tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77907675281288348602024-02-20T06:08:57.657-05:00I Don't Want to Live on the MoonChristina Vrba ponders writing, daily life, and all the little fritters in betweenChristina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-43330724558951142872023-02-20T15:28:00.003-05:002023-02-20T15:28:29.479-05:00Coping with Loss and Grief<p> Grief, says my aunt Fran, is a tricky thing.</p><p>Sarah, a work friend of mine, died last week. We don't know why. She was young, early 30s, and pregnant with her second child. She was the school psychologist for my elementary school, though she kept her door wide open to both staff and students. She was a shining light and a force for positivity in a place where it is easy to become jaded and cynical.</p><p>I was hit hard by this. I didn't know her well, though we were on friendly terms and chatted whenever we ran into each other. She was there when I had a panic attack at school, coming down with the school nurse to sit with me until I felt more together and my husband arrived to pick me up. She even picked me up and drove me to school the next day, as I had to leave my car at the building.</p><p>At first, I felt shocked... Sarah was younger than me, healthier than me. How could this be? Then, the sadness... the loss of two lives, one entirely unlived (and tangentially it strikes me how subjective the whole abortion debate is... when Sarah died and her son with her, it's the death of an unborn child. When a woman who doesn't feel like having a child wants to dispose of an unwanted pregnancy, it's not... even if said unborn child were the same age as Sarah's son.)</p><p>The guilt followed soon after. I have a very loud and very nasty critical inner voice, and it began hammering at me... <i>You barely knew her. You weren't REALLY friends. You don't have any business pretending that you feel loss. How can you honestly feel sad? You're a fake, a poser, an imposter, and people will know and then what will they think of you?</i></p><p>I rebelled against this, of course. I got angry. Grief is grief. You feel what you feel. I discussed it with the school-provided grief counselors, with my own counselor, with my aunt, who teaches grief classes. All of them agreed that I was right, and pointed out that if a friend were to say the same things to me, I'd tell them to fight it, that they had every right to grieve, that what they felt was justified and perfectly okay.</p><p>The critical inner voice doubled down. <i>You horrible person... you're making this about YOU, not HER. How dare you?</i></p><p>And I froze. I couldn't help wondering if the voice was right... was I making this loss about me, not about Sarah? If I was, how could I refocus on the truly important epicenter of these feelings? The fact is, two lives were unexpectedly ended far too soon... and there's a hole in many, many lives now as a result. </p><p>Sarah was the epitome of a good person. She cared deeply and honestly about the students she served, the district she worked for, the colleagues she worked among. She was selfless and giving... everything a school counselor should be. She tried her best to make the school a better place to be, for everyone within its walls. She touched a countless number of lives, some deeply and intimately, some with a feather-light brush. I was one of those light brushes... and I'm deeply grateful to have known Sarah, even briefly and at a coworker's distance.</p><p>In the end, I think, what I need to do is ask myself, <i>how did knowing Sarah make your life different? How can you continue on in a way that honors that change?</i></p><p>Those are questions I'm still pondering.</p>Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-48997582785644801372023-01-06T15:52:00.005-05:002023-02-20T15:29:52.329-05:00Sick<p> There's something about being sick that reaches beyond the physically unpleasant... the fatigue, the aches, the coughing. There's something that extends into the emotions, especially if you've been sick for a while... a sense of not-rightness that extends to the bones, hovering about you, akin somehow to paranoia. It's a shadow hanging over you, a feeling that something is looming, unseen... an intimation of great threat.</p><p>At least, that's how it is for me.</p><p>For a week now I've battled a cough that has settled into me, drawing chest muscles tight, rattling up from my lungs, and an accompanying aching soreness in my throat. No fever, no nausea, minor congestion... "just a cold." It's not a chronic illness, not anything that would hospitalize you, not even akin to Covid. It's just bad enough to keep me up most of the night hacking and wheezing, preventing any semblance of sound sleep - but not bad enough to justify calling in sick to work for four days in a row (which I did anyway).</p><p>Given my high blood pressure, I can't take 95% of the over the counter medicines available, and I've gotten quite resentful of the stupid commercials which show people with colds and flus popping pills or guzzling syrups and going happily on about their lives, free from all symptoms. It hasn't worked that way for me, not with the few medicines said to be acceptable for people with high blood pressure. </p><p>Commercials minimize cold and flu viruses as minor inconveniences, things easily put off by any sensible person with a life to live - but as a teacher, I guarantee that if you aren't able to sleep through the night because you're wracked with coughing, going into work with a cold is far more than merely inconvenient. Besides the physical issues, you have the fact that kids can smell weakness - you'd do better to wade through piranha-infested waters with a bleeding gash in your leg than try to teach grammar with a cold. At least the meat-eating fish might leave a bit of you intact to clamber out the other side.</p><p>Actually, I'm exaggerating mightily. My own students are mostly a kindly lot, and would likely opt not to run rampant... but they also wouldn't accomplish much, not with a muzzy-headed teacher who can't speak more than half a dozen words before dissolving into a coughing fit. </p><p>And then there's the looks you get from other teachers... the looks that say, <i>Why are you even here if you're sick?</i> Never mind that you feel guilty calling in for "just a cold;" never mind that calling in sick to teach is more work than actually showing up, because you have to make up lessons that keep the students busy enough not to eat the substitute alive (and that's not an exaggeration, kindly students or not) while trying not to make the lessons too difficult for someone who isn't an actual teacher to teach. </p><p>Or not teach. It's a sad fact that most substitutes cannot do any real teaching that will help you keep up with your curriculum. It's not their fault. Curriculum lessons are designed to be delivered by people who are there every day, who have a working knowledge of the students' strengths and weaknesses, who can adapt and adjust and see the Big Picture. Curriculum lessons layer one atop the other, and if you don't know what was taught prior to a particular lesson, you're hopelessly adrift. Substitutes who are aiming to become teachers themselves give every lesson left for them their most valiant try... but they haven't got the full curriculum guide to fall back on, nor do they have the time to learn all that came before. </p><p>And not all who substitute are hoping to be full time teachers. There was one lovely lady who subbed in my district for many years who routinely ignored any lessons left for students, preferring instead to engage the kids in long, detailed conversations about her cats. We shuddered when she appeared on the morning memo as a substitute... for the teacher whose classroom she covered, that was a lost day. Others think that they can "improve on" the lessons left for them, and it takes the better part of two days to unravel the leavings.</p><p>But I couldn't face teaching this week, not feeling the way I did. So I called in, and felt miserable for it. And finally, I did get a diagnosis... after two sets of doctors and one chest x-ray, it wasn't "just a cold" after all. It was bronchitis. And so here I am, feeling deeply uncomfortable and uneasy, wondering about the state of my classroom, and hoping that by Monday I'll have healed up enough to manage to drag myself into work. </p><p>I hate being sick.</p>Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-78909716450006809132023-01-04T16:02:00.003-05:002023-01-06T15:54:39.215-05:00A Post of 5s, 2023<p><i><b> What I'm Reading:</b> </i><u>Nerd: Adventures in Fandom from This Universe to the Multiverse</u> by Maya Phillips</p><p><b style="font-style: italic;">What I'm Writing:</b> A book about the care and keeping of pet leopard geckos for kids and parents to read together.</p><p><i style="font-weight: bold;">What I'm Watching: </i><i>The Ugliest House in America </i><span>(HGTV)</span></p><p><i style="font-weight: bold;">What I'm Listening To: </i><u>His Majesty's Dragon</u> by Naomi Novik (again), and <u>The Shift: 7 Powerful Mindset Changes for Lasting Weight Loss</u> by Dr. Gary Foster</p><p>And I can't for the life of me think of what #5 is supposed to be. I'll need to check.</p>Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-21493612415355454622021-08-29T09:25:00.001-04:002021-09-11T19:04:35.421-04:00Ghost Dogs<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-yPYJK4zLDT0jKHH-I2sSgEFn-ZQVX3UIfreci5LjFJ31i9z8U5BAwEjOKF8QRkUNJT0ajjz68rfM3WGibDVBBzBlzvVgO9qPU260xinhY3F1JBXsJzmJItm7JkSHYKjpr4w1n-PWxe2/s2048/F5D2F809-6433-49AC-80C2-D2F854FA526A.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1812" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-yPYJK4zLDT0jKHH-I2sSgEFn-ZQVX3UIfreci5LjFJ31i9z8U5BAwEjOKF8QRkUNJT0ajjz68rfM3WGibDVBBzBlzvVgO9qPU260xinhY3F1JBXsJzmJItm7JkSHYKjpr4w1n-PWxe2/s320/F5D2F809-6433-49AC-80C2-D2F854FA526A.jpeg" width="283" /></a></div><br /> I've given away too many dogs.<p></p><p>Giving away one dog is too many for some. To give away more than one dog in one's lifetime indicates, to some people, a severe deficiency in character. There will be people who will read this and think the worst of me, think that I am one of Those People who ought not be allowed to have a dog to begin with. If you are one of those people, I assure you, you cannot possible think worse of me than I think of myself.</p><p>Every dog I have given away still lives with me in my head and in my heart. They are my ghost dogs, the ones who will never die. Today, on the verge of giving away yet another dog, they stand before me, all in a row, and I feel the need - again - to beg for their forgiveness.</p><p>Wilson. Wilson the sweet, good natured Cattle Dog mix. Wilson, the dog I'd fought with my husband to bring into our home. Wilson was a pup fostered by one of the students in the middle school where I taught. She'd brought him in after school to see if one of her teachers would adopt him, and I fell in love. We already had a dog, a wonderful Corgi named Riley, but something about Wilson tugged at me. At the time, I was teaching <u>Where the Red Fern Grows</u>, so I named him after the author - he was definitely a Cattle Dog mix, a Blue Heeler, but he looked like a Bluetick Coonhound to me. Wilson was so unlike most Cattle Dogs - he was of moderate energy, a very laid back fellow, and he took life in stride. When we moved houses, Wilson was there. When we had my first child, Wilson was there. Quiet, gentle, patient - Wilson was all those things. </p><p>And then Post Partum Depression hit. It can last years... did you know that? I didn't. And so, one day three or four years after the birth of my son, I found myself sobbing in my bedroom, overwhelmed by the number of small lives dependent on me... we had many pets at that time. I called my sister and asked her to take Wilson from me, and she agreed.</p><p>I cried all the way home from my sister's house. We left Wilson with her with toys and food and money for vet bills. It didn't help. I felt like I had violated a sacred trust. and in truth, I had. I felt beyond awful, and deservedly so. </p><p>There is a chance, a faint one, that I might have eventually gone to retrieve Wilson from her... but within two weeks, my sister had posted him on Craigslist for adoption, and given him away to another family. She did tell me about it before she handed him over, but at the time, so steeped in depression, I didn't feel I had the right to question what she was doing. For years afterwards, I searched the Internet for signs of Wilson, hoping that his new family had made a website for him, posted pictures of the Australian Cattle Beagle. But Wilson vanished from my life, and I never saw him again.</p><p>Pirate. Pirate was most definitely my fault... my fault for doing the research, reading the books and articles, but not listening to my gut instincts. After Riley died, we wanted another dog. We looked through Petfinder, but did not find a dog that met our needs... we wanted a smaller dog, one that would be of moderate energy, be trainable and reliable off leash. Another Corgi would have been perfect, but we couldn't bear to bring in another Corgi. We settled on what was, at the time, the Miniature Australian Shepherd and found a breeder not too far away to visit. She had puppies on the way, and invited us to meet the mother and learn more about the breed.</p><p>I should have been immediately suspicious when the expectant mother appeared, and would not stop barking at us. She did not want to be petted. She was NOT friendly. Her mother, a beautiful merle, was much more accommodating. But we stayed, and we asked our questions, and were given answers that we wanted to hear... yes, Mini Aussies were of moderate energy. Yes, they were definitely trainable - they would need jobs to do, but it would be easy to train them to do tasks such as find their food dishes, carry in small bags of groceries, fetch items on command. And yes, they were definitely reliable off lead.</p><p>We waited in growing anticipation for the puppies' arrival, and eventually Pirate came home - a puppy larger than most, because it turned out he was the only pup in the litter. I did not know, at the time, the problems that singleton pups can have because they lack the socialization of a littermate. All we knew was that he was Our Puppy, and we doted on him. We blithely accepted the breeder's request not to neuter him, because she might want to show and breed him - that sounded wonderful to us.