roller coasters

Life is a funny roller coaster. Unlike a roller coaster, the dips are less fun and more terrifying because we often can't see where the track levels out. The ride up isn't the exciting part, the opposite of life as well. That's the most excruciatingly boring part, until finally at the precipice, the car speeds up and gives you a shot of adrenaline.

I suppose an optimist would look at life's roller coaster as such, with a better outlook on the overall picture. A pessimist would view the ride more like an actual roller coaster for someone that doesn't like to ride them. On the way up, wondering when the bottom will fall out; back down again, heart racing, terrified of the outcome. The optimist will take it all in stride. Enjoy the ride up, not worried about the top. Look ahead on the way down, knowing it's going to level out eventually so you can catch your breath.

Where does this metaphor come from? Life lately has been a roller coaster ride. From the dizzying heights of my roller coaster ride, I thought life couldn't get much better. Friends at work, new friends to climb with, blissful relationship. Then the stresses piled on and on. Destaffed. Traumatic spondylithiosis. Migraines. Hunting for a new apartment.

Just like that, the cars leveled off at the bottom of the hill, took a barrel roll, and began their climb back up to normal. New job transfer accomplished, apartment settled for next year, climbing to destress, taking time to breathe and snap some photos. Give and take. It's a wonderful ride.

what i would've done

Were my life circumstances slightly altered, I may have handled the last two weeks entirely differently. Without my leaning post to keep me upright and sunny side up, I might've retreated back into my introverted cave. I might've reverted to old habits. I might've left it all behind again, packed up this time and headed to Colorado or some other point out west. Climbing and snowboarding and dirtbagging sounded pretty good. I'm sure I'd get sick of it pretty quickly. I need to feel grounded. Maybe my wanderlust is fading.

Here's to a new start and putting down roots. I hope the county'll let me stay wherever I land for longer than two years. I don't yet know why my purpose at this school was limited to two years' time. Maybe in several years, it will become more apparent. I hope I can maintain contact with some of these students. This year has been pretty spectacular, and I really feel connected to this class. They know me, and I feel like I know them. It hasn't happened for a few years, that's for sure.

I hope I find it again wherever this traveling teaching show lands next.

almost poetic

I just finished reading Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. I started reading it during my month-long traveling bender. It rekindled the same itchy feet syndrome first diagnosed by Jack Kerouac and nearly cured by an ill-fated attempt to live overseas. This time, however, in Pirsig's wandering tale of a cross country motorcycle trip intertwined with a past borne of insanity and ancient Greek philosophy, my life circumstances changed considerably. Oddly, so too did the book.

During the course of my reading, she and I made that whole "getting married" thing official, I logged about 10,000 miles of air travel, got attacked by a macaw, lost my job (technically, destaffed, but let's call it what it is), and started trying to get this bum back of mine fixed. I thought it rather fitting the way the book ended. So, if I may quote the last paragraph, "'Tis a far, far better thing...."

Wait, that's not right.

Ahem. Here it is:

Trials never end, of course. Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that was not here before, and is not just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through: We've won it. It's going to get better now. You can sort of tell these things.

For all the stresses of my life past, and those to come, I know this to be true. Words truer were never written, nor at a better time for me to read them in a 35 year old classic.

hopeless to hopeful

postsecret really got to me this week. forgive me for being a romantic at heart on this post. used to be, back when i was (seemingly) blissfully single i'd get all choked up at romantic gobbledygook. engagement stories of friends. sappy, cheesy chick flicks. blockbuster hits with that love story thrown in to appeal to a broader range of moviegoers. i'd silently sit, with the knot in my throat or that half a tear welling up in my eyes, with the thought racing straight from my heart to my brain and back again, "why not me?"

more often than not, it hit me after a few pints. still amped up and not tired, but alone in my room after a long night. stories of exes hit me hardest. so-and-so's engaged. really? super! one thing i finally learned in my years of trial and failure in the dating regime was that until i was truly happy alone could i truly be happy together with anyone else. even in relationships, these feelings beleaguered me at times, taking my head and heart out of any new attempt before it even got started.

so, i set out to focus on that which enriched my happiness and avoid that which prevented it. live music. climbing. writing. reading. traveling. surrounding myself with good people and limiting negative influences. even prayer crept back into my life. all things began to line up, and i truly was a happier person. moving here didn't do much to change that, despite starting over with the stresses of searching for a job, a place to live, places to climb, fun things to do, a new cadre of friends to spend time with. at that point, happiness sought me out. i wasn't searching for happiness. i created it, and it grew within my life to the point where i currently am. no longer a hopeless romantic, i favor the hopeful side of things. where those old triggers used to drag me down, i'm more optimistic in my tone of thought. that knot still rises in my throat and the tears welling are out of happiness rather than regret.

