Black Belt Mama

No Sympathy

2009-11-19T14:38:31-05:00

Last week, I had a student miss both of my classes. Out with the swine flu, she kept in almost constant contact with me, updating me as to when she thought she'd be able to come back, asking questions about upcoming assignments and doing her best to avoid falling behind.

After getting the approval to come back to class, she sat in my class on Tuesday and looked awful. Her cough sounded even worse than she looked. I asked her if she was ok and she blurted out, "no." You could tell she felt lousy. She still showed up with a partial annotated bibliography in hand, just to make sure she was doing it correctly.

Last night, I got an email from her saying she had been sent to the hospital after Health Services listened to her lungs. She has pneumonia. I didn't expect to see her. We made arrangements via email for her to get her work done.

Today, she showed up at class. As I was walking in I saw her and stopped in my tracks. "What are you doing here? Are you feeling better?"

She looked awful. Once again, she blurted out, "no." She then went on to tell me that since she's no longer contagious, she couldn't get an excused absense from the university. So there she was at 7:55 a.m. ready to attend class.

I sent her back to her dorm to rest.

When I have students like this, so dedicated to their work and their grades, it makes it particularly difficult for me to have any sympathy for those who take regular "personal days." Those students should know that the day of reckoning is quickly approaching. Only three classes remain, and they are in serious trouble.

I am also in serious trouble in my fantasy leagues. If you'd like to read about it, go here.

Blogging Enemy Number 1 Sending Out the Good Karma

2009-11-18T19:55:37-05:00

I'm not quite sure what it is about me, but my entire life, I have attracted crazies and "haters." Some weird girl tried to get me to join her religious cult on a Pittsburgh PAT bus one day, and for whatever reason, strange people tend to think I'm up for their crazy-talk.

Over the years, I've also been the target of online "haters," "trolls" and just plain jerks. One time a whole group of adolescent losers started insulting me and my blog. That drama went on for weeks. Every once in a while some crazy commenter crawls out of the woodwork and tells me off for no apparent reason too. It's usually something stupid and obscure like I say I dislike wearing the color orange or something. All of a sudden, someone who happens to love the color orange, who thinks they invented the color orange takes my post as a throw-down invitation and it's on. Weird.

I also seem to be targeted on these stupid ranking top list things. One time, someone hijacked my user name profile and put a not so nice nickname in there instead of my user name. Think of what a female porn star might say. I'll allow you to use your imagination. I think people purposely went in and gave me super low rankings too. Whenever there's a public ranking system that doesn't require someone to log in, everyone else soars (usually because I believe in good karma and rank other people high), and then my rating drops like a cement block in an ocean. There can't be that many people who think I suck that badly. I refuse to believe that. When the hijacking became too much, I gave up. I removed myself from the MA top list and told myself I didn't need the traffic or the drama.

I wouldn't take it so personally if I didn't invest so much time and effort into this blog. I love this blog. I am a self-taught blogger with no graphic design skills. I didn't even know what html was when I started. I was just a girl who wanted to write and thought that if I had an audience, I'd be more likely to stick to it and not put it on the back burner like the twenty or more manuscripts that live on my computer and get neglected on a daily basis. I can be serious, humorous, downright disgusting (ACL posts and pictures), but if there's one thing you can definitely say about my writing, it's that I'm honest. I write what I think and for that, I think I often get the backlash.

I find this difficult to understand, why people want to pick on a blogger they don't know who happens to have her black belt. Maybe it's internet muscles or something. Maybe it's because I'm a girl in a mostly boy-dominated niche, but whatever. I know my blog doesn't suck, and so I largely ignore it. And despite being stomped on by people who steal my content and then get mad at me when I call them on it, I continue to put good karma out there.

When bad things happen throughout the blog world, I pray for people, offer good thoughts and help however I can help. I didn't know little Maddie at all, but when another blogger I read mentioned the Spohr's and how they had lost their daughter, I read almost the entire blog, sobbing the entire time, before adding a comment in a sea of comments to say I would pray for them. And I did pray, a lot, because I couldn't imagine being in that situation. . .

