Cultivating Wonder

New Beginnings

In Honor of Kaylee James Arbaugh  Born December 29th 2005, 8lbs 1oz, 20"

Two of my favorite people in the world Kristine and Matt Arbaugh (Kris - I will always think of you as a Rasmussen but can you blame me?) had a little baby girl this last Thursday.  I got to hold her today for the first time.  I had forgotten how enchanting a newborn baby is, truly a miracle.  I could have happily watched that scrunched up little gremlin face for hours.  Perhaps that is the scientist in me, or perhaps its just me loving the world.  Here is my favorite poem about baby girls.

Master Works of Ming

Ming, Ming,
such a lovely
thing blue
and white

bowls and
basins glow
in museum
light

they would
be lovely
filled with
rice or water

so nice
adjunct
to dinner

or washing
a daughter

a small
daughter,
of course
since it's
a small basin

first you
would put
one then

the other
end in

-- Kay Ryan

I survived!

Today is the first day of the dawn of a new trimester at Waluga.

I now teach three different sujects instead of five, although, I now have four new class periods worth of names to learn.  I can tell already that my classes are going to be very different than last trimester.  My morning health class will be charmed, my other two will be a definate handful (I now have one class of 35 students ack!).  My Robotics class this time around is tiny with only ten students and alas only one lonely girl.  Hopefully it will work out for her though.  My science classes and I are trying something new but it takes planning and such that to this point hasn't been a priority.

All #@!$% Up...

This week...  Do you ever have the feeling you are a just not cut out for this whole life business?  That maybe your a little too paranoid or something?

I'm walking around the house trying to figure out if my cat has pooped recently.  How weird is that?  See... I found a new home for my older cat Kiz this week.  He went away to a nice 80 acre farm near La Center, WA to live with the horses, dogs, and eleven other kitties.  Since he was peeing on most everything this was the best thing in the world for him... but its left me feeling all... unbalanced all weekend.  Since Kiz found a new home I took Jack (my older cat and dearest friend) to the beach with my Mom, Dad, brother and two dogs and another cat that he frankly isn't used to.  And now I'm all paranoid.  He hasn't eaten all of his dinner tonight (which is wierd) but he has eaten some of it.  He hasn't used the litterbox since we got home (at 3 pm) which is odd too (but maybe not that odd since he sleeps through the night all the time without needing to potty)... and I found some gnawed on string the other week (I think it was almost two weeks ago) and once in his life he had to have surgery to remove 26 inches of green organza ribbon from his intestines.  He has been sleeping a lot since I got home... and maybe he is depressed because Kiz isn't around anymore, or maybe he just likes to sleep, or maybe the experience of going to the beach and the three hour car ride today was exhausting but maybe he's sick and maybe he has to have another surgery which costs lots and lots of money and I haven't even paid all my bills and maybe he is just fine and I'm being paranoid.  And I though I felt something unnaturally lumpy in his belly (but maybe he should just go take a poop!) Ack!

Jack is my best friend.  I got him when my college sweetheart and I chose to part ways (that was six years ago) and he has brought me through every heartbreak since.  He's the only one that gives me a hug when I'm feeling like I just can't take it anymore... and he loves me all the time no matter what.  I just don't know what I would do if anything bad happened to him.  I hope I'm paranoid and just succumbing to PMS symptoms, and not picking up wierd vibes that are real.  I could just use a little calm in my life for once...

110:50

I was talking today to one of my fellow teachers and she expressed her saying that she puts 110% of herself into about 50% of doing well at her life.

Some examples from my life:  Yesterday I woke up, practiced some fiddle (on my brand new baby), got dressed,  went and got a cup of tea and graded health packets, walked around Sellwood looking at art, had a cuddle with my cat, cooked lunch, went to church, had dinner with my parents, graded papers and watched masterpiece theatre.  All good for the weekend mind... but I only got about 5 hours of sleep last night.  And then the negatives.  I didn't take a shower more than twice last week (it's not that gross,  I washed the important stuff).  My house is still yet very unpacked, and I didn't wash the things my cat peed on last week.

Today I got up at 5:15, showered (to make up for the negatives of the weekend), made breakfast, tossed lunch in a basket, went to school... made a new (with many mistakes) seating chart for 7th grade health and entered grades.  I went through my day (it was a disorganized mess), and stayed after school until 6:30 catching up on grading.  But I'm not ready for tomorrow... I have no idea what I am going to teach and how I'm going to teach it.  It is currently 9:47 and I'm thinking of going to bed.  So, better on the sleep, still no housework done.

Its tough being just one person, or even a community of people getting things done effectively in a timely matter.  I can't even begin to count the things I should  be doing (like, paying bills, vacuuming hairballs, writing my grandmother) and I've come to realize that it is impossible to do it all.  Perhaps a good night of sleep is more important than I think.

