Thoughts of the Life of Michelle

2011-03-27T23:07:00.002-04:00

My mind can't keep up with my thoughts, or maybe my thoughts can't keep up with my heart. Or it is possible they are all aligned with one another but they are just racing as fast as my 120bpm heart rate.

There is so much going on, so many places I am supposed to be and things I'm supposed tobe doing, thoughts I'm supposed to be thinking and emotions that I should be feeling. You would think I would be anesthestized by overwhelmedness now but the numb sensation hasn't yet set in. Neither has the sharp sting of reality either though, so I'm uncomfortably squirming in the inbetween of doped existence and painful over-being ...

It is bedtime. More to come on a day when I am recovered. 3/27/11.

2011-01-19T23:15:00.002-05:00

Mother Nature your cold winter
Drips its irony on the battered ground
As your snowy tears melt lazily
From the heights of rooftops
Running without haste toward gravity
Pulled inexplicably downward
Destined for the freefall but
Hindered in the glistening loneliness
Of the crystallized descent
So bright, so beautiful,
Yet burdening the metal gutters
A piercing beauty that forbids
Most tears from reaching their destination
The ground below shivers and waits
In fear and anticipation
Of the icicle.

2011-01-11T20:00:00.002-05:00

Well, at least it has been less than a year since I've written! New year, time to jot some thoughts down. Because I have five minutes to, and when's the last time I had five minutes?

Ben is in kindergarten now. He absolutely loves it, and he's doing well. He's a little bit of a trouble maker, behavioriwse, but he's a smart kid. He can read well and has a crazy understanding of mathematics. So I am not terribly concerned. Josh is his happy 3 year old self. We had a nanny at the beginning of the school year. That didn't work out so well, and Paychex is much to blame for all of that, but we have moved on to daycare.

I'm teaching an AWESOME AP Music Theory class this year. I have never had more fun as a teacher, and I don't know that I ever will again. The kids are witty and a heck of a lot of fun. I love the class. There are 12 students - Kyle, Nick T, Nick B, Eric, Katie, Brandi, Amelia, Anna, Lizzi, Dan, Marybeth, and Mya. There, I put all their names down so I will never forget who made my life so enjoyable. They are just wonderful.

Kathy Wakeman is a new teacher (took Darla's job) part time, and she is also teaching a section of Explorations in Music. Andy is teaching a section of guitar this year too. We also have a new orchestra teacher, Anna Clement, and she is doing wonderful things with the strings program.

Rick's job got changed slightly this year so he has late arrival - he goes in about an hour late, and has to stay after school to do an AIS tutoring thing. It is working out well for us this year, and we just keep praying that he has a full time job year after year.

As for me - I'm doing just splendidly. I'm anticipating my next St. Bernard's class which begins this Friday, though I have to be at a jazz concert at BHS instead. (Oh, and now I am accompanying Liz's choir - that is new this year, I used to accompany Darla's chorus). Let's see, last year in the spring I took the classes Themes in the Hebrew Bible (with Prof. Prem) and Orientation to Theological Studies (with Dr. Stosur). In the summer session I studied Greek (Dr. Heyman), Minor Prophetic Writings (Prem) and Thomas Merton (Dr. Bochen - the lady who edited collections of his writings!). Merton was an especially great course. This fall, I took Intro to New Testament (Heyman) and Psalms (Prem). Now, I am only going to be taking one class this semester - I needed to calm my life down a little - so I am talking Classics of Christian Spirituality (Ella Johnson). I'm really looking forward to it.

Life rushes at us at ten million miles per minute. Church has consumed a lot of my life, especially since the church was robbed right before Christmas. I was interviewed by channel 10, my 2 seconds of fame!

Hopefully I will have time to write more often. :) Peace to all in this new year.

2010-01-25T23:09:00.002-05:00

Maybe it's time to ask the doctor for happy pills. Or beg the sun to shine again and the days to get longer. Or maybe its just time to stop consuming so much chocolate. Though the chocolate high is beautiful, the crash is so deep.

What is going on with me? I am so distraught, I feel like I'm in the wrong place in my life. I hope this is just hormones. I am exceptionally lonely, all the time. I feel like I'm not fulfilling my purpose in life. I have no desire to get up and go to work in the morning. Truly, there are five things I love, and look forward to. They are:

1) Spending time with Rick
2) Spending time with the boys
3) Reading
4) Taking my classes at St. Bernard's
5) Eating

I don't have much desire to practice, neither flute nor piano. I just sit and think ALL the time. So much, that I feel like its almost becoming destructive. During my every-other-day-90-minute-planning I just stare. Thinking about Haiti, thinking about church, thinking about all the drug problems that my students have, thinking about what I wish I could do with my life, thinking about my children, thinking about money, thinking about not having a best friend close by (other than Rick of course). I miss Jess. That's huge. I can't tell you (dear blog) how many times I've wanted to pick up the phone to call her and just get advice, talk, ask her to meet me at Eastview ... only to realize I can't do any of that.

I am so grateful for Rick. But the days at school are long, and sometimes (like tonight) when I get home he's too tired to talk or listen, and I am still alone. Ten million thoughts, all smashed up inside my little brain and they will keep me awake all night.

Thoughts like - why do we believe we were saved by Christ? Saved from what? Ourselves? Our potential to sin? Our society's sin? But isn't it through a reflection on sin that we have the potential to be better people, especially in understanding and relating to the sin we see around us? Why would a God want to save creation from itself, a creation that was made by God in the first place? I realize this is a pretty huge Christian concept I'm struggling with here. But I have no where else to jot down these tiny beginnigs of my thoughts.

Sometimes I feel like I am truly going crazy. Because I can't stop thinking, because I can't stop caring, because I can't stop remembering, because I just can't stop. Searching. For truth, for answers, for this feeling of loneliness to disappear. Am I manic depressive? Or just hormonal? Or should I just stop consuming entire bags of Lindt truffles, followed by chocolate brownies and ice cream and a niagara chocolate bar?

I may regret posting this. I don't like to post when I sound like a crazy person. But dear blog, you've been here for me for years now. So I'll write these thoughts to read on a day when I will certainly be happier.

2010-01-20T10:09:00.001-05:00

Haiti Earthquake

2010-01-19T19:46:00.002-05:00

I am consumed with helplessness. What am I doing wrong, and how do I change my life? I watch the news stories and stare at the pictures of the devastation in Haiti from the 7.2 Earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince. I want to be there, helping, however I can. I keep giving our money away to organizations because I understand that its the only practical thing I can do at the moment. But I look at the pictures of the doctors, of the red cross, of missions organizations and I wonder ... why am I not there? How come I am not one of those people struggling to save lives, working to give people hope .... why am I here at my solid wood table on my patterened tile floor in my 74 degree house, full after an organic salad dinner and a home cooked cheeseburger?

Believe me, I want to give my children a good life. I want them to grow up safely, happily, intelligently. But I never want them to forget how lucky we are, and how well off we are. One of the clearest memories from my childhood was this discovery book that I had when I was about 7. I remember that on one page you got to use a spinner, and when you spun it, it would land on a country. It showed that you only had a marginal percent chance of being born in a wealthy country, much less the United States. Once you landed on your country, it showed you how much rice the average person in that country got to eat in one day. I couldn't fathom how kids only ate a small bag of rice every day. I also didn't understand how I got to be so lucky that God "put" me in my little, stable home in Greece, NY.

I'm not so ignorant that I think there aren't homeless, poor, and struggling people all around me. But the day to day trials of American life seem less comprehensible when I see such devastation, such hopelessness in countries like Haiti, Rwanda, Sudan, Gaza ... you name it.

I am a smart person, I am talented, and I am comfortable. All I want to do is give the same to someone who has nothing. I wish I could give something to many people. I want them to know happiness, health, safety, good life. How, how do I do this?

I don't know where to start. Part of my problem is time. There is just never enough time, and I don't know what to cut out. The other beautiful stumbling block is my children - I need to sacrifice this overwhelming drive to do mission work so that I can take care of my children. I know there are those of you who would say "bring them with you!" but I can't take Ben far because of his health issues. He would not survive many places with his restricted diet and severe food complications.

I took Ben to Wegmans and we bought food for the "poor" people. I told him about Haiti and we prayed for the people. How can else can I get my children involved?

I would adopt an orphan, a true orphan, from Haiti. Right now though, the orpahn program is a mess because they don't know who is a true orphan and who is just not yet reuinified with their parents since the earthquake occurred. But I read stories, some from local people with real family members in Haiti, about how their family members are working at orphanages in Haiti and how the kids that survived are sleeping in the streets right now. How come those people are there, and not me?

I end up sitting and staring. Frustrated and helpless and confused. I don't know why these things happen to people. I understand that its a natural occurrence, and my own beliefs in God lead me to understand that God does not "cause" these things to happen to people. God's world works the way it is intended to, with logic, order, and natural law. I respect that, and its the most understandable function of God that I can comprehend. It is still not "fair" and still so frustrating.

I've typed a whole heck of a lot. I will probably do some laundry now, in my basement (not at a river) with hot and cold water (that I don't even worry about the number of gallons), and the number of clothes I wash won't even make a dent in the total number of clothes that we have. Wealth, it is all around us and sometimes I just feel empty.

2009-12-13T00:28:00.002-05:00

Late night thoughts ...
Last minute limitations

Cautiously approaching
Carefree and comfortable ...

Retreat from vulnerability!
Run and remember!

((Strings still witholding
Sentiment and safety

Tearing me away from
Trust and temptation))

::Break me free ==whispers, please==
Bury whats broken::

2009-11-13T22:20:00.002-05:00

If you will, for a minute, allow me to use my blogger space to jot some preliminary thoughts down (opening paragraph) about a theme from Isaiah that I would like to hash out and turn in to a paper for my Major Prophetic Writings course.

No kingdom has ever existed without its constituents. A ruler, a place, and a time account for nothing without the people who come together to form its being. From ancient times through the present, the familiar phrase "Kingdom of God" has stirred visions of a glorious gathering of individuals joined together in an ultimate utopia. Inseparable from this vision is its perpetual immanence, a never-present yet always forthcoming future. This anticipation has inspired hope in countless generations of believers who wait in expectation for a day ruled by God's righteousness and justice. The danger in future expectations, however, is the tendency to allow complacency and indolence to settle in the present. It is precisely this moral torpor that the ancient prophets addressed so fervently. In specific, the concept of God's Righteous Kingdom is woven thematically throughout the book of Isaiah. Initially offered as hope for an alternate and more favorable existence, Isaiah skillfully brings the reader to the realization that God's Kingdom is not merely a distant possibility. It is achievable in the present, because the constituents of the Kingdom are the living. To build a righteous kingdom, the people must also become righteous. Thus, as members of that eternal kingdom, Isaiah offers contemporary believers both hope and wisdom to those who will accept the call to lead a righteous life.

2009-10-27T22:57:00.002-04:00

Ohhhh to read. I wish I could just spend my life reading. In a library, preferrably. The Rush Rhees library on the University of Rochester campus is just absolutely incredible. It is a maze, to begin with, and the elevators are like something out of a horror movie. But when you get to 500m, the beginning of the Divinity section ... wow! Its like an escape to a whole new world. And you can hole yourself up in a corner with a great view of the world from up high, surrounded by cozy books at a solid, old wood table.

My problem is not just with theology books however, though I am admittedly obsessed with the Prophets right now. My book addiction has spilled over into the books I recently purchased for school, all about different teaching strategies and types of classrooms. I've spent my planning periods, lunches, and advisement time during the last couple of days just reading these books. I don't get my planning done (until obviously late at night), I don't get papers graded, I don't get my house cleaned ...

I just read. And I love it.

::sigh:: I am so glad my darling husband lets me read. I mean that in all sincerity.

On a completely different note, I am the mother of a lovely five year old now. Where did that time go? Ben turned five on Saturday and he had a great birthday party, complete with a pinata! He got just what he was hoping for (a blue umbrella) along with some legos, fifty million things from the inlaws, a motorized train, and some other odds and ends. My little lego boy is growing up.

Okay ... so I need to make sure I don't pick up one of the books I just came home from the library with. Because too much else awaits (sleep maybe? One of these hours?) ...

2009-10-21T23:00:00.002-04:00

Life is faster than the speed of light. I've decided that we should call it "The Speed of Life" (enter million dollar trademark symbol here), this woooooooosh sensation that happens when all of the sudden you say "wait, where'd the time go?"

I've been out of work since last Friday night with the flu. Possibly the dreaded "swine" flu, though the doctor won't be sure until the labs come back. I'm hoping it is H1N1, (swine flu), because then I don't have to worry about it anymore. I've been very afraid of this disease, particularly since Ben and I have egg allergies and can't get the flu vaccines. If this flu is "the big one" and I've survived and we've gotten Ben through it on TamiFlu, then I will thank God repetitively.

Yet here I am, a year from the last time I was truly sick, again contemplating death, and the significance of life. As I've sat through my classes on Monday and Tuesday nights (Major Prophetic Writings and Theology of the Trinity, respectively) I've just been blown away with the enormity of life. I sit here overwhelmed at the prospect of even beginning to jot my thoughts down because they are so many and so tangential to one another. Perhaps the most looming thought, the ever present thought that seems of even greater importance now is - what is it that I am supposed to be doing with my life? I feel like I keep picking up on these little hints, but that my purpose here has not truly been revealed yet. Two truths need to be told: When I began this journey at St. Bernards, in my heart I approached it in cofidence with the purpose of confirming for myself that Christianity truly is superficial and that there is so much "more" to God. I know that seems ironic considering my second profession as a music minister, but things just never made logical sense to me - the Bible, the mythological telling of resurrection, the whole Christmas story ... Well, in my short time there I've come to find the arguments for Christianity to be much more compelling than I ever imagined, and the "more" is so much more of a more than I could've ever created in my tiny brain. I do not feel that I am being brainwashed, quite the opposite. I believe myself to be a true skeptic, and I present that way for certain in the midst of the company I have at St. Bernards. At first my goal was the search for truth. That will always remain my goal but I see a new one forming ... the search for purpose. Not an existentialist "why am I here" purpose, but rather a "how do I fill my role" purpose. Look at our great leaders ... Jesus, Gandhi, MLK, Mother Theresa .... they were people of action. Truth, yes, but also people of action. I think that is my next level.

The second truth to be told is that I am the happiest person in the world as a student again. Every day I thank Rick for letting me go "back" to school, and while I am in classes I feel like I just swell with excitement and gratitude just for being there. I have never been happier to write a paper, to anticipate class, to hear other peoples' thoughts, to pay attention to every detail the professor speaks, to read every word of every assignment. It is beautiful. This is where I am meant to be.

Now I have typed much longer than I intended, and much less cohesively than I had hoped. At least I got something down. I am hoping that I feel recovered tomorrow, and that Rick (who is sick tonight) heals quickly. Please pray that my boys stay in good health - it is very important.

Peace.

2009-08-03T21:57:00.002-04:00

Woahhhh crazy world I stepped into today!!

I'm taking at summer week-long class at Eastman called "Music Librarianship: Binding and Conservation / Preservation". Not only have I always loved libraries, and the Sibley library in specific, but I thought the knowledge I gain could help me in maintaining and caring for my own personal rare book collection.

What an experience!!! Only two people, myself being one, registered for the course as students. There are five other people who actually work for the library that join the class as time permits them. So what does this mean? That Alice Carli (I wonder if she ever was excited about how many letters her names share ... I think that's neat ...), head conservator of one of the most reknowned music libraries in the world .... is working individually with MOI for most of the day! How incredible!

I learned so much just today that I am too overwhelmed to type it all. (Truth). Two main thrills of today: She asked what I was interested in, so I of course told her Satie and Hindemith. She led me to books by both of these composers, took them off the shelf, brought them back to the workshop area, and proceeded to rip them out of the binding!! We completely took apart (I mean, page by page apart) Hindemith's "Craft of Musical Composition Vol 1., have run it through a scanner, and reprinted it. Over the course of this week, I am going to be sewing a new binding on it, completely binding it ... and then I get to keep it!

We also learned how to "guard" a book. Again, a reprinted book, cut up, and we pasted the pages overlapping so that they guard the safety of the binding ... uuuhhh there is just so much to explain I can't do this justice on a blog.

Just know this is amazing. What phenomenal adventures lie in our own backyard. Tomorrow, I believe we are making pamphlets. Not just little handouts like you get at church. Real bound, sewn together, music books of small size.

Which means I should go to bed now. I barely sat at all today. This is the most like an "apprenticeship" I have ever experienced. Awesome life, .... awesome.

2009-07-27T02:08:00.002-04:00

I do NOT like clams.

After filling my fridge today with approximately 400 clams, I discovered this incontestible truth. Please don't ever ask me to take home your clams. Please don't ever feel like I would be a good friend to have at a clam bake. I do NOT like clams.

2009-07-25T23:01:00.002-04:00

Sometimes it amazes me how much we change over time, and sometimes I'm amazed at how little we change ...

There are pieces of myself that have remained the same for years. Sometimes they surface and have to be subdued. Perhaps it is only our most radical qualities that stay lively and immutable over time, those unique facets of our character that resist the oppression of assimilation ...

Time is moving so quickly. A plethora of changes could consume this blog post, but I feel unmotivated to update with the daily routine of life. Actually, the initiative behind this post was to settle my mind before I attempt to fall asleep.

So many images of who I want to be float through my head. The unfortunate reality of these images is that many of them have been floating for years. Thin, athletic, pretty, important, published, humble, respected, forging through the unknown, creative, a leader ... somebody. Does my character reflect superficially because I listed physical things first? I'd have to say that those are the easiest tangible aspects of self that I can define and visualize. Its the rest that are harder to express in words. Some of the latter things, I am, but not in the way I am visualizing.

Depressed, sad, nostalgic? Not exactly. Actually, if I could best describe how I feel it would be "without control". Not out-of-control, because that implies something intense tinged with a little bit of irrational insanity. No, I'm just being introspective about the movement of time and its effect on my life and my seeming inability to effectively shape my person within the passing of time.

I think that's all for now. But there is no such thing as "now". There is only past and future, and in all honesty, I'm skeptical about "future". All in perspective but I have this lingering suspicion that all is truly past ...

Goodnight.

2009-06-25T23:38:00.003-04:00

Time to blog. What is the grand occasion? The death of Michael Jackson.

I've never felt shocked before over the death of any celebrity. I guess I just didn't expect MJ to die, not any time soon.

My first MTV video was "Bad". I must've been only about 4 or 5 - and I remember how upset my mom was when she found out dad was letting us watch it.

He was definitely a weirdo, and he may have done not so good things to children. His music, however, certainly changed the face of rock/pop. You can't deny his talent.

I feel like I'm passing an age here ... children born after today will only know Michael Jackson as a music star who lived before their day. How weird!

It also happens that tomorrow is my last day of school. I am psyched for summer, I really am. But I really had a great year, and I met a lot of great people. I branched out a lot this year. I'm going to miss some of those people, a lot, over the summer. I guess it gives me a reason to look forward to going back in the fall.

Short post for the night, but there it is. Goodbye, Michael Jackson.

2009-05-24T23:06:00.002-04:00

Is it a trend that I only blog when people are sick? Rick has been ill all day today, hardly moved from the couch. We've had Ben in to the doctor because his asthma has flared up, so he's on stronger meds again. I'm trying to hold out - tomorrow is Memorial Day and I have to go play at church early in the morning.

The big dilemma in my head today is whether to send Ben to kindergarten next year, or to wait a year. He was born in October, so technically, even though he'll only be 4, he can start school. Here is what I'm thinking, about putting him in next year:

PROS:

He won't be bored next year
We will pay less in daycare
He gets to stimulate his mind and learn more quickly
He will go to kindergarten with some of his friends from daycare

CONS:

He only weighs 33 pounds. Joshua weighs 30. Ben is also really short. If we give him another year, maybe he won't be so shrimpy. (Maybe he will be)
He is still so allergic to foods. Maybe if we give him another year, he will start to outgrow some?? Or even if not, he'll have another year to learn how to handle being allergic to foods on his own.
He's not excited to go to kindergarten. I know this may seem stupid, but mom said I was ready and wanted to go. Ben says he doesn't want to go, and that he just wants to go back to preschool next year. Maybe he needs another year to mature into readiness?
Most of my friends' kids are going in the 2010 school year, so if we wait, he'll be able to go with them.
I don't know if this is a con or not, but if we put Ben in next year, there will be 3 years (school years) between him and Josh. If we hold him off, it will only be 2 years, which is definitely closer to the way they behave and act at home.

So ... this is what I am pondering.

In other thoughts, I only have to survive 13 more school days. This summer can not come quickly enough, and then it needs to seem to drag on. That would be beautiful, to have a summer that drags on.

Okay, I'm trying really hard to stay healthy. Alarm will go off at 6:15 tomorrow for church. Time to try to get the youngest in his crib, and put myself to bed. Goodnight!!!

2009-05-07T21:50:00.002-04:00

::Pshew::

Have you ever taken a yo-yo, and let it fall to its full length, and then spun it? After you stop spinning it, there is a point in its unwinding where it begins to spin faster and faster and faster ...

That's May.

Rick is in Washington DC at the moment with his 8th graders. I hope he is having fun, even though he told me yesterday he felt sick.

Every night of the week I've had obligations. Ever single night, and they've kept me out of the house until 9, every night. God bless all the single mothers out there, I don't know how they do it.

Mom says I need to learn how to say no. What could I say no to? What do I give up? Monday night I had to go to St. Bernards for a course for church - one I was supposed to take 2 years ago, before they even let me work. Tuesday night I went to karate. I suppose I could've chosen not to do that, but it is my only physical activity. Yesterday night was choir rehearsal, tonight I had the choice of karate or liturgy committee and obviously I had to do the latter. Tomorrow, after school I am accompanying all state auditions. So ... I just take a big breath and dive.

My boys are growing. It is so beautiful to watch them grow. I am sorry that I have been so busy last week, this week, next week ... soon I know I will have to quit something, so that I can let them live their lives and fill up their evenings.

I'm looking in to taking some summer courses. Not courses that I have to take, small courses that I want to take. Possibly two at Eastman, possibly two at St. Bernards.

There is also another big, thoughtful thing weighing on my mind, but the post time is not right. And no, I'm not pregnant again. At least, not that I know of ...

Alright well I've gotta get the munchkins to bed. They resist so well.

Peace.

2009-03-25T22:12:00.002-04:00

Torn and tired
Fighting and fatigued
Hopeless and hidden
Indecisive and intrigued.

Desire and decision
Anger and anticipation
Brevity and boldness
Futility and frustration.

Love and laughter
Separation and space
Obsession and order
Guilt and grace.

Tomorrow and yesterday
For years and no time
But never and always
Reality vs. Sublime.

2009-03-08T21:48:00.002-04:00

Where has all the money gone?

Well, I'm stopping in for my brief once-monthly posting. As I was flipping out over our current money status today, I decided it would be a good day to do taxes. Well, no dice. This is the first year I can ever remember actually owing the government money. That sucks. It was not what I had planned for.

I need to do some serious budget restriction to get us into financial shape. We're not at the point yet where we're counting how many carrotts we can grow to make sure we don't starve, but our finances aren't so hot right now.

I remember feeling this way at the same time last year. The big difference was, we had a big tax return. We don't have that this year.

