Stacks of Girl Scout Cookies on the floor, cozy cardigans I want to wear everyday, roasted chicken and potatoes for dinner, stacks of ungraded work, an autumnal chill in the air: must be October!
Monthly Archives: October 2011
Who I Am, Now and Then
By what part of your current self do you think your younger self would be pleasantly surprised?
Being able to cook: Apart from making Christmas cookies, I don’t remember having much interest in cooking as a child, or even a teenager. The fact that I make dinner for all of us during the week? That alone would make my younger head spin, but the fact that I bake from scratch and have dinner parties for friends and family alike? Mind-boggling.
Not being paralyzingly shy anymore: this again lasted long through my teenage years, and while I’m still at my most awkward when faced with a crowd, I’ve come a long way from the days when speaking to strangers would make me terrified and frozen with fear.
Being a high school teacher: I remember thinking distinctly as a teenager that teaching high school was a gig for suckers, quite frankly. Growing up with teachers in my family gave me a backstage look at just how overworked, underpaid and underappreciated high school teachers (especially those in public schools) really are, and I swore I’d never fall for it. But now I have found my vocation, and am constantly thrilled at how lucky I feel to have found my home in teaching.
And finally, just how grown up I really am. I go to the bank and sometimes even clean all the things! And sure, sometimes the wheels feel like they are about to fall off, but but overall? I am keeping all the balls in the air just fine.
Book Reviews: The Paris Wife, A Moveable Feast
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I’ve always been fascinated with women who live with great writers, who serve as their muses, perhaps, but more importantly, as their assistants, their helpmeets, their partners. Like Vera Nabokov and Sophia Tolstoy, Hadley Hemingway married her writer and supported him as his career evolved and blossomed, taking them from midwestern America to the glamor of the French Riviera. However, unlike Vera and Sophia, Hadley lost her husband, not to the isolation of the writing life, but to an energetic “other woman.”
Hadley’s story is told really beautifully in The Paris Wife: A Novel
Reading The Paris Wife made me reconsider Hemingway in a way I haven’t for years. My last vivid memory of engaging with Hemingway at all was a heated argument I got into at my first graduate-school party, where an older male PhD student tried to convince me that Hemingway’s portrayals of female characters weren’t flawed or sexist. We fought the good fight and agreed to disagree (and later, he tried to date me), and I haven’t really thought about Hemingway since.
I guess I should clarify a little here: I’ve been teaching Hemingway pretty regularly for the past few years, including “Hills Like White Elephants” and “The Killers” (which I really enjoyed). This summer, we added The Old Man And The Sea
However, loving The Paris Wife did lead me to read A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition
In short, I recommend them both, but especially together, as a great and epic literary love story that still remains fresh today.
Related articles
- Me and Hemingway go way back – “A Moveable Feast” (readingthroughthebs.wordpress.com)
- A Moveable Feast – A Book Review (nishitak.wordpress.com)
- Teaser Tuesdays – A Moveable Feast (nishitak.wordpress.com)
- Hemingway and His Paris Wife – From Two Angles (pspostscript.wordpress.com)
- Hemingway – A Moveable Feast (the-confident-writer.net)
Restarting, Again
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This weekend, when I should have been grading, I spent a few hours reading a friend’s memoir manuscript, which spans almost 300 pages (and is really just wonderful). We have been trading essays and pieces back and forth over the past year or so, but this was special, and took me longer than any other piece had. I suggested commas, snagged a few spelling errors and detected a continuity error or two, but also, I really enjoyed just getting to be a part of this creative process, and helping him, if only in the smallest way.
The fall is revision season for me anyway, as part of my job is helping the senior class work on their college essays. One-on-one writing work with students is one of the reasons I thoroughly love teaching, and getting to work with students on their essays without having to slap a grade on it at some arbitrary point in the revising process? It’s fabulous, for sure.
