New Era of Blogging

I have retired from teaching!

I was thinking that that new phase of my life deserved a new blog.

Here is a link to my new stuff.

It's slow, but I blame grad school.

Cheers!

Let's Get Official!

April 9, 2009. 

9:36.

I accepted the offer from Boston University.

I will freeze...

and I can't wait.

Spring Breaking and more waiting

The letter arrived while I was enjoying some farm living in Asheville over the weekend.

My friends there are so inspiring and my visits are so nourishing...I return full of love and with a renewed sense of passion for people, for goodness, and for my own personal endeavors.

The letter from BU was very congratulatory and made me feel wonderful, as did the scholarship covering the full amount of tuition, but the stipend I was recommended for was not attached to the "official offer."  So, like a rotten brat (or a lady who doesn't want a butt load of debt) I emailed asking if there was any more funding available.  I have until April 15th to accept.  I am getting used to waiting.  

While in Asheville I was invited to lead a class at Warren Wilson College, a college that I feel gets a lot of things right about academia and work and relationships.  The class is taught by a friend of mine who has lived a long, interesting life and who I have a lot of admiration for.

In this Civil Rights course I spoke with about 17 undergraduate students about my experiences with race, gender, and other power struggles growing up in the south and opened the floor for them to offer their stories.  It was inspirational and impressive.  The students are far better thinker than I remember being as a freshman in college.  It confirmed my desire to get on board with the PhD seeking.  

BU here I come.  PhD -- You are next!

Human Rights and Human Wrongs

The human rights unit that took me weeks to create has been in action for about two weeks now.
So far, so interesting!

Last week, my most advanced class (all of my classes are 'honors level,' but this class is filled with the most precocious little geniuses in the school) debated immigrants rights and the right to seek asylum or safety from persecution in another country. It was a pretty heated, yet respectful discussion. It is interesting to have such opinionated 16-year olds in my class. When I was 16 the only thing I was opintionated about was whether The Princess Bride was more engaging than Mallrats (today I use Princess in my classroom...sorry Kevin Smith, you didn't make the cut).
I feel pretty safe in saying that majority of my students are pretty sympathetic and understanding regarding cultural influences, haves and have nots, and fairness. Furthermore, it is interesting to hear what a concise knowledge of world history my students have...they not only make arguments, but also back them up with some undeniable facts that leave the students who stand firm in their parent's opinions dragging their heels in the dirt.

I just finished another novel called Cereus Blooms at Night by Shana Mootoo, which I highly recommend. It is one of the novels I have assigned for this unit on human rights.
Amidst the twisted plot filled with a defiance of, what Arundhati Roy describes as "the love laws that lay down who we should love and how much," the reader is exposed to different sets of circumstances that demand judgement. This judgement that the reader subconsciously makes is later deconstructed along with society's ideas of "should" and "should not." Throughout the novel, tortured souls practice forgiveness of pasts speckled like snail shells with stains of abandonment, deceit, and physical and mental abuse. Still these characters manage to appreciate the gentility of love while finding hope amidst their hurricane of life. They live in memories of goodness and in smallness of very few and far between acts of kindness. Maybe most inspiring of all was the way in which the characters were judged, written off, and erased from existence, within the pages of the novel, yet still learn to acknowledge equality in nature and celebrate the smallest of nature's miracles which, in turn, are the life-blood of a society that burdens and beats them down. This book is about survival among societies most dangerous of creatures -- human beings.

I like it a lot!!!

Grad school update: Should be getting paper confirmation this week by mail.
Then, and only then, will I believe it is all true.

Fun Facts

If given the opportunity to study at Boston University I will be:

1. a student of the oldest African-American Studies Department in the country.
2. studying where Martin Luther King, Jr. received his PhD.
3. studying where Howard Zinn received his degree

If you want to know about some of the classes I could possibly take go here

I am beginning my studies early! I have started making a timeline and making a list of authors I must read before I go to school. The idea of me at such a "big" school is really intimidating and I am trying to prepare as much as possible. Any suggestions of must reads? I gotta be smart enough.

The first week of my Human Rights Unit has gone over great!
My students are choosing between the following books for Literature Circles:

In the Time of Butterflies
Cereus Blooms at Night
The Inheritance of Loss
The Grass is Singing
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Year of Wonders

All of these novels deal, in many ways, both directly and indirectly, with violations of human rights on some scale. Each week I am handing out supplementary material (Bios, testimonies, documentary film clips, excerpts from novels, etc) that also deal with individual people groups (immigrants, children, women, GLBT, etc.) rights and having my students connect their novels to the supplementary material to their novels. This week I introduced ideas of Natural rights and Civil Rights, cultural perspectives, and responsibilities of the individual. I am asking a lot of question and my students are answering them based on previous knowledge, experiences, opinions, and thinking critically about consequences of acting and not acting, responsibility, and knowledge seeking.

It rules so far. I am pretty pumped. So many people have offered me suggestions for material and I really appreciative. I have so many great people in my life...all teachers in their own way.

