Summer is officially ON.

Some random thoughts:

1) we went to the beach, it was fun, i was grouchy, why my family doesn’t disown me i have no idea. happy birthday, mom. Sorry.

2) a huge hunk of the deck found its way into my foot. while we were on vacation. Cuz i know how to relax. And only half of it came out. yeah. infection. tiny tweezers and lots of alcohol (rubbing, not the kind you drink) finally dug the rest of it out. good God, I’ll be glad when i can walk again.

3) planted pumpkins and flowers last week and it’s been so hot they’re already sprouting!! yay, plants.

4) when u invite the really nice neighbor kid to do taekwondo with you as your guest, it’s important that you not drive off and leave him behind, Steve. just sayin’. His mom is really understanding, thank goodness.

5) did i mention that i love our new neighborhood? the kids dart in and out of each other’s houses, people invite you over, people wave and say hello. except for us, of course. we’re fairly skilled at driving off and leaving people behind.

6) also, it’s quiet.

7) i like quiet.

8) can’t find the post office, but did find the nearest university — looks like they might be able to get me started on my master’s in teaching (plus library work plus reading specialist endorsement) as early as… August? (pssst — that’s next month.)

9) today, the cat threw up all over; the PC got infected and is not happy; the server was crashed (but now we’re up? i think?); the cupboard door in the laundry room fell apart in my hand; i broke the vacuum cleaner; we left our friend in the driveway and… I couldn’t walk. But all in all? A banner day. Because I’m starting grad school soon. For real. Thank you.

10) gotta go, Spocky.

“i say to my friends/
well, they can kiss my ass…”

— NWA

My kids are little taekwondo masters now, quite good. Not black belts, but they should get there within a few months, is my guess. Here’s their mantra:

“i will obey my parents, sir/
i will respect my parents, sir/
i will be faithful to my spouse, sir/
i will respect my brothers & sisters, sir/
i will be loyal to my friends, sir…”

well, that last line (all of it resonates for me, but esp. the last line, lately) just gets me. I love my friends, I love my community, and just because we had to leave North Portland, for circumstances beyond our frickin’ control, don’t think that we love Jefferson High School any less today than we did 10 years ago. (Or in my case, thirty years ago. Cuz I loved Jeff even when I was going to high school at Madison. Any time I got invited to a party or a dance with Jeff students, I’d be all, yes, yes, yes.)

So, the school board is trying to make some bad decisions right now. Really bad decisions.

But no one’s going to let them.

Remember what they say in North Portland? “Why don’t you stick it in my eye and then I’ll be able to see that you’re fucking me.” Yeah, that’s a good one. Is it already time to re-run this? Yeah. I guess it is. Again.

The End.

me to the kids in the car on the way home: “I want to make you as miserable every day about doing your homework as you make me miserable every frickin’ day about not doing your homework, see?”

the kids (silently to each other): Don’t make eye contact with that woman, we’ll be fine.

i rock at motherhood.

ouch.

“I have learned this at least by my experiment: if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.“ — Thoreau

(BOLDLY STOLEN from Mrs. Flinger. Thanks, Leslie. I’m keeping that one in mind as I head back to school.)

Happy Thursday 13, to all you usual suspects. I haven’t been over here for a long time, sorry! Bad blogger. Bad.

This morning, I am once again putting off studying. How am I ever going to make it through grad school if I can’t even get through this one little class? I am tormenting myself and the Internet. How am I going to teach my kids good study habits, for middle school, high school and college? I had a hard time my first two years at college (Portland State University, gooooo Vikings!) because before I could pass any classes I had to learn to study.

Now, I realize that it’s summer, and for some people, school is the last thing on their minds. But I am hoping to be accepted into a graduate teaching program, and get a dual endorsement to be a media specialist (aka: Librarian), too. For educators, summer means time to take those extra classes and brush up on your skills. And for those of you who are parents… reading abilities tend to fall behind in the summer, but math skills really take a hit. Why bother, when there are all those good video games to play, right? Please do what you can to keep your kids’ heads in the game, so to speak.

Here are some tips, for yourself or anyone who might need them. These can also be tailored for work situations… Hope they help!