However, the flip side of that is that I spend my days immersed in the writing processes of others, with my own work hovering around the edges, waiting patiently for the scraps of my attention. So this evening, I sent off drafts to students with suggestions, and sent my friend his manuscript with my suggestions. But I also dusted off two long-struggling poems, that have each gone through many revisions, and asked my friend to take a look with a fresh pair of eyes. It’s time for both of them to get another chance at leaving the notebooks and going out into the world.
Stalling Out, Restarting
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I recently came across a post at one of my favorite sites referencing a list that, at one point, would have been right up my alley: a top 100 list for nonfiction, voted by Ms. magazine readers.
I was pleased to see that I’ve read seven of the top 10– I have not read The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women
As I read further down the list, I saw many old friends, books that still sit on my shelves and had major impacts on my consciousness and development. These include Women, Race, & Class
But I also knew that most, if not all, of the explicitly feminist reading I had done all occurred years ago, when I was a student or a new mother. Do I still think of myself as a feminist? Yes, and I think the clearest evidence for that is that I immediately started qualifying the question in my head, thinking of ways in which it was problematic and wanting to acknowledge how many women don’t feel comfortable with that particular term. But I don’t often pick up feminist nonfiction anymore, and the number of explicitly feminist blogs I read has shrunk to one (though I’d say Shakesville is pretty wonderfully comprehensive).
Somewhere along the line, I think I subconsciously felt like I didn’t “need” to educate myself any further as far as feminism went, like my mindset had sufficiently shifted, my consciousness had been raised, and that I could spend that time instead on more “fun” reading, not heavy tomes on rape and oppression. I think it’s no coincidence also that my community has shifted during these same years, and of my current friends, I have no idea what they’re reading, in the scant free time we all have. Also, a lot of the feminist books that got a lot of press in the past few years (like many of the titles I mention above) seemed aimed at a younger audience, not a woman with a career and mortgage and children, etc. I still think of myself as feminist, but my feminist self-education stalled along the way.
But as a mother of increasingly more adolescent girls, and as a teacher of teenage girls, I’m seeing that, suddenly, as a loss. If a student of mine asked me about feminism, what book would I be ready to hand her? If my own daughters ask me in a few years, what will I say? When my students mention “bikini season” as they throw away half-eaten lunches, why doesn’t an explicitly feminist response form in my own mind? And while I think I’m still fairly young, I have no idea what truly young feminists are thinking, writing, or blogging these days.
So I think I’ll take this list of an opportunity to kickstart the next phase of my feminist self-education, with an eye towards young women especially. Now would also be a great time for recommendations, if you have any!
Related articles
- When did you first identify as feminist? (bluemilk.wordpress.com)
- Your Stereotypically “Annoyed” Feminist (lachristagreco.com)
- Being a feminist does NOT mean… (moonchild11.wordpress.com)
- What’s Up with the Straw Feminists, Hollywood? (blogher.com)
- Glued: Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti (harlequindays.wordpress.com)
Like this:
Keeping It In The Family
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When I was a graduate assistant teaching classes about cultural pluralism, I once had a group of speakers come from a local GLBTQ organization to speak to my students, most of whom were white Christian small-town Ohio residents with not much familiarity with these issues. The speakers were great, and included a young woman who said something I’ve never forgotten.
One of my students challenged her, saying, “Would you feel so great about gays and lesbians if it were someone in your own family?” She responded, “I hope one of my children is gay! So many children are born into families who make them feel terrible and wrong for being who they are. So many gay and lesbian teens commit suicide because they don’t get the support they need from their families or communities. Every gay or lesbian child born into an accepting family is hopefully one less gay or lesbian teen suicide.”
I still think that’s a pretty radical (and awesome) thing to say, and I am reminded of it every time I read a story by a straight person who has a child and believes that child might be gay, whether it’s a five-year-old boy who dresses up as Daphne or more recently, a six-year-old boy with a his first same-sex crush on Blaine from Glee, who is admittedly pretty dreamy. The mothers defending their kids’ right to be who they are and standing up to make sure other kids get the same chance are showing the world what it means to be a straight ally in the best possible way.
