Paleo Procrastinator

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Semester turns my dining room table into an office.

I cannot believe Semester is already circling me like the rabid hyena he is. Classes start Monday, and not only am I not ready, I’m already way behind. This will be my first semester back full time since BS, and while I had good intentions of prepping non-stop over the summer, I mostly recuperated from last spring’s half-time semester and continued my post-stroke recovery. 

I’m headed back to class with a sharp mind (though my brain’s processing speed is definitely slower and has occasional momentary “brown-outs”), impaired short-term memory (I now make notes for everything), some vocal damage that gives me a hushed, breathy, sometimes croaky voice, and a body that is clumsier, slightly off-balance, and easily fatigued. I will sit down to teach this semester, though I am, by nature, a pacer.

Parmesan "crackers" with tuna.

Mini cheesecakes are saving my life.

I’ll be teaching one combined composition/remedial writing class and two intro to literature classes, and I’ll serve as the fearless leader for the U’s literary & creative writing student organization, the Vermillion Literary Project (VLP - http://sites.usd.edu/projlit/). In all-day meetings yesterday, I was introduced to two more (as-yet non-functional) crumpled wads of confusing technology I’ll be required to use, which doesn’t do a thing for my ballooning pre-semester anxiety, and which will probably leave me no time to actually TEACH.

Tuna salad lettuce wraps.

So am I madly prepping today? Yes and no. Because just in case I’m not torturing myself quite enough with pre-semester jitters, I’ve also been on a no-carb diet for almost three weeks. I’m eating so much meat, poultry and fish, I’m developing fangs & fur. I’d rather starve than eat one more Brussels sprout (which I used to love). I love, follow, and admire every low-carb blogger out there, like they were my children. I eat things called “fat bombs.” I’ve nixed bread, pasta, rice, noodles, potatoes, and anything sweet that isn’t made with stevia. I hope I don’t accidentally eat my students.

My friend, sister-in-law, and niece are also doing no-carb, so we commiserate and trade recipes. My favorites so far are these:

Fat bombs: http://dietketo.com/keto-food/fat-bombs/

Parmesan Crisps: http://untilthethinladysings.blogspot.com/2013/02/twice-baked-parmesan-crackers.html

Zuchini “Noodles”: http://www.spendwithpennies.com/creamy-zucchini-noodles-ready-3-minutes/

Mini Cheescakes: http://www.nuttyabouthealth.com/2013/01/13/low-carb-cheesecake-cupcakes/

My new hangout.

As if to thumb his nose at me even more, Semester is arriving with 92-degree temps, after a long stretch of too-cold-for-the-beach days, as if to say, “Here’s your summer at last. Now get to work.” Okay, fine. I’ll whip up a little tuna salad on a lettuce leaf wraps, then I promise I’ll finish that homework schedule and update the VLP promo materials. Or I’ll take a nap. Or I’ll knit. Or I'll blog. Or I’ll write a poem…about sugar & Doritos.

Stroke Recovery & Teaching: the REAL Catch 22

I am TOTALLY grateful (to the point of weeping whenever I let myself really think about it) that my stroke last October was a mild one. A mild right ischemic brainstem stroke, to be precise. My left side was affected. But 8 months, lots of doc visits, oodles of PT, and tons of rest later, I can walk, talk, think, write, cook, knit, mow my lawn, and my singing voice is finally starting to come back. In fact, anything I could do before the stroke, I can do now…just slower, clumsier, and with occasional difficulty.

In some ways, folks like me who have mild strokes are caught in a Catch 22. From outward appearances, we look fine. So people who don’t know about my stroke expect me to be my former stress-driven, obsessively perfectionist, overachiever self: Another nap?!? are you kidding? do you have the flu? are you narcoleptic or just lazy?

Even people who know about the stroke forget that outward appearances can be deceiving. What they can’t see, they forget about, like the mysterious fog that sometimes settles around my brain. My memory can be spotty, and some things my brain stored pre-stroke are probably gone for good. I sometimes momentarily forget really basic stuff, like how to brake the riding mower I’ve operated for 6 years, or why I put a spoon in the freezer.

The old me.

