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What Jane Has Been Up To: April-August 2011
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Requiem for a friend (full article from 1/21/10)
2010 holiday letter online
2011 Blog: January through March, April through August, September through December
2010 Blog: January through March, April through Sept., Sept. through December
August 29, 2011
Chicago, (New York), Detroit...
...and it’s all on the same street. Well, Detroit (where I flew into yesterday) and Chicago (where I fly out of on Wednesday). Not the first time my life felt like a Grateful Dead song. Probably not the last.
Great jobs, wonderful to be back on the road. And I especially enjoy helping teachers kick off a new school year.
August 3, 2011
Back to school
A few jobs have come in for this month, the first of which involved the totally lovely staff of Swainsboro High School in Swainsboro, GA—a new dot on my big map! It’s always exciting starting off a new school year, a very significant part of the rhythm that has run through my entire life.
For a place I’ve never lived (and only visited for work-related reasons), I feel fortunate to know a good number of people in the Savannah area, so there was some great socializing with a number of people from various parts of my life. Sweet.
I even did a little shopping: I bought my first pair of Crocs. Everyone down there seems to wear nothing else and they came highly recommended. I found a couple pair of sandals, one pair of which I’m wearing now on the plane, and a pair of flip-flops on a 3-for-2 sale. Quite different from the Z-Coils I have been wearing almost exclusively for the past three years.
A satisfying trip.
Podcast Progress
Since my last entry, some very cool things have happened. When I was in southern California back in May, I met with the new folks involved with New Hope Charitable Foundation, now operating as EnergizeStudents. These guys offered tremendous support for the parent presentation I did in San Juan Capistrano on that trip by buying 150 copies of The Parent’s Little Book of Lists in both English and Spanish to donate to the parents who attended the conference.
Nonetheless, it had been a while since we had worked together and I hadn’t yet met the new people involved with the organization, so I thought it might be nice to catch up.
Of course, I mentioned the “Pads” on the Back templates, the new Corwin book, and the projects I had planned to convert to print and eBooks, but their ears really perked up when I mentioned the podcasts. As a result, I now have a sponsor for (at least) the first 15 podcast, plus 40 hours’ worth of contribution to a forum they will eventually have on their site.
July 3, 2011
Mid-summer check-in
This has been a weird summer. Wildfire smoke from Arizona and around New Mexico have kept us indoors for weeks. The pool at the Y is still being fixed and not open yet. (I joined for the pool, even though it’s only open for a few months a year.)
We have eaten one meal outside so far, instead of pretty much taking all of our meals out there this time of year. And any writing work I’ve done has been in the big chair in the bedroom, not outside on the deck. Very frustrating.
A Clear-My-Head Break
About two weeks ago, Jerry and I were coming home from an ice-cream run. I had just turned in the final pieces of work I was doing on the Corwin book, had put away all the materials from that project, and was getting ready to start in on all the other projects I’ve had on hold forever.
We were listening to music and talking about a road trip we’d taken in 1975 and decided this was a perfect time to take a break, get away from the smoke, and clear our heads before I dove into whatever my next big thing ends up being.
Within hours, we’d booked a flight into Oakland, a flight out of LA (eleven days later), a rental car, and our first three nights’ hotel stay (in Monterey). Truly a brilliant, if impulsive, idea!
We’d never spent any time in Monterey and loved the place. Had a hotel room on Cannery Row with no view beyond a bunch of seagulls perched on the roof of a now-defunct cannery, but we had a great breeze, lots of privacy, and fell asleep and awoke to the sounds of the gulls, along with the waves breaking below our room. Wonderful!
We spent the rest of the trip meandering down Route 1 spending a few days in Paso Robles (I have an old college friend there), Santa Barbara, and Pasadena before flying home last night.
We toured the Aquarium in Monterey, drove the 17-mile drive around Pebble Beach, ran down to Big Sur for lunch, toured Hearst Castle, and visited the Art Museum in Santa Barbara. We also toured the totally delicious Gamble House again, and were introduced to the amazing Huntington Gardens, taking in the desert garden, lily ponds, and the amazing art exhibit at the gallery there.
