Author Archives: olivia

Oct 25 2012
14 Comments
Family, Home, Life, Teaching, Writing

Thankfulness Thursday: Who do you choose to be?

Part of whatever it is that is happening right now is that I’m learning to be me. We live in an age of extended adolescence. In my case, adulthood is starting at age 29. And, I don’t mean this in a time to buy a minivan kind of way, (no offense to the lovely twenty-something minivan drivers in my life). Instead, I mean this as I’m finally starting to figure out who the heck I am.

I’m a teacher, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a writer, an occasional traveler. I’m each of these things because I choose to be, not because I think I should or always will be, (although I hope to be most of these things all my life). I am incredibly grateful to be in the exact place I am right now, even though it is hard and even though I want some things to change. I think that’s the big difference. I used to fight life, to fight all the parts that were hard or not perfect.

Now I see it as part of a general movement in the right direction. I look back five years, things are better despite the bumps along the way. I am optimistic the same trend will continue with faith and a lot of hard work. I’ve got the hard work part down, so really it’s just a matter of maintaining a positive outlook and enjoying the journey, bumps and all.

So, what does it mean to be me today?

It means I write what vibrates in my bones, popular or not. It means mermaids for NaNoWriMo, even if practically every agent on the planet currently claims to hate mermaids. It means yoga in my living room and a make-shift altar on my coffee table. It means Sunday night dinners with my family, coffee dates in sundresses with my best friends, Wednesday nights in my pajamas watching TV with my husband. It means teaching in a way that leaves my heart aching.

I am part hippie, part hipster, part bohemian, part yuppie, part vegetarian-in-training.

As silly as it sounds, today I’m grateful to be me because it took me a very long time to get what that means, even if who I am is still an evolving mess of ideals and dreams. Maybe I’ll always be this way, but that’s alright, I’m starting to get that the labels and the knowing and the destinations aren’t the point.

***

Link up for Thankfulness Thursday @ Domestic Fashionista.

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Oct 24 2012
9 Comments
Life

Cozy little blue vest.

Autumn storms in Sacramento mean chilly evenings, (you know, chilly by California, non-snowy standards).

Enter my beloved North Face down vest.

There are two things you should know. One, I have very stylish friends. Two, I’m not nearly as stylish. But, my love for this puffy, blue sleeping-bag-of-a-vest has nothing to do with style. It’s all about how it makes me feel. Warm, safe, happy.

You can ask my family. They’re likely to see me in this all winter long, (plus whatever I can get away with in fall and spring too). If I were a character in your novel, you would have to include it. I have an odd attachment to this puffy pillow of a vest that I received for Christmas last year. So odd and so strong I had to blog about it. That and I had to lighten the mood. Been a little serious lately.

Do you also have an adult safety blanket, or is it just me?

Did I mention half the teachers I know own one of these things? Wearing mine right now…

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Oct 23 2012
14 Comments
Health, Life

Everything is a miracle.

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

-Albert Einstein

I came across this quote a couple weeks ago and let it sit in my document of random thoughts. It’s hard to always live your life as though everything is a miracle. Driving home from my mom’s house a couple weeks ago, I did. Even the trash blowing down the side of the freeway in the autumn sunset was somehow beautiful, the rain on my dirty windshield meaningful.

I’m slowly learning to live this way more often. It requires conscious thought, work, and desire. However, when achieved, everything starts to make a little more sense. Everything is more alive. I have always had little mantras for those moments I most need them. Today is the best day of my life was one for an entire summer. Now they change more frequently. Last week, my students are a gift. Yesterday, you are safe. Today, everything is a miracle.

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Oct 22 2012
11 Comments
Health, Life

Changing

Glimpses of a different future.

A me I never thought existed.

I resisted. Until now.

Visiting my mom, driving alone, loss, yoga, healing, an urban shaman.

I made my first altar today. I don’t know why it took me so long.

Sand flat salt, old photos, candles, my wedding ring, a necklace, dried rose petals four years old.

I can’t find the words to explain. I don’t want to ruin it. I’m not sure you’ll understand. I’m not sure I understand. Yet.

Change is hard. Change is worthwhile. Change takes courage.

We are more powerful than we give ourselves credit. Give that voice a chance. Follow it.

I always thought altars were reserved for the highly religious. Today I made one for my yoga practice. It brought me great peace and focus.

In the middle of my practice, I was drawn outside by the moving clouds. Alone I walked through the most glorious fall evening I have ever witnessed. It’s not even Thursday and I’m grateful for life, grateful for change.

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Oct 21 2012
8 Comments
Teaching

But why would anyone be racist?

Fifth grade is full of a lot of tough questions. I openly admit when I don’t have good answers, then we talk it out. This week, students asked, “But why would anyone be racist?”

