The Illusion of Perfection, Part 2
Ahh… the Illusion of Perfection. So illusory (and elusive) that people actually believe they can not only obtain perfection, but that it might matter.
I have long been called a perfectionist, by myself and others I suspect. My grade school teachers noted it in the way that I worked (or quit working) when something did not come out exactly right on the first attempt. For a long time in my professional life I was convinced, categorically that if I made a misstep in any way shape or form, all would be lost. While there are a lot of advantages (professionally) to this mindset, it does little for sanity, relationships, or general well-being.
And if all is lost, then what do you do? Really? What do you do?
If you are me you spend a lot of time kicking your own ass. This is a drag. In every way imaginable.
For some time now I have been really trying to work out what really does matter. You hear the cliché all them time that on one’s death bed one will not think back on all the work that they did not do, or the worrying that they did not do…
I think (as with many clichés) this may be the real answer.
Could it be that simple?
On April 15, 2012 something happened that has since shaped much of my attitudes about what really might matter. While this was a catalyst for me in some ways, it was something I had been grappling with for much longer. But a catastrophic event can do this to a person… send them further and faster on a train of thought. After April 15 I started thinking about how it might not be the end of the world if I did not grade 120 papers on the exact day I got them. I started to think that in some ways my inability to present perfectly comprehensive and amazing lessons everyday might be acceptable. I thought I might not wash those dishes right then, I might go to bed and let someone rub my head. I looked around and thought, it just might be okay to do nothing for a minute.
In many ways, my present working environment has contributed a great deal to my ability to see that, while perfection may be a worthy goal, it is not a required outcome in order to achieve really amazing, important, valid things. I am working these days with the most creative, flexible, dynamic groups of people I have ever worked with. Without being patronizing or pandering in any way, these folks have a really solid grip on appropriate priorities for the tasks we have at hand. Consequently, they also have a really clear understanding of how to make sure the pursuit of perfection can coexist with the pursuit of happiness (or at the very least satisfaction.)
I can’t really express how grateful I have been for this – especially recently as I grapple with intense grieving for inexplicable losses, true instability as a teacher working in a public school under the painful thumb of state budgets, insane student behavior as spring approaches and I again find myself at the helm of a group of seniors who do not know how to deal with all the emotions associated with the impending transition that high school graduation brings them whether or not they are ready for it.
When I think about all these things – and all the other shit that is strewn across the world and the human race: genocide, poverty, domestic violence, failing economies, war, the mass marketing of fear, global warming, endangered species, racism – suddenly I get a whole new view of what matters. And what does not matter.
What matters? Spending time with the people who enrich your life, whenever you can. Doing things that energize and recharge you. Minding the three gatekeepers of the mouth: The first gatekeeper asks “Is it true?” The second gatekeeper asks “Is it kind? For those who qualify for the first two, there is a final question. The third gatekeeper asks “Is it necessary?”
And what does not matter? Internet trolls, and angry little men in general. A student who is righteously indignant that I took a page out of Mr. Hand’s book and did not allow him to come late to my class with food. A stack of ungraded papers. Handouts stapled imperfectly.
Tonight I will go to the gym and be punished by my trainer and love it. Then I will walk home and cook dinner for the really kind person who came to meet me just so I didn’t have to walk alone. Then I will get to spend time chatting about the things that matter with someone who matters. I will probably do some work to prepare for tomorrow. I will manage any crises I need to, including cleaning the cat box. And I will sleep well. Grateful for the opportunity to do all these things whether I like them or not, for another day.
All is not. lost.
Me & Hunter, together again: Same same but different
It is dark and gross outside this morning and that suits me just fine. And though I wrote about the eerie parallels between my life at this exact moment last year and this year, I really had no idea how parallel they would be. I was unsure how I would feel about these parallels as I got up this morning, but with more coffee and continued dark skies, I feel better than I thought.
I was told yesterday, via a very late-in-the-day email, that I had not been rehired at the school where I worked this year. To say I was shocked would be an understatement, but also inaccurate in some other ways. I was shocked. But I had a feeling, one I could not readily explain or identify, that something was off as I waited all week for the decision. It was a pretty horrible feeling, and the reality of my intuition being correct was little consolation. Then I thought about last year again. I looked over at Matilda, who seems to know when things are not quite right, and remembered how we, or I, felt last year. It was dark and rainy and hot and gross in Hong Kong. She and I were holed up in the apartment in Pak Kok considering our life without Norman. We were very, very sad. Things were very unsettled. But it was how it was.
