28 Nov

Thankful

Posted by jackie in all about me, poetry.

This is the same thankful poem I posted last year, but I love it, and so I’m posting it again. Hope you all had a lovely holiday– I think I’ll have a full post of memories from mine, but not yet.

Thanks
by W. S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

From Migration: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005). Copyright © 1988 by W. S. Merwin. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

24 Nov

Flashing Back

Posted by jackie in all about me.

Today, in the second half of a no good, very bad, horrible day, I came to a stop at a red light in the misty rain and very shortly thereafter heard the sound of breaking glass as someone crashed into my rear bumper.

As car crashes go, it was relatively minor– no real damage to my car past some scratches, and while the other car got the worst of it, the other driver was not hurt. I’ve got some soreness in my neck and right shoulder that I’m hoping goes away tomorrow, and I was the only passenger in my car. But I’m still a little weepy and trembling about it, because it made me flash instantly back to another accident.

If you’ve been a reader of mine for a long time, you know that a little over three and a half years ago, I was in a car accident, also not my fault, but one that totaled my car, activated my airbag, and shattered my right forearm. I still have a steel plate holding the bones together, and while it took me surgery and months of physical therapy to regain the use of my hand, it took me even longer to be able to drive a car again without a panic attack.

Today, when I felt the impact, felt my car jolt forward, I revisited a moment I thought I had forgotten in the blinding flash of pain when my arm broke. I got out in the rain and dealt with the trade of information and assurances that I wasn’t angry at the poor out-of-towner who’d gotten lost looking for the freeway (I even gave her directions), and then I got back in my car, because my sister was waiting for me and needed me to be there. And part of why she needed me entailed me taking her to the same hospital in our old neighborhood where I’d taken Lucy at five weeks to get a spinal tap for possible meningitis, where I’d stayed with her overnight at seven months while she rehydrated after a bad bout of rotavirus, her so tiny in one of those cagelike hospital cribs and me crying beside her because my baby was sick and I was away from the other baby for the first time and oh Lord, how was I going to deal with how heartbreaking being a mother was. And then where I had an emergency appendectomy, and then later where I came with my shattered arm cradled in front of me and more tears running down my face.

When I finally got home, hours after I had expected, I managed to keep myself barely together, making macaroni and cheese and listening to stories of dancing and science experiments, until my husband got home and I collapsed on his shoulder in the kitchen, where my girls couldn’t see me. And now I’ve talked to friends and eaten dinner and some cheesecake brownies, and I’m snuggled into bed and feeling better.

But oh, how long these heartbreaks haunt us.

15 Nov

Moving Forward

Posted by jackie in all about me, teaching.

My Unbloggable Issue has not exactly resolved, but I’m moving on nonetheless. Because sometimes as a grown-up, that’s what you have to do, to keep on keeping on despite whatever might be holding you back.

And there have been exciting things happening too, as often happens in life. A colleague of mine and I gave a long-planned presentation at the AIMS annual conference, and it was well-received. Scratch that– it was received with applause, high praise, and incredible feedback from friends and strangers alike. I joined a new committee at school and am very excited about the work we are undertaking, and the fact that I was accepted from many to join. I’ve had some great classes with successfully planned lessons, and am more and more excited about the trip to Denver I’ll be making in early December to go to a conference on leadership and diversity, along with some of my favorite colleagues, some I’d like to get to know better, and some wonderful students. As fast-paced as my first full-time year has been, I’ve had some amazing opportunities and accomplishments already, and it’s been thrilling to feel myself becoming a valuable and useful member of the school community.

On the home front? Things are humming along, with Brownie meetings, some classroom volunteering, math facts and library books and lunchboxes. The house is definitely too messy, but we’re halfway through Half-Blood Prince, and my sister and I took the girls roller-skating for the first time, which they loved! I made my first chocolate-peanut-butter brownies, and all the Girl Scout cookies are gone, gone, gone (stress eat? me?). I am still loving Peapod. I also wish someone would come over and sort through the kids’ clothes so I can finally donate a bunch of them, and I’d like to clean out my own closet too. Did I mention that I wish my house was cleaner?

All in all, I’m a little tired, a little messy, but completely content with all the patched-together parts of my life.

5 Nov

A First

Posted by jackie in all about me.

