I hate Richard Louv

May his conservative, manipulative ass roast in hell. I just ranted about him for 8 pages in my journal for class, so I don't feel particularly inclined to rant about him any more, but I needed one final shout of rage. Hmmm... or maybe I could just put my log up on my blog. It's in table format. I wonder if blogger can handle that. Well I'll give it a try.

Ok, I can't get a table, but it's mostly readable. It's only two columns: the first one is the author's important ideas which is usually a quote followed by a page number in parentheses and the second column is me ranting my ass off.

Here is me ranting my ass off about Last Child in the Woods, a book about how children need more time playing out in nature. To give you a little background, I'm not opposed to the idea. I spent a lot of my childhood roaming around outdoors freely and I think I turned out ok. But then I also enjoy video games and don't think they're damaging our children. So this is my log that I'm turning in to my teacher tomorrow word for word except there were a few more paragraphs in my original table (they didn't copy and damned if I'm going through this whole thing pressing enter every time I think it's needed).

Enjoy.


First impression (1) I suppose the first question I have to ask (and hope will be addressed) is what about people who don’t have the money to be near nature?

Anecdote about son (1) A personal anecdote seems to be the inspiration for this book. I wonder if this is a common experience shared by many people. I, myself, explored a lot as a kid, but I also really enjoyed video games and other indoor activities. Perhaps only the author’s son feels this way about outdoor activities. I would like more evidence.

Summer camp stories (2) The change in summer activities could be interpreted as a move from outdoor to indoor activities, but it could also be interpreted as a move from play to work (camp is much more an expression of play than weight loss camp). Both I think are valid interpretations that lead to a similar conclusion.

Nature (4) I know it’s a pretty commonly accepted term, but I think the use of nature is itself ambiguous. Technically, everything on Earth is natural. Humans evolved the way they did naturally, so all human creations must be natural. I have to wonder at what point man became unnatural.

“On its face, New York City may not appear natural, but it does contain all manner of hidden, self-organizing wild places” (8) I’m pleased to see this point here. It addresses the concern I had earlier about not being able to afford being near nature.

“when I use the word ‘nature’ in a general way, I mean natural wilderness: biodiversity, abundance – related loose parts in a backyard or a rugged mountain ridge” (8-9) Almost as soon as he addresses my concerns, he un-addresses them. Not everyone can live near a rugged mountain ridge or have their own backyard. Though I do appreciate a specific definition of nature.

“The woods were my Ritalin” (10) I have some issues with this. I can be patient and wait for the book to later substantiate its claim about lack of nature causing ADD, but the truth of the matter is, I don’t really believe in ADD. There may be some cases of it, but in general, I think it’s just kids acting their age. Their age just happens to have a lot of energy. If lack of nature really causes ADD, then there should be a lot of people with ADD, but I don’t think there really are.

“ ‘I like to play indoors better, ‘cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are’” (10) I have to wonder where child preference comes into play in this book. Can you or should you force a child to play outdoors if that’s not what they want to do?

“But for many others, playing in nature seemed so… Unproductive. Off-limits. Alien. Cute. Dangerous. Televised” (10) I can just hear the disdain in his voice, after spending several paragraphs on the majesty of nature to refer to it with this string of irreverent adjectives. He certainly chooses his words well to arouse that same sense of disdain in the reader.

“Though several [parents] lived on the same block, this was the first time that some of these parents had met each other” (11) This book is lined with sentences like this, and I think it’s worthwhile to stop and analyze one of them in depth. The whole structure of the sentence seems to imply that people should know their neighbors as that is the assumed, natural way of things. Then it points to the fact that even though these parents are in a situation where they should know their neighbors, some of them have never met. It offers this sentence like some strange, lamentable fact, but this “fact” contains many tacit assumptions and premises that are inaccurate. It’s as though the author hopes to convince us of his point by bombarding us with manufactured truisms about the changing face of the new society. Let’s question his assumptions. Should we know our neighbors? I don’t see any reason why we should. Perhaps to build a better community, though the whole idea sounds a little forced to me. You can’t really choose your neighbors. Now is this a new state of affairs? My parents don’t know their neighbors. My grandparents didn’t know theirs. Perhaps I’m anomalous, but I doubt I’m that out of the ordinary. Over and over again in this book, the reader is offered tidbits of the good way things used to be contrasted with the sad and pitiable way that things are now. The framing of the facts is impeccable, but I notice it (this is partly because of all the cognitive linguistics classes I’ve taken where we take texts like this and analyze word by word all the metaphors and assumptions inherent in each sentence) and it makes me very resistant to what the author is saying. I feel like he’s trying to manipulate me. Why can’t he just lay down the facts without manipulative language? Is he too worried that people will reject his opinion if he lets the facts speak for themselves? I suppose this is the point where I just stopped trusting what the author was trying to say. I have a biased text, and even if nature may be helpful to people, I just don’t want to hear it at this point. If his tone changes, I might change my mind, but from here on out, I feel like I’m going to be trudging through something that tries to change my mind illegitimately. I’m honestly a little sick that I have to keep reading and giving this author more chances to infect me with his bias.

“Beard epitomizes a time when a young person’s experience of nature was inseparable from the romantic view of the American frontier” (15) After the quote on page 11 when I sat down and really thought about what was going on, I was really trying to gloss over the text and give it less of a chance to piss me off, but this sentence stood out so much I could help but go off on a tirade. Before I thought the book was classist. Now I thin it’s racist too. How can you call the American frontier romantic? The only people who can say that are white. The race of the author is painfully apparent. He paints this ideal, suburban 50s society where everyone gets to know their new neighbor by bringing them a jello mold as soon as they move in to the neighborhood where, of course, everyone is white. It is extremely obvious to me that this book is targeted directly at white people. I just can’t imagine these words coming out of the mouth of anyone else. He sits here and talks about his love of nature, but that love of nature comes at a price. He says on page 14 that we have a mixed message about valuing nature and then tearing it down and gives a precious little picture of a would-be poet girl whose inspiration was destroyed when her favorite forest was torn down. Awwww. Just makes you weep. What he doesn’t mention is what was put in place of that forest. I’m going to take a wild guess and say it was housing. There’s always new housing going up. It’s immensely profitable. Everyone wants to live the American dream and have a house in the suburbs, especially since the suburbs bring us closer to nature, which is obviously so good for our children, according to this book. Then they can play in our quaint backyard next to the rocky ridge! Oh the ridge was torn down? What a shame. Let’s make a jello mold! There isn’t enough space, money, or equity to give everyone the dream this author is selling. This book is destroying nature by its very existence! He may criticize suburbs for not being natury enough, but that’s not the take home message here. The take home message is “have a nice little backyard and force your children to play in it.” And here he romanticizes the American frontier (and later goes on to say all the good that came of it and how it improved our psyche and made us hearty and better than every other country in the world) which was one long history of injustice and removal of people (primarily Indians) from nature. There was the great dividing and partitioning of the land, folklore about how many trees Paul Bunyan can cut down, importing Chinese laborers to do the work you don’t want to do (building a railroad) that allows even more people to come to the west and mess with the land even more. He talks about a mixed message and doesn’t even realize what he’s doing!