Now here we are, it is cool and grey and quiet in the Mission and we are safely ensconced in our apartment and we have gotten used to our life without Norm, so I can only imagine that we will also get used to whatever new situation presents itself to us.
I suppose in light of the current circumstances a post similar to this one would be apt. But I am not really in the mood. I feel more like writing something in the vein of my hero Dr. Thompson.
In 1958, Thompson wrote a letter to the Vancouver Sun. I am not sure if would be accurate to say that he was “seeking” a job, but it would be accurate to say that at the time HST was still a relatively unknown and was living in NYC, deeply in debt and drinking like the best of the disreputes. [In terms of parallels, I am not in NYC, nor am I deeply in debt. I am definitely a relative unknown and considering drinking like the best of the disreputes.] Thompson’s letter appears in the book The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 (The Fear and Loathing Letters, Vol. 1). [There are three volumes. Somethings are worth hoarding, for real.]
The letter [with my comments] follows. If you want it without my comments get your own copy of the book. (more…)
A New Situation.
Whenever people ask me about living in Hong Kong they are always curious about the cost of living (well, whenever people my age ask anyhow… there is quite a wide range of questions from the less chronologically proximal demographics). The thing about Hong Kong for me was that it actually was not that expensive. Let me clarify: the necessary costs of living were not that expensive (anyone who knows me is familiar with my tenuous and ambiguous relationship with the need v. want conundrum).
I chose to live in a kind of unusual place, which was not super popular with Package Ex-Pats and true Hong Kongers. Lamma was too far away, they said. The gweilo ghetto, they said. Among other far more odious comments. But it all kept the cost down. I found a great place to live, surrounded be people who stayed removed from the Peyton Place style drama of the main ex-pat hub in Yung Shue Wan. I busied myself with off island activities. By off-island activities I must admit I mean work, at least for the majority of the time I as in Asia. So, I used my home – all 750 square feet of it (with three – yes THREE – bedrooms) – as my place of rest and respite. Unless I was hosting a party, which was known to happen fairly regularly.
So that was the equation. I had a fairly inexpensive living situation (about US$800/month), which was compounded by transportation costs (a boat was required to get off the island) that ended up being about US$300/mo. I pay upwards of US$1500 in San Francisco for about 500 square feet and comparable transportation costs (not matched by service at all, thank you very much Bart.) I spent about US$1100 on the most basic costs there and here it is about US$1800. Another important variable in this equation however, concerns salaries and additional costs of living.
In terms of absolute values, there is not a huge difference here. Though, I would say it is significant and there are other little things here, like banking fees are stupid (I am talking to YOU Wells Fargo), I pay a fee for Netflix (possibly worth it, though I think more expensive than just buying my pirated discs over there), vet care is more expensive, and there are a few other miscellaneous costs I foot here that I did not there. However, behold the chart below.
[Not such] Strangers on a Train.
I am knee-deep in portfolio assessments for my Ap Literature students right now. With a 33″ inseam, this amounts to a substantial pile of work. Fortunately, the vast majority of the portfolios – explorations of a self-selected collection of poets and their works, annotated, analyzed and complemented by original student compositions and graphic contributions – upwards of forty pages each – are stunning exemplars of thoughtful, insightful work (and if the students managed to do this without thought or engagement, they certainly demonstrated a can do attitude to get the grade…) These projects take between 30 and 60 minutes each to grade, depending on the quality. However, this preface is not a complaint at all, I am really enjoying reading the work. It is merely to set the context for this next installment of True Stories.
In order to get through the portfolios before the next coming of Christ, I take three to work with me everyday: one for the train ride to work, one for lunch, one for the train ride home. It is working out.
Yesterday, I was completely engrossed in one of these projects on the train, listening to music, contemplating the rain and heading home. As I was reading I started to get that feeling. You know, the one where you can actually feel someone looking at you? I generally do not engage on Bart, it is just a better strategy. But this feeling was a little different. I looked up at the seat across the aisle to my left and saw a face I recognized immediately. It was this weird feeling like I was seeing someone who I saw everyday.
I have not seen this person since 2002. She was a World History student of mine at Incline High the year before, that would be 2000-2001. We had matching faces of total recognition that can only come when you have lived and worked in a town as small as Incline.
I was staring and I couldn’t figure out if it was you!
Hehhehh… Well, it is. What are yo up to?
I am going to school in Oakland. I was trying to see your handwriting and then I knew it was you!
I looked down at the paper I was grading and the Sharpie in my hand.
The Sharpies… we said together and laughed.
