Great Expectations

I have been working with children for as long as I can remember.  My first experience in a classroom was when my baby brother (Hi, Ty!) was in kindergarten.  I traded my study hall period for an hour of helping in his classroom.  I read with them, played with them, helped them complete activities, and listened to their stories.  I was in 7th grade at the time.  I have held some kind of education related position every single year since then.

Many of the things I do today are the product of hard work, practice, and dedication.  Some skills were mastered relatively quickly.  I've been walking and talking (to varying degrees of success) for 30+ years.  I took to reading like a duck to water.  Some were developed slowly over many years.  My sewing skills have improved through the repetition of 2 decades.  Mathematics and writing are still works in progress.  The fundamentals of teaching - understanding what is going on inside the minds of children and being able to communicate new ideas to them - are skills that I don't remember learning.  Teaching is what I was born to do.  It is my purpose in life, and it is a part of me at a cellular level. 

Anyone who's had the dubious pleasure of carrying on a conversation about education with me will be able to tell you that I am more than a little opinionated on the subject.  I have very strong feelings about what education is, how it should be done, and what is wrong with our public school system.  I am very passionate about all things relating to the welfare of children and the molding of our future generations.  Despite my lack of personal hands-on experience, I have some very distinct ideas about parenting, as well, although I am the first to admit that theory and practice are two very different animals.

All that is preface for me to admit that I am a snob when it comes to teaching.  I have very high standards when it comes to adults interacting with and holding influence over children, especially when said adults are supposed to be trained experts.  If you wish to be a part of this thing that is the very core of my being and the reason for my existence, you better be ready to give it your A game.  I have no patience for people who treat teaching like a hobby or a 40hr/wk obligation. 

What does it take to be a teacher I will look up to?  I'm so glad you asked!  I've arranged it into a nice little acrostic poem just for you! 

- - - - -
T is for teamwork.
As a teacher, you are one small part of the team that is guiding each child into adulthood.  You have to be able to work within the spectrum of teachers they are going to experience from kindergarten through high school and beyond.  You have to be be willing to share ideas with and get ideas from the other teachers you work with every day.  Teaching is too big a job to be contained within one single person.  The only way to make the most of the collective knowledge, experience, and abilities of the educational system is to keep lines of communication in good repair.

Most importantly, you have to understand how to be an effective member of each and every Parent-Teacher-Student triangle of which you are a part.  This includes accepting the weighty responsibility of your chosen profession.  As the "professional" within this triangle, you will be held to a higher standard in the areas of self-control, knowledge, ability, and leadership.  If you don't want to do your fair share (and often an large part of someone else's fair share), teaching isn't the job for you.

E is for enthusiasm.
Politicians and businessmen are doing their best to drain the fun and wonder from schools and turn them into factory floors.  Students today are subjected to insanely high levels of testing and stress within our educational system, leading to feelings of anxiety, frustration, fear, and depression.  Teachers must be able to reach through all that and convince their students that school is a positive place to be and that the process of learning is rewarding.  Kids have an amazing ability to see past your facades and into your true feelings.  If you don't truly enjoy your job or the material you are teaching, they will know that and it will influence their willingness to cooperate with you.

This doesn't mean you can't have a bad day.  Even the most enthusiastic teacher will have an off day.  Children know what it is like to have an off day or make a mistake, and they can be very forgiving as long as they trust that in your heart of hearts you are enthusiastic about what you are sharing with them.

A is for accuracy. 
 Obviously, the foundation of accuracy is having knowledge.  This means being a life-long learner.  Good teachers see themselves as continuous students.  They take classes.  They read.  They talk about politics, religion, and the many other complexities of humanity.  Good teachers reach outside their comfort zone to explore uncharted territories and make unexpected discoveries.

Being accurate isn't about how much information you can hold in your brain, though.  If it were, I'd be screwed.  I will freely admit that there are a great number of things that I do not know.  For one thing, I have only studied tiny bits of a very small number of the subjects available to humanity in the 21st century.  For another,  I do not have a very good memory, and I'm sure that I have forgotten the majority of those things I have studied.  Accuracy in teaching is often about your willingness to say "That's a very good question that I don't know how to answer.  What could we do to find out?" coupled with your legitimate interest in the answer. 

