A Backpack in Paris

I love serendipity, both the concept and the movie.  Within a 48 hour time span, I watched Up in the Air and Midnight in Paris for very different reasons.  The former I chose to watch with my 6 eCommerce students as their last assignment in an effort to put some of the pressure of graduating and going off to college in perspective.  The latter I was lucky enough to see for free with @sfadem because, when your daughter works at the movie theater, you get to see movies for free.  I’ve been a Woody Allen fan since the mid 70′s when it seemed like he released a movie a year.  We all know how he fell out of favor, and his Mia period never did much for me, but this European discovery tour he’s been on the past 5 years or so has been lovely.

The Cloooney film surprised me when I first saw it.  I heard the author of Up in the Air interviewed in NPR before the film’s release.  When the interviewer asked Walter Kim his opinion of the movie, he immediately stated that it was much different than the book but equally as good.  The film retained the inherent message of the novel, and the main character, played by George Clooney, immerses himself in business speak and motivational culture.  Less satirical than the book, the film explores a world where being fired is now called a “career transition” and the people and things we accumulate in life weigh down the metaphorical backpack we drag behind us as we move along, racing towards death.

Pretty apropos for college bound teenagers, huh? As I watched it for a third or fourth time, I recognized that the smooth and suspiciously handsome Clooney was perfectly cast as the character Ryan Bingham.  Ryan’s efficient and lightweight approach to life worked on the surface but lacked any meaning beyond traveling light and racking up those frequent flyer miles.

When Ryan takes the attendees of his motivational seminars through the backpack exercise – put all your stuff in and see how heavy the backpack is, then take it out only to put all the people in your life in there and see just how heavy that is – I initially imagined the relief of not carrying my house, cars, computers, and all the other crap I’ve accumulated in the almost 50 years I’ve been alive.  How bad would it be not to work to support things? Then of course when Ryan asks us to fill up the bag with friends and family, I realize how much effort I make to maintain those relationships and support my children.

Yet as the character attempts to connect with the people around him – his young colleague, his sisters, and another business traveller – we realize that an empty backpack isn’t as desirable as it initially appears.  Using real people who’ve been through layoffs in the most recent economic slump rather than actors to express their feelings about the experience throughout the film only underscored their statements at the end: each one of them keeps going not to pay the mortgage but for their husbands, wives, children, and family.

Their backpacks are full and they enjoy the pull of the straps on their shoulders; it’s what gets them up in the morning and puts a smile on their face when they walk in the door.

The afternoon after watching that movie I tweeted that Midnight in Paris was playing at the movie theater where @sfadem works.  She immediately responded with an invite to see it the next night.  I’d heard only good things about this film, and let’s face it, Owen Wilson in a Woody Allen movie? I just had to see that!  The English major in my also loved the idea of Allen’s portrayal of all those artists and expat writers from the 20s.  His movie The Front is one of my favorites, dealt with blacklisted writers in the 50s, and hey, who doesn’t like Paris?

I won’t give away too much of the plot since everyone reading this should go see it, but this film deals with similar issues. Wilson’s character Gil found success as a Hollywood screenwriter but wants to be a novelist. He’s engaged to Inez, a woman who’s obviously wrong for him.  At the start of the film, the couple run into American friends and start exploring Paris together.  This part of the film is a long riff on the scene in Annie Hall where a man in line to see a movie loudly expresses his opinion about a Fellini film and then Marshall McCluhan when oddly enough, Woody produces McCluhan to debunk the fatuous and pendantic opinion of that movie goer.  (You can find the scene here if you’re interested.)

As Gil becomes more immersed in the residents of 1920s Paris and tries to tell Inez that he’d rather give up all that material wealth in California to write in Paris, I recalled that backpack.  Facing marriage, Gil’s backpack could carry around those antique chairs from Paris that cost a whopping 18,000 Euros.  On the other hand, he could pack it with his manuscript, his experiences with Hemingway, Picasso, a delightful Dali, a frantic Zelda, and the lovely frenchwoman who runs the “nostalgia store”.

