a night owl and the theory of time

i've realized why i love being awake at night after everyone else has gone to bed. it's probably the same reason why some people love mornings ...
quietness, solitude, and freedom.
late at night, when patrick leaves for work (my equivalent of people going to bed, i guess!), i lock the door behind him and start setting up. lately i've been setting up the livingroom as a giant craftsroom - breaking out the christmas supplies, tape, and wrapping paper. i put on a christmas movie, or maybe an episode of "how clean is your house" or "supernanny" - anything really - and listen to the show while i putter away at making things.
before christmas, it was schoolwork that kept me busy (although i usually just turned on the radio while i worked on that!). sometimes it's housework. whatever it is, it's nice to work at my own pace as long as i want, without anything else demanding my time. now that i'm out of school and working evenings, i don't have to worry about waking up at a certain time. i can sleep in if i happen to stay up too late. i can nap. i can have a bath in the middle of the day.
at night, it's like space and time spread outward instead of tunneling forward. time stretches, expands, and grows quiet.
owls are wise ... nighttime is a good time to be awake.

typewrecks: pique

i am a blog addict. i love to prowl from blog to blog to blog, reading, looking at pictures, laughing, crying, bookmarking recipes ...
however, my blog-reading is continually interrupted by the unpleasant presence of typos, bad spelling, and poor grammar.
spellcheck has done a lot to alleviate the pandemic of bad spelling. however, homonyms are toxic for spellcheck.
today's typewrecker is guilty of an all-too-common wreck:
"I decided to post a few pictures to peek your interest."
are you planning on peering through my computer screen to take a look at my face when i see your pictures, typewrecker?
peek - a quick or furtive look or glance; peep
peak - the pointed top of anything. - or - the highest or most important point or level.
pique - to affect with sharp irritation and resentment - or - to excite (interest, curiosity, etc.)

giving myself slack

ever since i lost the baby, i've had waves of craziness. i know this is probably mostly hormone induced, but sometimes the smallest things seem like the BIGGEST ISSUES - and vice versa. i get it - i understand that my perspective is awry just now - and i know i need to cut myself some slack. but listening to your reasonable inner voice is pretty hard when you're swamped with stormy hormones and legitimate difficulties.
so this note is my reminder to myself to cut myself some slack.

dear janelle:
sometimes you're going to react in weird ways to things and your friends will be astonished. sometimes the 'you' that shows up on the outside will not be a good translation of the 'you' you were intending on the inside. sometimes you'll miss opportunities you wanted to take, and sometimes you'll make choices you'll regret and sometimes you'll just be lame. it's okay. life is hard and no one is perfect and it's even okay if you don't try to be perfect.
(for now. later, i'm going to kick your butt and motivate you into trying to be the best person you can be. these days, though, i just want you to know that surviving is enough).
there's lots of time to work on improvement. that can come later. today is just about putting one hour after another and making it to the end of the day.
put your unreasonable expectations on the back shelf. who you are is okay. the world will keep spinning, just as it is.
with love and mercifully low expectations,
your self.

now get back to class ...

Before You Call, I Will Answer

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask You to stay
Close by me forever, and love me, I pray
Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care,
And take us to Heaven to live with Thee there.
Away in a Manger

Listen to Me, O house of Jacob,
And all the remnant of the house of Israel,
You who have been borne by Me from birth
And have been carried from the womb;
Even to your old age I will be the same,
And even to your graying years I will bear you!
I have done it, and I will carry you;
And I will bear you and I will deliver you.
Isaiah 46

where's the salt?!?!

