SkoopaTroopa Does Sportsing

I have a very complicated relationship with sports. My parents expected me to be a boy, but I popped out with a glorious innie instead. I was not the Danny they had been hoping for--and I think, especially my father, really wanted a boy. Looking back at childhood pictures, I was frequently dressed as a jockey or as a baseball player. Likely, this was through no choice of my own -- people don't generally let toddlers gussy themselves up.

 

 I was an uncoordinated child, much interested in fantasy or swordplay. I've never been very good at reality; it's super boring. I loved Thundercats and Silverhawks and the occasional BraveStarr. I routinely decapitated Barbie dolls because I didn't like them or because I was a burgeoning little serial killer--anywho...

I was a less than feminine child. There are pictures of me looking miserable in pink bunny outfits and frou frou dresses that my grandmother would buy for me -- they always came in tan Madigan's boxes with navy blue lids. I may even have some of those boxes stored away in my basement.

But, this, all of it, left me in this muddy middle ground, falling short of everyone's expectations -- Jessica, the disappointment--too female to be a boy and too masculine to be feminine, awe shucks.

I tried my hand at bowing for a while; I did an ill-advised stint as a cheerleader because I wanted a trophy. Both were sad and laughable feats. The only sport I ever actually wanted to play was soccer, which was never a "life passion" for me. But, this is all me getting ahead of myself.

My dad and I have very little in common, save a wide nose and similar shaped eyes. When I was young, he was a truck driver, often on the road. I didn't see him very often; I still don't. I'm not all that certain I've ever known him very well. However, I do know that he loves Chicago, our home town. More importantly, he loves Chicago sports.

So, as a child, it seemed in my best interest(s) to also love sports. And, I did. I didn't actually know what was happening in the game(s) I watched. I wasn't sure why some games were played on courts and others in fields. I did not know the rules of any of the games. They were far too complicated for my tiny flighty mind. What I did know was that Bulls and Bears and their Cubs were all that was right with the world.

I knew that Michael Jordan was a winner, to cheer for Scottie Pippen, and that Horace Grant wore ridiculous goggles. I knew that 1985 had been a good year and that I probably wanted a Papa Bear Halas. I learned to SuperBowl Shuffle and read books about "Sweetness", though I always preferred "The Fridge". I knew that we lived on the North side of town which meant that Sox were dirty and were best placed on feet or in shoes. I knew that Harry Caray called the games and that hot dogs always tasted better in Wrigley Field.

Sports were clearly important to my father. So, they became important to me. I have few truly vibrant memories from my childhood that include my father. But, I can always clearly picture myself sitting in his lap in my oversize ALF t-shirt, happily watching sports. I think I was content I think I felt accepted.

While I am less of a sports enthusiast than you might now assume, these moments with my father stuck with me, instilled in me this deep love for the city from which I came, this team loyalty. It's that thing that people don't understand about Chicago fans, why love a losing team? You love a losing team because it's part of who you are. You love a losing team because it's part of where you came from. You love a losing team because your dad loved a losing team, to be closer to him. You love a losing team because they don't always lose, because the sweet satisfaction of something you've cherished for so long finally achieving a victory makes it all that sweeter.

SkoopaTroopa Says, “Frankly, My Dear, I Don’t Give A Damn”.

Let’s start out, first, with a disclaimer. I cannot stand “Gone with The Wind”. There are many reasons for that. Of course, I love the iconic Vivien Leigh, but some of the content doesn’t sit right with me. Even with the understanding that it is representative of both the period it’s portraying and the period it was filmed, I still despise some of the insensitivity. I also abhor romance as a general rule, and I think Scarlett O’Hara is, mostly, insufferable. 

But, this post isn’t about my deep hatred of “Gone with The Wind,” it’s about my failure to reconcile the part of me that is female with the expectation of what’s considered feminine. Realistically, I’m not. But, we’re operating on stereotypes here instead of considering the spectrum itself.

This is something I’ve recently thought about and/or discussed with people around me – and the only thing they point out is that I wear make-up. This is true, absolutely. I do. But, I don’t wear it to meet some sort of societal norm, I wear it because I’m creative, because I find it aesthetically pleasing, and I don’t think creativity is a feminine quality; it’s a human quality.

And, now you’re probably wondering why I brought up “Gone with The Wind” in the first place. Good question. The reason here is that I deeply identify with Rhett Butler, a masculine character. I’m not sure if I’ve always identified with him, perhaps it’s just that he and I are now the same age. Some tout him as this dreamboat, romantic hero. He isn’t. Some view him as an inconsiderate scumbag who doesn’t save the protagonist. He isn’t. He is, like me, human.

