This post refers back to the previous one, so read that first if you haven't already.
It's now noon. By the time I'd paced for I guess a total of 3 1/2 hours (that's about 200 laps- I should have worn a pedometer), the pain had receded somewhat and I could watch some very early morning TV. This included something on MSNBC titled "Much Too Early." The host was asking people to email and tweet in what they were doing up so early. I'm guessing they were looking for something more fun that "I'm in intense pain and can't sleep," so I declined to participate.
The show wasn't bad, though. It actually had some content, unlike the offerings in the pre-Today/GMA world, which are incredibly content-free. The show I was watching, which I guess was just the early morning edition of Action News, was one of those news programs that continually looking forward, as in "Coming up, a man is rescued by his dog" or some such. It's reminiscent of Xeno's paradox, where you continually get halfway to where you're going and never actually get there. You do get to see traffic and weather multiple times though.
Then came MSNBC's morning program "Morning Joe.' This was pretty good, in a political talking head kind of way. They were having a reasonably substantial discussion of the main news of the moment, the monumental failure of the Romney campaign to capitalize on any of their possible opening against Obama. They really are quite spectacular in both the scale and variety of their disasters. Of course, the initial disaster was Romney being nominated when everyone already knew that he was incapable of coming off as anything but a rich, entitled jerk who had nothing but contempt for those outside of his social set.
Eventually, however, they announced that their next guest was Newt Gingrich, and it was far to early to even think of the Newtster, much less watch him. So off the TV went at 6:30. At that point, I finished putting together the package for my class and e-mailing it to my colleague who would copy and distribute it.
Then came 7AM and it was, as I've come to think, open for business time. Making lunch for my daughter, feeding and walking the dog, and getting ready for the scary but useful rice cooker to finish with my oatmeal, which happened promptly at 7:30. As much as I fear this machine with its fuzzy logic, I love having something I can just tell when I want breakfast to be ready and having it consistently do so.
At this point, I get to refuel my pain meds, a mere 6 pills, 3 of 2 different types. That leads, about 40 minutes later, to about 2 hours of relative comfort, which I revel in. That period has now come to an end until tomorrow morning and I am sitting with an ice pack on the worst parts of the rash.
Now I will make my daily journey to the supermarket, which I do for entertainment as much as anything. I wonder if anyone there has noticed that I come in wearing the same shirt (though different pants, of course) every day. I have only one shirt that is even halfway comfortable to wear, so it is my companion at all times.
I'll check back in later.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Living with it
It's 4:15 AM. I've been up for an hour. I went to bed around 1, fell asleep pretty quickly as usual, in spite of the fact that I had slept for much of the day. At 3:08 I woke up because it felt like half of my body was on fire. I don't know, maybe actual burning is worse, I hope I never find out. But there's no way I'm getting back to sleep with this, so back downstairs I go.
I've discovered over the 2 1/2 weeks I've been dealing with shingles that the worst of the pain is mitigated by walking, so I stumble downstairs and put on my running shoes and start to walk back and forth the length of the house. At least I decided to stop using Benadryl, which I was taking in hopes that it would help me sleep, but instead made me foggy when I woke up 2 hours later, just like when I didn't take the pills.
So back and forth I go. By now I've developed a bit of a routine. I pick an album and listen as I walk, back and forth in the dim light. It seems to take almost exactly a minute to make the round trip from the kitchen, through the den, the front hall, the living room and then turning around in the office and repeating in descending order. This has helped me to understand that, however endless the night feels when you can't sleep, it really isn't endless, you can count it down, one lap at a time.
Today I listened to a Fountains of Wayne album, a song from which had been running through my head the previous day. It sounded very good and the music helps to distract me from what is really going on, that I'm pacing back and forth in my house in the middle of the night.
At 4 AM I stop and check what's on TV. A rerun of the Rachel Maddow show that aired a few hours previous. I think she's brilliant and I like listening to her in limited doses, so I do that until 4:15 while I eat my late night snack, cereal usually. I know at 4AM you're supposed to go to Taco Bell, but I'm not supposed to drive on my medication and I don't feel like walking there.
And speaking of medication, why do I not have something that will help this pain that comes every night? I've gotten over 2 hours sleep exactly 3 times in the past 2 weeks. The problem is that this can go on for a long time and they don't want to get me addicted to something, so the strongest painkillers are out of bounds. What I take helps somewhat during the day but gets overwhelmed every night.
Now 4:35. See? Not so infinite. Only 2 hours until I would have woken up anyway, and only an hour and a half until the sky starts to brighten, although it appears to be rainy at the moment.
I have a lesson plan I need to complete and forward to school for my business math elective. Unlike the regular math lesson plans, my colleagues can't write these. It's taken me hours to get this done because I can't seem to focus for more than a few minutes at a time without getting dizzy and since I ended up asleep, or at least partially so, for most of the evening I never got it done. Oh well I'll wrap it up and send it in and it'll probably be okay.
Okay, this is starting to hurt just sitting here, so I'll just post this and off for another walk. It's now 4:40 and this is my life, like it or not.