Ok, so maybe I gave a bit of the plot away there, but you get my point.  A good reminder for me that on their deathbed, no one wishes they spent another day at work, and adversity really does provide opportunity.  So, at this almost half year mark in 2011, recent (and to some extent past) experience prompts me to rethink where my efforts are best placed, and what I think my priorities should be.

I’m taking out what weighs me down and putting in what lifts me up! … and carrying the backpack through Paris again at some point would be perfect!

Homeless

I recently read J. J. Brown’s blog post about her debt reduction experiment.  Last December I participated in the #reverb10 blogging challenge and one of the goals I chose for 2011 was dealing with debt.  Definitely the hardest goal I chose, it’s also the one I’ve successfully ignored for the last 4 months.  I can pay my bills and buy necessities but rarely have money for those unexpected expenses like broken cars and leaky roofs.  As I get older and my children become independent, I wonder if I’ll just be working to finance all the things in my life?

Brown’s largest expense after necessities and education is books. My house is filled with books and about two years ago, I put a moratorium on book purchases.  I love the library including that popular contact sport, library book sales, and have found a number of incredible books in local thrift stores.  Around the same time, I cut down quite a bit on clothing purchases because really, at my age, comfort is key and who’s noticing anyway?  My biggest chunk of cash after mortgage, food, and utilities goes to my cell phone carrier.  With 3 smart phones in the family, 2 owned by teenagers, that’s more necessary than discretionary spending.  So where is all my money going?

Let’s return to Brown’s blog post for a minute.  Her experiment was quite simple: when she’s tempted to make a purchase, she imagines herself homeless and “carrying that particular item down the street”.  I immediately saw my homeless self wandering down Route 35 in my must have Paula Deen onion goggles.  In my arms, I’m carrying my out of date iMac, in my pocket my iPhone with speakers (love podcasts), in my bag my painfully old netbook, too small external hard drive, tablet, and miscellaneous powercords, mice, and keyboards. I’d also have a dog on a leash, a cranky old cat in a carrier, and a gecko in a fishbowl balanced on my head.  Behind me I drag my new Rachel Ray saute pan, complete set of Fiestaware including pitcher, gravy boat and glassware, knife set, notebook full of recipes, a lot of beans, produce, and huge container of cumin.  I’m on my way home to my luxury apartment inside my broke down VW Bug.

Let’s not forget the two children trailing behind me.  The teenage boy sports his drum set, iPhone, and old Little Tykes wagon piled high with cereal, milk, and pop tarts.  The princess is busy texting on her Blackberry complaining about how no one offers to help her drag her 7 huge suitcases of clothes down the street while she struggles with her laptop bag.

Talk about first world problems!  My job may have it’s ups and downs, but I have a job and can support my family.  The rising price of gasoline is daunting and will force me to wonder how I’ll keep two cars on the road this summer but somehow it’ll happen.  Maybe I have to spend my vacation learning all about home improvement since sadly I can’t afford to pay others to do it, but I can afford paint and plywood.

So as I sit here paying my bills on my almost 3 year old iMac, I realize that I don’t really need a debt reduction experiment.  I just need to take the time to appreciate all that I have, reflect on where I’d like to be in the future not from a financial standpoint but in terms of what will bring me happiness, and recognize that the 3 year old iMac works just fine …

or maybe this is just one big rationalization as to why I gave up chasing the money and became a teacher.

Blender

This post is not an ode to my immersion blender, probably the best little appliance ever (thanks Sarah and Joe), although I do recommend it if you don’t currently own one.  However, as part of reverb10 last December, I came up with 10 goals for 2011. One of them, and probably the most difficult, was learning (and then teaching) blender.

If you read this blog on a regular basis, you might remember that if I could be any character in a book or film I would be Trinity from The Matrix. Faced with teaching a new program unlike any she’d used before to 10 high school boys and one very talented girl, she would’ve asked Tank for a disk and uploaded all of the instructions into her brain in about 30 seconds.

Sadly, I am not Trinity.

Over a year ago, I sat down with a former student and worked through our current textbook Introduction to Character Animation using Blender (more on that in a minute).  This is the first class I’ve ever used a textbook with, and I chose to do so because Blender’s user interface is such a change from the Adobe Creative Suite GUI my students and I are used to.  We memorized hot keys and got comfortable using basic shapes to create simple characters in multiple views.  After that eight week experiment, I thought myself ready to teach this free software to a group of upperclassman.

