52 New Things -- Week 3 -- Basketball for All

Fun, fun, fun!

That's the best way to describe Tuesday night, I think.  And even better, I get to spend the next two months doing the same thing every Tuesday night.

Now that we're settled here in Minnesota, I've been looking for a volunteer opportunity.  Since leaving Colorado, I haven't really done much of anything to help anyone, and I find that my life feels shallow when I'm focused solely on myself.

I saw that the YMCA was looking for "buddies" for their "Basketball for All" program, so I signed us both up. (Kevin may not know it, but he needs to volunteer, too!) Neither of us have a lot of experience working with kids with special needs, but we were both camp counselors back in the day, so I figured we wouldn't be completely awful.

I distinctly remember Special Ed. Week at Lutheran Lakeside Camp. I was all of nineteen and had zero past experience with the population about to arrive. The brief training we got terrified me, as did the fact that two other counselors moved into my cabin in preparation for the six women campers who'd be staying there for the week. A 3:6 ratio? Obviously this was going to be a long, hard week, caring for these difficult, demanding people.

Yes, it was a hard week.  But it was also amazing.

I don't think anyone was as excited to go to camp as those adults with special needs. They had the times of their lives in those six short days. Yes, there were moments that tried my patience and/or grossed me out, but the same could be said for any other week with any other campers.  And that whole "faith like a child" thing the Bible talks about (and most of us struggle with)? This gang had it covered.

The best part of the week, though, was the final night when we had a dance. We had a dance every week -- your typical teenage dance, with some kids confidently showing off their moves but most either too embarrassed to dance or deludedly too cool to do anything but stand on the sidelines and roll their eyes. Our Special Ed. campers? I've never seen anything like it. I'm not sure I ever will again, this side of heaven. They danced their hearts out.  It was like American Bandstand, Flashdance, Soul Train, and Grease all rolled into one. No one gave a rip about what anyone thought of them. It was beautiful.

AND I got a free t-shirt!  What a deal!

That dance -- that exhibition of freedom to fully be who they were -- jumped into my mind Tuesday night as I saw kids dribbling and shooting and showing off for their new buddies. They were superstars. No one was going to make fun of them. No one was going to say they weren't good enough for the team. It was all high fives and fist bumps and showers of praise. For one hour, they had nothing to worry about.  Happiness reigned.

And you know what? For two people who can easily get caught up worrying about our own problems, an hour of all smiles and no worries was pretty great for us, too. That's usually the case -- I go into situations planning to help people, but I unexpectedly end up happier and more thankful and wondering who's helping who.

I can't wait to go back.  :)

52 New Things -- Week 2 -- Teaching Kindergarten

It's good to face your fears, right?  And it's completely irrational to fear a room full of five-year-olds, I know.  So Thursday morning, when my sub choices were high school chemistry or kindergarten, I chose kindergarten.

Below is a summary of the day.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent the whiners.