It began as we read When Marian Sang to dissect Marian Anderson’s motivation for facing her fears when she sang in front of a potentially racist crowd of 75,000 people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939. In order to answer the question, students had to examine her background and address the racism she faced when she was growing up.

Normally we read a book of this length in a day, but students were so interested in talking about racism that this read aloud stretched into three days. Over and over again, students wanted to know where racism comes from, why anyone would choose to treat others so horribly. While we did not reach any conclusive answers, we decided it had to do with fear and groups of people living separately. Students brought up how our classroom is groups of people living together, how our president is both white and black. Their faces were shocked, upset, sometimes angry as we talked, but they were also alive with interest.

When I first started teaching, having this conversation would have made me nervous, worried I was somehow going to say the wrong thing. However, in my second year with the same kids, I am braver. I let them talk things out, respectfully, of course. I guide the conversation and offer good examples of our world getting a little better, one step at a time. It is amazing to watch them think through such challenging questions, amazing how deeply they care, amazing how even if our world still has a lot of racism, how much it has also changed over the last century.

Marian Anderson is a hero I never knew existed.

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Oct 20 2012
10 Comments
Life, Teaching

Why doesn’t everyone have healthcare?

It started out innocently enough.

My students were gathered for morning meeting at the carpet, ready for the daily announcements. I pulled out a box and explained the school was fundraising Pennies for Patients. Now, to be fully transparent, I’m not even entirely sure the money raised for this drive goes to patients, its name just makes it sound that way. But, before I knew it, our conversation somehow turned into a Q&A on access to healthcare in our country.

“But, Mrs. M, I don’t get it. Why doesn’t everyone have access to medical treatment? That doesn’t seem fair.”

A lot of eager nodding. Many students gave hand signals showing a connection to not having access to medical care. One student, a tough boy with a big heart, told the class about an upcoming surgery he will undergo and how his family is saving money for that. Another student appeared in class the next day with a patch over her eye and insisted on sharing a story of how her doctor refused to treat her the night before because of a conflict between her public and private insurance policies. Emergency care was out of the question.

It’s hard to explain to children why not everyone has access to affordable healthcare. To them, it just does not seem fair. And, I have to say, listening to their stories, I have to agree. Plenty of people will say kids have easy access to medical coverage, but I can tell you it’s not always that simple. We live in a country with a pretty confusing healthcare system.

What I find most surprising, however, is how many people do not see healthcare as a basic human right. I’m sure some of you reading this right now disagree with me. Friends of ours have full-heartedly disagreed with me. It’s just challenging to look into the faces of 30 wonderful human beings and come up with a good reason why any of them should have trouble receiving prompt, affordable, quality healthcare.

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Oct 19 2012
13 Comments
Family, Life

Life is short.

Yesterday I arrived home from work and sat in the car, letting the NPR story finish, attention caught by a piece about apartment rents in San Francisco. The economic analyst in me still lives beneath the surface. That and I often sit in the car to let a story finish.

This time, however, I looked up to see Alex coming to my window. Odd, I thought. Maybe he is wondering why I am still sitting here, alone in my car.

Then I saw his face and I knew something was wrong. My thoughts raced, he didn’t want to talk until we got inside. I couldn’t wait.

“Is someone dead?” I asked, a bit panicked.

“Yes.”

Before I even had time to ask who, he told me. A friend’s wife. Her heart stopped without explanation as she sat in the car in front of her house before she came in from work. Unexpected. Tragic. Heart breaking.

Now before you offer your condolences, please know, they are misdirected at me. I am deeply saddened by our friend’s loss, but I only knew her from weddings, brief interactions. For me, the sadness is in knowing how devastated Alex’s long-time friend must feel. This is the guy who was a big brother to Alex, let us borrow his super-fast Mustang to drive to prom, helped me learn to work on my own 5.0 Mustang a year or so later.

I cannot even begin to imagine what he must be feeling right now. How deep his grief must be. She also had a son.

Life is so unpredictable, so fleeting. Since Alex shared the news with me, I have been haunted by this quiet whisper of nothing lasts forever, nothing is certain. For Alex the haunting is something more jarring. It changed the way he looks at me. His eyes clinging to the present. His friend’s forlorn words on the other side of the phone still fresh in his mind.

There have been other losses in our relationship, but this is the only one that has ever made him look at me differently. That alone has followed me around all day, tapping me on the shoulder, reminding me. Life is short.

Tonight I just want to remind you to hold those close to you a little tighter and tell them you love them. That’s my plan.

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Oct 18 2012
18 Comments
Writing

Writing Crossroads

Help!