Accuracy is also about being able to gracefully admit to being wrong.  There are going to be times when a 9 year old knows more than you about a particular subject.  You and your ego have to be able to acknowledge their expertise and admit your own ignorance.  This must be done carefully, however.  There is a fine line between allowing kids to see that you are still learning and making them think they can't trust you to know what you are talking about.

C is for curriculum.
Developing a curriculum that works for your style is one of the most important jobs in teaching.  Unfortunately, the textbook companies have such influence over schools that teacher prep courses often focus on how to follow a teacher's manual rather than how to truly develop lesson plans.  A teacher's guide can be a great resource, especially as new teachers are finding their footing, but it makes me cringe to see experienced teachers moving day by day through a mass produced curriculum with little to no regard for the actual progress of their students.

Good teachers know how to tailor their lessons to meet the needs and interests of their students.  They recognize the individuality of each child in their care, and know how to blend those unique individuals into a working whole.  Good teachers make their lessons both motivating and meaningful.  They can break a concept down into components small enough for students to master while simultaneously allowing students to visualize that concept's importance within the big picture.  Teachers must know their students and their standards like the back of their hand, but they must be able to make adjustments on the fly.  When curriculum planning is done correctly, the teacher has found that perfect balance between preparation and improvisation.

H is for heart.
 In my opinion, this is the most important component of teaching because this is the driving force behind everything else.  Being a teacher means adding a new batch of children to your family every year.  It means expanding your heart to include each name on your roster.  Not just for the time that they are in your class, but for the rest of your life.  If you are doing it right, you will suffer from empty nest syndrome every June as your hatchlings fly off and leave you.  You will wake up in the middle of the night wondering whatever happened to that poor little guy from 5 years ago.  You will feel pride whenever you run into or hear news about a former student.  You will brag about them to your family and friends because they will be a part of your family and your heart forever.

Like all parents, good teachers also experience frustration and anger.  If your students don't disappoint you or upset you occasionally, you aren't investing enough of yourself into your teaching.  If your students are failing tests or neglecting their work or tuning you out, you should be driven to do whatever it takes to find a solution.  This means digging deeper into the causes behind these behaviors.  It means thinking outside the box and calling on every resource at your disposal.  Teachers have to be able to morph frustration and anger into the fuel needed to keep going until something works.

It is vitally important that your students feel your pride and learn to trust that you care about them before you express your frustration or anger with them.  It is equally important that they understand that your pride and frustration aren't mutually exclusive.
- - - - -

There you have it - the five elements that I feel are absolutely necessary for quality teaching.  I recognize that it isn't possible for any teacher to excel in all these areas at all times, but the teachers I respect the most are the ones who recognize the value of these aspects of their job.

I should add that time, while not actually mentioned by name, is woven into each of the 5 aspects above.  It takes time to communicate, to care, to plan, to learn.  Good teachers come in early, stay late, and spend a significant portion of their weekends and their often envied vacation time working.  Teaching isn't just a hobby.  It's not even just a job.  It's a lifestyle.  And it takes a special kind of person to life it.

Front Porch

The entrance to my humble modular home is still accessed by the same temporary set of  wooden steps that were put in when the house was first pieced together 6 years ago.  I believe that the expectation was for us, the first owners to actually take up residence within, to replace those temporary steps with something more permanent.  A deck, perhaps, or maybe a nicely formed set of concrete steps.  Unfortunately, those expectations couldn't stand up to the aggressive combination of apathy and penny-pinching that guides our home maintenance program.

Most days, firmly entrenched in the GO GO GO mentality that is so prevalent in our society, I hate those steps.  Did I say hate?  Hate doesn't carry enough emotion.  I abhor and revile those steps, with their wobbling treads and peeling paint.  I despise their penchant for impaling my fingers with splinters.  I loathe the way the nails slowly work their way out of the wood, striving to snag unsuspecting shoelaces and pants seams.  I detest the railings and their hidden unreliable nature.  When I look at them with the eyes of a consumer, a rat racer, a participant in the one-up-man-ship of neighborhood living, I wish every day that I could replace those dilapidated steps with something that more closely resembles the elaborate dreams in my head.  Occasionally, however, the scales of materialistic desire fall from my eyes, and I am reminded how comfortable my steps really are.  This morning was a perfect example of this kind of clarity. 

