New Thoughts for the New Year

A. I hate Black Board.  For those of you unaffiliated with the Academic world, Black Board is an electronic component of teaching that is basically like a really low tech blog for educational file sharing. Blergh. I have been trying to get all my classes set up and just finished organizing power points and files. So I was already to upload and  . . . a little box pops up . . . . we are experiencing technical difficulties. Would you like to wait for these websites or kill the pages?  I press wait. 5 seconds later.. . same box. This happens four times. So I go all the way out of my browser. Start fresh, new clicks. Same thing.  Yes, actually I would like to kill the pages, and my browser, and several other nouns that may or may not be people.

B. I wish I could figure out a safe way to write on my laptop while enjoying a long hot bath. Seriously electronics and hot water should be able to mix without producing a electric shock that will fry more than my brains. Writing and the tub are two of my most relaxing tools to fight stress. Imagine combining them. Writing in the tub is very problematic, even with pen and paper. Water soluble objects. Paper likes to disintegrate, ink runs, the humidity hurts even spiral bound notebooks.

C. Technology. Yup. It has me in its clutches. Even I who don't text when a real person is in the room, I who turn off the TV when a breathing entity calls--not on the phone, in person.  I think all the critical thinking that I advocate to my students is starting to get to me.  Maybe technology is taking us over, or we are letting technology take us.  Maybe Google is getting ready to take over the world.  I know they will read this, hi Big Brother Google; it's Blogger after all. So do I go off grid? No, I write a blog about it. Hum.

D. Life is funny. Sometimes when we are trying to do what we have been asked to do, and want to do, and have put so much work in to do--we have to wait. Yes, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months (cringe), years (sigh). Does that mean that the time spent waiting is a waste of time? That all depends on what we do while we are waiting. Do we take that time to take deep breaths, become introspective, connect with others that matter most to us, read a good book? Or do we sit around and plan various nasty things to do to those people and things that make us wait? Do we question our worth if what we want to have happen doesn't happen? If what we wanted that we don't have makes us less valuable as people or teachers or parents or women or men, etc.? Sometimes the things that seem to be a good idea and really what we think would help us most, are those things that are the most dangerous to us. Sometimes we have to do things one at a time instead of at the same time. And sometimes the value of those things and moments in time become the sweeter for their separateness.  And they become more valuable and precious for the amount of time we have to wait for them one at a time. Sometimes we think too much and make things harder for ourselves when all that we are asked to do is just take it a day, an hour, a minute, or a second at a time.  Those heartbeats are not undervalued. Those breaths are not disparaged. Those thoughts are not pointless. Those feelings are no less precious.

Sometimes being a lily of the field is exactly what we are supposed to be.

PS. I hate the word "things". It is so ambiguous. I preach against its use in all of my classes. But for once it has fulfilled the measure of its creation. Fill in the blank with the things in your life. Change all the us's and you's and we's to I's, me's, and mine's and this is really about me. no really.