Author Archives: Elizabeth

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Obsessions 2012: Amanda F*cking Palmer and the GTO

Everywhere I look, I see end of the year lists/countdowns/reflections. I’ve decided to jump on that bandwagon and ride it for a bit. What better way than to write about my obsessions for the year? Let me tell you, there have been so many because, well, it is what I do. Here goes, in no particular order whatsoever.*

*okay. I thought it would be all one post. It’s not. Apparently I obsessed much more than I thought I did. Welcome to my SERIES of posts about my obsessions.

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Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra

amanda-palmer-and-the-grand-theft-orchestra

Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra

I love Amanda Palmer (AFP) and have done so since she was half of the Dresden Dolls. She is feisty and says the things in her music that I wish I could say. When I first started using Twitter, she is the first person I started following. I knew that she would have something to say that would make me think. Little did I know where following her would take me this year.

One thing that I admire about AFP is the fact that she loves her fans. Loves them. She understands that she would be nowhere without them. When she decided to crowd source her latest album through kickstarter (click here if you want to see the magic unfold), I watched and waited. I so desperately wanted to be in on the awesome. My brain was obsessing in two ways:

  • I wanted desperately to be involved.
  • I didn’t want to spend the money because, well, money.

Believe me, these two things fought and fought in my mind. It was like a huge smack down going on in my skull. One morning, I woke up, fired up ye olde laptop, and backed her project before my mind woke up properly.

It was amazing. I became a part of something big. For me this was a big thing. I’ve felt an outsider for as long as I can remember, as I am sure many people have. This was something I belonged to. The Theatre is Evil album is one that I had a hand in making. I felt powerful because of it. That doesn’t happen much for me.

This power transformed itself into bravery. I woke up early on the day that they were pre-selling tickets to the concert in Phoenix. I waited, hand hovering over the enter key, to get a chance to see the album that I helped make be performed live. LIVE! I was one of the first ones in. The tickets sold out in 20 minutes and I was fast/strong/good enough to get some for hubs and I. I have to admit that I cried a bit.

I used to go to concerts when I was younger. I went to every 311 concert that I had enough money to attend. If there was a band in a club, I was there. Even thought I was uncomfortable, the music was all that mattered. I was music; music was me. As I got older, my OCD/anxiety grabbed hold and grew stronger. Music was still important to me, but not enough for me to brave the crowds. Choosing to go to this concert was a huge step for me.

It was one of the best experiences of my life. It was a small venue with about 300 other people. Aside from a couple of drunks at the bar, the other concert goers were lovely.  I can’t really describe how it made me feel. Anyone who has ever gone to an AFP concert knows exactly what I am talking about.

One of the bonuses of going to the concert was finding new music. Jherek Bischoff, a member of the GTO, is a wonderful composer. He was the opening act and I was entranced by the beauty of his music. The Simple Pleasure, headed by GTO member Chad Raines, was the perfect mix that got me dancing and laughing. The band’s enthusiasm and joy was intoxicating.

I left that night lighter than I’ve felt in years.

I wanted to leave you with a AFP and the GTO video. I’m not going to post the one that I really want to because it is definitely NSFW. Click on the AFP Video Page and check out “Want it Back.” There is nudity, but it is a beautiful video and a beautiful song.

This is another of my favorite tracks off of the album. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

One more– this is not from the band but from AFP herself. It is the song that I go to when I need an uplift.

Thanks for stopping by! There is more to come. =)

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Remembering

I realize that my posts have been few and far between and, when I do post, they aren’t the most upbeat. I guess I am in a time of reflection, but I do believe that it is passing. I’ve already got many ideas about fun and happy things to write about. Until then, I’m going to leave you with this.

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Today we went to the Veteran’s cemetery where my father-in-law is buried. We wanted to see the holiday wreaths that decorated the headstones. Our plan was to drive through, not stopping. When we got to where Bill is buried, my munchkin wanted to visit his grave. Even though it wasn’t part of our plan.

My daughter walked (almost) straight to his grave. She was so happy to see it. She hugged the headstone, laying her head on top of it. When she was done, she gave it a kiss. Then she popped up like a typical six-year old and bounced off, light and happy.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve felt that cemeteries are morbid places. I don’t really find comfort visiting them. It amazes me that my daughter feels closer to her grandfather when she visits his grave. It is a concrete reminder that her grandfather was really there and that he loved her completely. Going to visit him is easier with her there.

I’ve always wanted to be cremated. I don’t think that putting my body in the ground is a good use of our limited land resources. I wanted to be cremated and forgotten. I didn’t want any sort of memorial headstone or marker to remind people that I was alive. I thought that the memories of me would be enough.

