A boring update on my health and non-existent love life

I took a two-week medical leave from work to go spend time with family while I starting a seizure medication called Keppra. It makes me feel tired and dizzy, in a cool spaced-out feeling sort of way.

I'm also having thyroid problems again. My thyroid levels were way off when I did my quarterly blood-work last month. I've taken natural desiccated thyroid hormones preserved from the thyroid glands of pigs for the past two years and was doing just fine up until now. I think the seizure and/or seizure meds have interacted with my thyroid function.

I'm having restless nights of sleep, extreme fatigue, and hair loss (though not as much as when I was anemic a couple summers ago after giving up beef).

My doctor was concerned about my lab results and felt around for a lump on my thyroid, didn't say anything, and ordered a thyroid ultrasound, which I'm having done next week. I'm guessing I might have a small goiter, since thyroid goiters run in my family, on my mother's side. It would be a harmless procedure to have it removed. I've been feeling my neck a lot lately, but it's so bumpy in general I can't tell what to feel for. But that was the least of my worries.

Right after my seizure happened in September, a coworker told me that medical leave would be covered by my employer. Long story short, I was misinformed. Last Friday morning I screamed like Homer Simpson when I checked my online bank account and saw that my directly deposited paycheck was missing a digit. And my next paycheck will be missing a digit as well.

And the kicker. I have to take Keppra - this synthetic mind-altering prescription drug that micromanages the electricity in my brain.

Why did things have to start going wrong? I was feeling so good and rejuvenated by the end of summer. I quit drinking in September. I got back into yoga in October. I was taking walks and jogs, getting along with my students, reconnecting with old friends. But I couldn't keep the ball rolling.

I dropped out of the college program I needed to keep one of my two teaching certifications active. My second teacher certification will expire in August. I'm 34 and have no idea what I'm going to do after this year. I could renew my second teacher certification and keep looking for an English teaching job, though there are more TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) jobs than plain old English teaching jobs these days.

I've thought of relocating back to Manhattan and working in a publishing house, or becoming a yoga-certified instructor, since I have the nearly 200 hours of documented practice required. Maybe I'll meet a rich man who chooses me over the supermodels and wealthy business women he could otherwise be dating. Maybe I'll release my music album and the video that was made to Farmer John and people will like it.

I don't like this new medication Keppra. It's a huge horse-pill for one. I had to have a long hard talk with myself about taking it. One of the side effects is weight gain. Another is fatigue. And the list goes on. It's expensive, too. And my insurance doesn't cover prescriptions. I reflected on the Erin who once believed there was a natural cure for everything. 

I even tracked down a holistic doctor who practices German New Medicine and believes that early childhood psychological conflicts trigger seizure disorders (amongst some other diseases). She told me a seizure disorder is triggered by seeing a lost limb. Incidentally, my dad had his first seizure the day after witnessing his brother lose a finger to a chainsaw.

But at the end of this talk with myself, I concluded that I needed to take whatever means necessary to eliminate the chance of ever having another gran mal seizure at work, where I could possibly soil my pants while convulsing and foaming at the mouth in front of coworkers.

I don't recall ever seeing someone lose a limb, but maybe after my dad suffered that psychological trauma, it left a marker in his DNA, and was passed onto me. I'm just guessing though. I don't know really why this is happening to my body.

I don't mind having thyroid problems. I've come to terms, throughout my own research on my health, that my thyroid may need to be removed one of these days. It's completely inactive in my body. I tried going off thyroid medication 2 years ago and within 6 weeks nearly lost the ability to speak.

In the olden days, when people's thyroids didn't work, it was called Myxedema, and it was characterized by the inability to pronounce words, along with fatigue and hair loss and feeling cold all the time and mental fogginess. In those days, my disorder would have gone untreated and I would have been labeled "dumb".

But thyroid medication takes care of that for people these days. I've come to appreciate my WP Thyroid, which is more natural than the synthetic thyroid hormones I took in my late 20's, which were horrible. I was tired all the time and cold and confused. The WP Thyroid, though also a prescription drug, is actually the natural preserves of pig thyroid hormones. Pig thyroid hormones are nearly identical to human thyroid hormones.

Thyroid problems I can handle. I'm sure I'll sort out this little bump in the "throad" soon.

Brain problems are scarier though. My memory is a mess. It's become embarrassing. I tell people I'm bad with names, and I lie about remembering things I should remember, but don't.The other day I couldn't remember the word "idiom," even though I taught a short unit on idioms to my period 5 class last month.