Let's see, in other news, here's what's coming up this month:

3/11 - We go to see David Cook live at Brockport college!!!!
3/14 - We party it up St. Patrick's day style with Jenny and Adam
3/21 - Josh's second birthday!
3/27 - My second (and final, I believe) observation for the year

Many other busy things going on as well, but those are the highlights. Well, hopefully next time I write there are some dollars in the bank ... any would be good ..

2009-02-02T00:06:00.002-05:00

What a weekend!

All three of my boys (Rick, Josh, and Ben) have the stomach flu. So they have been throwing up, diarrhea, etc, all weekend! I am trying so hard not to come down with it. I have done two things this weekend that broke records:

I cleaned up the most vomit I've ever seen in my life
I've washed my hands more times during this weekend than I've washed my hands this entire year combined.

Good records, eh?

Well, what was good was the Superbowl Game. 43. Steelers vs. Cardinals. The last 3 minutes were especially intense, as one team would surpass the other and then back again. Unforunately, I had to eat the potato skins with cheese and bacon all by myself, and my calzones will have to wait until tomorrow.

Last night, while I was up every hour taking care of the boys, I decided to watch Gandhi, the movie. It was very interesting. I've always thought of Gandhi as a near-saint type. Although I think he was very much a dedicated peaceful man, my vision of him has changed. I think more than anything he knew how to manipulate the masses of people. He had a lot of vision, he was good at judging the outcome of actions. However, I am no longer so certain that he was flawless as a person, or necessarily even that I aspire to be like him. (I had, in the past). I am ordering books off of Amazon to read over February break that will hopefully shed some more light on this man.

However, he was an incredible man. I think the person I was inspired to be more like, out of anyone in this movie, was his wife. Bless her.

Okay, more than past bedtime. I'm hoping I make it through the night without getting sick, I really don't want to use any more sick days. Peace, world.

2009-01-20T21:56:00.002-05:00

Forgotten

Sometimes you make me forget
Who I am
I can say anything to you
Without false pretenses.

Sometimes you make me forget
What I was going to say
I look into your eyes
And I lose the words.

Sometimes you make me forget
What else is going on
I think about you
And the day disappears.

Sometimes you make me forget
What my past is
The present is the moment
I hold on to with you.

Sometimes you make me forget
That I'm dreaming.

2008-12-22T23:20:00.002-05:00

Despite the frantic-ness of the season, I have to say this has been the busiest social calendar I've maintained in a long time.

For example:

Friday night, I went to the bar for the Brockport High School Christmas Party. (The bar ate me alive. But it was great).

Saturday night, I went to a co-worker's house for a Christmas Party. It was lovely.

Sunday I went out to dinner with my cousin and her boyfriend, then we saw a concert at the Eastman Theatre.

That's three days in a row of social time. This week will involve more social time and New Years will bring all sorts of people! :) Huzzah.

Random thing of the week: Tomorrow I have to play for a funeral and guess what? It was requested that I both sing and play "Danny Boy". That will be interesting :)

2008-12-16T16:17:00.002-05:00

Today, this was someone's day.

Heard the alarm at about 6:45, hit it once, woke up about 7.
Threw on some clothes, headed out to Tim Hortons, grabbed a cappucino and bagel for breakfast.
Went to work - Brockport high school - taught any easy lesson.
Second period, opened with the kids doing a worksheet, then took them to see the concert in the auditorium.
Third period was planning period, and went to lunch.
Fourth period, opened with the kids doing a worksheet, then took them to see the concert in the auditorium.
Hung out for after school session, locked up, and went home at 3:15.
Nothing to do tonight but watch TV and figure out what's for dinner - hit bed whenever, maybe 9? 10?

But that was not my day. Here was my day.

Heard the alarm at 5:15. Hit it twice, but heard the 1 year old start crying. Got up, scrambled to wash my hair and pick out an outfit, which of course needed to be ironed.
Rush to help get the boys ready for daycare, pop an eggo in the toaster and grab a frozen dinner for a possible lunch.
Fly out of the house, make it to school with enough time to realize that my copies that I need for first period won't get made.
The kids are doing an activity first period which requires my constant attention, support, and supervision. In various practice rooms, the lab, and my room, simultaneously.
Second period, I'm supposed to have 20 minutes to practice before the concert, because it is my planning period, but the ESL kids who are in the concert get sent to be supervised by me. So we talk about their life issues for 20 minutes, head to the concert.
I play piano for the next 40 minutes.
Period three - teach a hectic guitar class with kids who need my attention constantly all period long. It was not an easy period.
Lunch time - finally, 35 minutes to practice for the concert last period. No food, just practice.
Fourth period - I shove that frozen dinner in my face while I explain to the fourth period class that they need to behave during the concert.
We go to the concert, I play piano with nerve racking difficult pieces for 45 minutes.
Bell rings, school is over - grab my coat and the music and head off to the bus because we're going Christmas caroling at the Senior Living home.
Play another concert for the senior living home for 45 minutes, then back on the bus and off to the Care Center at the hospital.
A hectic hour worth of caroling around different floors.
Now its off to Liz's house to drop off 27 kids (she is insane) for a party. The bus driver brings me back to the school so I can clean up my room which I've hardly seen today.
Time to leave, run home, stuff my face with some other food then head to Hamlin for choir practice. It is a big practice, one I spent six hours just taping and highlighting music for on Sunday, but there is more to be done tonight. I'll be there from 5:00 until about 9. Oh wait .. it is four thirty as I'm typing ...
I'll head home about nine exhausted, trying to find something real to eat and realize that I have to do all my lesson planning for tomorrow morning. I'll help Rick get the fussy kids to bed, realize how much didn't get done today that I had hoped would get done, and get back to work on those plans.

See you on the flip side.

2008-12-09T23:03:00.001-05:00

**update**

Estela Monserrate, 7, from Ecuador.

:-D It is a good night.

2008-12-09T22:51:00.003-05:00

As I sit here and think about how busy I am and how nothing is going to get done I worry that I lose the spirit of this time some times. Believe me, other than being thirsty, I'm in a very decent mood at the moment. Just trying to look at the big picture.

So right now, I'm going to sponsor a child in a different country. Who doesn't have even a 10th of what I have. When I spend 2.50 a day on lunch, I realize I could be helping someone else to have a better life with that money.

Go. Do it too. www.compassion.com and sponsor a child.

I'll let you know who I end up with.

2008-11-30T22:24:00.004-05:00

Awesome Ben quotes from this Thanksgiving break / my birthday:

M: "Guess what Ben! Grandma is going to be cooking you a turkey!"
B: "Is it a turkey with feet?"
M: "Um, well, this is a turkey that we eat."
B: "But turkeys have feet, do we eat turkey feet?"
------------------------------------------------
R: "It reminds me of my parakeet that I had I when I was younger. I used to love to hold that bird ..."
B: "Daddy, did you like to eat the bird, or play with the bird?"
------------------------------------------------
Movie on screen: "Man, you sure have guts!"
B: "Mommy, what are guts?"
------------------------------------------------
M: "I'm getting so old!"
B: "Do I need a new mommy?"
M: "Why would you need a new mommy?"
B: "Because if my mommy is getting old, I'd need a newer one!"
------------------------------------------------
B: "Mommy, I don't want you to get thirty."
M: "You don't want me to turn thirty? Why not?"
B: "Because then you'll be getting huger huger huger and you would break my house."
M: "Oh, Ben, I'm all done growing."
B: "So you won't get thirty?"
M: "Well, some day I'll be thirty."
B: "But you will put a hole in the roof!"
------------------------------------------------
I love this age. :)

2008-11-23T22:45:00.002-05:00

There was a time when I would count down the hours until my birthday.

I don't just mean maybe 24 hours until my birthday, I mean .. thousands of hours until my birthday.

I filled up several pages in a composition notebook writing numbers in the thousands. Seriously. Counting down until my 15th .. 16th ... etc birthdays.

I kept a daily countdown on the chalkboard in the basement.

Tomorrow is my last day of being 24. Yes, I'm keeping track of the hours. But it is no longer because I want my birthday to arrive.

I don't want to turn 25. I'm going to be vintage!!! Gah. People say it is my special birthday - 25 on the 25th. I don't think there will be much special about it. I will go to school, teach, see a concert at school, go to a parent teacher conference, go to karate, go to sleep. I was thinking about going out to a bar afterwards, but for what? I will probably be sweaty and gross from karate, it'll be too big a hassle to get someone to watch the boys, it would take all of about 2 drinks to get me drunk since I'm such a lightweight and I never drink, and then I'd probably fall asleep. And who would go out to the bar? It would be me and Rick.

So right now I'm just having a pity party for myself, feeling old, looking at how wrinkly my hands are, thinking about how un-fun I am because I don't even have friends to go to a bar with. ::SIGH::

I look back at my entry from when I was turning 20. I need some of that zip in my life again. Someday.

So we'll see what magical and exciting things occur tomorrow, the day before I turn 25.

2008-11-16T19:51:00.002-05:00

I've spent the last 5 hours doing household stuff that I never seem to find the time to do. As I've been working, here's the thought that has been consuming me:

"What would I do if I were a housewife?"

Laundry. We'd actually be able to see the basement floor.

Ironing. My husband's shirts would be starched.

Vacuuming. Every room in the house with a rug.

Cooking. I believe fresh produce once existed in my life.

Letter writing. Those holiday cards would just be waiting for the right mailing time.

Gardening. Well, planning the gardens for spring so we could grow vegetables.

Clothes. We could actually put away some of those size 0-3 month clothes.

Decorating. Maybe we could have real curtains!

::Sigh::

Time to plan some lessons and get ready for my pre-observation on Tuesday.

2008-11-15T22:27:00.003-05:00

Dah dah dah ... Another one bites the dust ...

The Bonneville, that is. We're at a pretty critical decision concerning the life or death of my beloved car, Brad. Our quote was $1000 with no promise that the work done won't ruin the integrity of the frame ...

I went to another workshop by Bush Mango Drum and Dance today, with a djembefola from NYC. He was very white, but it was a good workshop. Once again it got my brain and my ears connected and intensely focused for an hour and a half. Ahhh, good mental work out.

Otherwise, not much to report I suppose. The kitchen smells of a lovely lysol scent, which means the cleaning is done for the evening and Rick and I are about to settle in to a movie on the "big screen". The darling boys are asleep .... time for us. :)

Buenas noches, world.

2008-11-12T20:58:00.002-05:00

Well, I must be feeling better, right? I mean, I kind of disappeared from the blogging world, so that indicates that I am back to my busy life ...

Which is very true. My headaches are gone (besides the normal headaches that you get throughout the day). I now have a cold, but believe me, that is much more manageable than anything I was dealing with before.

I was put on a medicine that made my heart race (resting heart rate was between 130-150) and made me feel like I was in a panic. The doctor told me to stop taking it, so I was just on the prednisone. He put me on another med that I never took because I was too afraid of the side effects. I slowly came off the prednisone, and now ..... I am myself again. :)

God is so good.

Life is so good.

As hectic as life is now, back in the swing of things, I'm so grateful that I can be back in the swing of things. Here's how things look: Monday is work and then Ben's karate class, Tuesday work and then my karate class, Wednesday work and then choir rehearsal, Thursday work and then either karate, liturgy committee, or a concert, and Friday is just work. Saturday is church along with whatever family parties have been booked - oh and this weekend throw in there an African drumming workshop and a church thanksgiving dinner, and Sunday are the two masses. Rinse, repeat.

Trying to scramble to include extra rehearsals for people I'm accompanying, getting school budgeting done, preparing all the music for the church Dady brothers concert and Christmas masses, and writing recommendation letters ... lets not forget about raising my kids, or trying to keep my house decent.

I am so grateful to be alive. I hope I never take this life for granted again.

2008-11-05T00:31:00.002-05:00

What a tremendous election this was today.

Barack Obama delivered a rather down-to-earth victory speech as our next president-elect. Here are my thoughts at this 12:30 in the morning time:

1) Wow, we have a black president. Regardless of what you think about political policy, this is a pretty significant moment in the history of the world. I have such an incredible respect for the late Martin Luther King Jr., and I believe he would see this as a victory not only for black people, but for all people.

2) Barack Obama is truly an incredible speaker, much more so than John McCain. Nothing that John McCain ever said touched a chord of patriotism or hope inside me the way that Barack's speech did tonight. His line, which went something like this, "for those of you whom I have yet to earn your support ... I hear your voices ... I will be your president too" - that really struck me. It worked for this republican. What a fantastic quality to have in a president - humility, extending his hand to not only say "good game" to his opponents, but to invite them to join the team.

3) Listening to his speech, I am surprised at how much I self-realized my own desire to see America "change" into a better country. What change may lie ahead, I'm not certain, and I know I will not agree with all of it. Yes Barack, I applaud the campaign keyword.

4) Barack speaks very intelligently, calmly, and confidently. All good qualities for a president.

5) I am going to hope that Barack does not uproot this country from its foundation of capitalism. I am praying that his socialist sounding policies aren't realized to their full potential. May he have the wisdom to know what could truly harm the building blocks of our great nation, regardless of how good a temporary solution some ideas may seem.

6) I pray that God may protect him from all harm. I feel nervous watching him on television, out of the sheer fear of what racial prejudices can influence a person or group of people to do. Let's hope the security for Obama is the best a president ever had.

7) Happy Day. Is that what Barack supporters were all chanting? If so, that is positively the most amazing thing to hear 125,000 people chant. Happy Day. I'll take that.

8) Mom, you must be thrilled. :)

Goodnight world.

2008-10-26T11:13:00.002-04:00

The Reality of a "Bucket-List"

I didn't go to church today, nor am I certain of whether I will be able to go in to school tomorrow. I went an saw a neurologist on Tuesday who gave me some degree of hope - he believes I have one, two, or three of the following things:

1) I may still have a spinal fluid leak
2) I may be having analgesic rebound headaches (from taking all the pain meds)
3) I have a prolonged migraine

So he started me on a decreasing course of steroids - 60mg for two days and then on down, as well as Nortriptylene, an "old-fashioned" anti-depressant that is used more often now to treat migraines.

Well, I think the steroids were effective in helping my head to not hurt so terribly much, but now that I've been decreasing the dose, my head this morning feels like I have a nail gun punching in at four different places.

I called the doctor on call yesterday because my resting heart rate was around 130 ... I've felt like my heart was pounding and racing so fast whenever I do anything, and when I lay down it beats very fast irregularly. The doctor on call said the nortriptylene could cause that and told me not to take it until I talked to the neurologist on Monday. However - I couldn't even sleep most of the night last night, and this morning I still feel like I'm in a constant state of panic.

When I stand up for longer than 30 minutes now, that heavy feeling starts to settle in the back of my head and the bridge of my nose and only increases in intensity and pain until I can lie down for a while.

What does all this mean? I'm not writing to complain, though I am exceptionally frustrated, because I don't understand it. I have thought a lot about death, especially as there seems to be little to no relief in my continuing condition. Shawn Halquists' mother passed away this weekend, after a 12 year battle with cancer. It has caused me, as I lie here in bed, to think a lot on my own life.

I wonder, if I knew if I were dying, (well but aren't we all?) what I would do differently, what I would want to accomplish. I don't want to lie here in bed but I have so much pain when I am not lying down, that I can do so little. This is why I'm frustrated. So what do I do?

I thought about creating a kick-the-bucket-list just like the movie, where they come up with a list of things they want to do before they die. But the problem is, we just don't have the money to do things I want to do, or to spend the time with each other that I want to spend. It would look glorious for me to put on a piece of paper "I want to see the ancient Mayan ruins", and then have us rack up all sorts of debt and lose our jobs just so I could see them before I potentially died - and then only to leave Rick with all of the money problems after I died! So there's the reality of the bucket list. The only thing I can truly put it on it are things that I can do day to day.

It is amazing how much is said about what happens to us after death, and yet no one really knows. There is a difference between faith and knowing. If you tell me you "know" that there is Heaven and Hell, I will have to disagree with you and say that you have the faith that there is ... but even if that is true, we still don't know what destiny awaits us in the determining of our placement. Why are we afraid of death? I know why I fear it - it is because I enjoy living so much that I don't want it to end. I fear the dying aspect - the being really sick and uncomfortable for a long period of time.

I'm certain there must be more people than just me who contemplate death and wonder how to make their life better and then get frustrated with all that they are diong in general. With how "stuck" we are in our lives. Right now I feel that it would almost be better, my best bucket-list writing potential, if I were to focus on how I could make my children's lives fulfilling even after I'm gone. Because, after all, they are the ones who will continue living!

So what could I do to ensure this? Let me brainstorm:

1) Make sure I am affording the greatest amount of life insurance so that Rick could keep up the quality of living we give to the boys
2) Leave sensible directions for Rick about how to handle the money, since that is primarily my job, so that my family doesn't end up in financial trouble
3) Make sure I am telling them all the time how wonderful and precious they are to me
4) I need to take time out of each day, no matter how I'm feeling, to do something with them, even if its just color a page in a coloring book, or read a story, or spell with letters
5) Get a camera and take pictures of our family together

What else should I be doing? I watch the beautiful fall leaves rustling on the tree outside my window and I just hope that when my boys are grown, they will be able to appreciate the incredible value of their lives as well. How do you ensure that?

I am done rambling, at least for now. It is hard to keep my thoughts all contained. I read a quote today, and I'm not sure who said it, but I liked it. It was something like this: "If my doctor told me I had six months left to live, I wouldn't brood, but I would probably type faster".

2008-10-20T18:57:00.000-04:00

Jessica's wedding was beautiful. :)

I didn't make it to any of the rehearsal stuff on Friday night, but I was okay enough that Rick took me out Saturday so I was at Jess' parents house around 2:45 for the end of pictures. Then we went and waited in the church a while, and before I knew it, Jess was walking down the isle. I had such a hard time not crying. She looked sooooo beautiful and you could really feel the sacredness of their vows.

We stayed for the first couple of dances at the reception, then we got back in the car to go home. My head felt like an anvil. I slept it off and spent most of Sunday on the couch but decided to try going in to work this morning.

I made it through first period explorations, planning period, and the first half of guitar. Those poor kids, they are really ready to learn something in these classes. I am so glad I took a half day - came home and crashed on the couch and woke up with a much worse headache.

So anyways, I'm going in for the morning tomorrow (hopefully) and then I'm off to an appointment with a neurologist. I certainly am cynical. I'm afraid he's going to do the same crazy tests everyone else has done ("stick your tongue straight out ... hold both of your palms up ... let me look in the back of your eyes with a really bright light....") and tell me its just normal headaches and to call in six months if I'm not better.

::sigh:: My love just brought me cookies. So off I go to eat them, and to plan some lessons. Please keep praying for me, if prayer is your thing. Thank you. :)

2008-10-16T13:29:00.003-04:00

I just don't know anymore.

I had the blood patch done on Tuesday. I don't ever want to go through that again. It took one doctor to put a hole in my back (spinal tap) and it took four doctors to fix it (blood patch).

I hear sirens right now. Whenever I hear sirens I stop and pray, because someone is in a lot more trouble than I am.

Anyways, so the results of the blood patch. Well, yesterday morning, I felt great. I spent the whole morning sitting up, enjoying my head not hurting. Then yesterday about 5, a headache started to creep in - mostly around the back of my head, but if I turn, I feel it on the sides and if I lean over my face hurts. Weird right? I swear I'm not making this up.

So then, about 7 I took some motrin because I was really starting to hurt. By 10 I thought I was going to explode. Rick convinced me to take a vicodin at 10:30. I couldn't think straight I was in so much pain. He told me to not worry about my lesson plans, lay down for an hour, and when the vicodin kicked in, I could do some work. Well, no such luck. The vicodin never took the pain away. I thought my head was going to split down the sides and explode in the back. You know how they make you do that pain scale from 1-10? This was about a 9. Lying down didn't help one bit.

I sent Liz an email basically saying "have the sub show a movie". Then I tried to sleep. I fell asleep about 2 am and had a horrible night. I woke up at 9 this morning with just a shadow of the headache from last night. However, when I get up and walk around I feel disoriented and again like I'm in a video game, and when I turn my head it hurts more.

So, the lovely Jessica Spear, soon to be Mrs. Jessica Ryals, came and visited me today on her way to get fitted for her wedding gown. I can't even tell you how much I wish I could be helping her out right now. It really breaks me down that I am so limited in my ability to do anything. Well, Jess brought me some food and we talked for a while. She is such a lovely, wonderful person.

I may type a little more about my many thoughts on our country's impending doom (aka election day). But let me try to gather some of those thoughts first.

Peace.

2008-10-13T22:16:00.003-04:00

Quick update -

Went and saw the doctor today and she was quite concerned. She said 1) She doesn't think I have meningitis anymore 2) She didn't think it was a spinal headache 3) She definitly thinks I'm fighting an upper respiratory virus 4) She thought there were several possibilities of what could be wrong in my head but her goal was to get my pain down.

So. She gave me a migraine medicine to start with, just to rule out the possibility that this is a migraine. I don't remember the name of the medicine but it certainly didn't help.

I had my blood drawn, just to check again and make sure nothing was out of the norm.

She set me up with an appointment for a CT scan with contrast (dye running through my veins). However! She called me back after I left and said she had talked with the neurologist and an anesthesiologist, and they both think it would be best to do a blood patch first, before a scheduled CT scan. So. Tomorrow morning at 9:00 they will again puncture my back, only this time to insert like 20mL of my own blood.

So, now I'm all terrified again. I really didn't want to do this blood patch. I don't want to deal with the needles and the "electricity" feeling in my back again - all with the same risks as before. So, I'm giving it up to God and I'm just going to trust modern medicine.

Perhaps this will be the answer. Maybe I truly am suffering from a ridiculous spinal headache and this blood patch will be the answer. I hope and pray and hope and pray that it is.

So pray for me, because I am nervous. Pray for me that this works.

Perhaps in the future I'll tell you my personal diagnosis of what is going on ;) We'll see how tomorrow goes.

2008-10-12T20:07:00.002-04:00

God has many people who are very sick to care for. I am simply in the queue.

But while I'm waiting, I'm going to give my doctor a call. "First thing tomorrow morning" says my mother. Well, yes. Things have only declined - far from this virus relenting, I find my health is much less improved - can we say deproved? The headache has certainly become worse to the point now where I can not stand, sit, or even lay down without pain. Vicodin has returned to my system but now it only takes the edge off, it doesn't make the pain disappear. So, tomorrow morning I will again dial my doctor's phone number.

However, I spend far too many minutes worrying about the "what ifs" of this disease and of my current inability to go to work. So, instead of worrying about bankruptcy, I'm going to discuss the whims of my bored imagination.

Whenever I find myself with excess time to contemplate my current state and the potential of my untapped future (like how I mixed that wording around?), I begin to imagine rather grand schemes for the course of my life. So I decided, for pure entertainment value, to give you a list of all the things in the past 3 years that I have seriously considered pursuing. Please note the word "seriously" in that last sentence. I'll list them in the most recent order. I will include the place I planned to study, so you can laugh even harder.