Graduate School - Decisions

Graduate School has arrived and has knocked me in the chest and thrown me overboard, but then, just as I was losing hope, it swooped down at the last moment to catch me and catapult me into the air, higher than I've ever been before.

Monday was a snow day and the day that I received a letter from University of Texas, Austin sincerely thanking me for my interest in their program, but respectfully rejecting my application. I was devastated as I had decided that Boston University is far too expensive for me to attend school there this past weekend and felt the sting of defeat. I explained to a friend that in my world, if you work hard for something you usually get what you worked hard for and that this just stunk. I worked so hard. No doubt about that.

Yesterday I fought off thoughts that were telling me I wasn't good enough for grad school and maybe it was time to redirect my dreams. It was rough -- after dedicating so many thoughts and so much time to this goal, coming out with no reward was pretty terrible.
Then, around 4:00, my phone rang and the Director of the Department of African-American Studies in Global and Comparative Perspective was on the other line to tell me I had been accepted to Boston's MA program. This was great news, however, the cost of tuition is unreal so I was grateful, but hopeless. THEN she told me that I had been recommended to be awarded a 100% tuition scholarship and a stipend to cover living expenses during the time that I would be a student in the program.

I am still processing this whole thing. It is truly unbelievable.

My students are expressing joy and pride as they fake frowny faces and follow up with, "but Ms. C-------k! Who will teach us next year?!?"

I am telling them that maybe I'll teach them in college.
Wow. Maybe I will.

I am so unbelieveably grateful for those who have helped me and supported me.
It was their help that got me to where I am and will keep pushing me in the direction of where I'm heading.

This is the opportunity of my lifetime and I intend to meet it head on, if given the opportunity.

Thanks to you even, those of you who read this blog and are interested in my life. I'll keep it up during this waiting time. I'll keep it up if I'm lucky enough to get the scholarship and I end up freezing my tail off up North.

How great!

My Rushdie and Me: Adaptation

I emailed this to a favorite person of mine after returning home and thought I summed up all I wanted to share in it. This is a new strategy...rather than adapting (fresh thoughts) my messages for blogs why not maintain the originality of the first expression of the thoughts?

Attempt one: unadulterated explanation, straight from the heart.

Just got home from the Rushdie lecture. He was on point...as per usual I assume.
His lecture was centered around Adaptations. He focused mainly on film adaptations of movies (Ben Button, The Reader, and Slumdog being the primary three) but then led into discussion of adaptations in our own lives (which got me at the core). I thought of you and your infrequent transformations. I appreciated his critique of Slumdog after hearing Deepika's (shared aversion to the film adaptation being made my a man who had "never visited India and thought it would be interesting") and am looking forward to seeing it and viewing it with a critical eye albeit influenced by some marvelous thinkers. He noted an important question when thinking of adapting books to film, mini-series, etc. is What is essential? Then applied this same question to humanity. It was interesting to think in terms of how at times in our lives we find certain things essential (i.e. reading, love, money, "success," parenting children, etc.) and when our lives are shaken (we go blind, someone leaves us, get fired, children grow up) we adapt to find a new essence of life. On a larger scale even to think of this adaptation is also pretty rad. He said we had lived through an era of bad adaptations, appeasements, and can only hope for better films, better movies, and better stories. That was an approximation of how he ended his speech as they took my bag from me and I had to take minimal notes on an the Methodist Church's Offering Envelopes (forgive me father).

Back to our point of how what gets you and I going individually seems to be these endless tunnels with tiny lights at certain points, but for some reason we keep wandering about (and I can only speak for me here): I think that what makes a lot of this stuff so great is that the truths that we stumble upon in our 'studies' are truths that we have known in our lives and have always been on the cusp of naming (consciously or otherwise). It's like tonight, Salman was connecting literature and humanity, and by this ability I was blown away and envious. I want to do that...I want to train my brain to get big, be free and not rigid, to guide itself to epiphany after epiphany as I cultivate it with stories and studies. There was also something comfortable about everything he was saying towards the end though, and I think this is because I have known this habit of adapting by some other name at some other time in my life. I think it is this; the connection to humanity, to emotions, to the 'essence' of life, that keeps me wandering because I am (or feel at least) always almost there. It, like my mother's perfume, C's dumb jokes, and the sound of you singing a new tune, feels like home.

That is what rules about loving what you study and studying you love and I certainly hope that I get into graduate school.

Reflection on Lecture: "There are no women in the Third World"

Last night the student inside of me experienced the blessing of resuscitation; the life-giving thrusts upon my chests, the exhalation from another human’s breath into my lungs, and I feel alive again, in theoretic discourse at least.

I attended a lecture by Emory’s Associate Professor of English and South Asian Studies, Deepiks Bahri last entitled: “There are no Women in the Third World.”
She discussed the role of and position of women in the context of globalization and from a postcolonial feminist perspective examined the questions:
Who can speak and for whom? Who listens? How does one represent the self and others?

