It's been in the 40s for the last week or so, and it's not feeling very "Christmassy" without at least a little dusting of snow on the ground, or flurries in the air. But inside (both in the house, and that corny place called your Christmas spirit!) the holidays are here, and my Christmas lights, tree, ugly sweater, cookies, garland, and nativity scene are proof!
It really is the most wonderful time of the year. I love Thanksgiving as a holiday in and of itself, and in my mind it kicks off the holiday season which rolls through New Years! Summer is great because you have day after day of long sunshine, warmth, greenery, and endless opportunity. Winter is great because no other time of the year has so much merriment and celebrating pre-planned into the calendar than the holiday season. After January 1st, then winter enters that long, dark, cold streak that melts into a grey, slushy, spring. That would be the least wonderful time of the year! So before we endure that, let's get our kicks in now!
Of course, the holidays aren't for everyone, and some are more excited than others for Christmas and the New Year. So if you're feeling more humbug than holidays, here are a few thoughts to put you in the spirit of the season. Of course, if you're already feeling merry and bright, this should add another yule log to your fire!
1. For when you need Amazon Prime for that last gift: I LOVE Christmas shopping in that, "I love finding the perfect gift for everyone" sort of way, but not in that, "I love packing the mall and walking three miles across the parking lot" sort of way. Thus, Amazon Prime is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me! And not just because the two day shipping is awwweeessoommme...and my Discover Card now gives me bonus rewards for Amazon shopping, but also because sometimes the reviews are class A entertainment. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to CLICK HERE right now!
2. For when you just can't stomach one more Christmas cookie: Everyone has a favorite Christmas cookie. Mine, ironically, is not one that was even made with frequency at our house growing up. My Mom used to make sour cream rollout cookies, which are pretty close. But my favorite is the good, old fashioned, sugar cookie...preferably with buttercream frosting...which I now make for myself once a year at Christmastime because otherwise I'd be obese!! Happy...but obese!! If you need additional cookie exchange ideas outside the realm of the obvious, CLICK HERE. If you just want to look at pictures of beautiful food...you should also click the link!
YUUMMM!!!
3. Heard it on the radio: All the top songs of 2015 in one song. That song is better than all the Number 1 songs from 2015 combined!! Oh wait...
4: Google It!: Google's end of the year review is one of my favorite things! Like Julie Andrews style favorite things! Watch it...love it...spread the Christmas cheer!
This is not a political blog. But in the wake of yet another senseless, violent, tragedy, I find myself unable to comprehend how we got to this place in our world. That we can't make progress on the issue because we don't want to "infringe on anyone's Constitutional rights," or it's "not the right time to talk about gun control" in the wake of tragic violence, seems like a ridiculous and unsubstantiated argument. Is it not the right time to talk about terrorism after a terrorist act? Is it not the right time to talk about the drug problem in a community after a massive heroin bust?
The first guarantee the Constitution is supposed to protect is life...
...that's not "the right to protect your life."
...that's not "the right to defend yourself in a life threatening situation."
...that's not "the right to take someone else's life."
...that's the right to life itself! A right that I think is far superior than someone else's right to carry a firearm, for whatever purpose.
My overwhelming sadness at the tragic news that seems to break far too frequently, is increasingly turning to anger at the fact that we a nation have essentially accepted this violence as a part of our modern culture and society, and have not created a plan, or even had a civil, bi-partisan discussion, on how to fix it. We yell about building walls on our borders...keeping out Syrian refugees...not flying the confederate flag...the threat of ISIS...and yet people continue to die on our own streets because of firearms, often purchased legally. But we can't talk about it...especially during an election year...without someone calling it out for "playing politics." Well maybe someone should play politics because the alternative is playing with people's lives.
Three years ago, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, I wrote the following. Unfortunately, for the people in San Bernardino and the families of the victims, I have to post it again...because we can't seem to figure it out...though it shouldn't have to be so hard.
I was both horrified and captivated by the news last night. The stories of the tragedy and chaos juxtaposed against footage of a candlelight vigil where community members softly sang Silent Night...the words of which, never seemed to carry so much gravity.
On Facebook, amidst the myriad of "Love and prayers to the victims and their families" statuses, I found one friend who had posted this quote in response:
"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." -Leonard Bernstein
In light of what I watched unfold on TV last night, a resounding chorus of "sleep in heavenly peace" drifting over a town trying desperately to wake from an unimaginable nightmare, I can't help but think Bernstein may have been on to something.
This morning, I got up, made my coffee, turned on some Christmas music, and sat wrapped in a blanket eating my cereal and starting my day. As the first chords of Doug Hammer's "In the Bleak MidWinter" drifted through the room, I found myself reflecting on the music and the sentiment of Bernstein's assertion. There is, perhaps, no better piece of literature to capture the conflicting emotion of this tragedy with the ongoing holiday season, than what Christina Rossetti wrote in her poem that inspired the song.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
Discussion on mental health issues/gun control/school safety/future prevention will come, and time will come to heal some of the heartache. In the meantime, Christmas will come...with the birth of a son who lived to teach us to love our neighbors as ourselves.
If we really wanted to make a change in the world, we wouldn't need to start with anti-gun legislation or healthcare reform...we'd simply need to remember that simple, 'golden' rule.
Well blogger world, November has come and gone and with it, National Novel Writing Month. As previously discussed, I've been working on a book project through the month of November with no real plans on completing it, but my goal was to at least make a decent effort at getting a chunk of it taken care of. With NaNoWriMo complete, here's how "complete" the book is...
I've written 53 total pages, that account for 27,950 words. This isn't even half of the suggested amount for NaNoWriMo, but my own project, this accounts for 14 chapters, which is well beyond my half way point, so I'll take it. I've previewed various sections before. But here was my latest addition as the month came to a close.
