To Occupy my Time – Page 233

Why you should stop what you are doing and subscribe to your local paper.

I mean it. Right now. You can even do it while sitting in front of your computer. I can wait.

You want reasons? Okay here are a few.

Newspapers are having trouble making the digital transition. For the most part, reading things on the internet is free, but the ad revenue generated from internet ad sales does not begin to meet traditional sources of ad revenue. While most newspapers are available in online form they aren’t the presence they have traditionally been in their paper form.
The ad revenue in print sources pays for the reporters who have the time to do the investigations about issues that are important to your life. Issues that you didn’t know you cared about until they are reported on. Coming this Sunday, the Oregonian will publish a report about placing foster children with relatives in other countries. The reporters’ work led directly to a moratorium placed on this practice.
Newspapers are an essential part of creating community. Do you want to know what is going on in your town, city or state in the government, entertainment or sports? The newspaper has the answer.
Reading newspapers makes you sound smart. Can I talk intelligently about the proposal to bring Major League Soccer to Portland? Yes. Why is that? Because I’ve read every article about the issue that was published in the Oregonian, Willamette Week and Portland Mercury.
Reading the newspaper introduces you to so many cool things. I can’t tell you how often someone has said to me, “How did you even hear about that?” and the answer is always that it was something I read in the newspaper.

Excuses I don’t want to hear:

I don’t agree with the political opinions of my newspaper. Okay stop. I grew up wildly liberal and reading the Idaho Statesman, which does not fit anywhere close to the definition of liberal print media. I disagreed with most of the editorials, their coverage of education and half to three-quarters of the letters to the editor. I still found out incredible amounts about what was going on in my community, as well as following the lives of the Patterson Family in For Better or for Worse.
I don’t have time to read my newspaper. I didn’t say you have to read the newspaper, just subscribe to it. You know those micro-loans that are so successful in third world countries? Think of your subscription as that. Ad revenue is based on the number of subscribers, not on the number of subscribers who read the paper. And really, you don’t have time to read even one section? Even the fluffy section? Please.
Newspapers waste too many resources. All that paper is expensive and needs to be recycled and I don’t want to do it. This is true. It may waste much fewer resources to read things online. But, quite frankly, online newspapers aren’t very good. Oregonlive.com, the Oregonian’s website recently had an upgrade. It is now simply bad instead of maddeningly frustrating. Like I said above, newspapers are having a tough time making the digital transition. Once they have and are okay, you can discontinue your paper subscription and cease the odious task recycling mounds of paper. Until then, buck up and buy some carbon offsets or something. Also, if you are that person above who doesn’t read the paper, recycling becomes much easier.
I can’t afford it. Yes, yes, times are tough. But as a former colleague once remarked, “I can’t believe you can get all that stuff in one paper and it only costs fifty cents.” It is a marvel. My monthly subscription is $13.95, which is about the same price as a movie and popcorn. For that I get untold hours of reading enjoyment and grumbling, not to mention the side bonus of being well-informed.
I don’t really care. You should. For all the reasons pointed out above and in the This Modern World Cartoon from 03/03/09. Remember that trained journalist make a difference.

So don’t delay. Subscribe today. Now. I’m not kidding. Do it.

Countdown.

I’m at that point where I am just waiting for three events to be over. Not that I am sitting passively by, all of them require much work on my part, alas. But I am looking forward to these things being done so I can catch up with my “normal life”.

The first will be done by 3:00 pm today, that is the Youth Service. It doesn’t require a lot of work, but the mental energy commitment is a bit large and every year when it is over, portions of my brain that have been thinking about it, are free to go back to their idle musings.

On March 14, I take the Praxis Middle School Math test. The test itself is 2 hours of my life, but I have spend 43 hours studying in regular half hour chunks since early September. I took a practice test last night and now can complete the problems in the time allotted with the bonus that now I understand how to tackle 95% of them, a fact that was not true when I began this process. So all my studying has benefited me, I just don’t know if I will have enough right answers to pass. Time will tell, but I’m most excited that it takes 4 weeks to get your results. So I will have four weeks of not studying.

