I have so many darn resolutions that I'm in the middle of right now that I decided I wouldn't pile on any more for New Year's. I did make a resolution for the new year sometime before Christmas, though: to bring magic into my life and into the lives of my family and friends. Actually, magic in my own life might be enough--family and friends always end up coming along for the ride. Yay!

Today after skiing the full course at Riverside, and then having lunch and band rehearsal, I was not feeling like going along to this new yoga class with Liz. But I did. I haven't done yoga since my sabbatical when I worked at Macromedia (summer of 2003). Back then it was pretty frustrating for me because the left side of my body was so unstable that just staying up straight was a challenge. Plus, my energy level was still very low. And even in San Francisco it was hard to find a yoga teacher I really liked. There are a lot of yoga teachers out there (or so it seems) who are preaching calm, centered meditation but who aren't practicing what they preach. I find it really disconcerting. In that case, I'd rather they just stick with teaching good form, but unfortunately that didn't often happen.

I didn't really like the instructor today. She neither gave me (nor anyone else) any comments on how to improve form, nor added anything particularly spiritual to the practice. I did like her speed, though. On the physical side of things, my body is much more stable so it was a lot more enjoyable this time, but I think to really enjoy a class like that I'll have to add some kind of pushups to my morning therapy. As it was, I admit that the one time she added a spiritual element: "this is a gratitude pose, so think of something that you're particularly grateful for" I was thinking: "I'm very grateful that this class doesn't last for more than an hour and a half." Having. Trouble. Lifting. Arms. Oooch.

During one of the permaculture work parties this summer a bunch of us were talking about composting and what happens when you start composting: all of a sudden, everything is compost. You eat lunch at work and save the scraps to take home to your pile. You eye your neighbor's plate and wonder how you can convince him not to throw that out, but to let you have it to take home for compost instead, and so on. Liz now sends me home from rehearsal with a bucket full of scraps.

A few weekends ago at the permaculture solstice potluck I was talking to a fellow permie whose childhood job it was to walk around his family's farm with a jug of blood to fertilize the fruit trees. This conversation came on the heels of a conversation with A. about our menstrual cups, so my ears perked up immediately (particularly since I'll be planting a Black Oxford apple in my yard this Spring). How cool. I mean, I already love my menstrual cup (5 years now!) but now I'm thinking, wow, I could actually save this blood (maybe in the freezer? Dunno. Is that gross? No more gross than, say, a bunch of bloody beef, but that's just my opinion. I didn't have to die, for example...) and put it to good use.

Huh. Now the real question is: how to broach this subject to other ladies, even the ones who already use menstrual cups and are thus more chill about the whole blood from your body thing. If sending me home with a bucket of compost is Level 1, what the heck level of acceptance of your body and of the whole life cycle does it require to get women to come dose my apple tree every month? Now some possible scenarios are making me giggle. But still.

This evening was TML's first gig at the Empire. A. called as I was walking in the door to set up for our sound check: "I can't come tonight, but is it OK if I bring a bag of compost to your gig?" See? I wasn't lying about compost...but on the subject of yesterday's post, Liz said menstrual blood is mostly mucus, not blood, but she thinks you can give blood every 6 weeks, so maybe I should just stand outside over the apple tree and open up a vein. Hmmm. Not so tempting.

The Empire has a reasonably good floor, a nice sound system, and a good sound guy. There was a big group for the free lesson at 5:00 and I stuck around after we finished playing at 7:00 to do some dancing. Managed to lift my arms all day despite being full of OUCH from yesterday's yoga extravaganza. Now very tired...and a full week ahead. Yeesh.

I love the hoop houses, but they've been losing heat because I can't keep the fronts shut. After a conversation with another person from the Portland permaculture group, I revamped one house yesterday in the hour of daylight I had after getting home from school. I screwed a brace into the tubing on each side (to hold them together as I took the house off the rebar spikes), lifted off the tubing/cover, pulled out the 4 rebar spikes, and drove them in inside the box. I carefully put the house over the new rebar locations and stapled the plastic back down. It now closes much more tightly in front. This morning as I left for school in sleet/freezing rain, the remodeled hoop house looked steamy on the inside.

My students and I have had a lot of success lately with Happy Fingers--playing a piece (or a section) on the violin with the idea that the fingers are really excited to go in their spots, and the only reason we're playing is to keep the fingers happy. I have so much more focused, relaxed energy in my fingers when I'm playing to keep them happy and treating it like a game.

It reminds me a little of something I read in one of Barbara Sher's books (I think it was "I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was, which I mostly skimmed): if you don't like your job, make it into a job that you do like, and then decide whether you still want it. There's something about fooling yourself into thinking something is fun that either makes it actually fun, or makes you more skilled at it, or sometimes both. When are you just fooling yourself, though?

