Sunday, August 31, 2008

Summer Resolutions Revisited, Part I

In June, I wrote an entry with my summer resolutions, meaning things I wanted to accomplish over summer break. I had planned to write a quick update, but some of the resolutions deserve a little more time, either because they got done or didn't get done and the story of why and how is interesting to me. Today, I'm tackling #5 and #6: Walk two miles a day and work on strength and balance. This resolution was supposed to be about buying a Wii Fit, but I felt that that was going to be impossible since the Wii and the Wii Fit were nowhere to be found.

So, I'll start with walking two miles a day. I did this with a handful of exceptions. Having dogs to keep healthy makes this one pretty easy. One of the joys of having a dog is how easy it is to make them happy and excited, and all I have to do is get up every morning, throw on some clothes and say, "Let's go for a walk!" and Marcel's tail starts wagging and he starts jumping all over the place. Madeline, being the more sensible of the two, would rather sleep longer, but she comes along anyway. My neighborhood dead ends at a creek, so we walk to the creek and back and that is one mile. We do it in the morning and in the evening and that's my two miles. The nice thing is that a lot of people walk along the same path and I get to know my neighbors (actually my neighbors' dogs--it is a strange phenomenon that dog owners can name most of the dogs in the neighborhood but not their owners). The not so nice thing is that I had fooled myself into thinking that this was making me more fit. About a month ago, my friend D invited me to go along on her dog walk, which is about three quarters of a mile up a hill. I went, feeling that my daily walk surely had prepared me for this. Uphill walking is a whole different thing, it turns out. I was literally gulping for air. I tried again a week later. The next time was easier, and I plan to continue trying.

Thanks to kind friends and family, I did get the Wii Fit. My friend E, who loves shopping as much as I hate shopping, called me from a Walmart in late June. She had just found two Wii's. Walmart would only allow her to buy one, which was for her sister, but she called her son, who kindly drove down and bought the other for me. The Wii has some fun games on it, but it was the Fit software and balance board that I wanted. That's when Cameron went into action. He found a site that tracked where popular electronics could be found. He began checking it every morning until, one morning, in early July, he found one for me and ordered it right away. Soon I was ready to become fit!

When you first turn on the Wii, you are asked to make a Mii. This is an avatar that is supposed to look like you. You work with a menu that offers you many choices in eye types and colors, skin color, face shape, etc. It's kind of creepy how close you can come to making a copy of yourself.  Aging is a problem.  In real life, there are so many indicators of age:  hair loss or loss of hair shininess, loss of skin tone, weight gain, great wisdom.  The Wii has no such indicators, so men can add facial hair, if they have grown any, but women and men without facial hair are stuck adding wrinkles to keep from looking twelve.  You can also change your avatar to reflect changes in you. I cut my hair this summer and I noticed I was depending upon my glasses more and more, so now my avatar has a haircut and wears glasses.  So my Mii ages along with me, which is absolutely delightful.


Imagine getting up in the morning before the sun is up.  Bleary-eyed, you walk down to the room that contains your Wii Fit.  You turn it on and happy music fills the room.  You are told to turn on the Balance Board, which is a white plastic board (about 12 x 18 inches) that remotely talks to the Wii console.  The board's avatar comes on the screen, standing on end and tells you to step on.  You do and the board says, "Oh!"  In English, the word "oh" must have a hundred meanings and we can interpret all of them.  The meaning of this "oh" is quite clear:  I did not expect anything quite this heavy to step on me.  Then music that I can only describe as robot thinking music comes on while the Wii calculates your weight.  Then, in a voice that sounds like Shirley Temple doing an impression of Mickey Mouse, it says, "That's Obese!"  

If your BMI puts you in the obese category, as mine does, it's not a bad thing to face reality, though I wish I could turn off reality every once in awhile.  But, in case, after five minute or so of exercising, you forget you're obese, the Wii kindly helps you out.  As soon as it measures you as obese, it makes your Mii swell up to a larger size.

