Which sense would you give up?

As always, there's a song in my head. I had a serious contemplation over the past month or so about sensory deprivation. More specifically, the strange line of inquiry, "If you had to give up one of your senses, which would it be, and why?"

I would hope to never have to make that decision, but as someone who's been myopic since age 7, I'd have to go with blindness. I take in so much from feeling, intuiting, and sensing, so losing my sense of touch would be tragic; I do love the taste of good food, but I think I could manage on bland things forever. Hearing threw me for a loop momentarily, because I considered how much of my life is about music. Many, many percents. :)

However, if I never heard another piece of music, I think I could cope. Because there's so many songs in my head. In fact, I've had a couple if times recently where the choice of music unintentionally interrupted the serene experience I was attempting to attain. Both of these were ironically during massages. (Yes, yes, I know. Poor me.)

I was getting a massage in Denver over the weekend (the traditional, naked under the sheet on the table kind) and the music was without voices, but various showtunes with a rhythm or two out of place. It was strangely disconcerting!

One massage place has a group setting and my friend Annalise was in town (back in Atlanta) from Phoenix for a bit. She and my guy and I went out and then to this "Heavenly Foot" massage place. (I don't want to sell it too hard, but it's a massage place where you stay clothed and sit in these nice recliners and get a massage while you're zoning out.) The music started all Yoga-esque music with chimes and tones. Then at some point, it turned into muzak and my friend and I turned to each other (she's a musician) and noted that it was midi versions of hymns. If you know the hymns, it's a very odd location to hear them. 

I haven't been a regular church goer for several years now, probably since college. I deeply care for my Methodist church family back in Georgia, but it wasn't something that was fulfilling my spiritual needs to attend weekly. Lately though, I've had one particular hymn stuck in my head...and once a song is stuck in my head for long enough, I realize it's because my heart is trying to tell my brain something. That's their way of talking, my heart and my brain. They sing each other songs. (In MY world of anatomy.)

So it's the hymn whose lyrics come from Matthew 6. Matthew 6 is the one with the Lord's Prayer. It's also got my favorite scripture: 6:34 "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow. Let the day's troubles be sufficient unto the day." Just breathe, Adrienne. God's got this under control. 

But the song that goes with it has a couple of verses...the first one came from Matthew 6:33, and the rest are just nice and pretty: 

Seek ye first the kingdom of God

And his righteousness;

And all these things shall be added unto you.

Alleluia.

Ask, and it shall be given unto you;

Seek, and you shall find.

Knock and it shall be opened unto you.

Alleluia. 

You can hear it here. This was always one of my favorites to sing at church. I remember the "added unto" being "offered unto" which made more sense to me. Plus, I hate math, so anything with addition is bad...and I don't think God was trying to punish me with that verse or hymn. (!)

The boss at my new school is very intelligent, educated, well-traveled, and intense. She has a phrase that she uses when discussing the mission and teaching of the school, which is "That which is good and right and true." It seems to be a simplification of Phillipians 4:8 (thanks, google!) as well as a little bit of layman's legal speak. I sought out this job, this move, this life-upheaval to find that which was good, right, and true. I'd been seeking that back home in Georgia, but I was finding many obstacles in my path. 

Seeking the truth in others-- finding their best nature-- that's one of my talents. Finding the good and right? I'm working on it. I'm thinking on it. I'm hiking and meditating about it. I'm reading and seeking more spiritual guidance. The light is in me...to find others who share it and spread it...that's my path.

Oh, this is a path alright. Sunset at Greenbelt Plateau Trail in Boulder...views of the Flatirons the whole way.

Eloquent adventures for my week-ends

Let's see, the last time I checked in here, I was moving to Denver in a few days. Well, I made it!

There's obviously been a thing or two going on with getting situated, renting an apartment, starting a job, purchasing all the furniture to go in that apartment...so writing and blogging have kind of been on the very, very bottom of my stacked-to-the-ceiling to-do list. 

