Not a Wasted Word

My morning commute is beautiful. It never ceases to amaze me, and I’ve been driving it for 15 years.

One of my favorite things about this area is the fog. I just really, really love the white mist sitting silently between the trees.

This year, the morning fog has upped its game considerably. It’s been incredible. I wish I could get better pictures of it, but there is never a good vantage point to truly capture its beauty. I suppose these crappy shots will have to do.

On Monday night I broke my work computer. I was walking up the stairs in fuzzy socks and I slipped and it hit the floor from maybe a foot up, right on the corner. The screen (which was open because it takes a while for the log-in screen to appear so I generally open it while I’m walking to wherever I’m going to use it), dissolved into a mess of pixels before going black. It wouldn’t turn back on again.

My work computer is MY computer these days. It has been for a long time. My actual personal computer is a white MacBook. I mention the color because the white ones haven’t been made in many years. Technically it works, but it can’t really support its operating system so everything moves VERY SLOWLY. Like painstakingly slowly. It also has no available storage. I stopped using it about three years ago when I started needing to take my work computer home (because I had to take it between the two schools). I even back up my phone, and download my photos, onto my work computer these days. So when I broke it, I was pretty distraught.

Tuesday the entire tech department of our district was taking a sick day in protest of proposed cuts, so I had to drop it off knowing it wasn’t going to be looked at. I got a loaner laptop from the secretary at my first school and then another from my second school.

You forget how well your computer knows you until you are using some other random laptop. None of my regular websites auto-filled after the first few letters were typed, none of my usernames and passwords auto-populated. None of my Word files were accessible (I didn’t have the time to access my Dropbox). If I create a new Word file I couldn’t print it and had to email it to myself to have a copy. It was just a mess, especially since I use my computer during every single class.

On Tuesday I also broke my rolling briefcase bag that serves as my portable office as I travel between campuses. I actually bought a protection plan on it, but couldn’t find the receipt for long enough that I got pretty upset. I eventually did find an adequate form of proof of purchase but of course the process for actually registering my “replacement plan” and accessing it is long and grueling. The whole thing has just required a ton of time and stress and on top of the broken computer, it felt like adding insult to injury.

I also had a super long staff meeting that ended up being an even bigger waste of time than usual. I am always trying to fit so many things into the afternoons of my weekdays, it’s incredibly frustrating to have to waste two hours on something that feels totally unproductive. I absolutely loathe staff meetings. And we had a professional development on Wednesday afternoon! Why two days in a row?! So unnecessary!

Did I mention that my daughter came to school with me on Tuesday? Because it was Lunar New Year so she had off and I didn’t and I thought it would be good to get her annual “take your daughter to work day” checked off early. She loves coming to my school and was so excited to be there, but it was a long day and we were both very frayed by the end of it (especially after the staff meeting)!

I also need to get a new phone, because at this point I need to restart mine about 3×4 times a day and it’s a constant source of frustration. I’ve had it for almost four years so I feel satisfied enough with how long it’s lasted. But I have no desire to get anything new or fancier, so it sucks that my old one is crapping out of me.

Anyway. Tuesday sucked, and I was really exhausted by the time I got home.

Luckily Wednesday was better. First of all, I started my period, which might sound shitty, and certainly isn’t fun, but definitely improves my mood. I’m not a happy camper the 2-4 days before my period starts, but I generally even out once it gets going. Yesterday I definitely understood better why Tuesday was so upsetting.

I got the ball rolling on getting my bag replaced, and while it’s been tedious and frustrating, I’m thankful the bag is being replaced and I don’t have to pay for it. It was an expensive bag and I rely on it to transport my considerable supplies from one school to another and then home again every day. I’m kind of panicked about finding a way to accomplish this without my bag for the time it will take to get it replaced.

But the best news was that the tech guy got all my information off the hard drive of my computer, even though that was ultimately the issue and it had to be replaced. So now I have my old machine back, with a new hard drive that has all my stuff. When I turned it on Chrome was altering me to the fact that it had not been shut down correctly and asking if I wanted it to restore my windows. I have never been so thrilled to read that error message.

So now my computer is back, and I’ll have a bag to transport it in soon. Oh, and I’ll have a new phone at some point too. Too bad a replacement plan won’t be paying for that.

It’s shaping up to be one of those weeks so I’m trying to remember that when there is rain, look for the rainbows.

(Anyone else’s kids have off today for Lunar New Year?!)