</p><p>Until adolecence hit.</p><p>We were not prepared for an intact male's adolecence. We had never experienced it before. Suddenly Pirate, who already had an obsession with fetching the ball at the dog park, stopped playing with other dogs entirely - and began growling and attacking any dog who approached his ball. He became quite interested in females - both intact and spayed. He stopped listening to commands. Always a friendly puppy, he became reserved, even barky, around strangers. His energy level - never "moderate" - skyrocketed. We tried to teach him tasks - to give him a Dog's Job. He wouldn't have any of it. As going to the dog park was quickly becoming a misery where it had once been a joy, we had a family meeting.</p><p>Pirate did need a job... he needed more than one, to be honest. And he needed more exercise, which we couldn't provide for him. Walks would not even take the shadow of an edge off him. We contacted his breeder, explained the situation, and asked about rehoming him. The day we brought Pirate back to his birthplace, there was already another family waiting there to adopt him. </p><p>And so to Milo.</p><p>Milo was found through Petfinder as I searched for a second dog. Our older dog, Ariel, didn't really NEED a companion, but I wanted... I needed... a second dog. At first, I started looking for a Corgi mix, preferably about a year or two old. After months of being ignored by or rejected by rescues, I stumbled upon Milo. He was younger than we had wanted, 5 months old, but something in his eyes called to me. He was listed as an Australian Cattle Dog / Basset Hound mix.</p><p>At this time, we'd had two Cattle Dog mixes... Wilson, and later Nevin. I treasured the breed in my heart for the wonderful temperments both dogs had brought to our family. And Basset Hound! What a treasure... in both of our previous mixes, the high energy Cattle Dog had been mellowed by mixing with a lower energy breed. Surely a Basset would bring some slow, sweet energy to the mix. We applied for Milo and were approved, and Milo came home.</p><p>When we had started a search for a second dog, we had very specific requirements... the new dog MUST be good with other dogs, cats, and children. Milo was listed as all of those things. And he was - for about a week. Where he had initially greeted our cat with a wagging tail and a respectful sniff, before the month was out he was a barking, growling, hackles-raised cat pursuer. We don't know what had triggered the switch - but after two incidents of narrow escapes, our cat moved into the basement and refused to come out except at night, when the dogs were "put to bed" behind our bedroom's closed door.</p><p>We contacted a trainer recommended by the rescue. We enrolled Milo in her group classes, because she said that before we could do anything specific, he would need to learn basic obedience commands. Milo soared through puppy class and basic obedience. He loved lessons. He was wonderful on leash, and wonderful at the dog park - though he did develop an obsession with fetching tennis balls, I didn't mind because it tired him out. And I loved this dog... Milo was my playful, happy shadow at home, always by my side, my loyal little guy who loved me with all of his doggy heart.</p><p>I was determined to get the cat-chasing under control so we could have a truly happy family.</p><p>We arranged for a private session with our trainer at our home to start working on the cat problem. She assured me, having met and fallen a bit in love with Milo herself, that he seemed to be VERY trainable and that we would definitely be able to work on the cat chasing. It would take time, yes, but we all had high hopes of success.</p><p>The day of the private consultation arrived, and all was going well... until the trainer had a chance to observe Milo and our older dog, Ariel, together. She watched. She watched a bit more. Then she said, "We've got a bigger problem than cat chasing here."<br /></p><p>Milo, she explained, was bullying and dominating our other dog. He was guarding me - and her - from Ariel, using his body and his eye to warn her off. He was bumping and pushing her around, keeping her away from anything he saw of value - namely, the attention of people. My heart sank.</p><p>I had known for some time that Milo was food-aggressive. He'd lunge for Ariel, barking and snarling, if I tried to give her a cookie. The dogs had to be fed in different rooms, and even then, Milo would rush Ariel's room to try to gobble up any food she had left behind. Since Ariel didn't play with toys, Milo didn't need to guard those from her... but now that the trainer had pointed it out, I realized that Ariel had been staying mainly in the bedroom over the past few months, not coming to socialize with the family as she always had before. This, I knew, was Bad.</p><p>We had a long talk, the trainer and I, about the resource-guarding behavior. She showed me how to interrupt Milo's "stink eye" and protect Ariel from him. We started him on a new training regime - teaching him station training ("Go to your place") and on something called "Nothing in life is free," where Milo would need to work for everything he wanted - attention, food, toys. This, the trainer assured me, would help assure Milo that Humans Were In Charge and that he didn't have to be.</p><p>And then it happened.</p><p>A few weeks into the new training cycle, I went out to dinner with a friend, leaving Milo and Ariel with my husband and son. Sometime that evening, Milo attacked Ariel, biting her hard on the cheek and leaving her face and fur a bloody mess. We took her to the vet the next morning. The puncture wounds were not as deep as they could have been... but we were shaken. We could not, we WOULD not, have an aggressive dog in our house. Bad enough that Milo was a danger to our cat... but to be a danger to our long-suffering, patient dog? No.</p><p>After consulting our trainer, we made the hard decision that Milo would need to go back to his rescue. He needed to be an only pet, our trainer said, as sad as we were at this realization. We had done all we could do, and we had a responsibility to our existing pets to keep them safe. For as trainable as Milo was, we could never ben 100% sure that he would be a safe dog.</p><p>And so Milo will join the ranks of my ghost dogs... he's still with us at the moment, prancing and wagging and unaware of what is about to change his life forever. And my heart is breaking.</p><p>My ghost dogs haunt me.</p><p>There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of them, wonder "what if..." What if I had been a stronger person? What if I had been a better owner? What if, what if, what if...</p><p>But my ghost dogs, it seems, don't hold my sins and shortcomings against me. In my mind, they gaze at me, kind-eyed and loving. They wag their tails. They seem to understand. They are, as dogs have always been, spirits of forgiveness. Dogs don't hold grudges.</p><p>I only wish I could forgive myself.</p>Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-90132879467410656072021-04-16T12:04:00.005-04:002021-04-16T12:10:19.277-04:00The Naming of Cats... and Dogs... and Lizards... And...<p> I'm currently reading <u>Our Dogs, Ourselves</u> by Alexandra Horowitz, and just finished up the chapter devoted to the naming of dogs. I really enjoyed reading it; I love naming pets... children... cars... houses... if it can have a moniker, I want to give it one. (At this writing, my car's name is Flora.) </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0nmIY7IxTlFv826d7J1V6d7vbEUGgY3dIb5B7lTB3AwH_Qv1xwqEkGEpeyPd6k0j21evHY5oh6TQzMZBVs7Ixeugg7mJOWQ68htgm8DwXrRWOgfEDpCzbCKLEy5nq-SmI0ANIxYYStLzU/s2048/0159232001003.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0nmIY7IxTlFv826d7J1V6d7vbEUGgY3dIb5B7lTB3AwH_Qv1xwqEkGEpeyPd6k0j21evHY5oh6TQzMZBVs7Ixeugg7mJOWQ68htgm8DwXrRWOgfEDpCzbCKLEy5nq-SmI0ANIxYYStLzU/s320/0159232001003.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Disney</td></tr></tbody></table>And that got me thinking about all the names of all the pets who have shared my life so far, in my 50+ years on this spinning planet. Each one has a story. Each one has an image implanted in my memory, even if, in some cases, it's a bit faded with age.<p></p><p>Mopey and Dopey were my first pets - a pair of goldfish, fantails, who lived in a glass bowl. It was not suitable habitat for these fish, I now know... but I remember them fondly,<br /> orange and black, wiggling about in the water. I have no memory at all of their demise. They were named not by me or my then-toddling sister, I think, but by my mother.</p><p>After that point, all the other living creatures who passed through our home have, in some small cooperative part at least, been named by me. Those animals who lived with me as an adult, of course, were mine to name from the first. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXHrKTZ6a2hgBa0BrQ6WD0qthcNDs1vO1IR2SIL8_MJkpd7ySsMzu2kzl-PzDs9xOuPQbl_eSsEU-MQD2_HfNZQ4ydUcdWrP54O9up9TKrwsm0gsEA0D95P-dHIZxHDpzFhi102AhZrdQZ/s2048/0172960371003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXHrKTZ6a2hgBa0BrQ6WD0qthcNDs1vO1IR2SIL8_MJkpd7ySsMzu2kzl-PzDs9xOuPQbl_eSsEU-MQD2_HfNZQ4ydUcdWrP54O9up9TKrwsm0gsEA0D95P-dHIZxHDpzFhi102AhZrdQZ/s320/0172960371003.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Riley and my son Daniel on Halloween</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I'm ashamed to say that I don't remember all the names of all my pets. The gerbils, who I bred and raised for show as well as for pets, were rather too numerous to remember - at my peak, I had about 30 - though do I have the pedigrees somewhere, and my first show gerbil, Mask (or more formally, Autumnglory Storybook Masquerade) is lovingly remembered as my favorite. The fish were arguably more decoration than companions, and I had a long string of Bettas as an adult (all cared for with properly filtered and heated tanks, thank you) whose names are lost to me... at the moment, we have one goldfish, Wiscash, who stubbornly refuses to die, and a pleco named Feebas. And some pets, sadly, have become just nameless snapshots of memory... I distinctly recall having more than two parakeets, but I cannot recall more than two names.<p></p><p>Some pets stayed for a relatively short time (I'm thinking of Pirate, the Miniature American Shepherd who was just too much dog for our moderately-active family to manage and returned to his breeder to be instantly rehomed, and the Rankin's bearded dragons Steve and Irwin, who started out as classroom pets, had all the personality of a pair of sticks, and were passed along to a more appreciative reptile collector). Others stayed for many, many years (my first cat, Lollypop, lived to be a grand, if frail, old lady, as did our first family dog, Kris). But each of them had a distinct name, however long they were with me, and they remain with me in memory.</p><p>Here is a list of my pets' names, insofar as I remember them.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIMXxx3OvEdqoUNYh1Btoiii9VUsaiCqfvR9yI-E4ZwmUXRaIazu2Sg0i_QWYEOc6KPYKoFNQzXi047FRD718dBTRxM0Xl5SsK8yCygmaFk9ryclbSmXTTX7jb-TOHNNj36EtwdU0ryhr/s2048/0210252690003.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIMXxx3OvEdqoUNYh1Btoiii9VUsaiCqfvR9yI-E4ZwmUXRaIazu2Sg0i_QWYEOc6KPYKoFNQzXi047FRD718dBTRxM0Xl5SsK8yCygmaFk9ryclbSmXTTX7jb-TOHNNj36EtwdU0ryhr/s320/0210252690003.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unknown goldfish and my son Daniel</td></tr></tbody></table><b>FISH</b>: Mopey, Dopey, Spike, Spike II, Spike III, Wiscash, Feebas<p></p><p><b>BIRDS</b>: Parakeets Blue Sky and Pegasus</p><p><b>CATS</b>: Lollypop, Tiggy, Ian, Fox, Alex, Loki, Opie, Disney, Willow, Autumn, Skimble</p><p><b>DOGS</b>: Kris, Sebastian, Cricket, Quentin, Riley, Wilson, Nevin, Pirate, Ariel</p><p><b>RABBITS</b>: Kilroy<br /></p><p><b>GERBILS</b>: Too many to name. Mask was the first, and the favorite.</p><p><b>RATS</b>: Mithril the Silver, Trickster, Pippin, Aspen, Merlin Peeps, Scout and her 9 babies, Eeka Rat, BooBoo Rattie</p><p><b>REPTILES</b>: Steve & Irwin (Rankins Bearded Dragons), Higgins (Russian Tortoise), Jarvis (Leopard Gecko), Figment (Bearded Dragon)</p>Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-51167684192827213942021-04-07T15:13:00.005-04:002021-04-13T16:20:24.231-04:00Rescue. Me.<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQFyQFZtHf8Tarv6lCj1nH8vTWJkAR0npYj__1o2qW94sMQPBa3ynD2CqDYVpfIhIO3jxPj1tpM7DZly9P6SBlGI8mxRryLwsmcWdeuI_3kYK1TZo4wkPrT9QpJEml6Cirdfii_-YvgTBN/s604/riley.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="453" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQFyQFZtHf8Tarv6lCj1nH8vTWJkAR0npYj__1o2qW94sMQPBa3ynD2CqDYVpfIhIO3jxPj1tpM7DZly9P6SBlGI8mxRryLwsmcWdeuI_3kYK1TZo4wkPrT9QpJEml6Cirdfii_-YvgTBN/w240-h320/riley.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Riley, our late Corgi</td></tr></tbody></table> I never thought I'd be rejected by an animal rescue group.<p></p><p>Okay, I need to really step back and reframe that. <i style="font-weight: bold;">I</i> am not being rejected. <i style="font-weight: bold;">My application</i> has (in all likelihood) been rejected. That's important to remember, and it's hard to do... because when your application to rescue a dog gets rejected, it sure as heck feels like you, personally, have been rejected, too.</p><p>It all started out when the bug to add a dog to our family bit. After some talking about traits and preferences, my husband and I decided that we either wanted another Corgi like our late, beloved Riley, or a Corgi mix. Since in our area, Corgi pups from decent breeders go for $2K and up, we decided we should look into rescue first... it isn't that we can't afford a decent breeder (though doing so would be a stretch), it's more that the idea of dropping that much money on a puppy when good dogs are languishing in shelters every day made us rather uncomfortable.</p><p>So I hit Petfinder, and was surprised to see that 20 possible Corgi mixes were up for adoption within a 100 mile radius of us. Some I ruled our immediately (didn't look a thing like a Corgi mix, were female, were older than our preference, weren't good with other dogs). Some I thought about hard. And then I saw Michael and Moe.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjz9IDBxm20ZthwNJwOQDZKQYVp6pJVihtLfcXkHcUA3GM-Jsk5GXR8M53pBtilRo0x0dWF_dK7TrIW4m3kea8Yz6zLgsWb0ZjhESfR1Gd-1_ZJckYw8SnsAJAcpEW4MB2ESb4gKooNe4/s960/michael.