Jul 20, 2015 Changes, Teaching and Learning

So, I switched over to a new site that I’m trying to set up, but it’s somewhat frustrating, because I’m so stubborn, and won’t watch tutorials and such!

Anyway, it’s at this site: http://magicsurrealist2013.me  (I also call myself StrangeLander2015).

I haven’t written anything much recently, because this year, I was mentally focused on the process of extricating myself from seventeen years of being a school-teacher.

School ended in late June — and I was fêted very nicely by my immediate co-workers (the other teachers on my Team), the Guidance Counselors, my English Dept., the school-system, the Union, etc.  Plenty of nice words, gifts and cards to prove I existed there for all this time.  In return, I placed “thank-you” cards in the mail-boxes of most of my colleagues (missed a few, have to remedy that), and generally did all that I was supposed to do.

I was surprised, grateful, pleased and moved by what people said, even those who had not been nice to me in the past.

After getting rid of most of my papers, and still managing to bring home boxes and boxes of my stuff in early July, I cleaned up my classroom, stripped the walls of any residual tape and gunk, wiped windows, my desk, all the book-shelves and cupboards, and generally made the class quite pristine for the incoming teacher, who is very grateful, and whom I really like.  I’ve also left her supplies and books, and lots of useful copies of poems, lessons and grammar sheets in files in the file cabinets.  I returned the (wiped-down of files) school computer, my keys, ID card and grade-book.

I believe I am TRULY done.

The last few years had exhausted and diminished my reserves my strength.  I wanted to write, to help others, to be with my family, to be free of the toxicity of school.  Yes, I was still enthusiastic when I taught, yes, I was still creative with my students, but I had nothing left in reserve.  I needed to recharge.  A few unpleasant things happened to me at school in the past couple of years which reinforced this feeling.

I needed to leave.

My husband and daughter supported my need to leave, and because of that, I knew I could.  And now that I have left, I am truly free.

It’s so liberating!

But now, what shall I do?

I’ve begun tutoring, and I love that, because I love teaching.  I’ll keep doing that.  However, what I really want to do is write.  I keep wanting to write, but feel stuck.  Perhaps, I need more time to lick my wounds.  School, great though teaching was, and nicely though my administration had treated me, had wounded me.  Over the years, I put up with barely concealed ethnocentrism on the part of certain people, pointed barbs by others, outright hostility from a very few.  I dealt with bullies (certain colleagues), patronizing (certain parents), hypocritical and occasionally alarming behavior (certain students).  I am known as a very good, even great, teacher by many of my students and parents, but school is not a place to stand out, whether you are a student OR a teacher.

I also want to serve.  It’s part of what I am.  I want to do more for those who really need education — the poor, the abandoned.  I have no experience in this area.  I intend to find out after I recover from school.

I am a free thinker.  I am not a follower.  I despise edubabble, and the random, prating nonsense in the name of education.  I refuse to administer standardized tests.  What I want is this:  I want to be free.  I’d like to serve.  I’d like to write.  I want be a great writer and satisfy me.  I know I’m a good one.  I have to have time to hone my skills in this area, to know whether I’m any good.

Right now, I feel somewhat dispirited, but I know this will pass when I write something I like.

Meanwhile, I’m re-charging myself right now — sleeping, walking, taking my child to her summer Circus Camp, playing with child and dog, getting back into West African drumming, singing madrigals at night with husband and daughter, and meditating (I cannot believe I’m actually doing that last bit — no, I am not part of some cult, just teaching myself to focus breathing and energy, and it’s nice!).

Wherever I go, I’m around people who seem happy to see me, don’t shield their eyes mentally, don’t narrow their eyes at me, seek me out when I go places, and want to talk to me.

This surprises me, because I felt (despite all the good words of colleagues and so on) lonely and misunderstood at school.  This is not to say that it was always so — I have formed some very close friendships over the years and my friends are the ones who helped me survive.  Also, my students were fine — I always got along famously with most of them.  While I worked at the school, I knew what I was: an improbability, a Hindu with a dot, an accent that people misidentified as British (or so some told me), and an obviously literate and well-spoken person with a history and a culture from a poor, but ancient country in a very self-referential, very self-satisfied, wealthy, mostly white school district in this country.

I hope what I underwent there all these years will give me the gift of stories, at least, so it will not all have been a waste of some of that angst that I experienced.

Meanwhile, I cannot believe my luck.  I escaped the net.  I survived.  I still have another life stretching out in front of me.  I intend to use it well.

And I’m here.

Thanks for reading this rambling piece — I’ve not organized my thoughts here, but I wanted to say something about why I’ve been absent.

~Dreamer of Dreams

Tags: #Teaching, Leaving my job

Jun 5, 2015 Teaching and Learning

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Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, 100-word original short story based on a photo prompt, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Mar 13, 2015 Teaching and Learning

Room

A poem by Vijaya Sundaram

©March 13th, 2015

Pearl-white and luminous

Shadowed in light,

Misted with kindness

Age comes to me,

And shadowed things drive the air

Back and forth, behind her.