The time has come, the Walrus said….. to not talk about my very first Unbloggable Issue. It’s on my mind a lot and there’s not much else I feel like discussing, so that puts me on the blogging bench for a short while.

It’s nothing to do with anyone in my family– no harm has befallen us, so don’t worry. I just need to go quiet for awhile. See you soonish.

28 Oct

Fear Factor

Posted by jackie in all about me.

Here’s my week:

  • first quarter grades and comments for all my students were due this morning at 8:00 AM
  • pumpkin carving contest with my advisory this morning– each grade had a different theme, ours was historical figures, the girls made a post-guillotine pumpkinhead-Marie-Antoinette
  • just getting over strep throat
  • birthday dinner for my sister Thursday evening
  • distributing the 130some boxes of Girl Scout cookies people ordered from my kids
  • husband starting to pre-emptively freak out about law school exams
  • waiting anxiously for all pieces of the girls’ Hermione costumes to arrive in separate boxes from Amazon (cloaks/wands arrived today, Crookshanks and books still to come)
  • baking two pans of Thin Mints brownies for both the girls’ Halloween parties on Friday afternoon– I’m missing the Halloween parade for the first time, but hoping to make the parties
  • arriving at the girls’ school at 7:30 Friday morning to help decorate classrooms
  • working all week with frantic seniors panicking over essays November 1st deadlines
  • transporting kids to Spooky Music party thrown by kids’ piano teacher Friday night– I’m planning to get grading done during the 90 minutes they’re in there
  • helping throw a Halloween party Saturday afternoon for about 15 second-graders and four-year-olds at my friend Karen’s– I’m baking spider cupcakes for sure, also planning an art project the kids can do as they come in
  • actual trick-or-treating Saturday evening

So you know what I’ve done twice now? Ordered groceries online through Peapod. I never thought I’d be that kind of person (whatever that means), but a friend had good experiences with online grocery ordering, and they are running a special deal where you pay full delivery price for the first order ($8.00 for us) and then get free delivery for 60 days if you spend over $100 each time. We’d done it twice, and have had wonderful results each time, and I have to say, it’s made a week like this one just that much easier.

See you in November! Continue reading

21 Oct

Laptopping It

Posted by jackie in all about me, teaching.

Well, turns out that no one in my house had the flu, swine or otherwise, but we did all have strep throat! I was the last to come down with it– got diagnosed this morning at a CVS Minute Clinic and so I’m home from school today, which is also my girls’ first day back. I had strep about five years ago, and am not very pleased to have it again– it’s inconvenient, but it’s also so painful.

Today is also the kind of day that shows why the school-issued 1:1 laptop system can be so useful. I posted activities for my students last night on my website, just in case I had to be home today, so when I called in sick this morning, I could tell my supervisor that the students would know where to go and would have work to do. I also emailed them with more detailed directions, and I’ve already gotten some of their classwork from them over email, even though the class is still happening. Anyone covering my class today just needs to take attendance and make sure no kid leaves, which means anyone could do it, not just an English teacher. Since I’m also working with college essays this year and many of our students have November 1st deadlines, I’ll also be able to email them during the day with comments and suggestions on drafts they’ve sent me, and since my school laptop is a Tablet PC, I can ink comments onto their drafts very easily. So while I’m missing a day, my students are not missing nearly as much instruction time as they would without the laptop program, and I am supporting them, but also in my pajamas and in bed.

Of course, this also means that for me, teaching, notoriously a job that extends far beyond working hours, has become even more elastic as far as time spent working. I spend a lot of my home hours on my laptop, answering student emails, updating my website, fine-tuning or creating lesson plans, tracking down online resources for class use or grading. My students are able to email me and often do, and due to my own mindset, I hate the idea of unanswered emails piling up in my in-box, so I check it frequently and try to respond ASAP. It’s also very difficult for me to take time “off” from the Internet, because there is always a work-related task I could be trying to accomplish. I struggle a lot with making sure that my family feels they have my attention, and not like I’ve always got one eye on the screen, but truthfully, it’s very difficult for me and I’m not sure I do a good job with that balance. I know in today’s world, my complaints are similar to those of anyone who has to carry a work-issued Blackberry, and in one or another, it’s an issue many of us are dealing with these days.

But for today, cozy in a hoodie and flannel jammie pants, I’m so happy to have my laptop.

