Recently a friend of mine was having difficulty finishing something she was supposed to do. She had no inspiration, no motivation, and consequently was very discouraged. So I shared with her my super secret college strategy for paper writing.
When I had a paper to do, and knew it would be a biggy, I would create for myself a haven of writingness. It was a sanctuary of creativity. A temple of you-have-to-get-it-done-so-you-might-as-well-enjoy-yourself-as-much-as-you-can-along-the-way-ivity. I would light the lamp on my computer desk, put on some soft classical music, light a candle, and, most importantly, I would get a snack. Usually chai or m&ms worked best.
And this brings me to my point: the power of the snack. Ohhhh, how well it worked! Just ooooone more paragraph and then I can eat this little stack of m&ms I set up. Or sip sip sip sip sip DONE the paper! The motivation of food is nothing to be trifled with.
This has gone on to aid me in other areas of life as well. Reading my Bible when I have to read extra readings, for example. I'll see if I can make this piece of hard candy last as long as it takes me to read the whole of Psalm 119... Or cleaning my room! Or writing a blog. I have before me tea with honey, cheese and crackers, a clementine, and the ends of several uncooked green beans (I already finished those). And look at the result that's coming from it!
This is a tool teachers can use, as well. Bribes, obviously, are great things. You have to be careful with these, though. I was pretty embarrassed when the headmaster walked in to my classroom one day to see my students munching chips and drinking soda. Yeahhhhh.
But snack time, at it's scheduled time, is a useful tool as well. Suppose you forgot to plan enough for that day's lesson. You can "lose track of time" and allow snack to go for 20 minutes or half an hour if need be. Or suppose you need to get through extra material and don't want to allow even the 10 minutes. Then you can say you're going to have a "book club discussion" like those smart people have in coffee shops. You pull the desks into a circle and let them eat while they discuss, and they try to be extra smart to fit the image.
Ah the power of the snack. Never misunderestimate it, my friends. It can be the ultimate motivator, bribe, or comfort. And now I've got to go; I think Jenny Craig is on my lawn yelling mean things toward my house. Weird.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Column #3 - Cell Phones: Connecting or Disconnecting?
I had a strange experience the other day. I think it might lead to a paradigm (aka paradime) shift. I've always thought that a room with four girls in it, especially four girls who are friends, is a room full of the loud, giggle-filled conversation that pervade so much of the female life. But on the occasion of which I write, I was in this room with three other girls and the giggle-filled conversation was directed not toward each other, but into three separate phones. I was surrounded by female company, yet completely alone. Four girls. In a room. Talking to people not present. All of my preconceived notions about female interaction, lost. In a single cell phone filled moment.
It struck me as awfully funny at the moment, and yet it was also a moment of pause.
What new behavior is this new cell phone generation cultivating? We easily ignore the people with whom we're face to face in order to communicate with someone who isn't even there. We lose one more battle in the war against de-personalization.
Therefore, I propose a National Cell Phone Free Day. Remember those good old days when you were unreachable as soon as you stepped out of your house? Those days before you were enslaved to a small colorful square with an insistent song, demanding that you drop what you're doing (coffee with a friend, the typical "you too" to the cashier's "have a nice day," concentrating on the road, etc.) in order to ANSWER THE CALL? Those days when you actually had time to devote to the people around you?
It's time to take one day a year to return to those "good old days."
One day a year we will remember what it was to run out of gas on the side of the road, and have to walk a mile in subfreezing weather, instead of calling Triple A. One day a year we will remember what it was to get home from a long day of shopping, only to remember that we forgot the one thing we really needed - that crucial ingredient - because no one could call us to remind us. One day a year we will remember what it was to decide to stay a little later at the library, only to find out that we missed our best friend passing through on her way south since no one knew where to reach us. One day a year we will remember what it is to be CUT OFF from EVERYONE. Isolated.
Phew. I don't know if I can take that day. Maybe, instead, we can find that elusive middle ground between not being connected enough and being too connected...