“ ‘the existence of an area of free land…’ explained the development of the American nation, history and character” (17) He takes this big bucket of American patriotism and justifies our arrogance by the existence of a frontier and our relation to (conquering of) nature. So that’s why we’re so much better than all those other countries that never had that experience.

“an increased intellectual understanding of our relationship with other animals” (19) and “more young people may be vegetarians or consume foods from the health food store, but fewer are likely to raise their own food – especially if the food is an animal” (21) He uses the qualifier “intellectual” so that it’s clear we don’t really understand nature and animals. He looks down on vegetarians as not really knowing what they’re doing. It’s like he’s saying “sure it sounds like they’re doing the right thing, but since they have no idea what an animal is, it’s for all the wrong reasons.” Grrrr… I hate this author. There are constant, subtle jibes at so many things that don’t deserve it.

“even the definition of life itself is up for grabs” (21) He keeps talking about how the world is changing and all the awful new things he sees in it, but most of this stuff isn’t even new. Roe v Wade was big milestone in the debate on life, and that’s not terribly new (it’s from his venerable generation that knew the value of nature, after all). I’m sure there are many other examples as well.

“For baby boomers, such news is fascinating, strange, disturbing” (23) Every word and scenario is described in such a way as to make it seem disturbing (what exactly does he have against genetic, anyway? I’m guessing he dislikes making progress toward curing genetic diseases). He is clearly disturbed by the news and expects us to be too. And again we see him emphasizing the irreconcilable difference between our generations: there’s the righteous older generation who knows that this newfangled stuff is wrong and there’s the new generation, robbed of its morals by lack of a communion with nature. At this point, I almost just put the book down and stopped reading. I did have to stop for a while, but I really didn’t want to pick it back up. Every few sentences something was making me angry. I didn’t see the point in continuing. It didn’t serve any purpose. I really wanted it to get better and start offering some substance to its claims (I had yet to see any convincing evidence), but I had given up hope of it actually doing so. Just giving me some news blurbs with his particular, negative spin on it was not exactly convincing. And I still had another 15 pages of this conservative trash to read. I trudged on and tried to skim, but every time I glossed over something without picking it apart and getting irate, I worried that his words would sink in, so I found myself stopping almost as much as I had. This is hardly even a science text. This is rhetorical garbage (though I will admit it is insidiously well done). Sigh.

“the march of the nanorobots or the advance of the chimera” (26) Nanorobots (or nanomachines to be more accurate) don’t march. So why use the word “march”? The only things that march are armies or some other type of threatening military force. The nanorobots (machines don’t march, but unfeeling, unthinking robots do, so perhaps there’s a reason to his misnaming and mislabeling) and the chimera (genetics is not used to create mythical Greek monsters like the chimera, but why not phrase it that way and offer one example that might fit the phrasing so you can use a word with the appropriately monstrous connotations) are advancing, but who are they advancing on? Us of course. The whole writing style is designed to create a sense of fear through a few well placed, well chosen words. Disgusting.

“verboten” “constricted” “growing obsession with order” (28) “Verboten” has the special connotation that not only is something forbidden (the English translation), but it is unnecessarily so, or perhaps that the restriction is excessive and unreasonable. And “constriction” sounds like children are suffocating painfully under the regime. “Growing obsession with order” speaks for itself. He chooses his words so carefully. It’s sick.

Community associations are “private government” (28) There’s an unfair, rigid, group of draconian disciplinarians who are running their own anti-democratic private government and worst of all, they’re presiding over your own front yard! The manipulation has just gotten rampant at this point. It was bad before, but now it can barely contain itself.

“the criminalization of natural play is more suggestive than read” (29) So if you try to look for laws that actually support what he’s saying, you’re not going to find them, but trust him – they’re “suggestive.”

Touching story about a grandfather who can no longer fly his kite with his grandson after generations of kit flying (29) The kite flying scares away an endangered bird (probably endangered because it’s been scared away by kite flyers for generations). It has consequences. And just because kite flying has happened for so long and seems so harmless, he’s trying to suggest that that’s justification for continuing. We can’t right the wrongs of the past, but if we notice that something is damaging the environment, we have a duty to stop it. Unfortunately, our friend of nature here does not feel the same way.

“decapitated hills” “artificial landscaping” “yards the size of gravesites” (30) Are you kidding me? How can this guy even write with a straight face? This goes beyond being “poetic;” this is simply manipulative.

“how could something so timeless change in such a short time?” (32) I hardly know where to begin with this one. Timeless? Timeless how? Justify what you mean instead of throwing around sappy, loaded words to pull on our heartstrings. Timeless as in, since America’s founding? Timeless as in, from Europe in medieval times (since your ancestors were clearly European)? Timeless as in ancient Greeks? Timeless as in the dawn of man? I don’t know how universal this communion with nature is supposed to be, but I can’t believe it’s as eternal and universal as he’s pretending it is. And on another note, look how perfectly this phrase appeals to conservatives. It suggests how our way of life is being fenced out and systematically destroyed within the blink of an eye and how we have to fight to stop it. The only person I’ll fight is this scummy author.

“indoor, sedentary lifestyle linked to mental health problems” (32) This quote is from a study done by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Finally some actual evidence instead of a stream of manipulative rhetoric. Well it had to happen eventually. I have to give credit where credit is due. I’m curious to know what these mental health problems are though.

“For almost two decades, the well known Japanese photographer Keiki Haganoya photographed children’s play in the cities of Japan. In recent years, “children have disappeared so rapidly from his viewfinder that he has had to bring that chapter of his work to an end,” Moore [a professor of landscape architecture at North Carolina State] reports” (33) And we all know what problems with ADHD Japanese kids have. I noticed how crazy they were in that TIMMS study. I guess he’s finally convinced me that lack of nature and ADHD are related. As long as he has evidence of some sort, there’s no need to follow up with a critical eye, right? I’m sorry, I’m rarely this sarcastic, but it’s hard to contain myself with this guy.

There’s no money in natural play (I forget the page number) Is that really true? A video game console with a few games costs $500. A house costs anywhere from tens to hundreds of thousands depending on what part of the country you’re in. The type of living he’s describing does not come cheap. Yes, he speaks poorly of suburban housing (some of the most expensive natural environment), but only because of its restrictions on natural play. This book makes a tacit assumption about free time and money that shows how restrictive and limited it is in its audience.

