5:40

Is it strange that my favorite sleep comes between 5:40 and 6:10 on weekday mornings? This is the 30 minutes before I force myself to get out of bed (or start beating myself up for not being out of bed)after my alarm clock has gone off . For some reason, I love it. It's still dim, my room is fairly cool, and sometimes I'm still dreaming but I'm just conscious enough to be aware that it's a dream, which makes it all the more sweet. I wish Saturday mornings were like that. But on Saturdays, I know that I don't have to get up. So I slip back into a deep sleep for a few more hours, and the dreams that I was having aren't as sweet, spoiled by length and depth.

Strangely enough, I like getting up in the morning, at least when there's something to do. I like the stillness of the earth before the sun comes out and starts cooking the magic out of the air. In the morning, the day is full of possibilities.

On the Eve of a New Year

Well, summer has come to end, and I'm staring a new school year in the face. I also have a terrible case of insomnia. Dang it.

I am incredibly un-enthused about this school year. I'm going into it without knowing a lot of things, and with more work than I had last year, and with less room for error just because it's my third year, and not my first or second. Also, we're going back to the 7:20 start time. I'm not a morning person. At all. In one sense, I'm glad that I'll get out of rehearsal at 5pm instead of 6:30, that I'll get to see something other than school in the daylight. On the other hand, anything I do before 9am is basically rubbish.

As frequent readers of this here blog might remember, I'm a worrier. It's what I do. Also, I like lists. So here, in no particular order, are things I'm worried about this year:

- Fall play. I'm not sure what it is yet. Both options have their own separate set of problems.
- I don't have a good strong senior leader. This could be a problem.
- My classes are all a jumble, and they may stay that way all year long.
- I had a couple of GREAT classes last year, and I'm afraid my standards for awesome are completely shot. Forever.
- No strong Senior leader.
- I had some really awful students last year, and I don't want their kind again. Ever.
- Musical. Don't know what it is yet. Also, no seniors (it seems ridiculous a little, but they're REALLY important).
- One Act. Don't know what it is yet.
- Certification stuff. Should have done it this summer. Didn't. Will invariably do it on the night before it's due and have Dad proof read it. Just kidding. But seriously.
- Two more preps this year than last year. Didn't do them over the summer (in my defense, I didn't know that I had them, one of them I found out about YESTERDAY, dang it.)
- Did I mention that I don't have a strong Senior leader?

And Now, Some Random (and Silly) Thoughts...

- My cat is really adorable when you catch him using his liter box. He gives you this look as if to say, hey, I don't have a door to close, so maybe you could be nice and butt out. If you don't he just continues with his business as if to say, yeah, I know it stinks, what are you going to do about it? Anthropomorphism much?

- I say a lot of things that don't really make sense. For example, butt o'clock. No logic whatsoever.

- My knee has been hurting lately. Maybe it's because of the temperamental temperatures of central Florida. Or maybe it's because I'm always bouncing around at rehearsal. Nah...it's the temperature.

- I didn't know that temperamental had an 'a' in it until I got red-squiggly-lined by the word checker. How did that escape me?

- The difference between me and a high school student (other than vast amounts of maturity...sometimes, intellect and education) is that I checked the dictionary for the correct spelling rather than doing something ridiculous like leaving it that way and assuming the computer is stupid. Probably why I don't use words like supposably. It's supposedly, people!

- I'm convinced that my knee is conspiring with Bard the Cat and the dust mites under my bed to take over my room. I'm not sure what my knee hopes to get out of it. World domination, perhaps?

- I should play sports again. Yeah, sports. That would be fun. If only I had someone to play with... sigh.

Random (and Silly) Thoughts

And now, some random (and silly) thoughts:

-My backspace button doesn't want to work very well. I'm thinking I might have gotten something stuck under it. Either that, or my laptop is just spiteful. What for, I don't know. Anthropomorphism much? I think so!

-I hope I used anthropomorphism correctly. I'm a teacher, it seems like I should know these things.

-My kids did moderately well at Districts, for which I'm very proud of them. Now, if only I had someone to be Drama Club President next year...

