THIS is why I love teaching

One of my former students, whom I taught over 4 years ago, found me on Facebook and wrote this on my wall:

I am glad you are still teaching American Lit. We still talk about your classes when we get together and hang out. It’s funny thinking and talking about high school. We’ve been out for three years but it seems like it was just yesterday….

Knowing that my class made enough of an impact that a group of my former students still talk about me make me feel amazing!! No amount of money could ever replace that.

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Sunday…aka “catch-up” day

Ahhh Sunday… the day to catch up on all of the things I was supposed to do over the weekend, but didn’t quite get to.

I always make huge plans for myself (in my head) about all of the thing I want to accomplish over the weekend.  This weekend it was getting through (grading) 3 sets of essays, doing a bit of grad school work, working out, errands, laundry, grocery shopping, and light cleaning.

What’s gotten done so far?  A bit of laundry, a workout on Saturday, some light cleaning, a trip to Target (not for grocery shopping, mind you), and a mere peek at the stack of essays.  (Ok, I’ve graded a few, but not nearly as many as I would’ve hoped I’d get through).

I did watch a great indie movie last night called Broken English.  It was a quirky movie starring Parker Posey.  Quirky and Parker Posey seems almost redundant, doesn’t it?  It was a movie I could really relate to, because Parker Posey’s character, Nora, questions whether the fact that she’s still single is about her poor choice in men, the fact that men just don’t like her, or something deeper about herself.  I’ve asked myself all three of those questions, and I’m still waiting for an answer.  Watching the movie was a fun way to examine these questions again and come to the conclusion that maybe I need a change of scenery to really invigorate my love life.  (A trip back east, perhaps?)

Ok, I should get going and get busy.  I have to pick CBCB up at the airport in a couple of hours and I’d like to get a few more things accomplished before I do.

Happy Sunday to you!

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Born on the wrong coast?

I’ve been asked quite a few times in the past if I was from New York. I was born and raised in California, and I don’t think I have what people would consider a NY accent. Whenever someone asks me if I’m from NY, I just chalk it up to my Italian-American background. (Loud, fast, boisterous voice. In-your-face, blunt, type-A personality. You get the idea).

Then last week CTLB’s fiance sent me a Facebook quiz to measure which type of American accent I have. It asked things like if “horrible” sounds more like “horse” or “harness.” I was really surprised to find that the quiz said I had a North American accent: ” Your accent is specific to New York State, the Great Lakes Area, and Western New England.”

Also, when I interviewed for the summer internship, the woman who would be my manager asked where I was from back east. I told her I wasn’t from back east and she said that she would’ve sworn that I was. She was born in NY and went to school in Boston.

I find it really interesting that somehow the cadence of my voice has taken on this NY persona, even though I’m a California girl. Maybe I was born on the wrong coast?

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The Good Karma is Flowing!

Yesterday was one of the best days I’ve had in recent memory. I must be living right, because the good karma is flowing for me.

• I had a phone interview for the summer fellowship program that I applied to. The position is at a research company in Palo Alto and is called, “Employee Communications Blogger.” How perfect does that sound?! The job entails web design of the employee intranet page, along with blogging about the “hot news” about the company. The page is going to serve as a way for the rest of the company to understand what the marketing department does. The best thing is that in the paragraph that I had to write to show my interest in the job, I wrote that I thought this job was custom made for me. When the woman who would be my boss called me for the interview she started off my telling me that she thought this job was custom made for me, too, and that she thought I’d be a perfect fit. Talking to her was so refreshing because she was so real. She has great energy and spirit, and I think we’d work well together. She wants me to come in and meet the people I’d be working with, which is a great sign. I’m 98% sure that they’re going to offer me this position, and I am tickled pink. This is my top choice of the positions I’ve seen, and I really hope I get it.
• CBCB told me that because her father travels 3 weeks out of the month for work, he’s going to be able to get us free hotel rooms and a free rental car for our trip back east this summer for CTLB’s wedding! What luck! This is going to be a huge savings, because we would’ve been spending at least $400 each in hotel rooms for the week. Now this allows me to spend that money on doing some fun things while in Boston/CT, and I can’t wait. I told CBCB that BeachGirly and I would definitely buy CBCB’s dad a nice gift certificate as a thank you for being so generous.
• In other east coast trip news, last week CBCB had to fly to Massachusetts unexpectedly for her uncle’s funeral. It was so sad, but one of the bright sides was that she got to reconnect with lots of her cousins who live in the area. The cousins were very excited to hear about our plans for the trip back east and said we could stay with them the week after the wedding. So, it looks like CBCB and I will be able to go to Rhode Island, Cape Cod, Stamford CT, and another town in Massachusetts (I can’t remember the name). Beachgirly won’t be able to join us because she’ll be leaving a bit earlier, but she’s going to be going to visit friends in NYC the week before, so she’ll have a great time on her solo part of the trip before joining us. This whole trip is something that I’ve been looking forward to for so long, and now it’s going to be even better than I imagined.