Fragile

Kids are so delicate. It's really sad sometimes. Today in class one of the students, Laron, was misbehaving a little. Actually I couldn't even see what he was doing from the back of the room, and honestly I can see almost everything. I think he was either joking quietly with the person next to him or simply not paying attention. Whatever it was wasn't a big deal from my point of view. It must have been upsetting to Jake (my master teacher) though. He had to flip his card all the way to orange (it starts out green, then yellow is a warning, then orange is a call home. It almost never gets to red, but 4 reds equals a suspension). Then after getting an orange card, Jake had to send him to the back of the room near the end of the period. They had a quiz at around the same time and I didn't see Jake give him a quiz. I asked if that was intentional, and Jake said Laron wasn't really in the mood to work because he was so angry, but he gave me the quiz and a copy for myself and let me try to get him to work. I sat next to him at the back of the room and tried. He wouldn't talk to me, but I'm pretty sure he was listening to me talk to him. And Jake may have thought he wasn't working because he was angry, but that wasn't really the reason. He was angry, but he was mostly angry because of how hurt he was. He wouldn't talk to me because he was crying and really didn't want me to know. He turned away and pulled is hood around his head as tightly as it would go, but I could hear him sniffling (as quietly as he could) and see him occasionally wiping his eyes. I told him he should really think about starting his quiz because he didn't want to get a zero, but that felt like a really harsh thing to say to someone crying. I felt like trying to comfort him wouldn't be too helpful since he really didn't want me to know how sad he was. After a minute or two, he picked up his quiz and looked at it. I saw this as a pretty good sign, but he also picked up a pair of scissors that I saw had been left on the tables in the back of the room. I should have picked them up earlier in the day when I first noticed them. I noticed them in his hand and cringed a little when I saw him go for his test, but I he just ran the scissors along the back of it, coming close to cutting it, but not actually cutting it. I'm pretty sure that wasn't for my benefit. He knew he'd get in trouble for cutting up the test, but he felt so angry and hurt that he wanted to lash out at something. He was just running the scissors along the middle behind it so that he could pretend he was actually cutting it, getting a little of the relief of actually cutting it but without getting into any trouble. I thought about trying to stop him or trying to get the scissors away from him, but I understood exactly how he was feeling. He was humiliated and frustrated and needed to take it out on something. I was worried that he was actually going to cut it up, which wouldn't have offended me, but could have been considered a serious act of rebellion that might have even gotten him a red card. Then he started to cut of the tops of the corners of the paper. That was a relief since it helped to relieve some pressure as well, but I knew if left to his own devices he'd eventually get bolder and bolder and cut up the rest of it, or at least cut enough that what he was doing became noticeable. I really didn't want Jake to find out about that. It's fine to let out your frustrations on some inanimate object, but it wasn't exactly the safest space to do so. Jake is a good teacher, but I think he's got a lot of frustrations and burdens and they've gotten in the way of his appreciation of the students. He's more into getting them to behave than he is enjoying their company. Of course, I guess it's his job to get them to behave so he can teach the class. But anyway, back to Laron. After he'd cut each of the corners once in a small way, I spoke to him again for the first time in minutes. I told him that cutting up his test wasn't really going to help him. I told him that if it made him feel better he could keep doing it, but he'd still be in the same situation with the same problems and I didn't really think it would make him feel better. He wiped his eyes a few times and turned back to his desk, put down the scissors, and started working.

Kids are so good! Can you believe that? The teacher was really mean to him (from his point of view at least) and he really didn't want to cooperate, but he still tried to work through his tears. I told him how impressive that was to work when he felt so bad. He stopped and cried momentarily when I told him that. I think he was ashamed and being told he was hurting when he was trying his best to ignore his pain probably just reminded him of what he was trying to forget. I don't regret praising him though. He was amazing. He worked really hard. He got a problem wrong, but I didn't have the heart to correct him. He was in a fragile enough state of mind as it was. When the bell rang, I told him that he did a great job and did great work. He may have goofed off for the majority of the period, but he worked harder than someone working for the full hour and half for those five minutes at the end. He didn't speak to me the entire time except for once immediately after I sat down with him where he said, "I hate him." Poor Laron. I think speaking made him cry more. That's how it is with me too. I know communicating is better than keeping quiet when you're obviously upset, but for whatever reason, voicing your problems refreshes all the injustice of them and makes you start crying. Sometimes when I'm sad I'll just stop talking entirely because anything I say will make me cry and I really don't want to cry. After I left, I saw Jake trying to talk to him. He kept asking why Laron was so mad. I knew it was futile. Laron was mad at him (and perhaps for good reason) and wasn't about to let Jake see him cry. Jake didn't realize he'd hurt Laron. He still just thought Laron was angry and pouty. I could have told Jake that he'd hurt Laron, but Laron would have heard and that would have hurt his pride. I know Laron would have rather been viewed as angry and rebellious than as a weakling who got hurt by the teacher sending him to the back of the room. The last person he would want to know was Jake. It might have gotten him into more trouble in the end since he looked like he was being belligerent and aggressive instead of just hurt.

*pause for a moment while I send Jake and email telling him to go easy on Laron*

I hope that was a good idea. Laron doesn't have to know about that. I just don't want Jake to make a bad situation worse by calling his mom and telling her that her son is being disruptive. Perhaps he is, but that's the last thing Laron needs to hear.

It seems like Jake is hurting his kids' feelings a lot lately. Most of them aren't as susceptible as Laron, but I can tell when he's doing something he should be, when he's taking excessive measures that make the students want to behave even worse. Sometimes, just letting a kid be for a few moments does a lot more than forcing them to do what you want. For instance, I could have told Laron to take away the scissors or get another card flipped and forced him to put down the thing that he was releasing some frustration on, but by just letting him cut his paper a little and set down the scissors on his own, I think it was a lot more productive. I don't think he would have started working at the end otherwise. I'll admit I was really proud of myself for the way I handled that, but even more so I was proud of Laron. I don't know that I would have had the strength to try again after that, or at least not try the day of the incident. He's a really good kid. Honestly, they all are. I felt so bad when he was crying. This is the reason I want to become a teacher, or at least one of the reasons anyway. I want things to be better for kids. I had enough teachers who didn't understand me. I had enough teachers who glorified the Rosalie's of the class (she works hard and always is on task and does what she's told, but she's really not as intelligent as some of the people who are doing worse because they are so intelligent and question orders- she's a good kid, but she shouldn't be glorified). The misbehavers are really some of the more endearing students. I like them so much. I hope Laron is ok. He'll have a whole weekend to cool down a little. I hope things go better for him on Monday.

Not quite so reciprocal respect

All kinds of people probably don't think much of me and I honestly don't give them any thought. I generally don't think much of them if they have poor enough taste to dislike me. When I was younger I wasn't always the greatest judge of character and would sometimes like someone who didn't really like me. Either they made fun of me of just generally didn't care about me. When you're little, you want to be everyone's friend and not everyone wants to be friends back. But it's been years since I made that mistake. Really it's been a long time. I'm generally quite a good judge of character. I can only think of one or two instances like this one in the past 5 years. But I think I'm being misleading about this, or possibly coming at it from the wrong tact. I don't know that this has to do so much with me being a bad judge of character, as it does me judging someone to be worthy of respect and that person thinking very little of me. Now that is an instance that has not happened in a long while. Probably not since high school. My teachers didn't really care for me. I was pretty arrogant and probably pretty annoying. But I did like them and respect them, and it was a bit of a blow when I realized they didn't particularly like me. All throughout college a similar situation did not arise. All the professors I respected respected me back. The ones I thought little of I didn't interact with much. I guess I feel extra bad right now because I respect this professor so much, more than any of my other professors. She is the most professional and accomplished person I have ever met. She's exceptionally competent and is able to handle more than most people I've met (such as teaching a class as she deals with a newborn, and managing to teach it better than any other teacher I've had). She's as strong as steel, and I'm beginning to think she's about as compassionate. Last semester, I was offended when Alan gave me an A-, but as soon as Norma gave me an A-, not only did I accept her grade, but his as well. I figured that if she felt that was the grade I earned, then so be it. I took it to mean that I truly was not quite up to par. It didn't upset me much. Actually, I found it relieving since I no longer felt that Alan had something against me. And receiving an A- was fine by me. The grade was only a point of pride and nothing more.