I've been getting back into some writing this week-- my dear friend Al (her page is here) sent a very lovely care package that included some perfect small-enough-to-slip-into-my-backpacking pack journals. So there's really no excuse. I attempt (and have largely succeeded) to hike somewhere every weekend. It gives me some time to think and reflect over this slightly surreal life I'm living. 

Everything had little notes of explanation!

I do hope to get more into a habit of writing and blogging about the day trips I've been taking. I'm working at an Independent school (read: private) that is an "American International" school (read: like American schools that exist in a strange vacuum in foreign countries) and therefore I have access to charming, new, and lovely colleagues who are from a myriad of other countries. In the teaching staff, we have at least 7 languages represented...and more dialects too. Every day is a Communication major's dream-- we have so many ways of tackling any issues!

I only mention this because one of my colleagues is from Senegal and he and I were discussing what we'd done over the weekend. I've noticed that with both teachers and people whose first language is not English, those groups of people like to summarize at the end of a conversation, to have reasonable assurance that they understood everything. This man is no exception. So, after describing the hike I'd taken that weekend, he said, with his lilting accent and activist's eloquence, "I think I understand. You are using your weekends to go and adventure in all the beautiful places that Colorado offers?" 

Yes. Yes sir. I'm adventuring in Colorado. That's for sure. 

Traveling on this overpass-- noticed snow on the peaks for the first time. Oh Colorado. So gorgeous.

Moving jitters

I've managed to stave off my moving jitters. How? Simply not thinking about it and being buried in all the details of getting into a new job, getting out of an old townhome, getting into a new apartment, getting out of a lot of mess and getting into a new organizational mindset.

Today I took a little time off of the packing and worrying about moving and....

1. Got my back adjusted at my adorably sweet chiropractor. I had many well-wishes and hugs.
2. Went to my BFF's little boy's 3rd birthday party and watched him delightfully open gifts, say thank you, and give good-bye high fives to all his guests. Did I mention he's faithfully saving coins in his bank for a new train? Precious!
3. Went to a bizarre relaxation Himalayan simulated-salt cave for an hour of meditation/nap.
4. Ran some errands and sang along with the radio on a very zooming car ride with my guy. (Wind in your hair riding in a BMW with someone who's an excellent driver is reallllly fun).
5. Ate a delicious meal complete with fried pickle spears as an appetizer. Southern mac and cheese with grilled salmon and broccoli, yes please.

Did I get all my work done? No. My to-do list is quite extensive.

But it's do-able, thank goodness.

And a couple things have come to mind. I found a post card in DC when I was out and about with my dear friend Shelley several years ago. It stated, "Due to the lack of experienced trumpeters, the end of the world has been delayed for 2 weeks." My take away? If it doesn't get done in the next few days, it's either not that important, or it can get done in Colorado. Ah, there's my breath. I found it.

Another quote that comes to mind as I'm trying to sort through the disaster that is my former bedroom (no, really, it's a disaster)...a cross-stitch that hung on the wall in my childhood bathroom, "Home is Where the Heart Is." Is it? My heart has been a lot of places. My decorations, photos, dishes, linens, and furniture sure made this little townhome have my character. It was my home, but all the stuff that made it "me" is either packed, back in my mom's house, or given away on freecycle. {Or will be by the time I'm done here!}

The Eddie Vedder song "You're True" is in my head-- and I've been listening to it on repeat, like a mantra. The narrative of the song is a woman saving a man from all the things that were wrong and him becoming a better person because of her...but the line that has always risen above all the rest for me in that song..."Nothing ever goes my way....now I'm at home in my own skin...like an ocean's tide come in..."

I'm at home in my own skin.

That's the meaningful part with the chaos of reconfiguring everything I've ever known. The strength I need to do it is in my bones, my heart, my mind. I'm at home in my own skin.

