I have this extremely bad habit that has caught up to me. It's a result of my childhood, and it's fairly innocuous compared to other bad habits I could have developed because of my childhood. Anyway, my dad is wonderful now, but he was miserable when I was a kid. I remember him as angry, volatile, and moody. I hated when he was home and looked forward to every business trip he took. He would rage at the family and then punish us by giving us the silent treatment, all while not telling us why he was so mad. It led to a tense household where my brother and I would hide in our rooms as often as possible.
Unfortunately, my mom was raised in a family where you ate dinner together every night. She would take hours to make these delicious home cooked meals, but I would be too stressed out to eat. I have had IBS for most of my life, and I think that it stems from the tenseness at the dinner table and having to eat while being emotionally traumatized. I remember eating and crying at the same time. I also remember thinking that there is nothing quite as pathetic as eating and crying at the same time.
Anyway, I would end up not eating much at dinnertime. Which meant that by 10 pm, I was starving. In my teen years, I would sneak downstairs and grab food to eat upstairs. My dad was asleep, so I could eat in peace. And read a book while eating. Which was just blissful. My mom knew about it. She also worried that I didn't eat enough, so she never minded. And, I was a skinny runty little kid, so eating at 10 had no repercussions physically.
I'm not a skinny runty little kid anymore. And, when I get stressed, I revert back to the comfort seeking behavior of my youth. I sneak downstairs after everyone is asleep and grab stuff to eat. And I eat, completely alone, and reading a book. It's never bingeing because it's usually a individual bag of chips or a bowl of ice cream. It's blissful. Until I gained 15 pounds last semester from it.
Booboo tells me that I look exactly the same. But, my jeans tell me that I'm not. I can button and zip them up, but there's a roll of blub that just flops over the top. Which is unacceptable. So, I'm faced with the choice of either losing some weight or buying new pants. I figure that doing Zumba 3 times a week and stopping the solitary eating will take care of things. Which is good, since all of you know how I feel about weight loss products and programs. Hell, I even feel guilty about wanting to lose weight. I prefer to think about it as wanting to fit my jeans again.
Anyway, I am mentioning it here because if I get weird and evangelical about it, someone slap me please. I just want to avoid spending any money to replace my jeans.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Taking teachable moments
When I posted the FB status about this blog, I think I said something like, "And, if I don't feel like having a damn teachable moment, I'm not making it a damn teachable moment." There's a history behind that statement. The first part, most of you know about. The second part, I haven't told anyone until now.
The first part began in 2010 when some asshat "friend" reported my FB page to our college's anonymous ethics hotline. I had posted a link to a site called "Rate My Vajazzle" where you could actually rate vulvas and pubic mounds according to age group. (Apparently, after you hit 40, your hoo-ha is too old to rate). Anyway, the people who know me know exactly why I posted the link. It's not ridiculous enough that people are judging women by their faces, hair, and bodies all the time, but a website to judge the beauty of your vulva? Yeesh.
The ethics hotline report got me sent to the school attorney's office where she read the complaint to me. I was accused of distributing pornography. The attorney said she was a feminist and she understood why I posted the link, but told me that I should have made it a teachable moment and written exactly why the link was offensive and how it fit into a feminist sociological perspective. I didn't get any official sanctions, but left the office furious and defriended everyone from the college in a fit.
It's my FB. I use it for entertainment and to stay connected with friends. I teach 5 sections a semester (which is already ridiculous), write articles and manuals about teaching, and teach my kids every second I'm with them. I get tired of teaching. I don't want to make every single second of my life a teachable moment. Besides, the asshat who reported me was exercising some personal vendetta and wouldn't really care why I posted the link. (I still don't know who it was. And, there are still people who are trying to figure it out 2 years later).