*with apologies to robb, for still being the same

it's 1:33 am. i can't sleep. the delectable smell of fresh, hot, buttery popcorn is wafting through my apartment and torturing me.
one of my neighbours apparently has a thing for aromatic&salty midnight snacks. if it keeps up, i'll find myself knocking on their door in my pjs with eyes as big as saucers (going round and round), holding out a bowl.
please sir, may i have a little more?
this is the third night in a row. i'm hoping they only bought a box of three packages, otherwise, i'm in for another agonizing night tomorrow.
i'll be lying in bed, trying (somewhat successfully) to get comfortable and (less successfully) to forget about the mound of assignments weighing me down. then, as the first shades of sleep begin to close in on me ... the golden aroma will hover on the air. at first, it will just be a hint of thought of popcorn. what's that? sleep will ask, and fly out the door. you know i brook no rivals, she'll shrug, and disappear.
i'll bury my head under the pillows, and try to smell the laundry soap, the scent of patrick's aftershave on the pillowcase ...
but the hot buttery goodness will not be so easily deterred.
i'll count sheep. i'll try to name a place starting with every letter of the alphabet. i'll close my eyes and think of rose gardens in the sunshine. i'll try to recite all the verses i've got memorized. but it will fail! it will fail!
i'll forget everything and find myself sitting upright, smiling dreamily, breathing in the tantalizing scent of popcorn.
desperate, i'll launch myself out of bed and rummage through the cupboard. but my rational self from daylight hours has forseen this midnight scrounging, and there is nothing aromatic or salty to be found. herbal tea, stray packages of jello, and pancake mix will stare blandly back at me.
i'll turn to the fridge. yogurt, smug in its saltless state, will sit benignly on the shelf. pickles will whisper, we're good enough. but they won't be. toast will suggest, try me with butter. but it's all hollow, compared with the poppylicious butteriffic finger-licking saltiness of popcorn.
i'll drift mournfully to my blog, to console myself with the slight comfort of shared misery. then i'll go back to bed, and lie mournfully awake, until the fragrance of popcorn settles for the night.

gingerbread toffee

now that assignments are piling up and i have lots of things due, i'm wasting much more time on the internet. avoidance is the best type of procrastination. it transforms an occasional procrastinator into an olympic gold medalist procrastinator.
one of the things i like to do is prowl through blogs. people write the craziest things. i learned how to fold a tshirt in 2 seconds (honestly, it's the coolest trick) and the fastest way to peel a boiled egg.
eventually i came across a sweet blogger from sweden who loves to cook and bake - acatinthekitchen.com - and she posts recipes as well as stories about making the food, serving it to friends, etc. i spent far too long reading through her posts, and suddenly came upon a recipe that seemed so simple and delicious i had to try it.
gingerbread toffee, ladies and gentlemen, after one batch, has become my new christmas tradition.
:) yum!
and now i have a whole new way to procrastinate ... slurp!

you know i love christmas ... i always will ...

listening to "christmas is all around" from Love Actually - which i actually love.
i love this time of year.
i used to hate it. before i met patrick, christmas was the suckiest time of year. i used to sprawl in the livingroom wishing for good christmases to come - the house was dark, the christmas lights were soft and glowy, snow fell thick and heavy, and mysterious packages collected under the tree. in spite of all this christmas loveliness, well, ... "all i really wanted was" ... hahah, actually jeff robichaud, usually. i wanted him to stop asking me what he should buy his girlfriend for christmas, and buy me something instead. (okay, he usually did buy me something too - he was a great friend, and i shouldn't've complained).
my sisters had boyfriends and got to go out, wear pretty clothes, and hang up their bouquets of roses to dry next to the tree. i got to babysit on new years eve and knew no one would ever kiss me at the stroke of midnight. i was the ugliest of ducklings.
i think christmases cemented my desire to be a teacher. i knew no one would ever love me and want to make twinkly christmas magic together - so at least, if i was a teacher i could take trips away at christmas time. i could travel and hole up in a hotel somewhere and read books and eat cheesies and swim, even, on december 25th!
and then i met patrick.
he transformed christmas. our first kiss - our first i love you - our engagement - all happened in one magical christmas vacation (i've still never been kissed at the stroke of midnight on new year's eve, but that's another story about too much juice and unfortunate bladder control). now, when christmas music starts to play, i think about my train ride to ontario. i think about the heart-thumping dazzliness of meeting patrick at the station. the dizzying ride on the subway. the pancakes we made for supper, then our walk in the snow when we both wanted to hold hands but didn't. the delicious smell of patrick's winter jacket. the incredible certainty that this was my one true love (and incidentally, no, i would not have to suffer through interminable christmases enviously watching my sisters be loved).
snuggling our feet under the table (sorry uncle bert ... hehe) - holding hands on the train - writing mushy notes to each other when we should've been wrapping presents - going for walks in the sweet kapuskasing cold, just to be alone and in love - not caring what we were doing, as long as it was together. it was a fabulous christmas, and now i love christmas, love remembering how we met and fell in love. i know that christmas is the time when we remember God's love for us, and His gift to us - Jesus. now that i have patrick's arms around me and his lips on my cheek, i've got my mind of off myself and my own stagnant self-pity. christmas is a light in the dark, warmth in the cold, and generosity in the face of want. it's the perfect reminder that God loves us outrageously.
as tiny tim says ... God bless us, every one!