So, in less than a week, I'll be 2 time zones, 1000 miles, 3 hours by plane, and  22 hours (by car) away from the state and city I've basically called home my entire life. But I've got my own skin. I'll be the one in it. So I'll be home.

Dirty Thirty...Adult Acne Time

I turned thirty in May. In all the irony the the U.S. healthcare system and insurance has to offer, my Retin-A was cancelled due to my age. Apparently I'm too old for acne (my insurance would allow it if I were in the teen to young twenties bracket) and too young for wrinkles (it acts as a collagen booster for older women). There's a window here, ladies! We're not supposed to have acne or wrinkles, according to my insurance tables.

I wish someone from United Healthcare would call my pores.

I have blackheads on my nose, I have cystic acne around my chin, I have discoloration/rosacea on my cheekbones, I have scars from teenaged acne, and I have whiteheads and zits on my cheeks from where my phone transfers bacteria to my pores. Heavens, I don't know how I leave the house without a bag over my head or shellacking myself with buckets of stage makeup! It's like I have the plague!

Just kidding. It's not that serious. This is a first world problem. One that could probably be solved by Pro-active, but I am adamantly against anything that Jessica Simpson endorses. I digress.

I attempted microdermabrasian, but the esthetician insisted that a fruit acid (PCA) chemical peel would do wonders for my skin and I'd see amazing results. I saw no change except for my credit card statement.

A dear friend I've known for years (love you Amber!) suggested via social media that I look into the "Oil Cleansing Method" and to give it a shot. I love DIY and I love natural remedies, so this seemed worth the look-see.

I could probably credit all the different sites I read, but I know the main one was from Wellness Mama.com and plenty of connected sites. In a nutshell, I decided to order a couple of oils (jojoba and evening primrose on amazon) and while I waited on those, I would try something that I had in my kitchen already. (I also decided to avoid Castor Oil for ethical and skin-sensitivity issues. It is toxic to the workers who process it, so that's a good reason for me to avoid it-- um, it's also the same plant that makes ricin.)

Immediately on hand?
Sunflower, olive, coconut, and flax seed oils. (I mean, I have canola oil, but that's from a plant called rapeseed, and seriously, my face is jacked up enough.) You can mix in different essential oils and vitamin E to help balance, so I decided to use common sense and give it a go. Every site I read said that give it time (approximately a week) for your skin to get used to this concept and see any results. I'm on day 3, and so far so good.

My execution?

1. At night, mix a handful of flaxseed oil (it also has some flaxseeds ground in it, so it works as a scrub) with a couple of drops of tea tree oil. Tea tree oil is anti-bacterial and is in many natural acne remedies. I personally think it stinks.
2. Rub this stuff into my skin and leave it on for a few minutes. It's brown and a little abrasive, but in a smoothing way, due to the flaxseed. The tea tree oil is more astringent than emollient, but dry skin isn't too much of a problem for me in the summer.
3. Wring out a very hot washcloth so it is damp and set it on my face, allowing it to cool and steam open my pores. Repeat...then wipe off anything left.

Immediate Results? My skin felt soft, and the acne didn't seem any worse. The next morning, I noticed my nose felt damp, so I looked in the mirror and I saw the oil oozing from my blackheads on my nose. Gross, right? I know! But it also meant that the oil was leaving my body and my pores were tinier and tighter. Cool!

In the morning, I tried a slightly gentler approach--
1. A handful of coconut oil (it was liquid because it's over 80 degrees upstairs in my bathroom) with a few drops of tangerine essential oil. Both are organic, for what it's worth.
2. I repeated the steps from night time-- I massaged the oil mix in (the tangerine smell was happy and uplifting!) and allowed it to penetrate my skin for a few minutes. I repeated the steam washcloth and went about my day. (Side note on the citrus acid oil-- it had a seriously nostalgic feeling because my Grandma Marilyn always had a natural citrus air freshener in her powder room. The smell was overwhelmingly lovely to me. It also smells like the award-winning Burt's Bees orange cleanser, but I never liked that much when I used it...and it's been deceptively changed and discontinued on its website, but is available from other retailers. The new kind has other ingredients in it.)