I felt like I had hit the jackpot yesterday with all of the great things that happened. It was such a nice feeling to know that so many things were going right.

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It’s spring and time for a bit of color

I love springtime. The blossoms are just beginning to bloom, birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and people seem a bit happier.

With spring comes color — both in nature and in people’s clothes. Gone are the gray and black outfits of winter. Pinks, blues, greens, and yellows abound. Fashion becomes fun again! I’m more of a winter-color person because of my olive skin, but I do try to lighten my clothes up just a bit and add in some turquoise, deep pinks, and green hues.

Yesterday at the salon I decided it was time to lighten up my hair color, too. My hair is naturally black, but I thought some caramel highlights might look nice. Dez, my stylist, said that she thought we should just highlight the first layer, to add some depth. She said she thought it would look cool when I put it up for the darker hair to show through on the bottom. I agree. Plus, it was a lot cheaper to just highlight the top than the whole thing.

(I got highlights for the first time 2 years ago, and I was so worried about what they would do to my hair. I opted for brown highlights that time, and while I liked them, they didn’t pack the impact I was looking for. Soon enough I went back to my normal, raven hair).

This time I decided that the caramel color would offer the impact that I was looking for. That wow factor, if you will. When my stylist finished blowing out my curly hair into straight sections, she turned me towards the mirror, and I definitely liked the change that I saw reflecting back. It’s the perfect look I was hoping for for this new spring season. I’m thinking I may keep it going for a couple of months — we’ll have to wait and see.

My new hair color debuted last night at a girls’ dinner to rave reviews. Everyone said they loved how it looked. The real test will be tomorrow when my mom sees my hair. My mom always tells me that she thinks my hair is too dark, forgetting somehow, that my hair is naturally black. So, she should be very happy with this lightened up version. Either way, she’ll tell me the truth. She’s not afraid to give me her honest opinion, so we’ll see what she thinks.

It’s so interesting to me how changing one small thing, like the color of your hair, can make such a difference in how you look and feel about yourself. This new color may not be permanent, but for now it’s a happy, springtime change that I’m looking for.

Before:(black, thick, naturally curly)

After:(caramel highlighted, straight (for now) hair)
This picture was taken in the sunlight, so my hair looks quite a bit lighter than it really is, still, you get the idea of the difference.

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I don’t know how film editors do it!

CTLB and I are at it again. We’re making another iMovie for grad school.

This time we took on the task of creating a “commercial” to be shown to administrators and faculty members throughout our district about the importance of forging personal connections with students, especially students of color who often struggle in our educational system.

The data shows that Latino and Black students rank lowest in standardized testing. With No Child Left Behind, standardized testing is the norm, and schools are judged on how well the students perform on these tests. There are lots of acronyms like API, AYP, etc., that most of you wouldn’t understand — unless you’re teachers or parents who know about such assessments. The bottom line is, there is a racial achievement gap in California (and schools around the country), and teachers aren’t doing a great job of reaching our lowest performing students.

So, our commercial is all about how to form C.A.R.E. (Collaborative Action Research for Equity) groups with students in order to raise their achievement and let them know that teachers care about them. Not just about their academic performance, but about them as people, too. We interviewed other teachers from around our district who explained how much they got out of leading C.A.R.E. groups. We also got footage from students who explained how much it meant to them both personally and academically to know that their teachers really took the time to get to know them and how to better serve their needs.

We’ve spent over 8 hours editing this 15 minute commercial. Editing is fun, sort of like piecing a puzzle together. The frustrating part is how long it takes to do simple things, but we kept at it and now have an amazing commercial that we are really proud of.

In doing this iMovie and the other one we did last year, CTLB and I asked ourselves how those film editors in Hollywood do it. If it takes us this long to do a simple 15 minute film, how long must it take to do a much more complex, feature-length film? It makes me appreciate films so much more.

I just hope our message gets a warm reception from the teachers and administrators, and they decide to spend the extra time and effort on students who just need a little more care and consideration to succeed.

