Personal Rejection

Personal rejection...
It is still a rejection no matter how personal.  I woke this morning to find one of these in my inbox.  Right now I am going back and forth between, "Wow, this is exciting!  The best I've gotten so far." And the other end of my emotions, darn it.  :(  I was really hoping this was it.

Baby steps.  Yes, this is good.  But I want to fly.

This has been a spring unlike any before.  I cannot count how many letters and resumes I have sent out looking for a teaching position.  I have even begun to expand my search to include things not so much related to teaching.  I have also been sending out or waiting for word from the stories that I have submitted.  So far all rejections, some more personal than others.  They are all making me feel very tired.

Or maybe I'm tired because my brain refuses to let me sleep.  Hehe..  Just last night, I was nearly dozing off at the computer.  This is a sure sign it is time for bed.  So I put my computer down and turned off the light.

Of course this is when my brain says, "Time to Write."

When I try to ignore it and answer, "I'm tired.  I was just falling asleep."

My brain replies, "No time for sleep.  The words will explode here unless you get them down."

I roll over grab my notebook, pen and flashlight... flashlight because it feels less like I'm waking up and more like this will only take a minute or two.

The words my brain refuses to let me ignore are a haiku about Spring.  The kids and I have been reading about haiku.  We are planning to write some as one of our summer writing projects.

I wrote three poems, all about Spring.  Then I closed the notebook and laid both it and my pen down.  Finally I turned off my flashlight.  I thought that now I would be able to sleep.  There was no fear of forgetting my words before the morning.   But it seems that I was nowhere near finished writing for the night.

I rolled and tossed.  The words refused to remain unheard.  This time I gave in.  I turned the light on, sat up, and knew I would write until the end.  I wrote three more haiku about the spring.  Then I moved on to summer, fall, winter and even one about New Years.  I had learned that in Japan New Years is counted nearly as its own season.  So of course my I could not leave it out.  In the end I had twenty haiku, twenty tastes of the seasons from my point of view.

I laid still for a while wondering if I was finished.  By now even more tired than before, though my eyes were not closing just yet.  I did not turn the light off, if sleep should come what would I care if the light was still shining on.  I turned the page, empty and ready for my words.  I held my pen.  I laid my head down on my bed.

No more Haiku.  But I filled two more pages, an outline of the story I would be starting.  It is another of our summer writing projects.  This one I will be sure to share more about as my children and I work through it.  When these words were down on paper, safe and ready for me to really start working on them, then I finally turned the light off and went to sleep.

Of course the morning brought that lovely personal rejection.  The funny thing is that had I picked up my computer and wrote there, I would have seen the rejection letter.  It had been received as I wrote there in the dark of night.

I shared the words of the letter with my children.  I guess my brain was preparing me, no time to moan or sigh.  There is only time to write.  Who needs sleep anyway!

I am Fine

I am Fine

I am falling.    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   I am flying.

I am surrounded by people.     .   .   .   .   .   .   .   I am alone.

I am drowning.     .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   I am swimming.

I am dying.     .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   I am living.

I am smiling.     .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   I am sighing.

I am lost.     .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   I am found.

I am seeking.     .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   I am hiding.

I am coming to the end.     .   .   .   .   I am just beginning.

I am moving forward.    .   .   .   .   .   .   I am frozen in place.

I am in chains     .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   I am free.

I am Fine

I was thinking of someone very special to me. I haven't seen you in a very long time. As I walked today the thoughts were swirling around in my mind. So many of them. Then they all seemed to just fall in line with each other. And I saw them written out on paper. In my mind at least, there are spiraling threads linking these opposing thoughts together. As the title appeared to me it felt as if you were talking to me. Or maybe it was me who was talking to you. :) I hope that you are having a wonderful day.   

Writing Genes

Yesterday we had an amazing surprise.  Maybe it wasn't 'amazing' as in it wasn't something unbelievable.  We came down to ConStellation for the second year.  Again this year, Ella and I both submitted stories to the writing contest.  Last year my story won.  That was an amazing thing for me, though it wasn't a surprise.  They had contacted me to be sure that I was going to be at opening ceremonies.  But this year, I had not heard anything from them.  So I was sure that neither Ella nor I had won.  But when we got to the hotel and checked in, I paged through the Con book and what should I see but Ella's story.  She had won the youth division of the writing contest!  She is just a little bit excited about this.  :)  And so am I.  I guess next year it will be Mel's turn.  Hehe..

