally wiped out at the end of the day and last Friday, I wasn't worth anything I was so tired. There are no real problems, some kids who goof off a little too much, but no really troubled ones. Last week was a dream, they were all settling in, and this week reality hit and they've been all over the place, but they are still fun to work with. I'm starting my first lessons next week when my student teaching supervisor comes to visit for the first time and then I'll take over a subject at a time until I'm on my own, teaching all day long, hopefully not doing too much damage to Miss. Barron's class. That will go on for about five weeks and I'll hand them back to her, in tact, all alive and well, and I'll move on to observe other rooms in the school until the end of November when we're done with student teaching and ready for initial certification! Yes, I could be teaching this spring, but no, I've made a commitment to the library to stay through next August. I can tell already, however, it's going to be tough to go back to that job when I'm done with this. Using your brain and your creative energies just feels so good.
This coming month, fall strolls along and changes our world week by week. In two weeks, temperatures will drop and we'll all be wearing our fleece jackets and wondering where the summer could have gone. The trees, still hiding their skinny branches in the deep green of an Alaskan summer, quickly turn bright yellow in the chilly air and strip slowly down to the bare gray wood of fall with each strong gust of wind. The high bush cranberries covering the mountains surrounding the bowl turn red, a deep wine red that you can smell as you walk outside. It is a heady combination, the earthy cranberries, wood fire smoke and the sweet, chilled breath of the air. It signals the end of warm days and cool nights and promises a light dusting of powder over the tops of the mountains by the end of September. It is a promise of winter and cold, unforgiving weather. Finally, as fall comes, our fiery summer obsessions cool down, banked by the north winds coming home from their travels, blowing change once again into our lives. We welcome the change, knowing that fiery obsessions never last, but comfortable friendships can last beyond a lifetime. For some, fall is a time for settling in, coming off that summer high, putting the toys away and remembering the summer in stories and pictures. It is a time to dream about next summer's adventures. For me, fall is about starting again. The cooler weather clears my head and re-centers me, pointing out the right direction. Fall is when I can start over again and wipe all the previous year's mistakes away. So, when I look around and see the spindly brown trees, smell the cranberries on the hill and notice that first light touch of snow in the back peaks, I know that my life is just beginning again--it is do-over time and I cherish, every fall, the opportunity to make it all right, find the center and enjoy my new friendships from summer as they should be enjoyed--with love and without expectations.
Autumn is a second spring
when every leaf is a flower
--Albert Camus--