I think I’ve changed my mind. Maybe my daughter or husband or whoever may be comforted by a physical reminder of my presence on this planet. Maybe I was being selfish because of my own views of cemeteries. It’s something to think about.

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Friday Night Cemetery

My daughter has been fascinated with death lately. It is a normal, healthy fascination brought on (I think) by the one year anniversary of my father-in-law’s passing. I wrote about it here if you want to check it out. I really miss him. Every day on our ride to school, she asks me so many questions. “Mama, what do angels eat? How is there enough room for all of the angels? So many people have died they’ve got to be close together.” Questions that I had to be creative to answer.

She asked me this week if we could go to a cemetery because she wanted to see where people’s bodies are. I think she wanted reassurance that they didn’t turn into zombies or vampires or something of that sort. Plus, her teacher did a fabulous job of talking about Veteran’s Day. She wanted to see where soldiers were buried and “respect” them.

I don’t do very well at cemeteries. I cry. The ugly kind of cry. Not for the people who’ve passed but for those who are left behind.

I am trying really hard to answer the girl’s questions when they come up. It is important to me that she feels comfortable asking me anything. I’d much rather she come to me than learn everything via wikipedia. I want her to know that death is a natural part of life and that it is okay to be sad. I don’t know why, but when I was younger I somehow got the idea that it wasn’t good to be sad. If I was sad, I was being bad in some way. Don’t ask me where I learned that because I have no idea.

(c) just me julie

Anywho, I did some research and found a cemetery near us. It looked sort of like this one, but it had more grass and some trees. I didn’t even think to get a picture of it, but you get the idea. We talked to her about how to be respectful and peaceful during our visit and went on our way.

It was a beautiful cemetery. That seems like such a contradiction to me, but it was. There were flowers on almost every headstone and wind chimes and green grass. It was peaceful walking through it. If there were flowers out of their vases, the girl would place them back in. If there were no flowers, she would “respect” them by putting pine cones from the trees next to the names of the departed. She’d touch the white veteran circles that were placed on the headstones and said thank you. It was the sweetest thing ever.

The girl was a little disappointed that they didn’t have headstones like the ones you see in scary graveyards so we wandered around and found some in the very back of the cemetery. All was going well. The ugly cry wasn’t going to show itself to the world. I was definitely teary, but that was about it. Until we came up to a 30 day temporary headstone. It was surrounded by flowers. You could tell that the person who was buried there was loved by many. Curious, I leaned down to see who the person was.

I shouldn’t have. The marker was for a young lady born in 1994. She passed at most 30 days ago. She was the same age as my first group of sixth graders are now. A senior or just recently graduated. So much life left to live. There was a picture of her in a cheerleader’s uniform– you know, the one where they lay on their stomachs and have their legs up, pompoms in front of them. She was smiling brightly, her blond hair in a ponytail. I could imagine her jumps when her team scored.

She was only 18.

That is when the ugly cry started.

The best thing about my daughter is that she wasn’t fazed about it. She asked me what was wrong. I told her that I was sad for the people who lost their family members. She looked at me and told me that crying was okay, grabbed my hand, and pulled me to the next headstone that didn’t have any “respect.” She solemnly placed the pine cone she had in her hand next to the name, turned, and smiled at me.

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I couldn’t have said it better myself! I have hit the 2 week mark. I like my story, but it seems to have stagnated in my brain. My inner editor is so loud right now.

Tony Bird's avatarYour Friend Tony

Writing TipsIf you’re participating in NaNoWriMo this year, then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.  About two weeks ago, before this all started, we were all filled with both excitement and dread.  We were all going to write our own novels and reach that goal of 50,000 words.  We didn’t know how, and many of us secretly doubted that we could do it.  Then week one kicked off, and we were wrapped up in our stories and the exhilaration of creating.  Word counts soared, and we all accomplished so much in that first week. And then week two hit. Suddenly, I’ve been finding my job and my home life to be twice as taxing, and even when I have plenty of inspiration for my story and I know exactly where I want it to go, it’s hard to find the time and the energy to sit down and write it. …

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Yes… a thousand times yes.

Contains swearing, but not by me.

chiller's avatarChiller

Depressed people can be fucking infuriating. They don’t turn up when they said they would. They think the worst of you, of everyone, of themselves. They’re entrenched, often bitter, often afraid of perfectly normal things. They lash out. They can be provocative, spiky, defensive. They are flaky and they let you down and then get angry with you for it. They don’t do the things that might help them: they drink, they don’t exercise, they don’t eat any good food. They don’t take their medicine and they complain about it when they do. They can see nothing beyond their own suffering, they are selfish. All they seem to want is to bundle up in a room on their own and wallow in it, while outside it is sunny and might lift their spirits if they just got off their arse.

