What Teachers Say VS What They Mean

As a tribute to completely being done with the 2006-2007 School Year.

This Cracks Me Up!

What we say vs what we mean. Teachers, that is.

What the teacher says and (what the teacher means)

1. Your son has a remarkable ability in gathering needed information from his classmates.
(He was caught cheating on a test).

2. Karen is an endless fund of energy and viability.
(The hyperactive monster can't stay seated for five minutes).

3. Fantastic imagination! Unmatched in his capacity for blending fact with fiction.
(He's definitely one of the biggest liars I have ever met).

4. Margie exhibits a casual, relaxed attitude to school, indicating that high expectations don't intimidate her.
(The lazy thing hasn't done one assignment all term).

5. Her athletic ability is marvelous. Superior hand-eye coordination.
(The little creep stung me with a rubber band from 15 feet away).

6. Nick thrives on interaction with his peers.
(Your son needs to stop socializing and start working).

7. Your daughter's greatest asset is her demonstrative public discussions.
(Classroom lawyer! Why is it that every time I explain an assignment she createsa class argument).

8. John enjoys the thrill of engaging challenges with his peers.
(He's a bully).

9. An adventurous nature lover who rarely misses opportunities to explore new territory.
(Your daughter was caught skipping school at the fishing pond).

10. I am amazed at her tenacity in retaining her youthful personality.
(She's so immature that we've run out of diapers).

11. Unlike some students who hide their emotion, Charles is very expressive and open.
(He must have written the Whiner's Guide).

12. I firmly believe that her intellectual and emotional progress would be enhancedthrough a year's repetition of her learning environment.
(Regretfully, we believe that she is not ready for high school and must repeat the8th grade).

13. Her exuberant verbosity is awesome!
(A mouth that never stops yacking).

The Friends We Leave Behind

(Actually From Last Friday)

Again I feel like I am in an insurance commercial. You know, “Life Comes at You Fast!” Sometimes life moves so fast I feel like I have to keep running as fast as I can just to stay in one place and the world is spinning by me like Alice holding fast to the Red Queen’s Hand.

As of now I am completely Melanoma free. All five of my biopsies came back negative and of that five only two needed additional excision because of abnormal, though not malignant, cell growth.

Today was the last day of school for my students (Thank God!) and so begins my summer season and my other identity at camp.

Roo ate a huge bag of chocolates she got off the coffee table, but thankfully (!!!) threw it back up all over the kitchen. This is when I am thankful for Lindsey, as I wasn’t there and I didn’t have to clean it up.

While the sting of my PhD rejection is not yet forgotten, I have begun to find solace in other pursuits for this next year and reaffirmed my commitment to advanced education.

Nana is becoming increasingly confused and I am facing the very real possibility that our time together is on the downward slope. Yet for all that the dear old lady is so plucky. Last week she became convinced there was a third dog in her room. It was a bit spooky for me even as I was afraid to check for fear that she had somehow adopted a skunk. It happens! Anyway, no harm no foul and she was more upset about the confusion than I was.

My non-existent love life has continued to be a source of confusion (and friends’ amusement) for the past several months. One of these days I’m going to figure this stuff out, but I doubt anytime soon. Further I have been accused of torturing impressionable young men (very legal, just younger than me, mind you) for my own personal entertainment. All I have to say is that people have some weird ideas about what is funny.

My stepmother, bless her, is having back surgery today. Hopefully her week long confinement to a walker (quite a blow to a very active and energetic lady under 60!) will be over come Monday. My prayers have been with her all day.

As have prayers for another friend, flying with a head cold. Poor woman.

And yet in the midst of all of this, I am troubled by something completely unrelated. Well, it is slightly related to one thing listed above, but I doubt few if any can guess it or why and how.

Friendship is something I am spending a lot of time evaluating lately. It is a very simple thing and yet so very confusing as well. Most of my friendships make little sense to me much less others. I am not a fan of “best friends;” I think that is too hard a commitment, almost like marriage. Good friends are people you see often, but if things get busy they don’t criticize you for neglecting them. Good friends are the friends you may go months between talking to or visiting or e-mailing and yet you are still close. Even then inside of good friends there are so many nuances and categories. Some friends are more like family than friends, they may not like you much, but they love you and you matter to each other. Some friends continue to make you as uncomfortable as you can be surrounded by friends, but it’s OK and everyday and normal. In some ways I imagine I am rather high maintenance and somewhat dizzy-ing as a friend. I get worked up, spun up and then enact an entire Russian novel usually in the space of two weeks before I am off on some new literary bender.

