Month: January 2020

The concept of a Monday Morning Quarterback is to look at things that happened the day before in sports and discuss how it could and should have been handled differently. The term, has been widely adopted to reflect a larger sense of seeing things in hindsight and discussing how they could have been handled better. This applies to my life in numerous ways. I am often better in reflection than action (read: I am a writer). In this specific reflection, however, I am focused narrowly on ‘onboarding’ students into a new class environment.

To begin, have your stuff all the way ready before you open the doors.

I am experimenting with a ton of new content in several classes. While most of that content is part of an Online Active Textbook designed to give a fairly studious and unified experience to students when it comes to the basics of writing, most of that content is incomplete. I did not understand that when I input the material. I also did not understand how it would fundamentally change my course or that it would enter the course both turned on (visible) and due. So, a few students in an online class were hit with a ton of material they should never have seen. Likewise due dates for other material were inaccurate (stuff that was not supposed to be due this early in the semester reading as being overdue). All of that looks confusing and makes students question to reliability of the instruction–especially in an environment where this sort of mixed messaging is the only messaging that they can see.

Hit them with the theme on day one.
Students want to know about content. They want to know what interesting and cool stuff they’ll be subjected to and they want to know right away. I did a better job of that this year and in most classes we are well underway towards shaping a class based on these ideas and ideals. Again, I did not do this effectively in the online environment, so while there were hits there were also misses.

Build Community
This is key. I’ve been good in spots at this through my career. I am very good at developing a small group dynamic, but trash at fostering a class dynamic that reflects the positive aspects of the small group dynamic. I foster a culture of competition, but I want it to be like golfing where everyone likes each other but wants to win. It is like the NFL where it is fiercely tribal and some teams stay away from others always.

Call these my three opening commandments for effective teaching and learning.

Some Thoughts:

1. Jam of the day: Wus Poppin
2. Creepy image of the day: The Ghost of the Stanley Hotel. Feels faked.

If the Packers join the Chiefs in the super bowl it will be a repeat of the very first Super Bowl, which is to say that is crazy. Perhaps that is the NFL reflecting on 100 yrs a little too hard? A little too convenient? Hard to say, but yeah. It feels fixed. Meanwhile I feel like I am back on the verge of doing things again. I have spent a good amount of the weekend researching and thinking about creative writing from a teaching and a programming perspective. I find myself in a position to actually get things done, make a difference, and forge connections. I also find myself in a position where I have a ton of questions and I do not have the answers to those questions.

Some Thoughts:

1. New computer. New key touch feel. It feels really good. Nothing tops a mac.
2. I have reached the end of the Elementary show. Yes, weekends are for binge watching. I deeply enjoyed seeing elements of that show, but overall it felt rushed. They struggled to touch back on the Moriarty angle and added several story elements that were not successfully wrapped up. Not a fan of seeing shows end, but if they end well…
3. Speaking of not ending well, Arrow. Nuff said.
4. On to the Crisis! It changed everything for all of the shows and I find it really interesting that they managed to pull a 5 show retcon and at the same time open the door to crossovers from everywhere. Now we can successfully argue that the DC Movie universe exists in the same multiverse as everything else and that each considers itself earth prime.
5. Oh, and they bringing back swamp thing.

This is the first of three big wrestling tourneys my mid kid is competing in this month. While I am supposed to be excited, I am instead quite annoyed. See, he is not a person who takes a ton of responsibility for his own failures, so already I see that he is looking to blame anyone else for him losing. I’ve already had to shut him down on this tourney’s blame cycle–not even being willing to engage in the banter. This is the best way to handle such things. Shut him down and penalize if the conversation continues. I.e. wanna talk more? Okay then we skip the next one. More and more I believe he is not cut out to be an athlete. I don’t know what he is cut out for with that attitude. Perhaps he will grow into a better man based on learning from these experiences. One can only hope.

So, hope is what I will do and discuss here. I’m in a world of hope with little to represent solid footing. I hope I have not irrevocably injured the most important and impactful relationship in my life, though I doubt I even know how to know such things. I hope this new job experience leads to deeper understanding of the writing world and doesn’t just fall to dysfunction and politics (I have the freedom to quit should that occur). I hope I can get on track with my storytelling in a way that reminds me of why I love writing–a way I can feel. I hope I stay on track with my classes.