-I must not dress very nicely most of the time, because when I do, everyone stops me to ask, "What's the occasion?" It might have been because I was wearing a blazer today to combat the freezing temperatures in my car this morning, and the freezing temperatures in the PAC all day. The PAC is freezing all the time, regardless of exterior temperature. On cold days, it is frequently colder in the PAC than it is outside. Probably something to do with the sun. I'm convinced that my students will one day walk in to find me frozen to my chair. That or with my tongue stuck to a light post. I'm contemplating getting a light post for just such an occasion, because that would be a pretty amazing story to tell, and I like telling stories. Also, I've always wondered what that was like.

-My drama program is pretty much broke. We need to raise money.

-My cat has taken to sleeping under my bed. I think he and the under-bed-monster are plotting with the dust mites to surreptitiously take over my bedroom. Maybe that's why he's been biting me more, he's trying to weaken my defenses. It isn't working, I'm only becoming more aware of his animosity towards me. I'm planning my own offensive against his ally, the dust mites. Unfortunately, it is being delayed by an awful mixture of busyness and laziness on my part.

These are the strange things that run through my head on a regular basis. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The Great Purge of 2008

Apologies for not posting for two thirds of the month of December. Despite not having anything to do after school officially, I still found myself there until 6 or 7 at least two nights a week. Hopefully I will learn to say 'No' very very soon, lest I become permanent fixture in the PAC and set up a cot in the prop room.

Anyway, a much needed Christmas vacation is finally upon us, and I am spending this, the first official day thereof, cleaning my room. It has been in dire need of a normal cleaning for several weeks, considering the amount of dirty clothes, random papers, and shoes scattered across the floor and my desk. However, I've also decided that this is the perfect time for a purge of things that I saved due to 'sentimental value' that no longer have any sentimental value. It's surprising how the mind/heart/teenage-girl-inside-all-of-us forgets the things that seemed so important at the time. So far I've thrown out some pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio a friend gave me out of her Bop Magazine in 7th grade (I shudder to thing that I ever wanted such a thing), an entire years worth of 'The Torch' (my alma mater's student newspaper), my acceptance letter to UCF (why did I keep that?), and financial aid information from FSU (I doubt that had any sentimental value to begin with). Along the way I've been sidetracked and succumbed to the desire to crack open my senior year book, look fondly upon my glory days, and cringe at the fact that I hadn't fixed my hair before they took my senior picture.

On another note, my New Years resolution last year was to post 75 times. It doesn't look like I'm going to make it without a concerted effort at daily self expression for the next ten days. Any suggestions on what to write about?

On Giraffes

I was wandering around on the internet, following some rabbit trail because there was nothing else to do, when I stumbled upon a photograph of giraffes. This brought to memory a conversation I had with a student concerning the theory that giraffes don't actually exist. That's right, they don't exist. This student, who will of course remain nameless, also believes the 9/11 attacks were planned and carried out by agents of the United States government, but I digress. The idea is that they were actually created by someone to fool people, for what purpose and to what end I do not know. "Why would they need such a neck," he/she asks, "and have you ever actually seen one?" "No," I say, "but I've seen pictures." "Ah, but pictures can be altered, so you've never actually seen one." "No," I say," but I know people that have seen them." "They must be in on the plot." The conversation goes on and on until I finally end it with, "Any former respect I had for your intelligence has evaporated under the hot African sun beneath which the noble giraffe roams." Okay, so I didn't say that, but wouldn't it have been funny if I did? I'm sure I said something snarky and condescending, just not quite as intellectual sounding.

The conversation reminded me of my first week of ToK in high school. Is there a dragon in the box? How do you know? From whom did you hear it? Do you trust that source? I wonder if the modern high school (or even some college) student asks themselves these questions when studying or researching. Anyway, I don't know how I got on this topic. School/work and education are not all that I think about. Really, it's not.

On a completely different note (sarcasm), I heard a joke about how teachers can't go for 24 hours without talking about their students. I'm convinced that it's true.

Simple Pleasures

Show week has finally arrived, or more accurately, leapt on me, but instead of focusing on how tired and stressed out I am, I'm sharing a list of little things that made me happy today:

My 2nd Period Drama I class.