Scarlett O’ Hara is a willful and spoiled child, which you can forgive her because she is truly a child. She is beautiful and living in a hard world during uncertain times. She has drive and business savvy. She has determination; she is singularly focused on her end game. These qualities, in and of themselves, aren’t inherently bad. A strong woman can make for a great role model; it’s the way she uses these qualities that makes her truly infuriating. She is hard-headed and narcissistic. She understands that her good looks can get her things, and she uses them to excite young men so that they will fight over her. She chases after someone she finds attractive, not because they’re compatible, but because she wants to win. She doesn’t understand herself. She acts without considering why she’s acting. She defines success and does all that she can to achieve it, but she never ponders the thoughts and feelings of the people she’s stepping over. There is very little that I can connect to there. I have drive. I have goals, but I am kind and compassionate. I think about how my actions affect others; I consider people when making choices.

Rhett is independent. He’s also the victim of false rumors, but he moves beyond it. When he’s touted as a ladies man, or a scoundrel, what’s really happening is that he’s testing the waters. He learns that he isn’t into silly or foolish people, and he does so without actually harming others.  He is blunt with others, which can be off-putting, but he’s always honest about his intentions and he thinks things through before acting. He is noble and looks beyond the surface; he sees people for who they truly are. He has the ability to love and the patience to put up with someone who may not be perfect; someone who has some growing up to do. He is always there in times of need. But, what I find truly remarkable is that he has the strength to walk away when it’s time. He doesn’t give in to pressure. He doesn’t play games. He makes the best choice he can make with the information he’s given.

Really, I don’t know what the take-away is right here. I do not identify with the female. I do identify with the male. But, is it a matter of feminine vs. masculine or a matter of my inherent good nature? Perhaps it has to do with my age? Or, is it that I can relate to one of the characters a bit more?

And, if you’re still reading this, you probably realize that maybe this is about something entirely different than I said; that I’ve misled you.

SkoopaTroopa Does What She Wants

As long as I can remember, I've had this grand plan for my own life. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to go to grad school. I wanted to become a professor. I wanted to become a published author. I wanted to have my own house to fill with puppies and kitties, to my hearts content.

We'll go ahead and call that goal-oriented. And, I did those things. I worked very hard and I made those things happen--me and my pile of debt, that is. It's what I wanted to do. But, in making these grand plans for myself, for my career, for my education, I sort of forgot about taking myself into consideration.

So, while accomplishing all of my goals brought me some type of satisfaction, it also brought me a pretty large deal of frustration, some anger, and a heaping dose of being overwhelmed. I am the type of person who takes on much more than is necessary. So, I spent a few years just being unhappy. I got sick, due in part to the fact that sometimes my body doesn't work properly and due in part to the anxiety and stress that I had been feeling for so long. I ate poorly. I didn't sleep. I didn't take time to appreciate the positives around me. My life was terribly unbalanced.

I think I struggled most with a bad attitude about how I'd gotten where I wanted to be, but was still not happy with my life. And, at some point, I realized that I was so focused on fitting myself into a box that I'd left everything else on the wayside. So, I decided that no one was going to help me get what I needed--it was something I needed to do on my own.

In the past year, I've re-prioritized. My job is important. My writing is important. But, I am also important--fun is important--adventure is important. I've always been unapologetically exactly the person I was meant to be. Sometimes that has been to my advantage, other times it's been detrimental to my larger goals. However, being who I am has helped me to meet and cultivate relationships with people who both put up with me and also genuinely appreciate me as a person. I, in turn, love and relish the people who have chosen to be a part of my life. We're odd. We don't always make sense as a group. But, somehow it works.

When you meet me, I am exactly who you think I am. I do not hold back because it seems like a waste of time. It's just that now I'm letting that spill over into all facets of my life. I'm letting it drive. While my problems haven't been magically solved over night, I am a happier person. I attempted to use identity management to let my students see a tamer version of myself. What that really did was give them a tamer version of the class; it took away from how vibrant and fun my job could truly be. So, I took that back. I am as off beat in the class as I am outside of it. I let it show in my wardrobe. I let it show in the way I structure and run my classes. I have as much fun as I can while teaching, without sacrificing the rigor of the academic classroom. My students seem to want to learn if it's clear that I want to be there.

I always tell my students to write about something they're interested in. If you are bored by the topic, you'll write a boring paper. The same thing is true of teaching. If you think you have to be a boring teacher, you will have bored students. I don't think I have it all figured out. I am constantly working to change or improve things that I do in the classroom -- I get bored easily, but I truly want the student experience to be as rich as it can be. I want them to leave my room not hating the subject matter -- they come in dreading my classes and not wanting to be there. I don't want that to be what they take away.

But, I've drawn some very rigid lines in my life. I cannot and do not let my job run my life because you cannot sustain that without some type of burn out -- and I hit that ceiling a long time ago and kept pushing until I finally gave out. So, my work stays at work. My home stays at home. My fun goes wherever the fun lives. Truly, I am not sure if compartmentalizing is better or worse for you, but I can say that I am a happier person than I was when I let all of the lines bleed into one another.