18 Oct

Teaching “The Killers”

Posted by jackie in authors, teaching.

I’ve been in bed since yesterday afternoon– swine flu? who knows?– and it’s been raining since then too, so I’ve been snuggled up with my comforter and we’re watching Enchanted.

So why not a weekend blog post?

Yesterday, in the class I taught right before going home and taking a four-hour nap, I finally got to put some of my theories into action as far as teaching the iceberg theory. I had asked the students to read The Killers and Hills Like White Elephants, and in preparation, I had made a Word document of “The Killers” and printed it out. It came out to twelve pages, and due to absences, I only had six students, so each student got two pages. Of course, you could pair students if you have 24 students, or give each person one page if you have twelve, and if you want, you could do both stories in tandem. I think it could work with any size group of students. I planned this lesson over the summer, but of course, didn’t plan to be sick while teaching it.

I started by explaining the iceberg theory and how Hemingway thought about his work. I asked them to tell their initial thoughts and responses to the story, and we talked about those. Then we talked a little about how the story in front of us was a skeleton, and we could flesh it out, and think about whether we preferred the skeleton or the fleshed-out version. So they took their pages, and fleshed it out, adding adjectives, adverbs, description, interior thoughts, and whatever else they thought might add something, making sure their name was on each page. It was great– they were quiet and intent and really thought about their choices. Then I asked them to take out their books and review the story, and I dashed down the hallway and made six copies of the “new” story. Then we read the new story, and I gave them each a highlighter and asked them to mark which revisions they noticed, for whatever reason.

It was a great exercise– they saw that there were consistent threads in their additions, like making the same characters nervous and anxious, and other characters consistently sarcastic. They also chose the same character–Nick Adams– to flesh out more, giving him feelings of guilt and shame and concern that unfolded through the story. We had a nice discussion about tone and adverbs and how characters evolve through the story. Some students preferred the “new” version and others the old, and we talked some about that too. I had planned for them to write about their preferences and choices at the end, but was so foggy I forgot. We finished by talking about the way Hemingway ended it, with a “zero ending,” and a little about how in real life, this is often all we know.

It would have been a stronger class if I had been more on my mental game and could have done a better job facilitating, but even still, it worked well. I think it was a great way for them to really think about a story from the inside out, and as a result of authorial choices, and then what authorial intent might have been. I’m sure I’ll be posting more about this unit– this was the second day, and for the first class, we had a great discussion about A Jury of Her Peers, one of my favorite short stories. I’m really enjoying this new unit so far.

15 Oct

Autumnal

Posted by jackie in all about me.

There is a crispness in the air, and a chill in the wind, and an edge to the bright blue sky. Golds and bronzes are starting to emerge from underneath the green, and soon, soon, they will drop.

I am craving pot roast, and mashed potatoes, roasted chicken and fresh-picked apples, and a far-off scent of Christmas cookies. At night I burrow beneath flannels and goose-feathers, and today I wrap myself in layers of knits. Pullovers and cardigans and scarves and mittens come out of closets and storage. We are making plans for pumpkins and candlelight, for costumes and hijinks, for piles of candy and spooky black cats. Soon, we will be giving thanks.

Fall is here.

11 Oct

Pearl Jam– 18 Years and More

Posted by jackie in all about me, media mentions.

I remember the first time I saw the video for Alive, in 1991, by a young band out of Seattle named Pearl Jam. I was thirteen, and had spent most of my middle school years immersed in hip-hop and R&B, stuff like Digital Underground and Boyz II Men, and this was the first rock song I’d liked in a long time. Soon thereafter, I was sitting in eighth grade Language Arts and a boy named Greg asked me if I’d heard it, and I said yes, and we talked about music for the next twenty minutes. It was back when a video on MTV could still make a huge impact, and one of the first moments when I realized that my passion for music could actually be a benefit in the romantic arena. “Alive” will always be one of the great songs of my teenage years for that moment alone, and because it ushered in the next era of music for me and many others my age, the first time I felt like part of a musical generation.