Pursue Theology graduate degree at Harvard Divinity School
Pursue JD at Harvard Law School
Pursue a degree in Political Science (where? TBD)
Run for senator
Become a personal trainer
Run a home music studio
Freelance music critic
African violet greenhouse owner
Nutritionist (pursue degree at UB)
Holistic nutritionist (pursue degree ...online?)
Own a local nursery
Run a home daycare for children with allergies
Run a home daycare
Earn a degree in educational administration (pursue degree at U of R)
Become a stock broker
Study the brain and cognitive science at U of R
Open a small used book business
Work as editor at GIA publications
Pursue a Master of Theology at St. Bernards
Pursue a degree in Accompanying at Eastman
Puruse a degree in Music Theory at Eastman
Write music for weddings and for the Catholic Church
Open a "wedding planner" business
Work for Compassion (in Colorado) on their budget team
Let's not forget, I wanted to be an Ob/Gyn! Even bought the MCAT book ...

Hey. At least I'm ambitious.

Let's keep praying I get better, shall we?

2008-10-10T02:57:00.003-04:00

Well look what time it is. 3:00 in the morning.

I am not well. I will post more in the real morning.

I am praying for a lot of things tonight. I am praying that I get better. I am praying for a lady and her family that I read about today. I am praying for a student who told me some things today that I am afraid are indicative of sucidial thoughts. I am praying for my boys, both of who have spent a significant portion of the night crying. I am praying for Rick who has not had a good night's rest. I am praying for Jess because her wedding is so soon. I am praying for Liz because she sent me a kind email from school at 10:30 at night. I am praying for my student from last year who spent three months in jail and I'm certain has not yet found a way to set her life straight. I wonder where she is sleeping tonight. I am praying.

2008-10-08T00:35:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to write - case in point.

I started working on this sub plan at 8:00 PM. It is now 12:35. This is a really frustrating part of being a teacher.

Thoughts about the debate will wait until real morning.

2008-10-07T18:35:00.002-04:00

Post #2 - Today's headache update

So, hoping that I could go to school tomorrow got me nowhere. I am not going, because I honestly could not stay on my feet for more than 10 minutes. I don't even know if I made it to ten minutes.

I called the doctor, and she doesn't think its viral meningitis anymore. (That is the good news). Now she thinks I have a spinal headache caused by a leak in my spinal fluid from where they did the lumbar puncture.

I looked it up and here's the description that sounds like me:

"The spinal headache often is described as "a headache like no other." Spinal headaches are much more severe when the person is in an upright position; they improve when the person lies down." (from www.medicinenet.com)

"The headache can be accompanied by many other symptoms, including neck stiffness, pressure in the back of the head, nausea and vomiting, light sensitivity, decrease in hearing, and pain down the arm. In some cases, the headache pain is so severe the patient can not stay upright ... The patient experiences a headache that improves within 30 minutes of lying flat, and will get significantly worse within 15 minutes of being upright." (www.spinalheadache.org)

So, that sounds like what I've been complaining about. It would explain why I kept saying to my mom "but if this is meningitis, why don't I have a fever?" It would explain a lot of things.

However, after reading all over the internet, I'm very concerned about the blood patch that they do to try to fix the leak of spinal fluid. First of all, its temporary so some people end up needing surgery. Second of all, a lot of people still have the headaches. Third of all, there seem to be all sorts of other complications that arise with trying to fix spinal fluid leaks.

I guess I just have to leave this all in God's hands. I sooooooo badly want to be at karate right now with Rick. I hope and pray that I will come out of this back to my normal self - I think that is my biggest fear, that I will never be fully functional like I was again. Man, the things I have taken for granted every day.

Okay thought I'd update you. Soon I can watch the presidential debate. I'm very disturbed that the left-wing media is all saying Mr. Obama is ahead in all the polls. When I watched the VP debates the other day, I honestly didn't care for either one of them. I of course am leaning more towards the McCain/Palin ticket, seeing how I hold mostly Republican principles near and dear to my heart. I think the last thing we need is government trying to run things like universal health care and creating more welfare programs (and I'm not so ignorant to think those are the exact things Obama is pushing for, but he's headed in that direction. Thank God its not Mrs. Clinton) and I prefer more of the capitalism-taxcuts-bigbusiness-conservative approach to government. However, my honest #1 concern in my next President is who is going to take care of the crashing economy. So far, Joe Biden is the only one who has caught my attention with a couple concerns about the economy. So, I don't know. I really want to see what the actual Presidential candidates have to say tonight.

I don't think the government should've proposed a huge $700 billion package or whatever it was. I think they should've stayed out of it. Now that they're teeter-tottering over that, Wall Street is just a mess. I think the economy should've burned a little and people should learn not to spend the money that they don't have. Now its crashing down completely and I'm afraid the government will have to bail out a lot more than originally planned. Hooray for more government controlling more of our money. Hooray that my taxes are going to help take on the big bad mortgage debt of the people who bought houses with money they didn't have.

I'm rambling and I sound a little bit uneducated, but I wanted to get some thoughts down there. I'm not uneducated I'm just grossly simplifying my statements to make them 5-minute-blog worthy. I'll write something more intelligent later. Goodness knows I have the time to do it.

2008-10-07T13:33:00.002-04:00

Frustration.

I'm trying to be really nice, to myself, to everyone else, about how crappy I feel. I have been really determined to get back in to school this week, and so I only got a sub through today. However, I can't seem to be on my feet for more than five minutes before I feel like my head is being worked on by the local construction company. I look around my house and I want to clean - I want to do wash. Putting one load of wash in the washing machine makes me feel like I need to lay down asap. Trying to wash off the kitchen table makes me wish I were decapitated.

I got a reminder today from Liz that the high school prism concert is next week - all of the groups play and I'm supposed to be playing for every singing group in the school. Of course, choir practice at church was cancelled last week, and again this week. So what am I supposed to do? I thought - well maybe I can hold rehearsal on Monday night. Only to get a phone call and an email in capital letters that oops! Michelle didn't check the church calendar and sure enough another group is meeting at that time. So now I'm sending out email #1000 to all my choir members, again asking for their forgiveness. I feel like such a mess right now. I want to do so many things and yet - here I am whining - I just can't.

Every noise in the house makes my head pound. I can't listen to music. All the lights are off and the curtains are drawn because the bright light bothers my eyes. Who am I kidding? Do I really think I'll be able to go in to school tomorrow? It is just so hard to keep planning sub lessons - they are becoming more and more BS because I'm not there to teach the students anything new.

Sometimes I really wish I had a mindless job. Where I could come home and not work on things until midnight. Where I could leave work at work. Where I could be around to get my kindergartener on the bus next year. Where when you call in sick, you don't have to worry about doing your entire job the night before so that someone else can fill in exactly what you would do.

Truth be told I still just want to go back to school. Forever.

Or I wish we had enough money that I could stay home with the boys and be a housewife. Then things would get clean and laundry would be done and dinners would be made.

I suppose not while I'm sick, but you know, afterwards.

Then I tell myself that being a teacher really isn't that bad, especially if I can reuse a lot of my lesson plans next year. The benefits are excellent, especially the summers off. I'm already putting money into the retirement plan, and why would I want to give that up? Not the way our economy is going.

I don't know how other people do it. People who live on less than we do. People who only have one family member working. People who don't work two jobs. Someday - I will be able to sing in a church choir. I won't be the pianist, I won't be the director, I won't be in charge of picking music that only makes every other person happy.

Am I done complaining? Maybe for now in my blog. I'm just so tired of being stuck doing nothing. Gahh.

This makes me feel so badly for people who are very seriously ill. I have nothing to complain about compared to them.

2008-10-05T22:48:00.002-04:00

Good news from God today, He says I won't die and that I'll recover soon.

No, I am not better yet but I have all the faith, truly, that I am just about to turn the corner with this virus. I'm going to be out for a couple more days from school but I'm certain I will soon be up, and walking about as before.

After I blogged last time, I stupidly thought I might be better the next morning, and so I got up and went to school. I took a vicodin before I left. As Rick went to drop me off, the tears started pouring down because my head hurt so much. Well, I showed first period "West Side Story" and when first period ended, Liz came to check on me. She said she was going to make me some tea. I started to feel woozy, and thought I was going to throw up. I got up to go to the bathroom to puke and realized I was actually going to faint. Rather than faint in a locked bathroom where no one would find me, I walked out to Liz and Cathy who were talking in Shawn's office, and Cathy caught me.

Lying on the floor and shaking, I was eventually taken out of school by ambulance and brought to Strong (Hospital). They said my blood sugar was very low, my blood pressure was low, and the vicodin had made all those things worse. So after a couple hours, Rick took me home (the whole way I thought I was going to pass out again). I saw my face in the mirror before I laid down and I looked like I was dead. I mean, I am so pale generally but oh my goodness! You know when you see dead people at wakes or calling hours, and their face is so pale and you don't recognize them? That's what I looked like. It really confirmed for me that I want to be creamated.

So I've been lying around the last couple days. Even today I still thought I might pass out. I can't get up without my head trying to implode. But enough complaining. I am serious when I say I am going to be better soon.

However, if there is ever need to plan my funeral in the near future, now it is documented what songs I want. But I changed my mind about a couple of them so here they are:

Opening: Amazing Grace
Psalm: Be With Me Lord (please please?)
Presentation: Hosea
Communion: Covenant Hymn
Meditation: Parable
Closing: How Great Thou Art

I feel a little better knowing that I have the right songs chosen.

I really shouldn't sit at home any longer, I have this tendency to spend money that we don't have on African Violets. I'm all done with my purchases for 2008 though. Today I bid on (and won) the last of my ebay collecting for the season. I purchased four rare and vintage Eyerdom varieties. Oh I wish African Violets could be my career!

Okay I'm off to do what I've been doing for the last several days, which is sleep. Rick has been really sick too for the last four days, high fever, chills, achy. I hope he feels better tonight, he thinks he's going to work tomorrow. Mom and Dad, and Mom and Dad Marvin, have been such a great help with the boys the last couple days.

Okay, peace.

2008-09-30T10:51:00.002-04:00

On the subject of death, etc ....

Not to be morbid. But I have had the most severe headache of my life since last Friday. I went in to the hospital on Saturday, they did a Catscan (however you spell it) and a spinal tap. I was told they found an elevated number of white blood cells in my spinal fluid which indicated an infection. They gave me an IV dose of antibiotics, and kept me overnight to make sure I didn't run a fever or act crazy, which would've indicated bacterial meningitis. They diagnosed me with aseptic viral meningitis, and sent me home with a prescription of vicadin.

I tried to get up and go to school yesterday morning. Well, I did go to school. Ten minutes in I thought my head was going to implode and that I would faint. I got a sub for the second half of the day and went home. I slept for five hours. I got a sub for today and my head is hurting so much I am lying in bed as I type this. I took vicadin today, we'll see if it helps - I've only been taking 600mg of motrin prior to this.

I don't feel sick. I just feel like my brain is getting crushed in. That scares me. The doctor said if i don't feel better tomorrow I have to come in. So, as it goes whenever you get an infection in your brain, I've been thinking about death quite a bit. I don't want to die. I'm not going to die, not from this, not at age 24. But I'm surprised at what I've been thinking. I always thought that if I were not feeling well and thought there was a possibility of death that I would be scared, terrified. Maybe I will be, someday. Right now all I can think about is how I don't want to die because I can't imagine Rick trying to take care of the boys all by himself. I can't imagine the boys growing up without their mommy. I told Rick he could get another wife, as long as she was strictly there for cleaning/cooking/helping with the boys. ;) In all seriousness though, I'm sure once we die there is no more jealousy, and I would only want the best for Rick and the boys, so I suppose eventually he could have another woman in his life, as long as she would treat my boys (and Rick) with all the love in the world.

Is this too weird for me to be putting in my blog? I'm putting this all here incase I die, so Rick can read it and know I meant it.

And what the heck - since I'm writing it down, here's some more instructions incase I die. I don't ever want to be kept on just life support - pull that plug and let me go. I want my good organs to be donated to whoever can use them, and I want to be creamated. For now I guess this is the music I would pick for my funeral - Amazing Grace, I'd really like "Be With Me Lord" for the psalm even though it is dark, it is my favorite musical psalm. Hosea and Wherever You Go for presentation/communion. I'd like How Great Thou Art for the closing song, and I want all verses of it. There.

I truly am contemplating running out to HSBC and buying another life insurance policy. All these things you think of when you wonder if you are going to die.

On another note - let's suppose I survive through this. I need to do something meaningful with my life. Not that teaching isn't meaningful - I know I touch a lot of kids and I know I impact some of their lives, hopefully in a good way. I had three kids come and tell me the other day that they nominated me for a safe school ambassador teacher. Not that I want to be one, but I was completely flattered that they respect me as that type of person. But seriously - how do I make a difference with my life? How do I make it so that when I am about to face God, I can leave the world feeling like I accomplished something? There is still something missing from my life. I don't know what it is. What conflicts of interest lie within us - I want to spend my money on a piano and on African Violets. I'd love to quit my job and study music theory and accompanying. I want to be wealthy enough to send my boys to a private school. Yet how does any of that make a difference in the world? Well, it doesn't. So I need to rethink what my money can best do for people, how my time can best be spent, and what talents I can truly develop to change someone's life.

Maybe teaching is the extent of my capabilities to make a difference. I don't know. I don't know what else to do. I just feel like there must be more.

I suppose I'm running out of things to say, and that's probably a good thing as this post has been a rambling mess of things that are "taboo" to even blog about. So what. My blog.

If you've read this far - say a little prayer for me. That I feel better soon so I can get on with making a difference somewhere in the world. :)

2008-09-24T14:48:00.004-04:00

The title of this post is : GAHHHHHHHH

Okay, here it is, 22 days into the school year and I'm going to unleash. Don't read it if you don't want to hear me complain.

These STUPID kids are so freakin rude and insensitive it makes me want to smack them. Who raises these idiots??? They must be idiots themselves. If my kids ever are so rude I will be so embarassed ...

I'm just going to write this all down as the conversations occurred.

Setting: Before school starts, 3 minutes before first period.
J: "Mrs. Marvin, what are those tennis balls for?"
M: "For an activity in Explorations"
J: "What! How come they get to do fun stuff?"
M: "What do you mean? We did fun stuff in Explorations in your class last year!"
J: "We didn't do anything with tennis balls!"
M: "I guess my ideas just get more brilliant year after year!"
J: "Yeah the only fun thing about that was the day you let us go outside and play musical kick ball. Why couldn't you have any brilliant ideas when I was in that class?"

Setting: Explorations, last period. We're talking about polyrhythms. They were just up snapping, dancing, and listening to hardcore metal. Now I asked them about 2 against 3 - what's the least common multiple.
C: "Why the heck are we doing math in here?"
M: "Why not?"
C: "This isn't math class, Mrs. Marvin."
M: "Math is everywhere. Besides, this is not hard math, and you have to understand this to get polyrhythms."
C: "This is only a half year class, right?"
M: "No, this is a full year."
C: "Damn, are you serious? Aww. That sucks!"
M: "Um, why?"
C: "I want to take human anatomy."

Setting: Three minutes after the bell has rung.
M: "J ... why are you here? You need to be in class."
J: "You need to give me a pass."
M: "No, why are you here now, playing guitar?"
J: "You weren't here earlier."
M: "When?"
J: "During my lunch."
M: "J ... I can eat lunch too, and I was at the copier."
J: "Yeah but you also weren't in your room at 7:00 this morning when I was ready to play guitar."
M: "Oh, sorry J! I was also at the copier then!"
J: "You need to be here so I can play guitar."
M: "Oh I do, huh? Can you put that in my contract?"

All these %^&*(@ hours I put into the damn lessons for these kids. And I'm not even going to pretend that these lessons haven't been great this year - these are some kick @$$ lessons - you should see how good they are this year. And still I have idiots say this crap in my class. And yet they demand my attention every second they can get it.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I didn't even write down the incident with the student that I referred this afternoon. First he left my room to go talk in his cell phone in the hallway, then he insisted he had to leave the building. I called attendance, they said he had to stay. I told him he had to stay, he said "write me up if you want" and walked out the door. Of course, I got yelled at by attendance for letting him go. What!?!?!

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

2008-09-21T21:56:00.003-04:00

Every now and then, I get a frighteningly overpowering glimpse of how insignificant and temporary life is. Why is it frightening? I'm not sure. Perhaps because our life is our entire value, it is our purpose, it is our existence, it is. And to come to the realization that it is so insignificant in the grand scheme of time, the universe, people, and history ... that we are one small speck living one tiny story that no one else will ever concern themselves with ... perhaps that transference of personal enormity to universal anonymity causes understandable fright.

What am I talking about? I don't know. I was just sitting in the car, listening to music and staring at the bags I brought home from Walmart, thinking.

::Sigh:: No its deeper than that.

And anonymity is the wrong word. More like non-existence. I'm not anonymous to people on the other side of the world. I simply don't even exist, at least not as an individual. Part of a collective them, and when you are part of a them, you don't have enough independence to be anonymous ...

So I had to go to Walmart tonight. I was home alone (wow!) while Rick was coming home from Scott's house with the boys. I needed to get tennis balls for a lesson I'm doing tomorrow. I ran upstairs to grab a zip-up sweatshirt and I glanced in the mirror. My thought was "damn you're starting to look old". I don't look like I'm 20 anymore. Well, I'm not. But you know how you're at that age, at a point in your life, where you think you look good, where you know people notice you, your youth, your vibrancy, your clothes, your walk ... well I looked in the mirror and realized without a lot of work on my hair, makeup on my face, and the right clothes, I've lost that youth. I can look nice, sure. But as I am getting older, it takes longer to make my hair look right, it takes more precision and careful artistry with my eye makeup, it takes the exact right clothes fitting at the exact right places with the perfect degree of fit. I don't take that time. I just threw the sweatshirt on, figured who the heck do I have to impress at Walmart anyways, and I left the house.

Let's take a little trip through my head, shall we? So, I always want to feel smart and attractive. Smart being the walk and the look and the talk, attractive being the moves. Anyways, I'd already given up the smart look, and basically the attractive thing. But still. I'm walking through walmart and the first thing I need to get are maxi pads. Right? My blog, I'm spilling my thoughts, I'm going to lay it out. So I put them in my little basket, and I head towards the sports section to get the tennis balls. Yeah, of course the sports section is staffed by youngish (early twenties) male service people. Gah! So now I am not only old looking, unattractive, and wearing a stupid outfit, I am also carrying maxi pads into the sports section. I avoid everyone I can. Then, Rick tells me I need to pick up brake fluid so where do I head next? Automotive.

More men, of course.

I stop, and reposition the things in my basket so that the maxi pads are covered on the top and one side by the tennis balls. I avoid looking too stupid by manuvering my way through the isles of car stuff that I have no understanding of, and eventually end up in the brake fluid section. I know the one guy working there is watching me to see if I need help, but I refuse to feel any stupider than I already do. I grab the brake fluid and head out.

Bleh so I just feel so bleh about myself, about growing older, etc. How do I do it gracefully? I think about some of the beautiful women that I have seen in their 40s and 50s and I think, "man I'm already old at 24". I think about the people I know who are young and just starting their college experience and I remember those wonderful days of my life ... learning and living and just being independent, and swamped of course, but ... then life set in, now I'm old.

So to top it all off, as I'm turning into our track, I hear the song "Chasing Cars" and I'm just overwhelmed with emotion. The lyrics of the whole song are just thought consuming but I am reminded of so many things. "If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world". 7.5 years ago, Rick and I went out one night to North Hampton Park and we just laid on a blanket by the ridge of the pine trees and stared at the stars. Beautiful stars. We shared so many thoughts with each other that night, about life and existence and purpose, about love. Another one of those nights I knew we were meant to be together.

I remember lying on the dock in the Adirondacks. Staring at the stars.

I remember lying underneath that big tree, in the park. Staring at the clouds.

I remember lying on his bed, my head just tucked inbetween his neck and shoulder, both of us just staring at the bunk bed overhead of us. Half drowsy, mostly content, no cares.

Where does this time all go? I'm so glad Rick and I share our lives together. How insignificant is our life. How insignificant are the every day things that I do, and this is what I thought as I glanced over at the bags that I just spent $40 on at Walmart. It doesn't really even matter.

I briefly thought about how I make my life matter. Because when I am dead and gone, there will not be music to follow my name. There will not be books to check out of libraries. I will simply be gone ... and you have to wonder ... all for what? This precious beautiful life that I love living ... only a breath in a moment of time.

2008-08-17T23:35:00.002-04:00

Here I am again to lament the close of summer ...

I have thoroughly enjoyed this summer and I really don't want it to end. While I didn't to anything fantastically exciting, I feel like I got to relax and be human and just enjoy some time. Granted, church has kept me incredibly busy, particularly this month, but so it goes.

Karate is going well! I am becoming invincibly buff. Roarrrrr! Just kidding. But the six pack is on its way, baby. I really enjoy karate classes, especially since its time for just Rick and I to do something together.

Speaking of darling husband, Rick got his wisdom teeth out last thursday. Poor baby - tonight we went to Scott and Matt's place, where Matt grilled wonderful $22/lb. steak. Rick slurped up mac and cheese :( I did feel bad, because my honey just loooooves steak. It was delicious.

Yesterday, after playing for the fourth wedding I've had this summer, we went out to Tresel Vick's house for the math department party (also known as Vickfest). She has an enormous house on the lake. I can't imagine what that place would sell for. It is sooo beautiful, and it was tons of fun. Lots of good people - you know its a good party when people get there at three and don't leave until midnight! Mike Gagnier sang and played the guitar around the bonfire at night and I was also billed as entertainment so I sang a couple songs. It was a lot of fun :)

Jess' wedding seems to be coming up so soon. I'm excited and I'm also a little sad too. I can't believe how much I just love to talk to her and hang out with her - I am going to miss her so so much. Australia seems like so long of a ways a way. I will be going to visit though! And truly, I am so happy for her because after meeting Jesse, I know God put these two together.

I've started an African Violet collection. Well, collection is a pretty mild word. Addiction is probably more accurate. Currently, we have two full shelves with grow lights in our garage, filled with leaves trying to grow babies and some young plants. I'm collecting mostly vintage (25 years old or older) plants and special plants hybridized by a woman named Irene Fredette. It is my hobby now :) It all started with the purple African Violet from Wegmans that survived on my bay window ... now I have baby plants of it growing in their own little cups in the garage!!!

It's time to start thinking about school plans. Well, its past that time. I just really don't want to do it. I have a lot of good ideas, and I should get them put all together because I know how much stress is about to hit me. It's funny - here's how I would describe teaching. It's like, I'm going to get paid a living to run really far while carrying something really heavy over my head. I'll get two breaks, and then when I make it to the end, I get a nice long summer break. But I have to make it through that run. And you know how when you run, sometimes you get cramped, and sometimes you're like "why the heck am I doing this to myself? I need to stop!" and its this whole mental game in your head? Yeah. So right now I see the start line and I feel like I'm getting ready to take my last breath of relaxed air before starting the exhausting run ...

So, I think I'm going to go do some reading. Light reading. John Grisham. I've been working on his book "Playing for Pizza". Very brainless and quite what I like right now. Peace to all. :)

2008-07-18T15:11:00.002-04:00

The Blog of Something New

Yesterday, I joined a karate class. I've always wondered a little bit about Karate, but have never given it too much serious thought. When Rick said he wanted to take a Karate class this summer, I encouraged him. Yesterday was the first class in which he was to participate, and he told me he was nervous (though I'm sure he would deny it if you asked him!). He expressed sentiments that he wished I was taking the class with him so he didn't feel so nervous. After a moment's pause, I asked him to find out if his parents could watch the boys and I decided to go with him.

