10 Minute Rule

I went back to work today. My heart is in it, though my brain is still scattered by the extended vacation and I remain terribly unprepared to teach. The good news is that I don’t have to teach just yet. Even better news is that I have the mental and organizational tools to put everything together before the semester begins. The problem with collaborative work isn’t that we all need to be on the same page, it is that we all need to be in the same library. We all are supposed to be pushing towards this common goal, which in education is somewhat undefined. Sure, we are all supposed to be there to help students succeed, but the way we define success and what we feel needs to be done to propel students forward varies tremendously.

I approach teaching from a somewhat selfish standpoint. I want to have fun and enjoy coming to work every day, so I create a learning environment that compels people to be a part of it and to enjoy the process—be it of writing, learning sociology, whatever. It is my goal for students to learn something more than content. I want them to learn how to enjoy the act of learning.

After all, if you like something you keep on doing it.

1. People each have different motivations and some are very myopic in their pursuit of their own motivations. This is a problem when you cannot provide what motivates them, but must find common ground in order to be effective in your role. I encountered this problem in the past and was unable to make it work. Now that I’m dealing with it again, I feel that I’ve matured to the point where I know when to speak and when to shut up and listen. It doesn’t solve the problem even a little, but my silence keeps the problem from getting worse.
2. At some point the kids all dressing in a particular fashion, be it the kids with the baseball caps with flat brims or what have you, must realize that they are not being individuals. In truth, they are aligning themselves as part of a specific subculture, which is neither small nor defining. All the look says is where you shop and what you think the collective idea cool is supposed to look like. By dressing the way we dress, by following talismans all we are doing is strengthening the predictive models. We are responding to programming from some more dominant ideology and allowing a merchant entity to capitalize on that and often predict through mathematical models what we are going to do, want, or like next.
3. Chick Fil A tastes wonderful. My stomach is going to swell like a dead thing in the sun. So much for dieting…

I said sometime last year (or before) that if you do something long enough you become known for it. I have been an average to below average teacher for about four years now. I feel like the teaching version of A-Rod: getting a good paycheck and sucking. It is worse when I visit other teachers and watch how they explode into the classroom with such a wealth of knowledge and determination that I practically feel inadequate sharing space with them. I suppose the same applies to some of my writing. I recently finished working on an anthology with some top shelf authors and I feel like my writing, though decent, wasn’t the best in the book. It should’ve been. Everything we do as individuals should be better than the last thing we did, because once we peak it is only downhill from there.

Diagnosing the problem is tough, but I can look to a series of factors that I’ve gone over ad nauseum on this blog. Kids, Time (see kids), Motivation. Like the good Bob says, “Accept the things you cannot change and have the courage to change the things you can.” I’ve worked out a lot about time management through this blog, spending almost a year of writing dancing around that issue. Now motivation can be summed up more easily: You need to find it in yourself to want to make the effort to be the best and turn on that switch that says ‘One Step Further’. We all have the switch, though it is usually buried deep within that hoarders lair we call a mindscape. I can see it within me, sometimes just out of reach. The key is putting the effort into self efficacy so that you can navigate the crowded caverns of your own psyche to find and finally flip that dang switch.

I’m still working on it, I suppose. But I am getting closer.

Some Thoughts:

1. I joined the modding culture of Xbox 360, albeit briefly. I wanted to create a mod guy that would allow me to level up other players, thus skipping the tough “learn to play and earn your stripes” grind that I should be teaching my kids, but am not. There is a balance of sorts there. I modded up to the point where the other characters I legitimately earned up are, so we have the opportunity to switch characters and I can play that fill-in role where needed. In other words, I am making poor excuses for being a cheater at video games. 

I believe in ghosts. There have been too many experiences in my life for me to remain a disbeliever. However, I cannot understand at this point why anyone would believe without seeing due to the absolutely terrible attempts at falsification of paranormal evidence. I’m not talking about the low-budget YouTube stuff. I’m talking about the financed and televised hoaxes peppering A&E and SyFy. The stuff coming out these days is terrible. It is so bad that I feel insulted as a viewer.

The A&E show that has me so disgusted is a poopfest called American Haunting. The show feels like a seven year old watched Paranormal Activity, showed it to her producer parents who said, “yeah, let’s go with that.” The show attempts to persuade you that the family of the episode is being haunted and cameras are stations around the house for 11 days to catch evidence. What you end up with is a terribly and amateurishly staged hoax that doesn’t even attempt to look real. This show may single handedly remove any few believers in the idea of the paranormal.

If you want to make a disbeliever feed them a steady diet of hoaxes to the point where they’ve been so moved to disbelief that a ghost must actually slap them in the face for them to believe a ghost is real.

As I write this I am coming down from a 24 hr caffeine high. I was on the road for 12 hrs a day doing nothign but driving, scribbling notes, and listening to audio books–all of this in a caffeinated haze with no food. There were niblets, ofc rouse, but nothing thart would constitue a meal. Food isn’t the issue. This is a blog about the value of spednign time by yourself.