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This is why I’m voting for Barack Obama

Barack Obama: ‘A More Perfect Union’ (Full Speech)

I am glad that Obama spoke about the issue of race. His speech is incredibly eloquent and powerful. We are at a critical time in our nation to show the world that we are more than our past and that we are finally ready to truly embrace the notion that “all people are created equally.”

We have a major problem with racism in America, and it is finally time to examine our values on the issue and begin to deal with the notion of White privilege that is still at work in our country.

My hope is that we look beyond gender and race and vote for the best person for the job. A person who can help us move forward and evolve as a nation. To me the only choice in our next leader is Barack Obama.

I have the audacity to hope; maybe you do, too. Yes we can!

Yes We Can Obama Song by will.i.am

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“Bitch may be the new black, but black is the new president, bitch!”

I love what Tracy Morgan said on SNL last night. I couldn’t agree more with everything he said.

Check out the link to watch the clip.

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Wishful thinking?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always thought that my life would magically improve once I lost weight. Almost as if dropping the pounds would send out a signal to the universe that it was time for all good things to come into my life at the same time.

“When I’m thin, I’ll…”

• have a fabulous wardrobe.
• find “The One,” and fall as madly in love with him as he is with me.
• exercise all the time. I won’t even need to think about it, it’ll just be natural.
• be able to do anything that I want.

Now, it’s true that I’ll be able to find a lot of clothes that fit me, from a huge variety of stores. I won’t be limited to one or two “plus-sized” stores. The thing that I never factor into this is that I won’t be making any more money than I do right now, so how will I be able to afford all of these clothes? Not sure about that one. In fact, I bet I’ll be spending so much money on clothes (I know myself well), that money might be a lot tighter than it is now. But, I guess that’s the type of money problem I won’t mind having.

Somehow I’ve always tied my weight loss into finding the right guy. It’s a mental thing, I know, because there are tons of people out there who are overweight but have found love. And there are lots of thin people who haven’t met their significant others. I explained my thoughts on this in an earlier post. What I need to realize is that if I live my “thinner” life the way I currently do, I still won’t meet anyone. Mr. Wonderful isn’t going to come knocking on my front door or waltzing into my classroom. I’m going to need to put myself out there more than I do now. Which is fine with me. I’ve kind of put men on hiatus (the Man Fast), because I haven’t felt like dating anyone. I’ve wanted to put my concentration on myself and losing weight right now. Once I’m at a weight/size that I’m more comfortable with, I am going to join Match.com or eHarmony, or something like that. Because it seems that at 36, there aren’t that many opportunities for meeting men other than online dating. It’s not like it was in college, where you meet tons of people all the time and everyone is a potential date. When you get to be in your mid 30’s life gets more settled, more routine, and the opportunities for meeting men become somewhat limited. Which is not to say I wouldn’t be open to meeting a great guy at the grocery store, the gym, a bar, or at a bookstore. Because I would. But the likelihood is a bit slimmer, I think.

I’m hoping that if I really start working out and enjoying moving my body, whether it’s at the gym, in a yoga class, or riding a bike, it’ll stick. So many people who have lost weight seem to change their lifestyles and incorporate exercise as a natural part of that change. It make sense, but I’m hoping this will be the case with me. I know that if I don’t start exercising regularly and making it an almost daily habit, the weight will creep back on. It’s happened to me before, and I don’t want that to happen again. I feel like I’ll be putting too much into losing the weight to accept it back, under any circumstances.

I don’t feel stifled in doing anything right now. Well, at least not most things. I am a really confident person and have never let my weight stop me from doing the things that I enjoy. There are a few things that I avoid because of my weight like riding roller coasters (I don’t think the safety bars would “click” into place at my current weight) or sky diving (they don’t make those suits big enough for me, I’m guessing). So, once I lose most/all of my weight, you can bet that I’ll be hitting the amusement park and making an appointment to go sky diving. Actually, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to try a bunch of new things that haven’t occurred to me to do at this weight. I’m a fairly adventurous person, and I can’t wait to see what I end up trying once I don’t feel encumbered by this weight.

I’m hoping that my “When I’m thin I’ll…” ideas aren’t just wishful thinking, and that they will all become realities. I know some of them will be easier to accomplish than others, but here’s hoping for the best.

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Shock #2

This morning I went outside and I saw a jacket on the ground right outside my living room window. It was folded in the shape of a pillow of sorts.

Is this from the same homeless guy that was here on Sunday? Does he think that this is a camping ground?