I had a few fainting spells in my teen years but nothing of concern to my parents or I. Nothing I even visited a doctor or hospital for growing up. My first fainting spell happened in church while singing a song in front of the congregation. Kind of like when you go to a recital, and you see a couple kids drop like flies. Maybe from too much oxygen or something. This was what happened to me I think.

It didn't scare me back then. I kind of liked fainting. A total mental trip would occur in the seconds leading up to my collapse, and when I'd awoken from what felt like an eternity-long slumber, I was briefly born again into a world where, for a few seconds, I didn't know my name or whereabouts. Who are these people around me? Am I naked?

And one time I was, because I fainted in the shower, and my parents busted into the bathroom, my 16-year-old self never quite felt the same way around them after that day. But my mother kindly lies and says they didn't look behind the curtain.

Another backup plan I read about was a special high fat, low-carb diet that seems to cure seizure disorders for some people. But I'd have to be on the diet forever. Eliminating carbs would be difficult for me, especially now that I've given up on caring about what I look like naked. I'd rather undergo some hypnotherapy with the holistic doctor to revisit traumatic childhood memories I've possibly suppressed, of arms and legs falling off people.

My two-week medical leave was well spent though. I split my time equally between my sister and parents' houses. I rested and watched How I Met Your Mother on Netflix at my sister's house for the first week, and played with my parents' two new puppies at their home for the second week. I watched TV with my 95 year old grandmother, too, since she fell and hurt her hip, and has since moved in with my parents.

"We're all falling apart. You know everyone has to die someday."

These were her words of encouragement to me.

The week spent with my sister was great. She lives out in the woods in the middle of nowhere, atop a hill that overlooks waterfalls. White bunnies live across the street in a wild patch of land. She throws carrots into that overgrown field sometimes, feeling responsible for their lives in some small way. She owns a pit-bull mix of some sort, who is friends with the bunnies. They even sometimes play together.

Her dog's name is Zoey and Zoey doesn't seem to understand that she's supposed to be a protective watch dog for Bethany. She should be baring her teeth, letting saliva gather grossly around her jowls, and growling at creepy bearded mountain men who pass by.

Zoey is too kind. She might not even realize she is a dog. She was left alone tied up in the woods somewhere for a lengthy period of her puppy-hood before a stranger found her and brought her into a shelter. Bethany assumed a pit bull would be as effective as a home security system, and cheaper to boot, so she adopted her.

Bethany has a theory that Zoey was exposed to, and possibly raised by, deer and squirrels during her abandonment in the woods as a puppy. She pointed out how Zoey walks high on her toes as if they were hooves. When she prances about the hardwood floors she sounds like a woman in high heels scrambling around before work. The click-clacks resonate throughout the house.

“Either go lay down or go bark at somebody! Be a dog! Stop walking around! What are you doing with your life!?” Bethany yells.

When Zoey sleeps, she stretches out her limbs and crosses each set of ankles, looking very graceful, like a deer.

While on her runner, Zoey frolics and leaps over imaginary obstacles. She's kind to the wildlife. Squirrels eat their nuts beside her. Birds peruse the backyard foliage right alongside Zoey. And the bunnies hop on over sometimes to poop in Bethany's yard. Zoey eats up the poop pellets. 

"Stop eating shit you little bitch!"

She takes out her aggression safely. My sister that is. Zoey has no aggression.

Bethany lets me indulge in the solitude of her home while I'm her couch-ridden guest. I feel like I'm in a late 19^th century cure cottage. Bethany's town population is mostly made up of summer residents who own camps and trailers. The only sounds I hear are the low moans of the winter wind outside, and the wood-stove crackling, and Zoey's click clacks, and occasionally Bethany yelling at the dog or at some inanimate object in the house that isn't doing what it's supposed to.

While I'm her guest, she keeps the wood-stove burning, and sometimes I get so warm I sweat profusely. I tell myself it's good to sweat out toxins, since I can't exercise.

Bethany dims the lights each evening, and plays the bongos, sometimes chanting a conglomeration of intonations laced with unpredictably placed syllabic accents. It sounds soothing, and mysterious, like a Native American prayer. A speaking in tongues. A song with no words, and yet with so many.

She cooks me eggs and toast each morning, and pleads with me to take a walk with her each day. On the 3rd and final day of my lodging, she encourages me to join her on a jog. I try, but the muscles around my joints are too weak, and my knees feel stiff. I stop after about a half mile, pain shooting up my right knee. She finishes her spirited run and meets me on the way back. We walk up the huge hill to her house together and say good-bye to one another.

She won't hug me because she says it seems weird to hug. I say fine, see you in a couple weeks, and I leave.

“Text me when you get back home! Drive safe! I love you! You're the best sister anyone could have!!”