I've discovered over the 2 1/2 weeks I've been dealing with shingles that the worst of the pain is mitigated by walking, so I stumble downstairs and put on my running shoes and start to walk back and forth the length of the house. At least I decided to stop using Benadryl, which I was taking in hopes that it would help me sleep, but instead made me foggy when I woke up 2 hours later, just like when I didn't take the pills.
So back and forth I go. By now I've developed a bit of a routine. I pick an album and listen as I walk, back and forth in the dim light. It seems to take almost exactly a minute to make the round trip from the kitchen, through the den, the front hall, the living room and then turning around in the office and repeating in descending order. This has helped me to understand that, however endless the night feels when you can't sleep, it really isn't endless, you can count it down, one lap at a time.
Today I listened to a Fountains of Wayne album, a song from which had been running through my head the previous day. It sounded very good and the music helps to distract me from what is really going on, that I'm pacing back and forth in my house in the middle of the night.
At 4 AM I stop and check what's on TV. A rerun of the Rachel Maddow show that aired a few hours previous. I think she's brilliant and I like listening to her in limited doses, so I do that until 4:15 while I eat my late night snack, cereal usually. I know at 4AM you're supposed to go to Taco Bell, but I'm not supposed to drive on my medication and I don't feel like walking there.
And speaking of medication, why do I not have something that will help this pain that comes every night? I've gotten over 2 hours sleep exactly 3 times in the past 2 weeks. The problem is that this can go on for a long time and they don't want to get me addicted to something, so the strongest painkillers are out of bounds. What I take helps somewhat during the day but gets overwhelmed every night.
Now 4:35. See? Not so infinite. Only 2 hours until I would have woken up anyway, and only an hour and a half until the sky starts to brighten, although it appears to be rainy at the moment.
I have a lesson plan I need to complete and forward to school for my business math elective. Unlike the regular math lesson plans, my colleagues can't write these. It's taken me hours to get this done because I can't seem to focus for more than a few minutes at a time without getting dizzy and since I ended up asleep, or at least partially so, for most of the evening I never got it done. Oh well I'll wrap it up and send it in and it'll probably be okay.
Okay, this is starting to hurt just sitting here, so I'll just post this and off for another walk. It's now 4:40 and this is my life, like it or not.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
48 hours with shingles
I gotta say, I've dealt with a reasonable amount of bad stuff over the course of my life but this particular period is definitely top 5. The way I've been feeling covers almost all of the spectrum of how one might feel. Understand that there are pretty much 2 symptoms of shingles, a rash that's not itchy but is painful to the touch and severe pain radiating from the area of the rash. In my case it means the right side of my body from waist to shoulder, (I've heard about people getting this in all sorts of unexpected places, even the eyes, which sounds horrific).
People don't talk about physical pain very much and it's a difficult thing to write about. Everyone's felt it, but nobody ever knows what somebody else feels like. We're not even sure if everyone experiences pain in the same way. Sometimes a doctor will ask you about how bad something hurts on a 1 to 10 scale. I always imagined 10 as having my whole body on fire. When I tore my calf muscle, which really hurt and took 3 months to heal, that was about 5. What I'm getting these days is more in 7 to 8 territory.
In any event, if a discussion that includes some realistic and graphic depictions of physical pain would make you squeamish, by all means do not read on.
As I begin writing this, for instance, it's Thursday mid-morning. I'm in probably the peak period of my druggedness, with both the prescription pain meds and the ibuprofen fully digested (yes, this takes 2 pain medications to handle). I feel not too bad, a bearable amount of discomfort and more than a touch of dizziness, but that's about it. I got 5 hours of sleep last night, double the amount I'd gotten the past 3 nights combined. As usual, it was the pain that woke me up and it was pretty bad, but some sleep is better than no sleep at all.
The first decision is what to wear. The rash is very sensitive, and even an old, soft t-shirt irritates it. So I have 3 lightweight, loose t-shirts that I wear over and over. Yesterday it was my Phillies shirt from the 47 brand display in Clearwater. That's the best one, though the best thing is no shirt at all. Today it's "Mind The Gap" from the London Underground.
It was about a half hour from the time I woke up before I could take anything, so I went to the kitchen and puttered. The way I've best been able to deal the really bad periods is to keep busy to distract myself. The sensation was probably closest to what you get when you put alcohol on a cut, but a bit more burning and less stinging if you can imagine, and covered my right side from a bit below my navel to the top of my rib cage. Somehow, emptying the dishwasher and making lunch for my daughter helps pass the time and I almost wished I had more kids to make lunches for.
It took about a half hour for the meds to kick in during which time I ate breakfast and read the newspaper.
Cut to Friday morning. I was awakened at 5AM and I could tell there would be no getting back to sleep, so as I did on my earlier sleepless nights, I came downstairs to distract myself and pass the time until I could take more meds. Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris was on TV and I half watched and half just listened to the languid, atmospheric soundtrack. It just ended. It's 6AM. My alarm was set for 7 and my daughter leaves for school around 7:30, at which point I can take my pills, so I have some time to kill.