The activities are fun, and I've been going strong with them for more than 55 days now. I don't think I'd recommend the Wii Fit to someone who already has a workout routine. I don't think it would be challenging enough. In fact, I'm finding the aerobic menu to be kind of easy, but still very enjoyable. But there's also a strength, a balance and a yoga menu and I find all of these still very challenging. I also am guessing that there will soon be a Wii Fit part 2, which I will buy immediately. I love the rhythm boxing option, where I do ten minutes of boxing the air, while my Mii is hitting a bag. It's a great stress reliever. The running in place option is boring because, well, you're running in place, but at least you get to see your Mii run past waterfalls and cliffs. It's also fun that all the other Mii's you've made are running past you, sometimes falling down, other times encouraging you. So, when I'm running in place, I see my mother, Cameron, Marin, Marin's boyfriend, PJ, and Marcel and Madeline.

The funniest one is a balance game in which you suddenly appear on the screen dressed in a penguin outfit while standing on an ice floe.  You need to shift your weight on the balance board to make your Mii slide left and right on its belly.  Why?  Well, so you can watch a copy of yourself in a penguin suit catch fish that are jumping out of the ocean in its mouth.

The best thing is that being able to complete some of the Wii challenges has made me gain confidence in trying other activities. For example, I have started to look for more difficult workouts on the television's On Demand Menu. I look forward to exercising. Eventually the fun of the Fit will probably wear off, but I am hoping that it will be replaced with the fun of other ways of being active.

But I still wake up to the same two words every morning, and changes are slow, but instead of big losses, I have to try to be satisfied with slightly better fitting clothes, and a little more energy.  The other day, I was sitting in a chair that I have sat in often and I went to stand up.  Only after standing did I realize that I had always grabbed the arms of the chair to get up, and I didn't this time.  Small changes, but at least in the right direction.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Thou Hast Thy Music Too

Except for Earth, Wind and Fire's "September," I don't think there are any upbeat songs about autumn. There's September Song, which I hate, and California Dreaming, which I like, but both are pretty depressing, wishing away autumn. Then there's the equally depressing genre of songs about the ending of summer. These, like Boys of Summer and 4th of July, Asbury Park (I know, but read the lyrics) are really about the end of youth, so they tend to be kind of meaty, and I like them a lot. A few years ago, I went to Alaska in early August and it seems that everywhere I went, the residents were talking about autumn coming. It's not a date on the calendar there. You really could feel it in the air, in the angles of the sun, etc. But, for perhaps the first time in my life, I wanted a vacation to last longer and summer in Alaska was so pleasant (beautiful fruits and vegetables, salmon, blue skies, wonderful smells, all without horrible heat or humidity), that I actually felt that end of summer depression.

But Alaska was an anomaly for me. Autumn is by far my favorite season. I love everything about it: the quick change in the length of day, the smells (in my case, the smell I associate most with the start of autumn is the overripe grapes on my grapevine, which is accompanied by the sight of the birds that come for the feast), the colors of the leaves, the end of the last heat waves, and the evening chill. I love that it is also the best time to plant new things in the garden. This is definitely not the end of youth, but the beginning of something.

Autumn is still a few weeks off and we're going through a heat wave, but today at the Farmer's Market, its signs were unmistakably there. I walked over to the corn booth, where the owner told me that this was their last week until next July. I stuff myself with corn every year for two months, so that last week leaves me feeling bittersweet. I bought eight ears and vowed to appreciate every bite. But then, I turned a corner and there were apples! I hadn't seen an apple (a locally grown one) in months. I bought a couple of pounds of them and reminded myself that the foods of autumn are on their way and that peaches and melons and berries will still soon make way for apples and pears and brussels sprouts. One of the great things about September is that you will find all of these things together for a short period.

I'm such a pragmatic person in most ways that it surprises and amuses me (and probably those who know me) that, for me, going to Farmer's Market is not just about getting nutrition so I can live another week. It's more like a religious experience. I feel like I'm doing the right thing shopping there, I enjoy its cyclical nature, and I revel in the smells, the colors, the tastes and the textures of the various foods. One time, PJ saw me choosing some produce and told me that I was putting on my Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa) face.