I’m standing at a writing crossroads and having a very hard time deciding which path to take. I don’t want to get stuck in one project, but I also don’t want to start more than I can feasibly finish:

Option 1: Put everything Expecting Happiness related on hold for the month of November, (unless of course some very enthusiastic agent wants to snatch me up…), and have fun letting the words flow for NaNoWriMo. This was my original plan. I figured I’d come back to Expecting Happiness either because of outside interest or after I played around with something new, learned some more tricks in the process, and was ready to revisit.

Option 2: Here is what I was not expecting. Reading up on the writing craft this month has left me more aware of the places I could strengthen Expecting Happiness. Likewise, I have received input/interest from two of the people I reached out to in my querying process and see that with a little guidance I might be on an even better track toward getting this thing traditionally published. So, my other thought is that I get this book truly done for good before allowing myself to explore something new.

I feel very torn between both options. I am so excited to be back in that first writing stage again where everything is fresh and you’re living inside the story. However, I also feel like I’m beginning to make some breakthroughs in how I understand my own writing, some breakthroughs that might make the difference…

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Oct 18 2012
8 Comments
Life, Teaching

Thankfulness Thursday: School

Sunday I was dreading coming back to work. A week and a half off. Freedom to write, see friends and family, relax. As much as I love my breaks, they create this dichotomy between two worlds, teaching and freedom.  The teaching world is generally just dandy when I’m in the routine and well-rested, but the freedom world makes it really hard to go back for the first few days.

So, I geared up. I reminded myself that no matter how challenging my job may be, my students are a gift. Our time together is a gift. I am so lucky to have them in my life, constantly sharing beautiful little moments with me. I wrote this on my refrigerator, I repeated this to myself all week, they are a gift, they are a gift, they are a gift.

Sometimes, I have to trick myself into positivity.

This week it worked. I also told myself that I’d spend the week looking for things about my job to be thankful for in this very post because I knew it would be a hard week readjusting. And, magic! Knowing I was looking for moments to be grateful for kept me mostly grounded and positive all week, even as my very own Maniac Magee went on one of his wildest day-long adventures yet, (among other very exciting and/or horrifying moments, depending how you look at them).

Lesson of the week: If you’re looking for something to be thankful for, you’ll find it.

1. I actually had fun planning AND teaching my Nanowrimo and water cycle lessons this week. Turns out when you like what you teach, you’re happier!

Funny how I never much liked science as a kid, but now I geek out on teaching it!

2. Even Maniac Magee, (as his name will remain this week), amused me with his antics instead of digging under my skin with his misbehavior. I took it lightly, which helped. And, the fact that he somehow ended up lying on my classroom floor after school, blown over in the wake of his own hurricane, made me smile.

3. Smiles. I missed my students over break, more than I realized. The smiles on their faces when they saw me Monday morning told me they missed me too. This warmed my heart enough to part with my beloved freedom and keep it positive this week.

Today, I’m thankful for the mixed blessing that is my day job, teaching.

***

Join the Thankfulness Thursday link-up over at Domestic Fashionista!

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Oct 15 2012
8 Comments
Teaching, Writing

Teachers, Get your NaNoWriMo on!

Okay, I’m now excited for November for two reasons: Time to write something new AND time to walk my students through their first novels… That’s right, I’m doing it, diving in head first and teaching the NaNoWriMo Youth Writing Program. Fortunately, it fits right in with what we’re already teaching this time of year– narrative writing.

Part of why I am so excited is because my students cheered me on last year as I attempted to write a novel in one month. This year, those same kids will get to try it themselves. When I unveiled my master plan to my students this afternoon, they were giddy. The kind folks over at NaNoWriMo will even be sending them a free box of goodies to keep them motivated.

Today we locked up our inner editors. I almost passed on this, thinking it might not be the best use of instructional time, but they had a blast drawing the mean voices inside their heads that keep them from writing. It turns out that even ten year olds have fears of not being great. We’ll need our editors again in December when it is time to revise, but until then, we’re locking them up so we can just get the words out, (good advice for us grown-up writers too!):

Good-bye for awhile evil inner-voice editors!

It’s funny, I was a little hesitant to teach narrative with NaNoWriMo because it feels like such an epic endeavor to convince fifth graders to pour their attention into novel writing for an entire month. However, day 1 down of preparing their thoughts and I feel like it might be an awesomely memorable part of their year. They’re excited, I’m excited… Wish us luck!

***

PS. I’m now contemplating making my NaNoWriMo novel targeted at a middle grades/young adult audience. This is completely off-course from my previous plans, but it sounds like fun to write something I can actually share with them while they’re writing…

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Oct 13 2012
13 Comments
Writing

That’s what she said…

Writer friends, let’s talk dialogue, shall we. This week, I am meandering my way through Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and the section on writing dialogue has my attention. According to the book, “Your best bet is to use the verb said almost without exception… To use verbs like the last three [grimaced, smiled, chuckled] is to brand yourself as an amateur– and stick your character with an action that is physically impossible.”

