I wrote for six hours today,

but none of it was fun, but I finally feel almost confident about entry 1 of my national boards. I hate them, they are hell, however this picture, taken January 2nd in the Columbia Gourge is, at least pretty, and all I can muster up right now. I do have the idea for the next actual post, if I ever get around to it.

Posts: 6 of 319
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a pleasant observation

The days are getting noticably longer and there have been three dry mostly sunny days in a row, which is good because an hour outside walking along the river is the only thing keeping me sane this week. That's all for today. (Yes, it counts too.)

Posts: 5 of 319
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new student

I realized sometime last year that I had been teaching a long time (Not like decades long, I teach with a woman who has been teaching for 36 years, that's 6 years longer than I've been alive. I find that CRAZY, and can't imagine doing this job for that long, I can't imagine having that sort of endurance. She's even still a good teacher. She drives me bat-shit-crazy, but I don't fault her intentions or abilities... but I digress).

Six and a half years is a long time right? It feels like it, I glance at kids out of the corner of my eye and see a student I'm sure I know. On second glance, not only am I looking intently at a complete stranger, but the student I'm sure I recognize was actually in my class as a seventh grader four years ago, 2,500 miles away. I called a student by the wrong name for almost a month this year because she looked like someone I had five years ago. It is more than a little unnerving.

On the upside, teaching special education for a few years allows me to recognize patterns, and more often than not my intuition about students proves correct. For example, I have a tiny study hall/study skills class, about six or seven kids. One wandered in yesterday with a new schedule. Now, a new kid half way through the senior year is a bit strange for me, I'm the only teacher working with the special ed seniors and so I know all names and most faces. This one I'd never seen before, he claimed he had been at the school almost a year and was a senior. This was curious, and I knew nothing about him.

Then, as I listened to his inconsistent and slightly unnatural speech patterns, watched his insistence on sitting as close to the front as possible, and saw him evaluating the continual (they both even had a thing for Swedish death metal) hatter and affectionate banter of his classmates, it occurred to me, I did know this kid. His diagnostic doppelganger was a student of mine three years ago and though not every kid on the autism spectrum is alike, there are some distinctive markers. This friendly, slightly troll looking kid, hit almost all of them within thirty minutes of class.

I checked with our department head today, and yep, I'm right. Special ed teachers can sense their own, It's like gay-dar, but with special ed kids. See, I do have some sort of talent. Go me!

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pretty picture post

Since I spent the evening at a "shitty basketball game"... the coach's words not mine, although even I know it wasn't pretty, I didn't have time to write, but this still counts as a post. Because I say so and I get to make the rules, it's my silly blog, so there.

I took this picture outside of the Portland Art Meseum in early November. It was the outside instillation of the China Design Now exhibit. Which was a super fun combination of graphic art, architecture, fashion and design elements.

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Skipped Days: 0

all sorts of productive

Fueled by the ambitious goal setting of yesterday morning, or perhaps the near sixty-degree January temperatures, I was all sorts of productive yesterday.

Here is what I accomplished yesterday:

1. Mundane things, dishes, dog, laundry as well as…

2. Painted some more of the study…. Now an observant reader or anyone who has been to or seen pictures of my house might question this. It is done, that fabulous pink I love so much right? Alas no, all but one wall has been painted since early summer, but there had previously been a set of attached bookshelves that had dissuaded me from finishing. I convinced my parents to move this shelf on their most recent trip up here and it freed up the wall (ugly blue, not pink black or white), it also gave a much more user-friendly space. So, yesterday I put two coats of black and white, leaving room for an approximately 12 –inch stripe of pink and the room will be done. (ugh, except the baseboards…all through the house).

3. Pulled up decaying tomato and pepper plants from the garden.

4. Cut back a bunch of dried out perennials. I’m not sure if this is what you’re supposed to do, but hopefully springtime will find new growth in those same spots. Or are you supposed to just let them wither away?

5. Did a cursory check and removal of invasive bad guys black berry and English ivy growing along the fence line.

6. I pruned a few trees whose limbs were infringing upon the personal space of the power lines in front of my house.

7. I cleaned the gutters at the front of the house.

A note about 6 & 7: over the summer I purchased a 10 foot ladder, and while it is incredibly handy to do things like prune trees and clean gutters, the thing is a beast, and heavy enough that it’s hard to manipulate. Pair that with the approximately 18 inches of space between the monster rhododendron bushes and my house and it was more than a little difficult to get to the gutters to clean them out. At the point when I had the ladder stuck, upside down and was swearing and yanking at it, (all the time watching the power lines over my head and wondering what would happen if I were to accidentally hit them with this 10 foot metal behemoth) the mail woman drove by. She smiled sweetly and said, “it looks like you have a project on your hands.”