...about running triathlons.
There is an expression that life is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. This is technically incorrect. Life may not be a sprint. At least, we hope it’s long enough not to be considered a sprint. But life is not a marathon. I know this because I’ve run a marathon, and while it taught me a lot about myself and about life, I’m sure it isn’t analogous to life itself.
When you run a marathon, a lot of different things happen to your body and go through your mind. None marathon runners don’t think of things like the fact that sixteen miles into a marathon, you may need to re-apply vaseline to your thighs, bra lines, and butt crack to keep things from rubbing against each other. None marathon runners may have never lost multiple toenails at once. None marathon runners may have had hit the metaphorical wall at some point in their life. They may have felt like they were up against some insurmountable obstacle. But the wall is only a very small part of the marathon experience, and it doesn’t justify setting the distance of life’s rat race at 26.2 miles. None of those things are really metaphorical..
The real problem with the marathon metaphor, is that a marathon is all one thing. And life is very rarely all one thing. A marathon is exhausting in both its distance and the endurance required to complete it, but also in the mundaneness of what you’re doing. Yes the crowds are there to add energy and excitement to the experience, and they do. But at the heart of it, slogging through 26 miles only requires you to keep moving your feet, putting one foot in front of the other until eventually you cross the finish line. It’s not a complicated task, and is rather boring in its simplicity.
I guess maybe life is like that. Although if all you need to do to make it through your life is put one foot in front of the other, I challenge you that you’re life is not all that interesting. And how many times in life do we get to define ourselves as just one thing? To finish a marathon you need to consider yourself just one thing, a runner. What one thing would define me in this life? Would I run my whole race as a teacher? A daughter? A runner? A wife?
I propose that instead of thinking of life as a marathon, that life be thought of as a triathlon. And having completed three times as many triathlons as marathons, I think I can attest as to why.
A triathlon is not all one thing. A triathlon requires three separate skills, and it requires you to have the ability to transition between them. A triathlon poses many of the same physical challenges and obstacles as a marathon. There’s still the threat of hitting the wall. There is still the sense of tremendous accomplishment at having succeeded. There is still the pain, and endurance, and perseverance, and human spirit that drives the thing forward. But a triathlon requires you to be three things. You must be a swimmer; you must be a cyclist, and you must be a runner to cross the finish line. You must transition into each role and complete each phase in its turn, and when you’re finished, they don’t call you a runner, or a cyclist, or a swimmer. They call you a triathlete.
But it’s not just the stages and athletic roles that make a triathlon a good metaphor for life. The real reason I believe triathlons make for a good analogy is that in all those phases and stages you race, there is going to be something you don’t do as well as the others. There is going to be something that you really have to work at if you want to keep up, or something that you’re going to have to put some extra effort in to make happen. There is going to be something you have a very real chance to fail at, something that you can’t just slog through to complete. This thing does not have to defeat you, but it might scare you, and it will absolutely push you out of your comfort zone. And in my mind that’s far more akin to what life will throw at you then just putting one foot in front of the other until you reach the end of the race.
While in life, I’ve had many of these moments that have challenged me, in triathlons it has always been swimming that caused me the most anxiety. I signed up for my first triathlon before I went to the pool to refresh my memory on how to do the common strokes. It’s a good thing it happened in this order. If I would have gone to the pool first, I probably never would have signed up for the race.
I grew up on a lake and spent plenty of time in the water, but I was not a swimmer in the athletic sense of the word. I liked lifejackets and inner tubes, and had taken swimming lessons only up to level three, at which point I decided I didn’t want to jump off the diving board, and my parents agreed that I had learned enough of the basics to insure I wouldn’t drown.
When I got into the pool on my first day of training, I quickly learned that not drowning was about all I was proficient at in the water, and I even jeopardized that if I tried to tread water longer than five minutes. A friend and triathlon veteran tried to help me at least float effectively in the shallow end of the pool, supporting my back as I fluttered my hand and feet gently trying to keep my head above water. It was horribly embarrassing and discouraging, but I’d already paid my money and told people that I had signed up. So I had to figure out a way to do it.
The process of learning to swim was endlessly frustrating. I've always been a pretty athletic person, but everyday that a pool workout came up on my training schedule, I dreaded going to the gym to do it. I spent time in the diving well just treading water. I spent time with a kickboard just working on my flutter kick and leg strength. I bought headphones that were safe for the pool to try and muster the motivation to swim very slow, inefficient laps. I wondered what it would be like to drown!
As for the rest of it, I'm a good runner and had become a pretty decent biker, so I wasn’t worried about finish the race once I got through the swim. But if I couldn't get out of the water, I'd never be able to compete in the bike and run. The better my running and stronger my cycling got, the more determined I became not to make a fool of myself in the water. But even as my skills developed, I knew in the back of my mind that on race day, my swim wasn’t going to be fast of pretty. It was just going to be enough to get me out of the lake and onto my bike.
And that’s why life is a little like a triathlon. In fact, life is harder than a triathlon. It's a pentathlon…a decathlon! In life we play numerous roles, take on multiple responsibilities, and must be different things at different times for different people. We must be proficient in each of these areas. If you're weak in one, your quality of life or overall happiness may suffer. It's likely we feel pretty good about some if not most of these roles we fill, but chances are, one of these areas is your "swimming" event, and it's the one that you're going to have to fix and continue to work on as your story unfolds.