We had dinner with my editors from Corwin in West Hollywood (lovely!) and then caught a show, Boomermania, co-written and produced by Debbie Kasper (whom I’ve known since kindergarten), and a total blast.
We ate Thai, Japanese, Italian, Mexican, and my friend Kathy’s exceptional cooking. We stopped in Solvang for the wonderful pastries from Olsen’s Danish Village Family Bakery, and hit Junior’s Deli, a sentimental favorite of mine, in Westwood for breakfast and a couple of sandwiches to take on the plane home. (As much walking as we did, I’m sure it didn’t touch the amount of calories I enthusiastically consumed on this trip.)
We saw otters, porpoises, condors, and a couple of deer, about a zillion different desert plants and bunches of birds. We slept late, and other than three specific (fun) events, didn’t have to be anywhere at any particular time.
What’s Next?
I keep thinking of this quote from David Milch (creator of Deadwood and a bunch of other stuff I’ve watched): “Visions come to prepared spirits.” And I’ve been hoping that this little getaway really did help clear out some mental and psychic space for me to move into whatever this next phase of my life will be about.
I have a lot of ideas I’d like to develop, many of them topics I’ve mentioned here in my blogs over the past several years. I certainly have space on my calendar: The one job I had for August just cancelled when their Title 1 money didn’t come through and I don’t have much else on the books for 2011.
I have to figure that this is the Universe just giving me the space I need to develop these ideas. Or do something else with my life.
I don’t know much else beyond what I’ve grown into doing in my 38 years in education so if there is something else, I sure hope somebody lets me know.
Soon.
In the meantime, I’m thinking maybe the message just needs a different delivery, and that’s the next step I’m planning to take. And hoping my spirit is very well prepared.
May 29, 2011
New Season: Day One
I’m home, on the deck, where I intend to spend much of the next three months. I have just wrapped up the semester with the past three weeks on the road—great work, some important meetings, and even a bit of time with friends these past few days in southern California. I have no travel scheduled at this time until the beginning of August.
Nonetheless, I have much work ahead. This is the time I’ve been anticipating for starting work on the podcasts and eBooks, and finishing up a number of old projects, strays from years’ past and not-quite-finished on-going activities.
I’ve agreed to do a project for Corwin (publisher of my Win-Win Classroom and Becoming a Win-Win Teacher), editing a greatest hits kind of book, a collection of excerpts from several different books on classroom management. They’ve sent the nine books they want to include, but I’ve decided to leave them on my desk, at least until after the Memorial Day weekend.
Today is for unpacking and putting my suitcase away, for cleaning up a few things on this site (I want to add direct links to all the “free stuff” on the bottom of each page), and for just catching my breath.
May 20, 2011
True confessions
I’m waiting for my dinner to be delivered, winding out the rest of a long day, long week. A wonderful, satisfying experience, and... a bit too much for this body!
These past two weeks have confirmed what I’ve known for a long time: One, that I love what I do and love the opportunity to travel to new places (many of the locales this week were new for me), meet new people, and talk about strategies that work with kids. And two... I can only handle so many days on the road before my commitment to my health and fitness, such as they are, start falling apart.
I’ve done very well on trips I’ve taken over the past few months, including the cruise in February. But presenting day after day (and traveling in between) just requires so much mental and physical energy that after a while—in this case, the past day or two—there was just nothing left. I start making stupid choices and don’t even bother trying pass up stuff I’ve been otherwise able to avoid, much less work out or even walk.
Ugh.
It’s extremely disturbing how quickly things can unravel for me (and how steep that slippery slide actually is), but that’s just a fact of my life. I tried for years to get it right on the road and failed miserably time and time again. Square one is just way too close.
So, OK... I’m not ready to retire, but the path has gotten narrower. I left my biggest client a little more than a year ago to take a break from this pace. This opportunity came along and I’m grateful for the chance I had to work with a terrific organization–as well as the validation I received about the impact this kind of schedule has on me.
So yeah, let’s keep it down to one or two jobs at a time and I’ll be totally there! In the meantime, I’m just hoping that I’m home long enough in the coming four days to get myself refocused and back on track.
May 8, 2011
Merrillville, Indiana tonight
At the beginning of a two-week run around the state of Indiana, working with educators, counselors, and other youth care workers and hitting a couple towns I’ve not worked in before. That’s always exciting.
