Catharsis. By Way of Crazy.

I’m a planner. I think through scenarios with a specificity that any sane person would find exhausting. And once I’ve set my mind upon “what should happen,” I have a hard time with anything the throws a wrench in that.

When something doesn’t go according to plan- I take it harder than I should, reeling in a way usually reserved for someone’s horrible break up.

Last night, I went straight home after work, (pouted), ate crappy Thai food, (pouted), watched The Mindy Project and New Girl I missed last week, (pouted), and finally peeled myself off the couch, forcing myself into a workout. Admittedly, I wasn’t super productive but I got sweaty and listened to This American Life and when you factor in my mindset, scaling Mount Vesuvius couldn’t have left me feeling more victorious.

Heading back to my apartment, I began very calmy talking to myself- “What’s happening here is character shaping. I’m experiencing growth. I am moving past imagined failings and real disappointments. I may not get everything I want, but hard work provides us the things we need.”

Blah blah blahhhhhh.

And the dialogue, taken directly out of a movie scene, where some poor negotiator talks a man down from the ledge, didn’t stop for the rest of the night.

“Perspective,” I’d say to myself in super soothing tones.

“You have a friend who lost her family dog yesterday, another, struggling with a happily ever after scenario, no Disney film prepared her for. Don’t be ridiculous Taylor- Those are all weights far heavier than the ones in your head.”

I watched 180 Days on PBS and witnessed kids deal with the loss of a parent, the cracks in our educational system and a culture that is failing them.

“Your hurdles can’t begin to compare Taylor. You should be helping, finding out what you can do, instead of spending the better part of your evening pouting.”

I promised myself I’d spend some time researching and seeing what I could do.

Then I headed to bed, did my last social media check of the day and smiled as more and more of my Facebook feed turned red. I felt pride in the multitude of millenials who were showing their support, rallying behind the first day of Supreme Court hearings on marriage equality and thought back to The Loving Story, the documentary detailing the story of Loving v. Virginia:

“Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

I went to bed thinking I was better. Whole. Sane.

And then I woke up at 4:00 a.m. in a panic, with no amount of soothing rhetoric able to stop my whirling brain.

The biggest problem is- nothing happened. Nothing happened other than my inability to wrap my head around change and a hint of pervasive self doubt I’m not proud of. There is no imminent problem to be fixed, no list of to-dos I can tackle. If I’m being honest, what I most need is time, and several deep breaths. But some days that’s easier said than done.

A Holiday Resolution.

Stick with me- this is, at best, a long winded, round about post. (At worst? You’ll be bored and tired by the third paragraph. I’m sorry. I swear I’ll do better tomorrow.)

The theme here is that there are people, whose words will stick with you, well beyond their physical presence in your life.

For me, there were several professors at ISU who I have thought of a lot lately:

1) As a freshman, Darlene Hantzis was a tough and demanding professor whose class I dreaded. She taught my first Communication class and I remember thinking- I can’t do this. Yet by the time I was a senior, I had not only, survived many of her classes but I had changed as a result. She is largely responsible for the maturing of my critical thinking, specifically in regards to race, gender and mass communication.

2) Looking back, I probably had a slight, purely platonic, crush on Jay Clarkson, a teacher I was enamored with from the first time I took his class. He swore like a sailor, openly talked about being gay and hating Sarah Palin and each semester made students cry by bashing Disney and country music. It. Was. Awesome.

He also introduced me to some of the most awesomely ridiculous YouTube videos including Hi, I’m a Tea-Partier (See above), Read a Book and Literal Total Eclipse of the Heart . I always felt he found me irritating, which was probably in large part because, I sort of loved him. He taught me that “My parent says,” is not a valid argument and that more knowledge is to be had from discussion than from all the books in the world. And while his general disdain for Disney has not stopped my love of The Mouse, just this morning I talked with a colleague about the prevalent racism in the portrayal of women and minorities.

3) Deb Worley is probably the professor I worked most closely with as a Public Relations student and her, as well as her husbands, departure from Indiana State is still sad to me. I’ve often thought about writing her- when my first press release was picked up, as I’ve adjusted to agency life and sometimes just to ask advice. Deb was a tough critic, I still have nightmares of her purple inked corrections, but I am a better professional as a result.