Here is where I attempt to connect the dots to what she said and the fragmented thoughts and memories that live somewhere in “No Man’s Land” (i.e. my brain).

As D addressed issues centered around these women that live in developing countries and, therefore, deemed Third World Women (by the First World, of course) she brought to the proverbial table a lot of interesting issues regarding representation, globalization, market economy, power, language, knowledge, understanding, misunderstanding, repression, recession, and oppression. A problem with the problems,she suggested, is that there are no clear resolutions and sometimes the problems aren't viewed as problems to the livers of the lives.

I drifted here and began thinking of the livers of the lives and how we discuss these people like we know (because we have done the research)their situations; their relationships to living. Deepika brought me back with stories from her travels through slums and brothels in India. Personal stories are history, I attempt to thread the tales together to create my understanding of humanity...maybe that explains why my understanding and remembering of things is in such shambles!
An idea came back to me during this lecture; was one that was born in a class on Jazz and Pop Culture as I was reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. In the beginning of the book, second chapter or something, the narrator is thrown into a battle royal and all I remember thinking as this scene filled me with terror disgust is "how can he keep his dignity?"
-and for the connection!-
As Deepika traveled in India and heard the stories of married women who were subjected to forced, unprotected sex with their husbands, forced into the sex trade, chose to live and work in the sex industry, orphaned, sick, and many of these women,she said, had one thing in common: the idea that they still had their "dignity." Deepika discussed the women she encountered as having dignity in a way that suggested that having dignity empowered these women who are seen by many in the Western World as powerless victims to their situations. Her argument, I think, was that these women who, in many ways, have been silenced are speaking up every day in their own language, in their stories that are never going to be published (see globalization to blame), and are not seeking salvation at the hand of Western values or judgments.

I was then led to wonder if feeling worthy of honor (dignity) can conquer a representation that has manifested itself deep into human consciousness (which is an entirely different discussion on representation, our susceptibility to it, and our perception). If that sense of worth carries that much power, and if so how does one maintain that sense of self hood when others are deliberately attacking it. What strength human beings have.

Ah, but these are just questions...that lead to more questions.

A Land Where Imagination Reigns Supreme

I've been seeking refuge from hardening of the imagination by reading children's tales.
I look to authors like Roald Dahl and Shel Silverstein and remind myself that they were adults too. I try to find my creativity and make things with my hands to remind myself that I am capable of creating and imagining.
I've made terrariums complete with banjo playing astronauts, journals adorned with pigs and mice in britches, paintings that double as night lights with roosters on them, super hero dolls, trading cards, drawings of giants, and I feel that I have rescued myself from the dismal valley of "grown up." My writing though is still struggling. It has been so long since I have stayed in with hopes of writing something for myself that isn't simply a reflection, an analysis of a book, event, or film, or a line from my reading that struck me for one reason or another. I want to center myself again and focus my creativity towards writing.

It is my goal to find sanctuary from whatever it is that plagues the youthful mind as I wish to never lose it...
I'm still trying to figure out how to protect it.

Here are some great ones...love Shel Silverstein.

"God's Wheel"

God says to me with a kind of smile,
"Hey how would you like to be God awhile
And steer the world?"
"Okay," says I, "I'll give it a try.
Where do I set?
How much do I get?
What time is lunch?
When can I quit?"
"Gimme back that wheel," says God.
"I don't think you're quite ready yet."


"Listen to the MUSTN'TS"

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves,
then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be."

Back to School Not-so-Blues

It's been a long, long time since I've blogged, but not since I reflected.

Last semester was a bit to much for me to process. Towards the end it seems that all the tiny fires that have been ignited collide with high winds volcanic ash sloshing about. Really, it was a pretty terrible last week and I couldn't have been more thankful for that 3:50 bell on Friday afternoon. My break was great, I had a new year and a new birthday, so here I am a year older, a bit wiser, and hoping for nothing but a disgusting display of positive events this year. ONLY good things. It's all I will accept. Last year brought on enough bad for me to appreciate the good this year too. Gimme all that shimmers and set the rusty bits aside for a while!

The beginning of this semester hasn't been so terrible. I have two of three college applications submitted. The last one will be done soon enough and then I cross my fingers until March(ish) I think. Stress.

I am gearing my focus towards activism and dedicating my time outside of school to crafting and self-education.

Activism within the school is geared towards the Gay/Straight alliance. We have really broken some ground this semester -- I am looking forward to helping individual students and the school community as a whole become more comfortable with GLBT issues. The newspaper is taking care of itself but I am challenging my students as journalists, making them step outside of comfortable places and report facts. This has proven very hard for a Jewish student of mine who is approaching the Israel/Palestine conflict, but she presses on and I pound my fist in the air behind her. It's fun to push them.

I am learning a lot as well. I began the semester after a break that was a little too much fun without knowing what I would teach then deciding to teach something that I wasn't familiar with -- The Arthurian Legend. There was a lot of learning to do and I have actually enjoyed coming back to the legend as an adult.

