SOL: A Bruise

I've got a bruise. You can hardly see it, a light oval stretched across the very top of my hip bone, but it's still tender to the touch three days following the incident. As soon as it happened, I knew I wanted to write about it, but I've associated too much embarrassment with it for the past 72 hours to start. Now, though, I'm feeling a little bit of pride set in. It's the perfect storm to write my slice of life--equal amounts of pride and embarrassment.

This semester, I needed to add one more credit to my load; I decided to go for two of the easy Student Activity courses.

"No sweat," I thought. But these beginning volleyball and self defense classes are harder than I expected. I sweat.

In self defense, we're still learning some basics a couple of weeks into the semester: separation, hits, kicks, etc. Wednesday, we're practicing separation with both arms. (Push off the attackers jaw or hips, then use that momentum to step back with one foot. I'll teach you sometime, if you want. It's empowering.) Our demonstration attackee just went into the MTC that very morning, so the teacher is asking for a volunteer--"a small volunteer," pointing at me and several other classmates. Who knows what kind of attack he'll be demonstrating on me? He hasn't gone easy on the girls who have volunteered earlier. I raise my hand, and I can't help feeling like Katniss as I walk bravely to the front of the room.


He immediately picks me up in a fireman's carry, walking around with me on his shoulder to show the rest of the class what this might look like (like the picture, there, but neither of us are in fatigues, nor am I a man with a buzz cut, he's not carrying a machine gun, nor is there smoke in the room). He moves my arm from across the front of his chest, around his head, and tells me to push off his face. I do so. The other girls are giggling. Then, he says, "Move your hips side to side and try to get off. Create space between us." He sets me down, then without much warning, he's coming at me again. When a man twice my size whom you don't know very well starts yelling, "Come here, you!" and starts to pick you up, adrenaline kicks on a little bit; life's a bit of a blur. As soon as I'm over his shoulder, I start throwing my hips back and forth, and within three seconds my hipbone makes serious contact with the side of his head, right around the ear, and he's on his knees, saying, "Okay, stop. That's good." He looks up at me and the rest of the class, which has tightened the circle around him. "She got me good, just about knocked me out. So, this technique is effective, right? A knocked-out attacker is an easy one to get away from. Find a partner and practice." You can bet I make profuse apologies, but he laughs it off.

Class ends, I'm tying my tennis shoes, and my teacher walks over. "My ear still hurts," he says. I try to apologize again, but he stops me, "It's a compliment! I have never been hit that hard by a girl in my entire life, never been that close to getting knocked out by a girl. I'll have to tell all my classes about this. Nobody who knows me is going to mess with you." He's been teaching this class and others, like Ju-Jitsu and karate, for fifteen years. And I, the wimpy lightweight, was the first to bring him down.

SOL: Avoiding Questions

Throughout the past couple of weeks, I have read several blog and Facebook posts about the insensitive questions people ask. As an individual who spends a significant amount of my thought-energy on avoiding making people feel uncomfortable, I take these advice-giving posts very seriously: basically, be very careful about what you say to someone who is married, single, dating, engaged, male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, a parent, childless, religious, atheist, conservative, liberal, feminist, masculinist, etc., etc., etc.

I still believe it is very important to consider the implications of the words you say and the questions you ask.

After many years of feeling this way and acting accordingly, though, this belief has translated into avoiding any type of question which could make any person feel uncomfortable in any way. Consequently, I know a lot of very surface-level facts about the people I care about, and very little about the soul that lives underneath.

This weekend, Michael and I hung out with two of his sisters and some other friends from their high-school days. Toward the end of our laughter-filled evening at Blue Lemon, Ronnie said, "Aly, I don't know you very well. I would like to change that," and started asking me questions. They were hardly deep questions--mostly, "If you came home and had no homework, what would you do?" (Note to self: I need some hobbies other than reading. I couldn't answer that question. But that's a post for another time.) and "Marry, date, or dump: Tom Hiddleston, Chris Evans, and Chris Hemsworth"-- but it got me thinking. At some point I'm going to have to stop being so worried about offending someone that I can actually get words out of my mouth and start building up the relationships I've let go of because of my fears. All weekend I found myself nearly asking more personal questions, then holding them back. It's interesting how questions bring about connections; both are things I've been missing.

