I like the place where we live. Sure, there are definitely times when I wish we had more room for guests, but there's space enough for the two of us and our pets. A few years ago we were shopping for something bigger: property values were high, our home equity was burning a hole in our pockets, and sub-prime mortgages were too easy to qualify for. But nothing we liked worked out, and after a few months of unsuccessful house hunting, we sat down and had a heart to heart. We decided that although this place is not perfect, anything more would be somewhat wasteful... the phrase "carbon footprint" actually came up.
After making the conscious choice to stay here, we decided to spend some time and money on making this place as close to what we want as possible. We re-did our kitchen, and we have a budget for some other improvement projects. We've worked at using our storage space more efficiently, and we're engaged in a one day at a time struggle with materialism: there's a lot of junk that needs to go. Sadly, we still haven't resolved the dilemma of where to keep our bikes-- poor vagabonds, they spent the winter outside, but I am going to take them for maintenance and tune-ups next week.
One thing we'll never be able to add to our townhouse-style condo is a garden. There is no outdoor space for growing much more than a few hostas and hydrangeas, plus I don't think the owners association would be too keen on what I have in mind. One of my interests is buying food as fresh and local as I can, and so I have it in my head that I'd like to grow herbs and vegetables and flowers and maybe even keep bees someday.
Fortunately, our county has a number of community gardens; unfortunately, there is a long waiting list for one. I put my name on it two years ago, and I haven't heard a word since. Until today! This evening I received an email, not that I had actually gotten a plot yet, but that I might get one this season. I practically jumped for joy at the prospect. Spring is here and this could be good.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Swinging
We knew this day was coming. Our school has been undergoing renovation since the beginning of the year. This extensive project is being conducted in phases and requires teachers to completely pack up our classrooms and move to a "swing space" for 4-6 weeks. Our instructions are to separate our materials into what can go into storage and what we will need in our temporary space. Oh yes, and we have to teach, too. School doesn't get out around here for another eleven weeks.
My team's area is phase four. Back in September we had high hopes that the construction would fall behind schedule and our move would coincide with the end of school. No such luck-- we found out today that our rooms must be empty two weeks from tomorrow. As the year has progressed, we have heard our colleagues in earlier phases complain about the inconvenience, the poor planning and communication, and the fact that we are expected to do most of this on our own time, without compensation.
I have dreaded the day when I would have to pack everything up. I've been in my classroom sixteen years, longer than I've ever actually lived anywhere in my life. I have a lot of stuff, too-- mostly books, but plenty of other things I've collected over my teaching career as well. So, how surprised was I, as I sat in the meeting this afternoon going over the logistics of our move, to feel a little vagabond smile sneaking across my face?
Turns out that I'm kind of excited to be forced to go through everything and pare way down, and being in another part of the building for a few weeks will be novel and fun. Plus the room I'm moving to is huge-- literally twice the size of the one I have now, and when I took a quick walk-through this afternoon, I could only see the possibilities.
My team's area is phase four. Back in September we had high hopes that the construction would fall behind schedule and our move would coincide with the end of school. No such luck-- we found out today that our rooms must be empty two weeks from tomorrow. As the year has progressed, we have heard our colleagues in earlier phases complain about the inconvenience, the poor planning and communication, and the fact that we are expected to do most of this on our own time, without compensation.
I have dreaded the day when I would have to pack everything up. I've been in my classroom sixteen years, longer than I've ever actually lived anywhere in my life. I have a lot of stuff, too-- mostly books, but plenty of other things I've collected over my teaching career as well. So, how surprised was I, as I sat in the meeting this afternoon going over the logistics of our move, to feel a little vagabond smile sneaking across my face?
Turns out that I'm kind of excited to be forced to go through everything and pare way down, and being in another part of the building for a few weeks will be novel and fun. Plus the room I'm moving to is huge-- literally twice the size of the one I have now, and when I took a quick walk-through this afternoon, I could only see the possibilities.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
In My Expert Opinion
Last Friday was the deadline for the online adolescent development course that I've been presenting; all participants were supposed to have their work in by then. In my mind, it was a flexible deadline, more along the lines of a vagabond's ETA, but everyone who planned to complete the course met it. Teachers! Sheesh.
So, I've been working my way through the assignments that have been submitted. It's a pass/fail course for re-certification points, and credit relies primarily on completion of the required assignments, but even so, I feel that everyone should get some feedback on their work, so that's what I've been doing.