Something like that, and we have a bittersweet parting that only sisters growing old together can understand.

I'll see her again at Christmas, I remind myself. It's sad to leave. I remember when we watched season 4, episode 6 of How I Met Your Mother just a few days earlier, and how we gave each other a knowing look when in the final moments of the show, Ted Mosby tells his children, "Kids you may think your only choices are to swallow your anger or throw it in someone's face, but there's a third option. You can just let it go, and only when you do that is it really gone, and you can move forward."

My sister and I are moving forward. She's caring for me, taking me under her wing like a mother hen. Our past fights, despite being very brutal, are farts in the wind.

Being home with family made me want to write. Maybe it was the boredom too. I can't really say exactly how. Inspiration doesn't always come when you call.

Letting go of anger. I don't really get angry. Though I pretend to be angry daily as a teacher. It's also therapeutic to yell sometimes. I've had more than a few screaming matches with unruly students and it's helped strengthen my diaphragm so I sing better. See God uses even my anger to improve my gift.

More often than feeling angry I just feel sad. I hold onto sadness I suppose because it's the only thing I can feel sometimes. 

I talked to one of my Indian guy friends who I dated for a couple months last year. (I refer to him as Bandi in a past blog). He was the only one of a dozen Indians I met that I still talk to. Bandi and I are strictly platonic. He calls a few times a week, just to talk, and I like that, and tonight on the phone he tells me his ex wants to get back together with him. 

"What did you tell her?!" I nervously ask.

He told her he didn't know. He doesn't know if he even wants to stay in Boston much longer. He's not happy. He doesn't know what he wants. He starts to pour his heart out to me.

"I can't imagine things ever going back to the way they were. I feel like something was broken inside me," he says.

I tell him I know that feeling.

I recite to him a quote about love I heard before:

“There's lots of love in this life, but never the same love twice.”

(Maybe he'll finally take the hint and fall in love with me.)

No he won't. We don't have much in common to start. But we found each other 8 months ago on a dating website when we each really needed a friend more than anything else. I visit him in Boston once or twice a month, just to chat and go to the grocery store and run errands together. Sometimes we eat out, other times he cooks for me. When I sleep over on a weekend, I make quiche in the morning. We have a nice little routine, and a friendship with boundaries. We sleep together in his bed, and just hold hands. Nothing more, nothing less. Like an old married couple. At least I like to pretend that's what it's like. It's also like having a gay friend. Except he's not gay. He's just not that into me.  But I might love him. So I let our friendship be. Just the way it is.

Now I sit here, finishing up my blog, and I've had two full weeks to contemplate the meaninglessness of my life. I've sat around and thought of the husband I'd never find and the kids I'd never have and the songs I'd never write and the retirement I'd never save.

Yet I'm not angry.

After binging on fast food and How I Met Your Mother for two weeks, I realize I'll probably never find love as long as I'm looking for it. May as well give up now. Throw in the workout towel and call it a day. Love will have to find me and accept me just the way I am. Even if I get fat. I'll have to believe there's some higher order working this all out. Some undiscovered law of the universe perhaps. A fine line between hopelessness and surrender that I haven't learned to walk.

Sugar

I got angry during yoga practice yesterday. I hadn't been in a while and everything hurt like hell. I silently cursed my body and instructor as I flowed through the workout, occasionally dropping from high plank to cobra and taking extended child's poses.

I'm hurting as I sit and type now.

But it's a good hurt. One that tells me I'm a good person and I did a good job. It gives me permission to be lazy. It forgives me for recent harms past.  This week, it was ordering McDonald's hot fudge sundaes. With extra hot fudge.

I am addicted to sugar. Alcohol used to give me that fix. I liked margaritas and cosmos and mojitos and blue hurricanes and tornadoes and torpedoes - anything bright-colored and/or topped with an umbrella. But hold the cherry. Those are unhealthy.

What a health-nut hypocrite I was. I will miss you, pineapple-raspberry-infused-vodkas at Mariner's Grill in Narragansett, and jalapeño margaritas at Tortilla Flats, and to-die-for-sangria at Circe on Weybosset.

I need sugar. It fills a void in my heart.

A few weeks before I gave up alcohol, I took up coffee.

It happened at an all-day teachers' professional development meeting the last week of August. I was staring at two big brown Dunkin Donuts Boxes O' Joe, repeatedly being poured away into my fellow co-workers' desperately draining cups and souls, and I thought, whatever this Joe has, I want it.

It was too much for my digestive system though. I underwent a cleansing I'd never experienced in 34 years, even in the deepest throws of my 30-day juice fast. A few days later, I tried coffee again at McDonald's, and it was much less intestinally invasive. I've been a drive-through fanatic every day for the past two months now. One large hot coffee 5 cream. No sugar.

