Everyone Loves a Rude, Scruffy Cowboy (TEAM SAWYER)

Before I begin, you’re going to need some background info on the television show Lost. Lost is the story of the survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815. What begins as a story of survival develops into an intense, multidimensional, often nonlinear journey. It revolves around the mysterious, mystical island the plane crashes on. There are numerous flashbacks, flashforwards, and a literary technique called flashsideways, which will make perfect, logical sense to you once you begin watching the show. If you’ve seen Lost, you need no further explanation. If you haven’t seen it, any description I give will make me lose all credibility because you’ll actually think I’m insane. Just know this:

1. The two most integral, interesting male characters are Jack and Sawyer.
2. If you see two people yelling about Lost, odds are, they are arguing over whether Jack or Sawyer is cooler.
3. There is often a person on the sidelines of the argument asserting that another, creepy character like Benjamin Linus is cooler than both Jack and Sawyer. This person is 100% wrong, and the arguing people ignore him, as well they should.
4. I am Team Sawyer, and my hope is for you, dear reader, to join my team, whether you’ve seen the show or not.

            Everyone loves a bad boy. Throughout the entire series, the good doctor Jack agonizes over every decision: How will my choice affect others? How will it affect my life? What kind of a person will I be if I do this, or that, or the other thing? How much longer should I spend looking up at the sky with a tortured expression on my face? (Answer: At least five more scenes). Meanwhile, Sawyer is busy making all the wrong choices. Jack’s trying to save everyone while Sawyer’s trying to piss them all off, and let’s face it: mean nicknames and unnecessary deceit are much more interesting than longing stares. In real life, most of us strive to be decent people, but no one wants to watch that on TV. We want to watch people lie, steal, cheat, and unnecessarily insult and alienate other characters.
            Everyone loves the conflicts that arise when the bad boy has a heart of gold. Halfway through season two, the audience begins to realize that Sawyer’s rude nicknames are his twisted way of showing affection for the people around him, who he’s grown to care about more than he’ll ever admit. We realize he’s a good guy seasons before he does. We realize that, five episodes ago, we subconsciously started rooting for him to do the right thing while also subconsciously hoping he’d do the wrong thing because it’s more interesting. Every bad decision he makes after the moment we realize he’s a good guy is that much more meaningful. We feel his inner conflict. We struggle with him. We identify with him, because let’s face it, even though we want to do the right thing, we often end up doing the wrong thing. Sawyer even goes so far as to make good decisions and keep them secret. Characterization doesn’t get better than that. Jack, on the other hand, has very little potential for character growth in this area. At the beginning of the series, he is the good guy. He is broken, but still good. Where, really, can he go from there? Should I become a slightly less good good guy, or an even better good guy? No, Jack please don’t. Please go do something reckless that hurts at least five people. Then maybe I’ll write a persuasive essay about joining YOUR team.
            Everyone loves a scruffy, misanthropic cowboy. Jack is pale, with dark hair and rather serious lovehandles. If you need a reference point, watch the episodes from season 6 when he’s walking around his house without a shirt on. He has no discernable accent, odd mannerisms, fear of intimacy or inability to talk about his feelings. Who, really, wants a male character who loves commitment and sharing his emotions? There is no reality (including all the parallel realities in Lost) where that’s interesting. Sawyer is tan and ruggedly handsome. Sawyer is drawl, cheekbones and jawline, and the man does five o’clock shadow like no one else. He gives off an “I woke up, didn’t shave and still look this g—WHOA is that dangerous/shiny/illegal/life-threatening/hurtful? Let’s do it!” vibe, whereas Jack gives off a, “Do I look pensive? Because I spent twenty minutes today practicing my pensive expression in the mirror?” vibe. Sawyer = effortless. Jack = trying extremely hard. Despite all Jack’s efforts to stare longingly into the distance, Sawyer can do a lot more with silence in a scene. Every time he tries to tell Kate he loves her, we can hear the words in his head and feel how he can’t say them out loud. Meanwhile, wherever he is, Jack is probably looking thoughtfully at a rock.
            If you’ve seen Lost, and you’re already on Team Sawyer, I applaud you. If you began on Team Jack but are reexamining your alliances, as long as you join me, I won’t hold it against you. After all, like Sawyer, we all make the wrong choices sometimes. If you’re still on Team Jack, fine. He deserves your misguided, overly-meditative adoration. If you still aren’t convinced, I don’t care, I’m too busy swearing, stealing, denying that I care, and doing the right thing while simultaneously insulting people.

PS: This was an assignment for a writing institute I'm in this summer. The assignment was to include a logical fallacy. 

Multigenre Project Reflections: as of Monday 5/23/11

Overall goals: All year, students choose what they write, but I choose the genres. This time around, they choose both. They choose a topic, and they choose multiple genres in which to explore that topic.

First of all, I wish I’d started with the movie. I also wish I’d given them more choice in what genres to write in all year. I do believe in mainly genre-based units, but I could have embedded more genre freedom into some assignments, especially my less structured “Polish a Piece” assignments.

I also think I’m going to make a movie documenting my students’ journeys making these projects. That way, I can show next year’s students, and it will be that much closer to them.

One thing I’m noticing is that they are increasingly more confident in being confused and overwhelmed. While feeling in over your head isn’t the goal, it is a valuable part of the writing process, especially the way we teach it, as writing to discover. In the beginning of the year they panicked. It was clear they were used to being told what to do. Now, many of them have the attitude of, “I have no idea where I’m going with this, but I’ll explore and figure it out.” Yes. Go writer’s workshop model!