The sound masking tape makes when I pull it off the roll really fast.

The smell of freshly cut grass.

The feeling of wind rushing across my shoulders when I stick my elbow out the window on a cool evening.

The song, "En La Muelle de San Blas" ("On the Pier of San Blas").

How my feet feel after I finally sit down after a long day.

The vibrations of the gear shift beneath my hand.

2:15 run time with a 20 minute intermission.

When my cat nuzzles my cheek with his forehead.

An Orchestra of Shapes and Colors

I wonder if anyone imagined anything like this when Vivaldi wrote "The Four Seasons" (if you're wondering, no, I didn't recognize it exactly, but I suspected Vivaldi...). I remember standing in the yard as a child conducting an imaginary orchestra of moving shapes and colors, but never anything so elaborate.



Then I thought back to Advanced Shakespeare class and our study of Falstaff. He is thought of as one of Shakespeare's funniest characters, yet when a class of 21st century college students read his words, none of us found them particularly funny. Our professor went on to explain that we don't find Falstaff all that funny because he is making fun of a life which moves quickly from one thing to another. We modern Americans didn't understand the humor because our lives move so quickly that we hardly notice the speed. They had never seen, for example, a television show that jumped instantly from scene to scene, face to face. The point is, they couldn't imagine a reality where things move quickly from one thing to another, and we now live in that very reality.

So, with that in mind, I got to wondering whether children a hundred or two hundred years ago would have imagined my orchestra of shapes and colors. I live in a world where such things are possible, at least in digital format, and the idea of objects (other than birds) flying and floating through the air has been normal for nearly a century. Perhaps my mind took what it had observed and changed it into something a little more fanciful. Could a mind that never saw an airplane, or a shuttle launch, or fireworks, or pictures of satellites drifting through space imagine that same thing? Or would it be limited by what it had observed?

September Memories

Right around the time the fireflies quit blinking for the summer and the leaves began to change into their autumn attire, the apples in the small orchard on the hill were ready for picking. Early in September, the pastor's family would come out to the farm and help us pick apples. I'd spend the morning running around the base of the apple trees picking up the fallen fruit, then climbing around the baskets in the back of Dad's little black pickup truck.

Around lunch, when the truck was full and heavy, we'd drive back to the house wedged in between bushels of apples. We'd spend all afternoon cooking apples into lovely things: apple sauce, apple butter, apple pie. Us kids would take turns turning the crank and mashing the cooked apples into the machine. By the end of the day, everyone was tired and sweaty from being in a hot kitchen all afternoon, but we had fresh apple sauce and apple pie as a consolation.

Fact: Free Time Leads to Slacking

I've known since my high school days and especially the summers of watching the same movies over and over again (Mulan one year, The Emperor's New Groove another) that I don't get anything done if I'm not really busy. In a way, I'm glad that summer is over so that I can get back to being productive. In other ways, I'm sad to see the summer go. The Olympics ended today, and although it was getting a bit tiresome going to work exhausted from staying up too late watching some event, I will miss the pageantry and the weird sports (what's with syncro diving?). But the sports void will soon be filled with college football and the regular fare, so I'm sure I won't miss it too much.

More than the demise of anything else I associate with summer, its end means the beginning of school. Although I spend most of my vacation time feeling pretty useless, it's time that I'm not stressed out. This school year, if it's anything like last year, promises stress, short nights, long work days and mistake after mistake which I will have to fix. The most stressful thing is the ever present worry that one of my mistakes might get someone hurt or get me fired. That seems ridiculous, I know. I tell myself that every time it pops into my head. But it doesn't change the periodical reminders that teachers (especially young ones without tenure) are essentially at the mercy of their students in many ways. It doesn't help that I'm supposed to be teaching my students about things which are inherently dangerous, like power tools and fly systems.

Anyway, if you're wondering why I haven't been writing, blame it on summer.