Insights

A quote I ran across today:

"Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end.  Life is about not know, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next.  Delicious ambiguity.

- Gilda Radner, Actor 1946-1989

Pines

This posting stuff is addicting, I'd forgotten how much I love to write and journal.  Of course, then I also learn all kinds of new things about myself, or remember things I've already know.  This piece of writing is a couple of years old, but likely my favorite piece of poetry I have written.  Just thought I'd put it out there, enjoy it (but don't plaigerize it!)

Pines

The lodgepole pine
nestled in the dark humus
of the fire born earth
grows straight and true.
The goldmine of pioneers
staking out a presence
with fences, and barns
and little houses all snug.

That same seed laid open
on the edge of where
firm shore meets
rolling sea grows too
in wild undulations and
strange discontinuities.
Twisted by salt earth
and long nights of
unending buffeting
by one great tempest
after another.
It cannot deny its destiny
or the Sun, its greatest lover
who blessed it into being.
It's hard, yes, stunted
and sculpted into something
unexpected.  I wonder
when  sap runs under
its hardened skin what
things it remembers and
if it believes it is
any less true.

-- Jessie Bader

A down and an up...

Sometimes I really question my sanity.  I mean really!  I left a high paying job for this?  I was completely miserable in the high-paying job, but this... this is completely exhausting.

I am teaching symbiosis in my science class this week.  So we are learning about three kinds: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.  I grabbed a handful of kids to read tiny skits today describing a school situation and had them identify the type of symbiosis that matched with the description of the relationship.  This went great in my 5th period science class.  It was a bit disorganized, but that is just par for the course.

In my 6th period class I selected three girls and three boys to participate.  I handed out the cards quietly before the bell rang.  One student of mine made a fuss that they did not get picked and I said that I just picked randomly (in reality, I was attempting to engage students that do not ask a lot of questions and thus don't speak in front of class much, but I said it was random).  Upon completing the first skit the student began whining again and then started the entire class in chanting "Teacher's pet, teacher's pet, teacher's pet".  I don't know if I have ever felt so terrible in my life.  I'm here because I want to be in the lives of young people, but I never understood how cruel they can be for selfish reasons.   Not only did that person start it the rest of them participated.  I told them how disrespectful and horrible I felt, but I don't know if they care.  The student proceeded to tear the assignment we were working on into tiny little pieces and scatter them over the floor and then was off task and rebellious the rest of the period.  I sent a message home, but I'm so incredibly green and inherently a sweet person that I just... I fall flat on my face so many times a week assuming that these kids inside are really nice kids.

So, I've been down this week.  My ability to bounce back has been almost nonexistent.  I've been battling dragons, both in the room and in myself.

To leave it on a positive(ish) note:  I have one student that has been really struggling to get their work done all trimester.  A dear soul, but a troubled one.  Between the parents and myself I finally managed to get this young one back on the right track.   After an entire trimester with an F in the class they dragged their grade up to a B-.  One of the make-up assignments (for a lost science journal) was a great paper on the movie Apollo 13 and how it tied to the scientific method that was beautiful in the depth of understanding and contextualizing.  Yesterday I entered grades, and then snuck the student's grade report into their math class, and turned around to watch a silent gleeful cheer of: "YES!".  It felt so good to bring someone so down up again.  Of course, that person has now lost their second science journal and is still off in la-la land most of the period, but for one moment I felt like I really could make a difference.

Why Teach?

Again, no posting for a long long time... That is the life of a new teacher.  The good news is that I'm only eleven class days away from my first trimester of teaching.  This means many things, primarily that I change to teaching three different curriculums in a day instead of five, and two of them I will have taught before.  It amazes me that I have made it this far, there have only been a few meltdowns of varying intensity... but I'm almost there.

Tonight I went and attended a new teacher support evening at my alma-mater Lewis and Clark.  The question posed for the evening was "What do you do to support yourself in teaching?" 

Burnout.

Its the scariest thing I can think of at this point.  I desperately don't want to lost my love of teaching because for the first time in my life my work feels like home in my heart.  This is it. I've found my calling, my vocation, the thing that sustains me and my passion to learn and grow.  I love it.

But...

There are some serious drawbacks.  I have practically no social life other than seeing my family and three or four good friends.  I haven't exercised regulary for near as long, my bicycle sits in the basement, my yoga mat in the closet, relatively untouched unless I am so wound up in knots that I'm in tears.  I eat mostly out of the frozen food department.  My cats immediately climb into my lap the moment I get home because to be honest, I'm never here.  And when I am here its to spend my evening (on top of my 10 hour day at school) grading papers or planning lessons.  I have a new wonderful little home that is still mostly in boxes.  I haven't dated in more than a year and the likelihood of me meeting someone that can put up with me and my busy life is very slim mostly because I rarely see anyone.  I struggle each day with the feeling that this may constitute my life; school, more school, grading, my little house and my cats forever.  Even seeing my folks happens once a week which is the only mildly intimate adult relationship I have.