On the longer sleepless nights I found that pacing passed the time faster than I'd expect it to, so I walked back and forth through the kitchen and den, occasionally picking something up or putting something away or looking at the TV for a moment or eating some kind of pre-breakfast snack. And before I knew it, or maybe just before I couldn't stand it anymore) it was time to make the lunch and see my daughter off and start the other part of my day.
I took my meds, which don't really have major side effects, but they do make it feel as if somebody's snuck up behind me and inflated my head just a little bit, making everything seem a little out of focus. The meds seem to mostly reduce this to something bearable, which is as good as it gets.
I decided to break things up by going outside and walking to the supermarket. This is a big deal. I can't drive on these meds, and it's very uncomfortable even to sit in a car with someone else driving. So I'm not getting out much. Minor excitement as occasional resident Charles Barkley was in the store. Foggy as I am, it's not the first time I've seen him there so I'm sure it was him. I said hi.
The day is spent passing time. I can't really concentrate on anything, so I watch TV, read the newspaper and stuff on the web, doze, shuffle papers, all for a few minutes at a time until I get too uncomfortable and then I walk it off. I managed to watch most of the Phillies game sitting down. That's it, really. I'm just waiting to get better. There's nothing that can be done to change the course, it'll just last as long as it feels like and then it'll stop.
It's now 48 hours after I started writing this piece. I was awakened at 3AM by intense burning on my back and side and had to get out of bed. It's now 7:40. I spent the interim pacing and trying to watch TV, but it's hard to do both at the same time. It's particularly bad this morning. Finally I tried to sleep again and got a half hour nap, taking me to 6. I then paced some more until it started to lighten up a bit outside, at which point I decided the best distraction would be to walk to the supermarket again, even though I didn't really need anything. I walked slowly, bought some celery and a couple of personal care items, paid and went home, just in time for my oatmeal to finish cooking.
Once I'd had breakfast I took my morning meds and I now seem to be entering that period of a few hours when I feel kind of okay. TIme to walk the dog. Yay! An activity! I'll break here, but I'll keep you posted.
People don't talk about physical pain very much and it's a difficult thing to write about. Everyone's felt it, but nobody ever knows what somebody else feels like. We're not even sure if everyone experiences pain in the same way. Sometimes a doctor will ask you about how bad something hurts on a 1 to 10 scale. I always imagined 10 as having my whole body on fire. When I tore my calf muscle, which really hurt and took 3 months to heal, that was about 5. What I'm getting these days is more in 7 to 8 territory.
In any event, if a discussion that includes some realistic and graphic depictions of physical pain would make you squeamish, by all means do not read on.
As I begin writing this, for instance, it's Thursday mid-morning. I'm in probably the peak period of my druggedness, with both the prescription pain meds and the ibuprofen fully digested (yes, this takes 2 pain medications to handle). I feel not too bad, a bearable amount of discomfort and more than a touch of dizziness, but that's about it. I got 5 hours of sleep last night, double the amount I'd gotten the past 3 nights combined. As usual, it was the pain that woke me up and it was pretty bad, but some sleep is better than no sleep at all.
The first decision is what to wear. The rash is very sensitive, and even an old, soft t-shirt irritates it. So I have 3 lightweight, loose t-shirts that I wear over and over. Yesterday it was my Phillies shirt from the 47 brand display in Clearwater. That's the best one, though the best thing is no shirt at all. Today it's "Mind The Gap" from the London Underground.
It was about a half hour from the time I woke up before I could take anything, so I went to the kitchen and puttered. The way I've best been able to deal the really bad periods is to keep busy to distract myself. The sensation was probably closest to what you get when you put alcohol on a cut, but a bit more burning and less stinging if you can imagine, and covered my right side from a bit below my navel to the top of my rib cage. Somehow, emptying the dishwasher and making lunch for my daughter helps pass the time and I almost wished I had more kids to make lunches for.
It took about a half hour for the meds to kick in during which time I ate breakfast and read the newspaper.
Cut to Friday morning. I was awakened at 5AM and I could tell there would be no getting back to sleep, so as I did on my earlier sleepless nights, I came downstairs to distract myself and pass the time until I could take more meds. Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris was on TV and I half watched and half just listened to the languid, atmospheric soundtrack. It just ended. It's 6AM. My alarm was set for 7 and my daughter leaves for school around 7:30, at which point I can take my pills, so I have some time to kill.
On the longer sleepless nights I found that pacing passed the time faster than I'd expect it to, so I walked back and forth through the kitchen and den, occasionally picking something up or putting something away or looking at the TV for a moment or eating some kind of pre-breakfast snack. And before I knew it, or maybe just before I couldn't stand it anymore) it was time to make the lunch and see my daughter off and start the other part of my day.
I took my meds, which don't really have major side effects, but they do make it feel as if somebody's snuck up behind me and inflated my head just a little bit, making everything seem a little out of focus. The meds seem to mostly reduce this to something bearable, which is as good as it gets.
I decided to break things up by going outside and walking to the supermarket. This is a big deal. I can't drive on these meds, and it's very uncomfortable even to sit in a car with someone else driving. So I'm not getting out much. Minor excitement as occasional resident Charles Barkley was in the store. Foggy as I am, it's not the first time I've seen him there so I'm sure it was him. I said hi.
