Fat Days for a Skinny Girl:Random thoughts on physique

I’m not sure how many calories a person burns just by being a third grade teacher, but it’s a lot more than a person burns sitting at a desk most of the day. Add to that the freedom to run to Sonic and enough time at lunch to eat more than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and what you get is significant weight gain. If you haven’t guessed it, I’m speaking from personal experience. In a matter of 9 months I gained enough weight to keep me out of most of my clothes. I’ve spent the last 6 months trying to get back into them, but I’m still not there.

My recent increase in inches had led me to several thoughts. First, I find it frustrating that I’m not allowed to say that I feel fat or to express my frustration about not fitting into my clothes. Yes, I realize that I’m not actually overweight or obese. I realize that I have the frame of a “thin” person and that I have “good” genes as far as body type is concerned. However, I also know that when I choose healthy eating habits and exercise regularly I look one way, but when I drink Dr. Pepper by the liters (BTW, anyone else wonder why that’s the only instance where we use the metric system in America?) and don’t get to the gym I look another way. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say things like, “Well, you don’t need to go to the gym. You’re so thin.” Or, “I don’t know why you’re turning down dessert. You’re so thin.” Do people not realize that maybe I’m thin because I go to the gym?! Or that I’m thin because sometimes I turn down dessert?! Do they honestly not see the cause and effect relationship? Well, there is a relationship! I’ve fallen off the DP wagon and I need to be more committed to working out. If I don’t, people may stop making those comments about me being thin!

Now to my second train of thought—
My husband is the best husband I know. Sometimes, I look around and feel sorry for all of the other women in the world, because they can’t be married to him. I can’t imagine that there is a more caring, generous, and fun-to-be-around man anywhere out there. It’s an added bonus that he happens to be very good looking. But, even with all of his super-hero qualities, he is actually a mortal man. He rarely picks up his dirty clothes, he only showers on days he goes to work, and attractive women catch his eye. I’ve heard people joke about how men are “married, not blind.” It’s an annoying joke, but I can see the shades of truth that run beneath it.

I know that my husband likes Peeps, so I buy them for him. I know that he likes spice cake, so I make it for him. I know that he likes UFC, so I watch it with him. It stands to reason that if he appreciates a woman’s beauty, and I don’t want him to spend time looking at other ones, the onus is on me to give him something worth looking at.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that I have to wear make-up at all times or keep my hair and nails done. Just the opposite, in fact. When we met and started dating, I never wore make-up and my hair was always in a ponytail. What I’m suggesting is that if my husband was attracted to and married a woman who was physically fit, fresh-faced, and active he should still get to be married to someone who is physically fit, fresh-faced, and active. Anything else just seems unkind and selfish. And yes, I know that age and life-circumstances will take their toll, but again, you may be missing my point. My point is, the greatest gift I can offer my husband is myself. I think I owe it to him and to our marriage to be offering the best self possible.

All of this rambling is my long way of saying, I feel fat. I need to exercise more and I need to quit eating junk.

Resolutions

At the beginning of the year, I made several New Year’s Resolutions. Now it’s March and I realize that I have only kept one of them. It became clear several weeks ago that there was something standing in the way of my so-called resolve.

Until recently, I have kept a fairly hurried pace. You could call it ambition, or maybe an obsession with getting things crossed off my list, but I went from one thing to another without much empty space in between. While I thoroughly enjoyed everything that I was doing, I always daydreamed about that magical day when my goals would be accomplished and I would have time to do “other things.” Well, I’m finally at that point when I should have time to do all of the things I said I’d do when . . .

So where did all my time go? Down the tube—the boob tube!

I have spent countless hours watching meaningless drivel with inexplicable fascination. Like the sailors of the Rita Ann, I just couldn’t break free from its spell. And just like the sailors, I found myself devolving.

Now, after a few weeks of discussion, we are rid of the wretched stone! Actually, we still have it, but it’s in a closed cabinet and no longer has a cable connection, so it might as well be in the ocean! We are closing our second day without television and our lives are already better. We’ve eaten every meal at the table, the dogs have been taken for walks, and I’m blogging again--which was one of my original resolutions!

