Putting in the effort

I have consistently sabotaged my own efforts in so many endeavors, simply because I don't believe in myself. 

I've done this with musical lessons, relationships, friendships, school work, you name it, I've blown up my own progress. This is why I often hesitate to publicly talk about big goals that I have in my mind. If I share them with people and then I emotionally or intellectually self-emolliate, people will know of my failure.

I'm not afraid of making mistakes. I make them all the time with my students or my son. I've even learned how to model dealing with making mistakes. It's the sabotaging of my life and my dreams that I don't want on display. Who needs to see that kind of carnage?

I've decided this year to quietly put forth effort in areas that are important to me, like exercise and writing. No grand pronouncements, just quiet and genuine effort. I'm keeping track of my progress in my journals, of which I have a few. Each journal has a different purpose. Those journals help me be my own audience and actually, so far, have kept the inner critic at bay.

Soft, barely audible baby steps are still steps in the right direction.  

You say you want to end white supremacy? Really?

Great! I agree 100 percent with the goal of ending white supremacy. It won't be easy, but with diligence, we can achieve this goal.

Let's look at today - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. President Reagan signed the bill making the third Monday in January a federal holiday and then it was first observed in 1986.

Of course, not all 50 states agreed to celebrate Dr. King's birthday. It took until 2000 for South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia to recognize the holiday. 

In addition to white people and their representatives not wanting to honor Dr. King, there are two states that still have a Robert E. Lee Day around the same time as Dr. King Day: Alabama and Mississippi.

There are still states that celebrate Confederate Memorial Day. 

If you are a white person who truly wants to take an anti-racist stand and you live in a state that officially honors the traitors who fought to uphold slavery, I encourage you to work with others around you who also want to be anti-racist and make these holidays disappear. It won't erase history, the Confederacy lost and slavery ended. That's the history. Instead, ending these holidays sends the message that the white supremacist beliefs that lay at the foundation of slavery and Jim Crow and murderers with badges that go unpunished are unacceptable and not meant to be put on a pedestal of false honor.

Ending these holidays won't be the end of our troubles, but it's a good step in the right direction. I don't have a ton of cash, but I'll gladly donate to organizations that are doing this work.

 

I was really sick...

 In 2015, doctors discovered that I had an ulcer that I had that caused a great deal of blood loss. That led to me feeling very sick and a dangerous drop in my hemoglobin and iron counts. Since then, I've taken iron pills and carefully monitor my bloodwork.

Starting in January of last year, I could tell that my hemoglobin/iron was dropping. I can tell because I get out of breath more easily. My heart pounds much harder when I mildly exert myself. My mood dips into depression. I immediately started the process of getting blood work done. I started eating meat after more than a decade of being a vegetarian. 

Sadly, my health continued to decline. I got a blood transfusion on April 10, when my hemoglobin had dropped into the 70s, which is a dangerously low count (or so I've been told). A few weeks later, I had a series of iron infusions. Those helped for about a month, though my count never got higher than 90. It quickly dipped back in the 70s.

From the start of the shelter-at-home until the middle of September, I could hardly move from one room to the next without being short of breath. Suicidal ideation returned with a vengeance. I cried all the time as I retreated further and further into myself.

I reached the nadir of my health woes in early September. I had just started teaching online. One night, I felt as though I was having a heart attack: anxiety, pain in my chest, pain down my left arm, and diarrhea. I told myself that it was the anemia and that if I lived through the night, I would go to the hospital the next day after school, if I still had symptoms. What a deal to make!

I lived and still had some symptoms, so I went to the emergency room. I had not had a heart attack. A series of tests after that would reveal that my heart is in pretty good shape. A week after the non-heart attack, I started a second round of iron infusions, which seemed to have worked this time.

I have energy. I'm able to exercise (at home, pandemic-style). I've just done yoga for the 15th day in a row. I'm doing simple dumbbell exercises for my arms. I've written a little bit everyday. I don't cry as often and I haven't really thought about suicide in a while. I'm reaching out to people and trying to have a conversation with another human (who's not my son or a student) at least once a week. I didn't do any of that from March until September. I feel like a human again.

As of a little before Christmas, my hemoglobin was a healthy 120. That's where is should be. We still have no idea why I experienced the extreme drop of hemoglobin and iron and I suppose that we will try to figure that out. I'm grateful to be past this crisis so I can pay attention to other parts of my health and partake in activities that feed my soul.

Teacher Evaluations

It's that time of year when I need to think about my official goals for my students so administration can determine if I am an effective teacher.

Never mind that we are in the middle of a pandemic that has caused trauma to everyone in its wake. Whatever. We must continue the corporate model of teaching to measure growth.

I'd like to increase the number of students who say hello on a daily basis. I'd like to increase the number of students who go beyond saying hello and engage in actual conversations. I'd like to increase the number of students who respond to at least one prompt a week.

I'm pretty sure those won't work. Whatever the goal it, I will have to be able to measure it with some sort of formal assessment, quantified by numbers. I have no idea what that is, yet. I still have two days to sort that out. Whatever it is, I won't set myself up for failure. It also won't fail by students. Many of my students have lower skills for their age, so whatever I choose, it will still help them improve skills that they need in life.

I'm not thrilled about this idea of evaluations in this emergency, online setting. It's a wonder that I, or the kids, even get up in the morning.