View from Valhalla

Category: Soapbox

  • Perspective

    Perspective. How many times have I lost it? How many times must I be reminded?

    I’ve had an interesting day to say the least. I’ll start by giving you a little of the backstory of my life.

    In November of 2007, two momentous events happened in my life. First, we had a scare with a fatal contagious disease due to my wife’s work as an RN. If she had been infected, chances were strong that our then 11 month old would have been exposed too.

    When we got the news, I felt like I couldn’t breath. We had been having such a beautiful life and to think that it could all be taken away? Wow.

    Well, as bad as that was, more was added. Less than two weeks later, the weekend before the baby’s first birthday, I was sacked. Yep, just like those responsible for the Moose in the credits. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as humorous in real life.

    It was a pretty dark time for me and my wife. Through it all we were supported by our families and the few folk that could be truly classified as friends. And we had our faith. Or maybe that should be Faith.

    I haven’t gotten preachy on my blog to this point, but I truly do believe that God is a being that sent a son to earth, and that regardless of his human name, this Son was sacrificed on a cross and rose again. If you wish to discuss this more with me, there is always the comment section and I’ll be happy to discuss this with you in other appropriate forums as well.

    Anywho, these events brought my life into glaring focus. They gave me back my Perspective. Faith, family and friends (wish for a few more, but again, perspective). During 2008, life was pretty bleak from the outside. I was persona non grata in my chosen profession due to the malicious effect of my previous employer and completely unemployed through March of that year. At that point, I had a call from an old friend who still worked with a mutual previous employer and they needed some temp work completed. It involved using Adobe InDesign, and since I had been their trainer in that app while I was there, it was natural that they ask if I had the time. I had nothing but. So then I was a temp for the better part of the next six months. At which time I was picked up by the same employer that had been using me as a temp, BUT rather than employee in the field for which I have studied, I was hired to be a Social Studies Specialist. Wow. Never saw that coming.

    But you know what? Perspective. I have a job. Might not be the one I would have chosen, but I am valued and know that I am doing a decent job. I am thankful for what I’ve been given.

    Soon after being hired, that last of the series of tests came back clearing my wife of all infection. That is the biggest relief of my life. Nothing else really matters.

    Yes, other things have happened. We had EXTENSIVE repair work done on the foundation of our house. More than half of what I made during the entire year would be needed to pay that bill. Yesterday, we learned that approximately 3k more needs done. AND following directly on that was a call from my mom (or mum as some would say) letting me know that she had just found out that she has at least one instance of basal cell carcinoma. Again, it’s hard to breath. But you know what? Perspective. Again.

    When I got the news concerning the house, I was mad, hurt, upset, and worried about the money. After my mom called, well, the house is just a house. Money is just money. If the house fell down and we were bankrupt, somehow, we would go on. Researching basal cell also put into perspective how much worse this could be. (Basal cell carcinoma is a type of skin cancer. Thankfully, it has a 90% recovery rate and usually is easily treatable.) My mother’s biopsy results haven’t been returned yet. But I do have my Faith and I do believe it will be all right.

    In reflection, I hope that I learn to keep Perspective during the good times, and not have to be reminded solely when trouble rears it’s ugly head. I also find it somewhat ironic that, although I’m far from a quiet person, some of the people I feel closest to these days (outside my family) are people I’ve never even met. Just saying. ,)

    Faith, family, friends. Perspective.

    —

  • How did I get here? pt. 2

    Well, as of August 15, 1990, I knew several things. I now truly knew what humidity was. I now knew that some people had preconceptions about those of us that drive red sports cars. AND, I knew that men did not teach reading in South Texas.

    More realizations were coming. Believe me.

    The first morning of new teacher orientation we were each assigned a mentor teacher. Mine was named Nancy. She had an acerbic tongue and a sarcastic wit. In other words, she was my kind of mentor! We hit it off pretty well.

    During the first orientation meeting, we were given our room assignments, given the SOP manual and told to meet with our mentor.

    I found Nancy, and when asked, informed her that I had been placed in room 401b. She gave me a blank stare, and uttered these fateful words. “401b? We don’t have a room 401. Wait a minute…. 401… that’s the supply closet!”