And spirits stand in wait.

Purple and grey and silver

They flock around her,

And she looks at me,

Hand outstretched.

I take her hand, and

Find myself change, as I

Dissolve into silken mist.

She slips me on

Like queenly raiment,

And shrugs the last of me

Onto fine-boned shoulders,

Ready to sprout wings.

Feel the weight

Of the years grow light

And settle into new spaces

Around her.

Feel hips mould themselves

Into the stage past

Child-bearing, and there is lightness

Within hollowing bones.

The blood flows thinly,

Closer to the surface of things

Tears collect behind the back of eyes,

Damming them,

And then drain back into sluices.

I taste them, and remember

Thalassa, thalassa!

Oh, it’s not sorrow

Nor is it regret.

It’s simply

Being here, being alive,

Being happy, being sad,

Being good, being bad,

Being kind, and learning

To be kind.

It’s about pleasant things

And unpleasant, and

About leaving behind insults

And leaving behind scrapes

And leaving behind anticipation

And leaving behind heart-ache,

And leaving behind all those

Passing folk, shadows to my own.

We pass each other,

They and I,

Cocooned, shrouded in our

Own fog, eyes up or down, or

Gazing all around,

Going on our separate ways.

And so, Age slips me on

And I collect in folds around her,

Silken, thinking,

So much room to grow into!

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Tags: #Birthday, Age and Aging, Growing older

Feb 16, 2015 Teaching and Learning

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/north-america/videos/fox-dives-headfirst-into-snow/

Fox and Mouse:  Desperation at the Magnetic North
Three Haiku by Vijaya Sundaram
©Feb. 16th 2015

Predator pursues its prey
The eternal dance
Of desperation

There must be some loving here
Tuning and turning
Magnetic footsteps

The world turns on its axis
Slanting ever more
Weighted down by lust and fear.

There’s beauty and horror here.
Get me out of this,
I say, Let me turn to stone!

Tags: Fox and Rabbit, Magnetic North Pole, Predator and prey, survival

Feb 16, 2015 Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes, Teaching and Learning

What I wrote on Wednesday Feb. 11th, but didn’t post here until now:

On Leaving Public School Teaching

Tags: family comes first, following one's dream, life changes, On leaving public school, time for change

Jan 28, 2015 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes, Teaching and Learning

The First Big Snow Day — 2015

(What I posted on Facebook, and didn’t want to forget about)

©Jan. 27th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

January 27th, 2015:
A lovely morning. Slow wake up. Black coffee, and fantastic pancakes made by my husband, who used candied lemon peel, apple, granola, blueberry pancake mix from Stonewall Kitchen, and maple syrup. Took Holly out to the backyard, where she went crazy.  There is nothing more satisfying and joyful than a standard poodle in the snow. She leaped around, rushed up and down, dug joyously, ate snow (not yellow!), and reminded me yet again that life is simply to be lived and enjoyed as long and as well as possible. Sat with S and did, of all things, geography. Capitals, states, facts, including Motor City and Motown music, which led us to listen to Al Green, Ann Peebles and Stevie Wonder. Diana Ross is next, plus a whole bunch of others. She now knows many capitals and all the states, and other related facts — all of which she soaks up at an astonishing rate. I LOVE being with my kid!
Now, it’s gnocchi time with delish sauce.
Bye, all! Stay safe and out of the snow, unless you’re enjoying it!

Later, that day:
After we studied geography together, S said to me, “I love it,” (referring to my teaching her), and added, “You’re a natural-born teacher.”
Feeling grateful that my child doesn’t mind her mother being her teacher.

Still later:
Inspired by a Facebook friend of mine, who said she made chai inspired by me, I am now going to make some chai too, before I go out and join my family on the snow-covered hill opposite our house.
If you’d like some chai, just sniff the aroma I’ll waft to all of you via FB. You can have some virtual chai, OR make your own: For four people, brew a thumb’s length of fresh ginger, six cardamom pods (crushed), cloves (three or four), black pepper (four whole peppers), a dash of cinnamon powder, or a stick of cinnamon together with two cups of water. When it comes to a boil, add black tea leaves or four black tea bags (take care to remove the tags), add two cups of milk and brown sugar or honey (two sugars for one cup, yes, that sweet), and boil the lot together for a minute. Strain it into four mugs. Voilà!

Still later:
Sledding, warm bath for frozen dog (who didn’t want to come in from being outside, but I forced her), hot chocolate with chillies and cinnamon made by hero husband (I idn’t make chai, after all — too late for that — will make it tomorrow), followed by cleanup of living room and kitchen, followed by guitar and singing in front of fire, followed by pizza with veggies, then ice cream, then several games of Set and Quirkle.
Feeling terribly fortunate and rather lazy now.
Tomorrow, I’ll go back to feeling guilty about the state of the world.