The thing about a "swimming" event is that it's not always a fun thing to fix. I wasn’t always motivated to get in the pool and flounder lap after lap hoping to be just a little bit better each time. In fact, some days were infuriating and frustrating. Similarly, when you recognize what you're "swimming" event is in life, it won't necessarily be easy to master it. Maybe it’s a bad relationship that’s draining your energy. Maybe it’s a dead end job that’s no longer satisfying. Maybe it dream you gave up on, or a goal you stopped chasing. Maybe it’s recommitting yourself to your marriage, or your faith, or your kids. Maybe it’s going back to school.
Of course, you could always make the decision to ignore the weakness. People stay in bad relationships. They work unfulfilling jobs. They let their friendships and marriages suffer. They flounder in the lake, just trying to keep their head above water as the world moves on around them.
But I dare to suggest that’s not the best way. For the triathlon teaches us to take that weakness and turn it into, if not a strength, at least a survival skill that helps us move to the next great thing. We don’t have to become experts in our weaknesses, we merely have to plod along, making steady progress until we stop feeling like we’re drowning, and can move onto our bike, and our run.
It's been a week of bad news. The attacks in Paris, the nightly airstrikes in the Middle East, the hostage crisis in Mali, the endless conversation of whether or not to accept Syrian refugees, these are the things that have dominated the airwaves. It's not very uplifting, and heading into the holiday season, it hasn't left me feeling very merry and bright either.
Which is not to say that good things aren't happening in the world as well. They just tend to get overlooked for the myriad of negative headlines that get more attention, more viewers, and more and more ingrained in our social scene as the days go on. This week I've been tired, both from a lingering cold that I just can't seem to shake, and from the endless tragedy and drama that has continuously unfolded in the world. So here are four thoughts to make you smile, make you think happy thoughts, or to at least distract your attention for just a moment as we head into a weekend that, hopefully, brings a little peace and quiet...emphasis on the peace!
1. My mother used to tell me I was like a duck: That is, in the sense that I might appear calm and relaxed on the surface, even when I was paddling like crazy to stay afloat. Today I would like to be like these ducks! The sheer joy of 5000 ducklings running into a pond...just because!
2. When internet quizzes know you better than you know you: Last week a quiz made the Facebook rounds that was about the Shakespeare character that most emulated your life, and while I didn't completely agree with my result, I did have fun taking the quiz because, well, Shakespeare! This quiz --> CLICK HERE <-- asked me to do nothing more than associate emotions with random pictures, which I did. And then I got my result and thought, "well shoot! How did they know that!?" Try it...it's entertaining!
3.Wanna be happy? Be like an otter!: Want to know the cutest fun fact ever? Otters hold hands when the fall asleep in the water to keep from drifting apart! Admit it! That's adorable. The quote below made me smile as waking up to find that J Word as inadvertently taken my hand in the middle of the night is one of my favorite, sappy romantic things. Want to fall asleep thinking of happy things and not the world's negativity? Fall asleep holding hands with someone!
4. The struggle is real: Somebody wrote the story of the human condition in a comic strip! Enjoy!
National Novel Writing Month rolls on this November, and, as previously mentioned, I'm working on a project to satisfy "Write a Novel" on my '30 before 30 list.' I've given you a sneak peek or two already, but this last weekend I've been working on the "Romance" section of the book and thought I'd offer you a glimpse into where this is going. The section is called: ...about internet dating. And, well, you'll see!
...about internet dating.
A popular internet dating company uses the slogan, “It’s OK to look” on their television ads. These ads seem to come around more often during Valentine’s Day or Christmas or New Years or when your little sister gets engaged and you begin to feel a little bit self conscious about the fact that you’ll not only be going to the wedding alone, but also that, for as much as your family knows, your last relationship was with your high school sweetheart who ended up being homosexual. So when the perfect storm of conditions met, and I was looking for bachelorette party games, and one of them involved dating website profiles, and the commercial came on in the background, and I was on my second glass of wine and reflecting on how I would subsequently be forced to answer the inevitable relationship questions at the reception, I thought, “Why not!?” and logged on just to look.
Turns out, without signing up for a user profile, all you really can do is look, and you can’t look at very much. You don’t get very much information about the few teaser people you’re looking at, and you certainly aren’t allowed to message them or let them know you’re interested in any way. That all comes with time, and user profiles, and money. But it’s OK to look, so I browsed what was there, partly because I was scouting out the possibilities for this bachelorette party game, but partly because I was curious. As long as I was venturing down the wormhole, I might as well look around for a minute. And when I realized I wasn’t really going to see anything worthwhile without actually setting a profile up for myself, I went ahead and did it.
I hadn’t really understood or thought through what would happen after my profile was out there. I wasn’t paying for the service, so while I could see more people and get more information about them, I still couldn’t message or contact them in anyway. I didn’t really want to anyway. I was having ridiculous fun just looking at people. It was like window shopping for something you had no intention of pursuing. I probably looked through 100 men that first night. I clicked on people that looked extremely attractive. I clicked on people that I never would have given a second look on the street. I was overwhelmed by the volume of people on the sight, but looking at them in the comfort and safety of my own home was completely non-threatening. Besides, I wasn’t looking for real. It was just a way to kill an evening. Eventually I finished my wine, shutdown my computer, and went to bed.
The thing I didn’t realize about putting my profile out there that once I was signed up, I became instantly visible to everyone else. And while I wasn’t paying for the service and therefore wasn’t sending out any messages, people who were paying could message, and did message, me. I woke up the next morning to five messages in my inbox. One problem, I couldn’t tell who’d sent them. I could see who’d looked at my profile. I could see who liked my pictures. I could see who winked at me. But I had no idea who had sent the messages. I was curious, but I was not sold on online dating. I wasn’t planning on doing this for real. It was a hypothetical and superficial night of browsing cute guy’s personal information. That said, I didn’t delete my profile.