First Slice of Life (SOL): Dots

In my Teaching Composition course this semester, one of my professor's goals is to help us to consider ourselves as writers. Me? I'm not a writer. Aside from this blog and the extremely rare journal entry, I don't think I have written anything aside from school-related assignments since I was in third grade. And school-related writing is like pulling my own teeth out (even this blog post is yet another attempt at procrastination; I will avoid writing any type of educational theory paper for as long as possible). I'm pretty positive this needs to change, but I'm still working on my plan of action. The first step, though, is this. One of our assignments is to write six short Slice of Life essays at some point throughout the semester. It's for school, yes, but it is much more personal and relatable than Vygotsky, Bandura, or Dewey. At least it's a start. Before I finally get down to what we're all really here for, I have to share this quote by William Henry Channing that exemplifies what Slice of Life is all about: 

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury; and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasion, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.

***

I wonder how many common moments like this one, how much of the happiness my life, I have forgotten because I was too tired to write it down in my journal before I went to bed, or I don't have a picture or video or Facebook post to remind me. 

I've probably made the four-hour drive from Provo to Idaho Falls and back a half-dozen times, but this time is different. I'm a passenger this time, sitting in the middle seat with my husband on one side and my nearly-eighty-year-old grandmother on the other side. 

Grandma just got a hand-me-down iPad from my aunt, and she's looking for apps. Oh, have we got the game for her. Dots. "A Game About Connecting," as the developers call it. If you have any type of smart device, you've probably played it before, too. (If you haven't, don't start. When you jerk into consciousness three weeks later, you'll have lost all your friends, no longer be enrolled in school, and be nearly starved to death.)

It's embarrassing to admit, but for at least four of the eight hours of this trip, we play Dots, passing it to the person on the right every sixty seconds. At about 9:00 PM, only two hours to home, Michael decides that it's time to coach Grandma--her slow progress and a score of sixty is no longer cutting it for the Dots aficionado. 

"Red square! Bottom left!"

"Double tap that blue one... the other blue one."

"Green square! Top!"

Now Michael has both his elbows on my legs, leaning across the seat so he's right over Grandma's game, giving her directions with the intensity of an NFL football coach. 

"That's the ticket, Gayle, that's the ticket!"

"Blue square! Bottom right!"

In the end, it's too much for him to bear, and he's literally doing everything but connecting the squares for her. Grandma and I share a glance, then we're grinning, giggling, laughing, squealing.

I've lived five houses down the street from my grandma and grandpa for most of my life. But until last night, no one had ever told me my Grandma Gayle's childhood nickname: Giggles. 

The Media's Single Story about the Blind [a post for my Multicultural Education class]

As I searched YouTube for individuals that are represented as a group in the media, I came across the following bit from the Jimmy Kimmel Show about allowing blind people to purchase and use guns.

Now, I understand the purpose of Kimmel's sketch; it does seem inappropriate to allow blind individuals to carry guns, and Kimmel is a late-night comedian/talk show host, so he makes his living off making fun of people. The way that Kimmel treated these individuals, however, left me with a sour taste in my mouth. He leads them extremely slowly and deliberately across the screen towards their positions as each individual holds tightly onto the person in front of him or her. He makes jokes about them (telling them all of their shots hit their targets, for example) that they do not know to laugh at because of their lack of sight. I see a problem with Kimmel's bit, not because I believe people with visual impairments should be allowed to carry guns, but the way Kimmel and his team represented their blind subjects as individuals without a sense of humor who cannot take care of themselves.

The single story that I expected to see of people with visual impairments in the media was that of individuals in need of assistance and pity, or individuals like Helen Keller who were heroes in spite of (or perhaps because of) their disability. Jimmy Kimmel's short video certainly was an example of the first, with a good bit of negative humor included. In my research, I did come across several more of these representations; however, a greater majority of media touted the capability and attempts at normalcy of visually impaired people.


In October of this year, a renowned author of young adult fiction named Marcus Sedgwick released a book called She Is Not Invisible, which features a blind female protagonist named Laureth who is attempting to solve the mystery of her father's disappearance with her younger brother. Their travels as a duo are obviously much more difficult because of Laureth's disability, but Laureth is strong and capable and will stop at nothing to find her father. In the two months since the book was published, 899 individuals have rated the book on GoodReads with an average of 4 out of 5 stars. I have not yet read the book, but reviews state that Sedgwick's use of the four senses (other from sight) is powerful and realistic; one reviewer of the book was blind herself and stated that Sedgwick represented the daily life of a blind person very well. Another review quoted the main character, who "criticises [sic] the way blind characters are portrayed in books and films as either 'pathetic helpless figures of woe' or 'superheroes.'"