One friend, this week, I asked a really odd and stupid question of, and then when I didn’t hear from her became convinced I had mortally offended and left an even more bizarre message on her machine. This is a true friend let me just say. One who gives much more than she takes. Again one who makes me wonder, “Why are we friends?” As in, “What the heck is she doing putting up with me?” Because lately I find I really want to know why some people are my friends. Not as in I am ungrateful, I am so very thankful, but I don’t understand how I help or improve their life and why I would matter. Then there are people who I think of as a friend, but I am not sure how they think of me and am even more confused. Then you throw in these men who may or may not have feelings beyond friendship and I am even more confused.

What is worse is that there is no good way to ask these questions, discuss this concern of mine without stirring up a lot of dust. Some of it is old dust, best left resting, some of it is newer dust, but needs to settle down so we can see and breathe. So many things affect other things; it is never just a simple question with a simple answer.

Lately I am trying to understand why a particular group of people care about me and whether or not I might not actually be irritating to some of the members of said group and if I am irritating, why am I and if I am is it therefore wrong for me to be a part of the group and if I am wrong about my concern why does it need to be like I am irritating all the time if I am not? Yes, I imagine that made no sense to anyone other than me. Further I suspect the answer will not make me feel any better no matter what.

So today, as I prepare to sit through our high school’s graduation. As I think over the delightful Eagle Scout Ceremony I went to last night for a dear young friend that I am very proud of. I as I try very hard not to chafe the inside of my arm so I don’t have too much of a scar from excisions (the scar looks like someone put out a cigar on my arm right now and I don’t want it to get worse.) As I am lately trying to discover who the real me is inside and whether or not I can think of that person as outwardly pretty (I am trying!) As I am preparing to end school, start camp, take care of Nana and all the other things I do, I am lost in a rather pointless reflection on friendship that has actually managed to already weird a friend out a bit... yet even she still loves me for all I don't understand why... And I am grateful.

Happy Friday!

A Lot

I know it’s been over two weeks. Yet, the blog has been on my mind so much as there was so much I wanted to say lately. So a quick recap of events.

Monday two weeks ago, the shootings at VT occurred. What a horrible thing to happen. As I sat watching the CNN reports between classes, I was so shocked. Many years ago, I spent one of the most delightful afternoons of my life there on the campus in the company of a very sweet boy that I had been pen pals with for a year. He took me to the quaintest little natural amphitheatre nestled in the woods. We sat and talked for over an hour there. Either way, it is a very pleasant memory of that place. The event itself saddened me so much on so many levels, but the icing on the cake was that it marred that beautiful memory.

Friday a week ago, I had my blood pressure taken and it was 140/100. I’m on medication now. This is a bad thing. So I had to sit in the dark office for 20 minutes to see if it would come down. It did. They let me go home. Oh and I’d gained two pounds but lost two inches… Very confusing.

Saturday a week ago, Mom called. “You know if I left right now I could be there by Sunday morning.” And come Sunday morning she was. Yet it was not the disaster so many predicted. We really did have a nice time. When she started to say things I didn’t want to know, I asked her to stop, and she did and we moved on. My therapist says I get two gold stars for that…

Monday a week ago I had 5 (count ‘em, 5) Melanoma biopsies performed. Right forearm, Right shoulder, stomach, butt/lower back and behind my Left knee. These hurt! Oh, and then I get to go home to “The Queen of Oncology” aka my mother and let her spin me up about the horror that is cancer. It’s funny. She was just being a mom. That took two days to sort out, at which point I told her to quit it! All better now. I will get the results next week.

My principal caught me outside my room on my cell phone in bare feet. After my assistant principal and I got a fir of the giggles lasting nearly twenty minutes (we don’t see the bare foot as a big issue and I was on my planning) I emailed a very sincere apology admitting my lack of professionalism. Thankfully e-mail is visual and not audio so he couldn’t hear the continued giggling.

Thursday a good friend turned 21, so he called me the night before at 10:45 PM (!@#$@!#!@) so I wouldn’t forget… Though he said it was just to say hi during a study break.

Saturday I received what was supposed to be the acceptance letter for my PhD program. Only it was a rejection letter instead. I am very disappointed. I have decided to view it as their loss and tell myself God has something more important for me to do this year. Sometimes I almost believe that. It stings worse than the biopsies… It doesn’t help as much as you’d think that so many people have stated how stupid that university’s graduate program must be.

Mom left Sunday after we had a very late dinner at Sonny’s. It was possibly the best visit we’ve ever had. I may really be growing through the hurts.

I’ll try to write more this week, I promise, but…

I have a wedding on Saturday and surgery on Monday…. So we’ll see.