It struck me as awfully funny at the moment, and yet it was also a moment of pause.
What new behavior is this new cell phone generation cultivating? We easily ignore the people with whom we're face to face in order to communicate with someone who isn't even there. We lose one more battle in the war against de-personalization.
Therefore, I propose a National Cell Phone Free Day. Remember those good old days when you were unreachable as soon as you stepped out of your house? Those days before you were enslaved to a small colorful square with an insistent song, demanding that you drop what you're doing (coffee with a friend, the typical "you too" to the cashier's "have a nice day," concentrating on the road, etc.) in order to ANSWER THE CALL? Those days when you actually had time to devote to the people around you?
It's time to take one day a year to return to those "good old days."
One day a year we will remember what it was to run out of gas on the side of the road, and have to walk a mile in subfreezing weather, instead of calling Triple A. One day a year we will remember what it was to get home from a long day of shopping, only to remember that we forgot the one thing we really needed - that crucial ingredient - because no one could call us to remind us. One day a year we will remember what it was to decide to stay a little later at the library, only to find out that we missed our best friend passing through on her way south since no one knew where to reach us. One day a year we will remember what it is to be CUT OFF from EVERYONE. Isolated.
Phew. I don't know if I can take that day. Maybe, instead, we can find that elusive middle ground between not being connected enough and being too connected...
Monday, November 17, 2008
Column #2 - The Joys of Hospitality
I Peter 4:9 tells us to "Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling." We know that some have entertained angels unawares, and that widows were placed on widow lists when they exhibited hospitality. Clearly it is an important virtue to be hospitable.
The question is, why? Surely this is a bit obscure. Loving-as-we-are-required aside, why invite people into your home to eat your food and put wet cups on wooden pianos?
At last I have arrived at an answer. Logic and experience have come together to make a stunning revelation. Matthew Henry will probably want to tuck this somewhere in his commentary. Or maybe he'll make it into a major point. Or would have, if he was alive.
Hospitality is important because it makes us clean things that we otherwise wouldn't! Like houses! Or rooms!
I had a friend come over yesterday. She's a new friend, and one who hasn't seen my apartment before. And you know what this extreme case of hospitality led to? I dusted my bookshelves. They haven't been dusted since I moved in about a year ago. Whew. They needed it.
Since then I've been caught gazing raptly at my bookshelves and their radiant whiteness for long periods of time. Okay, not quite. But I have definitely admired their cleanliness more than once!
It's worth some water stains in order to gain that added dose of cleanliness. Which is next to godliness, as we all know (I think that's somewhere in Matthew Henry, too).
And besides, I don't even own a piano.
The question is, why? Surely this is a bit obscure. Loving-as-we-are-required aside, why invite people into your home to eat your food and put wet cups on wooden pianos?
At last I have arrived at an answer. Logic and experience have come together to make a stunning revelation. Matthew Henry will probably want to tuck this somewhere in his commentary. Or maybe he'll make it into a major point. Or would have, if he was alive.
Hospitality is important because it makes us clean things that we otherwise wouldn't! Like houses! Or rooms!
I had a friend come over yesterday. She's a new friend, and one who hasn't seen my apartment before. And you know what this extreme case of hospitality led to? I dusted my bookshelves. They haven't been dusted since I moved in about a year ago. Whew. They needed it.
Since then I've been caught gazing raptly at my bookshelves and their radiant whiteness for long periods of time. Okay, not quite. But I have definitely admired their cleanliness more than once!
It's worth some water stains in order to gain that added dose of cleanliness. Which is next to godliness, as we all know (I think that's somewhere in Matthew Henry, too).
And besides, I don't even own a piano.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Column #1 - A Commuter's Dream
Today I had a chorus practice in Newport. However, I like to say it was a choir practice, because for some reason choir sounds more professional than chorus. But it's a chorus. At least the full name is The Swanhurst Chorus which lends a bit more sophistication. Anyway. All that is beside the point.
