flaneuse.org

I realized the other day that much of my blogging has been about my emotional and physical states — something that is really a sign for me that I am exhausted and not thinking and learning and connection the way I really like to. This was particularly true earlier in the week, when I was trying to make to to sessions and schlepping up and downtown. I guess I am no longer a city dweller.

But after a delicious and soul refreshing night of sleep last night, I am back at the Hechinger Institute for early career scholars interested in learning more about how to write about educational research for a wider audience — exactly what I have in mind. (I have this dream of writing a book some thing like The Tipping Point that is extremely accessible and interesting to tons of people). So being one of the people who got into this thing has been very cool.

Just a moment ago, we listened to a panel with three of my favorite authors/journalists in the area — Sam Dillon, a two-time Pulitzer winner; Beth Fertig — the best education reporter on NPR; and John Mooney, a strong educ writer at the NJ Star Ledger.

And to top it all off, John Willinsky is now talking about making your work open and available directly to the public, past even the journalists — an idea I love and have been trying to access and do myself more often (of course there are so many copyright issues — but Peter Lang publishers, for example, are releasing new books as PDFs for distribution before the paper copies come out). This is the new world of information access, storage, archiving, you name it.

Plus I first read John Willinsky in my first semester of my doctoral program and was completely hooked on his ideas — eight long years ago..

So the swelling has gone way down and there’s just some bruising underneath one eye, and a bit of a bump. I’m hopeful that this means I didn’t break it, although I have been struggling to breathe at night while I sleep. This could have been so much worse — like a concussion or a really bad break — that I just feel very lucky.

And I still love the dog — so I guess we won’t be giving her away after all. She doesn’t realize, I was in her way anyhow. And boy did she feel bad with me crying like that. She hid out pretty much all the next day, knowing that she was in trouble. Poor girl.

Yes, you read that right. I was putting on my shoes and Willa came racing down the hallway, building up speed to jump onto our high bed and went right through me, with her iron skull. She knocked my nose out of joint — in the words of my ER discharge paperwork: contusions to the head and face, probable nasal fracture. I won’t get to know until the swelling goes down and I get to go see the doctor who operated on my sinuses two years ago. He’ll have to take x-rays and decide if my nose needs to be re-broken,

Anyone want a dog?

This morning is better, thank God. No small wonder at all.

The NYT has been running a blog about migraines over the last couple of weeks, and it has helped so much to read it. I had a migraine that started Tuesday and it took 4 hours and many phone calls to get pain medication from my dr. No matter how many over the counter pain meds I take, it isn’t enough — and I am talking about like 10 Advil at once. The pain meds he prescribed helped, the migraine stopped but a day later, a new kind of headache took its place. I have had a headache since Thursday. It is now the following Wednesday. The neurologist has given me a little pain medication and doubled my prevention meds — which make my hands shake, and my words slur a little at this higher dosage. In another dr’s office (yes, I have several) last night I broke down and explained that the pain is a green goo, struggling against the inside of my skull to come out. If I could, I would crack open my head and let the pressure out, and scratch my brain, which itches and burns against the bone inside. In fact, I want to take off the top of my head and the bones of my face, just let the pressure out. This isn’t a migraine — no aura, no single-sided pain. I don’t know what kind of headache to call this. I really don’t care. I want to split open my skull. I want to be unconscious — the headache can even wake me up and it definitely makes it hard to sleep.

This will pass. This will pass. This will pass. The meds will work, the headache will stop. Serenity now.

Being so busy you can’t go to the grocery store (I miss Fresh Direct, who used to deliver. They were the best).

Trying to triage your list of tasks but you can’t cause every one is so damned important

Looking three weeks ahead into your calendar knowing that you have to figure out some way to literally be at two places at the same time and not being able to easily say no to either one

Being too busy to take the dog to the dog park, which means she is bored and chewing and on my last nerve

Being so overwhelmed that I actually thought No Country for Old Men was a realistic picture of the world (and yes, we had no time to see that either, but we had to go to Staples and the theater was RIGHT THERE. Not sure if it was a waste of time yet or not).

Being so busy and tired that sleep just makes me sleepier when I wake up.

And we lost an hour today. How much does that suck?

I was laid out with a migraine yesterday, a result (I think) of the change of the weather  — or changes, plural. Barometric pressure changes get caught up in my skull and my brains push their way out from the inside, or at least try to. I’m having many fewer of them, so I almost forget what they feel like until they lay me out. Yesterday, one started at 1 and I was only able to teach at 8 with the help of medication, another issue. When you need pain medication and run out, it’s hard to get refills — between doctors and insurance, they want to know what you’ve been doing with those pills. I haven’t been selling them, and I need the medication. How do we deal with that? With the increasing focus on teenagers taking pills from their parents’ medicine cabinets (a truly important issue), we also have to have the ability for people in pain to get relief. I sobbed, I threw up, and I waited four hours for my dr to be able to call back and call in the prescription. Pain is so serious, I cannot emphasize that enough.

And this morning, my head is a raw egg. I am walking around carefully, trying to keep it from cracking.

I lost my grandmother ten years ago. Several things brought her back to mind lately, and I realized that, if I could, there are things I would ask her–

Do you remember “putting on your face” and showing me my first lessons in makeup? I still look for lipstick in that coral tone you loved. It was in the green tube and if I ever find it, I’ll buy it.

You never minded when I banged on pots and pans for fun. Did it give you a headache? You never made me feel like it did.

I was sure that your house was the most luxurious I had ever seen. I could see my footprints in the carpet, and the glass grapes on the coffee table would hold the sun in their amber light. I thought this was what being happy was. And it was. Maybe different than what happy is right now, but in your home, you made us all happy. Now I understand how hard it must have been to do all of that, but by the time you put the roast on the table, I was sure this was what happiness meant.

I still am. Thank you.

Chris and I and a friend went last night to see a one-act play based on the story of Leopold and Loeb. The friend sent a link to a good website when she got home that had more of the story — two young men, in the early part of the 20th century, who thought they could commit murder and get away with it simply because they were so much brighter than most of the people around them (and richer). If you’re interested here is the link.

I’m writing about this not just because of the story, which is very interesting and includes one of the most famous summations of all court history: Clarence Darrow’s speech against the death penalty (he would, later on, become a part of the Scopes monkey trial about teaching evolution in Tennessee) but because I am sitting here reading about this. I have a to-do list the size of my arm and about 18 different things I could be doing right now but I’m not. I wanted to step outside what I do and learn about something different, just because I am interested in it. I think we can’t forget the importance of letting us and our students have time, sometimes, to learn about something new just because it fascinates them.

We only get one chance here, on this spinning sphere. Every day that is lost in testing is a day you can’t go back and get again. I know we have important things to teach our students, but isn’t it more important that they learn to care about learning and follow their own areas of interest as well? Learning something new, doing something interesting makes each of these days we have sparkle, in its own right. Who are we to take days away from children for testing when we’re not entirely sure what it tells us or what the results mean?