SAHM’s: Priorities

(Sorry I haven't posted recently. I was on break and my computer at home is not really effective for blogging. But I'm back now!)

Over at Mommylife.net, there is a discussion about Stay-At-Home-Moms. This discussion was raised because of some articles and a book that says that women should reconsider staying home with their kids because they could damage their careers by staying at home.

I read one of these articles in either Allure or Jane magazine or one of those kinds of ‘zines. The thought struck me as I read it that the author of the article, and book the article was about, had a priority problem. I’ve written about this before. The idea that children are a right and commodity that is second to our happiness, but something we should have and deserve. This idea scares me. As a teacher I see it as a real problem.

That is not to say I have an issue with working parents. I know lots of really good working parents. They work because it really is a financial necessity or because they really find joy and value in their work, but their kids are still their priority in life. They recognize that they chose to have these children (right or wrong, apparently we really do have the choice these days…) and they take that seriously. Sometimes they only have one or two kids, just as often they have more, but they are good parents because of their priorities, not their occupation or status as working, single, married or SAH parents.

Rachel Ray is a really interesting TV personality to me. She didn’t get married until 35 and has said, point blank, that she is not having kids because she is too busy to make them a priority. I admire her for that. She advocates a lot for kids, for parents cooking with kids and even paid for the Prom in Enterprise, Alabama, where those high school children were devastated by a tornado that killed five at the school. She understands how important parenting is. That is why she has decided not to be one. I imagine there are people that think she is crazy, selfish or think she doesn’t like children. Maybe in the sense that her own success is her priority they are kind of right, but with no children who is that hurting, and it allows her to focus on other things that are good and helpful in the world.

I am not married and I do not have children. I am responsible only for myself (OK, and Nana, but that’s an odd situation). I have to take care of myself. I have to know that I can take care of myself. I also need to find satisfaction in what I am doing, feel like I matter and am making a difference. If I had a husband and children, my priority would be different. My first priority would be to my children and what was best for them. If we needed the money, then my working would be best for them, but they would be the priority, not my own success. If we didn’t need the money, then I would stay home. That’s not to say that I would do nothing with the work I have done so far in my life. I might write or home school or be involved in educational organizations (especially if I had my PhD) but my kids would still be my priority.

Also, it would matter to me to know that I was at home, trusting my husband to provide for our children and I, in a word – submitting, not because I had to, or because I had no options, but because I wanted to and choose to, for my sake and for the sake of our children. It would also matter to me that if something happened to my husband, I could still provide for my children and not be afraid of how we would be able to deal with the problem. It is true there is insurance and financial planning, and I would hope the kind of person I would marry would think of those things in case something happened to him, but I also have seen enough of life to know that sometimes it is not that simple.

I also do know that my career is very satisfying to me. While I don’t think of myself as ambitious, I have been told that I have some characteristics of professional ambition. I guess mostly that is just that I want to do the best job I can, I want to be effective and I want to have a positive effect on my world and my profession. However, if I choose to have children, then I have to choose to be effective and effective the world positively first and formost through them.

Anyway. The article really disturbed me. Not because it attacks SAHM’s as ambitious or making poor choices (that is kind of the icing on the cake) but because again parenting is relegated to something we do to be fulfilled, yet secondary to our own needs. This is why I find myself so exasperated with so many of my students. If their parents think like this, it explains a lot about their behavior.

The Book of Ruth

This was a paper I wrote in college. I wrote a journal entry from Ruth's perspective on the events of the book of Ruth. I am retyping it as part of my PhD submission, so I thought I would share. Ruth's is one of my favorite stories and I got a really good grade on the assignment. In an odd way I have always felt Ruth's was my story. Nana coming into my life only make that picture more literal. The book of Ruth is only four chapters. If you haven't read it I would highly reccomend it.

I met a man today. His mother came to my family and asked that I be given in marriage. His name is Chilion. He is from Judah. My parents have often told me of the Jews, the people who worship Yahweh. I always thought that they were cold and rigid people, but Chilion is very nice. He talked to me about my family and my chores and was very kind. His brother Mahlon just married Orpah from down the path. She has always been a friend of mine; so I know I will like living with her. Mahlon seems very nice too. Orpah says he treats her well and that is a good sign as to how Chilion will treat me. His mother Naomi is also very nice. She is a widow. Mother says Naomi’s husband died of terrible chest pains. But he was old, so I know my husband should also live a long time, like his father.