Class approved … then I didn’t look at Blender for a year.  Forgot everything.

Luckily (well in this instance), our snow overlords returned after Christmas so I had great amounts of time to work through the textbook again.  My lady’s head sported multiple tumors and Captain Blender’s pecs had, like many aging superheros, sunk closer to his waist that optimum when fighting crime.  However, I once again believed I knew how to use Blender even if I didn’t have the artistic talent to create a decent character.  After all, I’m the middle-aged computer science instructor not the perky visual communications teacher!

A month went by, new semester starts, I introduced Blender, the kids start mesh modeling the lady’s head … and once again all those hot keys, workarounds, and solutions to problems not addressed by the book were no longer in my head.  I realized Blender was going to be even harder to master than Illustrator!

So now I’m working along with the kids on my third version of Captain Blender.  In the last few days, I finally feel not only comfortable but actual enjoy creating a 3D model in this program.  I recently overheard another teacher say something to the effect that it’s hard for a person to teach a subject they are just learning.  I strongly disagree; teaching Blender while once again working through the tutorials in the book has finally put all the techniques unique to this type of design in my head for good (although I have written copious notes about all of our experiences in my book).

[We interrupt this blog post to address a thought some of you may have at this point. You're thinking, "how can you be teaching something you don't know thoroughly and completely?"  Technology is not math, or Spanish, or History.  Academic disciplines change very little over decades if not centuries, yet the technology I want and am expected to teach in 2011 was barely a dream 8 years ago when I came to this profession. Technology teachers are the true lifetime learners; we learn the "new new thing" at least once a year if not more, and don't go thinking we get paid to do that - we learn on our own time after teaching all day, grading projects, and dealing with our own families.  Academic disciplines have their own issues, but comparing their content to mine is like comparing apples to, well PCs.]

Now a word about that book.  It was the only one I could find that specifically addressed character animation using Blender back when I had to recommend a textbook for this course.  I think all of the students would agree, it has significant shortcomings.  My belief is that the author is very adept at Blender and never gave the book to a beginner to test whether or not his instructions were interpreted in the manner intended.  As my Java students learned the hard way, the most important part of any process is testing!  The author neglects to document numerous steps and many that he does indicate are so brief we spend at least 10 minutes trying to figure out exactly what he means.  At times, he gives up and just tells the reader to follow the pictures yet the pictures either don’t indicate what you are supposed to do or, in one case, are the wrong picture altogether!

Frankly, I think I might just write my own book after this experience.  Works out well since writing is another one of my reverb10 goals for 2011, and I’ve already been asked to teach a summer camp in Blender, so there are my test subjects!!

Letters

The last two nablopomo prompts ask a blogger to write 2 “letters” to themselves, one an apology for an event or decision in the past, one describing what’s going on now that the writer doesn’t want to forget.

I thought about the first letter much of yesterday.  While I can come up with a few decisions I’ve made in the past that I regret, most of them occurred before I had my children, and if I made a different decision, the children I have might be different or not exist at all!  Overall, I am happy with where I am at in my life, and the things I would change are either entirely up to me – exercise and lack thereof at the top of the list – or I can’t change no matter how much I want to – leaving New Jersey for instance.

If I wrote a letter about what’s happening now that I don’t want to forget, I’d probably cross that line of confidentiality I’ve mentioned before.  I’m comfortable sharing 90% of the events in my own life but try very hard to honor and guard the privacy of people close to me.  So this letter will remain unwritten or at least not appear on this blog.

Reflecting upon what might be in these letters confirmed that I’m where I want to be and on the right track!  Now to review my goals from #reverb10 for the first #reverb11 blogpost!

Knitting

As part of #reverb10, I made a list of goals I want to accomplish in 2011.  One goal I set for myself is to be more creative.  Learning to knit is a skill I’ve wanted to acquire for decades but never really had the chance until now.  @amandazukofski, one of my web design students last year, hosted a workshop last week as part of the National Art Honor Society series at our school.  Teaching teachers is not an easy task, but Amanda was up to the challenge!  The video below explains why knitting holds a special place in my life and shows what fun can be had learning a new skill.