The day is spent passing time. I can't really concentrate on anything, so I watch TV, read the newspaper and stuff on the web, doze, shuffle papers, all for a few minutes at a time until I get too uncomfortable and then I walk it off. I managed to watch most of the Phillies game sitting down. That's it, really. I'm just waiting to get better. There's nothing that can be done to change the course, it'll just last as long as it feels like and then it'll stop.
It's now 48 hours after I started writing this piece. I was awakened at 3AM by intense burning on my back and side and had to get out of bed. It's now 7:40. I spent the interim pacing and trying to watch TV, but it's hard to do both at the same time. It's particularly bad this morning. Finally I tried to sleep again and got a half hour nap, taking me to 6. I then paced some more until it started to lighten up a bit outside, at which point I decided the best distraction would be to walk to the supermarket again, even though I didn't really need anything. I walked slowly, bought some celery and a couple of personal care items, paid and went home, just in time for my oatmeal to finish cooking.
Once I'd had breakfast I took my morning meds and I now seem to be entering that period of a few hours when I feel kind of okay. TIme to walk the dog. Yay! An activity! I'll break here, but I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Happened on this (Parental discretion advised for language)
Since I'm lying around with nothing to do all day today (just like the day before and the day before that), I checked in on yesterday's Daily Show. It was funny as always, but it featured a special treat, which brightened my day. This segment contains, depending on your point of view, either mature language or extremely immature language.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Shingle shower
I have to admit, I never thought about the challenges of showering with shingles until this week. Just wasn't real high on my to do list. But now it is, and I was curious if anyone had advice about it, since the rash hurts if you touch it and also hurts when I sweat. In my experience, it's difficult to take a shower without the water touching you (if it doesn't, it's probably not technically taking a shower) and it's difficult to have water touch you without your getting wet.
So of course I turn to the Internet, and get some very practical advice, which is to keep the pressure low and the water as cold as you can stand it. There seems to be consensus on this, but my favorite piece of advice came on one site, where after dispensing the advice, it offers a tip:
So of course I turn to the Internet, and get some very practical advice, which is to keep the pressure low and the water as cold as you can stand it. There seems to be consensus on this, but my favorite piece of advice came on one site, where after dispensing the advice, it offers a tip:
The shingles rash can take several weeks to completely clear up. That means you cannot avoid taking a shower until the episode clears up.And with that hygienic note top of mind, off I go to try it.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Feelin' shingly all over
So I have shingles. I do not know why it's called that. I have rashes but they don't look at all like shingles. They just look like, well, rashes. I guess that's okay, since as you may know, shingles is caused by the virus that gives you chicken pox, and chicken pox has nothing to do with chickens either Apparently, some people thought the rash looks like chicken pecks, but the prevailing wisdom is that "chick pea pox" is closer to the original designation, because the marks were thought to resemble chick peas. I don't see the resemblance, but it's of no matter.
Pretty much all anyone knows about shingles is that it hurts. Or is at least very very uncomfortable. The best way I can describe it is that my skin feels like it's gotten all prickly, but with the sensation turned up just enough to be at the edge of pain and that it doesn't stop ever. It's somewhat localized on the right side of my torso and it's not bad as long as anything isn't touching it. Unfortunately, 'anything' includes clothing. At least because it's just mostly one side I can lie on the other side and sleep, which is fortunate since that's all I'm feeling like doing at the moment.
And that's about it. I'm contagious to anyone who hasn't had chicken pox (you can't transmit shingles itself but some who isn't immune can get chicken pox) so I can't go to school and I don't feel up to it anyway. Apparently I caught it early and started taking medication right away so hopefully by the time school starts up again next week I'll be fine.
Pretty much all anyone knows about shingles is that it hurts. Or is at least very very uncomfortable. The best way I can describe it is that my skin feels like it's gotten all prickly, but with the sensation turned up just enough to be at the edge of pain and that it doesn't stop ever. It's somewhat localized on the right side of my torso and it's not bad as long as anything isn't touching it. Unfortunately, 'anything' includes clothing. At least because it's just mostly one side I can lie on the other side and sleep, which is fortunate since that's all I'm feeling like doing at the moment.
And that's about it. I'm contagious to anyone who hasn't had chicken pox (you can't transmit shingles itself but some who isn't immune can get chicken pox) so I can't go to school and I don't feel up to it anyway. Apparently I caught it early and started taking medication right away so hopefully by the time school starts up again next week I'll be fine.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Meaningful baseball
I've been itching to see some meaningful baseball games, so I hopped down to Baltimore twice this weekend to see the O's play the Yankees. On Friday I drove, which was alternately miserable an exhilarating, as I went from crawling to a lane-changing 80 mph to get to the ballpark just in time for the first pitch. Today, Sunday, I took the train instead.
Oriole Park at Camden Yards, as it is officially known, was the first of the new "retro" ballparks, where symmetry is shunned and quirkiness is prized. Because it was first, it's perhaps not as well equipped as, say Citi Field, it is still a lovely place to visit and watch a baseball game.