Oh yes, I felt like a competent homeowner at that moment.

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Existential crisis, crisis of faith and Rolling Stone

Of late, my attitude has been awful. Really, really bad. Spiraling inward, my frustration and anger have been paralyzing. So, I decided, I’m over it. The issues that were bothering me have not gone away. They’re still here, but I’m tired of letting the anger have any power. One of my core beliefs is that happiness is a choice, the world has power and influence, but we have the ability to choose.

So, I am currently on day three of my self-prescribed attitude adjustment and as I drank coffee and read O Magazine (more on that in a second) I realized that I haven’t written anything in months.

Not just in this particular vehicle, but anything at all. Writing centers me. It is also crucial to my own definition of self (if you surf you are a surfer right, the same is true of writing). As I think about it, I realize that I can judge my own level of contentment by how prolific my own writing is (quality is not part of this particular gauge), it is not surprising that I posted as often as I did over the summer. Not only did I have more time, but I actually felt like writing. I actually felt like creating and felt like examining the world.

An interesting experiment would be to see if by making myself write, I could maintain a more positive attitude. Writing could be the tool…(on a metacognitive note, this is interesting to me because this is not the post I sat down to write, didn’t consider this until I put myself in front of the computer.) So, over the summer I wanted to post every day. I did much better when I was alone, my parents came and it got harder, mostly because I allowed myself to be annoyed by them. As I just said, when I’m annoyed, I don’t write. But, I’ve also been thinking about the idea of will power, in terms of weight loss, but what about will power in terms of self-improvement. I’ve also been thinking about resolutions and goals for this upcoming year. (I always write some down just to be able to see them and help me keep things in perspective). I have not done this yet.

So, here’s what I’ve come up with, (honestly, sitting here in the last 20 minutes) this year, I will focus on writing, as a tool. Some of it I will post here although I know not all of it will be fit for public consumption. But, let’s put some numbers on this. I would like to see if I can write everyday. I’d like to see if I can post almost as often. It is January 23. There are 342 days left this year. But, I know I will not/cannot post on everyone of them. So, I will give myself 23 skip days, meaning I am going to attempt to post 319 times between now and the end of the year. Notice, I’m counting number of posts, not days. Let’s be realistic, it’s one of the hallmarks of good goal setting.

I know this is not an original goal, but at this moment it feels good.

So, here goes:
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Oh, and I’m going to have to save my Rolling Stone rant. But, it seems I’ll have plenty of time to get it done.

Juxtapose: Good manners and tits

(Note:I wrote this post on Nov. 8th and forgot to actually publish it. Someone pointed out to me that I was slacking, so I figured I'd finish it, then post it.)

So, because of a string of random happenings I ended up at a strip club last night. I don't really like strip clubs, I've been maybe two other times. I even have a general rule about strip clubs (necessary in a place like Portland where they are more common than starbucks, no kidding). My general rule is I don't go, because in order to go to a strip club you have to be drunk,I can't get drunk enough to go to strip clubs because then I wouldn't be able to drive myself home, a convenient and honest excuse NOT TO GO TO STRIP CLUBS. Last night it didn't work. I went sober.

It wasn't fun, I ended up having to hang out alone (awkward AND irritating), but that's not what this post is about. It's about manners. As we got there I was re-introduced to two friends of a friend. They are both laid back, Asian girls and I get the impression they do a lot of drugs. But, they are both socially acceptable, they follow the normative behavior of the culture. The societal expectation that fit the re-introduction is the prescribed greeting, "It's nice to see you again." Follow that with a handshake or quick hug. Manners after all, are what allow us to know how to interact with one another and this is important. However, in the exchange of pleasantries, as we shook hands and said the correct phrases a naked chick was sliding up and down a pole approximately eight feet away. All her assets in full view, performing for the room, an obvious deviation from socially acceptable.

Strange.

Understand, I do get that the whole idea of a strip club is a bit outside the norm. Or at least is dubbed a socially acceptable way to indulge in a little voyeurism, but the polite interactions, in such a seedy setting was more than a little ironic and for me was the high point of the night.