So I ended last semester continuing to hold Norma in high esteem. I believe that perhaps I still do, but as I continue to write, my opinion of her lowers. Thus I shall continue to write. It will make me feel better to find fault in her so that someone I respect doesn't think I'm scum. I don't think I can change her opinion of me, but changing my opinion of her will rectify the situation just as easily.

So I might as well get to the actual situation that's made me so upset. I went to a colloquium today that Norma moderates. The talk was posted to go until 530. I had house meeting at 6, so that gave me plenty of time to walk home, prepare a few notes, and be in the dinner line by 550. There wasn't a lot of wiggle room, but there was enough. The talk was kinda dull. Not terrible, but not great either. It was about museum tours and how they are in some respects lacking. So when 530 hit and the speaker was still in the middle of her q&a session, I felt no guilt about leaving. It was time and I did have somewhere to be. Yes, I could have stuck around another few minutes, but a few minutes was all. So when I saw other people leaving, I left too. Norma, superwoman that she is, made a note of each person who left early and just sent us all an email chastising us for leaving early. That made me unhappy because I didn't want to disappoint her, but it didn't really make me upset until I realized she had cc-ed all my advisors. Her chastising us was understandable. As moderator, it is her job to ensure that the speaker is shown proper respect. Naturally she was displeased by people leaving early and tried to nip that in the bud early by indicating that that would not be tolerated. Perhaps she only cc-ed our advisors in an attempt to coerce us to stay until the speaker was done, thinking that an email to us alone wouldn't do the trick. Or was it just that she wanted our advisors to know exactly what we had done and exactly what she thought of us. Honestly I don't care that my advisor Dan knows. He probably doesn't even care, though I imagine he'd frown upon me if it happened too often. So many people in the MACSMEs openly joke about all the class they ditch in front of him and he just sorta smiles. He's pretty laid back, so her action probably didn't have the effect she intended/hoped for. It's just the fact of what she tried to accomplish that hurts so much. This goes beyond trying to accomplish her goal. She could have accomplished her goal just by sending me an email. That's all it would have taken to ensure I never left early again. I respect her a lot and her sounding even a little angry would be enough for me to fall all over myself trying to make sure she wasn't angry again. But perhaps she didn't realize that. I don't know. Whether she realized it or not, I find it hard to believe that she wasn't trying to punish us. Yes, she cared about getting us to respect the speaker, but she wanted to punish us as well. For me, accomplishing my goal is enough. She had accomplished her goal, but she took it farther. I have never had a teacher call home about me. A principal, yes. A teacher, no. A principal you don't debate with. A principal you don't know on a personal level. I suppose that makes this a good experience, since it probably feels like calling home might to a high school student and gives me some first hand experience. Calling home is a big deal. It should be a last resort, only used if no other methods can convince a child to behave.

But her deciding to punish us unnecessarily isn't really what's bothering me, though it certainly adds to the whole situation. I guess it's her disdain. Was I that unreasonable to leave early? I wasn't even leaving early. The talk went over. I've had a long history of teachers who get very upset over what seems to me to be a trivial offense. It took me a while to figure out that my teachers in high school didn't particularly like me. They weren't going to gloss over something I did if they felt they could nail me on it. Some students got away with a lot. They were just more likely to let things slide for some people. The inequity is also upsetting, but that's not what's really getting to me either. I think part of it is how violently she reacts to anything less than perfection. She's not understanding of shortcomings. More than that, she's incredibly disdainful of them. I can't imagine that many people seriously live up to her standards. Honestly, my offense was a minor one. All my offenses have been minor ones. There was one time that I was supposed to lead the class in a discussion last semester when she wasn't there. The speaker stayed more than a half hour longer than she was supposed to and left me with almost no time to do as Norma had asked. I tried to get something started, but people didn't really listen and most of them left early. When she demanded results about a month later in the semester, I confessed that I had nothing to give her. I explained the situation and apologized. There was nothing harsh in the tone of her email, nor did she treat me any differently in class, but I couldn't help but feel that I'd failed in some way and didn't live up to expectations. That's how I feel today and I feel it with a vengeance. Not only did I fail to meet the expectations of someone I respect, but I made her angry, angry enough to lash out and inform my advisors.

Though I really have to step back and evaluate exactly what I did wrong. I don't think I did something so wrong to merit such a reaction. She clearly does. I have gotten in the habit of deferring to her since she's so competent and together, but I think this is a situation where I should not. Aside from the fact that it hurts a lot to think she was justified, I have to trust in my own opinion and judge for myself if I think that what I did was wrong.