This afternoon I looked at one of the final projects. It was a two page paper arguing against K-8 schools. I read it with interest, especially because I have the opposite opinion. It was well-reasoned enough, but ultimately I was unconvinced. Based primarily on the author's fifteen years of experience as a middle school counselor, near the end she cited a source. I did a bit of a double take when I saw that this expert and I had the same last name. Wow, I wonder who that is? I thought. I'll definitely have to read that article. Upon finishing the essay, I glanced eagerly to the bibliography.
Her source?
Was me.
She was citing the slide show that I authored which was the text for one of the units in the course.
I laughed out loud. Believe me, I AM an expert... in my own mind. At first, it was cool to have some independent confirmation of that, no matter how small. But then... I realized that she used my work to support an opinion I disagree with.
Hey! Is that even allowed?
So, I've been working my way through the assignments that have been submitted. It's a pass/fail course for re-certification points, and credit relies primarily on completion of the required assignments, but even so, I feel that everyone should get some feedback on their work, so that's what I've been doing.
This afternoon I looked at one of the final projects. It was a two page paper arguing against K-8 schools. I read it with interest, especially because I have the opposite opinion. It was well-reasoned enough, but ultimately I was unconvinced. Based primarily on the author's fifteen years of experience as a middle school counselor, near the end she cited a source. I did a bit of a double take when I saw that this expert and I had the same last name. Wow, I wonder who that is? I thought. I'll definitely have to read that article. Upon finishing the essay, I glanced eagerly to the bibliography.
Her source?
Was me.
She was citing the slide show that I authored which was the text for one of the units in the course.
I laughed out loud. Believe me, I AM an expert... in my own mind. At first, it was cool to have some independent confirmation of that, no matter how small. But then... I realized that she used my work to support an opinion I disagree with.
Hey! Is that even allowed?
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Rear View
Last week I smashed the hell out of the side view mirror on my new car. Regular readers will be relieved to know that it was the same mirror I damaged the first week I owned it, AND that I hadn't had it repaired yet. That first accident destroyed the trim on the mirror, and it looked a lot worse than it was-- the mirror itself was never non-functional, and once I popped a few pieces back in place, it wasn't even that noticeable.
My second go at destroying it was much more effective. I heard a sickening crunch of plastic and glass as I backed down my sister's narrow driveway, just a little too close to the gate on the right. The mirror was shattered into at least twenty different fragments, and I was sooo mad at myself for not being more careful. The fact that it already needed fixing was only lukewarm comfort.
Unlike the vagabond only concerned with the road ahead, I worried about making the 600 mile trip home without that rear view, but I did my best with what I had: I adjusted the other two mirrors and hit the road. Fortunately, we arrived without any problem, and the repair is scheduled for tomorrow.
The other day I realized the strangest thing, though. When I looked at that mirror out of habit, I could clearly see what was behind me. Somehow, my brain filtered those twenty disparate perspectives into one, usable image. In amazement, I even used the switch to fine tune the view.
What a marvel of adaptation the human brain is! Or is it? Because, quite frankly, objects in the mirror are still a lot closer than they appear.
My second go at destroying it was much more effective. I heard a sickening crunch of plastic and glass as I backed down my sister's narrow driveway, just a little too close to the gate on the right. The mirror was shattered into at least twenty different fragments, and I was sooo mad at myself for not being more careful. The fact that it already needed fixing was only lukewarm comfort.
Unlike the vagabond only concerned with the road ahead, I worried about making the 600 mile trip home without that rear view, but I did my best with what I had: I adjusted the other two mirrors and hit the road. Fortunately, we arrived without any problem, and the repair is scheduled for tomorrow.
The other day I realized the strangest thing, though. When I looked at that mirror out of habit, I could clearly see what was behind me. Somehow, my brain filtered those twenty disparate perspectives into one, usable image. In amazement, I even used the switch to fine tune the view.
What a marvel of adaptation the human brain is! Or is it? Because, quite frankly, objects in the mirror are still a lot closer than they appear.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Look at the Bright Side
Today was our first day back from Spring Break and contrary to expectations, I invited students to tell the class something awful that happened over the vacation.
Oh my... there was certainly no shortage of misfortune: they recounted all sorts of falls and scrapes and bangs and bruises; there were tales of long car rides with unruly siblings, games lost at the last minute, vagabond pets, cousins who wouldn't leave, sightseeing in the pouring rain, parents who forced their children out of bed for all manner of sunrise services, grandparents who insisted that reading at the table was rude, and television shows that simply disappointed.
Fortunately, those were the worst of it, and after all that, they couldn't very well complain about being back at school, could they?
