Mish-Mash

HOLIDAYS
It's been awhile since I blogged, so here's the lowdown on the holidays. For Thanksgiving, we did the actual holiday with Ryan's cousin's family, who lives in town. It was a pretty okay time, although it was weird not seeing Bob and Carol there, and there were considerably more small children underfoot. Interesting how families grow that way. One positive thing that came out of it was my introduction to Karaoke Revolution for PS2, which was a hoot and a half. I really have to get that! Now, what would be great would be if they could combine Dance Dance Revolution AND Karaoke Revolution.....whew....

When Thanksgiving weekend hit, we went to my parents' house. I was glad to see my brother and his family, including my two amazing nephews. We weren't sure if they were going to be able to come--they've been really busy and stretched thin since my sister-in-law's dad was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. But they braved a day with us. I couldn't believe how big Brenden has gotten! He's seven months old, but wearing year-old clothes and rapidly growing out of them...

For Christmas, we're probably just going to hang with my parents again. We probably won't see Abe and Tracie and the kids until after the New Year. It will be nice to have a relaxing holiday....I fail to see how running around all the time really puts anyone in the holiday spirit.

THEATER
It's kind of redundant for me to put this here, since the long and short of it is that I've decided to abstain from theater for awhile. I didn't audition for Virginia Woolf or anything at the Civic, either--I decided that my sense of balance and well-being was too fragile right now to endure another rigorous rehearsal process. Plus, I can't say that I truly love any of the shows being auditioned right now. Virginia Woolf is more like a trainwreck I can't look away from--I'm intrigued, even repulsed, but it's not something I would love for the sake of doing it. I would really just enjoy the people I'd be doing it with. So a little break for me. Meanwhile, my friend Beth is auditioning for the Civic's Shakespeare in Hollywood, which is one I really want to see when it opens! Wahoo!

NANO
I finished!
50,131/50,000 (according to the NaNo word counter...my own count says over 50,200. But oh well)

SCHOOL
The semester is coming to a close. Finals are next week in all of my classes. It's hard to believe it's gone by. Five whole classes! And now they're done. I will probably get to see a lot of my PLATO and Basic Comp. students again in higher-level classes--a lot of them have been telling me they're registered with me for winter. I think it's awesome that they are excited about that--I don't have the heart to point out that I teach most of the classes at this campus now, so it's not like they have a whole lot of choice. ;)

I did have my 30-day evaluation just before Thanksgiving, and it went very well. Really, there wasn't much to say! I overachieved, like usual, with my goals sheet and even in creating a sheet that detailed some non-goal-related achievements--stuff more related to my attitude and willingness. Diana said she's happy with what I've accomplished, and I'm glad for that.

Lately I find myself struggling with the students who are not attentive and/or constantly try to get out of doing actual work. Believe it or not, this is not most of the students (as cynical minds would have you believe). Really, just a few. And I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. Partly I think, "well, you've paid your money to get the time with me. And if this is how you want to spend it, so be it. It's your dime." So that part of me wants to just let them go about their merry ways and if they fail, or get a grade they don't like, that's their deal.

On the other hand, part of me really wants to whip these people into some shape--to knock it into their heads that this is not acceptable, and disrespectful to me. That's what gets me so worked up--it is disrespectful to the teacher, and on my less-than-100% days, I respond to it that way. I don't like that I do; I'd like to think that I'm above that. But I also remember that the teachers I respected most in high school and college were the ones that demanded excellence, and you really needn't bother showing up for class unprepared and unwilling to work. It just wasn't accepted.

I wonder if the two attitudes are not entirely mutually exclusive....can I do both? Be firm and yet detached? Someone mentioned the other day somewhere about the Buddhist tenet of not forming attachments--to things, to people, to ideas, to outcomes. But to be peaceful in whatever you do. That makes sense to me on some level, but I have no idea how to achieve it!

Meanwhile, I've been reading Alfie Kohn again--this time about his take on grades, standardized testing, and what our schools need to be for students to really thrive (he focuses on K-12, although I see a lot of his theories as applicable to higher education as well). I'm wondering how I might incorporate some of those strategies into my classrooms next term. What if there were no tests, no grades, and everything was about the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake? If students were allowed to explore what actually interested them within a field, creating their own structure that they controlled? A deeply engrained neural pathway or two in my brain objects to this, saying that it would be chaos, but then again, I'm not so sure. And can there be a balance between imposed structure (what I'm telling them they have to do) and self-created structure?

HEALTH
Since Thanksgiving, I've really rededicated myself to my own personal health and well-being. Part of this is weight loss, but another, possibly even more significant part, is just learning how to balance. I have a sort-of new job that takes a lot of time, and has a lengthy commute, so that's a huge part of my day and week; I have a husband that I want to see, and friends I want to talk to. And on top of all of that, I want to be able to make sensible choices that are good for me in terms of my relationship with food and moving my body.

To that end, I joined Sparkpeople.com, which so far has been a blessing in every way. It costs nothing, for one thing, and yet offers so much in terms of information, food and activity trackers, articles, and community. It reminds me a little of Weight Watchers, in that the community aspect is vital to success--although WW cost money, and required your time to attend meetings (and it cost extra if you wanted to access online features!). So here, you get that feeling without paying money and you can have it 24/7, whatever time of day or night you happen to need it. It also has the food and activity trackers, which are awesome in how specific they are. And the best feature, in my opinion, is the sister site, Sparkrecipes.com, which offers a recipe calculator--you enter in the ingredients and their amounts, tell it the number of servings, and it gives you a nutritional breakdown per serving. Absolutely brilliant. Why has no one thought of this before? (or at least offered it for free?)

And so, I'm on my journey once again. I've lost a little weight thus far, but I'm trying not to be results-oriented (though that's difficult). I have noticed how much more energy I have into the night, especially on Mondays and Tuesdays when I'm at work for so long. I find I have more energy going into a night class than some of my students who've been sleeping half the day, even though I've been at work 9 hours and counting! That's kind of fun.

One of the most interesting moments so far, though, happened just today. I had kind of a lousy start--I thought it would be a "snow day" (or technically an "ice day") because of the big storm passing through the area, but they didn't cancel. So I had to get up extra early because I knew the roads would be bad. Then, for some reason, breakfast really didn't fill me, and before I knew it, I was on one of my emotional eating spirals. Mind you, I have never been able to identify one AS it begins--usually I can only see it after I've gone through it and managed to eat my way through my kitchen, or a vending machine, or whatever. By then I've eaten myself nearly to sickness and regret every moment I just spent. Today, however, I actually caught myself. I listened to my body and it told me I wasn't hungry....I'd just eaten lunch, and it was a good, full lunch....it was my mind calling out for more, my mind that wanted appeasement. I could actually separate the sensations of being physically hungry and mentally/emotionally hungry. It was actually kind of surreal! I hope I can do it again next time this happens. Because I managed to keep my eating in check today, despite considerably bad odds, and I want to keep it up.