My sugar cravings come at night, when there's nothing left in life to enjoy. I don't have a tv, can't watch Wheel of Fortune. I don't have a boyfriend to talk to or kids to cook for or a cat to pet.

I try to avoid eating for the first couple hours I get home from work. I turn on my electric fireplace. I light a candle and eat a sandwich. I pick up the clothes scattered about from this morning's attempt to get dressed. I crack my knuckles and stretch my back and socially network and browse Netflix.

But the tranquility of this rectangle room is insufficient. The fake flames and computer pixels only get me so close to happiness. Chocolate is calling. I imagine it melting in my mouth. This thought takes the cake. Once I've drooled over the notion of chocolate for even a moment, it's over. And I'm walking to Wholefoods around the corner, and raiding the chocolate section of the bakery.

I've been mostly eating chocolate covered pretzels, about a half pound per day. And when that's not enough, I've been visiting McDonald's (in the same plaza) for a hot fudge sundae. What a loser I am. I tell myself it's okay. I'm not dating anyone right now. No one has to look at or smell me. I can detox later. I'm not having kids. I don't even think I'll ever have sex again. Unless I meet Mr. Right, which I'm told will happen when I'm least expecting it.

I started season 1 of How I Met Your Mother recently, and when Bob Saget opens the narration of episode 15 with the story of how he met Victoria - the chick who baked cakes - he says he met her when he least expected it. He used that phrase. Least expected it. 

People have been telling me the same thing for about 8 months now. Ever since I started online dating. Friends, coworkers, family... "It'll happen when you least expect it." And recently, the pastor at my church started preaching a series on christian marriage and dating, and he used the phrase last Sunday.

So maybe I'm hearing this message for a reason. Maybe it really will happen. When I least expect it. When I've finally given up on love completely and I'm standing at the edge of this illusively hopeful bridge, overlooking a harsh sea of reality, and I assume my suicide jump, along he comes, in some sexy boat, and catches me.

But for now the only thing keeping me happy is sugar. Sugar and shopping. I have a spending problem too. But it's arguably cheaper than therapy. If I didn't have insurance that covered therapy. So maybe not so arguable. But I therapeutically splurged on a nice down comforter from Cosco last week. I had to do it. It might be the closest thing to a warm body I'll have in my bed for the next few years.

The art of small talk

When does being too brief with someone become rude?

When is it rude to just keep on talking?

One time in college a group of students were sharing out and I noticed one girl doing all the talking. She took up more time than her entire group was supposed to use collectively, by herself. The professor let her ramble. And on my anonymous peer assessment feedback form, I wrote, "Why does Julie (I think that was her real name) talk so much? Does she think what she has to say is more important than everyone else?"

Some girls sitting close to me saw what I wrote and snickered with me as our feedback forms were collected by the professor. The following week the professor had typed up the comments, and my comment was edited.

It said, "I wish the other members of (Julie's group) had spoken out more."

To this day I wonder if that professor really saw it that way or wanted to teach whoever wrote that comment a lesson about how to communicate criticism tactfully. Maybe both.

I notice it at AA meetings, too. I've been to 3 meetings so far. There's always a couple people who talk for about 10-15 minutes. And I had visions of telling them off at a future meeting, but decided against it. I'm really there to listen and learn about addiction, and make friends who don't drink, and feel a sense of fellowship. It's a nice group of people and you don't have to talk if you don't want to. I talked my first time but not since. I will though next time. I need to get my 30 day sober coin.

With some people I think it's a nervous thing to talk too much. I talk too fast when I get nervous, and I've been longwinded before (moreso when I used to drink), but I'm pretty good at keeping conversations short most of the time.

There's definitely a grey area. Like a huge grey lake everyone in a shared culture is supposed to go swimming in, but some refuse, and become the bystanders who want to manage the water or run away from it.

My best teacher friend and I talk a few times a day. In fact, I've been going to work early so I can dump a load of my boring life details into her ears every morning before her day even begins. And she graciously listens.

With other friends, I do more listening. Like with Fred, a retired jack of all trades and master of some. Fred is too smart for his own good. He knows he's smart, and he gets frustrated by the shortcomings of our human nature, including his own inability to quit smoking cigarettes after 50 years.

His mind runs on, and sometimes his words do too, so last week I told him he needed to learn the art of small talk.

We were talking on the phone for about 45 minutes or so and he said something really funny and I laughed really hard, and then I kind of thought, perfect time to end it. On a high note.