Setting aside the watching baseball part of it, and the two games I attended were not terribly suspenseful, the highlight is Eutaw Street. This street traverses the park beyond right-center field. One side is the warehouse that you see in pictures of the park, but they close the street off for everyone except ticketholders a couple of hours before the game, so you have a nice little pedestrian mall with shops on one side and food stands on the other where you can hang out before the game. There is also a large gravel patio with picnic tables and umbrellas adjacent to the street.
The highlight of Eutaw, for me at least, is Boog's BarBQ. I know the Phillies tried to duplicate it with Bull's BarBQ, but the food is much better at Boog's. Especially the turkey, which tastes very salty and processed at CBP and is freshly sliced whole turkey breasts at Boog's. And Boog himself is always there and is very friendly. Great cole slaw too.
Citizens Bank Park has a couple of big advantages. First, the standing room there is terrific and it is decidedly not so at Camden Yards. There are 2 small sections that get fans 5 or 6 deep and you either can't see anything or can't move. The other thing, and I can't even imagine what they were thinking when they designed it, is that the right field upper deck faces left field, not home plate, so you spend the whole game with your head turned to the left. I knew this from previous experience and avoided those seats.
The best thing about the games was that they were pretty much sold out, which has been a rarity around there since the Orioles have been awful for the past 15 years or so. It was about 2/3 Orioles fans and 1/3 Yankee fans, The number of Yankee fans is probably normal, but there aren't usually so many Oriole fans there. This made the atmosphere lively. It was all pretty friendly, as Baltimore seems to be a reasonably friendly sort of place, but I did hear the word "suck"more this afternoon that in a normal month.
The game got out of hand and I strolled around the Inner Harbor, which is very pretty but a little mallified for my taste. Then back to the train station. They have a new ticket system on Amtrak, where you can print your own ticket and the conductors scan a QR code on it with an iPhone. On the way home, the conductor couldn't get mine to register and said he couldn't find a record of the reservation, so he would need to take the ticket and then call headquarters or something. He came back around an hour later, when we were 5 minutes outside of Philly. He said. "You're going to New York, right?" And I said, no, I'm going to Philadelphia. He shrugged and said he'd figure something out. I offered to let him pretend to throw me off the train and I could make a scene for the entertainment of the other passengers, but it was the Quiet Car so he said no.
Oriole Park at Camden Yards, as it is officially known, was the first of the new "retro" ballparks, where symmetry is shunned and quirkiness is prized. Because it was first, it's perhaps not as well equipped as, say Citi Field, it is still a lovely place to visit and watch a baseball game.
Setting aside the watching baseball part of it, and the two games I attended were not terribly suspenseful, the highlight is Eutaw Street. This street traverses the park beyond right-center field. One side is the warehouse that you see in pictures of the park, but they close the street off for everyone except ticketholders a couple of hours before the game, so you have a nice little pedestrian mall with shops on one side and food stands on the other where you can hang out before the game. There is also a large gravel patio with picnic tables and umbrellas adjacent to the street.
The highlight of Eutaw, for me at least, is Boog's BarBQ. I know the Phillies tried to duplicate it with Bull's BarBQ, but the food is much better at Boog's. Especially the turkey, which tastes very salty and processed at CBP and is freshly sliced whole turkey breasts at Boog's. And Boog himself is always there and is very friendly. Great cole slaw too.
Citizens Bank Park has a couple of big advantages. First, the standing room there is terrific and it is decidedly not so at Camden Yards. There are 2 small sections that get fans 5 or 6 deep and you either can't see anything or can't move. The other thing, and I can't even imagine what they were thinking when they designed it, is that the right field upper deck faces left field, not home plate, so you spend the whole game with your head turned to the left. I knew this from previous experience and avoided those seats.
The best thing about the games was that they were pretty much sold out, which has been a rarity around there since the Orioles have been awful for the past 15 years or so. It was about 2/3 Orioles fans and 1/3 Yankee fans, The number of Yankee fans is probably normal, but there aren't usually so many Oriole fans there. This made the atmosphere lively. It was all pretty friendly, as Baltimore seems to be a reasonably friendly sort of place, but I did hear the word "suck"more this afternoon that in a normal month.
The game got out of hand and I strolled around the Inner Harbor, which is very pretty but a little mallified for my taste. Then back to the train station. They have a new ticket system on Amtrak, where you can print your own ticket and the conductors scan a QR code on it with an iPhone. On the way home, the conductor couldn't get mine to register and said he couldn't find a record of the reservation, so he would need to take the ticket and then call headquarters or something. He came back around an hour later, when we were 5 minutes outside of Philly. He said. "You're going to New York, right?" And I said, no, I'm going to Philadelphia. He shrugged and said he'd figure something out. I offered to let him pretend to throw me off the train and I could make a scene for the entertainment of the other passengers, but it was the Quiet Car so he said no.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Back for my 10th (!) year
I'm guessing that it's not just me and that other teachers walk into the first day of class in a (hopefully) well-concealed, (hopefully) mild panic. What it I forgot how do do this over the summer? What if I forget my name? What if they don't like me? What if they smell bad? What if my shirt is on backwards?