"i can't wait until that's me."

i have a dream

on august 28, 1963, dr. martin luther king gave his famous sixteen minutes and twenty-eight second speech on the steps of the lincoln memorial. it was forty years before my first year teaching.

that year, i saw the students self-segregating, as was the case with the community it seemed. long bred hatreds and distrusts has unconsciously worked their way into a younger generation. a pocket of white girls over here, a pocket of black girls over here, a handful of colorblind students starting to break the trend. as the years passed, most of them became colorblind, at least in choosing their friends. i was able to have serious discussions about race relations and history with them. i was often surprised by the poignant responses i got out of the blue with students that made painfully personal connections to the troubles of the jim crow south.

this year, with older students, the poignant thoughts continue. i asked my students to expand upon and revise dr. king's dream today. it's been nearly 46 years since his speech. much has been done, but i see the hope in the younger generation to continue to live out dr. king's words. the common thread running through their speeches were attitudes of peace, acceptance, tolerance, love, and kindness. the broad palette of my students makes me ever hopeful that the progress will continue.

we are the champions...

ok, so it's a few days past. it hit me today whilst i was avoiding the nasty that is a mid-atlantic winter. no, it didn't snow. i should be reasonably more productive at work now with less to read about football on a daily basis. i don't care as much about the pros, though i will probably take up cheering for the steelers with a terrible towel. college basketball season is upon us, and i have had a hard time following the gators from up here. they're a good team this year; hopefully they'll be on tv more often so i can catch their games.

the last of them. 'neath the Orange and Blue VICTORIOUS!!!!

glorious weather!

by show of hands, how many of you sat around the house like lazy bums when you finished your homework in elementary school? middle school? high school?

that's what i thought. exactly zero.

it struck me, yet again, yesterday that kids of this young generation at my school aren't overweight and lazy because they overeat. they're overweight and lazy because they don't play outside. i know kids live in this neighborhood. you'd be hard pressed to find one playing outside at their house. i'm sure in this day and age of parents' paranoia over anonymous bogeymen doing God-knows-what to their progeny that they're a little less likely to let their kids play in the front yard. with that logic, you'd think that you'd hear a little more noise and such coming from backyards. nope. yesterday afternoon, it was like this neighborhood was empty, with nary a kid behind any of the doors. i know that's not the case. parents are too stressed and overworked to leave work at a reasonable hour for their kids to get out to play. no wonder this generation's favorite answer for, "what's your favorite thing to do?" revolves around games made by nintendo, sony, and microsoft, not spalding, russell, or wilson.

once in a blue moon, i'll see kids out playing in the leaves, but never out riding their bikes. maybe the streets are rougher in suburbia these days than they were back when i was a kid, but i doubt it. my best friend alex lived around the block from me. we'd hop through neighbor's yards to get to one another's houses. our parents weren't petrified of us getting bitten by the neighbors' dogs or getting sued for trespassing because we knew each other. i took those same dogs for walks after school each day...er, they took me for walks each day. i remember us falling off our bikes, falling off trampolines, getting into scrapes with other kids in the neighborhood. this kid matt that lived on my street got hit by a car at least five times to my memory. on his bike, off his bike, skateboards. come to think of it, maybe his mom should've been more concerned...

ch-ch-ch-changin'

flashback to my first year teaching. we're reading a story called the emperor's egg. it was about penguins. think march of the penguins without morgan freeman narrating. this is pre-penguin documentary. i'm trying to explain how the male penguins transport and protect the eggs. i have an egg between my ankles, demonstrating how they slide down hills. on their bellies. laying on top of desks, tyler walks in from his reading group, does a double take, and says, "i'll wait outside."

marvelass. that's how i tend to teach, jumping on desks and such. can't do that this year. or last. one little guy that can't handle that sort of excitement.

today, that changed. i challenged my math class to get all their work right. boring work, but it got them motivated. the prize? push-ups by the teacher. long story short, i owed them 25 push-ups at the end of class. you'd think that i played tag on the playground or raced them to the fence and back or shaved my head for charity.

nah, i'd never do anything like that...

a million little pieces

way back when, i read this book. i wasn't in the best place in my life. lately, it's come up repeatedly in discussions, so i feel compelled to share my thoughts on it from way back when.