Following soon on the test’s heels is my final paper and project for my math class. This is a tough one, because it requires me to have an actual product–the other ones will happen whether I’m prepared or not, but this requires me to not only produce a paper of some length, but also have a presentation. I can’t really fake my way through either of those. So the other back of my mind is working on that problem and I have to carve more time out of my schedule to actually put pen to paper, or rather letters on screen.

While I work on those things, so many other things are dropping by the wayside. Less vegetables are being consumed. My desk has geologic layers on it, marking the passage of time. Someone’s birthday present is underneath everything, and I hope I can mail it today. Laundry isn’t folded, blog posts aren’t finished, bank balances haven’t been updated. Goals aren’t being made.

I don’t mind rising to the occasion and “doing” all of these things, but I really hate the aftermath: I’m tired and then have to catch up all the things that have fallen by the wayside. Mostly I don’t mind making the amount of money I make (though I’m always open to more, of course) but it’s during these times that I recognize the power of money for easing your life. “It would be nice if I could hire someone to cook and clean up for me.” I think to myself. But alas, I can’t, so I hobble on. Thank god spring break is coming up. I can’t imagine trying to do the catch up without it.

What’s wrong with this picture?

If no professional, semi-professional or student athlete game in any sport was ever played again, I would not be sad. I’m not into sports. I am, however, into equity in sports and these signs frost my liver. What century are we living in?

Though not team-sports oriented myself, I have always been thankful I came of age after Title IX passed. These signs show that there are still miles to go before we have true equity.

How do I think the signs should be worded? How about:
Viking Men’s Basketball
Viking Women’s Basketball.

If you are going to put the qualifying possessive adjective on the women’s sign, the men’s sign needs it too.

Kate Winslet’s crow’s feet…

…rock.

Last night while watching the Oscars, more than one comment was made about the lines around Kate Winslet’s eyes. Age was brought up, children were brought up, but I think it boils down to one reason I love Kate Winslet. She seems entirely unconsumed with the “Hollywood” part of acting, yet remains a Hollywood star. She doesn’t seem to let people push her around about her weight, she followed up the biggest blockbuster of the late 20th century with a strange independent film set in Morocco, and she comes to awards ceremonies with her aging skin on view. Granted, her aging skin is in its early 30s, but still. The above things alone would propel me to see nearly every movie that she makes; the fact that she is an incredible actress is just the cherry on top.

I want to see my actors age! I want their skin to soften and go slack and the wrinkles creep across their face. When I look at their 40 year old selves, I want to see something different than their 20 year old selves. I don’t want to see an immovable, porcelain forehead, I don’t want to see a 50 year old without wrinkles and I really don’t want to see a bunch of women looking like Sophia Lauren, whose strange appearance on screen caused more than a few “aaaaahhhhs” in the room.

All the rest of you regular people out there, same goes for you. Let us age as we age. There is no fighting age. Let us enjoy it.

A made-up holiday for February.

I strongly believe that this country needs much more vacation time. Much. However, the powers that be in this country think that having no national standard for vacation time is entirely acceptable. “People can negotiate for the amount of vacation time that is right for them.” some clueless executive said once on a radio program I was listening to once, completely ignoring the fact that a lot of Americans don’t get to negotiate their vacation time at all, and that for most people the amount of vacation time that is right for them is not an amount that is acceptable to the company.

But I digress. Because of our severe lack of national holidays, I think you can make up your own. Here is one for the end of February. Watch the Oscars. During the Oscars they usually show a lot of clips from many decades of film. I usually find myself thinking something along the lines of, “You know, I’ve never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Make notes of all those movies you have never seen. After the show is over go to the video store (oh, alas East Coast people, the video store has closed. You’ll have to make do) and pick up a bunch of those movies. The next day, call in sick to work and watch them. You won’t be sorry.

I think we should call it Oscar Day.

The level of debt you feel comfortable with.

