Petty's advice

Never thought I would find myself living in my college buddy's basement. Seriously. This is embarrassing. I moved here in July 28 and promptly hit the airport to go to Houston. Then a close friend and I ended up in the upper peninsula for a few days. Finally I stopped running and landed in Milford. What a ride!

As basements go, it's not a bad place. There's a walkout with its own patio and chimenea. I get reception on my phone down there. There's wireless Internet so I can do my normal thing I do. Since I can't live at home, this is a good second.

Living apart-- the loneliness of the long-distance runner. It's been since March that my husband has been living and working in Houston without me. I'm here in Michigan, waiting to find out if I have been accepted to the Phd program at Wayne State University. I am excited about this program that I have been involved with since 2007, but all the same it's hard to be here when he's there... I am hoping my experience will help me be a better listener and friend to folks who have to endure this situation. I never planned for this development. Life is a trip. What I am finding, though, is that one's decision about the situation has lots more to do with the acceptance of it than the actual situation itself. In other words, my perception of the situation, good or bad, is directly related to how hard (or easy) it is to deal with.

My ability to say, "okay, I am really missing my man right now, and I could cry because I want him here or to be there, but if I give in to those thoughts and actions, I will miss the fact that I am in a great place with people who love me, and we are actually having a good time right now!" I am learning to put it away. I tell myself I can be sad later, because right now is not convenient. I've rolled away from being an escapee, a refugee, a flight case, to living in the moment and relishing it all. I obviously haven't got it down cold-- after all, I am no Bodhisattva. But I don't have to live (or feel) like a refugee. Excellent advice.

Home

Home. What a fraught word! Where's home for you? I didn't think that I would feel so ambivalent about selling my home and moving away. First, there's the issue of the geography. I live in an amazing part of the world, where about 5% of the world's 3% of drinkable water flows past on a daily basis. It's the largest fresh water delta in the world. Somehow no one has discovered it. So, not only is it beautiful here, it's not crowded, either! We are also close to Canada, so it's not far to get out of the country, for better or worse.

Next, there's the sheer amount of time that we have lived here! We raised our three wonderful kids here. It was an awesome experience. We've been here 20 years. Hard to believe. What else is amazing about that is that many of our neighbors are here as well, so the people who have been here with us have been here for a really long, stable time in our lives. Even though we changed jobs, lost jobs, lost children and parents, these folks have been part of the pageant and part of our lives for a long enough period of time for them to be important parts of our lives.

Third is the fact that I thought I would be doing this with my husband-- moving, choosing a new house, figuring out logistics, calculating times to work, and related challenges, as well as deciding which furniture moves and which stays. This is not part of this move. My husband is already out of the picture. He is in Houston, grieving.

It was an incredible process for us. It's not over yet. I have chosen to stay here in Michigan while my husband runs point for us. I tell everyone that I am living in my college buddy's basement-- because I am. He's been amazing and supportive, but still, it's weird to be making these types of choices at this point in my life.

Schools

It has come to my attention that I may lose my job next year. I currently teach high schoolers and their teachers how to do research that gets results. I think that's a pretty good, relevant, and important job to do, to get our young people and their mentors ready to better understand the world around them and to be able to share information ethically and efficiently.

Why do you think it is that schools everywhere are jettisoning these people on their staffs who help everyone figure things out? Well, here's a thought: school districts aren't forced to do the right thing. Simple as that. Instead of focusing on what's right for kids, what's good for kids, and what works for kids, they do what makes them comfortable. It made me realize the power of people banding together to say, "no. What you are doing is not right, and we won't participate until you DO do it right." We all know that there is so much information people have to wade through that they need guides to do it efficiently. We know this. Yet, for only financial reasons, school districts have decided that they "can't afford" the luxury of having their students understand how to search, use, and share information. This business model might work in industry. The last time I checked, kids weren't widgets. For whatever the reasons they tell themselves, school districts can get away with cutting their media specialists because "the state doesn't require it." Maybe the state didn't require it because they never thought this would be in question! It's like saying that we don't need laws on the books, because people will always do the right thing. Right. We see every day how well that works. What is interesting in all of this is that, in a right-to-work state like Texas, schools are hiring librarians. It makes me wonder if this position, which should be the most apolitical of all, is being used to "bust" the unions. Schools need librarians. Simple.Media specialist positions are vital to the health of the schools. Michigan and other states need to step up and force schools to do the right thing and support their students' learning.