The reader may notice that I did not say that I enjoy the sounds of the Farmer's Market. No, I did not because I do not. A recent trip to the Farmer's Market involved a woman who was getting on in years and a head shorter than me (I'm 5 foot 1 inch) repeatedly asking a vendor where the bananas are in a kind of bullying way. The man clearly didn't speak much English, so I smiled at her and said, "You won't find bananas here. They're not grown in this area." To which she narrowed her eyes and angrily said, "I have bought them here before!" I apparently hadn't made a dent in this woman's resolve because she continued to bother the vendor for a couple more rounds of questions until she gave up and went away. No doubt she's still searching for that papaya, mango, pineapple and banana booth.

I know that in many, many countries people are used to bargaining over prices. I realize that this comes as naturally as breating for the people from these places and that I shouldn't find this behavior as offensive as I do at Farmer's Markets, but it just seems that these farmers aren't exactly getting rich off of their produce and that we should all be happy to help them out. I am trying to get used to people who try to bargain in a non-insulting way, but I really hate it when people insult the produce when they don't get their way: "You are charging two dollars for THIS? Look at it! No good!" And then there are the customers who need to take Economics 101. A couple of years ago, I was waiting my turn at the blueberry booth. For only a handful of Saturdays every summer, these women show up with their mountain blueberries. They are delicious beyond words, and pretty expensive. Right now, they're charging six dollars a pint, but on this day when I was waiting my turn they were four dollars. It was about 10 in the morning and the Farmer's Market still had two hours to go. There were only two pints left and I was standing behind this woman who was rather aggressively trying to get these women to lower their price. She even had them weigh the pint of berries, and when they came in less than a pound, she declared triumphantly that they were charging four dollars for less than a pound. I wanted to scream at this woman. How could it not be obvious that these women were going to be able to sell their blueberries at the price they were asking long before the market ended? I got my turn when the customer gave up in disgust. By the way, I have accidentally found out that there are nice ways to get Farmer's Market bargains. I only bring so much cash, and I will often go to a booth with my last two dollars in hand and say, "Can you give me two dollars' worth of those?" The vendors are often very generous, especially if it is close to closing time.

Back to music. I appreciate artists, really I do. They put themselves out there in a way that I can only dream of. A good singer/musician can even enhance a shopping experience, and I have heard some good ones. I have a friend who has played at our local Farmer's Market to much crowd enjoyment. Recently, I was pleasantly surprised by the talents of a Beatles tribute duo, and found myself reluctant to finish shopping, enjoying the bright sunny day and the boppy tunes that seemed to fit well. Today's experience was more typical, though. There is a woman who has a decent voice who sings mostly covers of Brenda Lee songs. That type of music just doesn't seem to fit a Farmer's Market. She clearly has created an entire lounge show in her head. If you're listening as you shop, before you see her, you imagine that she's wearing a long sequined dress and she's being accompanied by a jazz combo. She does a little talking between songs and in the middle of songs, she'll stop singing and say, "C'mon, play it, boys." When you actually make your way over to where she's singing, you'll see a woman standing alone with a microphone and a boom box. Instead of that sequined dress, she's wearing a pair of polyester pants and an oversized print top and she's saying, "Play it, boys" to a CD. Although, in another setting I might enjoy her show, in this setting I feel uncomfortable as I pass her. But at least she can sing. Sometimes the musicians do not have that talent. The music does not drown out the bargain hunters, but just gives me something that I have to try and filter out along with the voices of the shoppers.

Four out of five senses aren't bad, so I'll keep returning, trying to listen to the sounds in my own head, like the voice that keeps telling me that autumn is coming.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

My summer break has ended, though it never feels totally over until the students show up, and that happens in a few days. Of course, the end of summer break means the beginning of hot weather. We have been told to prepare for 40 students in a classroom this year, as opposed to our usual 32. The idea of 40 adolescents being packed into our rooms (fingers crossed about the air conditioning, which often doesn't work when we first return) on a hot day after they have made it through a day that included P.E....well, you get the picture. In California, we're still waiting for the budget to pass, which means that we can't get things we need, like teachers to relieve the class size problem. In addition to all this, we have no network at our school right now, which means no television, printer or internet. It's hard to feel positive, and yet I know that all of our staff will be welcoming and positive on the first day of school. We realize that it is not the fault of children that California makes such a low priority of meeting their needs.

