ADHD: To Medicate or Not to Medicate?

The question of whether or not to medicate a person with ADHD or ADD is not a new one.  It is, however, still a controversial question, which I think is kind of funny.

In the name of full disclosure, I have ADHD.  It was diagnosed when I was sixteen and a junior in high school by the muckety-mucks at Children's Hospital in Boston, along with disabilities in both auditory perception and spatial stuff.  

   Myself, my brother, and my sister.  I had gotten us all in trouble with the photographer.  I look very sorry, don't I ;-)?

Prior to my junior year in high school, I was a mediocre at best student, except in English class and occasionally history.  I was tested in first grade because they thought I was gifted (and my IQ test bore that out) since I was caught reading Stephen King's Cujo under my desk instead of filling in the "J is for Jam" paper.  I was tested again in fourth grade because I had become an apathetic student, so my IQ was tested again; the number was almost exactly the same as it had been in first grade, meaning I was still of "superior" intelligence, so that's when I received the "lazy" label.  

That label stayed with me for a long time.  I couldn't articulate to the teacher why it was hard for me to stay in my seat, why I couldn't understand multiplication, why I knew my foot tapping irritated her and I didn't mean to do it but I just couldn't help myself.  If we were given four worksheets to do, I would get half of all four completed and receive no credit.  Even though I loved books, listening to the teacher read was torture for me because I couldn't understand what she was saying.

One of the most humiliating days of my life was when the teacher picked up my desk and dumped it out on the floor because it was so jam-packed with stuff.  I had no sense of where to put stuff, so I just crammed it in my desk.  To this day, sticky notes give me anxiety attacks, and binders make me cringe.  I couldn't finish anything I started, I couldn't complete a task without getting up to walk around, and I just in general made my poor teacher's life miserable.

And so my label as "lazy" became something of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Until I realized the summer going into my junior year that I'd better get my ass in gear if I wanted to go to a good college.  School started, and I tried with all of my being to do well, but I could tell from the start that it was not going to make a difference.  I went home crying to my mom one day that I couldn't hear, that Mr. Smith gave us lectures in history class and quizzed us the next day to make sure we were taking notes, but I just couldn't *hear* the lecture.

My mom, who is a nurse practitioner, tested my hearing with her machine and it was perfect.  However, she also did something she'd never done before regarding my lackluster school performance--she listened.  

She set up an appointment at Children's, and I was diagnosed, and suddenly my entire pathetic school existence made sense.  The people there were great; they gave me some wonderful ideas, such as recording lectures to listen to later, finding an using an organization system that worked for me (in my case, it was putting everything in one folder so I knew exactly where it was and so I could go through and do what needed to be done), and so on.  

I got straight As my junior and senior year of high school. 

I should probably mention that my mother refused to allow me to have an IEP or a 504 plan or anything.  She did not want me treated as stupid, and she did not want me walking into college with a stigma (stigmas are the story of my life, apparently).  She also refused to allow me to be medicated for it.

One of my Facebook friends messaged me yesterday, and it really got me thinking.  

Here's the gist:

I've read in some of ur posts that you take adderral for I'm assuming ADHD. My 13 yr old son was diagnosed with that at the age of 6, I know some parents are against medicating children. We recently moved back to NH and the doctor he has has stated that just because he was on meds in the last state we lived in doesn't mean he will be on them up here. His behavior has been affected as well as his grades. What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are, of course, colored by my experiences, and I think it's especially significant to remember that I was not medicated for ADHD until I was an adult.

There is no question that my school experience would have been more positive if my ADHD had been diagnosed earlier and if I'd been treated for it.  I could have learned coping skills and strategies along with my ABCs and 123s, because the lessons that we learn young are almost always the ones that stay with us.

It is a disservice to just let kids (and especially teenagers) with ADHD rip.  Adults, too.  We are impulsive, we often hate ourselves for our actions afterwards but cannot explain why we (jumped out of a third floor window/jumped off a moving train/told your study hall teacher he walked like a duck/kicked your best friend in the face/smoked pot in the bathroom across the hall from the main office in high school/et cetera) and consequently find it hard to apologize, and there is a lot of loneliness associated with the condition because nobody truly gets you, or at least it feels that way.