Obviously, it will be easier next year when I have more student exemplars to work off of. Although interestingly enough, less than a week into the unit, one student in each class has a full draft project done. They took me by surprise today. It was the classic situation. I saw a student talking instead of writing, so I walked over and asked, “What have you been working on, dear student?” Each student produced a thick packet of work. It’s not necessarily the students you’d expect, either. Well, one is. J

I also did some research about multigenre topics, because despite our students being very familiar with the “Explore, explore, explore, eventually decide what to develop into a draft” process, we don’t have enough time to do it fully. We have maybe 4 weeks, minus a couple of days. So in my googling, I came across a 7^th grade unit where the students all did multigenre autobiographies. I then changed the requirements of the project. Students have three choices: Multigenre Autobiography, Multigenre Project on 7^th Grade (or 8^th Grade), or more specific Multigenre project. I told them the truth, which is that I’m going to just write, and if I realize I’m writing a lot about my brother, then I’ll take the project in that direction. As they write, many of them are narrowing their focuses. I think giving the option of a broad autobiography takes the pressure off so they’re free to explore.

This teacher in the unit I found required students to choose 10 genres, which I think is overkill. It’s not that students aren’t capable of it. Rather, I don’t want to set unnecessary restrictions on them. This whole year I’ve never once told them how long something should be. I’ve just said, “this is what you need to focus on, make it as long as it needs to be. Make it wonderful.” Plus, I’m still figuring out my official requirements, but I’m keeping them simple. It will be something along the lines of, “Mark two places where you write about your topic in depth. Mark two places where you show your emotions.” Etc.

The topics are fantastic. I’m so excited.

Updates to come!

REGULATOR: Not So Much

Here's the issue. I have trouble with self-regulation. I tend to either avoid completely, or dive in for extended periods of time. It doesn't matter what, specifically, I'm doing -- generally, this still applies.

This applies to:

• things I love doing, 
• things I hate doing, 
• things I don't enjoy doing until I've been at it for an hour, 
• and things I don't enjoy doing but enjoy having done.

My psychiatrist has been telling me this for a while. Literally for as long as I can remember, I'm talking 14 years of "MODERATION, LEAH!" and then super-important psychological sounding things to back it up. It took me a while, but eventually I began to understand what he meant. It took me even longer to admit how detrimental this lack of self-regulation often was. And, remaining true to form, I didn't grasp how many areas of my life were affected by this until I stopped my 26-year avoidance of the issue and sat down (twenty minutes ago) to spend an extended amount of time contemplating all areas of it. 

At least I'm consistent.

Here's what a lack of self-regulation looks like, at least when it comes to me:

ONE
I have difficulty running under 5 miles. Sometimes, I even have difficulty running 5 miles, and I have to bump it up to 7 or more. I love running so much, and I love pushing my body as far as it can go. I love the numb feeling you get when your joints feel like jello and it hurts to change position in any way.

Sidenote: I wasn't always like this. I was never very fast, but I could build endurance, and I had a high pain tolerance. I also realized that, proportionally-speaking, I get faster the longer I run. My two-mile pace is similar to my 4 mile pace. With that said, I used to love our "forrest" 2-milers in high school. I used to love when practice got cancelled due to rain.

Sidenote that corresponds to previous sidenote: Though I wasn't as bad in high school, my lack of self-regulation showed itself in between seasons. I was either all-in, 5-6 days a week of practice, or lazy McNeverRuns, until the next season started.

TWO
I have difficulty transitioning out of a diet. I get the sense that for many people, losing weight is the problem, but once they lose it, they can pretty much keep it off. I am the opposite. Give me an absurdly restricted diet, and I can stick to it for months. I had no problem with Atkins, South Beach, Jenny Craig, GetInShape, or Weight Watchers. The problem arose when I lost the weight and went into the "Maintenance" part of these programs. I don't know how to eat just one french fry. I find it impossible to measure out half a cup of ice cream and eat only that. When I measure out peanut butter, I lie to myself. Not in that "Oh, well, it's okay if it's a tad more," kind of lying that you're conscious of, I 100% convince myself that I am measuring truthfully, healthily and accurately. Then my pants don't fit. The same thing happens with drinking. I can quit drinking entirely, never taking a sip, for months. I do this fairly frequently, in fact. However, when I do drink, I get drunk. I don't mean to. It just happens. I can't just have two beers, feel happy tipsy, then go home and go to bed. Just like I can't eat two french fries and stop there.

THREE
I have a stressful relationship with television shows. I can't watch just one CSI: Miami. I have to watch five. Or, I have to watch two every night for four days. The alternative, is that I don't watch it at all. That's the stage I'm currently in with CSI: Miami. However, I'm currently in obsessive mode with about 12 shows.

Plus, now that I don't have cable, it's actually worse. I don't think I realized how bad it was until I started watching Lost in Thanksgiving of 2009. The sixth season premiered a few months after I started watching it from the beginning, and I was caught up, WITH TIME TO SPARE. One weekend I had the flu and I literally watched Lost for 9 hours. 9 HOURS. Who does that? I don't care how sick you are, there's no excuse unless you're a 100% ridiculous human being. Which I am.

Another thing that happens is that once I catch up, I get so impatient waiting for one hour of each show per week that I abandon shows until I have at least 3 or 4 episodes to watch in a row. Occasionally, this results in high numbers of unwatched episodes, which stresses me out further. For instance, I am probably 31 episodes behind in Gossip Girl, which I love. I keep meaning to catch up, but it's a daunting task, and even though I prefer to watch TV in large quantities, even I get overwhelmed sometimes. And I worry. What if I'm too far gone when I start watching it again? What if I forgot what happened, and have to start even further back? What if I think I remember what happened, and then it turns out I forgot a tiny piece of something funny Chuck said and I miss some super-witty-wonderful or super-awful-hideous connection? What if, when I start watching again, I am unable to suspend my disbelief that a group of 6 people can have sex with every person in that group in every combination possible, being in love at least 50% of the time? Wait... who am I kidding? That will never be a problem. I'll always buy into that.

