tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32737202613658652322024-02-18T22:18:37.679-08:00The Teacher McMillan McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-1620538124455296092021-06-18T19:53:00.001-07:002021-06-18T19:55:09.506-07:00Reflections on the 2019-2021 School Year<p> Sitting at their kitchen table today after our lovely department retirement breakfast, my mom asked me, <i>"Do you think when you've reached the end of the year that you finally retire that you'll look back on this school year as the hardest one of your career?</i>" </p><p>And I really had to think about that for a bit. </p><p>Because my gut instinct said "No," but I wasn't sure why. </p><p>It has been a hard year. A really hard year, though perhaps in some ways maybe not quite as hard for me as for others at least in terms of the technological learning curve. And I clearly thrive in isolation for the most part. The aspects that others struggled with didn't get to me as much or as often. (It's also entirely possible that my personal life going to shit just four weeks into the school year made the school part seem less hard because it was all I had to think about...) </p><p>I absolutely do not want this to be misconstrued by anyone thinking that I am speaking on behalf of teachers everywhere to somehow downplay the challenges of the last year. They've been monumental, and for a lot of teachers, it's been the thing that propelled them out of the classroom. Redesigning all your curriculum for online learning was no small feat; not knowing your kids well enough to know how to help or motivate them when they're a little black screen was intensely frustrating; not always having the technological knowledge to pivot or adapt or problem solve when something goes sideways makes everything orders of magnitude harder. All of this is true, and this year was spectacularly hard for so, so many reasons. (Then add the complexities of school districts making all kinds of weird and frustrating decisions, plus the grumpy parent community at odds with everyone else ... it's been *a lot*.) </p><p>So I sat there reflecting on why my instinct was to say no. </p><p>And I realized: I am much, much less tired this year than I was at the end of the 2009-2010 school year. </p><p>The year that started with a student death days before school started. The year we lost Veronica Aguirre in a car accident right before Winter Break. And the year Chelsea King disappeared on a run and was found days later, raped and murdered by a monster. </p><p>We spent that entire school year swimming -- and eventually drowning -- in grief. It started in grief and ended in grief and the fact any of us accomplished anything that year is still an absolute testament to the resilience and persistence of both teenagers and teachers. </p><p>There's no teacher preparation course called "Grief 101" or "Dealing With Campus Trauma." No one knows how to do this; we're not trained in grief counseling -- or any counseling, for that matter -- and when you have three consecutive traumas in a single ten month span, it's a grueling dance without any choreography. I can barely describe what it's like to have a room full of 16 and 17 year olds look at you with terrified, traumatized, grief-filled eyes and wanting -- needing -- you to say The Thing that's going to make it better. That's going to alleviate their fears that what happened to those students could happen to them; that's going to help them make sense of a senseless act of violence; that's going to explain the utterly unexplainable. It's absolutely, astoundingly, absurdly fucking awful. And yet teachers all over America, when these traumas happen, do it. We stand in front of our students, meeting their eyes with ours, and try our best to figure out what to say. Sometimes we say the right thing. Sometimes we say the wrong thing. We don't know. All I know is that my only answer is to tell the truth: "I don't know what to say or how to do this, so be patient with me, but I'm going to do my best to get us all through this." </p><p>And that year, we all had to do that a lot. Too much. All the time. After Chelsea disappeared, we did it straight for weeks. Not days. Weeks. And it took every single atom in my body to keep doing it, to keep showing up for kids, to keep trying to keep myself together so that the kids could fall apart if they needed. We watched stupid movies and I trooped them out to the space in front of the Performing Arts Center just to sit together and process their grief and their fear. We packed the football stadium for her memorial, sobbed through Noah and the Whale and Owl City songs, and tried to love on our kids as much as we possibly could. And graduation was both an exciting and excruciating capstone to the whole year. </p><p>Then I went home and laid on my couch in pajamas for two weeks. And I am not exaggerating for effect here. I wore pajama pants and a hand-me-down flannel shirt and every day moved from being horizontal in my bed to being horizontal on the couch, letting the sound of the television waft over me for two entire weeks before I started to feel even remotely human again. I finally had the time and the space to process my own grief, to try to refill my own cup that was so empty I could barely feed myself. It was exhaustion on a cellular level because of the emotional labor it required to help 150+ students every day keep on going, and to somehow keep learning, too. (Because if we've learned anything these most recent two school years, CollegeBoard stops for nothing...)</p><p>And here's the thing I realized as I was explaining this to my parents. At least with the pandemic, everyone in the United States -- hell, everyone in the world -- has experienced this in real time, all together. Sure, different places had different responses, and not everyone's experience has been exactly the same, but there's a commonality across the country that enables educators to nod to each other in solidarity and understand that we all understand. That we're all dealing with new technology and with a lack of connection to each other and our students and with the fear that comes along with a super scary virus that might kill someone's grandparent or parent or teacher or other loved one at any moment. But we have all, in one way or another, experienced these hallmarks of the pandemic, so there's a common language and a common empathy around it. I hadn't realized until today how much that's actually helped. How much memes on Instagram and Teacher TikTok has made it feel less hard by making it feel more communal. </p><p>But when it's just your campus -- and this is also what I imagine it's like for teachers who have worked at schools with similar nationally newsworthy events on their campuses -- it's isolating as hell, and isolating in a way that's not the same as having to stay home. No one can really ever know what it's like until it happens, and though of course other teachers offer support and sympathy, it doesn't really help. It's nice, but it doesn't undo the damage done, and it doesn't make it any less challenging to walk into the classroom the day after a devastating tragedy has happened to just your campus community. Life goes on around you, in your grocery store, or in your gym, or in Starbucks, where people are happy and laughing and enjoying themselves and a tidal wave of grief and loneliness will wash over you to the point where you want to scream, "Will you all stop being happy? Don't you understand the the world is a terrible place where terrible things happen but I can't let anyone know that's bothering me because I have to stay strong?! Just stop smiling, for the love of god!" At least that's how it felt for me. I'd have to constantly remind myself "They don't know" when I'd be out running an errand or something and it felt like people were being too happy in my immediate vicinity. It sounds silly, I know, but grief is just really, really weird, and it pops up in unexpected ways, at unexpected times, and suddenly you're the person crying in the cereal aisle because someone around you made it clear they have no idea what you're going through. And why would they? (And when do we ever know what strangers are going through?) </p><p>While this year has been grueling in its own way, and I'm really glad that it's finally (almost) over (... teacher check out day on a Monday? ::shakes fist towards the sky::), here at the end, I'm just ready to go back to loving my computer for the video games it allows me to play and to not think about grading for awhile. To sleep without waking up to an alarm at 5:00 am. To read a book or six. To leave the house and get some sunshine. I'm an almost-normal amount of end-of-the-year tired; there's just some extra bonus tired that comes with how weird and unnatural pandemic teaching has been. </p><p>But when I truly sit and reflect on this year, I think I already maybe had the hardest year of my career, and it maybe wasn't this one. </p>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-43617269142673780422021-02-20T23:34:00.001-08:002021-10-30T22:18:18.684-07:00Impatiently Patient<p> Impatience.</p><p>That's what it is. </p><p>Impatience. </p><p>That's the sense, the feeling, that crept into my brain tonight after I finally fed myself dinner at 9:00 pm and tried to quiet the mind that was becoming increasingly unquiet as the night stretched towards bedtime. </p><p>There are so many things to be impatient about right now. </p><p>Firstly, there's the Incredibly Obvious Thing: the pandemic. I'm impatient for normalcy, as so, so many of us are, though normalcy as we picture it is still potentially a long, long way off, and it's hard to confront that each day this situation marches forward. </p><p>I'm lucky in the sense that I have a disposition well-suited for quiet and solitude, but I'm also sensitive and empathetic to the struggles of those around me, and they accumulate on my psyche as someone who generally looks for solutions and wants to rush to help. But I know these solutions aren't solutions. Not really. They're only polite suggestions that we all know are meaningless, and do nothing to actually fix the problem. And the real problem of the pandemic is so staggeringly immense in magnitude that it exhausts and enrages me. </p><p>But secondly, there are the less obvious but no less trivial things that make me impatient. </p><p>To be honest, I'm impatient for my life to start over, and not just in the sense of the After Times of Covid. </p><p>I'm impatient as I hope for things I probably have no right and no cause to hope for, impatient for answers to questions I'm too afraid to ask. I think about Prufrock in this moment, and I think of one of the lines that has always resonated so deeply with me, but particularly right now, about his fear of forcing the moment to its crisis. And in short, as Prufrock says, I am afraid. Afraid that in taking a leap, a risk, I find out it's for nothing; find rejection instead. And so, again like Prufrock, I am paralyzed into indecision and introspection. </p><p>Lately, I retreat into the comforts of the secret favorite entertainment that brings me both joy and shame (but shame only in the sense that I truly enjoy some absolute garbage that people would a thousand percent judge me for listening to on repeat several times a day). But I do because, well, I'm alone. A lot. Days and days at a time, I am the only warm three-dimensional human in my orbit, and so I listen to, or watch, the embarrassing things because they provide a genuinely nostalgic sense of happiness. When things were simpler, and when daydreaming didn't seem quite as pathetic. I listen to early 90s slow dance songs and feel that same ache of longing that has characterized so much of my life of not-quite-requited love. I reread snippets of books I've loved for decades because they are familiar and their endings predictable. I watch the movies we favored as teenagers because they were sappy and lovesick, and wonder as I did when I was 15 whether any of that kind of love is real or possible. </p><p>And then of course, I find myself thinking in the dark after a day spent alone, "Maybe?" And then I vaguely imagine scenarios I have no reason to imagine. Stupid, pathetic, love-starved scenarios that, again, I perhaps have no real reason to hope for; surprises and grand gestures and off-the-feet sweeping has never and may never exist in my world, and I've spent the last five months sitting with that, trying to be okay with that. Yet these scenarios, however fleetingly they last on my almost-always-otherwise-occupied brain, buoy a sense of optimism that feels ... real? Somehow improbably real, real in the sense that maybe I'm wrong, or at the very least maybe I am allowed to hope for what I hope for. </p><p>That new possibilities exist and I just have to be... </p><p>patient. </p><p>We're back to patience, a virtue wearing thin on me in the solitude of a Saturday night. Oddly, I spent the vast majority of my day today plugged into the hustle and chatter of a 12 hour Zoom call and yet after a day spent (virtually) surrounded by people, I feel a keen sense of loneliness tonight, a loneliness that crept in only after I stepped away from my computer and my office and fed myself and took a deep breath and looked around my living room. </p><p>And that's when the sense of impatience overwhelmed me, but realizing that I could point to the feeling and name it felt good; it felt powerful to accurately label the disquiet I feel tonight. </p><p>So perhaps you, too, dear Reader, have been wrestling with an unnameable, abstract emotion, not as strong as fear or anger, but not as uplifting as hope or happiness. I don't feel mad, or sad, but in this moment, I also don't feel happy or optimistic. </p><p>Tonight, it's simply impatience.</p>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-91067185914212424182020-04-19T21:50:00.000-07:002020-04-19T21:50:14.852-07:00A Brief Interruption from Quarantine Life to Talk About... Games!It's been funny to see how many former students have reached out to tell me they think it's funny/awesome/weird/rad/awkward that I play video games. I've been playing video games since my dad brought home an original NES when I was maybe five. Of course, I think Kyle played a LOT more than I did, but I can certainly hold my own at MOST games. Unless it's a first person shooter a la Goldeneye. These I suck at. But give me a car racing game or a puzzle game (TETRISSSS) and I'm golden.<br />
<br />
Once upon a time, in Lillehammer, Norway, we home stayed with a lovely Norwegian family who had a young son, maybe 12 at the time, and they had an NES. At one point, four of us girls were installed in their downstairs family room to hang out and we were offered their NES to play with. At some point, I had made it to World 8 of Super Mario Bros. and the son was watching me play. He was shy and was kind of scared of us (mostly because his mom kept pushing him to practice his English with us, and I understood why he didn't want to) but it was clear he wanted to say something. Eventually, he was able to tell me that he'd never beaten the game because he couldn't get past a certain part of the next level. I said "Oh! I can teach you!" and I showed him. He was SO excited and it was the most animated and excited he was the entire time there were weird American girls in his house.<br />
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Granted, I grew up having to play Luigi to Kyle's Mario, and Kyle is a vastly more gifted gamer than I am. Though beating the main quest line in Breath of the Wild before him is among one of my greatest personal accomplishments of my entire life. And Mario Kart is probably the only game where he and I are approximately evenly matched. Read: this is the only game I think I've ever beaten him at. When we lived together, I spent more time just watching him play Twilight Princess on the Wii and attempting to hold my own with him in Guitar Hero. But that jackass is good at every video game you hand him, so, I've come to terms with being not as good.<br />
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But I do love them, and I love all kinds of them. And here are some of my favorites:<br />
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<b>Paperboy</b><br />
I don't know why, but the simplicity of this game tickles me. It's surprisingly harder than it looks on the screen, and I think I've made it all the way through the week only a handful of times.<br />
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<b>Tetris</b><br />
This is a Forever Favorite of mine, and it makes me sad that in no iterations of the new NES models (the virtual one on the Switch, the NES mini we have) have the original Tetris that we played for hours and hours as kids. Jack has an emulator version that's reasonably decent, and I have the Tetris 99 game on the Switch, but it's not the same. (And that damn Switch game is stressful af!)<br />
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<b>Frogger</b><br />
I LOVE Frogger. It looks so simple, but that is a deceptive little game. It requires patience and a steady hand. In February, when we were in Vegas and spent the day at the Pinball Museum (... side note: February feels like a hundred years ago now...), I spent a TON of time on the Frogger machine. The first time we were there (... yes, there were multiple visits...), I ended up setting all five of the high scores on the machine. I enjoy the sound effects and the little musical ditty at the beginning of the game -- it's so nostalgic to me because Frogger is one of the games we have for the Atari and I've been playing it as long as I can remember -- even longer than the NES, because that Atari was first (but when I was a kid, it belonged to my Uncle Terry, who would set it up on the tv in my grandma's bedroom for the grandkids to play).<br />
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<b>The Sims. All of them except Sims 3, I guess?</b><br />
I was an INSTANT Sims fan. Instant. From the first moment I installed the bootlegged copy of it onto my first Dell computer my freshman year of college, I was hooked. HOOKED. There was a period of time that semester where Jess and I would be playing on our computers simultaneously and yelling at them to stop peeing on the carpet and just go to work already! On my currently laptop, I have Sims 2 and Sims 4, and I love them both for a lot of different reasons. Sims 2 is a nice evolution from the original, and though it took me a long time to truly appreciate (and understand how to play...) Sims 4, I'm a total convert to that one now, too. I guess I skipped Sims 3. I think it was too much of a leap for me at the time, and I remember it being dark -- like graphics-wise, just dark.<br />
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<b>Puzzle Pirates</b><br />
This one is a bit niche, because not a lot of people have heard of it, and I'm not even sure how I learned about it, but I've been playing it since maybe my junior or senior year of college. It was an online game that eventually got packaged into a downloadable version. I don't really engage in every possible element of the game that's available, but their puzzle games -- and they have an impressively wide array of them -- are super fun.<br />