Which is also why I want to draw your attention to another blogger tonight, Anissa. I don't know her and I've never met her, but the blog world apparently loves her and she's suffered a massive stroke just days before she was supposed to depart for the happiest place on Earth with some friends. I happened to end up on her blog the other day due to a Disney related search (we're going soon too), and then I started hearing horrible things. What she is going through right now is something I can't even imagine. What her family is going through is beyond comprehension. She has three kids; the youngest just beat leukemia. I mean, like she needed one more thing.

Then I started watching all these posts go up about her, buttons to donate to her family and I realized that the blog world really does rally around its own in times of trouble. And despite not knowing her, despite all the crap the blog world likes to throw at me sometimes, I'm going to continue to send out good karma. Please say a prayer for Anissa and her family tonight. Send the good thoughts and karma in her direction.

I strongly believe in the power of positive thinking which is why I've continued to write all these years, despite the porn nickname, the hijacked stuff, and the mean people. I believe in the good in people and I definitely believe that those of you who continue to read here, will send good thoughts to Anissa and her family tonight. Please do.

Fruit, Stale Chocolate and Total Crap-No Really

2009-11-17T22:09:40-05:00

I knew it was going to be one of those days when Mr. BBM sprayed Big I's hair with detangler right onto my arm and in the direction of my bagel. The smell of that detangler in all its fruity-non-goodness makes me hold my breath each morning when I spritz Big I. I was already irritated.

But when Mr. BBM decided to make her look like a grease monkey by dousing her roots with at least six sprays of the stuff, I lost it. I can drum up all kinds of crap in my head if I want to. "He was trying to spray my bagel. He's trying to make her look horrible so that I will do her hair from now on" etc. etc.

The last straw was me stepping in a puddle of the spray that had accumulated on my just mopped tile floor. I felt like I was going to explode.

It was then that I spilled coffee down my pants and coat. I was already running two minutes late. There was no time to change.

I arrived on campus and thought my writing students needed a break from the research part of things. So, I did the chocolate activity I do each year. I torture them with a Hershey's Kiss on their desk in front of them and then make them spend an hour writing descriptive phrases to describe what it looks like, smells like, sounds like and finally, tastes like. Last year, all of my students were coming up with these amazing similies and metaphors. Their descriptions were amazing.

This year I asked them what it looked like and someone said "tin foil." I asked them what it smelled like and one of them said, "lotion." I piled on the drama and told them I was looking for a little more description and definitely more, you know, words. Then, two of my boys complained about me giving them "stale chocolate." You know, the stale chocolate I bought last week, the sealed bag that I just opened this morning that has an expiration date of May 2010. Ingrates.

My speech class arrived and it was the first day for group speeches. I had two students show up late for their speeches, as in one of his group members had to call him to remind him to show up because he was still sleeping. What do they expect me to do? Sit and wait for them to show up? I made a mental note to subtract points from the speeches, and/or scream and yell profusely.

After meeting with a student after class whose group is a nightmare, I was off to my next event, a meeting with another board member of the country club to discuss some ideas. We met for over two hours and came up with some great stuff. It's going to be a lot of work though.

I came home, grabbed Big I and Lil C and got right back in the car to go get Big I some racing swimsuits for swim team. I made a wrong turn on the way and it took us an extra 10 minutes to get there. Upon arriving at the store, which happens to be located in my old elementary school, I told the girls how I used to go there. When we entered the building, it was like deja vous. The swim shop was actually located in my 1st grade classroom, directly beside my 2nd grade classroom where the meanest teacher on the planet happened to live. Yes, live, I was convinced she lived there in the basement or something. She was that creepy and horrible.

I told the girls the story about how I had a terrible stomach virus in 2nd grade. I needed to go to the bathroom badly but my teacher wouldn't let me go. I had no choice. I ran out the door and I didn't make it in time. It was one of the most embarrassing days of my life and being there just brought it all back.

