While I'm loving WordPress and happy to share with any of you diehard Blogger fans why I now prefer it, I feel like I've left behind some of my old readers!
So, come join me at my new blog home:
http://oliviaobryon.com/2012/06/09/the-illusive-twenty-something-happiness/
Hope to see you there!
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
My blog has moved!
Little old me has outgrown this little old blog.
Time for a new name, a new platform, and a new look:
www.oliviaobryon.com
If you use blogger as your reader, you can still add me to your blog feed or sign-up to follow me by email. Hope to see you at my new online home!
Time for a new name, a new platform, and a new look:
www.oliviaobryon.com
If you use blogger as your reader, you can still add me to your blog feed or sign-up to follow me by email. Hope to see you at my new online home!
Saturday, May 26, 2012
No, we ain't gonna take it!
I'm feeling a bit revved up. And, yes, Twisted Sister is stuck in my head. This week was hard at school. I will do my best to express myself while being careful not to overstep any professional boundaries, but I really wish that I could just say everything that's on my mind.
The hardest part about my job can be how I am sometimes treated. I work my butt off. I put my heart and soul into my work. I care about every single one of my students, even the ones that are the most behaviorally challenging. Fortunately, the parents of my most behaviorally challenging students have been supportive this year, so that's not what's eating at me.
I just wish that I could invite the families of all of my students to come in and spend a day in my classroom. I would like them to see what it is like to balance the individual social, emotional, physical, and mental needs of 30 students simultaneously while also attempting to teach a class. A lot of times, I only have a couple of minutes to solve problems that come up in my room, and it's not because I don't care, (imagine one student having an asthma attack, while another is crying under her desk, while two others are bickering... that's not an unusual scene after recess in my room).
I'm a very reflective and pragmatic human being. I am willing to admit when I make mistakes and grow from them. However, there are also times that I feel like families have to be present in my room during the event and know all of the students involved to truly understand the choices that I make. Being a teacher is not the same as having children, unless you have 30 of them. I'm not saying it's harder, I'm just saying it's different. You're more likely to get the teacher to understand where you're coming from if you approach him or her with respect and a willingness to admit that maybe you do not fully understand what happened either.
There, I feel better.
The hardest part about my job can be how I am sometimes treated. I work my butt off. I put my heart and soul into my work. I care about every single one of my students, even the ones that are the most behaviorally challenging. Fortunately, the parents of my most behaviorally challenging students have been supportive this year, so that's not what's eating at me.
I just wish that I could invite the families of all of my students to come in and spend a day in my classroom. I would like them to see what it is like to balance the individual social, emotional, physical, and mental needs of 30 students simultaneously while also attempting to teach a class. A lot of times, I only have a couple of minutes to solve problems that come up in my room, and it's not because I don't care, (imagine one student having an asthma attack, while another is crying under her desk, while two others are bickering... that's not an unusual scene after recess in my room).
I'm a very reflective and pragmatic human being. I am willing to admit when I make mistakes and grow from them. However, there are also times that I feel like families have to be present in my room during the event and know all of the students involved to truly understand the choices that I make. Being a teacher is not the same as having children, unless you have 30 of them. I'm not saying it's harder, I'm just saying it's different. You're more likely to get the teacher to understand where you're coming from if you approach him or her with respect and a willingness to admit that maybe you do not fully understand what happened either.
There, I feel better.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Separation of School and Home
I know that I run a risk having a blog and being a teacher.
I try to use my maiden name for writing and my married name for teaching, but sometimes this is not enough. Some students found the online me today.
Teaching can be all consuming. Papers to grade at night, lessons to plan on the weekends, after school events to coordinate, parents texting and calling at all hours. Don't get me wrong, I love my job (most of the time), but I also need a separation of school and home.
So, tonight, when I discovered that I had been discovered, I was pretty disappointed.
Sometimes I need a little break to be me, even if it's public, on the internet, in pursuit of my other passion, writing.
Hopefully, they found me so boring that they don't come back...
I try to use my maiden name for writing and my married name for teaching, but sometimes this is not enough. Some students found the online me today.
Teaching can be all consuming. Papers to grade at night, lessons to plan on the weekends, after school events to coordinate, parents texting and calling at all hours. Don't get me wrong, I love my job (most of the time), but I also need a separation of school and home.
So, tonight, when I discovered that I had been discovered, I was pretty disappointed.
Sometimes I need a little break to be me, even if it's public, on the internet, in pursuit of my other passion, writing.
Hopefully, they found me so boring that they don't come back...
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Familial Insomnia
It's 10:43 and I should be asleep. I get up 7 hours and 17 minutes from now. Anything less than 8 hours of sleep does not work for me.
