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Mar. 28th, 2020 02:47 amSo I've been having a lot of meetings on the computer lately.
(Sidebar: Interested in hearing me read aloud from The Number Devil? Join me in a zoom chatroom tomorrow (Saturday) evening at 6pm! This is open to students as well as friends, so be polite please. Whole invite, from Facebook:
So I've been having a lot of online meetings lately, and mostly in my bedroom since the apartment is only so large and there's three of us currently living here, and I don't wanna be rude to Ez or Rey.
Now, I have put a _lot_ of work into my bedroom. I always do1 --I am a very extra sort of human being, and a very cluttered sort of spider, and the combination of those means that I want to live in a space as vivacious and dramatic on the exterior as my mindscape is on its interior. My bedroom at this point is an absolute delight and I'm very proud of it and I love living in it. It just...feels right and safe and home and *me*.
But think about that for a second. It feels right and safe and home and me. Me, who wears Other like a second skin, who knew I was kinda queer way before I ever realized I was Kinda Queer2. My bedroom has an altar and sex toys and pride flags for curtains and art of spiders and snakes and a boy whose gender is attack helicoptor3.
My bedroom is, in other words, Not Safe For Work. And it's not the sex toys that make it that way (although I would stab myself in the leg a bit before I admitted to my boss or my students that I owned *gasp* a vibrator). Even when I put those away, it is decidedly Not Safe For Work. So I've been having all my department meetings in The Meeting Tent4.
Because the meeting tent is very enclosed. There is no chance that I move the webcam in just the wrong way and you see anything other than me, the stripy walls, and the Big Pillow. The meeting tent is, in fact, Safe For Work in a way the rest of the room isn't.
But today I had my first meeting with the ELL department, instead of the math department. And...I did not feel any compulsion to go into the circus tent. I mean, I still made sure the sexy stuff was put away and there weren't brars in the shot or my altar, but like...I did not feel compelled to hide myself from SpareBoss5 and the rest of the EnglishLearnerTeacher gang in a way I do from my "actual" department and that is _so_ fascinating to me.
On a probably very related note, like a week before The End Of The World I told my SpareBoss that I was nonbinary. She was _super_ ridiculously cool about it and I love her so much. She is the first example of education admin that I have ever seen and gone "ahhhh, that is why people become admins, that is how they are willing to give up on actual teaching of students to manage other adults". I like my MainBoss very much, and remain so pleased that she was willing to give me a chance and respect the advice she gives me and work well with her. But my commitment and respect for her are pretty much purely on a professional level. SpareBoss makes me want to Become Something Better and that's one of the highest compliments I can give to just about anyone in my life.
So the NEST team got to see my actual bedroom. Which is to say, from where my computer is positioned, the wall above my bed with my snake art and my whiteboard and my lamp and one of my pride flag windows and my filing cabinet. It's not exactly a Shocking Example Of Weirdness, it's probably pretty much what someone would expect if they were warned they were going to see a space I controlled. But I felt no tension about sharing even that little slice of My Home, My Safe, My Me with them.
I'm like 200% certain no one else cares or is thinking about this nearly as intensely as I am. Like, I am _certain_ my therapist doesn't have her meetings in her office with the bookshelf in the background just to make her patients crane their necks to see what titles they can read. I'm pretty sure this is bigtime Something I Am Overthinking.
But in a world and space where "work-home balance" has gone completely bullshit wack, I am looking for whatever safety and stabilization I can. And right now, it's the control over who I let into what parts of my life. I am a ridiculously open book, you can read an accounting of my thoughts and feelings and trauma and weird from...like, before half my students were born, okay? But I don't just open that book for everyone, even though it may seem like I do. I can code switch and I can be professional and draw boundaries.
It's just sometimes those boundaries take the form of a red and yellow striped circus tent. And it is fascinating to see where they are drawn.
~Sor
MOOP!
PostScript I...thought this post was going to be about a thousand words shorter than it was, and it is kinda fascinating to me HOW MUCH I HAD TO SAY about all these different related little topics. Also I should Go The Fuck To Sleep, jegus kiddo it late!
1: The thing I find most mindboggling about Austin is that he managed to live in his place in Cambridge for two full years and never put up any art in his bedroom. He even owns art! I just..._how_?!?! Like, it took me until January or so to get really serious about arting up my room, but I knew that not doing it earlier was Bad and made me feel Bad, and like, I still got _some_ small stuff up and on the walls even then!