The point is that I jumped in my car one hour before practice started, therefore leaving myself the perfect amount of time to arrive in Newport punctually.
HA!
Little did I know that the ENTIRE INTERSTATE 195 EAST had been SHUT DOWN. And not, I hasten to say, because there was a 37 car pile-up, or because an oil tanker had
spilled its contents over all three lanes, or because it was under quarentine due to the plague, or because Jack Bauer was chasing bad guys with nukes. No. It was for construction. CONSTRUCTION! They must be in a pre-winter panic.
I was nearly half an hour late for rehearsal, but that calamity pales in comparison to the fact that it took just over TWO HOURS to make the return trip to my apartment.
As I speedily zipped along the back roads of Swansea, MA at speeds between 0 and 3 mph, I caught a glimpse of a girl going the other direction. It was only a glimpse because I didn't want to be seen staring, not because she was going by so quickly. I could have taken a gaze if I'd wanted to.
In any case, her face expressed perfectly the complex emotion I was feeling: a strange mixture of rage and resignation. I didn't know those feelings could go together. But they can. They can.
That got me thinking about the other people who were in this fix with me. As I looked around and saw people talking on cell phones, bobbing their heads to inaudible music,
staring in front of them as if they could move the endless procession of cars by will power alone, I felt myself entering more fully into what it is to be a part of this human race of ours. I wondered about their destinations, their lives. I contemplated human suffering; the human condition.
It seems that relating to Romantic poets would require a certain amount of communion with nature. To experience a Wordsworthian euphoria one should spend time on a Wordsworthian hilltop or beside a Wordsworthian river deep in the woods.
But there, on little old Route 6 in Swansea, I experienced for myself the "still, sad music of humanity."
I wish, for his sake, Wordsworth could have known the joy of getting home to leftover Chinese food.
The point is that I jumped in my car one hour before practice started, therefore leaving myself the perfect amount of time to arrive in Newport punctually.
HA!
Little did I know that the ENTIRE INTERSTATE 195 EAST had been SHUT DOWN. And not, I hasten to say, because there was a 37 car pile-up, or because an oil tanker had
spilled its contents over all three lanes, or because it was under quarentine due to the plague, or because Jack Bauer was chasing bad guys with nukes. No. It was for construction. CONSTRUCTION! They must be in a pre-winter panic.
I was nearly half an hour late for rehearsal, but that calamity pales in comparison to the fact that it took just over TWO HOURS to make the return trip to my apartment.
As I speedily zipped along the back roads of Swansea, MA at speeds between 0 and 3 mph, I caught a glimpse of a girl going the other direction. It was only a glimpse because I didn't want to be seen staring, not because she was going by so quickly. I could have taken a gaze if I'd wanted to.
In any case, her face expressed perfectly the complex emotion I was feeling: a strange mixture of rage and resignation. I didn't know those feelings could go together. But they can. They can.
That got me thinking about the other people who were in this fix with me. As I looked around and saw people talking on cell phones, bobbing their heads to inaudible music,
staring in front of them as if they could move the endless procession of cars by will power alone, I felt myself entering more fully into what it is to be a part of this human race of ours. I wondered about their destinations, their lives. I contemplated human suffering; the human condition.
It seems that relating to Romantic poets would require a certain amount of communion with nature. To experience a Wordsworthian euphoria one should spend time on a Wordsworthian hilltop or beside a Wordsworthian river deep in the woods.
But there, on little old Route 6 in Swansea, I experienced for myself the "still, sad music of humanity."
I wish, for his sake, Wordsworth could have known the joy of getting home to leftover Chinese food.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Budding Columnists
This year I'm team teaching a journalism class with the 8th to 10th grade students. It was one of those week-before-school-hey-I-was-thinking kinds of classes. I love those.
Anyway, it's only once a week, and I've been managing to come up with SOMEthing
to teach them each week. Sadly I've made my way through most of the newspaper (articles, editorials, reviews, letters to the editor...) and it's only the beginning of the second quarter. But fortunately I hit upon something last week that should take up a big chunk of time: Writing Columns!
