My original plan today was to jump out of bed, get caught up on email, jump in the shower, run out the door and get things ready before GHOSTY, have an all-important prenatal massage, and then go to Annex for one million hours.
Instead I am still at home. I ate breakfast and got caught up on emails and then was entirely derailed by reading and then further derailed by Reese's Peanut Butter Cup miniatures which I initially was convinced that Yellow Dog hidden from me until I found them in a very not hidden place and then ate a whole bunch and am now convinvced that he should have hidden them from me even though I would have found them anyway.
Dear Food Diary,
For breakfast I had several servings of grains, two of proteins, one of dairy, and two of fruits. Maybe three of fruits. And two glasses of waters.
For Snack I ate one million servings of fat and sugar, but I think there were also some proteins in there.
best regards,
Ida
Now I am totally going to pack up a bag that I hope is light enough for me to carry in one trip and go run a bunch of errands before going to Annex. I don't know what sort of pregnant costume I'm going to wear, but ultimately I don't care at all because Manrique is back from Singapore and my body is seriously fucked up from not having had a massage for five weeks.
No. It is not fucked up at all from eating all of that sugar. IT WAS MINIATURE SUGAR.
Please note, when I say "working from home" I'm talking about everything that isn't directly related to commuting to, being in, or returning from a classroom or theatre. That should be obvious, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it still might confuse people if not clarified. When at home, the things I have to do are 1) arrange actual work with varying organizations and individuals, 2) prepare curriculum endlessly (pick an age, any age; pick a topic, any topic), 3) communicate with teachers exhaustingly to varying degrees of efficiency and success and 4) prepare paperwork for any and all work so that I can actually get paid. When I am not doing those things I'm in the commuting or teaching realm and not physically at home, though still an independent contractor.
So what I want to offer about today are these contrasting observations:
I'm still a little behind on things I need to do, but I didn't succumb to the non-work items.
I did succumb to leftover birthday cake. YUM! (By the way, I didn't get in trouble for not writing up that food diary. In fact, said homework wasn't even mentioned at birthing class last week. Oh, and the class was still boring. Like, within the first fifteen minutes I, with my fingertip, wrote out B-O-R-E-D on Yellow Dog's thigh. And then I thought maybe he didn't get it so I leaned over and whispered that I was bored. Aren't I a great student? But seriously, it was a big long lecture based on the reading we were required to do but gave no additional information or insights into the required reading. Like, the instructor may as well just have read to us directly from the text. For an hour. And then we got to practice breathing and massage and that was not boring, but only lasted 35 minutes. LECTURES END NOW! We have class tonight. We shall see.)
It is with me, the heartburn, a near-constant companion. I'm not sure what it's trying to tell me...except that I'm pregnant. But I already knew that, so, what gives, heartburn? I get it! I get it! Same to you, sore arms and sciatica and rusty-gate hips and anemia.
But kicking baby? You keep on at it.
Now let's move on to a Crazy Teacher update.
It should be declared that instead of being extry-irritated by these teachers (which I felt was immiment and so made a new little plan for myself) that I am instead in a state of calm that allows me to recognize that I only have to help them in their own goals. So, I'm framing their skills as going from not knowing how to boil water to knowing how to boil water, maybe even with a little salt added. I am not framing their skills as going from not knowing how to boil water to knowing how to rewire a lamp. This has made my perspective much clearer. And care free.
(Also: I'm never trying to get any of these teachers to teach like me or even to do what I would do in the classroom. It's just that it's typically much more difficult to feel at one with my pay scale when the pain scale rises so drastically.)
Crazy Teacher Number One: Eeyore
I took the ferry this morning. It was supposed to take just under 90 minutes, but instead there was major traffic and it took me over two hours. I did not like this, but when I finally got to the school they had saved some of their lunch for me and I ate it. Clearly, this school is not a public school. Unclearly, this school is a preschool that is just in a house and has 4-6 students (ages 3-5) depending on the day. The students are very very cute. One of them was talking about Chautaucqua and another said "did you say 'taco?'" This is okay by me.
Eeyore sounds nearly the same in person, but what is much much clearer is that she is mostly just down on herself and doesn't trust what she is doing. This is a very weird phenomenon at a school where there are so few students and only two teachers (both in their late 40s/early 50s). It's also sort of good because it makes me want to help her feel better about herself instead of making me want to punch her in the neck. We'll see: I still have to go there four more times. I was able to make it very clear that I am not there to do the work for her, but to serve as a consultant. This is an improvement, because the last time I spoke to her on the phone (for, like one hundred years) she said "can't you just tell me what to do? Theatre people are magic."
Crazy Teacher #2
This woman renewed my firm belief that all teacher training should include vocal training. She kinda sounds like Edith Bunker without the vocal range. The portion of her class that I observed was so boring that I...well, it was boring. What became clear--and what I'd forgotten from this summer when I met her--was that at the core of all of it she truly cares about her students. This is important, because it means that she will be invested in the work that we do together instead of just doing it because she's completing a clock hours requirement.
BUT! She does have a trait that irks me to no end and always will. She does the thing that makes me want to lead another awareness training called Not All Theare is Acting...and Not All Acting is Theatre. This came first after we were having a discussion about how I needed to leave the school parking lot before all the parents arrived to pick up their kids and I made a joke about how shabby my car was: "Really? I thought theatre would pay better." And then she referenced Julia Roberts. The second occurrence was part of her introduction of me to her students and she referenced Tom Hanks. These sorts of things always happen when teachers think they are being helpful. Very sweet, thank you, but so very wrong. (Not that the kids care or notice.)