Most people also can’t tell that depending on how tired I am, my nervous system load, barometric pressure, planetary alignment, or my crapshoot theory of life, the left side of my body may or may not cooperate. My left foot sometimes thinks it has cleared the next step, when it really has only lifted an inch off the ground. My writing & emails can be full of supplemental “S”s, upper-case letters, or random numbers/spaces, because my left hand (for now at least) doesn’t always navigate space with the precision I used to take for granted.  Other stuff people don’t see? My constant companion fatigue, an occasional locking jaw, sore or stiff muscles (sometimes from breathing or holding myself upright), rare but annoying confusion…the list of minor gliches is long.

The Catch 22? I’m not “disabled” enough to qualify for disability (even a neurologist can’t “see” most of what’s going on in my brain); in less than 6 months, I used up 15 years’ worth of accrued sick leave, so I can’t work reduced hours anymore; I need my job benefits (O nationalized healthcare…where ARE you?) too badly now to lose them switching to part-time adjunct; I live in South Dakota, where a less rigorous, less stressful full-time job probably pays 3 live chickens and a sack of flour...per year. So, because I have a mortgage and a car, and because I must have only the darkest, oiliest decaf coffee beans on the planet, I’m going back to teaching full-time this fall—a very hard decision.

I recently asked a friend how she managed to teach 6 classes in a semester and not jump off the student union building. Her answer was an “AHA!” moment for me. She said, “I’m a good teacher, but I’m not great.” I think she’s lying, and she probably IS great, but the AHA! for me wasn’t that I need to lower my standards; it’s to be less hard on myself.

The new me.

Here's the deal: the job will not be less stressful or demanding this fall than it was before the stroke. So I will have to be different. I'll manage stress better (meditation, sleep, good nutrition, as much exercise as I can manage). I'll rest when I need to. I’ll be honest (even with myself) about my limits and occasional need for help. I'll cast out my overachiever, competitive, perfectionist, SuperWoman demons. I'll say NO when I need to. I'll focus more on my students, less on my need to exceed. I'll laugh more. I'll relax more. I'll bring my humanity back into the classroom. I'll watch this Taylor Mali vid once a week - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU. I'll be less tired, more inspired. I'll be a good teacher.

I'll save the world...tomorrow.

For most of my life, I have suffered from SS (Superwoman Syndrome). The syndrome affects mostly women born after WWII and includes a belief that one can—and must—single-handedly save the world, while simultaneously feeding, nurturing, protecting, cleaning up after, loving, and being loved by every skin-y, feathery, furry, and scaly critter on the planet.

Because of the delusional thinking common to sufferers of SS, I thought I could casually stroll back into teaching darn-near full time at Little Town U a mere 10 weeks after having a stroke. O, what a poor, misguided fool I was!

I did a fair job (I think) of covering up the lingering aftereffects of the stroke, but covering takes enormous energy and left me running on fumes. And the need to get grades done on time, plus my pesky SS, make especially troubling my post-stroke difficulty focusing, paired with short-term memory wormholes. For me, grading requires total concentration and huge chunks of quiet, uninterrupted time. But this scattery brain can make things take much longer; it’s tough to focus on a student’s argument that Katniss Everdeen is a reinterpretation of the Greek goddess Diana when my thoughts are zig-zagging like cartoon lightning bolts. 

Here’s a peek inside my post-stroke/SS brain:

Google student’s reference to Wingshooter’s Guide to South Dakota.

Cool! Look at that hummingbird nest!

(Ding) Check Facebook.

Yikes! Migrating hummingbirds can’t find enough food because of cold, late spring.

Go outside and get hummingbird feeders.

Put them in a sink full of soapy water to soak.

Do I boil water and add sugar, or add sugar THEN boil the water? Google.

Wow, I should try this dog biscuit recipe.

Grocery list: liver, quinoa, eggs, millet flour, kale.

I wonder if the coffee stain came out of my nightgown?

Yikes! Look at the lint screen!

I’d better change the batteries in the smoke alarms.

(Ding) Check Facebook.

That moth can’t be real. Google “Poodle Moth.”

I wonder if anyone’s ever crossed a poodle with a papillion? Google.

Check Humane Society puppy list.

Find Jada, put aloe on her sore foot.

Take the dogs for a walk on the trail.

Wait a minute…where’d the hummingbird feeders go?

Oh yeah. Scrub & rinse.

Google homemade humming bird food. Make it, put it in the fridge to cool.

I should grade a paper while it cools.

Google student’s reference to Wingshooter’s Guide to South Dakota.

Ad infinitum…

Hope springs eternal, though. After chewing me into a ragged cud, Semester spit me out yesterday when I turned in my final grades. (Note: Hitting the “submit” button on the online grade form always results in a bizarre narcoleptic/manic paradox that makes me do things like pass out while micro-planning a 30-day cross-country tour of orchid growers.) Miraculously, I made it through the entire semester without having another stroke.