Being married to a Jew and living with his family is not so bad. The men don’t seem all that different from Moab men. They don’t really pray much or make sacrifices like I’ve heard people say the Jews do. I asked Chilion if there was anything he wouldn’t eat or any special way I needed to prepare his food for him. He said no. Naomi is the only one who seems particularly religious. She prays every morning and evening, before every meal and lots of other times in between. Sometimes I hear her talking to someone, but there isn’t anyone near her when I look. I asked Chilion about it. He just shrugged his shoulders and said Naomi is an old woman who talks to herself. So I listened to her one day. I thought maybe she was talking to Elimelech, her dead husband, but now I think she was talking to her God. These Jews are strange people. Naomi acts like God is always listening to them and cares how they feel. Wile it would be nice if God, any god, were like that, it seems unlikely. Yet Naomi seems so peaceful all the time. Even though she is a widow and wears mourning clothes, she is not idle. She works hard and patiently. My mother became lazy and whiny when my father died. That was a year ago. Naomi never complains about anything. She is always smiling. I wish I could be that happy.

Chilion died today. Mahlon died two days ago. The plague struck without warning on both of them. They had been healthy and strong before and then their bowels began to bleed and their stomachs churned and rejected all food, even water. Naomi, Orpah and I suffered nothing. We did our best to make the men comfortable and ease their pain. But it was a painful death. Naomi prayed over them constantly, pleading with her God not to take them. I guess Yahweh wasn’t listening.

Word came today that not only is the famine in Judah over, but that crops are flourishing and the store houses are bursting with the abundance. Naomi has said that she will go home. I guess Orpah and I will go with her. There seems little alternative. Food is becoming scarce here. If Naomi has kin that can protect her and care for her, maybe they will protect and care for Orpah and me as well. Maybe we can even find new husbands there! There are too many widows here in Moab.

We told Naomi of our plans to go with her. She kissed us and told us to go back to our families, to find new husbands here. She told us that we had been very kind and she blessed us in the name of Yahweh. Orpah began to weep and begged Naomi to take us with her. I was so moved by Naomi’s blessing that I just stood silently with tears running down my face, unable to speak. Naomi got angry with Orpah. She yelled that there was nothing for us in Judah. She would have no more sons and that the Lord was against her now anyway. Orpah kissed her quickly and left. But something inside me would not let me leave.

Naomi has always been good to me. Never has she spoken harshly to me or harassed me. She had loved her sons dearly, but was not jealous of their wives. Her faithfulness to her family was rivaled only by her faithfulness to her God. Now after having lost her husband and her sons, she said she had lost her God as well. I knew I could not repay her kindness to me by deserting her in her time of greatest sorrow. I told Naomi I would stay. Naomi lifted Orpah as an example and told me to follow Orpah. I knew Naomi only spoke out of hurt and desolation so I remained steadfast in my insistence. I would not leave her. Besides, I wanted to see this Judah that had a merciful and loving God, unlike any other God I had ever known. I wanted to see if the others there were like Naomi. I told her that I would go with her and adopt her ways and that nothing would separate us, not even death. Naomi looked at me for a moment in disbelief. Then she smiled sadly and sighed and said no more and I knew I had won.

On the journey to Judah, Naomi became increasingly bitter. It was as if the aches and pains of the trip were lodging in her brain and in her feet. I said little, but let her ramble. I thought it would be good for her to talk it out with her God. But she didn’t seem to be talking to him anymore, just yelling at him. When we got to Bethlehem Naomi announced to the women sitting in the square that God had dealt harshly with her and to call her Mara instead of Naomi. She stopped praying and lost all interest in her God after that.

We lived in a small shelter on the outskirts of town. Naomi began to act like my mother, weeping and complaining all the time. The first few days women from town brought us grain, but they soon stopped and I knew I had to do something or Naomi and I would go hungry. Naomi didn’t seem to care. It was as if she wanted to die. She cared little for her appearance and no longer did she bustle around the house cheerfully cleaning, her voice uplifted to God.

Then I saw that some young widows were following the reapers in a nearby field, gleaning what little grain that was left behind. In this way they had enough to eat. I told Naomi I was going and for a second she seemed to perk up. I’m not sure why. I gleaned all morning in the hot sun. It’s hard work. If you want to have enough to eat for just one day you must be very vigilant and rarely stop for a break. By midmorning I was tired and thirsty. I had covered two fields besides the one I was on. The first one had yielded little and on the second, some of the men had spoken harshly to me, including one man who made some very scary and suggestive comments to me. The third field however, was much different. The men there were very polite when I asked permission to glean and while I worked none of them bothered me. As I worked I noticed a well dressed man with a kind face come and talk to the men who had given me permission to glean. He was smiling and seemed to radiate the same joy and love that Naomi had before her sons died. After a while he came over and stood in front of me.

