Let’s Hear It for the Boys
Today I received a really crappy email from someone who doesn't know me, has poor reading comprehension skills, and is obviously completely and totally intimidated by a woman who speaks up and out. I'd love to publish the email contents, name of the sender, his website, home address and his email address; but I won't do it. What you should know is that I spoke out on the website Violence Unsilenced a few weeks ago about an attempted rape that happened to me when I was 18 years old and the email directly related to that.
My pet peeves are many, but what tops the chart for me are men who are threatened by women who speak up and out about things. I can't tell you the number of craptastic emails I've received over the years telling me that because I'm a woman in the martial arts, I must be a "man hater," "lover of violence," and that I have "anger issues."
Actually, I have a very healthy respect for my art, and I know when it is appropriate to use and when it's not. I recognize that there are people out there who seek out training so they can be bullies and beat people up. But that's not me. I think of it as a life protection skill and art, and if I should have to protect my life or the lives of my family, you better believe that I am not at all afraid to use what I know.
When I get emails like this, I have to laugh. Ask any man who has trained with me over the years and I am pretty sure they will tell you quite the opposite. In fact, many of my best friends are men. So instead of complaining about guys like the pathetic one who emailed me today and all those who have in the past, I thought I would do the opposite. . .
I'd like to thank all the guys in my dojo who treat me, first and foremost, as a "training partner," not a "female training partner." I'd like to thank every guy who ever let me throw him around in the dojo so I could learn something that could one day save my life.
I'd like to thank all the guys who are perfectly content to have me on their team, because they realize that girls weren't born to be spectators, and that girls can be great teammates and competitors.
I'd like to thank all the guys who talk sports with me without saying stupid stuff like "You like football?" They know that watching a game with me is as good as watching a game with their guy buddies, and that testicles aren't required to love and know about sports.
I'd like to thank my Dad for slamming hockey pucks around with me in the basement as a kid and treating me like a hockey player, complete with checking me into the walls and smacking pucks at me with force. It made it mean more when I scored a goal against him. I knew I had earned it. I'd also like to thank my dad for line-driving baseballs and softballs at me until my hand was stinging in my glove. He didn't treat me like someone who needed to be handled with kid gloves. He treated me like a person who enjoyed sports and could be good at them. And I am.
I'd like to thank my husband who puts up with my competitive nature on a daily basis and is not at all intimidated or upset when I beat him in something, whether it's a swimming race at the pool, a round of beer pong, or a game of Scrabble.
I'd like to encourage all of the wonderful guys out there in the world to speak up, because trust me when I tell you that the guys who think the opposite of what you think are often louder. They speak like they speak for every man and they try to give you all a bad name.
For every crappy email I get like that, and for every chauvinistic and obviously threatened guy I come across, it makes me even more determined to be as strong as I can possibly be. It makes me appreciate, even more, all of the really fantastic men in my life.
Teachable Moments from Silly Quizzes
Today was listening quiz day. It's one of my favorite days all semester. It's the day when students get completely terrified because "My God, she's giving us a quiz already." Then they get into the guts of the quiz and start acting like total fools (or they sit around and watch everyone else look like a fool); and then finally end up with the realization that they have not given their first assignment their all. Not even close.
It's a make or break moment in class and that is why it is so very worth it to watch 10 minutes of complete insanity. You can read the entire quiz here so you understand what I'm talking about. You can also read about another listening quiz day in class here. Ah, they are such good days. If you're too lazy to click over to read the quiz, you'd probably make it to #20 like so many of my students did today, and that's not a good thing. I'm just sayin'. (Made you click, didn't I?)
Because I have a lot of upperclassmen in this class, I figured I wouldn't be able to fool them all. However, having read their assignments, I didn't really know what to expect. Here's what I got: out of the 18 students in my class, only three people got it from the very beginning. The rest were high-fiving people across the room, walking around the classroom like they had ants in their pants, and screaming out "Yes, I'm so smart!