By 8:00, the sun had risen past the redshank bushes on the top of the hill and begun it's march across the sky, unseasonably enthusiastic for a January high desert morning.  Under this energetic glow, the front porch warmed up quickly.  The dogs, who had been baking happily on the top step until I opened the door, swirled excitedly around me as I settled my bottom on one step, feet on another.  Uncontainable in the sheer joy of human company, tongues swabbed my chin and noses pushed their way under my hand. 

I gazed out over the piece of land I call home.  A long, green hose snaked its way from the spigot at the corner of the house, through the legs of the lawn table (lonely now that all its chairs have been banished to the garage), to the base of one of the currently dormant lilac bushes.  A slight breeze danced softly through the tops of the redshank, but the air at ground level was undisturbed.  A bluish haze of mountain, trustworthy and solid, stood guard in the distance.

I could smell the ground and the bushes, the dogs and the house as they all soaked in the sun.  For a brief moment, there were no far off cars, no barking neighbor dogs, no planes zooming overhead.  There was just the peace of being exactly where you are supposed to be, surrounded by the things that bring you joy.  There was just home, and there is no place I love more. 

Broken down, old steps, and all.

Belief System

Having a fascinating discussion (depending on the security settings in place, you may or may not be able to follow that link) via FaceBook regarding religion, progress, and the future of humanity.  Got me thinking about my personal belief system.  The Religion of Sol can pretty much be boiled down to the following:

"All I can do is live my life the way I believe it should be lived for the good of as large a monkeysphere as possible and with as little hypocrisy as possible, and hope that everyone else will do the same."*

I know there's a lot of room for interpretation there, and as my dear Uncle Neil pointed out, "Hope isn't enough.", but that is the foundation upon which my daily decisions are made.  And isn't that what religion is all about?

*I know that it is the epitome of gauche behavior to quote one's self, but I wanted to remember this.  And I'm pretty gauche even at my best.

Tattletale

When we were rearranging furniture a few months back, we finally decided to get rid of a couple of old living room chairs.  Hand-me-downs from Mike's parents (as much of our furniture is), they are short, squat things of a indeterminate beige coloring.  When we bought our first house, I purchased slipcovers for them to disguise the way the cats had shredded the backs into non-existence.  Choosing the least hideous of the patterns available was a challenge, so for some time they were short, squat things covered in giant blue cabbage roses.  Most recently, they have served the sole purpose of providing comfortable seating for the quatrain of cats that own us.  If you, yourself are owned by even a single cat, I'm sure you will understand why it took us so long to act upon our desire to dispose of these chairs.  Having experienced a full and productive existence, the chairs were finally moved to the garage, the purgatory our belongings end up in for that endless period of time before we finally load them in the trailer and take them to the dump.

But this isn't just a story about chairs.  This is mostly a story about my dogs, Trooper and Wiggles.  Trooper is a 7 year old black lab mix.  He has a stocky build, huge paws, and a head shape that makes people ask if there is pit bull in his lineage.  (Maybe?  I don't know.)  He has a sweetly serious temperament, taking everything I say to heart.  Although he doesn't pick up commands as quickly as his sister (Mia) did, once he understands what I want of him, he does it without question or complaint.  The only thing he won't do, no matter how much I command, suggest or cajole, is set foot in water.  You would think a lab who experiences 100 degree temps every summer would love getting wet, but Trooper would rather roast to death than put one paw in the wading pool we provide for them. 

Wiggles, on the other hand, loves the water.  She not only stands in the pool, she lays down and rolls around in it.  Wiggles is a black lab/retriever mix.  She's probably about 3 years old.  She appeared out of nowhere a couple years ago, a mostly grown, not quite starving pup who was desperate for some love and attention.  She would climb over our 6 foot chain link fence (as just about any dog in the neighborhood, including my own, can apparently do) and cavort with Mia and Trooper for awhile before we noticed her, causing her to climb back over the fence and run off.  This went on for several days before I finally told her that if she wanted to stay with us she had to stop reminding Mia and Trooper how easy it was to climb the fence.  I put the training collar on her and did a few laps showing her what I meant.  She was a quick learner, needing only the beeps and my tug on the leash to get her to understand.  "She's a smart one," I told Mike.  Ha!  I spoke too soon.