2: Part of why I love the word queer for my gender and sexuality is because I've always liked the concept of being a weirdo and being a little queer in that old-fashioned just plain strange sort of way appeals.
3: I'm like...sixty-five percent certain that when Shaenon and Jeff were writing Skin Horse, they were not intentionally making this joke. Actually, I just searched google trends and compared that to the date of the relevant chapter of Skin Horse and I am _incredibly_ grateful to see that...er...they in fact predicted this one.
(And yes yes, Nick does not *sexually* ID as an attack helicopter, and his gender seems to be pretty solidly and totally male, and to be fair, he's a pacifist so he's really a non-attack helicopter. It doesn't stop me loving the sweary little nightmare though. You'd think "Tip the Beautiful Bisexual Self-Centered Transvestite" would be the character in Skin Horse I love and relate to most, but oh god no, I love Nick so very very very much and have since basically year one. I have four original drawings of him on my wall (in various guises including "princess") and probably a fifth in the package I haven't opened yet from the most recent kickstarter.)
4: I own a red and yellow stripy circus tent playhouse from Ikea. I paid like ten bucks for it, on impulse, because it was in the scratch-and-dent pile and didn't have, I dunno, a box or instructions or something?
5: I am in the math department and was hired by My Boss, also known as math department head and she's in charge of my Professional Development hours and stuff like that. But because I teach Algebra1 for English Language Learners, I am also in NEST (Newcomers to English Success Team), and have my SpareBoss who is in charge of NEST and the ELL department (as of last year! She's very new to the role, which didn't exist before last year!!!) and I meet with NEST twice a week. It's all the teachers who teach English Learners and it's *super* helpful to get to consult with them'll about students and practices.
(Sidebar: Interested in hearing me read aloud from The Number Devil? Join me in a zoom chatroom tomorrow (Saturday) evening at 6pm! This is open to students as well as friends, so be polite please. Whole invite, from Facebook:
So Saturday night (3/28) at 6pm EDT, I am going to be reading aloud from a chapter of The Number Devil*. This will be a zoom chat open to basically anyone, including students (which means basically "don't be a dick and don't out me as anything to my kids I have to keep working with")
If you'd like to attend, the details are below. I'll try and remember to post a reminder tomorrow a little beforehand as well.
Join Zoom Meeting -- Saturday at 6PM
https://zoom.us/j/458774809…
Meeting ID: 458 774 809
Password: mathbook
*The Number Devil is a fantastic chapter book that is basically rudimentary number theory for children --I was reading it around third or fourth grade, I think? Children are absolutely welcome to join the stream, and my hope is to do a few chapters a week.
If you miss a chapter, that's not a problem --each chapter is very standalone (the entire plot of the book boils down to "Robert dreams every night that the number devil comes to teach him math", there, now you're caught up.)
So I've been having a lot of online meetings lately, and mostly in my bedroom since the apartment is only so large and there's three of us currently living here, and I don't wanna be rude to Ez or Rey.
Now, I have put a _lot_ of work into my bedroom. I always do1 --I am a very extra sort of human being, and a very cluttered sort of spider, and the combination of those means that I want to live in a space as vivacious and dramatic on the exterior as my mindscape is on its interior. My bedroom at this point is an absolute delight and I'm very proud of it and I love living in it. It just...feels right and safe and home and *me*.
But think about that for a second. It feels right and safe and home and me. Me, who wears Other like a second skin, who knew I was kinda queer way before I ever realized I was Kinda Queer2. My bedroom has an altar and sex toys and pride flags for curtains and art of spiders and snakes and a boy whose gender is attack helicoptor3.
My bedroom is, in other words, Not Safe For Work. And it's not the sex toys that make it that way (although I would stab myself in the leg a bit before I admitted to my boss or my students that I owned *gasp* a vibrator). Even when I put those away, it is decidedly Not Safe For Work. So I've been having all my department meetings in The Meeting Tent4.
Because the meeting tent is very enclosed. There is no chance that I move the webcam in just the wrong way and you see anything other than me, the stripy walls, and the Big Pillow. The meeting tent is, in fact, Safe For Work in a way the rest of the room isn't.