As a result, the messages continued to pile in, and with each new one that cropped up, the more my curiosity nagged. In the cleverest marketing ploy of all time, the website offered me a ‘free peek’ at one of the messages in my inbox. I took the bait, just because, after all, it’s OK to look. If they were trying to hook me, however, they failed. The message I got to look at was from a man whose profile I wouldn’t have given a second look to. He was over 10 years my senior, unemployed, and severly obese. To add insult to injury, his message didn’t use punctuation or capital letters. I was unimpressed and confident that online dating wasn’t for me. But I still didn’t delete my profile.
The messages continued to stack up. Another week went by, and my grand total was 28. The higher that number climbed, the more I wondered who else might be waiting for a response. It wasn’t that I hadn’t found interesting and dateable people during my browsing. In fact, I’d even found one or two that I had thought I might have messaged if I had the capacity to do so. One night driving a friend back to her apartment, I asked for her opinion about online dating. She was noncommital, but not phased by it either. I confessed what I had been doing and how many messages I had let pile up. Stunned, she demanded to see my profile and the men I had looked at that first night. I logged in and paged through some of my favorites.
“You have to do this for real!” she exclaimed. “Just because. You at least have to try it. If not for you, do it for me! I’m so curious!”
I wasn’t sure. “I’m not sure I want to pay for this,” I admitted. “It was just for fun.”
“But don’t you at least want to know?” she asked.
“Maybe. I guess. I don’t know.”
“I think you should think about it, like really think about it!” She was positively giddy at the thought.
“Ok sure,” I said, not convinced that I’d give it any more thought than I already had. But sometimes friends have other plans, and a week later when my birthday came around, she handed me a card whispering that I should open it when I was away from the rest of my friends and ready to think seriously about things. I opened it at home that night wondering what would have been such a big deal that the rest of our friends couldn’t see. Inside the card I saw what the fuss would have been about, she was paying for my first three months of internet dating.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am an internet dating success story, and my now husband and I could be the next “It’s OK to look” commercial couple. Before the blessed day when we met and I could finally delete my online account however, I had to learn a lot about mass market matchmaking. Lesson one was the hardest to adjust to, and that was just how much of meat market such websites actually are. Whereas social media sites will tell you when your friends are online or when someone likes your photo, dating sites will tell you anytime someone looks at your profile. At first this feels flattering, like 250 people looked at me today. But then you start to think about it. 250 people looked at me today, and judged my personality, and judged my looks, and formed an opinion about me, and I only got two winks, four likes, and one message, which means the other 243 decided, for an unknown reason, I wasn’t for them. It wasn’t quite as bad as being rejected 243 times outright, but it did put 28 messages in a little clearer perspective. Without a context in which to frame that number, it felt like a lot. Once I signed in for real and saw that my page had been viewed 800 times, suddenly a 3% response rate didn’t feel so good.
The second thing I learned was that it took time and effort to sort through profiles, craft a good message if I so chose, and respond to the messages I had received. Fortunately there are filters for these kind of things, and the process gets a little more efficient if you screen people through any ‘red flag’ filters that remove them from you list before you waste you time. Even so, each day they sent me 20 new matches, and if I spent even two minutes looking through each profile, and another minute or two writing a message I was easily up to almost an hour a day of actively searching out people to date. It seemed artificial and more than a little stilted. Not to mention, the return ratio on sent messages is very low, so most of the scouting and writing time ended up for naught.
On top of everything else, I eventually came to learn that I was also working against the dating algorithm itself. I didn’t actually notice this trend myself. Because I am that much of a nerd, I read about it in an online dating strategy book, which laid out the reality of what was happening like this: The site had my money, and what they wanted for me, more than finding the love of my life, was to have another three months worth of subscription fees. Thus, while they were technically matching me with people I was compatible with, there was a timing and strategy to the way they released their results. The first few days I was on, I saw people I was 95-100% compatible with. That eventually trickled down closer to 80-85%. After another couple weeks, the numbers bumped back up to 95%. It would have been one thing if these users were brand new to the site, but some of them had been on for months. The algorithm would have found them immediately upon running my profile through the system. The strategy for the company was to release matches on a timeline that kept me interested in the people on the site but not fully satisfied with my prospects. The closer we got to my subscription needing renewal, the more compatible my matches would become until they would throw a 100% at me just about the time I had to decide whether to send them more money or not.
Thus my love hate relationship with my internet dating profile started. On the one hand, I had committed to three months of trying it out and seeing what was out there. On the other hand, I felt like a commodity putting themselves out there for inspection, approval or denial. The messages kept coming. People kept digitally winking at me. My page view counter hit quadruple digits. My self esteem waffled between feeling desirable and feeling looked over. And so began the strangest three months of my social life to date.
I teach a media and publishing class, and every week we take a different approach to looking at and critiquing the mass media market. We've looked at media through the lens of cultural influences, religious influences, celebrity influences, political influences, patriotic influences, international influences, emphasis on social issues, evident bias, and evident spin. Thus, each week I end up burying myself in news stories looking for current, relevant examples of just how the media is targeting today's consumers, and what is repeatedly being put, sometimes ad nausea, in front of audiences. I realize that by putting these stories on the blog, I'm just perpetuating the trends, but I hope a little critical commentary on each one will allow (or force) you to think about how you've responded to repeated exposure of these ideas.
1. The Red Starbucks Cup Story: If you need a quick catch up - Last week Starbucks started taking a lot of heat for revealing this year's holiday cups which are simply red with the Starbucks logo in the middle. Personally, I like the simple, minimal design, but a couple very loud Christian groups have started protesting that the cups weren't "Christmassy" enough, and that they represented society's repeated attacks against the real "reason for the season." Most recently, Donald Trump chimed in to question whether or not we should be boycotting Starbucks as a result. Why it's dumb - The levels of idiocy in this story seem never-ending. As if Starbucks was trying to make a big Christian Christmas statement with their previous red cup designs? In case you're not a Starbucks aficionado, here are some past cup designs that are apparently deemed as "more acceptable" and "more Christian."