I've realized that it's important to take time to indulge in things that you love, to not let societal norms and values dictate your behaviors. So, I have fun. If I have down time, I use it to do something I want to do, something that will make me happy, something potentially selfish. It might be sitting at home and playing video games, or painting, or crocheting -- because I'm a little cartoon old woman at heart. But, maybe it's going out to karaoke once a week or three times a week, however many times I want to. It's also running around outside, sitting around bonfires, going to concerts, watching Netflix, spending time with my niece and nephew, hanging out with my mom, eating food I shouldn't eat, riding roller coasters, hopping on trains, flying to other countries, visiting places I've always dreamed of seeing, reading a book about wizards (any, maybe, talking in wizard voice for a few days), or it's investigating odd shops or parks or museums, seeing how many Asian markets I can get to in a single day, having cheesecake (and, also remembering to have lactaid), buying toys, giving toys, singing, car dancing, jumping in puddles, riding horses, loving my pets, loving my friends, loving my family, trying out for plays, agreeing to join 80s cover bands, serving on committees, making jokes, watching wrestling, quoting movies, letting nostalgia rule my world, falling in love with Lloyd Dobbler (over and over, again). Or, maybe it's staying in and sleeping. Maybe it's spending time with just myself. There isn't really a set schedule to dictate my life. No matter how many responsibilities we bear, we have to take time to be people. We have make time for the things we enjoy.

I work. I play. I sleep. But, I do so on my terms. I do so with my personality. I go into life with the understanding that I am who I am and that sometimes people will hate that, but others will not. I appreciate who I am, how I got here and the people that have let me get mascara all over their boobs when crying in the middle of the night. I see life as a series of misfortunes with little, but vibrant, bright spots in-between. Life is not easy; it's much more than I signed up for. But, it has value.

SkoopaTroopa and The Curious Case of the Syllabus

I know it's been a few weeks since my last post. I got swallowed up in a hole of grading papers and writing essays for my grad class (Why am I taking grad classes again? Will a second Master's Degree really be that useful? Ponderings for another time). But, I am back now, if only for a moment.

If you know me, you'll know that I never think I am doing my best. So, I constantly re-do, re-write and re-arrange things. This is true of my syllabus. I've actually stuck with the same format for a few semesters now, but this time (now that I have a moment to breath), I noticed some things that could be improved. So, I've been working on edits.

This is my tentative English Composition syllabus for next semester. I may change it again, but I like the way it came together. Why am I tell you? I don't know. I'm not 100% sure anyone is reading my drivel anyway. So, maybe I'm posting it just for me, just to say "Yeah, you go! You did something!"

SkoopaTroopa "Love Guru"

It's been a while since my last SkoopaTroopa post, and for that I apologize. I know that my 3.5 readers have been endlessly clicking the refresh button hoping and wishing that a new mediocre blog post would show up. Well, click no more. It's here.

This morning I had a conversation about Andre The Giant derail class. It was entertaining, and it has nothing to do with the rest of this post. But, I still wanted someone to know how awesome my class is. The importance of wrestling French giants should not be swept under the rug.

But, I digress.

In my Oral/Interpersonal Class we just finished discussing relationships. One of the things that we talk about is the dimensions of Intimacy. And, every time, I always laugh (and hurt a little) that my students water the idea down to include only sex. There's inevitably a back and forth about how sex does not an intimate relationship make. Many disagree, and maybe they still do after our unit is over. I don't actually know. But, I like to think I make a difference in their lives.

So, the first assignment I have them do is called a "Relationship IQ" assignment. They have to choose a relationship they're in. It can be anything (familial, friendship, romantic, other). And, they have to analyze the four aspects of intimacy: physical, intellectual, emotional and shared activities.

Once they've done that, they have to explain how satisfied they are with the intimacy in their relationship and/or talk about how to improve intimacy. I get to learn about their lives a little more. I also get to see practical application of some of the terms I'm trying to stamp into their brains. I think they get to learn more about themselves as well.

But, as with many things when I teach OIP, I always look at my own relationships. I think I am evaluative by nature, contemplative even. So, it's interesting for me to look at what I am and am not getting out of the relationships I'm in. It's also telling to see how I will pursue or hold onto relationships that really aren't doing that much for me.

I guess I'm not great at the Social Exchange theory, but it seems a lot like math and I don't like math.

This time around, I've cemented the fact that I am a "fixer". I see things that don't work and I want remedy that. I think that might be why I hold on to things for so long. I don't like to leave a project unfinished and I don't like to leave a person less whole than they might be. In doing so, I think I might leave myself a little underdone.