Yes, I was rude. A professor visiting from out of the country was here talking about what has been her focus for years of her life. She was speaking as a favor to Norma. I am sure she could have imagined better things to do with that portion of her life. Seeing so many people leave at the first possible instant was probably insulting and Norma was understandably upset by it. It was a reflection on her if nothing else. At this point I'm just guessing, but I imagine she worked as hard earning her PhD as she does now that she has it. She worked her fingers to the bone and noticed her peers not working nearly as hard around her. I can tell who the superstars of the school of education are as early as their first year. I'm sure she was one of them. She worked hard because she was driven and she was strong. And she was smart enough to realize that her peers weren't working nearly as hard as her. She has gone on to do great things. She got her PhD and found a position at Berkeley, not an easy school to become a professor at. There are far more PhD students than there are positions for them, so she probably saw many of her peers who hadn't worked as hard wind up in mediocre universities or fail to find work in academia altogether. She may have been friends with some of them, but I doubt she had a great deal of respect for them. She saw how they cut corners, left their work until the last minute, and scraped by. This is not to say they weren't very talented, qualified individuals. To get into a PhD program, you have to be. But they weren't up to her standards. I have to admit, I felt the same way at first. I worked hard to get into Berkeley and my peers didn't strike me as terribly impressive at first. I was almost not let in because I didn't have enough of a math background, so I expected to see peers as good at math as the people I had taken abstract algebra with over the summer. It turned out that I was one of the more accomplished in terms of math. It is a little embittering to know I have to take real analysis this summer when some of my peers haven't even taken that class. Perhaps now I am reading too much into things, but maybe Norma had to struggle to gain admittance to her program where she excelled far beyond her peers. I was slightly resentful of my peers before, though I am not anymore. They're all nice, competent people. They know enough for what they need to do and they have a fair amount of teaching skills. They're nice people and they'll do just fine as teachers. Some of them may even be excellent teachers, but it's too early to tell now when they're only student teachers who haven't had a taste of their own classroom. But now back to the leap I made before about Norma struggling to gain admittance. I have no reason to believe that. Really none. But I do imagine that her life has been hard. She every so often mentions certain things she has overcome which seem incredibly difficult to me. Her 5 month old son hit his head a few months ago and needed to be hospitalized. If he had had such an injury when he was older, he'd have some pretty severe brain damage. Since he's still an infant and his brain is very plastic, he should have no lasting side effects. Norma missed one day of class when this happened. She hasn't been able to chew properly for years due to issues with her wisdom teeth which she's finally gotten out and she turned down most medications since she's still breast feeding and any painkillers would get into her baby's system. She's raising a baby and maintaining her career. Many career oriented women are not able to sustain both. And moreover, she didn't have to be the one to get pregnant to have a kid. She's in a same sex relationship (which illustrates another challenge she's faced since it's not easy being gay), so presumably either could have gotten pregnant. Norma has had to face far more challenges than most of her peers (I imagine) and yet she still excels beyond most of them. If I worked that hard, I might not be very tolerant of laziness, which is exactly what leaving early must have looked like to her. We were not even able to stay the extra five or ten minutes to show this woman the respect she deserved. We reflected poorly on her because of it. She got angry and responded in a vindictive way. It was too much. Excellence often has its price, and sometimes that price is perspective. Considering how hard she works and how much she's overcome, I could believe she doesn't have much tolerance for the majority of the world, the people who don't work as hard as her. I doubt she intended to cause as much turmoil with me as she did. She probably didn't even realize her words and actions could have such an effect. But she's been too busy achieving. When you value one thing so much (as you must to really succeed at your research), you lose track of a lot of other things. Sigh. I have a tendency to glorify teachers. I don't see them as real people sometimes. I don't notice the ways in which they can be petty or small minded. I guess teachers have a potential to upset me more than just about anybody else because I don't see their flaws and when those come to light, I get blindsided. It will be nice when I am no longer in school and I can be a teacher myself. I hope I'm more cautious about those sorts of things. I may have made this same exact mistake with Rosh'janae (I mentioned her in another blog- the girl who got upset when I said she had energy). It doesn't take much for someone with faith in teachers to get disillusioned. Teachers really aren't so special. Many of them are just people who love to be right. There's a reason so many people dislike junior high. They're old enough to question you, but not old enough to be smart and civil about it. The third grade teacher I helped out last year was definitely sure of herself. She spoke with an air of certainty. Once I had a bit of a brain fart when helping one of the students and I misspelled "their." I switched the i and the e. And the kid who had originally spelled it right and I had just "corrected" just changed it. He didn't question it at all. It felt like she had cowed them. She had her routine down all right. It helps of course that they were third graders instead of older students. I fear a lot of teachers go into elementary school because they don't want to be contradicted. I was very lucky. I had remarkably few of those sorts of teachers. The principal of my grade school had a knack for noticing teachers who really loved their work. It was a terrible shame when she started going senile. Her newest hires just got worse and worse and my last few years at the school under some of the new guard were not terribly great.

But I'm getting pretty sleepy now. It's time to wrap up the rambling and conclude. Yes, I made a mistake, but Norma was out of line. She may be a compassionate person; she may not. But her standards are extremely high and her tolerance for people who do not meet those standards is frighteningly low. When a few students didn't even meet her lowest standards (staying until the end), it stands to reason that she'd overreact. And she did overreact. I don't feel as bad now as I did. It helps to understand things a little better. Of course, I'm just guessing, but I have a hunch that I'm right about at least a portion of it. Now it's 2:40 and I have to wake up in less than 6 hours, so I'm going to sleep.

Snap!

So I just downloaded Pokemon Snap for the Wii (originally released on the N64 in 1999). Damn that game was fun. It's a silly, ridiculous premise. You're a rather foppish boy in a slowly moving cart taking pictures of pokemon as you pass. Silly though it is, it's soooo fun! I am only slightly ashamed to say that I had already taken a picture of every pokemon within 24 hours, not an easy feat. One of the harder ones, Muk, I had to take a picture of two Grimers, which causes a third Grimer to appear in a specific location. Then I had to throw three pester balls at the new Grimer, pissing it off and causing it to evolve into Muk. Gyarados is pretty tough too, but I totally pwned it. Now all that's left is for me to take better pictures of the pokemon I already shot. It's a bit of a downer actually because now it's getting harder and harder to improve. I suppose the scale is logarithmic and I'm at the point where it's slow going. I wish the game were bigger and had more than 63 pokemon programmed into it. It would be so fun to have all 150. And then the game would be a decent length as well instead of the pitifully short game it is now. Awww... poor Pokemon Snap. Size doesn't matter... Oh who am I kidding- it does.

Even though I'm having trouble getting better pictures, I do come across some pretty funny ones now and again. I have one of Jigglypuff where it looks like it's about to start giving head. It's pretty hot actually. Excuse me while Jigglypuff and I go have some alone time.

Sizing Down

I had a conversation with my mom the other day. It seems that some of the doctors at her work were resentful of one doctor who works part time. She seemed to think it was because she worked part time. She has two small kids and just isn't able to come to work full time. However the other doctors made it really hard for her to work a schedule she wanted. She wanted to work every morning from 8 to 1. It fit in well with her kids' schedules. They made her work full days two days a week instead. Actually, she works fewer hours by doing that, but it's still more awkward for her and she preferred the other situation. I guess they just didn't want to see her going home early. I asked my mom what all that was about. She said that there are a lot of doctors who don't like what they do, who got involved in the field for the money and the prestige of being called doctor. So apparently seeing someone leave early when they have to stick it out for the rest of the day is not terribly pleasing to them. I still didn't get it. This doctor who works part time gets paid less. Any other doctor could do the same thing. Anyone could work fewer hours and make less money. As far as I see it, they made their choice. But my mom said it's not so simple as that. Some things look like choices, but they aren't really. A lot of these full time doctors have stay-at-home wives designing new houses or like to vacation a month of every year in Tibet or other random things that cost a lot of money. Sure they make a lot of money, but they've all found ways to spend it. Yes, they could cut back their hours, but they'd also have to cut back their expenses. They'd have to stop doing a lot of the things they regularly do. Sizing down is painful. I know it first hand. For most of the break, I spent the whole time at Steven's place. We were practically living together. I was there when he left for work; I was there when he came home. It was so fun. And now that I'm not seeing him every day anymore, it's hard. I've had to downsize back to weekends again. That wasn't such a big problem before, but it's hard now. I want to see him. I want to hug him and fall asleep next to him. Bummer. Am I really going to have to wait a year and a half until we can live together? I hope not, but that does seem to be the way things are turning. Sigh. It'll be sweet when it finally happens.