But he did the opposite. My laughter had encouraged him. He tried to drag the conversation on and on. After another 20 minutes or so I got to thinking, this is too much. My arm's starting to hurt. I have to pee. I hope I don't get brain cancer.

Even when there was nothing left to say, he continued on, the same stories, a few different words. I suddenly got angry.

And that's when I told him he should end it on a high note. He seemed to understand, but probably in the same way he understands cigarettes to be bad for him.

Fred's a musician and he's played with some great bands but at the end of the day he marches to the beat of his own drummer. There are no boundaries. He'd probably say he sees the boundaries but doesn't care. I don't think he sees them though. He doesn't see the big grey lake, either.

Fred isn't even on the same planet as the lake. So that analogy doesn't really work.

Fred is calling me, jeeze. He's been texting me all week about his anxiety over moving in with his girlfriend.

I answer my phone and say hey. He says hi. He sounds sad.

"She started getting on my ass about life and shit. Hah. Unbelievable. It's making my stomach turn. I'm trying to be silent. What a mistake."

"Oh" I said.

"Last night she said she wanted to start a life with me. I wanted to jump out the frickin window."

"You two should take walks together. Get out of the house. Get some fresh air."

"I can't get her out of the house. She doesn't want to walk any further than the house to the car. And that's usually just to go get something to eat and bring it home."

He says some things I probably shouldn't share, and then goes on about the stress of having his belongings spread out between his last residence, a storage unit, a motor-home, and his girlfriend's loft.

Since he lost his home in 2007 this has been his life. I have a song lyric about my life being scattered into bags. Fred's life is scattered into plastic bins and storage units, and people's back yards and friends' and family's basements and garages. Lots of treasures confined to dark, dusty existences. Vintage decor and antique glass bottles and artwork and tools. Poor Fred. Especially the tools. A man needs a place for his tools like a woman needs a closet.

Two things Fred kept close all these years were his keyboards. He's supposed to set them up in my classroom this weekend so he can play for my students Monday. He's going to be a guest presenter to my classes. But he's worried the keyboards are behind a pile of big things in his motorhome.

"They're buried, man. Don't even know if I can find them in that mess. I musta been Hitler. This is my last trip. I've suffered. I've paid, man. And that mattress I was saving for you? I moved it here, thinking it would be good to do that. What a dumbass I am. It got all dusty and dirty on one side when I lugged it in. Everything's a mess. It's over."

(There's a moment of silence. I think I've heard enough. And I really wanted that mattress. And he better find his keyboards. But I don't say anything.)

"Nothing's selling. All I sold this week was the 15'' PA bottoms. And I got nothing. Just about 100 for the pair. What a drag."

(I hope he doesn't hear me typing.)

He says his girlfriend wanted to talk about death metal and pitbulls and fast cars last night.

"Oh my gosh so boring," I said.

He tells me about a fridge and some tools and his motorhome engine he's trying to sell on Craigslist.

"I'll list 'em. Throw some pictures up. Maybe they'll disappear."

"You never know," I say.

Fred winds up the conversation and lets me go. That was better.

I'm spending my Friday night with a spinach cheese croissant, chocolate covered pretzels, and pumpkin pie soda (thank you Wholefoods, right around the corner, for making me fatter than ever).

But I don't care. I'm done dating. I threw away the D and picked up an E. The dark chocolate covered pretzels don't care how I look in a thong. And they taste good.

It's the day before Halloween and I went to work dressed up as a pregnant woman carrying a fetus-eating zombie baby, partially just to let my belly hang out. It was glorious.

I ordered a DNA test online. I spit in a tube and mailed my saliva to a company. I'll find out my ethnic breakdown any day now.

If I'm a certain percentage Native American I may have legal rights to land. Fingers crossed.

It would be cool if I'm part Indian or Chinese.

In other news I'm still broke and living in my one room apartment. I'm playing my keyboard. Writing my blog. Reading my AA book. Calling my mother. Rearranging my room. And sometimes watering my plant when it looks yellow.

First Year ESL Teacher in an Inner-City High School - Period 1

I haven't blogged in 3 months. Life has been so busy. I don't even know what I feel.

Lots of emotions to process this summer. Namely, being a first year teacher in an inner-city high school.

I did a good job. Despite what the first two weeks looked like. Period 2 was my most challenging but also most rewarding, and period 3 was a piece of cake. But my period 1 class was particularly special. What an amazing group. I started the year doubtful that I could make it work. Very few students had even a basic grasp of conversational English. I was not certified to teach English as a second language. But one of my gifts is stubborn pride and another, a heavy heart, the marriage of which made this group of students and I come together and work out in the end. These kids - every one of them - learned to speak English by the year's end.

