From the Desk of a Self-Admitted Worry Wart: A Gratuitously Narcissistic Post

Blogging should never be a hassle, but rather, a joy. Or something along those lines. Unfortunately, as with most things in my life, it has simply become another cause for anxiety. Yes, I need help. Possibly a xanax.

Irrational though it may be, lately my thoughts run along these lines while I'm checking your blog: "Oh no! I haven't blogged anything in a while and, and, and..."

And what? I mean, really? It isn't like the blog-mafia is going to rip my firstborn out of my hands the moment s/he is born.

Nothing. Will. Happen.

But the truth is, I am an anxious being. I've come to accept this fact about myself. I'm realizing that I've always worried. In first grade I stressed about poor Brandon What's-his-face in my class. I vividly recall having an emotional breakdown to my mother about the kid who liberally picked his nose for the world to see: "But Mom," I'd wailed, "I pick my nose too. I just don't do it in front of other people."

I should have known then.

I stress. A lot. Don't mind me. I'm the one in the corner breathing into a paper bag.

But, for the purpose of alleviating some stress and possibly so I can say I posted, I'm being self indulgent and fessing up to my anxious ways.

Here you have it. The "Lucky" 21 things I commonly stress about (in no particular order):

1. Work
2. Going to the gym
3. Skipping the gym
4. Driving behind grandma's that go 10 below but you can't seem to get past them (yep, not worth it, but I stress nonetheless)
5. Being late (which I usually am)
6. Blogging
7. Work
8. Not getting enough sleep
9. Mondays
10. Money
11. Work
12. Family
13. Friends
14. Students
15. Strangers (such as people broken down on the side of the road)
16. Work
17. Unwanted tasks on the to do list (that keep re-appearing because procrastination settles in)
18. Looming dates and appointments
19. Blood work
20. Car drama
21. The possibility of a catastrophic/maiming event striking anyone at any minute (blame my roommate for working the ER's trauma bays at our neighborhood hospital)

I'm a mess, people. I even worry a little bit that some of you aren't comfortable with my admission.

So be honest, what do you stress over? And how do you cope?

*She is too fond of books, and it has addled her brain.

This week I sat down to read. And read. And read.

Finally.

I finished Lahiri's The Namesake today. It is still with me, sifting in. I love when books do this, drip and then diffuse throughout the whole of me. Like a single drop of color in clear water, my hue is forever changed, if only slightly.

I find it impossible to describe this sensation to those who aren't "book people." My students, for instance, have already separated themselves into book people and, well, everyone else. Some might jump ship later in life. Perhaps. But I think this visceral, emotional connection to books forms early. For me, it isn't plot alone that draws me. It isn't the want of entertainment. It is the characters I live with, embody, for a time. It is the prose (oh, the prose), the layers and motifs and words upon words upon words. The details. It is the ideas that lend themselves to human observation, to truths. It is the fact that whenever I see a copy of Jane Eyre I grow nostalgic for that first summer I learned what books were capable of--that summer after 8th grade I spent wandering the moors of England, fearing and needing Mr. Rochester at once. It is that my mind can still hear the sound of the sliding automatic doors, can still feel the warm summer air stirring with the cool air conditioning of the Weber County Library of my childhood. It is that this memory is still one of my favorite sensations.

It does not seem ridiculous or shameful or odd or pitiful to me that some of my life's happiest moments are those in which I fell just a little more in love with books and all they offer. The spines of books along my bookshelves each tell their own story, yes, but also relate a narrative of where I've been--each book came to me at what was so often the perfect moment in my life. Some books are a ritual, repeated year after year.

I recently read this article with my AP students and had them write their own essays about what they believe to be "The Art of Reading." As for me, well, I knew the reason I have a post card of Toni Morrison in all her wisdom posted on the bulletin board directly above my office desk. This essay only confirmed it: I connect with her. She is one of the book people.

I am aching for the year to end, for summer to arrive. To lounge about, sinking into book after book after book.

In the meantime, you should really pick up this book.



And The Interpreter of Maladies if you are a fan of short stories.

Oh, and I must thank my fellow book people who recommended Lahiri in the first place.

*(And thank you, Louisa May Alcott, for my title.)

Things that Must Go: Scapegoating Public Schools

The Issue: Childhood obesity has reached such a crisis that it is a threat to national security.

