Month: March 2011

Things I Know 61 of 365: I am 30

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.

– Dr. Seuss

Thirty years and a day ago, I wasn’t.

Then, the next day, I was.

For the last couple months, my sister Rachel has been teasing me about this birthday.

“You know,” she’s said with that tone where the “o” in “know” lasts a bit longer, “you are going to be old soon.”

She’s teasing, trying to elicit a defensive, fear-of-death response.

“I know,” I reply, “I can’t wait.”

It’s true.

I’m not exactly rushing toward death, but certainly rushing toward whatever’s next.

Truth be told, I’ve put quite a bit into those 30 years.

I’ve:

  • been born.
  • learned to walk and talk.
  • had stitches a bunch of times.
  • built many forts and clubhouses.
  • had four dogs.
  • fallen in love.
  • become a vegetarian.
  • lived in four states.
  • gotten a college degree.
  • run 8 marathons.
  • become a big brother three times over.
  • started my master’s degree – three times over.
  • taught over 1,000 kids.
  • seen the divorces and marriages of my parents.
  • served as editor in chief of a newspaper.
  • rafted down the Colorado River.
  • officiated three weddings of friends.
  • seen the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean.
  • watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.
  • run along the coast of the Indian Ocean.
  • visited Kenya.
  • visited South Africa (twice).
  • co-authored and edited a book.
  • skydived.
  • lost my bookbag to a baboon.
  • recovered my bookbag from a baboon.
  • died my hair blue, green, read, orange, purple, and blond.
  • smoked a few cigars.
  • learned how to cook.
  • performed improv.
  • told my family and friends I love them (but probably not enough).
  • been diagnosed with and recovered from osteomyelitis.
  • developed an allergy to cats.
  • visited 40 of the states in the Union.
  • read.
  • transitioned from being a PC to being a Mac.
  • accidentally shot a bluejay with a BB gun.
  • watched every episode of The West Wing and Arrested Development like it was my job.
  • caught snowflakes on my tongue.
  • written.
  • failed.
  • changed the world by doing way more than saving a single starfish.
  • mourned the death of Johnny Cash.
  • voted.
  • collected hats.
  • collected pins.
  • sounded my barbaric Yawp.
  • cried.
  • been a member of a live studio audience.
  • gambled in a casino.
  • decided casinos make me sad.
  • played with a wood burning kit.
  • sang.
  • left a thawing Cornish game hen in a sculpture shaped like a hand (four times).
  • learned to crochet.
  • laughed.

And those are just the things I can remember off the top of my head.

I can’t wait for the next 30 years.

Things I Know 60 of 365: Online me is better than me

There’s this large trend – I think the next trend in the Web, sort of Web 2.0 – which is to have users really express, offer, and market their own content, their own persona, their identity.

– John Doerr

I started wondering today if I would know online me if I ran into him.

My G11 kids and I were discussing this piece by Dan Schwabel at Forbes arguing the usurpation of the resumé by a person’s online presence in the next 10 years.

While I’m hesitant to venture any guesses of what my world will look like in 10 years, something Schwabel wrote got me thinking:

Employers are reviewing your profiles to see what kind of person you are outside of work, who you’re connected to, and how you present yourself. Each gives clues to how well you can fit into the corporate culture. When employees don’t fit in the culture, there is turnover, and it costs the organization thousands of dollars.

I get that this fits with the big, scary warning that whatever is posted on the Internet stays on the Internet. Today, I started thinking about it in reverse.

I pay so much attention to keeping the spaces of my life online professional, I worry the persona I’ve created might have become better than the person I am.

The person online spaces allow me to be doesn’t get cranky midday if he forgets to eat.

A friend asked me to take care of something time sensitive today. It was probably the fourth time she’s asked me to take care of it, but for about a billion subconscious reasons, I’d put it off until the last minute.

Online me would never pull that crap.