More than 50% of my students even came to learn how to write a basic paragraph with few spelling or grammatical errors. This may not sound like a huge feat for secondary levels students, but for ESL students, it was.

My coworkers and I bonded quickly. There were four of us on the ESL team, all female, and I was the only teacher with previous teaching experience, although neither of us had taught ESL. We were all wading in new waters together. We shared ideas and developed a curriculum since there was none to go on. We had no teacher leader like other departments in the building had. We had no support, and leaned on one another, often tearfully, and just had to put our best foot forward day in and day out.

My period 1 was comprised of 19 students, all of whom spoke Spanish. Whole group discussions were difficult at first, as some students could not comprehend my pace of speech. Others could, and would bore if I slowed my pace. I found differentiation to be challenging.

Most of my students were not self-directed so small groups were not containable. When I did structure small group activities, and even when they were structured well, students often resorted to socializing in Spanish. I spent most of the first academic quarter exhausting these models of instruction that typically work in mainstream Western education before my team and I discussed trying something new.

By the second quarter, two of my Period 1 students dropped out. I was heartbroken, and felt I had failed them. However, this motivated me to work longer evenings, lesson planning into the next day or two. I began chunking my 90 minute lessons into short mini-activities that fell into routines.

One of these activities was a word scramble. I projected a scrambled 7 letter word on the board and asked students to find as many English words within that scrambled word as they could in 3 minutes. Students could work alone or in pairs and turn in a sheet of paper when time was up.

I found that competition and short tasks motivated students to focus more. I also had a daily activity where students' names were written on popsicle sticks. Each student would pull a popsicle stick from a cup and announce the student's name and read a daily question posted on the board - asking that student the question. The other student would then have to answer that question, then pick a popsicle themselves and ask another student the same question. This would go on until each student had asked and answered the question of the day. It was a good conversational activity and taught students how to have conversations in English. It also gave students time to think about their answer in advance while waiting their turn to be called on, and it gave students an opportunity to get to know one another.

I allotted time for doing workbook pages, reading plays, and working on projects during my chunking of lesson plans also. But I never chunked more than 10-15 minutes for one activity. If I did, I knew students would divulge in an off-topic conversation. When students did work in groups, I came around with a red pen and grade book, and marked a check or check plus or check minus by their name depending on whether the student was on task. Doing so kept students on task. It was amazing what power that red pen and grade book had when I walked around with each in hand.

I never had to yell at my period 1 class. In my other classes I did raise my voice often. But period 1, never. One boy, Hector, would urge me to get angry sometimes because he craved order and discipline, so I would cater to his demands but the class would not take me too seriously. They knew I was too caring to get angry. But one day during the second quarter I did yell at the class in Spanish (I minored in Spanish in college and my students did not know I spoke the language at all until this very day). Hector got very excited. He clapped his hands uncontrollably and said "yeah, yeah!" when I got going on my angry Spanish teacher rant. My anger was being encouraged and reinforced by other students as well! They joined in and yelled at each other in Spanish. Finally the room grew gloriously silent. The rest of the year I had a newfound respect from this class I never dreamed possible. Students included me in handshakes at the door and other greetings. I think some even bowed at me when entering the classroom, unless I am imagining this, but I think not.

I dabbled in future Spanglish rhetoric when I became frustruated with students using cell phones. It was a recurring battle teachers had. "Diablo!" I once said. "Porque you have telefono and you know tienes free time later! Despues! Put it away! I don't want to see it! I will call su mama! You will fail este clase! Try taking this class again este verano. Verano clase! Comprendes? Ay, coño."

A student SnapChatted my humorous outburst this particular day with their phone without me knowing and throughout the rest of the day several other high school students I didn't even teach were high five'ing me in the hallways and telling me, "You tell 'em Miss, You call they mama."

Ninety minutes is a long time to spend conversing with a roomful of people who do not speak the same language as yourself. That was my true challenge of the year. Teaching was secondary to that. Classroom management, third.

During the third quarter, on a cold winter day, a new student arrived to my class. He was tall and thin and took a seat in the front center aisle chair. He sat perfectly erect, eager to learn. He was Iraqi. His family had fled the war, and come to Providence, RI, and he probably had high expectations of an American classroom. I worried when I learned he spoke Arabic. Everybody else spoke Spanish. I worried about whether my Period 1 students would accept him into this tight, close, dysfunctional family we had established over the previous 4 months.

On the very next day, I translated the popsicle stick question into not just Spanish, but Arabic also. I asked my Iraqi student to read the question to the class in his language. The Hispanic students were fascinated with seeing the Arabic script on my PowerPoint board, hearing him speak the language, and learning the notion of reading backwards.