4) David Worley, Deb’s husband, was the chairman of the Communication department while I was at ISU and one of the kindest men I’ve ever known. He taught several of the Communication classes I most dreaded (I hated research theory with a PASSION.) but he always made them bearable. Yet what made the deepest impression on me, was the wisdom Dr. Worley would dispense about who we were to become as people and throughout my college career, he played many roles in my life including counselor, sounding board and constant cheerleader.

I’ll never forget his “final thoughts” he’d share at the close of class each week.

Dr. Worley had actually been a minister before he began his teaching career and for a relentless cynic like mw, it would have been easy to roll my eyes at his messages. While never overtly religious, they always had a uniquely spiritual undertone. Yet they were shared from such a place of love, with such caring for each of us as students, they’ve left a mark.

Now where did this ode-to-professors come from, on today of all days?

I had a weird morning.

I hit the snooze button on my alarm at least a half a dozen times before I managed to roll out of bed. After a very lazy weekend I wasn’t mentally or physically prepared for this early morning wake-up call.

A few hours later, (after a very hurried get-ready) I received an email that took me by surprise. And it struck me, as I read it, how easy it becomes, when the responsibilities of life come into play, to forget where you started and what you had wanted when you began.

I couldn’t help but think how me pushing the snooze button- putting off the inevitable, was a (rather cheesy) metaphor for life.

Which lead to remembering one of Dr. Worley’s end of week thoughts. I can almost hear his voice as he described a vacant house- the dilapidated front, the roof caving in and demolition crews beginning to tear it down. He asked us to think about what the house had been like when it was new, filled with family and joy. How had it gone from a place of such promise to a place beyond repair? And how easily do we let ourselves go- replacing hope with to-do’s, and forgoing an investment in ourselves with have-to’s and need-to’s?

Which I guess led to this-

We don’t often take the chance to reflect. What got us here? Where do we want to be? Are we asking for what we want, what we need, to make ourselves happy? Have we said enough thank-you’s along the way to the people who got us here?

People usually make New Year’s resolutions, that are forgotten before March Madness’ first tip off. So this year, I propose a 2-part holiday resolution.

First, to say thank you, to those that we haven’t taken time to express our gratitude.

and

Second, despite the busy-ness this season demands, to take some time to remember where we have been and where we are going.

You in?

p.s. In the off chance you are one of the 3 professors from ISU who, on rare RARE occasions, peruses my blog- Do not be offended that you are not on the above list. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. If I made a list of all the people at ISU I thoroughly enjoyed, the 7 people who read this blog would either drift off into a coma or run far far away before the list was ever completed. Know that I left ISU incredibly proud to be a Sycamore and thankful for each and every person I encountered during my four years there.

Ok. Almost every person. I’m feeling VERY warm and fuzzy today but I can’t flat out lie. The only contribution a very select few people made to my life was increased patience and a greater ability to count. As in counting down the days until I no longer had to work with them.

Nostalgia and the holiday spirit can only take me so far.

Liberalism. Or…

How the right is shoving me farther and farther to the left.

I very proudly said for a long time that it wasn’t about a party. No one party is good or evil, nor can the merit of a candidate be based on the letter by their name.

But the thing is, the more extreme the Republican party gets-the more exclusive, the farther left I wander.

Why?

1. Education

People preach about the legacy we pass on to future generations. That’s crucial when discussing matters like healthcare and the budget. But for some reason we keep chipping away at the education system. Especially here in Indiana, there seems to be the uncanny urge to take away crucial funding for schools.

How is this possible? How can schools be the first place to take money from? You want to argue over the economy? Or the high unemployment rate? Perhaps this is, at least in part, a failure of the education system.

2. Equality

It’s no secret. I love gays. I love the gay community. I believe in gay rights. My friend always tells me that I actually have a gay man hidden inside me (don’t try to figure out the logistics on this).

The thing is- this is the civil rights issue of our generation. People are being treated like second class citizens and opponents are wrapping themselves up in a blanket of Christianity to justify their bigotry. (See: Michelle Bachmann’s New Pledge) Let me make myself clear- I did not wake up one morning and say YAY boys. I did not DECIDE to be attracted to men. I don’t believe anyone else has that choice to make either. I was born, the way I was born. Anyone in the GLBT community was born the way they were born (Too Lady Gaga? Sorry.)