We are actually contemplating having Ariel tested.  There is definitely a genetic link, and she exhibits many of the symptoms (I see them with both my mother heart and my teacher eyes).  Jeff used to scoff when I mentioned it, but he's starting to notice it, too.  Because she does so well in school, though, a doctor would be hesitant to medicate.  It's important to remember that only surveys given to people that see a child in different atmospheres are truly accurate.  If they surveyed Jeff and I, the results would be very different than what her teacher and her gymnastics coach would say.

I should mention that many non-medicated children with ADHD find ways to "hyper-focus" as it's the only way they can rest their brains.  For me, it was reading; I could sit and read for hours without stopping, without moving, without jittering.  A lot of ADHD kiddos fixate on video games.  For Ari, I suspect that gymnastics is starting to serve this purpose for her.

Anyway, what I responded to my friend was:

If the meds help, he should take them. I mean, I wasn't on meds until I was an adult (my mom didn't believe in ADHD lol), and it's a lot easier to learn coping skills as a child with the help of meds than as an adult (speaking from experience). Do you mind if I write a piece on this? I won't use your name.

Ask for surveys to be filled out by three if his teachers, and you should fill one out, and if he's on a team or club than the coach should, too. That gives valuable info. Sounds like you might need a new doctor

So what are your thoughts on this very timely issue?  Did the advice I gave my friend make sense, or am I full of manure?  

Connection Between Creative Genius and Being "Different"?

One of my students once asked me, "Why is it that every author is crazy?"  I thought about avoiding the question, actually, because who wants to go there, really?

First of all, there's that word "crazy" ...  (which, incidentally, is why it took me five minutes to come up with a title for this post ;-))

It's almost impossible to define "crazy", or I suppose we all have our own individual parameters as to what the word means.  Kooky?  Dangerous to yourself and others?  Impossible to understand?  Unique?  Those who beat to the march of their own drummers?  Manipulative?

And yet that long-ago student stumbled upon a kernel of truth that I had always been aware of on some level but had never really contemplated particularly deeply.

There is, in my opinion, an unquestionably correlation between creative genius and ... well, I'll call it eccentricity.  Michelangelo ... Marlon Brando ... Kurt Cobain ... J.K. Rowling ... Charles Dickens ... and so on.

And the so-called "27 Club" seems more evidence to support this theory than mere coincidence.    

I face it head on now as a teacher, usually through the unfortunate Edgar Allan Poe.  Before we read any of his stuff, I give my students notes about his life (I don't give proscribed notes very often, but I do when introducing Poe's biography).

Consider Poe's tragic existence ...

Dad left the family, Mom died when he was just a little kid of tuberculosis, his foster father didn't have much use for him, his foster mother died when he was still fairly young (also of TB), he had a gambling problem, his military career was a disaster, he married his thirteen-year-old cousin when he was in his late twenties (and said cousin died of TB ... gee, wonder if Poe was a carrier or something?), couldn't hold a job because he was by most accounts a hot-tempered and opinion twit, had a severe addiction problem, and died under very bizarre circumstances.  (That's the nutshell version, obviously)


When reading Poe's works (and I personally think he was a writer of prodigious talent), you can see the tragedies that shaped his life all over the place, an autobiographical legacy from a writer that will be remembered for being ... well, crazy.


There are very few writers, artists, actors, musicians, or any sort of master of a creative outlet who appear to have had "normal" lives.  (I know, "normal" is about as difficult to define as "crazy", right?)


Speaking for myself, I know for a fact that I would not be the writer I am were it not for those traumatic events that have shaped my own life.

And while I'm pretty sure I'm mentally sound, I have definitely been impacted by the learning disabilities that have complicated my existence, not to mention insomnia.

If I ever achieve the degree of fame as a writer where a biography would be written about me, it would probably make for an interesting read (not because I'm an interesting person but because I have somehow had so many interesting experiences).