Wiggles is well meaning and eager to please, but she's a far cry from smart.  Lucky for her, she is ridiculously adorable.  As soon as she sees you, her whole body starts to wag (hence the name) and she immediately starts searching the vicinity for a stick or rock or blade of grass or something to hold in her mouth.  Her life would be perfect if she could spend every waking minute and most of the sleeping ones jammed up against a human being who would consent rub her chin nonstop until the end of time.  Being a youngster, she is full of energy and loves to play.  Her favorite game is Annoy the Hell out of Trooper.  She bumps into him, bites at his legs, runs circles around him, and generally does all the things an annoying little sister would do to inspire an older brother to lose his cool and start chasing her in circles.  She's very good at this game.

Although I am the Alpha of my little pack of canines, Trooper is the second in command.  He eats first, he has the best territory, and he is the first to chase off the cars that occasionally drive past our house.  Wiggles constantly challenged Mia's status in the pack, probably because she knew Mia was sick, but she never challenges Trooper's authority.  He is the clearly established dominant.  Except for one thing.

Here's where the chairs come in.  During the recent rainy monsoon season at our house, we let the dogs reside in the garage for a couple of the wettest, most miserable days.  During that time, Wiggles discovered The Chairs.  You can tell that's how she thinks of them, with capital letters.  She loved The Chairs and spent the remainder of the rainy days snuggled down in one or the other.  By the time the rain stopped, she had grown so attached to The Chairs that it broke her little heart when she was once again restricted to the out of doors, chair-less.  Every time I would open the garage door to fill their food bowls, she would sneak inside and hunker down on one of The Chairs, pleading with her sweet, brown eyes for me to let her stay there.  Finally, I gave in and moved The Chairs out into the kennel area.  She and Trooper both prefer to sleep on the chairs than in the igloos unless it is exceptionally cold and windy.  Even then, Wiggles will often stay on The Chairs, causing me to fret about her well-being and cover her with a blanket.  (I know... I know... ) 

Somewhere along the line, Trooper decided that he liked one of The Chairs better than the other.  Perhaps because of the feel of the cushions.  Perhaps because of the way Wiggles had gnawed an arm of the other one to destruction.  Perhaps because of some doggie reasoning that I will never know or understand.  Whatever the reason, Trooper only likes to sleep in His Chair.  Wiggles, being the brattiest of bratty little sisters, immediately decided that she, too, preferred sleeping in His Chair.  And since she is usually the first to settle in for the night while Trooper is still securing the property, she is often in His Chair when he wants to go to bed.

He's the bigger, stronger dog who has been here longer and has a higher standing in the hierarchy of our pack.  You'd think he could handle this.  You would be wrong.  Instead of making her move, he sits next to the chair and barks.  Not the 3 note bark that he uses to warn trespassing cars and animals of his presence.  Not the howling bark that he uses to commune with his coyote brethren.  One single, sharp bark.  I have secretly observed him doing this through a window.  He is sitting in front of her, but he is barking in my direction.  He wants me to know that she is in His Chair.  If he happens to see me moving around on the other side of the window, he runs over to the edge of the kennel, stares intently at me, and repeats his one sharp bark.

The first time this happened, I was confused.  Was he hurt?  Had something gotten in the yard?  Had I forgotten to feed them?  Then, I suddenly recognized the tone of his bark.  I recognized it from my years in the classroom, my hours of playground duty, and my own personal experiences with younger siblings who liked to take my things and drive me crazy (and whom I may have, on rare occasion, tortured in return).  I knew exactly what he was trying to say.

"Mooooooooooooooom!  Wiggles won't get out of my chair!"

My dog, Trooper, is a tattletale.

Book Review - The Name of the Wind

I am a fan of fairy tales - always have been.  Partly because I'm a dyed-in-the-wool romantic, and nothing makes a romantic's heart weep like the will-they-won't-they relationships found in fairy tales.  Partly because I was taught quite early in my childhood to always root for the underdog (Let's go, Mets!), and the heart of all fairy tales is the path of an underappreciated, misunderstood youngster who faces poverty, injury, loss, illness, and certain death in order to defeat evil.  Mostly because I am drawn with every fiber of my being to a good rhythm, and there isn't a genre within the realm of the written word that can influence the tide of one's heart-blood like a fairy tale. 