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjz9IDBxm20ZthwNJwOQDZKQYVp6pJVihtLfcXkHcUA3GM-Jsk5GXR8M53pBtilRo0x0dWF_dK7TrIW4m3kea8Yz6zLgsWb0ZjhESfR1Gd-1_ZJckYw8SnsAJAcpEW4MB2ESb4gKooNe4/s320/michael.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Michael and Moe are the wards of A New Chance Animal Rescue (ANCAR) in Bedford Hills, NY. Both were listed as Corgi-Lab mixes (well, Moe was listed as a Corgi-Golden mix, but looks more Lab than Golden to me). Both had write-ups that made them sound like plausible candidates for adoption - young, trainable, friendly. My heart skipped a beat... either of these cuties would b<br />e welcomed in our home, if we could only ascertain that they might be good with cats. Of the two, I was drawn more to Michael (older and with a clearer idea of his personality); my husband favored Moe (younger, more trainable, looked more like a Corgi to him). I applied for both, telling the rescue that I'd love to hear their opinion on which would be the better match for our family.<p></p><p>I'm not going to complain in the least about the length of the application... when you're out to adopt a dog, you expect that it's not going to be an in-and-out job, like walking into WalMart for a bottle of shampoo. You know that you're going to be examined minutely by people who don't know you from Adam, whose primary goal is to put dogs into homes where they will live out the rest of their lives. Anyone who complains about lengthy or detailed applications is missing the point, to my way of thinking. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHwcfwD-fKEPnjEi4aBaBReRjWxgwTwHtXf7oSJnJMG1jL6mfquqY3jTcWAlpgOvQCDcx-wjgB8OqRfirCfHc_0gS5ZvKCr1mFMZd7hUIRG9X0Iwur94xqynQuGBS3DCUb6f-QD2Lr0MOJ/s516/moe.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="516" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHwcfwD-fKEPnjEi4aBaBReRjWxgwTwHtXf7oSJnJMG1jL6mfquqY3jTcWAlpgOvQCDcx-wjgB8OqRfirCfHc_0gS5ZvKCr1mFMZd7hUIRG9X0Iwur94xqynQuGBS3DCUb6f-QD2Lr0MOJ/s320/moe.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moe</td></tr></tbody></table>I put my all into that application. They wanted to know what my current dog was like. I was brutally honest - Ariel isn't much of a doggy-dog. She doesn't play with other dogs at the dog park, but will cheerfully allow them to follow her around as she sniffs and pees on everything that doesn't move. If other dogs get in her face, trying too aggressively to play, she bark-growls to tell them to back off - but she has never, ever attacked another dog or bitten one. And she did have a canine companion when we adopted her - our beloved Nevin, who didn't mind Ariel's personality quirks in the least. <p></p><p>Other questions asked if Ariel was, for example, up to date on her vaccines (yes) and heartworm preventative (no, but we would remedy that), and if we had ever rehomed or lost a dog (yes, we had rehomed a dog once. It was for the best of all parties involved, ourselves and the dog in question, who went back to his breeder and was immediately turned over to one of the families waiting in line for a puppy).</p><p>In retrospect, I have to wonder if I was too honest.</p><p>ANCAR tells prospective families that their volunteers take between 7 and 10 days to process an application. Not a problem. I lined up my references, called the vet to arrange for Ariel to have her yearly physical (including heartworm test and refill on meds), and let the vet know that they would likely be hearing from ANCAR. Then I sat back and waited.</p><p>And waited.</p><p>And waited.</p><p>I started getting a bit nervous when, as day 10 approached, one of my references asked me when she would be hearing from the rescue. It turned out that none of my references had been called at all. A call to my vet proved that they, too, had not been called. Something seemed amiss.</p><p>Going back to the confirmation email I'd received when filing my application, I noted that the group would not be replying to me at all, if my application had been declined. They only contact approved adopters. That, I felt, was rather stinky. I mean, how much time can it really take to shoot off a blanket "We're sorry, but we have decided that your application doesn't meet our criteria" e-mail, with a list of possible reasons for the decline? Too much for this group, apparently.</p><p>I emailed the group, letting them know that Ariel was all lined up to go back on her heartworm meds and asking about the status of my application. No reply. I sent another e-mail, saying that we were still very interested in Moe or Michael, and emphasizing that we were a very flexible family... if something was not "up to snuff" in our application, we could change the situation, if we could only know what we needed to do. Again, no reply.</p><p>At this point, it was hard to feel anything but snubbed. Snubbed, and a bit irritated... after all, we are an experienced dog owning family with our own home and a fenced yard. We know Corgis and are committed to proper training and care. What on earth could be wrong with our application?</p><p>I texted my family, and my mother promptly texted back - "That's mean," she said, and I agreed.</p><p>My youngest sister, however, upon hearing me bemoan my state, matter-of-factly pointed out that the rescue could well be busy from an influx of applicants. I was putting words and feelings into the hearts and mouths of strangers, assuming the worst, she wrote. </p><p>True, I agreed. But when they say that they don't reply to declined applicants, what's a person supposed to think? After all, I had waited the ten days they said they take. And I could think of a million reasons why my application might have been declined... most of which came back to me being too honest in my application, and paying for that honesty in the loss of our potential dog.</p><p>My mother, fine non-directive counselor that she is, simply texted, "Let it go."</p><p>Gee, thanks, Mom.</p><p>But that's hard to do.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJbQaa4r5uEaM6dXvDog19uWEvXvvB_OpKna-UX3qJFLCQFt6Ye6FeWPr4cWsFOFoZB24D_1Ib7_NveeNIsTfCDlo0dDasuPLNrxYD8uZNAamSjEo7qstQwpRHqJ5YdbTK7xKlSRvGVZCa/s481/ariel.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="469" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJbQaa4r5uEaM6dXvDog19uWEvXvvB_OpKna-UX3qJFLCQFt6Ye6FeWPr4cWsFOFoZB24D_1Ib7_NveeNIsTfCDlo0dDasuPLNrxYD8uZNAamSjEo7qstQwpRHqJ5YdbTK7xKlSRvGVZCa/s320/ariel.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ariel, our current dog</td></tr></tbody></table>All of the questions swirled around in my head, and are swirling still... was it that they didn't think Ariel was friendly enough? Was it that we had let her heartworm meds lapse? Was it that we had once rehomed a dog? Was it that we don't crate our dogs? <p></p><p>Or...maybe it WASN'T about us. Maybe it was, possibly, about <b>them</b>. Some rescues are notoriously hard to adopt from... they set the bar for acceptance higher than most normal families can leap. According to an article I once read, even the head of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had his application for a dog denied at a rescue. Was this one of those rescues? Did they, for example, refuse to adopt to families where both parents work? I wouldn't know; their website doesn't say. And as of this writing, I've learned volumes of nothing about what I did wrong, or what ANCAR expects from an adoptive family.</p><p>I'm mourning the loss of our potential dog. In my mind, while I know that no dog is perfect, the image of our family welcoming Michael or Moe into our home is a hazy, sunset-tinged one. I'm sure that one of them could have been a great dog for us, and we could have been a great family for him. But we'll never know for sure.<br /></p><p>And it's the not knowing that's the hardest part.<br /></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><u>Update: April 13, 2021</u></p><p>After a final pleading e-mail to ANCAR, I finally received a reply. It was short and polite - and negative. No, A New Chance Animal Rescue would not consider placing Moe or Michael with our family. In the rescue's opinion, our working hours (7-8 hours on a typical day) were too much for a dog to bear.</p><p>I was sad, but relieved of the whirlwind of self-damning thoughts that had prompted the above post. </p><p>Later, when browsing on Petfinder, I saw that Moe had been adopted and that Michael's new bio stated clearly that he was not "a cat guy." More relief. Even if we had been approved, I really hadn't wanted a puppy... not at this moment, anyway. And I do need a dog who's good with cats.</p><p>I don't harbor any real, lasting ill-will towards ANCAR. Do I find their "you work too much to adopt from us" policy a bit snobbish? Yes. But situated in the heart of Westchester County, surrounded by the richly rich, I suppose it's understandable that this rescue would want nothing less than the cream of the adopting crop for their dogs.</p><p>I hope Michael finds a good home soon. He looks like a sweet dog, and he deserves it.</p><p>Even if it's not with me.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-67295070357649960392021-03-07T18:21:00.000-05:002021-03-07T18:21:45.417-05:00Florida's Reptile Ban - Just My 2cents' Worth<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvpzYvygT-idBMnYkKOoqhGc2_sIU6jldN4_qt9hscl6-phJbnroArsT5W_HClnsOvbO0hP0YTYkz5ofSmB2jQHHUi_qOhLCm7L0Gwv6Z4iSrP4rtvMnjiiz4d1PMnRovxLbPl7PC5USHl/s2048/1421081_10152771020918054_2772222286256352036_o.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1742" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvpzYvygT-idBMnYkKOoqhGc2_sIU6jldN4_qt9hscl6-phJbnroArsT5W_HClnsOvbO0hP0YTYkz5ofSmB2jQHHUi_qOhLCm7L0Gwv6Z4iSrP4rtvMnjiiz4d1PMnRovxLbPl7PC5USHl/s320/1421081_10152771020918054_2772222286256352036_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I've been following the posts on social media regarding Florida's ban on sixteen species of reptiles, from tegus to anacondas, for some time now. To be honest, my feelings are very mixed.<p></p><p>I feel deep sympathy for the pet owners who take proper care of their pets, enclosing them in safe, escape-proof pens and terrariums, keeping them for life - or surrendering them to a capable rescue if they can't keep them. Some pet owners have large reptiles because they're allergic to cats and dogs... tegus are a viable alternative pet for them. Some have a deep and abiding love for a particular species. Many have sunk a great deal of money into their hobby of reptile keeping, and actively try to help others to do it right. These people are being unfairly punished.</p><p>I feel a burning irritation towards those "bad apples" whose irresponsible reptile keeping has led to tegus, pythons, iguanas, and more becoming established invasive species in Florida. Whether the release into the wild came because of an act of God (Hurricane Andrew resulted in the destruction of a breeding facility and subsequent escape of python breeding stock into the nearby wetlands) or because of the countless idiots who buy a foot-long hatchling, thinking it would make a cute pet, and then set it loose when it's too big to keep feeding, Florida an epicenter of invasive species. And because of these flawed human creatures, the ban has come down on all reptile keepers.</p><p>However, I also feel a distinct sense of annoyance towards the reptile owners who are flooding social media with indignation and blindered tunnel vision rantings... "They can pry my tegu out of my cold, dead hands!" "If they can ban these reptiles in Florida, they can ban all reptiles anywhere!" "Look out - your pet reptile will be next!" "This will just mean everyone will be buying from unregulated, illegal breeders!" "Why don't they ban cats? Cats are more destructive than invasive reptiles." Um, no. Sorry. NOT HELPING, PEOPLE! Some of these knee-jerk reactions may have a grain of truth in them, but they don't do anything for the cause of keeping pet reptiles. Such arguments entirely ignore the very real danger invasives pose to the environment. What's more, they paint all of us in the reptile hobby as whining, entitled children who think it's their right to own whatever species they want, wherever they want. That sort of attitude, that sort of thinking, isn't going to do a whit of good when it comes to preventing the wholesale (wholeSCALE?) banning of reptiles in other places.</p><p>The fact of the matter is that if reptile owners... or the owners of any exotic, potentially invasive species... want to prevent future bans, they need to band together and take steps that might be troublesome to some, downright disasterous to others.</p><p>1) We need to push for permits and licensing of potentially invasive exotics BEFORE the government decides to ban them. This includes licensing or other forms of registration, and mandatory escape-proof housing. This will be a hassle to responsible pet owners, yes. But it will also show the world that owners of exotic pets don't want the natural world ruined just because they like to keep certain species as pets.</p><p>2) We need to make it harder for the average owner to own potentially invasive species. One of the problems with species becoming invasive is the careless, clueless, irresponsible owners who let their pets loose intentionally when they can't care for them any longer or by accident, keeping their pets in habitats that are not escape-proof. In fragile ecological environments, invasive species are like a loaded gun. You can't just wander down to your local WalMart and pick up a semiautomatic rifle. Why should any idiot with a credit card be able to buy an anaconda at a reptile expo? This means limiting the species that can be purchased in "big box" pet stores or specialty reptile stores, yes... possibly even stopping the sales of reptiles in those places entirely.</p><p>3) We need to be active in our local politics. The needs of a reptile keeper in South Florida are markedly different than the needs of a reptile keeper in South Bend, Indiana... and we need to work to be sure that blanket legislation doesn't apply to all geographic areas. After all, there's little chance of invasive reptiles getting a toehold in a state where brutal winters keep even native species from thriving. On the other hand, in a tropical or semi-tropical state, stricter regulations may, in fact, be warranted. </p><p>I don't either suggest or suggest against joining political organizations like USARK - on the one hand, I feel USARK is a good, solid, reputable organization that could do a considerable amount of good for the reptile cause. On the other, they support across-the-board private ownership, sales, and trade of venomous species and the species most likely to pose a problem to the environment, should they be loosed intentionally or accidentally, which I think is a bad idea. I'm a reptile fan, but I don't think that just because someone likes reptiles that they should be allowed to own any reptile they choose.