Category Archives: dealing with life

Teaching

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One downside to teaching is that there are days when, in another job, I’d just stay home in bed and allow myself to be ill. But I’m not in another job. I’m a university teacher.

Today was one of those days.

My throat was in agony whenever I tried to talk, and I had to get the microphone working in order to teach.

In my morning room, I can’t tell that the mike is working, but I need to talk quietly or it won’t be long before I’m not talking at all. And when I can’t hear that it is working, I keep trying to compensate.

Then there’s the muzzy-headedness, and mistake after mistake after mistake where I just don’t line my points up very well. This is frustrating for the students; I get it. They begin to talk amongst themselves, and then I try to compete with my voice which is a painful disaster.

You know that moment when you are about to start to cry, from feeling like you are the biggest screw-up in the world and nothing you can do right now will change it, right in the middle of class, in front of the 60 students out of a hundred who bothered to show up the day after an evening exam …

I managed to channel it into irritation instead. “Look, guys, I know I stink today, and I know I’m hard to follow, but I can’t compete with you (talking while I’m talking). So make up your minds whether you are going to help me out or whether we just want to go home and don’t really care about learning this after all.”

It got better after that, but I was still wet-eyed in line to order my lunch.

The honors class in the afternoon was better, but I appealed to their mercy straight off. We laughed at a few things and did one problem with minimal talking to help save my voice. The no-talking problem … now something about that was interesting. I want to try that again.

Anger

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  1. You have a right to your feelings.
  2. You have a right to set boundaries to feel safe.
  3. Anyone who attempts to revoke your right to your feelings or to set boundaries is someone scary.

Now, it may just be that the person is clueless, but lack of empathy on this is a danger signal that you cannot ignore.

Predators and bullies will try to negate your feelings and push you into situations where you don’t feel safe. The only defense you have is to own your feelings and to own your boundaries.

A predator will flatter you to let your guard down. A predator will cast you as a bitch if you don’t do what they are asking.

You know how this plays out in a bar: “I’m just trying to buy you a drink! You don’t want me to buy you a drink? Why are you being such a bitch?” No one has the right to argue with you when you say no. This is the clarion call of the predator. Hell, yes, I absolutely am such a bitch. I do not want your drink. I said so clearly. Now buzz off.

But a bar is an easy situation. What happens when this is your boss? “Can’t we just have a cup of coffee and talk this over just the two of us?” If you don’t feel safe, you have every right to request that a neutral third party is present. But for many it’s harder to set this boundary.

I think I am lucky that I do not find either of these situations ambiguous. Trigger my lack of trust, and I will take action to protect myself. Even so, I still get the arguments.

On this count, I am flabbergasted.

I am shocked by how many people are unable to see or unaware that when a boundary like this is set, that if you wish to reestablish trust, the only way to go about it is to be very very respectful of the boundary. No sneaking around it, no flattering your way out of it, just respect and forthrightness.

This is one of those topics that makes me see red.

If there is one book you should read on this topic, it is The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.

Turbulent Days and Gratitude Exercises

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Trying to keep a positive attitude under stress is definitely not very easy.

I’m trying to think of something wise to say, and mostly I just want to complain and stress. Neither of which is going to do me or anyone else any good.

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One thing that sometimes helps is a gratitude exercise. Which is, to simply list some good things in your life that you are grateful for. I don’t really think this is going to calm me down or make me feel better, but it won’t make me feel worse. And it helps reinforce the brain pattern of focussing on the positive.

  1. I am grateful for a social ride tonight, overcast and cooler weather (but still plenty hot), and making it okay on my commuter bike.
  2. I am grateful that my classes are going well, and that I am providing an appropriate level of challenge for my honors students.
  3. I am grateful that my paper is fixable, even if I am stuck right now on what to do with it. I will try again tomorrow. It will be published.
  4. I am grateful that I sometimes take interesting pictures.
  5. I am grateful that I get to take so many pictures. Grateful for digital cameras and “what the heck” and somewhere to post them.
  6. I am grateful for books. Sometimes when everything else feels bad, I can lose myself in a good one. Most recently deeply enjoyed book was Kristin Cashore’s Bitterblue, a follow up to Graceling. I am looking forward to reading her middle book, Fire, when the library gets it for me.
  7. I am grateful that I have good people around me who will help me get my issue resolved, even if I don’t completely trust the higher-ups involved.
  8. And I am grateful that I can set a limit and stick to it. I can walk out if there isn’t a better option.
  9. I am grateful for good friends and good food.
  10. I am grateful that the six-legged creatures have remained outside today.
  11. I am grateful for anxiety medication, and refills of such. It was a 3 dose day today (4th coming before bed.)
  12. I am grateful to make a blog post.