A well-written fairy tale makes you feel like you're sitting around a campfire that is just barely staving off the darkness and wilderness of night, going over the events of the day with people whom you can implicitly trust to have your back.  It speaks to your mind's ear in the voice of a road-weary gypsy story-teller.  It finds the right balance between the expected - the magic of threes, the foreshadowing, the black hat-/white hat elements - and the unexpected - the surprising twists that fling our hero(ine) into and out of trouble with such abandon.  Fairy tales leave you wrapped in a patchwork quilt of emotional aftermath: elation, melancholy, fury, and of course, hope.

There are a great number of fairy tales written specifically for adults.  One of the best that I have come across is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.  (Aside - I would guess that this book is officially considered a 'fantasy', but it felt very fairy tale to me.)  Imagine Harry Potter (exceptionally bright hero chafes under limitations and rules of youth) meets The Princess Bride (an innocent yet smoldering, star-crossed romance) meets DragonLance (feudal setting filled with burly peasants who gather at inns to discuss the nearby forest's potential for evil).  It has adventure and science and magic and beggars and mead and candles and headmasters and maidens and copper coins and lutes and jealousy and keys and a maybe-dragon.  In short, it is exactly the kind of story in which I want to immerse myself for hours upon hours at a time.

I have only a few complaints about this book.  The first is that it was a mere 722 pages long.  I devoured it in the course of several unintentionally late nights, and I am now slavering for more.  The second is that, in the fashion of many great fairy tale/fantasy stories, this book is really just a large part of the whole story.  It ends rather abruptly and leaves the many threads of the story all loose and dangly.  This would be fine, if not for my third complaint.  Thirdly, the second book in the story has yet to be released.  (According to his website, it is expected to come out in March of 2011.)

I am in agony.  If you have any affection for fairy tales or fantasy stories, you should get your hands on a copy as soon as you possibly can.  My misery needs some company.

My Mia

It's been several months now since my Mia lost her battle to lymphoma.  I started writing this shortly after I learned she was sick and as she got worse, I didn't have the strength to finish it.  I don't want to leave her story untold, though, so here it is...
- - - - -

I first met Mia when she was just a few weeks old.  She was one of the puppies born to my dear friend Ann's dog, Shammy.  I don't specifically remember Mia as an individual, so much as I remember the whole wriggling, wiggling, tumbling mass of puppies in Ann's laundry room.  I do remember being surprised to find that Shammy, a yellow lab who is so pale she is almost white, had given birth to an entire litter of puppies that were such a dark brown that they looked black except in the most direct sunlight.  At the time, I lived in a tiny house on a tiny lot next to a street that was often used by drag racers late at night.  I enjoyed playing with the puppies but knew that I wouldn't be taking any of them home with me.

Another woman and her daughters were there visiting the puppies at the same time.  They ended up adopting the runt, Mia, and  one of the males, whom they eventually named Trooper.  I figured that was that.

Two years passed.

One day, at work, Ann came to me, distraught.  She had just learned that the puppies (now 2 years old) were being sent to the pound.  To make matters worse, when they were turned in to the pound it had been reported that they were acting aggressively towards people and other dogs.  (Although I don't know for sure, I suspect this was a complete falsehood.  They play loudly and they try to sound tough when someone comes near our property uninvited, but they don't have an aggressive bone in their bodies.)  This meant that instead of trying to find them a new home, the folks at the pound were going to have them put down.  Knowing that I had just recently moved to a new home on a completely fenced 2 acre lot, Ann asked if I would foster Mia and Trooper while she worked to find them a new home.  Assuring Mike that it would just be temporary, I managed to get him on board.

