Inspiring in spurts--waiting for Rhythm

I finally joined the NCTE (National Council for Teachers of English) and subscribed to their English Journal, a professional Secondary English teaching journal, only three years after my English Education professors started suggesting it. At the time I was a budgeting student who couldn’t afford to relocate rent and food funds to anything of less immediate import. I forgot all my good intentions of joining NCTE and reading the journal after graduating and beginning to work. Having recently awakened to the joys of good journal/magazine writing at my fingertips via my kindle (yes, I caved; it didn’t take much) I suddenly remembered the English Journal and have just spent the last couple hours reading articles on such subjects as digitalk, political power writing communities and motivating students to care about in-class writing.

And now I’m thoroughly depressed. I’m a third of the way through my teaching year, just finished one incredibly crazy first term that I started running and finished in an exhausted heap, and I just don’t know how the teachers who write these inspiring articles have time to, first of all, think up such passionate, creative lessons, second of all, teach planned passionate and creative lessons, and third, write about it! Okay, so some of my lessons this year have tried to be creative and go beyond the text book basics but mostly I feel like this term has been one long circle of assigning and marking with little time to be passionate and create. And if I’m feeling like this… my poor students! I’m not sure what it is. This is my second year; I thought it was supposed to get easier, Professor Vande Kopple? So far, this one is much more out of control than my first.

I long for time to read and think and plan and create so I can question and challenge and prompt and inspire but all I do is assign and mark and edit and administrate!

What is the answer? Is there an answer? Maybe it’s just to wait this time out, to try as much as possible to not be completely sucked into the whirlpool, to inspire in spurts as I come up for air occasionally, and then, when there is a rhythm (oh, please, let that be a rhythm on the horizon!) maybe those spurts can slowly become long, deep, luxurious breaths.

Cat ladies: I think I get it

March was not been a good month for keeping on track with blogging but the holidays have started and I'm slowly emerging from the haze that is the end of term. I'm also alone for the weekend, dog-cat-house-sitting for my parents and I will never admit what channel of DSTV I've been watching for a large part of the afternoon: time to get back on track. But what to write about now there are no lessons or students in my life?

Then this evening I realised how some women end up as "the cat lady".

I was sitting outside on the concrete by the pool (not a pleasant image but the grass has ants and dampness) and the dogs, realising that they, after keeping me company in the lounge all afternoon, had been deserted, came to join me. And Bingley, our little white toy pom who likes to be close and whose advances I had rejected by sitting on my hands, leaned hard against my back. And he felt so real and present and alive. Maybe that's obvious or odd, but I have been thinking about living alone recently, since moving onto campus. I don't think I could ever live on my own in an ordinary situation (such as not living as part of a hostel of 35 high school girls) and in fact, the thought terrifies me a little. And after being alone for a total of, let's see, 2 days and 15 hours, I suddenly realised that maybe this is where some cat ladies begin... and why I might end up as one. (Now my mother's terrified).

Those who know me may find this a bit weird because, while I like animals, I'm not crazy about them like some members of my family, but it is amazing what solid, comforting company they provide, particularly when you are alone. They sit on you. They wait for you to get up in the morning and let them in. They look at you. They need you.

About 10 minutes after I had left the poolside and Bingley's warm back I was washing the dog bowls (one of my least favourtie activities of dog-cat-house-sitting) in the outside sink when I heard loud, rather desperate yowl. Up on the roof was Ponyo, cat no. 1. So I dragged our wobbly old wooden ladder over to the wall and stretched up. She was desperate to come down but not quite sure she could trust me and stayed just beyond reach. Eventually I succeeded in grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and slowly backing down the shaking old ladder (time to up-grade, Dad) with her clinging for dear life to the top of my head. When I lowered her arching, tense body to the ground I stroked her quickly for comfort before she could run. But she didn't, she turned and wound herself firmly around my legs, gratitude personified.

Who knows why the "cat lady" is always depicted alone but I think I know now why she is the cat lady. If I ever end up living alone, without 35 high school girls, I mean, I'm going to do it with cats. Or at least, a dog.