I am dedicated to a book, a novel believe it or not, just for fun. It's about a fictional literary revolution in Mexico and these kids, well men and women I suppose, parallel lives of Ginsberg or Kerouac sleeping in caves, drinking tequila until sunrise, and the whole while celebrating poetry. It's fun -- The Savage Detectives by: Roberto Bolano.

There will be more as I try to center my focus again to blogging.

So to all my "fans"" (i.e. my wonderful grandfather), don't worry there will be more.

Balancing the Madness

I have been trying to read for pleasure in an attempt to balance the madness that is right now.  

I am keeping to essays and poetry, both of which, like TVDs as opposed to movies, are much less of a time commitment, as time is a commodity right now.

From The Algebra of Infinite Justice by Arundhati Roy

          excerpt taken from "The End of Imagination"

"To love.  To be loved.  To never forget your own insignificance.  To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you.  To seek joy in the saddest of places.  To pursue beauty to its lair.  To never simplify what is complicated and never complicate what is simple.  To respect strength, never power.  Above all, to watch.  To try and understand.  To never look away.  And never, never, to forget." 

[on living while you are alive]

From Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen

"What is a saint?"

"What is a saint?  A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility.  It is impossible to say what that possibility is.  I think it has something to do with the energy of love.  Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence.  A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago.  I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order.  It is a kind of balance that is his glory.  He rides the drifts like an escaped ski.  His course is a caress of the hill.  His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance.  Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid body landscape.  His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world.  He can love the shapes of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart.  It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

These thoughts help me to realize that my driving passion is love.  Those who do not understand my pursuits in life, who write me off as a hippy wanting to study trivial matters, who think it strange that I want to better understand human beings and the effects of history on us and the ways in which we will affect the history that has yet to come, are not guided by the same passions.  I will try to love and understand those people as well, as they are human beings just as I am.

Here's to Feeling Good, Here's to Feeling Bad

Einstein said that one should "try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value."

He was smart guy, but still not smart enough to use gender neutral language.   This idea of success and how to define it is always pressing on my heart.  How do I know that I have been successful?  When will I know?

I question what Einstein would have classified as "value."  Does value amount to goodness?  Is being good doing the right thing?  What is the right thing?  Life never stops punching me in the face with questions. 

My life has become a terribly stressful attempt to prove myself.  I have spent three months on a paper that is still incomplete and that, with deadlines fast approaching, I am turning my nose up at.  It isn't good enough.  I am not good enough.  

22 pages, three months, 400 cups of coffee, and 40 books later, I am still not satisfied.  

I do not feel that I have been 'successful' at accurately representing my skills.  

When is good enough good enough?  How will I measure my success?

What if I don't get accepted to any of these schools?  

After all of this work?

I will sit tomorrow with this paper and try to wrap it up.  It will then only be the first of many drafts.  I have never set out on a task quite as daunting as this.  It makes me question my discipline, my drive.    

The GRE studying is a totally different.  If success is measured by discipline then I am a failure.  I have learned new words, but I love words so that isn't hard.  I can't do math.  My brain, my heart, my spirit - none of which are interested in the Pythagorean theorem.  

I have felt, more than anything, like an underachiever lately.  I find that my frustration sprouts from my ability to be so easily distracted with feelings and thoughts.  My little journal is always begging me to reflect on the day.  I feel that discipline helps drive success.  How am I supposed to be successful and balance all these emotions that are in me?  Hypnotists?  

I feel successful as an activist for the first time in my life.

I sponsor my school's Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) and I have been pretty successful at exciting my students.

I have been successful at ensuring that my students are protected and feel safe to be themselves...whatever that means.

I have come up against slight conflict within my rather conservative school, but surprisingly, have stood strong.  I have never been one to back down, but on the same token, have never been one to get myself into conflict that I must stand strong.  I don't mind this kind of conflict though - conflict I believe in, conflict that protects my 1st Amendment rights, my student's safety, and awakens the activist in all of my students.  It is exciting.  I have been successful at this.  

Tomorrow I will be attending a candlelight vigil to oppose Proposition 8.  

My closest friend at work is a lesbian and has been with her partner for 8 years.  They are in love.  

More in love than many I have met.  Their relationship works better than many straight couples I have known.  

Damn sure works better than the relationships that I have been a part of.  It is a terrible tragedy to me that this 

phenomenal lady can't ceremoniously join in union with the love of her life, simply because the love of her life is also a her.

It is inspiring to me that my students are willing to stand for the fights they believe in and be so selfless at such a young age.

I wish I had been as successful at being a good person at such a young age.  It took me a lot longer to realize that the world is much, much larger than me.  

Life really is about balance:  with understanding the realities of love, with one's self, with ones thoughts, being sure to live deliberately but also indulge in impulse at times, balance of waking and sleeping, work and sanity, reality and daydreaming, doing and being.  It is difficult in remembering to give the difficulty of finding balance when looking upon yourself with a critical eye.  I do try.