In Brent Hunsberger’s financial column on February 15 in the Oregonian, he discusses why we need to all step up and help people facing the foreclosure of their homes. He gives as an example, the Gott family who three years ago “bought a new, four-bedroom house in Albany for themselves and their two girls.” At the time, their annual income was $64,000/year; both parents worked, the father in building supply and the mother as a special ed. assistant. They had no car payment and no credit card debt and felt their $1,900 payment on their $260,000 home was reasonable.

Hunsberger describes what happened when they lost 23% of their income. He then goes on to explain how concerned he is by comments left on his blog when he posted their plea for help. “Several readers skewered them for getting into a house above their means and not shutting of cable or a cell phone.” The Gott husband argues that cutting those things off wouldn’t make a difference and Hunsberger goes on:

“Sure, it’s unfair when those who made a mistake get bailed out while the rest of us foot the future tax bill. But the carnage could affect everyone if we don’t step up and deal. As employers shed jobs and cut pay, millions of other US homeowners will find themselves in a similar fix.

“A foreclosure doesn’t just hurt them. The lender loses money. Surrounding property values drop. That makes selling homes more difficult, puts more homeowners underwater and leads to more foreclosures. The cycle feeds itself.”

I agree with Hunsberger’s closing argument, but let us return to the Gotts for a second. Was their home purchase reasonable. I’ve just Googled “How much home can I afford?” and found the following paragraph on the first hit.

Here’s the super-quick rule of thumb: Most people can afford a home that costs up to three times their annual household income, if they can make a 20% down payment and have only a moderate amount of other debt. If you have little to no debt and can put 20% down you can probably buy a house worth up to four times your annual income. (http://michaelbluejay.com/house/howmuchhome.html)

The article doesn’t mention how much down payment the couple was able to make, but let us run the numbers as if they did. $63,000 X 4 is $252,000.

So according to this quick look the Gotts, with no debt, have overbought a bit.

Then I plugged the numbers into the financial calculator at the bottom of the page. I entered their monthly income ($5333) and their debt payments ($0) and I gave them a down payment of $10,000, though it has been my experience that a lot of people in the last five years bought their first homes with little to no money down. According to the calculator, with a 6% interest rate, a 2% property tax/insurance rate (those were defaults I used) if the couple takes out a 30 year mortgage, the most house the couple could afford is one for $201,853 with a monthly payment of $1546. So according to this rough calculation, the Gotts have overbought a lot.

But here is my real point, (I’m quite good a burying the lead). When times were good, the Gott’s house payment was 35% of their expenses. When their income decreased, the payment suddenly took up 48.5% of their income. The smart spending money blog states that you shouldn’t spend more than a quarter to a third of your before-tax income on housing. In good times, the Gott’s only exceeded that by a bit. But currently they are in completely over their heads. Should they have committed so much to housing their first time around? I think this is where their initial mistake was. If they had limited themselves to a house payment of 25% of their current income ($1333 per month) when that income dropped to its current level, their house payment would only take up 34% of their budget, less than their original percentage.

Though I think the Gotts made an unfortunate choice, I can understand why they did so. I started looking at houses in 2004. I was hoping to get my first teaching job and become a home owner shortly afterward. At the time in Portland, there were still houses available for $130,000. They were old and some of them needed a lot of work and all of them were tiny, but they were available and I was looking forward to the challenge. I didn’t get my first teaching job and my financial situation was not good for a few years. When I began looking again in late 2006, it was difficult to find any home in Portland proper for less than $200,000. Home ownership seemed very, very far away. It was frustrating and depressing.

I, unlike a lot of people in the country in the early 2000s, did not believe that the good times would always roll. I’ve never felt that the income I earn from work will continue to be there, either at it’s current level or in an ever increasing amount. It probably has to do with messages I got growing up, (though my family’s income did grow in slow but steady amounts) and the many bad employment choices I made throughout my 20s.

I’m also very uncomfortable with debt. I currently have no credit card debt and I hate that I took out $30,000 in student loans for graduate school. When I was planning to buy my first home, there was no way I was going to commit 35% of my monthly income to mortgage, etc. It seemed too risky.

