(no subject)
I suck. I have been using my MySpace blog instead of this one. Well, here are my two latest posts from there for those of you not on MySpace...
challenge, fear, growth, and terror
Last week and this week are in-service weeks before students come back on the 21st. We're a new school, so none of us on staff know each other, and a major focus of these two weeks is learning to work together as a team. To that end, today, tomorrow, and Wednesday are Experiential Learning days. Today involved problem-solving and team-building activities with such ominous titles as "Gotcha!," "Acid River," and "Three Mile Island." None of the activities were perilous at all, however. We had a lot of fun, learned a lot about each other, thought a lot about how students learn, and found some activities we can use to help build community as the school year begins.
What does this have to do with the blog's title? Tomorrow we are doing a "high ropes course." Yours truly is terrified of heights, ladies and gentlemen. The facilitator today said, "Nobody's really afraid of heights. People are afraid of falling, not of the height itself, and we'll all be roped up, so you can't fall." Another colleague offered the never helpful "The only way to get over the fear of heights is to force yourself to do it."
I have climbed steeples in Estonia. I have climbed to the top of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. TWICE. I have gone up Mount Vesuvius. I have climbed Mount Yale's 14,000 feet. And guess what? All of those things made me nauseous, at times had me paralyzed, and resulted in me crying. Sometimes sitting down and crying. I even get scared looking up at high places. Like, I can be sitting in the Pepsi Center, and if I spend too long looking up at the catwalk the lighting guys walk on, I think I'm going to throw up. Is that because I'm afraid of falling? The lighting guys are roped up and I'm still scared and it's not even me up there. I'm sitting on my ass and I get scared.
So I'm going to try this shit tomorrow anyway because I'm foolhardy and/or open-minded. I am afraid, but it's a chance to challenge my limits and maybe grow, yada yada yada. The thing I'm honestly most worried about is that I'll be silently judged by the others in my group. Particularly by those who don't have an paralyzing fear of heights. I would rather hold spiders tomorrow than climb up to some little wooden platform, but I don't want to look weak or like I'm not a team player. On the other hand, I don't want to crumple into a quivering ball of tears and vomit before my coworkers' very eyes either. Perhaps I give myself too little credit. Maybe tomorrow will be a breakthrough day and for the first time in 35 years heights won't strike the fear of God in me. Maybe I'll turn that corner from adrenaline-I'm-gonna-puke to adrenaline-let's-do-that-again. Ha! Maybe if I had some Valium!! I am skeptical to say the least.
Shit. I am typing this from my laptop in bed and I was about to go to sleep but just thinking about tomorrow has sent my heart rate soaring. I feel singled out in a way that the thing we have to do for team-building is pretty much my single biggest phobia. (Heights and tornadoes.) Why couldn't it be something else challenging like having to sing a solo in a foreign language in front of a large audience of friends and strangers? That I know I can do.
So, I probably don't even have to give this teaser, but if I survive tomorrow, look for a future blog entry on either (a) how I'm a changed woman or (b) how I threw up on a coworker from 12 feet overhead.
And as an unrelated aside---what is up with my toes lately? A few weeks ago I bone-bruised a toe on my left foot. The toe is still purple and may have a slight fracture I can't do anything for. I went walking Friday in bad shoes, and since then I haven't been able to feel the big toe on my left foot. (Did you know that in Latin the word for big toe and thumb are one and the same? Hallux.) And yesterday a toe on my right foot took a beating too. Well, better toes than fingers I guess.
Neither life-ending nor life-changing
One more day to prepare before our first students arrive. I really feel for my coworkers who have come from more traditional education settings---they've gotta totally be freaking out. We only have 49 students enrolled, we don't have a master schedule yet, we just received training on our placement exams today, we'll conduct those assessments and score them on the first day of school... But I am quite comfortable with the level of chaos we're currently experiencing. It's the third time I'm going through this, and it's getting to be old hat.
One thing that makes me feel so confident about this year is the wonderful job our principal did in assembling a strong team of teachers and support staff. When we met the first week, it seemed like we were going to jibe well, but the training we did this week clinched that suspicion for me. This week we did a workshop in experiential learning, and it gave us more tools to use in supporting each other and making our teamwork even more solid than it was already starting out to be.
I know, I know. All you really want to hear about is how was Tuesday. Tuesday was the day of the high ropes course. I had been dreading this day since the day I interviewed for this job. The principal always said, "Challenge by choice," but it was clear that you were supposed to choose the challenge! I talked to a few people about ropes courses before this week, and I was quite sure I wouldn't even be able to climb up a telephone pole, let alone set foot on a high wire. (That's like saying, "Yeah, well, I could go swimming, if only I could jump into the pool.") The morning of the high ropes, as I was driving down the street to the place and the ropes course came into view, I was like, "No way. Uh-uh. No FUCKING way!" It looked so spare, so intimidating, so---well, high! It was damn near impossible just to keep an open mind at that point...
