Conflict within

The past week for me has been testing.

My great grandfather passed away Tuesday morning. Before his death my family were spending almost every day at the hospital. I put off school work and social life to spend time with a man that I thought I knew. But seeing him like that – all skin and bones, slowly dying – I felt like I was looking into a strangers eyes.

I don’t think I really ever understood how much time gets taken up after someone dies. Every time I’ve experienced it I was either to young to understand or I wasn’t involved in the process. Now all I see is my family is all running around trying to get things done, while I’m still in shock.

Through this all I’ve started to feel some guilt because I find myself going on about my graduation to my family, while they are all distracted by great gpa’s passing.

I question myself. Does it make me a bad person that I’m trying to move on and be happy and excited about my future, or should I linger on the feelings of sadness?

Due to this conflicted wash of emotions, my stress levels have sky rocketed causing me to be a complete mess. I’m keep messing things up and  having to attempt to fix them. Except its like I have taken a roll of duct tape and taped a crack in the sidewalk. As if that would work.

All I can say right now is that I am glad it is Friday. I look towards next week hoping things will start to go back to normal and I will have better idea of how I really should be feeling.

 

 

Combining Nonfiction and Poetry like a Ninja!

Edited to include links to the senior writing class’ found poems at the end of this entry.

After the absolute and utter failure of any of my writing students to respond to my poll about whether we should do genre studies with nonfiction or poetry next, I made the unilateral decision to start with nonfiction. April is poetry month, yes, but it’s also not exactly the best month to hang around outside in nature and write poetry. Hence, nonfiction now, poetry when the weather is better.

Naturally, two hours after I’d planned that unit, I received an email from the New York Times Learning Network about this year’s Found Poetry contest.

Well. Since the found poem needs to be on an article from the New York Times, I am going to twist the definition of nonfiction (news articles) to include poetry (like a ninja!) and our class is going to write NYT found poems. (As an aside, if you read more than ten articles, the Times prompts you to purchase a subscription; you can get around that, though, by finding articles linked to by the Learning Network, all of which are free. A good place to start is the Learning Network’s Teaching Topics post.)

As an example, I chose an article I had at hand, “A Master’s Degree in … Masculinities?” by Jessica Bennett (full disclosure: clicking the link will count as one of your ten articles). I went through and highlighted the words and phrases that I thought were important in terms of conveying content, as well as those I thought would create good poetry, then combined them into a single poem.

Then I re-read the guidelines and edited my forty-two-line poem down to fourteen lines or less. This is why we read the instructions first, Ms Smith!

My final draft:

    on a dreary Wednesday,
    American men are confused
    about what it means to be a man.

    it is harder today.

    a good man – caring, honest –
    or a real man – suppressing weakness:
    the political struggle
    with unintended consequences.

    the influence of pop culture
    becomes The Mask You Live In.

    connect the dots.

“Ether Reality” by Alicia
untitled by Mariah
untitled by Gulnisha
“THE BOSS” by Kalev
“Alcoholic Toilets” by Justin
“Human Art” by Ceanna
“BRING BACK OUR GIRLS” by Lily

Rage on the Road

Road rage is a feeling that I am completely foreign to.

I don’t get flustered when people don’t use their signals, or annoyed that the idiots at four-way stops and roundabouts don’t know when it’s their turn to go. I don’t even flinch when someone cuts in front of me. I’ve learned to accept that some people are just horrible, horrible drivers, and that you must be defensive out on the roads.

Yes, the anger that so many others succumb to behind the wheel had never rubbed off on me, until was nearly t-boned on my way to work.

Driving through the neighborhood with caution around the winding streets, I approached the hidden driveway that entered the Clayton plaza. This entryway has caused many close calls because of how badly it is placed. There is no stop sign, and many drivers merge right in to traffic without looking to see who is coming. Often there are lines of cars tandem parking around both sides of the entrance, too, so it becomes a hazard for anyone passing by.

As I passed by the entrance I scanned around my surroundings to see if there were any cars coming, but as I was looking around a flash of a car pulled in front of me. Completely cutting me off, the driver sped around the corner doing at least sixty, nearly ramming into my passenger side in the process. As a new driver, I was completely taken aback by the sudden danger, and my hand immediately flew to hover over the horn (my only regret being not blowing it). The driver swerved around the corner and flew down the road ahead, with me following close behind.

The flood of emotions ranging from shock to complete anger and frustration had me entranced. I wanted to keel over to throw up and scream at the terrible driver ahead at the same time. To top off the entire situation, the driver suddenly decided to turn left ahead, once again cutting dangerously ahead of me without using their signal. 

I wanted to smash their windshield with the ice scraper in my back seat. I was livid.

The complete lack of awareness for other drivers or the rules of the road affected me, nearly hurting me in the process. I consider myself very lucky for coming out of that experience unharmed, but it definitely shook me up enough to rattle me before my shift.

I was never able to relate with anyone when it came to discussing rage behind the wheel. Because of that experience, (unfortunately) I know what it’s like now.

Writing Celebration

We have finished our first term together as a writing community and would like to share the amazing pieces of writing that we (by which I mean they) have created so far. There are poems and short stories to explore in genres such as horror, romance, fantasy, fanfiction and realism. Our authors have worked incredibly hard on these, and we’re very proud of what we have done.