Interesting (and unrelated) observation: I've been having a hard time writing in paragraphs lately. I spend so much time around drama and dialogue that I've started thinking in it. I can bang out a conversation about something pretty quickly, but paragraphs and narration are something of a trial. I'm pretty sure it's not a good thing.

In Search of Inspiration

I find that in the slow summer months (may they last forever) that I have little about which to write. It's not that I don't want to, but a play by play commentary describing my afternoons sitting around playing Nintendo and carrying on long and intense conversations with my cat isn't particularly interesting.

Then came my trip to Border's this weekend. As Curt and I searched for the hard cover Strunk & White's, I happened upon an intriguingly small cube-shaped book. The Writer's Block emblazoned on it's binding caught my eye, and I soon found myself flipping through its worn three inch pages. This is a book that has seen some hands. Stopping on random pages, I began to see why. Page after page of prompts. Things to write about; fiction, autobiography, a story heard long ago, all of them there on a 3 x 3 page waiting for me. So I bought it (and got a discount because it was a little beat up), and I'm going to use it. Maybe I'll share some of it here. Maybe.

Hi, I'm Laura, and I'm a Pack Rat

One look at my bedroom would tell you that I'm a pack rat. I don't throw things away if they have an iota of sentimental value. So, my room looks like an 8th grade art class or a very large refrigerator door. Pictures from trips, high school memorabilia, and bits and pieces of things from college clutter my bookshelf, floor, desk and walls. There is just too much stuff. It's no wonder that I have been dragging my feet in beginning the daunting task of cleaning and redesigning my room. I don't even know what color to paint it. Some things need to go, I'm sure of that; but I don't want to take the walk down memory lane only to find out how much I've forgotten.

It will eventually have to happen, because I'm going a little bit stir-crazy with all of the clutter.

Flexing the English Muscles

I saw Miss Saigon at University High last night, where the theatre is always good. During the drive home, Dad and I talked about the function of the Engineer. Why is he the lead male role? Why would they put so much focus on this one character, who (at least in this particular production) was primarily the comic relief?

Here are some thoughts:
- In a show as heavy (depressing) as Miss Saigon, the audience needs comic relief, and quite frequently. Imagine jumping from Kim killing Thuy, to Bui-Doi, to the Fall of Saigon, to Chris finding out there's a kid, to Kim finding out there's a wife, to Kim killing herself. Imagine sitting through that one after the other without the interjection of commentary and humor by the Engineer.
- He provides a glimpse of the mindset of those in Saigon who aren't falling in love at the time. He is an exaggerated character who communicates to the audience the utter desperation of those in his situation, and the hope they have for America. I suspect the authors intended for his songs to be heard with irony, since his image of America is more dream than reality, and since he will most likely never get there anyway.
- Kim needs him. She is a passive character, allowing things to be done to her, rather than doing them for herself. In the opening scene, the Engineer discovers her and gives her a job, the other girls put her in a dress and make her up, John buys her for Chris, Chris takes her to live with him, etc., etc. Without the Engineer, Kim wouldn't get anywhere, the story wouldn't move on, and we'd be dealing with a dead Kim by the end of Act I.

I don't really like the Engineer. His music is only okay, and many of his songs feel as though they were shoved in there as buffers between all of the songs in the Kim-Chris-Ellen story. Heavy with synthesizers and generally staccato, the music clashes with the epic orchestrations of the main story.

Anyway, I'll keep thinking about it. I'm still recovering from "Arsenic and Old Lace," so my brain function isn't up to its normal capacity. If you have an opinion, chime in! I'm dying for some intelligent debate!

Eulogy for a Break

Let us all remove our hats and observe a moment of silence for the untimely demise of Spring Break. Enjoy this last moment of student-free bliss and look toward the coming weeks with tenacious resolve and perseverance, for there remain only 9 weeks until the carefree days of summer are upon us. April is the cruelest month, for it brings with it Spring Break, a small taste of the happiness to come, only to yank it rudely from our fingers and push us back into the daily grind.