The Braille Project, a collaboration between poet Faye Harnest and artist Devon E. Sioui, was created for the purpose of exposing the seeing world to the beauty of braille, as well as opening the conversation to the voices of the blind and visually impaired. With the tagline of "Please DO Touch," Harnest and Sioui encourage, even beg, sighted individuals to recognize the blind world as legitimate. Though very different, another artifact that I found works on a similar project. Just this morning, Jacqueline Ober published an article on The Huffington Post website called "Training Program That Not Only Teaches Independence Skills to Blind Youth But Gives Back to the Community." The Work to Independence program in Maryland helps young adults with visual impairments to obtain the skills needed to live on their own and become employed. Though Ober is asking for donations in this article as part of The Huffington Post's #GivingTuesday series, where they highlight an organization to which readers can donate, the tone of the article is one of pride in the steps that these young people are taking to become a contributing member of society.

In this modern, technological culture that the United States currently runs on, individuals who deal with visual impairments have a presence online and are able to answer questions and make known their opinions about their world and the way others perceive it. Hannah Thompson, a partially-sighted woman who lectures at Royal Holloway, University of London, regularly updates her blog called Blind Spot. In her recent post about BBC's grant program for projects to help Britain's disadvantaged infants and children called Children in Need, she discusses the projects that have been recently done for those with visual impairments. The types of services and resources that these grants are providing for children, Thompson claims, are things that the children should be receiving from the government. Thompson, like the fictional character that Sedgwick created for his novel, argues against the way that BBC's Children in need "uses the language of tragedy, pity, bravery and sympathy to get the British public to happily pay for services which our government should be providing. [Furthermore, they use] photogenic images and tear-jerking music to blur our critical judgement so that we stop asking why." Thompson attempts to confront through her writings the way not only blind, but underprivileged and disabled children are being used in the media to create a feeling of empathy in the viewer or reader, who will then donate money. Another blind individual who has created a strong online presence is Tommy Edison. He is most well known as a the Blind Film Critic on YouTube and has 138,400 followers of his channel. Edison has been blind since birth. Not only does Edison critique films, he answers the basic questions about blindness and visual impairment that come from sighted people in very comedic ways. In the following short clip, he jokes about the perks of being blind.

By creating these types of videos, Edison is also attempting to change the perceptions of the world toward the blind and visually impaired.

Now, of course there are representations of individuals who are visually impaired in the media that are demeaning, as was shown in the clip of Jimmy Kimmel. Recently, however, there has been a great push from within and without the visually impaired community to change the way these individuals are portrayed and seen. Thus, the single story that I have found threaded through each of these artifacts is one of a group who is trying to convince the seeing world that individuals with visual impairments are neither superheroes nor people in need of pity. Instead they are simply hard working men and women who are attempting to integrate themselves into the seeing culture and educating them about visually impairment. However, even this single story can be limiting, because certainly not all of the individuals who could be included in this group would agree with the ideas that are being pushed today.

Because there are so few visually impaired protagonists in young adult literature, it would be wonderful as an English teacher to introduce Sedgwick's She Is Not Invisible to a group of students. There is always the potential, however, for those students to think that once they have read that book, they understand the world of the visually impaired, and make judgments based on the story. Furthermore, if I as a teacher believed that all blind students were like Tommy Edison, with a sense of humor and love for film, I certainly would not get to know my students very well. To help my students and myself avoid making these types of judgments in the classroom about visually impaired individuals, it is absolutely necessary to recognize and critically analyze the types of information we take in about any group of people. This is a skill all individuals need, no matter what they plan to do with their lives, so I will create lesson plans that point out the single stories we create about people, then explicitly model and teach ways to recognize the single stories that are portrayed in the media, even by those groups themselves.