A quick catch up… Me, still teaching after a five-year stint over seas. She, living in Berkeley with her boyfriend and studying to be a physical therapist. Both of us, apparently, looking exactly the same. I’d have known her anywhere and she knew my penmanship. The human experience is amazing.
Exiting the Transbay tunnel she got up: I’ll find you on Facebook!
Yeah, definitely. Great to see you… say hi to the others!
And she exited the train.
And the teacher had a little grin thinking back on all those years, all those faces, all those people, who I am so lucky to be able to recognize in the most random places, on the most mundane of days.
Small world.
Big connections.
It was one year ago, more or less.
Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.
~ Rev. Margaret Shepherd
One year ago March 1, I quit my job. As far as I can recall this is only the second time in my life I have quit a job. [The other time being on the eve of my departure in 2005 when I was denied a sabbatical from my former school district.] This decision was a really big deal to me. It solidified the reality that I would be taking that proverbial leap of faith, in quite a literal fashion.
I had been deliberating the move for a while, but under the radar enough that some people were surprised. I would be walking away from a very lucrative (although overly demanding) job, leaving the home I had made for myself – the first home I had made for myself on my own – ever, relocating my cats, and returning to an America that seemed rather uninviting in the more pragmatic arenas. What would I come “home” to? And would it be “home”? These questions loomed, but for reasons almost beyond my ken, I took the chance. I knew that at the very least, I would be received, supported, taken in, by my family and friends and that somehow, something would arise. I felt ready to take the leap.
This was new.
I had to work for two more months, and they were truly intense months; they did not let me go gently into that goodnight. My boss said he had been sort of waiting for this decision, but hoped he could sway me, that was nice. The only thing I knew, aside from the fact that April 30 would be my last day at work, was that I would spend May in an ashram in Karnataka, India and that I would depart Hong Kong on June 29.
I guess I was ready at a more visceral level than I could have known.
It feels like the first time….
I have always loved this time of the year. I love the fall because where I am from it is one of the most beautiful times of the year because of what we call (likely erroneously – thanks a lot Columbus, you muppet) the Indian Summer. Then again, my love for the fall could be totally to do with my birthday. Or the mind-numbingly awesome opportunities to purchase office supplies.
For whatever reason, I am psyched for the fall more than ever this year. And to be back at the helm of my own classroom next week. It has been five years since I have been in the classroom and I cannot wait, really. Things are going to be different this time for sure, and not just for the passage of time, but because, like the freshmen I will be teaching, I am embarking on something totally new. After something like 14 years as a Social Studies teacher, I am now going to be teaching Literature and English.
Whoa.
I feel like a total rookie, but it’s kind of cool. And the bonus is that I know a little bit more of what to expect than I did as a real rookie, but I have all of that crazy nervous energy that inevitably (hopefully?) translates into high-performance (though it could be mania… sometimes it’s a little hard to tell.) I am thinking about things that I have not considered in a while: class rules, syllabi, organizational strategies that must be completely reconfigured for courses that do not allow me to rest on material and strategies long tested and tried through my career.
Someone I met recently – who has a fairly good idea about teachers, as he is himself a student – said to me, “I just can’t picture you as a teacher…” I am not wholly unused to this observation and it doesn’t bother me in the least. On the contrary I rather enjoy being a bit of a surprise. A week or so later I found myself at Golden Gate Park for Outside Lands where one of the large motivating factors behind my attendance was that I would have a chance to see some of my former students. I told them about the former comment and they laughed saying they could only picture me as a teacher. That made me giggle as I drank my beer and staying true to my affiliation with the group “Intelligent, classy, well-educated women who say “F*ck” a lot.”
The thing is, I am a teacher. And right now I am getting ready to head back to school.
Back. To. School.
I am very curious to see how I have changed as a teacher after five years of teaching overseas and I am even more interested to see how I take to this new curricular challenge. And amidst the the sea of the unknown, what do I know? I know that beyond being fortunate to have a job in this current economic and educational climate, I am working in a good school surrounded by people who seem really interested in teaching. I know that it is a totally different feeling to be around people who are interested in teaching rather than the climate in Hong Kong where teaching is often a default and truly seems one of innumerable bad clichés to do with the Asia ex-pat scene. I know that I am ready to be right here, right now. I know I can do this. I am excited for the challenge of the material and the pace and the opportunity to see what this new direction is all about. At this point I am honestly giving it up to the powers that be to see how it unfolds; I have certainly been well-served by that practice recently, so why fix what is not broken.