And I firmly believe those facts, those personal truths do not make a higher power frown on me. In fact, if He made me, He made any number of my friends just the way they are. THEREFORE, Indiana’s Gay Marriage Amendment scares me. My state, this state, continues to move this forward, to try to constitutionally ban the rights and freedoms I take for granted. I am appalled and saddened and will continue to donate, on my itty-bitty just out of college salary, to causes that fight against this.

3. Women’s Rights

You’d have to be living under a rock to not know how much of an attack women’s rights in this state have been under. This isn’t local news, or even regional. It’s become national and garnered the attention of many public figures.

Here’s my deal. Men, men in government, male pundits, public figures, have started acting as though women’s rights- affordable women’s healthcare and our right to choose what happens to our body, are negotiable. In my opinion- they are not. More importantly, the message it sends is that if you are a “good” “christian” female, who’s family has the means to take care of her financially- the Republicans can take care of you. But if you are poor, or if you are sexually active, or if you are in need of affordable health services, then you must be a “hooker”. (Could I make that up?)

Want to know something? I made a donation to Planned Parenthood too. Even if you don’t believe in abortion, even if you don’t want it to be an option, Planned Parenthood provides invaluable health services to women is need. And that is the most important point. That is why the funding of this program, and countless others like it is crucial.

4. Insanity

I would like to write about how party members who don’t just push boundaries but go running off the side of a cliff into a big vat of insanity, then have the gall to act like it’s the big ol’ bad media’s fault, are making me think that people with a brain couldn’t possibly be Republican. Or how Republican’s are trying to oust a fellow Republican, a nationally respected, moderate, thoughtful, Republican (Lugar) because he’s “too out there” and “not adhering to the conservative agenda” But instead, I’ll finish with an adorable video that further proves, while insanity gets me talking, it also pushes me WAY AWAY from the elephants.

Nothing is Impossible

However far modern science and technics have fallen short of their inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson: Nothing is impossible. -
LEWIS MUMFORD

When I think about science I think about goggles and test tubes. I think about those two Muppets, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his hapless assistant Beaker who would conduct experiments of science in the Muppet Laboratory. I think of the science classes in middle school where we would get out of work and watch Bill Nye the Science Guy. Those periods were the best. Yeah, let’s face it, I’ve never been a big science girl.

But the thing is, whether I like it or not, science is a part of everyday life. It’s the research that allows us to understand how people work. It’s the capability to explore the world and offer explanations for life’s mysteries. It’s in the technology that I am typing this article on and it is allowing me to watch an episode of The Office I missed from last week. Science isn’t just made up of chemistry sets and laboratories.

Further, science is increasingly important in our changing world. Science is what makes the world more manageable, more connected. In an increasingly global world, it is science that links the pieces of our puzzle.

So why is it that less than a third of U.S. students have a “solid grasp” of science according to national test scores recently released. According to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, we are allowing our students to fall behind their counterparts in European and Asian countries.

Teachers and educators offer an explanation about these statistics. They blame lack of advanced science classes in low income and rural areas as well as a lack of qualified science educators, which seems to me to be a circular issue. The less students we are teaching about science, the less likely they are to want to enter a scientific field in the future. Therefore, who is going to educate a new class of students?

A headline I saw this week announced that the average 2 year old is more able to work an iPhone than to tie a pair of shoes. The article explained the ease and purpose and two year old exhibited when working an iPhone application featuring a favorite cartoon character or movie. Yet the same two year old is likely to toss the shoe in frustration.

I’m intrigued how these two findings can be simultaneously true, however I recognize I am a part of this generational conflict. I love technology and I rarely find myself intimidated by a new program or application. I know that if given the opportunity I can figure out the pieces and learn how it works.

More importantly, I enjoy the exploration of technology. I enjoy the feeling of satisfaction that occurs when I have discovered a new way to manage social media. I love being able to play with PhotoShop until I have put together a design that is perfect.

Yet I have never found that same enjoyment in my science classes. Looking back, I realize I’ve always been able to take the easy way out in Science classes, without anyone ever calling me to really explore or learn more about the process. And that is what is causing the problem. Students aren’t engaged in science, therefore they don’t see a calling to succeed in that area. Until they are, we will continue to lag behind, continue to see U.S. students who don’t have a grasp on science curriculum.