1) Focus. I try to work out every morning, even if it’s just a little deep breathing and yoga to stretch. A walk helps, or better yet a run. Once your head is clear you can make a plan.

2) Have a snack, make a cup of tea, grab a bottle of water, use the restroom — no excuses to get up once you’re studying.

3) Have everything ready — post-its, sharpened pencils, a notebook to take notes, index cards. I’ve been using index cards to scribble down definitions. My class is Psychology 311, Human Development, and my term paper — only five pages, not too bad! — is to write down my life story, with “explicit reference to the facts, principles, and theories presented in the text.” First of all, that’s crazy. Second of all, I’m a blogger! I can deal.

4) Find a spot where you won’t be tempted to take a nap.

5) Read. Read, read, read. Blink. Read, read, read. Blink. It takes me sometimes a half an hour to really get into my textbook.

6) I try to put myself into my kids’ shoes. (They are going into 2nd and 5th grade.) They truly have no incentives to do homework. They know they’re not going to flunk, even if they bail on their homework half the time. It’s boring. Worksheets are usually involved. It’s too easy. Or too hard. Or too, uh, boring? Yeah, that’s it, Mom! They are not being challenged! Now this one especially pertains to work. No one likes the drudge work. No one. But it has to be done. So I try to stress to my kids that they can’t just cherry-pick their assignments — sometimes it takes pages of drudge work before you get to the fun or interesting stuff.

7) Don’t complain, whine or have a fit. The work could be done in the time spent doing that.

8) Rewards are good. I know after I finish this class, my employer will reimburse me the $400+ I plunked down for the class. If I bail on the class, I don’t get reimbursed. That is a good incentive. For younger kids, it can be something as small as a sticker chart, a nice dinner out, a trip to the park, or maybe baking cookies. For bigger kids? I’m sorry, but you might have to be mean. No TV time, no techno toys, no sleepovers unless that homework is getting done.

9) Try not to let anything stand in your way — the phone, someone dropping by (your house or your desk at work), drama… keep it at bay. When you let others know how important your studying (or project) is to you, they will back off and (hopefully) the interruptions will dwindle. (Edited to say: I forgot the most important thing — unless you’re using the computer for research (my class, for instance, has cool flashcards I can access online. They helped so much with the two tests I’ve taken so far) — STAY OFF THE COMPUTER. NO blogs, Facebook, e-mail, nada.)

10) Pace yourself. Set aside chunks of time for various parts of the project, or schedule study blocks so you don’t have to pull any all-nighters. My kids had three or four big projects apiece this year. (First and fourth grade! Please. I thought that was a little too much pressure.) Dino reports, speeches, animal projects — it was crazy. So we charted it out: Diorama materials gathered up one night; diorama assembled the next night. Index cards compiled; speech outlined; speech written. I think they’re going to be ready for college in three years, at this rate.

11) Another thing — don’t pressure yourself or your kids too much. Relax. At the end of the year, I finally started drawing lines through my son’s homework. (Huge packets, weekly.) He’d finish a chunk of it, then another chunk. I would draw a line through whatever didn’t get finished, initial it, and write a note for the teacher saying, “This is as much as we were able to complete in the hour we spent on homework three nights this week.” It is insane the pressure that is put on kids now.

12) That being said, it has become necessary now more than ever to learn to get along/go along. (There are a lot of us out here who feel lucky to even have a job, or be able to go to school.) Life and work — what are you going to do, you know? The bills need to get paid, the classes need to be completed. Working as part of a small group? You can expect that at least one person will bail out and “let” the others do the work. Just do the work to the best of your ability and get on with things. It will be obvious to whoever is in charge (teacher, boss, supervisor) who was and wasn’t responsible.

13) Look on the bright side — it’s pretty cool to pull off something you didn’t want to deal with, or thought you couldn’t handle. That sense of completion is pretty satisfying.

OK, off to study now.

wm

What we’re listening to at our house…

…and…

shoop, shoop, shooooooooooo…and, of course…

Do you need a simple quote, in honor of Earth Day? Sure, why not.

“Live simply that others may simply live.” — Elizabeth Seaton

Ahhhhh… There. Don’t you feel better?