    And yes… she was right. A supply room indeed. Not only that, it was still full of “supplies”. No windows. Dark. I asked when it would be ready and was told by the end of the day. This was also true. IF, you count a completely bare room with no furnishings and a six inch diameter 2 in deep pile of sawdust left in the middle of the room. But it could have been worse, at least they left me a vacuum.

    After cleaning the room, I went on a scavenging mission that ended with one teacher’s desk with 3 legs (I duct taped a broom stick cut to the appropriate length for the fourth) and three 3′ by 5′ tables for the students. Nancy was also right that 401 was a shared classroom. A shared classroom, in this district at least, simply meant that there were two “classes” in the same physical room. In my case, it was to be a mixed grade shared room. I would be teaching the aforementioned math, science and social studies to a group of 5th graders in the morning, and a group of 6th graders in the afternoon.

    The next day, during day two of orientation, I was given my homeroom roster. I would be working with 18 fifth graders.  I started looking a little bit closer at my roster and noticed two things. One, the average age of my fifth graders was 13. Now if you have children, are a teacher, or just can remember back that far, you might know the age for a child entering fifth grade should be 10. The second thing I noticed was that of my 18 students, 15 were boys. If you’ve ever been in an elementary classroom, you know what that means.

    I have to admit that at this point, my anxiety level was starting to rise. I was experiencing more than a bit of trepidation. I tried to write it off as first year jitters and bravely journeyed on.

    In the afternoon I found out that the lady who was to have been my partner and teach both sets of students reading and language arts had decided to bail. I guess she had been having a bit more trepidation than I had, or maybe she was just smarter. LOL

    With school starting the next day, I didn’t know what was going to happen with this. I was having “day”mares about ending up teaching both classes. This was one of those cases where the reality of the situation was worse than the anticipation. With no teacher being available for the class, the next option was to place a permanent substitute in the classroom. Mrs. T had picked up one year of college along the way and so was now qualified to be a substitute. She had no teaching background and was brought in more as a classroom management tool than as any hope to provide an education.

    Well, now we have arrived at the first day of school. My hopes of going to school in shorts was drastically laid to rest, as the dress code for males included a long sleeve shirt and tie. Yes, in August, 90%+ humidity, temperature over 100 F most days, we were in long sleeve shirts and ties. But hey, it could have been worse. Stated in the SOP manual, females were required to wear “appropriate undergarments”. I never was quite sure what happened that brought that requirement around, or who was responsible for making sure it was being followed.

    When I arrived at my classroom, I noticed a post-it on my door from the principal asking me to report to his office. Yep, first day of school, kids hadn’t even arrived and I was all ready ending up in the principal’s office. I dutifully walked over and knocked on his door. Mr. H opened the door and asked me to come in and have a seat. In my experience, this usually isn’t a good thing. This really wasn’t an exception either. At least he cut right to the chase.

    “Odin, did I mention that we were certifying you as an emergency bilingual teacher?”

    After I picked my jaw off the ground I stuttered out, “But I don’t speak Spanish!”

    Mr. H looked rather nonplussed and replied, “We know,  but being certified as an emergency bilingual teacher, you don’t need to. This gives us the ability to have a qualified teacher in the classroom for all students.”

    Which sounds good in theory, but what good would it do to have a qualified teacher in a classroom speaking a language that was substantially different from the students?

    He must have seen that deer in the headlights look flash across my face because he then hurriedly assured me that all my students had at least rudimentary English language skills, but spoke Spanish at home.

    Well, feeling rather shell-shocked I wandered back to my classroom and met my first student. His name was R and I still remember him vividly all these years later.

    R boldly strode up to me and stated, “Sir I need to share.”

    Now of course, I was more than a little surprised, but students sharing with you is supposed to be a good thing, so naturally I was excited. R had a thick accent, indicative of being a native Spanish speaker, but he spoke clearly and with confidence. This was a great start!

    With a smile on my face, I looked R dead in the face and replied, “That’s great R! What would you like to share? I want you to know that whatever you want to share, you can trust me!”

