St Paul the Etch-a-Sketch, a Mis-Adventure in Time Management

Exactly one week ago, Brooke and I woke up, looked out our second-story bedroom window, and were quite surprised to see several inches of snow on the ground with more coming down from the grey sky. We were even more surprised to see that as the day progressed, it kept snowing! (As we found out later, some parts of the Twin Cities Metro Area got as much as 17 inches!!)

Since we have fallen out of the habit of checking the weather report on a regular basis, we are often surprised by the weather. Usually, it's in a bad way: caught in a downpour waiting for a late bus, a cold snap that kills the tomatoes, the silly belief that if we just hang in there one more day (without buying an AC unit) the heat will surely break... (Last July, after 4-5 days of 100+ degrees, we finally caved and were about to buy a unit for our apartment when we had one given to us.) Last week, however, was the best surprise the weather has given us in quite a while. Church was cancelled, snow was daintily falling, Brooke and I ate a luxurious breakfast and went for a nice walk outside... before we hit the books.

That's right. Instead of having a snowball fight, building a snowman, or making an igloo we sat inside our cozy apartment and worked on homework: me on my final project of my final education class, Brooke studying for one of her final tests in her first semester of nursing school. We spent embarrassingly little time outside. (My inner child was irate, but ultimately silenced.) Winter wonderland a certainty, cross-country skiing and other snowbird fun got put off.

Exactly one hour ago, Brooke and I woke up, looked out our second-story bedroom window, and were ready for what we saw. I had actually read the weather reports this time. A bleak day with warm 40 degree rain barely illuminated my yet-unused cross country skis. What had once been over a foot of snow now looked soggy, tired - barely a few inches. St Paul the Etch-a-Sketch, with some divine hand shaking furiously.

Something is chiding me, in the back of my consciousness, saying, "It's all a big living metaphor dummy! Live life in the moment! Don't put off the things that mean the most to you! 'You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone!'" I guess it's true though. The amazing snowfall of last week also brought with it over 500 automobile accidents, including a few deaths, I believe. And Brooke and I are sickened on a daily basis when we read about some new senseless gun violence on the front page of the paper: a grandfather shoots his granddaughter after mistaking her for an intruder, an older man executes two teenagers who were breaking into his house, a cop was ambushed and shot to death, a road-raged SUV driver fires two rounds from his moving car into another moving car... the list goes on, and this is just Minnesota!!! (the "nice" state as we like to brag...) I didn't even have any more tears left when I read about the shooting in Connecticut yesterday.

Life is fragile and fleeting. How can I justify any time spent writing some paper for school when I could be spending quality time with my wife instead?

I will try to end this post on more positive note. Last Wednesday, riding the city bus, I did make the most of my time and my surroundings. I was zoning out, drifting between doing my daily crossword puzzle and staring out the window, when an older American Indian man sat down next to me. He said hi, and I greeted him back, but kept working on my puzzle, content not to socialize. A few minutes later, he made another comment (about it being a special day: 12/12/12 and his youngest sister's birthday) and I had a flashing moment of clarity where I realized that this man saw a bus ride as an opportunity for interesting and meaningful conversation.

So we talked - about his childhood, his grandchildren, my nieces & nephew, his passion for riding horses, him getting drafted in Vietnam. Directly, I found out some interesting things: he is Lakota and a number of his horses & relatives were featured in the film Dances with Wolves; the film itself tells the story of a different people (the Comanche??), but the Lakota were used because they could ride horses and hunt bison (better for the cinematography); he was a public school teacher for many years - of Lakota language and middle school social studies; he is a direct descendant of the one of the Lakota men sentenced to die in the largest mass execution in U.S. history* (following the Dakota War of 1862); he organized what became an annual spiritual run from Ft. Snelling in St. Paul to Mankato, MN where the execution took place.

Indirectly, I found out something even more important - something that I already knew but sometimes forget: We're all the same underneath. Though our life stories may be drastically different from those of the people around us, we can all take pride in watching our littlest family members take their first steps. And what may come off as an inherently different nature to the culturally-isolated ("Why can't those Indians quit complaining about something that happened 150 years ago?!" or "Why can't they just get their act together and pull themselves up by their bootstraps?!"), eerily becomes your own mentality if you truly stop and ask yourself, "What would I be thinking, day to day, if I - no, my whole people - were so senselessly abused, betrayed, and forgotten??"