I read a fair amount of posts disagreeing with the KonMarie method for decluttering one’s home. Some people can’t wrap their heads around choosing which items to keep based on whether or they “spark joy,” others take issue with the her folding method, still others argue you should declutter one room at a time, instead of by category, or simply take your time with whole process, instead of trying to bang it out all at once. The biggest issue people take with Marie Kondo’s philosophy is her assurance that if you do it right the first time, you shouldn’t have to do it ever again.

I understand that no one method is going to work for everybody, and I can accept when someone says that KonMarie is not for them. Having said that, I wanted to explain why the method works well enough for me, and why I continue returning to the aspects of it that were most helpful.

One thing I have noticed is that the people who are not won over by Marie Kondo’s method usually start their retort with a sentiment along the lines of, organization has always come easily to me, or clutter really drives me crazy so I’ve always kept at least my surfaces clear, if not my drawers and closets. I will start this post arguing that while I believe Marie Kondo wrote her book to help all people who want a tidier life, the intended audience is those who really struggle with managing their things. If you are someone that finds organization easy, and doesn’t struggle to keep your surfaces clear and tidy, you probably don’t need a method as drastic as KonMarie. That kind of rip-the-bandaid-off-AND-soak-the-wound-in-peroxide treatment probably feels unnecessarily painful.

As someone who has in the past, and continues now, to struggle mightily with managing her possessions, I would argue that drastic measures are many times necessary to change the mindset of people who don’t know how to manage their things. When I first picked up The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I was desperate for real and lasting change. I felt like I was drowning in stuff, and I had no idea how to take the first steps in getting rid of things. I had definitely tried tackling my house room by room, slowly and deliberately, but I had never made it all the way through the fray, and I had never gotten rid of a substantial amount of possessions to make a noticeable difference over time. I might get the top of my chest of drawers clear and keep it that way for a week, but it would eventually be pilled with crap again. I understand the adage slow and steady wins the race, but it wasn’t winning me the fight against clutter.

When I first read that I should be tidying by category and that I would need to move everything of a certain category into once space before sorting through it, I didn’t think much of it. My house is small! I reasoned, And we don’t really have closets or storage space; getting all my {insert category items here} together won’t be that hard at all. Then I got down to business and realized how wrong I was.

First up was clothes. I took everything out of my half of our IKEA wardrobe (we don’t have a closet because we sleep in what is supposed to be the living room), and my three drawers. I also grabbed the few dresses hanging in my daughter’s closet, and all my jackets, sweaters and sweatshirts in the entry closet and wall hangers. At this point I was astounded by how many items of clothing I had, and I hadn’t even emptied the plastic drawers in my daughter’s closet and under my bed that housed all my seasonal wear. When I was finally done, the mound of clothing on my bed was totally overwhelming. I couldn’t believe how many individual items of clothing I had. I was astounded, and embarrassed. I recognized immediately that no one human being needed that many clothes, and that recognition helped me get rid of way more clothing that I would have if I had tackled my clothing space by space.

It was at this point that I had to wrap my head around the idea of an item sparking joy. With some items I knew immediately whether they did or didn’t spark joy, but the for the vast majority of my stuff I wasn’t so sure. My “does this spark joy” identifier felt kind of useless, but I plunged ahead anyway and sure enough, the longer I asked myself the question, the better equipped I felt at answering it. For sure, in that first attempt at KonMarie-ing my house, I kept things that I eventually gave away, but the mistakes I made didn’t render the effort null and void. Now I recognize when something no longer sparks joy without even asking myself. It’s just part of my relationship with my things. I have marveled many times at how a piece of clothing I once adored just doesn’t do it for me anymore, not because my body changed, or the style is not longer “in” but just because I didn’t really love it anymore.

The same went for books, then paper, then “komodo” (everything else). Moving everything from one category into one space, and seeing it together (usually in toppling piles all over my living room floor), absolutely helped me put the magnitude of my possessions in perspective and helped me make the hard choices about what to give away.

I also felt doing the first major push all at once, over three days was absolutely worth it. As I moved from category to category I gained momentum instead of losing stamina. Seeing how many clothes I was getting rid of made me excited to tackle books later that day. I actually took two full days off of work, and my husband took one, which might seem excessive to people who disagree with the method, but which was absolutely necessary for me to make the progress I wanted, dare I say needed.