End of the day:
Can I say now (since I’m being so very public today about my happy day) that I love my family? And I love my husband, who has been loyal, supportive and loving to me all through our ups and downs in life together (even when I really didn’t deserve it), who has made us a lovely home, who is a beautiful father to our beloved daughter and also to our dog-ter, and who is a great musician, teacher and creative spirit, all at the same time. I remind myself of these things whenever I feel a passing grumpitude about silly things that pass me by like “an idle wind which I respect not.” Thank you, W!

Tags: Family time, Jan. 2015, Making Indian chai my way, music-making with family, Pancakes and gnocchi, Quirkle and Set, Sledding, Snow Day, Standard poodles and hot chocolate, Teaching and learning geography with my ten-year old

Jan 19, 2015 Teaching and Learning

Help me!  I try not to despair.  I weep from sheer horror and frustration and sorrow for our sisters and brothers who are brutalized, shunted aside, stuck in prison for minor offenses, beaten, tortured, killed.  I try not to give up on people.  I try to remind myself that humanity can be good, IS good, and that one must keep trying to make things better.  I surround myself with reminders of heroes and heroines who made, or try to make, a change.

How can I write and sing when all this goes on?

And yet, sing and write I must, we must, for that is what mitigates the sheer horror of living in such a society.  Fight and march we must, for what else can we do?

So, I say these things to myself, but it’s hard.  Yes, yes, all those things, like meditation, good living, all those things are there for us to do, but they are not enough.  Playing with my dog … that helps.  Loving my family … that saves me.

And my life is GOOD, and I have nothing to complain about at all.

Keep on keepin’ on!

Tags: #Striving, fighting despair

Dec 24, 2014 Teaching and Learning

This is Serendipity / My Christmas Eve Story:

We’d done some Christmas shopping at a Tibetan store a couple of weeks ago (S and I), and then, we’d gone to another store, and then to Porter Square Bookstore.  We bought a few books, and, as bad luck would have it, left our bags of stuff behind in the store.

AND we forgot ALL about it for the next two weeks.  (How COULD I?  you ask?  It’s easy when you’re sleep-deprived and juddering from one thing to another.)

Then, yesterday, I went looking for the stuff all over the house, and S too, wondered about where they were, independently of me.

We didn’t find it.

Yesterday evening, when we were out to dinner, S said, “I think we left it at the bookstore.”

At first, I thought, “No, I do remember carrying it around.”  Then, it struck me.  I never carried it out of the bookstore.

So, not to be done in by our forgetfulness, we went there.  And, JOY!   They HAD one of the bags, which contained gifts for our family and friends — but, SADNESS!  They didn’t have another bag of our stuff — which contained, among a few other things, a lovely Tibetan doll that S had prevailed upon me to get her as an un-surprise Christmas present.

We asked the people there to double-check, but they couldn’t find anything else of ours in the Lost and Found.

As we were leaving, we saw one of Warren’s old friends, who works there.  We waved to him, and he waved back — you know, just en passant.  I didn’t think to say much to him about this, since someone else had already checked the L&F.  So, S and I returned to the car, semi-happy, semi-sad at finding some of our things, but not all of them.

S was very, very sad, though.  She didn’t blame me for forgetting, being the kind soul that she is.  All she said wistfully was, “Wish that doll were alive and could walk home to me.”

I tried to cheer her up, and said, “I KNOW that doll’s out there, waiting for you.  I’m GOING to find her!”

So, on an off-chance that I could still get the doll back, I FB-messaged that friend we’d seen in passing, and he said he’d look for it today when he went in to work.

AND he called me this afternoon.  YES!  He found that doll!  Serendipity!  My husband went and picked it up.  Santa does exist!

S is ecstatic.

Happiness is knowing your child is happy.

Sometimes, I think our bodies know that the things that are bound to us which are of importance are magnetically charged.

Okay, okay!  Just being fanciful.  Don’t toss things at me, all you logicians out there.

The important thing is that my little girl was reunited with her (discounted to $10.00) doll with the sweet face and traditional dress which had been in a TIbetan store, covered in dust, waiting for the right person to claim her, and once lost, the doll awaited her again, and was found again.

Sentimental?

Hell, yeah!

Merry and Happy, everyone!  May you find peace and fulfillment and love in your lives, and may you have good health always!

Love,

Dreamer of Dreams

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Tags: #Serendipity, #Shopping, Christmas Eve Story, Doll, Little Girl, Reunited, Santa does exist

Dec 20, 2014 Teaching and Learning

When one reaches the end of something, and is at the start of something else, a strange thing happens, and it goes like this:

One doesn’t really care (well, not too much) about what people think.

One stops worrying about things.

One is more charitable.

One does not judge too harshly the things one judged before.

One lets go more easily.

One is more loving.

One is more detached.

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Tags: Changing jobs, Dying, letting go, Living, Moving

Nov 27, 2014 Teaching and Learning

A warm feeling pervades me when I read this.