So, school restarts tomorrow. Can you tell I'm not looking forward to it? Perhaps that's to do with me not quite knowing what is coming next in my classes. I have a vague idea of what to do next, but no definite, "This is what we're doing today." I'll figure it out before 9:20 tomorrow morning when the kids walk through my classroom door. In a perfect and ideal world in which I'm someone else, I would have spent the last five days planning the rest of the year and writing out my daily lesson plans to alleviate the stress of the next few weeks. Instead I spent it sleeping, reading Jane Austen, and watching movies. In my defense, we had friends in town for the first half of the week, so I consider myself excused from accomplishing anything, but Wednesday through Friday is completely my fault. I did get bits and pieces of things done for the show (compiling the massive props list and creating a build list), but other school related things were completely ignored.

At times like this, I'm reminded of my 9th grade summer reading assignment, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and wonder if paying attention to that might have helped in my life as a student and now as an adult [do you hear laughter?]. It is possible. I am, however, inclined to think that the timeless words of Dr. Stephen R. Covey would have been more beneficial had I not thought that "paradigm" was pronounced "par-a-dig-um," and indeed, believed it to mean "something beside a digm (whatever that was)," for the entire summer. In any case, the years since have brought me to believe that I'm just not a proactive person.

All of this to say, I didn't get much done. But I did read some Jane Austen.

Already?

I spent an hour or so today working on my retirement plan. Yes, you read that right, retirement. I talked to a guy on the phone about diversified portfolios, and the amount of risk I'd like to take in mine, and other things which should really only be talked about in New York high rises and commercials featuring octogenarians. In the course of this misplaced conversation, I came upon a couple of slightly frightening thoughts. One, I am at the age at which I have to start thinking about the end of my life. Two, I have another 40 years or so until I can stop working, and if that's the case, I really truly hope that my job starts getting better. Three, I've done the Rubik's Cube so many times that I hardly have to be paying attention anymore. Okay, maybe that last one is just bragging. But in any case, it was strange to think that I should even be thinking about retirement. While I do live in the old people capital of the world (Exaggerating? Maybe.), I don't feel as though I should be thinking of joining their ranks any time soon.

Anyway, all of this to say, I thought it was weird. I'm currently on spring break now, which means a lot of sitting around thinking of what I should be doing and finding reasons to put it off until tomorrow.

Post Quota for March: MET! Horray for staying on schedule!

News and Notes

I've been having one of those weeks in which I question whether or not I'm supposed to be doing this job. I won't go into details, but frankly, it has sucked. Most of my anxiety stems from my lack of professionalism and my age. I forget sometimes that I am in charge and not a teenager, and therefore can't treat my students as peers. This may sound bizarre, but it is a daily struggle to turn on the filter and not say what I'm thinking. On top of all of that, I'm really behind in grading things (there is literally a stack more than an inch and a half high of things to read, the majority of which were completed with a half-hearted effort), and I'm more busy than ever with show things.

I also found out today that I have to schedule an observation for sometime before spring break, which is just what I don't need at this moment when I feel most inadequate. Perhaps what I'm going through results from an overload of criticism (how else should I interpret, "Miss, this is boring" and "when are we actually going to do anything in this class"?) and complete lack of affirmation. My students want something from me, but I don't know what it is, and I doubt I would be able to deliver even if I did.

Anyway, now for something different. I was playing with the cat earlier and realized that my two favorite nicknames for him are rhyming couplets: fat cat and pretty kitty. Maybe that last one isn't quite right, but it sounds the same, so I go with it. That small fact makes me pretty happy. It's almost like God's little gift to people who like rhyming.

Orwell Had It Right

I was going through the archives of my blog and found this post which never quite made it to publication, so I thought I'd share it now. I don't think I ever really finished it, but here it is in it's unfinished glory.

Perhaps in the future I'll post more "Snapshots Classics."

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April 4, 2007 1:32 AM

My Modern British Literature teacher assigned us to read George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" which is somewhat about politics and very much about English. He talks about the degradation of the English language, and how people don't speak in concrete language any longer. Instead of opting for tangible imagery and simple language, we use conceptual descriptions and big Latin and Greek based words which have little meaning to the average reader. He says a lot of other things too, but I haven't actually finished reading the essay.