However, I'm wide awake, obsessed with the concept of how many direct ancestors are responsible for me being here, typing this tonight. Maybe I should not have slept in until 11, or taken that nap, or shared some of Alex's mocha after dinner...
2,048 direct ancestors in the past 10 generations, to be exact. Two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents... I feel like I have the Math Curse that my students love so much.
Ten generations probably only gets me back around 300 years, (liberally assuming each generation has children about every 30 years). That means, we really have thousands of direct ancestors, far more than the 2,048 that I was patient enough to calculate.
This blows my mind.
And, it does not even take into account all of the great aunts, second cousins, etc. that we're genetically connected to, (or their thousands of separate descendants). The more I start to think this way, the more I start to feel like the whole world must somehow be related. I guess it doesn't help that my dad found some MacKays related to us in the 1600s, (I don't think this automatically qualifies me as being related to my husband, right?).
What I also find interesting about all of this is that even though I connect most with my paternal last name, I really have countless last names in my background that are just as responsible for me being here. According to my dad's recent family tree research, which gets a couple of our lines back to the 1600s, I am just as much German, French, Prussian, and English as I am Irish, but since my last name is O'Bryon, I've always connected most with this piece of my heritage.
It's fascinating to think that we're really the result of so many people from so many backgrounds. I have ancestors that lived in the original colonies, ancestors that were Native Americans, ancestors that migrated only a couple of generations ago from Prussia.
I am so many people. You are too. The math nerd in me can't get over this.
However, I'm wide awake, obsessed with the concept of how many direct ancestors are responsible for me being here, typing this tonight. Maybe I should not have slept in until 11, or taken that nap, or shared some of Alex's mocha after dinner...
2,048 direct ancestors in the past 10 generations, to be exact. Two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents... I feel like I have the Math Curse that my students love so much.
 |
| Oops on the 2,046 instead of 2,048... Apparently my mental math isn't as good as my fourth graders'! |
This blows my mind.
And, it does not even take into account all of the great aunts, second cousins, etc. that we're genetically connected to, (or their thousands of separate descendants). The more I start to think this way, the more I start to feel like the whole world must somehow be related. I guess it doesn't help that my dad found some MacKays related to us in the 1600s, (I don't think this automatically qualifies me as being related to my husband, right?).
What I also find interesting about all of this is that even though I connect most with my paternal last name, I really have countless last names in my background that are just as responsible for me being here. According to my dad's recent family tree research, which gets a couple of our lines back to the 1600s, I am just as much German, French, Prussian, and English as I am Irish, but since my last name is O'Bryon, I've always connected most with this piece of my heritage.
It's fascinating to think that we're really the result of so many people from so many backgrounds. I have ancestors that lived in the original colonies, ancestors that were Native Americans, ancestors that migrated only a couple of generations ago from Prussia.
I am so many people. You are too. The math nerd in me can't get over this.
 |
| A partial list of the last names in my background over the past few hundred years, maybe we're related! |
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Portland: Mecca of the Hybrid Hipster
Last night Alex declared to me that he is a hipster. He is out of the proverbial closet. Pipe smoking, road-bike riding, hipster. Apparently, this video confirmed it for him, even though I was pretty sure that his love for Portland, Berkeley, and messenger bags gave him away years ago.
Actually, we're a new breed of hipsters. True hipsters might call us posers, but I think we're just a hybrid of the hipster and the yuppie. I'm not ashamed. I like organic food, shit yogis say, and, of course, Portland, (as well as yuppie things like homeownership and a regular paycheck!).
So, when a coworker/friend asked me if I wanted to spend 26 hours stuffed in a Prius on a road trip to Olympia for her roller derby bout that would include a night in our beloved Portland, how could I say no? (And, seriously, how could this scenario get anymore hipster?)
Yes, I know, true hipsters do not admit their hipster identity under any circumstance. That's why I'm the hybrid version.
Here's my top 10 hybrid hipster reasons that I love Portland:
1. Dirty bars, (even if I want to exit the dirty bars at midnight ;)
2. Revamped industrial districts
3. Foodie food
4. Voodoo donuts, (standing in line for anything makes it that much cooler, okay, not really, but I still like weird donuts!)
5. Microbreweries galore
6. Green everything, (trees, hillsides, environmental consciousness, bicycles...)
7. Proximity to the Oregon coast, Columbia Gorge
8. Dogs welcome EVERYWHERE
9. Alabama Street & NW 23rd, (two neighborhoods that make me miss Berkeley... hello gourmet food trucks with picnic seating areas!)