On Saturday it was 45 degrees and sunny and the apartment was all cleaned and rearranged and ready for the party, so J. and I went outside and remodeled the other hoop house. In November I had planted a bunch of seeds in that one, and then was disappointed with the gaping fronts of the hoop houses in the winter winds. The ground froze, just a little inside, so I gave up and figured I'd do a planting in the early Spring.

Anyway, as we were getting ready to lift the tubing and plastic off of the frame, J. said, "is there something growing in there?" and I poked my head in and...yes! 3 kinds of lettuce and Asian greens and who knows what else (I forget exactly what I planted), tiny sprouts that must have surfaced in the last few days of relatively balmy (30s and 40s) weather. Woohoo!

I returned from a bike ride to Tina's today to see both hoop houses nicely steamy and much better sealed. I'm hoping to see bigger lettuce in one, and a nice environment for my wild-blueberries-from-seed experiment in the other, come March. But first let's see if they make it through tonight's snowstorm.

My curriculum is up to me. I've structured it to teach kids how to think logically, become fluent in programming languages, and start developing an eye for good design. Some kids enjoy this. But a lot of kids just want to learn how to use tools (for example, to create cool-looking things in PhotoShop). I think learning to use tools is important, and of course we use tons of software tools in my program, but for me it's not the heart of the program.

My program doesn't have enough students. I know the administration notices this and that they're worried about it, particularly since Portland Schools is now a couple million dollars in debt after last year's debacle. I could attract a lot more students if my curriculum focused on learning to use software. I could also attract more students if my curriculum focused on getting kids ready to be database administrators, for example, or data entry personnel, or any number of entry-level tech jobs.

I think I would be really bored in any of these scenarios. But if I don't find kids who want to learn to program (or somehow convince kids that programming is fun), I may not have a program. Which makes me wonder: am I the teacher who should be teaching here? I love teaching here, but that's not the question.

I told this to my cluster at our Tuesday meeting. It was met with some shock, as is usually the case when I share something heavy on my mind with my fellow teachers (or say something out loud that everyone else is thinking). More than one of them have come to talk with me about it; it seems to have lingered in their minds.

This question comes at the same time that I've been wishing I had more time for my violin studio, though acquiring health insurance would be impossible/expensive/a pain if I became a full-time violin teacher (and I'm pretty sure I couldn't even buy disability insurance at all). And then there are the students who come in with their brains off and, after a few months, are talking about college and computer science. What a pity it would be to lose those. I sense hard choices ahead.

This is a long video, but well worth the time. I've always hated being in debt (and always got out of it as quickly as possible), but this video puts our system of money and debt in a new, scarier light for me.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&pr=goog-sl

Student: "Ms. Green, what happens if we can't finish our mid-terms by Thursday?"

Ms. Green: "Hmmmm...I'm pretty sure you descend into the fiery pits of Hell."

Student: "Cool."

One of my recent resolutions has been to get smarter about investing in the stock market. I've never liked the stock market, because to me it doesn't represent anything "real", or of value according to the things in life that I find valuable. I used to have conversations with co-workers about this when I worked at MM, and afterwards I always felt like I didn't get it. I have to invest in the stock market because that's where my various 403bs, 401ks, etc., are, because it's what you have to do to "get ahead", but I don't like it, and making money off the stock market? I've always felt a little bit like that was cheating.

This year I thought, maybe the reason I don't like the stock market is because I don't know enough about it and I'm scared about it, and so on, much like my dislike of dating.

So, okay, I read some books on investing and read blogs on investing...and discovered that 1) the stock market is even less reality-based than I thought it was, 2) investment strategy BORES ME TO DEATH, ARGH, 3) I still don't care about it, and like it even less than before. Hmmmm.

Finally releasing myself from Investment Book Boredom, I opened up Dave's new book and read this on page 4:

It took over 25 years to finally get this book to you. It represents the confidence of almost 30 people who collectively loaned more than $250,000 to see this project through.

Still car-free until Maurice Cavalier returns from the shop at school, I took the Brompton downtown to the NorthStar for TML's Monday night gig. I forgot how much fun it is to ride the Brompton, and was happy that (with the help of 10 hours of sleep) I could teach school, teach 4 violin lessons, bike downtown, play violin for an hour, and then bike home. It was a nice night to be on the road, unlike yesterday, when I had a huge headwind in every direction (how is that possible?)

Other benefits of the Brompton for Winter riding:

- handles much better on snow than my Mom's big (huge) bike I've been riding
- has mud flaps
- can easily be given a shower afterwards to wash off salty slush and grime
- is so freakin' cute

It has a flat on the front now (after yesterday's wildly windy ride). The only thing I don't like about the B. is that the tiny tires are really hard for me to remove. Blech.

Thinking a bunch about Waldorf Education lately. It seems to combine a lot of the things that I hold most dear (music, dance/movement, creative and critical thought, sustainability...) More info needed.

Also thinking that, as a kid, Waldorf Salad always seemed like a weird idea to me.