Then this morning one of the panels that we went to was the Brainstorming with Carrie Vaughn.  It was one of the youth programming items.  We all greatly enjoyed this panel. I loved the way she did this with us and hope to sometime do this with a group of children.  I took a lot of notes.   Then part way through the panel I had a super thought.  We will finish this story idea that we were brainstorming as a summer project.  I think that all of us should write our own story using some of the things that we were brainstorming.  I can't wait for us to be able to get started on this writing project.  I expect it to be quite amazing.  It will be fun to see each of the different ideas that we come up with.

When I get just a little time I will write up my notes as a post and write an update as we work on this project.

Bats

Well, this is a short thought for the night.  Or at least I think so right now, we will have to see how it turns out.  Tonight we were at church and what should we happen to see but a bat flying around the room.   Just out of the corner of my eye, I saw it fly by the first time, and I knew what it was.  It took only a little while before most people knew it was there.  Of course we all tried to ignore the thing as it swooped over us again and again.

This bat reminded me (and my children) of all of the bats that we had in the Beatrice house.  It is sort of strange remembering the time there.  Partly, it feels so far away.  Partly it is, and likely always shall be, just a little bit sad for me.  Though those memories are also very exciting, the dreams that they involved.

Here is a post from my blog...the last time we had a bat flying around our heads.

http://themontoyahouse.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-487.html

I only sort of ducked once in church tonight as the bat took a very low flight over our heads.  :)   Much better than the first time one was flying over us in the Beatrice house and I sat with the kids on the couch with a blanket over our heads praying the thing would just go away.

ABC's and 123's

The last few days I have been think about my ABC's and my 123's.  I don't know if it is because I have been substituting in a 1st grade classroom for the last five weeks or if this is something that would have found its way into my brain anyhow.

This is something that I have actually spent a good deal of time thinking about during my life.  The funny thing is that to me, "my loves" have seemed on the opposite ends of the spectrum.  I love math.  I always have.  In fact had you asked me what my favorite subject in 4th grade (or any grade all the way through high school) I would have told you math.  In 8th grade my teacher knew that I needed a challenge.  He let me work through my math book at my own pace.  I was finished with the 8th grade text by Christmas break.  So when I came back to school in January he had a freshman algebra book ready for my use.  I was so excited!  Most of my way through high school my average in math was more than 100%.  When my teacher offered extra credit, I did it.  Give me more.  I didn't do it for the grade, really.  I did it because I wanted more work.  

I had always seen this side of me as the logic.  Following rules.  Making everything equal.  This was the programmer part of me.  Also way I loved programming.  I taught myself BASIC when I was 10 or 11 years old.  I loved making the computer do what I told it to do.  

But there was a different part of me.  This was the creative part.  I had always seen this part as almost fighting against my logical part.  (Or at least at times it felt like it was.)  I loved writing.  I made up stories from the time I was little.  In fact some of my first programs that I wrote in BASIC were "Choose your own adventure" stories that I had written.  I liked to make things.  I crochet and do many craft or sewing projects.  But words were my greatest love.  My stories were and are my life.  They are something that I have to do.

So what does this have to do with ABC's and 123's?  Well, as I was checking the papers that the 1st graders had turned in to me I started to think.

Somewhere along the line, I had discovered that (at least to me) math is not really a subject.  Math is a language.  In my high school chemistry class and then in my physics class I had worked this out.  We use math all of the time.  But when you really sit down and think about it.  Math is just a part of everything else.  Math is the language of science.  It was after this that I started thinking that math might not be my favorite subject.  Science might be.  I just needed math to understand science.

And now here in 2014 I look at the things I am teaching to 6 and 7 year olds.  But if you go back even a little farther than that...

What do we teach our toddlers?  We teach them their ABC's and their 123's.  If I started singing my ABC's in a room full of little ones most likely they would start to sing with me, even if they still did not know their letters by sight.  And the same would go if I started to count.  Just a couple of numbers in and the whole group would be counting with me.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

We join letters of our alphabet together to form words.  Words placed together form sentences and stories.

We join  numbers (and other mathematical symbols) together to form equations.  We use equations to explain or manipulate things.