Seriously, I wanted to do something Important and Significant for Earth Day, but you know where I found myself? Driving the kids to school (“God, don’t make us walk, please no…” actually — wait. I think Hockey God drove them. Who knows. Do you really care? Me neither), then driving myself to class, because the train makes me sick to my stomach and want to die. (Busses — same. Boats — same. Airplanes — same. If I’m driving I’m mostly not carsick.) I was early for class because, you know. I DROVE. When you drive YOU USUALLY GET THERE EARLY OR ON TIME, IT’S MAGIC. So I went to Starbucks and got a shaken/frozen Arnold Palmer (lemonade/black tea) and then I made a list:

What Has Changed at Portland State University in the Last Twenty Years

by

Me, the Girl Who Graduated from University Twenty Years Ago Next Month. Well, in June. Whatever.

1) Starbucks. We didn’t have that before. But we didn’t need it cuz we had…

2) Strong coffee at Mother’s Deli, where someone once left a note in the Suggestions box saying, “The girls here should wear bra’s.” hahaha.

3) There is no more Mother’s Deli, which is too bad. We used to all sit there together every morning and have tea, practice our German, our Spanish, our French, our pick-up lines. It was nice. One of the guys used to bring tea strainers and loose tea from home, then we’d talk the girls behind the counter into giving us cups of hot water. Cheap. And sociable. And there was that good hiding place to study up above — the crow’s nest? Goodbye to Mother’s Deli.

4) Now that I think of it, I wrote a v. negative review of Mother’s for the student paper, senior year, because they glammed it up with track lighting and got rid of the comfy couches and started serving quiche or something. I guess I said goodbye to Mother’s at that point.

5) Out back of Mother’s was the Beach, a rolling expanse of green, green grass where you could sprawl and visit and drink beers that you’d bought at Montgomery Market, which I’m sure is no longer there. (I swear, I really did go to class. Mostly.) Now you can’t do that cuz the Beach is gone. There is a field with astro-turf and a list of rules: No Cleats, No Dogs, No Beverages, No Food. No, no, no. No more Beach. Goodbye, Beach.

6) Whispering in class: Out. Texting in class: In. Eating a yogurt quietly: Out. Bringing in a g.d. picnic, spreading it out on your tiny little desk and noshing away while the prof attempts to lecture: In. (Damn. That is just icky. Grab a bite between classes, why don’t ya?)

7) PSU ran TV commercials of a very perky Mary Kadderly, who is now a well-known Portland jazz vocalist and teacher, and soooooooo pretty (Hi, Mary!). I believe in the ad she was in a helicopter that landed on the roof of Smith Memorial Center? (C’mon, someone, refresh my memory.) And she delivered the line: “Portland State is my University and the city is my campus!” We all thought that was simply delightful! Such an urban school, what with the panhandlers and the flashers and the sex crimes.

When we were pulling all-nighters, or hungover and ditching class, or stomping cockroaches in the Ondine (student housing), we’d be all, “The CITY is my CAMPUS!”

A visitor also wrote a letter to the Vanguard, freaking out about how out of control the campus was, deeply offended. “WHERE ARE THE MONITORS?” So that quote got blown up, xeroxed, and plastered all over the buildings. Funny. I still ask myself that question sometimes. Publicists plastered the campus with pictures of the “Ghostbusters” ghost, in the spring before the movie came out. That little guy was All. Over. The Campus. He was a better mascot than the Viking, I thought.

8) The Ione Plaza, where the retirees lived (not in the Roach Hotel Ondine, where the stinky football players and punk rockers lived)… well. That was the best place to drink, cuz they had a retro firepit right in the middle of the room, and the skeezy diner attached. The skeezy diner where they made the best damn cheeseburgers. Except that time I got one that tasted like it had been marinated in bourbon. That was  a lil weird. Bar: Still there. But no longer retro — it’s alt now. Diner: Gone. Now it’s an Italian cafe. Puccini’s? Something. Goodbye, good drinks, good atmosphere and good burgers. See ya later.

9) The Simon Benson House used to be a few blocks west. Now it’s right smack-dab on campus. It had been turned into a rooming house — I had friends who lived there. They did not have $$$ to renovate, obviously. They got so sick of all of the, Isn’t it a shame? comments that they put signs in the windows: CAREFUL! OLD FALLING DOWN HOUSE ZONE and A REAL FIXER-UPPER!!! So, those of you who busted your asses to save the house, move it, restore it, love it? Thanks for taking the signs seriously.