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<b>Stardew Valley</b><br />
I discovered Stardew Valley by watching an ASMR video where the creator was playing a day in Stardew and explaining about the game and how it worked. I was intrigued, so I downloaded it and was also hooked instantly. It took a lot of game mechanics from other popular games (like Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon) but took it to a pretty cool new level. It has everything I loved about FarmVille mixed with a Sims-like attention to interpersonal relationships to advance the story, mixed with a little monster combat. I deeply enjoy it. And it figures into one of my favorite classroom moments in the last few years: I have it listed in my syllabus About Me page as a video game I love, and a student, thinking he was being cheeky, asked me how far along I was in the game. I said "Oh, I think year three or four? I have a couple million gold..." and he kinda just stared at me, and a kid next to him was like "... do you know what that means? What does that mean?" and the kid says "It means she's a beast and should be respected." Hilarious.<br />
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<b>Breath of the Wild</b><br />
Hands down, this is my favorite game ever. I want every game to be like this one, even though then that would make it not so special. It is by far the most visually stunning video game I've ever played, and I love that even a skabillion hours in (like over 300 I think), there's still things to do. I still have some side quests I haven't done, and I just got the DLC in December and have a bunch of clothes to go find (LOL). I love it. And I didn't really intend on completing the main quest line when I did -- I was looking for a shrine that was close to the edge of the castle, and suddenly, there was a cut scene and I was in the castle and, whelp, I ended up face to face with Calamity Ganon and I ended up finishing that whole battle. WITHOUT DYING, TOO! I was so proud. But this game, man. It's just brilliant. I can still spend an hour just wandering around the world, and now that I have the DLC, I also have the Hero's Path so I go and explore places I haven't been, even in all that time. Somehow, though, all those places I haven't been are full of Lynels or Hinoxes and it was getting irritating to keep heading into uncharted territory only to come immediately upon a Lynel ready to kill me just by looking at me.<br />
<br />
But I could do without the Korok seeds....<br />
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<b>Skyrim</b><br />
When I finished the main quest line in Skyrim, it was also almost by accident? I had spent almost an entire summer working through it and getting better at the open world game thing. When I first starting playing it, Skyrim was so overwhelming because it was the first huge open world game I'd ever played, and I've never been great at the whole first-person combat thing. It was a long road in the beginning, trying to not die every two seconds. I remember it taking like two or three days for me to creep past an abominable snowman creature. It was frustrating, but I kept at it. And I think I've barely plumbed the depths of what Skyrim has to offer. I did buy a house, and tricked it out with whatever was available, but there are a lot of skills I could go back and work on. The magic stuff still baffles me, and there are a ton of side quests I never did. I'm glad I played so much Skyrim, though, because it definitely prepared me to actually enjoy Breath of the Wild -- I might have given up on BotW early if I hadn't had the experience with the open world, non-linear nature of Skyrim.<br />
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<b>Honorable Mentions go to: </b><br />
Diner Dash (online; laptop)<br />
Super Mario Bros 3 (NES)<br />
You Don't Know Jack (laptop)<br />
Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins (GameBoy/DS)<br />
Mario Kart (64, Wii, DS, Switch)<br />
Smooth Moves (hahaha) (Wii)<br />
Guitar Hero and Rock Band (Wii)<br />
RC Pro Am (NES)<br />
<br />
<b>Games I Miss and Can't Find Online Anymore: </b><br />
Noah's Ark<br />
Insaniquarium (granted: I found this on Steam but it's only for PC :( )<br />
<br />McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-26839247915526778722020-04-15T21:12:00.000-07:002020-04-15T21:12:24.444-07:00Living Through History, Part VI was thinking tonight about food. Mainly because this happened: <div>
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Me: Hey mom. Can you send me the recipe for that marinade for flank steak so I can put it on chicken tomorrow? </div>
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Mom: Sure! That's fancy -- we're having that meal tomorrow, too. </div>
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Me: Oh, that's weird. </div>
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::a few minutes into the conversation later:: </div>
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Mom: We just finished dinner. I made turkey burgers</div>
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Me: ... we had turkey burgers for dinner to. Are we... are we menu planning on the same wavelength tonight? </div>
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Mom: We must be. </div>
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And I had been thinking for a few days about cataloging the food things I've learned or obsevered since being on lockdown for a month. </div>
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<b>1. I actually don't hate leftovers if they're homemade. </b></div>
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I'm a little notorious in our house for not eating leftovers. It drives Jack a little bit crazy but ultimately he wins because he gets all leftovers. But I think what I don't like are restaurant/take out left overs except pizza. I will sometimes tolerate Chinese leftovers, and we rarely have Thai leftovers (sadly), but that's about it. But Jack will eat anything. </div>
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However, I've made every single dinner since March 13th except ONE, when we ordered pizza. Everything else I've made. And either I make exactly enough for our single meal, or I make enough for the meal and a few days' worth of lunches. I'm actually enjoying this. Last night, I made fajitas, and that means today for lunch I got to have a quesadilla with fajita chicken inside my 'dilla. Jack loves some leftover spaghetti, and our Instant Pot recipe makes PLENTY. I ate lots of leftover tortilla soup. All of these are things that reheat well -- almost better, sometimes. </div>
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<b>2. I eat fried eggs now. </b></div>
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Not ever in my life have I enjoyed fried eggs. I am a scrambled only girl. Well, in breakfast contexts. I enjoy a hard boiled egg and a deviled egg. But for breakfast, I am scrambled only. About a year ago, though, I tried putting a fried egg on top of Smitten Kitchen's bacon corn hash (as she recommends) and ... I didn't hate it. It took awhile before I was willing to try a fried egg all on its own, but during this quarantine time, I've learned to enjoy them with some sausage and toast. I will say, though, that I'm still learning to make them. This is one of the few things Jack is actually better at making than I am. It might be the only thing. I'm getting there, though. </div>
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<b>3. I'm coming around on 2% milk and I don't even know who I am any more. </b></div>
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Jack and I have wildly different milk tastes -- I'm sure he'd mainline whole milk if he thought he could get away with it, but he sticks to 2% Lactaid, though we've had to forego the Lactaid for regular in these trying times. I, on the other hand, for years and years and years, have been a skim milk girl. And not even necessarily because of the lack of fat, but I just ... like it thinner. And I think it gets colder. I don't know. But a few months ago, I wanted a small milk to take to work with me for tea and cereal and the store was out of the small cartons of skim and I got 1% and ... I didn't hate it, especially in the cereal. And since we've entered this new world of grocery shopping thunder dome, it's been easier just to buy one milk. He uses way more of it than I do and he's much pickier about it than I am (as recently as February we were trying to find a compromise to buy just ONE milk for our hotel room in Vegas) and so I've been buying 2% and ... it's much tastier in my tea and helping in baked goods. </div>
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<b>4. Produce is exciting now. </b></div>
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I mean, I like fruits and vegetables, but I never thought I'd be so excited to see lettuce appear in my Sprouts order this morning. Like nearly in tears at the sight of BOTH a head of iceberg lettuce AND a batch of romaine. AND STRAWBERRIES. So it's the little things, I guess. </div>
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<b>5. I'm getting better at timing out my meal making</b></div>
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One of the things that always astounds me about my mom is how perfectly she can time out a meal. Everything is ready all at the same time, and this has always felt like a huge feat to me. No matter how much I try to logic it out, I almost always have one part of the meal not ready when I need it or want it. Cooking so much now, though, I'm getting markedly better at timing out the prep of all the parts. I feel so fancy and accomplished. </div>
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All of this being said, I'm not cooking anything super de duper fancy because I'm using what I have stashed or what I can get from online grocery ordering. Our standard go-to meals are... </div>
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<ul>
<li>turkey burgers</li>
<li>meatballs, sauce, and ravioli </li>
<li>Instant pot spaghetti</li>
<li>Pulled chicken sandwiches</li>
<li>chicken fingers</li>
<li>spicy chicken stir fry</li>
<li>tortilla soup (when I can get cilantro)</li>
<li>corn dogs</li>
<li>tacos or fajitas </li>
<li>DiGiorno pizzas (h/t to Erica for introducing us to these like a year ago)</li>
<li>sandwiches</li>
<li>breakfast</li>
<li>bacon corn hash</li>
<li>grilled chicken, mac n cheese, and broccoli</li>
</ul>
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I guess that's a wider range of meals than I thought. I'm hoping that tomorrow we can add a new meal to our repertoire, and I have others but I can't quite get ingredients for them. (Meatloaf, for example). I also eventually want to make like a baked chicken/mashed potato/corn meal, one of my favorites. but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. </div>
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Oh, and y'all, my new pancake hack, of subbing in half the flour with pastry flour? It's the best. I'm never NOT making them this way, unless of course I can't quite get by hands on more pastry flour for the foreseeable future. Honestly, though. Watching my mom eat two pancake tacos the other morning was a triumph in my cooking life. </div>
McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-63085994477610056682020-04-14T20:51:00.000-07:002020-04-14T20:51:23.739-07:00Living Through History, Part IV Okay, so I disappeared. The clouds parted and the darkness lifted and ... well, I got back to semi-regular life and the semi-regular things I used to do and didn't *need* to blog anymore for my well-being.<br />
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However. It doesn't do us much good to document history if we don't ... document it? ... then, does it? So, here we are. A few weeks later. An update.<br />
<br />
My nails look like they did in the 8th grade. Sad, jagged, and poorly polished by yours truly. But honestly, I don't really care that much about what they look like, contrary to what I'm sure people assume, given that I have had acrylics permanently for the last 12-ish years. It's actually not for the looks at all. In fact, sometimes I think they're prissy and annoying, and they impede on life quite a bit. But I have them because of my terrible skin -- the thickness of the acrylic nails keeps me from scratching tears and holes in my sad eczema skin. I'm honestly a little nervous, now that I've taken them all off, what the state of my skin is going to be in a couple of weeks. The painting of them today was also not even about aesthetics; it was about making them more sturdy. Post nail-removal real nails are super thin, and if you've never experienced the odd and almost-painful sensation of a nail folding backwards when doing something as simple as scratching your arm, then ... well, you're not missing out AT ALL. But I hate that sensation, so I'm hoping that keeping my nails polished with a few coats with thicken them up a little bit and stop that from happening. *fingers crossed.*<br />
<br />
Also, I had forgotten how stinky drug store nail polish is, and how hard it is to paint your dominant hand with your non-dominant hand. Why do we do this?<br />
<br />
Of course, not everything is sunshine and roses. I'm still incredibly fearful and anxious about the idea of going outside/in public again until it's deemed scientifically safe. This is a disease I do. not. want. to contract and the idea of even going back to school this school year has me anxious and filled with dread. I'm thankful for grocery delivery and I've been tipping HUGELY because I'm so grateful for the people willing to do it, and I've even been writing them thank you cards and leaving them on my porch. That's making it possible for me to stay home and keep my vector -- and Jack's -- from going anywhere.<br />
<br />
Second on the list of nighttime and weeds, our water heater busted and leaked pretty much all 40 gallons of itself into the floor of my garage. Thankfully, not too much was in the path of the water as it ran down to the driveway, but now I'm a little concerned that some of the carpeting that's out there (we have some patches of cheap 'frat carpet' as I call it under where we do laundry and under dad's workbench) will get stinky and gross before it has a chance to fully dry out. But I think we got most of the things on the floor of the garage out of harm's way. And in order to make way for the repair people to get to the water heater spot through the garage and limiting their entry into the house, we had to move a significant amount of crap into our living room. Granted, we haven't spent any time in our living room during almost the entirety of the lockdown: Jack works in the office and then we have dinner in the kitchen and then we retreat to our bedroom. I spend the day at my desk that's in my bedroom now, or sitting up in my bed (because it's Very Fancy and inclines like a hospital bed so it's like having a couch). But even if we wanted to now, we couldn't, because it's full of junk. (Anyone need set of golf clubs that haven't been used in the amount of time that Miss Kaylee has been alive?) I guess my project in the next couple of days will be to move all that stuff back and really think about how to put it back, now that I have a chance to do some rearranging.<br />
<br />
Oh, and the other drag of the water heater debacle is that our stupid not-cute-old-just-sad-old house (built in 1983) is woefully run-down and showing its age, and the water heater set up was no exception. When the first set of repair dudes appeared bright and early on Saturday morning to install a shiny new tank water heater, they had barely cleared the threshold of the garage before they were basically like, "Oh, yeah, no, there's no way we can do this installation. This whole situation is horribly out of code compliance" and after some discussions with dad via speaker phone, no new water heater was installed. Basically, the spot where the water heater goes is too small for the modern water heaters, and whoever installed the last one vented it completely wrong (apparently) and it was dangerous and impossible to put a new tank there. (Though for the record: the only thing they were impressed with was the length of time our good ol' newly-dead water heater lasted: it was installed in 1998 and we got like 12 extra years out of it...) <br />
<br />
But anyway... we were left with a handful of options, each kinda more ridiculous and/or more expensive than the other: a) hire a handyman who could just install a new tank purchased at Home Depot or whatever and maintain the janky illegal set up, no questions asked (... not ideal ...) b) potentially hire like a proper contractor and have that entire corner of the garage reconfigured to accommodate a modern water heater (for the record, this option was never actually discussed out loud, but it was something that occurred to me...) or c) go with the tankless water heater option, which is twice the money up front. Ultimately, we went with Option C. They're meant to last almost twice as long as a standard tank heater, but they're twice as much upfront. But again, between mom and dad and me and Jack, pooling our money together, it was really the only viable option, all things considered. Now, we have a SUPER FANCY water warming robot hanging on the wall in the garage, in the exact location of the old one, and the water temps are almost exactly the same as the old one (my shower knob position remained EXACTLY the same, which I'm very VERY happy about). And potentially we'll save a tiny bit of money on our SDG&E bill, but that might be slightly negligible because our water heater is on the gas line and that's usually a pretty small portion of our bill anyway.<br />
<br />
I guess that's really it on the doom and gloom stuff. The Big Picture fear stuff, and then the more specific inconvenience of having no hot water for five nights. Which, to be honest, wasn't that big of a deal precisely because we can't leave the house. Jack and I talked about this at lunch today. He had been thinking that this was The Worst Time Ever to have the hot water go out, and I said that while I get that from a global perspective of everything being terrible and this just added to it, on the other hand, at least we actually didn't have to go anywhere and interact with humans or the nature or anything else that would have introduced dirt or germs or whatnot on our bodies, and having to deal with either cold showers or lugging hot water upstairs to clean ourselves. We basically just ... sat around ... for five days, and so we weren't really that stinky or gross. Jack hadn't shaved so he was scruffy, and my hair was pretty greasy, but now my clean hair feels AMAZING because it got a break, and Jack's skin is all smooth because it got to rest awhile between shaves.<br />
<br />
I'm all about finding the silver linings, and considering how our lives are going to change for good after this. And I don't mean the consequences of the pandemic; that's a given, and something that makes me a little freaked out to think about (especially in the context of my job...) but I'm more thinking about what Jack and I are learning during our time at home, rattling around in our house 24 hours a day and trying to keep up fed. Here are the main things I feel like we've learned and behaviors that I think might be permanent:<br />