So today, as my reward, I will stave off my SS, kick back under my fuzzy blankie, keep my iPad open to my email as I wait for the post-grade student shockwave to hit, and watch a Monster Quest or Finding Bigfoot marathon with a dog in my lap and an Icy Hot patch on my bent-neck grading hump. 

Tomorrow, though, I will save the world.

Because I'm 18...and I like it.

What My Brain Thinks I Look Like

Last time I was in Omaha, stomping grounds of my youth, I didn’t see a single person I knew. Then I realized I was searching the faces of 18-year-olds. Duh. I’m in my 50’s now, and if the Universe works the way I think it does, my old cronies would be in their 50’s, too.

As it turns out, my time-warp may not be vanity or delusion. In my post-stroke research, I came across this theory: because neurons don’t “mature,” we often feel (internally, at least) younger than we really are, usually young adult-ish. This explains why we’re so shocked when we see that old person in the mirror—the one with the road-map wrinkies, the liver spots (is that one shaped like the a jackalope?), and the swinging basset-hound jowls.

What I Really Look Like

But BS was a giant bucket of ice water that woke me from my illusion of youth. I went back to work half-time last week (I teach English at our Little Town university), after being home since October. My kind and generous department Chair had bent over backward to help me ease back in—I have two back-to-back 50-minute classes on MWF and TTh at home for rest. And both classes are in the same room, so I don’t have to drag Leftie the Leg around campus. Two short hours in class, three days a week in the same room. Cake, right?

What My Brain Thinks I Look Like

Wrong. Immediately, BS reminded me that I am not my former 18-year-old superhuman self. In fact, Day 1 of class was like having an energy suck-meter in my head: Stay upright. Tick. Keep your left leg from drifting away from your body. Tick. Focus both eyes on the same thing. Tick. What the hell is that word you just said? Tick. Don’t you dare drop these handouts. Tick. Stay awake. Tick. Act like everything’s normal. Tick. Breathe. Tick. And, while all of this is going on inside my head, I’m also trying to get 44 skeptical late-teeners excited about literature. Ticktickticktick…

Let’s do the math, shall we? Clunky muscles and body’s uncertain position in space + awkward “tipping” (BS damaged my sense of balance) + attempt to foist love of words on kids who would rather text pics of their new UGGs + a month of course prep + high anxiety over going back to work = crash & burn. I was sound asleep in my La-Z-Girl by 8 p.m. the first night of classes. I woke up at 11 to go to bed and slept till 8 the next morning. Dang near comatose.

What I Really Look Like

But yesterday, Day 2 of classes, things were a little easier. I felt a little less brain-scrambled and more relaxed in class, I didn’t drop anything, I had a decent (slow as molasses) workout after school, and I stayed awake last night till 10 p.m.! Ah, hope endureth! I just have to be patient. I have to trust I’ll get steadily stronger. I have to get better at asking for help. I have to be more honest with myself and others about the extent of BS’s malicious tinkering (yes, dammit, my speech and word recall were affected). I have to remember that I’m not 18. I have to admit it isn’t “One Toke Over the Line, sweet Jesus” anymore—it’s one stroke over the line. Sweet. Fricking. Geezus. ;)

More Teaching: Then & Now

I teach English courses at a liberal arts university. As I buttoned up my tweed jacket for class the other day, I flashed back to my early years of teaching. I still like my job, don’t get me wrong, but I find my days (and nights) more and more consumed by standards and bureaucratic busywork, and less and less filled with “liberal” and the sheer joy of learning & teaching. So I thought I’d try and analyze the differences between then and now…

THEN: I wander into class 5 minutes late, and engage students in a 15-minute discussion of the relative merits of Joan Armatrading’s new CD. I play Joan’s new CD in class.

NOW: I get to class 10 minutes early. Before students ever arrive, I’ve got my perfectly organized outline of a research essay—with highlighting and occasional red type for emphasis—up on the overhead screen. I’ve got my 3 color-coded handouts laid out in neat piles on my desk, in the order in which they will be handed out. I start going over the outline—which includes detailed goals and outcomes—2 minutes before class should really begin.

THEN: I assign my students a brief essay about whether or not all government documents, especially those of the DMV, should be written in verse.