In case you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about James Frey's "memoir" A Million Little Pieces. Curiosity finally got the best of me, and I borrowed it. It was slow going at first because his writing style was hard to get used to. The further I got, the faster I read. Partly because I didn't have to stop and think about who was saying what, partly because it became more intriguing. I found myself laughing out loud at his interactions with his fellow patients and the staff. The descriptions in the book are haunting and vivid. His fellow patients are real, and come from a broad spectrum of society. Mob boss. Boxer. Steel worker. Judge. It holds to some of the stuff I taught. Addiction doesn't care if you're black, white, rich, poor, man, woman, child. You abuse, you're done. Simple as that.
With the brouhaha over the fictive parts of the memoir, I found myself wondering at points in the book what was made up. There were certainly parts of the book that I am convinced were complete and total bullshit, but then again, I've not been in his shoes before. Since I can't relate to the anger that addicts felt upon finding out about the embellishments or bold-faced lying, I can't help but wonder if there would've been the same outcry or hope if it was written by someone else as a work of fiction.
Never having dealt with substance abuse myself, I can't relate to those aspects of the book. The struggle the overwhelming need the craving the Fury...Sorry, I guess Frey's style got into my head. Hell, I've never taken anything harder than booze, and certainly not to the point of abuse. The most I've ever drank in one night was the better part of a fifth of SoCo, and I'm still being told details of that evening.
"Words can't say this. The one word love means too little for what it is. It means everything and that is still not enough. It doesn't communicate even a fraction of the feelings involved. Love. The word is not enough for what it is. Love. Love."(316)
The part of the book that I related best to was when he fell for Lilly. Being in love is about the only addiction I've ever experienced. Always wanting to be with that person, never wanting to part. It's awesome and it's powerful and it's draining and it's exhilarating all at the same time. When you lose it, you crave it and fear that you'll never find it again. I suppose it's an addiction that most everyone wants, and it seems to be awfully hard to find sometimes. Each time you're lucky enough to find it, your mind and heart race with all the possibilities it poses. But each time you're unlucky enough to lose it, the pain seems more intense than the last, though you build your walls and defenses and it sadly becomes easier to deal with. Thus a vicious cycle begins. Each time you meet someone worthy of your love, it's harder and harder to let yourself go and just be.

you read it? your thoughts, please. being in love then and being in love now are worlds apart, and i'm curious how your view may have changed (especially if you read this review when i originally posted it on myspace).

reflections on a year past

whew! had i not been so crazy busy working my students today, my mind might have wandered where it ought not. they're off to p.e. now, so i do what i usually do at the end of the day. leave the lights off and chill out until they leave.

a year past. last year, today was the second monday in october. columbus day. yesterday was the day i rolled back from hound ears, relaxed and stressed all at once. you see, i had this date with a girl i'd met very soon after i relocated. fate intervened, and our paths kept crossing. she and i had tentative plans for a lunch and museum date the following day (that'd be today, folks, stay with me.). stomach butterflies worsened due to traffic snarls delaying her arrival at our meeting spot. we were far past lunchtime, and had to hurry through the museum. the natural historians kicked us out, and we found our way to chinatown. a chill, brief afternoon date turned into seven hours or so, ending with the sunset on the mall.

it's been an epic journey since then. travels together. family. friends. weddings. a funeral. easy meals. banana pancakes. eighties movies. delicious cupcakes. snow. rain. sunshine. it amazes me how much has changed in a short year. with the five years beforehand to compare to, it's like i'm not even the same person.

early morning phone call to start the day. i can't wait for dinner tonight or our museum-hopping planned for monday.

good news, bad news, vol. 2

news from gainesville hits me today, thanks to jedd. ugly, old news rearing it's ugly old head. i sure hope it stays out of the national news. let the vilification of all things greek begin.

better story. less consumption. mainstream? bicycles? how so, washington post?

i love this city.

i got a new haircut...

and all the strange looks that accompany it. it will last until the end of the month.

happiness

...happiness is a difficult thing--it is, as Aristotle posited in The Nicomachean Ethics, an activity, it is about good social behavior, about being a solid citizen. Happiness is about community, intimacy, relationships, rootedness, closeness, family, stability, a sense of place, a feeling of love...--in this America, happiness is hard.