Oh, oh, I am also very good at making Hot Toddy's.  That, for sure, is one of my successes.  

December 1 = GRE

December 15 = Deadlines for NYU and UT Austin

Obama-Rham-a!

I am still reeling and I am so hopeful and I care. I really just cannot believe it.

November 5, 2008...

a New York Times was impossible to find (if any of you have an extra...please send it to me).
my students saw my hope as I became emotional talking about what this means for the future of our country and for them
I experienced something that I never imagined I would - good history
I was, for the first time in my life, truly, proud to be an American.

I was the best kind of tired I have ever been on Wednesday as I could not sleep Tuesday night. I lay awake not believing what happened...giggling to myself and thinking that maybe, just maybe, our country has finally wisened up. I lay awake in confusion because I have never had this much hope in one leader, I have never been so moved by choices this nation has made, and I have never felt that my voice was heard. Time for never to be put to rest.

Wednesday I sat looking at my students knowing that the days of doubting oneself due to societal representations are numbered. Thinking that these kids and their kid's kids will grow to truly believe that they can be anything they want to be. I don't remember ever feeling so happy. My african american boys have an idol other than a rapper or an NBA star now...they have the President of the United States of America. It fuels my desire to go back to school even more, study history, witness our nation's history morph and change, and teach tolerance.

I didn't know much about Biden when Obama picked him, but I do know a lot about ole' Rahm Emmanuel. I know he's a badass. I know that he is a good person (well, as far as politicians go) and I know that he will do a great job! Finally we have people in the White House who care about people! Not people who care about money and put on this facade of caring about the lives of the soldiers they are sending to die.

More things that make me happy right now:

This article drawing parallels to the West Wing and our made for t.v country.

and the end of an era, thanks Edward Gorey:

Mid-Election Day Reflection

From this morning as I was waiting to vote:

Ms. Pearl just arrived to vote for the man who, according to Michael Eric Dyson will "integrate economic Viagra" into our nations troubled economy.  Ms. Pearl is fragile, she walks with the assistance of a cane and is accompanied by her grandchildren who also bear the wrinkles of laughter and age around their eyes and mouths.  Ms. Pearl is African-American.  I imagine that at some point in the development of her wisdom Ms. Pearl wasn't allowed to punch the ballot.  I imagine that at some point in her life she was told that her opinions were insignificant which inherently suggests that she was too.  It is our opinions, our beliefs, our hope, that carry us through this unbelievable time.  Our hopes, not fears, that inspire us to wait in line for three hours, but allow people like Ms. Pearl to do the honors without waiting.  She has been waiting long enough.  We all have.  I am so proud to experience, in my life, this day where an African-American can stand equally among men, can believe in a nation that has not believed in him for centuries, and can find support from community members across the world.  I am hopeful.  I want Ms. Pearl to experience this equality; to witness this highly qualified man being sworn in as President of the United States of America - for American to finally, truly become united again as a people; not a party, not a color, but people.

Today makes my heart too full.  I am crossing my fingers.  I am so, so, so hopeful.  

Either way, whatever happens, today I am proud to be an American.  

Gangs and Gays

The past few weeks have been a demon hell ride:
writing sample research and development, GRE study and practice, grading papers about the role of violence in a establishment or dissolution of a civilization, trying to be a human being and remember that I have friends other than my cat, etc.

I have been guilty of getting sucked into that lack of time, that lack of thinking space that I usually allot myself. Well, yesterday and today are worth being mentioned.

Yesterday was the PSAT (oh I feel your pain lil' babies!) and then the kids left at 12:40. As me and my friends ate our FREE (that's right, the only time we get any perks is on half days...free tacos!) meal some hunky, hunky cops came into the meeting area. These cops: Officers Biff and Buff began to set up their aesthetically disappointing poster boards decorated with a variety of belts and bandannas as well as doodling (very familiar doodles) by kids that are of the middle and high school persuasion.

Biff apologized for some bogus news story that featured my high school as one riddled with gang members and Buff plugged he and his partner's fervid need to rid the streets of hoodlums and caricaturists. It was bizarre to think that my little dudes and ladies were being bossed by an older gang man and that 12-year olds had guns and there is basically nothing we can do about it if they are already involved. Our options as per Biff and Buff are 'turn them in' or 'turn them in.'
Heavy business.

There is the gang segment; the downer. Moving on; the inspiration.

