Today is the last day of the Slice of Life March blogging challenge. I was able to write a post every single day this month. I made it!

For my last post, I’m literally just going to talk about my day. We started with a faculty meeting and English department meeting that included a great discussion of how to make integration work better between departments. My colleagues have some great ideas.

I taught three classes: my two sections of American literature and an independent study in British literature. My student in British literature had a scheduling issue, and the only way we could resolve it was to set her up in a class by herself. She read Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale” over break, and we started “The Miller’s Tale” today. She was a little surprised, even though I warned her. She found some helpful videos online to help her understand the stories a little better. Her father is one of my colleagues, and we had an impromptu conference this morning when he stopped by another colleague’s office to ask a question. I share my classroom with another teacher, and when he’s teaching, I tend to camp out in my colleague’s office. Dad said she is enjoying the independent study, but she misses the interaction with other kids. That makes sense. We really do learn more from each other.

My American literature classes are starting The Great Gatsby. I book-talked The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien before we took ten minutes to read. Interesting and true story: my two international students from Vietnam both want to read this book. On the one hand, I see why. Both of them have expressed a lot of interest in books set in their home country. As veterans go, O’Brien bears no particular ill will toward the Vietnamese, so I think they will be okay reading it. Naturally, they are curious about this war that ravaged their country before they were born. I wouldn’t want to shield them from it. It’s true, it happened, and it likely directly affected their families. But I’m still thinking about it and hoping they will be okay reading it. They both seemed very eager to look at it. One bought the e-book right there in class. The other borrowed my copy. Both of them also read Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again, which is set after the Fall of Saigon, when the main character Ha’s family flee to America. These two boys write most beautifully when they write about their homes. I taught both of them last year as well.

I had a quick meeting after school. I came home to a box from Stitch Fix (just keeping two items, neither of which are school clothes: a boho top and some denim capris). We drove up to Five Guys for burgers for dinner. Then we went to the thrift store, and this is my book haul.

Hidden from view in the image—Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. Not a bad haul. They had a pretty good selection of books. I could easily have bought a few more.

Now I’m curled up on the couch, getting ready to go over my lesson plans for tomorrow before I go to bed. A good day. And tomorrow is Friday. 😎

Slice of Life is a daily writing challenge during the month of March hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Visit their blog for more information about the challenge and for advice and ideas about how to participate.

Last night when I was looking around on Twitter, I came across this tweet by the illustrious Geoffrey Chaucer:

Go yow! Ye kan do the thinge!

— Chaucer Doth Tweet (@LeVostreGC) March 29, 2016

Yes, I know this is a (sort of) parody account, and it’s not even a serious tweet, but I was actually nervous about something I had to do today, and believe it or not, this tweet actually helped a little.

I was reading yesterday that people actually fear the unknown more than they fear situations about which they know the outcome, even if the outcome is bad. Because I have anxiety, I am probably worse than most people. Oh, I can gin up a ton of horrific scenarios! I can tell myself rationally that things are unlikely to happen that way, but the fact is that if you put together anxiety with OCD (and my type tends towards obsessions rather than compulsions), well, let’s just say I can worry like nobody’s business.

I have really tried to get a handle on the worrying in the past. For example, I have read the Bible verse in which Jesus says not to worry, which is beautiful and worth quoting in its entirety (I’m partial to the NKJV, though I love that the New American Standard Bible calls this passage “The Cure for Anxiety”):

I totally understand the point, and rationally, I agree with it. Worrying doesn’t do me any good. But knowing worrying is harmful doesn’t help me stop worrying. And then I feel bad for having “little faith.” Something else to worry about! I worry I don’t trust enough in myself, in the goodness of others, or, if you like, in God that everything will work out.

The absolute worst thing for me is not knowing how something will work out so that I can worry about all the possible horrible outcomes until the event transpires—and it’s rarely as horrible as I imagined. In fact, I’m not even sure I can think of a single time it was as bad as I imagined. I just hate having anything hang over me long enough for my imagination to get to work on it.

And the thing that I was worried I couldn’t do, or that might go wrong, actually went fine. It went really well, in fact. Geoffrey Chaucer was right. I can totally do the thing. So can you. We should all listen to him more often.

Slice of Life is a daily writing challenge during the month of March hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Visit their blog for more information about the challenge and for advice and ideas about how to participate.

Thanks to those of you who expressed concern about my computer issues. It’s been fixed! It appears to have been an issue with operating system, as the technician thought it might be. All of my files are okay. In fact, even the one I made the same day before my computer froze was there. My bookmarks in Firefox looked like they might be lost until I remembered that I had used Firefox Sync, so I logged in and boom! They were all back.