The Reason: Potential recruits don't meet the strict physical requirements for military service.

The Solution: Fix the school lunch system?

I heard about this on the news, then read this article about it. Honestly, I am incensed. Is it unacceptable that 27% of young Americans are obese? Absolutely. Are school lunches (and breakfasts for that matter) sub-par? Why else do you think I brown bag it each day? What frightens me here is that, once again, society's ills are solely depicted as the schools' responsibility.

I call foul.

We educators are in the business of educating. That is why I became an educator--to teach. However, schools as a whole have been assigned the task of playing band-aid to societal issues better suited for surgery. If there is one thing I've learned about the public's attitude toward education it is this: it is ALWAYS our fault. Whatever it is, we did it. Blame us. Sorry 'bout that.

But I can't help but wonder: why not tackle the entirely corrupt and completely disgusting system of mass-produced "food" companies? What about city governments that allow for a fast food joint on every corner in the lowest socio-economic neighborhoods? And whatcha gonna do about those who believe good parenting is as simple as sitting their child in front of the nearest video game console?

I'm sure part of school scapegoating originates because government agencies can ask favors of other government agencies. And there is some truth here--school lunch isn't anything to write home about. Furthermore, when you see what is being served it becomes a bit saddening that those students on free and reduced lunch in my neck of the woods eat two of their daily meals in the cafeteria--Monday through Friday. I completely support that school lunches should be addressed as a part of the solution to this epidemic obesity. But something tells me that school lunch is where this big government solution for obesity ends.

The recipe is simple: Fix something about the school system, pat yourselves on the back, call it solved. Works like a charm every dang time. Except when it doesn't.

To "The Man's" credit--it has to be difficult to point fingers when some of these "food" companies tip their hats--and wallets--to certain politicians. But what happens when a school lunch revolution is the only attempt at fixing this issue?

School lunch: definitely a place to start. Frankly, if lunches improve I might be able to buy my lunch every now and again without fearing the Frankenstein Food down in the cafeteria. It isn't so much the notion that we need to improve the quality of what we put in our mouths--including school lunch--but that the first (and potentially only) culprit for blame is placed public schools. If I could change one attitude in this society it would be this: The public school system is not the culprit of every societal ill, rather, it serves as a microcosm of the society it in which it exists.

In Which I Assign Myself 500 Pages of Bad Reading

Let's start by clearing up this one little detail: I'm an idiot. Stupid, really.

Case(s) in point:

1. Call it a delusional vision of who I wish I were (read: a hard *assed teacher), but I assigned the AP kids 10 page research papers on self-selected debatable topics they've lived with all year long. Nearly 50 kids, 10 pages. All due earlier this week. Yup. That was stupid.

2. Add that lapse in judgment to the pile of Spring Break grading I procrastinated beyond, you know, Spring Break and you start to see that teaching English is far less preferable to, say, teaching gym.

3. I'm blogging rather than facing any of this because ignorance is bliss.

4. Combine all of the above with the brilliant timing of after school study sessions with the AP kids, starting back on the weight-loss-get-in-shape band wagon from which I so miserably fell over the past three months (oops), and teaching an all-new unit on argumentative writing with my 9th graders (not my forte nor theirs) which requires the time and energy equivalent of my first year of teaching and I'm thinking I've got to be on a top ten list somewhere.

Like I said. Stupid.

*For obvious reasons this is not the week to give up my ever-so classy tendency of talking like a teamster. We'll save that one for later.

The Worst Part About Vacations?

Coming back from them.

I'm suffering whiplash trying to adjust back from vacation mode. Forgive me.

By the time you read this

I'll be headed here with all the single ladies (or, at the very least, with some of my very favorites).



I'll try not to leave my heart. No promises, however.

One Year Ago Today

A (read: former) friend on Facebook feigned her own engagement for an April Fools' Day "prank" left standing for several days/weeks.

Like I said: former fb friend.

So what are your plans for early April tomfoolery? I'm plum out of such silliness.

Besides, I've never topped myself since the blessed April 1st in 8th grade when I convinced my newly returned (in glory, so he presumed) missionary brother that some girl from the (now defunct) Mormon Youth Chorus called. The message read "Myra Maines from Mormon Youth called--something about your tux" along with the phone number of a crematorium in Salt Lake City.

I believe my trickery elicited his first post-mission curse. "In glory" my a...