I am the sponsor for my schools gay/straight alliance. It is called Spectrum, like the rainbow, and I am really proud that my school allows it. I think our students need the support and need to know that they can be gay, who cares!?! They are still capable and wonderful little babes.
Today these two great people came in to speak during lunches who represent the Atlanta chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). This group works to educate families, assist families, and support people who have recently "come out of the closet." The man and wife duo have two gay sons and one straight daughter and shared their story with the kids who chose to attend the meeting. They also discuss the need for our school to be a safe environment for these kids. Because my attitude about being gay or whatever you are is "So what? You are still a human being" I never considered the need to 'fight' for the rights of gays in my school. However, I whole-heartedly see the need to support them and make them feel safe. That was until I was reminded today that groups and organization exist in the world that work to convince these children that they are wrong or damaged and their 'illness' can be cured. I realized that my counselors in the office don't have any resources to support our GLBT community at school or to educate their families on support groups that can help the family stay together and try to understand. I have placed brochures in my principals boxes as well as my counselors. I wanna fight to make our school a safe place...a real safe place where people can be respected and honored for whatever they are. Kids 'come out' often, last semester I had two boys begin to question their sexual preferences. One, an African-American young man, had a really hard time with it. He spent most his time with the school psychologist. It was a very hard time for him.

In terms of today, I realized that being pro-active isn't always synonymous with putting up a 'fight' and that doing things like this, which seem small, really can make a huge difference. [cue sentimental melody] The couple who came to speak with us wants to do a PR video for PFLAG and they want our group to be in it.

Let's get that education going!

Past, Present, and the Road of Forgetting

I had to leave work today early.  I was sick because I haven't been tending to myself enough.  I have this problem where I get myself into too much and overdo it, especially when I need to reduce the amount of down time I have so that risky thoughts do not move furtively to the forefront of my imagination.  I have burnt out and need a weekend of recovery.  Unfortunately this weekend is going to serve as a reminder of my very recent past and it's troublesome relationship with my present.

I have always considered that understanding and appreciating one's past, analyzing one's past, and reflecting upon one's past is a means to an end where growth and knowledge of oneself and one's purpose flourish.  I have attempted to excavate the terrain of my past, which at times has been very rocky, seeking out my individualism, my purposeful division from other's in order to reevaluate me, my identity.  Basically, I am pro-past. 

However, I am pro-past as a means of understanding oneself more wholly and purely on an individual basis.  I am not a pro-paster who would recommend maintaining an open connection to what was.  The process of losing, moving on, or being done is one that has an end-point.  Classes in school, books, seminars, lunch dates, relationships; these all have an end and become the past.  In my opinion, there is a shelf-life for reflecting: as soon as possible.  These times vary depending upon the situation, of course.  I say all of this to say that I am pro-past with an understanding that the past must only actively exist for as long as it takes to get what you need out of it, then must be tucked away into a cubbyhole in our brains or hearts so that we may continue with the present.  

Tonight I picked up Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism which is some pretty awesome stuff.  Heavy thoughts, heavy reading, but phenomenal ideas and explanations.  My reading in that book led me an essay by T. S. Eliot entitled "Tradition and the Individual Talent" which discusses the connection between the present and the past regarding poets (it also discusses how all poets are crazy as a steel toed sandal and less emotionally aware than your average Sully cat...on which I totally agree).

Eliot argues that the poet is always affected by the past through the "old, dead poets" and the influences they have had upon him, which is similar to Harold Bloom's ideas in The Anxiety of Influence (except Bloom saw this as a catalyst for anxiety).  Eliot argues that "the difference between present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past's awareness of itself cannot show."  Okay, so shelf life?  To be knowledgeable of what a past encapsulates, but to move forcefully into the present as if the past is history...because it is.

Currently in my life I am struggling with ideas of past becoming too involved with my present and the ways in which that past seems to haunt me, to not let me go.  In the application of Eliot's ideas to my own personal problem I think he is supporting my pro-past decision (shelf life, cubby hole)...I think.  Or is it better to deny our past the credit it deserves with the universal knowledge that the experiences we have become a part of who we are?  I think it is indeed anxiety-inducing to understand that there is a solid, complex connection between the past and the present,  and if gone without being attended may seep into our subconscious and twist the tales of history (see slavery in the United States) because often the past is meant to be forgotten, we are meant to 'write another chapter,' and prodding into the depths of what should be forgetfulness can really be gut-wrenching (on both an individual and national level).  When though, if we continue to live solely in the present without acknowledging it's friendliness to the past, do we learn?  If we aren't learning from our uncomfortable pasts we maintain a static notion of identity, but where do we find the strength to continue to poke the rotting animal within to find answers when this animal suffered a painful death, one that we do not wish to revisit often?

Paper Progress and Archiving Oldies

Proving myself to graduate schools may be the death of me.

I set aside today for the latter half of my introduction to this paper.  My to do list said this:

Establish idea of community, establish idea of classroom community in my classroom, identify which characteristics are transcendent, then establish the two communities I will be analyzing.

I basically spent all day thinking of community.  To define community is...not possible.  What is community?

I am not well versed in scholars of sociology or anthropology so spent my day looking for those people.

I then lost my focus and my brain shut down.  

Man.

Tomorrow I get back to it.  When I know I need someone to support my idea in this intro part, which won't be research heavy, I am just going to enter brackets.  Maybe that will keep me focused.

Speaking of not being focused on one topic...