I remember there are steps to take after KonMarie-ing your house that will ensure you don’t need to do it again. Every item is supposed to have a place and you are supposed to return that item to that place every time you use it. You are also supposed to continue removing items that no longer spark joy. And while I see the logic in the approach, and recognize that if a person were to do that, it would not be necessary to KonMarie one’s house again, I don’t think it’s a very realistic expectation. Having said that, I do think that the changes I made a few years ago have made a lasting enough impression for me

My first attempt at KonMarie-ing my house was a while back. And it’s true that I haven’t felt the need to follow the steps like that again. I may not put everything back immediately after I use it, but everything does have a place and it’s easier for me to tidy now that it once was (once, it was truly paralyzing). I am also constantly making value judgements about my stuff, subconsciously, and removing things as needed. I keep a bag of clothing I’m going to donate by my door at all times and items from everyone’s closets and drawers are dropped in there almost daily. I grab a book or two to donate out of the bookshelf almost every time I go to grab something to read. I am much more likely to identify which new items that come into the house will be worthwhile, and less likely to keep the things that don’t spark joy. The method really has changed my relationship with things.

That is not to say I have been cured of the disorganization that has plagued me my whole life. My home is still more cluttered than I’d like it to be and my classroom (most notably my desk) is especially so. But it rarely feels like things are out of control anymore. It all feels manageable, which for an ADHD, organizational-challenged individual like myself, is a real testament.

Have you tried Marie Kondo’s method? How do you tackle the clutter in your life?

Yesterday I woke up thinking it was Saturday, and the day pretty much went down hill after that.

BUT!

I made it through my regular martial arts class AND the forms class (I’m testing for my yellow belt next Saturday) AND finished a volunteer request flier that I REALLY didn’t want to do.

So yeah, I’m pretty proud of myself, and I’m feeling relatively good going into the weekend.

My son and I finished Hilo 5 last night. It was SOOOO good. Judd Winick said that the next book will be the final installment of the current story line. I can’t wait to find out how it ends, and it’s going to be sooooo long until it comes out. Waiting is not easy!

Luckily there are LOTS of other books I want to read in the meantime.

I’m currently listening to So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. I borrowed the audiobook from the library (it finally came available!), but this is definitely a book we should own (and you should too!). I’ll be buying us a copy soon.

Ditto with Ta-Nehisi Coates’s We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. I was half way through this audiobook when Oluo’s book became available, but I definitely want to finish it AND own my own copy.

I was actually in the middle of listening to La Amiga Estupenda (the Spanish edition of Elena Ferrante’s My Brillant Friend, which was originally written in Italian) when both of the above books became available on my library e-service apps. I wasn’t loving it, so I didn’t mind taking a break, and now I’m listening to it once every 3-4 commutes. It’s okay, but there are so many characters in so many families and when they just use first names I can’t keep them all straight.

I also started the e-book of Ayelet Waldman’s A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Big Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life before all these other books became available and I definitely want to finish it. My hope was I would read it on my phone instead of scrolling through my news app and reading upsetting articles all night long. Sadly that habit has been harder to break than I expected.

I’m also reading the YA novel La niña que bebió la luna (the Spanish version of The Girl Who Drank the Moon) by Katherine Barnhill. It is really, really good and I have a hard time putting it down. I’ve been putting aside entire hours to read it at night; it’s definitely the reason I’ve been getting so little sleep this week.

I also have Contar de 7 en 7 (the Spanish edition of Holly Goldberg Sloan’s YA novel Counting by 7s) out from the library and hope to get that done before it’s due.

Another YA novel I want to read The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. Somehow I cannot find this in Spanish (even though it’s protagonist is an Afro-Latina girl living in a Dominican dominated Harlem neighborhood AND has been translated into Portuguese already!) so I’ll probably wait on it with the hopes to read it in Spanish. I really like to read YA novels in Spanish (and so many of them are translated!), but this one especially would be awesome to read in Spanish. I’ll definitely be buying the English version for my classroom.

Other books I have on my long-term list are Empires of the World: A Language History of the World (recommend by Josh Marshall and very interesting to me as someone who majored in linguistics), The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny (I read Ordeal by Hunger in middle school – and spent years staying in cabins around Donner Lake outside of Truckee where you can see the trees cut down during their months long ordeal there – and have been intrigued by the Donner Party ever since), and Time to Parent (which landed on my radar after a post by Mel).

In the comic book world I have five single issues of Paper Girls sitting by my bed and three volumes of Saga in Spanish that I still haven’t read.

So yeah, there are a lot of books out there I want to read, and not enough to read them all. And more will continue to interest me and end up on my lists.

Remember that episode of The Twilight Zone? Time Enough at Last? Man, that one always killed me. At least I’m not that guy, and maybe some day there really will be time enough at last.

What are you looking forward to reading?

Hilo 5 came out yesterday and Judd Winick, the author, was at a book launch downtown, so we went to meet him. He was awesome. It was awesome. I’m so excited for the book. We’ve been waiting months for it to come out and now it’s here! Squeee!