In 2007, with my income, a partner in graduate school and home prices at record highs in Portland, I faced the facts that there was no way I was going to be able to afford a home in the next 5-10 years. The story of how I bought my first home ends happily: I found the Portland Community Land Trust, we happened to income qualify, a house came available we could afford, family generously gave us money for more of a down payment and we bought it. We were incredibly lucky. My partner has subsequently graduated and now has a job. I just did a rough calculation and our house payment is 13% of our combined income.

Here’s where I have a problem with the Gotts. In “stretching” to buy their first home, they bought more home than they could afford. They are no different than many, many people across the country. I can’t tell you how many times I read the dubious advice to “stretch a little” to get into your first home. Who was giving that advice? People who gave loans. People who sold houses. People who stood to make money off of the “stretching“. All that stretching drove up home prices and left people who weren’t willing to stretch with the following options: keep saving and renting and hope for a downturn; give up and “stretch”; or find an alternative way to home ownership.

When I worked for Census 2000, one of the things we said a lot when kidding around and giving each other a hard time was “you are part of the problem.” As in, “Why aren’t the reports done? Because you didn’t finish proofing them. You are part of the problem.” I think of that phrase now and then, and lately a lot in context of the housing problem. Who is part of the problem? The lenders and real estate agents. The crappy oversight, sure. But people like the Gotts? They are part of the problem too.

Striving for a future

Well, the economy is in the tank. If we aren’t in a Great Depression, capital letters, I think the populace of the US is currently depressed, small d. Every day there is more bad news. This is not good for a variety of reasons. Namely, that I want a teaching job and teachers tend to hold onto their jobs when times are tough, economically. Not to mention that in Oregon, our education funding is on its usual horrible slide downward due to a crappy tax system that no one in our state has the courage to overhaul. There is talk that thankfully, they might only have to cut a week from the end of school, instead of two weeks or more.

What’s a girl who is tired of being an Admin Assistant to do? Thus far, become gloomy like the rest of the country. However, I realized today that I need to start the job hunt now. So here goes.

New feature.

Weekly, I will post my progress of what I have been doing to become a middle school math teacher. I am thinking Thursday will be the day, as that is a day I tend to get some time to blog.

Here is what I am doing now:

I have given up on the idea of becoming a Social Studies teacher. It does not seem to be valued at the middle school level in the Portland Public School (PPS) District, being combined with Language Arts. Then, only Language Arts teachers seem to be hired. At the high school level? They are looking for coaches. Of athletics. Not me. I’ve done my mourning and moved on.
I have instead decided to focus on my love for middle school students and my healthy appreciation for math and become a math teacher. Not to mention that math teachers are in much more demand than social studies teachers.
I have enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Middle School Math at PSU. I am currently working on class 2 of 8. I will be done after Winter Session of 2011.
I have been putting in many hours studying for Praxis 0069 which I will take March 14. Passing this test will qualify me to teach math at the middle school level.
I have read a bit about some of the remaining middle schools in PPS and have identified a few that sound like great places to work.
I am currently reading books about teaching.
I have started yet another blog to keep track of my learning as a soon-to-be math teacher and to eventually market myself when I begin applying for jobs.

Well, that sounds like a good amount of things. I just listed them there to reassure myself that I am working towards this goal. Those things are sort of ongoing right now and part of the Patricia-as-student phase. Here is what I will do to start the job hunt which will lead to the Patricia-as-employed-educator phase.