Both of these sets of symbols are actually used in very similar ways.  But they are taught to us in schools in complete different ways.  I wonder if this isn't why so many people feel they don't understand math.   Right now, I see the 1st graders doing a spelling test as almost the exact thing as them doing a math facts test.  But somewhere along the way this second language that we are teaching our children (math) gets jumbled up.  Somewhere they start to see it as something they don't understand.  Every part of our lives are filled with these two sets of symbols.  And today, I am just wondering what we can do as teachers and parents to help our children to be fully bilingual.  

So in closing, maybe my thoughts about the two parts of me always feeling so different has been wrong.  I do love words.  I love words made with my ABC',s and I love words made with my 123's.

Early Mornings

I normally am the type of person who wakes up early in the morning.  I normally do not have to use an alarm to get up...I often am awake before my alarm goes off.  But the last two weeks have been a bit excessive.  I do not need to wake up between 4-5 am.  My alarm is set for 5:40, and that is plenty early.  As I said, I normally wake up on my own by 5:15.  The alarm is there 'just in case.'

But 4:06, or 4:15 or even 4:45,  BAH!  This just is not something I want to do.  The funny thing is that I know why I am waking up that early.  My work, my real job has been busy.  I have not been able to find 'writing time' during the day like I normally would.  My lunch break and other 'free-times' at school have been filled with checking papers and getting these ready for the next lesson.  So it has been weeks since I have done much writing.

And these 4am(ish) wake up calls are my mind's way of telling me to GET UP AND WRITE!

The really sad thing about it is that even though I know this, I really don't want to get into a habit of waking up at 4:00.  When I do this, I get way to tired later in the day.  So I guess somewhere along the lines I am going to have to find at least a few minutes during the day to get some writing done.  If not my brain just might explode.

So I guess I need to just walk away from here and do some real writing.  (Even though I know my bag is filled with reading tests and math papers that should be checked.)

Artist and Author

Wow, this has been an interesting week for me.  I am subbing in a 1st grade classroom while their teacher is home on maternity leave.  It has been really nice being in the same place for 3 weeks now.  And besides, who doesn't love 1st graders?

I get to read them stories. Every day I slip a few of my books from home into my bag to bring to school.  I have been very excited about sharing some of my favorite authors with the children.  So far I have been keeping the list to my favorite picture book authors.  But we might expand that a bit this week.  I have been bringing in books that go along with what we are doing or talking about during the week.

Last week I brought in several books about grandparents.  I had been hoping to give them ideas of what to write about during writer's workshop.  Several of the kids will just sit down and write.  But there are usually one or two who sit and "think" for a large portion of the time.  There is one student who fills his page with words every single day.  That is 14 lines, and that is huge for a 1st grader.

I am also really big on giving them examples.  So I carry around my clipboard and try to write a little bit on my own stories while monitoring what they are doing.  This week, I even went so far as to draw a picture to go along with my story.  On Monday, St. Patrick's Day, I gave them the beginning of four different sentences as an aid and told them the story could be real or make believe.

As I was in a forest I saw...

A green leprechaun asked me to go...

In my backyard I saw a rainbow...

The bag of gold was in my hand when...

Well, I filled my lines, all 14 of them, and started on the next page.  Then I decided that I should make a picture to go with it, just like they do.  So I stopped writing and drew the picture.  I did something unexpected by 1st graders, I mixed yellow and orange to make a gold color.  During our writing time, several of the children saw my picture and all of the words on my page.

This prompted several of the best compliments I have ever received.

"That's the best picture I have ever seen."

"You are an awesome artist and author!"

I had also taken in one of my short story manuscripts so that I could show them that even grownups spell things wrong and cross things out when they are writing.  I want them to try and spell the words they want to use on their own, making them more independent in their writing.

After seeing all of my words on the typed pages, one of the children asked me, "How can you write that many words."  And another said, "You are like a real author."

Thanks 1st graders, you really know how to make someone feel good.  :D

Now I have never thought of myself as an artist.  And if I brought the pictures that my children have drawn, the first graders would not thing my picture was very good.  Maybe it is easy for me to fill 14 lines with words, but I'm still not at that 'author' point.  But hopefully soon I can use that word to describe myself.

It has been fun sharing my love of words with the children at school.  It makes me happy when they ask me to bring back a book that I have already read to them.  Or when they ask me what some of my other favorite authors are.  When I leave, I know they will remember that Ms. Montoya loves to read books, and she has written a lot of words.

These are the things that make me happy, kids, books and writing... throw in a little math and science just to add even more fun to the day.  It can't get much better than that.