5:30AM  Accept kindergarten sub job.
6:00AM  Remember I can't stand large groups of small children.  Consider cancelling.
6:15AM  Remember financial goals which can't be met if I spend the entire day in my pajamas hiding from children.  Take deep breaths and forge ahead.
7:45AM  Arrive at elementary school.  Circle school looking for an unlocked door so I can get into the building.  Consider this difficulty a sign from God that I should not be here.
8:10AM  First students walk in.  Twenty minutes early.  Seriously?
8:12AM  Tie shoe.
8:14AM  Tie shoe.
8:16AM  Tie shoe.
8:18AM  Tie shoe.  Wonder why no one has taught these children to tie their shoes.  Make mental note to start tying triple knots.
8:30AM  Day officially begins.  Try to project confidence as children can smell fear.  Celebrate one of the eighteen kids being absent.
8:35AM  Make children repeat "Tiffany" three times since they are slaughtering "Miss Tiffany."  Realize the name "Tiffany" is foreign to anyone born after 1987.
8:40AM  Release children to "work stations."  According to Montessori schedule, they will be "working" until 11:15.  Try to distinguish difference between "supervising 'work time'" and "large-scale babysitting" to no avail.
8:50AM  Hysterical screaming from corner.  Tyler has fallen off step-stool while washing his hands.  Inspection shows minor scrape to elbow.  Soap, water, and a speech to toughen up, kid.
9:00AM  Spit on three times in thirty seconds while listening to a kid who can't say his p's without some projectile.  Make mental note to back up next time he speaks.
9:15AM  Check the clock. Wonder if clock has stopped working. Check cell phone. Realize no, I really do have to endure this "work time" for two more hours.
10:00AM  Joel says, "I'm starving." Launch into lecture.  "Children in Africa who have no food are starving. You are not starving. You may be hungry, but you are not starving."  Child stares blankly at me and asks when Miss Renee is coming back.
11:15AM  Work time over!  Hooray!  Read a book. Quiet for ten minutes.  Hallelujah.
11:30AM  Walk children to recess.
11:40AM  Scarf down lunch while sitting in a little chair at a little table.  Try to maneuver spoon to mouth without dripping soup on very-much-in-the-way knees.
12:00PM  Head to lunchroom to supervise.  Loudness of classroom times ten.  Headache begins.
12:05PM  Parent shows up to take one girl to an appointment.  Celebrate being down to sixteen kids.
12:10PM  Open Gogurts, Fruit Roll-ups, and twenty other lunch items.  Wonder at what age children advance beyond monkeys re: fine motor skills.
12:20PM  Instruct everyone to wash syrup off hands.
12:25PM  Conduct smell-for-soap test to weed out the sneaky little liars who did not wash their hands.
12:30PM  Begin "quiet reading time" which is really "look at pictures in books time" because duh, these kids can't read.
12:40PM  More "work time."  Consider banging head against wall.
12:50PM  Megan sobs uncontrollably.  Try the phrase, "Use your words." She blubbers something about a book.  Tell her to sit down until she's calm and then try again.  She asks when Miss Renee is coming back.
1:15PM  Sneak two Tylenol out of purse.
1:20PM  More crying.  Why isn't there nap time in this school?
1:30PM  Multiple children come down with headaches and sore legs and request to see the nurse.  Feel foreheads for hotness and send the one that seems to actually be hot to the office.
1:40PM  More crying. More questions of when Miss Renee will come back.
1:50PM  Girl with fever goes home sick.  Cry foul and ask why I didn't get a say in this.  Request to keep her and send home kid who cries every ten minutes.
2:00PM  Kids go to music.  Praise the Lord.
2:10PM  Hold head in hands and wonder why the Tylenol hasn't kicked in yet.
2:20PM  Back from music, someone cuts the cheese.  Try to control sensitive gag reflex.  How can such a horrid smell come out of such a small body?
2:30PM  Zip fifteen coats.  Wonder again about monkeys and fine motor skills.
2:40PM  Load kids onto buses.
2:50PM  Write teacher notes about the day.  Wonder how to nicely phrase comments about excessive whiners.
3:00PM  Drive home thankful this is not my day-to-day job.

So, a day in a kindergarten classroom has just reconfirmed what I already knew: mass gatherings of kiddos do not make me happy.  But points for trying something new, right?

Qualifications . . .

The sub system is kind of crazy in the sense that anyone who has a teaching license can sub in ANY area, qualified or not.

I know my limitations.  I decline any requests to sub for kindergarten through third grades, and also upper level math and science classes.  I was an English major, so a day in a chemistry classroom would pretty much be nightmarish for me.  Same with a room full of six-year-olds.

But Wednesday night when a middle school music position popped up on my iPhone, I accepted.  I was in band.  I was the majorette my senior year for our little marching band, so you could say I've even got conducting experience.  It's a stretch, but I thought I'd do okay.

When I got to the school Thursday morning, I was told the P.E. teacher was also sick and I'd need to cover for him first hour.  I looked down at what I was wearing: a sweater, dress pants, and dress shoes with a one-inch heel.  Hmmm.

It turned out to be fine -- another P.E. teacher handed me a microphone and told me to call fouls and outs in kickball, then took her class to the second gym.  It was a rather uneventful hour.  Supervising kickball's not that hard, right? 

And then, five minutes before the end of the period, an old woman hobbled into the gym.  She said she was replacing me as the P.E. sub for the rest of the day. 

I'm not trying to sound discriminatory.  I love old people.  I know someday I'm going to be an old person myself.  I just hope and pray that when that day comes, I will be living contentedly in an assisted living facility rather than velcro-ing up my tennies and shuffling off to supervise middle school P.E.

"She's nearly 80," the secretary said when I went back to the office to pick up the band room key.  "I don't know why she'd accept a sub day in P.E. . . . "

I worried about her all day.  At lunch I wondered if I should go down and check on her.  I pictured mean middle schoolers purposely pelting her with the kickball.  She looked like a strong breeze would blow her over.  I feared she'd break a hip or worse.

Then another teacher came into the band room and introduced himself.

"Tiffany Malcom," I replied.

Whoops.  I may be more physically capable, but I'm guessing the old lady down in the gym could get her own name right. 

Score one for Grandma.

52 New Things -- Week 1 -- Coffee

First up -- drink coffee!!

This week seemed like a good time to knock this one off the list since we were in Waverly at the same time as one of Kevin's oldest friends, a guy who just happens to own a fancy coffee machine thingie.  He ground the beans and pressed the grinds and I don't know what all.  There was even some steaming of milk involved.  It looked complicated.  The end result was this:

Fancy, huh?  Luke could quit his job as a tenured professor and become a barista.  The pay's probably comparable, right?