Our workshop leader took us through some low-ropes activities before we put our harnesses on. We worked on trust activities, we did some activities one person could not complete without asking for and receiving support, and we practiced clear communication and discussed how to make our communication even clearer. We saw that people's size isn't necessarily proportional to the strength they bring to a situation, and we saw that people's weight isn't a burden when the load is shared among a group. We talked about and witnessed the importance of asking for help before you fall too far, when the help can't help you anymore. A lot of metaphors for real life, for real struggles... It was really interesting!
Yikes. Then we put on helmets and harnesses. Learned how to belay, anchor, etc. And then it was time for teams to send people up onto the wires to experience the activities. I knew I couldn't go first, and I knew I shouldn't watch/wait/worry too long before giving it my one good college try. So I was the second person on my team to volunteer. "The Pirate's Walk" as it was called was bounded on the west side by a pole that was shared with a newly built obstacle. The bottom of the pole had nice wide brackets to use as steps. Next there were big, round, U-shaped staples to use as steps. Those were a little less sure-footed to me. And this part is hard to describe. The other obstacle to the west has several levels to it, so as I was climbing up the pole to my wire, I had to reach around other wires, take irregularly sized steps to avoid long screws, etc. It was a little too much for my feeble brain to process at that time. Oh, the other big problem is I could only look up, I couldn't look down, because if I looked down I would freeze up. So I kept asking my teammates for help. "Wait, I need to move my left foot down. How far is the step? Is this a step?... Well, what do I have to do to get around that wire then?"
I had to keep stopping to focus, to breathe, to wrap my arms around the pole and just hug it and try to stand there... And a weird thing started to happen. It was like the auditory equivalent of tunnel vision: my colleagues started to sound like they were a mile away. They were asking me if I wanted to go up more or come down and offering suggestions, and I told them it was getting harder to hear them, could they be louder. Eventually I couldn't make out a word they were saying! I couldn't go up or down, I couldn't look down, and I couldn't hear. Pretty grim! That's when the workshop leader came over and helped me focus enough for my team to bring me down safely using the belay ropes.
But you know what? I probably got about 20 feet in the air. I climbed high enough that, had I been on another pole, I would've been just about ready to climb onto some different obstacle. Most importantly, even though I hadn't made it down on my own, I had climbed the highest vertical climb I'd ever managed in my life. No, I have never been in an attic or on a roof. So, I was pretty satisfied.
But not totally.
We had a break soon. I went to the bathroom, did not throw up (yay) cried some, put cold water on my face and neck, and drank a bunch of water. Went back out and helped my teammates on some other activities, and then Brook said, "Do you want to try this one?" We talked about it. My teammates said this pole was easier to climb than the first one I'd attempted. They it was relatively easy to step onto the wire on this one too. What the hell. I said I'd try it. I decided I couldn't afford the luxury of thinking and motored straight up that pole as fast as my legs could carry me...
And amazingly enough, I climbed quickly and gracefully onto a wire about 20 feet off the ground. There was a somewhat slack rope hanging about chest high as Istood on the wire, and that was the only thing to hold on to as I inched, I'm guessing 15 feet? from one side of the wire to the other. When I reached the far side, I rang a cowbell on the pole, and then I went back to the middle and was belayed down by my team. I never looked down---just straight out at the top of a nearby tree or at the mountains. I think everybody there stopped what they were doing to watch me. People were impressed that I tried it a second time. I impressed me too!
Later in the day I also did a zip line, but I opted not to stand on the platform and step off. That was just a little too much for me. (I mean, I have never even gone off a high dive.) I was towed to the full height of the zip line and just released from there. It was a hell of a lot of fun. Really felt like flying. I leaned back and looked up at the clouds. It was cool!
Photos. This is not me, and it's not the exact course I was on, but it's a photo of the activity I did:
And in case you didn't notice on my main page, I have a new hero, at least for now: my coworker Christine. These are pictures (again, not of her, not of our exact course) of an activity almost identical to the Power Jump she did blindfolded:
Anyway, as the title of this blog says, I didn't die, but I can't say that going up on a high wire has cured me of my fear of heights (because, hey, how often do you experience everyday heights with a harness & a belay team?). I don't think the high ropes course was as life-changing as the Avon Breast Cancer 3-day was, but I'm still glad I did it. It's always good to accomplish things you never believed you could do, because it forces you to reset that boundary between yourself and that stuff you think is impossible, and that's a good thing.
challenge, fear, growth, and terror
Last week and this week are in-service weeks before students come back on the 21st. We're a new school, so none of us on staff know each other, and a major focus of these two weeks is learning to work together as a team. To that end, today, tomorrow, and Wednesday are Experiential Learning days. Today involved problem-solving and team-building activities with such ominous titles as "Gotcha!," "Acid River," and "Three Mile Island." None of the activities were perilous at all, however. We had a lot of fun, learned a lot about each other, thought a lot about how students learn, and found some activities we can use to help build community as the school year begins.