Lots of hopes light the month of January. Often by February those lights have collapsed into darkness. It happens. I cannot guarantee it won’t happen to me, but the thing about hope is that the flame needs to be fanned. I’m good at hoping; bad at fanning. So, we shall indeed see.

Some Thoughts:

1. Just learned that Harry and wife gave up their royal titles. This is set back for race relations. Sadly, people will blame the black chick for messing everything. It does not matter that this is not at all true, based on what i’ve been reading and what has been said by the people involved. It will be seen as ‘what happens’ when you involve those not like you. Obviously her being an American only makes things worse.

I’m starting over on my fantasy novel come Monday. My sci fi novel is gone for now–lost without backup to the horrors of the apple tech service. I should have been more responsible in making a back up but I was not. Lesson learned. Still, it gives me a chance to focus on a different project where I am not beholden to a shared world and only restricted by the boundaries of my choices and my imagination. This is a good thing. I feel I still have many things to say and explore through writing. I have not yet begun to see the end of the stories I can tell.

Some Thoughts:

1. Very tired. drained emotionally.
2. I can tell on these nights, where my typing is slow and failing and I cannot think straight, that I have little more to offer to the universe in this state and it is best to log off from reality for a while.
3. I used to recharge with minecraft meditations (or actual meditations) but I haven’t in some time. I cannot bring myself to meditate in any form. No idea why.

I own a conundrum of my own making. I need to find out how to get three kids to three different places across the valley (read: multiple cities separated by at least 20 miles) on the same evening once a week. I tend to create these grand scale problems and then drive myself insane attempting to make it all work. It is crazy, yet I do it and I prefer to do it, because I want to give my kids an amazing childhood–in many ways the one I never had.

This is one of my primary responsibilities in life. I have a responsibility to them. I have a responsibility to my partner. More and more I’ve begun to recognize that I have a responsibility to myself. I am no martyr. I want to be happy. Making the people in my life happy is a large part of that. It is important that I discover the rest.

It is equally important to note that I can be happy and usually am happy doing a number of things (coaching, teaching, working with writers, playing video games. Still, those are things I am happy doing as opposed to what fundamentally generates self-happiness.

Is fulfilling my responsibilities what makes me happy within myself? Not entirely. In truth, I don’t know what that internal happiness trigger or fulfillment looks like or how to uncover an answer. I’ve lived surrounded by dark and angry people most of my life and learned but one thing from that: they are fulfilled by anger vs. happiness. I’m not that person at all.

I believe we all fall into darkness. It is what helps us recognize the light. Lately—today specifically—has been a journey deeper into darkness. A bad day to be sure but the kind of bad day it is very hard to come through on the other side unscathed.

I learned about myself in this. I learned that I still get angry, especially when scared. I learned that I carry a lot of guilt and responsibility when it comes to the feelings of others and whatever it is I believe I’ve caused is amplified and strained down into even more anger within myself.

I learned—perhaps just remembered—that I’m not a good partner. That was a tough one, especially on the heels of understanding that I’m not a particularly good dad. I’m not evil. I don’t try to mess up minds and lives. Yet I feel like I don’t always leave the people who matter most feeling better and happier after encountering me.

now this could just be a bad day. This could also be something larger. This could be me stumbling into a greater realization about myself. It is on this particular day that I am reminded of an old film where the protagonist looks around at the destruction he’s caused and says in realization, “I’m the bad guy?”

well, I suppose I am. I don’t take the feelings of those who matter most into account when I should and the result is constantly catastrophic. Not too many people are good at sticking around when what they are sticking to is a catastrophe. Who’d blame them for leaving. In fact that is part of why it is so easy to wonder if they feel trapped by circumstance.

life has fed me a particularly difficult day at the end of a very long few weeks and I’m left to ponder the fact that I and I alone cooked the meal I’m being fed.

some thoughts:

1. in many ways the blog remains my tether to writing right now.