I think when I have less time on my hands, I'll probably skip the steam washcloth and apply the oil before I hop in the shower-- but for now, that part feels pretty therapeutic!

Here's a picture of my cute snuggly dog. You can see my ugly acne cheek here.

In actuality, while I was listing off the dermatological "problem areas" of my face...I thought about the fact that I also have smile lines (both by my eyes and lips) from 30 years of laughing and smiling about life. I also have acne-camouflaging freckles,  which my brother and I share, but my sister and I do not. It's kind of cool to think about the genetics of physical traits-- I have my grandmother's big brown eyes while my mom got her father's baby blues.  My skin is pretty fair, but with the olive complexion of some Mediterranean relatives, I don't get sun burns easily and I do enjoy sitting in the sun! Plus, I mean, look at that snuggle-pup. She don't care about no adult acne.

No B.O., No B.S. A fun experiment in DIY deodorant!

Homemade Deo Recipe! I'm calling it No B.O., No B.S. Deo. There's a product to make you less stinky called No BO DEO, but it seems weird. 

My inspiration for homemade deodorant came from a couple of sources—mainly common sense and cost.  I’ve read the conflicting reports that state how anti-perspirants have aluminum that is linked to Alzheimer’s disease and breast cancer. I have a common sense-approach to reading researched articles, but it stands to reason that putting a poison on the surface area where your sweat glands are—is not a good idea. Sweat glands are designed to release toxins in the form of sweat and odor from your body—so I’d like to let those things go.

Common sense part two—I still have my typical Lady Speed/Dove/Secret Anti-perspirant. (I have basically no brand loyalty already. I smell the kinds at the store that are on sale or I have a CVS coupon for and pick one; I guess it’s not hard for me to divorce myself from the idea of a certain scent to my pits!)  These little tubes are getting more and more expensive! It’s hard to find them under $4 without a coupon and it's nuts to me to waste that much cash. If I’m doing something particularly stressful (court date, first date, anything with the word date in it) or strenuous (10K—um, just signed up for that today, yikes!), I will probably go with the traditional anti-perspirant.

Here’s my other thoughts on non-anti-perspirant deodorants: I’ve tried Burt’s Bees, Tom’s of Maine, and a very natural approach (spraying alcohol and letting it dry) and I was disappointed in all. I felt moist, sticky, stinky, and like I just had a natural-scented (Earthy lavender, calendula, etc.) perfume on my sweaty pits.  I don’t want to stink. I’m the clean hippie, y’all! I don’t want to talk trash about the Burt’s Bees kind, or any brand for that matter. I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder—and on the same logic, stink is in the nose of the smeller. Being smelly after a long day of physical work, well, that doesn’t terrify me. It just makes me realize that I need to take a shower or apply more deo.

Here’s my recipe. 

It’s been working for about 3 weeks and I’ve had a couple of friends try it out too. I found it to be fairly inexpensive, because most of the things I already had. I could tell you exact measurements, but then I’d have to kill you.

1. Coconut oil (I go with organic from Trader Joe’s or Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market)

2. Non-Aluminum Baking Soda (This is key—the A&H kind may or may not have aluminum, which you’re trying to avoid. I go with Bob’s RedMill. They have it in the Natural Section at Kroger.)

Technically that’s all you need, but it’s kind of disgusting just like that.

3. Aloe (I go with the drinkable kind (George’s), but you could do the cosmetic/sunburn kind.)

4. Arrowroot Powder (Bob’s Red Mill again, or YDFM had it for considerably cheaper. Check bulk sections of natural stores, would be my recommendation.)

5. Essential oils (I got a local Lavender and Eucalyptus from the Grant Park Farmer’s Market, but I also like AuraCacia brand (at Vitamin Shoppe and some scents at Kroger) in Tangerine or Sandalwood.