What does this have to do with the blog's title? Tomorrow we are doing a "high ropes course." Yours truly is terrified of heights, ladies and gentlemen. The facilitator today said, "Nobody's really afraid of heights. People are afraid of falling, not of the height itself, and we'll all be roped up, so you can't fall." Another colleague offered the never helpful "The only way to get over the fear of heights is to force yourself to do it."
I have climbed steeples in Estonia. I have climbed to the top of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. TWICE. I have gone up Mount Vesuvius. I have climbed Mount Yale's 14,000 feet. And guess what? All of those things made me nauseous, at times had me paralyzed, and resulted in me crying. Sometimes sitting down and crying. I even get scared looking up at high places. Like, I can be sitting in the Pepsi Center, and if I spend too long looking up at the catwalk the lighting guys walk on, I think I'm going to throw up. Is that because I'm afraid of falling? The lighting guys are roped up and I'm still scared and it's not even me up there. I'm sitting on my ass and I get scared.
So I'm going to try this shit tomorrow anyway because I'm foolhardy and/or open-minded. I am afraid, but it's a chance to challenge my limits and maybe grow, yada yada yada. The thing I'm honestly most worried about is that I'll be silently judged by the others in my group. Particularly by those who don't have an paralyzing fear of heights. I would rather hold spiders tomorrow than climb up to some little wooden platform, but I don't want to look weak or like I'm not a team player. On the other hand, I don't want to crumple into a quivering ball of tears and vomit before my coworkers' very eyes either. Perhaps I give myself too little credit. Maybe tomorrow will be a breakthrough day and for the first time in 35 years heights won't strike the fear of God in me. Maybe I'll turn that corner from adrenaline-I'm-gonna-puke to adrenaline-let's-do-that-again. Ha! Maybe if I had some Valium!! I am skeptical to say the least.
Shit. I am typing this from my laptop in bed and I was about to go to sleep but just thinking about tomorrow has sent my heart rate soaring. I feel singled out in a way that the thing we have to do for team-building is pretty much my single biggest phobia. (Heights and tornadoes.) Why couldn't it be something else challenging like having to sing a solo in a foreign language in front of a large audience of friends and strangers? That I know I can do.
So, I probably don't even have to give this teaser, but if I survive tomorrow, look for a future blog entry on either (a) how I'm a changed woman or (b) how I threw up on a coworker from 12 feet overhead.
And as an unrelated aside---what is up with my toes lately? A few weeks ago I bone-bruised a toe on my left foot. The toe is still purple and may have a slight fracture I can't do anything for. I went walking Friday in bad shoes, and since then I haven't been able to feel the big toe on my left foot. (Did you know that in Latin the word for big toe and thumb are one and the same? Hallux.) And yesterday a toe on my right foot took a beating too. Well, better toes than fingers I guess.
Neither life-ending nor life-changing
One more day to prepare before our first students arrive. I really feel for my coworkers who have come from more traditional education settings---they've gotta totally be freaking out. We only have 49 students enrolled, we don't have a master schedule yet, we just received training on our placement exams today, we'll conduct those assessments and score them on the first day of school... But I am quite comfortable with the level of chaos we're currently experiencing. It's the third time I'm going through this, and it's getting to be old hat.
One thing that makes me feel so confident about this year is the wonderful job our principal did in assembling a strong team of teachers and support staff. When we met the first week, it seemed like we were going to jibe well, but the training we did this week clinched that suspicion for me. This week we did a workshop in experiential learning, and it gave us more tools to use in supporting each other and making our teamwork even more solid than it was already starting out to be.
I know, I know. All you really want to hear about is how was Tuesday. Tuesday was the day of the high ropes course. I had been dreading this day since the day I interviewed for this job. The principal always said, "Challenge by choice," but it was clear that you were supposed to choose the challenge! I talked to a few people about ropes courses before this week, and I was quite sure I wouldn't even be able to climb up a telephone pole, let alone set foot on a high wire. (That's like saying, "Yeah, well, I could go swimming, if only I could jump into the pool.") The morning of the high ropes, as I was driving down the street to the place and the ropes course came into view, I was like, "No way. Uh-uh. No FUCKING way!" It looked so spare, so intimidating, so---well, high! It was damn near impossible just to keep an open mind at that point...