Right now, at this very moment, online me could get ahold of people I’ve never met across multiple countries, set up appointments with them and collaborate on projects that will make my classroom a better place.

I, on the other hand, can get ahold of my dog right now as I sit watching episodes of Eureka on Netflix Watch Instantly (a service online me set up).

Online me hasn’t been purposely constructed with an eye toward besting me in a side-by-side comparison. He’s just had the benefit of being more thoughtfully constructed.

My friends know that online me is constantly connected to his students, so some of the more off-color jokes or embarrassing moments from my life don’t make it onto online me’s Facebook wall. Online me shrugs at my deepest moments of anger, hurt and self-doubt. Unbothered by the possibility of a future, online me never struggles with the question of “What next?” The man is saintly contented.

He sort of makes me sick.

Born of the knowledge that whatever is posted to the Internet stays on the Internet, my online persona is more a reflection of who I want to be in the world than who I am. This is great news for employment opportunities, but more than a little disconcerting for me.

Things I Know 59 of 365: I want to be Mr. Curry

I never realized I had that much influence on anyone. I hope you enjoy your teaching career as much as I did mine.

– John Curry

My senior year of high school, I took AP Calculus. In my rural school of fewer than 400 students, 5 of us took the class.

When spring arrived, we sat in the conference room, #2 pencils in hand, and attacked the AP A/B Calculus exam.

Well, 4 of us attacked it.

I held on as long as I could. Through the bubble and grid section, I played it cool.

Arriving at the open answer section, I froze.

My mind was a blank. Not a blank as in something had been their and was erased by anxiety, but blank in the sense that I had no idea what was being asked of me.

I looked around the room and surmised I was the only one. Throughout the room, pencils were scribbling.

In that moment, I wanted to quit even more than I had wanted to quit when my third grade T-Ball team lost every game. Every. Game.

John Curry taught me math each year from eighth through twelfth grade, save one.

He wasn’t looping with my class. It was a small school with two math teachers.

If, on my best days, I am half the teacher Mr. Curry was, I have made something of myself.

He was as traditional and by-the-book a teacher as you’re likely to meet. It is entirely possible our pedagogies are somewhat divergent at this point. We are products of different eras.

Still, I remember he cared.

When a student earned a B or above on a test, Mr. Curry would place a sticker on the paper before handing it back. As we moved to higher math, got our driver’s licenses and first jobs, we continued to treasure those stickers. The covers of our TI-83s were laden with stickers like fighter pilots noting our kills.

For a score of 90% or above, students received certificates congratulating them on showing their ability to master the content of the chapter. Mine hung in my locker.

Perhaps best were the letters. At the close of each unit, after the tests and quizzes were graded, Mr. Curry would send letters to the parents of those students earning Bs or higher, congratulating them on their students’ successes.

I remember seeing the letters as I pulled the mail from the mailbox. It wasn’t the handwriting which gave it away (Mr. Curry was mail merging before it was cool). It was the stationary. Out of his own pocket, Mr. Curry purchased stationary in our school colors watermarked with our mascot. When a Kelly green envelope showed up in the mail, you knew what was inside.

The letters did more than offer congratulations to my parents, they also explained what concepts and material I had shown mastery of. Dinner on letter nights was always interesting, “So, Zachary, explain the slope-intercept formula to me.”

Mr. Curry made me care about math because he showed he cared about me.

Sitting in the conference room, my blank drawn with amazing detail, I knew I could not quit. I could not fail Mr. Curry.

Realizing any attempt at calculus would be a mockery of the mathematics he held so dear, I played to my strengths.

I remember the first lines of the essay I wrote, “If you saw my answers in the previous section of the test, you know I’ve been holding on by a thread. Rather than waste both of our time, let me tell you why I needed to take this test and how great my math teacher is. No matter what you think of my math skills, please, don’t take them as a reflection of his teaching.”

Though I’d struggle if you put a factorial in front of me today, I learned the value of more than I can ever say from Mr. Curry.