Though that does bring up a separate point- housing immediately after the wedding. We're going to be busy enough just planning the wedding. Are we also going to have to go house shopping as well? There's no way I'm coming back from the honeymoon and staying with my parents when he goes back to live with his. We're going to need to actually have something prepared! That means getting everything settled before the wedding! That means planning ahead when we're at our most busy! I couldn't even get Steven to look for housing last summer when we had nothing going on. Are we going to have to stay in a hotel? Rent an apartment on a monthly basis until we can find something more permanent? Live in a few bare rooms until we get it together enough to move our furniture in? Oh dear... Maybe we can just buy a tent and camp out on some patch of unclaimed land.

High spirits

I never realized how much drug innuendo is in that phrase...

But no innuendo here! Take it at face value! I'm happy!

Today the teacher at the middle school I'm observing at let me lead a warmup and it went great! It was so fun! The kids were really well behaved and engaged and I remembered everyone's names and I got some really good pointers after class on how to improve as well. I had the hugest smile all the way home!

I was pretty nervous about it before I started. I was worried the most about behavioral problems. I clashed a little with one of the students the day before and just couldn't stop thinking about it. I was worried she'd hold a grudge against me or purposefully act out. And then there are the other kids who are constantly talking during class. Even the chattiest one was really on task and engaged. But that girl I clashed with had me really worried. I have to say I have a lot of respect for her. I messed up and she called me on it instantly. When I was a student, I wouldn't say anything if a teacher hurt my feelings. I probably wouldn't even notice or be too surprised to even think about it until later. I had a few teachers who inadvertently hurt my feelings. The exact situation with this girl was that one of the other members of her group turned to me as I was walking by and said, "In case you haven't noticed, this group has a lot of energy." It was true. They were really loud and chatty and it seemed hard to keep them focused. Well, not all of them. One of them was a very quiet shy kid. The one who spoke to me wasn't that bad either. The third one (the girl I mentioned before) took forever to get started and I noticed her kick someone in the group next to her. She came in over a half hour late too. She'd already had three behavioral warnings that day. In response to the energy comment, I agreed and said it seemed to be focused around that girl. While she did have some troubles getting started, I also noticed she was doing some work (though I didn't look too closely). She was also laughing along with the energy comment her friend made, but when I said most of the energy seemed centered on her, I saw the smile just fade as she figured out what I was saying. Then she got mad at me for singling her out like that. I apologized, but she was still mad. I told her that my comment wasn't intended as an insult and I don't consider having a lot of energy to be a bad thing (it's true I don't). She seemed to accept that, but she made snide comments at/about me for the rest of the period. I thought at the time that she was a little crazy. I said almost nothing and she was immediately up in arms. It's strange to be that defensive and fight that hard over nothing, especially when I didn't even insult her.

But then I thought about it more. I did mess up. Sure, I didn't mean it to be mean, but I was singling her out. And I singled her out in a way that I'm sure a lot of other teachers have done as well. Too often I think well behaved is considered to be the same thing as docile. How can you learn if you're docile? If you just sit there quietly? Yes, she did have some problems, not the least of which was being so tardy, but I had no place joking about her energy and poking fun. I am not their friend. I could never be. I have too much authority to be their friend. With my friends, I don't worry about stepping on their toes, teasing them a little and making fun. But how could I do that with someone who had control over grades and who was held accountable for my learning and staying on task? Sure I like the kids. I actually like them a lot. But we can't be friends. If I joke with a friend, we are equals. If I joke with a student, it feels too much like picking on someone. There isn't any equity between teachers and students (nor should there be), and because of that, I don't think you can have a friendship between students and teachers. The girl who yelled at me wasn't upset by her friend saying there was a lot of energy at their table. I don't think she would have been offended even if the comment had been directed at her if it was her friend who said it. Of course I don't know her that well, but I imagine she would have just brushed it off or told her to shut up. She couldn't tell me to shut up. I could see as soon as I said it that I transformed from "person walking around who I can't quite categorize who seems like she might be ok" to "teacher," and I don't think the transformation was a positive one. I think too many of her teachers have not been on her side. Too many of them have tried to coerce her into behaving in a certain way. Now I don't want to play the role of the overly sensitive, overly liberal person (even though I am both of those things) who blames everyone else except the kids herself, but I do get the feeling that teachers aren't on her side. Honestly, it's insulting to walk in that late with no excuse, no note. It's also disruptive. And when she continues to be disruptive upon entering, it's no wonder that teachers don't have much love for her. I'm not saying that the teachers aren't fair or open minded. I'm sure they're both of those things. But I felt it in the beginning, when I first started with these students. There's just a tiny bit of glee when you put a troublemaker in their place. Like how I was happy when a loud, troublesome kid who always had the right answer (and bragged about it) got an answer wrong. Or like how when someone's acting out, you tell them to stop and then they do and start focusing on the work. I've always been a little overeager to hassle people. I remember in grade school, if someone was doing something annoying or bratty, I'd yell at them. Sometimes I was mean. I'm not proud of it. I hurt people's feelings sometimes and justified it by telling myself it was making them better people- that they needed to adjust to life and grow out of annoying shit like that. For instance, I grew out of bragging about my grades before high school (possibly because I bragged so extensively before then). Even though I had been one of the worst, I was ruthless whenever I saw someone trying to show off. "Oh I'm so disappointed that I got an A-. I really thought I would get an A." Yeah jackass. I did that too and I know exactly what you're doing. You're so pleased with yourself that I'm sure you orgasm as the sight of your own reflection. Quit pretending you're disappointed and keep your grades to yourself.

But honestly that was nothing. I'd do that again (though maybe more directly and less insultingly) today if someone pulled that "sad over an A-" crap with me. In all fairness, I did that a little about my grad school grades, but I think that's a little different since grades don't really matter much in grad school. During college, I was grateful for every A- I could grab. But hassling someone over overt bragging isn't really a big deal. Like I said, I'd probably still do that if anyone was so tactless as to try that stunt. But in grade school, I could be pretty mean. I wasn't always mean all by myself. Responsibility was shared, but group meanness is always the worst kind. I remember there was one person in my class who was always lying. To be honest, I don't know if she was or not. I have always been very gullible and likely to believe what people tell me, even if it sounds unrealistic. But this girl told a few too many unrealistic stories. Of course, we all believed her for a time. Kids can be pretty trusting. But eventually we got to talking about her behind her back. I'm sure it started innocently enough, not that I remember. Someone probably asked if someone else thought what she said was true, possibly just doubtful and wondering if anyone else was as well. The doubts probably grew for a while until someone probably decided it wasn't and then supposition began on whether she was mistaken or lying. Eventually the consensus came to lying and eventually we came up with the brand "liar." And then eventually someone got fed up, probably everyone at once and said something should be done to stop her. And then someone probably said we should just tell her to stop, as a group of course. I don't remember any of the stuff I just described, but it seems plausible enough. What I do remember is all of us ganging up on her at once, calling her a liar, making her cry, and none of us feeling bad about it. I feel bad about it now. She wasn't even a dangerous liar. I don't remember most of what she said. I remember we eventually had that conversation about our periods, whose had already started and what it was like. Each person talked about how they had told their moms, but Ali (the perhaps liar) told us she hadn't told her mom, had taken care of it herself, and when her mom found a used pad in the trash, her mom wrote her a note saying how she disappointed her mom and was grounded. Not terribly believable. Older people would have questioned her more, asked Ali why she thought her mom would do that. Older people might have also been dubious that she wouldn't have told her mom in the first place. And even older people might have recognized that Ali's mom got pregnant with her at 16 and might have gotten mad because she wanted to start her on birth control as soon as her period started. Huh. That last part never occurred to me until just now. Maybe she was telling the truth.