My time on that bus was invaluable as it was interesting. And it was time not wasted or squandered, but lived.

-----------------------------------------------------

*We are now 11 days out from the 150th Anniversary of this horrific event. Finally, though, it seems that the White Man's historic (and present, if we're being honest - Do we seriously still have a "Bureau of Indian Affairs"?!?) atrocities are being dragged from the closet of intentional forgetfulness, and these events are getting some press. Brooke and I highly recommend this piece of excellent journalism from This American Life. Additionally, though I have yet to see it, here is an interesting documentary looking at how present day Lakota are remembering the mass execution of the "Dakota 38". (As an interesting side note, the man who sat beside me on the bus turned out to be the very same "Native spiritual leader" featured in the documentary.)

Telling Signs...

When you find yourself ironing an old pair of khaki shorts - with paint and grass stains - for your picnic wedding reception you know one of two things: you are poor, or you are living a very alternative sort of lifestyle.

When you find that you don't know which... well, I'm not sure what that tells you.

So Many Thoughts...

Over two years ago, I began writing this blog under the title Thoughts and Adventures, hoping to include many stories and accounts of both. This fall has seen me undertake very few adventures in the outdoor/exploration sense. I've left the Cities only a handful of times in the past few months, and the most adventurous of those occasions was perhaps a beautiful afternoon hike at a nearby state park. Hardly bushwhacking in Colorado. This isn't the end of my world explorations, however; in fact, even as Brooke and I write the final draft of our vows (now to be spoken in a mere five days) we very intentionally included a promise to be each others' partners in adventure. But for now, the call of work and school has kept us both on a short tether.

This is not to say that my present life is devoid of adventure! As it turns out, thanks to both my fall class at Hamline and my job, my very thoughts are a constant adventure! The class in which I am currently enrolled is called Theory to Practice, which essentially means that we read and explore the thoughts of many different theorists and then come to class and have fascinating discussions about what we actually do in class: How do we set expectations? How do we create assignments? How to we assess student learning? How do we manage a classroom???

This last question is of special interest to me because of part of my current job experience. Aside from my rather mundane chore of delivering mail and teacher copy requests, I spend half of my day supervising students in a study hall/independent learning center. And for an extra-special three hours after school on Wednesday, I have the opportunity to supervise Wednesday School - a three-hour detention for naughty students. The "Learning Lab" (as it is known) is a wonderful exercise in setting expectations, building positive rapport, and motivating students. Wednesday School on the other hand...

Let's just say that Wednesday School is kind of like my own personal 3 credit-hour laboratory for Classroom Management Skills. There I am given a list of strict rules, handed down by the administration, and a room full of rowdy kids who would rather not be in said room (also handed down by the administration). As I reflect on the many ideas we discuss in class (and write papers about them) I get the opportunity to try these very skills out! On real-life rowdy students!

Alas, though I think and think about all the factors of student motivation and behavior, day in and day out, it's all I can do to plan for a wedding and keep up with my school work. My journal has fallen into disuse, and this blog suffers a similar fate. But not for lack of thoughts or adventures! My current adventure begins like this:

One classroom management author we're reading (Harry K. Wong, if you're familiar with him) is a HUGE proponent of being up front with students regarding expectations, rules and procedures. Tell them exactly how things will go, and watch things go that way. After my first week of anarchy in Wednesday School, I decided to begin the next session by distributing a list of rules, then going over them, and then nonchalantly but strictly following my own rules. And we had silence for two hours, with only a bit of growing rowdiness by the end. 

But NOW... my classmates and I have all chosen different books to read on classroom management, and I have begun reading Beyond Discipline by Alfie Kohn, a somewhat controversial person in the field of education. Now I am reading very compelling arguments that call me to question my very rules! AND the methods of coercion by which I enforce them!

When I demand silence, is it reasonable? Is it harmful to enforce my rules through threats of office referrals? Is the very existence of detention by nature coercive and harmful??? At this point I don't know. I'm only three chapters into the book, and I'm not sure I agree with all that Kohn is saying. But the adventure surely continues to play out in my mind. And however I am thinking tomorrow afternoon, I will still have a room full of talkative kiddos who don't believe they deserve Wednesday School. (Maybe they don't...)