    R looked at me like I had just spoken to him in a foreign language. He cocked his head a bit to the side and blurted, “No sir, a share. I need a share. You know, so I can sit down?”

    And here was my introduction to the common phoneme switch of sh and ch that many native Spanish speakers have trouble with when learning the English language.

    I wish I could say the rest of the year went up from there, but there were too many incidents to have made it a success.

    I truly feel sorry for those students that had me as a first year teacher. They were unique and came with issues of their own, but during that first year, I surely didn’t do much to help. I was trying merely to survive.

    I’ll never forget B. B was a cute little lady that channeled a demon. She had light hair and light eyes that I later found out is a heritage of the Spanish strain in the Mexican populace. Light hair and eyes also make you VERY popular in South Texas.

    I had been informed by the administration that I needed to be teaching Sex Ed to my sixth grade students. Mixed class with boys and girls. Now, my sixth graders were also a couple of years older then the 11 that is the average for entering sixth graders. I’m convinced many of them were all ready sexually active. I was more than a little cautious when approaching this topic, and decided to take the safe scientific route. Lets just forget the sensory organs involved and go straight to the sperm, the egg, and the uterus. Had just finished discussing implantation when B raised her hand.

    “Yes B, do you have a question?”

    “Yes, I’m not having my period yet, so I can have sex and not worry about getting pregnant, right?”

    I doubt I have to tell you that all the boys in the class were suddenly much more interested in the conversation. I did the only thing I could think of doing. I sent her to the counselor.

    I could tell many more stories similar to this from that first year. I could tell how the principal in charge of completing my first evaluation didn’t show up, because she had went to another teacher that had “come down” from up north, and he had performed poorly, and “since you all look alike anyway” didn’t figure I would be any better. (Yes, that was actually said to my face.) I could tell stories of students lying to their parents to get out of trouble and the conflicts that ensued.  There probably is no end to the stories that came out of that first year.

    But you know what? I’m still here. No, I am no longer in the classroom. I still don’t speak Spanish (though I have tried to learn). I now work with teachers and administrators, helping them gain the knowledge they need to successful. Of the teachers that moved down at the same time I did, there aren’t many left. I have reasons for remaining that are my own, and not related at all to education, but the valley has ended up being very good to me.

    This is where I met the love of my life. This is where I married her. This is where our son was born.

    I hope as you’ve read this you can see some of the humor in some of the situations, because that is how I look at them now. They’ve helped me become the man that I am. I bit more sarcastic then when I arrived, but not in a biting way I hope. Life is good, you just have to find that goodness. (And yes, now that you’ve gotten to the end, you now know why this is a soapbox piece.  .)

    —

  • How did I get here? pt. 1

    In the spring of 1990, the world was a fearsome, awesome place to me. I was months away from graduating from the University of Wyoming with a degree in Elementary Education and a double minor in Reading and Middle School. I had, of course, been submitting resumes all over my home state of Wyoming, and I had hopes of landing a position and never moving from the state. Well, as the weeks rolled on, and no one in my graduating class seemed to be having much luck, it became apparent that teaching jobs in Wyoming were going to be hard to come by.

    It seems that although Wyoming is the least populated state in the union (yes, including Alaska) that the people that call it home often become enamored with it and rarely, by choice, leave. This is true with the ones that had teaching positions there in 1990 at least. I don’t remember the numbers, but we seniors were given a list of the number of reported vacancies for the coming fall, and those numbers weren’t promising.

    With this information, it seemed prudent to me to begin looking outside the borders of my home. There was a nationwide job fair being held just a few hundred miles from my university, so I brushed up my sparse resumé, printed off a slew (on a 24 pin dot matrix printer, wow) and braved the wilds of the unknown.

    The fair was huge and had recruiters from all over the United States. It took place in a large ballroom and each recruiter had a small table with a banner hung above it proclaiming whom they represented. It was to be a two day fair, where on the first day you dropped off your resume and filled in an application. On day two, you were to return to the tables you were interested in, and they would have posted the people they wanted to interview.

    There were representatives from both coasts and as close to the northern and southern border as you could wish. On the first day, I dutifully went by the tables of Idaho, Utah, Montana and even (the dreaded rival) Colorado (just too many dang people). I also stopped by the table from Orange County, CA as I had a good friend living there at the time and thought that might be fun.