The second part happened this summer. I got a scary racist rant from a former student (who was not a FB friend) in my FB mailbox, and I posted a status about it because it scared me. My friends came to my defense (of course) and posted some harsh words about this guy. Including insults and violence. How I handled the rant was I blocked the former student, didn't respond to him, and sent the message to the Vice President of Student Services. They actually took the rant very seriously, did research on the student, and brought him in for a meeting. After taking my class, he had taken History of the Holocaust, Modern European history, Modern Russian history, and started taking German. He agreed to go to counseling every week, but they judged him as stable and not dangerous.
Then I get a FB message from an old friend. She's about 25 years older than I am, and has known me since I was 14. She told me that if the student was in his late teens or early 20s that he may be showing early signs of schizophrenia and that the racist rants weren't his fault. She also told me to post on my page that the student could be schizophrenic and that the comments that my friends made about him were unwarranted. I told her to feel free to post it herself. She refused because she said she couldn't talk/discuss schizophrenia in a public space. She didn't say why. Just that she couldn't. I told her politely that my friends were defending me, and that I didn't really want to excuse the behavior of someone who had scared and insulted me. She then wrote this huge message about how I am an educator and I needed to take that situation and make it a teachable moment. That is was my responsibility as someone who had such a large audience. Basically a huge guilt trip.
You know what? Screw that.
If I am going to be the teacher, then I get to pick the moments. Not someone else. I can't champion every single cause in the world. And, I can't manage my emotions 24 hours a day. Sometimes I get mad. Sometimes I get scared. Why is it my responsibility if someone gets offended by my post? Why is it my responsibility to defend someone who threatened me? Yes. I am an educator. And, I decided that at a really early age. But, seriously. Stop telling me what and when I should teach. I get to choose my teachable moments. And, sometimes, you just have to throw up your hands and roll your eyes.
The first part began in 2010 when some asshat "friend" reported my FB page to our college's anonymous ethics hotline. I had posted a link to a site called "Rate My Vajazzle" where you could actually rate vulvas and pubic mounds according to age group. (Apparently, after you hit 40, your hoo-ha is too old to rate). Anyway, the people who know me know exactly why I posted the link. It's not ridiculous enough that people are judging women by their faces, hair, and bodies all the time, but a website to judge the beauty of your vulva? Yeesh.
The ethics hotline report got me sent to the school attorney's office where she read the complaint to me. I was accused of distributing pornography. The attorney said she was a feminist and she understood why I posted the link, but told me that I should have made it a teachable moment and written exactly why the link was offensive and how it fit into a feminist sociological perspective. I didn't get any official sanctions, but left the office furious and defriended everyone from the college in a fit.
It's my FB. I use it for entertainment and to stay connected with friends. I teach 5 sections a semester (which is already ridiculous), write articles and manuals about teaching, and teach my kids every second I'm with them. I get tired of teaching. I don't want to make every single second of my life a teachable moment. Besides, the asshat who reported me was exercising some personal vendetta and wouldn't really care why I posted the link. (I still don't know who it was. And, there are still people who are trying to figure it out 2 years later).
The second part happened this summer. I got a scary racist rant from a former student (who was not a FB friend) in my FB mailbox, and I posted a status about it because it scared me. My friends came to my defense (of course) and posted some harsh words about this guy. Including insults and violence. How I handled the rant was I blocked the former student, didn't respond to him, and sent the message to the Vice President of Student Services. They actually took the rant very seriously, did research on the student, and brought him in for a meeting. After taking my class, he had taken History of the Holocaust, Modern European history, Modern Russian history, and started taking German. He agreed to go to counseling every week, but they judged him as stable and not dangerous.
Then I get a FB message from an old friend. She's about 25 years older than I am, and has known me since I was 14. She told me that if the student was in his late teens or early 20s that he may be showing early signs of schizophrenia and that the racist rants weren't his fault. She also told me to post on my page that the student could be schizophrenic and that the comments that my friends made about him were unwarranted. I told her to feel free to post it herself. She refused because she said she couldn't talk/discuss schizophrenia in a public space. She didn't say why. Just that she couldn't. I told her politely that my friends were defending me, and that I didn't really want to excuse the behavior of someone who had scared and insulted me. She then wrote this huge message about how I am an educator and I needed to take that situation and make it a teachable moment. That is was my responsibility as someone who had such a large audience. Basically a huge guilt trip.