Goal 2: Creativity

As part of the #reverb10 challenge in December, I set 10 goals for myself in 2011. Over the next few weeks I will post about each goal, how I chose it, and what I hope to achieve.

I am not a creative person.  No really, I’m not.  At least not in the way I think of as creative.  I like to write, even got a degree in Creative Writing, but I’m so much better at writing about real life than fiction.  I tried fine art when I was younger, even went to a Saturday art program during middle school at the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, but I knew I wasn’t an “artist”, I just liked to draw.  Got hired to teach Java Programming and, oh both the way, Web Design too, and had no idea what that was all about – I wrote code!  Which is very creative in it’s own right but again, not what I think of as traditional art.

Over the past 8 years, I’ve learned a lot from students and teachers about art and design.  In 2011, I want to tackle a few projects, some I’ve wanted to do for a long time, others new to me this year.  The short Flash animation below explains it all!  Credit where credit is due… I discovered The Creative Entrepreneur by @LisaSonoraBeam through the odyssey of #reberb10 last month.

Goal 1: Yoga

As part of the #reverb10 challenge in December, I set 10 goals for myself in 2011. Over the next few weeks I will post about each goal, how I chose it, and what I hope to achieve.

I started doing yoga out of anger.

About 6 years ago, I had 2 kids in middle school, taught full-time, and attended graduate school in the evenings working towards my Masters.  My family lives in other parts of the country, so I’d created a support system comprised of friends. Sadly, at that time I discovered I’d placed my trust in some of the wrong people and realized a close friend was anything but (the term frenemy was never more aptly applied). My stress level was through the roof, I ate at odd times and never anything healthy, and weighed more than I’m still willing to admit.

That had to change.

Twenty years before, Jane Fonda introduced me to exercise. In high school, I always had a “note” for gym, weighed myself every morning, and believed in the phrase “your I.Q. should be 3 digits, not your weight” (I know). Granted, I’m 5 feet tall, so my appropriate weight isn’t all that much, but 90 lbs achieved by drinking a lot of coffee and eating very little was in no way healthy.

After I left college and moved to San Diego, I discovered food in a big way.  Offices breed food, and my first office job introduced me to office birthdays, office lunch hours, office happy hours with complementary buffets … and I liked food way more than it liked me.  So when we bought our very first VCR from Curtis Mathis, I went right out and got a copy of Jane Fonda’s Workout. I lost weight, had lots of energy, and felt better than I think I’d felt in my lifetime.  I added more Jane Fonda videos to my collection, and she helped me work off the weight of two pregnancies and one divorce.

With Jane, I felt the burn in my own time and space … with no snide gym bunnies sneering at my less than perfect moves.

No matter how many videos I’ve bought over the years, I always return to Jane. Six years ago, when I needed to channel that anger into something positive so I could deal with all the other issues in my life, I thought of Jane.  At that point, aerobics intimidated me though; I envisioned my kids coming home from school to find their aging, unfit Mom in cardiac arrest in the living room.  Looking around at other options, the rising popularity of yoga intrigued me … and guess what?  Jane had a yoga video!

I did yoga along with Jane every day until I mastered her moves which didn’t take long because she was obviously not a yoga practitioner.  (The hilarity of the fake braid she kept flipping out of her face did make the pain of those initial practice sessions more bearable though.)  After that, I bought Gaiam’s series of DVDs and even invested in a few by Shiva Rea.  I explored the spiritual side of yoga, and my practice became the high point of each day.  Less stressed, more energized, fresh from therapy, I thanked God every day for the catalyst that was my yoga practice.

Flash forward two years, and a very good friend at work referred to me as “our own Madonna” (warning number 1) and another peer yelled at me from across the cafeteria to “eat something” (warning number 2).  Oh, and I bought a dress that was size 0.  Doesn’t that size mean you don’t exist?

I can be a little excessive.