That’s enough for today.

90% of Success

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Monday, first day of class, one of the points I hammered was that 90(+)% of success is showing up on time prepared for whatever activity it is that you are about to undertake.

Today I gave a quiz and maybe brought this lesson home for a few of my students.

They did know that a quiz was coming today. And they did know what it was over (had they bothered to check). And they did know (if they bothered to check) that I told them to know their section number to prepare … actually, they should have just known that. I put it on the board on Wednesday.

Question one: Write your name in the upper right hand corner. Below your name put your UIN (University Identification Number). Below the UIN put your section number. (3 points on a 10 point quiz).

Most seemed fine, a few seemed put out that I required the UIN and section number, and yes, there were a few students 10 minutes late to class when I gave a 10 minute quiz at the beginning of the day. Whoops!

“Can I come by your office later and take the quiz?”

No.

90% of Success is Showing Up on Time and Being Prepared for Whatever Activity It Is You Are About To Undertake.

I solved the quiz problems in class immediately after giving the quiz. If you got them, you know you are right. And if you didn’t, then you hopefully learn something immediately, and in such a way as to embed the lesson on your memory.

Which is why I won’t generally give make-up quizzes. We take a quiz. We solve a quiz. I drop the lowest two in case you are absent, or have a bad day. But I don’t give make-ups.

There might be a side-benefit to the day’s lesson. A few might now be convinced that the nice lady who teaches their math class really is prepared to enforce logical consequences and will actually allow them to suffer now rather than suffer later. (We sometimes are under the impression that the nice lady is going to succumb to begging and whining. We are always disappointed and surprised when it doesn’t work that way.)

A tangle with grief

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“Grant us, in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain’s peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word.” — Lois McMaster Bujold from Paladin of Souls.

I went to a bicycling event this weekend. The last time I went to it, two years ago, it was with someone that I cared for very much. He had just moved here after completing his degree and we had managed a cross-continental separation for two years. I was full of hope for us, that my hopes to find a life-partner were being realized.

This past spring, we split up, under circumstances that were considerably less than kind to me.

This past several weeks, things with him have been flitting in and out of my attention, usually when I’d rather they left me alone. Grief stirred up at bad times, and too many of them.

I’d hoped for a good trip to replace my old memories with some good ones, but that wish wasn’t granted.

I found myself sitting alone on Friday night, face distorted in a rictus of pain, trying not to scream or cry out loud, since I was indoor camping, and others were about. I finally took some anxiety medication in the hopes that it would help, and my one small gift was that it did take enough of the edge off that I could pull myself together, clean out my nose and clean up my face, write to try to do something with all the jacked up emotions, then read and eventually attempt to sleep.

I wonder if anyone noticed. I think some walked by and could have, but my eyes were shut as I tried to breathe through the pain. Someone did inquire solicitously about my ride the next day. Maybe. Maybe not.

The line-up for the ride resulted in more of the same, but I managed to pull together again before I had to start pedaling. My ride was mostly solitary. But, fortunately, calm.

I hope that I was processing grief. Getting it out. Putting it away, at least, in part. Getting through it.

I dread more. I am not sure how much more of that I can take.

Surely by now I am an expert in that kind of grief. Relationships end, and it is time to pick yourself up and move on. Somehow, when I was small, I never thought I would have to spend my life alone, but every passing year, that looks like a more and more likely present and future. How do you face this with courage?

None of the stories you read as a child prepare you for this. Little girls grow up and meet men of character and get married and have families. That’s what I wanted for myself too. We don’t flounder and flop around year after year after year after year looking and hoping, or trying to look and trying to hope. There is no script for this outcome. I have to write it myself, and I don’t know how.

Or maybe I do. One foot in front of the other, one step, one task, one day at a time. Breathe into the pain. Breathe into the loneliness. Make myself like a fountain, giving what I want to find, keeping nothing for myself, since these gifts cannot be hoarded or saved for later. I do not get the choice in what I find from others. The only choice I have, anyone has, is how to treat everyone else, and how I react to what I am given.

It all seems empty. But at least for this moment I have calm.

Anxiety

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Some days are not what you want them to be.

I was up with anxiety in the middle of the night.