As you can see, none of the designs actually include any Christian iconography at all, but rather very secular Christmas imagery...snow, trees, ornaments, stars, etc. I suppose, by default, tress and ornaments and lights and snow all get associated with the Christian celebration, but really REALLY there's hardly a leg to stand on when it comes to this story. So why and how did it take on a life of its own and end up getting so much attention.
The story you're not being told - Yesterday, sick of hearing about the 'scandal' of the red Starbucks cup, I sought out the truth as to how this story got legs. Turns out it started with a conservative, Evangelical youtube video blogger who sees life in general as an attack on Christian values. He went to a Starbucks, ordered a beverage under the name 'Merry Christmas' so that the barista would have to write something Christian on his cup, and filmed the whole thing, inviting his followers to do the same in the name of preserving the "reason for the season." This guy's reach?? 2,000,000 followers, whom quickly started commenting, sharing, and buzzing about what he had done. As soon as that many people started talking about it, the mainstream media had to take notice, and when the mainstream media took notice, the major mouthpieces of Christian churches, lobbyists, etc. all had something to say about it. Thus, the story took off...not because it was actual news...but because the actions of one, extremist video blogger got a lot of attention for nothing of consequence!
2. The mysterious creature found in California after the "UFO Sighting": If you need a quick catch up - Earlier this week, a bright light was seen streaking across the sky in southern California. Residents, expectedly, panicked and social media blew up with theories about UFOs and meteors. Things calmed down a little bit after the US military confirmed the light as a planned missile test from a ballistic submarine in the Pacific. Consequently, the fact that it was a missile freaks me out more than if it would have been a UFO. But since the event, media has continued to buzz about a "mysterious creature" that was found not long after the light disappeared.
Why it's dumb - Alien/UFO government cover up stories have been going on forever, and are old news. As to the mysterious creature, I was going to post a picture, but it's kind of gross so I didn't want to! When I looked at it, my first thought was that someone had skinned a cat. It does have a particular animalistic quality to it. If it did indeed show up in someone's back yard the night of the lights however, it seems mere coincidence as...
The Story You're Not Being Told - Snopes, among other online fact checking sites, have identified the creature as the half consumed animal fetus. The general consensus seems to be a deer fetus, and after regrettable Googling 'deer fetus' I would tend to agree with this assessment. What's more, LAX has confirmed that they received notice from the Navy earlier in November that the missile tests would be happening, and adjusted their flight patterns accordingly. Tests are scheduled to last through November 15th, so don't be surprised if another UFO story surfaces before the end of the week!
And finally...the thing that no one is talking about yet, but I predict will be the next thing that we all get upset about...
Yesterday, in response to a question about faith and an Atheist being in the White House, Ted Cruz said that he believed, "The president of the United States should start every morning on their knees."
Beyond the obvious response of religious discrimination...I'm wondering how long before someone points out that the suggested connotation for the female candidates is not really religious at all...and that one of those females is a Clinton, well...
If that ends up going viral, you heard it here first!!
It's opening night blog world! After talking about the play quite a bit while I was picking a show, I haven't talked about it much since we've been in rehearsals, and besides posting my director's notes, I haven't talked much about it during dress rehearsal either. But now it's here, just shy of 11 hours away, and as I always feel on the day of an opening night, I've got ants in the pants! So let's talk about other things!
Have you been paying attention to the world much lately? It's a pretty messed up place and stories like the Doctor's Without Borders hospital bombing, the Russian airline crash, pre-2016 politics, and the half naked man on the south side of Rochester with residue from explosive materials in his car, don't leave me much confidence in humanity.
Which is why I try to seek out the happier things in life! The moments of good that invariably due shine through week to week, but are sometimes lost in the cacophony of gloom and doom and scandal and politics. And thus, I try to keep my four thoughts on Friday something positive and uplifting, something to make you laugh or smile or keep you mind off the fact that it's opening night. Oh wait! That's just me! Oops...ok...here we go!
1. I'll go to the reunion just to prove I don't do this anymore!I recently received the invitation to my high school classes 10 year reunion. Reunions feel a little unnecessary and redundant in our Facebook connected world, but the invite promised appetizers and drinks, so what the heck, maybe I'll go! I also recently saw this list of things that were hot in 2005 that are definitely not kosher by 2015 standards, which got me thinking I should probably go to the reunion just to prove that I'm not 'that' person anymore. I mean, I'd like to think I have way more going on now than I did in high school! Dear 18 year old self, Don't worry! You grow into you body, develop a sense of femininity, and it all works out just fine! Love, your 28 year old self. PS. In the meantime, you should stop doing ALL THESE THINGS!
2. Am I suppose to root for someone at the next debate, or wear a paper bag over my head? Having bashed politics as a negative news sources in my introduction, it may seem silly that I'd bring it up here. However, with the third Republican debate coming up next week, and voters having just gone to the polls on Tuesday, it seems only fair to give it a passing mention in this positive context...
It's important to participate in our democracy. Voting is one of the key ways that we get to do that, and, in my opinion, if you don't vote...you don't get to complain! So...with a year to think about who you might cast your ballot for when it comes to the highest office, I encourage you to take the "I Side With..." quiz LINK HERE. I had my media class take it this week as part of our discussion of politics in the media. They didn't have to share their answers, but some kids were surprised with their top matches. It's important to know these things! Think about it!