What do I do?

Heat up whatever amount of coconut oil you think you want to try to use in the microwave. I would recommend starting with about half a cup. Start with 15 seconds and work up; you don’t need it to be hot, you just need it to be liquid. (It’s easier to measure when it’s liquid, too.) Use approximately the same amount of baking soda. Mix them together with a spoon (you could use a food processor or blender, but it doesn’t really need that.) In liquid form, it’s easy to go overboard with the baking soda (I did this with my first batch and it was like dried play-doh), so try to measure a little, and not just eye-ball them.

Add approximately an eighth to a fourth of your original amount of coconut oil of Arrowroot powder. Arrowroot powder is needed for thickening and smooth-ening.  It doesn’t like hot temperatures and will get very crumbly if you microwave your deo. I use about the same amount (8^th/4^th) of aloe so that the baking soda is less shocking to the skin.Continue mixing and add the essential oils, if you feel so inclined.

Measuring the essential oils, well that’s your preference. Start with maybe 5-10 drops and see how it smells to you.  If it’s not scented enough, you can always add more. I personally like one with about a half cup of each baking soda and coconut oil, plus the arrowroot and aloe and 10 drops lavender and 10 drops tangerine oil. I also like Eucalyptus oil—about 10-15 of those with a little lavender too. Place in a small jar (I like repurposed ones!) and keep in bathroom or bedroom. See the note below about temperature.

How do I use it? It doesn’t go in my deodorant container!

I know. You have to use your fingers and dip a small amount out and then rub it in your pits. I suppose you could put it on your feet and backs of legs—wherever you get stinky, there’s no reason you couldn’t. Be careful with tight clothing, specifically dark clothing, because the baking soda will show on the outside, but then again, it’s easily brushed off. I just wash my hands after I put it on, no big deal. It won't stain your clothes, either. Baking soda actually boosts/is an ingredient of detergent.

I put mine in different mini jars (old jelly jars or other cosmetic jars) and made different strengths of scents with the essential oils.  Who doesn’t love choices?

How long does it last?

Realistically, about 10-12 hours. If I go for a dog walk/run in this muggy Southern heat, it wears off a little sooner. I still sweat though. I want the toxins out, not in.

I can reapply if I am worried I’m going to stink. That’s not so hard!

What should it look like?

It should look like a paste or dough. Reminds me a little of cookie dough or margarine in a tub—but not quite that smooth and greasy. If your consistency is off, you can remix in more liquid (aloe or coconut oil), or if it’s too wet, add more baking soda or arrowroot powder. Hotter than 80 degrees will make it melty, just like other deodorant! If your bathroom gets hot and steamy, it will get more liquid in there.

Why use these items?

Coconut oil has antibacterial and moisturizing properties. Baking soda is an elemental compound that neutralizes odors, but is gritty, so not the most comfortable thing to rub on your body. Arrowroot powder is similar in property to cornstarch, but has some other minor positive aspects of absorption, etc. and since it’s not corn, it’s not genetically modified. I figure there’s enough corn in my life otherwise. Aloe is mentioned in the Bible, so it’s been tested on humans for a while—it’s cooling and moisturizing for skin. It also helps balance if you’ve got shaving irritation in your pits—the baking soda isn’t as rough. The essential oils are the smell-goods. Tea-tree oil is a smell I don’t care for, but it has natural anti-bacterial properties that fight odor. Lavender and Eucalyptus are also used in some cultures cosmetics for that purpose. Lavender has astringent properties, so that can’t hurt for deodorant purposes! I personally like the sandalwood and tangerine/Sweet orange smells because they aren’t the typical cosmetic scents; therefore they smell even cleaner to me.

Where did you get this crazy idea?