i just finished reading Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. if you've not heard of it, it's a memoir of one young woman's battle with depression. throughout the book, i felt my self vacillating between empathy and annoyance at her state of being. she struggled with knowing she needed help and running at the first signs of it. i identified with her, recognizing the same self-destructive behaviors that plague(d) some of my friends in my early 20s. the relationship woes. the substance abuse. the listlessness. clearly, she made it through the trial by fire; otherwise, her book would've never been written. it wasn't until her eventual release by pharmacy that i got something out of this book. we are a nation of drug addicts. remember from your health classes in middle and high school that a drug is anything that changes the way your body operates. caffeine is a drug. food is a drug. heroin is a drug. alcohol is a drug. medications, prescribed or otherwise, are drugs.

her clarity of mind after making it through her "black wave" belittled the drug culture that infects our health care today. her line of thinking is much like mine, in that i often refuse to go to the doctor with minor ailments, knowing that they'll often prescribe something to make the symptoms go away when my immune system will often take care of it in about the same time frame. i don't take aspirin unless i can't see straight; i'll only take ibuprofen to reduce swelling from injuries. prozac is so readily prescribed by doctors these days that it has become a bad joke, one that wounds people with true problems.

happiness is a choice. someone very dear to me says that often. you can choose to be happy, you can choose to be sad. when you make sadness your choice too often, depression is the result, and your brain won't let you make choices anymore. i had all of the components of aristotle's definition living in gainesville.

at times.

i chose happiness, and in spite of leaving all of those behind, i am managing to reconstruct them in my new environment. i'm delighted to be a part of such a new, vibrant experience that i can't help but smile more often than not.

independence day

as it creeps closer to a year out of florida, i'm continually bombarded with memories of where i was a year ago and the long path that has brought me here. a path that i never imagined.

last year, i spent the fourth in alachua, watching the fireworks at their community gathering. local country cover bands. funnel cakes. former students running about. my confusing and complex summer running through my mind and coursing through my veins. the what-ifs of my impending departure, with nothing definite for my upcoming year. one month later, i'd be couch surfing and still jobless.

one year later, on the fourth, i consider myself incredibly more blessed. less stress vexes me. new love elates me. a new city amazes me. watching the fireworks in the presence of so much history and so much beauty left me speechless yet again.

fashion definitions

social engagements are tricky round here. not so much because i don't know how to act or who to go with, but because of the whole what to wear. yes, i know this is far out of the realm of my expertise. that's where the trouble comes in. there's been far too many times where i've shown up somewhere in the district and been severely under- or overdressed. first time, georgetown waterfront. pretty nice place. how the hell do i know. all i knew is that it was outside, and the weather was nice in the fall. jeans and a polo shirt. wrong. it was the after-work set with their loosened ties and full on suits.

memorial day weekend, i thought i had it made. megan's wedding. invite said hawaiian or beach-y wear. got it. white linen shirt, linen pants, flip flops. wrong. looked too much like the groom. wound up borrowing a shirt.

upcoming, my mom's birthday. the restaurant's website said "casual chic". not even the fashion boss knew what that meant, so a-googling i shall go.

Here's what casual chic usually means: casual, yet with a twist of dressiness. An idea is to wear a DARK wash pair of jeans (express men's has some nice affordable ones), and a nice button down shirt (preferably in a solid color--black, navy blue, and burgundy would be excellent choices). Shoe-wise try to find a nice pair of black dress shoes--nothing shiny or too pointy in the toe region. If nothing is to your liking, go for a pair of black sneakers. To dress the outfit more, throw a blazer on as a jacket. Go with black or tan for this.

ah ha! why not say that? business casual. casual chic. evening wear. black tie optional. do women even know these definitions? men sure don't. how about this: there's two sets of sizing, men & women's, right? why not two sets of attire requirement languages? tell us guys what to wear, uncategorized. jeans and a button-down shirt? done. khakis and boat shoes? lame. coat, no tie? done. flip flops and board shorts? you got it!

emo kid? skinny jeans, tiny t-shirt, scarf, big watch, hair in my face. yeah, about that...

gettin' on down the road...

this figures to by my summer road trip finale. it promises to be a short one, not like last year's I-95 windsprints, or the mind-numbing boredom of I-65 through indiana. with gas prices getting into the stratosphere, $4 gas adds up to quite a bit more than a plane ticket. i'm excited to see my friends in other towns from behind the wheel of my geriatric pickup, but 23 mpg is going to squeeze my wallet.