I had already learned that Moabite were not highly favored in these parts. Best I can tell, Jews and Moabites are in some way related, but there was some kind of bad break long ago. The men in the last field had made some comments about “incestuous pagans.” I wasn’t sure what this man was going to do for all his kind face and gentle demeanor and so I looked at his feet and waited quietly. He told me that he owned the field. I knew then that his name was Boaz; for I had heard his workers speak fondly of him as they worked. He invited me to glean only in his field and to drink from his well. He promised me that none of his men would touch me or speak harshly to me. I was so surprised. I asked him why he would do this for a “foreigner” like me. He smiled again and told me that everyone had heard of my care and devotion to Naomi. Then he blessed me as Naomi had done.

I thanked him profusely and went back to work. I was very surprised when as the sun reached its zenith, Boaz again stood before me. He invited me to eat lunch with him and his men. He let me dip my bread in his wine. He gave me so much parched grain that I could not eat it all. He didn’t even mind when I asked if I could take my leftovers home to Naomi. Even though I had considered Chilion good and kind, Boaz’s kindness made Chilion seem hard and cruel in comparison. As I continued to glean I noticed that the reapers were dropping an awful lot. I was almost afraid to take as much as they dropped, there was so much. Then I saw one of the workers pull out a handful of grain as he worked and drop it on the ground in front of me. He saw me watching him and he smiled and winked and then did it again. Suddenly I knew Boaz had asked him to put out extra for me. By the end of the day I was able to take a whole ephod of barley home to Naomi. Not to mention the left over parched wheat. There was enough of that so that Naomi and I wouldn’t have to use the barley I had worked so hard for today until at least tomorrow.

As I told Naomi about my day she began to get very excited. When I finished she danced around a bit and then fell to her knees and prayed. When she got up her face was once again the joyful one I remembered. She told me that Yahweh had not forsaken us. She said that Boaz was kin and urged me to glean only in his field. It was wonderful to see Naomi happy again. Even if Boaz was an ogre, I would not have gleaned anywhere else just to keep Naomi happy.

I gleaned in his field all season. His men were always kind, and everyday I ate with the men and Boaz. Naomi and I rarely had to eat what I had gleaned as Boaz continued to give us the leftover parched wheat from lunch each day. Because of this Naomi and I had quite a store by the end of the season. Enough to see us through the winter and then some. We had been truly blessed, as Naomi would say. Besides all that I enjoyed eating with Boaz each day at lunch. He spoke kindly to me and asked after Naomi. When the season was over I missed him greatly.

Then Naomi came to me. She told me that as my only kin now, she felt she should find me a new husband. I was skeptical, but I agreed. She explained to me that Boaz was kin and instructed me to go to the threshing room floor that night. So I spent the day cleaning myself and anointing myself and put on my freshest, cleanest, best clothes. Then I went to the threshing room floor and hid until the men had eaten and fallen asleep. I found Boaz snoring softly in the corner. I carefully uncovered his feet so that he would be awakened by the drafts in the night and lay beyond his feet where it would be clear that my intentions were honorable. I must have fallen asleep because I was startled to hear his hushed voice asking who was there.

I told him who I was and asked his kindness as he was a kinsman. He blessed me again and praised me for not chasing after young men and acting immorally. He told me how everyone had seen that even though I was from Moab, I was a woman of worth. He said he wanted to marry me but that there was a closer kinsman than he. Boaz promised to check into the matter and get back to me. Then he gave me another six measures of barley. I left early in the morning before anyone could see that I had been there and told Naomi everything that had happened.

She told me I would know by tonight whom I would marry. Then she knelt and invited me to kneel with her. She taught me how to pray and introduced me to her God, Yahweh. It was strange. Even though I had never spoken to him before I felt somehow that I knew him. I felt that he had been involved in my life long before this moment. Naomi and I prayed all day on our knees, forgoing lunch and devoting ourselves to our prayer and our God. Then at sunset Boaz came to tell me that we would be married.

We let Naomi name our son, Obed, and she became his nurse. Sometimes is hard to tell who the dear child’s real mother is. Everyday I thank God for this woman who became my mother, the kinsman who became my father and the precious child, our son. God has given me this beautiful life and I will never forsake him.