Well there goes my good mood. Wow I feel scummy. I felt bad even when I thought she was a liar. Perhaps she still was. I really don't remember much of what she said, but there must have been more than once instance for all of us to turn on her like that. I half remember something about how she said some bone disease allowed you to have longer reach (like you could stretch your arms out more), but I don't remember anything well enough to say for certain. She had been a bit of an outcast before that whole incident. I guess she was an easy target. We had plenty of time to talk about her behind her back since she didn't sit with us at lunch. And because our class was so small, we were able to get almost all the girls in the class to gang up with us. I really don't remember my role. I don't think I was the ringleader, but then again I don't think anyone was. I probably needed to be convinced she was lying by other people since I was so gullible (still am- you should see how confused Braver makes me when he talks about his past). I think I felt bad at the time. I don't think I did more than just stand there, but just standing there was a show of silent support. It would have made a great difference if I had just stood there beside Ali instead. But I really thought she was a liar. Part of me still does. That's honestly one of the most salient features about her I can remember. I also remember people gossiping about her in high school ("she made out with that guy on the roof of her car! What a slut" -generally said by people who were practically having sex with their clothes on when they were on the dance floor at high school dances). I may just be justifying myself now, but I don't think any grudges were held. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if she had forgotten the whole experience. But I imagine it was pretty salient at the time.

But enough of this- how did I get on this topic? This is why I like to write instead of just think. I think about this sort of stuff all the time, but I just end up rambling down some random path in my head and can't retrace my steps back to see what lead there. But with writing, I have a hard copy I can reference- ok. Just checked. I was talking about how I have had an urge to "correct" people or put them in their place when they do something socially wrong, and I thought I saw that in teachers as well. This doesn't mean they're not fair about it, but there's still that sense of not really wishing the student the best, of just trying to get them to behave. If they behave well, you treat them well. If they behave poorly, they are punished accordingly. It's completely fair. But I don't know if it has that student's best interests at heart. I know a few teachers who had to stop teaching courses for a semester when their kid was taking the class so as to avoid bias. Can a teacher really be counted on to discipline their own kid, or to give them a bad grade? Maybe it's because they have their kid's best interests at heart. They understand their own kid and know where their actions are coming from and how to deal with them and disciplining their kid might not always be the right action given their knowledge of their child. I think disciplining any kid might not be the right action given that particular kid's situation.

I don't know. The attitude that teachers have towards their students is a really big question. There's so much to discuss and think about. I want to deal with my students the way Mrs Rose dealt with hers. I think I might have done that today, which is what had me in such a great mood earlier (and I've still got some afterglow despite some guilt-ridden reminiscing). I think I know what the secret is (if you could even call it a secret). I was just really happy. So the task I gave them was called "the silent board game." You make a table (2 rows and like 8 columns). Along the top row you put the inputs to a function. You fill in the bottom row with two or so corresponding outputs. Then you ask the students to fill it in by coming up to the board one at a time. If they guess wrong, I erase what they wrote. If they guess right, it stays up. At first no one wanted to come up, but one girl did. I really like her. She's wrong a lot. In fact, I'd say she's wrong much more often than she's right, but she understands the math very well. She just makes little errors all the time. And what I like most about her is that she's fearless. Absolutely fearless. She will try something and be the first to go forward on any occasion. Nothing stops her. She volunteered to try first. Then she retracted it, saying she didn't know what to do, but I told her it didn't matter if she was wrong and she came up and hazarded a wild guess. That takes courage. The rest of the class was silent. Then several other people made guesses, all of which were wrong (in case you're curious, the two inputs whose outputs I gave were 3 which yielded 9 and 0 which yielded 3, which would make the rule x yields 2x+3). I was really surprised at how many people came up to the board and really proud of them for trying. Then when most volunteers had tried and failed (and some tried and failed twice), I began to worry that it was too hard. So then I asked them, "Did I stump you?" which of course prompted a few of the cockier ones to come forward, which was exactly what I needed. The cocky ones are generally cocky for a reason. I wanted someone to get it right. Then someone finally did get one right (100 becomes 203). And this made a light go on in a few people's heads. Then with a few more points filled in, a few more people got it. I was really proud of all the people who participated. They did great. I was a little worried about the people who didn't participate at all, but for my first day I just wanted to focus on keeping things going. I didn't want to put someone on the spot and drag the class to a halt.

The truth is, I recognized how hard it was. The problem itself was not so terribly complex, but the situation was difficult. Going up to the board, taking a risk, coming back again after being wrong once. Those are all really hard things to do, and they have to be thinking about math the whole time and trying to figure out a puzzle while they do it. I recognized that they were doing something difficult and I was happy for them. I was really worried that it would be chaos with someone new in control and not the regular teacher. I was worried I would be like a substitute (they just get beaten up). But I wasn't. They were so nice. They were engaged in the material (at least some of them), and the ones who weren't were still paying attention (though to be honest, they might not have been- I didn't have much attention to spare for them- I was working my hardest to call on people and remember their names). They have a card system in this classroom where every time someone acts up, they get a card flipped. It goes from green to yellow to orange to red. I think orange (two card flips) means a call home. Red might mean a suspension. I don't know actually. I think it's pretty serious. But the whole class was green at the end of the period. The whole class! That's happened like twice the whole time I've been observing! All someone has to do is walk in tardy to get a yellow card. I was so proud of them!

I think part of the reason they may have been so good is because I was a new teacher and they didn't know quite what to expect. I think they also really liked the game. I think it may also be because it didn't rain today (for whatever reason, they get riled up in the rain). I secretly hope my demeanor played a role as well. Their regular teacher is often exasperated with them. They're a pretty wild class at times and I think he has other things weighing on his mind (he said his daughter was sick). He'll often stop when people are talking and say "I'll wait." And look really exasperated the whole time. I always thought that was a little passive aggressive, but it's better than yelling I guess. A teacher's vocal chords can only hold out so long. He'll often tell people who are goofing off to "make the right choice" and to grow up. I always hated people telling me to grow up. Always. I especially hated it when people told me to act my age. These kids ARE acting their age! If you don't want to see them acting like that, you shouldn't be teaching that age group. Kids are kids for a reason. They're immature. And they should be that way. I remember Matoots from high school. She always looked mature and all the teachers praised how "grown up" she was, but she wasn't really at all. She learned to look mature early on while she was still too immature to make educated choices for herself. And so she was still the same immature girl in college that she was as a well behaved freshman in high school. But anyway, he's really a good teacher, but he doesn't always look like he's really enjoying himself in class. I'm sure it wears on him sometime to always have to discipline people and not see it work. But that attitude really leaks over to the students. I think because I'm so fresh, I can go into the class with a spring in my step and understand when the students act out. I think that helps me. I think it was understanding and caring for her students that made Mrs Rose control us so easily without raising her voice ever. I think I'm going to get to do the same warmup again on Friday. I hope it goes as well then when the game isn't new to them anymore.

