Tag Archives: Laurel Felt

Over-correction

  By laurelfelt | July 9, 2011 - 11:55 pm |
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You know what they say about too much of a good thing…

In my zeal to cure what ailed me, I over-dosed and broke out in hives. In my desire to keep it concise, I eliminated the essential. Typical. So now I’ve swung back the other way, going cold turkey on everybody’s drugs (except the anti-malarial, not to worry, Ma) and spewing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me, pride.

You could still argue that I’m over-correcting. How’s about a compromise, kiddo? A few pills, a coupla paragraphs? Huh? Wouldn’t that be nice? It would… it would. But this state — chemical-free and soul-bare — is more natural. It’s more me.

Maybe sometimes, rather than seeking the middle path, it’s better for us to embrace our personal path. And love the idiosyncratic ride.

Comfort

  By laurelfelt | July 8, 2011 - 9:29 am | , ,
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Tokens from the children occupy the space alongside my medicines, with a soothing phone call from Mom and supportive conversation with Emily perfuming the air.

I’m struck by the nature of each item in this first-aid kit for the soul, its relationship with time and place:

Domestic Foreign Global
Contemporary Ondem, Flox-OZ, Crocin | Hand-written card, Band-Aid, home-cooked meal | Texts, chats Airshield, Aleve, Centrum | Emails, FB posts Azithromycin, Loratadine, Malarone | Disney’s Princess and the Frog merchandise
Dated House call | Rickety toaster Phone call (many hours after today’s events, still hours earlier back home) Dettol soap carving of hieroglyph | Kellogg’s Corn Flakes
Timeless Illness | Love Illness | Love Illness | Love

Basically, people are people and it’s all about feeling our best, inside and out. But such a confluence of supplies as I’ve itemized above is singular, I think, to this multinational moment…

Some people worry about the displacing potential of technology — geeking out on the Internet may remove us from face-to-face interactions, plugging into personal experiences in public spaces* may degrade our ambient awareness. I wonder, though, about the simultaneous potential of these domestic, foreign, global, contemporary, dated, and timeless collisions to deliver the best of what humanity has to offer. Choose your time, choose your place! Benefit from the offerings of our diverse/homogeneous peers!

As I consume comfort from every possible portal, I feel part of a complex, caring community. And this makes me one lucky lady indeed… despite the rash I just discovered.
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Control

  By laurelfelt | July 8, 2011 - 4:19 am |
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Who’s in charge? My heart, my mind, my body? Me, my coteachers, my students? My digestion, my metabolism? My aspirations, my obligations? Who decides? To what extent have I been properly exercising good judgment vs. unworthily surrendering my authority vs. unproductively taking a stand? Where do I distinguish between flow-going, dish-ragging, and failing?

I’ve been thinking about symbiosis and its delicate balance:

  • Respecting signals vs. pushing through the pain
  • Avoiding probable disaster vs. risking unlikely triumph
  • Saving steam for the return trip vs. betting all your chips on today
  • Allowing companions wiggle room vs. setting and sticking to limits
  • Ensuring the good of the group vs. tending to the needs of the few
  • Stepping up vs. stepping back
  • Listening vs. speaking
  • Making the foreign familiar vs. making the familiar foreign…

A little bit of both! declares the sage. Of course, everything in moderation. But when you come down to individual choices, when do you swing thisa-way and when do you veer thatta-way? Does it matter little since it all comes even in the wash — I’ll pay/decide/like it/lump it this time, it’s your turn next time, or do you conscientiously re-calibrate with each endeavor — half for you and half for me?

I’ve been equally engaging both options — sometimes letting it ride, sometimes parsing it out. But rather than wise alternation, I wonder whether this is torpid free-riding. Whatever you say… whatever you say…

Who is the who who says? My heart, my mind, my body? Me, my coteachers, my students? My digestion, my metabolism? My aspirations, my obligations? As I turn over what I’ve done, what to do, and how to do it, I pingpong among these options. I want to be responsible.

My hands are getting dirty; but am I whole-heartedly dirtying my hands?

Occasions

  By laurelfelt | July 8, 2011 - 3:10 am |
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Tuesday was a whirlwind of activity, a feat of quick turn-around, multitasking, thinking on the fly… winning.

I supervised a pre-test assessment for children, investigating: 1) whether they blueprinted prior to building a toy, and 2) what they built. For the older children, I kicked it up a notch, adding in a qualitative component on the fly, locking my method, and even developing a standard script to introduce the activity. I felt like a PhD. As the younger kids worked, I finished commenting on last week’s students’ journals. During lunch, I came home and worked on a blog post or two. As the older kids worked, I wrote the daily newsletter for the younger group and sent individual emails to each family. After a maximum of seven minutes, I popped up and administered my exit interview.