Looking back at all the kids I have known before, I am considering what they have taught me about embarking on new things and trusting in the unknown (me) when they had any number of other options. I figure I have taught more than 1,500 kids over the years in some capacity. Not always perfectly or even really well in some cases, but in general… it’s been a pretty cool ride. Time to back back up on that horse.
Welcome back to school, people.
Odd news pairings in the SF Chronicle. Or not.
I went to a new Starbucks on Saturday morning. There are at least three in the immediate vicinity of Tracy’s house where I am currently flopping. That is just how it is in the suburbs/bedroom communities. It’s fine, I mean except for the part about how I should really not be out spending silly amounts of money on mediocre coffee, I do not really have a big issue with Starbucks; at least they are attempting to be a free trade organization, and they did get inside the Forbidden City, which I find hilarious for myriad reasons. Yet I digress.
I sat outside of Starbucks drinking my mediocre overpriced coffee and eating an indulgently unnecessary scone and read the San Francisco Chronicle. The lead articles on the front page were: 1) S.F. to reform 9 schools, shut 1 to get grants, 2) Conservative Justices leaves their mark, 3) Jobless rate falls as many quit looking and 4) Race Relations: ‘Fight of the Century’ – a century later. I wondered aloud if the connections were on purpose or coincidental. They seemed pretty obvious, so I am going to assume that the synchronous nature of the front page was not inadvertant. And I began to read.
(more…)
Damn it feels good to be a gangster…
Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you’d do if you had a million dollars and you didn’t have to work. And invariably what you’d say was supposed to be your career. So, if you wanted to fix old cars then you’re supposed to be an auto mechanic. I never had an answer.
Today is my last day at work. I feel totally gangster about this. I feel like such a gangster because, for the first time that I can remember, I am going forward without a plan totally lined up. This may not actually be gangster, it may actually be total lunacy. But I am rolling with it. Someone sent me the link to the Johnny Paycheck classic, Take This Job and Shove It, which made me laugh (I actually prefer Canibus/Biz Markie version, but anyway…) Still, that song does not really capture how I feel about this change. You see, I like my job. This has been a very mutually beneficial employment situation for nearly four years (a milestone in itself because I broke the “three-year hurdle” for the first time ever) and I am not leaving with any sort of animosity. I love the kids I work with, and have worked with, here and I have learned a ton. I have experienced the total ridiculousness of office politics [it is pretty bloody sad to literally not recognize your own sorry ass in a photo, but that is a story for another day] and not gotten dragged into them, resisted the temptation to lambast the instigators, and I have come out ahead. WAY ahead. (Another new skill to add to that old ‘Life Experiences’ CV.)
No, today I feel free, but in an interesting way; dare I say contemplative, rather than unhinged.
Things that I would expect to totally put me over the edge, like creative accounting, micro-managing, and general office silliness… just don’t matter. It all is what it is. I feel grateful to be able to have the opportunity to do something different. I am pleased when I look at my office and realize I am not coming back. I am ready to do something really different and to work out my own answer for the Geto Boys question:
“Cause when the fire dies down what the fuck you gonna do?”
Well, actually? In five minutes I will be joining friends for margaritas in Lan Kwai Fong and then in 24 short hours I will be boarding a plane for Bangalore and I am going to take it from there.
“Damn it feels good to be a gangsta!”
“I’m not really a waiter…”
You have heard it a million times before if you have spent any time in Southern California… In Hong Kong, the equivalent is, “I’m not really an English Teacher…”
But the question is, “Well, then what are you?’ Of course, in LA, all the waiters are actors, the baristas are writers and the valets are directors.
In Hong Kong it is a little different, but more like the “same same but different” kind of different. Kindergarten English Teachers are gap year backpackers, ex-pat moms, or creepy American dudes who need an extended visa. Government NETs are teachers who don’t really like teaching but like the schedule so they hide out in the New Territories in hulking government primary and secondary schools. International school teachers are their own private clique who may or may not have taught in their home country, but feel they can look down on all the rest of the teachers around them. Private English tutors are the ones who didn’t fit the bill elsewhere. [Shit, guess what category I am in?] Since I have been in Hong Kong I have become embarrassed to admit what I do for a living – I got to great lengths to not have to tell people I teach, and then have to explain where, and that I do not teach English. Whenever someone asks a Westerner who is not a banker what they do for a living here the expectation is that they will say they are a teacher. And honestly, ANYone can be a teacher here. You do not need credentials, or you can buy them on the street in various places, you basically need to be pale-faced, have a pulse and speak English (in my experience you don’t even have to really be able to speak it well.) You do not need to have a college education nor do you need experience. So, actually, I guess people are correct when they say they are ‘not really a teacher.’ Many people will tell you they are “Teaching, but only until… [their book is published] [their business opens] [their free-lance photography studio hits the ground running] [they get their next 'Big Break']…” I look for all sorts of reasons to avoid explaining what I do for work, or I simply cut to the chase and make a joke about it, because the inevitable reply to the “I’m a teacher” response is the raised eyebrow, “Oohhhh, yeah. Right” conversation-ender. And then you have dodge the “Those who cannot do, teach…” comment that is the barely euphemistic euphemism to indicate that it is such a shame you couldn’t get a real job.