FOUR
I'm getting better about this, but cleaning has always been an issue. My mother can attest to this: As early as age 12, I fell into the trap of spending 11 hours cleaning my room every three months rather than spending the corresponding number of minutes each day. This only got worse in college, with more stuff and less space. It was further complicated by the fact that, in my first post-college apartment, my roommates moved in "college-style" (leaving 70% of their belongings at their parents' homes) while my mother was forcibly emptying out my childhood bedroom and sending it with me in minivanloads. I also have this terrible habit of putting things in "random buckets" (which may be bags, bins, unused space behind the printer, or other illogical locations that seem perfectly sensical at the time (Stephanie: I found the duck tea thing. Inquire within): My underwear drawer is important. I'll definitely remember that I put my camera / nail polish / copy of Atlas Shrugged / car keys / latex gloves / tiny lightbulbs from Ikea that fit only the lamp I bought from Ikea / slinky / hairbrush 1, 2 and 3 in here). Then, I make this grand plan to empty out the random buckets either in one fell swoop (all or nothing mentality) or bit by bit. Neither works. I'm getting better, and I have improved so much, but that's not exactly saying much, if you know what I mean. I should set the bar a little higher. Like, only underwear goes in the underwear drawer.

Sidenote: Out of curiosity, I'm going to go check what's in my unerwear drawer now. My apt is mostly clean. This should be fun. It will prove that, no matter how on top of it I may appear to be, it is an illusion. Oh sweet God. Okay, here goes: What I found in my underwear drawer, despite the fact that my room is mostly clean:

forever 21 bag, cheap star of david bracelet I bought in Jerusalem, one of those bags you put bras in in the laundry, green bandana, picture of Robert Pattinson (a gift from a student), a Lexington Track & Field sportsbra that we ordered my freshman year of outdoor track, Spring 2000 (it hasn't fit in at least 2 cup sizes), a dust cloth (clean), 2 price tags, 7 bottles of chrome nail polish (remember that?) a murder mystery I got for free, and strange shiny pants that were reportedly Israeli.

Now I'm going to go put all that back in my underwear drawer. Well, maybe I'll put it in the Forever 21 bag, and then put it back in my underwear drawer. Or, I could put it in one of the three "random buckets" at the end of my bed.

Notice nowhere in there did I consider putting each individual item where it needs to go.

FIVE
Hobbies are an issue. I have over 20 skeins of yarn and dozens of knitting needles, but I knit every two months for several consecutive hours during a marathon CSI: Miami catch up session. Then, I store them and they collect dust.

Reading is probably the least problematic, because the most amount of good comes out of it. I love getting lost in a good story, and very often it helps me do one of the other 3.4 million things I have to do, because I can use it in a lesson plan, or discuss it with a student. At the very least, I use it as an escape from thinking about all the 3.4 million things on my to-do list (Yes, I do realize that I watch CSI: Miami for the same reason). But it has its downsides. For 2 weekends this winter, I didn't leave the house at night because I was reading all ten Sookie Stackhouse books in a row. I accidentally bailed on 3 New Year's Eve parties because I was so immersed in the books. I say accidentally because I finished book 4, looked at the clock, discovered it said 1:14 a.m., and said, "Oops." Then, I continued reading, not calling back any of the 14 people who had called wondering where I was.

Boxing works well because I don't have a heavy bag at home, so I really can only box twice a week when the class happens at my gym. Though I'm considering buying a bag. Hmm. Now that I'm writing this post, I'm wondering if that's a good idea. What if I box my damn hands off, due to my inability to regulate the amount of time I spend on the bag? Honestly though, that's not what I'm worried about. Boxing, running, all the physical hobbies have a built-in regulation mechanism: eventually, your body breaks down. Which is not to say that I learn how to regulate myself based on the negative reinforcement of bloody knuckles / blistered feet / inability to walk up stairs for 2 weeks. But at least it forces me to stop.

SIX
When I decided to write about my lack of self-regulation, the only area of that idea that I was really interested in was how it pertained to lesson planning and grading. Tonight, I graded and planned for 6 hours straight after doing very little all of spring break, and I started thinking, do I really plan better this way, or is this just the only way I know how?

YET LOOK AT THIS LONG-ASS BLOG.

I couldn't just write about the one piece I wanted to, I had to explore how this idea affected every area of my life. Well, no, not every area. There are some I left out. But I'm trying to regulate that right now by not going into the more minor rgulatory issues like buying 7 pairs of earrings, or 18 cans of tomato paste when it's on sale, even if I don't know what the hell I'd even make with it. See? I'm trying. But it's taking real, honest-to-God effort to not press the up arrow and elaborate on the earring thing, or turn the tomato paste thing into an entire subsection involving grocery shopping and shopping in general, because really, I could. I won't. Probably. Most likely. I'm sitting here, repeating "It's almost 4 a.m." in my head. Okay, I think I conquered that urge.

SEVEN
This brings me to the real reason I decided to write about this (aside from the fact that I find it very difficult to focus on a mere part of an idea if I can focus on the entire idea, the history of the idea, everything even distantly related to the idea, and random associations I have pertaining to said idea).