3: I laugh because it's true! When I saw this, I laughed because I'm pretty sure I've said at least 75% of these things! Mostly the rehearsal notes/tech notes/blocking kinds of things. "I thought about it last night, and I solved it!" is probably my mantra. :-)
4. At this pace I'll write 16,000 words by the end of November. As previously mentioned, November is national novel writing month, and I am working on a project of sorts, but it has woefully fallen by the wayside this week during dress rehearsal time. Hopefully next week I can revive my efforts, but in the meantime, I have put together a few pieces of reminiscing storyline, including this tidbit from one of my all time favorite speech classes. Student's names have been changed!
I’ve had many different favorite classes for many different reasons. My Honors English 10 class will forever hold a soft spot in my heart, for it was a class I designed and implemented myself, and the first group of kids I choose saw me all the way through to the end of my time at the first school where I taught. Similarly, college prep English was always a blast to teach as the level of analysis, discussions, and questions I could challenge them with was far beyond that of my normal classes. There was one class, however, that might be my favorite in that the most random and ridiculous things always seemed to happen during this hour, and the students developed an uncanny ability to roll with the punches.
My first hour speech class was an English elective. For one quarter, students gave a speech a week in an intensive study of public speaking techniques and formats for any occasion. We had tremendous fun in that class! Students gave acceptance speeches at a mock Academy Awards show. They gave toasts at a made up fancy dinner (complete with sparkling grape juice!). They wrote advocacy speeches for an issue they cared about. But before they got into all that good stuff, they reviewed what they already knew about public speaking with a refresher of the good old demonstration speech.
If it wasn’t for the story I’m about to tell, my favorite memory of this class was probably the student that managed to relate every possible speech prompt back to chickens. He did his demonstration speech on how to fold a towel into the shape of a chicken, which hadn’t worked all that well during his demonstration phase. That aside, I remember vividly because I was writing comments on his rubric while the next student was setting up his speech, which is partially why I missed what was coming until it was almost too late.
As a general rule, students love demonstration speeches because they get to make, and then eat, food. The second year I taught speech, I actually made a rule that students could not make chocolate chip cookies for their speech because it was so overdone that I couldn’t take another bite of a cookie without thinking about class. Jordy was not making chocolate chip cookies for his speech. He was making chocolate covered pretzels that you then decorated to look like little reindeer faces. He set up his ingredients on the front table, and was all set to go by the time I finished writing my comments on the chicken towel speech and found his rubric and outline.
As a general rule, I dislike demonstration speeches because there are too many hassles, and moving parts, and things to clean up, and you can only watch someone mix batter in a bowl for so long before it all starts to blur together in a sloppy mess of raw eggs and granulated sugar. Also, most recipes that kids want to make call for a microwave at some point. Either they need to melt the butter, or they need to melt the chocolate, or they need to boil water. There’s always something. I make kids bring in all their own cooking supplies, utensils, bowls, ingredients, and anything else they may need. But I can’t make them bring in their own microwave. And because the home economics room was being used at the same time as my speech class, I made the only other reasonable decision, and I brought in my own microwave from home.
So Jordy sets up his supplies and begins his speech explaining how this is something his mom makes every year, and she taught him how to do it, and now he’s going to teach us. (Baking speeches almost always start with, “So here’s something my mom taught me how to make.”) Step one: melt chocolate chips together with a little bit of butter in the microwave. Jordy carefully opens a small Tupperware container in which he’s premeasured the right amount of butter, and then cuts open his bag of chocolate chips. He explains all about how you need to melt them slowly and make sure that you don’t burn the chocolate. Then proceeds to dump them into a Hillshire Farms lunchmeat container, to which he also adds the butter.
Freeze.
At this point, you know what’s going to happen! At this point, I knew what was going to happen. At this point, I did the most passive aggressive thing I have ever done as a teacher or maybe ever...I let it happen anyway. In my mind, the irony of the situation was not that he was about to not only melt down the chocolate but also the entire flimsy plastic container, but rather that he’d so carefully cautioned us against burning the chocolate, when he was about to create a molten mess of BPA riddled plastic that would surely make his pretzel treats cancerous. In hindsight, it was probably my responsibility to stop him. I mean, we could have burned down the school or something! But I know a genuine learning opportunity when I see one, and this was definitely one.
Unfreeze.
Having warned us about the dangers of burning the chocolate, Jordy puts the container in the microwave for two minutes. That’s right. Two. Whole. Minutes! And now I feel as if I have to say something, because certainly it’s going to explode in there, but I continue to keep my mouth shut. In the meantime, Jordy proceeds with the rest of his speech, talking loudly over the drone of the microwave as he lays out the pretzels and candies for dipping and decorating.
At one minute in, the smell of burning chocolate becomes evident. At one minute and fifteen seconds, it takes on a distinctly artificial and plasticy smell. At one minute and thirty seconds it starts to smoke, at which point I don’t need to say anything because the class is freaking out and Jordy is in a panic. He quickly pushes cancel, and pops the door open to reveal a gooey, molten plastic mess that’s not only all over my microwave plate, but proceeds to ooze onto the linoleum floor.
Jordy never did finish that demonstration speech. I stopped his official time so that he could go down to the janitor to ask for cleaning supplies, and he spent the next 20 minutes scraping rapidly drying, chocolatey gunk off the floor and out of my microwave. And at the end of the day, I couldn’t even dock him a lot of points off on his speech; one, because part of me felt partially responsible for knowing he was going to fail and letting him do it anyway, and two, because really, when it came to learning something from a demonstration, he had given the class a better lesson than any of the other speakers that day!
Well it's here...dress rehearsal and production week! It would be a bad jinx to say whether things were going particularly well or particularly poorly at this point, so I will say instead that things are, indeed, going. And they will continue to go until Friday night when we open...and then they will need to continue to go all weekend through three performances!