What a whole new world I've been opened up to by this class! All of the Japanese words that are used, the bows, the respect and discipline, the need to keep up quickly. And wheew I haven't sweat like that in a couple years!! We spent almost an hour at a 45 minutes class, and I am still nervous about going back on Tuesday (the harder class) but I am excited to be doing something new, healthy, and interesting in my life.

We are practicing, at home, the Kihon Kata, the first of the katas we will be learning at this school. For me, an uncoordinated not Japanese girl, I look kind of funny practicing these moves. Someday I'll put pictures up so you can see me progress. Because progress I will do. I am one day closer to a black belt!!! Hahahaha. :)

Yesterday I put together a presentation on technology in the church, and gave the presentation and directed our yearly planning SEAS staff meeting. It went pretty well. Just very time consuming. I wish the church would use more technology - no - let me rephrase my thought - I wish the church would efficiently and appropriately use some technology to reach out to those of us who are digitaholics. The SEAS website is in serious need of some help, and if I weren't so busy all the time, I'd offer to do it.

Tonight, Rick and I are going out to eat at Macaroni Grill and then we will be going to see a new indie movie called "The Visitor" at the Little theatre. It should be a lovely evening out.

I was thinking - I kind of wish I could do new things more often. Clearly I can't spend $75 a month and commit to twice weekly lessons for other new things, but I can do new one-time experiences. I should have some of those more often.

Yesterday, my new experience was Karate. That is my long term new experience. What should my next new experience be?

2008-07-04T22:13:00.003-04:00

Fireworks

The air is humid
But the breeze plays lightly
With the back of my hair
While my left hand fingers twirl
The front curling ends.

My other hand is entirely
Occupied holding yours
Though the energy in our grasp
Has an obligation of its own,
Required to keep us from separating
As we carelessly step over cracks
In the downtown sidewalk.

Moving with the masses of anticipation
We trip down into the street
Hestiating our coversation with half a glance
And a pause in our step -

We resume on our journey
As the cars come to a halt.

Words exchanged and stories told
Smiling glances and
Acknowledging head turns
Animated gestures and
Quiet burning questions.
We drift through the city streets.

Wading our way through
Cement and street lights
Whirrrr hummm and that
City sewer smell.

At last we find our place
A grey slated palace,
One large square plaza block,
A throne for you and I.

I hardly even notice how soon it is
Before the sky explodes
Colorful burst of beauty
Momentary triumph
Flashing frenzy and Booming banter.

I smile because I can't help it
They reflect in your eyes
So I get to watch it twice.
I smile because I can't help it
I wonder if you have any idea
What thoughts are exploding
Colorful and momentary, in my head.

As we come to the finale your
Hand closes tightly around mine
And my heart races faster
And the fireworks burst faster
And my heart pounds loudly
And the fireworks burst loudly
And I am bursting ...
bursting ...

The final golden firework
Pieces of stardust falling in the sky
Fading into the blackened blanket
And our gazes return earthward.

A smile.
Returned.
We sigh and resume conversation,
Descending down from our thrones,
Hand in hand,
To walk back through the city streets.

2008-07-04T00:08:00.002-04:00

Streams of conciousness
Poured out transparently
With invisible ink

Carelessly thoughts topple
Splatter saturated spots of subtlty
Into late lonely air
Disappearing as they melt, melt
Against a black background

Dancing into dreams of desire
Wearing midnight blue.

2008-05-18T22:26:00.002-04:00

Oops. I skipped over May. Well, it's almost my half birthday!!! I think I should continue to get happy about having a half birthday. I refuse to believe I will ever be old.

Time to create a list of things that are exceptionally wonderful in my life.

1) Ben broke his leg, but he is doing incredibly well dealing with the cast that he will have to keep on for another two months. Incredibly well.

2) Even after seven years, Rick still acts like I am the hottest thing in existence.

3) Joshua has successfully thrown a football to his brother several times. And he says "buhbah" (translate = football).

4) I got to see Ben Palmer for the first time in years. It was fantastic!

5) Everything is GREEN!!! I LOVE this time of the year!!!!!!

6) We got our tax refund which means we can start digging ourselves out of this debt hole.

7) I was introduced to beautiful new piano music by my good friend Dan - and I honestly can't wait to have the time to practice it.

8) My last observation of the year went phenomenally well.

9) Even though what I am teaching is up for debate, I should have a full time job next year again.

10) I got 3 hours of sleep today in the middle of the day. That never happens. Thank you honey!!! :-D

2008-03-05T23:35:00.003-05:00

So, Easter this year is my 5 year anniversary of writing in the SAME blog. I had several blogs before this one but they've all been lost in cyberspace.

It's late. I should go to bed. These days have been rough. But, I figured tonight for a change, I'd write about all the AWESOME things that happened during my day.

1) I was the lucky recipient of a serenade this morning. The suitor was a bird, but he sang so beautifully.

2) Two words. Tree buds.

3) I made a small decrease in the clutter around my desk - this is nothing short of a miracle.

4) Students ooh and ahhhed over the mad piano skills. Those skills pay the bills, kiddies.

5) We had so much fun in African Drumming, that a student asked if they could stay through their lunch. *Genuine awesome thing of the day*

6) Several of my math students asked if I could move up to Geometry next year to be their teacher. *beams*

7) Teachers sat next to me at the faculty meeting. You don't understand this until you've been to a large faculty meeting where all the teachers have their own cliques.

8) Ben was SO excited to see me today and tell me that he had gone potty today with no accidents!

9) Rick and Josh laughing at each other. :) Rick wanted to count how many teeth he had.

10) Words of approval from choir members.

11) My husband singing to "Lightning Crashes".

12) Messages from friends that are meaningful. (Ben, Dan)

So, for all of these things ... Thank You. It was a good day.

2008-02-29T22:27:00.002-05:00

This was the $h!tt!3$t week I think I've ever had. Let's recap, shall we? This is blog therapy.

Sunday - Feeling sick. Quite sick.
Monday - Still feeling sick and its just a BLAH day. A girl I care a lot about, who has the most horrible family/home life ever, starts physically shaking in my class. I take her out of class and she tells me all about being abused, about getting evicted, about how she's stealing stuff now to try to get enough money to live. My heart is ripped out.
Tuesday - This one deserves bulleting.

Feeling really sick.
Long, crappy day.
My math students all BOMB a test that I had freakin even allowed them to take with a "cheat-sheet".
Cocky prick of a teacher whose room I use to teach my math class accuses me of wrecking a graphing calculator. "It must've been a student in your class". My kids didn't even freakin touch the calculator.
Waste my time at a rehearsal that I do nothing at.
RUSH off to church reconciliation service, feeling like crap.
The priest is waiting for me at the door. He rips me a new one. All about a comment I had someone make for me at the staff meeting because I had been attacked by the chair of the liturgy committee. Priest goes on about how I need to confront people directly with my issues and not "make a huge deal" out of things like this, etc. THEN he goes on to say that I am the "righteous brother" in the Gospel of the prodigal son.
I go and bawl in my office at the church, because heck, I didn't mean to cause a problem with my comment, and I certainly didn't mean to get yelled at by a priest.
I freakin got yelled at by a priest!
I go home and bawl my eyes out again.
I get on YouTube to try to find a video for the next day's music lesson. I accidentally click on a video that is traumatizing. I won't describe it for you except that it was pictures of something horrible someone did to another person. Brutality and .... I can't even continue to write it down. Those images will be in my mind forever. I reported it to YouTube, of course. I still can't believe what I saw. I am horrified by it. I sat, staring at nothing for about half an hour. I couldn't open my computer for a long time.

Wednesday -

Feeling even more sick. Kids tell me I look awful. Kid in my second period class starts telling me that he has these notebooks he writes his thoughts in, and one of them was confiscated. He's really angry because he writes all his suicidal and murderous thoughts in these journals, and so now the counselors are on his tail and he has to see a shrink. He's very upset. He starts talking about it with another girl in the class - a gay, not-afraid-of-anyone-tell-you-how-it-is 200 pound Hispanic girl. She rips him a new one - telling him that he needs to get his act together, stop acting depressed, get rid of his attitude, etc. They start fighting in my class and I have to resolve it by getting the counselor involved.
Choir rehearsal is hard to control. New member shows up and no one interacts with her so I feel horrible.

Thursday - Okay, its gotta get better, right? I pull in to daycare and a woman gets out of her car behind me. "Hey, do you know you have a flat tire?" No. We're not just talking flat. We're talking flat. I was driving on the rim. I call Rick, 30 minutes later he picks me up and brings me late to school. After school, we spend 2 hours driving around to get tools and finally getting the spare on the tire.

Friday - LONG hectic sick sick sick day. I just feel so wretched, like I could pass out. Andy Stoker decides to tell a student in my piano class that the student needs to leave my class 15 minutes early to drive his car behind the bus that is going to All-County. I'm upset about it, because it's not Stoker who tells me, but the student. After all Stoker and Halquist's talk about "no, music is a class, you can't just leave" and the crap they give to students when students try to miss a jazz rehearsal, and he pulls this on me. So, I let the student go 15 minutes early. Only to find out that 15 minutes later, everyone is still hanging around. Stoker isn't even packed up and ready to go until 10 minutes after the school day is done. WHY THE HELL DID HE TAKE THE KID OUT OF MY CLASS???

Then I come home, really sick feeling. Rick tells me he's going to Wegmans and I can take a nap. There is no food in the house. There is no money in the bank (we really don't have enough this week for our bills). I try to take a nap and just get extremely nautious. I hear Rick yelling at the boys, so I come back downstairs. Rick gets in a bad mood. Keeps saying he's going to Wegmans and never does. He falls asleep. When I wake him up, he's in a bad mood. The kids are crying because they're hungry. I feel like I'm going to die because I'm so sick. The baby has no food and starts screaming. Rick yells about it, closes his eyes, and lays down on the couch. I yell at him, hand him the baby, and storm out to Wegmans.

I came home, put the boys to bed, and Rick is still sleeping on the couch.

That was my week. Did a black cat walk in front of me? Can I be done paying for whatever sin I'm paying for?

2008-02-20T22:58:00.004-05:00

Thoughts Concerning Things of the Church

I'm sitting here putting together music lists for the upcoming month of March, which this year includes Holy Week (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Paschal Saturday, Easter Sunday). Trying to draw suggestions from as many sources as possible, I've stumbled across two, although mostly unrelated, thought provoking "fire starters" if you will ... at least, they ignite a fire in my mind.

The first is an article that I am shocked to see published on Catholic.org. Let me set the record straight. I believe myself to be a conservative republican in the politcal world. But I think I'm a liberal Catholic. I'm not certain. I almost could be a member of two very different Catholic churches (I hear you steadfast orthodox Catholics scoffing). I genuinely appreciate the traditional-sacred-Latin mass style for certain reasons, but I also appreciate the modern-faithfilled-praise mass style for other reasons. Notice that I think I used quite different words to describe each style I'm talking about. I also don't think they mix. At all.

Anyways, here were my road blocks.

This article, http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=19433, discusses the washing of the feet for Holy Thursday. The author discusses the history of washing the feet on Holy Thursday, and how it was custom for only the feet of "chosen" males to be washed. Some churches today (and I know SEAS is one of them) open up feet washing to men, women, and children alike. This makes the most sense to me. I honestly didn't even know there was a time when it was only men.

However, the author continues on to say that Catholic churches should still follow this tradition. He says "First, I’d respectfully urge that all Catholic dioceses and parishes follow the rubrics as they presently exist, and thereby not permit the washing of women’s feet on Holy Thursday". He continues on to say "Second, while it’s theoretically possible for the church to allow women to have their feet washed on Holy Thursday, it’s far from clear that it’s fitting to do so." Now, thoroughly outraged, I will read to you what made my jaw drop in disbelief.

"Holy Thursday in a singularly pre-eminent way celebrates the institution of the ordained priesthood and the Eucharist, which are inseparably related. It’s neither a historical accident nor sex discrimination that the apostles happened to be men. It’s also no coincidence that the apostles’ successors have only chosen men to lay down their lives for the church, the bride of Christ, as ordained ministers. "

Okay. Breathe. Are you kidding me? Of course it wasn't a historical accident that the apostles were men. If the apostles were women, who would've believed them at the time? Women weren't allowed to be public figures. How would Christ's church have carried on if he had chosen 12 women? It was the evolving culture of the time that kept women relatively silent. Jesus had to choose 12 men. What if he chose 12 men and 2 women? Do you think we'd know about it?

Second, the apostles' successors have not only chosn men to lay down their lives for the church. Give me a break. First of all, in the early days, you'll find that there were women deacons. It was not the apostles who said only men could be priests - no, that came many many many many generations later. And clearly, the author of this article is discrediting any church that allows women to be ordained ministers. Who are they? Not successors of the apostles I suppose.

I think what really, really irks me about that last statement is that it sounds as if only men can lay down their life for the church. Well, if we take the church to mean the body of Christ, his people joined together to form his living commuity body, I think you will find that there are many women who lay down their life for the church.

Not to deal a low blow, but did the apostolic succesors also choose the sick perverted abusive swine for priests who have only recently been disgraced by the public for the sinfulness of their ways? And did those successors choose those horrible men over holy and respectable women?

Now for road block number 2. This is a big one.

I've read a lot about the whole movement to bring back polyphony, Gregorian chant, and the music of the 16th century Masters into the sacred liturgy. "Only the music of Palestrina is fit for the church" I've read. Countless articles by recent Popes, by 'erudite' sacred music scholars, and by holier-than-thou societal-snubbers litters the internet with attacks on the 'vulgar', 'frivolous' and 'superfluous' that is heard in many churches throughout America today. Songs such as "On Eagles Wings" and "Be Not Afraid" bear the brunt of most of these attacks. GIA and OCP are the major companies that are bullied.

There is something incredible about walking in to a vaulted ceiling cathedral and hearing Baroque polyphonic music criss-crossing through your soul as the uncontested pipe organ shakes your inner most sinews.

There is an absolute purity of peace heard in the perfectly formed vowels of a well-trained choir's Gregorian Chant as the resonance of each un-metered neume echoes hauntingly from cement pillar to pillar to pillar.

But what of your homey, relatively low ceiling, carpet and wood, everyday people church? The one without the gigantic organ - rather, you have faithful ministers willing to play their heart out on their guitar or electric keyboard. So there are no classically trained singers, but you've got some people who like to sing in the shower that would love to share that gift in ministry. Maybe they laugh when you tell them not to "chew the dipthong" in an attempt to correct their vowel shape. Maybe their range of a 6th won't bounce off anything except a Shure PG48 microphone. Give them Latin and polyphony and they are totally lost. They don't get it, they don't understand the words, they can't find their pitches, but they give it their best. Put "Be Not Afraid" in front of them, however, and they sing their heart out. Which one brings the sacredness into mass - that Latin piece they couldn't sing or the 'contemporary filth'?

I listen to the song "Alive, Forever Amen" and I am filled with joy. Absolutely joyous that our Lord resurrected. I put the song on repeat because I want to continue to experience the exhilaration that I can connect with our Savior. Is this wrong because I'm taking too "personal" an approach to God?

I have too many thoughts on this subject to type them all tonight.

I love Palestrina. I love Josquin. I love Bach. I love Mozart. I also love pieces by Haas, Haugen, and Joncas.

Catholicism is not just for the elite.

A lot of people don't get jazz music. Those who really dig it tend to fancy themselves musical elitists. There's a place for jazz, and there is a place for Rock 'n' Roll. There's a place for Palestrina, and there's a place for Haas.

Someday, more thoughts will come. Buenas noches.

2008-02-18T14:12:00.003-05:00

Nothing means more to me than my children.

My husband and my marriage mean the world to me. But if anything ever happened to my children, I couldn't go on living.

A woman was driving in Byron this morning and ran a light or something and slammed into a tractor trailor. When they first gave the news this morning, they said "two people died". I assumed it was the woman driving, and the truck driver.

It was the woman's two children. Victoria, age 7, and Christopher, age 11.

The woman is in the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

How is that woman going to ever go on living? I am crying for her ... crying and crying ...

You couldn't go home and see evidence of your children everywhere.
You couldn't watch the news and see news about schools.
You couldn't go to Wegmans and see all the mommies with their children.
You couldn't face your family members. Do they blame you? Do they have kids that you couldn't bear to see?
What about when you get mail, or phone calls, for your deceased children?
How do you ever ride, much less drive, in a car again?

How do you believe in God, when you are living in a hell on earth?

I'd want to die.

God forbid anything like this ever happen in my life. If it does, I seriously and truthfully hope someone comes and shoots me. I would rather be dead.

Why would God take this woman's children from her?

Why?

How does she go on living?

Why??

2008-02-12T15:05:00.000-05:00

It probably should be a rule that I don't blog in response to my having a horrible day ... but I don't know what else to do.

I suppose it wasn't that awful, and I'm sure when I re-read about it, it won't seem terrible at all. But - with the mood I'm in - and the chain of events - it just felt like a horrible day. So here it is.

1) My computer power cable is fried. I thought I fixed it with electrical tape, but it wouldn't work for first period Guitar class today.

2) My guitar class kids didn't really care about what I had them do today - which was learn a 12 bar blues. My other 1st period guitar class LOVED the way I taught it using guitartricks.com. This class really seemed to care less.

3) I was supposed to have the faculty recital tonight. I was nervous but anticipating it nevertheless. I get an email from one of my colleagues that she is too sick to perform. (She was one of the three people I was accompanying).

4) The result of #3 would be that only 4 people were performing for the faculty recital.

5) There is supposed to be a lot of crappy weather tonight.

6) As a result of #4 and #5, the faculty recital was cancelled.

7) My morning started off sucking because Rick and I got in a mini-fight about driving the boys to daycare, since my day was going to be so hectic with the faculty recital. Now it was all for naught.

8) I needed time to make copies of worksheets for my other classes. Most teachers have a planning period for this stuff. Since I accompany, I have no planning period. I was supposed to have 30 minutes, however, free during chorus since they were supposed to work on a joint piece with Banner's chorus. I got a phone call right before Chorus saying "sorry, I need you for the whole rehearsal afterall". Thus, no free time to make copies, or breathe, or have a planning period, etc.

9) Now I'm at Explorations, with no computer presentation to show the kids, no music to play the kids (it was all on my computer) and nothing to do - except I brought a giant bouncy ball in because we were going to play a rhythm game with the drums and a ball.

10) So I get the kids organized for African drumming and ball game. Stupid students kick the ball around and act dumb. Class starts to fall apart.

11) I get them through the game, and it is time for their lunch. I realize I'm supposed to join the other faculty members for a sponsored lunch in the faculty room. Even though I actually spent the time making my own lunch this morning.

12) I get back from lunch, with nothing planned or ready to go. I don't know what to tell the kids. We try the "marker" game, which they like in African drumming. My idiot kids can't keep a steady pulse and the game falls apart. One girl says "this is so dumb" and another kid says "we haven't done anything fun in class today". Frustrated, I pick up my hackey-sack and throw it at the kid who made the last comment, but accidentally hit another kid.

13) So, while I try to print something off for the students to do, they decide to try and play 7-up, (we're talking 30 seconds here) and in those 30 seconds, Banner walks in an looks disgusted that the kids are not doing anything musically productive.

14) I have nothing for the kids to do, so I want them to finish their projects in the computer lab that Mrs. Banner's kids are using. I go and ask. She says she only needs 2 computers. I have 21 kids, and 18 computers. I tell her fine, we will share computers.

15) Kids are working on their projects. Some of them. I save three computers for Banner's kids. They come in and don't feel comfortable squishing in at the computers that I left open. Banner gets pissed that I didn't leave two computers open on the ends for her students. She gets mad and tells them to use her office.

16) The period ends, I'm pissed off, and I return to my room to find out one of the drum heads on my African drums in broken. Giant hole in the drum head.

What a crappy day. Sometimes I just hate this job, I hate where I am.

I could freakin be sitting at a piano, practicing. Or sitting in a library, reading. Or standing behind the counter at a bank, counting money. I would much rather do that than have a sucky day like this.

Sorry to complain so much. I just really, strongly, disliked today.

2008-01-13T23:01:00.000-05:00

Did I really not write anything in all of November or December?

I know I've been very poor at keeping a blog, and I doubt if there is anyone besides myself who reads this. But, I still enjoy going back to my old posts to read words from the old me, and so I'll continue to write when I get the chance.

Welcome in 2008. Although teaching this year isn't quite as "bad" as last year, I'm starting to count down the days until June. This is a tough job, I don't care what other people who are outside of education think. There is not a spare moment, even at home, to do anything. You wonder why I don't blog anymore? It's a joke to even think I have a minute to read something. Everything I read has to be related to what I'm going to be teaching so that I can potentially use it in the classroom, or else it is simply time wasted. I hardly have any time to practice anything this year. It doesn't help of course that I'm working another job on top of it all, but all the same, there is never enough time.

Enough complaining about that. Baby Joshua is getting big! He's almost walking. He cruises around, and pushes his little walker car all throughout the house. He and Ben get along so well, it is adorable. For about the last two weeks, Joshua has been waving hello and goodbye, which is also extremely cute. This past week he had a double ear infection and a cold though, so I'm hoping he gets over it soon.

I don't know if I blogged about this or not, but back in Oct or Nov I had an anaphylactic reaction to kiwi. So, Wednesday of this week I'm going to AAIR in Henrietta to meet with an allergist and get skin tested for allergies. We'll see what happens. I'm weaning the baby now off of nursing, so I'm reintroducing things into my diet that I haven't had in 9 months. It's really putting my system in a funk though. So, I guess we'll see.

Here's the real reason I was so inspired to write (and I am only going to write for 3 more minutes). I just, for the first time in my life, truly thought about taxes. We are really struggling with money right now, and every day it's a battle of how many dollars we have and how many we can spend and how many we can put towards our debt. Let's look at it this way: We have $60,000 in student loans, a $121,000 mortgage. It costs $16,000 per school year to have the kids in daycare. We currently have about $8700 in credit card debt (some of it is a student loan that I put on the credit card, some of it is expenses we had from buying the house). We have 25 bills we pay every month. Let me tell you, the numbers just don't add up. So, what was I doing? Trying to figure out if we're going to owe money or get any money back for taxes, which made me look up our tax bracket and really figure out how tax brackets work.

Lo and behold, I discovered that for every $1.00 I make, the federal government immediately takes 17.75 cents. That includes nothing except federal tax. What! So okay, let's pay for other things out of that remaining 82 cents, such as state tax, health costs, dental, union dues, etc. I also put some money into a flex account for daycare and other health expenses. So anyways, after it's all said and done, I take home $0.53 for every dollar I earned. Then! I take that whopping half of a dollar, and have to pay for items like a toothbrush, and for that toothbrush I am taxed another 8%. So, after I put all that hard work into a dollar, I realistically have $.49 buying power.

Robbery. But then I really thought about it. Here are my thoughts. "Well, I guess we need roads, and national defense, etc. so I have to give money for those things, so tax can't be all bad. But where does it exactly go?" So next I turned to msnbc to read about where your taxes go.