</p><p>I do wonder, though, what the future of the reptile hobby will look like. Reptile enthusiasts are not like other pet owners... many are "collectors" rather than traditional "pet owners" for one, and collectors who house dozens of reptiles, breeding and trading them, tend to view their animals very differently than someone who has just one beloved reptile as a personal pet. I wonder how much of the hobby is driven by these collectors, rather than pet owners... and what that will mean, someday. </p><p>A quick Google search pulled up half a dozen green anacondas, generally considered the world's heaviest snakes, for sale on the popular Morph Market website. Anyone with $2000 or so to spare can buy one and have it shipped to their doorstep - and some, like the male advertised as "NOT a pet - for breeding only" - are definitely marketed to collectors rather than pet owners. Should there be blanket legislation to stop this? I don't think so. But should just anyone be able to buy a snake that can weigh several hundred pounds and needs to eat whole piglets? I don't think so, either.</p><p>It's a puzzling situation, and I don't think I'm ever going to be able to side with one faction or the other, wholeheartedly.</p><p><br /></p>Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-50734820353635262602021-01-10T15:04:00.001-05:002021-01-10T15:04:31.132-05:00Teaching Reading and Writing<p>I'm going to ramble here. This is not intended to be a thoughtful, well-educated and well-organized discussion of my issues with Columbia Teacher's Workshop. I'm feeling frustrated right now, because I'm trying to put together my lesson plans for next week, and that always puts me out of temper. I am just venting. </p><p>I'm not fond of the way my district teaches reading and writing. If you asked me why, and nobody really does, I'd say it's because I don't really understand the basic concept. And if I, the teacher, don't understand the concepts behind what I'm trying to teach... is there any chance that my students will?</p><p>Our district esposes the Columbia Teacher's Workshop school of teaching reading and writing... known to some as Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop, known to others as the Lucy Calkins method of teaching (Calkins herself apparently bristles as being given full blame, or credit, for this). I have never been fully and properly taught how to teach this way. I was, many years ago, presented with a hefty multivolume reading and writing program and told that I would be given instruction... but aside from time spent with my curriculum coach because I am so piss-poor at delivering this content, and aside from some incomprehensible sessions during professional development days, I swear I haven't.</p><p>Columbia Teacher's Workshop gained noteriety by tossing its highly-trained teaching students into underperforming urban schools and revamping the way reading and writing was taught. I can pretty much assure you that these young, idealistic and motivated teachers had something more than a set of wordy, overwritten teacher's manuals and a handful of professional development sessions to their credit before they worked their wornders.</p><p>All I have really been able to understand, over the years that I've been trying and failing to teach Reader's and Writer's Workshop, is that A) direct instruction of skills is Frowned Upon. B) You should be able to somehow convey a lesson's worth of meaning and comprehension to your students in under 10 minutes. C) You should be conferencing with your students daily. Okay. I can get behind this, except for the No Explicit Teaching of Skills part. I think there's definitely a place for direct instruction, modeling, and practice in the classroom.</p><p>Only that's not the way it goes. I've tried to read these scripted, overly-long teacher's guides before... they are deadly dull, and the modeling that goes on in the lessons described is nowhere remotely like I would ever teach my own students (because it's not ME teaching, it's someone else!) Only rarely am I able to parsel out what the teaching focus is... and when I am, it's not due to anything helpful written in the books. It's usually Dumb Luck. So first lesson learned: The people who put together this model of teaching have NO CLUE how to write for teachers. Teachers want things quick and simple. Give us the heart of what needs to be taught, and let us teach it. Don't spend pages and pages showing us how someone else would teach it.</p><p>And now, as I'm trying to write about my frustrations, I come upon my second problem: I get confused. Not only do I get confused about how to teach this male-bovine-produced-fertilizer, I get confused about why I'm confused. I don't like Reader's and Writer's Workshop, but I know for a fact that my reasoning is muddied and unclear - because my understanding of the program is muddied and unclear. There seems to be nothing about CTW that is simple and to the point. </p><p>My younger sister, who is a much better teacher than I am (she actually reads about how to be a better teacher, belongs to Facebook groups that help her improve her teaching, and seems intrinsically motivated to continually improve herself) suggests that I join a fan group on Facebook and admit that I am confused about how to teach Reader's and Writer's Workshop. I guess that's her way of telling me I need Professional Help.</p><p>I want to know why, when even looking at the CTW books pumps up my blood pressure, I would voluntarily submit myself to the scrutiny and censure of people who LOVE this method of teaching? I don't want to be taught how to love Lucy Calkins. (I'm sure she's a perfectly pleasant person on an individual level, truly I do.) I just want to know how to do what she promotes without losing my mind. I don't want to, or need to drink the Kool-Aid.</p><p>All I really want is the watered-down version of what it is I'm supposed to teach... the barest of eductational goals. I don't want to be teaching Unit 2: Reading the Weather, Reading the World. Please... if I wanted to teach my students about extreme weather, I'd have become a meteorologist. I want to know how to help my students understand informational texts without jumping through the hoops of "researching" extreme weather - which is what I'm supposed to do according to CTW, without being supplied with the appropriate texts for said research. </p><p>And don't even get me started on the next unit, which expects me to teach about the roots of the Revolutionary War (regardless of the fact that this is not in my curriculum, or in anyone's curriculum, at the fourth grade level). Since when do I need to teach my students about the French and Indian War to teach them what a primary source is - and since when, I want to know, does a FOURTH GRADER need to learn what primary and secondary sources ARE????? I'd be happy if I could teach my young readers how to find the main idea of a passage, and my young writers how to avoid writing run-on sentences!</p><p>I just want to know what to teach my students that is developmentally and age-appropriate. If the powers that be don't want me to do that by teaching a whole-class book in reading anymore, fine. Just tell me how to do this in a way that doesn't make my students gawp at me with the same mixture of despair and confusion that I feel trying to teach them.</p>Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-1571374950845251502020-12-31T18:21:00.003-05:002020-12-31T18:21:51.366-05:00The Man Who Invented Christmas<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLtxNreJIcYKcPxeUzTdqjfxDk5Gi7qRfoXHy_jluLREuxKrE0tK46ndEmWFPhvg6kxt1PKOX9ZlFaPKsp1u1m8pwASUn6aCWDhqfOaX7ZkFEk-PbQoqG7LjYDm4imc6ytVgO-IFcPgkQN/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1382" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLtxNreJIcYKcPxeUzTdqjfxDk5Gi7qRfoXHy_jluLREuxKrE0tK46ndEmWFPhvg6kxt1PKOX9ZlFaPKsp1u1m8pwASUn6aCWDhqfOaX7ZkFEk-PbQoqG7LjYDm4imc6ytVgO-IFcPgkQN/w270-h400/image.png" width="270" /></a></div>I don't generally have much use for films made for adults.<p></p><p>Given my nature and my profession, both as a teacher and as a writer of children's books, my preference is almost always for films aimed at families or children. Entertainment aimed at adults, I often find, is too grim or too disturbing, too vulgar or too focused on romance and relationships. I just don't enjoy it, regardless of what the critics say. Oh, sure, I'll go to almost any superhero movie - and fantasies are a safe bet for me, too, but realistic cinema? Historical? Biopics? No thank you.</p><p>While visiting my parents for a few days, my son requested a movie night. He's very congizant of what I like and I don't like, and humors me - at 15, he's got a much wider range of acceptable cinematic entertainment than his mother. He suggested an old favorite of both of ours - <i>The Princess Bride</i> - but when that was unavailable, we started scrolling through other potential options.</p><p>Our wants, as mother and son, were fairly simple - something lighthearted, with a happy ending. After watching about half a dozen trailers, with reactions ranging from a "meh" from my son to an "I don't think so" from me, we reached the trailer for <i>The Man Who Invented Christmas</i>. I can't say we leapt with joy at seeing it... but we both agreed that it didn't look half bad, and my parents agreed. </p><p>I loved it.</p><p>Now, granted, I know a bit about Charles Dickens from my teaching experience... I've read short biographies of the man, and while I did think the actor (cleanshaven - didn't Dickens have a moustache and beard?) looked rather young for the Dickens I pictured, I was pleased with the casting. The acting was wonderful, the script had just the right combination of laughs and serious notes, and as an exploration of a writer's process of creation, I found it spot on.</p><p>In fact, I loved that aspect of the film above all others. The notion of a character coming to life and interacting with its creator tickled me silly, since the best characters do just that with their readers. But yes, they also do that with their creators... and I howled with laughter at the point in the film where Dickens wailed protest to a friend that his characters were refusing to do what he wanted them to. I've been there myself! I loved the idea that the characters were physically following their writer around... at one point, he peeked out a window and - <i>hello, dearie! </i>- the characters assembled on the street corner below waved cheerfully up at him. Scrooge, the old reprobate, even had the temerity to inform Dickens that he felt the book was too one-sided, and had prepared notes to give his own perspective to the story! I'm not sure my family understood why I was giggling so much, but in many ways, this is a writer's movie, and one that nobody but a writer could <i>truly </i>appreciate.</p><p>If you're a reader or a writer, and you're looking for a pleasant way to pass a couple of hours on a winter's night... I'd strongly recommend <i>The Man Who Invented Christmas</i>. Even if it isn't the holidays anymore. It's definitely worth a viewing.</p><p><br /></p>Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-90051764904654525242020-06-17T20:43:00.000-04:002020-06-17T20:43:44.132-04:00How Do You Feel?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I remember this poster from my high school guidance counselor's office. I liked it because I enjoyed going through the faces one by one, doing a mental checklist... "Is this how I feel today? How about this?"</div>
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But if you asked me to do that today, I wouldn't be able to. These days, it's rare that I feel any one thing for a protracted period of time... in fact, there are swaths of time when I'm honestly not sure that I'm feeling anything at all. In the Calm app that I use to track my daily emotions, I find the lack of an icon for "mixed" or "neutral" distressing. There are times when I really need something more than the nine emotions allotted to me for choices. Luckily, when I'm settled enough to track my emotions, I'm usually in a place removed from anything distressing or stressful - so I've got a lovely streak of "calm" and "relaxed" and "content" icons in my calendar. But I feel that's not an accurate assessment of my days... rather, it's a log of how I felt at a particular moment in my day.</div>
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I long to know how I feel. I truly want to be able to answer the question, "How are you feeling?" with a single, specific adjective. I want it for me, for my own peace of mind... so that I know for sure how I feel, and can defend it with evidence: <i>Yes, right now I am feeling happy, because I feel a lightness inside of me and I'm smiling and I want this feeling to go on and on. </i>Or, <i>At this moment, I'm feeling frustrated. I want to write something, but my mind is drawing a blank and I've never trained myself to write when the words aren't coming. </i>None of this <i>Well, honestly, I don't feel particularly sad or particularly happy - but I'm not angry or lonely or anxious, either; is the absence of negative emotions "happiness?" But I don't feel anything particularly positive, either, so what does that say?</i></div>
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I may have nobody but myself to blame. When I was having frequent panic attacks, I used to long for nothingness... absence of all emotion, I thought, would be infinitely better than having fear and anxiety all the time. Maybe I learned to do just that - to shut off my emotions, so that I no longer have any strong feelings to cope with. No joy, no grief, no fear, no exultation. No... anything. </div>
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I'm not sure how I feel about that.</div>