ID and canned veggies

There's a can of peas in my cupboard, with the requisite photo of a luscious pea plant on the front of the can. Near the photo is a caveat: "product shown before processing." Umm, yeah. Unless you are a kid who has never seen a pea plant and expects to see those tendrils of pea plant, as well as the pod, in that can! Or a person who has never eaten peas. Or a new cook who is following a recipe and has no idea what to expect. Or a newcomer to the US and have never seen peas before... You get the idea.
Instructional design takes these types of interesting situations into account. As instructional designers, we look at not only the gap in performance, but the knowledge gap as well. The idea is that we can help people do better, understand more, and help subject matter experts "break it down" so that novices can follow them and benefit from the SME's expertise.
Motivation to learn, cognitive load, the creation of schemata, and linking of new information to what the person already knows are all (or should be!) part of instructional design. I keep thinking of what Abraham Maslow has said: "when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" or something to that effect. I feel strongly though, that instructional design and the habits that one acquires when thinking about learning problems and instructional challenges from an instructional design perspective make communication of all types more effective. Even the message on a can of peas.

David Bowie "ch-ch-ch-changes!"

I wrote this post in April, when there were so many proposed cuts to our staff you would have thought we were closing our doors:

There used to be a poster on the door of my father-in law's shop office. For those of you who remember back that far, or are Clint Eastwood filmophiles, it was a xerox of Dirty Harry complete with his large .44 Magnum and riffed off his signature tagline, "go ahead, make my day." My father-in-law is a die designer. He took care of the needs of the Big Three, and many other industries in need of fast, sure, capable support. He drew his designs on a draftsman's board, and any changes meant redrawing and drafting by hand, which I gather is a bitch. His poster of Dirty Harry on the door of his office read, "Go ahead! Make another change!" This poster has represented my feelings exactly lately. In just a few short months, I have gone from being a fantastically successful high school teacher librarian to a barely holding-on "extraneous" employee. So, go ahead. "make another change." I'm a designer too. I will figure it out.

Wow.

I haven't run in four days because my foot's been hurting, Ken's been gone for nearly two weeks, I have been working really hard on a paper that's boring, and it's really super windy out. My daughter is about to drive back to her apartment and I'll worry til she gets there.

My job has been an interesting dichotomy. I have high schoolers in the morning, and kindergarten, first, and second graders in the afternoon. What's really scary is that in some ways there's no difference between the activity in the morning as compared to the afternoon...

Growing (Older)

When I thought about what I would be like as an adult, I never had a clear image. I thought I would be married and have children, but the only thing I really thought was that they would all be on their own and I'd be a successful business person somehow, like a veterinarian or someone like that. Perhaps that's my problem. I don't know if what I am doing today is sufficient for me to say that I am doing things the right way. I find myself drawn to so many things in the world-- trying to understand research about quantum physics, designing knitwear, getting a handle on how a computer actually reads code, being excited to see whether the tadpoles in our lake have grown legs yet, wanting to spend time with people I love and people who make me think, and time alone to read and knit. The only thing I know is that there's never enough time to do everything. This conclusion makes me sad. I want to be "good" at something, be able to feel accomplished at one thing, so I can stop pursuing that and move on. But I don't feel like I have a handle on anything, and feel compelled to chase after everything, in random directions, until I feel exhausted and disheartened. I'll never achieve my goals, because I have too many of them. Do I need to pick something? Should I stop trying to understand physics? What do I give up? Or do I not give up anything? The only part of all this that's incredibly uncomfortable is my scatterbrained lifestyle and the feeling that I am so easily distracted, like Dory in Finding Nemo. I was never like this as a younger person, when my kids were small! You'd think I would have been more like that then. But I find that I move from topic to topic like a hummingbird flits from flower to flower. And then the day is over ad I don't know where the time went. I can't stay on topic for very long, and it's making me wonder if I am spinning my wheels, or actually acquiring knowledge and experience for some real goal that I can't yet see. Stay tuned, sports fans.