Anyway, that's my take ... interesting life experiences (and, sadly, the more traumatic the ... better?) and/or mental illness foster creative genius, without a doubt.

What do you think?

Sunday Stealing: The Next Installment of the Imaginary Meme

If you don't do Sunday Stealing, you should ... it's fun :-)

121. Have you gone rock climbing? If not, would you?

On man-made rock walls, yes.  Lots of fun, actually.  On real rocks?  No way … I am the world’s biggest klutz, and … well, it just wouldn’t end well.    

122. Do you believe in forever love in a romantic relationship?

I really and truly hope so J

123. As a kid did you ever sneak anyone into your house?

You know, I honestly don’t think I did.  Whether or not I ever snuck out of my house is a completely different question …

124. Do you personally know anyone homeless?

I do, unfortunately.

125. Do you believe in aliens?

I think it would be presumptuous of humankind to assume that we are the only living things in existence when you consider how truly, immeasurably huge the solar system (which is only one of many) is … it’s mind-boggling, if you think about it.

126. Have you ever killed someone?

What kind of a sick and twisted meme is this?

127. What would it take for you to sell your soul to a devil?

It’s hard to predict how you’d act in a given scenario until it comes up.  Not that I’d ever want this one to …

128. Top or bottom?

Oh, I always preferred the top bunk when I was a kid because my sister had a little bedwetting problem, as I found out when she got the top bunk on a vacation to Florida and I woke up to … well, raindrops falling on my head.

129. Are you happy with your career?

I adore every aspect of the teaching part of my career.  Unfortunately, teaching becomes less and less a part of being a teacher every year.  Does that make any sense?

130. What's your favorite store to buy clothes? Why?

I have two children … I haven’t bought clothes for myself since 2004 or so.

131. What is your eye color?

Blue.

132. Watching or playing sports?

Depends on the sport.

133. Would you have plastic surgery?

I doubt it, if only because I have a tendency to be very unlucky when it comes to medical stuff.  “There is a one in 500 chance you’ll have this side effect” … “Nobody ever gets this side effect, but we have to mention it” … um, yeah, guess who always seems to get that side effect?  Me getting elective surgery would just be asking for trouble.

134. Name one website that you visit daily. Why do you read it?

This is really lame, but I stalk The Weather Channel, particularly in the summer.  I am scared to death of thunderstorms (my golden retriever and I fight over the bathtub), so I am always on the lookout for them.  I am like the amateur meteorologist from hell … “We have a severe thunderstorm warning, but according to the Doppler, I think we’re only going to get a piece of it.”

I’m a dork ;-)

135. Are you going on vacation this year? If so, where?

Nope.  Too poor.  Also, not enough time (summer school starts in a week, and then there are conferences and trainings and such, plus I am trying really hard to finish writing my new novel this summer).

136. How do you align yourself politically?

I try not to pigeonhole myself that way, because it is dangerous and honestly kind of ignorant.  I try to keep an open mind (if only so my children don’t feel pressured to have my opinions instead of their own), but I tend to find myself on the left side of things (except for welfarereform … I am further right than Rush Limbaugh on welfare reform).

137. Do you have any pets?

I have two dogs, a black lab named Sonja (she was a rescue dog and is the coolest animal ever … ) and a golden retriever named Mollie (she is a neurotic, spoiled princess … but for some reason, I love her very much in spite of this).

138. Do you believe in soul mates?

“Friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for life.”

139. What’s one trait that you hate about yourself?

My ADHD (which encompasses the bad things about me, such as procrastination, impulsivity, disorganization, and so on)

140. How long have you played Sunday Stealing?

Good question … quite awhile, I’m pretty sure J  I was off the grid for a bit, though.

Summer Writing Project--Please Weigh In

Along with my writing mojo returning came two great writing ideas about which I am very excited.  That being said, I know that I can only focus on one at a time and a decision has to be made.

