Category Archives: Random Thoughts

Simple Truths in the Online World

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On rambling through too many emails:

Unsubscribing to an email list doesn’t mean I no longer support the cause. I can support, even donate, to a cause without needing to read daily requests for more money.

Online petitions have become so easy to sign that they are often meaningless. See above: begging me to sign petitions get deleted immediately. See this post for one that put me over the edge.

Subscribing to my favorite blogs saves me time. I don’t waste time clicking only to find that my blogger friends have been too busy to post.

Since I teach online, I’m glued to a computer screen much of the day at work. I love my work, but it means I spend less time online at home. My eyes and my mind need to rest.

I found out through Facebook that a recently retired teacher is running for office – a seat on the county board. He will do a great job on the board; now I need to decide how deep my role will be in helping him get elected. No emails, please; let me think this out on my own.

Ah, the online world. Take it or leave it, love it or hate it, it’s changing the world around us.

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Why January is a difficult month

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January tends to be difficult around the house because:

  • We’re cleaning up Christmas, a wonderful season.
  • There’s an emotional letdown after Christmas, too.
  • I start putting away my holiday music collection.
  • We’re cleaning. A lot. And I hate cleaning.
  • It’s cold outside, and I just want to stay inside and stay warm.
  • Regular everyday activities mean exposure to the cold.
    • Filling up with gas.
    • Stopping at the convenience store for coffee.
    • Driving through the ATM.
    • Driving through the coffee shop.
    • Can coffee count twice?
  • I want the Packers to win and Chuck – well, playoffs mean something else to the guy who works for a Green Bay television station.

January is tough at school/work because:

  • Going back to school means adjusting to waking up early again.
  • My office is in an old, drafty building. Brrr.
  • The parking lot fills up fast, and the overflow is a block away. Brrr again.
  • January means wrapping up first semester and prepping second semester at the same time.
  • Students I’ve pushed and pulled and nagged to get caught up in their work suddenly panic.
  • The stretch from Winter Break to Spring Break is the longest and brings forth the worst student behavior.
  • Head Count Day #2! In the virtual school world, we have alternate ways of counting and verifying our students.

January feels difficult because:

  • In two of the past five years, I’ve had a medical leave of absence in January.
  • Every January, I get this irrational fear that I won’t make it through the month without a sick leave.
  • When January comes around again, I flash back to the year of my Great Depression and the year of my Hysterectomy.
  • As the year turns, I remember all I’ve accomplished – and all that I haven’t.

Okay, January, I’m ready. My grade book is waiting, and I know how to attack it. I’m (relatively) health. I have warm sweaters and fingerless gloves in my desk drawer. La Petite gave me a (gorgeous) neck warmer to go with my warm wool coat.

 

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Goals, goals, goals and resolutions.

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My school-related goals get set in August, as the agrarian calendar puts the school year in place. The arrival of the New Year, the number change in the ones place, is a whole different animal.

Goals with gimmicks are most likely to catch the attention of readers in the blogosphere. Remember A Year of Slow Cooking? A blogger decided to use her slow cooker every day for a full year. I use mine a lot, but 365 continuous days would be unrealistic. The standard weight loss and nutrition goals always suggest themselves. Household chores – clean more often, clean more thoroughly – those go on the “should” list. Gardening chores – aren’t chores, really. Garden goals are enjoyable. Some of those plans get set in the fall, too. I planted onion and garlic bulbs in October. With this odd El Nino winter, who knows what will happen?

But back to goals.

We have a saying in our family: Progress in Baby Steps. To make progress on any goal, small steps are the way to go. Take my garden and canning hobbies for examples. I started growing tomatoes and a few other plants I’d bought as seedlings in the spring. The plot got bigger, and I expanded into growing a few plants from seed. One year I started tomato and pepper plants from seed – and the rest is history. But if I’d started a large plot totally from seed in the first years, it’s likely I’d have gotten poor results. Canning, too. That first batch of raspberry jam in Green Girl’s kitchen certainly was the “gateway drug” to putting up more and more. We haven’t bought commercially made jam, salsa, or pickles in years.

In that light, no big goals for January 1st. I might set short term goals and attempt short term projects. I’ll blog some of those, in particular if those short term goals are successful and lead to long term results.

Readers, what are your plans for New Year’s Goals and Resolutions?

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The To-Do Pile

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To do is to be. -Socrates

To be is to do. -Jean-Paul Sartre

Do-be-do-be-do. –Frank Sinatra

Here is my regular view at work. Course tree, student curriculum, and a lot more on screen. The computer and cubicle await my return after break, on Monday.

My students call me Mrs. O.K. The mug is awesome.

My students call me Mrs. O.K. The mug is awesome.

If I turn my head, I’ll see what replaces a to-do list in my cubicle: the To-Do Pile. Textbook teacher’s manual, student work waiting to be graded, file folder and sticky note instructions, and more.

The Dreaded To-Do Pile

The Dreaded To-Do Pile

Later in the day, I turned to reach for something in the pile, only to find out it had grown while I wasn’t looking!

Where di this second textbook come from?

Where did this second textbook come from?

In case you’re thinking “That’s not very big, Daisy” let me remind you that the majority of work I grade comes in online. This is only a tiny fraction of my workload. Some of my students worked during their break, too, so I know there will be tests, quizzes, and essays awaiting my virtual pen.

I think I like the first view better. At least that view includes coffee. Happy New Year to all, and may your to-do lists and piles be reasonable.