They arrived at our house on a Saturday.  Ann and her husband helped us reinforce the fenced outdoor cat-run, and they settled in.  I quickly realized that these rowdy, untrained labs were going to be hard to place.  Not wanting to set them up for failure, I had to admit to potential adoptive families that they barked at anything that moved, dug holes all over the yard, went nuts when they saw the cats through the windows, climbed both under and over the fence to roam the neighborhood, and didn't know a single command.  They jumped up on people, loved to tear open garbage bags and throw the contents about the garage, and even jumped onto the roof of my car (leaving some nice, deep gashes that nearly gave my father-in-law a heart attack when he saw them).  They were beautiful labs with energetic, friendly personalities, but their bad habits were daunting.

After several months of fostering, I starting thinking of them as "my" dogs.  By that time, I had started teaching them to come when called and to sit on command.  They were learning to jump next to, rather than onto, people when greeting them.  After many nights with me hiding near a window and throwing penny-filled soda cans toward the kennel, they were learning to limit their barking to appropriate times.  Eventually, I admitted to myself and my husband that I had no intention of letting them go.  A big reason for that was the events of the Fourth of July.


From the very beginning, Mia was an independent thinker.  She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and how she wanted.  She had spent the first 2 years of her life as the leader of the pack (Trooper may have been bigger, but he recognized that she had all the good ideas and followed her loyally), and wasn't going to hand over her crown easily.  She also had built up a fair amount of mistrust for humans.  Although she was friendly enough, you could tell that she was just waiting for something bad to happen.  Shortly after the dogs moved to our place, Mikey was doing yardwork.  He picked up a large branch to toss it onto the brush pile, and Mia, on the other side of the yard, immediately dropped to the ground in a defensive position.  Later she did the same thing when a male friend of ours was using the hose to water the garden.  It took her almost a year to lose that reaction to men she perceived as "armed".


Trooper quickly accepted us into the pack, but Mia treated us like company for a long time.  On July 4th, 5 months after they came to live with us, was the first time that she really let her guard down around us.  Mia, like many dogs, was terrified of sudden noises.  She didn't like hearing gunshots, or even loud hammering, in the distance.  Imagine her terror then, when the fireworks started.  At that point, we were still keeping them on leash whenever they were out of the kennel since they had a bad habit of disappearing over the fence as soon as our backs were turned.  Trooper and I were sitting on a rock, and Mikey was walking Mia around the yard as we waited for the show to start.  After the first crash of fireworks, Mia began pulling frantically at the leash.  She didn't stop until she had made her way over to my rock and into my lap.  She spent the entire 20 minutes huddled up against me. 

From that point on, Mia gradually entrusted me with the role of pack leader.  She would (mostly) do what I asked, often with a wry look that said "Alright, but that's not how *I* would do it", and she never gave up the habit of trying to climb into my lap - all 55 pounds of her - when she was nervous.  The next 3 years were fabulous.  Mia and her brother went from barking, digging, chewing, escaping visitors to being two of the best dogs I have ever known.

In February of 2010, Mia started walking funny.  At first we thought she was having muscle or joint problems, but eventually, as she gradually lost the ability to control her hind legs, we determined that there was something pressing on her spine.  Suspecting a ruptured disc, she had the first of what ended up being many, many procedures.  Instead of the disc material he expected, the surgeon found a mass that allowed the doctors to diagnose her with small cell lymphoma.

We threw everything we could at the disease.  She had a 4 week course of daily radiation treatments, followed by several different forms of chemotherapy.  Mia and I were at one vet's office or another several times a week for the next 7 months.  Through that time, she accepted everything we did - poking, prodding, traveling, medicating, restraining - with the same faith she showed me on that Fourth of July.  She trusted me completely.  I will always be honored that my Mia, a dog who knew her own mind, was willing to put that kind of trust in me.

On September 20th, Mia let us know that she was ready to move on, even if we weren't ready to let her go.  Her calm acceptance of the truth was the last lesson that she shared with me.  I still have Trooper (and my dear spazzy Wiggles), and I know that I will share my home with many dogs as the years go by - I'm a sucker for an animal in need - but I don't think I will ever love another dog in quite the same way that I loved my Mia.