<br />
1. <b>Better food management and portion control.</b> Pre-pandemic, I made and served us pretty big portions. I'm usually pretty hungry when I get home from work, and we eat too much for dinner and I use a lot of materials for those meals. Now, I'm looking more critically at how much I need for each meal because I'm trying to conserve what I can, if it's a recipe that doesn't require a specific amount of things. For example, tonight I made fajitas, and I use a bottled sauce I really like. Typically, I would use about half the bottle for a single fajita meal. But I don't think I have another bottle in the pantry (and of course, once I'm out, I'm just going to look up a recipe for the spices online; I probably have everything I need). So, tonight, I used the bottle that was in the fridge, but just used a LOT less of it. And honestly, it was the same as if I had used half the bottle. Now that I know this, this is how I'm going to proceed. Plus, we're just generally eating less for meals but also I'm eating better lunches because I'm home and I can.<br />
<br />
2.<b> Eating at the kitchen table</b>. This might sound like a no-brainer, but for almost the entirety of our relationship, Jack and I have eaten meals -- breakfast on weekends and all dinners -- on the couch in front of the coffee table, watching TV. But as I said before, we haven't spent any time in the living room because we've been eating at the kitchen table. Previously, the kitchen table was often an extra storage location, but when I needed a workspace (before the great desk migration two weeks ago) we cleared it off and discovered it was great for having our shared lunches together, and it is actually a LOT easier to prep and cook and serve dinner when it only has to go to the kitchen table. Who knew?!<br />
<br />
3. <b>Having lunch together</b>. Well, we're not going to have much control over this one, actually, once one or both of us have to actually go back to work physically, but having lunch every day with each other is rad. We get to have a little mid-day check in with each other: he gets to decompress a little from work, I get to have some company and also decompress if necessary (I'm currently on Spring Break so it's different this week) and it's just a nice little time with just the two of us.<br />
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4. <b>Keeping basics stocked</b>. I thought I was reasonably good at stocking basics like chicken broth and refried beans and tuna and all that shelf-stable canned stuff that lasts awhile, but it turns out I guess I'm not? So someday, when we go back to normal, and grocery stores have achieved some semblance of normal and people aren't panicking and buying everything on a shelf because they can, I want to properly stock a pantry with stuff that will last awhile, should it be necessary again. We're certainly getting by, and we've been eating pretty well, but it would be nice to have some of those staples more handy than they've been.<br />
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5.<b> Jack is good in a crisis</b>. I kinda already knew this one, but it always stuns me how calm he is. I get a little freaked and screechy, and though I can usually *eventually* flip into problem solving mode, it can take my brain a minute to readjust out of the panic mode. Jack, on the other hand, very calmly takes stock of the situation (he'll move quickly if the situation necessitates it, like the time our freezer leaked all over the kitchen) but he assesses and mostly keeps ME calm while we manage the crisis. When I mentioned this to him tonight after dinner, he said mostly when it's an "us" crisis, he's able to stay calm because he knows between me, him, and my parents, we're financially able to fix just about anything. We are super-de-duper lucky that this is the case, of course, and we know that, and the water heater situation proved that, in more ways than one.<br />
<br />
6. <b>My parents are the best.</b> Wait. I already knew this. But every new situation proves it. (Though I did plan on leveraging my cousin Christopher the home inspector if the handy man/continued lankiness option was the one being seriously considered. I was just gonna FaceTime him and show him the situation and have him inspector-shame Uncle Steve into a different choice. (And Jack and I were already financially prepared for the tankless option...) But that ended up not being necessary.<br />
<br />
I think I'll end there, given that I have nothing but time and could ramble forever. I'll choose not to do that. All in all, this is a weird time, but I'm trying to focus on the positives as much as I can and not get too tangled up in fear.<br />
<br />
And I rediscovered my super old rubber stamps and the results are rad and some people are going to be very pleased in 2-3 days' time. ;)McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-74457127959343748542020-03-19T20:59:00.001-07:002020-03-19T20:59:29.694-07:00Living Through History, Part IIIToday was much better. Much, much better.<br />
<br />
I still feel a little fragile around the edges, of course. Things are just making me sad, even though I know this isn't forever. It's going to be a LONG time, but it won't be forever. <br />
<br />
I spent the afternoon at my parents' house. It makes me uneasy, a little, to think that I could still be a silent carrier, but they told me last night, after I assume my daddy read this blog and a few of my FB comments, that if I didn't come there, they were coming here. They were -- rightly -- worried about my state of mind, and so was I. My mom and I played games and worked part of a puzzle, and watched King Ralph, and went for a walk around their neighborhood, and ate my mom's homemade rocky road ice cream. Dad just watched shitty TV... (love you daddy!) (How did that weird Mel Gibson movie end?)<br />
<br />
And our new dishwasher was installed this morning! It's been almost a YEAR since our other one crapped out completely on us, and though Jack is amazing and washes pretty much 90% of the dishes, it also doesn't get done daily and though it doesn't bother me to have dishes in the sink (I know, I'm a heathen, whatever... I blame cohabitating in college with someone who used a new bowl for every bowl of cereal, even if eaten in succession, so after a night up studying for prelims, the sink would have like eight bowls in it. I learned to ignore it.) (I'm also just a slob. I can claim it). Anyway. But Jack takes F O R E V E R to wash dishes (he's just slow and distractible) and though I'm pretty fast at it, it's hard on my eczema even with gloves, and now with my back situation, it's kind of a weird angle and I inevitably get a weird back cramp. A new dishwasher is going to be heaven. HEAVEN. We splurged a bit and got a pretty nice LG one, with a third rack and a steam option (not sure what that's about yet but HEY) and I'm super stoked that this finally happened.<br />
<br />
So tonight, I'm going to bed in better spirits than last night, but also just ... the rate at which everything shifts is almost incomprehensible to me. Oh, and the best news of the day is that Jack is pretty sure tomorrow will be the last day he's required to physically be at work and he can start being home to work and my anxiety will be cut in HALF if that happens. Evidently, there are people working in his office that don't even think this shit is real and I just ... it makes me fearful every day that he's going to track it into our house. One more day. Just one more day and he'll be working from home. And thank the Universe that he's properly employed and not still counting on Uber for his livelihood because holy shit what a scary thing to think about.<br />
<br />McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-37193888897022797842020-03-18T22:04:00.000-07:002020-03-18T22:12:16.260-07:00Living Through History, Part III'm not even going to sugarcoat it.<br />
<br />
Today was spectacularly hard for me.<br />
<br />
I didn't sleep well last night -- maybe just under three hours of sleep total, and we went to bed reasonably early? I think? But there I was just... staring at the TV, "aggressively awake" as I told Jack at about 3:00 am once I had given up entirely and was researching what I was feeling. Because I was feeling strange.<br />
<br />
I've had a bit of a ... journey ... since Halloween (that's not important other than I know it was the day that kicked all of this off because it was the day I almost lost consciousness during first period APEL) to sort out what's going haywire in my body. There have been three or four office visits (only one with my new primary care) and a CT scan of my head on Thanksgiving, and so on and so forth. So far, I have no answers, and with the state of medicine being what it is, my problems are obviously small potatoes in comparison. But my hormones, and then by extension my blood sugar, have gone a bit haywire -- due likely to stress and my underlying PCOS becoming more of an issue as I get older and my hormones just naturally change -- and I think I felt a lot of that today.<br />
<br />
Today was probably the single biggest shift I've ever felt in my hormones all at once, ever. Perhaps I don't typically notice it because I'm at school during the week when it would, cycle-wise, happen, or because typically civilization isn't collapsing around us when I'm entering this delicate monthly lady phase. But man oh man, today has been emotionally really hard. There has been lots of crying. Lots. And lots. Just in waves. I tried a lot of my go-tos for distraction, but I felt SO distracted and antsy that I couldn't really do some of my go-tos, like cross stitching or reading or video game playing. I tried watching When Harry Met Sally (mostly to see if I could nap) and then I put on Anne of Green Gables (another go-to movie when I'm blue) but those didn't really suck me out of it. And the lingering weirdness of my body has haunted me all day. Maybe I should just give it a name, like I did my dizziness friend. Her name is Patty. Patricia when I'm REALLY dizzy. That came back all at once on the couch last night, and I have mostly already linked that to hormones. So it wouldn't be surprising that this new weird thing -- these weird tingly/shivery phases -- is, too. (And I learned today that the period flu is a thing. Who knew?) (Bodies are weird.) (And dumb.)<br />
<br />
So that was my day: being distracted and freaked out about the new way my body has found to engage in treachery; being exhausted from lack of quality sleep; and continuing to be generally unhinged when I let my brain go too slack and start to think about the hows and ifs and whens of all of this. <br />
<br />
But I vowed before I opened my laptop to write this -- which I didn't want to do because I was finally emotionally a little settled -- that I would end with some positives. Let's see if I can make it to ten.<br />
<br />
One: we're having a new dishwasher installed tomorrow! It might not be the absolute most responsible thing we could do in this moment, having work people in our house, but our logic is that we paid a pretty penny for it, and it needs to get installed, and if one of us does get really, really sick, it's going to be a pretty important piece of the sanitization battle. My plan is to make sure everything is clean when they get here, let them in and run away, and then wipe every thing down again in the kitchen when they leave.<br />
<br />
Two: I took a candlelit hot shower just now and it definitely improved my mood. I cried a bit in the shower again, but overall, it was a net gain in emotional boost.<br />
<br />
Three: I'm enjoying the daily prompt posting and I am loving how many different people from all different aspects of my life are connecting. <br />
<br />
Four: Bless Jack. Poor thing came home to me as an absolute wreck, but he snuggled into bed with me and just held me. And then we feasted on leftovers.<br />
<br />
Five: I'm reading Jane Eyre one chapter at a time aloud and posting it to my APEL classroom. I have no idea if anyone cares, but it's helping me have some structure to my day. <br />
<br />
Six: Buying a Switch for myself for Christmas definitely felt a bit selfish at the time, but I'm thankful I did it because it is providing a pretty solid distraction when I need it.<br />
<br />
Seven: Thankful that I invested in a weighted blanket. Spent a LOT of time under it today.<br />
<br />
Eight: Thankful for streaming services that make it so that I never have to actually get up to watch a movie of my choice. Heh.<br />
<br />
Nine: Thankful for all of my friends -- Summer, Bonnie, Erica, Sarah, Kaitie, Kim, Satin -- who provide a constant stream of conversation and distraction. Especially Summer, who keeps me sane by keeping it real and helping me talk through everything.<br />
<br />
Ten: My little neighborhood that enables me to safely and easily get a mile or so in each day simply by walking in circles. I managed to get a walk in between bouts of rain and while I don't think it did as much good as I hoped it would do in the moment, I'm hoping tonight it'll help me sleep a bit. We'll see.McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-32914796709437446902020-03-17T21:50:00.001-07:002020-03-17T21:50:31.421-07:00Living Through History, Part I<i>It's been almost seven years since I posted anything to this blog, but now feels as good a time as any to document my experiences as a teacher, because we're living through unprecedented and scary times, and as witnesses with access to documentation abilities, why not? So. Here goes. </i><div>
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I cried in the shower tonight. </div>
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I was doing okay for most of the day today; better than the previous couple of days, with this huge looming existential thing approaching in the distance of all of our lives. I kept myself productive today. I did school things, I did house things, I did self things. I mostly stayed distracted. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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But in the shower tonight, by candlelight and spa music from Pandora, I let my brain and my thoughts go a little too soft; too slippery; too scary. The thing that got me this time?*** The thought of actual quarantine, as opposed to social distancing. What if one of us gets this? Jack is all I have right now for actual human contact, and the thought of losing that one and only human I'll likely be able to touch and snuggle with and watch TV with and talk to in person for the foreseeable next months just slipped in there and devastated me. Again, here, typing it out, it's scary. And I know it wouldn't be forever, but the prospect of it kicked me in the gut just now and so I'm going to wallow a little in the Not Okay. I did a good job today avoiding that dark part of my brain, and in a few minutes, I'll snuggle down into bed with my Switch and spend my last minutes of wakefulness tonight playing Breath of the Wild. But at this moment, I'm going to let the tears run down my cheek thinking about all that's yet to come with this pandemic thundering through our lives. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
*** Yesterday, it was All Of It. It all caught up to me. But the tipping point was thinking about the possibility of not spending any more time with my Speech and Debate seniors. And this crushes me. Absolutely, wholly, and completely. Day before, it was an episode of The Nanny. At the end of the episode, Maxwell shares a video tape with the children with footage of their deceased mom. And I thought about losing my own mom to this virus and absolutely lost it. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm sure I'm not alone. Actually, I know I'm not alone. I'm talking to friends every day, and it sounds like we all just rise and fall throughout the day like the lazy waves at a low surf day in the ocean Some minutes, hours, you're up, buoyed by your eighth episode of Top Chef that day, or by your tiny child's drawings, or by the second piece of leftover birthday cake you've eaten day (... two of those might be me...), and some minutes, hours, you're down, sinking into despair wondering whether life ever goes back to normal; wondering how this all ends; wondering when I can have dinner at my parents' again without the paralyzing fear of infecting them with something that could kill them. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This was maybe a bad idea to try to write these thoughts down because now I'm a mess. But it doesn't do any good to pretend like everything is fine. Humans aren't built for isolation. I'm as isolated as it gets; I don't mind being home for days at a time and spend my summers just as happily on my couch watching reruns of TV as I do in the winter. That's by choice, though. This doesn't feel like it is. That's going to be the hardest part of all of this, and probably why people are ignoring advice and directives to avoid each other: because it's terribly, objectively, wrenchingly hard to voluntarily commit to isolation. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I hope everyone else out there is doing what they can to maintain some semblance of normal. I was sort of hoping writing stuff down would be helpful; that remains to be seen, as I sit here in my ugly-cry finest, wondering what the hell I was thinking. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
That's the thing about living through history, though. It isn't always going to be pretty. It's not all ticker tape parades and celebratory fireworks. Sometimes it's death and destruction and grief and fear; that's where we're at right now. I just hope when we come out the other side, things change. They have to. Otherwise, thousands of people will have died from this for no reason. Entire lives were upended for nothing. People lost jobs for nothing; people figured out overnight how to do their jobs online for nothing; but most of all, again, people will have died for nothing. </div>
McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-35935173641261878272013-08-26T20:07:00.000-07:002013-08-26T20:07:42.745-07:00When McMillan Gets Asked to be Inspirational<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm dusting off my blog tonight to publish the speech I wrote and delivered to our entire student body and staff on the first day of school. (August 21, 2013). I'm pretty proud of it, and I got a lot of positive responses from it, so I figured I'd take it to the Interwebs. At least, my little corner of it. </span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />Here it is. </i> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />------</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When
I was a senior in high school, I was a section leader in the marching band, the
captain of the Varsity Academic Team, and the President of Science
Olympiad. These three facts likely
lead many of you to the same conclusion: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">DUDE.
