Don't Stop Believing?

Guilty pleasure time: I still watch Glee. I also still watch Grey's Anatomy, I watched every episode of Private Practice until it was finally and mercifully cancelled, and I love The Office and will probably cry when it's over even though it jumped the shark long ago... but none of those are relevant right now. This is about Glee.

In all honesty, I don't really *enjoy* Glee anymore; I listened to the episode I watched tonight more than I watched it, and there are many points (last month's ridiculous "school shooting but not" episode would certainly be one) where I should have bailed. But I have a crippling inability to give up on anything once I've started, and that particularly applies to stories. I finish every book I start, I can't leave a play or movie before it's over regardless of how bad it is, and I watch every episode of every show I begin. (This is why I don't take starting a new series lightly - if/when I start Mad Men, Dr. Who, and/or Parks and Recreation, each one will consume a significant chunk of time.) I like to think that this is what makes me a good teacher, too - it is a *rare* thing for me to give up on a student, and even when I do, it plagues and pains me every time I see them.

But, I've been thinking a lot about giving up lately. I've thought about giving up on job applications that seem fruitless, giving up and phoning in my job that isn't my job anymore, and giving up on teaching altogether. Why should I keep subjecting myself to this? A profession where on a DAILY basis, I deal with students criticizing me, parents questioning me, and virtually NO ONE outside my direct peers praising me? The bathroom I use at work is constantly covered in phrases like, "I love penis" and "F**k this school and this town." It's still got zip ties in it from the senior "prank" earlier this week. I bring hours worth of work home with me every night, and then I feel guilty if/when I don't do it because I choose to *gasp* spend time with my fiancee or treat myself to a longer bath than necessary. If I had chosen any other profession, I'm sure I would have other problems to complain about, but I'm pretty sure I would feel (and be compensated) more like a professional while dealing with them.

But this is about Glee.

I realized this evening that tomorrow night is the season finale of Glee for this year. I immediately remembered, with terrifying clarity, where I was when I watched the first season finale of Glee three years ago (you know, when I really did enjoy it because the writing was more clever and the singing was still novel). I was watching in my "ghetto apartment" about two weeks after my student teaching had ended, on my 14" television which was dependent on the digital-age version of an analog antenna (which still worked better covered in aluminum foil than not and depended far too much on the direction and intensity of the wind) in the recliner I took from my parents' house, in the DARK because I was trying to save on the electricity bill.

And as those kids sang their reprise of "Don't Stop Believing" for what already felt like the billionth time, after utterly failing at regionals... I bawled my eyes out. In that cruddy old recliner, in the dark, I bawled my eyes out because their teacher was watching them with utmost pride, and that resonated with me.

That all seems so long ago. I was poor as sin, tragically single, and nearly devoid of friends (or so I thought at the time). Now I'm marginally less poor, getting married in 43 days, and the one thing I'm sure of is that there are people who care about me. But I'm not sure if I'll even so much as tear up this year when Mr. Schue inevitably gets misty-eyed over the performances and prospective futures of his students. I'm not sure if I have any tears left for anyone other than myself, or if I have enough idealism left to believe the same way those overgrown fictional teenagers or their teacher do...

... but I'm trying not to stop.

Going hunting

I started researching today for a poetry activity I'm going to do with my kiddos in a few weeks - I'm straight up stealing a WCP lesson where you just continually throw poems at kids almost all hour and then ask them what they did and didn't like. Very simple, but when you're dealing with kids and poetry, especially with 6th graders who think poetry always has to rhyme, it's all about exposure. Anyway, I realized I would need to find a LOT of poems that are appropriate for this age group, and I didn't want to be all lame and obvious about it by photocopying a bunch of Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss. So I hit up the Poetry Foundation. I'll be gathering things from there (and taking suggestions! hint, hint!) for another week or so until I'm ready to kick off our big poetry unit, but this is my favorite that I found today. It immediately reminded me of a Rilke poem I read on the very first day of my internship last year, and that made me smile.



Blueprints?
By Sara Holbrook

Will my ears grow long as Grandpa's?
What makes us look like kin?
Tell me where'd I get long eyelashes
and where'd I get my chin?

Where'd I get my ice cream sweet tooth
and this nose that wiggles when I talk?
Where'd I get my dizzy daydreams
and my foot-rolling, side-step walk?

Did I inherit my sense of humor
and these crooked, ugly toes?
What if I balloon like Uncle Harry
and have to shave my nose?

How long after I start growing
until I start to shrink?
Am I going to lose my teeth,
some day?
My hair?
My mind?

Do you think
I'll be tall or short or thin
or bursting at the seams?
Am I naturally this crazy?
Is it something in my genes?

I'm more than
who I am,
I'm also
who I'm from.
It's a scary speculation--
Who will I become?

A Stalling Tactic

I don't have anything new finished yet, but I'm feeling the need to post something on this lazy Sunday afternoon. So, here's a piece I wrote at the end of January - one of you in particular will recognize it from a time that already seems to be lifetimes ago. I'm not completely satisfied with it (the ending especially bothers me... I guess that's because there isn't an end yet!), but it may also end up being necessary as a reference for one of the poems I'm working on/avoiding - we'll see if that pans out soon. (Keep bothering me about it/them!) Also worth noting: it was done as an imitation exercise (see A.R. Ammons' piece, "Autobiographical Note," which I tried to find online but failed) - hence, the extremely choppy tone. Although it actually suits my voice just fine, it would feel a bit different if the idea had been mine originally.

(I'm blanking out some of the more specific identifying details since this is going out on the wild, wild interwebz, but I didn't want to eliminate them entirely and ruin the rhythm of the piece.)



Autobiographical Note

I was born in the sweltering Kansas heat of August --, 19--. I was a heavyweight champion among newborns. A week late in coming, I had tested my mother’s strength as the visiting relatives-in-law tested her patience. Shortly thereafter, her own sister videotaped me for hours as I slept; I can’t recall if my patience was tested. Nearly five years and a pioneer’s journey to the Great White North later, my sister Emily was born in August of 19--. For weeks, I had been telling people around town that I was to have a little sister and her name would be Emily. None of this had been confirmed or decided. What if I’d insisted she would be an extraterrestrial named Walter? I tolerated eight years of the realtor’s fake smiling and my mother’s hem-hawing and my father’s eyes rolling as we looked for a house. Just after we found 2-- S. C------- St, a tornado came within a mile of knocking it down as I cowered in the apartment’s bathtub, praying to never see the realtor again. That fall, my father walked me from the new house to fourth grade with Emily in tow each day – they walked on to the donut shop unbeknownst to me or my mother. A few years later, the school was knocked down and replaced by an Arby’s restaurant. I refuse to eat at any Arby’s to this day, despite my love of curly fries, because I loved my school more. When my best friend and I “graduated” from junior high in 2001, I told him that in four years, I would give our high school valedictorian speech and he would be salutatorian. He held up his end of the bargain. In August of 2005, I returned to the sweltering Kansas heat, this time in pursuit of higher knowledge and most importantly, a teaching license.

(Grr... such a cop-out ending, but I don't have the energy to fix it. It's too hot. Time for some iced tea.)