I do appear to be missing some applications, and I need to reinstall a few others. Plus I was on El Capitan, and the new install is Yosemite. But I’m back in business, and none the worse for wear. We have a very good Apple technician. We are so lucky! A lot of people commented that I was awfully calm about the computer issue, but the thing is, I have worked with this guy for nearly four years, and he’s amazing. I had absolute confidence he would be able to fix it. I was impressed with how fast he fixed it, though. I expected to be out a computer for a few days at least, just because of the volume of work he has to do. I guess I was lucky because it was after break, and perhaps he didn’t have a ton of computers to fix as a result.

The summer before last, I had a big issue with my computer and tried to fix it myself. I have a bit of pride, as a former tech integrator, and I do know how to fix a lot of things. However, what I wound up doing on that previous occasion was completely erasing my hard drive. I have learned my lesson, and now I take things I can’t fix to the tech office.

Today was the first day of classes after break. My AP students had read The Hours by Michael Cunningham over the break, so we discussed it just a little bit before we started viewing the film, which is a fine adaptation of the novel. Students will write a paper after we finish. My American literature students began a narrative writing assignment today using a brainstorming technique one of my colleagues likes to use with students. First, I timed the students, giving them two minutes to brainstorm as many incidents as they could think of when they had a chance to stand up for themselves or someone else and either did or did not do so. Then I asked them to pick one and gave them seven minutes to sketch out the incident. Now they are to turn the sketch into a longer narrative to be workshopped next week.

It was good to see the students again. They had good breaks. Some of them traveled. Some stayed around town. They seemed rested and happy to be back. They are also counting down the days until the end of the school year, though. I learned from them today that we have 33 school days left.

Slice of Life is a daily writing challenge during the month of March hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Visit their blog for more information about the challenge and for advice and ideas about how to participate.

Today my computer broke. We are issued MacBook Pro computers at work. Each teacher and student receives the same device, with the exception of sixth graders, who are participating in an iPad pilot program this year. I have had my computer about eight months. We are issued replacements every three years. I hadn’t had any problems with it until today.

I closed my laptop to walk across campus, and when I opened it to take some notes, all my apps were unresponsive. I couldn’t even get to a point where I could force-quit them. So I shut the computer down using the power button—a last resort. When I tried to boot it up again, the progress bar got about halfway and then quit. It happened again. When I tried to boot it up in safe mode, same deal. Twice. So I decided not to try to troubleshoot it anymore. Last time I did that, I lost all the data on my hard drive. I took it to our tech office. My own most recent backup was a bit too long ago to try to restore from, and to be honest, I’m not sure how to do it when the computer won’t even boot up.

Sure enough, our technician had the same results trying to start my computer. He believes there is something wrong with the operating system, so he is backing up my data and doing a clean OS install. I borrowed the computer I’m currently using to make this post, but I don’t have access to any of my documents or other files. Our technician is very good at fixing these types of problems, so it’s not likely I’ll lose anything, but I’m still frustrated.

If you’re like me, perhaps your life is on your device, too. I know where everything is on my laptop. Navigating this temporary computer is a bit like the learning curve I’m experiencing learning to drive my new car. This morning, for instance, I learned I had been driving my car in S-mode, which is really more used for slippery conditions. Oh well. Wish me luck with the computer. I would hate to lose my data.

Aside from that issue, it was a good first day back after break. The students will return tomorrow. I’ll be glad to see them.

Slice of Life is a daily writing challenge during the month of March hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Visit their blog for more information about the challenge and for advice and ideas about how to participate.

I’m feeling spring. I changed my browser theme to cherry blossoms, which are my favorite harbinger of spring after living near Macon, GA, for so many years. Washington, DC gets a lot of press for their cherry blossoms, but Macon has its own Cherry Blossom Festival and a number of gorgeous Yoshino cherry trees as well.

Tomorrow I go back to school after a two-week spring break. We didn’t do any traveling. We usually don’t, as my children’s spring break doesn’t coincide with my own, but that’s okay. I read three books and finished one I had been working on before the break. You can read my reviews on my book blog if you like:

• The Boys in the Boat, Daniel James Brown (started before break, finished during break)
• Euphoria, Lily King
• The Hours, Michael Cunningham (a re-read)
• The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien

I was lazy. I kept up with this writing challenge. I bought a new car—the first time I’ve bought a car in, oh, I forget how many years, but it’s got to be nearly ten if not more than ten, and the first new car I’ve owned since the Saturn I bought in 1999 (I think—or 1998).

It has been a lot of fun having a zippy, brand new car. I’ve got 98 miles on it now, in case you are interested.

Today was, of course, Easter. When my sister and I were little, my mom used to make beautiful, elaborate Easter baskets for us. She loves making Easter baskets. We probably got baskets each year until we moved out. I am not going to lie; I always saw creating Easter baskets as a huge, expensive burden. I have not kept up the tradition, at least not the last couple of years, and my kids seem okay with that. They are probably the least acquisitive kids you’d ever meet. I’m lucky.