I've written one novel and several short stories (here, here,  here, and here, if you're interested).  I thought they were pretty good at the time (they clearly weren't ;-)), but I've learned a lot about writing and about life since then, and I am unquestionably at a better place as a writer now.

If you know me at all in real life (or it's entirely possible you've picked this up from my blogging topics and patterns), you're well aware that I'm pretty much the textbook version of an adult with ADHD.  I struggle with getting started, finishing what I start unless there are firm deadlines, and many of what we call in the education world "executive functioning skills".  I am impulsive, disorganized, and I hate authority.  And so on and so forth.

Oh, I also have that "hyper-focus" on one area, kind of like self-hypnosis (if you have or know anyone with ADHD, you know what I mean).  For me, it's reading.  Or writing.  For a lot of hyperactive kids nowadays, it's video games.  But that's a different rant ...

Anyway, I've made a lot of progress with functioning in life, more than just bouncing around driving people nuts or using books and caffeine to keep myself under control (I'm really not as bad as I'm making myself out to be ... I am a successful mother, teacher, girlfriend, dog owner, friend, daughter, sister, and blah blah blah).

And I've decided that this is the summer of writing.

So I've got it down to two topics.  I'd really rather not flip a coin, so I am going to let you, oh person reading these words right now, decide.  Seriously.

Oh, and before you say, "Why don't you try doing both?", see the above explanatory ADHD rant.  I cannot focus on writing on two things at once.  It's as simple as that.

So ...

1.  A historical mystery. (vague, I know ... I don't want to tip my hand ;-))
*  I know the whole story in my head (this sort of planning ahead is symbolic of the new and slightly improved me)
*  It's an extensive lesson in history, and I've already started researching extensively.
*  I have always wanted to write a mystery

OR

2.  A memoir of my life.
*  It's an interesting story ... I have had the great fortune of having incredible things happen to me ... and the horrible misfortune of having unspeakably horrible things happen to me.
*  Coming to terms with a couple of my traumatic life events has given me closure ... part of me thinks that getting it all out there might do so on a larger scale.
*  It is very important to me as a mother and a teacher that the children I raise and/or educate get the lesson that, when life knocks you down, you get right back up.  I think this is a message that needs to get out more, and I think putting it in writing (more than the occasional blog post) could help people.

So, please give your recommendation (your vote, to use that word) in the comments.  Should I focus my summer writing time, other than blogging and other responsibilities, working on the historical mystery or the memoir?

And should you want to explain why, that would be great, too :-)  

Either way, I'm going with the majority.

Thanks in advance <<3
   

Living With Learning Disabilities as an Adult

There is a basic assumption that I am intelligent because
a) I'm a teacher
b) I have an advanced graduate degree
c) I'm a writer (not prolific, true, but one of these days ...)

This is kind of a difficult topic for me to get into because it crosses into the personal more than I'm necessarily comfortable with, but I strongly believe that this is a topic that is under-addressed in society.

I found out when I was a junior in high school, after eleven years of public education, having my IQ tested numerous times (it's in the "superior" range, but I miss out on "genius" by a few points ;-)), and being dismissed as lazy and academically apathetic by virtually all of my teachers, that I have two specific learning disabilities. Several years later, ADHD was added to the mix.

I never had an IEP (special education plan) because my mother did not want me to be enabled. Her philosophy was that life was not going to make accommodations to my disabilities, so I might as well get used to it. Furthermore, I was pretty much about to graduate high school by the time anything would have been in place, so what was the point?

My disabilities were identified through an assessment done at Children's Hospital in Boston, and I cannot say enough good things about that experience. The staff there gave me specific ways that I could take control of both my education and my life (such as recording teacher lectures with a tape recorder, taking tests in silent locations, and so on), and I was a straight-A student my senior year of high school (good thing, too, considering the spotty transcript that preceded that year).

What I had that many students with disabilities don't is an exceptional strength that offset the weaknesses to a degree that I could function to some degree. In my case, of course, it was in the area of reading and, even more so, writing.

I could write an essay about something that I had no idea about, and my teachers would read them aloud as gold standards. I always felt a little guilty about this, but it was how things rolled.