McMilllan was a nerd in high school!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> And it’s true, I was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unfortunately,
for me, being called a nerd always carried a negative connotation; it was more
often hurled as an insult rather than a compliment. But that was then.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m
envious of those of you who sit in these stands today because, in many ways,
the word “nerd” doesn’t really mean that any more. If anything, we’re living in the era of The Nerd. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
don’t know when it started, and I don’t know who or what to thank for the fact
that nerds are now a huge force in pop culture; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">perhaps
it was with the pilot of the Big Bang Theory, which enters its seventh season
this year, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">or maybe
it was the creation of Tumblr, which allows ALL THE FANGIRLING of ALL THE
SUPERHEROES to happen, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">or
maybe it was when ComicCon became a force of nature rather than just a
convention,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">or maybe
its as simple the invention of the Internet, which has done a lot of good by
connecting a lot of people. Well, aside from holding all of the cat videos…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But
whatever it is, I’m glad it happened. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At
this point, I know what some of you are thinking: Um, nerds still aren’t cool,
McMillan. I am NOT a nerd.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well,
I hate to break this to you but, yeah, ya are. And if you’re not, you should be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why?
Because being a nerd means being passionate enough about something to embrace
it with your whole heart. And
I’d like to think that everyone in this audience has something they love that
much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Recently,
Wil Wheaton – of <i>Star Trek: The Next Generation</i> fame – was asked at a
convention why being a nerd is awesome.
He explained that “it’s not about what you love; it’s about how you love
it,” which is, in essence, why all of us should be nerds: because we should love
our favorites things so desperately that we have to talk about them and share
them with others. Which probably
explains why Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine are so popular: they allow
us to prove every day our love for whatever it is we get nerdy about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wheaton
went on to explain that it doesn’t matter what the “thing” is that you love: it
might be football, dirt biking, watching Disney movies in your Snuggie, Skyrim,
horseback riding, bodyboarding, Call of Duty, roller coasters, vintage cars,
programming computers – it could be anything, but, to quote Wheaton again, “the
way you love it and the way you find other people who love it the way you do is
what makes being a nerd awesome.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You
see, it’s a human thing, this whole “being a nerd” business. As humans, we gravitate towards others
who share our common interests, and as such, we find a community within which
to “nerd out” – we find like-minded people to squee with or fistbump about
whatever it is we’ve just bought or found or read or windowshopped on Ebay or
Etsy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So
whether you’re a D&Der, a Quidditch hopeful, a Padawan on your way to being
a full Jedi, a parkour ninja, a rugby player, a mountain biking champ, a barefoot
runner, or newly-minted Vegan; whether you get excited about a new leash for
your surfboard, or that new mouthpiece for your instrument, or that 38 people
liked the photo of your In The Mix you Instagrammed last night – hashtag last
fro yo of freedom – whoever you are and whatever you love, the way you love
those things, and the way that you reach out and connect with others who love
them, too, is essential to who we are as humans. It’s our survival strategy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So,
this humble nerd in front of you today – the one who can’t wait for the next
season of Sherlock to arrive, and could watch 17 straight hours of <i>Law and Order SVU </i>without ever getting
sick of it, and who rereads <i>The Hunger
Games</i> once a year to stay inspired – is asking you to do one thing this
school year. Well, one thing in
addition to the whole “doing your homework, being respectful to your teachers,
getting yourself prepared for the world ahead of you” thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
want you to embrace your inner nerd; embrace the thing or things you love with
your whole heart. And once you’ve done
that, I want you to seek out the other nerds who love that same thing you love:
seek out other surfers, other photographers, other people anxious to see how
the Twelfth Doctor will do. And TwiHards?
Maybe you guys get together and read <i>Salem’s
Lot</i> this year. Just a suggestion.
But whoever your people are, find them. Being involved in a group of people who will care about you
and support you in those things you love – whether its in an official club or not
-- is going to make this awesome
but sometimes kinda awful ride through high school so much better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Because
here’s the thing. There’s no doubt
I was a nerd in high school, but that nerd trifecta I listed in the
beginning? I got to do those three
things with other people who were equally as passionate about them as I was – we
laughed together, cried together, struggled together, practiced together,
traveled together, won awards and lost competitions together, but most
importantly, we remained friends, even today, because we still share the common
vocabulary of our nerdiness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So,
just one more thing in closing.
Lest someone decide to use this call to action an excuse to try to turn
the word “nerd” back into something negative, I suggest to those of you on the
receiving end of that nonsense to smile proudly and say, “Thank you.” Embrace it, because as Tyrion Lannister
explains to Jon Snow in the first book of <i>The
Game of Thrones</i>: <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #181818;">“Never forget who
you are, for surely the world won’t. Make it your strength. Then it can never
be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Go
be nerdy, ladies and gentlemen, and may the Force be with you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">------</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sidenote: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You should really watch Wil Wheaton's whole "Nerds are Awesome" speech, found here on his blog: https://wilwheaton.net/2013/04/being-a-nerd-is-not-about-what-you-love-its-about-how-you-love-it/</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-31779750478765450562012-12-03T20:00:00.000-08:002012-12-03T20:00:07.243-08:00My Mom is Awesome. The End. Hey y'all! I think I missed the last go-round of Reverb Broads, but this time around, I'm determined to at least post a bit, and was happy to discover upon sitting down tonight to start playing catch-up that I need not catch up! Yay! So, having not brought any grading home tonight to do and still recovering a bit from a nasty stomach bug I've had since last Thursday, here goes!<br />
<br />
<b>Prompt # 3 -- What's the best advice you've ever received from a parent/sibling? What's the worst? </b><br />
<br />
Right off the bat, I know exactly what I want to discuss for the "best advice," but am at a COMPLETE loss for the worst. I guess my parents and my brother just don't give bad advice.<br />
<br />
Except MAYBE haircut advice. I had some wicked awful bangs at some point in my life. But I've never been given bad life advice by either my parents or my brother, so I guess I'll count my lucky stars for that one.<br />
<br />
But best advice? The answer came immediately.<br />
<br />
So here goes.<br />
<br />
Up until I was in high school, I had wanted to be an astronaut/aerospace engineer since I was teeny-tiny. Second grade, easily, perhaps even first grade. Space has always held endless fascination for me; it still does, truth be told. But all throughout upper elementary school, middle school, and into high school, I was single-minded and focused on the goal of getting into a good engineering school, becoming an engineer, and eventually working for NASA. Dream big, right? And I could have been very successful. I've always been very good at math and science; I did Science Olympiad for five years, starting in eighth grade and ending as a senior in high school (and I'm still involved with the organization now as an Event Captain for the San Diego regional event). Science is absolutely in my blood, and for a long, long time, I lived and breathed it.<br />
<br />
But then those pesky high school English classes came along, and two problems arose.<br />
<br />
<i>Problem #1. My teachers were absolutely amazing. </i><br />
<br />
Seriously. I really, really lucked out when I think back on it. I really and truly had the cream of the crop that my high school had to offer. (Some would argue this was because I was on the Honors track, and this is possibly has a good chance of being true. But. Still. Doesn't change the outcome.) I love and respect every one of the four English teachers that I had in high school and I looked up to them in ways I didn't necessarily look up to other teachers of other disciplines. I always generally liked my teachers fine -- I never had issues with any (er. not true. one. One I despised. But. You know, who ever likes their history teachers?). But for some reason, my English teachers made their practice so transparent and awe-inspiring. I had always toyed with the idea of being a teacher -- I remember the idea creeping in as early as fifth grade, but figured I'd do a stint at NASA and then maybe teach science. Seemed like an easy and obvious career trajectory. So I always had a pretty critical eye pretty early on for good pedagogy. (I swear I wasn't a nightmare to have as a student. I promise!) But I count these four amazing individuals as four of the most central to the way my life had turned out, and to who I am in my own classroom every day. I strive to emulate them daily.<br />
<br />
<i>Problem #2. I was freaking good at English. </i><br />
<br />
This didn't necessarily come as a surprise, and it was only occasionally a moderate annoyance that sometimes my grades would be better in English than other classes. (Momentarily. I always ultimately had As.). But English came just a hair more naturally to me than other classwork. I scored higher on English portions of standardized tests, like the SAT and the Golden State exams. My Senior English teacher trusted me with grading some of my peers' work, and other English teachers in the department valued my input on assignments, writing prompts, and essays. I caught the bug, and I loved it. But it also scared me.<br />
<br />
When it came time to apply to college, I felt a weird paralysis. What do I do? I'm SUPPOSED to be an Engineer. This is what I've told everyone since I could pronounce the word "Engineer." I'm SUPPOSED to grow up and work for NASA. Every gift everyone in my life has ever given me has been related to Astronomy: I own a telescope, two sets of binoculars, several star maps, a bazillion Astronomy books, and various other astronaut-related paraphernalia. Turning my back on it seemed to be a slap in the face to every family member that had seemed, in one way or another, to have believed in me and wanted me to work for NASA just as much as I did. What was I supposed to do?<br />
<br />
After much perseverating and a couple of trips to my counselor (the counselor I didn't meet until my senior year and knew absolutely nothing about me), I ended up applying to mostly Engineering programs -- Cornell being my first choice, with Boston University and Tufts trailing behind. But, on a whim and while harboring a semi-secret desire to change my life path, I applied to two schools as an English major: Wheaton and Skidmore. And lo and behold, I got in everywhere I applied (except Amherst. Bitches.)<br />
<br />
And thus began one of of the not-that-hard hardest decisions of my life: follow my dream and go to Cornell as an mechanical/aerospace engineer, or follow the lure of Wheaton's full ride on a English Major Scholarship program with the promise of cheaper tuition and a free computer? The discussions in my house were endless.<br />
<br />
And then my mom sat me down for a conversation that would prove to be one of the most important we have probably ever had.<br />
<br />
Her advice? Go to Cornell. Try Engineering. Do everything you're supposed to do in your first semester. Then, switch.<br />
<br />
And her rationale? Not to game the system, or to convince me that by just "trying" it would magically make the torn allegiance go away. But instead, to prove to myself that I wasn't abandoning engineering because it was too hard, or because I was a girl, or because I was too stupid, or couldn't do it, but because I was really and truly about to make a choice to pursue a career path that was going to be much more important to me and would feed my soul a thousand times more.<br />
<br />
She knows me really well. I mean, obviously, she gave birth to me, but sometimes I think that doesn't always mean your parents know you as well as my mom knows me. It's cosmic. My mom knows how hard I am on myself about being perfect. She knows I desperately hate to fail, and she knew that in my head, turning my back on the engineering career path was failing. She wanted me to realize on my own it wasn't failing. She wanted me to spend that first semester at Cornell proving to myself that I could, in fact, do very, very well as an engineer, and that I was happily changing majors because I was about to embark on a more fulfilling life. Plus, Cornell had been my dream school since I had discovered it somewhere along the way in middle school, and whether I was an engineering major or an English major was besides the point. I would still be living a dream, regardless of the degree I held at the end of it.<br />
<br />
And she was totally and completely right.<br />
<br />
I spent the first semester in the Cornell School of Engineering, and though I did hate every.single.second of Engineering Chemistry, I didn't hate the rest of it. In fact, I did fine. I aced many of the assignments in my Civil Engineering course, won an award for a bridge I designed and built with a partner, and felt confident in my skills at designing and building actual useful things. Had I stayed in engineering, I might have even considered a switch to Civil Engineering.<br />
<br />
But I knew I was making the right decision every day when I went to my required Writing Seminar course, which was The Reading of Poetry. It was the one class that I always felt truly excited to go to. I soaked it in. And when I went to the Internal Transfer Office to inquire about transferring, and found out how easy it was going to be, it felt like everything was right in the universe. I was going to get to pursue the major I really, truly wanted to pursue AND I got to spend the next three and a half years at one of the most absolutely gorgeous universities in the United States, earning an Ivy League degree and having the most amazing experiences during the time I spent there. <br />
<br />
And I owe every second of the time I spent at Cornell to my mom, whose wise advice made all the difference. I may complain about my English teacher life because of budget cuts and my increased workload and the fact that it feels often that this country doesn't value the work that I do, or even the work that my students do, but then I look at what I get to do every day in my classroom with the brilliant, weird, crazy, lovable, stupid, adorable, snarky teenagers and I am so, so thankful that my mom knew exactly what advice I needed when I needed it the most.<br />
<br />