I am appalled at how much of our money goes to government welfare programs, and more incredulously, to the freakin interest the government owes on its debts!!! Not to pay the debt off, but to interest!!!! In 2006, approximately $122.00 of every $1000 that the gov't got in our tax money went to paying interest on its debt.

Then, I continued to read on. The government has a budget of $2.7 trillion. Income tax makes up $1.2 trillion. Where does the rest come from? Well, social security, excise tax, and other sources ... but to make a long story short, it still leaves the government missing $1.3 tillion for its budget. Thus, into more debt goes the government!

Where are the fiscal brains of our government, besides gone? You can't run a household with that strategy. How do we think we can run a country like that?

So there's my rant for the night. I'm outraged. Because I never realized how much money was being robbed out of our paychecks. Because I never realized how truly idiotic the government spending wizards are. Because it is so unfair that the more money you make, the greater your tax bracket - and yet we're stuck now, if we require everyone to pay the same tax percentage we're screwing ourselves into even greater debt.

::Sigh::

2007-10-23T21:42:00.000-04:00

A quick thought ...

Tomorrow my unexpected angel turns 3. Happy Birthday Ben. :)

Incredible how life does what it will. If you had told me four years ago that this is where my life would be I would've laughed in your face ...

Three blessed years. I wouldn't trade them for anything.

2007-09-06T23:34:00.000-04:00

Ahhh, two days into the school year and already I feel like I could fall over due to exhaustion. I just am doing too many things right now. Preparing for lessons is taking forever, as it did last year. I made a pact with myself this year though. Every day at the end of the school day, I spend 30 minutes just gathering together all the stuff I needed for each of my lessons. Then I put them in a folder and shove them in my filing cabinet. My goal is to have every single lesson that I do this year, in order, in the filing cabinet so that I have very little work to do for next year.

I have much to tell, as always, but I am so exhausted, and the only reason I'm writing is because I'm trying to pick out music for the listening examples I do in my African Drumming class. I will mention this one thing though, because it certainly will be a challenge this year - I have a student who understands NO english. She is from Vietnam, and only speaks Vietnamese. Today, there was no translator. I don't know if even five words of mine made sense to her. I sat down and tried to even write English for her. No dice. That could be really really tricky. And leave it to the counseling office to put her in three of my classes.

So what inspired me to write? Well, I put on this song, Casamance by Ghana M'Baye, and usually when cheesy stuff like nature sounds are part of a song, I just change the song. However, this one starts off with waves and incredibly, I actually felt tension leave my head when I heard those waves. Immediately, I could picture myself at the beach, particularly at one of the non-peopled beaches I've been to in my life, usually when we stayed at a hotel on the beach. Oh, the beautiful, beautiful ocean! I miss the sound of the waves, I miss the southern sun ... nostalgia ... the smell of salt water and haze ... Anyways. It just felt beautiful. I hadn't felt that exact feeling in a long time, and it made me want to share it.

That's it. Tomorrow is Friday and already I can say ... TGIF.

2007-08-27T16:44:00.000-04:00

You know what I love? That I have survived the summer wearing the crappiest shoes, and no one cares. Seriously, I purchased my Sketchers red sneakers my senior year of high school, right when Rick and I started dating. They've served me very well, but now they resemble sandals more than sneakers. The home-made air vents reveal about half of my foot on each shoe. No one, besides my mom, has told me all summer long to get myself a new pair of shoes. I like that I don't need nice shoes to survive.

Same thing with the cars we drive. They are falling apart, worth very little, and we're struggling to find the money to keep them up, but that's all our goal is - to keep them running and safe enough to drive. No one tells me I need to get a new car. No one cares. I don't need a fancy car to survive.

I was thinking about it. It must be very difficult for people of higher class status than myself, because they're always being critiqued. Fashion, cars, houses, spouses - people in the spotlight can't live with crappy shoes.

I just feel so fortunate at how much we have. Yesterday was Rick's birthday, and one of the things we did for his birthday was go to the Ansel Adams exhibit at the George Eastman House. The exhibit was beautiful, what a gift that man had - and what patience! We spent the last 15 minutes that the place was open looking at the George Eastman house itself. Unbelieveable! How could anyone live like that! A single room was almost as big as our entire first floor, and the furnishings were so lavish! I kept thinking "how could anyone live with so much unnecessary excess?" Then I came home and looked at our home as though I had come from a shack in a poor third world country. I thought the same thing. Relativity. And I was ashamed.

Something I really need to get my hands on - the book coming out with the letters of Mother Theresa. I really, really want to read it. I'll elaborate, perhaps, more once I do read it. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go here.

Well, I'm freaking out a bit about school still. I can't find my math textbook anywhere. We've torn our stuff apart looking for it. I went in to school today, only to panic because it's quite apparent they're not going to have the projector put in before school starts. So all I will have is a useless screen and a half hidden white board. Fantastic.

Anyways, more later, I'm out!

2007-08-23T21:23:00.000-04:00

Interesting, the things that become so must-do important when you are trying desperately hard to avoid doing what you dread ... I need to be planning for school, and yet so many things seem to be looming over me in an urgency to be completed, such as laundry, sorting papers, cleaning out the boxes in the garage, organizing the clothes that are too small for Josh and clothes that are too small for Ben but someday Josh will fit in to.

And so here it is, 9:30. I sit down at my computer, thinking "so it goes, time to start planning". I decide to make myself a cup of tea. Ahh, raspberry tea. And as it is "brewing" in my microwaved water and Noritake coffee mug, I decide that I really would like to own some beautiful tea cups. Well, here I come ebay. There are over 1100 tea cups listed on ebay. As I browse and think that there are so many that are beautiful and so many that are ugly, my raspberry tea sits waiting for me. I pause from my perusing, trying to convince myself in my head that it would be okay to spend $20 on a tea cup, a single tea cup and a saucer. I'm sure I have a place to put it. I'm sure I'd use it with a guest over. I'm sure I'd drink tea more often if I actually had a tea cup. I get up, grab my tea which has been sitting long enough that it is actually cool now to drink. Page 17, page 18 ... I drink my tea in gulps .. page 19, page 20 ... and as the tea drains slowly from my Noritake coffee cup, so does my interest in purchasing a beautiful piece of tea china ...

Alas, I've read books 1-4 of Harry Potter, and book 5 is sitting here, calling my name. I tell myself I really should be planning for school. Feeling guilty about my urge to ready Harry Potter (which is ten times stronger than my practically non-existant urge to plan) I decide that there is another urgent matter I must attend to.

I must blog. Primarily about my experience with the tea cup search, and secondly about my hesitancy and reluctancy to plan. Anything else significant going on in my life right now that merits a blog mention? Very little I'm afraid.

And so, with these parting words, I'm off to find something else so worthy of my time that I cannot possibly get to planning this evening ...

2007-08-01T22:49:00.000-04:00

Here are some things that have happened in the days of recent that since I am so neglegent in posting, I thought I would briefly update you with:

1) I've watched Joshua learn to roll over: front to back and back to front
2) I got a new job (an additional job, so I'm still going to be a teacher this fall at Brockport)
3) We bought a house
4) We moved into the house
5) I presented two two-hour workshops at the "National Differentiation Institute"
6) I've sung for the past month every weekend infront of 500 people
7) I finally got rid of www.michellekeenan.com (hence the reason my pictures aren't working)
8) I've grown a huge fondness for gardening
9) I've composed another psalm setting
10) I rediscovered my passion for theology
11) I taught private flute and piano lessons weekly to 9 students
12) I've decided retirement (from teaching) can't come soon enough
13) I've decided I don't know if I've got the guts to stick to teaching for another 29 years, there are just so many things out there that interest me
14) I've played guitar infront of about two hundred people, twice. (I wasn't great, but I did it)
15) I played for a wedding and two funerals

That's a basic summary.

My new job: "Director of Music" at St. Elizabeth Ann Seaton church. I run the music show, and now we can really pay our new mortgage. Well, that's the plan anyways. I feel very at home doing the music in the church. I direct the contemporary choir (about 14 singers, 1 drummer, 1 flutist, 1 violinist, 1 violist, 3 guitarists, 1 bassist), I play the piano, I cantor, I direct the ressurection choir (for funerals), I plan the music, I arrange the music and write parts, etc. I've been asked to do a teen choir and a children's choir, but I'm hoping there is someone else who is willing to take on that task because that is wayyyy too much for me.

There are several things running through my head right now, and I'm struggling with how much to put into writing. Let me just start to type and see where things go.

I have, over the past few days, been following the postings in the blog of a person I've never met, though he is a friend of a friend. He's in the seminary, and his writings exhibit quite a profound depth of thought on all matters relating to Christianity. At first, I was absolutely intrigued, and thought "wow, here is a person who is so in touch with Faith, who understands so much of the doctrine, who has read the history and contemplated the great theological works - I could learn a lot from this person". You know, the whole leach idea. I tend to want to latch on to people that I can learn a lot from, take all the knowledge I can get, and then continue on my knowledge quest. Well, this one was short lived.

Here's why.

As I read more, I feel that his writings have become pretentious, more of a "show" if you will. An opportunity to flash seldom used words such as "praxis" and "dogma" in an effort to sound reflective and knowledgable, not because the words are necessary or even contribute to the meaning of the writing. I'm not that picky about words, but these are everywhere and I see the integrity of the writing just crumbling under their "superflousness".

Second, there are several recent posts of his which outright condemn good people for things that they have said which surely must be sacriligeous in the eyes of God. Here is where I can't get into typing about this person without giving away idenity, because I would have to quote from his writings. All I have to say is - who are you to judge, you who claim to be so Christ-like? Who are you to think you know the only "correct" way to worship, to know the Lord, to understand our purpose as the universal Church? How can we get so wrapped up in ourselves, in the "good" that we do that we end up stabbing ourselves with our own goodness?

I realize that was rather vague, but I don't want to offend anyone right now, that's not my purpose. I'm just struggling with all of what I read internally and had to get it out somehow.

My second struggle is with a person that I work with. A musician. Who is unwilling to work with anyone who is not up-to-par in the talent department, who is not willing to work with anyone who doesn't see it his/her way, and who thinks he/she has had 30 years in this area of music, which is much more time than I've had so surely, everything he/she knows must be the experienced truth.

The position I'm in makes it very difficult to appease this person, or to stirke a balance between this person and the other people I work with.

There, those are my struggles. I'm beginning to feel very anxious about the approaching school year. Very anxious.

I guess tonight is just a night of anxities.

2007-04-22T22:10:00.000-04:00

Hello from the lost world of Michelle! I have so much to update, because life has changed again in such a big and blessed way! :)

Joshua Ryan Marvin was born on March 21st at 8:26 AM, weighing in at 6.0 lbs and he was 19 inches long. My beautiful second son didn't have to get taken to the NICU, and we were able to leave the hospital the next evening. Thank goodness I decided to call for my sub at 5:30 in the morning. We got to the hospital around 6:30, and the baby was born less than two hours later! Pshew. Everything went well! I was 6 cm when I got to the hospital. I had been having contractions since about 1:30 in the morning, even though I wasn't sure until 4:30 that they were contractions. He was born two weeks early, so I guess you can't blame me for not being certain. But we got there!

Joshua is doing well, he is eating ALL the time and gaining weight quickly.

Well as usual I have to cut this short, and I'll write more in the future. :)

2007-02-28T11:59:00.000-05:00

I am so blessed. I have a wonderful son and an incredible husband, and another amazing baby on the way.

Five.Five more weeks before this little one is due. :)

We'll see if he stays in there that long!!!

We're looking at houses now ... more on that later. Life is still wayyyyyyyyy too busy.

<3 Michelle

2007-01-21T21:50:00.000-05:00

Wooooohhhhhh my stomach is an eternal playground for this little one. Believe it or not, this baby has more energy than Ben did when I was pregnant the first time.

So, it looks like the baby's name is going to be Joshua Ryan. The name I used to tell people I was going to name a son way back when I was in high school!

School is school ... still stressing, still depressing, still ever challenging. I'm hanging in there. I'll only be there for another 2.5 months before the baby comes!

Sorry I don't have time to write more than that. Someday, updates will flourish!

2007-01-02T23:44:00.000-05:00

Well, I got suckered into a survey ... yeah I know, I don't post forever and then when I do, it's a survey. Nice, Michelle!

2006 morphing into 2007 (ahh, time goes on....)

I AM: in love. A mom. A wife. A teacher. A musician. A friend. A daughter. A lover. If I knew anything more specific in that, you wouldn't catch me staring off into space so often ...
I WANT: truth and happiness. Small things, of course.
I HAVE: the most incredible husband, son, and friends. And a crappy car situation.
I WISH: My academic and career life would settle themselves out!
I LOVE: Rick Marvin :) <3 Benjamin Marvin! My son #2 who is on the way!
I HATE: not getting enough sleep anymore. Anymore, who am I kidding? Ever.
I MISS: spending time in the music library, and real, relaxed freedom with my man.
I FEAR: not knowing which road to follow (figuratively)
I REGRET: the only thing I will ever and always regret
I ALWAYS: could spend time reading
I AM NOT: a coffee drinker
I DANCE: when I am happy! Especially when listening to Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous ... does jumping around like a maniac constitute dancing?
I SING: when don't I sing?
I CRY: when I feel lost
I AM NOT ALWAYS: freshly showered
I WON: a $1.00 M & M check from a bag of M & Ms in a vending machine when I was an undergrad
I LOST/LOSE: my sense of following my dreams when I start worrying about finances
I CONFUSE: The names of the guy who lives downstairs and the landlord
I SHOULD: spend more time telling people how much I love them and am thankful they are in my life

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
- Got married
- Moved into an apartment
- Got a graduate degree
- Became a teacher
- Co-signed a loan
- Built mega-block towers with my son
- Went to Amish capital, Ohio

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
- I didn't make any last year, and I didn't make any for this year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
- Melissa Scroger
- My cousin Kristen
- Kym Dill
- I will in 3 months!! *Sorry, was too excited, had to include that

4. Did anyone close to you die?
- My Great Aunt Gloria

5. What countries did you visit?
- Amish Country, Ohio
- Canada, of course, eh

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
- Certainty about my future plans for school and a job

7. What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
- June 10th, 2006 the day I said forever and ever and ever infront of my family and friends to the man who will always have my entire heart

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
- Getting married

9. What was your biggest failure?
- Not sending out all the thank you cards that needed to be sent

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
- Yeah, plenty of mental illness

11. What was the best thing you bought?
- Small little finger-cuffs made out of gold and diamonds to go around my finger and Rick's finger!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
- Mine? Getting married meant I could have the biggest party I've ever had!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
-Heh, 2/3rds of the people I met and possibly worked with in the Rochester City School District

14. Where did most of your money go?
- A wedding, grad school, my car, and an apartment

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
- Getting married!!!! Moving out of the house!!!!!

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
- 100 years by Five For Fighting

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier
ii. thinner or fatter? definitely getting fatter ... oh the joys of pregnancy!
iii. richer or poorer? HAHAHAHA richer in spirit, poorer in money!

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
- Sleep

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
- Wallowed in those depressing times

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
- It was spent with each side of the family in both families! Rochester NY and Somewhere, PA

21. Who had the biggest influence on your life in 2006?
- Rick, Ben, Jess, my Aunt Jan

22. Did you fall in love in 2006?
- I fell more into it, and still do every day

23. How many one-night stands?
- Seriously?

24. What was your favorite TV program?
- GREY'S ANATOMY!

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
- I don't know if I hate anyone. No one comes to mind.

26. What was the best book you read?
- Does it have to be from 2006? I didn't read too much casual stuff in 2006. OH WAIT! I read Uncle Tom's Cabin for the first time. Hmmm ... maybe that was 2005 ...

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
- Do you know how many musical discoveries I've made since I started teaching at Brockport? Honestly though, I think probably C-Jam blues as played by Oscar Peterson has been the best.

28. What did you want and get?
- Married! and ... Pregnant! Again! ... and ... to Move out of the house! ... and ... A Job!

29. What did you want and not get?
- The blessed gift of life stabilizing decisiveness

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
- Hmmm, I watched a lot of movies and yet I don't remember many. Seriously, I think it was a documentary I watched about the Ancient Mayans.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
- Ahhh, getting old. I turned 23, and I spent the morning eating delicious Belgian Waffles cooked by my fantastic husband, drinking a Hot Chocolate that Kathleen brought over from Tim Hortons. Kathleen and I talked for a while. I opened extremely exciting presents (seriously), had a Cookie Cake at my parents house, and went out to eat at Crescent Beach with Rick.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
- Owning a car that worked consistently for more than 2 weeks at a time.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
- "Relaxed professional". How does that sound? Seriously, I'm still wearing stuff from high school though.

34. What/who kept you sane?
- Rick and Jess

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
- Ellen Pompeo

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
- The Sadam trial

37. Who did you miss?
- Amanda, Kathleen, all my dear friends from Potsdam

38. Who was the best new person you met?
- Alan Faiola, a student teacher at Brockport. If you ever meet him, give him a Rubik's cube.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006:
- I just keep getting older. Time doesn't stop or slow down, quite the opposite actually.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
- Them that's got shall get, them that's not shall lose. So the Bible says and it still is news. Mama may have, Papa may have, but God bless the child whose got his own ... whose got his own.

2006-12-01T00:24:00.000-05:00

Two thoughts before I crash for the night:

1) We're having another boy!!!!! No names yet, but I'll keep you updated.

2) The paperwork is in ... now I just hold my breath and pray ... (purposefully vague - I put this in here more for my own memory/date/recollection in the future)

2006-11-05T21:02:00.000-05:00

Why does our rate of learning have to slow down? I watch my son, everyday, and am just floored at how quickly he learns. A lot of times I think "wow, he's a smart kid" but then I have to remind myself that children his age do learn faster than we do, so I'm probably just not used to such a quick rate of progress. Tonight, I watched him pick up his little basketball, and from about 8 feet away, throw a single-handed shot right into his hoop on the wall. His hoop is almost five feet off the ground (maybe 4.5) so its not like this is an easy accomplishment. Two months ago, he couldn't throw above his eye level. Everything went down or horizontal, but never with any vertical height. Now, not only can he put in height, but he can aim with one hand from a distance and make a basket.

His vocabulary is astounding me too. "I see the ball". Do you know how many complicated sentence components he put together there? Its not just "ball", its "I see the ball". Just listening to him put together words and use them correctly blows my mind.

So why is it that I sit here and practice guitar and feel like I'm moving at a snail's pace? Would I be going a lot faster if I were younger? I don't like thinking that at age 22.9 my learning has slowed down but I'm faced with that reality every day. I think I do a pretty good job keeping my mind sharp, alert, ready to learn, etc. But I don't know how to make it so that I make new connections and retain new information at as quick a pace as I used to. No, even still I'm not saying it correctly. I can still retain new information as well as I used to be able to (at least I think I can). I just can't manipulate it to form new ideas as fast as I'd like to be able to.

I wonder if I can find books on the subject. I wonder if the people who've really studied stuff like this even had had the time or desire to write it in a book. I don't want to read something by a wanna-be brain theorist.

So, about life lately, lets see. I'm getting more and more frustrated trying to prepare lessons for the classes that I'm teaching, most especially my explorations class. I feel very challenged by the students in that class to entertain them. I know, you can say all you want "you're not there to entertain, you're there to teach" but I've seen the difference in their learning between when they are all interested and think I'm teaching them something cool vs. when they think they're just learning stuff because I think its important (i.e. how to read music). Even the self-discipline in my classroom shows a huge difference when they are interested in my subejct material. But I can't keep teaching them about popular and rock music. Although I think its very interesting and would like to build the course around it, I do have to teach about classical music and music of other countries.

Its hard for me to write this, but I need to get it out. I don't think this is the right job for me. I know you're all thinking "what is the right job for you then, why can't you ever be happy with what you're doing?" Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm afraid of being in one place too long. If that is honestly the case, then I guess I'll never be satisfied with what I'm doing. I recognize that as a possibility, although it terrifies me. Its not what I want. But honestly, I was more happy with my life when I was at the bank than I am now. My mom doesn't believe me when I say that. And its not the money at all. Its my old complaint about teaching - the dramatic ups and downs that you experience in one day are incredibly taxing both emotionally and mentally. I'm too passive to enjoy having to yell at kids one minute and then laugh with them the next. I also don't like spending hours in the evening putting together lessons that I don't feel thrilled with the next day. When I worked at the bank, I could come home and watch TV. Or practice. Etc. Screw having the summers off.

So what am I going to choose to do when I have the baby and have to go on maternity leave? I don't know yet. I'm not sure if I'm going to request the following year off (which contractually, I can do). I don't know if I'll just want to go back next year. Part of me really likes the idea of having all my materials mostly done for next year, and just working to make it fit together better instead of having to come up with new stuff every day. And then another part of me is like "you're going to waste your time and talent teaching a new group of kids who don't really care about your class and who don't really care about your talents and who don't really care about music". Thats when I get depressed.

OH!!!!! I saw the Rach 2 concert last night with Rick at the Eastman theater. WAHHOO!!! That was awesome. Barry Douglas was the pianist, and he was very good. A couple of times it seemed as though Christopher Seaman, conductor of the RPO, was having a hard time keeping the orchestra with Douglas' ever fluctuating tempos, and so unfortunately, there were a couple "conversational" parts between the piano and the orchestra that didn't come off as they were meant to. All the same, it was phenomenal to see Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano concerto performed live. It held my attention the entire time. Wow, I wish I could play like that. The second part of the concert was the Shostakovich Symphony No. 10, which was also well played. However, by that time I was a little drowsy ... that one didn't hold my attention the whole time but I was happy because I'd gotten to see the Rach.

This little baby is getting pretty rambunctious inside. Cartwheels and all. We should find out in a little less than two weeks time whether it is a baby boy or girl! Either way we will be very happy. My gut instincts tell me it is a girl, but in my dreams I keep dreaming it is a boy. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Okay, I'm done rambling for the time being. Happy Sunday Night!

2006-10-09T19:56:00.000-04:00

Not to use unnecessary mathematical methaphors, but if I could draw a line representative of my life and decisions to pursue music again, in the academic sense of it all, it would look familiarly like a sine curve. Actually, beautifully like a sine curve. Funny, that we show sound waves as transverse, like a sine curve, even though they're really longitudinal?

So, skimming back through miles of previous posts, it seems apparent that I've communicated my overwhelming desire ... no, desire's not the appropriate word ... but it'll suffice for now .... to go back to grad school to surround myself with mostly dead geniuses of the musical sphere. I just don't seem to have the guts to do it.

But here's where my conflict comes in. Is it guts? Or is it just that I recognize the utter selfishness or it all ... the incredible monetary investment (and burden) it would be on my family, the isolation another graduate degree (and this, a more serious one) would involve, the uncertainty of any secure employment coming from the years of study and incalcuable student loans? And Rick says "as long as you're happy and you're going after what you want", with all the sincere encouragement and smiles in his eyes I could ever ask for.

What does it all mean? Why am I more interested in studying Hindemith's gaps in his rhythmic treatises ... why do I feel like a Beethoven Symphony can anchor itself in my soul and not relinquish its hold even hours after its over ... why is it that each time I hear the names Brahms, Satie, Debussy, Wolf ... I want to run to a library, throw on headphones, and pour over studies of their works?

Why don't I want to spend my time planning for African Drumming?