Depressed people are wankers, are a pain to be around…

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Haters Gon’ Hate… (but it still hurts when they do)

The Nobel Prize winners have been announced (Yay, smart people who are changing our world!)

One recipient, John Gurdon, is receiving extra attention not because of what he did but because of what was done to him. Someone dredged up an old report card of his from high school in which the teacher lambastes him for being a rebel, an outside-the-box thinker. The words that the teacher uses are horribly unkind and, if they were written today, the teacher would lose his job before he could say lawsuit.

One of my favorite FB sites, “I f*cking love science” posted a graphic with the remarks paraphrased– check it out here. I have no issue with the comments being brought to light. I do have a problem with the comments that follow the post.

There were some positive posts:

And then there were some not-so-positive posts:

And my all-time favorite:

Don’t forget the one that caused a WTF, YOU IDIOT! moment:

Huh? This doesn’t even make sense at all. Respect has to be earned. I work hard to ensure that my students respect me by being truthful, straight-forward, and fair. I expect the same from my students and won’t tolerate any less. I’ll be damned if I will “respect” <— WTF does that mean anyway??— > my students just because they might be a Nobel prize winner or president or a tyrannical dictator someday. If they are not at the level they should be, I let them know as kindly as possible.  But they still need to know. How can you improve if you don’t know the truth about your abilities?? I’m so tired of  being expected to coddle little (insert student name here) when they really need the truth and encouragement to get themselves out of the hole they’ve been allowed to dig for themselves.

Okay. Rant over. Wait… maybe not.

I know that I shouldn’t let it bother me, but it does. Every day people get bombarded by how horrible teachers are. Every day. You rarely turn on the news and see something positive about them. Every day I see the media/parents/students/my favorite authors talk about how horrible educators are.

Nobody asks us. Nobody tells our story.

Do you know how many principals I’ve had in the last 6 years (just in one district, mind you)? Four. Four changes in command. Four people with very different management styles and different focuses for the school vision. Four adults who my students feel have abandoned them. I don’t think everyone realizes how much kids yearn for stability. Sometimes school is the only stability that they have.

Did you know that, every year, teachers are told that their methods (that were successful the year before, btw) are now COMPLETELY wrong and have to be changed immediately? Not just a few aspects of their methods– oh no– everything that they do. Never mind the fact that they are master teachers and can show it because their students are LEARNING beyond the test. The new strategy du jour is more effective than anything else (even if it is largely untested).

Did you know that most teachers provide the basics for their students in the classroom? If I want to do anything with my students beyond pen and paper learning, I have to purchase all of the supplies. According to the district, there is not a budget for those things. Asking my students to bring their own doesn’t usually work– very few do. One teacher I know actually got reprimanded for asking students to bring supplies (not with my current administration– they’re lovely).

Did you know that, because of legislative budget cuts, most teachers in my district are getting paid much less for doing more work? Yet we still do it. Teachers are on campus at 6:00 in the morning working hard to give their students a head start. They stay until late grading papers and making parent phone calls. (I don’t even want to get started on parent phone calls. It is apparently the teachers responsibility to let the parents know if their students aren’t passing classes. If they aren’t passing classes, it is because teachers haven’t made the lessons entertaining or engaging enough. Because, you know, jobs are ALWAYS going to be entertaining and engaging… bah.)

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I guess I’ll close with this. Teachers are PEOPLE. Yes, they are imperfect, but who isn’t?  So many forget this, I think, and are vitriolic in their criticism. If someone did tell the teachers’ story, would anyone listen? Or is it so much easier to have a scapegoat for society’s ills?

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the time is almost here

Have you missed me? I’ve sure missed you.

I’ve got some good news, though! I can feel the beginning of the school year “stuff” winding down. I am no longer doing my lesson plans at the very last minute. In fact, I can see where we’re going to be in a couple of weeks. My students names are (mostly) lodged in my head. Things are well on their way to being awesome. That being said, I’ve got many post ideas swimming around in my head and I can’t wait to get started on them.

Until then, I leave you with this thought:

words to ponder

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Reason 23 Why I Love Teaching

I have a student who carries a towel every day and whose favorite answer is 42. Enough said…


words to live by

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value — you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble‐sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand‐to‐hand‐combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindbogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you — daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”