My sister and I also dyed and hunted Easter eggs, though I’m sure we stopped doing that before we got too old. My own children haven’t wanted to hide eggs in years, and we haven’t dyed them in a while.

When we were little girls, especially, my grandmother used to make us Easter dresses every year. It was more a tradition than a necessity. We rarely had occasion to dress up much, but I think it made my grandmother happy to make us pretty dresses. I hunted through my pictures today to see if I could find one of my sister and me in our new Easter dresses, but I must not have any.

I had a terrific, relaxing break with a little bit of excitement. I was able to do some much needed unplugging from work. I had a lovely little taste of summer. I’m really excited to see what we can do this summer now that we can travel a little. I really looking forward to the summer.

I will be happy to see my students again and hear about their break adventures.

Slice of Life is a daily writing challenge during the month of March hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Visit their blog for more information about the challenge and for advice and ideas about how to participate.

“I didn’t even open my pencil case,” she said waving it at me a little bit at the end of class. It was an indictment. I can’t really remember what we did in class that day anymore. I just remember her response. Clearly, class time was not used well if she didn’t have to write down something at least once. She was tough. She used to watch me in class, and her eyes seemed to say, “Go on, then.” It was a challenge. She was skeptical that I would meet it. After all, her experiences in school had been very different until she came to America to study. She was from Vietnam.

She was one of a larger number of international students at my school. They are brave students. They come to America, many thousands of miles away from home, live on campus and study in a second language. This girl in particular was one grade above most of the students in my English class. The year before, she had been in our English language learner classes, and her teachers thought she would benefit from a full year in World Literature II rather than going directly into American Studies in Literature, which eleventh graders typically took. She wasn’t very happy about being in my class. Not at first.

It’s funny how a few years on, some of the details are so fuzzy, but I remember she found an assignment particularly challenging, and for some reason or other, she didn’t do as well as she wanted to do on it. I can’t remember why anymore, but I didn’t want her to re-do it or revise it. She was pretty upset. There were a few tears. But after that happened, she started visiting me in my workspace. Sometimes she came to work in the library, which is where my workspace was at the time. Sometimes, though, she wasn’t there to work in the library. She would sit down at the table next to me and work on homework. Sometimes she asked questions. Sometimes she just worked in silence. Sometimes she asked me questions about Americans. She was completely flummoxed by capitalism, and we talked about it quite a bit.

Her favorite book that year was Things Fall Apart. It wasn’t a typical favorite. Most students enjoyed The Catcher in the Rye most of the books we studied. But she was thoughtful, and she saw interesting things in that book that the other students didn’t see. Her classmates will never forget during a Socratic seminar discussion of Ikemefuna’s death, that she connected the issue to a problem she said is a fairly substantial one in her home country—that if you hit a pedestrian with your car, you are responsible for their medical bills, which can stretch to a life-long responsibility. She has heard horror stories of drivers backing up and hitting the pedestrian again to ensure they are dead to avoid the responsibility. However, this story appears to be mainly urban legend, and it’s likely something that she heard from family and friends who wanted her to be watchful and safe when she was out walking in Hanoi. Still, it left an impression on the other students in class, as you might imagine.

Towards the end of the year, we were friends. She had worked very hard in my class, and I recommended that she try to take an AP English class for her senior year. She did take the class, and she excelled. She used to visit me to run her practice SAT essays by me. She had a real gift for attacking those types of prompts. I remember one essay was about following your dreams versus practicality, or a similar subject, and she wrote eloquently about her dream of becoming a chef, even though her family didn’t see it as a practical occupation. I said, “I didn’t know you wanted to be a chef.” I was very surprised to learn of her passion for cooking. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “I don’t. I just wrote about it for the essay.” Her ability to bluff her way through those SAT prompts with fake personal examples was unlike anything I’ve seen. She could thoroughly convince a reader of her passion for just about anything.I have to confess, it made me wonder what she really thought about, well, anything.

As she was preparing to graduate, she brought me a gift. “From my country,” she said.

My dad was in Vietnam when I was born. He missed about the first six months of my life while he was stationed in Cam Ranh Bay.

She and I might have been unlikely friends, but I think we were friends, despite her ability to bluff her way through SAT prompts (and perhaps a lot of other things). She might not have had to open up her pencil case in my class as often as she thought she should, but eventually, after a little while, I think she opened up her mind and her heart.

We all have students we will never forget for one reason or another. She’s one of mine.

Slice of Life is a daily writing challenge during the month of March hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Visit their blog for more information about the challenge and for advice and ideas about how to participate.