Someone once told me that I was not a writer.  This someone also determined that I was inadequate in other aspects of my life, according to this person, which means very little to my sense of self or worth in my life.  The thought that I, someone who writes for various purposes every day, discusses writing every day, teaching writing every day, and reads books (that were written) every day, is not a writer has recently caused me to ponder what qualifies one as a writer.  I think I am a writer, whether I publish in paper back journals or win awards for what I compose.  What is a writer?  What is community?  Unanswerable questions may be the death of me actually.

So many questions.

I have written more with my students...they are writers, right?

"The 'Art' of Forgetting"

Dedicated to a man and woman who wore their heads on their necks upside down and backwards and to the things that they wished out of their lives and the things they maybe wanted back one day.

If only my mailbox could muster the courage to form the words you must’ve meant.

As if a little glitter is enough to patch up a hole in the wall that begs the bitter wind enter safely.
Or a check hidden in a fold could buy back skinned knees, honor roll certificates, pre-fem playground games, post-pubescent heart troubles, the first rally, the first and second graduations.
All things spectacular, mediocre - a fall from Grace,
a journey to enlightenment - have rushed past without your knowing.

Hallmark certainly doesn’t erase snotty noses, smoking barrels, swallowed fearlumps, or sheets hiding tiny, tear-stained faces from a troubled memory.

The days of sugar and spice and everything nice are long gone and the evenings completed by mothball scented animal crackers have been tucked into the pockets of forgetting.
The only thing worse than a Driftwood Dad is the older generation of bandits that acted as his accomplices.

And if you knew me at all you would know that I hate pink and don’t believe in angels.

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Thinking more on writing and writers I thought that maybe what makes a writer a writer, aside form skill and public acceptance, is one's courage or ability to share what s/he writes.  I have books of secrets, archives of baby thoughts dating back to 1996, but never had courage to publish or share.  I was published when I was in kindergarten though.  That is a fact.  A story I wrote in elementary school was published in a journal and I was in the newspaper along with a friend of mine for this achievement.  Does this qualify me and my abilities?  Great!

Here is this piece, and here's to sticking it to those who think they have all the answers, but are truly grasping for straws.

"Tiresius Bound"

Knee deep in the entrails of then – of nevermore
The son of the Shepard seeks truths in the sewage of yesterday’s massacre.
Veils of ignorance, of falsehood, slurp in excrement scraping along behind the staff that clanks the rusted and forgotten pipes.
Seeking ablution for becoming lost in this wasteland.
Following only the sounds of filth flowing into an
unknown abyss the blind prophet seeks his grail of contentment.

Party Mix and Politics

I liken the teaching staff at a school to a bag of GORP:  chunks of very different snacks, all of which affect your body in different ways (proteins and wheat and chocolate goodness) and, separately, have flavor explosions in your mouth that are delightful.  They never mix and become one, sometimes the combinations can be satisfying, but still the peanut and the raisin are alone in their journey to the pit of your belly.  

I am not sure what influenced this particular metaphor, it is rather ridiculous, as am I right now.  I have just been reflecting on the differences between me and some of my colleagues.

Today I took part in a conversation, rather was on the receiving end of one, where a friend and colleague was discussing his feelings of going on to a PhD program.  He wants to start a writing program for underprivileged children who wish to work hard modeled after a rather successful author's writing workshop and centers in other cities.  This idea, these types of ideas, are amazing and promising when put into action.  My frustrations came from the realization that his ideas are rarely acted upon.  He allows the "system" and the "administration" become excuses for why he should not dream or do.  

He reminds me of a friend who is a Libertarian, which I personally think is crap (it's my blog, I can say it).

To me the idea of being a part of a party that is anti-big government in a country that is run by big government is synonymous with giving up.  

It as if I, as a public school teacher, were to say, "the system is far too flawed, I can't do anything" rather than doing what I am doing:  making changes, in one of the countries most flawed systems, from the inside.  To surrender to the powers that be, the powers that know nothing of classroom life, would bear no fruit, would win no small victories.  I choose the small ones, politically and in my daily life.  We have to work in the systems that exist, because they aren't changing...only shifting...very slowly.

Back to my colleague.  This colleague says daily, "I don't feel like teaching today."  This colleague thinks highly of only his advanced placement students and these thoughts are represented daily in the language he uses regarding his regular level kids.  This colleague cannot make a change because he will not allow for one in his life.  

He, quite frankly, has given up.

In this conversation, when I could get a word in, I would say things like, "Well, you shouldn't allow the way the administration feels to determine your classroom activities or your personal philosophies...look at "A" and me.  We are doing whatever the hell we want in our classrooms and it is working and it is, well, very different, but no one (knock on wood) has given us grief about it. We are pushing brand new ways of thinking and blowing kids minds with HUGE questions every day.  Do you think the administration has any clue what we are talking about in here? Do you think that stops us?  No."  These statements were met with, "Yeah, but..."  

Don't gimme that cynicism! I am fighting my own demons every day!  I frown at the state that the world is in, but I smile and cry too because good things are happening and I am making some of them happen.  The world is a pretty place littered with a little bit of ugly and bad, not the other way around.  