I also have a quasi-photographic visual memory, which has probably been an even greater boon. If I see something, I will remember it with almost total recall, which is kind of a cool skill, I suppose. I am the master of the game Memory ;)

As an educator, I know that there is a label for students like I was--"twice exceptional", which basically means that I had both disabilities and areas of incredible strength.

But my intent with this post isn't to talk about my educational experiences, which would be, I suppose, kind of an interesting post in its own right and might happen one of these days.

No, it's to contemplate how my abilities, much as I know and understand them, have impacted me as an adult. This is an important discussion, I think, because schools today are actually really quick to identify students as disabled, to mass produce IEPs and 504 plans that provide what amounts to "blanket coverage" to ensure a degree of success in school but does not necessarily prepare a disabled child for real life.

I can't speak to a lot of disabilities, but I can bring up the three areas that I have personal experience with.

#1: Auditory Processing
There is absolutely nothing wrong with my hearing, per se, but I miss a lot of what I "hear" because there is a crossed wire (or something) in my brain that doesn't allow me to process what I hear.

This is one of the reasons that I avoid the telephone. It's not that I don't want to talk to people, but if there is any sort of background noise whatsoever (other people talking, the television being on, even something as simple as a fan or a car's engine), I'll more often than not let an incoming call go to voice mail.

It's kind of embarrassing to say, "What?" every time someone else talks.

I also have a tendency to avoid loud crowds of people for the same reason. I have to really struggle to follow conversations (I learned some lip reading through the staff at Children's, but I'm not great at it), and sometimes it's just not worth the trouble.

What I most enjoy, though, is that most professional development offered to teachers is of the "stand and deliver" school of thought. If I don't have something visual to follow, it's sort of like being back in history class listening as hard as I could to a lecture that went in one ear and out the other.

I am not a quiet person by any means (heh heh), but I often come off this way to people I first meet because I am very aware of my auditory processing issue and don't want to be remembered as the chick who kept saying, "What?! Say again, please? What did you say?"

#2: Spatial
Perhaps ironically when you consider my exceptional visual memory, I have virtually no spatial skills.

My mother is very into moving furniture around, for example, and she'll say, "What if we moved this coffee table there and swapped the couch and the loveseat around?" then get very frustrated when I explain that I can't visualize it.

In fact, she'll often try to draw me a map, which makes the situation even worse.

I cannot read maps. I have absolutely no sense of direction--I still get lost in my hometown, and while it qualifies as a city, it's not exactly huge. I think Mapquest, with its breakdown of how many miles you're on each road, is one of the best inventions ever.

I live on a state road that runs all the way to the beach. I once asked my mother if a certain city that was also on "Route 69" meant going east or west. She looked at me as though I was dumb and said, "Um ... what happens if you go east all the way to the end?" When I looked at her blankly, she elaborated, "You hit the ocean. If you don't want to go to the beach, you'd go the other way. That would be west." This was about six months ago.

And then, of course, there's math, which is virtually impossible if you have essentially no spatial skills. How do you explain the concept of a coefficient to someone that doesn't understand numbers? I walked into Algebra I thinking that X meant multiply.

When I took the GRE before applying for grad school, the results were almost funny. Almost. Verbal: 91st (I think ... it was ninety-something) %ile. Analytical: 75th %ile. Math: 3rd %ile. Third. That's kind of embarrassing ... but I was accepted to graduate school and maintained an A average, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

But when my students ask me to help them with math and I just look blankly at the problem, when I'm trying to calculate how many weeks away the first day of school is and I literally need a calendar in front of me to accomplish this, when I get lost on my way to the next town over ...

#3: ADHD
ADHD, perhaps the most misdiagnosed conditions in the world, is probably the condition that most identifies me as a person. Like, my ADHD is kind of a schoolwide joke at work.