I should probably explain that we haven’t sworn off television altogether. We did subscribe to Netflix and we’ll keep up with the Office online. The difference now is that our viewing will be intentional rather than mindless. If anyone is up for a board game or an installment of The Prairie Home Companion, come on by. We’ll be in the house without the flickering light!

Blogger’s Note: For any of you who haven’t read The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Allsburg (1991), you should check it out from your local library. You’ll find it in the children’s literature section.

Day of the Dead

I’ve had death on my mind lately. You could say it’s just that time of year.

I had the privilege of attending my first Dia de los Muertos celebration this week (thank you Emily for inviting me and Jenny for telling her to). The idea is that death should not be feared. It’s a time to remember loved ones who have died- to celebrate their lives and to honor them in death. I’ve decided that I want to celebrate this holiday every year. I want to take the time to tell stories and share happy memories. Someday, I want my children to know the stories of the people they never got to meet, but who would have loved them if they had a chance. I also want them to understand that death is not scary; it is salvation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Zfx5qra_g

What Can I Say?

It's been a while since I've blogged since I started my new job. I've thought about several topics that I wanted to share or discuss, but I haven't taken the time to do it. I actually have some ideas about the job itself, but that will have to wait. Today, I'd like to share a glimpse of a 20 year old's brain. Not typical, I hope. The following is from an email I received from one of my college students:

I just wanted to let you know that your teaching will have little if any benefit for me in my future. During this semester I have found you to be rude and arrogant. You give us so much to read that by the time I get to class I have forgotten most of it. As college students we will get out of class what we put into it. If we choose not to read our material it will reflect on the other work we do in your class. Get off your soap box about our reading. Assess the other work we are doing. You could use our time in a much more productive way other than obsessing over whether we read your assignments. I hope that you realize that it is those professors that are respected that are able to reach deep within a student and leave meaningful skills for the future. Until you gain the respect of your students you will be contributing nothing to our future. You will just be that one professor that we are forced to have but we learn nothing from.

You might also like to know that the course title is READ 363. Maybe you can find some humor in it. I'm just not there yet. I do think there's a publication here somewhere. What can I say, I guess I'm just "that one professor."

Scary Feminist Continued (more scary laughing)

I’ve given up on trying to create a Scary Feminist Part II, because I can’t get all of my thoughts into one more post. Let’s just say this feminism theme might become a common recurrence on my blog. It’s still relatively new to me, so I’m still putting a lot of thought into it. You can just be a part of the process.

Emily said in her response to Scary Part I, “Feminism is a label that some woman made up to make herself feel important and different from everyone else.” How right you are, my friend! You nailed it. That is exactly how I ended up in the feminist camp. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but the short version of the story goes something like this:

I grew up in West Texas. My parents were both teachers, and I became a teacher. (Some day I’m going to do a post on smart people being teachers, but that will have to wait.) One day I realized that teachers don’t have much control over what they do. Yes, they can decide when children will go to the bathroom, but beyond that, they are extremely governed by external agencies. Our curriculum, our testing, even our cafeteria food are all directed at state and federal levels. For many teachers, every other important decision is made by the campus-level administration. Keeping that in mind, it also occurred to me that most elementary teachers are women and most elementary administrators (from the campus to the federal level) are men. Hmm. So, I started reading about the history of women in education, the feminization of the profession, women in the workplace in general, etc. It was all interesting reading, but more than anything, it made me wonder why I was letting other people tell me what to do. Why were men in business suits, who had never spent a day teaching, much less ever met my students telling me what was best for them? Wasn’t I the one with a degree in education? The more I read and thought, the more I realized that they were not listening, because I don’t have money (who was it that set my salary?) and because I’m not a man. Clearly there are other reasons and circumstances, but from a historical perspective, those are the two major reasons.

There is power and safety in numbers. As one woman, it is hard to be heard at the level I am interested in. However, by becoming active in professional organizations and by affiliating myself with larger groups, I could begin to have a voice. Labeling myself a feminist was an empowering choice for me. It may not be for anyone else and that is okay. But for me, it made me feel important and different, just like Emily said. I felt different from the crowd that was mindlessly taking orders and I felt like I had an important reason to continue reading and writing in order to bring others to the awareness that I was finally experiencing. Until I gave myself that label, I felt timid about discussing these issues that matter so much to me. I felt like I was just being a complainer and that I should be focusing on the children and not on myself. With the label, I feel like I’m not alone and that what I’m saying is not so ridiculous after all.