Monday Morning

This weekend one of my best friends and I went to see Josh Groban live in concert for his Awake tour. The concert was wonderful and I had a really good time. It was interesting to me, though to note the difference from the last concert just over two years ago. Two years ago, Josh was 24, on his first big tour and for the most part, it seemed like he was just singing to enjoy himself and we got to watch. This one was more like a performance. He even made a comment about having a fifteen hour bus ride ahead of him, and I imagine that would be a tiring thing. But it really was wonderful. Having really good tickets makes it nice too…

Several of his songs are really touching to me right now, “Don’t Give Up,” “Now or Never” and “In Her Eyes.” All good stuff. His songs from earlier albums, “Vincent,” “You’re Still You,” “When You Say You Love Me,” “Home to Stay” and “My December.” There is something about that man’s voice…

Also I went up to camp for Friday night to at least make an appearance for the great senior staff bonding event. It was good. I also discovered that for the most part, while I am still irritated over that stupid agenda, it was not really intended the way it sounded… Granted he should have thought it out more, but he really doesn’t get it.

Also, while at camp, when my friend and I were sleeping, she knocked over a floor fan and scared the bejesus out of us in the night. However, because I wasn’t alone, it was funny and not traumatic.

I’m learning a lot about that word, trauma, by the way. I really don’t care for it. It’s an annoying word. It is damage caused by something. Trauma is what is keeping me up nights, apparently and trauma is what I have to deal with and get rid of. Dealing with trauma, is a lot like loosing weight. It feels great when it’s gone and with diligence, you can notice when you are loosing it, but it takes time, it’s a pain and requires a lot of work.

So now my friend has gone home, the concert is over, the camp event is over and I am just waiting for Spring Break and all my grand and scary plans.

Yeah. It must be Monday.

Once upon a time…

So, having consulted with my therapist, we have decided that we are going to use the two week break I have for Spring Break to embark upon some really intense therapy and putting some real demons from my past, events, to rest. I’m rather excited about it, but most especially I am very…

Scared.

I worry about who I will be when I finish. Who will be left and will I like that person? Will other people like that person? Will that person still tell stories? Will they still be funny?

So much of who I think of myself now is caught up in the stories I tell. Story telling is my primary form of communication. It is what I am best at. If I can’t make a story funny I often won’t tell it. Further, the way I tend to deal with my past is to make it into funny stories. That way I can deal with it.

This is big, and it will be hard, and I need to do this, but I am left to wonder,

Who will I be, and will she still tell stories?

Seething

Today I am mad. Not just mildly so, but boiling, seething, righteously angry. This is not petty and this is not hormonal. I have reached my limit with someone.

It is never acceptable for a leader to continue to snub someone just because the leader has a problem with his temper. Especially when he has acknowledged that he is the one who is acting badly at this point.

Leadership is sometimes more about presentation than substance, frankly. How you say things matters. What is the person who wrote this really saying? (This is from the detailed outline of our itinerary for a leadership training for camp this weekend. It's a public document, so I am not breaking my confidentiality rule.)

“Peter will be leading [the discussion on professional appearance]. This is based off a request Sandy made that we include this somewhere in the weekend. It’ll be a quick discussion on how our personal and departmental appearances make first impressions on our campers and set the attitude for our staff.”

“Mark has a special message he’s been working on. This should be inspirational and a challenge for all of us to meet. At times we all know Mark can be a little long winded, but he’s been on the [customer] side of the fence this fall (as he is each fall) to hear all the remarks about our staff performance from last summer. Please listen carefully.”

Now, if you didn’t know this person, what would you think their opinions of Sandy and Mark are? Exactly. This is not good leadership. And frankly, I am insulted and more than a little disappointed.

So today I am mad. Which is good, because I have parent teacher conferences… and therapy this afternoon. Should make for an interesting evening.

The Ultimate Gift

In my family, literature and movies are serious issues. When I was younger I viewed anything that was not a masterpiece with disdain, aghast to be caught reading or watching, “garbage.” As I have gotten older, I have mellowed. Further I have redefined my perception of media.

There are movies and books that are excellent, but that I really don’t care for. There are movies and books that are excellent that I enjoy, though usually only once or twice. I own these books and movies and I recommend them to many and even loan them to a few. Then there are books and movies that I love and read or watch over and over again. They have many good qualities and I really enjoy them. They are like old friends and close confidants and sometimes even a warm hug of sorts. Then there are the books and movies I think of as “brain candy” or “guilty pleasures.” These are the books and movies that really are not very good literarily, plot or acting wise. Yet for whatever reason they touch a cord with my heart and I find myself focused on them, dreaming about them, even slightly obsessed for a period of time.

Having seen several meme’s of this type I want to share, briefly my categories and what they add… I’ll give my top five (ten of the old friends) of each…

Books

Excellent but Don’t Like

Scarlet Letter

Great Gatsby

Grapes of Wrath (turned off as much by people’s critiques as the work itself!)

A Separate Peace

Summer of My German Soldier

Excellent (!!)