But today I had my first meeting with the ELL department, instead of the math department. And...I did not feel any compulsion to go into the circus tent. I mean, I still made sure the sexy stuff was put away and there weren't brars in the shot or my altar, but like...I did not feel compelled to hide myself from SpareBoss5 and the rest of the EnglishLearnerTeacher gang in a way I do from my "actual" department and that is _so_ fascinating to me.
On a probably very related note, like a week before The End Of The World I told my SpareBoss that I was nonbinary. She was _super_ ridiculously cool about it and I love her so much. She is the first example of education admin that I have ever seen and gone "ahhhh, that is why people become admins, that is how they are willing to give up on actual teaching of students to manage other adults". I like my MainBoss very much, and remain so pleased that she was willing to give me a chance and respect the advice she gives me and work well with her. But my commitment and respect for her are pretty much purely on a professional level. SpareBoss makes me want to Become Something Better and that's one of the highest compliments I can give to just about anyone in my life.
So the NEST team got to see my actual bedroom. Which is to say, from where my computer is positioned, the wall above my bed with my snake art and my whiteboard and my lamp and one of my pride flag windows and my filing cabinet. It's not exactly a Shocking Example Of Weirdness, it's probably pretty much what someone would expect if they were warned they were going to see a space I controlled. But I felt no tension about sharing even that little slice of My Home, My Safe, My Me with them.
I'm like 200% certain no one else cares or is thinking about this nearly as intensely as I am. Like, I am _certain_ my therapist doesn't have her meetings in her office with the bookshelf in the background just to make her patients crane their necks to see what titles they can read. I'm pretty sure this is bigtime Something I Am Overthinking.
But in a world and space where "work-home balance" has gone completely bullshit wack, I am looking for whatever safety and stabilization I can. And right now, it's the control over who I let into what parts of my life. I am a ridiculously open book, you can read an accounting of my thoughts and feelings and trauma and weird from...like, before half my students were born, okay? But I don't just open that book for everyone, even though it may seem like I do. I can code switch and I can be professional and draw boundaries.
It's just sometimes those boundaries take the form of a red and yellow striped circus tent. And it is fascinating to see where they are drawn.
~Sor
MOOP!
PostScript I...thought this post was going to be about a thousand words shorter than it was, and it is kinda fascinating to me HOW MUCH I HAD TO SAY about all these different related little topics. Also I should Go The Fuck To Sleep, jegus kiddo it late!
1: The thing I find most mindboggling about Austin is that he managed to live in his place in Cambridge for two full years and never put up any art in his bedroom. He even owns art! I just..._how_?!?! Like, it took me until January or so to get really serious about arting up my room, but I knew that not doing it earlier was Bad and made me feel Bad, and like, I still got _some_ small stuff up and on the walls even then!
2: Part of why I love the word queer for my gender and sexuality is because I've always liked the concept of being a weirdo and being a little queer in that old-fashioned just plain strange sort of way appeals.
3: I'm like...sixty-five percent certain that when Shaenon and Jeff were writing Skin Horse, they were not intentionally making this joke. Actually, I just searched google trends and compared that to the date of the relevant chapter of Skin Horse and I am _incredibly_ grateful to see that...er...they in fact predicted this one.
(And yes yes, Nick does not *sexually* ID as an attack helicopter, and his gender seems to be pretty solidly and totally male, and to be fair, he's a pacifist so he's really a non-attack helicopter. It doesn't stop me loving the sweary little nightmare though. You'd think "Tip the Beautiful Bisexual Self-Centered Transvestite" would be the character in Skin Horse I love and relate to most, but oh god no, I love Nick so very very very much and have since basically year one. I have four original drawings of him on my wall (in various guises including "princess") and probably a fifth in the package I haven't opened yet from the most recent kickstarter.)
4: I own a red and yellow stripy circus tent playhouse from Ikea. I paid like ten bucks for it, on impulse, because it was in the scratch-and-dent pile and didn't have, I dunno, a box or instructions or something?
5: I am in the math department and was hired by My Boss, also known as math department head and she's in charge of my Professional Development hours and stuff like that. But because I teach Algebra1 for English Language Learners, I am also in NEST (Newcomers to English Success Team), and have my SpareBoss who is in charge of NEST and the ELL department (as of last year! She's very new to the role, which didn't exist before last year!!!) and I meet with NEST twice a week. It's all the teachers who teach English Learners and it's *super* helpful to get to consult with them'll about students and practices.