I have more to say about the baggage that comes along with the label, but it will have to wait for the next post.

Labels and Such

I’m not ready to follow up with Part II just yet, because I want to give more people time to respond-assuming that anyone else reads my blog and assuming that they would like to respond. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about the responses that have already been posted and I would like to share my thoughts in regard to those. Honestly, I’ll be chasing some rabbit trails, but feel free to join me if you can keep up. These thoughts are still forming in my head, so they may not be articulated very well. My apologies.

First, thank you to friends and family who have responded. I think it’s fun to think about things and have my thoughts stretched, so thank you for thinking with me. My ideas, beliefs, and attitudes are not all the same today as they were yesterday or as they will be tomorrow. I find that comforting and exciting. It’s also fun to have a writing purpose and audience sans editors.

I’ll start by discussing the idea of labels, since it was brought up a couple of times. I loved Emily’s comment about inflicting unnecessary boundaries. Her vegetarian example was certainly food for thought (get it?). On the other hand, I find labels handy for describing, sorting, and classifying when appropriate. (Granted, there are times the use of labels is inappropriate and quite damaging, but I will have to save that discussion for another day.) All around us we use labels and classifications to make life easier. Math and science are largely based on classifications and that is one of the most essential foundational skills taught kindergarten. As an every day example, the library, grocery store, and video store would be a nightmare without labels. Trite? Yes. So let’s talk about people.

When I chose a college to attend, I picked one with Christian in the name. The label certainly inflicted boundaries, including unnecessary ones, but the it also helped me make an informed decision. When we moved and started looking for a new church family, there were certain ones we never had to visit on the weekend, because the label on the door let us know that our beliefs were not in line with theirs. When it comes to political affiliations (of which I’m currently lacking), many people find it helpful to know what they’re getting into. Getting back to the original example, I think that the vegetarian label would be helpful if I were hosting a dinner party. It would be simple for a friend to let me know that they are vegetarian. It is a label that we could both understand and use to our mutual advantage. Does that mean that I wouldn’t let my friend sample the shrimp cocktail? Of course not. The label only served its practical, appropriate purpose.

As for the label of feminist, the first time I accepted it was in my writing. It is fairly common in academic writing (at least the kind that I read and write) to state your paradigm up front. Again, the label served a practical purpose. For example, positivist insists on objectivity and determinable truth (little t, not big T) that exists separate from a researcher. Constructivism, on the other hand, is subjective and suggests that meaning is constructed in the transaction between the researcher and the researched. Feminism, as an interpretive paradigm, is centered on lived experience and dialogue. It suggests that my way of looking at the world is inherently different than your way of looking at it and that doesn’t mean that either viewpoint is less truthful. Remember that story of the blind men and the elephant? Same idea here. The ideal is for people to be allowed to tell their own stories and that in the sharing of individual stories, a larger story becomes known. Some of my writing needed the feminist label to explain to readers why I chose the research methods and presentation methods that I did. Make sense?

I have more thoughts, but I think I’m breaking some unwritten rule about the length of blog posts, so I’m going to pause for now. I’ll share more later.

Scary Feminist Part I (insert scary laugh here)

A few days ago I told my friend that she was starting to sound like a feminist. I meant it as a compliment in recognition of the fact that she is starting to stand up for herself and not feel like she has to put up with unacceptable behavior from men. She mentioned my comment on her blog. I read the comments from her readers and was surprised (but not really) to hear the reassurance they gave her. The comments went something like this (with a few liberties taken by me, of course):

[brow furrowed, hushed voice, slowly shaking head] No! You’re not a terrible person. I would never think such a thing of you. Don’t you listen to that nonsense. We know that’s not how it is. You would never become such a thing-that-shall-not-be-named.

I admit that’s a bit of an exaggeration. At least I hope so. But my question is this: What do you a feminist is? I know that most of you read both of our blogs, so if I just mocked you, here is your chance to agree or disagree with my portrayal of you. If you weren’t included in the mocking, I’d like to hear your opinion too. I wish I knew how to make this a threaded discussion, but I don’t. So, please share with me your definition of a feminist or feminism. I’ll follow up with another post giving my definition and maybe even how I found myself among them. Let the fun begin!