I guess I channeled it to Lil C, because after eating a ton of "jumping beans" for dinner, Lil C came tearing across the house from the playroom, heading for the bathroom. But she stopped short and grabbed the back of her pants. She too didn't make it in time. It was a two-parent job that involved one of us balancing her while she stood teetering on the edge on the toilet (with the same one of us dry-heaving repeatedly,-a-hem, that would be me). It was a complete nightmare. My stomach is still doing flips from it.

With the exception of a good meeting this afternoon, this day has been totally craptastic and I'm not anxious to repeat any of it, especially the last part.

And in case you're wondering, it's totally legit for a parent to talk about her daughter's "stomach mishaps" when she has also, in the same post, revealed her own.

Bye Bye Bonsai

2009-11-16T16:00:47-05:00

When Mr. BBM got me a small bonsai tree for Mother's Day a couple years ago, I had mixed feelings about it. Although a thoughtful gift for a martial artist and Karate Kid fan, I couldn't help but feel like I had one more thing I had to take care of. Taking care of everyone and everything all the time is exhausting.

I read the two pages of instructions, gave strict orders that no one touch it except for me and the bonsai and I became friends. Before long, it was thriving and I had to do some pruning. I did it with butterflies in my stomach, so afraid to hurt the thing, but it did fine and survived. I figured I had overestimated how sensitive it was, but I found out that I was wrong.

My bonsai has gone from being a thriving little plant to a nightmare. Leaves started falling off, first one by one, and then non-stop. I accused Mr. BBM of watering it, but he swore he didn't touch it. The bonsai only gets watered once a week. Last week, when it felt hopeless, I scoured the web for advice on bringing it back to its former grandeur.

So I went to work, carefully prying the plant from its pot so I could examine the roots. I cut back the ones that were no longer white, sat the soil on paper towels to let it soak up any excess moisture and then returned it to its pot with hopes that it would recover.

Today it dropped another grouping of leaves and it's looking more hopeless than ever.

I've lost plants before. Although I've definitely become more of a green thumb over the years, by self-teaching myself how to not blow all our landscaping investment, I know that I've had problems with indoor plants in the past. I even thought that maybe the bonsai didn't like my new little basil plant so I moved it away from the bonsai to give it some space.

Still, nothing has worked.

I've had no trouble tossing out plants in the past, but this one bothers me. Maybe it's because I'm seeing a parallel between it and me and my knee.

Despite surgery and careful care afterwards, my knee has been awful lately. It's bruised again and sore and I've been avoiding karate because my brace hurts where the bruising is and kneeling is next to impossible for me. Despite "surgery" and careful care of my plant, it's not thriving. It doesn't look nice or exotic anymore. It just looks sad, kind of like my knee.

I want my bonsai to survive and I want my knee to be completely healed, but wanting something and reality are often quite different. I'm frustrated with my bonsai tree, and I'm frustrated with my knee.

Right now, both are on a downward spiral that I'm not quite sure how to fix. And if there's one thing I can't stand, it's not having control over things that I want.

From Nothing to an Officer in One Afternoon

2009-11-13T10:52:07-05:00

On Sunday, while enjoying the wedding reception and hanging out with my karate people, I noticed I had a voice mail. I went outside for a minute and heard my neighbor's message. This particular neighbor is a jokester. He's always up to something. In fact, even when he's not up to something, his smile makes you think otherwise. The message I heard cracked me up.

My neighbor was congratulating me on my being elected to the board. He then went on to say that I had also been elected as an officer, secretary. I walked back into the reception laughing out loud. I told Mr. BBM and he laughed too. Then he said, "maybe you were elected secretary." I told him it wasn't possible; I wasn't even there. I had left the meeting immediately after voting to get to my friend's wedding reception.

I sent a text message to my neighbor's wife and told him I was calling his bluff. Nice try and all that, but I wasn't buying it. For hours afterward, my neighbor was insistent that he was telling the truth. I still didn't believe it.

The next day I got a call from one of the board members, and guess what? I'm the secretary. I don't know how I'm supposed to raise hell and shake things up when I have to be the one writing everything down, but I'll find a way.

I will find a way.