Bibliography:

• Harnest, Faye and Devon E. Sioui. The Braille Project. The Braille Project, 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
• Jimmy Kimmel Live. "Jimmy Takes Blind People to a Shooting Range." Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 11 Oct. 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. 
• Ober, Jacqueline. "Training Program That Not Only Teaches Independence Skills to Blind Youth But Gives Back to the Community." Huffington Post. 2 Dec. 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. 
• Sedgwick, Marcus. She Is Not Invisible. New York: Indigo, 2013. Print. 
• Thompson, Hannah. "My Problem with Children in Need." Blind Spot. 17 Nov. 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. 
• TommyEdisonXP. "Best Things about Being Blind." Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 3 July 2012. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. 

we're back... & what I never finished

I found my list of things we did while we were in Louisiana last year, and I just wanted to write down a couple of memories before I threw the receipt away (oh, receipts... the perfect places for my many lists). Then I'll start writing about our second Louisiana adventure!

Last October was filled with a lot of good stuff...

October 13th: We made a day trip to Pensacola, FL (about a 4-hour drive). The Naval Aviation Museum had us captivated for far more hours than we expected (Dad, you would have loved it), so we were a little late getting to the beach, which in itself was worth the 4-hour drive. Michael nearly cried and just rolled around in the silky soft, white sand before running like a mad man into the sparkling blue, warm water. We were in love with the place (and have great plans for the three-day weekends Michael has every other week). For dinner we pulled up to a local Greek festival, but the line for food was around the block, so we observed for a while before heading home. All in all, one of the best days!

***
October 19th: Jefferson Parish had a huge sale of library books they were no longer using. Just tables and tables lined with books for $1-$5. We bought Harry Potter 1 and 2, Jurassic Park, and The Essential 55 (a teacher-improvement book... more on that later). The search was just as enjoyable as the finds!

Later that night, Stephen and Kayla Tersigni invited us on a date to a Vietnamese restaurant in Metairie. We loved chatting with them, and they told us a secret that consumed us for the rest of our stay--bubble teas (watermelon, kiwi, and raspberry) with tapioca balls. Dude. They very nearly replaced Blue Bell. We went every night for three nights in a row, and at least once a week after that. Yikes. But so good.
***
October 20th: We're going to the zoo! With the Halls! We sure do love those sweet babies. Michael was amazed by the enormous silver-back gorilla who was incredibly human-like, posed in the shade and occasionally wiping his nose with his hand. And we got to pet an elephant, which was totally cool.

***
October 26th: After chatting on Facebook about my new-found Yo-Yo Ma obsession, Kayla Tersigni called and invited me to a secret rehearsal that young students (including her son, Thomas) were invited to. We took awkward photos of his back and then he turned around and waved at us. I geeked out, maybe hyperventilated a bit, and then sat in awe during the rehearsal. (Thanks, Kayla!!)
***
October 27th: I finally got to meet Michael's coworkers and go on a tour of the Monsanto plant during the work Halloween party. (And, if you didn't know, Michael's a good salesman, even if it's only of spinning the Wheel of Safety). Later that night was the ward Trunk-or-Treat (we're lame and didn't bring any candy or dress up... Thanks JJ & Lauren for letting us pass out your candy).
***
October 31st: Michael was sick. I was really sad. Halloween is Jason's birthday, and Jaime threw a rockin' Clue-themed surprise Halloween/birthday party, complete with a live game of Clue and beautiful food. We trick-or-treated with the kids around Mary and Russell's neighborhood and had a lovely time. We missed Michael though.
***
Meanwhile, we were reading a lot (Harry Potter and Catching Fire and Lord of the Rings) and watching some serious Downton Abbey. We also played Clue about once a week with Adam (Jennifer had headed back to Utah to get ready for baby William) and Andy. Guys, we're pretty darn good, and even developed a one-on-one game.

Around this time, I was also having my bi-yearly why-the-heck-am-I-an-English-major? break down, and after a lot of discussion, prayer, thought, and patriarchal blessing reading, I decided to apply to the English Education major (and got in this last February!)
***

November was also awesome. It was so beautiful outside (I could definitely get used to shorts and tees in the "winter"), and one of our favorite Saturdays we took our bikes down to St. Charles Avenue and rode up and down the streets looking at beautiful houses and other buildings. Another weekend, we found the one Korean restaurant in the New Orleans area and cooked our own food.