At one point, a student said out loud, "Oh man" and I thought she had figured it out. However, she went on to say, "I can't believe I have to do jumping jacks." She was on #19 and #20 brought complete silence and a slightly reddened and embarrassed face.
Another girl yelled out, "This is lame!" to which my response was, "No, what's lame is that so many of you didn't follow directions." There was no denying that, and the room filled with silence. I let them sit there in it for a minute.
"So, what's the point?" I asked them when I felt the silence had done its job. "Why do you think I chose to torture you like this today?"
My one freshman student, who totally got it and turned in near perfect assignments on Tuesday, nailed it. "You wanted to stress the importance of paying attention and following directions."
Thank you.
Moments like this in the classroom can do one of two things. If the student has been supremely embarrassed, they can get mad at you and adopt an attitude problem. But this has never happened in my classroom and it didn't happen today.
What did happen was pretty awesome. I partnered the students up with someone who could help them. Those who had a ton of content but no organization in their speech outlines got partnered up with those who had a perfectly formatted outline with zero info in it. And the conversations that I heard were incredible. About half of the class told me they were completely reworking their outlines and asked if I'd take a look at their new outline tonight or over the weekend. They know they're not getting any extra credit for revisions. They just want to work harder and get themselves on the right track. It felt like a major breakthrough with this class that hasn't really seemed able to "get me" thus far.
After class, I had wanted to speak with a student that I had for writing last year. I was shocked and horrified when this student turned in one of the most horribly written assignments I had ever seen. He earned next to no credit for it and I wanted to pull him aside, shake him, and scream, "I taught you better than that! What are you DOING?"
I didn't have to. He approached me after class, apologized for handing in garbage and showed me a revision he had done before even getting my abysmal feedback.
On Tuesday night, I would have told you that this group would be my worst speech group ever. However, after today, I'm quite certain that this group will be one of my hardest working groups ever. There is so much potential and it took a super silly quiz to tap it. As a teacher, there is nothing better than days like today.
PT Progress and Insurance “Love” Letters
Tomorrow, I will not be surprised one bit if people are calling me Egor, as I drag my useless leg around behind me. I can't recall what movie that creepy, monster dude is from but tomorrow I will become him. I'm half way there already.
Yes, that's right everyone, I had another PT appointment today. I should probably be happy, overjoyed in fact, that I'm moving along as quickly as I am when it comes to progress from appointment to appointment. Today, I went from riding the bike for 10 minutes to 15 minutes. My leg press weights went from 20 lbs. to 40 lbs. And then my PT added all kinds of crazy squat business that made me want to scream out a long and dramatic, "NOOOOOO, PUUUHHHLLEEAAASSSEE, NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
But I didn't. Instead I stood on the squishy rectangle thing, faced the metal beam in front of me and attempted to do squats. They felt awkward and weird and I kept asking the assistant guy if I was doing them correctly. He told me to pretend I was sitting down on a chair, but every time I did that I had to grab the beam in front of me for balance. I joked that he had that balance ball behind me so that if I fell on my butt, it would bounce me back up.
It took a while for me to get through three sets of not-at-all-deep-squats. I figured I had earned my stims and cryo-cuff time, but I was wrong. Next it was circus trick time. They had me stand on a curved piece of foam, barely bigger than my sneaker, while balancing on it on my bad leg and doing one leg squats. Not only were they one leg only squats. I had to hold and count to five when I got to the most bendy point. Two sets of 15 seemed like extreme and unusual torture and it took me a while to get through all of them. When I was finished, it was onto the bike for 15 minutes. When I finally got to ice my leg and hang out on the table again, I was one happy and exhausted girl.
Before leaving, I also got striped. . .
For over a month now, I've had some serious pain on the opposite side of my leg, post surgery. My ortho thinks it's just cranky muscle from the immobilizer, but after weeks of trying to rub it and work on that spot, it is still sore to the touch and it just doesn't seem to be getting better. My PT thinks that it's blood and post-surgery yuckiness in there (he used more technical words than that of course), so he put this pink stripe down my leg and it's supposed to lift the skin up and get that junk moving along.