Now, I have to say, even though dialogue writing is tricky and I am still learning, I am not entirely sure I agree. Overall, I try to stick to said or use beats that describe the character’s actions to show who is talking:

“I’m just afraid I’ll let you down,” Kristen leaned over and put her head on his lap, letting her tears spill onto his favorite pair of old Adidas running shorts.

The description of what Kristen does tells us she is the one speaking with a beat according to the authors. They would theoretically agree with this speaker attribution. However, there are times that speaker tags like smiled or laughed add something to the text. To me, they don’t mean the speaker held these expressions the entire time they were speaking, like the book claims to be physically impossible, but instead that these actions followed the dialogue:

“Me?” Kristen laughed softly, “You’re the unhappy one!”

As a reader, can’t we infer that she was not laughing the entire time the words were spoken, but instead at the point in between? I feel like maybe I am missing something about dialogue here that the authors of this book see and I don’t. I get what they’re saying about not overdoing it with unnecessary verbs/adjectives/adverbs, but variety does not seem like such a bad thing, especially when it gives information to the reader.

Ironically, I think F. Scott Fitzgerald would agree with me. The Great Gatsby, which this book holds in high esteem for its character development and scene creation, uses tags like told, laughed, cried, remarked all within the first few pages. So, now I’m curious of your thoughts– how do you most often distinguish who is talking in your dialogue? Do you frequently use verbs other than said? Do you feel they serve a purpose or that said is the better choice?

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Oct 12 2012
10 Comments
Health, Home, Life, Teaching, Writing

Seeking Balance: Teaching, Writing, Life

Inspired by two other bloggers this week, I want to share two days in the life of me, a fifth grade teacher, writer, human being. I know some teachers work far more hours than I do, but this does not mean the 9-10 hours I spend each day are not intensely full, (or that some days/weekends do not include more work). However, I have found that cutting myself off is important to maintaining the energy necessary to teach each day. Likewise, I think we need to move away from a culture where everything is a contest of who worked the most. Life is about balance. Here is my attempt:

Writing Tuesdays:

6:00 AM Wake-up

6:50 AM Leave for work

7:00 AM Arrive in my classroom, set-up for the day, get through as much on my to-do list as possible

7:55 AM Report to duty outside as the students arrive

8:15 AM Students in the classroom, day begins, all my energy goes to teaching lessons, answering questions, meeting small groups.

3:15 PM Students leave, Tuesday I have no prep and I usually spend my lunches multi-tasking by making copies, working out problems with students, and building relationships, so 3:15 is my first “break.” However, I don’t really take a break because my goal is to get home. I use this time to prep for the next day, make parent phone calls, etc.

4:00 PM My teaching coach arrives, we figure out what still needs to be done to clear my credential and talk through any challenges I’m having in the classroom.

5:00 PM Arrive home, walk the dog, clean-up a bit, eat a snack, relax.

5:30 PM Start writing. Tuesdays Alex and I do our own thing, this is my time to focus.

8:00 PM Make dinner/eat (We eat late…), get prepared for the next day, read, unwind.

10:00 PM Sleep

Unwired Wednesdays:

6AM-12:45 PM Same as Tuesday

12:45 PM Students go home, Wednesdays are our prep and professional development days

1:00 PM Meet my team to plan instructional overview for the following two weeks

2:00 PM Professional development with school staff on anything from data analysis to teaching reading more effectively in small groups

3:00 PM Personal planning time to get ready for Thursday/following week

4:00 PM I leave a little earlier than the rest of the week. This gives me something to anticipate, (even if I have to leave items on my to-do list). I get home, check my personal email, clean-up a bit, then head off to hot yoga.

5:45 PM Hot yoga

7:00 PM Get home, shower, prepare for Thursday, make dinner

8:00 PM Eat dinner, hang out with Alex, watch TV (Daily Show, Downton Abbey, New Girl)… We aren’t big TV watchers, but I do find it relaxing on Wednesday nights.

10:00 PM Sleep!

Unwired Wednesdays means no computer usage after 5PM. I find this break amazingly rejuvenating, especially midweek. Wasting time on the computer was a drain on my happiness, even though blogging and writing were beneficial to my overall well-being. Accordingly, I had to consciously create balance in the middle of each week.

I hope you’ll consider using this as inspiration for a post yourself. I won’t lie, I really like peeking into the lives of others as it gives me ideas on how I can better use my own time. And, if nothing else, it is a great opportunity to look at your life and evaluate how your time is spent– how do you seek balance between health, work, family/friends and your other interests?

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