------

One other thought to add, before I sign off for the night: While I was initially excited about biking to my new job, the time saved (over an hour each day) by not biking has led me to faithfully join the masses of the so-called "commuters." I now proudly fire up the NPR in little Moses every morning at 7:20, and drive my 15-20 minutes to work.

One thing that struck me as I drove home today: I now think of my 15-minute commute as "a short drive." Have I really become that desensitized already? When I used to live in the small town of Bellefontaine, Ohio fifteen minutes would get me to my friend's house in the next city. If I heard of someone driving fifteen minutes to work I would think, "why doesn't he just move to the other city?"

It's not bad. It's just different. I used to live in a small town (for the last 24 years) and wonder if I could ever stand to live in a big city. I guess I can, but it's taking some getting used to.

A(nother) Blog in (Slightly More Than) 10 Minutes

And yet again three weeks have slipped by along with three weeks' worth of good intentions about "writing every day! even if just for ten minutes!" Let's be real. But I would love to write more.

Part of the craziness lately has been trying to finish out my first term at Hamline, and being met with large papers to write on top of major presentations and the usual underlying humdrum of reading lots and lots of sometimes-very-boring material. Just yesterday I passed a major milestone in completing a 12-page research paper that started out exploring the benefits/downsides to year-round schooling and ended up being a 12-page treatise on how potentially awesome the calendar can be for students and teachers alike. It's ironic too because one of the many reasons I initially wanted to be a teacher was for the long summer vacations...

Another realm of activity in my live has been moving into a new apartment. This process began over three weeks ago, moving a few boxes into a storage unit in the basement of my new apartment building, which is approximately 6 blocks from my old apartment and a mere 2.5 blocks from Brooke's house. I then left for PA for a week, came back on the 31st and had a crazy moving in session that very evening with Brooke and her family. (Many thanks to Joe and Luanne and the great big van!) And now I'm in the process of slowly reclaiming items from Pittsburgh, trip by trip, and trying to pack them into my tiny little apartment, lovingly named "the dungeon." What's worse, since I know that I should be working on homework, it takes an extra effort of willpower to not unpack all the boxes of cool stuff that I've been missing since December.

A few other things everyone should know. My new apartment building is right across the street from a large park. Brooke and I have a folding card table that we keep leaning against a wall near my door, and we try to have dinner in the park as much as possible, which is all too infrequently. Also, way back while I was working at the bike shop, I managed to piece a new bike together for myself with some new parts and some old parts. It's a bit more friendly for commuting, and it is very much a work in progress. It will hopefully get some studded tires for this winter and maybe some better gear ratios when Brooke and I finally get around to our goal of light touring. The bike is named "Jeconiah." Brooke and spellcheck don't think this is a legitimate name, but it's totally biblical. Look it up.

Cheers.

A Blog in 10 Minutes

Lately I've been having difficulty writing papers. It's not that I'm not a good writer; in fact I've gotten top marks on all papers submitted so far. The problem is more one of timing. Namely, I read and research and reflect, sometimes even pre-write and outline, and then when I get to the actual paper I freak out. I sit and stare and manage to squeeze one sentence out of my brain every few minutes. I ultimately average (and this has been pretty much consistent since undergrad) about one page per hour. Talking to (and getting constructively scolded by) Brooke, I realize that that's not very fast. and that I could do better.

This past weekend was a doozy. Brooke and I were to head up North to do some relaxing (before I headed out East for a family vacation), BUT several things happened. I got sick and I had two papers to write over the weekend (plus plenty of assigned reading). So I did take a work day, and I got one good paper written (at the page-an-hour rate) and the other outlined, but that leaves me with a night class tonight at 5pm, one paper left unwritten, a vacation to pack for and an apartment to move out of.

So, why am I wasting time blogging? My goal here is to "warm up" with some train of thought writing. My biggest problem in writing is that I want it to be perfect coming out of my mind. But that's not how writing works. You edit to make it perfect. And I'm even a good editor!!! Sooooooo, I'm hoping to pump myself up to crank out 5 rough pages on my educational philosophy in an hour, do some laundry, come back and edit a bit, and so forth.

