with work still comes stress

I had a knot of anxiety in my chest all day yesterday. Two of my five classes on Tuesday did not go well; they had a combination of poor lesson planning and defiant attention grabbing students. I spent hours reading, thinking and planning about classroom management, regaining control and improving the lessons. I also spent all that time being angry with myself. Why was I letting it get to me? Why could I not forget about school and concentrate on my daughter? At one point I found reading a management book while sitting next to Rose. Not good. My focus needs to be on her.

I know that wanting to be a success is not a bad thing. I just don't want my work life to encroach on my family life in the way it did yesterday. This is probably the impossible balance that so many mothers are striving for. How can you juggle being a Mum and being a working woman? I want to be a good role model for Rose. I want her to know that playtime is just that, work time happens at another time. I need to get better at this. No more working while Rose is up, no more checking email while Rose it up. Really, there is nothing to check.

I do need to make sure we get out and do something each day - being in the house all day long is difficult. There is a good network of Mums in the neighborhood - we are all going through the same conflicts with work and motherhood and it is so helpful to hear other people's stories. This is what makes me so angry with myself. I am in a fabulous position - 2 days of work a week. I need to get some perspective and get out of my head. There are much more important things to think about than a couple of defiant teenagers - I have a daughter now.

Creativity void

I watched a fascinating talk about creativity given by Sir Ken Robinson. He argues that the current education system kills creativity. The whole system, in his view, is a "12 year preparation course" for university; it, therefore, stymies any talents or skills that are useless for a university career - dance, drama, art, music, anything with your hands. As I am in the early stages of teaching a SAT prep class, his theory is particularly interesting. I'm teaching these kids how to pass a test that gets them into university. My lessons are filled with "top tips" and "triggers" that the kids are meant to memorize to become "smart test takers". I'm teaching a class devoid of any smidgen of creativity. It's depressing to write this, let alone deal with the actual reality of it. Needless to say, I'm struggling with the class. But, to go to college the kids need to take this test. I want them to do well, but I'd much prefer a system where they can shine with their natural skills not shine with their ability to take a test well.

Obviously, this leads me to think about Rose and her future education. I'm already investigating all the different options and am intrigued by the Montessori model. From what I can gather so far, a student's learning is guided by self-discovery and personal interests, rather than teacher mandated assignments. I'm going to do a lot more research, but I like the sound of it so far.

Pickwick paper is started and it is BIG. There may need to be a renewel on this one.

99 bottles sitting on the wall

Scoop is finished. "Uproariously funny" "ingenious" "hilarious" are a sample of the back cover reviews, I'm not so convinced. It was silly, but filled with overt racism that made my stomach turn. Not so easy to belly laugh when the ugly words of my grandfather's generation pepper the pages. Scoop satirized the newspaper business. He ridiculed its controllers and its methods by creating bumbling characters like William and Theodore Boot and powerful idiots like Lord Copper. Women didn't come out very well either; Katchen was a gold-digging cheat and William's female relatives never left their house. Mrs. Stitch, however, was a high point in the novel. Her power over the male characters was an unexpected and happy plot element and ultimately, the cause of all the ensuing trouble.

My rankings:

1. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (a silly account of mistaken identity and disquieting racism)
2. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (a tedious journey into university faculty)

Next up....Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (I'm excited about this one.)

Evelyn is a man

We are in the midst of Philadelphia's biggest snowstorm. I have never seen anything like it. Total accumulation could be 38 inches. Larchwood Avenue looks like a ski resort; vague figures wield snow shovels in swirling snow, cars crawl by hauling high-hats of snow on their roofs, and off-lead dogs bound through drifts. It could be horribly dangerous if we actually had to go anywhere, but we are home, in the warm and have netflix for entertainment - though the milk levels are getting low.

I finished book two of "Scoop" and seem to have lost interest. I am, therefore, a little confused about the action. Book two deals with William's adventures in Ishmealia. In a nutshell, journalists are sent there because of potential civil conflict. A story of a Russian incursion is broken by one of the newspaper men, but disproved by some wrangling by other newspaper men. All the jouranlists are tricked into going to a imaginary town called "laku" or "I don't know" except for the hero William. Mr. Benito, a revolutionary front man, attempts to get William out of the city, but William is too interested in staying and wooing a gold-digging, married Polish girl. Mr. Benito and his Russian compadres overthrow the Jackson government and William is the only press to witness the events. In the meantime, the husband of the Polish girl returns and the couple leave in William's canoe. Left in the capital, William reconnects with a rich Brit, Mr. Baldwin, who turns out to own the mineral interests of the country. A swede on a motorbike crashes into a bar, discovers, via William and Mr. Baldwin, that a revolution has taken place, storms the palace and kills Benito and his gang. Again, William is the only one to report the events, except he is so inept Mr. Baldwin writes the piece for him. Remember, Mr. Baldwin seems to own the country.