Like most adults with ADHD, I
* live in a state of organized chaos. My desk at work, for example, is a landmark ... yet I have the distinction of being a teacher known for not losing student work.
* cannot sit in a meeting for extended periods of time without resorting to annoying habits like tapping my feet, moving around like I have ants in my pants, sitting backwards and sideways in chairs, shuffling papers around, and so on.
* have a fairly extensive history of impulsive, self-destructive behavior. I cannot say no to a dare, for example, because I'll be doing whatever I've been dared to do before my brain says, "Whoa, this is maybe not such a great idea" ... but I've gotten better about this.
* self-medicate (it's caffeine these days, which is far better than some past bad habits)
* need to multi-task, almost to a fault
* hyper-focus on certain things to calm myself down(I learned from a very young age to almost hypnotize myself through the act of reading)
* struggle with finishing what I've started. I have made tremendous progress in this area, but it still exists.
* am either adored (because I'm funny and endearing and goofy and all that) or the source of frustration (because I'm not always serious and am often loud and goofy and need to be reminded to get things done and such)
* am kind of a good time.

Although my disabilities have been the source of a great deal of frustration throughout my life, they are as much a part of who I am as anything else. I've reached a point where I like who I am in general, and I would not be me, the kind of person who enjoys the odd whipped cream fight and appreciates the better parts of myself all the more because of my deficiencies, if I was "normal" (which does not, in my opinion, exist anyway).

Uh ... squirrel!!!!!!!!!!!!

Coolest Idea Ever (If I Were An Inventor)

I have always envied people that are truly intelligent across the board. I mean, obviously everyone has some things they're smarter at than others (my sister, a brilliant microbiologist, put "toona" on a shopping list made after she'd received her PhD), but there are some that are just true renaissance peeps.

Sadly, I'm not one of them. I had a stroke of genius on my drive home last night, though, that made me wish I was.

So it snowed again (I'm sure you're shocked to hear that), and I had my typical white-knuckled run down the back roads of very, very rural New Hampshire. After I picked Addie up from school, I spent the entire drive home trying to explain to her how to drive in snow, which is a little bit tricky because my car has all wheel drive and hers doesn't (plus it's very small and light), so most of what I was telling her doesn't even apply.

Anyway, I dropped her off at home then went to get Belle, and while I was driving I couldn't help thinking about how fortunate the kids in driver's ed right now are. Addie took driver's ed in the late summer and early fall, so she had no formal instruction (beyond the book, which is of course very theoretical) in the fine art of driving in snow.

There are pros and cons to having an ADHD mind, but one thing that's essentially a wash is the ability to connect things together that have absolutely no relation to a normal person, and to do it in a matter of seconds. My brain synapses are always at hyperspeed unless I'm reading or writing (most ADHD folk have an activity that allows them to "hyper-focus" ... sadly it's video games a lot of the time, but for me it has always been reading). The overactive brain synapses, by the way, are very helpful when writing and explain a great deal about why I write in fits and spurts much of the time ... namely, I picture what happens next in my mind, often at night when I can't sleep, but don't write it down right away.

And I'm way off-topic, which is of course the hard-core downside to the ADHD brain ...

Anyway, I explain that because, in a matter of seconds, I came up with the coolest idea ever. The thought process went something like this:

1. The driving really sucks.
2. There are a lot of inexperienced drivers on the road. Even though I'm crazy overprotective and won't let Addie drive in snow, there are a lot of kids driving today that really shouldn't be.
3. I'm going to have to teach Addie to drive in the snow one of these days. It's going to be horrible.
4. Why isn't "snow-driving" a required part of driver's ed?
5. The space shuttle Challenger exploded twenty-five years ago this week.
6. My fourth grade teacher cried ... I had never seen a teacher cry before.
7. I'm surprised they haven't made a movie of the Challenger disaster yet ... after all, they did for Apollo 13.
8. Apollo 13 was a really neat movie.
9. Gary Sinise always seems to get that "unsung hero" role, which he's very good at.
10. Gary Sinise, playing the role of Ken Mattingly, is what stands out the most to me about that movie because he was stuck in that space simulator trying to figure out how to save his colleagues.
11. I watched an iCarly episode with Belle where Carly and her peeps were in a space simulator.