For those of you who don't live in California, or those of you who do live in California but have not visited a school in a bit, let me take you on a tour of a typical classroom at my school. Let me add that my classroom is, luckily, not typical. A few years ago, there was a plan to bring ninth graders to our school, so money was obtained to build them a beautiful new science building, complete with lab facilities. Never mind why it was not considered necessary to have facilities for sixth to eighth graders. The building was built, and the plan to move ninth grade was nixed for many sensible reasons that should have been obvious on the day the plan was hatched. So, we ended up with the type of room that all children should have for a classroom. But, let's visit a more typical room. It has one door and no windows. That's right. Right here in the Bay Area, near the Hayward fault, which could relieve its pressure at any time, we pack up to 42 people into a classroom that has only one exit. Don't worry, though. Every room has a little crowbar and a single gallon of water in case of emergency. The classrooms were pretty small and crowded with 32 desks, but now there are 36, and teachers are having to arrange these desks so that everyone can see the board. Additionally, all of our new students (one of the middle schools in our district was closed at the end of last year due to shrinking enrollment) have created the realization that sixth graders cannot have lockers this year. So, a sixth grade classroom with one door, no windows, 36 desks, and possibly 40 students, will have 40 backpacks packed with books, binders and other things to add to the fun.

It's hard to say who is to blame for this lack of planning and foresight. Anyone you ask will blame it on someone else. The school board, superintendent, state, Democrats, Republicans, foreclosures. The list goes on.

Our school has only three rules, which we spend the entire first week on:
Be Safe
Be Respectful
Be Responsible
It occurs to me that it may be hard to tell kids to follow these rules when they are forced into a system that does not follow the rules. A crowded school is not safe; the situation shows little respect for teachers and other staff or students. Most importantly, the mess I'm walking into was mostly avoidable. In fact, most people at our school who have little power to make decisions (secretaries, custodians, teachers, technicians) can recall at least one time (for most of us, several times) where we made it clear to someone who could make decisions that we were worried about safety, space, technology. Someone needed to be responsible and make the responsible decision. Instead, we got:
"I know it's difficult, but we know that you can make it work."
"Our hands are tied until the budget passes."
"There's a chain of command in this district. Have you gone through it?"

So, here lies the moral dilemma. Society entrusts us with the important job of educating the next generation of adults. Parents trust us to not only educate their children but to keep them safe. What happens when we feel that we can't do both?

Friday, August 8, 2008

Would You Like to Borrow my Tweezers, Ms. Kahlo?

I had a lovely afternoon in San Francisco today, though it started a little less than lovely. I have been enjoying a very quiet summer in the suburbs and I had forgotten how loud a city can be. The difference was pretty jarring. I felt like an aging Southern Belle who needed her "tonic" to soothe her nerves. It was a reminder that I'd better become accustomed to noise again because in two weeks I'm back to seeing 180 adolescents a day. They have city noise beat by many decibels.

PJ and I had a nice lunch and then he very kindly walked me to the Museum of Modern Art and used his membership to get me in, specifically to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit. I often have a love/hate relationship with modern art. Just when I think that I am really enjoying the pieces I'm looking at, I'll turn the corner and be confronted with a giant canvas covered only in white paint and then, instead of thinking that I don't like it or that I don't find it interesting, I get upset because I feel like I should be "getting" some understanding from the piece. I feel like everyone else in the room is thinking about how the white canvas makes you contemplate only texture without figure and color and if they could read my empty thoughts, they would shake their heads sadly and move on to look at the single black box on the floor. So I was grateful to PJ for this quote in his blog from The Cutting Ball Theater's artistic director. Referring to his avant garde festival, the director, Rob Melrose, wrote in the program: "Sit back, enjoy and let your mind be washed over with these beautiful words and images." I decided I would let the art just wash over me and forgive myself for not understanding.