Excerpt #4

Took 3 hours to slog my way through 1000 words today.  I have been away from the story for too long, and I lost the emotional thread.  I think I finally found it in the last two paragraphs...
- - -

"I don't want to hear your whining excuses," Robert snapped.  He brought his arm up as if he were going to backhand his son.  For the first time since the door had closed, Karin moved.  She took a single step, putting herself between her brother and her father's outstretched hand.  Her heart beating loudly in her ears, she faced her inebriated father.  She spoke slowly and calmly, fear betrayed only by a slight breathiness in her voice, "That's enough.  They were right to cut you off.  You need to leave now, before you do something you can't take back."

It took all the courage she had to stand there, ramrod straight, while her father debated his next move.  Slowly he put his arm back down by his side and took a step backward.  Before he turned to leave, he uttered six words, shoving them into her heart like knives.  "I expected more from you, Rini."  The stress and adrenaline of the situation finally overwhelmed her, black roses blooming across her vision.  By the time her world stopped spinning and her breathing returned to normal, he was gone.

1/1/11

January 1st. 

The eldest child of the year, piled high with the responsibility of all our hopes, dreams, and wishes.  The one day when potential shines brightly without the tarnish of inevitable failures or disappointments.  A time for us to shake off the mud and grime of the previous year and start fresh.  January 1st is here once again, challenging us to forgive ourselves for the mistakes of the past 12 months and renew our faith in our own ability and motivation for the next 12. 

Perhaps it's because I am an eldest child myself, or perhaps just because I have an affinity for organizing and planning (I feel there might be a correlation between those two...), but I have always enjoyed the turning of the year.  My chosen career path provides me with a nice vacation during which I can recharge my batteries and build up the energy to try, try again at this thing called life.

I gave up on 'New Year's Resolutions' several years ago.  I hate the black-or-white quality of resolutions.  There's no wiggle room and no opportunity for redemption.  Once you've eaten that first extra bowl of ice cream, skipped your run for the first time, or smoked that first cigarette, you are a failure until January 1st rolls around again.  I can't handle that kind of pressure.  Instead, Mikey and I take time around the first of January to evaluate the facets of our lives - work, health, home, relationships, fun, growth, etc.  What are we doing well?  What do we need to work on?  What would make us healthier, happier, kinder, better (and let's be honest, wealthier) people?  Most importantly, what small steps we can realistically take to make these ideas for improvement a reality?

Coming from an educational background, and having plenty of experience with IEPs, I tend to think along those lines for my goal planning.  Having had the idea of SMART goals drilled into me during many in-services and staff meetings, I try to make each goal:

Specific - know exactly what you hope to accomplish and why
Measurable - plan how are you going to know when you have reached your goal
Attainable - make sure you have (or can get) access to the tools and resources needed to reach your goal
Realistic - stretch yourself to reach new heights, but don't set yourself up for failure
Timely - identify time frames for your goal (or better yet, for small chunks of your goal)

Some years, I have actual write out goals, complete with baselines and progress markers.  Other years I simply jot down notes regarding my goals.  Sometimes having my goals posted somewhere visible is motivating and others it is just intimidating.  Sometimes I share all the specifics of my goals with others so that I feel some obligation to continue making progress, and other times I keep them to myself in order to avoid jinxing them.  The documentation is less important (for me) than the process of really thinking about where I am and where I'd like to be.  No matter what my goals are or how they manifest themselves on a given year, it is always interesting when January 1st rolls around, and I get the opportunity to meet the new "Me".  The "Me" who is 365 days older and ready to carry the responsibility of yet another year's hopes, dreams, struggles, and potential.

With that in mind, here are a few of my 2011 goals (you'll notice that this year was a "jot them down" kind of year).  Last year was a year of starting many new things that brought me feelings of joy, contentment, and success, so this year many of my goals consist of not letting those new things lapse.  I know these don't look like SMART goals... but that's because nobody but me cares about the details!  You're welcome.

Health:  run on a regular basis, regular dental/optometry/gp visits
Home:  chore schedule, spend more time with dogs/cats, work on yard maintenance
Family:  remember birthdays/holidays in timely manner, maintain regular contact, save for a trip to MN
Work:  finish masters, maintain/strengthen social networking, budget time more wisely, give time/energy to school/students as needed
Fun:  make Etsy items, read more, continue actively connecting with friends, make weekend trips a priority
Growth:  write more, practice acceptance/forgiveness

I think these goals should keep me busy for the next year.  I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for me.  What are YOUR goals for the new year?