    As I was walking past a table placed in an out of the way corner, the little recruiter came out from around the table and stopped me and asked the question I’ll never forget, “Have you ever considered working in Texas?” My fateful response was, “I’ll work anywhere that offers me a contract.” His immediate reaction was to hand me one. I was a might shocked. He told me to look it over and come back the next day.

    Well, I thought about it more than a bit that night. The school district he was representing was located in the Rio Grande Valley, 10 miles from the Rio Grande River and Mexico. Included in the literature were statistics of the area. More than 93% hispanic. Yearly average temperature in the mid-80’s. Starting pay of 21,000.

    Well, the first didn’t bother me at all. My small town was far from culturally diverse, but we always had a large summer migrant population that worked the sugar beat fields of our town and I had known many people from Mexico and Southern Texas that I liked. I can still affirm that race makes little difference to me. There are good and not so good folks of all colors and creeds. It’s who you are, not what your born that makes a difference.

    The second figure bothered me a bit. I liked seasons. I liked winter. I hated heat. I’d never known humidity. But how bad could it be, really? Besides, with weather like that, maybe they would let me wear shorts to work. You never know, it could happen.

    The third figure hooked me. Remember, this was 1990. The average starting teacher salary for the United States was 18,000. AND, I was moving to a Valley. I’d always wanted to live in a valley!

    The next day I went back to the table of the man from Texas. He asked if I had any questions. I believe I replied, “No” (remember, I was a 22 year old college kid that had never lived outside Wyoming).

    Through the rest of that summer, I tried to get my life ready for the move. I bought a new used car (a very smart/necessary purchase being that it was an 8 year old Trans Am, lol), called the Chamber of Commerce to get a listing of available domiciles, and began winnowing down a life’s worth of possessions. The list was surprisingly short at: books (first and foremost), component stereo system I had been working on for years, and my clothes.

    Well, as August approached, I rented a place sight unseen. It was a 14′ wide mobile home, furnished for $350 a month. I had electricity and phone connections set up to take place before I arrived and everything seemed to be in place.

    About one third of the way through August, I loaded up my T/A and headed south. I traveled down I-25 until it turns into I-10 in El Paso and then I followed I-10 east until I hit a small town called Junction (yes, its there, you can check) and then took a state highway down to Laredo. In Laredo, they were doing roadwork, and before I knew it I had ended up over the bridge into Mexico. Well I knew that wasn’t right, so I turned around, dropped my T/A in a ditch, almost didn’t get it out, then had it overheat on the bridge waiting to get back into the States. Once back, I let it cool down, added more coolant (South Texas in August is a very hot place) and headed east once again. You can call it the Zapata Highway, you can call it State Highway 83, you can call it the Highway to Hell (I’ve heard all three), but whatever you call it, it will lead you into the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

    Along the way I kept wondering when I would enter a valley. Nineteen years later, I’m still wondering. You see, the valley of which they speak is in actuality a broad river basin. There is NO appreciable rise to the countryside. I live 70 miles (113 km) from the beach, and I live at 16′ (4.9 m)elevation. Not much rise.

    Upon arriving at my new home, I realized I was the only one under the age of 55 living there. It seems I had moved into a Winter Texan (you can say Snow Bird if you prefer) park. It was quite funny. The speed limit in the park was 10 miles an hour. I would be driving my little red sports car through the park with the t-tops off, well under the speed limit, and some retiree would pass me in a golf cart and yell “Slow down!!” Don’t get me wrong. Half the people that lived in the park with me treated me like their favorite long lost grandson. The other half, well, not so much.

    Having arrived two days ahead of the first day of new teacher orientation, I went to the Central Office Administration building to ask which campus I had been assigned to. After learning it was one of the older elementary school’s in town, I proceeded to the Principal’s office to inquire about my new position.

    Upon meeting the principal, he ushered me into his office and asked me what my minor was in. I told him Reading, and he looked me directly in the face, and replied, “Men don’t teach reading, you’ll be teaching math, science and social studies”. I guess that was the first time I asked, “Did I make the right decision?”