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Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-65624437321171917032020-06-02T20:05:00.000-04:002020-06-02T20:05:57.780-04:00The Unknown<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Xenophobia is the irrational sensation of fear experienced about a person or a group of persons as well as situations that are perceived as strange or foreign. It is the fear of anything that is beyond one’s comfort zone. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px;">- Jacob Olesen, </span><a href="http://www.fearof.net/" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;">www.fearof.net</a></span></blockquote>
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The world is a crazy place right now. People are angry, people are frightened... between the ongoing pandemic and racial unrest, it almost feels like the world as we've known it is falling apart. My own anxiety is at a steady mid-to-high level, regardless of what I try to think about... work, home, family, society. <br />
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"This is the new normal," some people say. "We've got to adjust, understand that nothing is going to be the way it was."<br />
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And that's the problem, I think.<br />
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When we say "nothing is going to be the way it was" or "things have to change" - regardless of whether they're changing for a good reason, or changing for the better - we forget that for most people, change is SCARY. Change is the Unknown. And the Unknown is something nobody that I personally know handles well.<br />
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We, as humans, are creatures that thrive in our comfort zones. So long as we feel that we know what to expect, know where the limits or boundaries lie, know who we're dealing with, we can manage pretty much anything. Push us beyond those limits, and... well, we don't manage quite so much.<br />
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The unknown can be moving into a future where we honestly don't know what the world is going to look like, physically. Face masks? Social distancing? For how long, we want to know. We want things to go back to the world we have always known, have always been comfortable with. We don't WANT to change. Change means effort, and effort is not something humans - who are happiest when facing minimal obstacles - embrace.<br />
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The unknown can mean forcing ourselves to think about people who don't usually cross our minds. When it comes to racial inequality and social injustice, the problem isn't necessarily the minority of people who are committed racists. The problem is that we've allowed horrible things to happen, awful patterns and cycles to develop, because we just don't notice them. Not that we willfully ignore them, no, but we don't choose to open our eyes to see things that would make us uncomfortable. We don't LIKE being uncomfortable; it's easier and less stressful to just focus on our own circle of existence.<br />
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And the unknown can mean accepting that in this moment, we cannot know all things, cannot have the answer to all things. There are precious few quick fixes in the universe, and those that exist may not always be the best fixes for the long term. And the answers to all questions can never be known in the now. This means that we need to be able to accept living with a certain degree of uncertainty... and that does not sit easily with most of us. <br />
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Speaking for myself, I'd love to know what is going to happen to my career come fall... the only certainty, I've been told, is that teaching will NOT look like the teaching I've been doing. But what exactly it WILL look like is anyone's guess. I'd love to know for certain what is going to happen, if only so that I could get a head start on finding a different job, if it turns out to be something I can't manage. But I'm not going to get that wish.... and so I fret, and my muscles work themselves into knots, and my blood pressure rises. I am NOT good at the Unknown. But what good is my worrying and mentally gnawing on the question until it's a frayed and ragged thing? It doesn't bring the answer any closer. It doesn't bring me any peace. The only choice I really have is to try to learn to deal with the fact that I am not going to get any answers any time soon.<br />
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There isn't a chance, of course, that humanity will rise up, all together, and embrace the Unknown. No, it's much more likely that as a species we'll continue to fight it, wrestle it, run from it. But embracing the Unknown, fighting the Unknown, that's not even the first step. The first step has to be recognizing the Unknown. Knowing that it's out there. Knowing that nothing that we do will ever change that. Only once we can look into the future and reconcile ourselves with the fact that there will always be a certain Unknown in front of us can we start to act on it.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-78428720293096935092020-04-26T19:15:00.000-04:002020-04-26T19:15:39.758-04:00Quarantine LifeI was feeling quite anxious about the statewide "shelter-in-place" dictate... until I realized how very little has changed in my daily life. And really, if I stop to list out what I did Before and Now, not much is all that different.<br />
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These days, I don't go out much. But when I stopped to think about it... I never REALLY went out much. I'd run errands, sure, to places I can mostly still go, if I need to... the pet store, WalMart, the grocery store. I've never been much for clothes or shoe shopping as a form of entertainment, so the closures of those stores haven't affected me all that much. So much for "everything being closed." I do miss hanging out at the book store, and being able to just pop into the craft store, but those aren't really necessary to my mental health, it seems. I really don't miss them.<br />
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I do miss my self-care locations. The hair salon (every 6-8 weeks), the nail salon, my Weight Watchers meetings, the place I go for foot reflexology. Those are places more necessary to my mental health, because without regular haircuts and facial waxings, I start to feel less attractive than I usually do, which isn't saying much. (I'm not a vain creature, and harbor no illusions about my physical beauty. I'll do, but I'm no Scarlett Johansson.) Pedicures and reflexology are my treats, the little rewards I give myself for making it through another week. Without them, there's not much to reward myself with... other than food, and that negates the purpose of my now-virtual Weight Watchers meetings.<br />
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What do I do now? Well, one thing I <i>don't </i>do is go to stores just for the sake of getting out. I don't think I'll actually catch Covid-19, nor do I think I'm an asymptomatic carrier who could infect the hapless fool who gets inside my 6 foot bubble, but I don't see the point in going out masked just to wander aimlessly through the aisles. Shopping these days is for people who <i>need something</i> - and right now, there isn't that much that I actually need that I can't get online.<br />
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Generally, my go-to activity after a day of online teaching is just to get out of the house. I take my dog to the local dog park which isn't, miracle of miracles, closed yet. I do go in masked, and stay at least 6 feet away from other owners... I still pet the dogs, which some people are leery about, but I figure that unless someone's coughed or sneezed directly on their pup fairly recently, I'm safe enough. I could be wrong, but there's only so much paranoia a girl can handle. Going to the dog park at least gets me out into the sunlight, standing up rather than sitting, and gives me a chance to speak to people I'm not related to. And that's good for me.<br />
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I occasionally take walks with my dog and my son, and on weekends, our whole family (all three of us, plus dog) heads out together to find some new literal stomping grounds. I'm not fond of walking, but I go because I know it's good for me to be outside and moving. From the numbers of other people we see on these outings, it seems that we're far from the only ones to have this idea. <br />
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And sometimes I just drive. I don't know what's so appealing about that, since I'm driving with no real destination in mind, just driving for the sake of going somewhere that isn't "here," but it's what I do these days. And what I used to do, pre-quarantine. Only then, I'd occasionally stop at a store and go in just to walk around. Now, I can't... but I still drive.<br />
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I miss being able to go visit my friends of a weekend. I miss my Friday night dinners with my friend Lisa, miss taking in the latest Disney movie with my friend Sue. I miss my parents, and being able to go visit them... though I supposed I could, and stay masked and six feet away. I miss going to zoos and museums, and the occasional trek into New York City to take in the sights and sounds of a metropolis. Mostly, I miss being able to do what I want, when I want.<br />
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But if I stop to think about it, and be honest with myself... my life really hasn't changed much from what it was, pre-Coronavirus. And I'm not sure if that's comforting... or just pathetic.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-12541605201699765372020-03-29T19:30:00.000-04:002020-03-29T19:30:06.299-04:00Distance (Learning) Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8_T-PoZD6D9GlVnB-rku5ADfM_YVva4fLOdnjeUjh6dec-hCCnTvO8lHVlOlGl_bBt3x8s0UOXvNmnPvcL_nip62KU6cwUHwnmOZ0uKlN2k4g7wp5tIAfCzw5nkgcMX47VurTS77_S_CM/s1600/computer-class-clipart-36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="900" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8_T-PoZD6D9GlVnB-rku5ADfM_YVva4fLOdnjeUjh6dec-hCCnTvO8lHVlOlGl_bBt3x8s0UOXvNmnPvcL_nip62KU6cwUHwnmOZ0uKlN2k4g7wp5tIAfCzw5nkgcMX47VurTS77_S_CM/s320/computer-class-clipart-36.jpg" width="320" /></a>It's been two weeks since my anxiety started about Covid-19. Things are not going well Out There... stores are shut, for the most part, as are restaurants. There's no place to go and nothing to do once you get there. It reminds me a lot of Sundays when I was little, when all the stores were closed... too quiet, too still. You are able to go to the grocery store or to other stores that sell necessities, like WalMart, but with everyone online and in the real world screaming at you to stay the heck home, you feel guilty - and scared - to go there.<br />
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Schools are closed, but that doesn't mean we teachers are out of work. After a short break, we were all informed that we're now doing Distance Learning... teaching via computer. That instigated a bit of a panic among my colleagues and myself, let me tell you! HOW are we supposed to teach on a computer???? WHAT are we supposed to use to deliver our lessons???? HOW THE HECK DO YOU USE THESE PROGRAMS WE'VE NEVER BEFORE HEARD OF?????<br />
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But, as with many things, that panic eased as we gamely threw ourselves into the breach and started trying to figure out how to do what we were supposed to be doing. I learned how to Zoom a meeting. I learned how to Screencastify my lessons, making videos that my students could watch. I figured out how to effectively navigate Google Classroom - though I have not yet figured out what on EARTH the use of the "stream" is. Seriously, Google people... get rid of that. It's bloody useless.<br />
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And... much to my own shock... I'm finding that I'm actually enjoying teaching again, for the first time in I don't know how long. Why? Darned if I know. It's definitely not the lack of kids... I really, truly enjoy my students, being with them, giving them their daily dose of knowledge. I'm not one of those wonderful teachers who is miserably lonely without them, mind you. But I do enjoy being with them, when I am.<br />
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It might be that classroom management is much, much easier. I'm definitely happier that I don't need to spend so very much of my time hushing one student, telling another to stop eating paper, telling a third to open up to the right page, and then telling that first student to hush again. I am able to interact, in text, with each and every kid who posts an assignment. I'm able to answer questions as they come up, and encourage students as they go along. I'm not expected to pull small groups for instruction while at the same time monitoring the rest of the class, trying to assure that everyone is dutifully engaged in some sort of learning activity - small groups, honestly, are the bane of my teaching existence. And I don't worry about having an administrator show up unannounced, or having a lesson interrupted by a call from the office, or telling that kid who won't stop yakking to SHUT UP ALREADY (which I can't, but wish I could).<br />
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I'm actually working much harder putting together my lessons than I have for many, many years - but it isn't wearing on me the way it usually does. In fact, I can go for several hours at a clip not really being aware of how much work I'm actually doing. I'm collaborating with colleagues the way we should ALWAYS be doing, because every one of us is in the same boat that we're building even as we're sailing it. And as a result, I feel a good deal fonder of my colleagues than I usually do.<br />
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I'm not thrilled with the amount of time I'm sitting down. My body is really feeling that, and I'm not getting out and walking around as much as I know I should. But... I'm happier than I thought I possibly could be, two weeks ago. I'm still anxious, yes, but it's not the all-pervasive anxiety that consumed me at the start of this pandemic. Maybe it's having something productive to do each day - something that vitally needs doing. Having a task to do is a great way to alleviate anxiety.<br />
