I consider myself one of those people perpetually trying to improve my diet but in the end just breaking even. I'm trying to stock the house with whole grains, have a glass of milk every night before I go to bed, eat oatmeal for supper (instant; I tried the real stuff but it just wasn't the same). I buy fruit for snacks, drink straight black coffee instead of soda for my morning caffeine hit, have a tin of almonds in my desk for unexpected hunger bouts.
Trouble is, every time I improve in one thing, I let something else go. Like today: no soda all day at school, then I slammed a twenty ounce coke and now I'm working on another one. It's SO f***ing good. Or I work it out so I can have two pieces of whole wheat cinnamon toast in the morning with my coffee, but many times just get too "rushed" to make it....but still have no problem finding the time to stop by the gas station for Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes (nothing like pure unadulterated sugar in the morning).
I'm actually pretty impressed by my latest effort. Every morning, when the kids go out for recess, I've taken to eating a precooked hard boiled egg, seasoned generously with Lawry's Seasoning Salt. It's a substantial source of protein and fills me up until lunch time. And up to now (knock on wood), I haven't changed compensated this act of good nutrition with another one. A step in the right direction? We'll see....
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I teach fourth grade and work alongside a team of five other people. These five people are fucking amazing. We're a family all on our own, and pretty well aware of what's going on in everybody's lives, even when it involves fairly mundane dietary choices. Everyone approved of my move and one woman, in particular, was impressed. She is also a healthy eater but she's a real healthy eater, not nearly as wishy-washy as me. So I said (apparently, last Friday) that I would bring her a hard-boiled egg, too. I thought it was a fairly innocuous chance to bond over morning snacks.
However, it is generally (though not always) the case that my wife boils my egg for me in the morning. I asked her to prepare two for tomorrow.
"Why?"
"I told my friend I'd bring her one."
"I am not cooking for another woman!"
"Why not?"
"Because first it's an egg, then it's dinner, then it's who knows what?"
The conversation continued, and "dinner" was correlated with other activities, but the final result was sealed from the get-go. No hard-boiled egg for my friend. I'll break the news tomorrow...hopefully she doesn't shed too many tears....
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This conversation, and this blog, occur between the sounds and visuals of Sonia's television program. I generally avoid television, with the large exception of sports, and better than average sitcoms like "The Bing Bang Theory". But it's nice to be in the same room although we are doing different things. She's watching all these detective shows, where there are several attractive men and women, an older man, and an alternative, chubby woman working the computers. I don't mind the shows so much--after all they're all pretty much the same (except Law and Order. Don't touch my f***ing Law and Order).
What I'm hearing tonight, though, more that the shows, are the f***ing commercials. I must admit, I'm doing better this Christmas season than in the last few. I've really been working on accepting life on life's terms, and although I'm not quite there, I sense progress. (It helps that, as teachers, we get two weeks off). But still, and I know this is SO f***ing hipster, I'm so damn sick of the commercialism. There is a large part of the population that only sees this last month as the last chance to turn their books to black, putting ever more pressure on us to keep buying, to buy a gift for our aunt's husband's stepdaughter because, well, if you're in the Christmas spirit, you should want to.
Sometimes I want to say, "Fuck it. Fuck Christmas."
But that'd get me a divorce faster than the hard-boiled egg.
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Seeing upper middle class families buy expensive video games and iPads and laptops and even cars is even harder in the context of my current job. The current percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch in my sons' school is 54%; it's even higher in West Liberty. I do recess duty twice a week and kids don't have boots, they have old, worn down jackets. They don't have stocking hats. Most of them handle it with impressive stoicism, walking around to keep warm and not complaining. I dress with an extra layer of pants and a hundred dollar jacket. I tell them to stick it out.
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A few weeks ago a couple of teachers stood up at a faculty meeting and said, "Listen, guys, we've got to do something. We've been here fifteen years and never seen it like this. The poverty is "in your face" (their words). And all these dumbass school reformers, all they want to talk about is fucking test scores. It's been accepted principle for decades in the education world that a child (or an adult, for that matter) must have certain needs taken care of before they can focus on the relatively inapplicable things we learn in school. You go to work when you're hungry, when you're sleep deprived, when you're home life is patas arriba. When you're cold, when parents aren't home at night because they're each working two jobs. It's called "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" (google it if you haven't heard of it). Some of the worst culprits in this are the teachers themselves.
Anyway, off my soapbox. Some brainstorming was done and they came up with this idea where kids would bring in all the change they could and we'd make a contest out of it to see which grade raised the most money. We called it the Penny Wars. First grade won, but that's not really the point (except for maybe the first graders....) In five days, around 500 1st-5th graders managed to raise over $1500, money that would go straight to our backpack program, in which backpacks of ready to prepare food goes home with needy kids every single weekend. So simple, so beautiful. So inspired. It's a public school, but I think the Holy Spirit might be among us.
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Despite my most virulent anti-Christmas intentions, real-world events are weakening me. Not sure I'll be Kris Kringle yet, but after church yesterday morning I feel my heart, like the Grinch, growing three sizes. Our interim pastor, in perhaps one last act of impetuousness (or revolution), emptied our discretionary fund and divided it into fifty dollar bills. At the offertory, when we usually offer our gifts to God, we were to take the fifty dollars and take them into the community, to those who might be able to use them, to spread the good news of Christ. I'd never seen or heard anything like that.
When the basket got back to me (we were in the back), there were still to fifty dollar bills. I thought about West Liberty. I thought about the need and I thought about the Penny Wars and the thin jackets and the free and reduced lunches and I thought that finally, a church got it right. Money, straight money, where it needs to go, no strings attached.
$1500 is a lot of money. $1600 sounds even better. Why look around the world when you can look around the hallways?
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Christmas fast approaches. I'm anxious for it to pass, to stop hearing the f***ing commercials, and to stop being told to be happy whether I feel like it or not. But things feel better this year. Things feel real.
Maybe, just maybe, that little baby that probably wasn't really born in a barn, and probably wasn't born of a virgin, and most probably never received any visits from any supposed "Wise Men", up in Heaven at the Right Side of the Father (according to the Catholics, at least), maybe he's smiling. Maybe he's saying, these Earth people are finally getting the hang of it.
I only claim to speak for myself. But right now, that's good enough for me.
Feliz Navidad, minha gente, y beijinhos, beijinhos, beijinhos.
Plum
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