Some of the children commented:
-“I liked this activity because it was challenging for me and because it was for seven minutes work.”
-“I loved it. Because it’s fun to have a challenge like make things in seven minutes.”
-“Like. I liked how I made the material even though I had only seven minutes I had to quickly make whatever came into my mind first.”
-“This activity was fun because you had a time limit and you could show your creativity as well as you could, you could use your brains as well as you could, and it was fun as you had a limited amount of material and you had to use what was given you couldn’t use more or less. And you were not given proper material, you were given material that was tough so our imaginary was expanded.”

The time pressure was exhilarating for me too. I finished with the last child with two minutes to spare. I was proud.

After work, we grabbed a case of bottled water on our dash home, then quickly hopped in the shower, changed into our most culturally appropriate finery, and makeupped within 20 minutes. Our evening activity was a pre-wedding celebration for Vasundhara’s first cousin, where I chatted with Vasundhara’s brother (a NU-Kellogg graduate), her grandmother (who, during her youth, had co-managed a matchstick factory with her mother), her mother (an elegant woman who passed off her lush violet sari as “plain”), and her friend (a USC graduate). Small, fascinating world. I also sampled all of the Indian foods and desserts (which says quite a lot at a spread of that magnitude!). The most captivating element of the evening was the initial choreographed dancing performed by friends and family of the bridal couple. Each woman’s outfit was different, although they were uniformly bright-colored and gorgeous. None of them wore Western fashions, while men were basically 50-50 split between native dress and button-down shirts and pants. The music, I learned, was more contemporary than back in the parents’ day; but to my Evanston-born eyes, the steps and gestures seemed steeped in long-established tradition.

Back at home that night, I thought about how all of it was possible. How could we have been so lucky as to attend an Indian wedding (lite) during our brief time here? It was a dream come true. How could I have thrown together a study, which all of the children seemed to enjoy, and finished it by the end of the day WHILE completing so many other agenda items? Is it true what they say about work expanding to fit the time allotted — if you have a lot of time, it takes a lot of time, and if you have a small amount of time, you get it done within those narrow parameters?

I visualized rising to the occasion — maybe you just need a challenge in order to discover your own strength. I mulled special occasions and their celebratory imperative, regardless of whether they fall on a Tuesday (personal note: my parents got married on a Tuesday). In French, the word occasion means opportunity… (personal note: In French, d’occasion means second-hand, so let’s not let ourselves get too far gone with the linguistic revelations.)

I came home and smiled for the camera my own damn self. If the day had taught me anything, it was that you have to make the most of your resources when the getting is good. It all may turn out beautifully.

Milestones

  By laurelfelt | July 5, 2011 - 2:31 am |
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One week ago, we met new EMP friends and kicked off our summer enrichment program.

One year ago, I acknowledged the Fourth of July in some minimal manner as I was the lone American of the bunch: Canadian roommate, French boss, Senegalese coworkers, Spanish buddy.

Two years ago, I celebrated with my sister and folks at a reunion of my dad’s side of the family.

Three years ago, Sarah, Erin, and I watched many communities’ fireworks from the top of the Glen’s parking garage, then tried to get some sleep before our (arduous) bike trip in Alaska.

In 2001, I observed the Fourth of July on the American ambassador to Austria’s lawn with my parents.

In 2000, I watched the fireworks explode over the monuments of Washington, D.C…

And during my youth, I always celebrated back in Glenview, enjoying family and junk food and cell phone-less meet-ups with friends, dusk and fireflies and Glo Sticks and lawn chairs, giggles and suspense and delicious freedom. The significance of civil liberties, I’m not sure that I wholly grasped. But sitting on a blanket with friends — some girls, some boys, no parents around — that felt like freedom. Walking around outside, in the dark — that felt like freedom. And maybe that’s the only way to grasp such an enormous concept, by taking it in with small bites, or interacting with a miniature version of the master (a fractal, as I learned in Miss Jay’s math class).

This week in class, it was like night and day from Monday to Monday. Our very first day had been bedlam — we were all getting used to our new space, new relationships, new names, new jobs. This first day was much smoother sailing. Only half of the children were new to program, we three teachers knew one another’s styles, and the veterans could model for the newbies’ benefit.

Personally, I wonder about the magnitude of my change from last year to this year. Can I similarly say it’s like night and day? How different is my person and my life now from how it had been then? Last week, I wallowed a bit when I looked back at my blog and realized that some of the issues I’d been struggling with then, I was still struggling with now. No change. Then I reframed, wondering if I had returned to the origin but was one level up, as I’d suggested in a recent post. Now I think that my person, my life are remarkably different — not least of all, because I’m cognizant of last year’s experiences. My heart has been through an odyssey. My body and mind have been exercised enormously. And I’m valiantly trying to make the most of the lessons I learned the hard way. No matter how similar past and present circumstances, I am different because I’ve lived through the past. And it is this enriched individual — me — who negotiates presently.

Next week, next year, I hope to engage in the breaking of patterns and upholding of rituals. There’s a difference. The wisdom that’s come with age has taught me that.