I love you, mom.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-11029405705519419112011-12-13T19:25:00.000-08:002011-12-14T20:23:00.311-08:00It's more like being volun-told...Day 14 -- Prompt: Is volunteering something you do regularly? If yes, where do you volunteer? If not, why not? Courtesy of Kassie @ bravelyobey.blogspot.com. <div><br /></div><div>Hmm. This is an interesting question because my initial gut reaction to this question was, "Uhm. ::long pause:: Hmmm. ::thinking:: Um. No, no I really don't volunteer anywhere... is that ... is that something I should be doing? ::thinking:: Hmm." </div><div><br /></div><div>And then I realized something. I volunteer a LOT of my time, but it's in the context of my actual non-volunteer career. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am my school's Speech and Debate coach. While I do get a small coaching stipend for this job, it's not really enough to cover the sheer number of hours I spend on the weekends of tournaments supervising kids, judging, coaching, and helping. I do the things that a parent might do volunteering for their kids' school. Last year, for example, I served as a judge at the California State Speech and Debate Tournament -- and this was completely voluntary, given that none of my students were actually competing at this tournament. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am also the teacher advisor for my school's Science Olympiad team, and this is not a stipend job. I volunteer my lunches when they need my room for a meeting, I've volunteered at least one evening a year so that they can have a parent meeting, and I collect forms and money and such to pass on to the parent volunteers who actually run the times. </div><div><br /></div><div>And speaking of Science Olympiad, I also actually run one of the events at the regional competition, and, as I'm writing this, I realize this is probably the biggest volunteer endeavor I take on each year. I run an event called Write It, Do It, which involves technical writing and building something following directions. I competed in this event when I was a Science Olympian in high school, and now that my high school coach is one of the regional big-wigs here in San Diego, she recruited me a few years ago. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've been doing WIDI now for three years -- this year will be the fourth year, I think, that I've done it. And every year I get a little bit better at doing it. But this, out of all the things I do, is truly a labor of love. It takes HOURS to prepare for. </div><div><br /></div><div> See, there's this little detail: San Diego has the biggest regional Science Olympiad competition in the United States; each year, we have in the neighborhood of 75 teams from the middle school and 75 from the high school. So, 150 teams worth of kids (each team consists of 15 students...). For me, this means 70+ building kits. I build my "devices" out of those green floral foam blocks and all kinds of wacky materials, like pipe cleaners, straws, toothpicks, quilting pins, beads, paper clips, stickers, and anything else I can buy in bulk cheaply. I have to build at least 8 copies of the original device, and then I have to make enough kits for each team that has signed up to compete in the event. </div><div><br /></div><div>This takes DAYS. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not kidding. </div><div><br /></div><div>DAYS. </div><div><br /></div><div>And then the day of the competition (which, actually, here in San Diego, is now two different days, the middle school and high school competitions happening separately. Kinda sorta because of my event. Heh), I am there all day, first running the competition and then grading the devices. Thank god for my mom -- she's a trooper. I honestly couldn't -- and wouldn't -- do it without her. Luckily, she loves it as much as I do. Oh, and I also voluntarily wrote a coaching manual a few years ago. So I think this is were I pay my volunteering dues. I'm incredibly supportive of Science Olympiad -- I loved every second of it as a competitor and I feel so lucky to be able to be involved in it now as an adult. </div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, and I also help with the San Diego Unified's <a href="http://morethanfulltime.blogspot.com/2011/01/spelling-bee-love.html">Language Academy Spelling Bee!</a> I've been the Wrong Answer Bell Ringer for three years running and have already signed up for my fourth! It's awesome. I do it to help my friend <a href="http://morethanfulltime.blogspot.com/">Summer</a>, but it's really just a delightfully exciting evening. Except I always have to be the dream squasher. Haha. But it's a fun way to support programs in other places. </div><div><br /></div><div>So there. I guess maybe I volunteer more than I think I do, I guess it just doesn't quite meet the connotation of "volunteering" that even I think of when people mention volunteer work. </div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-40818441352466205202011-12-13T18:46:00.000-08:002011-12-13T19:08:11.573-08:00Face It. I'm Just BETTER.(I can barely pull off a title like that; I'm totally kidding, just so that's clear.)<div><br /></div><div>Day 13 -- Prompt: What are three things you are better at than most people? Courtesy of Catie @ catiecake.wordpress.com. </div><div><br /></div><div>Three things that I'm better at than most people? Geez. </div><div><br /></div><div>Well. The most obvious one, for me, is Learning and Remembering Things. I've always known I was different than other people -- even as a very young kid, I had a heightened awareness that my brain worked differently than my classmates. My brain works faster -- maybe my hamster up there was given steroids, I don't know. But it became more and more clear as I got older into high school that I have a gift most other people don't have. Things that took most of my classmates, say, 30 minutes to do would only take me 10. And I'd get an A and they might get an A, but sometimes not. I barely every actively studied for tests and such, was usually done with my homework in class, and carried a 4.5 GPA by my senior year. I guess I'm wired differently, and so I think this is the biggest thing that distinguishes me from others. Plus, I'm a trivia boss in a lot of ways -- I was on the Academic Team in high school and am often people's "life line" for information. </div><div><br /></div><div>The second one is, I guess, related to the first, which is that I read faster than anyone I know. Not too long ago, I was just arriving at the gym to meet with my trainer and there was one of those forwarded emails printed out (heh) and sitting on the counter of their little juice bar area. Chris, my trainer, and his friend Kyle, another trainer, point it out to me and want me to read it. It was about the difference between how men and women shower. It was funny -- and it took me all of maybe 10 to 15 seconds to read the 2 pages of bullet points. Basically, I picked up the page, read the front and back, and put it back down. They were both completely incredulous -- "there's no way you read all of that!" And I immediately set about reciting what I had just read. Nearly verbatim. It was fun -- not only did they have to eat their words, but it watching them roll their jaws back up the floor was awesome. I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in about 8 hours? I think? My book arrived from Amazon at around 3 in the afternoon and I finished around midnight. And I had taken some time out for eating dinner with my parents. I'm sorta scary. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now for the third. Hmm. Making messes? Sitting on the couch? Procrastinating? I'm not sure I can really think of a third. Is that weird? I type really fast. I get ready for work really fast (I get out of bed at 6:15 and am generally in the car by 6:25/6:30). I certainly don't sing well. I play the flute well, but not better than anyone, really. I bake decently, but my mommy is better. I could be a good graphic designer if I had the time or the resources, but I don't, so I'm not that good. </div><div><br /></div><div>How about this: I'm just better at being me. </div><div><br /></div><div>(And I'll bet I'm not the only one who says this today.) </div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-46657041787014688132011-12-13T17:39:00.000-08:002011-12-13T18:45:29.780-08:00If Loving Toddlers and Tiaras is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be RightI'm behind, but I didn't want to skip this one! It just ended up that way. So another double assault today. <div><br /></div><div>Day 12 -- Prompt: Name and explain the one guilty pleasure you can't live without. Ie: that cupcake shop you visit weekly, a book you repeately read to find solace in, etc). Then explore the idea of how you would feel if you gave that thing up for a year. Courtesy of Neha @ whereyouarehere.blogspot.com. </div><div><br /></div><div>Oh geez. I have so many guilty pleasures. It's possibly embarrassing. Therefore, I will be making a list. </div><div><br /></div><div><ol><li>Starbucks. Grande Non-Fat Extra Hot Chai Latte. This is probably my biggest vice. </li><li>Trashy Television and/or Reality Television (since they're not necessarily the same thing). In no particular order: Hoarders, Toddlers and Tiaras, Cupcake Wars, Intervention, Project Runway, Top Chef, The Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs, Chopped, Obsessed, Dateline on ID, Solved, Disappeared, and most permutations of crime shows. </li><li>Friends. As in the television show. I would be a very sad and unhappy person without this show. I fall asleep to it almost every night. It relaxes me.</li><li>Crocheting. Though this may not be necessary a fully guilty pleasure, it is when I'm doing it *instead* of grading. It soothes me, but sometimes it's probably not the most appropriate use of my time. </li><li>Sombrero's Mexican Food. I'll admit it. This is my Mexican food of choice. I've been eating it more rarely lately but it's definitely a guilty, guilty, delightful, delicious pleasure. </li><li>Facebook. I'm not even going to pretend like I'm above spending hours a night on Facebook, at least while I'm doing other things. </li><li>Disneyland. I have an annual pass and pretty much get withdrawals if I don't go in any given 4-6 week period. </li><li>Golden Spoon. Frozen yogurt in general is a pleasure, but Golden Spoon, in my opinion, is the closest to ice cream as you can get and it's amazing. </li><li>Diet Coke. I've really been trying to wean myself off. But it's too. hard. </li><li>Christmas Music. Because I've been known to listen to it year-round. Well, maybe not year-round. From about September through the Christmas season. I'm especially fond of George Winston's "December" album. Favorite album of all time. </li></ol><div>There. I think ten is sufficient. In terms of what I could or couldn't give up? I could probably easily give up Christmas Music, Sombrero's and MAYbe the trashy television. But give up Chai? Diet Coke? Disneyland? I think not. Pretty much everything on this list is a guilty pleasure because it all helps me relax and survive the hellishness that is my job right now. Though a lot of these things distract me from work, at least they're things that fill me with happiness and joy. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>But if I lose my job this year, Disneyland will probably have to be the first things that goes. D:</div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-82573344154023806842011-12-11T08:56:00.000-08:002011-12-11T19:52:45.982-08:00Like Mother, Like DaughterDay 11 -- Prompt: How are you like your mother? And if you're a mother, how are your kids like you? Courtesy of Jessica at profbanks.com. <div><br /></div><div>The honest to goodness answer to this is that I am ever so much more like my father than my mother. I have my dad's temperament, many of his mannerisms, and most especially his look: I am a carbon copy of my dad. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yet, for as much as it often seems like I am 100% my father and 0% of my mother, I like to think that the intensity, the negativity, the short-temperedness, and the mercurial nature of my dad has been tempered by my mom. </div><div><br /></div><div>My mom and I have the same sense of humor; we share many of the same favorite movies and especially favorite scenes of those movies. Galaxy Quest. The Princess Bride. Blow Dry. About a Boy. Star Wars (episodes 4-6). Legends of the Fall. The Shawshank Redemption. What a Girl Wants. Ghostbusters. Trading Places. We quote from these a lot. </div><div><br /></div><div>My mom and I are both wickedly intelligent, good and dedicated readers, and are obsessed with word games and crossword puzzles. I've spent many a Sunday at my parents' house, with my photocopy of the same puzzle my mom is working, racing her to complete it. </div><div><br /></div><div>My mom and I are both creative and crafty (certainly something I got in no WAY from my father). I may not be able to sew like her, but we can both paper and yarn craft quite impressively. We both generally try to make our own Christmas cards, and often make our own [fill in the occasion here] cards. We sent each other Halloween cards this year we'd handmade -- and it was entirely independent of each other. </div><div><br /></div><div>My mom and I are both very picky about the art/decoration we allow into our living spaces. I think this is something I was taught by her. My mom will no allow "pre-fab" art in her home. Instead, everything that hangs in her living spaces -- which, in their giant house they share with my grandma accounts for almost four rooms -- has been meticulously selected, created, framed, and hung to suit an exacting eye for what she wants. My mom has been known to make her own frames, her own mats, and her own actual art. That's not to say that everything is 'handmade' -- my mom also carefully selects the kinds of art prints she hangs, and most of the actual store-bought printed material that hangs on walls was collected during our travels. She's got prints from all over the world. In my kitchen at my house (which is actually my parents'), there's a print of Monet's that I actually bought at Giverny, and a print by a Scandinavian artist she bought at an art museum in Lillehammer, Norway. She's got prints from Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark; the Tate Museum in London; the Bristish Museum in Victoria, British Columbia; a small art shot in Taos, New Mexico. I share this snobbery -- everything in my bedroom was created particularly by me. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd like to think that I'm loving and caring like my mom. My mom is the best hostess, and I try to emulate her accommodating and welcoming ways when I host things (to the point where I think sometimes I overdo it). My mom is an awesome cook; I'm not that good, but I have my moments. But she makes sure that you're well fed and not hungry and that any dietary restrictions are taken into account. </div><div><br /></div><div>My mom and I also share an irrational fear of lightning. I don't know if I learned my irrational fear from her, or if we just both happened to have terrifying experiences with lightning during the same formative periods of our lives. Either way. </div><div><br /></div><div>And of course, my mom and I share a deep and abiding love for Harry Potter. Otherwise, I'd probably disown her. </div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-76977472851602434822011-12-11T08:54:00.001-08:002011-12-11T08:56:11.474-08:00Short and SweetDay 10 -- Prompt: What is the best and/or worst thing about your life right now? Courtesy of Dana at simply-walking.com. <div><br /></div><div>The Best: Christmas is in the air, Netflix is available on every device I own, and I'm *thisclose* to having a vacation. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Worst: The stress of my job. My job is sucking the life out of me every day, and it just makes me sad that my job is the worst part of my life right now. </div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-82322615422703003902011-12-08T22:15:00.000-08:002011-12-09T17:53:44.996-08:00I Breathe BooksWait. I can only pick ONE?! <div><br /></div><div>... </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm an ENGLISH teacher. This is an entirely impossible task for me. <div><br /></div><div>Ergo, I will be picking ten. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>1. Katy No Pockets by Emmy Payne. </b></div><div>I loved this book because my name was in the title. I didn't really get much more sophisticated than that as a three year old. MY NAME IN A BOOK!? COOL! But really, it's a pretty cute story about a kangaroo who has no pockets, but needs a pocket for her baby. So she gets an apron with a ton of pockets and becomes everyone's mom! </div><div><br /></div><div><b>2. The Story of Ping by Marjorie Flack</b></div><div>I just have incredibly strong memories of my mom reading this story to us at bedtime. I love the illustrations and the cute little duck.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>3. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein</b></div><div>If you don't love this book, you don't have a heart. The end. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>4. Chasing Vermeer by Blue Baillet</b></div><div>This one is for a slightly older crowd; I first learned of it from a sixth grade teacher I was working with early in my career. It's sorta like pre-teenager's first mystery novel. And the illustrations are beautiful and actually part of the story. It's delightful. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>5. Corduroy by Don Freeman</b></div><div>I just find this book so delightfully lovely. The pictures are adorable and I feel warm and fuzzy inside even when I just see the cover. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>6. The Little Prince by Antoine de Ste Exupery</b></div><div>We had to read this as core lit in fifth grade, and though I don't think I fully and completely grasped the whole idea of the book then, I knew it was something special. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>7. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst</b></div><div>This makes my top list because I remember reading it for the first time: in my first grade teacher Mrs Iler's trailer classroom at Sunset Hills. I still picture the inside of that room whenever I see this book on a shelf. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>8. </b><a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/steadfast-tin-soldier/id406365749?mt=8"><b>The Steadfast Tin Soldier</b></a></div><div>This is a link to the iPhone app I discovered that is based on a book and cassette set I had as a kid. It's the story of the Steadfast Tin Soldier read by Jeremy Irons. I repeat: JEREMY IRONS. When I discovered the existence of this app, I downloaded it in a heartbeat. I LOVED listening to this story as a kid, and I loved the pictures in this version. Plus, Jeremy Irons's voice adds such a creep factor to the story. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>10. The Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder</b></div><div>This is one of the few books I have memories of my mom reading us faithfully several times through, and then as an older child, reading them on my own. Last year, in the spring, one of my students organized a used book drive to benefit a local children's hospital and one of the students donated the entire set of Little House books. The book drive went for a few weeks, so I actually ended up reading the entire series again from the donated books -- I borrowed them over a weekend and inhaled them and then put them back in the pile. Loved them even more than I had as a kid. </div><div><br /></div><div>As a sidenote, as a teacher of English, I was curious what the interwebs has to say about "good" children's books and came across <a href="http://www.nea.org/grants/13154.htm">this list of the NEA's top 100</a>. SO MANY GOOD BOOKS ON THIS LIST, including many of the ones I already listed. </div></div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-4261169071250717622011-12-08T21:56:00.000-08:002011-12-08T22:14:37.275-08:00Hey Teacher! Y U BLOG?Day 8 -- Prompt: Why blog? Why do you or why do you like to blog (recognizing that these are not always the same thing)? Courtesy of Kristen, kristendomblogs.com.<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 14px; "></span><div><br /></div><div>I think my first blog was a DeadJournal, started in January of 2002. The first post, though, inexplicably, says "This isn't much different than blogger," which begs the question: did I, at some point, have a different blogger site? ... That's a little creepy to think about. (I also just weirdly fell into the old DeadJournal site. Reading things from Sophomore Year me is just hideously bizarre). </div><div> </div><div>I transitioned to Xanga at some point in September 2002 (guess DeadJournal was unappealing). I actually had decent bouts with consistency on my Xanga -- pre-facebook, it was a decent way to communicate with some of my friends who were at that point spread around the country. I sometimes still update it, but not as often. I guess the microblogging done through Facebook these days suits me much, much better. </div><div><br /></div><div>I started this blog as the educational unrest in California continued to plague my life plans. As a teacher, I often feel completely and utterly powerless to do anything about the situation. It's like a free fall all the time, which is pretty horrible when it involves not just your job, but your calling. Not being really that protest/political-outcry inclined (not that I don't have opinions, but I just think I don't have the civil disobedience gene), I felt like blogging was at least a teeny, tiny way to get people paying attention to the humans behind the supposedly-power and money hungry, vacation-getting, lazy-after-tenure teachers that apparently pack our schools and drain our state budget. I am really, really good at what I do (most of the time) and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that teaching is my calling. I can remember having dreams of teaching as early as fifth grade, and I know that this is the one single profession that fulfills me and propels me and sustains me. So blogging on this particular site enables me to do that. </div><div><br /></div><div>The problem is, though, that teaching, especially this year, renders me so tired and with so little free time that trying to keep a blog in my free time, on my home computer, is nearly impossible. It's sad, really, that it's so sporadic because I always feel so empowered when I update it. But it's sort of a weird paradox: Decide to write blog to demonstrate how much time teachers spend doing their job. Discover that this time you spend doing your job is what prevents you from blogging about the time you spend doing your job. Le sigh. </div><div><br /></div><div>I like blogging about my life as a teacher because I'd like to think that it's clear that despite complains about the non-teaching things (making my own copies and such), I love what I do. I am still incredibly proud of <a href="http://theteachermcmillan.blogspot.com/2011/03/today-reminded-me-of-why-i-do-this.html">this pos</a>t that I wrote because it so well captures me and my students at our best; more my students, actually. I still beam from ear to ear when I think back to this day, and I'm so, so, so happy that I committed it to memory through setting it down into this blog. Even if this blog doesn't necessarily achieve its envisioned purpose, at least I'll always have that entry -- and a few of the others -- to look back on and be proud of. </div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-24259007279102140912011-12-08T19:01:00.000-08:002011-12-08T19:24:28.900-08:00And then there was YouTube. And life was never the same.Yesterday was Wednesday, which is my world is my weekly hectic day from Hell. Wednesdays are my days where I teach straight from 7:30 to 3:35 with no break except lunch and no prep period, then sometimes I have Department Chair meetings until 4:30, then I have rehearsal a little over half an hour away in El Cajon. Yesterday, though, was our Winter Concert, so I rushed home from school and changed into my concert black dress and attempted to rush down to Cuyamaca College and ended up being 20 minutes late for call time (which basically made me stressed out the rest of the night). I didn't get home until about 11, and then I went straight to bed, so the blogging thing didn't happen. But this was a prompt I very much wanted to write about, so I'm just going to do two day. <div><br /></div><div>Day 7 -- Prompt: Who or what makes you laugh so hard that milk shoots out your nose and why? Slapstick, dry witty comedy, your kids, Monty Python? Courtesy of Kassie @ bravelyobey.blogspot.com.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I'm a good laugher. I laugh at lots of things. I'm fairly easy to make laugh, I think, and since I tend towards collecting people in my life that I genuinely love and enjoy, I laugh frequently. </div><div><br /></div><div>* My brother makes me laugh with his grumpiness and sarcasm. My brother also collects odd turns of phrase, which, while not necessarily always his own, just make me giggle. The newest phrase I learned from him was "Oh, it looks like that guy's really ridin' the Struggle Bus." And also, "Okay, okay, I'm smellin' what you're cookin'" -- which means "Oh I get it now." He's just a hilarious kid. And he's especially funny when he's telling a story about his life, and his stories about working as a bartender at Island's are PRICEless. </div><div><br /></div><div>* Jack makes me laugh pretty much daily for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes he's grumpy like me at things, other times we laugh together watching our favorite YouTube videos, sometimes we laugh just generally at each other or with each other. We laugh together at The Daily Show, at The Big Bang Theory, at random things we find online. And Jack has the best laugh -- it's somewhere between a giggle and laugh and it's awesome and infectious. </div><div><br /></div><div>* My mom makes me laugh because she's just awesome. She's brilliant, which makes her witty and she's awesome at making the most random references to things, especially Galaxy Quest, Friends, and The Princess Bride. </div><div><br /></div><div>* Summer makes me laugh with her snark and her wit. We pretty much spend most of our time together laughing. If we're in good moods. And not complaining about work. Heh. She has a great laugh, too. And we tend to find many of the same things funny. </div><div><br /></div><div>* I will NEVER NOT find a well-placed "That's what she said" funny. Ever. I'm such a bad teacher; I will laugh hysterically when a student effectively deploys the "That's what she said". </div><div><br /></div><div>* My favorite YouTube videos. "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2Z23SAFVA">Dot Dot Dot,</a>" "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dJy_fV2Wzg">MASHED POTATOES!</a>," "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQpbzQ6gzs">I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy</a>," "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtkU2ch0sRI">My Push Up Bra Will Help Me Get My Man</a>" and "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhk5Rjz7xk0&list=FLyQxVKataau5TWatnMXWb0Q&index=23&feature=plpp_video">Jersey Shore Gone Wilde</a>" will ALWAYS be funny to me. Always. </div><div><br /></div><div>* My students. For many, MANY reasons. This is both a blessing and a curse. </div><div><br /></div><div>* Eddie Izzard, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Margaret Cho, Bill Engvall, and Greg Beherendt will always make me laugh. I love stand up comedy when it's smart and realistic. </div><div><br /></div><div>* I will always laugh at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbp_JQ7RxqM&feature=related">Tom Hanks laughing in The Money Pi</a>t. </div><div><br /></div><div>* I laugh at idiocy. </div><div><br /></div><div>* I pretty much always laugh on Disney's Tower of Terror. I don't really scream; I giggle like an idiot. </div><div><br /></div><div>I laugh at almost everything. But these are the things that make me happiest to list. </div><div><br /></div><div>Enjoy the YouTube videos. :)</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 14px; "></span>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-73884590521623862011-12-06T09:21:00.000-08:002011-12-06T20:58:56.314-08:00La la la you can't make me la la laDay 6 -- Prompt: List 10 things you would never do. <i>Courtesy of Katrina at katrinatripled.blogspot.com. </i><div><br /></div><div>1. Have a surgery that wasn't life-saving or ultimately absolutely necessary. I'm terrified of anesthesia. </div><div><br /></div><div>2. Quit my job and strike out on my own as a nomad. As delightful as it would be to have no responsibilities and travel around, it's just not how I'm made. </div><div><br /></div><div>3. Go spelunking. Jack wants someday to do the underground tours of Carlsbad Caverns, and to this, I give him a hearty "No thank you." </div><div><br /></div><div>4. Celebrate New Year's Eve in Times Square. Or, really, even in Las Vegas. (I think this might make the top three Worst Nightmares I Can Imagine list.) </div><div><br /></div><div>5. Not take care of my parents when and if they needed it, or allow anything to jeopardize the relationship I have with my parents. More and more lately, I recognize how lucky I am to have such a good relationship with them. </div><div><br /></div><div>6. Jump willingly from a plane, platform, mountain, or otherwise high place that would require a parachute and a change of underwear. </div><div><br /></div><div>7. Run for President. Mostly of the United States, but really of anything, probably. </div><div><br /></div><div>8. Compromise my beliefs for any one or any thing. </div><div><br /></div><div>9. Give up teaching <i>The Great Gatsby</i> in any American Literature-based course I teach. (courtesy of <a href="http://www.emilysreality.com/">Emily Beaver</a>, my former APEL student and published authoress) </div><div><br /></div><div>10. Blindly allow an affiliation (political party, religion, job status, union, membership, etc.) to define what I think about an issue, the issues that I care about, or how I live my life inside my brain. </div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-75322756039112302842011-12-05T21:26:00.000-08:002011-12-05T21:53:54.474-08:0013.1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid-i9bk6wksYHaz7waFnNXcWmAq5DSZnU8aKVnydu9tcWHHPwSFly1SzQh5uSP0WXH1hvy4Dof_dSDiJ1yVkDmYGBuEVReAlnY2ht1j7I-2271aiZy2jMmRXiz-Kt3mgeugMXlngJGYcjf/s1600/half+marathon+finisher.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 299px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid-i9bk6wksYHaz7waFnNXcWmAq5DSZnU8aKVnydu9tcWHHPwSFly1SzQh5uSP0WXH1hvy4Dof_dSDiJ1yVkDmYGBuEVReAlnY2ht1j7I-2271aiZy2jMmRXiz-Kt3mgeugMXlngJGYcjf/s400/half+marathon+finisher.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682889461472002034" /></a><br />Day 5 -- Prompt: What is the one thing you finally did this year that you always wanted or said you were going to do, but in your heart of hearts never thought you would actually do? Amy, 2bperfectlyfrank.blogspot.com<div><br /></div><div>Though it doesn't necessary fall into the category of "things I always wanted to do," it does fall into the category of "things I would never, ever, EVER have thought I would want to do." This year, I trained for and ran the San Diego Rock N Roll Half Marathon. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am not a runner. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I weigh more than 2oo pounds right now and heft about my person a set of DD breasts. And yet, I completed a half marathon in a little over three hours this past June. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've always been heavier than average and have always hated running. Middle school PE was a hellish nightmare of torture and humiliation because we ran twice a week, every week, unless it was raining. And I grew up in San Diego: rain is a rarity. I remember the ONE SINGLE TIME in my life I ran a mile is less than 10 minutes. I was in eighth grade and my time was 9:59. Most of the time, I averaged between 12 and 15 minutes (and not much has changed).</div><div><br /></div><div>Then, in high school, I was in marching band and as my school had a huge and intense marching band program, that was our PE, so enforced and graded running became a thing of the past. And stayed that way for a long time. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then, about five years ago, I started working out with a personal trainer and lost over 80 pounds. It was then that I realized I could probably run. I could do an hour on the elliptical no problem and started casually running occasionally just because I could. I didn't like it; at least, I didn't like the running part, but I did like the part where I wasn't dying while I did it and where I was doing something I never really thought I would do. </div><div><br /></div><div>Two years ago, my best friend Bri asked if I wanted to run the Rock N Roll Half Marathon. This would have been the 2010 one. I agreed, grudgingly, but then within a week or so of that decision (which has been either January or February before the race) I got really, really sick with strep throat and it lasted forever -- I was sick for almost a month. By the time I was better, I fell and hurt my ankle, and so between the sick and the broken, I lost training time and ended up not being able to train for or run the race. But my parents and I went to cheer her on at the finish line ad after the three hours or so that we stood there and spectated, I realized how stupid it was that I didn't just run the damn race. Or at least walk it. I was angry and mad at myself for not taking the risk, even with the problems I had encountered. </div><div><br /></div><div>So as soon as it was possible to sign up, I signed up for the 2011 Rock N Roll Half Marathon. I started training really early -- December or January, I think -- and just plodded along on my training. Soon, I was running five and six miles at a time, shocked at myself and my ability to persevere through a run. It wasn't fun -- my body hurt for weeks leading up to the race because, as I said before, I'm on the heavy side. I'm not super muscular, though I am freakishly strong and have been told by my trainer that I routinely lift (with his help) heavier weight than many of the men he trains. But heaving that weight for miles at a time takes a toll. My feet always hurt in the morning and often my back and hips hurt, too. </div><div><br /></div><div>I remember the first ten miler I did. It was the worst run of my entire training adventure because I wasn't fully aware of the absolute necessity of food in a run that long. My body completely locked up around mile seven and I could barely force it to plod through the last three miles (but I had to; I was on a circular route around a lake...). The second ten miler was a litter better, but not much. And I only did two before race day. </div><div><br /></div><div>Race day was terrifying but exhilirating. I made it nearly eight miles before really starting to feel like it was a really stupid idea... and then around mile ten, I just sorta lost my willpower. The last three miles were agony because I hurt everywhere. Plus, unlike MOST June days in San Diego, where the fog never, ever goes away and it's in the 60s all day, this year, there was not a cloud in the sky even at 6 am when we were lining up before the race. It was in the upper 70s and lower 80s and heat is my kryptonite. </div><div><br /></div><div>But I freaking finished. I crossed the finish line running -- er, jogging. Pretty slowly. But finish I did. And I burst into tears as soon as I crossed the finish line because I couldn't believe I had just carried my body 13.1 miles. Running. On purpose. I was so proud of myself. </div><div><br /></div><div>But then, immediately, I was pissed as hell at myself because my time was over three hours. My goal had been three hours or less. I was frustrated with my time, and of all the people I knew running the race -- my boyfriend, Bri again, and my brother's girlfriend -- I was last. It was annoying and saddening to me that for as far as I'd come, I didn't achieve the goal I'd set for myself. And I know that's stupid. </div><div><br /></div><div>But regardless of that stupid, crippling hate of failure, I'm incredibly proud of myself that I did it. I pulled it off and I've even signed up for another half marathon this coming January. And I'll certainly be signing up for the Rock N Roll again. And I certainly never EVER thought I'd run a half marathon. If I went back in time and told 22 year old me or 24 year old me or even 26 year old me, "Hey! You're gonna run a half marathon in your future!" I would have laughed SO hard because it wasn't anything I'd ever considered doing before 2010. </div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-42702259337212212172011-12-04T20:14:00.000-08:002011-12-04T20:33:49.666-08:00In Which I Utterly Suck At This Whole Actress Selection ThingDay 4 -- Prompt: In the movie version of your life, which actor/actress would play you and the significant players in your life? What kind of movie? What would the major plot points be, and how will it end?