So why?  Why even bother with teaching, it is insane to want to be a teacher.

As I see it we are currently living in an insane time, in an insane world.  Perhaps the world is simply insane no matter the time or place.  In many ways I chose a career in teaching simply because it is hard.  I once sat in a room and listened to a Native American elder speak.  I don't remember his exact words but I do remember the message he conveyed.  He said "Life is hard, it always has been hard and it will always be hard.  The thing that we should be working toward is not making life easier but making it better.  Is the quality of life actually improving?  Am I making any significant difference for the future?  In an insane world am I helping to keep everyone from going mad?  Am I bringing in a little more care, love, thoughtfulness?

Every day I push my overburdened no-longer-an-overhead cart down the hall between 3rd and 4th period through masses of teenagers, piles of books, and slamming lockers yelling "Excuse ME!  Out of the way please!" and every day somewhere in front of the boys and girls restrooms I see one of those things that keeps me going.  Its really just a small nothing, but its where the heart is.  One of my tiny, geeky girls gets a quick fly-by hug from one of her guy friends.  They never really say anything, they just seek each other out amongst all the moving, yelling, hurried bodies and give each other a squeeze, and they both smile just a little as they part.

I come from a career where I spent all of my time in a little gray cubicle in a windowless room where I didn't see any of the people I worked with.  I even got to telecommute for nine months out of my cute little apartment.  It was a place of constantcy, but no love.

I teach because I love, and loving isn't easy.  It is better.

The Last Quiet Afternoon

Well here goes nothing.  I spent my afternoon today doing last minute things to clean up and set up my classroom (developing a web page, putting up posters, fiddling with the laminator, deciphering code, lesson planning) and now its just a few hours until showtime.  I can't say that everything is done... I have no seating charts for the first day.  I have tons of copies to make for day two.  I'm out of synergy with some of my other teachers (are they making copies for me?).  I forgot to print out new class lists... but luckily the students don't arrive until after 8 in the morning.

So from 7 until 7:30 I get to really tie things up, and hope that it all goes well, or at least that I don't totally fall flat on my face.  Right now there are just long clean dark halls.  Tomorrow they will be booming with kids, skateboards, screeching girls, baggy shorts, shaggy hair, lip gloss, and short skirts.  One last moment of solace and then it all starts.

I'm excited and nervous all at the same time.  Soon those small names on a piece of paper become people, all with their own unique faces, personalities, joys, problems... and I get to be in every one of their lives.  Tomorrow.

Thursday, June 16th

Well now, its been a long long time since I bothered to post anything here, which I find interesting and perplexing.  Lots has happened since Thursday June 16th (which I believe was the last day of school for my students), and yet nothing.  I've thought about putting lots of things here, inane commentary about my everyday life, and yet I haven't.  So its time.

Today is Sunday September 4th, which presents a totally different perspective than that of staring down a summer of classes and travel and possibility.  Where to start is always the question in circumstances such as these.

Well lets see... The flow of my summer has been as follows:

After my students left for the summer (goodbye guys!  I hope that high school will treat all of you well) I then went back to class for another 6 weeks of "Experience and Meaning" which turned out to be a great class not because of the curriculum (it was rather boring and useless)  but because my teacher Mika Yeigh really listened to her students and made it what we wanted.

As the summer moseyed along its sweet days I was also sending off tons of resumes, cover letters, copies of my transcripts to many a school district.  The last two weeks of class I got an interview, a second interview, and a job offer in the Lake Oswego School District (more on that later).

Immediately after finishing classes I then departed for Costa Rica with Dr. Kip Ault and many other nerdy folks to complete my last two credits of my degree.    It was a spectacular trip and the people, the scenery, the volcanoes, the wildlife was amazing.  I loved it there and can't wait to go back.  More on that in another post perhaps.

After returning home I mostly collapsed in a little heap for a short while, but life does go on.  I then started hunting up a new abode being as my present living quarters are both small and... well I'm just darned tired of them.  So I made an offer on a little house in Sellwood (its tiny, I'm SOOO excited) that closes on the 15th of September.

And now its time to go back to school!  Waluga Jr. High in Lake Oswego has me running quite the gauntlet this first trimester of teaching I will ever do for real (I mean, student teaching was real, but it wasn't like this!).  I will be teaching a 6 period day in which I teach one period each of 7th grade health, 8th grade health, robotics, web design and two periods of 7th grade science!  And the hormonal young souls will be in my classroom in less than 48 hours.

Meanwhile my apartment looks like a pile of boxes because I'm preparing to move in just two weeks and tried my best to get most things packed before the students really eat up all of my mental faculties and energy.  So thats the outline!