Thursday, December 19, 2024

Thursday, December 19, 2024

 

   I had a fantastic night's sleep. After going to sleep at 9:30, I was fully awake at 4:30.  

Oh, so delicious.  I must have gotten up once, at least, to pee. 

  I went through my morning exercises quickly and walked with Elsa. I spotted Dean before Elsa did. When she got wind, she ran to him, pulling me behind. She welcomes the attention of anyone prepared to give it. She's promiscuously friendly, but Dean and Nina are special to her.  It makes me smile.

   After feeding Elsa when we got home, I went out to water the strip along the driveway with the hose.  I noticed yesterday that some of the plants were suffering.  I asked Josh to turn the automatic sprinkler system on.  It was set to 6:30 pm.  I went out to check.  It didn't work.  I put on the miner's light and hand-watered the strip.  Because the ground was bone dry, I also did it this morning, figuring the soil would be more absorbent now after being wet last night.

    Before I had breakfast, I went to the lower level to water the 42 newly planted shrubs.  I took additional supplies to cut the long grass along the edge of the grassy plot, a drill to make a hole in the haole koas, and something to kill the unwanted trees.  The haole koa was brought to Hawaii as a food source for the livestock. It looked at Hawaii and saw it as a food source for itself.  Without the presence of humans to battle it, it will cover the island and extinguish every other form of vegetation.  

     I've comfortably incorporated watering into my daily routine. I had three other chores on my mind for a while that I  carefully pushed aside, leaving them to weigh uncomfortably on my mind. As expected, none of the chores were particularly challenging. The first was cutting off a piece of the tubing for the drip irrigation to practice inserting the drip vents into the hosing. Lauren, at Diamond Irrigation, described it as an easy job. As distinguished from my Mike, English Mike made it sound like a nightmare; he calls it an aggravation system.  Having seen how easy it is to cut the hosing, laying the hosing down should not be a problem.  I watched a video on inserting the sections of the hose with metal connectors. He blasted the ends with a propane torch to soften the ends before inserting the metal connectors.  I don't have a propane torch and don't want to mess around with one.  I hope the hosing I got is more malleable.

    At 12:45, I had an appointment with my therapist/life coach.  I thought it would be a nothing session. I've been doing well.  I've learned to curb my brooding tendencies, breaking the habit with audiobooks. When I feel the impulse to follow a disturbing feeling down a rabbit hole, I can say, "Thank, but no thanks." 

    I could take on the change once I realized the tendency to brood wasn't just because there was something wrong with me. I learned that the tendency to focus on the negative is universal for humans, as is the default brain. I struggled to resolve a personal problem when it was part of the universal package.  I have to know what is inherent to the human condition versus what is an individual problem.  Trying to eradicate all brooding, all stinking thinking is striving to escape the human condition.  

   Knowing what you're dealing with is necessary when taking on a goal. Sports teams study their opponents. An artist learns about his/her materials. In order to shape something, including ourselves, we have to know ourselves. Knowing ourselves means knowing what can be attributed to us as individuals versus what can be attributed to us as humans. We can't escape the human condition; we can only mold it.

   Most therapists I worked with criticized me for my intellectual approach. They believed it was a way to avoid my feelings. If someone feels unsafe dealing with a feeling, they should respect it. If someone feels something's too much for them, they may be correct. The therapist's job is to help their client find the 'safe' way to deal with the problem, not push them beyond their tolerance. 

   I often ask my students if they want an explanation for why I ask them to do something.  Many say yes. I tell them to tell me to stop if they feel overwhelmed.  The point of giving the explanation is to put the student in control. If they're overwhelmed by the explanation, it's counterproductive. 

   I turned my attention to procrastination.  I often avoid doing a mundane task because I'm afraid I won't be able to do it.  Most annoying. The best antidote to that reluctance is having to do it for someone else. Then, I can rise to the occasion. The focus is off me and on another.  Yes, I'm using someone to overcome a problem. Hopefully, the relationship is symbiotic versus parasitic.  But that's true for all relationships, probably every moment of every relationship.  

  While procrastination is a persistent problem, one area is particularly frustrating: my willingness to put out information on the teaching methods I've developed.  From what I've seen, my perspective is unique.  I'm not the only reading teacher who has taken a linguistics course and learned the basics of phonemic transcription.  But it seems to have had more of an impact on my understanding of phonics than it has on anyone else I know of.  The methods I've developed are highly informed by what I've learned in linguistics courses.  I'm comfortable being that different, but it depends on how that difference is perceived. Some call me unusual, some unique, and some weird.  Someone who considers me weird is saying they are not comfortable around me. I'm uncomfortable around people who are uncomfortable with me and unwilling to work it out.

  I'm frustrated by my reluctance to broadcast the methods I've developed.  It's not just a fear of rejection of my work that impedes my presenting it; it's the fear of strong reactions that makes me feel isolated. I've had people yell at me. I had a supervisor blow up,  "I've never seen that before. I would never work!?" it was just her words; she was upset to see something she had never seen before. I was in shock.  She could have challenged me, questioning the value, but it was a hysterical reaction. 

   I made a presentation at a conference. The room was packed.  One man was sufficiently upset with what I was saying that he had to speak up. Again, it wasn't a challenge in the normal range.  It was someone who was distressed by what I was saying.  That presentation was something trivial in my world. It was just a slightly different slant on how to teach pronunciation. Nothing foundational as my work on how to teach reading may be perceived.

    In today's session, I recalled one incident. Many years ago, I made a presentation at a country reading association conference in New Jersey.  Before the conference, I was in contact with one of the organization's movers and shakers. She was encouraging and supportive.  

    The room was packed for my presentation. After abandoning some other presentation, other people entered the room and stayed. When it was over, I expected the woman I spoke with to come up and say something to me.  "interesting."  Instead, she walked past me, giving me a sideways glance.  I was okay with that. So she really didn't like it and was embarrassed to say something to me.  I packed up my presentation materials and left the room. As I exited, two women came running up to me, asking me to make a presentation at the state reading association. It was then I realized the woman had given me that look not because she didn't like my presentation but because she liked it too much and was overwhelmed.  That was really frightening.  People who think my ideas are nonsense ignore me. People who think my ideas are sensational, extraordinary, and exceptional and admire me isolate me, stop seeing me as a whole human being, and/or launch a full-out attack.  While I don't like rejection, I fear admiration more. 

  To my surprise, I became choked up as I told this story and then sobbed as I had only twice before.  I guess it had more of an impact on me than I thought.

   I was supposed to have two tutoring appointments today,  one of which was regularly scheduled. I texted the mom and asked what was going on. "Oh, so sorry. We're on the way to the airport. I forgot to cancel." The second was supposed to be a make-up for a missed session yesterday. When fourth-grade LG's mom got home, she discovered her son had left to play with a friend. Today, he texted me to say he didn't know how to get onto the Zoom meeting, and his mom wasn't home to help him.  I needed the rest.