A site I really enjoy for whole-food choices and seemingly-honest authorship is 100 Days of Real Food and the author and her husband recently positively reviewed a deodorant called “Primal Pit Paste.” I’ve been attempting to watch every penny and I thought, hmm, I could make this too! If you read their (adorable) site, you’ll read a story about a parent who was worried about the lifetime of aluminum building up in their children’s bodies as the catalyst for non-anti-perspirant deodorant.

A side note here is that, due to many aspects of unhealthy living, our bodies have become allergic or sensitive to many ingredients that are regularly in our food and body products. I have a poultry allergy, and that has been a 15-year ongoing journey of discovering by mistake just how many chicken and turkey products are in things that don’t seem like it. If you try something like this and you have a reaction to the baking soda, it’s probably because of the other things in your diet and body-care regimen. There are plenty of sites for breaking down baking-soda (pH-basic) sensitivity.

Give it a shot! If you really are scared of making it yourself and want me to make you a sample so you can try it, shoot me a message, leave a  comment, or get your soon-to-be unstinky self over on Facebook.

Soul's Typography

It’s been about four-five weeks (depending on when you actually call the end of the school year, based on the fact that seniors were supposed to be released a week before the underclassmen) since the school year ended. I’ve NOT missed the early wake-up time, the smell of the hall bathrooms, the drama of the annoying people I have to work with. You know what I have missed? Handwriting.

I teach English, so there’s obviously more writing there than say, chemistry, but I’d say that teachers could probably be really great at one of those FBI/Forensics jobs where the nerd with the thick glasses and bright light in a dark steel room analyzes handwriting and what it says about the bearer’s personality. Teachers start to notice things about the ways people write-- silly things such as drawing circles instead of dots over i’s, some people’s penchant for writing in print or cursive, and even the way some people have the propensity for killing a whole lot of paper by skipping lines or writing unusually large. 

I assign journals—in fact, I think it’s one of the hallmarks of why my classroom “works” so well. Students have a regular channel of communication with me—regardless of how much time we get together—if we have any quiet moments for any tete-a-tetes-- if it’s a testing week or a teaching week. This channel is sculpted so that kids can have a free-choice topic and they have the open option of writing down song lyrics (rap/r&b) and essentially explicating them, as one would do poetry. Now, when they’re writing a detailed explanation of why they like certain lines of the song and how the meaning is subtle/broad/nuanced, etc. they don’t realize they are doing higher-order thinking. I’m tricking them into academic discourse. Plus, I love music. I may not enjoy angry rap, but I get its place in a teen’s world.

Another aspect about journaling is that kids, although they are so completely plugged in—texting, calling, facebook, twitter, etc., they feel like so many of us may have felt as teens—that no one understands them and that they have no voice. Or that if you have a voice—there’s either no one to hear it or it’s not worth being heard. Having a journal in which a trusted adult (eh-hem, that’s me) responds and can write back or even open up a personal conversation about in response to the entry? That’s communication gold. It’s private, safe, and available. They know that it’s not getting ignored or, heaven-forbid, not “liked” or “followed” on social media. This leads to some powerful writing and teenaged catharses.

So it’s summer time. And I realized I miss handwriting. A student sent me a graduation “thank you” note today—thanking me for teaching him and helping him have a great senior year enclosing  a prom and senior portrait. He was a sweet kid-- polite, played sports, had a plan for college and career success. The kids generally have my home address because I send cards—handwritten ones—throughout the year. I kept a spreadsheet of how many cards I sent this year. It was a lot. Postage jumped during the year, thanks recession. It took a lot of time, but the payoff was good—for the same reason that reading 6 stacks of journals—close to 200 a week—is a good payoff. Having human connection—something tangible and real—that’s powerful. Seeing this kid’s handwriting brought back those moments in August when I’m reading through intro index cards and thinking, “How will I ever learn all these names?” even though generally I have all of them by the end of the week. His handwriting was uncharacteristically neat and tidy, for a teenaged boy.