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All in all, I'd say that thus far, the social distancing and isolation hasn't hit me as hard as I'd been afraid it would. I hope it stays that way.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-57512493727061159282020-03-14T19:40:00.000-04:002020-03-14T19:40:20.439-04:00The Coronavirus Post<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihM_OS7ikLPRc0pi6RG0yKjnjCAtgLUu2db6pvNyNuVwiL3m5gBgvDqzjs633hc_KwZpmMnIayYBcvHnCCSZcQRlnWtaHSzK_T53H_XEaXRO4CIas-cYpoWIdc5rL49107up8nayHmXVyD/s1600/virus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihM_OS7ikLPRc0pi6RG0yKjnjCAtgLUu2db6pvNyNuVwiL3m5gBgvDqzjs633hc_KwZpmMnIayYBcvHnCCSZcQRlnWtaHSzK_T53H_XEaXRO4CIas-cYpoWIdc5rL49107up8nayHmXVyD/s320/virus.jpg" width="320" /></a>I struggle with anxiety. I have for most of my life. In dire situations, however, I'm generally oddly calm. It's like my brain can only process so much anxiety at a time before it stops processing it altogether.<br />
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I wish now was one of those times.<br />
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On Thursday night, we got the calls that we'd been dreading but expecting... my son's school district and the district that I teach in were both closing for an undetermined amount of time. We're thinking two weeks, but nobody knows for sure.<br />
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Up until that time, I'd been only half-paying attention to the whole coronavirus thing. It was something Out There, but not near me. I was concerned, but not worried. Not really. In fact, part of me was feeling that the media was blowing it a bit out of proportion. After all, the flu killed more people every year than coronavirus did, didn't it? And nobody was freaking out about THAT.<br />
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But now, people in my own profession had deemed that being in school was suddenly Not Safe. We'd made two weeks' worth of online lessons for our students, "just in case we close." Unfortunately, we were later told, they would not be sufficient to count as "school days" or as "virtual learning." We were also told that we need to expect to be in school until June 30... not something any teacher in an un-air-conditioned building wants to hear. But that's as may be. Right now, the focus is on keeping our staff and students as far away from disease-transmitting crowds as possible.<br />
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This has left me at something of loose ends. I do not do well with unstructured time. Even in the summer, when I'm supposed to be resting and recuperating from the school year, I find myself getting twitchy, even anxious, when I don't have enough to occupy my mind. Cleaning and doing indefinite "stuff around the house" doesn't help. I don't enjoy it or find any release in it. Writing, as I've addressed elsewhere on this blog, doesn't always materialize. Exercise? Taking a walk? Don't make me laugh... that never helps, and generally only makes me more miserable. I tend to fill my time instead by running errands, window shopping, visiting family and friends.<br />
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None of which is apparently safe to do in this current situation.<br />
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I did go out yesterday to buy a charger for my dying iPad. I felt... odd. Exposed. I fled back to my car with my purchase, shaking. A friend and I had plans for dinner that night, plans I did not want to break despite my mounting anxiety. After being excoriated by my younger sister for voicing my fears - to quote, "This is not a vacation! You do not go out to dinner in the middle of a pandemic!" - I went out anyway. And fretted almost the entire time. What, exactly, was I afraid of? Not of getting the dreaded virus... I don't LIKE the idea of getting sick, not at all, but I'm not really afraid of getting it.<br />
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I'm afraid of being trapped at home.<br />
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I'm afraid that going out and conducting life as usual is something I am not supposed to be doing, and that thought makes me feel positively claustrophobic.<br />
<br />
I love my family, and like my home. But I don't like spending all my time there. The "why" of that would take up an entire blog post in itself, so I won't even try to explain... the fact is, I'm happiest with my home when I can get away from it on a regular basis, and then come back. But if the coronavirus is as bad as I'm beginning to think it is... it's simply not safe to leave the house. And to do so is a sign of denial or irresponsibility.<br />
<br />
And so my anxiety is spiking.<br />
<br />
My mother and my best friend both tell me I need to make a schedule for my days out of school, and plan in times to take walks with my son and the dog, time to write, time to work on projects around the house like cleaning out closets and such. They're probably right. My younger sister says I just need to tough it out and stay at home. Another friend says we need to be ordering groceries and household necessities online rather than going out to get them. They may be right, too. Do I want to listen to any of them?<br />
<br />
Not really.<br />
<br />
I just want my life to continue as I'm accustomed to it, without the specter of a deadly virus looming over everything. I'd say, "Is that so much to ask?" - but right now, it probably is.<br />
<br />
So I probably will make the schedule, or at least a to-do list. And I'll try to stay home as much as I can... and instead of going to stores, I'll see if substituting the dog park and walks with my son will help any.<br />
<br />
But am I looking forward to the next few weeks?<br />
<br />
Oh, no.<br />
<br />
I am certainly not.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-91129680048505882382020-03-01T21:20:00.000-05:002020-03-01T21:20:00.442-05:0050 Precious Words, Take 2<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A New Pet</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mama says</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">NO PET DINOSAURS.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">A dinosaur’s too big.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">WAY too big!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Where would it sleep?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Not inside!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">What would it eat?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Tons of food!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">And how about cleaning up dinosaur mess?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">You’d need a BULLDOZER, Mama says!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I guess she’s right.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">But she didn’t say no</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-6ba25b02-7fff-8d1d-bc6e-2c6266e1fc7b"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">To a dragon!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think I like this better than last night's attempt... it's more cheerful, for one. While most adults would get the subtle humor of "Writer's Block," I don't think a child would. And I don't like the idea of having a child see writing as work (even if many of them do). So this will probably be my submission for "50 Precious Words." Wish me luck!
</span></span></div>
Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-7790449433435006772020-02-29T20:18:00.003-05:002020-03-14T19:41:54.174-04:0050 Precious WordsI've decided that I'm going to try to enter the <a href="https://viviankirkfield.com/" target="_blank">"50 Precious Words"</a> writing contest... but so far, my entry ideas aren't turning out so well. I have a very hard time limiting my word count! After a few hours of work, only one has come out cohesive and within the fifty word limit...<br />
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Teacher says</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I need to write a story</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">That’s fifty words long.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Fifty words!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">How can I fill up a page</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">With FIFTY WORDS?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Can’t do it.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Not today, not tomorrow.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">My ideas just aren’t that big.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I simply cannot strrrrreeeeeeeetch</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">My story that far.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Ain’t gonna happen.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Ever.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Phooey.</span></div>
</div>
<br />
I don't think it's bad, for a start. I just want something a bit more... "wow." Something that leaves the readers with a smile or a chuckle. But for now, at least I have a start!<span id="docs-internal-guid-bc0d5cbd-7fff-7831-9701-3a7298177fcf"><br /></span>Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-73531371518396266782020-02-25T14:56:00.003-05:002020-02-25T14:56:36.474-05:00Where Ideas Come From<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ6mmJSjrSlmwGJdrA2pP3twZT2IW8VW32c6HsKcD4qI4XhdPKFL6vzcVGrTh6JupQSa6-sXnyBddOVw1dyGTm7nQtETxGz5jZA5gQRMiB-fXkHT87L4tsVLH_2TnSozO7OfqbXZUU0VKL/s1600/dragon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="680" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ6mmJSjrSlmwGJdrA2pP3twZT2IW8VW32c6HsKcD4qI4XhdPKFL6vzcVGrTh6JupQSa6-sXnyBddOVw1dyGTm7nQtETxGz5jZA5gQRMiB-fXkHT87L4tsVLH_2TnSozO7OfqbXZUU0VKL/s320/dragon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Sometimes, ideas are slow in coming to me. I used to tell my students to carry around a small notebook, because you can never tell what in life is going to trigger an idea - a sound, a sight, a whisp of scent. To be perfectly truthful, it's been a long time since I've carried around a writer's notebook. I tell myself it's because I have a smartphone now, and a note on my notetaking app will be faster and easier to read than a handwritten jot - but the truth is, that notebook was shaming me. It didn't like not being written in, not one bit.<br />
<br />
But sometimes ideas do still come from the most unlikely places - the everyday places that shouldn't, really, generate ideas. After all, when was the last time an author came up with a novel concept while, say, washing her hands? Or unloading the dishwasher? And yet, there it was... sitting on the plate of arugula I was mincing for my Bearded Dragon, Figment.<br />
<br />
<i>All animals eat something... dogs and cats eat kibble, horses eat grain, cows graze on grass. But dragons eat salad and bugs.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
It was that last thought that stuck with me. Dragons eat salad... and bugs. It became a refrain of sorts. Here's a list of familiar animals and what they have for dinner - but Dragon eats salad and bugs. OR... and now my mind started whirring... suppose it's lunchtime in the animal schoolyard. Suppose Dragon is looking forward to his lunch of salad and bugs, but every time he sits down next to another critter, they look at his lunch and go "EWWWW!" What then? Who would he eventually sit next to? Lots of animals eat greens, but they'd turn up their noses at insects. And the insect eaters, they don't like greens ("How can you EAT that stuff!" whined Leopard Gecko, chomping down a mealworm.) It would take another omnivore to make Dragon feel comfortable.<br />
<br />
So there you have it... that's where ideas come from.<br />
<br />
Dragon salads.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-11200130083453667942019-12-21T18:10:00.003-05:002019-12-21T18:10:54.950-05:00Happy Winter SolsticeIt's Winter Solstice... the longest night of the year, but that's not why I'm happy about it. Night and I haven't been good friends since my college days, and I don't like the long, dark nights of late fall and winter one bit. Winter Solstice is, for me, the turning of the year - the point when the sun begins its slow return to primacy. Every turn of the earth from today forward, darkness will ease a bit and light will creep forward. It's not the end of winter - not by a long shot, and some feel that the solstice is just the beginning of winter - but I'll take whatever I can get in the day-lengthening department. Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real thing, and even though I don't have it, I do find my mood alters in the post-Christmas season as winter takes hold. Once the holiday lights come down and the tree is gone, it's as if I've got one less bulwark against the Long Dark. So I do pay attention to the Winter Solstice, and mark it with pleasure, because it's a promise to me that the sun will return. Happy Solstice, everyone.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawWK6xNsbyj2-jKoOjKeRJ2iYWGzr471bW6I8dLmZiEx-0ioD9iNafReSbYU33yva7fQSh5klhaVj7esHs7xyp78yRmJShz0IOB0xbPtgiuYTmnmtz5LjhVLjlN27c3t_5AbpSrtbDYbM/s1600/19.12.20-Celebrate-Solstice-bug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawWK6xNsbyj2-jKoOjKeRJ2iYWGzr471bW6I8dLmZiEx-0ioD9iNafReSbYU33yva7fQSh5klhaVj7esHs7xyp78yRmJShz0IOB0xbPtgiuYTmnmtz5LjhVLjlN27c3t_5AbpSrtbDYbM/s320/19.12.20-Celebrate-Solstice-bug.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-39632991376685241992019-11-09T19:31:00.002-05:002019-11-09T19:31:57.675-05:00Why I'll Never Buy Another Parakeet from a Pet Store <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIjPIvpWIMPEs0C0YVVfj1Poqe-D70pAqM9NqGUwmpMfyajXvAQKHV-mw6vJBt-4GNqxZJRdIFTburhv-IpMxRZqae6TMTVii3SkFML__mLb48q39K_ScqmATlOiF0o_ZXM8bfuRV-i-1d/s1600/parakeet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="475" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIjPIvpWIMPEs0C0YVVfj1Poqe-D70pAqM9NqGUwmpMfyajXvAQKHV-mw6vJBt-4GNqxZJRdIFTburhv-IpMxRZqae6TMTVii3SkFML__mLb48q39K_ScqmATlOiF0o_ZXM8bfuRV-i-1d/s320/parakeet.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Full disclosure: as a child, I was given parakeets as a pet. They lived lives of medium length, alone in cages that were probably too small for them, with little in the way of dietary or intellectual enrichment, aside from the ubiquitous bird mirror. It was wrong to keep them that way - I know that now, but at the time, I had no idea how bad my care was. This was all in the days before the Internet and putting yourself in your pet's footprints, and I can't change it, but I'm profoundly sorry for it now that I do know better.<br />