Welcome to McDonald’s.. How May I Help You?

“I love my job at McDonald’s” is not a sentence I thought I would ever say a year ago. In fact, I’m not sure it’s something any person who works in fast food would ever say. But it’s true for me.

I would like to start off by saying that I hate the stigma around people who work in fast food. When I tell people where I work it is often met with responses like “oh, I’m sorry..” or the classic “ew, that’s so greasy..”

It’s insulting. It’s rude. But most of all it’s frustrating. I’m not defined by where I work part time as a student who needs to pay her car insurance and gas each month. And even if I was, there are worse things I could do than work at one of the Top Employer Companies in Canada.

McDonald’s seems to have this unfitting, unjust reputation for being some horrible place to work when it has been by far the best place I’ve ever been employed at (and this is my third job.) My coworkers have become people I hang out with on the weekends and in my free time during the week, and there is so much room to grow in the company. McDonald’s has also shaped itself to be the perfect place for any adolescent to work with its benefits and opportunities that come with the job, like:

-A fully adjustable and customizable schedule, meaning YOU decide what days a week you work, the maximum and minimum amount of hours you receive, the longest you want to work during a shift, etc. They stick to your schedule, and they completely understand that SCHOOL should always come first to a student. This is important when it comes to working in high school, where some managers expect you to put school behind a job.

-Exceptional training, where you will get to have an orientation AND training shifts on the floor so you are prepared and confident in your ability to work.

-“Employee of the Month” and other award programs to keep you motivated and reward hard work.

-Benefits such as competitive starting rates, various employee discounts and free uniforms.

-Many opportunities for scholarships to help employees stay motivated in their studies and promote a healthy balance of school and work.

At McDonald’s, I don’t feel like just another unrecognized worker. I feel cared about and respected because we act as a team. Hard work is not taken for granted there, and we function as a well oiled machine that handles rushes and stress like pros as we deal with the fast-paced (and often hectic) environment with grace. We get the job done and we do it with a smile, too. That’s more than I can say for a lot of other places.

So please, remember all of this when you criticize someone based on where they work. They’ll always be the last one laughing when their university education is paid for by their employer.

 

Frustrations From My Seat at the Cinema

As weird as it may sound, I love movies with endings that slap its viewers across the face.

I don’t know if I can describe it, but I love the moments after the credits roll and you sit back in your chair in the midst of a WTF moment. I enjoy having to research the ending of the story in order to get a better idea, and the satisfaction of discovering chatroom threads of people with the same confusion and desire for clarity is immense.

I have watched many movies that have brought on these emotions, some of the big ones being Enemy (starring Jake Gyllenhaal), Shutter Island (Leonardo DiCaprio), and DO NOT even get me started on Inception. I’m still not quite sure I understand it.

But the only movie that I constantly find myself going back to rewatch time after time is Jacob’s Ladder, one of the biggest mind trips of all time. It’s one that I both love and hate at the same time, and I hope at least one person reading this has seen it.

But for those of you who have not, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and give you a brief run-down. The movie revolves around Jacob Singer, a veteran from the Vietnam War who struggles to maintain a grip on reality. He is plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks from his time as a soldier, which twist and morph his world into something completely unrecognizable.

I’m not one to shy away from gruesome horror films or graphic clips, but certain scenes from the movie were so disturbing that although I did not avert my eyes, I wish I had. Viewers are taken inside the world of Jacob’s dark mind  and horrific past, and it’s truly an experience to say the least. The nearly two-hour film brilliant with its elements of suspense and plot… right up until the very end.

*SPOILER ALERT AHEAD*

The movie ends with Jacob being told by a chemist from the army’s chemical warfare division that he and his troops had been given a drug called “The Ladder” to increase aggression in soldiers, but that it backfired when some of the men began suffering with sudden seizures and frenzy outbreaks. The drug has stayed in Jacob’s system since the war, and it explains why he keeps having the hallucinations.

The directors could have easily ended the movie with such a reveal, a perfect wrap up to the story, but then we have to find out that Jacob has actually ALSO been dead the whole time (a classic movie ending). He died iin battle after the initial attack at the start of the movie…

And that’s how it ends. To say I was disappointed is an understatement.

I decided to blog about my frustrations when it comes to this movie because I recently began to watch it again, and all the old emotions resurfaced. It is times like this when I wish I could sit down with the movie’s director and just ask, “why?”. 

Stressed out about blogging …

Every time I have to write a blog I stress out.

Now I know it shouldn’t be something to stress about. But I’m always trying to find the perfect thing to say or the perfect thing to write. Perfect, perfect, perfect. ‘Perfection is key Ceanna.’ I have on repeat through my head.

Of course, logically I know my blog post doesn’t have to be perfect. I make mistake, all of us do. For crying out loud it is a blog for a class that is meant to help my improve on this exact type of struggle I find myself in.

By Friday when I am suppose to have a new blog completed I have fully hit a mind block. I end up scouring the internet in search of a topic that I feel strongly about. Just so that I’m able to make a valid point. Except this all leads to more stress when I can’t find something ‘perfect’.