The biggest difference between teaching and a desk job is that at a desk job you can get though a day or even a few days without contributing anything. If you show up in a classroom with nothing to say, you're in major doo-doo. Teaching is a performance of sorts. You can't have stage fright and you have to be present. If you're not 100% there with the students I guarantee you that they will spot it. They'll ask you a question and your answer won't be on point or your lesson will be confused and disjointed. And you'll have damaged the class.
The good news is that being prepared and present is exhilarating, at least for me. It feels good. I feel connected and relevant. I may not like everything about working in a school but I sure do like being in the classroom. I've never had stage fright, and I'm the proper combination of smart and dumb that allows me a sufficient level of confidence to get through most things. And I seem to have lost my ability to get embarrassed, no matter how stupid a thing I do. I think that dates back to my geometry class in maybe 2006 when the kids would often laugh when I tripped over the overhead projector cord or bumped into something, and they eventually let on to me that they often discussed how many minutes into the class it would be before I did something clumsy. They may have even been taking bets on it.
The first day is always hard, though. I typically (and this year is typical) know very few of the students, though I'll know at least the names of some students that I don't really know as people. I'm always surprised by how fast I learn to match up the faces and names. I'm horrible about that in the rest of my life. I can barely remember my neighbors' names. But even if you know their names you don't know how they learn or what they're like as people. It always makes me nervous.
But again, it's exhilarating. I can't think of any other job where I'd get to meet 30 or 40 new people every year and then get to spend part of almost every day with them for 9 months. Since what I fear most in getting older is that I'll get stale, having new people to bounce ideas off keeps my perspective fresh.
The other lurking fear, of course, is what happens if I really screw things up. Like forget to go to class. Well guess what, I did! On the very first day I misread the schedule. Fortunately, I was at my desk and a student came to get me. But way to get off on the right foot, eh?
So now here I sit, grading summer assignments, which is perhaps my least favorite thing to do, but as I look at each one I know a little more about each student, so it's not a complete drag. And next week it's time to really start teaching. I can hardly wait.
The biggest difference between teaching and a desk job is that at a desk job you can get though a day or even a few days without contributing anything. If you show up in a classroom with nothing to say, you're in major doo-doo. Teaching is a performance of sorts. You can't have stage fright and you have to be present. If you're not 100% there with the students I guarantee you that they will spot it. They'll ask you a question and your answer won't be on point or your lesson will be confused and disjointed. And you'll have damaged the class.
The good news is that being prepared and present is exhilarating, at least for me. It feels good. I feel connected and relevant. I may not like everything about working in a school but I sure do like being in the classroom. I've never had stage fright, and I'm the proper combination of smart and dumb that allows me a sufficient level of confidence to get through most things. And I seem to have lost my ability to get embarrassed, no matter how stupid a thing I do. I think that dates back to my geometry class in maybe 2006 when the kids would often laugh when I tripped over the overhead projector cord or bumped into something, and they eventually let on to me that they often discussed how many minutes into the class it would be before I did something clumsy. They may have even been taking bets on it.
The first day is always hard, though. I typically (and this year is typical) know very few of the students, though I'll know at least the names of some students that I don't really know as people. I'm always surprised by how fast I learn to match up the faces and names. I'm horrible about that in the rest of my life. I can barely remember my neighbors' names. But even if you know their names you don't know how they learn or what they're like as people. It always makes me nervous.
But again, it's exhilarating. I can't think of any other job where I'd get to meet 30 or 40 new people every year and then get to spend part of almost every day with them for 9 months. Since what I fear most in getting older is that I'll get stale, having new people to bounce ideas off keeps my perspective fresh.
The other lurking fear, of course, is what happens if I really screw things up. Like forget to go to class. Well guess what, I did! On the very first day I misread the schedule. Fortunately, I was at my desk and a student came to get me. But way to get off on the right foot, eh?
So now here I sit, grading summer assignments, which is perhaps my least favorite thing to do, but as I look at each one I know a little more about each student, so it's not a complete drag. And next week it's time to really start teaching. I can hardly wait.
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Still like nothing else
This is my 1000th post to this blog, so I thought I'd use it to toss out a few disjointed thoughts from Monday night's Bruce Springsteen concert at Citizens Bank Park.
It was supposed to rain that evening and it had certainly rained plenty earlier that day, so we cam with all the appropriate rain gear plus a towel to dry our seats. I've got all this stuff pretty well wired from baseball games, where I bring both a poncho, which covers everything when seated, plus an umbrella, which allows me to read or use the phone or whatever. This is handy during rain delays because it means I don't have to get up and stand in the concourse. Sometimes the beer vendors even come by.
But we weren't allowed to bring umbrellas in, so ponchos only. And we were greeted by the large video screens telling us that we might have to evacuate the field in case of lightning (though not rain). I was not happy that the concert did not start until 45 minutes after the time on the ticket, because it wasn't raining and I was thinking I'd be annoyed if it started with 45 minutes left in the show. But it never did rain.
They were selling margaritas at some of the stands. Actually, they had bars set up in various places. I decided to go easy because it was a long way from the field seats to the bathrooms.