Craft a message. In my last, endless job hunt, I learned from Vicki Lind** that everyone should have short statement that succinctly answers the question, “Oh, you are looking for work, what kind?” I think that last time mine was, “I’m looking for a position where I can use my organizational and communication skills to further the education of children and adults.” It came in handy and the job I have now pretty much fits that statement. So now I need one for the next job I’m looking for. I will have a few statements to play around with next week.
Start my “student teaching.” I work full-time right now, so actual student teaching isn’t possible, but luckily I work in a school. I’m going to see if I can take a little time to observe fourth and fifth grade math classes with my ultimate goal to teach a unit or two. This will give me some current teaching experience to put on my resume. First step: ask my boss if I can take some time to observe.
Start the informational interview process. Groan. I hate this. HATE IT. But I think where my teacher job hunt really failed the first time around was partly due to the lack of schmoozing on my part. So I will go and talk to current teachers (ideally current middle school math teachers) about their thoughts on teaching and the best ways to get a job. I will contact at least 10 people in the next week asking if they know any current teachers I could meet with.
Kick up the blog posts on the teacher blog. I am aiming for three a week. They don’t have to be long, they just have to be there. I would like for two of them to be “things to learn more about.” In my reading about middle schools, I’m coming across unfamiliar jargon. And I really need to master the jargon. I think my disdain for learning the jargon also didn’t help the last go-round. So for this week I will remember what my math blog name is, the password and post three posts.

Okay, so I have plan, I have goals and I’m on it. Do I still feel the process will be long, arduous and not fun? Yep. Do the goals help? Yep. Wish me luck.

**Vicki Lind rocks. If you live in Portland and are frustrated by the job search process, go see her. She manages the wallowing and the kick in the pants perfectly. She also has a book called Finding a Job Worth Having that I really liked. And, she has a job club that was everything I needed at the time.

An Historic Day!

Where were you when Barak Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States? I was at work, watching the ceremony with 44 forth and fifth graders and 22 kindergarten and first graders, as well as their teachers, and various parents. Both 2/3 classes and the other K/1 class watched the ceremony in another classroom.

It was an exciting ceremony and the students, crowded onto the floor, stood unprompted when Joe Biden was sworn in, and again when Barak Obama was sworn in. They stood one last time for the star spangled banner, which I sung out lustily. In between, they listened closely to the prayer, the inaugural address and the benediction. Well, the 4/5s did. The K/1s saw the swearing in and the speech, but didn’t stay after that.

Aside from the historic nature of the day, I think my favorite part was walking around referring to “an historic day.” Which I now know is actually incorrect, grammatically, because the “an” sound goes with the vowel sounds. So a word like “honor,” which would be phonetically spelled “on-her,” gets an “an” in front of it, while “historic” has the “h” sound and doesn’t. But still, fun to say.

Shampoo free.

December marks a year of alternate hair care. It started, as many good things do, with yoga class. Rachel, who was very far from a greasy-haired patchouli-scented hippy, mentioned that her hairdresser told her to stop washing her hair. Apparently her curly, curly locks would do better if they were washed less frequently say, once a month or so. She couldn’t imagine going that long, but had cut back to only washing every two weeks. Upon hearing this, another woman with wavy hair chimed in that she rarely washed her hair and thought it was better for it. I protested that with my straight hair, I had to wash it every day or it would become too greasy. We left it at that, but it did get me thinking.

One of the benefits of working in a school is the many regular long stretches of vacation. During vacations, projects can be started and finished and different ways of doing things can be tried. With the above conversation in mind, and with the encouragement of the recess helper at school who also had abandoned the daily ritual of shampooing his head, I decided to experiment over winter break, 2007.

Since puberty, I have washed and conditioned my hair every day. Though I fast figured out that the “lather rise repeat” method was invented to sell more shampoo, I could not go a day without washing. The days I did skip my shower and lather routine, my hair felt gross, very thick and oily. To begin this experiment, I decided to only condition my hair, and skip the shampooing. Here’s what happened the first three days of my experiment.
Day one: “My hair feels incredibly gross.
Day two: I can’t believe this, it is incredibly disgusting.
Day three: This is horrible, how will I last the week?
Day four: Fine.
Note that no shampooing happened between days three and four, my head just adjusted.

From then on it was smooth sailing. Six days of the week I would condition my hair, and only on Sunday would I shampoo first. For awhile I studied my hair to see if it was greasy and even asked a few opinions, but everything seemed fine. I was pretty happy. My shower routine was shorter and now I bought much less shampoo.