Of Mice and Men

To Kill a Mockingbird

Hinds Feet to The High Places

Looking For Alaska

The Never Ending Story

The Good Stuff

Anything by Torey Hayden

Anything by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

DragonSpell

Harry Potter (any one will do)

Twilight and New Moon

Clan of the Cave Bear

Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow

Passion and Purity

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

The Secret Life of Bees

Guilty Pleasures

Historical Romance (Brain Candy and I am trying to cut back)

Warprize, Warsworn and Warlord

Stardancer, Starseed and Starmind

Valley of the Horses

Books based on movies (not the other way around)

Movies

Excellent but I don’t like

Saving Private Ryan

Titanic

Rocky

The Departed

Annie Hall

Excellent

Broken Down Palace

Forrest Gump

Apollo 13

Of Mice and Men (with Malcovich and Senise)

Dead Again

The Good Stuff

Sense and Sensibility

Murphy’s Romance

Serenity

Star Wars, Star Trek, you know, the geek stuff…

Tootsie

The Cutting Edge

Remember the Titans

The Sound of Music

Clueless

Love and War

Guilty Pleasures

The Love Comes Softly series

The X-Men Movies

The Santa Clause Movies (even and especially the 3^rd one!)

Harry Potter Movies (Well acted and well written, but they only make sense if you read the books so how is that a good thing?)

Anything with Brendan Frasier, Drew Fuller, Billy Zane, Tom Welling, Bruce Boxlighter, or Sean Connery. Just because they are cute.

Oh, and The Ice Pirates.

The point of these lists is that I went to see a movie on Monday. I took Nana. We had a terrific time. We were the only ones in the theatre. This is a shame. The movie was called “The Ultimate Gift” based on the book of the same name (that I haven’t read, but am now going to.)

To be honest, the movie is not going to win any Academy Awards, but it was clean, sweet and fun. There was a message, a bit not subtle, and there were some odd holes, but it really was wonderful. I imagine it will become a guilty pleasure of sorts over time, but I’m OK with that. I highly recommend it.

Drew Fuller is adorable (the adult male kind), the little girl (she was in Little Miss Sunshine) is even cuter and they are so fun to watch interact. James Garner is always a joy as is Brian Denehey. Seriously folks, it may only be out for a little while (as evidenced by the empty theater) so go soon.

Big Girl Panties

My whole life has been a struggle to define myself in terms I could live with. When I was a little girl, I defined myself by my family, our history and where we had lived. As I got older I still identified myself mostly through my family, but also, I began to define myself by my beliefs, specifically my religious beliefs. When my parents divorced and my definition through them was shattered, I cast around a lot redefining and shaping how I saw myself. My belief in God changed a lot through that as well, became stronger and an even bigger part of who I was. But there was more too me than that. I developed interests, skills and abilities and those things became part of my new definition. No longer defined by my parental relationship, new relationships were part of my definition too. There also grew and interesting secondary definition of who I wanted to be versus who I was and what it would take for me to be that person.

A lot of who I wanted to be had to do with how I wanted people to view me. I wanted to be wise, strong, friendly and respected. Most importantly I wanted to be loved. That was a definition I dreamed of. To be wanted, to be valued and to be cherished.

That’s not to say that I wasn’t loved. My family loves me and I had (have!) some terrific friends who are like family, but there was more to it than that.

Recently I’ve found myself again at a bit of a conundrum about what defines me in some other people’s lives. Who I am to them, who they are to me and who I want to be to them. The answer was that I really wasn’t sure who I was or who I wanted to be based on my relationship with several people who have taken up residence in my heart over the past several years.

Yesterday, the picture snapped clear and I was very happy with the new definitions. There is still that lofty, far off definition of who I want to be to someone someday and it is not fulfilled in any of these relationships, but I am very happy with the relationships around me right now, and they are in themselves fulfilling.

So here is to daughters, big sisters and very good friends.

Thoughts floating in snot…

Yes, I know that is really gross. It’s true, but it’s gross. It’s funny, all the things you think about when you are sick, though. How rational they seem and normal. Then in the morning you think, “what?”

This week I have been sick. Thankfully, I believe it is viral, and while my sides hurt like I had a run in with a bunch of angry 2X4’s from all the coughing, I do feel better today. Whichever face is in the mirror today looks kind of haggard, but its there, so…

Anyway, snotty thoughts. (Some are half dreams, don't judge too harshly!)

If I paid my team teacher $1000 would she grade my papers this week?

Clearly the dogs are eating up my shoes because I can’t find them and the dogs are probably hiding them to use as boats.

If I have a cookie with a glass of milk that counts as dinner with dessert.