The show, of course, was amazing. I wondered if the sound lost a little bit of its power not being contained by a building, but the acoustics were far better than in any arena where I've seen him. I realized that it was 37 years ago, late in 1975, when I first saw him play at the Colgate University gym (I was attending Hamilton College at the time). I didn't really know much about him but my friends from the college radio station said I had to come see him. And so we did in a half-full gym. Born To Run had come out not too long before and just a few weeks prior he had famously been featured simultaneously on the covers of both Time and Newsweek magazines.
I remember the timing because when he sang Rosalita, where the usual lyrics go:
Since then I've seen him maybe a dozen times, maybe more. Every show is different, but the story is always the same. The guy, to quote Jon Stewart, empties the tank every time he goes out there. He's 62 years old and looks more like 40, and he goes high energy nonstop for 3 1/2 hours in horrible heat and humidity (to the extent that instead of going offstage before the encore, he sat down, took off his boots one by one and poured about a cup of sweat out of each of them). I was there with my wife and daughter, a newbie, neither one a huge fan, but it's hard not to be won over by 35,000 people singing as one. And it's impossible to not be blown away by the guy's stage presence and his utter joy in music and performing.
So I sang, I clapped, I swayed, I cried, and I remembered how much I love a Bruce Springsteen concert. It never rained. And on the way out, my daughter remarked that they don't do concerts like that anymore. And all I could say was, nobody else ever did concerts like this.
It was supposed to rain that evening and it had certainly rained plenty earlier that day, so we cam with all the appropriate rain gear plus a towel to dry our seats. I've got all this stuff pretty well wired from baseball games, where I bring both a poncho, which covers everything when seated, plus an umbrella, which allows me to read or use the phone or whatever. This is handy during rain delays because it means I don't have to get up and stand in the concourse. Sometimes the beer vendors even come by.
But we weren't allowed to bring umbrellas in, so ponchos only. And we were greeted by the large video screens telling us that we might have to evacuate the field in case of lightning (though not rain). I was not happy that the concert did not start until 45 minutes after the time on the ticket, because it wasn't raining and I was thinking I'd be annoyed if it started with 45 minutes left in the show. But it never did rain.
They were selling margaritas at some of the stands. Actually, they had bars set up in various places. I decided to go easy because it was a long way from the field seats to the bathrooms.
The show, of course, was amazing. I wondered if the sound lost a little bit of its power not being contained by a building, but the acoustics were far better than in any arena where I've seen him. I realized that it was 37 years ago, late in 1975, when I first saw him play at the Colgate University gym (I was attending Hamilton College at the time). I didn't really know much about him but my friends from the college radio station said I had to come see him. And so we did in a half-full gym. Born To Run had come out not too long before and just a few weeks prior he had famously been featured simultaneously on the covers of both Time and Newsweek magazines.
Tell him this is his last chancehe substituted the line: Because I ain't no freak, I'm on the cover of Time and Newsweek.
To get his daughter in a fine romance
Because a record company, Rosie, just gave me a big advance
Since then I've seen him maybe a dozen times, maybe more. Every show is different, but the story is always the same. The guy, to quote Jon Stewart, empties the tank every time he goes out there. He's 62 years old and looks more like 40, and he goes high energy nonstop for 3 1/2 hours in horrible heat and humidity (to the extent that instead of going offstage before the encore, he sat down, took off his boots one by one and poured about a cup of sweat out of each of them). I was there with my wife and daughter, a newbie, neither one a huge fan, but it's hard not to be won over by 35,000 people singing as one. And it's impossible to not be blown away by the guy's stage presence and his utter joy in music and performing.
So I sang, I clapped, I swayed, I cried, and I remembered how much I love a Bruce Springsteen concert. It never rained. And on the way out, my daughter remarked that they don't do concerts like that anymore. And all I could say was, nobody else ever did concerts like this.
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Ready to go
I'm guessing that the last thing on students' minds at this time of year is what their teachers are doing with their time. Of course, we need dedicated time to plot how to torture the particular kids that we hate, but that's not an official function. We are doing something called in-service. I've never quite figured out the correct grammatical structure for this. Are we in in-service or are we at in-service or simply in service?
In-service is a kind of catchall term for required stuff that teachers have to do that isn't directly related to teaching. It ranges from after-school meetings to so-called professional development to beginning and end of year all day jams.
I rode my bike to school, braving the prediction of rain, which Weather Underground predicted would not be occurring in the half hour I'd be riding. I still got soaked from the humidity and had just barely enough time to dry off before we had to head down to the initial meeting.
As I begin to write this I am in that welcoming meeting. It's a chance to reconnect with colleagues and meet new faculty. We then follow up with the administrators all giving a brief overview of what their priorities are. This is usually pretty pro forma, full of optimism and good cheer. It's a little more meaty this year, since there's been substantial effort made to start the year in an organized manner. I have mixed feelings about this. I like knowing that the people running the place are strong and supportive. On the other hand, I have really enjoyed the freedom afforded when there's little top-down supervision. I have issues with authority and I really don't like being told what to do. I guess we'll just have to see whether new resolve can overcome inertia.