<div><br /></div><div>I know lots of people think about this kind of thing often; I really don't. This seems an impossible prompt for me. I love television and movies and used to have a rather unhealthy trashy magazine habit, so I'm pretty familiar with a lot of actors and actresses that I might use to populate my movie. </div><div><br /></div><div>My gut says to go with Sandra Bullock for me for my main adult life. She hasn't done a teacher movie yet, right? Haha. After that, my brain goes buzz. My brother would probably love to be played by Ryan Reynolds. But who to play my parents? Grandparents? My friends and lovers? I'm tapped out. So I'm choosing to slide right over the casting list and focus on the major plot points. </div><div><br /></div><div>I think if you asked my parents, the beginning would be reminiscient of a horror movie, since apparenty I was a terrifying kid. Not, like, possessed terrifying, but just scary. For example: </div><div><br /></div><div>Scene 1</div><div>Setting: Disneyland's The Haunted Mansion</div><div>Year: 1985</div><div>Age: 2.5</div><div><br /></div><div><i>In line, about to ride The Haunted Mansion for the first time</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Mom: Okay, Katie, now, this right might be scary, but just remember, it's just a ride. It's not real -- nothing will hurt you. </div><div>Katie: <i>looks up, smiling. Exasperatedly. </i>I know, Mommy. It's just a three dimensional, computer-generated, holographic image. It's not real. </div><div>Mom: <i>long pause. Sighs. </i>Okay, welp, I'm more afraid of you now than I've ever been of this ride. </div><div><br /></div><div>My parents would clearly be prominent figures in this movie, as well as my brother. There would be a lot of traveling, and thus my grandparents would also figure prominently as well. I'd probably want some of the focus to be on my high school experience, and also on my college experience. My adult life is pretty boring, but it would kick a lot of ass to end up having a biopic about me because of my teaching life. You know, for revolutionizing teaching or something. But I'm not <i>Dangerous Minds</i> gnarly or <i>Freedom Writer's Diary</i> free to do what I want, really. So it's probably unlikely. But it could be fun. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd like it to be comedic at it's essence, because that's who I am, but a documentary also feels fun, too. Interviews of people -- as I'm thinking about this option, I'm loving this idea more. Why bother with actors and actresses? WHy not just actually have the people I love featured, telling stories about me, while at the same time, getting to tell stories about themselves and my family? I guess I've landed at the realization that I'd rather my movie be about me and how I fit into my family, rather than just me. </div><div><br /></div><div>And the soundtrack will be AWESOME. Obviously. Lots of Paula Abdul and Hanson and No Use For a Name and the original Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack and Tracy Chapman and Huey Lewis and Paul Simon. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Roll credits</i></div><div><br /></div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-42740689453424917392011-12-03T22:01:00.000-08:002011-12-03T22:28:36.458-08:00I Live In My Parents' House.Day # 3 -- Prompt 3: How did you become more of a grown-up this year? Or did you pull a Peter Pan and stubbornly remain childlike? -- from Bethany. <div><br /></div><div>This is a tricky prompt for me because I feel like my life definitely straddles both sides of this coin, so in my rather tired state, I shall attempt to look at both. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am, and have always been, an Old Soul, which I've been told was partially inherited and partially because of my intelligence. My mom recently unearthed some baby pictures of me she'd lost track of, and when she was narrating her way through them to me, she came to one that was taken around the first few weeks of my life, and she told me that she felt like I was starting into her soul -- knowingly -- at that moment, and she felt like it was weird and freaky and an indication I had knowledge beyond my ... well, days, at that point, but eventually, when I was older, years. I've always been the girl that colors inside the lines, that liked it -- well, more like reveled in it -- when adults paid attention to me and included me, and I know from both stories and memories that my brother and I have always been very well behaved, grown-up acting people. My grandma likes to tell a story about the owner of a restaurant once complimenting my grandpa (and my parents, ultimately) for my brother's and my behavior at the restaurant table; the owner said he'd never seen such young children (I think I was maybe in 2nd grade and my brother was a Kindergardener) behave so well and so maturely in his restaurant. My brother and I are both just like that. So to think about how I became MORE of a grown-up this year? Maybe in subtle but significant ways -- my boyfriend and I have been more and more integrating his kids into the fabric of our relationship this year and now they spend at least one of the nights he has them every other weekend here at our house. I recently also found myself in a situation of having to take my mom down to urgent care because of an issue, which wigged me out when it probably shouldn't have, but the dawning realization that your parents are going to someday reach a point where you'll have to take care of them was unnerving to me, despite having watched my parents care for my mom's parents for the last seven years (well, grandpa for five of those; he died two years ago). So I guess that changes have been at once major and minor -- major because they involve pretty significant steps forward in my life, but minor because I don't think they've necessarily altered me as a human; not fundamentally, at least. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yet, the sticking point to this prompt for me is that I don't really often feel like a "real" grown-up, but not because I obstinately refuse to act that way; I don't fancy myself to be Peter Pan. It's just that the way my life is working out has made me feel sometimes like I'm hovering in a persistent state of reality limbo. I live in my parents' house while they're living with my grandma fewer than three miles away; I try to rationalize this as "caretaking" of the house, when there are other times I just feel like a loser who doesn't have the grown up responsibilities of things like paying rent. Granted, I pay all of the utilities, and so since I live in a full-sized house, water and electricity and such are, all combined, probably as much as someone's normal rent would be, but still. It's the house I've lived in since I was 2, I just occupy a different room. </div><div><br /></div><div>I also have never yet owned my own car; I've always driven a hand-me-down or loaned car from my parents. I was seriously considering buying a car right as school started, but decided against it for now. Lately, I have, however, assumed the responsibilities of paying for whatever goes wrong with my current car, and as its a BMW, this is a fairly expensive adventure, but still. I still ask my dad what to do, where to go, and how to take care of it. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's really all just weird -- I have a career that I love, and I've been at the same school now for six years, but also, that feels weird too because I live currently in budget crisis limbo-land where my job is always at stake, so it's hard to fathom what I would do instead, and it also makes me very, VERY cautious about taking on any other kinds of responsibilities like buying a condo or even a car. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm realizing that a LOT of this is relating to money, as if somehow I equate "being a real grown-up" with "able to spend money on sensible things like homes and vehicles" ... I don't really; in my head, though, it's more about the responsibility that is connected with those kinds of investments. I see other people -- and other people much, MUCH younger than me, buying homes and cars and going on big vacations and I can't wrap my head around getting myself into those situations with such financial uncertainty in my life. </div><div><br /></div><div>But essentially, my point in this second half is that it's hard to feel like a "real" grown up when I haven't really transitioned out of being a kid living at home. It's different, of course -- I don't live with my parents and I've had pretty free reign to make changes to the house that aren't terribly permanent (paint color, furniture, etc.) -- but really, it's not. I live in the 'burbs, which I guess might make some people feel really good, like they were successful, but not me. I guess the difference is that I haven't had to work to come back to the 'burbs because I never actually left, really. ::shrug:: I guess it's all perspective. Some day, maybe those things will happen for me, but maybe even then I won't feel like a "real" grown up...</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh. But if it matters: I totally still color in coloring books. Take that, grown up me! </div><div><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 14px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p></span></div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-51684379136744185732011-12-02T19:27:00.001-08:002011-12-02T22:50:29.580-08:00How Can Smart Be So Stupid?<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 14px; font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;font-size:11px;"><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Day # 2 -- Prompt: What is the stupidest thing you did this year? What about in your whole life? You can take stupid to mean: embarrassing, dangerous, funny, lame, whatever you consider "stupid."</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Kassie</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Heh. Well, I'm not a stupid person. I'm actually a really, really smart person -- really smart. But there are definitely stupid things I've done, and just like yesterday, I've been ruminating on this prompt all day (and now it's after 10 pm) trying to decide what to write about. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">I think this year, there have been two stupid things that I keep coming back around to, but really, in their essence, they aren't all that stupid at all. But they seem more than a bit stupid in retrospect. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Thing #1: Deciding to Run a Half Marathon. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Obviously, this isn't really all that stupid. Hundreds -- nay, probably thousands -- of people a year train and run half marathons and full marathons and all manner of ridiculously long races for really no purpose but for the ability to say that you did it. I decided late last year and early this year that I needed something new to motivate me to stay active. After having lost almost 80 pounds four years ago, the last two and a half years have seen my weight creep back up and it's really pissing me off (you could probably also categorize that under "Stupid Things" also...), so I needed something else to focus on. My best friend ran her first half marathon two years ago -- she did the 2010 San Diego Rock N Roll Half. I was initially going to sign up for that one, but ended up getting really sick for a really long time during the crucial training part. I did, however, go and spectate, waiting for her at the end of the race, and I remember being really disappointed in myself for not just sucking it up and doing it anyway. So this year, I did it. And really, it was awesome and also stupid. I just still can't really wrap my head around the fact that I willingly dragged my over-200-pound body through 13.1 miles of running (er, the last two miles, it was less running and more hobbling...) -- I just still think running is stupid. But maybe the stupider thing in all of this is that I have recently signed up to run my next half marathon. I guess the stupid thing about this is that I really and honestly barely have the time to eat and bathe and sleep, let alone run the amount I need to run to get ready. I have no idea why my schedule is so stupid right now, but I'm struggling to eek out the time I need to train for this race -- and it's happening in January. I'm wishing now I'd just held off for the Rock N Roll Half, because it doesn't happen until January. But I guess a related stupid thing is that I'm way too nice and don't always put myself before other people (in fact, that really should be I don't often...). </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Thing #2: Deciding to Radically -- and Publicly -- Change My Sophomore Curriculum</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Oof. I classify this as stupid of the overly-ambitious and possibly-idiotic kind. Last year, my mom sent me a video that the teacher that she worked for had seen about gamifying education. It's a really great theory, and for a partial gamer like me, it makes total sense and it seemed like an excellent way to re-invigorate what I've been doing for a long time and would be a fun experiment. Plus, the theory was that it would help students be successful. So I tried it. And it's wearing me out. Completely. Don't get me wrong, it's been an awesome and completely fascinating experience, but there are so many moving parts to it that I didn't even anticipate -- my class sizes of over 40 being one of the biggest and most critical hurdles -- that I can't really keep up with the way it needs to be kept up with. It was stupid of me to decide to take this on in the hardest year of my career. The biggest classes I've ever had, therefore the most students I've ever had at one time, with three sections of sophomores instead of the two I've been having that last three years. So I've been nothing but overwhelmed and frazzled trying to make it work. It's been like throwing spaghetti at the wall. But I have hope for the system, and have hope that it will eventually work, and I trust my students enough to ask them for feedback and help. But I really am kinda wishing I hadn't undertaken it in a year like this. But oh well. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">And stupidest thing in my life? Meh. Weirdly, nothing is leaping immediately to mind, which is both unnerving and totally misleading. I've done plenty of stupid and embarrassing things. I forgot the words to the poem I was supposed to recite in my fifth grade talent show. I once said -- I think when I was in 7th grade -- that if "Granny were alive today, she'd be dead by now," which is a quote my family STILL uses against me. I once tried to leap from one end of the monkey bars to nearly halfway across, obviously missed, and landed on the sand so hard it knocked the wind out of me, all in front of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Speer">the boy I had a huge crush on</a>. (<--- it's fun to link to people you know on Wikipedia. I had the biggest crush on him through almost all of elementary school. After I fell down the stairs in second grade (this was not a stupid thing, it was a horrifying accident), he made me a get well soon car with a picture of an ambulance. I swear I still have it somewhere.) ANYway, I digress. Where was I? Oh, right, stupid things. It was stupid that it took so long for me to figure out that I'm allergic to vodka; no wonder any time I tried to play the part of the "cool kid" in college I got violently ill and hated every second of it. It was stupid not to have told boys I liked that I liked them. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">But you know what WASN'T stupid? Changing my major from Aerospace Engineering to English, despite having wanted to be an astronaut and aerospace engineer since first grade. I don't regret it, not one tiny little bit, even though my job right now is beyond stressful and I'm nearing my breaking point with my workload. I still love what I do now and have never, ever regretted not continuing on to become an engineer. I know I'm smart enough to have done it; I probably could have been really successful. But I wouldn't trade any of that for what I do now -- especially since my job now allows me to wear a felt Roman helmet (purchased at Michael's, of course), a black cape, and carry a plastic sword around yelling "FRIENDS! ROMANS! COUNTRYMEN! Lend me your ears! I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him!" I mean. I could have done that in an Engineering job, I guess, but it would have a much different outcome. It would have been stupid not to have listened to my heart. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">And so now I will leave you with the Stupid-Looking-But-Actually-Awesome image of me, dressed up in all of my Julius Caesar glory, banging on the desks of the students not working on their assignment and yelling Shakespearean insults at those who dared mock my amazingly silly looking outfit. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Nitey nite!</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p></span>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-14393806357136444922011-12-01T18:19:00.000-08:002011-12-01T19:23:02.015-08:00To Me, At 18.Once again, I'm signing on for a project that I hope to see through to the end, but we'll see how that goes: when I went and looked at my Xanga (which atrophies as easily as this blog... ::sigh::), I think I made it all of two days through trying to post every day for a month. Such is life. If there's anything indicative of why I NEED to continue posting to this blog -- especially blog posts that help capture the life of a teacher -- it's that I don't have time to do so. Blargh paradoxes. <div><br /></div><div>Anyway, with renewed focus (and the fact that two of the four weeks of December will be spent in vacation), I am embarking on a month-long daily blog posting project as part of the<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Reverb-Broads/269777846407671"> Reverb Broads</a>. You can also read the post that inspired my joining <a href="http://bravelyobey.blogspot.com/2011/11/we-want-you.html">here</a> -- thanks, Kassie! </div><div><br /></div><div>Day # 1 -- The Prompt: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small; "> "If the you of today could go back in time and give advice to any of the previous yous, which age would you visit and what would you tell them?" via Kristen at </span><a href="http://kristendomblogs.com/" style="color: rgb(162, 10, 0); text-decoration: none; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small; ">kristendomblogs.com</a></div><div><br /></div><div>I read the prompt for today's blog at about 6:30 this morning and it's about 6:30 in the evening, so I've spent most of my scant unoccupied minutes thinking about which Past Me deserves a good visit from Current Me. Most of my day, I've been composing letters in my head to 12 year old me and 16 year old me, but then when I really started to think about it, I think it's actually 18 year old me that probably needed the most help and also could have benefited from the most advice. </div><div><br /></div><div>Dear 18 Year Old Me, in the Fall of 2000, During Your First Week Away at College: </div><div><br /></div><div>Get a life. No. Seriously. Get a life. A real one. Stop being afraid of EVERYthing and get a life. Leave your dorm room, and not just to go to class. When someone invites you to a frat party, just go. You are still allowed to say no to the alcohol. But go, to have the experience. You'll learn that it's really just innocent fun and that college isn't about being able to tell stories about your professors or your assignments or the carrel you inhabit in the library (by the way, to save you some time, you'll eventually discover that your favorite carrel is on the sixth floor of Olin, on the North side, by the power outlet and the window that overlooks Sage Chapel. You're welcome.) </div><div><br /></div><div>Stop being so afraid of failure. You DO already know this, but you will be a teacher some day -- and yes, a teacher of English, not of science, and it's okay when the time comes to let go of the Engineering dream. No one is going to be mad at you, no one is going to be offended or hurt because they bought you astronomy books when you were 10 and took you to every Science Olympiad meeting before you could drive and tolerated your science nerdiness and invested in your dream to be an astronaut. Your family doesn't care about any of that crap, so don't waste the next five months crying yourself to sleep out of the sheer terror of disappointing everyone who has ever pinned their hopes of having a world famous scientist on you. You are smart enough to do it -- you're good at it. Close that chapter in your life happily and willingly and hunker down into the novels you'll be teaching eventually. Don't waste your life dwelling on the potential of disappointing your parents, because eventually, when you have your dream job of teaching English at a high school that values your hard work and your intellect and your talent, you mom is going to write you an email that makes you cry, because she tells you how damn proud she is of you for doing what you do for kids. In fact, if you want to know the truth, 18 Year Old Me, your parents are going to be even more supportive of this career path because they know it's what you will end up living and breathing and loving. </div><div><br /></div><div>Also, I hate to break this to you, 18 Year Old Me, but you will still be struggling with your weight when you're about to hit 30. There have been ups and there have been downs, but someday, though you won't believe it right now, you will successfully complete a half marathon and three 5Ks and will be in the process of training for a second half marathon as you approach your 30th birthday. Your body is awesome, and though you will continue to battle it and fight against your genetics and your hormones and your stupid inherited issues and your own stupid choices, know that you are freakishly strong and incredibly healthy, regardless of the size of your pants. </div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of your body, 18 Year Old Virgin Me, sex is not as scary as you keep thinking it is. You're in college now: get some. ... Okay, maybe that piece of advice is silly while dealing with your weight issues and your homesickness and your intense desire to be academically successful. But seriously, don't be so damn afraid of boys and men and sex and your body. Like I just said, your body is powerful and you will actually end up enjoying sex, so stop being such a prude and such a scaredy cat and allow yourself to be available and dateable. </div><div><br /></div><div>But if you don't, know that you'll meet an amazing man who shares so many of your interests and quirks and appreciates your intelligence and your curvaceous body and your love of sex (heh) and your love of all things Star Wars and Star Trek and, eventually, grudgingly, Harry Potter. He'll make you laugh, he'll bring you fro-yo when you've had a terrible day, he'll bring you Tylenol AND Advil at 2:00 am because you're sick and having a melt down, and he'll help your parents and your grandparents with their computers and he'll talk you down out of Crazy Head when you are about to explode from your fear of failure. </div><div><br /></div><div>18 Year Old Me, get a life -- or, at least, get living the one you have, because spending the next year of your life (your entire freshman year of college) because a reclusive, crying, depressed, anxious mess is going to do no one any good. Trust me: eventually, the crippling fear of being laid off that seizes you EVERY year for four years and the enormous stress of ever-increasing class sizes and your two-teachers-worth workload will make you REALLY wish you'd done at least some partying in college because by the time you're a grown up with real responsibilities, you'll be too damn tired to do anything but watch TV... </div><div><br /></div><div>So go. Get out. Meet some friends, have a drink, go to a frat party or two, flirt with some boys, and enjoy the parts of college that you should be enjoying. I'm here to tell you, as Almost-30-Year-Old-You, you'll look back on college fondly, thinking about it every day, but also desperately wishing you'd done things differently in the beginning of it. Ultimately, your hard work paid off and you are allowed to be more than proud of your gnarly Ivy League academic achievements, but holy crap, girl, get out, get down, get funky, get kinky, and get living. </div><div><br /></div><div>Love, </div><div>Current Me</div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3273720261365865232.post-75415451672337108562011-10-07T22:18:00.001-07:002011-10-07T22:49:25.714-07:00Exhaustion, Thy Name is Friday<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg00NwIgpgsR0M2-y_jMqZtiJwNd0BFviHHzOJLUouzhOvFT6ei8P2jXyPIshAPNZPN7-4Mk_9pCpu3TmTlVhJ1uQWV7pJvCu-bvn2hiwLIVg7_7Y9uasi5nIdCATrxT0iosDqSKV43tp5q/s1600/photo.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 239px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg00NwIgpgsR0M2-y_jMqZtiJwNd0BFviHHzOJLUouzhOvFT6ei8P2jXyPIshAPNZPN7-4Mk_9pCpu3TmTlVhJ1uQWV7pJvCu-bvn2hiwLIVg7_7Y9uasi5nIdCATrxT0iosDqSKV43tp5q/s320/photo.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5660986586054932946" /></a><br />Here was my yesterday (Thursday) after school: photocopying a packet for the next unit I will be doing with my sophomores. We're moving into the persuasive research paper unit, which will take us to Thanksgiving and beyond. The packet I put together was 38 pages (that's front and back, though, so 19 pieces of paper, plus the cover, so 20 sheets of paper). But here's some rudimentary math for you: 39 imprints per student with 126 students = 4, 914 copies made. This photo shows a stack of approximately 2,520 pieces of paper. FIVE reams. And to make a 38 page packet with 19 pages meant that there were 19 sets of masters I had to flip over and copies I had to flip over, etc. I started copying at 3:15 pm. I gave up after my second phase of collating -- our electric collator only holds 8 stacks of paper, and I had 20. So I did two shifts, 8 at a time, to create two sets of collated packets, which took way longer than it should have because apparently the collator is sick and has decided that it needs to spit some of the papers randomly out the back of it... so it had to be babysat the whole time. I heaved all of these packets back to my classroom, cleaned up, and climbed into my car at 5:45 pm. Thank goodness for my mom the short order cook who made me dinner when I called on my way home all stressed out and harried from doing all the copying. Also thank goodness for my TAs -- they've all been so helpful in keeping me sane this year, but three of the four of my TAs worked to finish these packets. My 4th period TAs, Emily and Sean, worked like bosses to actually finish them -- I was going to let them wait until I bought a new stapler because my staplers have gotten worn out this year and have decided to crap out, but they made it work. <div><br /></div><div>So... what's my point? I need a secretary. Or something. But my point in this rather long-winded introduction is that there are things that I think people don't realize teachers have to do, especially these days. When I was first hired at Poway, there was a classified employee employed full time to manage the copy room -- we mostly could do our own copies, but she was there to make copies if we left them in advance, to laminate, to fix and monitor the machines, etc. But now? It's every man for himself. And though I've generally always done my own copies because I don't usually copy until the day before or the day of, it's just a fact of my job that I have to be my own secretary. Taking attendance. Refilling my classroom staplers. Making all of my own copies. Filling out scads of paperwork (this week, it was three Teacher Input Forms for National Merit Scholar Qualifiers, four grade change forms for the Incompletes I gave at the end of second semester last year, one input form for a student being tested for a learning disability, passing out to my classes federal survey forms (which require keeping track of who has submitted them and who hasn't) and suicide prevention cards, and signing my weekly attendance report). And since my prep period is only 57 minutes long on most days, I have no prep on Wednesday, and a 2 hour prep on Thursdays, there's not really enough time to do all of that work within the school day, especially when you want to do something like I did, which is make a packet for an 8 week unit. </div><div><br /></div><div>Really, though, it's been one of those weeks, where I wish cameras were following me around. (Okay, maybe not really, but maybe I wish a politician who makes disparaging comments about teachers being overpaid were having to job shadow me...). I've spent a lot of extra time at school this week and have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off the entire time I've been at school this week. As soon as I arrive, it's go go go and I barely have time to sit or think or do the human things to take breaks to make sure I don't go completely insane. I've been making copies and planning and adjusting my lessons. I've collected more work than I even want to think about right now because I have to grade a lot of it this weekend, since six week grades are due Wednesday. I've barely gotten to work, barely gotten to interact with other adult humans, barely gotten to really teach properly because my students haven't been progressing the way they need to; I have to keep going backwards and reteaching things. </div><div><br /></div><div>Plus, I had a bit of a scerfuffle -- which ended up being really nothing more than a poorly-written misunderstanding -- with my student who is blind. It turned out to be not as big of a problem as I thought it might turn into, but it consumed a lot of my brain Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday until I had a chance to talk to him. And it was in my interaction with him on Thursday that prompted me to think that I wish people could be job shadowing me right now. Because it's weird to have a student who is blind suddenly lean in for a hug when I don't *do* hugs. It's a challenge to really communicate effectively when you're someone like me who communicates a lot with my face. And it's a challenge to teach a student to write who can't see -- you wouldn't really think so, but I'm starting to realize how much of good writing is visual. But this is the year when I wish anyone who thinks teachers have a sweet, kooshy deal with our summers off and our zillions of dollars of pay (... pssh ...) was made to job shadow a teacher for a week. You only get to sit when I sit, you only get to go the bathroom when I do, and you'll be up to your elbows in the RISO machines because I'm going to teach you how to fix them because, alas, I don't just get to sit on a chair and discuss poetry with my students; I have to repair damn office machines and do some of my own janitorial work, like emptying my pencil sharpener and cleaning my whiteboards, and clean off the tops of the desks. And all of this is in addition to actually preparing rooms full of swarms of high schoolers to be humans in a world changing so rapidly around them that none of us can keep up. Oh, yeah, and have I mentioned lately that I'm still pursuing the gamifying of education experiment on top of everything else? I'm rolling out adaptations to this theory on Monday; we'll see how much better this works. The theory is totally working; it's the practice that has some kinks. But, yeah, in a year where we're all collectively doing more work than ever, I've added EXTRA work with this experiment. </div><div><br /></div><div>What all of this boils down to is this: it's only the beginning of October and I'm starting to feel burnt out and am so exhausted that I am useless once I leave school. </div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, and it also all boils down to this: the next person near me that puts down my profession is going to get a swift kick in the shin, followed by an invitation to come and walk around in my super cute but not that teaching-friendly shoes for a week. And I will tell them to bring ant spray, because the ants are back in the bathroom. With a vengeance.<br /><div><br /></div></div>McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17584053139426765839noreply@blogger.com2