He and his wife Kjellrun watched me nervously sniff at it before taking a tentative first sip.  Here's my "Yes, it's beautiful but it's still coffee" face as I go for this first sip:

 

I'd like to say it changed my life and I will join the ranks of adults everywhere who love coffee, but . . . no.  I gave it a good effort.  I'd say I had ten swallows.  That's trying, right?

My sister-in-law really wanted me to try again, so she gave me some "doctored" coffee -- flavored coffee PLUS about fifteen shots of flavored cream.  Yeah, it wasn't as strong, but I could still taste the coffee.

I'll stick with the kids and drink orange juice for breakfast.

The New Reality

I accepted the 4th grade sub job late Sunday night, momentarily forgetting what had happened on Friday.  On Monday morning the realization struck, and for a second I thought about cancelling.  I didn't want to face a room of children who might have questions.  What do I know?  What could I say?

But then, sadly, I realized that if there were questions, I'd probably be better equiped to answer them than a recent college grad who might get assigned the sub job if I cancelled.  I've never had to answer questions about twenty kindergarteners dying in their classrooms, but I've answered questions about similar slaughters in other schools.  And malls.  And churches.  And movie theaters.

I don't know what's happening in America.  All I know is that things have changed since I first walked into a classroom in 1997.  Even before Friday, safety has been on my mind as a sub.  Every day I'm in a different classroom, and honestly I often look around and wonder about the what-ifs.  We used to do fire drills and tornado drills -- now schools do lockdown drills.  When I did a long-term sub job this fall, we had both an external lockdown drill and an internal lockdown drill. For the first, the teacher simply locked the door and kept teaching, but for the internal drill, everyone had to crouch and huddle in the back of the room, absolutely silent in the dark.  You can't help but do a mental replay of all the school shootings you've heard about over the last fifteen years.  What if, what if, what if . . .

I don't know what the answer is.  For four days now we've been ambushed with a wide range of opinions on everything from gun control to mental health to religious revival.  And school safety.  So many opinions.  Do I want to walk through a metal detector every morning as I come into school?  Get patted down like I do at the airport?  Get trained in how to use a gun so I can defend a classroom?  I don't know.  I don't know if anything will keep evil out.

All I know is that when I was a fourth grader, my biggest worry was whether or not I'd get invited to someone's birthday party.  Maybe I got anxious about tests or wondered if the boy I liked didn't like me back because I wore glasses.  But never in my wildest dreams did I enter my classroom with a quivering lower lip and teary eyes, trying to put on a brave face while secretly wondering if today would be the day someone would come into my classroom and start shooting. Never.  And I am so sad that this is the new reality for kids.

52 New Things

While we were in Miami a couple of weeks ago, I got a little bummed when I realized we have no other trips on our horizon.  India and Miami were both pretty inexpensive since they were connected to Kevin's work, but now we've got to focus on saving more than spending.  I did one of those deep, woe-is-me sighs, thinking I had nothing to look forward to . . . and then we drove past a cemetery.

I know cemeteries creep some people out, but I've never really felt that way.  Cemeteries, to me, are always a good wake-up call.  Everyone lying under the ground in a cemetery was once a living, breathing person.  They may have had a lot of years or not enough.  They might have died full of happiness or full of regret.  I don't know all their stories, but I do know the story of one person who will join them one day.  I'm writing that story every day.  Every day, I have options.  Choices.  Decisions.  Altogether, they add up, and one day I'll either go to the grave feeling blessed or bitter.  It's my choice.

So as we cruised through Miami, I wondered why I'd let the lack of vacation plans get me down.  Why live from vacation to vacation?  Shouldn't life itself be an adventure?  Why settle for the mundane?  I decided my New Year's Resolution for 2013 would be to do something new every day.  Live it up.

In the two weeks since then, I've rethought that a bit.  A new thing every day isn't going to work.  For one thing, this Carpe Diem idea isn't new to me.  I've kind of been living it up for most of my life and done a lot of stuff.  To try to come up with 365 new things to do would be a lot of work.  And second, who has time for that?  I mean, if I'm focusing on positivity and living life to the fullest, I don't want my goal to become a burden.

So I've modified my plan a little.  One new thing every week in 2013.

That's still 52 new things, though, and when I brainstormed a bit yesterday, I could only come up with 31 ideas.  Can you help me out?  Is there something you've done that I should try?  Or something you've always wanted to do that we could try together?  Keep in mind that we're not made of money, so while "vacation in Fiji" sounds awesome, it's not going to make the cut.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• make creme brulee with one of those torch thingies
• learn to drive a tractor (I know! I'm a farm girl and I don't already know this?  Come on!)
• drink a cup of coffee (I'm throwing up in my mouth a little just imagining it.) 
• try ski blades
• eat something I grew myself

So . . . nothing earth shattering, really, but things that will be outside my normal day-to-day operations and stretch me a little mentally (and sometimes physically).  I'm looking forward to your suggestions!!