So, as I'm not talking about rehearsals, I'll talk about putting this show together in hindsight, which, as always, comes in the form of my director's notes.
When I first
started directing, I wanted to do Neil Simon’s “Fools.” It was one of the very
first shows I thought about staging, but the thought of building a balcony
scared me away from the script! Eight productions later, I haven’t gotten any
better at building balconies; however, as it will be the last all-school play
at Pine Island before the new theater opens, it seemed the perfect time to pull
the script from my director’s wish list, and put it in the capable hands of my
student actors.
When I
recently shared with someone that this show was on my shows to direct bucket
list, they asked why I didn’t save it for the new space. “Wouldn’t it make more
sense to hold off on a main stage production that you’ve looked forward to
doing until you have a main stage to actually do it on?” they asked. It is a fair
question, and one that makes sense. It’s also one that touches on the heart of
the same lessons learned from “Fools.”
If we only
ever did theater where we had the best lighting, and the best sound system, and
the best costumes, and the best stage rigging, and the best set designers, and
the best balconies…very few people would ever get to do theater.
If we only
did theater in spaces deemed “theaters” with plush expensive curtains, and
slick black stage floors, and orchestra pits, and insulated sound booths…very
few people would ever attend a “theater.”
If we
reserve “good theater” until all those conditions are met, or one of those
spaces is available, we will miss out on a lot of “good theater.”
Pine Island
has a good theater program, and they’ve grown it in a space that’s less than
theatrically ideal. The new performing arts space will be an amazing and
tremendous addition to the school and community, and I’m as excited as anyone to
get in there and start creating. But “Fools” doesn’t need to be flashy. “Fools”
can be done just as well on a gym floor as an opera house stage. “Fools” is a
fun story to tell, whenever and wherever it’s told.
So I pulled
it off my wish list…not early, but at the right time. It’s not the right show
to christen the new stage. It’s the right show to send the old one out in
style. Enjoy the show!
Welcome to a new month! I like November, though I feel like it's a month with an identity crisis. October knows it wants to be all orange and reds, and changing leaves, and Halloween, and pumpkin spice everything. December knows it's going to eat, sleep, breathe, puke, ooze all this Christmas. November feels like it should be all cozy, and turkeys, and hot coco, and giving thanks, and football, and snuggly blankets. And it is sometimes. But if you walk though a department store starting today...it might as well be Christmas. And all we'll really hear about between now and Thanksgiving is Black Friday. So November is really just kind of a month in limbo...albeit and cozy month for blanket, candles, football, and giving thanks!
For as long as I've taught, November has also meant the fall play, and we'll open our production of "Fools" on Friday. I've been much calmer about this this year than last, mostly because it's a stage play instead of a musical, and there are far fewer things you have to worry about managing when there isn't singing, dancing, and an orchestra pit involved!
November is also National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWrMo. Authors who legitimately participate in NaNoWrMo are encouraged to write 2000 words a day for the whole month, thus amassing 60,000 words by the end of the month. 60,000 words is about the average length of a commercial novel. Therefore, theoretically if you completed the whole challenge, you would have reached novel length by November 30th.
I've tried doing this once before, but 2,000 words is actually quiet a lot to get down on paper everyday, and my schedule (read the aforementioned fall play!) doesn't always leave me a lot of extra time to sit, relax, and do any quality writing.
That said, those of you who have followed this blog for a while will remember that 'Write a Novel' is on my 30 before 30 list...and time is ticking. To be safe, I already have my bases partially covered in this regard. The last couple months I've worked on rewriting a novel I actually wrote while I was in college. Two summers ago, I also produced well over 60,000 words of a rough draft of the first installment of a would be series. I even sent it out for feedback and started a second draft. The list says "Write" a novel...not publish...I think I've probably done enough to check this off.
Nevertheless, I like to write, and November is a good time to do it as you're curled up with those cozy blankets watching football games! So I've been brainstorming out different writing projects that I could be working on, and I think I've settled on one for the month, and I might even use the blog as a place to keep track of some of it.
I was recently thinking about those moments when you tell a crazy story and someone says, "oh my goodness! You could write a book!" Looking back through my 5 years of blog posts, both those that were published, and those that I took notes on and drafted out but never finished, I found lots of such moments. Though I'm not sure that you could really string all those moments into one cohesive story. They just cover too many facets and areas of interests. That said...they do all fit into my own, personal story, so their must be some unifying elements. I think I've found this common thread, and I'm going to play with it and see where it goes. Like I said, stay tuned. Some of it might appear here first!
The final thing November is good for is sweatpants, slippers, and a warm cup of tea, which is where my evening is headed. I might suggest you settle in as well!
This coming weekend we'll have lots to celebrate. Saturday is, of course, Halloween, and then (in case you stayed out to late...not that that ever happens on Halloween night!) Sunday is daylight savings time, so you get an extra hour of sleep back! Even if you don't like Halloween, everyone loves extra sleep, and it's the one day a year you actually get a bonus hour...so even if you don't use it to sleep. Use it to do something worthwhile!
I'm exceptionally thankful (next month we get our holiday for thankfulness, but it's good to be grateful year round) for this extra hour of sleep, and for the fact that, for at least a little while, it might be light on either my rive to or my drive home from work. More likely this will happen on my drive to work, which is good, because this morning I slept through my alarm clock, and when I finally woke up AN HOUR LATER, I was completely disoriented because it was still VERY dark outside, and WHY ISN'T THE SUN UP EVEN WHEN I'M RUNNING RIDICULOUSLY LATE?!!?
But I digress. Back to the weekend and Halloween. Since I've started teaching, Halloween has become semi-enjoyable again, mostly because students find it amusing (or really weird) when teacher's dress up for Halloween. As I always enjoy amusing (or weirding out) my students, this is a wonderful opportunity!