10)How about… Older, crotchety students who take Higher Education Very Seriously and Pine for the Past?: Well. That was the norm twenty years ago — the average age of a PSU student at that time was 27. “Commuter college.” I had peers who were in the 80s, auditing classes. They kicked my ass, I’m serious. I remember one gentleman who wrote his term papers and handed them in two weeks ahead of deadline, politely asking the profs, “If you have time, maybe you could give it a read and give me some comments?”

I remember the profs, not always, but sometimes, being a little disdainful of the auditors. I thought that was uncalled for. The 80-somethings were the only ones paying attention and asking questions. No trust-fund babies, there. (Me, neither. I worked 1, 2 and 3 jobs at a time to put myself through school, with a little bit of help from my mom and Social Security.) (Which was sliced, slashed and filleted by Ronnie Raygun, our former president. Thanks, sweetie. My late father thanks you, too. I also had to start college spring of my senior year of high school, in order to continue to qualify for my benefits. I was luckier than my younger sister — she got nuthin’.) (Can you imagine a world now, where we encouraged people to go to school and gave them support? Where it wasn’t dog-eat-dog you better get your MBA if you can afford it, you loser. Survival of the fittest. Etc.)

Everything I learned about respecting my elders I learned at PSU. Every reason why I hated my elders I learned from Ronald Reagan.

Hmm. Even though the average age at PSU now appears, to my tired eyes, to be Quite Young (12), the older students? We’re still there.

Only it’s me paying attention this time.

Ha ha ha, suckers. I’ll get that master’s degree, even if it takes me ’til I’m eighty and auditing.

1) blog
2) see my granny
3) get the kids to and from school
4) fix dinner
5) okay, think about fixing dinner
6) stir-fry and apple pie
7) make poems that rhyme: stir-fry and apple pie/way up high/up in the sky/woot!
8) no future as poet. blog on other blog.
9) study for my online course, Human Development
10) finally finish the first six chapters of the HONKIN’ HUGE textbook with the teeeeeeeeny-tiny little print
11) yes, i did get a pair of “progressives” due to the fact that “i cannot read such teeeeeeeeeeny-tiny-witsy-bitsy print.” but i can’t deal with using them, they make everything go skittery. Today, however, I have worn them for an entire hour. Well almost an entire hour.
12) i can feel old
13) but not as old as my granny
14) she sez: Count your blessings
15) try to sign up to take first exam, which must be skedded two weeks out. Get e-mail from anon. PSU person that says, Use Blackboard
16) find blackboard. Excuse me — Blackboard — even tho anon. person did not include url. Is it too much effin’ trouble to have attached the url, or is finding it part of the exam? (which even tho it is multiple-guess, i have profound terror of.) (of which i have a profound terror.) (even tho am solid A/B student.)
17) start watching Nova DVD, The Miracle of Life (Lennart Nilsson)
18) (I can also spell “Lennart Nilsson” correctly without even thinking about it)
19) (does that count for something? two extra points?)
20) “The fertilized egg, now with genetic material from both parents, moves through the tube through the uterus…” (hit pause on DVD. thank lucky stars am not pregnant. there are some benefits to this whole “getting older” thing.) (i ponder that for a minute. Yep, it’s okay to be in your forties.)
21) I need another cup of coffee. Get a cup of coffee (I love my thermos. Steve bought it for me so I can take Snow Snakes to hockey games. I always have a nice cuppa coffee ready. Or a Snow Snake.)
22) blog again.
23) Have I done enough for the day?
24) I think so. I’ll finish watching the DVD, though.
25) but first, the recipe for Snow Snakes: hot cocoa with a shot of peppermint schnapps, whipped cream on top drizzled w/ Creme de Menthe in the shape of a snake. Bon drinking!

A hybrid model of learning? What do you think? Go comment, if you are so inclined.

…my friend just e-mailed me:

“Trust that your heart is in the right place, let your love of books and children guide you, and remember how important those adults were who inspired you when you were young. One day at a time….”

Always. And may you find something today that inspires and comforts you.

love,

wm