I don’t know if either of my girls are lesbians, but I hope every day that I am making it easier for other kids to be who they are, whomever that might be.
Rocktober
Last year, September really kicked my butt, from first week to the last week. This year, we managed to avoid all the random catastrophes of last year AND I made some really good progress in exercising. I was feeling really optimistic, like we had definitely jumped the hurdle.
Do you see where this is going?
Because then, October rocked my world, and I’m still trying to catch up.
Sigh.
Free As My Hair
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It’s October, and for GSAs across the country, that means we are gearing up for Ally Week. Each year that I have been the sponsor, our GSA has added and evolved its Ally Week events and activities, and this year is no exception. The members are planning rainbow tie-dye parties in addition to our traditional ribbon-wearing, pledge-signing and bake sales to benefit the Trevor Project, and I’m looking forward to helping make it all happen. This year, also for the first time, the Upper School is holding an assembly on National Coming Out Day and showing the film Straightlaced; this is one of the many reasons I feel lucky to work where I work.
Each year, the girls make an announcement at our all-upper-school morning meeting to preview the events and explain the meaning behind the week. Unfortunately, in the past year especially, there has been no shortage of tragic news stories to bring up to bolster the anti-bullying message at the heart of Ally Week. This year, the club chose the story of 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer, who killed himself less than a month ago after being repeatedly bullied for being gay. In their announcement, they first played the It Gets Better video Jamey had made earlier this year, and then announced his recent suicide. Jamey was a dedicated Lady Gaga fan, as is one of our club members, and she found a video of a recent performance an obviously emotional Gaga dedicated to Jamey. It was a really powerful moment, and I was so proud of the girls for developing and delivering this message in front of over 300 of their peers and teachers.
As I have written before, working with our school’s GSA has been so rewarding. Now that I feel comfortable in my role of supporting the students, I want to start challenging myself to make my teaching more inclusive. While I have a safe space poster (PDF) hanging in my room, I only teach a few poems a year by GLBTQ authors, and that aspect doesn’t even always arise in our discussions. I want to add more GLBTQ books to my classroom library, but also incorporate some kind of assignment to get the students reading them; one idea I’ve kicked around is adding an extra-credit reading assignment when we read Catcher in the Rye, giving them a list of YA novels about adolescence and then having them explore how young adulthood is represented in those texts. The list could include everything from The Outsiders
Like teaching itself, working with these students outside the classroom is work that is incredibly fulfilling, but where you don’t always see immediate results. I may never know what impact these announcements and events have on the students, but I do know that every move has potential ripple effects, whether or not I ever get to know it.
Related articles
- Lady Gaga Honors Jamey Rodemeyer (thehollywoodgossip.com)
- Lady Gaga Sings “Hair” for Jamey Rodemeyer (now100fm.radio.com)
- Lady Gaga, 500 Funeral Attendees, And A NY Senator All Commemorate Jamey Rodemeyer (queerty.com)
Five Best Decisions
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I’ve been blogging for so many years that I don’t often do memes anymore, especially since they are often much more personal than I tend to be these days. However, they remain the easiest way to knock out a quick post, and I was inspired by one I saw recently: five best decisions, which I saw first at Uppercase Woman and then at Schmutzie.
Without any further ado, the top five best decisions I ever made:
Accepting the scholarship that took me to UMBC
I got a wonderful education, debt-free, made some fantastic friends, studied abroad (for free) and traveled Europe (not free), and had my entire worldview thoroughly rocked. I grew as a scholar, writer, and person, and didn’t actually make too many bad choices while I was there.