I always start vacations with these grand plans for productivity in mind. I'm going to plan for 3 hours each day! I tell myself. I'm going to plan ahead, so I can have a life for the next month or so! I'll actually be able to make photocopies in enough time, and I won't be on the phone with the copy center in a panic at 7 a.m., and I'll teach better, because I'll have thought it through more effectively, and I'll have more time to spend grading and giving thoughtful feedback, and I can communicate more regularly with parents, and I can even make time to call them with good news, not just "your child's cussing me out again" news, and... the list goes on.

Yet inevitably, I'm so residually exhausted from the 12-hour days I regularly pull that I need the vacation to do... nothing. I need to sit around and do... nothing. Except watch CSI: Miami.

Some of this is necessary, and has nothing to do with my lack of self-regulation. Inner-city middle school students are like very clumsy dinosaurs that stomp all over good faith effort and optimism, and leave panic, chaos, and exhaustion in their wake. They're stress tornadoes, and I know this. Even if I were a vampire (Twilight mythos) who didn't need to sleep / had more time on my hands, my students  would still do this. Even if my units were all dynamite fantastic, their rein of chaos would prevail. I love my job, I do, and part of that love is accepting that a certain amount (read: 300 tons) of stress comes with the territory.

However, some of it I bring on myself. Here's what happens: I'm so stressed that I do no work at home on Monday and Tuesday night, so I end up doing 6 hours on Wednesday and Thursday night. After teaching an 8-hour day. Then, I'm exhausted, so I'm useless on vacation. Come summer, I'm so panicked about the sheer volume of work I have to do that I become unable to break it into small, manageable pieces and I put it off until August.

I did realize this past summer/year that my goal is not to have a pre-made curriculum that I stick to. Good teaching is about planning in advance, and then changing your plans to fit the needs of your students. That realization took a huge weight off my shoulders. But it isn't enough. My units are better when I plan them in advance, because then I have time to change them at least 3 times: once before I start, and twice after I start. Which is where the inability to self-regulate comes in.

Just like with food, drink, athletics, TV, cleaning, and other areas of my life, I cannot do a little bit of planning. It's either all or nothing, zero or sixty, and nothing in between. I have this image in my head of how it should be. It's filed away in the "HAHAHA good luck keep dreaming" section of my brain. I come home, spend 20 minutes grading, then half an hour planning a unit that will take place no less than 3 weeks in the future. I don't grade all the papers in one night, and I don't plan the unit in one night. Both things happen in bits and pieces, appropriately spaced out to allow me to watch one, or maybe two episodes of CSI: Miami a day and run under 5 miles a day.

The fact that it took me 30 seconds to convince myself to write "5" miles instead of a higher number is crystal clear evidence of the fact that this WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

My real question is this: IS THAT A BAD THING?

This week was the most productive vacation I've had since teaching. Again, that's not setting the bar high. Usually I do nothing for 7 days then spend 10 hours on each final weekend day. I've gotten accustomed to it. But this week was different. I spent an hour each day doing something productive, even if it wasn't directly related to my job. On Thursday, I even spent 3 hours revising my self-evaluation for work. Then I stopped, even though I wasn't done. It was like a miracle. Angels sang.

Then Friday (today) happened, and the mountain of work began to block out the sun. I couldn't enjoy the Vampire Diaries because I was so panicked about grading, so I finished watching it while half paying attention and denying the fact that I was only half paying attention, then sat down at 9 p.m. to begin chipping away at that mountain.

I started with grading my 7th grade's most recent drafts. I love doing it this way, because I keep a notebook opened beside me, and as I grade, I jot down ideas for what to teach next. It's truly the best way to do it, and whenever I can, I do. After about two hours of this, I started inadvertently sliding into planning mode. This, too, is a typical occurrence. (SIDENOTE: F words with two double consonants). I go from grading story after story and writing occasional notes to writing detailed notes and grading an occasional story.

Today it was awesome. I did the usual: Opened a document, titled it "What do do for the remaining two-ish weeks of fiction with my 7th graders" and started listing, brainstorming, rambling, and generally thinking on paper (well, onscreen).

AND IT WAS AWESOME.

Everything came together so well. I'm trying to think of an appropriate metaphor, and there's yarn in front of me, so I keep thinking I should compare it to the strands being wound together, but that would imply that I had all the pieces to begin with and just needed to twist them together, which is not at all true. A french braid would be more accurate. I started with three important pieces, wove them together, and gradually, as I thought of additional pieces, I added them too. Sometimes I had to backtrack and fix a bumpy part (read: scaffold skills more effectively). Some pieces fell out, but that was okay. By the end, I had a unit that resembled a stronger, more elaborate, connected version of the three pieces I started with.

AND I LOVED IT.
My back hurts. My eyes are dry, and I want to rip my contacts out. My feet are asleep. My sleep schedule is shot to hell. But I genuinely love watching the pieces come together.
But what happens next? After this metaphorical 12-mile run, do I require a recovery period until my knuckles stop bleeding, my blisters heal, and I can walk upstairs comfortably again?

So I wonder: Do other people do this in several small, pieces of time? I guess I wouldn't know, but I suspect I would have trouble making a unit in 12 half-hour blocks rather than one 6-hour block. I don't know if I've ever tried that. I think every time I have tried, I've done by accident what I did tonight on purpose: Planned for 6 hours nonstop. To answer your question, yes, that was the plan. At 9 p.m. I started working, and I was 95% sure that I would still be awake and working at 3 a.m. God, does that make me a freak? Do I care?