I spent Saturday at a weekend professional development. Not only did I not get paid for those seven hours, but I spent my own money to attend the seminar.

Here, take $400 and five of my Saturdays!

But seriously, it’s A LOT to work all week, then sit in a room and get talked at for hours on Saturday, and then go back to work on Monday. I originally signed up because I wanted to network, and find out about teaching opportunities in the area. But I am less and less sure I’m ever going to look for another job. Of course I value learning new and interesting ways to teach, and I appreciate being reminded the basics of lesson planning, but still, it’s a lot.

{Another reason I originally signed up is because I am one of only two language teachers in our district and the required professional developments throughout the year never touch on teaching foreign language specifically. It’s also been a long time since I got my masters, and the national and state world languages standards have changed since then, so I could use a reminder of best practices within the context of the new standards.}

Once you get to a certain place in education, there aren’t many external motivations for continuing your own professional development. I am at the top of my salary schedule as far as units go, so any money I put toward becoming a better teacher is spent only in pursuit of becoming a better teacher. I don’t know if that is the case in other professions, its just something I’m realizing about teaching as I explore different professional development opportunities for language teachers in the area.

I consider myself a life-long learner. I love learning new things and trying new strategies. I think that is one of my biggest strengths as a teacher. I also get bored doing the same thing year in and year out, which I also consider an asset. When I first started teaching, my 8th grade history teacher was still on staff, and he was still teaching 8th grade history in exactly the same way he did when I was his student. Not one project had been altered – he was even using the same handouts! Surely there was some room for improvement in his curriculum during all those years, but he clearly never attempt to identify weakness or improve upon them. I really loved my history teacher, and it is not my intention to disparage him here, but it’s troubling to see teachers do things the same for 30 years. I think there is always room for improvement. I know there is for me.

Do you seek out professional development opportunities on your own? Why?

First I wanted to thank everyone who commented on my last post. I really appreciated your perspectives. I’m definitely in a place where taking in other people’s words feels like a better use of my time than writing my own. I have SO MANY books I want to read, and not enough time to read them at the pace I want to. And I’m not sure if forcing myself to show up here is the right move. I think there are definitely times when pushing past lags of an enthusiasm is the right move, I’m just not sure if it is for me now. The reality is that if I force myself to write even when I don’t want to, I can’t actually do any real damage (I don’t have to worry about burn out because my livelihood doesn’t depend on my ability to write), so maybe I’ll push myself and see where it takes me.

I definitely want to think more about WHAT I should write. I think one of the reasons I felt compelled to write that post is that I want to put something of value out there, something that I can point to and know it was of service to someone. I do think personal narratives are valuable, and I absolutely enjoy the blogs I read that are simple accounts of people’s lives. But I also want to sprinkle my writing with more meaningful perspectives. I have a couple ideas, and I hope that if I’m asking myself to write a certain number of times a week, I will actually write some of those posts.

I also find myself totally disengaging at night, and that is not a productive way to spend the precious hours I have at my disposal. I need to get grading done. I need to plan, and create materials for new lessons. I can’t just zone out in front of mediocre programming. Maybe if I ask myself to write a few nights a week, I can combat the disengagement.

It’s so hard to know sometimes what is the right thing to do. I feel like I know myself relatively well, so that I can respect the need to disengage in the evenings when I recognize that inclination. But sometimes I’m less sure if I should continue catering to that desire to disengage, and do absolutely nothing, and when I should push past it and make myself produce…. something. Anything! There are so many articles out there about learning to say no, about letting yourself rest, about respecting the need to recharge, but I have yet to read something that helps you know when it’s time to say enough is enough, and to make yourself do shit again.

I guess I’ll give it a try, the pushing past it, and if after a few weeks I feel better, I’ll know it was the right move. If, after a few weeks, I feel more compelled to disengage than ever, I’ll reconsider my current plan.

How do you determine if you should let yourself rest, or if you should push past it?

Would it change the way you read my words if you knew I made six figures?

I’ve been struggling to show up here. Many nights I don’t even think about writing here, but even when I do I usually think, meh, I’d rather read or play Wordscapes.

I have been wondering why the idea of writing is not as enticing as it used to be. I think part of it is the current political climate and how exhausting it is to just exist in this country right now when you have any idea what is happening. But there are other factors at play as well.

As I’ve mentioned before, many of the blogs in my reader these days are not strictly personal blogs but instead are personal finance, or minimalism, or lifestyle blogs that masquerade as personal blogs, or at least looked enough like them originally that I kind of forget they are actually selling something (some of them are very literally selling books, or workshops by the author, but many others are simply selling a philosophy, out-look or way of life). Even some blogs that used to be personal blogs have returned rebranded, with a very different tone.