I’m not sure what the rebellion within handwriting expression lies with teen boys is, because often, when I taught 4^th and 5^th grade kids, the boys had very neat handwriting. They’d spend time making sure it was perfect. The girls were often so busy flying through their ideas in the forms of paragraphs and poetry that their handwriting didn’t have time to be perfect. Somehow it switches back by high school—the girls are writing neatly, and encapsulating good ideas within the syntax of those pronounced paragraphs, but the boys are dawdling, wasting time writing with sloppy yet fluid, messy lines, and having less and less to say. 

I’m over-generalizing of course, but it has been an observation. By high school, general-level boys are writing less and less and think they have less to say or be good at. There are a few poets, lyricists, and scientists in the bunch, but there’s less than with the girls. The advanced girls write neatly, are organized, and turn in multiple drafts, and on time. The gifted girls are hit and miss. Sometimes they write as neatly as a Word document and other times it’s complete gobbledeegook. 

Thinking back over this year, three of my most creative writer-girls—they were all three musicians (band instruments and one singer), all poets, and all, Bertha, Lumeria, and Miranda,  had some sort of rough aspect to their home life. A terminally sick dad, a custody fight between parents, a child who was the first generation American who mom relied on heavily for translating-- these three 18-year-old girls had atrocious handwriting! It was bubbly and flowing and messy and squished up at the end of each line and completely annoying to read. Sometimes it would be giant and take up two lines when one would have sufficed and other times it was so crunched up, I needed a magnifying glass to read it. What is the commonality? The creativity. The songs within their hearts. Seeing the beauty around them for all the pain within them. So that handwriting? Annoying to grade—powerful to know the voice which was creating it.

Some other kids had type-writer perfect handwriting. Neatly made, whether it was print or cursive. Every assignment was neatly outlined and carefully spelled. These types of handwriting make life simpler! It’s a little bit of a chicken-or-egg dilemma though—am I grading more subjectively in their favor because they have good handwriting? Or is their good handwriting a product of more carefully thought-out answers and better foresight? Who knows. Several of the kids who I can think of who had delightful handwriting—Sarah and Corean in particular—were sitting on scholarships to the colleges of their choice by year’s end. Was it the handwriting on their admission packet? Doubtful—most of that is word processed.

Which brings me to my point—I MISS handwriting! All this word-processing and Web 2.0 stuff is great—the fact that everything is in real time, can be time-stamped, retrieved at a later date, can’t get lost, etc. can be a salvation for disorganized teachers. But when it comes down to it, the pop-quizzes are generally hand-written, and Georgia is still woefully behind the rest of the nation when it comes to open-response (essay) format tests, so they are still administered with bubble scantrons and number 2 pencils. Honestly, you could hand me nearly any piece of paper with writing on it and I could tell you which of my students did it—or that it wasn’t my student at all. 

Handwriting is beautiful—typography representing the subjectivity of the writer’s inner voice. It’s summer time and I miss having stacks of handwriting to wade through. I do!

Nervous Nellie on Exam Day...and I'm the Teacher!

I meant to post this last week, but things have been pretty hectic in high school teaching land. The week and days leading up to the AP exam were pretty intense. There were a lot of senior activities that split the kids’ attention—and made it hard for them to focus on (what I think is important…) their AP Literature exam. 

Realistically, is my class the only one they have? Nope, they have 6 others…presumably 3 other core classes and 3 electives—which take varying degrees of time. 

Is my class *that* important? Nope. Family, extracurriculars, volunteering, working, music, sports, social life…I find these things imperatives to a healthy, well-rounded upbringing.

But wait, they signed up to take AP and I signed on to teach AP so that they could have a shot at getting a 3, 4, or 5 on the AP exam (and subsequently exempt a college class) and to be challenged in an academically rigorous and collegiate environment for the year. The exam is the culmination of their efforts.