Here's what I really wonder:

1. Am I capable of stopping? Typically, I can't stop after 30 minutes because I'm worried I'll miss an idea that I otherwise would have thought of. Or, I can't stop because I'm worried that I'll miss the next 30 minute chunk, so why put off until tomorrow what you can do in one inhuman 6-hour chunk in the middle of the night right now..? It's like preemptive procrastination. OH GOD. I don't know whether to be horrified or impressed by the phrase I just created.
2. What if it's not a bad thing? What if I really plan better this way? Can I keep going like this in a more organized fashion? Is there a way to regularly plan in 6-hour chunks so that I don't go insane / get unhealthy / get metaphorical blisters? Should I try? 
3. Is it because I'm wired to have difficulty regulating, or the nature of my job, or both? Let's ignore the nature-versus-nurture debate, and look at the facts: For 26 years, I have functioned in this way, in most areas of my life. I have failed many times and succeeded many times. Should I change? If so, in how many areas should I focus on this change? Is it possible? 
4. Would things be different if I hadn't chosen such an all-encompassing, 24/7/365 job? Would things be different if I left my job at work? 

 Something does have to change. Eventually, at least. It's fine now, when I'm completely alone and only responsible for myself, but eventually I'll have responsibilities beyond that, like marriage, family, children, etc. 

For now, I will have to be content writing overly-detailed blog entries about it at four in the morning. Yes, now it's 411 a.m. I should go to bed.

Well, I apologize for the length of this blog. Though this blog primarily functions as a way for me to write, and having an audience is not the primary goal.

You know, I am actually quite glad that I wrote this. This is the first time in my life I've really thought about this in any depth, and God knows it's been there the whole time. I think writing this helped me process it. And processing it will help me deal with it for the years to come. So oh well if it's too long.

Plus, no one made you read it, right?

UGH. I can't even regulate my rationalizations.

Living like a writer?

We have writer’s notebooks, lists of writing territories, explorations, drafts, and poems. We brainstorm, share ideas, model ways to vary our syntax and diction, and how to edit. We share, comment, and reflect on our writing. We share storie, do freewrites and more. But as writing teachers, are we really living like writers?

A long time ago, I thought living like a writer meant you got paid to write and your writing got published. Then I got a job reviewing trendy technology. I was paid 20 cents/word to write a review of iPod-wired Levi’s jeans. By the end of it, I wanted to punch someone. Then I applied to teaching graduate school.

A shorter time ago, I thought living like a writer meant you looked at the world differently. On the sidewalk in October, there is a pile of leaves. Some people walk through the leaves without a second thought. Some people pause for a minute to marvel at the way the four o-clock sun slants through the clouds and makes certain colors pop. Some people walk slowly around the pile, squinting, noticing that if they move their heads two inches to the left, the reds cast a light glow over the yellows. A writer picks up a pen.

Both definitions are true, but it took a blog and a roommate for me to realize the element I was missing. I posted an early draft of my memoir, so early that “rough” doesn’t cover the lack of polished prose. In passing, my roommate said that it had a lot of potential, and I wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. I wasn’t familiar with the fear associated with other people critiquing my writing. It had been three years, after all, since my last writing workshop. Even then, I focused on mainly fiction. This was TRUE. It was my mother, my wonderful mother, who’s in fantastic shape and still somehow needed emergency brain surgery. This was me, sobbing in front of my laptop, setting a timer for ten minutes and letting the fear envelope me as I tried to put it into words. This was less than two months ago, and my roommate thought she could just comment on it in passing, like it was nothing?

In an instant, I knew I would tell this story to all my future students. I ask them to share like it’s easy, like putting your thoughts on display for 27 people is easy, and I’m surprised when making participation 20% of their grade isn’t enough motivation? Sometimes my thoughtlessness alarms me. Sometimes I don’t know how 25 years and God knows how many tears haven’t taught me that it’s hard to put your feelings into words, and even harder to speak them out loud.

That’s what I’m missing. I love my students, but it’s not enough to write for them, and the 6.4 people who read my blog. To truly live like a writer, I need to write in a community of writers. A community of writers where I can swear, where I don’t have to conspicuously leave all the alcohol and sex out. A community of writers that aren’t 10-15-years old.

Most of the writing I’ve done in the past two years has been for my students. When I’m looking for an example of a quickwrite, I do it myself. I have dozens of lists of “My Writing Territories,” geared towards different groups and grade levels. I wrote my own “Relaxing Place” essay. But it’s been three years since took a writing class, three years since I wrote my thesis, graduated, and ended up back in middle school.

The single most meaningful teaching experience I’ve had this year is writing a memoir with my 8^th grade students. I used all the brainstorming and visualization techniques, half the drafting strategies, and found myself saying things like, “Show, don’t’ tell,” while revising my syntax. I found the common theme in a dozen rambly freewrites and stitched it together in a way that made sense. The experience of writing the memoir helped me process the experience I was writing about. I learned something about it along the way. It was too valuable an experience to keep to myself. Even though I assigned a pinch reader to take over when I felt the tears starting, even though I still cried while reading it to them, it changed the way I understand and teach memoir, and way I understand and teach writing.

It really made me question everything I know about writing. It made me wonder if, despite all the observing, writing, collecting, and sharing I do, I somehow was missing the point. Was I really leaving like a writer? Are any of us? Are we looking at the way the sun hits a pile of leaves and picking up a pen? Are we writing while crying and laughing and screaming into our computer screens? Are we hurling our words full-speed at the page like we expect our students to?

I don’t think I was living like a writer until I wrote that memoir.