I woke up anxious this morning.

Anxiety is not the world’s best productivity tool for me, although it is one hell of a good tool for getting out of bed in the morning. I flit from one thing to the next without really accomplishing anything. If I’m not sucked deeply into a book, I can’t even really read.

So the day has gone so far. I took some more medication, and maybe I am settling down now. With the bad taste in my mouth from an unsatisfying and unproductive morning.

For me, anxiety is this uncomfortable feeling in my stomach and chest. When it is bad, it is a sense of impending doom. When it is mild, it is merely uncomfortable.

Anxiety is a very functional emotion in the correct circumstances. It evolved long ago, and it is awesome for keeping someone alert and on guard. If I needed to be alert for animal or human predators coming to get me, anxiety would be my best friend for vigilance. In the modern world, where much of what we need to do involves calm and concentrated effort, in particular, blocking out everything around us and only paying attention to the task at hand, anxiety is a substantial foe.

What have I learned about dealing with anxiety?

First, acceptance. You cannot will it away. You cannot think it away. For some, cognitive approaches work well. I am not one for whom this is so. Do the thoughts cause the anxiety or the anxiety the thoughts? I think it is a circular system. That said, being meticulous about finding things to be happy about and to be grateful for will help improve your mood, even if it does not take away your anxiety. Be mindful and generous and count your blessings.

Second, treatment. There are medications you can use. Finding the right one can be hard, but they can be a lifeline. They have been for me. Talk to your doctor. It would be great if you could talk to a psychiatrist, as they are the real expert in treatment of these problems … but I haven’t figured out how to make that happen yet. Too many people with far more serious psychiatric illnesses than mine, and too few doctors to treat them.

Third, compassion. If I must live with this, the one thing I can do is use it to help others. In particular, students with test anxiety or math anxiety or however it comes about. I can be a role model of someone who handles it reasonably well. I can provide acceptance, acknowledgment of the real difficulties involved in dealing with it, and some ideas of ways to cope.

Fourth, awareness. What situations and people are healthy, productive, warm, accepting, make you feel good? Spend more time in/with them. What situations and people do the opposite? Spend less them in/with them. And be aware, very aware, when you see behavior in others that gets to you, that their behavior is a reflection on who they are NOT on you or your actions or your character, and two, you cannot change another’s behavior, you can only modify how you react to them and whether you interact with them in the first place.

If you suffer from anxiety too, I wish I could make it better. Since I can’t, take meticulous care of yourself. You are worth it. Hold your head high, even when you feel that it is beating you down moment by moment.

Gobsmacked

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From earlier today.

I am feeling a little gobsmacked right now, but it is getting better.

A few thoughts.

If you are acting with sincerity and good will, when other people don’t (re)act nicely, it usually has more to do with them and their history than whatever you just said or did.

It is okay to not feel good all the time; that sticks and stones thing is completely wrong. We hurt each other with words all the time.

It is okay to look at things that happen and take notes about how you want to react to them differently next time.

Last, asking and not getting everything you asked for is better than not asking and getting nothing. It also doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep asking. (But, dangit, asking is hard.)

Now, chin up, and on with the day.

Everyone has days like this. I was distracted in my evening Tai Chi class, thinking about what happened earlier. I’m trying to shake it off, but it was definitely time for more anxiety medication when I got home.

Things will always just throw you off balance, and you have to find a way to deal with them. I know this. Life has ups and downs. This isn’t so bad. Don’t let it get to me.

But I am feeling bad.

Sometimes you question what you are worth, and what good you are doing. That’s where I am tonight. I know I do a lot of good. And I am fully aware that I screw up sometimes. Hopefully more good than bad, but sometimes the bad just gets all stirred up. The screwy thing is, I don’t even feel like anything from earlier today was my bad!

Time for a shower. And a book. And some sleep. And the hope that tomorrow is another day, with all the things a tomorrow brings.

What do I advise my students to do? Put your chin up. Try to walk the high road. Have something kind to say to someone, every day. You have something special to contribute to this world, you just have to figure out what it is. What should you do with your life? You should follow a path that makes you happy. If you aren’t sure what to do, do the things that make you feel good, and spend more time with people that make you feel good. Give each job an honorable effort and let the results take care of themselves.

That is all I or anyone can ask of you. So, tomorrow, an honorable effort. A kind word for someone. Spend some time with people I like, and take on at least one job that makes me happy. I hope the results, in particular, my mixed-up feelings, will take care of themselves.