You know what? Screw that.
If I am going to be the teacher, then I get to pick the moments. Not someone else. I can't champion every single cause in the world. And, I can't manage my emotions 24 hours a day. Sometimes I get mad. Sometimes I get scared. Why is it my responsibility if someone gets offended by my post? Why is it my responsibility to defend someone who threatened me? Yes. I am an educator. And, I decided that at a really early age. But, seriously. Stop telling me what and when I should teach. I get to choose my teachable moments. And, sometimes, you just have to throw up your hands and roll your eyes.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Armor
This template is really really pink. Not sure how I feel about that, but I am too lazy to try to find another one.
Last Spring, when DH started a new job, he decided to totally change his work wardrobe. He's a computer programmer, so throughout his 20 year career, he's been able to wear ratty jeans and polo shirts. Anyway, he spent a wad of cash on buying dress shirts and slacks. And, continues to spend money every week on dry cleaning. Very odd for a man who has worn machine washable clothes for his entire life. But, it's had a positive impact. He's more confident, and he actually loves his job. He has friends there, and management respects him. He credits the clothing. He says that the clothes makes everyone treat him better.
Anyway, I decided to follow suit. Since I left L.A. for the frozen North, my wardrobe became, well, predictable. When I first started teaching up here, different department chairs commented on how students were preoccupied with my wardrobe, so I dealt with it by wearing a black t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of boots every single day. It worked for me. I was comfortable, no one commented on my clothing, and I didn't have to think very hard in the morning about what I was going to wear. Since I'm a lot more visible at work now, I decided to step things up a la DH. I already own a lot of dresses and skirts, so it wasn't a big deal to wear them. The only problem is that growing up in Houston and in L.A., I got used to wearing lightweight summer dresses. Which is fine when I'm just traipsing around daily life. But, thinking about standing up in front of the class lecturing in these lightweight dresses made me realize that I would be uncomfortably exposed. The jeans and t-shirt feel like armor sometimes. I have gotten fairly used to the idea that anything I wear will look inappropriate on me since I have a 12 inch difference between my bust measurement and my waist measurement. But, at least with jeans and a t-shirt, I feel protected.
A friend of mine was raised by her grandma, and even though she is younger than I am, is old fashioned by my standards because she always wears a girdle and slip when she wears dresses. Really old fashioned because with some of my sundresses, I'm only wearing a pair of bikini underwear. But, I thought she had a good solution to my problem and I invested in 3 pairs of high waisted Spanx. I got the kind that go all the way up to my underbust and end midthigh. I figured that I would be completely covered that way. If the wind blew my skirt up, no one could see anything but biker shorts, and all my jiggle would be held in. The first week of class, all went well. I got comments from colleagues about how nice I looked. One actually snarked a little bit about me being too dressed up. But, the Spanx were surprisingly comfortable. And, they really took my mind off wearing flimsy dresses.
This Thursday, everything went awry. I decided to wear something extremely unusual for me. Pastel. Flowered. Straight. Generally, if I wear a dress, it's going to be A-line, dark, and solid. So, already I felt out of sorts. Then, during intro, I was standing at the board when the top of my Spanx started slowly rolling down my torso. I could actually feel it descending little by little with every movement I made. I was distracted from the lecture because I wondered if other students could see it. It finally ended rolled uncomfortably around my waist. I felt like I was being strangled by an anaconda. And, I was terrified that suddenly, there was a giant roll around my waist. I finished my lecture, ran to my office, and fixed the damn thing, only to have it happen in my next class. I had a meeting later that afternoon and I was left with the awkward choice of wearing a girdle that would roll down my body, or wearing no underwear. Um...you can probably guess that I suffered through the entire meeting with a tube of elastic squeezing the heck out of my middle. Cause no way am I going commando. Ever. But, especially in a flowery pastel straight-line dress at school!