My parents came to visit!! Hooray! I cried when they got here and when they left :) With them, we visited the WWII Museum again, ate some great food and heard some of the best jazz music we've heard yet in the French Quarter, and did a little souvenir shopping. The next morning we toured the beautiful Oak Alley Plantation, became obsessed with Zydeco's Cajun Restaurant, and searched for gators at a state park (can't quite remember which one). I sure loved having them with us.


For Christmas my parents gave us plane tickets to Chicago so we could spend Thanksgiving with Elise, Christina, and Daniel. I'd never been and, in spite of the cold, loved it. We had a gourmet Thanksgiving meal, ice skated next to the Bean, experienced Chicago architecture on a frigid boat tour, walked through Macy's (twice), had some serious Chicago pizza at Giordano's, loved spending time with family, and officially began the Christmas season by going to A Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theater. (Note: The night before we left, I was giving my dear husband a hair cut, was doing some trimming, and went in with the clippers instead of the comb. Needless to say, he had to shave his head. I was embarrassed, but luckily he's a good sport!)

***

We left around the middle of December. Before we went, the Rich's and the Hall's threw us a great see-you-soon party, complete with games, antlers, and Christmas gifts. On one of our last weekends, we finally did our cemetery tour before packing up the car and driving again. The drive went well until we got to Colorado and the snow was too thick to see more than 10 feet in front of us. The two-day drive turned into a three-day drive when we stopped in a small town rather than continue slipping off the road. In the end, I was too stressed to just sit there, and Michael graciously let me take over driving.

It was good to be home! We spent Christmas with the Davis's and went back to our sweet little apartment in Provo to start school.





Bless you if you made it through this post... Check back soon for more recent adventures!

friends from home & chargrilled oysters. october 12.

In the middle of September I received a random phone call from a random phone number. Lo and behold it was Taylor Moss, the husband of the Heather, one of the girls I visit taught in our BYU ward. Heather and Taylor have an adorable little boy named Will that Michael and I babysat a couple of times, but they graduated and moved to California to start a business around the same time we came to Louisiana. (You can see their cute blog and Will's hilarious faces here.) Taylor and his coworker Jordan (also someone that Michael knew from Idaho Falls) came to New Orleans for a trade show, and we got to save some packages for them and welcome to New Orleans! I was just pleased as punch that we had someone from home coming to visit.

Well, we hadn't been to A.C.M.E. for char-grilled oysters yet, so we thought we might as well introduce these Californians to some real Southern food: seafood po-boys and catfish. I've never had oysters, and I'm not much of a slimy food fan, but smother it with garlic and cheese and butter, and I'm all over it. Taylor and Jordan were too kind and bought us dinner-- thank you!!

We told them they had to try beignets too, but going into the French Quarter was out of the question because of traffic, so we opted for the Cafe du Monde experience in the mall.

We had a great time telling them about all the things they needed to do during their time off and seeing some friendly faces!

the battle for the paddle. october 5.

It took me a little while to buck up the courage, but Michael finally helped/forced me to write an email to the editor of the L'Observateur to ask for another assignment, and the assignment I got was to go to an event we were already excited about going to already!

The Battle for the Paddle is the annual jambalaya and gumbo cook-off for St. Charles Parish under the West Bank Bridge. We met up with Andy, the Hall's, the Rich's, and the Guilfou's to enjoy the $5 you-can-eat-as-much-food-as-you-can-stuff-into-your-mouth. Well, if you really want, you can read my article that explains it a little better here (just accept my shameless plug). I even got in for free because the lady I was getting all my information for the article called me "press." Ha! I guess it's almost true, but it still seems deceitful because I don't have any idea what I'm doing with my little point-and-shoot and borrowed tape recorder.

And voila, my article appeared on the front page! The guy in the picture, Randy, works at Monsanto with David, one of the guys Michael shares an office building with. As soon I showed up to interview David, David brought Randy over saying, "Here. He'll talk your ear off." It's true. He was a hoot. The picture on the right is much more his personality than the one they put in the newspaper.

By the end of the interview, he was telling me about how he picks up roadkill along the side of the road on his way home from work if he didn't see it there on the way to work, and make jambalaya and gumbo out of it. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Truth be told, I wouldn't mind hanging out with slightly-drunk Cajuns more often ;)

And getting to eat some seriously good Cajun food.