Incredible India

I subbed at an elementary school over in La Crosse today, so on my way home I stopped for a little stroll around a park along the Mississippi River.  I couldn't help but be struck by how different it was than my surroundings last week.  Here's a brief compare and contrast:

People:
Pettibone Park: In half an hour, I saw three frisbee golfers and two walkers.  Five people in half an hour.
India: Where do I begin?  As I told our driver after one particularly busy stop, it's hard to find a quiet spot in India.  There are people everywhere.  Some made us feel like rock stars (in a good way), asking to take pictures with us.  Seriously.  We must be on so many people's Facebook pages right now.  Others made us feel like rock stars in a bad way, as in "you're rich so give me some money."  That was the worst part of the trip for me, that everyone assumed we were wealthy and got mad when we left the same tips we'd leave in America.  But then we saw MTV's Punk'd on TV one morning, and Justin Bieber blew up a yacht to punk Taylor Swift and had someone drive a car through a restaurant window to punk Sean Kingston . . . so yeah, I can see where Indians get the idea that Americans have money to blow.  Thanks, entertainment industry.  Add in monkeys, dogs, and lots of meandering cows . . . it's a busy place.

I just covered my eyes and prayed a lot . . .

Traffic:
Pettibone Park: I walked past one parked car.  One truck drove past me.
India: Holy crap, I thought for sure someone was gonna die.  I was praying it wouldn't be me, but I didn't really want to see someone else killed either.  The traffic in India is insane.  I thought I'd seen it all in Ghana, but India was even more chaotic.  Giant trucks and buses, little cars, tuk-tuks (auto rickshaws), motor bikes, bicycles, and people pushing carts -- the streets are full all day every day.  And lane lines?  Mere suggestions.  People use their horns not out of annoyance but as a "hey, I'm coming at you" courtesy blare.  And then they pretty much just pull out in front of anyone and hope they stop and let you in.  From what I could tell, the biggest vehicle usually won: cars yielded to buses, tuk tuks to cars, and bikes were pretty much the biggest loser every time.  I sat in the back seat, grimacing and praying, fearing we'd get nailed by a bus or we'd run over someone on a bike.  It was seriously scary.  When Raj, our driver, dropped us off at the airport, I thanked him for not letting us die and handed him a fat tip.  You couldn't pay me to get behind the wheel in India . . . certain death!

Environment:
Pettibone Park: Fresh, clean air with the sweet smell of fallen leaves, the mighty Mississippi rolling by, and lots of big, tall trees.  And quiet.  Blissful quiet.
India: The triple crown of smells: sewage, car exhaust, and smoke.  The air quality is shockingly bad.  I kept commenting to Kevin that people had to die earlier in India because of it.  I just looked it up and found American male life expectancy is ten years longer than Indian males.  For women, it's twelve years.  I had to cover my face sometimes, but what can you expect when 1.2 billion people are crammed into a country that's only 1/3 the size of the U.S.?  (And we've only got 312 million or so people living here.)  Too many cars, nowhere to put garbage or human waste, and lots of people who depend on fires for warmth and cooking make for polluted air and earth.  We were also there during a festival called Diwali, a celebration featuring fireworks and firecrackers . . . at one point we made a fake war correspondent video on the balcony of our hotel with the constant popping and booming in the background.  It sounded like we were under attack!  Add in the never-ending sound of car horns as mentioned above . . . it was a loud, loud week.  And if you've ever seen the Mississippi and thought it was polluted, you don't want to see the water Indians were bathing and washing clothes in.

Seriously stunning . . .

Raj kept repeating the phrase "Incredible India," which I gathered was the country's tourism campaign.  Despite the bad stuff, it really is an amazing country with so much to see.  We marveled at the architecture of their monuments and historic sites.  We just don't have the history in America that India does . . . I mean, many of their monuments are older than our country.  The Taj Mahal?  Built in 1653.  America wasn't even America yet.  The fact that their builders and artisans were that advanced that early on is really impressive. 

Women in India walk an average of 3.7 miles, morning & night, for water.

But man, it makes me glad I was born here.  Much like my trips to Africa, visiting India reminded me that I won the geographic lottery.  The things I take for granted every day -- water when I turn on the faucet, waste that gets flushed into a sewer system, food I can cook on a stove, traffic rules that are enforced, work that isn't demeaning -- aren't so easy to come by in India. 

It was nice to visit but it was even nicer to come home.