I feel the airs of another planet. I'm 22. I don't want to live to be 50 and have regrets that I didn't do what I wanted. We all know that it works out if you make it work out. Why am I afraid I can't make this work out?

Here are the cons of my considering going back to grad school:

a) the HUGE financial cost
b) the HUGE time commitment
c) hey, I have a job right now that's really a good job
d) if I don't teach for at least three years out of the next five, I lose my certification
e) uncertainty of ever landing a job (professor)
f) stress, stress, and more stress. Even if its stress I love.

Here are the pros of going back to grad school:
a) get to do what I LOVE!
b) get to do what I've planned on doing!
c) get qualified to teach at a university!
d) Maslow's Hierarchy - I think that "Nirvana of Intellectuality" is one of those steps at the top

I could teach lessons in the evenings.

Maybe I'm afraid I won't even get in. Maybe this will just be another long winded rant that I will read a couple months from now when I'm at the -1 on the sine curve.

2006-09-25T21:06:00.000-04:00

Wahoo! I'm learning the guitar!

I know, that sounds a little ridiculous, condsidering I'm teaching 50+ students how to play. But seriously, you all know I never studied guitar. I taught myself to play Greenday's "Time of Your Life" and a couple other little songs when I was in high school. I took "functional guitar" at Potsdam which seriously was a joke. And now I am in charge of passing on beginning guitar skills to students of the next guitar generation.

So, I'm paying for lessons from a professor at Roberts, Tim Shannon. And I had my first lesson tonight! He basically told me that everything I was doing to hold the guitar was wrong, so I have to relearn all my hand placement and even where the guitar sits on my lap and etc. etc. But its awesome.

I think what happened is this was one of those "you don't know what you had until you lost it" cases for me. I mean, I know I was having fun at music school and that I was working too hard most of the time. But if I had to do it again ... well, I know I would've relished every second of it so much more than I did when I was there. I really, really, really, really, really miss studying music (in case you couldn't tell). I REALLY miss it. So its awesome to be going somewhere for lessons, to be learning something new, to be absorbing everything I can. Now I have the dedication to practice every day and get really good at the speed all my flute and piano teachers in the past knew I should've been going at. I just didn't practice enough back then, and well, I honestly committed myself to too many things to practice enough.

So, there is my happiness. I should've done my lesson plans before I went to my lesson, because all I want to do now is practice.

On a completely different note, we spent this past weekend in the hospital ER and in urgent care for Ben's asthma. What a mess. I picked him up from daycare on Friday and he was wheezing. We were out of albuterol, and there were no refills left, so I had to have his doctor call one in to the pharmacy. Then the pharmacy gave me a hard time about it, saying no doctor had called the prescription in (until they realized 20 minutes later that they had) and then the grumpy people in the pharmacy said they wouldn't have it ready for freaking 40 minutes. Meanwhile, Ben's breathing is getting worse and worse, he's screaming, and I'm freaking out. Well, after we finally got the albuterol in him, he calmed down for fifteen minutes, and then his asthma continued to get worse. By this time, he was running a fever and throwing up. So, we called the on call doctor and they had us bring him right in to the ER. At the ER, believe it or not, they took him right in for a treatment. We stayed there for about 6 hours or so as they continued to monitor Ben and give him different meds/more treatments.

When they sent us home at midnight, Ben got worse the minute we walked in the door. So we stayed up all freakin night long, giving him medicine, deciding whether or not we were going to go back to the hospital. Finally, in the morning, I called and had an appointment made for him to go in to urgent care. They saw him, said he definitely was much worse than he should be, and gave him another shot of steroids and another nebulizer treatment. I ended up buying a nebulizer and the meds that day, and we've been giving him his treatments and steroids ever since. I think we have two more days left of this constant treatment, and then we try to go back to just the maintenance. What an exhausting and scary weekend though.

On another note, and this a happier one, I think I felt the baby today. For the first time :) I know its early yet, but I definitely felt Ben at 14 weeks. I'm 12.5 weeks, and this time I know more of what the feeling is like. And, I weigh a little bit less than I did when I was pregnant with Ben, so chances are higher that I am able to feel it earlier. Tee-hee! I go in for an appointment on Friday.

Alright, I've been typing non stop at a crazy rate for the last five minutes or so. Time to do some planning.

2006-09-17T10:24:00.000-04:00

Laaazy Sunday morning. We went to church yesterday evening (well, actually, I played for the mass at St. Mary's) so I got to sleep in this morning. Rick is much more dedicated to his school planning than I am, so he was up at 7 working on lesson plans I guess.

I am really anxious about planning my lessons for this week. What does that mean? It means that I know I have a lot to do, but I'm putting it off. Some of the classes are very difficult to plan for - namely Explorations in Music. Without a real curriculum I have to come up with 85 minutes of musical entertainment and knowledge every other day. Its not very easy. Especially since the kids that are there are only taking this class because it was either music or art to graduate.

On the flip side of that, even though its tough to plan, I get to put together some freakin fun stuff. I think its fun anyways. Some of the kids think I'm old school, which kills me, considering I'm only 5 years older than them. Let me give you an example.

The other day in class we talked about form, mostly, and I gave examples. So, for strophic form, I talked about "Pop Goes the Weasel" and simple Christmas songs. But then, for Binary, I played "The General" by Dispatch. For Ternary, believe it or not, I played "Who Am I?" by Beenie Man, and for Through Composed I played "Konstantine" by Something Corporate. (I also went over Erlking by Schubert). When we discussed dynamics, I played "Pale September" by Fiona Apple and "Sunrise" by Norah Jones for soft dynamics, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" by Good Charlotte for loud dynamics, and "It's Oh So Quiet" by Bjork for a combination.

Now tell me, where else could I go and do all that?

But now, I have to come up with another multidimensional lesson filled with both notes and assessments and activities and listening opportunities, for 85 minutes x 3. Thats not easy. And that's just one class.

African Drumming has been something else. My one class is fantastic. My other class is a behavior nightmare. I can't believe I'm teaching high schoolers when I teach that class. There are several students in that class who are just rude and obnoxious, even after I ask them to shut up. Arrrrggg. My last class with them left me upset for two whole days. We'll see how it goes on Tuesday. That is also a very difficult class to plan for, because in all honesty, how much different African Drumming patterns can you do in 85 minutes?

Guitar, well, I have three different sections of guitar and all of them are different. One of the classes I love, they all seem willing to pay attention and enjoy the class, even though they are at different levels. Then I have one class that is a mix between kids who want to learn and kids who are stuck up and don't want to be in the class. My third class is the toughest, because not only do I have kids who want to be there, kids who don't want to be there, and everyone inbetween, I also have extremely beginner guitarists/music readers and extremely fantastic guitarists/music readers. One of the kids has been through national competitions and won awards. Why is he in my class?

Finally is piano. I have one section that has these two kids who goof around and are pretty disruptive. I have to figure out a more effective way to deal with them. But other than that, I feel comfortable with these classes, probably because its the only class I really feel like I'm a qualified "expert" per se.

On a completely different note, Rick and I are looking into buying a house. We're thinking about moving to the Brockport School District. So, we've got to come up with some way to save some money for a down payment and for closing costs. With that being said, we might not move for another ten years. But at least its exciting to think about.

I'm feeling better this week than the last couple of weeks. Hope that means things are going well for little new baby!!

I should get to planning now. Sorry this entry was boring, but at least I got my planning off of my chest.

2006-09-08T21:58:00.000-04:00

Oh, I am long past due for an update! I'm very ashamed that I missed journaling in the month of August. This is only the second time in 3.5 years that I have missed a month. I should be writing more often.

Lets see, news news news!!! Well, I might as well share the biggest news now. Even though I was joking around in my last blog entry ... well, now, I really am pregnant! Funny how that works. I am 10 weeks and due April 5th. Hopefully all goes well, I know a lot of people don't tell the world until they are at least through their first trimester. But if anything happened, well, I'd need the support of all my friends anyways so ... no secrets here! My morning sickness has not been pleasant, and I am exhausted. But ... such is parent-to-be-again-hood!

And after this baby .... all done! Two and through.

Okay, next biggest development. I am now working every day 7-4 at Brockport High School as their newest music teacher! I teach the crazy general music classes, which actually, I think is an awesome job. I teach two sections of African Drumming (yes, I teach African Drumming, and its my most popular course), two sections of Piano, a class of "Explorations in Music" and three sections of guitar. I feel like I play all day (and babysit). Its honestly awesome. Sure, I'm making mistakes, and it gets frustrating and emotionally draining. But still, I can't believe that I can walk into my classes and play music by Incubus and talk about it and get paid for it ...

Rick is teaching physics and eighth grade science and a biology lab at Kendall schools. He has so much more stuff to plan every day because he's not on a block schedule like I am. He stays up much too late. I miss him.

Ben is in daycare for the first time. Even though I feel guilty about it, he LOVES it. He gets to play all day. We finally found a place that could accommodate his allergies, at Lake Side Children's Center off of Lake Side Hospital in Brockport. I think it was a wonderful find.

Did I get all of the major things? I think so. Now its time for bed, but thats my brief update. I'll try to write a little more frequently.

2006-07-03T21:31:00.000-04:00

Wwwhhhhhhhhzzzzzzzzzzewwww!

I think that was my life, flying by me, but its going so fast I'm not sure ...

Ha! I'm married! So, when did that happen? Haven't I been waiting to be married my whole life, and now I'm already married? Huh? I mean, as in, all of my life I was a little girl wanting to walk down that isle to the man of my dreams and now I already have the last name of the man of my dreams and I am looking back on that dream .... am I confusing myself?

Married life rocks. There is nothing better in the universe. I suppose it helps that I got married to the best man ever (sorry ladies). Hey guess what!! If I get pregnant ... its OKAY! ... ((awkward moment)) ... HUGE GRIN ... ((sheepish smile))

No, I'm not pregnant you dope, I'm just saying.

I'm totally lost as to what I'm going to do with myself now. When I say totally, I'm talking Bally Fitness style totally, as in, I have no idea what I just spent $30,000 on a Master's degree for. (Did you know its going to cost me approximately $18,000 in interest by the time I've paid that loan off?? ... I feel a song coming on .... ::singing:: oh when the shark bites ... with its teeth dear ... and it shows them ... pearly INTEREST RATES! >:O )

I've been applying for all sorts of wacked out jobs, hot off the press from my good friends at Rochesterhelpwanted.com, monster.com, and careerbuilder.com . I actually had an interview for a job that I didn't get, as director of admissions at Onondaga School of Theraputic Massage. Yes, you read that correctly. I told you I've fallen off my rocker. Or lost my rocker. Or whatever the heck the phrase is. The "colloquialism" (spelling, anyone? correct usage detector, anyone?).

I'm trying really hard to convince myself that Rick will get a job and I can apply to go back to school to do what I really want. Study more music and end up in a music library. I'll let you know what happens. In the mean time, I got a substantial raise at the bank, because my boss is trying to keep me from leaving for another job. Not enough of a raise to support our little family.

Ahh, and yes, we did have a fantastic honeymoon in the Amish capital of the world, Berlin Ohio, (pronounced BER - lin). Very peaceful, very introspective. Ahh, and how fitting that I should choose to read Age of Reason by Sartre? Depressing and discombobulating first of the three books. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone. But yes, and also, we golfed.

I mean, we freakin GOLFED. Rick is a golf addict.

So, for now, that is all in the life department. Certainly, there are a ton more thoughts but alas, I shall return to my hazy mist of zonage for another couple hours until sleep creeps in. Hope y'all missed me. ;)

Unst unst unst.

2006-06-01T22:45:00.000-04:00

A tribute to the man I'm going to marry.

How have I been so blest with a man
Who loves me for who I am
He listens at 2:30 in the morning to my
Rambles about starting a business on ebay
Or the way I want dishes arranged in our
New apartment.
How many girls get to hear every single day
That they are beautiful, sexy, fun ...
I have a man whose eyes glitter when he watches me
Who thinks I'm adorable in just a t-shirt
He chases me through the rooms just to
Snuggle me
Praises my everyday routine work
Housework, Ben-work, or bank-work
With smiles, gratitude, and
Incredible, Sumptuous, Mind-altering
Massages.
The most incredible man in my life
Plays with my son, his son,
Treats him like a little king.
How was I blest with this man who
Is insulted if I don't let him open
and close doors for me.
Flowers for "just because I missed you",
and candy bars when he comes out of Wegmans.
"Come here," he says, when I'm stressed,
"You need a hug."
The most amazing man in my life asks
If we can have "just us time" in the evenings.
He brags about me, about us, on the phone
With his tough guy friends.
He holds my hands and prays with me,
He lets me put my head on his chest,
And he goes mattress shopping with me.
This is so much fun, you and me.
So, while this wasn't a poem,
Or anything that I thought up beautiful words for,
This is my life, a beautiful, happy life.
Thank you, Rick.
I love you.

2006-05-24T23:24:00.000-04:00

My hands are shaking. Damn albuterol, I don't think I ever will adjust to this inhaler. I've been using it for years now and I still wonder whether its a scarier feeling to not be able to breathe well, or to survive 10 minutes post albuterol. Both are very taxing on the mind.

On a more positive note, life is crusing along over the speed limit lately, all headed in good directions. We got an apartment! Its a small 2 bedroom in the upstairs of a house across from Lugia's icecream. $625 a month, including everything except phone and cable, it was too good a deal for us to pass up. We put the security deposit down, and the owner gave us the keys already even though we technically don't "live" there until June 1st. We're going to try moving stuff in up until we get married, and the idea is to spend our wedding night at our new apartment.

Rick bought a car! A 1995 Chevy Lumina LS, its black with a tan interior and 74,000 miles. Looks pretty good, he'll be getting the loan money for that tomorrow. It'll be sooooo nice to have two available cars.

Did a lot of things today - we got our marriage license! We are now officially able to be married. Also booked the limo, got my shoes, dropped off our rings to have them engraved, bought renters insurance and put ourselves on our own car insurance policy. I <3 life. I can't wait for it to be just me, Rick, and Ben.

I had the most incredible wedding shower thrown by my bridesmaids. Awesome, I picked incredible friends.

Alright, much to do, little time. Will anyone even read this blog, its kind of like i've dropped off the face of the blogging planet. Some day I'll look back and read it and be glad I wrote something :)

2006-03-16T22:32:00.001-05:00

Happy three years of blogging to me!

Figured I better get an entry in here. Its pretty much useless to try to read my blogs now, since I never update. Someday, I'll get back in to it.

I'm student teaching at Charlotte high school. Unbelieveable. Teaching is hardly what I do ... these kids barely learn anything. Coming to class is a miracle for them. I get tired just thinking about it, which is why I don't blog about it. I'll try to sum it up. Let's talk about:

Latoya.

It's Monday, last period. I've got to make it through this one, last, large class and then I'm off to freedom. First, let me just get through these sample problems. Okay, now its time to help out the individuals in the class. Who's this girl in the back? She's calling me, "Miss, Miss c'mere. Miss." I make my way over to a thin, pretty black girl in the back row.

"Miss you gotta show me this. I'nt been here, how you do it?"

Alright, so I take a look. She's got a couple weeks worth of backwork piled up infront of her. I grab a pencil and paper, sit down beside her, and pick one of the worksheets. I notice the name Latoya scrawled on the line at the top of the paper, and I try to store it away in my memory somewhere for the next time I see her.

"Okay, first, you've got to factor out the greatest common denominator. Do you know what that means?" and so begins the individualized help. Things start out okay, she's following along, answering my questions half-heartedly, and writing the dictated steps. Little by little though, there is less and less connection made between the pencil and paper.

"No, Latoya. Not x to the 5th. Just 5x. Latoya? Write 5 ... write the number five ... okay, here, write five ... and then x. Latoya?" The pencil slips, the elbows slide off the desk, and her head goes down. She had fallen asleep. She gently brings herself back to consciousness, but not for long.

"Okay, standard form means you write them in the order of greatest to least exponents."

Her pencil is wavering, and barely makes contact with the paper.

"You said what Miss? Its ..." and her head goes down again. Hands fall off the desk. Latoya has fallen asleep in midsentence. This time, another student calls for me from the other side of the classroom. I quietly leave my place by sleeping Latoya's side and assist the other student.

Five minutes later, I come back to her desk. She sleepily picks her head up off her arm and says "Miss, I soooooooooo tired".

"I can tell", is my response. "Do you work?"

"No. I just ain't got no place to live."

"What do you mean?"

"My life ain't good right now. I livin wit my step-sister ... but she don't want me there so much. I stayin there cause my momma called the cops on me. For bein a run away, even though she locked me out the house. She was beatin me and screamin cause I'm always out, right, and so she told me get out the house and she locked the door. Then she callin the cops to say I'm a run away. Well, I on parole now. Last time I went to the judge they make me take the test and I came out dirty. You know, dirty miss?" The stunned look on my face must've given me away.

"Dirty, like, the drugs come up on the test. So I's sent to a house you see but I out now and I gotta go to court today to see if I be put in a home. My momma wants me put in a home because she don't want me no more, but she don't like me livin wit my step-sister ... she thinks she bad for me. I don't want to live wit my mom though, cause her boyfriends always beat me bad. Her husband now, he in jail right now and she gotta take care of the baby. But her boyfriend ... neighbors call the cops on my house cause he beat me so bad I screamin and blood comin out and the neighbors could hear me screamin all the way across the street. He almost beat me and my sister to death and my momma don't do nothin but watch. And she know she gonna get beat too! Why she so stupid to go back to him. I tell her not to she says to shut up. I ain't had it so good miss, and I just try to go on, you know, like, you know how you do when things is bad. Right?" I just shake my head.

"So, yeah I don't like to be home no ways because thats where my brother was shot in the head. They drive by my house while we was watchin TV and just open shoot us. My brother got killed in the head. He was sittin right next to me. Then a couple weeks later, they set my house on fire. Maybe they didn't know they had already killed my brother. I don't know. So I ain't like bein there. Why can't my momma treat me good though? I know she had me when she was 16, and I only 16 Miss. But you know, all the girls, they got their mommas. But I had my dance, outside, infront of an old church building, and it was for mothers day. And all the other girls come, but not my momma. We all supposed to give our moms roses, and I's the only girl who had to give my rose to no one. Why couldn't she just come? I feel like I ain't never had a momma. No body want me not my grandma or momma or my sisters or aunt, nobody. You know how that is Miss, when you just want to put everything behind you?" I continue shaking my head.

"Well, so, anyways. I's almost on high honor roll last year, but this year things is so messed up wit me I can't pass nothin. I want to be a nurse Miss, I got ambitions. I want to go to college and get me a real job and do real well. I'm not stupid like every body else here, least I don't wanna be. They don't care about school but I do its just that I ain't never here. You can help me raise my grade?" I tell her of course I will. I promise to bring her a copy of all the notes she has missed. I write down her first period teacher's name and vow to get them to her first thing in the morning.

"So, my court date is today and then I find out what happens to me. Since I in diversion, I probably can't go to no home anyways so I might be on the street tonight. I don't know."

She left. I copied the notes for her and found her teacher the next morning. She never showed up.

She hasn't been back since that day, two weeks ago. Inside, part of me died.

2006-02-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

She's a wild one, with an Angel's face.

I've discovered that teaching middle school mathematics is not the job for me.

She's a woman-child in a state of grace.

Even though I knew it, it wasn't until today that I admitted that the real reason I'm going into math education is just to make a living. Its not what I want to do.

When she was three years old on her daddy's knee, he said "you can be anything you want to be."

Every time I try to push away who I am, this feeling subsides and then comes back even stronger a couple of months later.

She has future dreams, and plans at night.

I need to get out of here. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but it won't be long.

They tell her life is hard she says "That's alright".

I don't know how we'll make it. We won't have any money, we'll be on really shaky ground. But he supports me.

She's a wild one, running free.

They say you need to surround yourself with the ones you love. Beethoven, Hindemith, Brahms, Debussy, Satie, Mozart, Bach, Milhaud, Ginaster .... I'll be there soon.

2006-01-17T22:46:00.000-05:00

Companion

When the world feels so
e n d l e s s
And I don't understand the
r e a s o n s
Or the nostalgia makes me
r e m e m b e r
Melting into the tears that
f
a
l
l
Even then you hold me.
And in those moments, I wish time were
endless
Because you are my
reason
And your strength makes me
remember
Why it is that I continue to
f
a
l
l
for you.

2006-01-15T23:53:00.000-05:00

Did you ever hear something that just hit you in the head, as if the words were physically abusive, and you know you've had this traumatic experience before but each time it still shocks you like its brand new? I'm talking about how I feel when someone mentions the life of someone who lives on the streets, digging through garbage cans for food. Whenever someone starts talking to me about those kinds of things, I feel like I'm in an hour glass and suddenly, it got tipped over again.

I honestly feel like I have an addiction problem - an addiction to money and materialism. I'm not being facetious .. I'm serious. SO often I find myself out in a situation where I can spend a lot of money, and I'm faced with a moral dilemma. Let me give you an example.

The other day, we went shopping for shoes for me. I've been wearing the same black boots for over two years, and now my feet get soaked because the entire bottom of the shoe peels off, and my zipper on the shoe broke off too. Not to mention all the cracks in the leather. But usually, my shoes will last me that long. So, we went to DSW Shoes, and I find this pair of boots that I fell in love with. They are Kenneth Cole Reaction - Too Mellow. Four inch heel, black knee high boot with a cute buckle at the top. The only problem is, they're $100.

So, being the righteous person that I am, I decided to go home and try to find them cheaper on the internet, and then give the difference of the money as a donation to Riziki, the girl that I sponsor in Tanzania. I searched everywhere on the internet, but I couldn't find them.

I drove to DSW two days later and bought the shoes. $100 for a pair of boots. Riziki saw none of that money. Do you know what $100 would buy her family?

Riziki doesn't have a bed. Her home doesn't have a floor. Rice with cooking oil is a special meal for her family. How is this fair? What did I do to deserve the wealth that I live in, and why am I so selfish that I can spend $100 on boots?

I know that part of the problem is that I don't know how else to help. I am afraid to just give money to poor people on the streets because I don't want to empower a drug or alcohol addiction. I'm afraid to work in a soup kitchen after the sexual abuse and hostage situation that occurred a month ago downtown (not to mention I don't know how to find the time). I send money every month to Riziki, but I know I should be doing more.

And yet, I want things. I would love to have nice furniture and a lot of books and money to blow on vacations where I can relax and do nothing. I would love sexy clothes and a sporty car. (Hey, I may never have the sporty car anyways, I'm just dreaming).

I guess in general, its just an overwhelming guilt and shame. Why do I have so much when others have so little? Why do I work all day in a comfortable businessplace or why do I get to attend school at my desire while someone who has to labor in a farmers field, regardless of weather, makes so much less than I do? How do I resolve this inner feeling of injustice?

I think I'll always struggle with this. Any suggestions you have, I'd appreciate.

2006-01-12T22:31:00.000-05:00

Before I even met you
I knew all about you
I dreamt you up
Piece by piece
What I saw in your smile
A passion behind your eyes
The gentle touch of your
Fingertips on the table
The tasteful laugh and
Thoughtful gestures.
You know and I know
That somewhere we have
Lived and loved for
One another.
Maybe I have it
Backwards -
You created my dreams
Piece by piece.