On the third day of the Iraqi student's attendance, my students started to ask him to write their names in Arabic. We ended up making a poster for the classroom with each student's name written in Arabic.

The Iraqi boy was quickly embraced by my Period 1 class. It made me feel very warm and fuzzy inside, like somehow I had some part in creating a classroom environment receptive to being friendly and inclusive.

Once a week I would hand out a twenty dollar bill to an exceptional student - someone who was still paying attention when the rest of the class had lost interest in my lesson. This was my selfless gift, and act of giving back to my students for the many gifts they gave me each day I had the joy of teaching them.

I also asked trivia questions as part of my lesson planning. They would be interesting questions, and sometimes I'd give a prize like a free homework pass or bonus points on an upcoming test or quiz. But on one very special day I asked, "How many words do you think are in the English language" and to the person whose guess was closest to the correct answer, I gave $20. When we guessed at how many English words there were, they all got a little side-lesson in saying their numbers, too. I turned the trivia question into a lesson on numbers vocabulary. We differentiated the phonics in saying the "th" sound in "thousand vs the "the" sound in "there," for example. The "th" sound makes 2 different sounds and students didn't know that before.

"Stick your tongue in your teeth like this and blow. (I made th sound)."

"Notice the difference between the 'th' sound in the words thick and thin with this and that."

"Say it. Thick Thin. This That. Stick your tongue out. Not your whole tongue. Anthony that's inappropriate. Nope try again." We had fun sticking out our tongues and practicing our sounds.

Our daily lessons tended to be spontaneous like this. I had a word of the day everyday to practice pronouncing. We clapped out the syllables. We practiced spelling it and saying the letters. We acted out the word, used the word in a sentence, drew a picture of the word when possible... and then sometimes if the word had a blended sound in it, such as "sm" or "pr" I'd tell the class to fill the board with other words with the same two letters together in them. Students came up to the board, alone or in pairs and grabbed a marker and got busy. They earned participation credit this way which was 20% of their report card grade.

Kids grabbed dictionaries and explored posters in the room for words to shout out. There were never any prizes for this activity, but I motivated them. I would tell them, "Once this board is full of words, I'll give you 5 minutes of free time." They would go nuts shouting out words for me to write on that board. And it always killed a good 15 minutes or so of class.

Sometimes I gave out raffle tickets which could be turned in for points on exams. Raffle tickets could be earned spontaneously through good behavior, answering a trivia question correctly, being the first person to arrive at class, and so on.

Period 1 gave me memories I will surely take to the grave. One student in that class, a girl, I came to call mi hija, which means my daughter. I  came to love her as if she were my own. At the end of the school year, not knowing if I'd be back to see her again, I prepared a message and told her this:

"Tu eres mi hermosa hija, aunque no te tube en la barriga pero si e tengo en el corazon."

Translated, it means you are my daughter not grown in my belly but in my heart. 

Points in my life

I feel like I've undergone a transformation. Or maybe lots of tiny transformations and rotations and reflections. All those things a triangle does. At one point I just wanted to finish high school and get married and start a family.

At another point I wanted to go to college and become a math teacher.

I actually wanted to be a lobbyist first, until I spent a middle school career day in a room full of boxes. Then I changed my mind.

I liked my high school geometry teacher, Mrs. Bouck, so much that I started to envision myself as her. She spoke efficiently and delivered tight packed instruction. The proofs always worked out. Everything always checked. She didn't miss a beat. Her lines were straight, her voice definitive.

And at another point of my life I wanted to sing and play piano.

At a young age I took piano lessons for 3 months. It made me miss the magic of chord and rhythm discovery.

I wish my piano teacher had taught me the difference between melodies and finger exercises. These piano songs I was forced to play (presented with titles like "ping pong dance" mind you), can confuse a deep-thinking child and disenchant her from the love of music.

Years later and also some years ago (almost 10 years ago!), when I turned 24, I forced myself to learn one hard song - Journey's Don't Stop Believing. I found a YouTube lesson and watched it probably 1,000 times. And everything else I learned afterwards on piano came relatively easy.

My relationship with music happens in my own headspace most of the time. Not on paper or into recording devices or into audience ears. I think up little melodies everyday. I layer them with other rhythms and melodies, depending on what kind of day I'm having, and maybe what other songs I've been listening to, until an organic fusion of music and mood creates a little background life soundtrack to my day, inspired by I don't know what. The songs are passing clouds, and the particles disperse and go who knows where. And what once was is gone forever.

Some melodies do come back and others take new shape in my mind over time. There's a few I'll take to the grave. Some things are impossible to forget.