And ... *ka-bam*

12. How cool would it be if there was a "driving-in-snow" simulator? That would allow driving students to have the experience of driving in snow without being an any true danger. There are a certain number of required hours for nighttime driving, highway driving, and so on ... why not "snow driving", at least in areas where snow is a concern?

I wish I had some idea of how to actually go about doing this, because I think it would be very helpful :-)

Seven Random Facts About Me

I just had the greatest time reading seven random facts about Mrs. Nesbitt. I enjoyed reading her "random facts"(which were actually totally awesome stories and not random facts at all ;)) so much, in fact, that I figured I'd give it a shot myself. I strongly encourage you to check Mrs. Nesbitt's out, too ... oh, and leave a link in the comments if you decide to do this yourself because I love reading these!

1. My desk at work is a landmark.
And not in a good way. It is piled high with ever-shifting piles of papers that end up mixed together in new and unusual ways. If I was a science teacher instead of an English teacher, it would be a great way to teach plate tectonics. Interestingly, though, I have never lost a student's work, a fact that they comment on regularly.

STUDENT: Ms. Loud, I don't understand it. Your desk looks like a tornado went through it, and you never lose our stuff. Ms. Spike has a color-coded filing cabinet with folders for not just each student but each class and loses our work all the time.

I can't explain this to children, of course, but it's the ADHD mind at work. I will always be disorganized ... there's no way around it. However, I operate under the "central location" theory. If every piece of student work goes in a central location (in other words, my desk), I know it's there somewhere ... it might take me a bit to find it amidst the other thousand papers on my desk, but I know it's there.

2. I met my ten-year-old equivalent last week.
I was at another school with several other teachers to observe their reading program and the interventions they had in place for struggling readers so that we could bring it back to our school. One of the other teachers also happens to be one of my best friends, and suffice it to say that we should not be allowed to go on professional development days together ... we laugh entirely too much.

So we're observing a class right after lunch, and everyone's a little bit punchy, but Holly and I are by far the goofiest. There's this one little guy who just cannot sit still. If you've ever seen a caricature of a kid with ADHD, this was it.

And Holly leans over to the other teachers and whispers, "This is what it's like working with Katie", and we all just lost it.

When the kid was sitting backwards in his chair literally hanging off of it, it occurred to me that I sometimes teach in that position, and I tried to stifle the laughter until I looked at my colleagues and saw that they were all cracking up ... they've all seen me teach, after all.

Although I thought this kid was the coolest, it occurred to me that I must at times be very annoying to the people I work with ;)

3. My favorite author is Stephen King.
I am a voracious reader. I've read all the classics, all the chick lit, all the pretty much everything, and nobody can tell a story like King. Nobody can make characters that you care about, that seem quite as real as the ones he creates.

Nobody can make a book about the craft of writing as interesting as his On Writing, which I would make required reading for my students if there weren't budget constrictions.

I am especially obsessed with his seven-book saga The Dark Tower. I'm so obsessed that I made a blog intended to analyze and contemplate the philosophies contained therein (it doesn't get updated very often, though, although I'm working on managing my time better so I can get back to adding to it).

4. I can do a split. It's a great classroom management tool ...

5. I jumped off a moving train once.
My brother, sister, brother-in-law, and myself went to a Red Sox game, but the game ended up being the least interesting part of the day. I don't want to get into detail because I've been trying to do this story justice in writing for years and it just doesn't transfer well (it's a story made for oral storytelling), but it was totally my brother-in-law's fault.

6. My golden retriever, Mollie, is passive aggressive.
Most dogs I've owned are very sweet-tempered. My black lab, Sonja, for example, just kind of goes with the flow, is thrilled to see you when you get home at the end of the day, sits at your feet when you're reading a book, is thrilled when you take her outside to play, and so on.

Mollie is just crazy.

The best example of this, I guess, is her obsession with balls. She always has a ball in her mouth, and when you're inside the house, she'll drop the slimy thing on your lap as if to say, "Throw it, throw it, I want to play fetch!" The logical response to this action, of course, is to pick up the ball, walk outside, and start a rousing game of fetch.