My computer informed me that I may have been hacked through an app or site and should immediately change my password to this specific blog. I didn’t. Truly, I should. It would be a shame to lose all of the material I have accumulated over the years. At the same time, I feel that the journey is equally important as the product. In fact in some ways a solid journey outweighs the product. Lately my writing has been mostly product–not great product at that. There is a hole in the words that reflects a lack of passion and attention to the life. I felt it, in a way, when I went back to the classroom. In class I felt the rush of excitement of building these new relationships and discovering what these students were capable of. I didn’t feel that upon return to my novel. Instead I felt the weight of the task and more than a little sense of impending doom.

As I said recently, there is a how-to book in all of this somewhere.

I’m in the midsts of a great period of growth and the weight of all of it is folding in around me in a way that seems to be pressing against the most important and most fragile parts of my life–the parts of understanding vs. action. That is where the words have slipped away like a coin lost to the folds of the couch. At the same time I feel a certainty that I can grow from this and that I will grow from this.

This is the first day of the rest of my life and yours. This is the day we start living our idyllic lives—the day we all take notice of the beauty that is the possibilities of life. Or maybe it isn’t.

I can honestly say that I’ve had more good times than bad and more highs than lows. I can argue that the lows helped to frame the good; the losses gave meaning to the wins. I say this because I fear that most of us try to make it through the day without stopping to reflect on the beauty that is the opportunity to have a day. We are blessed with senses and yet we often find ourselves more angry and despondent than those less blessed. We allow ourselves to be ruled by negative emotions and by the people who stand to gain from such negativity.

can you believe we are having real conversations about the possibility of a world war or a civil war right here? Can you believe that people are not even slightly interested in seeing how they are being manipulated?

I can. We often don’t want to see what we ought to. Tomorrow I start my research class and it is one that focuses on these ideas. It is designed to help recognize cognitive bias but I feel it needs an ending that reflects on what happens if we don’t and what good could happen if we do.

I’ll start to put that together in the morning and I can’t be more excited about bringing it to my class.

So, it begins again.

The things about being a teacher is that it is a sprint. It is a 16 week sprint where you start with a burst and try then to speed up until you push past the finish line. I’m lowering into the blocks (or whatever strange metaphor you’d use for the start of such things).

Some Thoughts:

1. The struggle is real in terms of getting into ‘writer mode’. I’ve been having a really hard time pushing myself to put words to paper beyond this blog and it really does make me question myself as a writer. I want to believe all writers go through such things. I don’t know that it is true.
2. It is not a matter of not having time. I watch a lot of tv and I play video games when possible. I don’t know if it is fear or lack of desire or fear of success or fear of failure or any number of things.
3. Here is what I suspect: What I am (and have been) going through is not isolated. I feel like there are books on such things already, but if I can break free, I might be in position to write a really good one.
4. I also suspect that a lack of actual paper reading is the cause of a lot of this. I need to move to correct that. Today.

Welcome to one of those steam of consciousness nights where I really have nothing to write about but still feel that the press of keys beneath my fingers makes me writer. A true writer, of course, writes and does the work. I’m writing for these ten minutes. Feels good to write something today. While it has been a chill weekend it also feels like the final approach to the front of the line at the roller coaster. I know things are about to take off and get very crazy. Likewise, I recognize that I’ll soon have a great deal to write about but, realistically, little time to devote to the actual craft. This feels like my lot in life as of late. I am familiar with it and not exactly a fan.

In short, I need to get a better grip on time and life management because neither has offered to wait or slow down for me at all. That leads to the question, what do I want that life to look like day to day? What am I making time for? How are the weekends different from the weekdays? Where is my bliss? I know where I find a great deal of it, but I cannot survive on those sweet moments. I feel as if I need more to sustain me. Now I’m getting very metaphorical and deep, yet not saying anything concrete.

I suppose this is what happens when you start out with nothing to really say.

Some Thoughts:

1. Still not doing the work.
2. Ravens lost. Badly. Turns out the Titans are the real deal–even without any real ability to throw the ball. I think it gives the Giants a legitimate blueprint.
3. I miss Minecraft, but there is nothing to listen to worth playing for.