It turns out that this is a much more enjoyable way to see modern art. Don't like the urinal on a pedestal? That's okay; just move on. Leave it to someone else to contemplate the beauty of this common object. Drawn to the giant curtain made of pieces of silk flowers sewn together in a cascade? Excellent! Do not worry that you do not see how the curtain reminds us that negative space is an important aspect of art, as the card on the wall tells us. (By the way, I loved the silk flower curtain for its gigantic size and because someone actually came up with this insane idea, and made me want to go home and make one).

This does make me wonder about modern art. If much of it is made not to be understood but to just wash over you, that makes it very different from any art that came before, in which the point seems to have been either to communicate or to decorate a practical object. Does that make modern artists more self-centered? Should they care whether or not the viewer understands what they are trying to convey?

I saw much that I liked today. I was mesmerized by an area that was painted to appear to be the light and shadow caused by the sun streaming in a window in autumn. The artist had painted the shadows, but it seemed so real. Three different seasons through the same window were depicted in different rooms of the museum. I also loved that an artist had taken simple white shirts and folded them in several different ways. My favorite piece in the museum's permanent collection is Diego Rivera's The Flower Seller . I love it for its spectacular colors and touching depiction of the two workers who must load and carry the flowers, and because most artists paint a picture and then frame it, but Rivera seems to have decided that he had a canvas in a frame and that the figures in the painting would just have to fold and bend their bodies to fill the frame.

And from Diego Rivera we segue into Frida Kahlo. This is an incredibly popular show. The crowds were large, which is a shame because there is definitely an intimacy to Kahlo's work. In fact, I found myself wondering if she ever meant for thousands of people to have this kind of access into her life. The paintings are almost all autobiographical, which is part of what has been responsible for the cult that has grown up around Kahlo. Many different groups of people who see themselves as underrepresented or underserved have seen a fellow sufferer. Add to this that she was completely overshadowed by her more famous husband (who cheated on her with HER SISTER!!!) and you have a bona fide symbol for many causes. Make no mistake. Frida Kahlo did suffer. She was in pretty constant physical pain, she was disappointed in love, and she longed for a child. And this suffering is made palpable in her paintings. I found the most affecting to be one that she painted after learning of one of her husband's affairs. She is lying naked on a bed, her body covered with stab marks and blood. Her husband, fully dressed, looks on. The blood is even smeared onto the frame of the painting.

I felt almost shamed for looking at the paintings. They seemed way too personal to share. And here I was confronted by the opposite of what makes me uncomfortable about modern art. Here I was, being moved but made uncomfortable for the sake of an artist who is long gone. I found myself wondering if maybe she should have not included herself in the paintings. Couldn't she depict her emotional pain using another subject or some abstract figures? So, I stood there in the museum, realizing that maybe I don't want to know so obviously what the painting is about. Maybe I like and understand those canvases with nothing but squares of different colors better than I thought. Still, the paintings were very, very moving, and in many ways as jarring as the outside noise.

If you go, don't miss the photographs or the short film of Kahlo and Rivera. It became clear to me that my image of Frida Kahlo as a shy, simple woman who quietly painted was very wrong. First of all, she was very attractive by today's standards. Her looks were probably pretty exotic for the 1930's, though. I'm pretty sure she knew exactly what she was doing with her famous elegant peasant look. It suited her looks, it made her stand out, and it was easy to accessorize with great earrings and bracelets, along with flowers for her hair. Okay, she should have plucked her eyebrows, but everything else looked good. After viewing these, I came to the conclusion that she probably would have enjoyed her cult status.

Me? I would have hated it.

I left the museum with my new attitude still intact. I let the outside noise wash over me. Thanks to the strong Euro, I heard many different European languages being spoken by tourists. I looked around me to see what they must be seeing for the first time. San Francisco is a great city for tourists. I walked with the stream of tourists to the ferry building, where I always now feel at home. I bought two chickens and some rustic bread and I went home.

A nice way to almost end my summer vacation.