2006-01-03T22:36:00.000-05:00

Dear Theresa Hutchinson,

I found the papers that you left in our car, the car that you, or maybe your boyfriend, stole out of our driveway. My guess is that you're probably in a lot of pain right now, physically, emotionally ... spiritually, if you've ever known that dimension.

My mom doesn't understand why you ripped the trim off the outside of the door, why two of our tires have flats, why you broke off the stereo antenna and tore out the 5 disc CD changer or why there is a dent in the front hood.

I saw the papers. You just got out of detox - on Christmas. I doubt that word means anything to you. I wake up in a comfortable bed on Christmas morning, tumble down the stairs to comfortably spend time with my family, my baby, my fiance. Even our dog got presents. You got out of detox on Christmas, and maybe you went to find a hit.

My mom doesn't understand why you stole the babyseat and all our baby toys and blankets, or why you left us empty soda cans and a dirty dinged up car that smells horribly like age old cigarette smoke.

I saw the papers. You were diagnosed with Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and two other diseases I can't remember or pronounce the names off. You must've been in a lot of discomfort to actually seek medical help. I have your unfilled prescription for antibiotics - along with your doctor's suggestions to limit your partners. I battle asthma everyday, and I complain about my prescription costs too. I will never go without medication.

My mom doesn't understand why the speaker is kicked in, why you left a pack of tobacco in the trunk, or why this is all going to cost her several thousand dollars.

I saw the papers. You have a supportive boyfriend. You can't get help from social services because you have a sanction. You have applied for welfare, cash net, and lodging assistance. You were recommended to the Salvation Army and to Saint Mary's for depression and Cocaine addiction.

My mom doesn't understand why. She just walks around saying "my poor car". I told her the car doesn't know. She didn't believe me.

I understand. I wonder if you had rang the doorbell at 4:00 in the morning, the night you were stealing the car, and instead asked us for some help, if we would've given it to you. I am ashamed to think that you would've been turned away.

What do we know about the life you live? The world you have lived in is foreign to us. I don't know if I will ever fully understand how blessed I am, and how selfish or ungrateful I've been.

I wish you had asked me for money instead of taking my CDs. Inside of me, I have this little burning hope that you will end up okay. Maybe jail will cure your addiction. Perhaps when you get out, you will find the housing, the welfare, the food stamps, and the courage you need to survive.

I hope I never have to try to survive. I don't know if I could do it.

I forgive you. Please forgive me too.

Sincerely,
Michelle Keenan

2005-12-06T23:11:00.000-05:00

So let me start with the bank getting robbed.

Saturday, November 26th, the fantastic day after my birthday, I was at work. 9:23 in the morning, I was waiting on this elderly customer, and I glance up to see my boss at the front door looking around weirdly. I immediately thought "my boss thinks we're getting robbed, why does he think we're getting robbed?" I stopped what I was doing, looked at the line and all around the bank, and no sooner had I done that than Joanne came over to my station (she was in the station next to mine) sobbing and said "I just got robbed!" I was shocked, and said "what??" she repeated herself. So I motioned to my boss to lock the doors, and I called 911.

The man you see in this picture is the robber, as taken from our video tapes. According to Joanne, when she called him up to her station, he held in his hands (and didn't let go) a withdrawal slip that said M&T on it, and he had written on it "give me your money". She started giving him 10s and 20s from her top drawer, but he said he wanted 100s and 50s. She tried to give him our bait pack, but he told her "no, not that". He took the money, and out the door he went.

He left in a taxi, that my boss caught the license plate number off of. When the cops got the taxi, the guy was gone. The taxi driver said that he had been called to pick the guy up at an apartment complex. Then, the man told him he had to stop at the bank. When he stopped at the HSBC ghetto branch 2 miles down the road from us (they get robbed a lot), it was closed. When he got back into the car, the driver actually told him that there was another one open down the street, and drove him to our bank. He had no idea that the guy had robbed the bank when he got back in the car. The driver told the police where he dropped the robber off. The police still haven't gotten the man.

The robber got away with $5210. Is it worth it? If he gets caught I believe he gets 10 years in prison. I don't think its worth it.

So that's story number one. Story number two.

On Wednesday, it was about four o'clock, I was home alone watching Ben, waiting for Rick to get home from his observations and waiting for Mrs. Marvin to come and pick up Ben so we could go to class. Well, Ben got to the stairs before I could stop him, and crawled up on the first step. When I shouted "NO" (gut instinct), he stood right up on the first stair and fell directly backwards. He hit his head on the wood floor. I was SO upset, and Ben was crying. I picked him up right away to console him. But I couldn't get him to snap out of his crying, like I usually can. Then, I'm flipping out because right as Rick pulls into the driveway, Ben goes limp. I tried to keep him awake, but he wasn't responding to things. When Rick came inside, I told him what happened. He took Ben and went to the piano with him. Ben always responds to the piano. He didn't this time. When Mrs. Marvin got there, he was still going in and out of consciousness. So, Rick called the doctor, and they had us call 911. We went to the pediactric emergency room at Strong. Even though Ben was more awake and acting much more normal, I was flipping out. They should have put me in the trauma unit.

So, they ended up doing a CAT scan on Ben. Meanwhile, the doctors gave him two treatments for his asthma while we were there. The CAT scan came back negative for bleeding or fracture, but they said he had a minor concussion. They were also concerned about his asthma, and said we needed to give him his inhaler every six hours for the next 24 hours. On top of this, Ben had come down with a pretty good cold two days earlier. What a mess.

Well, so I was recovering from this on the way home from the hospital (we had missed our classes). We get home, its now two hours since he had his nebulizer treatment. Within 20 minutes, his asthma was so worked up I was terrified. We got back on the phone with the doctor on call, and they walked us through giving him more treatments of his albuterol, even though you're not supposed to do that normally. They talked about possibly brining him into the ER again, but decided against it. All night long I stayed up with him, giving him his inhaler. He was breathing about 70 times per minute, and very loud and gasp-like. It was terrifying.

Ben is doing much better now. I sure feel like a crappy parent. But those are the last-week stories.

I have to get to doing some more work. This never ends. Ever ever ever. I miss you all, my beloved friends. Sleep well.

2005-11-06T18:26:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, okay, most of the time, I wonder who I am. It doesn't make much sense, but the more I get stability in my life, the less certain I am. Today I've been trying to figure out where I'm going to go to school next - will it be Indiana, for a music degree? U of R for a degree in brain and cognitive science? Or how about St. Bernards for a Masters in Theological Studies? It'll probably be none of the above. Thank goodness for Barnes and Noble University. It holds me over.

I can't wait to get out of this house. I definitely don't feel wanted here much anymore ... seems as though the harder I work the less appreciated I am (not to be selfish or anything - but hey, this is my blog, who am I kidding). I just can't wait until no one yells at me for leaving a ball on the floor that the dog might chew up. When my parenting skills aren't criticized at every move I make. Rick and I are looking for an apartment to move into in June. Let me tell you, that will be home sweet home.

The bank forgot to pay me last week. Doesn't that just figure? I finally got my paycheck yesterday, a week after all of my bills were due of course. Money is such a troublesome thing. I wonder who first invented money? I don't mean the bartering system, I mean actual currency. Like "here dude, take this round silver disc, its worth a lot, and then you give me your hand woven rug". Who was that guy?

I feel so boring lately. I have this thought in my head that I used to be a lot more fun, a lot happier, a little bit more hopeful about everything. I know I've always had that "dark side" too .... but I've lost the upper extreme. Or is that just an illusion? Anyways, I hope to refind me.

I miss a lot of people. I think I'm going to do a five person shout out per entry, to those people that I haven't heard from a while. Today's five missing people are:

Smurf
Sickelco
Miss Meijas
Vedrana
Schirmuhly

So if any of you read this, please know I still love you all.

2005-10-23T23:48:00.000-04:00

Two ramblings. Trying to write down my thoughts, but they're not coming out right, so I'm just going to leave both of my ramblings. You make what you will of it.

Thought sampling #1:

You see him coming towards you
And you try to act all calm, and nonchalant
Like there's nothing going on inside
Hiding that breathlessness, the tightness in your chest
Your overwhelming happiness.

Inside you light up in a huge smile,
Hoping that maybe he'll touch your arm,
Maybe he'll look deep into your eyes.
Maybe you can distract him from

Everything.

He smiles and you smile and you know
There is nothing in the universe that could
Match that kind of feeling.

Thought sampling #2:

You just hide it, girl
Hold on and hide it.
That feeling, that warmth
The flirtiness in your eye.
If that man deserves
All of your breathlessness
The desire that's burning
And melting your senses,
Then you've earned it.
You are alive.
Nothing gold can stay,
So hide it.
Don't let age,
or depression,
or the past,
or the future,
or anyone else,
steal your moment.
Bottle those feelings
Savor that emotional
Sensuous
Dizziness.
Love him,
As you've always loved him,
In the ways you've loved
In your dreams.

2005-10-19T17:39:00.000-04:00

I've often thought that Mondays are the worst day of the week. Why would it be, that Mondays are any worse than the rest of them? But, desipte my wondering, it usually turns out that way. Not that today is a Monday. I just wanted to share with you, that this past Monday, among other things, a man's car broke down in the middle lane of 390-S. So, he went to go get help. Unfortunately for him, he locked his keys in the car when he got out of it. I'm sure he thinks Mondays suck.

I'm sitting at the Roberts library right now. I just met with my Masters Project advisor, and even though I didn't get the work done that she told me to, it was still a successful meeting. I have essentially planned out my unit, on transformations, and now I'm beginning to write the lesson plans. I have come up with a way to differentiate to almost all of the different intelligences. I found it surprising that my reader said I was structuring the unit in the manner of direct instruction. I certainly thought I was doing the opposite, based on what I've read and the intent of my project. However, I think what she means is that I could approach the lessons in a more inquiry type fashion - the kids start off with a question or questions at the beginning of the lesson, and then work through hands-on activities to discover the answers to those questions. It sounds great, but its very difficult to do, particularly in math, while still covering all the material and not getting yourself stuck. There is very little information out there about inquiry math. Plenty about science, but little about math. Ah, so I will lead the way.

Okay, time to get some work done. Just a little rant. Love to you all.
:)

2005-10-08T23:19:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I hear just a violin
Or other times its the entire symphony
Most of the time, its when I'm alone
And maybe the sky is dark.
It seems as though those
Piercing sounds those haunting dreams
Chisel a hole in the brick wall
That I've built around my soul
And for a moment or an hour
Or however long it takes me
To get to where I'm going
(Have I gotten there yet?)
The darkness floods me
And I wonder ...
Where are we
In that other life?
Just you and I.

2005-10-06T20:38:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry ladies. I took the best man out there.

Rick is incredible. I'm sitting here, in the dining room (which has been temporarily made into Ben's play room), watching Rick interact with our son. It is absolutely amazing. I'm convinced that if I had a crystal ball, and had been able to see what every man alive was like as a father, I would've chosen Rick. And here I am, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world, and I didn't even have a crystal ball.

Ben thinks his daddy's a lot more fun than his mommy, and I suppose its true. I'm not the one who can flip him upside-down and carry him around the room. I also don't have the fun tickle games, or the ever patient ability to comfort him back to sleep when he needs a stuffed animal. (No, he always wakes up more for me). Ben is walking now, and he's so cute!! What a blessing.

Two more weeks, and Ben wil be a year old. Amazing how quickly that went.

Our fall classes are about half-way through. Cooperative learning is allright, pretty much common sense, but I think we have the best teacher we could want for it. My math methods of instruction class is really lame. I don't think I've learned a thing in that class with the old man teacher.

Culture, Character, Citizenship, and Justice - that's a class of a different color. When I first read the title of it, back when we registered for the class, I thought "give me a break. This is filler CRAP". But honestly, its a whole lot better than it could be. The guy who teaches it is one of the weirdest guys I've ever met, but I really think he's very intelligent. The first day that we had him, Rick and I couldn't stop cracking up because we were picturing him in the movie Napoleon Dynamite - I really think he could make the perfect character.

The way he holds the class is in the form of a socratic debate. Each week, we read a chapter from the controversial book, American Education by Spring. Then, we all bring one or two questions to class, and we just look through the list and pick a question to debate as a class. We've had some very interesting discussions, I think it is quite possibly the most intellectual class I've had at Roberts.

Well, enough for now. I need to keep working on my Masters project. I got Carolyn Salvatore, one of the most intelligent teachers at Roberts, to be my reader for my paper. Since I'm meeting with her on Wednesday, I have a lot of work to do.

"The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has."
Michaelangelo

2005-09-27T22:54:00.000-04:00

Ben was up all night last night. Unbelievable. I think he probably had a stomach-ache, poor kid. He's so sensitive to everything, and so now I'm really beat. I should be in bed, but I have a paper to write and I'm waiting for Rick ...

There is so much to get done in the next couple of months. I'm having a great time planning for the wedding - I just wish I had more time to devote to planning. It's official, we are getting married at Church of the Blessed Sacrament on June 10th at 12:00 noon. Hoorayy! :-D

I really miss talking about music. My dad was talking about Symphonic Metamorphesis (sp?), an orchestral piece by Hindemith that he's playing, and I just started talking my head off. All about Hindemith and his writings (not music, just his actual writings), and then on to Satie because all of my musical thoughts end up at Satie. What a sad person I have become without music in my life. I was thinking about it tonight, I really wish I could lock myself in a practice room with a piano for a couple hours. That might sound crazy, especially to some of you Cranies, but I miss that time. I miss playing the piano like I've lost part of my soul. I can't wait until I have more time. That's kind of a funny thing to say.

Well, it's now time for me to go to bed. Goodnight all.

2005-09-03T23:00:00.000-04:00

I'M GETTING MARRIED :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Woot!! Woot!!

I have a beautiful ring on my finger and an incredible future in store.
August 24, 2005 is the day we got engaged.

We're look at either a late May or early June wedding.

I'll post our wedding page as soon as I get it up.

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

2005-08-09T13:55:00.000-04:00

It's time to write a quick post. While the baby is sleeping, I have selfishly stolen twenty minutes (I hope) of my own time to read and take part in an online class that I'm a student of, a class called "Understanding Islam Today".

The two books that I am reading for this course are "Islam: A Short History" by Karen Armstrong, and the Holy Qur'an, by Maulana Muhammad Ali, with Arabic Text, English Translation, and Commentary. If you are ignorant of the Islamic religion, like I was (and still, primarily, am), I'd recommend purchasing both of these.

I am a Christian, a Catholic Christian to be precise but honestly, I think no matter what Christian denomination you are, there are beliefs that you agree with, beliefs that you disagree with, actions that the church takes that you're against, yada yada. So please don't think I'm closed minded. The fact that I'm studying Islam should speak for me. Now, isn't this interesting though, and actually something that I am quite ashamed of - I am reading the Holy Qur'an, but I have never read through the whole Bible. I hope someone does a course on Christianity, because I think I need a structured reading of my own religion's sacred text.

What is your perception of Islam? Of a Muslim? Of an Arab? Are they all the same thing? Did you know that Muslims believe in much of the same religious past that we do, that we are both Abrahamic religions? I didn't know that. I was shocked when I saw Jesus' name in the Qur'an. I was shocked when I read the Garden of Eden story in the Holy Qur'an.

This was posted by someone in my class, and, unfortunately, I thought it summarized my exact view very well. It's a heavy thing to realize such unmitigated ignorance still has a place in my head.

1. Before you read the above lecture, what came to your mind when you thought of Muslims and Arabs?

Forgive me for what I'm about to type, but it's at least honest. The Muslim is primarily a middle-aged man with a beard, dressed in robes, usually with black, white, and red checkered patterns. He has a gun and stands in the midst of a crowd of men, all similarly dressed and armed.

He's yelling. What, I have no idea. The signs are clear enough, though - he thinks about America all the time. He has no life of his own other than railing against us. He goes home, sleeps, and wakes up the next day to do the same thing.

He never visits the grocery store. He hasn't seen a movie in decades. If he has a business, it is selling oil. He has no inner life. He does not think beyond lamenting his poor lot in life. He does pray, but it's overly ritualistic and he has no personal experience of God. After all, all they talk about in mosques is us.

Is that how you think, too? What a shame, how naieve and judgmental I am. I mean that sincerely. I feel like I am constantly working to be this open, accepting, caring person, and yet every time I turn around I find another way that I have been terribly unaccepting. Or biased.

We need to understand that Islam is a peaceful, accepting religion. Listen to this, from the Qur'an (translated, obviously): "Do not argue with the followers of earlier revelation otherwise than in a most kindly manner - unless it be such of them as are bent on evil-doing - and say: "We believe in that which has been bestowed from on high upon us, as well as that which has been bestowed upon you; for our God and your God is one and the same, and it is unto Him that we al surrender ourselves."

Have I ever, in my Catholic schooling, my Bible Study groups, my Religious Education classes, or listening to a homily at church, have I ever been taught that Islam shares ties with Christianity, much less that they believe our God and their God are one God? Never.

I'm certain God has been saddened by my past judgmental ignorance. Let the light of education and opportunity, which I am so fortunate to have access to, open my eyes.

2005-08-06T00:36:00.000-04:00

Who are you, dear reader, a king or queen?

It's not a trick question, rather a simple one to answer, really. Here is how you shall tell. If you are male, then you are a king. If you are female, it follows that you are queen. Since you are reading this at all, you have no argument to say otherwise.

If you were to pack up and move today, how many boxes would you fill with stuff, king or queen? How many boxes would you not even open until you decided to have a kingdom sale, or garage sale, if you so please? If you were to move those boxes and find that when you opened them, each was filled with rice, beans, blankets, and shoes, would you be thrilled?

We live far greater than kings and queens. Why do we complain that the Kings and Queens of the royal days were haughty, careless, and selfish? Do we treat our material items with any less of these aforementioned characteristics? No, you say. Others do, but not I. Tell me, king or queen. How many pairs of shoes do you own. Why do you own more than one? Can you account for each at this very moment? Can you tell me, off the top of your head, how many pairs of socks you own?

What if shoes were a delicacy in the world of materialism. What if you owned one pair of socks, and had to care whether they got holes in them, for if they did, you would have to darn them with the only thread you were able to purchase for three years? When is the last time you worried about getting holes in your socks?

Here is the letter I received today from Riziki, my sponsored child from Tanzania.

"Riziki says she would be happy if you get this greeting which is from Tanzania. She is happy and she says God Bless you for the gift you sent to her of 25 US Dollars. SHe says she has never got such a gift before for her birthday. She says as a result she bought a mattress, one bedsheet, gown, cooking oil, 2 Kgs of beans, 4 Kgs of rice, and her mother prepared cooked rice and beans. she says look at the picture where she is seen with her items bought."

I look at the picture and feel so ashamed. For I am a queen.

2005-08-03T23:57:00.000-04:00

Guess where I'm typing from!! And it's not Venezuela ... (even if they do have the world's cheapest gas prices) I'm typing from my new laptop!! Hooray!! Yes, the one I can't afford. But that's okay. The way I rationalize it is that I am currently progressing through that stage that all responsible 21 year olds go through ... the irrational "I can't pay for it but I need it" phase. Honestly though, the only reason I got this is because I got a deal for interest free payments for 18 months. And, because after rebates I have a free printer, notebook case, G router, and this computer is only about $575 after it all.That's not so bad to pay over 18 months.

Si te vas ...

(I'm listening to Shakria. Okay, this really isn't funny. I'm sitting on my bed typing, trying to get used to this keyboard (which is NOT designed for any length of fingernail whatsoever, actually, I should probably have them removed) and the touchpad ... it's like a joke. I think you'd laugh hysterically if you could see me, because every three seconds I end up typing somewhere random on the screen. Somehow, I manage to move the cursor while I'm typing, even though I'm convinced that I am no where near the touch pad ...

So, if any of y'all out there are geeks, here's the very basics on the computer: It's a Toshiba (I know, I know, but it was the one with the deal!), 256 Ram, which I'll be upgrading in the not-so-distant future, out of the irresponsible necessity of course. Window's XP Home edition, which is fine, even though I'd prefer pro. It's got a Intel Celeron M 360J processor, which is a 1.4. Um, DVD/CD player and burner ... speaking of which, playing DVDs on this thing is freaking AWESOME. I have to hook it up to speakers, because these laptop speakers are tiny, but the picture is gorgeous. It's got a 40 gig drive ... did I leave out anything important? Wireless capability.

LOL. After I ended that sentence, somehow I managed to hit publish post. That's fantastic.

Ben is doing wonderful ... he's crawling all over the place! He's able to stand up by grabbing on to things, and can stand on his own for a couple seconds. He has two teeth that have cut through. All these new developments in the last two weeks! I love my little family. Rick is as sweet as ever, and I am so blessed to be living with him every day of my life. Although our living situation may not be paradise, our time together is.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with my life. Two weeks ago, I was convinced that I needed to apply to Indiana for grad school. Last week I was torn. This week I'm almost convinced that I need to stay here in NY and teach. But I'm not totally positive. I don't know what to do. If I want to have any sort of financial future, the only option is to get a teaching job. But I'd love to go get my degree in Music Theory ... oh, I don't know what to do ...

For the mean time, it's after midnight, (the only time Rick and I have to ourselves, though I guarantee Ben will be up soon wanting a bottle ... probably in an hour) and that means it's time for me to read. Believe it or not, I am making time to read. I'm really in to these Barnes and Noble University classes. I don't participate very much, or even read much of what is written, but it gets me to read books. Currently, I'm taking "Understanding Islam Today" and a reading group discussion on "Uncle Tom's Cabin". So I'm reading a book called Islam, I'm reading the Qur'an, and I'm also reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. I love them all. It is absolutely fascinating to read about Islam and to read the sacred text ... it's incredible actually. Some day maybe I'll do some real religious study, and not specifically Christian. There is SO MUCH to learn from this world!! Don't be stuck in your religion, whatever it is. I mean, believe whatever you believe, but don't be stuck in ignorance.

I also read a book last week, simply because it was sitting on the couch, titled "Holes". It's a kids book, and I'd recommend it for leisurely reading on a slow day. The writing isn't fantastic, technically, and the story is a little too predictable and coincidental, but as my mom reminded me, it's a kid's book. So have fun. I should find out who the author is and include it in this post, but alas, I'm going to go read my books instead.

Goodnight all. I am the luckiest girl in the world. If you are female, I hope you feel the same way.

2005-07-23T22:21:00.000-04:00

And here is the reason. We'll see if I have the courage. To do what I have to do, and what I should do. (Bold is original, color is important to me. I left some irrelevant text about critics out).

"Since I have been asked to speak to you about Music - a vast subject for a short talk - I shall severly limit my topic and content myself with telling you a little about musicians and, above all, the Musical Spirit.

The musician is recruited from all corners - he comes to us from all social classes ... Musical education is carried on just like other sorts of education; it is given by teachers, and received by pupils - who are either good or not so good - (as are the teachers, come to that ....).

After several years, the pupil becomes what is commonly called an 'artist' ... So far, so good.

Altogether, what does he know, this new arrival?
He knows: Harmony; Counterpoint; the characteristics of Instruments; Orchestration; the writing of Tunes holds no secrets for him, nor do Rhythm, Tone, Colour, Dynamics, Tonality (and the Atonal System) ... He is developing in wisdom ... He is imaginative ... He knows self-denial and is prepared to make huge sacrifices, enormous sacrifices, if I may say so ... His power is at its height ...