Fast forward to June. I attended Monique Dupree’s Sustainable Living on a Budget workshop and learned about the “No Poo” method. I hate the name that has attached itself to this phenomenon, but it really changed my hair care world. No Poo is short for “No Shampoo” and it is a movement of women–and men I would imagine too–who have stopped using shampoo and conditioner entirely. Completely. People’s methods differ, but they have given up their former rituals of daily shampoo and conditioner. I did some research online and was amazed at the different methods. I decided to try not washing my hair during my two week trip to Hungary and Romania.

That was an interesting experiment. I came home from the trip with rather thick hair. It sort of became an entity in its own right. I think that the three different swimming venues contributed greatly to its size, but I knew that I couldn’t just quit washing my hair all together.

My next attempt was the baking soda and cider vinegar method and I’m happy to report that it works well for me. Here’s what I do. On Saturdays, I put a tablespoon of baking soda in an empty 8-oz yogurt cup and bring it and a bottle of cider vinegar with me to the shower. After I wet down my hair, I fill the cup with the baking soda part way and swish it around with my finger to mix it, then add a bit more water. This water/baking soda mixture is then poured over my head and I rub it into the scalp. I let this set for a bit (it feels very nice on the psoriasis) and rinse. Then add a bit of cider vinegar (say 1 teaspoon) to the yogurt cup and fill that with water. That gets poured on my hair and worked into my scalp.

The first time I did this, I could tell that the baking soda worked to clean my hair. I was sure nothing happened when I put the cider vinegar on. “This is not working!” I thought and almost grabbed for the conditioner. But I carried through so I could see the results. My hair seemed so tangled and not smooth. But when I combed through it, it was tangle free.

So that is what I have been doing since July. I haven’t touched my shampoo or conditioner. On Saturdays, I wash my hair and, aside from brushing, that is the sum total of my hair care for the week. I love it. My showers are shorter, my hair is thick and shiny (but not greasy), I don’t have to worry about clogged drains, I save money, and I rarely have to go outside with wet hair.

I feel it is also necessary to point out that I jog a few times per week and bike commute to work three days per week. You would think the sweaty head would contribute to disgusting, oily hair, but it doesn’t. Things dry and everything is fine. I also don’t use any “product” in my hair. I’m not sure what effect that would have with this method. But I do know from my research that many people who stop shampooing daily have lovely, non-frizzy waves and curls appear.

Below is a picture of my hair after nine days of not washing. During this winter break I was testing to see if I could go two weeks between washings. I decided to stick with once per week, mostly so I could avoid the whole, “do I wash my hair this week or next?” conundrum.

Requiem: flash drive

January of 2004 brought us a “weather event” that closed schools for four days. I was student teaching at the time, and so I had ample time at home. I put all my CDs on my computer and then, having nothing much more to do in my tiny studio apartment, I began to obsess that I “needed” a laptop. I made the mistake of asking Matt if he thought I should get one–he was trapped at his house, too, playing video games until his eyes turned red–and he thought I should. In retrospect, I knew I was asking the person who would tell me to go ahead and buy. Matt agrees with a good argument and doesn’t really weight the financial factor, which was significant, in my case. At that point, I was pretty poor due to a SNAFU with financial aid.

So the laptop was bought, used for five months and it did come in handy while student teaching. Then, as I grew increasingly worried about it getting stolen and also the fact I shouldn’t have bought it in the first place, I sold it at a loss on eBay. The result was that I essentially paid a little over $100.00 per month to use a laptop. Not the best deal, but not horrible, either.

I tell you all this, because at the same time I bought this jump drive. (Flash drive, thumb drive, cigar, it needs a standardized name.) 128 MB of storage and it cost $49.95. This was totally worth it, because I have used it for four years. Though now you can get multiple gigabytes of memory for less than the price I paid, this little guy was state of the art at the time and it worked for me.

Now, however, he is broken and I must bid him goodbye.