The rest of the day had a union meeting and then it was time for lunch. It's a nice time to catch up with people that you haven't seen all summer, or longer in some cases. It's always a good feeling to remember how and why you liked someone. The lunch had food fight potential because there were pretty much no serving pieces or cutlery (like my college frat's mythical no-hands spaghetti night!) but people were reasonably well behaved, all things considered.
After lunch it was time to sit at my desk. I'm not much of a sit at a desk person, and this whole production is far too much sitting for me. So I spent some time putting books in classrooms. Not randomly, of course. It makes the first day of classes easier if the books are in the rooms when you get there. Teachers who work in schools where you have your own room may not understand this. But four sets of books in four rooms later I was done. Finally I sat at my desk for a while and then it was time to leave, except it was raining. Oops.
After waiting out the rain, I headed home in the bright sunshine, which lasted for a few minutes and then it started getting darker and darker and windier and windier. I started ticking off the miles, thinking "Okay, I can make it through 3 miles in the rain...2 miles...a mile and a half..., etc." But I got home with nary a drop or rain upon me.
The second day started with a meeting with a guy from Apple talking about the iPads we are supposedly going to get. There were many hypothetical questions about the hypothetical iPads, which I guess is appropriate. I'm not sure why people haven't reached the conclusion that these meetings would work better if it wasn't everybody in the room at once. Especially with computer stuff there's just too large a range of experience and needs. The Apple guy was excellent though.
Then we spent a half hour learning how to mark people absent. Setting aside how long I personally might have needed to do this (or if I'd need a meeting at all), I must say that it always struck me that one of the core functions of a school was to know who's there. So anything that helps accomplish that is good. And we did learn how to mark people late too.
After that we had some time to get ourselves ready for opening day. It's time to start.
Saturday, September 01, 2012
Something's cooking
There are few things I like to dissect as much as instruction manuals. The ones for small appliances seem particularly rich in unexpected content. So let's take a peek at the instructions that came with the MICOM Rice Cooker and Warmer, manufactured by the Zojirushi Corporation. This immediately became the most terrifying appliance in the house.
Just to review, we got this thing to cook my oatmeal. I've figured out how to do that but that's it, so now let's dig in. This isn't so easy, because the cover page lacks a picture of the device and instead has a table of contents in English and I think Japanese, Chinese and Korean. I know enough history to know that those 3 countries all hate each other, but they do all like rice. What I can see from this is that pages 8-13 are devoted to the actual cooking of the rice, and proceed as follows (all caps used to remain faithful to the original):
EXPLANATION OF RICE, TIPS TO COOKING GREAT-TASTING RICE (PREPARATION AND KEEP WARM), HOW TO COOK RICE: BASIC COOKING STEPS, HOW TO COOK RINSE-FREE RICE, TIPS TO COOKING GREAT-TASTING RICE BY MENUS. Rice, okay, got it.
Then comes the Important Safeguards page, which is in English and French. This is the only page in French. I don't know what that means, but there are 2 additional English pages, which is where all the fun stuff is. It begins with an explication of the difference between a Warning and a Caution. This is important, and not just for cooking rice, so pay attention.
A WARNING indicates risk of serious injury. This is footnoted to offer more detail, and I quote: "Serious injury includes loss of eyesight, burns (high and low temperature), electric shock, bone fractures, toxic reactions as well as other injuries severe enough to require medical care or extended hospitalization." Whoa, all I wanted was some oatmeal. And what's a low temperature burn? Bone fractures? I guess if you dropped it on your foot or smashed your hand with it somehow. But I digress.
A CAUTION indicates risk of injury or property damage if mishandled. So wait, all that warning stuff can happen even if I don't mishandle it? There are two footnotes for cautions, to explicate injury and property damage, respectively. And I quote: "Injury indicates physical damage, burns or electric shock not severe enough to require medical attention or extended hospitalization (emphasis mine)." and "Property damage includes material damage towards a home, furniture, or pets and animals." Okay, so overnight in the ER is a caution, longer stays a warning.
Warnings and cautions are then broken into three subcategories, all represented with their own pictograph. There are CAUTIONS (triangle), PROHIBITED OPERATIONS (circle with slash through it), and INSTRUCTIONS THAT MUST BE FOLLOWED (filled in circle). It notes that specific indications about these will either have additional "sentences or illustrations" to clarify.
To this point, I have finished just the top 3 inches of page 4. The bottom of page 4 has all the warnings, while page 5 has cautions and other things just labeled "Important." I'm already exhausted.
Six of the 13 warnings involve plugging the unit in, which you should not do with wet hands, with a folded, twisted, pulled or modified power cord, with any other device in the same outlet, or with a soiled plug. The others prohibit modifying the unit, immersing it in water, letting children or infants operate the unit, and sticking "metal objects such as pins or wires into the holes located at the bottom of the Rice Cooker."
Five of the 12 cautions also involve the plug and another 3 say to not touch things when they're hot, but they also prohibit using the Rice Cooker near walls or furniture (No furniture? I guess you're supposed to hold it? Put it on the floor? Suspend it from the ceiling?), opening it and moving it at the same time.
And finally, we are done with that section of the manual, at the bottom of page 5. We'll get to the next page, titled PARTS NAMES AND FUNCTIONS, next time.
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