A very dear person to me told me recently that a person has to make her own happiness.  It's true in all that we do.  Everything.  

No matter how much we love something, it can be hard.  I think you just have to be a fighter.  

Tonight my heart has a lot of sadness in it and sometimes I want to cross to the other side where things are half empty and people are never good, but I can't.  No one has ever changed the world by saying, "No we can't."  

  

I have written something and it's my blog and I put things I write on here.  It follows this posting.

Cheers to a life worth living!

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Réquiem ætérnam:
Réquiem ætérnam dona ei Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace. Amen.
                                                                                                         -Eternal Rest

"Vigil for the Departed"

Let us attend to the soul of the lost:

An altar littered with mementos of a sunbeam gone too soon:
Poems that speak of truth in a heartnest,
Banjos that once tweetled tin can tunes,
Trifles, like confetti dreams, that fell from planes,
A handmade honeypot, drained of it's sweetness.

The tenor bell tolls:

Hyssop in mason jars bow as St. Martha sings of hope.
Cor mundum crea in me…
Forgive me father for rainy days and dreamcharms.
Forgive me father for uniting passion and reason.
Blot out my iniquity and make me pure.

Rest is given to the souls of the faithful:

As perpetual light radiates St. Joseph's
hope of a pilgrimage is laid to rest,
lamp lighting and Sweetgrass fantasies drift heavenward.
Thou preparest a table for me,
I shall break bread in the solitude of my healing.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive…
Forever and ever.

Amen.

The Morning After: Open House

Dante may believe that there are only 9 circles of hell, but after my first open house experience, I would argue this theory.

I started my day yesterday at 7:45 in a meeting regarding a very intelligent student's progress.  His progress:  he's doing great!

I didn't leave work yesterday until 8:45 p.m. and didn't get home until 9:30.  

During the day I did my normal teacher routine:  Teach kids great things, let them write a lot and read a lot, attempt to grade some essays, stress that I don't have the daytime to work on my own essay, stare at a stack of books and feel guilt shoot up through my side; a guilt that sings, "Na-na-na, boo-boo. You won't go to grad school!"  

After accepting my fate as the girl behind the desk, I begrudgingly began grading papers.  

In no time, or two and a half hours later, my student's parents filtered into my room, sat in the desks, and listened to me ramble for about 7 minutes...6 times.  I am a fast talker, but in order to give the parents what they wanted (to hear their kids are being challenged, in what ways, being prepared for life and, unfortunately, tests, and maintaining an excitement in the classroom) I had to hurry it up.  I performed all day for children and then again for parents.

Today was picture day and pictures are taken in English class.

I had to escort six classes to the gym and deal with club fair and my club's table today as well.

I can't remember the last time I was this exhausted, but still the thought that I haven't looked at my research in two days is hanging over my head like a bucket of slime...just as the 120 essays that have yet to be graded are.

How to find a balance?

How, how, how?

Yes We Can? I sure as heck hope so!

Week in review:

Been going nuts reading new books, towering stacks of books, walking to the copy machine reading books, books under my pillows at night, books while I am driving down 75S...kidding. There is SO much to know before I begin writing my research paper.

It's coming together though...finally. So is a list of schools. So is a list of programs. One thing that most definitely is not coming together though is my bank account! I am nervous about the debt that school has the potential of creating, but when I start daydreaming about going back to school and being in that environment I can imagine myself nowhere else.

On another note, my job rules right now and my kids are hard workers. They are thinking and writing and working independently and it is blowing me away. It is as if I am running a miniature college classroom right here where I am. I will post some of their personal narratives, or at least pieces from them, soon to show you guys what they are pumping out in here.

Things I have decided:
A teacher in my hall is boring and I wouldn't want her as a teacher if I were a kid:
"As I stated, you need to watch the movie and answer the questions. Blah, blah, robot voice, blah, monotone, Stop Talking, sit still, you're late, blah."
Where is the livelihood? These kids kinda hate school, it works better if you don't seem so bummed on it yourself.

Certain kids have a crush on me and it is working to my advantage in that they say "Thank you, Ms. C" when I assign them homework. I'll take it. It is pretty hilarious actually.

My journalism class is really surprising me with what they are doing. They piss me off and make me laugh real hard, but this paper is going to be a different world this year.
One of my kids sat at the end of the lunch line and collected student's spare change as they retreated with their rectangle pizzas all day and filled an entire can with money for the paper!
Little entrepreneurs I tell you!

I have a severe intolerance for people who don't listen. Who cut you off in the midst of a sentence and are only holding their breath until it is their turn to talk again. Students do not do this...teachers do this and it makes me want to puke on them.

Teaching writing and research has made me significantly better at both.

Finally, Obama is a good man, a politician, but damn does he make me want to believe him.
I am proud to be an American today when he can stand without fear for his life and claim the nomination for the people.

[cue Lee Greenwood!]