It seems ridiculous, but is "Scoop" really that far from reality. Journalists are given the responsibility to report the facts about the story they are covering. Clueless William is the only voice covering a story of world importance and he is being manipulated by every side. How can we trust the news that we read? Is it possible to report facts without some opinion or bias seeping in? It's entirely possible for all newspaper stories to be complete fabrications, but we believe it because it is all we have. Scoop was written in the 1930s. Now technology has advanced to the point that the truth should be easier to attain; we have live blogging, twitter, video, cell phones that let the public see, hear and read about events practically in real time. Does this remove the bias? Or does this just clog up the news? Instead of having just one voice (however unreliable), the public now has hundreds of different voices to listen to.

Back to work

Today, I went back to work. It was an intense day filled with high points and low points. I'm teaching 125 students how to take the SAT test; not the most riveting if subjects. I'm, also, a little rusty and a new face for a lot of the kids. But let's start with positive. I arrived at 8.00am and got hugs and smiles from every teacher I passed. I got to my room and two students from last year presented me with a vase of orange lilies. I had a couple of classes filled with kids I taught last year and they were fabulous. I have a great team teacher who supported me all day. On the negative side, the classes I did not know decided to test the new teacher. The first class was a train wreck; constant talking, disruption, requests for bathroom. There were moments when I was looking at them all ignoring me and thinking what the hell am I doing. My principle came into my room during that class. The other two classes were a lot better, but I was a hell of a lot firmer. I have some challenges waiting for me at work. But, I got to come home to my beautiful family, feed my little girl, share dinner with my husband and cuddle on a couch. Life is good. The odd challenge just makes you stronger!

Scooping

For the past few months I have been feeding Rose once a night (approx. 3 am), but we have been getting out of bed at least 4 more times and responding to cries. At each hint of a cry, we would stumble into the pitch-black nursery. Leaning over the crib, we would search the crib for the expelled pacifier, search for Rose's mouth and replace the pacifier. Her crying would stop and we would stumble back to bed. Obviously there were two major problems: Rose is getting a horrible nights sleep because she has become attached to sleeping with the pacifier and we are getting a horrible nights sleep because of the frequent replacement trips.

In the last few weeks, I started to feel conflicted about how non-attachment parenting we are. I think I may have been slowly brainwashed by the birth center groupies. How natural is it for a baby to sleep alone? Should Rose be alone in her nursery for so long? This nagging thoughts kept entering my mind. On Friday it all came to a head. We had a vigorous debate about what we should do about the nighttime yo-yo hall walking. It slowly became clear to me that now at 6 months she needs to learn to sleep and self-sooth. My nagging thoughts were a little late. So we waded into crying it out. At 2 am that night, we fought through 45 minutes of crying - soothing every 5 minutes, and eventually she slept. Last night she slept until 5.30am, with middle of the night whimpers.

It seems successful, but is incredibly hard. The crying physically hurts. I'm on my own today and she is having her lunchtime nap right now. 30 minutes into it she started to cry. I went to sooth after 5 minutes and made things so much worse. It took another 15 minutes for her to sleep - crying the whole time. She woke up again 20 minutes later and we did the whole thing again. While the monitor wails I look longingly at the pacifiers in the kitchen; if I gave her the dummy there would be silence in a second. But, I have to be strong. This is the beginning of a lifetime of setting boundaries. Just like teaching, consistency is key and unbelievably difficult.

I've just finished the first part of "Scoop" and it is kicking "Lucky Jims" arse. It is still populated by wealthy, pompous British folk doing ridiculous things, but this time is actually funny. An episode of mistaken identity led to William Boot, a reclusive, nature-loving, part time columnist, being sent to cover the civil war in Ishmealia, a north African country "difficult to get to from every direction" instead of the popular writer John Boot. Poor William is out of his depth. His publisher has given him instructions on how to report on the war, regardless of the actual truth. Scoop is all about the power of the media. I imagine William is going to get into all kinds of trouble and have an enormous impact on the British public's view of Ishmelia and possibly the outcome of the war itself. Does this happen all the time?