I guess I'm wearing pants to teach this week.
As we left the PT area today, Lil C asked if we could take the elevator. I usually take the stairs back down to the parking lot, to practice alternating legs and doing so without looking all crazy and out of alignment. But you know, Lil C REALLY wanted to take the elevator, so we did. After an hour and 45 minutes of PT, I can say I earned that one flight elevator ride. Truly, I did.
Here's the leg so far. The incision is healing up nicely now that the dissolvable stitch that decided it didn't want to dissolve has been removed. Yeah, that felt great getting it taken out, just so you know.
But overall, I have to say that this stupid muscle pain and the discomfort that normally comes with a healing incision and bone wound is 1000 times better than the pain I dealt with on a daily basis from that screw working its way back out of my leg. Having it gone is a wonderful thing.
The not-so-wonderful thing was waiting for me in my mailbox when I arrived back home. I'd like to send a great big shout-out to Cigna for the lovely medical statement that arrived at my home today. It says that almost $2500 worth of my surgeon's costs are not being covered by them, despite the fact that they said pre-surgery that my surgeon's costs would be covered, just not the alloderm. This is all despite the fact that I already paid $225 in co-insurance, and $950 for the alloderm that they wouldn't cover because apparently it's not "medically necessary" to give a girl a little cushion when she could simply be kneeling on bone her whole life.
Cigna, if I could kick you in the head, I totally would.
Conversations with the Husband
Yesterday, I came home from swimming lessons and told Mr. BBM, "Oh, by the way, my friend is coming tonight to do body work on me and a neighbor at around 7:30."
Mr. BBM: He's coming here?
Me: Yeah. Isn't that cool?
Mr. BBM: Wait, so let me get this straight. . . you're going to be naked and getting a rub-down from your friend, in our house, while I'm here with the girls.
Me: Yeah, it's not like I'm going to set up in the family room or something! And it's not like I'm totally naked! Geez!
Mr. BBM: All you wear is underwear, right?
Me: Well yeah, but I'm under a sheet the whole time.
Mr. BBM: Ok, so where are you going to have him set up?
Me: Well, I was thinking up in our bedroom. There's a lot of room up there and then I can let him use the stereo I have in the bathroom for the music.
Mr. BBM: Ok, so wait, naked, getting a rub down, in our house, with a single guy, in our BEDROOM?
Me: Fine, I'll set it up in the playroom where there are no blinds.
And that's just what I did. So to anyone who might have been walking behind my house last night, while my neighbor and I were getting naked rub downs/legitimate body work, "you're welcome" or "our apologies" depending on what part/s you might have seen or not seen.
Two Pounds and the Attitude Fix
Physical therapy today was about a thousand times better. Doing something for the first time is always intimidating, especially when you just want to be better already. It could also be because I knew I was getting a hefty reward tonight: free body work from my good friend.
Today, I arrived without my entourage of children and I was able to concentrate and get through my exercises with much less frustration. My PT even put me on the leg press today, where I am 100% sure I totally cheated and mostly used my right leg. It's funny how, even when your mind is saying it's ok to do something, your body disagrees and decides it's protecting that knee no matter what. My PT told me this is completely nomral though. One less thing to beat myself up about, I suppose.
As I was doing my leg lifts today, my PT asked me how the weight was and I told him it was ok. By "ok," I meant, "Don't you dare up it right now because I'm seriously dying." I felt kind of silly when I looked at how much weight was contained in that little ankle wrap. . . a mere two pounds. When I think back to before, I am pretty sure I was using ankle weights that were about 8 lbs. Just when you think you're getting somewhere.
As per usual though, I don't spend long wallowing in negative attitudes. Next week, my PT will add more time to my bike routine and I'll work on that leg press business again and try not to cheat as much. It was better today, and next week will be even better than this week. The screwless wonder will triumph once again.
This screwless wonder got some great body work tonight, and I think it's fairly obvious that body work does an attitude good.
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