I have always loved my job, seriously. I have not enjoyed every minute of it and I have certainly not loved every person I have worked with [some have been down right loathsome... Hello, Charlie Walsh.] But I have always loved my work. I have been a high school teacher since 1995. That is a complete trip when I think about it, almost fifteen years. I suppose that qualifies as a career. The data says that someone my age will have changed jobs an average of ten times. In fact in 2007, 50% of employed people had been with their current job for less than five years. So, in a way I am a bit of an anomaly. I am part of Generation X – the group born between 1961 and 1981, and having been born in 1970, the lowest birth rate in the 20-year span, I am yet again, an anomaly. Or perhaps just more X-like. And Gen-X people are supposed to be reactive and nomadic and somehow less grounded than their predecessors. This seems to bear out for the most part when I look around, but I am not sure what the long-term effects of this might be. My logical mind tends to think that those less compelled to stick with one singular professional destination are more likely to open doors, minds and the far frontiers. To this end, I have been wondering lately about where my professional road will be headed in the next few years. And that in itself is totally bizarre behavior for me because I am a teacher. It is sort of the only thing I have really done professionally – ever.
Not too long ago, while lamenting the employment situation in the US, where I hope to return, I expressed with frustration to my BFF, “That the only thing I could do was teach, it is all I have ever done…” Though I did not realize it at the time, she told me later that had been one of the most depressing things she had ever heard me say. This was not totally logical to me at first, but then I realized she just meant that there were so many other options that I was not considering because of my history as a [history] teacher. And what does history itself teach us? Certainly that nothing really remains the same; you know that old river might look the same, but as they say, you are never really stepping in the same one twice.
And so, consider the irony: I have just lambasted people for saying they are not really teachers, when, according to my own definition they are not teachers, and then I turn around and begin to consider what else I may be able to do after teaching has been tiding me over all this while. Hm. Hypocrites are us.
And what would I do if I did not teach? Am I the barista who is a writer? The teacher who is a photographer? The malingerer who would shirk all work for the chance to bang on a drum all day? I still love teaching, and I think I am kind of okay at it, so I wouldn’t mind carrying on. Mostly this rant is just about embracing change and realizing that one’s talents are not really limited by titles nor should they be pigeon-holed by professional labels or misnomers.
2010 is looking to be verrrrry interesting by all accounts.
Considering the Polish Revolution of 1980-81.
You probably don’t consider the extent to which the Roman Catholic Church was responsible for the Polish Revolution in 1908 very often, but I am in the middle of helping someone revise more than 5,000 words on the subject.
And I am enjoying it.
Seriously.
I love my job… how cool is that?
I am also reading about how the bid-rent theory does not apply in Hong Kong, the influence of Japanese art in Impressionism (known as Japonisme), the degree to which Hitler was a product of his time versus his personality, the long term intellectual effects of the Cultural Revolution in China and more college essays than I can count…. “A significant event….” “A setback….” “Page 217 of your 300 page autobiography….” “Describe the world you come from…” “Why does Harvard/Yale/Penn/Michigan/NYU/Cal/UCLA/Stanford/MIT/Columbia/Princeton need you….”
It is some fascinating stuff and I am not being facetious (purposefully amusing) or trying to sound grandiloquent (speaking in a pompous manner) or suggesting I have unparalleled acumen (quickness of intellectual insight) or unusual aplomb (great confidence and poise).
These kids are getting ready to get out there and start living in some of the most uncertain times and I am watching with baited breath and my usual annoying optimism. It sure takes me back to a happy place.
But not as happy as the one I am in now.
And if you are curious, I think I have been convinced that the Church was pretty damn important in the Polish Revolution as the served as the cultural and national epicenter for a nation of disgruntled Poles.
After all, the Pope was Polish.
Amanda