Three days ago I asked a chronically-disorganized student to show me the Table of Contents in his Writer’s Notebook. He smirked, and said, “Fine, but let me see yours.” When I showed it to him, he said, “But, is it up-to-date Miss Wyner?” It wasn’t. Luckily, I managed to talk my way out of a detention.

The next day, I walked into my seventh grade class and held my notebook opened for them to see. “This is my homework,” I proclaimed. I showed them my two pages of memoir explorations, and explained that my half-page detailed list about Franklin Park wasn’t something I thought I would continue writing about, but I thought I might keep working on my exploration of swimming pools in my life.

A girl who often tells me how annoying she finds me looked up from her detailed schedule of scratching hearts into the table and said, “Wow. That’s really cool that you did that.”

Later, I let her teach me how to jerk. I failed. We all laughed as I tripped over my feet trying to do an alarmingly simple dance move. Life goes on.

PUTA: a poem

You look the same
in your fifth grade
ID picture
but different

I look at you now
as you slump
against the back of the
green, metal chair
and wonder
where did that open-eyed
wild-haired
bright-faced ten-year-old
go?

You didn't have bangs back then
maybe the fringe hiding your right eye
is what makes you evil
maybe the hair gel seeping into your brain
makes you ask,
"are you on your period?
is that why
you gave me detention?"

the little girl without the eyeliner
would never have said the word "pad"
out loud
without trying to
smash chin
into chest
bright red
mortified
wanting to disappear.

so where is that
sweet
little girl?
her frizzy black hair
now flattened and gelled
her wide eyes
now covered in shadow
her mouth now spewing
spanish words i
shouldn't know
the definitions of
but i do
unfortunately

well i might be a
PUTA
but i'm still the
PUTA
who tries to wipe the slate
clean after every nasty comment
you can't resist yelling
i'm still the
PUTA
that wants to read your words
even if yesterday they were
swears screamed at top volume

not every puta can do that

My inability to answer an MCAS prompt

It's funny, actually, that so many writing prompts involve choosing a relaxing place. The irony that I of all people am tasked with teaching 13-year-olds how to best organize their thoughts into an MCAS response is... well, we'll talk about that later.

I always do what I ask my students to do. Maybe not immediately, or in the exact same way, but I would never ask them to try a strategy I haven't tried myself. As a result of this, I've tried to do the MCAS prompt about a special place I go to relax. And... I can't.

I wasn't an overanxious kid, as far as I know. I'm sure I was as demanding and outspoken as I am now, if not more so, but I wasn't so high-strung that I never relaxed. I just can't remember relaxing places from my youth that I went to with any regularity.

I remember moments, not place with broad, overarching feeelings attached to them. My parents' bed was one place I remember going to cool down. They always had silky sheets that were crisp and cool against your cheeks, and this comforter with a nubby design that I loved to pick at (and that my mother, naturally, loved. I remember their pillow shams, the stiff ruffled edges, so full of ... pillow stuffing... that I thought they might pop. I remember the darkness in the air, even in the bright mornings, and I remember a velvety blanket we used only occasionally. I remember that I had to lie a certain way to attain maximum comfort between my mom and dad.

I remember hide and seek. My brother and I spent years trying to craft the perfect position to hide in. We were positive that if we crumpled the covers up JUST SO, then the seeker wouldn't notice the human body rolled up in them. I don't think we ever succeeded.

But I also remember traumatic memories tied to that bed. I remember running in the middle of the night, zig-zagging across the living room, and hurling myself at them, only to be picked up, tossed over a broad shoulder sack-of-laundry-style, and carried back to my bed. I remember how far away the floor looked from where my head rested on my mother's shoulder as she carried me. I remember throwing up all over her, en-route, the puke staining her blue nightgown in streaks of dark navy. I remember how they used to calm me down.

Leah, look at one spot on the wall. Tell me five things you can see, five things you can feel, and five things you can hear. The first time a guy really hurt me, like, treated me like garbage, I dug my fingernails into my palms and pretended you were asking me to do that again.

So, what do you do with that? What if your memory isn't compartmentalized by emotion? I mean, I'm not worried about my life. I think it's a good thing that my memories are so multi-faceted and vivid that no place ever evokes solely one feeling. But still... it makes you think.

And ramble, clearly.

Loveyouall-lw

PS: Being a writer means...
-Sometimes you have to write, even if it's late, because the thoughts bubbling inside your head are too much to sleep.
-Sometimes you can't fully enjoy something in the moment, because you're already thinking of how to express it in words. This, however, lets you enjoy it later.

BIG thoughts

Done.

Maybe that’s why I took so long to finish the 8th grade poetry book. Because on some level I knew that the completion of that would really mean the end. I mean, what do I really have left to do? Buy envelopes. Pack. Organize. Find those damn letters. Dayanara is afraid to go to high school so she’s subconsciously sabotaging herself with negative behavior. Is it all that different? Probably not.

the sheer volume of information I have in my head is overwhelming on a level I never thought possible. If I thought I could write it all down I’d try, but I don’t know how far I’d get before losing it completely. However, one skill I have perfected this year is learning to take my own advice, and practicing what I preach, so more often than not I find myself saying, “What would I tell a student who had this problem?” It works, surprisingly. I think using student strategies helps talk me down from my metacognitive cliff because a) they are good strategies, b) we are not that different and c) it keeps me humble. So, how would I advise myself?

First, a flood of ideas would deluge my mind. Then, I would consider where the student was coming from on every level I could think of, and suggest something I thought they could handle. So, what can I handle now? Right now, I need structure. I need some way to express these ideas, some medium, because or else I’ll burst (or deflate). But I think I need to structure it so I don’t freak myself out.