<br />
I was browsing at my local "big chain" petstore the other day, as I'm wont to do; I don't demonize these establishments, though I'm increasingly uneasy with the idea of buying animals from them. Still, I do enjoy going and looking in on the animals there, checking to be sure they're being cared for properly, and chatting with the other shoppers and staffers. On this occasion, I wandered over to the parakeets, and stood for some time, watching their antics and enjoying their chattering. And that's when I had a small epiphany.<br />
<br />
Parakeets are designed by nature to be flock birds, as most birds are. But with parakeets, those flocks can be hundreds or thousands strong. I'd love to see one in person someday; it must be a real sight for the soul. My point is, which I realized with a bit of a start, parakeets are not meant to be solitary birds with only humans as companions. Nature simply didn't make them that way. <br />
<br />
In most pet stores, parakeets are now kept in large-ish enclosures that give them ample room to flutter their feather-clipped wings and socialize with other members of a flock in relative harmony. This is the only life they have ever known since leaving their nest - life as part of a flock. If you stand and watch parakeets in a pet store, they are constantly interacting with one another - grooming, playing, courting. This is their entire life, and their definition of happiness.<br />
<br />
Enter the human. Most people who buy parakeets buy one, and only one. In fact, some people believe that in order to bond with your parakeet, you MUST have only one, or they will bond with each other and not with you. I don't know the truth or falsehood behind that statement, but what I do know is that it must be a jarring and traumatizing experience for the bird - to be suddenly removed from their flock, the only family they have ever known, popped into a cardboard box, and emerge into solitary confinement in a much smaller habitat than they have ever known in their short lives.<br />
<br />
Birds are not meant to be solitary creatures... note the aforementioned flock environment... but neither were they designed by nature to befriend humans. Parakeets are not domesticated animals. They are TAME animals, exotic pets that are, at their core, still identical to their wild counterparts. Trapped in a small cage all by themselves, deprived of their flock, they will eventually seek out interaction and companionship with the next best thing - their human caretakers - but the damage to their small minds and hearts must be devastating. There's a reason why torturers use solitary confinement as the ultimate punishment for human prisoners, and a reason why Stockholm Syndrome (a condition where a captive will begin to empathize with, even care for, his or her captor) exists - social creatures cannot tolerate being on their own. Birds forcibly removed from a flock will ultimately turn to humans for companionship, yes... but it's because they have to, not because they want to.<br />
<br />
Watching the parakeets play and socialize together in the pet store that day, I decided then and there that I'd never buy a bird from a pet store again.<br />
<br />
If I ever do decide to get a bird, I'll find myself a rescue or a breeder who has socialized their birds to humans in a caring and nurturing way, so that a friendship between bird and human can happen in a proper way - not as a result of emotional starvation. And if I get a bird, I won't get just one. I'll get two... not a substitute for a flock, maybe, but better than nothing. If I befriend a bird, I want my friendship to take place on level ground... not because I'm manipulating an animal's hardwired need for companionship to suit my own desires.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-47418717743652921992019-10-06T18:00:00.000-04:002019-10-06T18:00:06.869-04:00Anxiety Trigger: Lesson Planning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJEKzAKHHg8ciw_C9lkgAL2OlX8eWcGKv9CDE9Q1L_uNQJfc2McIkXAGLaK5r0nENiKwKZQ9cJcDd99in6UZcl8GreEakQ7QEiEKzCf-2iXUzIM9_g-YidrBF-z9r0mQEGn-VRGWdLAa2m/s1600/planning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="1023" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJEKzAKHHg8ciw_C9lkgAL2OlX8eWcGKv9CDE9Q1L_uNQJfc2McIkXAGLaK5r0nENiKwKZQ9cJcDd99in6UZcl8GreEakQ7QEiEKzCf-2iXUzIM9_g-YidrBF-z9r0mQEGn-VRGWdLAa2m/s200/planning.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
I don't know why planning my lessons is an anxiety trigger. I don't even know if I'm alone in this, or if it's common among other teachers. All I know is this: sitting down alone to plan my lessons is one of my least favorite times of the week.<br />
<br />
It's not as if I can articulate why trying to plan out my lessons makes me anxious. All I know is this: the more I try to plan, the more I feel as though I don't know what I'm doing, what I <i>should</i> be doing, what I <u style="font-style: italic;">need</u> to be doing. I become swamped with feelings of inadequacy. Sure, I can look back at previous years' plans, and that gives me the outline of what I need to be doing now... but it doesn't take the anxiety away. <br />
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In fact, it causes a chain reaction of anxiety. I find myself thinking about future lessons I don't particularly want to teach. The more I teach science, for example, the less I like doing it - especially the hands-on activities the kids prefer to the dry, boring, and often confusing book work. Given my own feelings about the science text, you'd think I'd welcome the hands-on "experiments" - but I don't. I find hands-on messy and chaotic, necessitating more time for planning and set-up than is balanced out in benefit of knowledge gained. I hate it. <br />
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But here's the thing. Right now, I'm not TEACHING science. I'm in my Social Studies segment of the Thematic Studies lessons. I honestly enjoy teaching Social Studies, inasmuch as I enjoy teaching anything... meaning, it's not quite as painful as many other subjects to me. <br />
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And this triggers more thoughts... if this is how I feel about planning and teaching, why am I doing it? BIG anxiety trigger, that is. I know I'd rather be doing something other than teaching, careerwise - I just don't know WHAT. And I also know that most other work out there A) would not pay as much as teaching, and B) would likely require me to do other things I don't like, such as spend all day in a cubicle pushing papers around, jumping to the tune of some petty manager. I never watched <i>The Office,</i> but I've seen enough clips to get the feeling that it wasn't so far off base from reality. <br />
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Maybe it's not so much that I don't want to be teaching, but I want to be teaching only what I want to teach, the way I want to teach it, which isn't remotely possible or even within the bounds of reality.<br />
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This is what planning time looks like inside my head. It's a mess, and so am I by the time I get the planning done. If I was a drinking woman, I'd need a stiff one. The joy of it is, I can look forward to the same thing all over again in approximately a week. It never ends, nine months out of the year. Even during the summer I find myself dreading the start of the next school year... the start of the planning time. Sigh.<br />
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But at least it's done for THIS week.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-76726570007270906842019-06-26T13:26:00.001-04:002019-06-26T13:26:34.862-04:00Finding ____ to WriteIt's not about finding time to write... at least, not for me. Because my writing-supporting job is teaching, I have two months of free-and-clear writing time each summer where, if I chose to do so, I could write for full 8 hour days if I chose.<br />
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But I don't.<br />
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Why? I don't really know. Maybe it's the perfectionist in me. Some people advise to write every day, even if what you're writing is horrible. I can't stomach that. Forcing myself to write because "it's time to write" is about as palatable as forcing myself to eat because "it's time to eat." If I'm not hungry, I don't want to eat. If the words aren't there, I don't want to write.<br />
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So how does one fill in that blank? Finding that... something... to write? Finding the spirit to write? The story to write? The words to write? All of those seem reasonable to me. Without them, writing is bland and colorless. I wish I knew how other writers, prolific writers, do it - get their ideas, keep the words flowing. I can't even keep my blog updated, for crying out loud!<br />
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So... does this make me less of a writer, knowing this? I surely hope not.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-7299233379379590732019-04-22T20:42:00.002-04:002019-04-22T20:42:52.961-04:00Keeping It ShortAccording to an article I recently read, my blog posts are way too long. Robert Lee Brewer in "30 Day Platform Challenge" writes, "WRITE SHORT. Short sentences (fewer than 10 words). Short paragraphs (fewer than 5 sentences). Concision is precision in online composition." Uh-oh. Concision and I aren't terribly good friends.<br />
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I blame J.R.R. Tolkien, whose descriptions could take up full pages of text. Okay, his description of the lives and habits of hobbits took up full pages - but that's what stuck with me. I was eight and fell in love with <u>The Hobbit</u> and <u>The Lord of the Rings</u>, and my writing has been something less than brief ever since. This is, needless to say, a problem for a picture book writer and blogger.<br />
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I suppose blogs need to be brief because of the conventional wisdom which holds that online, people's attention spans make those of gnats look positively meditative. Online, if you don't keep things short, you won't keep your readers. Got it. Can't DO it, but I got it.<br />
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I'm not so sure about picture books. My last editor told me that publishers are wanting picture books to run shorter and shorter in word count because modern children, raised on tablets and e-devices, simply don't have the attention span to sit still for the sorts of stories their parents did. This is wrenching to me... I grew up loving <u>Pussy Willow</u> by Margaret Wise Brown, <u>Christina Katerina and the Box</u> by Patricia Lee Gauch, and many other dear old wordy picture books that would never sell in today's brief marketplace.<br />
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It also makes me wonder... aren't we, in shortening our picture books, contributing to the problem, rather than taking a stand against it? Isn't it worth saying, "No, child, not everything is bite-sized - but sometimes, things that require you to sit still and pay attention are good"? Aren't books supposed to teach as well as to entertain? And isn't teaching patience something worthwhile?<br />
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It's something to ponder, anyway.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-19913073316122195762019-03-12T19:30:00.001-04:002019-03-12T19:30:43.955-04:00What Goes Into a Picture Book Manuscript?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXW2tQarvDykbXTXWigFdi7eNwuDqXUCc6MWM4K549FSW049hp2-PDMIdzhpIlTR3cLclABjI4WjC9l7VtbxuqzsK1GlOPvCFy2A8cFDHxHhFJB8UyWFQXPrAy5X8QAP9YNoJFpQk9VU6/s1600/orion.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXW2tQarvDykbXTXWigFdi7eNwuDqXUCc6MWM4K549FSW049hp2-PDMIdzhpIlTR3cLclABjI4WjC9l7VtbxuqzsK1GlOPvCFy2A8cFDHxHhFJB8UyWFQXPrAy5X8QAP9YNoJFpQk9VU6/s320/orion.JPG" width="316" /></a></div>
I've been working on drafting another picture book, and found myself contemplating all that goes into the piece even before it's ready to be polished and sent looking for a home. Like many others, I once thought - foolishly thought - that writing a picture book was easier than writing a novel. It's certainly shorter, I'll admit to that freely, but easier? Not really.<br />
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It starts with the matter of scope. Novelists see things in terms of the Big Picture - sweeping settings, complex and developing characters, conflicts and plot twists and story arcs. A good picture book can have all of those things, of course, but where a novelist has several thousand words or a few hundred pages to allow their story to take shape, a picture book is for the most part bound to the 32-page format, and an ever-dwindling number of words as the hypothetical attention span of young readers diminishes in bits and bytes. So, easier? Not really. Just shorter, which can be its own obstacle to surmount.<br />
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But what goes into a picture book, really? What thought processes are at work? Well, for my current work in progress, working title <i>Constellations on Vacation</i>, my mental workings looked something like this.<br />
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<b>1. The Title.</b><br />
The title came to me fairly easily for this manuscript. Sometimes a whole slew of drafts goes by before I find a title good enough to pin on the piece, but in this case, the title came first. I was looking up at the sky, thinking of the constellations I might be able to spot, and the rhyming phrase <i>Constellations on Vacation </i>popped into my head, and suddenly I was off and running.<br />