All the books. (I assigned one a month since December. That was painful.) All the essays. All the Socratic Seminars. All the debates. All the Literature Circles. All the movie tie-ins. All the vocabulary quizzes. All the crazy rants I went off on about critical theory. All the technological assignments that had strict deadlines.  Tons of this was new to them. High school hasn’t been hard for a lot of the kids because they’re smart or the classes are easy. My class has been a big change for them. I’m okay with the fact that I challenged them.

 *      *      *      *

The Friday before the exam, a huge amount of the kids were on the senior trip to Disney. [I was more or less assigned to babysit a couple other classes due to  the lack of substitutes in the building. No big deal—I sent the extra kids into my classroom with a Disney movie on (well, it was Pirates of the Caribbean) and made a round-table arrangement of desks in the hallway. (Sort of the hallway—I have a little mini-entrance that I call the Vocabulary Vestibule because I hang up their comic versions of SAT words out here.)] Any of my AP students were to check in with their electives and then come back to work on AP. We worked on poetry, multiple choice, and applying literary vocabulary. It was groups of 2 to a dozen kids plus me—on a lot of coffee. (I talked re-heeaaaalllllly fast.)

We milked every practice discussion question for what it was worth and we debated the best ways to approach the essays. Kids who had felt nervous about their abilities got praise from their peers (and me) and hopefully took some of the weight of their self-doubt off of their shoulders. We argued about the reasoning for studying old, ancient, dusty poems and the relevance-slash-confusion of modern, new ones. We brainstormed the books we’ve read (mostly from this school year)—Invisible Man, 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein, The Bean Trees, Robinson Crusoe, The Bluest Eye, Great Gatsby, Night, Julius Caesar, A Doll’s House, The Awakening, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Joy Luck Club…They realized that they have more stuffed in their brains than they think. 

I wished I had a small, laser-like focused AP group every dang day. It was very awesome.

Leading up, every day after school, I worked with kids on whatever they wanted help on. We had a movie afternoon and compared “Children of Men” to 1984. We watched parts of 1984 and scoffed at the movie-making techniques of only a handful of years ago. We watched parts of Wall-E and discussed how this had shades of Bradbury and Orwell. 

College Liberal-arts background: you’ve served me well. 

So, May 9^th was the exam and I went and met the kids in the library before they headed off. It was “Decade Day,” so many of them were in ridiculous outfits and costumes—notably many 1950-60’s Doris-Day looking fancy dresses and heels that, according to the kids, were inspired by The Help. I was in a hippie skirt, along with many of my Flower-Children! They weren’t to take anything with them, so I offered to hold onto cell phones—

I think a picture is worth more than a description here. 

Here’s the strange part to me—I had a large number of kids taking the exam—between 70 and 80. I’ve had plenty of kids taking high-stakes exams—Graduation tests, EOCT’s, 3^rd, 5^th, and 11^th grade Writing Test. I’ve never *felt* anything like this.

I was nervous. 

The whole morning (3+ hours!) I was pacing and just a wreck! I had the butterflies in my stomach and a dry throat—I was just so dang nervous for my babies. I can’t imagine having children and watching them perform on a stage. That must be torture. 

When they started trickling in to collect their (eh-hem) expensive electronic devices, I felt the weight lifting off of my shoulders. For better or for worse, they’d taken their exam. Most of them felt confident about the multiple choice (“You gave us way harder questions than ones that were on there, Miss G.!”), the poetry essay (“I just annotated it, TPCASTT’d it, and wrote everything I could think of!”) and the Free-response essay (“Is it okay that it seemed JUST like the essay I wrote for you about ---- book? The prompt seemed familiar!”). The prose essay was something modern and they didn’t enjoy it, but oh well. Some of them didn’t space their time well and ran out. Oh well. Some of them came in beaming and pleased with themselves…and that’s what makes me happy.

So I made it through a year of teaching AP Literature. Check one more curriculum off the list for me. The kids learned a bunch of stuff. Their writing improved vastly and I greatly desensitized them to their allergy to reading. I’d say it’s been a good year.