I took a second job not soon after that, then a third and when I had free time, sleep, not yoga, was at the top of my list.  At one point, I hurt my wrist during a yoga session and that ended any interest in continuing.  For the past 18 months, I haven’t done one yoga pose, I’ve gained, let’s just say, too much extra weight, and spiritual became a trip to health food store.  I did become vegan and was able to dig myself out of the snowpacolpyse last week, but I realized while blogging for #reverb10, it was time to return to yoga.

So I did.  On my birthday this passed Monday I celebrated not with friends and food, but a streaming yoga video by Hemalayaa.  I discovered her videos back in my last exercise odyssey, and she has one entitled “Yoga for Everyone”.  Just what I need to get this middle-aged body and mind back into yoga and on track both physically and spiritually.  The first practice wasn’t quite as painful as I expected, and I do feel much better after the workout.  I’m also reminded of how much I love ending my day with yoga.  Up at 5:30 a.m., teaching at 7:30 a.m., most weekdays leaving school to teach at the studio or tutor in Freehold, the pace of the yoga practice forces me to take a moment for myself.

My first goal for 2011: Slow down and practice yoga!

Core

Below is my final #reverb10 post in response to today’s prompt.  I’ve enjoyed writing so much that my #1 new year’s resolution is to keep this blog going!

Gift:  This month, gifts and gift-giving can seem inescapable. What’s the most memorable gift, tangible or emotional, you received this year? (Author: Holly Root)

I think this is a great end of year prompt, I really do.  It’s just that, once again, my honest answer is more private that public.  If I’m honest and share the most memorable tangible and intangible gifts I received in 2010 with my readers (not that there are many, but the potential is always there), I will once again invade the privacy of others not to mention cross that barely perceptible line between what I tell the world and what I keep close.  It’s a line that’s as permeable as smoke and as changeable as a crush, but it does exist, and I know it’s there.

Last night, I read @TeresaBasich’s blog post about how she no longer wants to share her feelings online. Personal blogging is not something she finds “useful or beneficial”.  I respect that and have at times also been told I share way to much information online (usually by my daughter).  @GwenBell pointed out in her response that just sharing information that makes us “look/feel/seem good” not only ignores a good portion of our personal story, it flirts with dishonesty.  If we share the less than admirable aspects of ourselves, we open ourselves up to criticism but by doing so we tell the whole story.

Isn’t blogging really first person storytelling?

Most of my posts for #reverb10 are positive stories and affirmations, but a couple put me in a less than stellar light.  For example, one of the things I admitted to avoiding on Day 20 was grading.  A number of my students told me they enjoyed reading my blog this month, and a few appreciated my abhorrence of grading, but the telling student response was, “Didn’t you know what you were getting into before you became a teacher?”  I did, and that comment reminded me that all jobs entail tasks we might not want to do, but we do them because we love the job overall.  If I hadn’t been honest, I wouldn’t have learned anything from that student’s response.  I’m still not a fan of grading, but I’ve accepted the responsibility with less complaining this week!

.. and trust me, realizing that I need to deal with my finances head on was not an easy admission for me by any stretch!

Showing our scars, imperfections, fears, mistakes, and bad attitudes also makes for a better story.  Every hero(ine) has a flaw – that makes him or her human and gains the sympathy of the audience, and let’s face it, without a problem, there is no story!  For bloggers, our posts are our ongoing story, and the story doesn’t stop just because we stop posting.  It just becomes a more intimate story, an arthouse film rather than a blockbuster.

Defining Moment Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year. (Author: Kathryn Fitzmaurice)

At first I thought I answered this already, and looking back at the prompts, this looks suspiciously like Day 3, but since I didn’t start until Day 6, I’ll give it a go.

I am many things, but a mom first. *insert noises of disagreement/disbelief from my children here* When I thought about 2010, I realized that what really defined it was my daughter Sarah’s graduation from high school and acceptance to Lehigh with an (almost) full scholarship.  All the work was hers; most of the pride mine. I’ve spent almost 4 days trapped inside with her due to the snowpacolypse, and I still love her (no, really, I do).  She’s an amazing, funny, smart, beautiful young woman. I’m blessed to be her mom!

Here is a picture of Sarah taken summer 2009, I’m not sure by whom.  She’ll probably yell at me for posting it. However, if I had to choose one picture to represent Sarah, this would be it.