And I do believe there is very much a place for blogs like these. When you are trying to change your life, you want to find the people who have already changed theirs, and follow in their footsteps. Many of these blogs are quite popular, and I understand why.

But I also feel like there is so much that is not said on these blogs, so much privilege that is rarely, or never, acknowledged, so much financial success and/or security that is not mentioned, so much that has to be read between the lines

I’ve been wondering why this bothers me so much. I mean, everyone else clearly realizes that these things are not being said and they don’t care. And yes, I can understand that people who make a lot of money still need communities to talk about how to manage their busy lives/embrace minimalism/organize their belongings, space, and time/maximize the potential benefits of outsourcing/learn how, or why, to budget, etc. But it feels like these blogs are written for everybody (or that is the intention of the author), and yet the lives of the authors are so inaccessible to so many people.

I know I don’t have to read these blogs. (I have unsubscribed from many of them, but a few still linger in my reader.) I don’t begrudge anyone their platform or what they want to say. I am very much aware that I don’t have to engage with anyone’s words if I don’t want to.

But I have realized that what bothers me is not so much these people and their unwillingness to recognize their privilege. It’s a deeply rooted fear that I don’t recognize my own privilege enough, and that my privilege renders null and void anything I have to say.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a blog post where ABC espoused XYZ and I immediately thought, yeah but I know that their combined income is $#00,000 (where # is greater than or equal to three) so can XYZ even be relevant to me? Does everyone else who reads this and finds it relevant make $#00,000 too? Or I think, yeah, but ABC has an incredible job that is personally fulfilling AND flexible so does anything ABC has to say about making life feel more meaningful be helpful for me?

What I didn’t realize was happening every time I thought things like that, was I was watering a seed I never realized had been planted, and that seed was the suggestion that I make enough now, and have a stable enough marriage, and have an easy enough of time parenting, and a decent enough job, and involved enough grandparents, that my experiences and ideas are no longer valid, or worth… well, anything.

I do make six figures now. We reached the final step in a 9% raise we’ve been getting over the past three years and now with my salary, plus my masters stipend and the cash-in-lieu I still receive (despite it no longer being offered — I’m grandfathered in) for not accessing our district’s health insurance, I now make $100,084 a year. I am only one step away from my district’s salary ceiling, so this is pretty much it, but still, I technically make six figures.

Does that negate what I have to say?

My husband makes around what I do. He is also at the higher end of his salary schedule. We’ll likely never make any more than we’re making right now, but it’s still good money. We’ll never make enough to have a full time nanny, to essentially pay another person’s salary – to provide their livelihood – but we make more than most of America does. I doubt I need to remind anyone that that means we make more than most people in the world.

I’ve read a lot about wealthy people in America, how they don’t want to flaunt their financial resources, and do want to think they’re they same as everyone else, and really struggle to understand just how much their wealth provides them, how much it sets them apart. It’s easy, when you live with other people who make as much as you do, to forget how much you have.

I know I forget. I forget all the time. Even when I recognize how much easier it feels now that we make more, and aren’t spending a large portion of it on child care, I still forget. It’s always easy to worry about money. It’s always easy to feel like there isn’t enough, or at the very least that we could use more. I want to travel and not have to kick my husband and cat out to AirBnB our house. Our current car payments are as much as our childcare payments used to be, so it doesn’t feel like we have that much more. But we also have a BRAND NEW CAR. That’s ELECTRIC. I’ve never had a brand new car in my life. And getting a car like this would never have been possible even two or three years ago.

So yeah, I’m just reckoning with what feels like a new-found financial stability. Sure I don’t love my job, but it certainly does pay nicely. And yes, it pays nicely because I’ve been there for 15 years and spent a fortune to get my masters so I could move over on the pay scale, but the raise I got for that masters has finally paid off how much it cost to actually get the masters (this took 8 years), so I’m finally reaping the rewards. And I get to do that because I was lucky enough to not have to leave my job because of health reasons, or to take care of family, or to move for myself or my spouse, or any of the myriad reasons that people have to leave their jobs and start again at the bottom of the pay schedule (this is one of the biggest problems with teaching – how much earning power you lose when you switch jobs).

Our cultural narratives celebrate the people who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make something of themselves despite their meager beginnings. We put more worth on the messages of those in the struggle, those navigating hardship, those who are forced to fight. I’m not quite what place the voice of a white, straight, cisgender, neurotypical, financially stable, woman has in the current conversation. I’m not sure what I should say.

Maybe it’s time to stop writing, and just listen for a while.