Oh my... there was certainly no shortage of misfortune: they recounted all sorts of falls and scrapes and bangs and bruises; there were tales of long car rides with unruly siblings, games lost at the last minute, vagabond pets, cousins who wouldn't leave, sightseeing in the pouring rain, parents who forced their children out of bed for all manner of sunrise services, grandparents who insisted that reading at the table was rude, and television shows that simply disappointed.
Fortunately, those were the worst of it, and after all that, they couldn't very well complain about being back at school, could they?
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Hooked on the Book
Sometimes when I finish a book I become a little obsessed with it. That's what's happened to me and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. As I type, I'm listening to an archived radio interview with Zusak from 2006, and he is reading an excerpt from the book. I have goosebumps.
Yesterday, I looked up the Geneva Conventions and laws governing civilian targets during war; next I found a hamlet named Olching (but not Molching) on the Amper river, outside of Munich, near Dachau. I learned that 22 civilians were killed there in a stray Allied bombing near the end of the World War II. On another website, I saw postcards of the town-- images that span the 20th century. So that's what it looked like, I thought. Or did it? Zusack's description is never very literal.
Last night, I paused the television show we were watching right in the middle. "I want to talk about The Book Thief," I said, and so we did: About how the reader comes to love the characters not in spite of their flaws, but because of them. About how although you know you will lose them by the end of the novel, you love them anyway. About how this book addresses the questions of why German citizens did not do more to oppose Hitler and the Nazi party-- in this way, it stands out against other WWII literature, especially for kids.
But what haunts me most about The Book Thief, even as humans haunt Death within its pages, is the figurative language. The colors, the smells, the words, the narrator himself-- from the first page I was a vagabond aboard an express train, dusty and sweet. There was no stopping until we got to the end of the line.
Yesterday, I looked up the Geneva Conventions and laws governing civilian targets during war; next I found a hamlet named Olching (but not Molching) on the Amper river, outside of Munich, near Dachau. I learned that 22 civilians were killed there in a stray Allied bombing near the end of the World War II. On another website, I saw postcards of the town-- images that span the 20th century. So that's what it looked like, I thought. Or did it? Zusack's description is never very literal.
Last night, I paused the television show we were watching right in the middle. "I want to talk about The Book Thief," I said, and so we did: About how the reader comes to love the characters not in spite of their flaws, but because of them. About how although you know you will lose them by the end of the novel, you love them anyway. About how this book addresses the questions of why German citizens did not do more to oppose Hitler and the Nazi party-- in this way, it stands out against other WWII literature, especially for kids.
But what haunts me most about The Book Thief, even as humans haunt Death within its pages, is the figurative language. The colors, the smells, the words, the narrator himself-- from the first page I was a vagabond aboard an express train, dusty and sweet. There was no stopping until we got to the end of the line.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Sometimes, Focus Eludes Me
I think the convention of nicknaming something by taking the first couple of letters of each part of its proper name-- think SoHo-- is wicked cool. It was definitely part of the appeal of NaNoWriMo for me.
Right now, we're listening to the audiobook version of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This wonderful work of non-fiction tells a really good story and also raises a lot of important ethical questions about poverty, race, and medical research. The famous immortal cells that were cultured without the title character's knowledge or permission are known world-wide as HeLa. As compelling as the book is, as we listen, my vagabond brain starts nicknaming all of her family members, too-- amused most by one of her sons, LaLa, and her youngest daughter, DeLa. I nickname myself, too, TraShe, but I am dissatisfied because it sounds like nothing more than a slurred rendition of my first name, so I think of my friends, MaBro, LeMc, and ElSmi, and my colleagues, LaBa, MeCo, KiMi, and AlPa.
Next, I wonder if we should refer to my school as ThoJeMiScho... You have to admit-- it does have a certain Zen ring to it.
Right now, we're listening to the audiobook version of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This wonderful work of non-fiction tells a really good story and also raises a lot of important ethical questions about poverty, race, and medical research. The famous immortal cells that were cultured without the title character's knowledge or permission are known world-wide as HeLa. As compelling as the book is, as we listen, my vagabond brain starts nicknaming all of her family members, too-- amused most by one of her sons, LaLa, and her youngest daughter, DeLa. I nickname myself, too, TraShe, but I am dissatisfied because it sounds like nothing more than a slurred rendition of my first name, so I think of my friends, MaBro, LeMc, and ElSmi, and my colleagues, LaBa, MeCo, KiMi, and AlPa.
Next, I wonder if we should refer to my school as ThoJeMiScho... You have to admit-- it does have a certain Zen ring to it.
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