I have a feeling this whole experiment has been a wash. As soon as the temp drops, and as soon as I can fit back into them, I'm going back to wearing jeans every day. And, I need to go stock up on some new black t-shirts. I'm going to save the dresses as a summer treat. When I teach, I need to be able to focus on the material and the students, not on whether I am having a wardrobe malfunction.
Last Spring, when DH started a new job, he decided to totally change his work wardrobe. He's a computer programmer, so throughout his 20 year career, he's been able to wear ratty jeans and polo shirts. Anyway, he spent a wad of cash on buying dress shirts and slacks. And, continues to spend money every week on dry cleaning. Very odd for a man who has worn machine washable clothes for his entire life. But, it's had a positive impact. He's more confident, and he actually loves his job. He has friends there, and management respects him. He credits the clothing. He says that the clothes makes everyone treat him better.
Anyway, I decided to follow suit. Since I left L.A. for the frozen North, my wardrobe became, well, predictable. When I first started teaching up here, different department chairs commented on how students were preoccupied with my wardrobe, so I dealt with it by wearing a black t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of boots every single day. It worked for me. I was comfortable, no one commented on my clothing, and I didn't have to think very hard in the morning about what I was going to wear. Since I'm a lot more visible at work now, I decided to step things up a la DH. I already own a lot of dresses and skirts, so it wasn't a big deal to wear them. The only problem is that growing up in Houston and in L.A., I got used to wearing lightweight summer dresses. Which is fine when I'm just traipsing around daily life. But, thinking about standing up in front of the class lecturing in these lightweight dresses made me realize that I would be uncomfortably exposed. The jeans and t-shirt feel like armor sometimes. I have gotten fairly used to the idea that anything I wear will look inappropriate on me since I have a 12 inch difference between my bust measurement and my waist measurement. But, at least with jeans and a t-shirt, I feel protected.
A friend of mine was raised by her grandma, and even though she is younger than I am, is old fashioned by my standards because she always wears a girdle and slip when she wears dresses. Really old fashioned because with some of my sundresses, I'm only wearing a pair of bikini underwear. But, I thought she had a good solution to my problem and I invested in 3 pairs of high waisted Spanx. I got the kind that go all the way up to my underbust and end midthigh. I figured that I would be completely covered that way. If the wind blew my skirt up, no one could see anything but biker shorts, and all my jiggle would be held in. The first week of class, all went well. I got comments from colleagues about how nice I looked. One actually snarked a little bit about me being too dressed up. But, the Spanx were surprisingly comfortable. And, they really took my mind off wearing flimsy dresses.
This Thursday, everything went awry. I decided to wear something extremely unusual for me. Pastel. Flowered. Straight. Generally, if I wear a dress, it's going to be A-line, dark, and solid. So, already I felt out of sorts. Then, during intro, I was standing at the board when the top of my Spanx started slowly rolling down my torso. I could actually feel it descending little by little with every movement I made. I was distracted from the lecture because I wondered if other students could see it. It finally ended rolled uncomfortably around my waist. I felt like I was being strangled by an anaconda. And, I was terrified that suddenly, there was a giant roll around my waist. I finished my lecture, ran to my office, and fixed the damn thing, only to have it happen in my next class. I had a meeting later that afternoon and I was left with the awkward choice of wearing a girdle that would roll down my body, or wearing no underwear. Um...you can probably guess that I suffered through the entire meeting with a tube of elastic squeezing the heck out of my middle. Cause no way am I going commando. Ever. But, especially in a flowery pastel straight-line dress at school!
I have a feeling this whole experiment has been a wash. As soon as the temp drops, and as soon as I can fit back into them, I'm going back to wearing jeans every day. And, I need to go stock up on some new black t-shirts. I'm going to save the dresses as a summer treat. When I teach, I need to be able to focus on the material and the students, not on whether I am having a wardrobe malfunction.
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