SkoopaTroopa Teaches "Zombies"

So, since my English Composition classes are still in the movie unit, we took some time to dive into Zombie movies. I had my classes read a short essay by Max Brooks, a well-known zombie author. The essay is called "The Movies That Rose From The Grave". It's short and gives enough information for even the most zombie-illiterate reader to be able to follow along (and it happens to be in our textbook, score).

From this, I had students write about how/why zombie films have regained popularity in our society. They've come up with some entertaining, though valid reasons. Why are zombie movies popular? They're a safe thrill. They force us to confront our humanity and/or lack thereof. They have us questioning our ability to survive against unforeseen enemies.

I also let students choose movies and then vote on one to watch in class. This class chose Zombieland which wound up working very well with our reading. So, in essence, we had a mini-unit on zombies because my students are awesome and sort of "get" me.

But since we have to learn while we're having fun, I had them write an analysis assignment that asked them to answer four questions. Feel free to answer them in the comment area. I'm always interested to see what other people have to say.

1. Who is the protagonist? What type of person is he? Why is he a successful element of the film?
2. How is the conflict resolved? What aspects of the protagonist's character led to this resolution? Support your idea.
3. Describe any outside forces that helped the protagonist to succeed.
4. What are three lessons from the film that viewers can apply to their own lives? Consider both the central conflict and the back story (plot and sub plot). Describe the lesson, and explain the real life implications it can have.

They're eventually writing what boils down to a rhetorical analysis of their favorite movie. So, all of the prep work will hopefully get them thinking about films they've seen in ways that they wouldn't usually. It's an exercise in critical thinking, and they're usually pretty grateful to have the opportunity to look at their favorite things from a different perspective. And, really, when we can tie movies to our real lives, it justifies our addictions (and who doesn't love to justify a Netflix addiction).

SkoopaTroopa Studies Film

I just started the Movie unit in my English Composition course. My students were excited to get going because we all have a shared love of film. We started class with a video on why we, as humans, love film. We also watched the first few videos in a set on film history; it's actually pretty interesting stuff.

The goal of the unit is to take films that you (we) love and look at them from a critical perspective, to analyze WHY we love certain films. The first thing I've asked students to do is make a list of their five favorite movies (or five movies that they love; realistically I don't have a top five; I've got a top 150, maybe more).

I always write a list  and share it with my students. This particular group and I seem to have similar taste in films. I even garnered the response, "You know, if I wasn't in this class and you weren't my teacher, I think we could be best friends." Yay me.

So, here's my list. Take it for what you will. What are your favorites? Feel free to comment below. I'm always looking for something new to watch.

1. Labyrinth
   • This movie paired three of my favorite things, David Bowie, muppets and singing. The premise of having this entire Goblin Kingdom where bad children were sent was, for me, always entertaining. But, really, this movie instilled in me values that I hold dear to this very day. It emphasizes the idea of friendship and how friends are there for you when you need them, even when you feel like you're alone. It also explores the idea of power. The Goblin King wields it. Though, in the end, it is the teenage girl who triumphs. So, it is also maybe an early symbol of "girl power".
2. Legend
   • I have always gravitated toward fantasy. This movie, while hokey, does a beautiful job of showing the stark contrast between good and evil. The set, characters, colors and design really emphasize the light and the darkness that exists in the world. I also think that Tim Curry's iconic portrayal of "Darkness" is something that many other films have drawn from. I would not have loved the movie as much if someone other than Tim Curry were to have played the part.
3. The Dark Crystal
   • This is another exploration of good and evil, and it uses Hensen puppetry to bring it to life. The thing that I find most alluring about this film is the premise that it sets forth about good and evil. In the film, the two species (Skeksis and Mystics) are at war with one another, as good and evil might be. But, the two species were, at one point, one entity. So, they are the physical embodiment of the ideas of good and evil. In the end, they are put back together to form a single species. The idea that we are all good and evil, that we need both parts to remain balanced, is one that I always found alluring. I also think there is a great deal of truth to it.
4. Army of Darkness
   • This is not a serious movie. It isn't a good movie. It is a campy piece of non-sense. Is there a logical reason for liking it? Maybe. I enjoy the stupid humor. I enjoy Bruce Campbell. I enjoy the horrible special effects. The movie has epic and memorable one-liners. There is no deep and meaningful reason that I love this film.
5. The Princess Bride
   • This, to me, has everything that a movie should have. It has sword fights, giants, pirates, evil princes, poison, horse riding, giant rodents, and a love story. I think this movie is timeless and that it has something that everyone can enjoy. There is a fair amount of action. There is a good deal of romance. There are odd characters and several side plots. We can all connect to this movie; we can all relate to it. The softie in me loves this idea of love conquering all. The tomboy in me appreciates that it is done with sarcasm, sword fighting and questing. It is a wonderfully acted film based on a beautifully written book. For most book to film movies, I am always disappointed. I find something lacking. This film, while different, didn't suffer such an ill fate.