Whatever the case, I think he got it right. Today especially, we self-edit, or perhaps more accurately, self-censor. There is a fear of offending people that stops us from saying what we really mean. We speak in euphemisms when we say things that might offend. That is not a bad thing necessarily, but sometimes situations call for frank and honest language. The thing is, we've gotten so used to softening language that we (or maybe just I) find it hard to write concrete thoughts. I'm not used to doing it.

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I'm seeing this phenomenon more clearly as I teach, especially when the time comes to critique performances. It takes a long time to say what I want to say because I'm very careful not to say something which might offend them or hurt their feelings. Although good in certain situations, my hesitance to speak with complete honesty means the person on the receiving end misses something potentially important. Today, for example, a group got on stage and presented a scene which they had obviously not rehearsed enough (or possibly at all). I tore into them. Frankly, they deserved it, and I thought, why should I try to be delicate when they obviously didn't care enough to put any kind of effort in to begin with?

Anyway, it seems like I can never escape work. Half the point of this post was to talk about something not teaching related, yet here I am once again complaining about my students. Oh, how I anticipate the day when I'm done with this phase and I can think about something else!

Scrawl

I remember wanting to write from a young age. Before I learned my alphabet, I would sit in my room and scribble 'words' across pages, doting and crossing my imaginary 'i's and 't's in my childish approximation of cursive handwriting. Those scrawled words would have meaning for the few moments that I could remember them, and I would read my stories to the host of stuffed animals that sat attentively on my bed, the children for my personal library story time.

As I've gotten older, I still write quite a lot. Much of the time it ends up in this blog or my personal journal. I don't ever really write anything creative, which makes me sad. I guess as I have gotten older, the childhood dream has gotten muddled in everything else. Maybe that's just how life goes sometimes.

Parking Stickers

I cleaned out my car a couple of weeks ago, ridding the windshield of the parking stickers from college. I've finished that chapter in my life, and pulling the stickers off the glass was just putting a period at the end of the last sentence. Being the pack rat I am, I wanted to keep them, so I taped them into my journal. I like keeping things that mean something, have some kind of sentimental value.

For me, the represent membership in a club to which I no longer belong. Last year I lived at ADK House, I was one of the girls, I could park there with no fear of the ever roaming tow truck. That bit of my past is over and done with. If I went back and knocked on the door there is a 50% chance that the girl opening it won't recognize me.

Its the same with the FSU parking sticker. I no longer have a right or reason to be on campus. Driving down I-75 on the way back to school, I used to get this feeling of solidarity as I looked through the rear view mirror and saw the same sticker in the windshield behind me. That person and I are alike in at least this, we have that it common. I don't have that anymore. As I drove up I-75 a few days ago to visit a friend, I didn't see any of these parking passes. I wouldn't have recognized an FSU sticker even if I saw one.

In case you're wondering about the pictures, I finally got a digital camera and have been going picture crazy ever since. It's a good thing. I'm a visual person, so having a way to show you what I'm talking about is a good thing in my opinion.

I really don't want to go to work tomorrow. I had planned to get some lesson plans done over the break, but true to form, I procrastinated and haven't really done any of it. I think I know what I'm doing with them tomorrow, but beyond that I have no idea. I have some more thoughts on this, but I really should get some sleep so that I'm not unprepared and exhausted tomorrow.

Random Thoughts

Well, it's nearing the end of this year in which I resolved to post at least six times a month, and if I am to make my goal I will have to post four more after this one. Sadly, I haven't really come up with anything to talk about despite contemplating possible topics for the last week. So, I turn to you, dear reader, to give me something to talk about.

For today's edition of verbal spew, I give you Random Thoughts:

- one of my students poked me on Facebook. I find this a little weird, and am having difficulty deciding what to do in this situation. Shall I poke back, or shall I leave it at this?
- We've finally decided on the spring musical, Once on This Island, composed by the same people that did Ragtime. I dig it.
- There was a cat stuck in the PAC. It was very cute, but I'm glad we got it out, because dead rotting cat corpse is not my favorite odor.
- My students don't like working...ever.

Well, I think I'm done for now. Post suggested topics in the comments.