Our workshop leader took us through some low-ropes activities before we put our harnesses on. We worked on trust activities, we did some activities one person could not complete without asking for and receiving support, and we practiced clear communication and discussed how to make our communication even clearer. We saw that people's size isn't necessarily proportional to the strength they bring to a situation, and we saw that people's weight isn't a burden when the load is shared among a group. We talked about and witnessed the importance of asking for help before you fall too far, when the help can't help you anymore. A lot of metaphors for real life, for real struggles... It was really interesting!
Yikes. Then we put on helmets and harnesses. Learned how to belay, anchor, etc. And then it was time for teams to send people up onto the wires to experience the activities. I knew I couldn't go first, and I knew I shouldn't watch/wait/worry too long before giving it my one good college try. So I was the second person on my team to volunteer. "The Pirate's Walk" as it was called was bounded on the west side by a pole that was shared with a newly built obstacle. The bottom of the pole had nice wide brackets to use as steps. Next there were big, round, U-shaped staples to use as steps. Those were a little less sure-footed to me. And this part is hard to describe. The other obstacle to the west has several levels to it, so as I was climbing up the pole to my wire, I had to reach around other wires, take irregularly sized steps to avoid long screws, etc. It was a little too much for my feeble brain to process at that time. Oh, the other big problem is I could only look up, I couldn't look down, because if I looked down I would freeze up. So I kept asking my teammates for help. "Wait, I need to move my left foot down. How far is the step? Is this a step?... Well, what do I have to do to get around that wire then?"
I had to keep stopping to focus, to breathe, to wrap my arms around the pole and just hug it and try to stand there... And a weird thing started to happen. It was like the auditory equivalent of tunnel vision: my colleagues started to sound like they were a mile away. They were asking me if I wanted to go up more or come down and offering suggestions, and I told them it was getting harder to hear them, could they be louder. Eventually I couldn't make out a word they were saying! I couldn't go up or down, I couldn't look down, and I couldn't hear. Pretty grim! That's when the workshop leader came over and helped me focus enough for my team to bring me down safely using the belay ropes.
But you know what? I probably got about 20 feet in the air. I climbed high enough that, had I been on another pole, I would've been just about ready to climb onto some different obstacle. Most importantly, even though I hadn't made it down on my own, I had climbed the highest vertical climb I'd ever managed in my life. No, I have never been in an attic or on a roof. So, I was pretty satisfied.
But not totally.
We had a break soon. I went to the bathroom, did not throw up (yay) cried some, put cold water on my face and neck, and drank a bunch of water. Went back out and helped my teammates on some other activities, and then Brook said, "Do you want to try this one?" We talked about it. My teammates said this pole was easier to climb than the first one I'd attempted. They it was relatively easy to step onto the wire on this one too. What the hell. I said I'd try it. I decided I couldn't afford the luxury of thinking and motored straight up that pole as fast as my legs could carry me...
And amazingly enough, I climbed quickly and gracefully onto a wire about 20 feet off the ground. There was a somewhat slack rope hanging about chest high as Istood on the wire, and that was the only thing to hold on to as I inched, I'm guessing 15 feet? from one side of the wire to the other. When I reached the far side, I rang a cowbell on the pole, and then I went back to the middle and was belayed down by my team. I never looked down---just straight out at the top of a nearby tree or at the mountains. I think everybody there stopped what they were doing to watch me. People were impressed that I tried it a second time. I impressed me too!
Later in the day I also did a zip line, but I opted not to stand on the platform and step off. That was just a little too much for me. (I mean, I have never even gone off a high dive.) I was towed to the full height of the zip line and just released from there. It was a hell of a lot of fun. Really felt like flying. I leaned back and looked up at the clouds. It was cool!
Photos. This is not me, and it's not the exact course I was on, but it's a photo of the activity I did:
And in case you didn't notice on my main page, I have a new hero, at least for now: my coworker Christine. These are pictures (again, not of her, not of our exact course) of an activity almost identical to the Power Jump she did blindfolded:
Anyway, as the title of this blog says, I didn't die, but I can't say that going up on a high wire has cured me of my fear of heights (because, hey, how often do you experience everyday heights with a harness & a belay team?). I don't think the high ropes course was as life-changing as the Avon Breast Cancer 3-day was, but I'm still glad I did it. It's always good to accomplish things you never believed you could do, because it forces you to reset that boundary between yourself and that stuff you think is impossible, and that's a good thing.