Eventually I find myself questioning if I’m even capable of producing work. This typically happens after an hour or two of panicking at my computer desk.

By this time I have wrote two, or three, sometimes four different blogs. None of which I find interesting enough to post. So I delete them and start over. After all of that  find something worth keeping.

From others point of view, it seems stupid to stress out and write about so many different topics. For me? It means getting the right topic. Blogs are meant to have some sort of passion behind them. At least the way I view it.

Final thoughts? Congrats Ceanna, you managed to write a blog post about how blogs stress you out.

 

Girl Rising

When we think about going to school, doing homework and writing tests, these ideas can often times be met with deep sighs and eye rolls. Some of us may even try to fake an illness or skip school just to get out of having to be present in a place we seem to dread so much. But what if we were living in developing countries, places where many children do not go to school? Worse yet, what if we were young girls growing up in places like Pakistan, Cambodia, or Nepal, where we would not even have the right to receive an education? The truth is that sixty two million girls around the world are being held back from the classroom by factors such as poverty, forced child marriages, family care or domestic housework, and early pregnancies. It becomes a deadly cycle of young marriage, malnutrition during pregnancy, and unhealthy babies that have a high chance of dropping out of school, marrying young and continuing the cycle. It may not seem plausible to students like us in developed countries, but it is important to know the drastic advantages to keeping girls across the globes in the classroom. Girls that are able to receive an education will:

-be more likely to have a higher- paying job when she becomes an adult and be able to provide for her family

-have a lower chance of being married before the age of eighteen

-have healthier children (and will reduce the amount of maternal deaths by 66%)

If all women and girls were able to receive an education, the overall economy and health of the area would increase, as well. Staying in the classroom can increase her income by ten to twenty percent, as well as lower her risk of contracting HIV. Now, can you imagine all of the good that could do if every girl could do this!

An education is something that often gets take advantage of for students like us, but its value is priceless. If there’s any issue in the world today that is in urgent need of addressing, it is this one.

I first became aware of this issue in my social studies class last year, when we were studying the biggest issues facing developing countries. We had many class discussions about the topic, and it was truly intriguing to me that such a simple right that we often take for granted has become so overlooked in some countries! It was alarming to discover just how many girls are without an education, and to see all of the benefits a girl could have just by doing something as simple as being given the chance to receive and education. The vicious cycle that gets created over and over by girls getting married as young as nine years old has become uncontrollable in places such as Afghanistan, Haiti and Egypt, and to think that it could all be solved by granting a girl the chance to be in a classroom is a hard fact to take in when you are a student wo is as fortunate as I am. However, this was such a powerful concept to learn about in my socials class, and has become something that I am deeply passionate about today.

 

Writing Community versus Writing Class

One of my favourite educational bloggers, George Couros, blogged today, “It is easy to say “go do this’, but much more powerful when we are able to say, ‘Let’s do this together.'”

His post was about leadership (primarily in a school administrative sense), but the comment also expresses what I want with our Writing 12 class. Although I may be a more experienced a writer, I am not and should not be the only source of learning in our class. I can help you improve as a writer through feedback and practice. Reading mentor texts can teach you the expectations of particular genres, as well as what works (or doesn’t) for readers like you. Your peers’ comments on your writing let you know how readers respond; talking to the other writers in our class also helps you learn different tips and tricks.

All of our experiences as writers and readers, no matter what level we are at, help us and others become better writers … but in order to be useful, these experiences need to be shared and explored.

I am not the sole source of knowledge (I don’t think any teacher in any subject is, but that is a topic for a different post). I can guide you on the journey, and I can help you determine the areas you can focus on to become a better writer – but so can each of your peers in different ways. In addition, each of you have something to teach me about writing (and about leading a writing community instead of teaching a writing class as well).

I know that for some of you, this class is odd – it’s not the way most classes (even mine) are taught. Some of you may prefer a more traditional classroom because you’re used to it. However, to improve as a writer, you need to develop and refine your sense of who you are as a writer. To do that, you need to learn from and teach the writers around you. All of them.

I want our class to be a true community of writers – and I have some ideas about how to take grading (although not feedback) out of the picture to a certain extent – because I love learning from and with you. We all have strengths and areas for growth as writers, so let’s share them.

Learning is a communal activity. Developing ourselves as writers should be no less.

Blogging for seniors

Senior writing students, that is.

You asked what the expectations for your blogs were: I expect them to be interesting. Maybe informative. Perhaps persuasive. Even contemplative. Above all, however, I expect good writing of any genre (as defined by the criteria we set out as a class), checked over, though not extensively revised and edited.

The point of a blog is to have a place to share your thoughts with the world. (At the moment, for many of you “the world” appears to be me. For others of you, the world has expanded to our classroom. Write interesting-enough posts, and I imagine that it will expand even further.)

Keep in mind that this is a school forum, but other than that, roam free in the wilderness of ideas.

And if the wilderness appears too dense to move, turn here for a machete to cut through it. Remember as well that we have lists of argumentative and narrative and personal writing prompts in the classroom, as well as an editorial contest to enter and win.