NOW: I assign my students 17 standardized exercises on comma splices and run-on sentences, in order to prep them for the twice-a-semester standardized grammar test.

THEN: I leave home wearing a navy blue thermal underwear shirt, a flowered chiffon knee-length skirt, white silk long john bottoms, purple wool socks, and Army surplus boots. I forget to look at my hair. I sit on the front of my desk in class, swinging my wee short legs. I can’t figure out why students are grinning all through class.

NOW: I leave home wearing neutral trousers, a neutral vest or sweater over a neutral blouse, black socks and black dress shoes, and my hair is washed, combed, and smoothed with product into a tidy conservative bob. I stand at a podium in class. I can’t figure out why students are sleeping all through class.

THEN: I take my students outside for class. Because we’re sitting on the ground, we spend the entire class reading poems that use the word “grass.”

NOW: I never take my students outside for class. It would wreak havoc on my piles of handouts, and there’s no overhead screen.

THEN: I hug my students. We sometimes hold class in a local coffee shop. A couple times a semester, I invite my students over for guac & chips.

NOW: I am deathly afraid of lawsuits and privacy/harassment/appropriate conduct violations. I avoid touching my students at all cost. I do not share anything about my personal life with students.

THEN: I have an office phone with no voice mail and no answering service, so students never call. I have no computer at home. Except for occasional “Guac Sundays,” students expect to see me in class. Period.

NOW: Students expect to see me in class. They expect to be able to reach me on my cell days, nights, weekends, and holidays. They email me at 3:42 a.m. on St. Patrick’s Day night and expect me to answer immediately. I can’t touch them, but they expect to be e-tethered to me 24/7. They are probably Google-satelliting my house as I type this.

THEN: I LOVE my job, my students do amazingly well, and my student evaluations are always glowing.

NOW: I often feel BURIED by my job, my students constantly struggle, and my student evaluations are mediocre, including occasional vicious, personal attacks.

I’m not sure what all this means, and yeah, some of it may be slightly exaggerated. But I think in my imaginary, perfect teaching world, there’s less measurement, accountability, and uniformity, and more Socratic dialogue, inspiration, and creativity. And hugs. Way more hugs.

The Perils of Panic

My classes start tomorrow—Intro to Lit and Creative Writing (both classes I LOVE to teach), and I’m a nervous wreck. Ray bears the brunt of my internal combustion, smiling patiently as I snap like a twig if he doesn’t change the channel fast enough or puts a spoon in the wrong side of the sink. So in order to preserve our bucolic bliss, I’m trying to figure out why I’m always a sparking ball of bare electrical wires before school starts…

I have things mostly ready to go now in spite of being the Queen of Procrastination, so lack of preparedness isn’t jangling my nerves. I have a great schedule this semester, so a time crunch isn’t unnerving me. I’ve taught both of these classes many, many times before, so uncertainty about what to do isn’t it, either.

My first theory is perfectionism. In addition to inheriting obsessive nurturing from my mom’s murky jungle gene pool—the one where lionesses gather to disembowel hyenas that looked cross-eyed at lion cubs—I also seem to have the obsessive perfectionist (redundant?) gene that bobs around in both parental ponds. No matter how ready I am, my brain is always a-twitter with umpteen gazillion more things I could do to be the perfect teacher with the perfect class. I think somewhere in this perfection fantasy I’m wearing a pink satin ball gown, pink fur cape & rhinestone tiara, white elbow-length gloves, and maybe cradling a ruby scepter, accepting the first-ever Teacher of the Universe award.

I wouldn’t say I’m a pathological perfectionist, though. According to experts, personality traits of the neurotic perfectionist include: emotional guardedness, need for control, fear of making mistakes, thrift, need to be above criticism, tendency to be stubborn or confrontational. And lord knows I’m not thrifty.

My second theory is caffeine overload. I’ve spent the last two weeks, thanks in part to Jack Blizzard and arctic cold, holed up with a bottomless cup of coffee—freshly-ground Sumatran black oil beans mixed with Luwak “recycled” Indonesian beans—working on lesson plans, syllabi, writing assignments, etc. My sleep cycle during this period has been more like a series of catnaps punctuated by sudden starts into utter wired wakefulness, where I force Ray to listen to my new plan for tackling subject-verb agreement problems. I look like Death, just barely warmed over.

My third theory is carb poisoning. Every wakeful start demands Doritos. Or chocolate. Or chocolate melted over Doritos. My muscle is being replaced by fluffy balls of Crisco.