    If you want to find out, check back in a few days when I post the conclusion to “How did I get here?”

    —

  • I remember Joe

    For those of you who don’t know about Joe, I encourage you to visit http://teemorris.com/2009/03/31/i-remember-joe-2009/ and click on the link for the audio at the bottom of the post.

    In reality, I can’t say I remember Joe personally, but the overwhelming support his rememberance has stirred in the ‘verse has been phenomenal and encouraging.

    My father is a survivor of colon cancer. I can honestly say that I don’t know if people really can understand what it means until someone they are close to is afflicted with this terrible disease.

    I look forward to a time when cancer in all forms has been eradicated, and when it is, I hope we all still will be remembering Joe.

    —

    ,

  • Why not Weather Child?

    If you haven’t heard of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series, you must not have been paying attention during the last year.

    The topic of this post is not the Twilight series of books. You probably all ready have your opinion of them anyway. I am going to try to examine, however, an inadequacy (as I see it) in the publishing industry, and I will be using Twilight to try and make the point.

    Ms. Meyer’s books have become a world wide phenomenon. There are four books in the series with the first all ready made into a hit movie and the second in production. Great for Ms. Meyer’s and her copious fans.

    I am really not trying to lambast Ms. Meyer’s or her work in any way. However, now we’re getting to the meat of the issue. I am not a publisher, nor am I an editor or a literary agent. I am a voracious reader and will get new story content any (legal) way I can. I have long been a subscriber to podiobooks.com (and you should be too) and regularly haunt the literature category over at iTunes. I have heard some great stuff and some not so great stuff. I have many of my new favorite authors due to podcast novels. (Just an aside, but if you have similar patterns, see if your favorite podcasting author has any books in print, possibly from a small publisher, and consider making a purchase. You can also donate over at Podiobooks and you might consider doing so if you can.) I am always anxiously awaiting anything new from Tee Morris (Morevi- also my favorite hardcopy novel right now, you’ve got to read these books- and Billibub Baddings novels), Scott Sigler (Ancestor, Earthcore, The Rookie, Nocturnal, Infected, and Contagious) Phil Rossi (Cresent and Eden), Mur Lafferty (too many to mention, but check out the Heaven series and Playing for Keeps) and Philippa Ballantine (Chasing the Bard, Digital Magic – in print only so far – and, the reason for this posting, Weather Child). Most, if not all, of these authors will be happy to talk to you on twitter.

    If I were a publisher, whatever my reasons might have been, Twilight never would have seen the light of day. (And before you ask, yes, I did read it and all of the sequels.) Now, from a publishing standpoint, this would have been a nightmare. These books have caught the attention of a generation of readers whether I appreciated them or not. And more importantly, whether I thought they would have sold or not. If I had passed on these books with the comment to the author along the lines of “There are enough vampire love stories in the world all ready,” I definitely would have missed out on the paycheck of a lifetime.

    I have questioned time and again how books I feel are poorly written, have rehashed story lines, weak one and two dimensional characters and holes in the plots large enough for a whole pack of werewolves to trot through end up with publishing deals while works such as Weather Child, which through seven episodes (as of this moment) are deemed as unlikely to be able to garner an American audience as we are too nationalistic to enjoy a tail that takes place in New Zealand. (Yes, that is the reason Ms. Ballantine was given for the manuscript’s rejection.) Why does this happen? Do certain authors “make it” because they have more agressive agents, etc. or do they impress that one publisher that is going to champion their cause? I don’t know.

    I seriously have no answers, I just see injustices. Why do I care? Well that’s simple: because it is keeping books like Weather Child from gracing my nightstand.

    If you haven’t been listening to Weather Child, I strongly suggest you give it a listen. Ms. Ballantine and her minimal cast are doing a wonderful job keeping me entertained with a wonderfully dark story of magic, possession, intrigue and I sense romance in the first quarter of twentieth century New Zealand. You can find Weather Child at http://www.weatherchild.com,
    http://www.pjballantine.com, iTunes or Podiobooks. After the first episode, I bet you’ll be thinking, “Sweet bacon! I need more!”

    —