24 weeks

our baby bean would have been 24 weeks old today.
i miss him so much.

patrick sleeping

the room is light and cool
and you
have dived face-first into sleep
the blankets swish around you
the pillows have capsized against the headboard
your right arm splays backward
in a desperate stroke toward oblivion.
you
swim toward starlight.
darkness will kiss your eyelids awake
and i
will kayak the blankets about me
and drift toward dawn.

the swine flu

sunday afternoon i was working away busily, trying to create the coolest possible lesson on war poetry for my class. the sun set startlingly early - and then i remembered daylight savings time - and then i noticed i was incredibly sore. i thought it must have been from being hunched up at my desk, working on lesson plans for hours ... and suddenly my chest exploded with a hack, my head started to pound, and i realized i'd been hit ... with the swine flu.
i missed class today, and they don't want me back until thursday. so i'm trying to look at the bright side. HA just kidding, it's pretty much all bright side. i get more sleep, more time to think up some shazam lessons, and more time to snuggle with patrick.
God sends some really nice gifts, in some really weird packages.
xo!

law-abiding citizen

dad was talking about this movie and had a beautiful freudian slip. he said the aspect that he was most interested in was "the injustice system" ... :) teehee!

my rant about thinking, experiencing, and doing.

Today in Technology-in-Education class we had to attend an online conference. There were live sessions and exhibits, all accessible through the internet. One of the sessions I attended was called "Three Types of Immersive Interfaces: Implications for Learning and Teaching."

Basically, it was encouraging teachers to immerse their students in a subject via Virtual Reality, Second Personality, and Augmented Reality. The speakers demonstrated and explained a huge range of ways this can benefit students in your classroom. I was really intrigued with the possibilities that Virtual Reality offers for learning.

One of the speakers noted that VR provides students with new ways to explore and learn "like Alice in Wonderland ... through the monitor."
(Sorry this isn't cited; I don't know which speaker made this statement.)

The idea of virtual reality being used to enhance experiences seems appealing to me, in theory. I like to use books to explore the world, and this takes it further - exponentially. But I think that exploring the world (a world) of VR is done in a different frame of mind than the frame of mind in which reading (and, I will argue, thinking) is done. The loss of the environment of quietness and solitude in which reading takes place is a very steep price to pay.

With books, you can snuggle up somewhere warm and quiet. You can think about what you are reading while you are reading it. In contrast, I find that I struggle to think and process simultaneously when i have gone 'through the monitor.' It is very difficult to think about texting while I am texting, for example. A book, however, isn't something that is happening. It is a noun, not a verb. Technology is all about verbs; and the technology IS the verb. You don't send-a-text: you text. You don't look-at-facebook: you facebook.

I know the presenters were talking about 'immersion' in a subject being possible via virtual reality; however, I don't think that the medium of virtual reality is immersive in the deeply thoughtful sense that a book can be. Of course, I realize you can become addicted to VR, play inside it all the time, choose to live your VR life over your real life, etc. VR internalizes you - wraps you up inside of it. It generates alternate experiences for you ... and that's what these presenters are saying. Immersion, "augmented reality," is educationally a good thing.

I completely disagree.

There is something very precious and very still about a book. A book is incapable of verbing. It doesn't say anything or communicate unless you pick it up and read it for yourself. When you leave it alone, it doesn't turn itself off, hibernate, or suspend. It just is.

We are the bosses when we read books. We do all the verbing. We pick them up, we put them down, we turn the page, we drop them when we fall asleep. We fold their pages and save our places and drip coffee on them. They just are.

To quote Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message. And I don't want to send the message to my students that technology can do the doing for them. I want them to do the doing.

Doesn't Virtual Reality provide an opportunity for students to do the doing, in ways and places they couldn't normally do it?
I would have to say no. It doesn't. The VR creators have done the doing, and students do the experiencing.

I argue that experiencing is entirely different from doing. In "experiencing," the student is a recipient of external stimuli. In "doing," the student generates action from within himself/herself. I'm not saying that "experiencing" is negative in itself, but I am saying that I believe it should not (and cannot) replace "doing."

I want my students to DO. I want them to become good friends with their own minds, to understand the way they form thoughts, ruminate, reflect, and think. I don't want them to be simply savvy manipulators of technology to get the right answer.

I want them to be able to think independently from within the blissful solitude of a quiet mind.

I want them to be able to imagine more than a Virtual Reality, to be creators of thoughts and not just information-gatherers. No wonder students have problems with plagiarism ... it's more common to find someone else's thoughts than to think for oneself. No wonder students see one another as obstacles and variables to be manipulated ... that's life in VR.

My mission, as an educator? To teach my students to think, to really, deeply, think.

and that ... is my rant.