My final theory is Imposter Syndrome. Not officially recognized yet as a psychological disorder, Imposter Syndrome occurs when someone has an unfounded fear of being uncovered as an “imposter” or “fraud.” I hate quoting Wikipedia, but this is just too apropos: “This syndrome is thought to be particularly common among women who are successful in their given careers and is typically associated with academics. It is also widely found among graduate students.” Seriously. It says that.

I guess in the long run it doesn't matter why I'm like this. I just need good coping strategies. I meet all three of my classes for the first time tomorrow, then, with the exception of a Women’s Dinner Friday night and a poetry reading Saturday afternoon, I'll spend the rest of the weekend crashed & comatose. That's a good coping strategy, right? But for now, let's hope tomorrow goes perfectly, I’m not unmasked as the know-nothing fraud that I am, and Ray has the good sense to keep tossing me M & M’s.

Education & the New CM (Commodity Model)

I’ve had this sneaking feeling that higher ed is turning into an automated business for quite a while now. The latest sign is that our university campus is converting to a “mobile computing” campus beginning next year. That means students will be required to buy & use laptops for their classes. They’ll test it as a pilot program in business and science classes, but I KNOW it’s coming to the Humanities—and to English—sooner than I care to think. How glorious that students will be able to Facebook nonstop through Comp class! Anyway, imagine you see those blurry, wavy lines that always signal a dream sequence on old sitcoms, then watch how I envision my future as a teacher...

· “Knowledge” will be referred to as PRODUCTS. My years of learning, honing, experience, my degrees, my credentials, my accomplishments, will matter only insofar as I can provide relevant products from which students can pick and choose.

· Students will now be called CONSUMERS (this transition is already in progress), who come to a public university campus to select and purchase their products.

· Titles will be changed from Instructor/Teacher/Professor to FACILITATOR. Facilitators will no longer have wisdom to impart, experience to share, or knowledge to reveal. They’ll only need to facilitate consumers who are purchasing their products. FACILITATOR may be a transitional term until CASHIER is in place.

· Classes will now be called INFOCOMS. Facilitators will no longer be teaching; they will be providing information about commercial products from which consumers may select.

· Facilitators will be required to wear an earpiece 24/7/365, so that consumers may lodge their product complaints at all times.

· Having spent their young adult lives texting, Facebooking, MySpacing, and videoing, consumers’ attention spans will be reduced from the current 11-20 minutes, to 3 minutes. Facilitators will need to shift the focus of infocoms every 3 minutes in order to maximize consumer purchases.

· The current designation of “contact hours,” the amount of time teachers spend in the classroom face-to-face with students, will be changed to BILLABLE HOURS. The number of billable hours required will increase from the current 15 contact hours per week, to 50 billable hours per week, in order to increase productivity.

· Grades will no longer be assigned, since consumers won’t really have to DO anything. All students will receive a CAREER CERTIFICATE once they have consumed 150 PRODUCT UNITS.

· The current division of 75% time spent teaching and 25% time spent completing bureaucratic paperwork will convert to the following: 75% time spent REPORTING and assessing INVENTORY; 15% fielding consumer complaints and escalating contacts; and 10% facilitating consumers in infocoms.

· Facilitators will no longer be required to expand their knowledge base, keep up-to-date in their field, publish, or provide service to the university community. They WILL be required to attend a minimum of 25 new product review and 25 technology workshops per semester, each preceded by a meeting in which FACILITATOR TEAMS establish GOALS for the workshop, and followed by a meeting in which teams evaluate and quantify OUTCOMES of the workshop.

· Facilitators will no longer be under contract; all facilitators will be hired as temporary hourly employees. Hourly wages will be established based solely on CONSUMER REVIEWS, and raised or lowered each semester according to the number of product units consumers purchase.

· Department Chairs will now be called TEAM LEADERS, and they will be required to have advanced degrees in business and motivational speaking, rather than in the team field. Team leaders will no longer attend to department concerns; they will promote the TEAM CULTURE.

· Infocom size will be limited to 250 consumers per. All infocom arenas will be fitted with drive-thru windows for consumer convenience.

· Facilitators will be required to live in FACILITATOR BARRACKS in order to provide increased access and convenience for consumers. They will not be allowed to have spouses, children, or pets. They will be sterilized, partially lobotomized, referred to only by number, and will wear identical grey uniforms so as not to distract consumers, in any way, from their shopping.