Honestly, I have a lot more to write, but I think it's time that I ended this blog. I've been writing for a while now and I want to go do something else. And Dylan will be over soon, so I have to stop soon anyway. Toodle-oo all! I hope this makes up for the recent break in my writing.

Backed into a corner

It happens to everyone I guess. Sometimes things just don't go your way. Something happens hat you didn't plan for and don't know how to deal with. I'm not talking about big things either. I'm talking mostly about little things that, for just an instant, have you backed into a corner. For example, my brother, who likes to hug rather rough, was sitting behind me in the car (woe be unto the day that I called shotgun) and decided he wanted to hug me. Since there was a chair in his way, he reached around the part of the chair with the least width, which was unfortunately around where my neck was. I remember seeing hands coming close around my neck and then there I was- backed into a corner.

I don't know that a lot of people are ever in that particular situation, but I'm sure everyone occasionally feels moments of panic like that. I don't know how they react to those situations, but I think I don't react to them very well. My response to my brother was biting him. Sadly, biting has been my knee-jerk reaction to stuff like that on more than one occasion (as anyone who knows Sagur will remember). Now I don't think that is the way to handle my problems.

But the real reason I'm writing this entry is because of how weird that feeling is and how weird my choices seem to be. Sometimes (more when I was younger than now), I feel like I'm about to lose an argument or look foolish and I snap and do something that overcompensates as a reaction. For instance, telling Tony to stop would have been a normal reaction. Biting was an overcompensation. I'll do something ludicrous and over the top because for a split second I feel overwhelmed and just want whatever overwhelmed me to stop - NOW.

Admittedly, this happens to me very rarely, but it didn't use to. I suppose I just reacted that way with Tony recently because I've known him since I was so young. Perhaps I'm used to dealing with him in the ways I did when I was little. Hmmm... it happened at lunch the other day too. Tony was hassling me for not working out, as Tony is wont to do, and my dad was chiming in about how concerned he is for me because of my unhealthy ways. Right in the middle of the restaurant I overreacted in the same way and started to cry. I could have just asked them to stop or change the subject. Well, actually, I did ask to change the subject, but I was too frustrated by then and it was a little too late. I could have just explained how much I walk every day (at least and hour when I go to school- closer to an hour and a half), how I climb up and down stairs pretty often since I live on the 3rd floor and never use elevators when I'm on campus (even for thins on the 5th or 6th floor, but I have to admit, I couldn't handle the 10th floor of Evans though perhaps I would have if I hadn't been in a rush), how I lift heavy weights when I refill the milk machine or carry a load of laundry to Steven's because I don't like having to wait to do it in Stebbins. Then again, I couldn't really say any of these things because Tony always interrupts me to tell me how important it is to sweat and work out.

Yeah, I guess I'm thinking about this now because Tony inspires it in me. I try to call him on it, but he acts like I'm making a big deal out of nothing.
Example:
We were talking about Cloyne and how I thought the pot cookie incident was worse for Cloyne than the guy overdosing and dying there (I thing the negative publicity around the cookies made Cloyne look really bad to the UC, who owns the building and might refuse to rent to us if Cloyne ever looked too out of control). I commented that there were people in the papers saying they thought more was involved than weed.
This is when Tony interrupted and said "What said that?" He said it really aggressively too (like he does everything) and got me on the defensive.
Then I told him it was some official (police or medical guy or something) and Tony told me "Well yeah of course, everyone knows that."

Well that pissed me off. Why did he act so aggressively toward me if he already knew? Was he just trying to save face because I told him something he already knew? Why did he have to be such a prick? Grrr...

So I called him on it and said "so why did you challenge me on that if you already knew the answer?" but that whole like of questioning didn't go very far. He kept saying it was nothing and I shouldn't get worked up over little things. And then I got really pissed and told him it's all the little things that keep people down. Big injustices are easy to spot. It's the little ones that are hard to see and so go on unchecked.

But the details of our argument aren't that important. Actually none of this is. I'm not terribly torn up by the whole thing. Even the other day in the restaurant, I was over it within 5 minutes and continued eating cheerily. What? It was good food. And Tony felt bad too.

The truth of it is, he's a really reasonable person, but he acts weird around his family. He gets really aggressive (though there's always the possibility that he's always like that- I don't generally see him outside of family situations), and it's hard to have any sort of conversation with him at that point.

So maybe he hasn't mastered the art of conversation, but he's head and shoulders above my uncle as far as I'm concerned. It's interesting because my uncle is such a socialite. He always has a hive of people around him and he makes it clear that he is king of the pond (my metaphors are all mixed up- is he a bee or a fish?). So anyway, my mom is pissed at him and shall probably always be so. *shrug* No skin off my back. But out of respect for her mom, my grandmother, she doesn't want open hostilities. She just doesn't want to see him again. So when my uncle proclaimed that Christmas would be at his house this year, she told him she would be unable to make it. I think she was hoping that he'd get the message for future holidays, but at the very least, we wouldn't have to worry about it next until Easter since Christmas was dealt with.

My uncle didn't tell my aunt. He didn't even tell his wife! My grandma said there were four places at the table for us that my aunt Helen had set. Awkward.

Of course I don't care. I find it a little shocking he wouldn't even tell her and interesting to analyze, but I find it more funny than actually awkward. My mom was wondering if it was a way to make us feel guilty or if he were perhaps burying his head in the sand and assuming she wasn't serious. As for guilt, he certainly failed on my account. There is quite literally nothing he could do to make me feel uncomfortable. Ever since I was little, he was always just "there." He was just one of those things you accept. I certainly didn't look forward to seeing him. If anything I dreaded them a little because I didn't want to hang out with my cousin. But Uncle Al and Aunt Helen never moved me one way or the other.

The "bury his head in the sand" thing might be right though. It's interesting because there have been holidays where either Tony or I have been absent, and no one forgot then that they wouldn't need place settings for us. I think that if mom had told Uncle Al we were all going on a trip to France this Christmas, there wouldn't have been place settings. Since she didn't offer any explanation, there were. He might have hoped she'd get over it and not bothered to tell Helen (keep up appearances? stay the course?).

And of course, he might have just forgotten, though I don't think that's the most likely scenario. He's ridiculous, not dumb.

My mom did start to question her resolve though, especially when they got Tony and me gifts (which if the pattern holds true will just be cash). I told her they can afford it and she should just not worry about it. I'll take it and still feel no guilt whatsoever. He made his decisions.

Well this ramble has lead in a different direction than I thought it would, but it's been an interesting ride. Until next time-