Marion’s idea of color coding everything is probably going to help in the later stages of this mental inventory and organization, but for now, I think I’ll just broadly compartmentalize. If I had to put all the info, duties, plans, necessities, every part of my life into three buckets, what would they be labeled?

Personal/me, curriculum, remembering as much as I can.

There. There are my buckets. So, here’s the plan which I just came up with forty five seconds ago. I’m going to carry a notebook. Or maybe a little, four-subject notebook. and I’m going to keep a running list. Listing is another thing I tell students to do, because it’s not as scary as paragraphs and sentences, and more often than not, when you take the pressure out of the equation, most of your bullet points end up being sentences or something like them anyway. But regardless, I’m going to list. Two lists for each, one on computer, one on paper. And that way, I’ll remember everything I can.

How did someone with such poor executive functioning skills by nature get a master’s degree in education? I sit, in this room, in this disastrous hellhole covered with clothes, middle school vampire literature, New Yorker magazines and school supplies, and marvel at my ability to teach nine different classes when I can barely locate my right foot. But I’m working on it. Baby steps.

Just start listing. You might miss something, a thought might fly out of your head while you’re using your brainpower to write another thought on paper, but if you never start writing, odds are you’ll lose both of those thoughts.

I wonder what a thought looks like. That would make a cool personification exercise. If you had to give a visual representation of “thought” how would you do it? Food for thought. HAH thought.

So, I’m glad I wrote all that. I’m sure it’s a mess, but the point is, I wrote it, and in doing so, I talked myself down off of my metaphorical, metacognitive cliff. I wrote to move time. Before I started, it was standing still, and I was not happy about that. I hate when time stops. It’s unnatural, illogical, impractical and wasteful, because inevitably when time starts up again, you miss the time you would have had if time hadn’t stopped. Say time stopped at 12:40 a.m. for roughly two minutes. When time starts again, it’s 12:42, and you’ve missed 120 seconds, skipped, gone, adieu.

But anyway, I hate it when time stops, and when I closed the document, it did just that. When time stops, you feel everything. Where your bangs lay on your forehead. Tongue against inside of your front teeth. Ring sliding down finger. Sometimes I swear sound slows down too, but I’m not entirely sure about that.

I don’t do well with big transitions. In fact, let’s call them negative transitions. I don’t mean bad, I mean diffused. When I suddenly have a lot less to do, and a lot more time, I flip out. The sudden loss of that is horrifying. It’s why I got depressed after running the marathon. I looked
up marathons overseas compulsively. I planned training runs. I even bought new sneakers. You need something to fill a void that size.

The real issue is that my 8th graders will be gone. My eyes are crossing with the revelation. I always tell them sometimes you have to write 5 pages of junk to get to that one great line. Well, I had to ramble about all this GodKnowsWhat to get to this place. The place where I’m going to lose a piece of myself when they go. It’s not weird or inappropriate, it’s just reality. They made me the teacher that I am today. Wow.

Need to sleep on that.

Sometimes I think I'll never have the time and energy to revise my own writing. Well, what I'm doing now is more important anyway.

thoughts

The following is a list of the thoughts in my head, as they appear, and as I remember them:

1. I am so done with winter. It needs to be over. I'm sick of being cold. I'm sick of my body shaking in the early morning wind. I'm ready for flip-flops, and sunscreen. Today, I spent half an hour de-icing my car. I couldn't even open it for the first ten minutes. I had to hack away at the door with a stick. Then, I opened it, got my shovel, hacked away at the top of the car, opened the sun roof, stuck my whole body through it, and hacked away at the windshield. I'm done. It's over. Although, on the brighter side, I drove home from work, and as I was driving over the Tobin Bridge at 4:56, it was still quite light outside.
   
2. I love this city so much that every time I drive home from work I get excited. Every time I'm on the Tobin, and I see the skyline, my heartbeat quickens. It's so silly. But it never gets old. Kind of like Holland, when I lived there. Most of my castle-mates eventually got into the groove of things, and became used to living there. It was normal. It never got old for me. I still woke up every morning, realized where I was, and nearly screamed.
   
3. I am injured in two ways. First, my back hurts. When I breathe, there is pain. Second, I fell running today with my kids, and my knee looks like what I would imagine brain matter would look like.
   
4. Sometimes, the best part of teaching writing is the amazing responses I apparently inspire from my co-teachers. Especially the more conservative ones. They tend to let loose. It's great.
   
5. Please, let me keep my job.
   
6. I need to lose weight. As soon as I can exhale without excruciating pain. How am I going to teach tomorrow?
7. My bed is amazing. I wish I could conduct more of my life here.
   
8. What I wouldn't give to be underwater at the camp pool right now, hunting for rings. Annie, I miss you. Let's hang out.
   
9. My new computer is incredible. What should I name it? I think it's a boy. My previous computers have been... Sly, after Sylvester Stallone, Macphisto, after the character Bono created on U2's Zoo TV tour in the 90s, and Prefontaine, after, well, Steve Prefontaine. So, Who should I name this computer after? Maybe Adam.
   
10. I had an amazing dream last night.
    
11. I sometimes wonder if there's ever an end to this information... phenomenon. I mean, space, digitally, is getting smaller and smaller. Think of how big the first generation iPods were, and they didn't even have that may gigabytes. Now those little shuffles have a whole gig, and I could probably fit eight of them in my mouth. Not that I'd try. That's why I won't get one. I'm afraid it would be mistaken for a potato chip. No, but seriously. Is there a point where it all stops, or are we going to end up with computers that have multiple terabytes of space and are 5 inches in diameter?
    