Also, students dress up on Halloween, which is sort of fun and gives everyone a chance to be silly. This year with Halloween on a Saturday, Friday is that designated dress up day, and our new principal is actually promoting and encouraging kids to dress up, so that will be interesting. But like I said...also totally fun...maybe...I think! ;)
Student Halloween costumes have provided me with many fond memories, including one particular girl who came to school wearing a crushed cardboard box, colored purple, with patches of tin foil and colored construction paper glued all over it. When she finally came to my class that afternoon, I made a couple of (what I thought were) admirable guesses before she sighed and rolled her eyes and said, "Good grief, I'm a robot! Everybody knows that!"
In truth...nobody knew that. But I'm proud of this student for using her imagination and not being afraid to think outside of the box...or inside of the box as the case was that day!
Last year I went to school as Waldo from 'Where's Waldo.' My "adult," "real" Halloween costume was also Waldo, so I pretty much just dressed like Waldo all day which was great, but did make my after work trip to Target a little awkward and interesting. This year I'm going to school as a girl scout. My "adult," "real" Halloween costume is not a girl scout. I won't be shopping at Target in either outfit I think.
One last thing about Halloween that used to be fun at school but no longer is was my passing out of candy for my students. Unfortunately, new, really strict rules about what I can and can't give them now make it impossible for me to do that (wouldn't want to upset anyone's peanut, soy, lactose, gluten, sugar, allergies). Sometimes, there are loopholes around this, but the hassle has really kind of taken the fun out of it.
That said, I will show them this catchy infographic about the most popular trick-or-treat candies by state.
And then I will share with them my following observations:
1. Really Minnesota? 100 Grand? We like those here? I would never really call that my favorite candy but it does beat...
2. REALLY WISCONSIN?? Laffy Taffy?? The sad thing is I know it's true because I used to get dozens of these while trick-or-treating, but I don't like chewy, fruity candies, so I was never a fan. I know they sell these in bags of 1000 for like $5, so I'm sure people get them because they're cheap. But oh man...it was a bad night if I dumped my trick-or-treat bag and saw 100 of those little guys on the carpet!
Of course, anything chocolate was the big trick-or-treat score. We give out Reese's Peanut Butter cups at our house because they're gluten free. And...if it happens like last year and we get no trick-or-treaters...J Word and I don't mind emptying the bowl ourselves.
So there's all your need to know for the Halloween weekend. Make plans...stay safe...have fun...and as always...
It's Friday! TGIF to that! Last week was fall break week...just two days with students, a wonderfully inspiring inservice, and then FREEDOM! J Word and I headed down to Wichita to see Oz, spent a fun and restful weekend exploring the city, spent far too much time in the car, so I balanced that out by taking Monday...and suddenly Tuesday felt like I hadn't been to work in AGES (because, well, I kind of hadn't!) Thus, Friday feels like a welcome relief, not because I haven't had off in a while, but because I'm trying to get myself back in a normal routine...and I feel like I need a weekend and a regular Monday to help "reset" out of vacation mode.
Yes...I said I need a Monday morning...but let's not rush into things! First...Happy Friday! Some thoughts as you head into your weekend.
1. This looked like a good idea on HGTV - Admittedly, I like HGTV, and J Word and I watch it together and talk about how reasonable or unreasonable people are being. J Word has great insight into this because he does home renovation and flipping houses, and understands what it really takes to get some of the projects people undertake, finished. HGTV has a lot of cool ideas...but it's also a little bit like Pinterest in that it gives you unrealistic expectations about what your home could (or should) look like. Enter this list CLICK HERE of vocabulary you should understand before watching any HGTV show. It's not to say you CAN'T have what they show you on Love It or List It...it's just to say you should go in eyes wide open!
2. Public Service Announcement - JK Rowling is writing a play, and it's the sequel to Harry Potter Book 7. Ummmmm....what!!??!?!
3. Prop Master - This week I've been creating all kinds of random things for the school play. I generally like playing 'Prop Master,' and occasionally I come up with something kind of cool that I sit back and look at and think, 'Wow! That looks pretty legit!" I felt that way when I found this list of foods that had been "Giantized." CLICK HERE. I feel like, if I made one of these foods I would feel it too was "Pretty legit!" Oh boy...I'm starting to sound like my students. But really...check these out!
4. Who do you cheer for when your team is on a bye week? - These week, my favorite football team is on a bye, and that means I'm left cheering for a host of other random teams on which I have players from my fantasy football team. Consequently, I also get to cheer against certain teams that my players are playing. So football continues to be the king of Sunday at the Laack house.
I have two fantasy football teams. Our family league is called "Border Battle" because we're split between MN and WI, and because I'm on the wrong side of the border for the team I actually cheer for, my team is named 'Behind Enemy Lines.' The other league J Word and I play in with friends has a bunch of random team names in it, and my team is called "Rodgers That" (despite the fact that J Word - a Vikings fan - drafted Aaron Rodgers before I could).
If you don't play fantasy football, you may be wondering what all this fuss is about. But here's the funny thing. Last year I chose a "clever" team name, and only about a 1/3 of the league did. This year, most of the rest of the league followed suit, and we have wonderfully creative names like "Madison Rabid Honey Badgers" and "Space Sloths." Our other league has also had funny names...and they're not all hyper-appropriate. The point is, people think about this stuff. People think about this stuff so much that there is now a fantasy football team name generator. CLICK HERE. And they're actually kind of funny. I clicked around it for a while and came up with 'One Season Too Favre," "I got 99 problems but my Kicker's not one," and "Fire Breathing Rubber Ducks." I'm seriously considering using Fire Breathing Rubber Ducks next year!