In a word, he is ready for the fight ... he will wage battle fairly ...

But it is not enough to be a musician - or to appear to be one - one must have the spirit ...

This spirit is a spirit just like any other; it is related to the Literary spirit, the Artistic spirit, the Scientific spirit, and several other spirits - each one more spiritual than all the others ...

Only those who are animated by this spirit can hope to scale certain heights in thought, certain summits in conjecture ...

You should know, my dear friends, that it is the spirit propoer to each art which gives the artist the courage he needs to withstand violent struggles ... For in Art, everything is in the struggle, and the struggles are many, constant, relentless ...

Above all ... there must be no compromise.

Music requires a great deal from those who wish to serve her ... That is what I wanted to convey to you ...

A true musician must be subjugated to his Art; he must put himself above human misery; he must draw his courage from within himself, ... within himself alone."

Erik Satie
1924

2005-07-10T22:45:00.000-04:00

Wow, I last updated exactly a month ago. At least I'm typing once a month. That's pretty impressive, considering all that's going on.

Let's see. Ben is getting big. He is a very happy boy (look at his pictures), and even though he still has the eczema, it's not as much on his face anymore, which is nice. His legs are a mess. We're going to see a new dermatologist on Thursday, since the last one was horrible. Maybe we'll get some good advice from this doc.

Kristen Healey had her baby shower today. There were SO many people there. She's due on the 13th of August, and she looks fantastic. Her baby is named Morgan Faith. I bet she'll be beautiful just like Kristen. I'm very happy for her and Matt, they will be wonderful parents.

School is going. We're now in the second summer semester. The first summer semester was pretty tough. I had to get my entire lit review done for my thesis, as well a a crapload of coursework, all in 7 weeks. This semester shouldn't be as bad, except we have one stupid teacher for Educational Adolescent Psychology. She's dumber than anything. I'm writing down all her stereotyping comments and stupid "facts" that aren't supported by any research but her own stubbornness.

So much for the update. I have to get going to bed. Ben is actually waking up now, so as soon as we get him back to sleep, I should zonk. I have to go to the fantastic bank tomrrow. I really don't like working. I like having money, but I'd prefer if it came via NYS lottery tickets.

Night all.

2005-06-10T22:24:00.000-04:00

My fantastic boyfriend bought me headphones so right now I am drowning my brain in Chopin's Ballade No.1 in g minor. Beautiful piece, well incorporated into the movie the Pianist too. These headphones, whether intentional or not, also do a good job of blocking out outside noises. For example, I can hardly hear the keys on my keyboard. I have a pretty soft keyboard as it is, but a lot of noise is toned down or out. I wish I could walk around with headphones attached to my head like this with beautiful classical music immersing me all day long. And of course, I could have a little button that let Rick talk into my headphones. And maybe occasionally another person or too ;)

So, let me tell you what is absolutely sinful. I decided the other day to go to the Roberts Wesleyan Library and just puruse the math section, see what kind of books they have. Unbelievable! They have quite a large selection, all on fascinating things! You can get a book on any math topic, any area of the history of math, on the psychology of mathematical learning, on math in education since the beginning of time, you can find lesson plans for enrichment, for struggling students, for anyone, theres math games and how not to be afraid of math .... so many BEAUTIFUL math books!!!!!! And who would've ever thought? My math classes were so unbearably boring in high school .... and they didn't have to be that way! What a sin that so many of the books I looked at had incredible ideas, were printed in the 1940s, and yet had been opened not at all or once before??? Omg, people! No wonder we're not getting anywhere with education. It all stays on the shelf.

I've decided that this must be the reason for the pendulum swings in education (and probably other areas as well). Because for 15 years, people work extremely hard on coming up with answers and ideas and all sorts of revolutionary things that promise to work. They publish their ideas, put them in libraries, and go on their merry way expecting other teachers or educators to pull them off the shelf. When twenty more years pass, and new educational philosophy buffs realize that nothing is happening, they start recreating all of those solutions that have been previously introduced, only to call them revolutionary and swing the pendulum back again. I really think that's how it works.

How frustrating. My teachers made me feel as though I'm on the cutting edge of education ... with all of the latest methods and suggestions, and I'm going to change the world by implementing them. I'm doing my masters' thesis on differentiation in the classroom, right? And I have materials from the nineties, proclaiming that this whole "new" concept of differentiation is being demanded by the increasing diversity in the classroom. Then I look back to materials from the seventies, and it says "although students of the past were treated as though each had similar abilities, recent studies have shown that more effective teaching occurs when education is individualized. A new method of instruction, called differentiation ..." yada yada yada. Right? So then I pick up a yearbook published by the National Council of the Teachers of Mathematics, from 1954. What is it all about? DIFFERENTIATION in the math classroom. It also starts off with something about how we all know from common sense that children are different, so we need to differentiate instruction. Each section is a different topic with the word 'differentiation' actually in the title! And what's best, is that it cites differentiation as starting in the 1880s. So. Do we apply the word "new" to differentiation? I think NOT.

Anyways. That's my rant for the day. I've been working in the ghetto this week, at a branch in the city. Very different than the branch that I work with. Totally different type of customer, I stand behind two inch thick plexi-glass, there's a bullet break in the drive through window, you get the picture.

Okay I'm going to continue to be submerged in music now. Love to y'all. :)

2005-05-30T23:12:00.000-04:00

I know what it is that bothers me about listening to 24 (or more) Chopin Preludes in a row. He fills up all of the space. But not in a delicate way, rather in that "my mentronome is stuck on the eighth note" kind of way. Take a look at his preludes, especially opus 28. You'll see what I'm talking about.

Not to say that I don't love Chopin, I do. Sometimes. Most of the time. Especially the heady pieces. But man, he sure threw in some ugliness here and there, even ugliness I don't appreicate. If you can get by the ugliness and the metronomic repetitive pulsations his music is astonishing. How cheap did that sound? This is just one of those nights where I'm rambling, I don't have enough energy to say what I really mean.

What I really mean is this. Take it for what its worth.

There is music, and there are musicians.

Then there is Beethoven. When I listen to Beethoven I can't think. I'm consumed, I'm lost, I'm found, I'm high and I'm shattered, and something else that no words can describe. It's not just the music. It's not that the notes flow together beautifully or that the rhythms move me, it's that I am surrounded by Beethoven. This man never died. It's not his music that lives on. It's the soul, the essence, the being that envelops every drop of sound. I think my ears are connected to every neuron in my brain, to every cell in my body. When certain works by certain composers hit me, I don't know if I'm alive or dead. I'm not exaggerating. I cry, I laugh, I get that absolutely breathless feeling. You ever wonder what it feels like to be in someone else's body? Try being in their soul.

Most composers, most works don't do that to me. When you can separate the man from the music, then I'll tell you there's things I enjoy or parts that I don't like, or I'll say it's nice and here's why, etc. But those precious few .... ahhhh, to breathe.

Debussy, Satie, Chopin, Beethoven, Schubert, Ginastera. I can think of at least one piece by each of those that falls into the previous ridiculous sounding description. I'm not being pretentious. I just hope that when I die heaven holds me (along with Rick ... ::sheepish grin:: ...) in that suspended state of ..... whatever it is. Soul. Being. Energy. Maybe it's just beyond words.

2005-05-24T12:51:00.000-04:00

Ben is seven months old today. :) Happy seven month birthday baby boy :)

And now for a completely different tone.

Sometimes I wish that I could laugh, giggle, toss my hair and use the word "like" to mean an uncountable number of multi-syllable words. Sometimes I wish it were that easy, that simple. To be so simple. To think so simply. To be able to see your toes sticking out of the muck at the bottom of the pond you're wading in.

Why do I have to think that there is more to everything? Please, don't give me sympathy or ask me if I need help, this is not me being sad or depressed, I'm simply thinking out loud. I was so shocked during class last night - our teacher read out loud the famous poem, or prose, "All I ever really needed to know I learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum. Then, she proceeded to go around the room and ask everyone for their brief thoughts and feelings following the reading. I said I was upset, because the words of the poem are so simple, so agreeable, and could be the truth. But the reality is, life isn't that way, even though it could be.

A majority of the answers given in class were, "its sweet".

Sweet? Yeah, I think that this work is deserving of more comment than a one syllable word. I think it speaks enough for itself that it doesn't need to be elaborated upon, but ... sweet? Isn't there any further functioning brain cells in the minds of the people around us?

Maybe you, whoever you are, completely disagree with me. You have every right to. I'm just trying to figure out why I think into things so much. Why my answers always make me sound foolish because either a) they sound pessimistic, though I really don't mean them to, or b) everyone thinks 'okay, wacko, she just came up with TOO much thought for that one'.

Well, that was a quick writing of a huge thought, but I need to get back to working on my thesis. Love to all.

2005-05-15T14:17:00.000-04:00

Rick and I went to Toronto on Wednesday. It was actually a surprise, he didn't know what we were doing. AND it was also Kathleen Carroll's birthday!!! Happy 22nd girlfriend :)

So anyways, I had gotten his birth certificate and some Canadian money, arranged to have my mom babysit Ben, and we hopped in the car and were off. Now, to where was this fantastic surprise destined, besides Toronto, you may ask? Ahhhh. The National Ballet of Canada. Yes, I'm serious. I've only been to a ballet once, and I hated it, but I was little, so I decided to try again. We went to see the world premier of "An Italian Straw Hat". We got there, picked up the tickets, and Rick is like, "you're taking me to the ballet?" yep. What a goodhearted boyfriend he is :)

And of course, in my brilliance, I had picked out a place for us to go for dinner. When I had mapquested it, it said that it was three miles from the National Ballet. Soo, intelligent me, I decided we should walk there! Let me tell y'all, I was decked out in high heels and we didn't have that much time to make it there. So, about 1/4 of the way there, I realized I was about to meet my death through my feet, but luckily we found an asian shop in China town that sold really cheap sandal like shoes. They aren't very good for my feet, but they were certainly better.

Hmm, had to stop typing, too much to do. I'll try to finish this story sometime this week .... love to all!

2005-05-14T20:22:00.000-04:00

Now if only I could find my footing I'm sure there's solid ground somewhere ...

Sigh, this is another entry that I typed two hundred sentences and they were all erased with a sweep of the mouse and the gentle tapping of the "delete" key.

Hold on to who you are.

I once was five, and then sixteen. Somewhere in there I was also several other versions of myself. But during all of those years I had plans and dreams and I laid out the framework for who I was going to be at 20, and 34, and even maybe 21.5. Nothing gold can stay.

I wonder if there are people out there that all that planning and dreaming and designing really work for. They say that wherever you go, there you are. I thought I was somewhere else.

So it goes.

2005-03-31T21:38:00.000-05:00

Rick is folding the laundry right now.

I have done ten thousand loads of mostly his laundry. I bring up three baskets full of clothing to be folded, and I set them on the floor. Breifly, I go to the computer (for the first time today) and sit down. Rick starts to fold laundry, and then says:

"Wait, you're a woman, right? Then why aren't you over here folding these clothes?"

He's toast. No more help from me to do that laundry! Maybe I should just let the rest of the clothes that are now in the wash sit there for days ... we'll see how clean they come out!!!!

I'm just teasing. I love my honey :)

Oh, and this is great! My sister comes in and asks if she can borrow a skirt, because tomorrow is April Fools day, and since she never wears a skirt, it'd be a joke. Hmmm. So I give her three choices of my skirts, and she says "well, they're all equally crazy" .... crazy??? Do I have crazy skirts??? I prefer "artsy", thank you very much.

Okay, so believe it or not, I actually started writing another entry on Tuesday morning. Then, Ben got so fussy, all day long, that I didn't have another minute to finish the post! So Rick saved it to my desk top downstairs (it's on a different computer) and I haven't gotten to it since. This is really the first opportunity I've had to use the computer. So ... here I am!

There are so many things going on that I've been rather ebullient to write about, but time slips through my fingers faster than I can grasp on to it. The Terri Shiavo case had me all in a whirlwind for several days. I actually spent almost an entire day last week listening to talk show radio to get a bigger and better picture of the case - and the more I listened to, the more I realized I wasn't going to be able to make any fair and sound judgment. There is far to much that the public isn't seeing, wayyyyy too many people who are interested in putting their two cents in, whether it is truth or stretched, and I am just plain far too removed from the situation to offer my opinion of what is best. I went between opposite ends of the spectrum, and where I have landed is "I hope that whatever is best for her is what is being done". I do feel for her family today in her death, but I know she is also in a better place.

Well, even though I already typed a lot of this up in my entry that I didn't post the other day, I'll write it again. Ben is suffering pretty badly from severe eczema. It's been rough all around lately. His face looks like a disaster, and over his entire body are incredibly rough, itchy, red patches. He constantly itches, all day long. Even though I keep his fingernails as short as I possibly can, he still manages to draw more blood than they take from a donor. We try keeping mits over his hands, but the moment you take them out, he rubs his eyes or attacks skin anywhere on his body. He's the most incredible tempered person that I know, and even more so for a baby. He has ten times the patience and strength that I do, I swear it. He smiles all day long, even though he's so itchy. It just breaks my heart when he can't stop itching and he goes crazy.

We were using Elidel with him until we saw the news release from the FDA that it should have a black box warning on it because it causes cancer. So, I've been fighting with the pediatrician for a while, and he finally said these are the only options we have:

1) Mosturize Ben all day long, about every hour. Keep him out of water, few and short baths, away from all allergens, and in only cotton clothing. Keep mits on his hands, and hold his arms down. Switch formulas if we think that'll help. (Hmmm, we do all this every day) Give him an antibiotic twice a day, and benadryl once a day.

2) Do all of the above, only use a topical steroid cream. We had tried one that was pretty ineffective, so the doctor said we'd have to use something more potent. We can only use these creams for 4-5 days out of a month. Even with such little useage, if we do that for more than three months (which the doctor said he guaranteed we'd need to) Ben will be at high risk for the detrimental effects of excessive steroid use.

3) Do all in number one and also use Elidel. We will probably have to do less moisturizing, but we need to put the Elidel on two times a day for probably over a year. There are the risks that we have heard about in the news, but my pediatrican swears the steroid risks are worse.

So. I asked him for a referral to a dermatologist.

For now, we have gone back to putting a very thin amount of Elidel on only his face, and a tiny bit on the really severe patches on his legs. Technically, I could bathe him in Elidel and I don't think that would cover every itchy part of his body that should be treated. But I'm not willing to cover any more skin area with such a strong cream that the FDA has ruled dangerous. I have done more research on this than I've probably done on anything else in my life. My mom said that if I don't use the Elidel, the scarring and mental suffering will be worse than the healing and potential risks of Elidel.

That's where we are with that issue. In other news, Ben can roll from both front to back and back to front now! He's only gone from back to front three times on his own, but hey, I consider that an achievement! He'll be crawling before we know it. He is probably one of the happiest human beings on the planet too, despite everything.

I'm psyched because I got an issue of 19th Century Music in the mail today. The article I am currently in the process of reading is about virtuosity in 19th century Europe. The author is arguing that in retrospect we are viewing a small portion of the virtuosos in a manner of the "heroic romantic", while in reality there were many more virtuosos at the time and the overall regard by the public was that of the "military heroic". She has done the research to show that the virtuoso and the orchestra were a representation of a general and his troops, and this was the impression given to the audience at the time. So ... I'm not so sure that I'm convinced right now, but I have ten more pages in the article to go. I think there are probably several truths in her argument, but in a more holistic sense, I think a "military heroic" view is only part of the large picture of the virtuosic artist.

Okay, well, it's ten o'clock now, I have to start taking my 8 prescription medications, most of which are to control my asthma and allergies. I can't wait until I can drop some of these meds. Soon. I hope.

Goodnight y'all. I'm sorry I don't get the chance to update more often.

Wir müssen wissen.
Wir werden wissen.

2005-03-10T23:25:00.000-05:00

Look down at your thumbnail. Right now, I'm serious. Okay so you've looked at it. Now just imagine how incredible it is to see a thumbnail that is 1/12th the size of yours. On a person! Yeah, that's pretty incredible. Just another one of the many awes I hold for my Son.

Life's coasting along, you know, at outrageous speeds of 3,000mph. I'm afraid somedays that I'll be going in too many directions and too quickly that I'll accidentally discover time travel. And then I won't know how to get back.

Rick and I had to register for our summer and fall classes. Get this - spring I'm taking a full courseload with 10 credit hours, right? (That's full time graduate). Well, summer time is shorter, right? Ahah ... NOT SO! In the world of graduate school, they decided to make the program so that we take 12 credit hours in this condensed amount of time! Mmmmmhmmmm. Fantastic. I'll be in class from 5-9 everyday of the week except Friday. Oh, and in the fall, I'll be going at 4:40! As I said, and I'll say it again .... fantastic.

I'm so incredibly excited about being a math teacher. This school and this program were by far the best choices I could've had. Honestly, I went into this thinking "okay, I guess I'll be a math teacher". Now, I'm thinking "Holy Crap! I get to be a math teacher!!! What an AWESOME opportunity!" I'm not kidding you! Does this sound outrageous? Especially to those of you who had horrible math experiences? Send your kids my way. It'll be a whole new generation of mathematicians. The doors to colleges will be flooding with students who want to get a math degree!

I'll admit I've been a little depressed lately about the lack of music in my life. I was thrilled to sit down and play piano for a while about a week and a half ago. Not just sit down and play, but I spent ten minutes drilling some Rachmaninoff, and I was able to play it like I used to be able to when I was finished. Well, okay, maybe not AS well as I used to ... but close ;) I really miss music in my life. I'm going to be playing for Irene's church again at Easter time, but that's so different.

Okay so maybe I wasn't a little depressed, I was really depressed. But Rick and I talked about it. Rick is the most incredible man in the universe. I'm so glad he is raising my son with me. Rick thinks I should go after my music theory or musicology degree once we get jobs and can afford to have a place of our own and actually move somewhere. He wants me to pursue music ... it's incredible. I think I'm going to apply to Eastman and Indiana. And if I don't get into either, then so be it. I'll just write articles for journals as a summertime hobby. Which may be the case no matter what happens.

I miss Wagner, Satie, Debussy, Wolf, Neitzsche, (I know he wasn't a composer but he's fascinating!) and Beethoven and Strauss and .... I feel like these are souls I've come to understand and know, almost as if they were relatives in my past. People who fascinate me. They became more than just names, they became lives and interests and art and beauty and insanity and depth. I feel isolated, like there's a huge gap in myself. I know I can't put this aside for too long, I'll grow dark.

But on a happy note. I went swimming at Roberts tonight. Rick and I both did, after class. It felt really nice to do something healthy. We have no time to exercise, but I asked my mom to watch Ben just a little bit longer and we got out of class early so we were able to swim it up. I wish we could do that more often.

Hmmmm, any other news? The bank is the bank. Go into a bank. Talk to a teller. The story of my work life.

Okay, bed rocks my world. Therefore, to bed shall I go.

"Just go on..and faith will soon return."
[To a friend hesitant with respect to infinitesimals.] - Jean le Rond D'Alembert

2005-02-25T23:00:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update. I've sat here staring at the screen for too long, erasing hundreds of words because they just weren't willing to be said.

Rick and I had off from school this week. Thank goodness. Things have been a little rough. I am obvserving at Medina High School on Wendesdays and Thursdays during the week. I actually really like the school. It's quiet, the teachers that I've observed have been wonderful, and the kids seem to actually have some respect for people ... I mean of course you have your regular students who scream "I HATE SOCIETY" through their clothes and hair and piercings, but in general the student body is much less ... cruel than Spencerport was.

I'm still working Monday, Friday, and Saturday. This last week I also worked Tuesday. You can see how I didn't really have a day off. The weeks just kind of keep on going. I miss my baby and I miss my man. I was supposed to observe this last Thursday but I didn't feel well so I called in sick. When was the last time I called in sick to anything?

Rick and I presented our lesson last Wendesday to our models of instruction class. It was actually a lot of fun! We did a fifty minute lesson on ellipses (my contribution) and Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion. I had the class looking at ellipses in the surface of a titled glass of koolaid, and then I had them make an ellipse. We taught them the characterists of ellipses, and then we taught them about Kepler and demonstrated the Second Law using the ellipses they had made. At the end of the lesson, we split the class in two and had a competitive game about the things they learned. The class seemed to love it, and our teacher just gave us glowing comments. I'm glad that's over though, because we were both really nervous. Not to mention we were up until 4:30 the night before trying to get it done, when I had to leave for Medina the next morning at 6:30. Now, we get to relax for two more classes while the other pairs do their lessons.

I'm so incredibly excited about becoming a teacher. I think I'll be a GREAT math teacher. I never thought that about myself, but I look forward to proving it more and more every day.

Ben's doing alright. His skin was getting more and more dry, and he was scratching every where on his face, legs, arms, and head that he could. I felt so bad for him. The other morning he woke up and he had rubbed a big part of skin off that he had been itching so bad. Since I had to go to Medina, Rick took him to the doctors. Now, I called and talked to our pediatrician about this already, and he told me to just keep putting cream on Ben. Well, this doctor, who was in for our doctor, immediately said it was much more serious than dry skin. Ben has ezcema, and it's because (well, she thinks it's because) he has an intolerance to a complex milk protein. So we've switched formulas to Nestle Good Start with Comfort Proteins. It's still a milk based formula, but it's got the simple proteins in it. We were using Enfamil Lipil with Iron before. Hmmmm, now that I think about it, I wonder if this Nestles has iron. I need to check on that. We're also using Elidel (sp?) on his skin, which is making his skin much better. But that stuff is an expensive cream! Ben's on an antibiotic too, which he'll finish taking four days from now. Poor little man.

In the mean time, he continues to grow, Rick continues to work and go to school and watch Ben a lot, I continue to work and observe and go to class. I miss all y'all.

2005-02-22T23:18:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning with post-nasal drip. And then I thought to myself ... is it my Allegra?

I don't remember what my thoughts in the morning were a year ago today. I just know that it was a normal morning. What was your morning like, today? Normal. Sure, something a little out of the ordinary may have happened. But it was normal.

Lunch time rolled around, a year ago today, and everything was still normal. Until I decided to just check. Just to be sure.

If there were a richter scale for human beings to indicate earthquakes of the mind and body, mine would've set a new record. My entire life changed before my eyes as one line crossed to become two - as one body realized it was morphing into two. I never knew it was possible for the body to handle so many thoughts and emotions all at once. It's like trying to drink down an entire glass of soda in one gulp by using a handful of straws. Who was I? Who was this?

I am not in Indiana, nor did I graduate with a music theory degree. I don't live in an apartment, I'm not the president of some SUNY Potsdam organization, and I haven't attended five conferences in the last three months.

No, none of those ideas turned into reality.

Instead, I am home. I've changed five diapers in the last 24 hours. I've heard beautiful giggles and seen the most incredible smiles several times today. I threw a change of clothes in a box to be opened only in the future, because it's already too small. I've been held in the arms of a man who loves me and who has my whole heart. I spent an hour discussing the delta epsilon definition of a limit with a sister that fascinates me. I've held my son. I am a mother.

Here's to Heaven on Earth. Terrified though I may have been to enter the gates, I've received the greatest blessings ever since.