I have to say, it freaked me out quite a bit. Not that he means me any harm, but what is going on? I don’t like the thought of someone being able to peep into my windows at any time of the day or night. Nor do I want some homeless guy hanging out right outside my windows.

So, I removed the jacket and put it on the dumpster that he’s so fond of foraging from. I thought about throwing the jacket away completely, but thought that might be too cold hearted. I’m hoping this sends him the message that I know what’s going on and I don’t want him to make a camp outside my house.

I’m going to be on alert tonight and if I see him sleeping there, I’m calling the cops. Call me heartless. Call me an elitist. But before you think too badly of me, ask yourself if you’d want someone lurking outside your house.

I hope this is the end of it, but somehow I doubt it.

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A little shock on a Sunday morning

I went outside just a few minutes ago to get the mop I had left outside to dry, only to discover a homeless man eating out of the dumpster of the Ethopian restaurant next door.

I don’t know who was more startled, him or me. Me, I’m guessing, since he calmly took a bite of whatever he found, and said, “Good morning! I like that shirt.”

Huh? My shirt? I just said, “Hello.”

He walked down towards the end of the driveway with his food and a beer (not sure if he bought it or if he found that in the dumpster, too). He seemed happy, carefree, and friendly.

On the one hand it makes me nervous that a homeless man is hanging out right outside my house, but on the other hand, it was so sad. I wonder what happened in his life to get him to the stage of needing to make his morning meal from the discards of a dumpster.

It really makes me grateful for everything I have in my life. I hope I remember this the next time I feel like complaining about not being able to buy something because money is a bit tight. My life is so rich, and not just in comparison to his, but in comparison to most people’s. I have so many things to be thankful for, and this little interaction this morning reinforced that.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

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On figuring out my fashion sense

As I start to think of some of the more superficial benefits of losing a great deal of weight, I realize that finding my fashion sense is at the top of the list.

I love clothes and fashion, and always try to look as nice as I possibly can. Sure, I have my shleppy days when I wear jeans and a sweatshirt, but most of the time I try to look nice. As a plus-sized woman, this leaves me a handful of stores to shop in, which is so frustrating. I often start out with a certain outfit in mind, but once I walk through Lane Bryant’s doors, I find nothing that slightly resembles what I’m looking for. I have literally spent hours walking around and around the store seeking something that I’m never going to find.

Part of the problem is that no matter what they have on the racks at the store, it will never truly be what I want to wear because the sizes are all in the double-digits. I know that it’s not that I want Lane Bryant or Avenue to improve their stock (although a bit of improvement would be nice), but it’s that I want to be able to shop in more than 2-3 stores.

I want the freedom to figure out what my true fashion sense is, rather than having it dictated by what I can find in my size. I want to walk into a dressing room and decide not to buy something not because it doesn’t fit or look good on me, but because it’s just not my style.

I’m looking forward to the day when I can walk into Banana Republic, Ann Taylor Loft, Nordstrom, and Macy’s and find clothes that I love. I want to go to Anthropologie and find an adorable skirt that I decide not to buy because it costs too much, not because it doesn’t come in my size. I want to splurge on expensive workout clothes at Lucy. Ahhh, I can’t wait!

And because of my recent decision, that day will be closer than I ever thought possible. In the mean time, I’m going to start scouring the stores, magazines, and fashion sites trying to determine my fashion sense. I guess that the freedom and confidence I’ll get from being able to wear whatever I feel like isn’t so superficial after all; it’s part of what makes life worth living.

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I knew it was Monday when…

I started off the day feeling completely organized and ready for the day. I got to school a bit earlier than my normal time, wrote the day’s agenda on the board, and unlocked my desk drawers.

You see, I had quizzes locked in my bottom desk drawer that I would be giving to my 2nd period class. As usual, I put my school keys and my car keys in my top drawer and closed the drawers. Mind you, I hadn’t removed the quizzes yet. After putting away a few more things and opening my email, I went to open the bottom drawer to get the quizzes ready. And it wouldn’t open.

And then I knew it was Monday.

I pulled and yanked and risked breaking a nail all to no avail. Somehow, the drawer that had just been unlocked was locked! Not only were those quizzes in the bottom drawer, but now my room keys and car keys were locked in the drawer, too. Ugh.

So I scrambled and panicked, and finally realized that the main office had copies of all of our desk keys for just such a situation. Before too long, I was able to get back in the drawers, but I knew it was gonna be one of those Mondays.

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