With my remaining three minutes...

One blog post I wanted to write last night would have been titled, "My Last Day Here and Noor Hooked Me Up with a Pizza." That blog would have discussed my upcoming move (to a new, nearby apartment - this one a studio: tiny but not shared with anyone), how this is my last day living in this apartment, how it was going to be a hectic day... AND how on this day that I would scarce find time to even feed myself, Noor left a nice box of Pizza Hut pizza on the table - up for grabs.

Another post that never materialized in days past spoke of new changes for me. Aside from the new apartment, last Wednesday I found out that I got a job that I had interviewed for - at North High School in North St. Paul. It will be 30-35 hours/week as an Education Assistant, presumably helping small groups of struggling teen get caught up on school work. The job sounds fun, the pay is considerably better than the bike shop job (which I quit several weeks ago), and though it is a solid 9 miles away, there is a beautiful rails-to-trails bike trail that takes me most of the way there. So life is good. As long as I can keep typing this quickly.

What Do These Two Things Have in Common?

Answer: They both help me study!

While things like Saving Papers For The Last Minute or Not Sleeping Enough detract from my efficacy as a student, repeated studies have shown that nothing helps me focus better than Beethoven's piano sonatas and a good ol' cup-o-joe.

[Today's blog was brought to you by Bodum, Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, and by the letter R!]

The News

Here are some headlines and news from my life today:

Homework, Job and "Having a Life" Combine to Make Young Man Anxious
I have so many assignments stacked up, job applications to fill out and gardening chores that I want to do that I literally didn't fall asleep for over an hour last night. Furthermore, I'm not doing a good job of prioritizing those good things in life that make it worth going through all the stressful times. I was planning to quit my job later this summer, but I may advance the expected last day by a few weeks.

Journalist Interviewed: Trying Times for Newspapers... and Photographers
I carpooled to a school tour with a colleague this morning and had the opportunity to hear some of his life story. He studied journalism in college (in the 80s) and got a job as a photojournalist for the St. Paul newspaper The Pioneer Press. Apparently no one reads newspapers any more. He was laid off in 2002, made it as a freelance photographer a number of years after that, and more recently couldn't even make it doing that. Now he's in his first semester at Hamline - same as me - getting licensed to teach communications.

Camping Gear Still Strewn About
I got off the water with Brooke and friends last Monday after a four-day canoe trip. It poured rain the last day out, so I hung up a makeshift clothesline in my room to dry stuff out. I've been slowly putting things away, but there's still plenty to go.

Craigslist Leads to Interesting and Potentially Helpful Guy
I have a new bike. His name is Jeconiah. Actually, he's just a new frame I bought with some birthday cash with all of my old components swapped over. I'm currently trying to sell some of the old parts that didn't transfer on Craigslist, and I missed a great trade opportunity by 4 hours. C.J. was the guy behind the almost trade and when I called him back today, he still took the time to ask about what I was looking for - a crank, long cage derailleur. He "knows people" and alerted me to the bargain finds to be had at local "swap meets." Apparently he trades for parts, builds up bikes and knows a lot of similar people. Though he only just met me over the phone, he'll "get back to me" with some potential used parts I'm looking for. Score(?).

Government Shut-down Foils Family Plans
Thanks to stubborn lawmakers in the State Capitol building that is just a few miles from my apartment the entire state government might shut down in 7 hours. News usually just passes in one ear and out the other, leaving me about as politically informed as my bicycle, but this story is hard to ignore. Several of my colleague are realizing they may not be getting paychecks this week - a sobering thought. Fortunately for me the worst direct impact on my life will be the closure of the state park Brooke, her family and I were going to relax in over the holiday weekend. One positive* side: perhaps the government contracted construction workers will stop loudly driving their bulldozers up and down my street while I'm trying to study.

New Study: Can Cookies Lead to Obesity?
My housemate Noor is apparently the lead researcher on this one. And I am the experimental group, n=1. He brought home a tray of 84 cookies that he received for free yesterday, and rather than eating them all he left a note reading "please, help yourself." Also, consider that Brooke and I are low on groceries and time to cook...

*really just for me. Again, mostly sobering for the actual workers.