12. The weirdest thing I think is the Oakley Thump. If I could list the strangest results of this technology age, that would be up there with the top ones. They are Oakley sunglasses with an mp3 player and earbuds built in. It's ridiculous. I used to play with them when I worked at Marathon Sports. I even saw... some celebrity... wearing them at the Grammy's. Indoors. During a musical performance.
    
13. What is going on with Izzy on Grey's Anatomy? What on earth is wrong with her?
    
14. Kara Thrace is not a Cylon. If you don't watch Battlestar Galatica, you don't know what I'm talking about, and sadly, are not fulfilling your potential for awesomeness as a human being. Change it. Netflix it or buy the seasons or watch them online. Www.fanpop.com
    
15. My students are baffled by the fact that my first name is Leah. They don't think it's a good name for me. Apparently I look like a Rachel.
    
16. I miss the sun.
17. Ouch. I breathed, and it hurt. Crap.
    
18. All the other things on my mind are not for the entire internet to read, although I don't know why I bother, because no one reads this.
    
19. Goodnight.
    
20. Was the numbering necessary once I got to "goodnight?"
    
21. Yes, yes it was.
    
22. Definitely.
    

TOT ZIENS ~ LW

I <3 running, I don't <3 pants...

I used to be so good at blogging. I decided to start a blog again because of a teacher from grad school. Long story short: he lost a paper I wrote. Rather than going on a joyride through my old, ruined hard drive, I elected to write it again, and OH MY GOD I had so much fun.

I forgot how much I loved to write. All my time is spent teaching adolescents to write, so I haven't been writing, and I MISS IT! So, this is my attempt to get back in the writing game. It will probably be all rambly and horrible, but you made the decision to read it, so...

So, what's going on with me? I am completely overwhelmed at work. It will probably be this way for the first couple of years, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's so hard creating everything from scratch for four grade levels, but at the same time, I know that if I were given a curriculum and told to teach it exactly, I would hate it. I'd rather spend the extra time making something I love.

One of my eighth graders wrote the greatest writing reflection the other day. He's a guy's guy, a self-described "not so much writer," but he wrote a fantasy story for his little brothers and they loved it so much that he's gone off the fiction deep end (in a good way). It made me happy.

Recent obsession: Twilight. One of the unexpected pleasures of teaching eighth grade is their alarming insight into themselves. My fifth graders are so oblivious, but my eighth graders are very aware of their own thoughts and feelings. That doesn't make them rational, logical human beings or anything, but still, it's interesting to hear what they think about themselves. My Twilight obsession came about because one of my eighth graders said, "Miss, I hate everything pretty much. If these books can get me to read over 2000 pages, you should definitely hit them up."

After this, I realized two things:
1. She's right. If she connected with them, I should definitely experience them.
2. I clearly have a borderline creepy love for vampires already. Think about it. I grew up watching Buffy. I loved Interview with a Vampire. I liked that short-lived cheesy show Moonlight. I OBSESS over True Blood (on HBO, go watch it, it will change your life). Clearly, another vampire story is not such a stretch.

Hmm, what else is up with me...

What author study should I do with my students? I'm already doing a mini- one on Sharon Creech, but that's more of an excuse to read Love That Dog and introduce free verse poetry. The older ones like really twisted stuff, so I'm thinking Poe, but we'll see.

Oh, I went running for the first time in forever yesterday! I got so confused. My body isn't used to running in this area. I always start in Beacon Hill, so by the time I reach the Holiday Inn on St. Paul's street and Brookline, I've been going for a few miles already. Living in Brookline completely screws it up. Marathon training is going to be challenging. I'm going to be tempted to just run home mid-run. Good thing that's not happening for a year at least.

So, I ran all around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, and into the middle of it by accident. I'm not sure how it happened, but it all looks different in the snow. At some point I looked down and thought to myself, "If I jump really hard, I will fall into a body of water. Oops."

Anyway, I am feeling it today, but not as badly as I had expected, which is good, I suppose. 90 more miles and I can buy new sneakers, BOOYEAH.

I was also deathly ill. I still kind of sound hoarse. My students began an unofficial "use figurative language to describe our teacher's horrible voice" contest, and my favorites were:

She sounds like Lindsay Lohan after a rough night.
She sounds like an adolescent male going through puberty.
She sounds like Sylvester Stallone punched her in the voice box.

I love my creative ones.

Any other updates? Oh, HOW 'BOUT THAT TOBIN BRIDGE? One lane? Really people? I'm going to have to take the Turnpike to work. That costs $4.25. Damnit.

My vaccuum broke. It is tragic, and probably my roommate's fault.

Oh! So, our motivation for losing weight is that we're going to throw a skanky short-shorts party in late March. Thus, we will lose weight because we must look fabulous for said party. Clear your calendars... probably one of the last couple of weekends in March. My goal is to wear short shorts WITHOUT stockings. And possibly a lifeguard bathing suit. We'll see.

I should go lift weights, but I just don't like the gym. I'd rather run outside for hours than sit in a confined area letting gravity have its way with me. Plus, I'm so used to going to an all womens gym, that going to Gold's is daunting. All these huge, burly men watch me constantly. I was flattered at first, but then I realized they didn't think I was hot, rather, they were watching with a kind of horrid fascination as I failed to bench press the bar. I'm quite good at working out. I know fifty thousand exercises for each muscle, I swear, so I would look like I know what I'm doing, except... except for the fact that I'm holding 8-pound weights. The boys are nice though. They help me when I am doing something wrong.

So, I'm off to read notebooks, make food, shower, and hypothesize about the next season of the L-Word.

Goede Nacht!

--LW