10. Isn't Portland where young people go to retire?
View Larger Map
Actually, we're a new breed of hipsters. True hipsters might call us posers, but I think we're just a hybrid of the hipster and the yuppie. I'm not ashamed. I like organic food, shit yogis say, and, of course, Portland, (as well as yuppie things like homeownership and a regular paycheck!).
So, when a coworker/friend asked me if I wanted to spend 26 hours stuffed in a Prius on a road trip to Olympia for her roller derby bout that would include a night in our beloved Portland, how could I say no? (And, seriously, how could this scenario get anymore hipster?)
Yes, I know, true hipsters do not admit their hipster identity under any circumstance. That's why I'm the hybrid version.
Here's my top 10 hybrid hipster reasons that I love Portland:
1. Dirty bars, (even if I want to exit the dirty bars at midnight ;)
2. Revamped industrial districts
3. Foodie food
4. Voodoo donuts, (standing in line for anything makes it that much cooler, okay, not really, but I still like weird donuts!)
5. Microbreweries galore
6. Green everything, (trees, hillsides, environmental consciousness, bicycles...)
7. Proximity to the Oregon coast, Columbia Gorge
8. Dogs welcome EVERYWHERE
9. Alabama Street & NW 23rd, (two neighborhoods that make me miss Berkeley... hello gourmet food trucks with picnic seating areas!)
10. Isn't Portland where young people go to retire?
View Larger Map
 |
| Voodoo Donuts in the middle of the night here I come! |
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Poetic Obsession
I'm taking a journey through other people's lives. Through the stories of authors published, through their insecurities and perseverance. More often than not, I hear myself in their stories. Neurotic obsessions with the written word. Undying insistence that they deserve to be published.
Maybe I do not deserve it yet, I often think. But, I will. I will write and write again until it works. Until it clicks and all makes sense and someone will want to pay to read it, even if really, I only write it for myself. Writing for myself does not pay the bills.
Each day I add agents to the growing list, I read stories. Story after story of not giving up. Author blogs. Each day a different theme, a different message, still somehow threaded together, connected between entries, shouting truths at me.
Today, poetry.
First, it was Janet Fitch's advice to read poetry to learn how to write.
Then, it was a young agent, stumbled across after chasing down Barbara Kingsolver, who when googled, I discovered was the poet of delightful oddities.
So, poetry it is.
My late grandmother was a poet. Ever since I was a child, I've carried around this book from house to house that belonged to her. It is filled with poems, pencil marked with her favorites, an extra, my favorite of her favorites, glued to the inside of the back cover. Somehow, one book of poems, created an imaginary bridge between the living and the dead, a relationship between us over shared words.
Just reading poetry helps my words flow. Poetry, poetry, poetry. Such a simple, often overlooked piece of the writing world, yet home to so many wonderful secrets. I never thought I liked poetry until just now. Turns out I've liked it all along.
Any poets out there? Any poems to share? I can feel a new obsession brewing. A goal, perhaps, of one poem read each night. New inspiration.
Maybe I do not deserve it yet, I often think. But, I will. I will write and write again until it works. Until it clicks and all makes sense and someone will want to pay to read it, even if really, I only write it for myself. Writing for myself does not pay the bills.
Each day I add agents to the growing list, I read stories. Story after story of not giving up. Author blogs. Each day a different theme, a different message, still somehow threaded together, connected between entries, shouting truths at me.
Today, poetry.
First, it was Janet Fitch's advice to read poetry to learn how to write.
Then, it was a young agent, stumbled across after chasing down Barbara Kingsolver, who when googled, I discovered was the poet of delightful oddities.
So, poetry it is.
My late grandmother was a poet. Ever since I was a child, I've carried around this book from house to house that belonged to her. It is filled with poems, pencil marked with her favorites, an extra, my favorite of her favorites, glued to the inside of the back cover. Somehow, one book of poems, created an imaginary bridge between the living and the dead, a relationship between us over shared words.
Just reading poetry helps my words flow. Poetry, poetry, poetry. Such a simple, often overlooked piece of the writing world, yet home to so many wonderful secrets. I never thought I liked poetry until just now. Turns out I've liked it all along.
Any poets out there? Any poems to share? I can feel a new obsession brewing. A goal, perhaps, of one poem read each night. New inspiration.
 |
| On the inside front cover, the name Frank Schmold is written in cursive, a mysterious figure in my imagination. |
 |
| One of my grandmother's favorites I read aloud over and over as a melancholy teenager. |
 |
| Rose petals from those melancholy teenaged years, pressed for posterity. |
 |
| Last, but not least, the poem my grandmother glued to the inside back cover. I've always wondered who or what it made her think of... |
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