I owned Ten on cassette and played it over and over; almost every song on that album will still shoot me right back to those years. I still believe that anyone my age will not only recognize the opening chords of Jeremy, but be able to see the video in their head, the young boy drawing pictures, and Eddie Vedder’s echoing screams while shaking his head in a frenzy. The next year, it was all about the Singles soundtrack, which brought two more amazing PJ songs called Breath and State of Love and Trust but also introduced me to a lovely little song called Drown, by a brand-new band called the Smashing Pumpkins. Two years later, Vs. came next, and I went to a record store at the mall (one I would work in myself years later) to buy it the day it came out. I remember getting the tape and realizing due to a manufacturing error that my copy didn’t have the title on the spine, and I remember playing that tape so many times I wore it out. Even just looking at the tracklisting sets off so many sonic memories, worn deep into the grooves of my mind.

The next year would bring Vitalogy, which I snapped up as soon as it came out, but marked the last of Pearl Jam’s records to sell millions of copies, to be the must-have rock’n'roll record. While it had some amazing songs (Corduroy is still one of my favorite PJ songs ever), Vitalogy marked their turn away from the mainstream, and I didn’t turn with them. My senior year of high school was all about Smashing Pumpkins– I still remember the day their magnum opus, Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness came out, and my friend Tom cut classes and went to the mall with our cash and bought us all copies, and I sat in the lunchroom listening on headphones and falling in love. I remember stumbling across a wonderful Pearl Jam single, I Got Id, but that was about it. Soon I would be in college, and while I impressed the boys on my hallway for knowing the rarer PJ tracks, I’d also discover Radiohead and Liz Phair and others and immerse myself in those. But my college boyfriend was a dedicated PJ fan, so I kept in touch. We saw them together at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in 1998, but my boyfriend had the ultimate Pearl Jam concert story– he’d seen them the night Kurt Cobain’s death was announced, and Eddie Vedder had almost been too distraught to play, even though the two bands hadn’t been friendly.

Then for many years, I embarked on other musical journeys (and boyfriends), and Pearl Jam spent years in a quagmire, a quixotic battle with Ticketmaster, and while they kept making records, I had stopped listening. While working in that same mall record store, I heard their Last Kiss cover way too many times, and I remember liking Given to Fly, but that was it. In grad school I made friends with a die-hard fan, who collected all the official bootlegs and had never given up them, but I still thought of them as almost a relic of my earlier years, unable to appreciate the stand they’d taken against corporate practices like ticket monopolies and music-video misogyny.

Then recently, iTunes featured the newest Pearl Jam video, The Fixer, and I downloaded it, and once again, a Pearl Jam video had captured me, and I heard the song in my head for days. This morning, while at Target buying highlighters and dry-erase markers and a present for the birthday party I was taking my girls to, I saw Backspacer for sale, and impulsively bought it, not realizing that the band had made an exclusive deal with Target. I popped it into my car’s CD player, and before we were out of the parking lot, Lucy piped up from the backseat and announced her approval, and I felt I had come full circle. I listened to it all day, while shuttling us from birthday party to soccer game to family dinner out at one of our favorite restaurants, and I’m loving it. I don’t know if an album can hit you quite the same way at 31 as it can at 13, but either way, I’m so glad I succumbed to that little nostalgic pull.

If the original rock fans (like my own mother) felt the world divided in Beatles and Rolling Stones fans, I think my own generation was divided into Pearl Jam and Nirvana fans, despite their common PNW origins. My mother is still a Stones fan through and through, and I’m now and forever a Pearl Jam fan.

6 Oct

Reading: Donald Hall

Posted by jackie in all about me, cooking.

I usually never resort to this, but today I wrote a long post, with revisions, on the poetry reading I went to Sunday afternoon (which was amazing, really, and just what I needed), and then it got eaten. And it was one of those days: meetings, issues, an amazing speech from a student at our morning meeting, and then a small fire at the end of the day that evacuated the whole building and made me late to pick up my kids, and then on the way home I realized I hadn’t gone grocery shopping this weekend and had no idea what to make for dinner.

So instead, this is my authenticity post. The post where I am tired, and we ate dinner in front of the TV, and it was mac and cheese from a box, and I’m not doing the dirty dishes in the sink right now because I’m too tired. I’ve been answering emails and juggling commitments and shuffling schedules and feeling tugged in all directions, just like most parents do much of the time, I know. And I’m feeling okay– the reading was great, and I’m feeling good about my job. I’m starting to realize that I need to get serious about weekend meal planning though, and maybe even weekend batch cooking or a freezer cooking scenario…..

But all in all, things are good. Really. Really good, and really real.

« Older Entries