I have a guitar now too. My grandfather gave me one. It was a Roy Clark signature guitar, a gift to see me off to college with. I didn't see grandpa much the next 4 years. And he died shortly after I graduated. I wrote a couple songs on my guitar, just making up chords, just playing by ear and experimenting with what sounded good, and memorizing where to place my left fingers over strings and frets. One day some dorm friends encouraged me to play at a music competition on campus. I did. I had a base player and guitar player accompany me. I just stood and sang into a microphone. It was so uncomfortable! But I put my nerves into that performance, and I was humble about it.

It was a strange song but had a nice melody and people clapped and hollered for me. I got such a rush when it was over. I also got an honorable mention but didn't place in the top 3. Grace Potter won 3rd place. I remember her performance of "Toothbrush and My Table." It was good. I have her album "Nothing But The Water" in my car cd player most days of the year. I really have a strong attachment to those songs. They get to me.

Nowadays I don't play music so much. As for guitar, I hate trimming my left fingernails whenever I'm in a random mood to play. I end up talking myself out of it. I have a strange relationship with my instruments. I also quit playing flute in high school because I was frustrated I couldn't blow a high C.

My teachers believed in me. My friends liked me. My parents told me I was smart. When I graduated high school, my junior year English teacher, Mrs. Lanthier, advocated for me to be able to walk with the top 10% of my class. I was really at 11%. But I ended up walking.

I also got a $96,000 financial aid package to go to college with. I should have put all that money straight towards my tuition bill, but I used several thousand to travel and enjoy myself during those years. And now I have to pay SallieMae every month! Grrrr.

Mrs. Bouck used to say that math was all around us. But I couldn't quite see the depth of it. I saw manmade lines and angles.  I saw patterns in nature. But no formulaic fourth dimension.

I think we wait sometimes for insight to slap us in the face, and sometimes it does. A friend of mine emailed me once about an insight he had about God. He wrote, "Some people trip and find God, or they say he spoke to them, but it never happened to me. When God did speak to me it wasn't with a voice or with words but in some way I can't explain. Just signs and events that tie thoughts together and make singularities complete... it's like I've been allowed to see light and it's changing me inside somehow."

William Butler Yeats compared human thought to a spiraling gyre, a shape in which something appears to be spinning in circles but reaches a different level with each rotation. As a gyre rotates and elevates, each circle becomes smaller than the one before it, until at the end you reach a point.

When this spiraling gyre is reflected, it makes an hourglass shape. Yeats believed this hourglass shape could explain human thought and ultimately human history.

Watson and Crick, just a couple decades later, contemplated the hourglass shape when checking out women's bodies on the beach. In that sunny, relaxed, libido-stricken atmosphere, an understanding of human DNA was born. It became clear how a person's cells could constantly divide and replace themselves without changing the person.

I think the person does change though. Our memories change us. Memories are merely reflections. Illusions of something that's not physically there. It's in the fourth dimension. Our past is reflected from new distances. There's a different landscape in the foreground. The background gets blurrier. Eventually there's a new form altogether, like looking at our planet from outer space, where the main forms are sparsely composed of something tangible, and the tiny forms become blurry gaps left up to our imagination. We remember what we want to remember.

Maybe it's best to let go before trying to hang on. What you let go might still come back to you.

When I step away from a song or blog entry and forget about it for a while, then revisit it months later, I give it a completely new shape. This particular post has been edited about 6 times.

All our present moments just become points to look back on from afar. We try connecting the dots. It's like organized chaos. If you've ever seen young school kids play on a playground, you've experienced this type of disorder. There's a beauty in it. But it can also be scary to watch.

Lightning used to scare me as a child, until my father convinced me thunderstorms were exciting. I began to redefine anxiety as excitement. I'll never skydive, but I've learned to appreciate storms with big lightening. The kind that strikes and disappears. It escapes into an abyss of fleeting flashes, synapsing along a scatter plot. And it leaves an echoing resonance of it's crackle in your bones.

Thoughts, like stars, sometimes seem to go away long before we really notice them. When we see stars at night, some of them aren't really there. They burned out a long time ago but their light took however many light years to travel to our eyeball.

I used to wonder if we could send out a video camera in a rocket that went slightly faster than the speed of light. It might be able to travel far enough into the future to take a picture of the past. But it would have to be so far away, that a really good camera would have to be invented. I probably won't see that happen in my lifetime.

And life begins, the grains of sand aligned










whole, complete, away from time

appearing first as sedentary 

moments slip










through 

our










fingers 

detaching us










from those temporary

clouds that pass like trails of sand









shadows like echoes from a far-off land