Being a columnist would be my second dream job. Maybe. At least it seems interesting and enjoyable. In any case, I read a bunch of columns to my students (including a great Dave Barry article about taking his baby on an airplane) and then assigned them to write mini-columns 4 times a week. I even gave them those inspiring marble notebooks to keep their columns in. Then in class they'll share them and choose one idea to develop into a full-blown column.
It's a lot like blogging really, and I told them I'll be doing it too, so I think I'll do my "column" right here on my blog. So look for a bit of an increase in blog material... But don't look with your expectations too high, since life is pretty busy now that I've joined a local chorus (!!!). Still, I've got to keep up with it for my students.
Now you're warned.
Anyway, it's only once a week, and I've been managing to come up with SOMEthing
to teach them each week. Sadly I've made my way through most of the newspaper (articles, editorials, reviews, letters to the editor...) and it's only the beginning of the second quarter. But fortunately I hit upon something last week that should take up a big chunk of time: Writing Columns!
Being a columnist would be my second dream job. Maybe. At least it seems interesting and enjoyable. In any case, I read a bunch of columns to my students (including a great Dave Barry article about taking his baby on an airplane) and then assigned them to write mini-columns 4 times a week. I even gave them those inspiring marble notebooks to keep their columns in. Then in class they'll share them and choose one idea to develop into a full-blown column.
It's a lot like blogging really, and I told them I'll be doing it too, so I think I'll do my "column" right here on my blog. So look for a bit of an increase in blog material... But don't look with your expectations too high, since life is pretty busy now that I've joined a local chorus (!!!). Still, I've got to keep up with it for my students.
Now you're warned.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Why I'm Voting for John McCain
*National Security - I trust McCain's experience and perspective in the War on Terror.
*Social Issues - McCain is on the right side of issues such as abortion and marriage.
*Economy - McCain is not into big government, or "spreading the wealth around."
*Supreme Court Nominations - McCain wants judges who will interpret the Constitution (which is, by the way, their job), not engage is social activism from the bench.
*Wicked Fun Times - Because of John McCain I had one of the most exhilarating times of my life attending a political rally at which McCain and Curt Schilling appeared! I couldn't believe I was actually seeing JOHN MCCAIN right THERE in FRONT OF ME! Oh the cheers, screams, yells, dancing, sign waving, pom-pom rustling, jumping, and camaraderie. HURRAH! GO MCCAIN!
*More Wicked Fun Times - Also because of John McCain I had an awesome time sign waving with Craig and Sarah and the Bible School in Keene - cheering and yelling till we were hoarse. And the awesome thing was the response we got! SO many people honking and smiling, giving thumbs up and even yelling support out the windows. And so many of them young!! And so many of them in cammo:) Yeah! People are smarter than the media lets on! HURRAH! GO MCCAIN!
*Social Issues - McCain is on the right side of issues such as abortion and marriage.
*Economy - McCain is not into big government, or "spreading the wealth around."
*Supreme Court Nominations - McCain wants judges who will interpret the Constitution (which is, by the way, their job), not engage is social activism from the bench.
*Wicked Fun Times - Because of John McCain I had one of the most exhilarating times of my life attending a political rally at which McCain and Curt Schilling appeared! I couldn't believe I was actually seeing JOHN MCCAIN right THERE in FRONT OF ME! Oh the cheers, screams, yells, dancing, sign waving, pom-pom rustling, jumping, and camaraderie. HURRAH! GO MCCAIN!
*More Wicked Fun Times - Also because of John McCain I had an awesome time sign waving with Craig and Sarah and the Bible School in Keene - cheering and yelling till we were hoarse. And the awesome thing was the response we got! SO many people honking and smiling, giving thumbs up and even yelling support out the windows. And so many of them young!! And so many of them in cammo:) Yeah! People are smarter than the media lets on! HURRAH! GO MCCAIN!
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