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<b>2. Which Constellations?</b><br />
When I decided to google it, I was amazed at the wide variety of constellation characters I'd have to choose from. There are the classical groupings, of which the twelve zodiac constellations are a part - Leo, Aquarius, Pisces, Cancer, and their ilk. A good many of these are also human in form - Perseus, Orion, Andromeda, Cassiopeia. Then there are the more modern shapes, which didn't seem all that useful, for the most part, as they're rather obscure. The Air Pump and the Microscope might be interesting as a possible Jeopardy question, but I really couldn't see them vacationing much of anywhere. I opted to go with the classical constellations, and focus on realistic-looking animals and people... Cancer the Crab and Leo the Lion were in, Capricorn the Sea Goat and Sagittarius the Archer centaur were out.<br />
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<b>3. Where Would Constellations Go On Vacation?</b><br />
At first, the story unfolded in a series of mental "screenshots" - constellations lounging on a beach, exploring the plains of Africa, taking a sight-seeing tour of New York City. But it needed to go further than that... and it needed refining. Should I go with a general series of locations - beach, forest, city? Or should I think specific - the Great Barrier Reef, Muir Woods, New York City? Should I attempt a mixture of the two? And should I focus on American locations, or try for a more global view of things? That last question is still bugging me, though my first draft opted for specific American locations.<br />
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<b>4. Who is the Main Character?</b><br />
This stymied me for a bit. A book needs a protagonist, or at least a character to focus on. In the book <u>The Day the Crayons Quit</u>, the story is told via letters written from the crayons to their erstwhile owner. I'd already decided that the story would be told through a series of post cards from the constellations on vacation... but who would the post cards be sent to? And why would that "someone" be interested in those post cards?<br />
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<b>5. What's the Problem Here?</b><br />
And this question, my <i>bete noir</i>, kept hounding me on the heels of the main character question. I tend towards sleepy, calm, sweet picture books - "going to sleep" books that progress softly from one scene to the next without much, or any, conflict. Unfortunately for me, that's not what agents and publishers are looking for. They WANT conflict. They want the main character, your protagonist, to struggle with something and eventually achieve that goal. Gone are the sleepy-time books I once dreamed of writing; it's all about the conflict. <br />
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So... what could be the problem here? I'd tentatively decided that the protagonist of the book would be the constellation Canis Major, the Big Dog. I wasn't so keen on the name, but dogs are almost universally appealing (pardon the pun), and I thought he would make a decent protagonist. As for the conflict... what if Canis wants to go on vacation, but can't decide where? What if he's afraid to leave his spot in the sky? What if he wants to go EVERYwhere, and just can't decide where to go first? One of those, I thought, would surely fit.<br />
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<b>6. Formatting the Story</b><br />
As I already mentioned, I'd decided early on that the story would be a correspondence story... a series of post cards to Canis Major from his starry friends as they vacation on Earth. I still needed to play with that format, however... Canis would need to respond to the reading of each post card, introducing the conflict (that this wasn't the place he would choose to vacation) and move the action along. I decided that each post card would be followed by a single sentence, showing Canis Major's thoughts on the location.<br />
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<b>7. Time to Draft!</b><br />
And this is where I am right now... with my prewriting done, I'm free to draft and revise, draft and revise, draft and revise. This is also where the 32-page rule and the limited word count come into play; I may need to make a dummy copy of the text on the pages to see how this is going to fit together, page-wise, though strictly speaking, that's the job of the editor and art director. I've also got to keep that word count in mind. Right now, two drafts in, I'm running at just over a thousand words, a shade long for the modern picture book. Some trimming will certainly be in order. <br />
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But drafting, editing, and revising is a topic for another blog post!Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-8232568292245243282019-03-02T16:30:00.000-05:002019-03-02T16:30:44.199-05:00Social Media Platform vs. Writing TimeIt's been about two months since I started trying to build my social media platform, as advised by an article in the 2019 <u>Children's Writer's & Illustrators Market</u>. My feelings are definitely mixed.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_s78IDuh5SzlkLtFcCxgMqMhqI2Dt12rACg_I2r6jYJl1a0SU_qfY_B5Iw1SQM0D-AYFK4JIwzGAM8cC0_OIRBIOb8K3lU8cqhpFqUx0olSLyg2BnL_ysTbVn6ZNkIBKOcNNK12Ts_7s6/s1600/twitter-cartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_s78IDuh5SzlkLtFcCxgMqMhqI2Dt12rACg_I2r6jYJl1a0SU_qfY_B5Iw1SQM0D-AYFK4JIwzGAM8cC0_OIRBIOb8K3lU8cqhpFqUx0olSLyg2BnL_ysTbVn6ZNkIBKOcNNK12Ts_7s6/s320/twitter-cartoon.jpg" width="254" /></a>On Facebook, I have an "official author's page" which isn't all that different from my personal page, except that all posts go public. I try to post two or three times a week. On average, the only people who interact with those posts are my family and friends who "liked" the page to begin with. Some people might wonder why I bothered with an author's page at all, as I was already active on Facebook before I created it. The answer is that I prefer to keep my writing/ author posts separate from my personal life posts; I don't particularly need the world to hear my every thought or insecurity that I share with people I actually know.<br />
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On Twitter, I've been working to build up the number of followers I have, but doing it in a very methodical and cautious way. I don't want just ANY followers; I want people who, ideally, have read my books and like me. Barring that, I'd prefer they be fellow writers or agents in the children's book field - people I can network with. I'm on Twitter pretty much every day, just as I am with Facebook, and I try to retweet or tweet at least one thing each day. On the whole, I don't care for Twitter as much as I do Facebook; it feels very much like a zillion voices shouting into a void, and while I have been making an effort to become part of the #WritingCommunity there, my own posts don't get much notice at this point.<br />
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The thing with social media, though, is this: it's addictive. I come home from work, shed my work clothes, and flop down into my favorite chair with my iPad to check the platform and see what's new. On many days, it's a bit of a chore to think of something to post - as I said, I don't want to post just anything, and there's only so much I can say about my writing. And yet, I find myself glued to the screen for hours at a go, reading other people's words, and telling myself that I'm doing all this to better my own writing self.<br />
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Only I'm not writing.<br />
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Writing and holding down a full-time job like teaching is difficult to begin with; on many afternoons, I'm just not at a good place in my head to try to write. I'm tired, both physically and emotionally, and doing the social media thing is a lot less exerting than actually sitting down and trying to think of something to write about. That's a dangerous place for a writer to be, though. Social media is a time-consumer, something that FEELS like you're being productive... only you aren't, because every minute spent on social media is a minute you're not spending actually writing. Too much of that, and you wind up becoming one of those people who's a writer only in their own mind - talking the talk, but producing little to nothing in the way of proof.<br />
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I'm really going to need to assess my use of social media. It may get my name out there, yes... but it won't, at least as far as I can tell, help get me published. Neither will this blog, of course, but at least when I'm updating this blog, I'm forcing myself to do some real writing. Social media can be a wonderful thing, I think, when used correctly... but it's also a La Brea Tar Pit of self indulgence. Put more than an exploratory toe in, and you risk getting mired and sucked down.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7790767528128834860.post-44016797430617079962019-02-24T19:15:00.001-05:002019-02-25T18:43:19.185-05:00Turtle WriterI've been introduced to a new term, courtesy of Twitter: turtle writer. Or, as it trends on Twitter, #turtlewriter.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1z41qefXT-xU3X2e-IHJ3_pEdn2HKlXLsHPpl75T88x-DQUWRO71cv1mt5VlvofrVnX-UrWUnO7PWO8dzll1YvRrwtgwTkl3HNsSd9jVy6H-dJ6HyhP8YLtkd7seRBS7pBsMvOOdAg7Vh/s1600/box+turtle+JH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1z41qefXT-xU3X2e-IHJ3_pEdn2HKlXLsHPpl75T88x-DQUWRO71cv1mt5VlvofrVnX-UrWUnO7PWO8dzll1YvRrwtgwTkl3HNsSd9jVy6H-dJ6HyhP8YLtkd7seRBS7pBsMvOOdAg7Vh/s320/box+turtle+JH.jpg" width="320" /></a>The hashtag was coined about two years ago by author Meka James for the Twitter group she and two friends, fellow writers Rosetta Yorke and M "Ladybug" Moos, co-host. It means precisely what you'd think it means: a writer who writes verrrrrrry sllllllowwwwwly.<br />
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I am a turtle writer.<br />
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When my last book got published, I was seized with almost manic energy: this time, things would be different. This time, I would keep up the flow of writing. This time, I would stop being a turtle writer and be a Productive Writer.<br />
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Alas, it was not to be. I did produce a few manuscripts in the flush following the acceptance and publication of <i>The Stable Cat's Christmas</i>, but as of yet, I haven't found a home for any of them. I've sent two manuscripts to the editor I worked with on <i>Stable Cat</i>, but have heard volumes of... nothing. Sigh. And now, I'm in a writing slump, feeling like I'll never have another original, draftable thought ever again.<br />
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I'm back to being a turtle writer.<br />
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But there is, I think, more to being a turtle writer than simply having a slow turnover rate. Turtles are more than just their lack of speed (which, to anyone who has known a turtle or tortoise personally, is highly exaggerated... they can be speedy little guys when the need arises!) Turtles are... methodical. Thoughtful. They don't wander aimlessly at their "turtle's pace" - they have a clear destination in mind, and are simply taking their time in getting there. Turtles don't "go" just anywhere. If they don't have a place to get to, they simply stay where they are. I like to think that turtle writers are like that, too..<br />
. we don't spend our time on a hundred different projects or writing exercises that aren't going to go anywhere; we plod slowly along with that one good idea, that one spark that will carry us through to our end destination.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf6sE4Mqsbdzpmf3-hP6Odb8sbNPxD1FIrDFAU-CGQMSNPMCYV7sn2T353FrGWHNSLiOotlQnO9r8LrGguQ60kgdWTQs_MwfEEMex1zEFFA7-Y1XYwwZcL4W-OruTPQ-AFCDS0XIZ8K9ik/s1600/3toe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="674" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf6sE4Mqsbdzpmf3-hP6Odb8sbNPxD1FIrDFAU-CGQMSNPMCYV7sn2T353FrGWHNSLiOotlQnO9r8LrGguQ60kgdWTQs_MwfEEMex1zEFFA7-Y1XYwwZcL4W-OruTPQ-AFCDS0XIZ8K9ik/s320/3toe.jpg" width="320" /></a>What's more, turtles are designed to be protected from the sharp and pointy bits of the wide world out there. That lovely shell, so easy to pull back into, is one of nature's greatest architectural designs. We turtle writers are just as susceptible to depression at rejection letters and non-responses (the new alternative to the rejection letter) as anyone else, and we pull back into our shells from time to time... but we don't stay there. Like our reptilian namesakes, we know that if we're going to get on with this business of living, we have to come out sometime. Oh, it's tempting to huddle back in one's safe and cozy shell, perhaps filling the time by building a social media platform on Twitter, but if we're ever going to be the writers we dream of being, we're going to have to get back out into the world.<br />
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And that's the turtle writer's credo, I think... <i>Imitate the turtle: to make progress, you have to stick your neck out. </i>In a vocation where getting ahead means long months or even years of querying and rejection for every eventual publication, it's very easy to want to curl up into your shell, protected from the sting of hearing, "Sorry, but your manuscript doesn't meet our current needs" - or having to face the well-meaning family and friends who want to know how your latest project is going.<br />
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Inside a shell, however, you aren't getting anywhere. A turtle who pulls into her shell may be protected, yes, but she also isn't getting to where she wants to be. The only way to get through the rejection form letters and "don't call us, we'll call you" non-replies is to push past them, eyes firmly focused on the ultimate goal.<br />
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With all that in mind, I think I am proud to be a turtle writer. I may be slow, but I'm moving towards my ultimate goal.Christina S. Vrbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02188366546043079088noreply@blogger.com0