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The Wrapping Battle

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I keep trying. Wrapping paper, to me, resembles a single use plastic bag. That is, wrapping paper is a waste of money and creates massive amounts of trash destined for landfills. Almost none of it is recycled or recyclable. Very little can be burned in a fireplace due to the chemical content. Unless it comes from a thrift store or the dollar aisle, wrapping paper is not cost effective, either.

My family disagrees. This year, they took pleasure in making a mess of any wrapping paper they could. Their goal: prevent mom from saving big sheets of paper for reuse.

the chaos after opening gifts

the chaos after opening gifts

Well, I did what I could.

garbage, below salvaged tissue for reuse, above

garbage, below
salvaged tissue for reuse, above

Given the sizable stacks of gifts, I can’t feel too bad. The stack of reusable tissue is almost as big as the bag destined for the garbage bin. I also managed to set aside this collection.

cute box filled with gift bags

cute box filled with gift bags

Despite the family’s efforts to undermine my green goals, I managed to save more than we threw away. And that, my bloggy friends, is itself a gift.

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And then life happened.

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I was planning on blogging, and then —

Work exhausted me. ‘Nuff said.

I prepped my usual staff meeting night chili and had Amigo add the noodles. I almost forgot to plug in the crock pot before I left for work.

I graded a megaton of final drafts. The student who submitted the wrong document (again) asked me to send it back to her because she’d accidentally deleted her draft – again. Nope.

My boss was followed, road rage style, on her way to school by someone with a vehicle that looked exactly like mine. (It’s okay. She knows it wasn’t me. I just happened to pull in the parking lot right behind her and wonder why the liaison officer was glaring at me.)

I still can’t find my zip-up Packer sweater.

I brought my laptop to the computer store for diagnosis and repair, and was told that it might take almost a full week to get parts shipped in and fix it. A week? My holiday shopping spreadsheet

And then my luck started turning around.

I arrived at school early this morning, Kwik Trip coffee and muffin and cranberry juice (never mind why the cranberry juice) in hand, turned on my Canadian Brass Christmas CD and graded papers like a machine.

I spent the afternoon on a field trip — a tour of Lambeau Field and the Packer Hall of Fame, ending with a “tour” of the Packer Pro Shop. I wore my “ugly” green and gold sweater, and all the families on the tour loved it.

Computer store called. My laptop did not need repair after all. We took off our cozy slippers and drove to the store immediately. We bought a spare power cord, just in case the current cord is wearing out but wouldn’t show it to the wonderful geeks who fix things. That totally happens, people. It’s like the kid recovering miraculously in the doctor’s office.

We received a package with a big tin of popcorn in it. I think I’ll eat some for breakfast.

I now have my holiday shopping spreadsheet again. No one will be forgotten for Christmas.

Life is good.

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As Seen On TV

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I had to read this three times before I really believed it was on the air, in the crawl at the base of the screen on a local shall-remain-nameless evening news show.

The Wisconsin state assembly passed a bill doubling the limit on campaign contributions and allowing candidates to coordinate with shadowy special interest groups without debate.

I’m not sure which is worse: the obvious bias or the split-all-to-heck descriptor. No, I take that back. The worst part of this sentence is that it’s true. The state assembly passed, without debate, a bill raising the ceiling on campaign contributions, among other changes. Meanwhile, voters are still waiting for a response to Russ Feingold’s proposal, The Badger Pledge.

I guess I’ll just keep going to work, grading essays, teaching students how to coin a phrase better than our local news folk.

Grammar Police

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‘Tis the Season for the Tunes

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Subtitle: The Tunes and the Stories – The Christmas music CDs and the stories they bring to mind.

I did some sorting today. Here’s the result – or most of the result. I think a few are missing. I have La Petite’s She and HIm. Maybe she has my Michael Buble. And where’s the Josh Groban?

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas!

It’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas!

I sorted through our Christmas music collection and organized it – as best I could. This brought conversations like the following.

John Denver goes after the Ray Charles, or maybe I should file this under M for Muppets. Does Charlie Brown Christmas belong under C for Charlie, B for Brown, or G  – for Vince Guaraldi? Mannheim Steamroller almost needs its own section.

Pentatonix, the Blenders, Rockapella – and then a random compilation of a capella performers. Sting, Taylor Swift, the Swingle Singers, Take 6. Oh, and after Mannheim Steamroller come the Nylons and Olivia Newton-John. Wait a minute. Newton-John comes before  Nylons.

Amigo enjoyed reminiscing, too. I ran into a Malt Shop Memories CD – lots of oldies, lots of fun. He remembered that Jan and Dean had a great Frosty the Snowman on that collection.

Chanticleer, Charlie Brown (for now), Burl Ives, Al Jarreau, Spike Jones. That one must be Amigo’s. It goes well with his Dr. Demento collection, which includes the adorable ear worm “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” You’re welcome.

Chuck sorted through the collection many years ago looking for background music for something he was doing at work. In the process of sorting, he realized we had 10 covers of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Just for fun, we decided to burn a CD of all Rudolph. Before we could do that, we needed Burl Ives. We found him (he’s filed next to Al Jarreau, see above) and then found out we really needed Gene Autry. We found Gene Autry in an odd place for music – an office supply store. Years after creating the CD I call the Rudolph Compendium, we’ve found a few more. The Temptations? Really? Cool.

Ella Fitzgerald and Michael Franks fit in after Gloria Estefan – one of my favorites. Just think – Gloria came to the United States as a young refugee from Cuba.. She and her family were safe from persecution here, and she found her way into a career that brings joy to many. In fact, I think I’ll bring her “Christmas through your eyes” CD to school with me tomorrow.

It’s time to fill the cubicles with music.

Readers, do you have favorite songs around this time of year? Is there a story behind the song, or a story behind one special cover by one special performer? Please share.

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