Um ... nope. You throw the ball once and Mollie goes running after it, retrieves it, and comes back to dance around your feet ... and refuses to give you the ball. After you try to pry it out of her mouth a few times to no avail, you give up and go back inside ... at which point, Mollie comes and drops the slimy ball in your lap and the cycle continues.

Even more annoying, though, is when you give her the ball back and say, "No, not gonna do it right now" or something like that. She hides the ball under heavy pieces of furniture and scratches at it until you lift it up, straining back muscles in the process, so she can get the ball ... and, two minutes later, drop the slimy thing in your lap.

7. I laugh a lot.
One of the greatest gifts I've been given is the ability to find humor in pretty much any situation, a skill that both of my parents possess. They passed on some less positive traits, but the laughter that has permeated my life almost balances those out.

I can't even explain how weird my sense of humor is, or even how simple it is when you get right down to it.

Oh, wait for it ... my phone just gave me an example. Like, perhaps the prime example. Every time I get a text message (or a Facebook update), my phone says, "DROID" in a robotic voice. I've had this phone for months now, and I still crack up every time (every single time) it goes off ... and I get a fair amount of texts and Facebook stuff, so it's not like this is a rare occurrence. And it is still just so funny ...

Most people with Droids change the settings pretty quickly, but I'm just far too entertained by my phone talking to me in a robotic voice that I just can't. My friend Holly and I usually sit together during meetings, and when it's getting rather dry, she'll lean over and whisper, "DROID", and we both just lose it (it took me awhile to figure out how to silence it, so for a couple of weeks it went off all day, every day).

Oh, and during the before-Christmas talent show, we hooked my phone up to the sound system because we were playing a song off it for the eighth graders to dance to. In the middle of the song, there's a sudden, "DROID!" It was just hysterical.

So there you have it ... seven random things about me :-)

Non-Linear

My mother refers to me as a walking, talking example of ADHD. While it's not the greatest thing in the world to hear, there's definitely some truth to it.

Whenever I say, "Want to hear what happened to me today?" at the dinner table, everyone groans. They know that it will take me at least ten minutes to tell a story because I will find it necessary to put in all sorts of background information and go off on random tangents (that aren't at all random in my brain, of course).

However scattered, disorganized, and, oh, all right, Mom, ADH-freaking-D I am in reality, though, I've always got high marks (so to speak) for having extremely organized writing. Truth be told, I'm just very lucky--teachers who see my writing want to know what graphic organizers I use to plan it, and I don't even know what to say. It's weird.

But since I've been writing for Zelda Lily, where I need to have a degree of focus, I've found that my writing has gotten a bit non-linear. It's not a bad thing, but it's like I'll start out writing about a subject from one direction but, by the time my piece is finished, I've approached it completely differently. I have not historically done a lot of short pieces, so I'm finding out all sorts of things about myself as a writer.

Does that ever happen to anyone else? A change in pace and/or direction forces you to make all these realizations?

Oh, and because a couple of people have asked, here are links to my articles at Zelda Lily.

* An ode to Lena Horne.
* Is it possible that boudoir photography (lingerie pics) might actually be feminist?
* NOW (National Organization for Women) is taking heat for encouraging women to love their bodies
* A female principal at a NH high school is taken to task for being a member of an offensive Facebook group
* An increase in abortions among poor women is concerning researchers.
* A bunch of women held a topless protest to bring attention to the double standard of men being able to go out in public topless when women can't.
* Charles Darwin continues to make scientific breakthroughs as his family tree shows inbreeding and likely genetic mutations.
* Should prostitution be legalized? Pros and cons are discussed.
* LifeStyles condoms are doing more with ... uh, sizing. (Yeah, not my finest piece ;-))
* Cyberbullying is become more and more serious ... and with deadly results.

Please feel free to check out any of those that might be of interest to you :-) It would be great if you could leave a comment ... the comments get very interesting over there are times ...