I spent the day on the road. 12+ hours of driving through the midwest trying to reach home. I left around 9 AM and finally pulled in for the night at 11 at a Motel 6 that, even by the standards of the workers, was ridiculously crowded. My first job was to settle in and relax. I flipped through HBO to Picasso Baby, Jay-Z’s strange attempt to merge rap with modern performance art. It felt pretentious–especially when he connected with a woman who I recognized as an actual performance artist. I later learned there were several artists and actors and art dealers and rappers and musicians in attendance who all seemed to feel that this moment he created had intense meaning. I suppose these learned individuals would be better judges than I in the general sense, but to ask me as an individual, this was cool and exciting, but it did not take rap to any higher level of art form–no matter if Wale and Fab 5 Freddy are there to bridge the history and culture of the medium or not.

I took off my Jawbone Up to take a shower and settled it into the charger. What I didn’t do was take it with me when I left for the airport. Now a feel like a man who just left his kid at the mall. In what felt like a week the Up became an integral part of my daily routine. I came to rely on the on the familiar buzz of inactivity every 15 minutes I sat idle. I’d even grown to believe the buzz could be of service to me on this roadtrip, prodding me to stay awake as day passed into night and the hours of mid-America highway travel grew tedious. No such luck it seems. We grow to rely on these things we carry. As one author once wrote, they come to define us, creating meaning, symbolism, even separation in our lives.

I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about the Eagles and Chip Kelly, primarily to help jumpstart my 8-9yr old Jets Flag offense (My kid decided to go big green today). As I was reading today I discovered this link. Ruh Roh, Rorge. Riley Cooper, a talented and dedicated wideout has officially dunked his foot in his mouth. To his credit we have no idea of the context. From what this link says, and from his speech at that link, he may have been referring to an African American security guard that wouldn’t let him backstage.

Riley, you play in the NFL. Do you know what that stands for? Seriously though, he ought to be grateful to the once and powerful Paula Deen for falling on the racial sword not too long ago. He may be able to survive this. I don’t know how to take it, and I don’t know that I am someone who should have a role in ‘taking it’. I’ll say it again: Freedom of Speech is a zero-sum game. If someone wants to make an offensive comment–no matter the context–they have a right to do so. As an employee of a visible and highly recognized organization, they should recognize that despite this freedom, people also have the right to hate on you the moment you unclench your jaw.

Here’s what I think of Riley Cooper: He is a pure athlete who was drafted as a baseball player out of high school and could start at wideout on a dozen or more teams in the league. He is a tough guy with a knack for getting open and making tough catches. He isn’t a 16 game guy, but he’ll give you a solid 9 or 10. I don’t care about the rest as a fan, because he isn’t the kind of racist person that goes around trying to defame an entire people. He ain’t no Nugent.

The most frightening thing for many writers is the blank page. The more I say this in class, the more writers disagree with me, until, that is, they are asked to go back to their stories after receiving concrete criticism. Once doubt enters your mind, the blank page becomes a jungle, a hellscape, a terrible enemy to face down in the dark. The only way to beat back the demon is to face it head on. The only way to conquer the blank page is to write down everything that is presently in your mind and force your mind to reach for more. When you run out of words to write you have two choices: Quit or go find some more inspiration to fill it. You’d be surprised how many writers choose to quit.

Some Thoughts:

1. Florida ought to consider a new motto. Perhaps something like, Florida: The Only Thing More Plentiful Than Our Cockroaches Are The Number Of Unarmed Black Folks Shot Per Year.
2. Baseball is a statistically amazing game. I’m looking forward to seeing my middle kid getting back into it.
3. I’m looking forward to watching all three race up and down the pitch every saturday for soccer.
4. Most of all, I’m looking forward to them going back to school and me getting back to some serious writing. Them stories are a brewin.
5. I’ll blog about the whole Up situation soon, but short form: Up works. I love it and it helps me to recognize where my weaknesses are and how to focus to correct them.

A friend from college is putting together a blog on the value of writing spaces. It made me think about the work I did to paint the creativity (accent) wall and the value of that as well as my space. Just the indication he’d be writing a post reminded me that my work is not done yet. In fact, I need to seriously sweeten the pot in there in order to make that place into my sanctuary. Writers need a retreat. We need a place that belongs to us and houses the mania that would otherwise reside in our heads. We need a place that inspires and separates us from the real world by connecting us to a world that is utterly and completely enchanting.

I suppose where I failed in my space creation (and thusly as a writer) is by staying within the lines in my creations. Kurt Vonnegut said, “You cannot be a good writer of serious fiction if you are not depressed.” I am not depressed, and given that I am not the depressive type, writing serious fiction requires a space that invokes all styles and levels of emotion.

Some Thoughts:

1. The Wolverine is filled with terribly written characters and acting more suited to Sunday mornings on Disney XD. Still, I enjoyed the heck out of it. I especially appreciated the bit after the credits.
2. Vince Vaughn is done. His brief and reputable moment in the spotlight was enjoyable, but he isn’t the type to be able to lead a movie–especially a stupid one.

Not a whole lot left in the tank tonight. I am trying my darndest to just stay awake and hack out the last few keystrokes. A lot of stuff going on this week and it serves as the perfect reamp up to the start of the school year. I’d be more excited, but I’m too tired.