I’ve been trying to get some congruence on the actual time here. My computer says 8:20, my watch says 10:20 and the clock in the room says 9:20, which made no sense to me at all until I realized that I’m in a little corner of Indiana that’s in Central time, not Eastern.
OK, so time to proceed with my plans for tomorrow, tweak my Powerpoint (actually, Apple’s Keynote app), and get some sleep.
Big News: The Parent’s Little Book of Lists is now out in Spanish!
This is a real big deal! I’ve been talking with my friends and colleagues at New Hope Charitable Foundation (EnergizeStudents.org) for years about the possibility of getting this book into translation for native Spanish speakers. (It’s already available in Greek and Turkish, maybe Slovene as well.)
We kept running into snags with the publisher and even when it seemed that we had a good translator on board, we just couldn’t get the project off the ground.
Then, out of nowhere, I get an email from a publisher in Argentina, asking if I’d do promotion for the Spanish-language edition of this book, which they were just bringing out! This is back around the holidays this past December and although promotional events haven’t materialized (yet!), the actual book has!
Hats off to EnergizeStudents.org for ordering several boxes of the book, along with its English-language equivalent, to provide to parents attending a workshop I’m doing in Orange County, CA later this month. (If you want to do a good deed, you can support their site with a donation of $10 or more and choose one of four of my books as a thank you gift!)
For more information about Listas Para Padres: Qué Hacer y Qué No, click here. I don’t have the book linked from the index page yet, but will get to that this week.
Million Miler
I suppose this is a good thing. I just got a letter from Delta welcoming me to the Million Mile Club. As of my last trip, I’ve officially flown more than 1,000,000 miles on Delta. This is a lifetime total, although I’ve actually picked up most of these miles in the past decade or so. Not sure if this new status has any real benefits, but I thought I’d mention my latest achievement, such as it is.
April 17, 2011
Milestone time
April 14 was my 60th birthday. I can not get my head around the number, mainly because in my head, old people are 60—and I certainly don’t feel old. (My body occasionally begs to differ, but still...)
People keep talking about 60 being “the new 40.” True for me, though I find it funny to suddenly be thinking of 40 as young—partly because it used to seem about as old as 60, partly because 40 was, impossibly, twenty years ago, and even partly because I have friends my age with kids who are 40.
So mentally, I don’t quite know what to do with this.
My sister asked how I was feeling about turning 60. I wrote back, “Fortunate is the first word that comes to mind. I think I'm a little in denial because the number doesn’t sound like anything I see or feel about myself... Not having a hard time but mostly because I’m in a good space and frankly it just doesn’t seem real. Or possible... So maybe it IS the new 40. Just like gray is the new blond.”
I have received something like a hundred calls, cards, emails, and wall posts from Facebook friends in the past week and that really got me in a celebratory mood. So I’ve decided to drag this party out for an entire year, much like I did when I turned 50, as a celebration of life in general and in gratitude for all that is good in my life—of which there is plenty.
Cool.
A party a day
OK, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to keep this up, but this is how this birthday year has started: Thursday, the actual day, I had lunch with friends. Friday, I flew to Cincinnati and met up with friends who’d driven in from Columbus to take me to dinner. Saturday, after my presentation, the lovely people from Beech Acres Parenting Center took me to lunch. Sunday, I caught an early-enough flight to get home in time for book group (which is always a bit of a celebration in itself).
Today is Day 5 of being 60 and I’m taking a day off!! Nonetheless, this is a big year and I’ve decided to celebrate every opportunity, time, and place, that I can. Any takers?
2011 Blog: January through March, April through August, September through December
2010 Blog: January through March, April through Sept., Sept. through December
2009 Blog: January through April, May through Dec
Other “Highlights” pages: 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. For an index to all blogs, photos, and other personal information, click here.
Jane’s current Blog.
About Jane home page (bio, intro, other professional information).
Direct links to free stuff on this site:
articles and excerpts • handouts • materials in Spanish and French • videos and podcasts • links to other sites and resources • ideas, tips, and experiences of other educators
My Calendar
Click here (or on the image to the left) to see my schedule. Click here for a map with links to dates that I will be in your area.