In conclusion, the shammbatical has proven to be helpful in allowing me a return to instructional methods uncluttered by bile (discounting heartburn) and being four-and-a-half weeks away from maternity leave has allowed me to be quite generous and thoughtful with my remaining time.
Clarification: "maternity leave" is a just a convenient term because it is linked to the baby and everyone understands it as inarguable. In reality, it should really just be called "not working" because it's not like my employer (me) has set up any sort of actual plan beyond not accepting contracts.
Firstly, let it be known that someday my child will be wearing this.
Secondly, we went to our first birth class last week. It was boring.
I don't think the remaining six classes will be that way: the first one was mostly dull because the chairs were arranged in such a way that we couldn't all see each other, the questions that were initially asked were done so in a way that made people hesitate to answer them, and I'd already read and processed all of the material covered in the two hours because I bought the book used in this class series in my first trimester (possibly even before I knew I was pregnant).
Obviously, the two bore-factors in the above were especially noticeable to me due to my job. I had to spend some time convincing myself not to think too much about it, but that was tricky because of the third bore-factor of already having read all of the information. If there had been new information I would have been good and distracted and focused.
My favorite part of the class was watching two women in particular whenever labor pain was mentioned (such fearful looks, but so endearing!) and the moments when the instructor's personality really came out. She seems pretty great overall (and is one of the authors of the book we're using) and I've decided not to get too judge-y about her first-day skills as not everybody who knows content knows how to set-up a room for maximum not-boringness. And I supsect that we'll be much more hands-on starting tomorrow (day 2 of the series).
We had homework for this week, including reading chapters 1-9 of the book. I'd already read chapters 1-7 (I stopped when it hit more labor-oriented things as I didn't want to freak myself out too much in earlier trimesters when I couldn't do anything about it and I didn't want to ruin the class for myself...ahem), but re-read them because that's the sort of person I am with homework. I also have been practicing the exercises that were assigned. I am refusing, however, to complete the diet diary.
That's also the sort of person I am with homework.
I am not going to do it because I decided way back in my first trimester that I wasn't going to do the food diary because I would obsess about it and it would drive me crazy and do me far less good than just eating well. (To note, it's not a diary of exactly what you eat, but rather noting for which meals you ate certain foodgroups and how many servings. So, sort of great, but indeed with much potential for crazy-making.) I'm also not doing it because, duh, if it were going to be useful, it would have been back in that first trimester when learning how to eat while pregnant. I'm thirdly not doing it because it has nothing to do with what I want out of the class.
What do I want out of the class? Well, I want to be able to actively learn and practice labor pain coping techniques with a group of other expecting parents, think about some baby things I wouldn't have thought of because I'm not the same as the other parents, do some more figuring and asking about breastfeeding (it will be happening, but I want more resources about what to do if it's difficult when it is difficult), and generally spend some time in a room with people who share one thing specifically but are very different from me and Yellow Dog on the surface level. Being around mostly artists and educators I often forget what regular people are like and having a kid is a pretty regular thing to do, no matter how individual and incredible it is.
Now that we're down to nine weeks to the due date of small Squirmus (or Ribsy, depending on the time of day and the location of certain extremities or how much Beverly Cleary one has been reading), it's becoming even clearer that a real baby is on the way. Clearer because of expanding belly, clearer because of baby clothes in the house, clearer because the dates are rolling by...and I like it. It's getting a little scarier, but in the best way. I'm running out of Science of Pregnancy items to focus on--it's really funny how the earlier weeks of pregnancy are all full of details about systems and growth but the later weeks are all "putting on some fat layers"--and that means I just get to think more and more about this new child and how that child makes me a mother and Yellow Dog a father and how wrong wrong wrong any thoughts I'm having about it are going to seem once the Inside Baby is the Outside Baby.
It's quite likely the only time I've so eagerly looked forward to being wrong.
Now it is time for a hearty lunch without writing down what I ate.
(I have to admit that--though I'm standing fast on not doing that food diary--I'm also a little worried about getting in trouble for not doing it.)
I was supposed to take a ferry to observe The Crazy Lady, but she called me to tell me that she only had three students today, so maybe it wasn't the best day.
I AGREE!
And not just because I didn't (and still don't) want to go. It's true that observing her classroom with only 15% of the students present would not be useful, given the reason that I'm supposed to be observing her class in the first place.
PLUS, SHE'S CRAZY.
Like, she always sounds like someone punched her in the stomach and stole her lunch. Every single phrase that comes out of her mouth may as well be "What's the use." And she works with preschoolers. Working with preschoolers doesn't make one crazy (although I'm sure it would make some crazy), but it's alarming that young children are hearing that voice everyday. I know that isn't very descriptive, but I haven't actually met her yet. I've only had very uncomfortable l o n g conversations with her on the phone and have become quite suspicious. I also had one lively conversation with a colleague that confirmed my suspicions.
So far this year I have two crazy teachers. Two out of five. But after November 21st I'll have zero crazy teachers...until I decide to go back to work (which will be April at the earliest).
Let's hear it for babies (just one, really) making it possible to finally take that break. I'm more than delighted to be responsible for one child that is my own (and Yellow Dog's!) rather than rooms full of kids and their crazy-ass teachers. That is not the reason we decided to have a child, but it is a savory included bonus.
(In fairness, I met with one teacher yesterday who is going to be a delight to work with. Plus, he played Boggle with his kids as a reading exercise.)