Accepting the teaching assistantship that took me to BGSU for graduate school
Again, a wonderful debt-free education, some more fantastic friends, another thorough revamping of my entire perspective on the world, a social justice awakening that still reverberates for me today, my first real teaching experience that convinced me I had found my true vocation, and meeting my future husband: not bad for eighteen months in northwest Ohio, right?
Marrying my husband
We started dating eleven years ago, and while we’ve had our share of rough patches, I’m glad I went to the party he threw in his apartment that night in Ohio, when we kissed for the first time before all the guests showed up, and after which he left me an epic answering machine message (I know) that sealed the deal for good.
Deciding to have children
Because yes, it’s a choice, and not one that everyone should make, and one that I made without really knowing what I was doing, but that turned out to be phenomenally awesome, for sure. My girls have made the woman I am, and I’ll never be able to thank them enough.
Becoming a high school teacher
For a lot of my early years, I thought I would be anything but a high school teacher, after watching my mother spend hours grading, counseling her students, making lesson plans and spending thousands of her own hard-earned dollars on copy paper, markers, pens, pencils and more. It’s too hard, I thought, for not enough money. My mother always told me, “It’s too hard to do unless you really love it,” and it turns out, I really do. While my years teaching college and university classes were wonderful and I wouldn’t trade them for anything, my career really shifted into focus for me once I took the leap and moved into my first high school classroom. I’m a teacher, through and through, and teaching at this level is fulfilling and fascinating for me. I can’t imagine any better way to spend my life.
One of the reasons I found this meme inspiring, I think, is that it helps to think of what I’ve done right, and to see all the choices I’ve made that have led me to where I am, a place in my life that is looking pretty much like exactly where I want to be.
Reading On My Kindle
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I’ve had my Kindle for over a month now, so I’ve been thinking about whether or not it’s been as revolutionary as the hype has so often made it out to be.
In a word: yes and no.
The Benefits:
It’s really fantastic to be able to order a book and have it appear in my hands in a matter of seconds; it’s like a childhood dream made real. My bank statements might say it’s too fantastic, in fact. I’ve been having some achy-forearm issues in my right arm lately, the same arm that contains a metal plate from a car accident years ago, issues that might presage carpal tunnel syndrome, and being able to prop the Kindle in my lap and “turn” the “pages” with my left hand has been really great. It’s very easy to read in bed: I keep it on my night stand, so that’s where I use it most often. I am also thrilled with it for traveling; I took it on the 9th grade retreat with me, will take it when we travel for Thanksgiving, and am so thankful not to have to lug a few heavy books with me now when I travel. I also recently connected my Kindle to my Twitter and Facebook accounts, and am excited to share what I’m reading that way. Also, Kindle Singles are really great, and I’ve loved each one that I’ve read, from The Fearless Mrs. Goodwin (Kindle Single)
However, I am still getting used to the searching functions and the difference on the page. I’m too wary of having to replace it to keep it tucked into my purse, the way I often have with books I’m reading, and I miss being able to lend books I’ve just read and enjoyed to others (those without Kindles, I mean). More broadly, I miss the visual connection I have with books; when I see certain books on my bookshelf, I’m reminded of the time in my life when I read them, or just the sensation of living in the world they created for me. I recently tracked down some out-of-print favorites from my childhood (some L.M. Montgomery non-Anne books), and when I saw the covers, I almost started crying, because it meant so much to me to have those books back again. When my family and I visited Montpelier this summer, I loved walking into the room where Madison kept his books, and imagining what I would have learned about him had I been able to browse through his titles. When people enter my home, the first room they are in is our library, surrounded by a large portion of the books we own, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.
So I’m ambivalent. I am very glad to have a Kindle, and anticipate using it frequently. But for now, there’s simply no matching the immense emotional weight that resides in my relationship with books.
Related articles
- New Amazon Tablet Now Available Along With Three New Kindles [News] (makeuseof.com)
- Preventing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (fitsugar.com)
- Questions to Ask Your Doctor About Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (everydayhealth.com)