Ice cream is as good as hot tea for a sore throat.

Sudafed Shower soothers are a problem with open drains in shower tubs, so I’m gonna take a colander, put the tablet in there and hold it in front of my face and breath while sitting in the shower… however, it is harder to get it wet that way to ephervess, so I will have to periodically dump water over it… (Go ahead, laugh, that’s how I used it).

The glow of the waterless menthol vapor thing from Vicks gives me bad dreams. Its glow is eerie and spooky and satanic, but it’s the only way I could breathe.

My breathing sounds so funny, with pops and squeaks and squeals and at one point I thought maybe there were tiny animals in my snot and they were trying to communicate with me through the racket (I was half asleep, affected by that stupid Vicks light, but yes I thought that.)

If I drink anymore peppermint tea, I think I may actually fart starlight mints…

However, there is nothing to wrap them in; we are out of saran wrap. (Again, it’s that stupid Vicks light!)

I wonder if I went to school, got all my kids sick and they stayed home, if they would give me the day off?

Nana is trying to smother me with her perfume… It’s a plot by all old women… Again, half asleep with the Vicks light on.

I imagine some of these thoughts were induced by the Nyquil as well… Maybe it was the real me coming through? Who knows?

My Mirror has to faces, but they are both mine!

In therapy on Saturday morning, (I am so blessed that he can meet with me then and as I am essentially the only patient he has all day and we meet at 8:00 he often lets me run over clear until 9:15… God Bless him!) my therapist and I discussed one of the big frustrations in my life. People’s expectations of me. Specifically expectations of me at camp, but also people’s expectations of me over time. It was rather enlightening to me. These were some of the memories that I had.

Not being allowed to do more than give my father a brief hug and kiss when he returned from deployment. Excess was to be saved for home. On the ship PDA was to be kept to a minimum. So even thought I had missed his terribly over the past six-seven months, I had to wait, patiently, quietly and lady-like until we got Dad home before any fuss or outpouring of emotions were allowed.

Mom always told me that I should ignore those that teased me. I couldn’t really do that, but I could pretend I was. My thought was that if they won by getting a reaction out of me, but I saved my reaction till I got home, then their victory was hollow as they did not know it existed. Therefore I was very surprised on day when I made an off hand comment about someone’s hurtful comment and she answered, shocked, “I had no idea it bothered you, you never acted like it did. I’m sorry.”

A good friend from college, MP, saying something about my inability to take care of myself. I answered that I had taken care of myself, my Dad and my brother for some time, just fine thank-you. He responded, “Yeah, we know. But none of us can figure out how you must have done it, because you are always such a mess now.”

The guys at camp always expecting me to fix things for them, bail them out, be the leader, but when I suggest something they don’t like I get told how emotional and hormonal I am.

No one cared or understood why I didn’t want to walk the half mile back to my building alone, in the dark, at 2AM, with no flashlight. “Camp is the safest place on earth!” They laughed, unaware of my tears in the darkness.

A different group of boys at camp, valiantly insulating and protecting me from the awful attentions of a man I consider a sexual predator. These boys were only 17, but they stayed with me until he left, and when one of them tried to hug me after it was over, I panicked and decked him (I couldn’t see him, and thought I was being attacked); yet he apologized to me. For the first time I really did feel like Camp was the safest place on earth.

When a co-worker lost her job this past week, everyone came to find me to go talk to her, find out what was wrong and comfort her. She’s a good friend and I am glad I could help and be there fore her, but why do I always have to be the clean-up crew? Why did they all assume and not do it themselves if they were so worried…?

The point of all these were, I see now that I have two very different sides. There is a very strong, capable and verbal part of me that takes charge, fixes problems and takes care of others. There is also a part of me that is very vulnerable, sensitive and wants desperately to be cherished. Not taken care of, per say, but valued, specifically as a woman. Most people pick the definition of me that is most convenient to them at the time. When they need someone to fix it, they want that half, but when I am a problem or inconvenience, they label me as the second and then disregard me.

“They” is not everyone by the way, not even most, but it is many of the prevalent people in my life right now.

Then there is the issue of explaining to myself who I am. Which of these two am I? My therapist is helping me to see that I am both. Further, there doesn’t even have to be an issue of sides, so much as facets, of which I have many. This is not so much a black and white thing, I am strong and sensitive in turns, one or the other, but more that I am a blended, grey, total.

The reality is people will always choose the perception of least resistance in a given situation until they get to know you, mature in how they perceive others or simply recognize that most people are shades of grey…

This weekend, I accepted both of the reflections in the mirror. I’m not going to fight them anymore.