before i wander off randomly, here's what it's looking like. wednesday departure from the district. wednesday night arrival in jacksonville to see the reunited mikes and relive some 5622 g&t goodness. thursday departure to gainesville. random, olde tyme fun in my recent favored overgrown small town. friday departure to visit the folks for mom's birthday brouhaha. saturday she flies in, we get to spend time with my family. she leaves on monday. i leave on friday. back to jacksonville for some waves and rays and ill-fated surfing lessons(?) and more g&t. then back on up to the district for the end of june month and a woman that loves me moving to less than a mile away.

so, back to this road warrior status. it's going into retirement. a new(er) car is a certainty this summer. i just hope that the danger ranger makes at least half of the trip. i've got a road bike in the shop that should get me from point a to point b quite nicely. perhaps i'll figure out the safest route to school that may turn into, "where's a closer school so i can forgo this whole commuting-by-car nonsense?" carpooling to work is a viable option too, with two coworkers within county limits and both on my current gas-guzzling commute.

ch-ch-ch-changes...

no more pencils, no more books...

no more teachers' dirty looks!

today is babysitting day. i'll put them to work cleaning and whatnot, but it's pretty much a wasted day. a time to say goodbye and good luck. this year is different than those past in my career in that i'll actually get to see these munchkins next year. i'll get to see them grow and change all the way through sixth grade. the last four have been particularly difficult on the last day because i knew full well i wouldn't see the kids again. teaching at a school where second graders were the oldest kids was simultaneously awesome and heart wrenching. there were often tears on both sides as i said goodbye to students that i knew would never be able to visit irby again. houses too far out in the country. moving elsewhere. parents unwilling or unable to bring them after school or bring them to school events. last year was the hardest. telling my kids i was leaving a school that i loved for an uncertain future overseas. it was rough. one girl in particular, i'll never forget. her sister was in my first class, she was in headstart that year. i'd seen her grow into a pretty amazing little girl in four years, and me leaving was pretty tough on her. we keep in touch with email now, and maybe i'll get to see her in alachua when i pass through town next week.

the parents always ask me at the end of the year, "aren't you glad it's summer?" with a twinge of jealousy in their voices, since they don't have summers off jobs, or they've got the kids at home and less peace and quiet for 2 months. it's a bittersweet ending every year. each class is different. the fresh start in the fall is always interesting, but getting to know twenty or so new kids isn't as easy as seeing the same ones and knowing their quirks and how they learn best and what they enjoy.

next year figures to be a mix of old and new, if i indeed do teach third grade. some of this year's goodbyes will undoubtedly be some of next year's hellos. we'll see how it all shakes out...

redirected wanderlust

sunny skies inspiration
gives way to hammock-cradled reading.

tales of vagabonding,
wanderlusting,
tramping.

mind wandering to itchy feet,
breezy skies blowing in dark clouds,
foretelling ominous ending for
his trek into the wild.

daegu destination,
wiped just as cleanly as these blue skies.

cleansing deluge washes it all away.
much like florida of past,
in my new virginia future.

an earthquake?

what the foxtrot?! today, whilst i was teaching my chitlins the intricacies of faces, edges, and vertices and three-dimensional figures, there was a boom. sounded a bit like something fell upstairs. a lot of something. problem is, there's no upstairs above me. personally, i thought a transformer blew up and half-expected the power to go out or at least flicker.

come to find out it was an earthquake according to the usgs. ok, a mini-earthquake.

those wily army engineers! if they'd tried such silly things in florida, they'd be underwater.

unexpected beauty

springtime around here has a wholly different aesthetic vibe than that down south. i don't know if i didn't notice them in florida or what, but it seems to me there are far more flowers in bloom up here in the springtime. the only way i noticed springtime in florida was the need to use air conditioning to avoid sweltering. i enjoyed the return of beach weather, for sure, but being so far from one here, i can't say i miss that. summertime comes, i'll be outside in the sunshine regardless, and it may even be more tolerable.

the flowers are eye-poppingly beautiful. tulips in vivid reds, pinks and oranges. daffodils in sunshine yellows. cherry blossoms in pure white. even the dandelions look amazing. coreopsis in florida, while varied in color and pretty hardy condidering what it puts up with can't quite compete with the flowers growing alongside the railroad tracks and in median strips. there's a few places i want to shutterbug, but for fear of bodily harm and mutilation by train or speeding commuter, i'll refrain.

wake up and smell the roses has a more visual aspect to it than i knew. sure, the fragrant blooms make themselves known as well, but their overpowering colors take the cake. keep an eye out for new photos when i figure out how to capture what i've composed in my head. those diamonds in the rough. the beautiful things i'm beginning to see in not-so-beautiful places. i kinda feel like ricky fitts from american beauty,

It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.