Begin the Barbaric Yawp

This ED F654 assignment is uncomfortable. We’re asked to share more than I generally care to online.  Who Am I could become a soul-searching counseling session, which I would find annoying to read and distasteful to write.

At 58 years old I am plenty battle scarred by life, though that’s just normal. I hope resilient is an appropriate adjective for me. My scars are only partly the result of recent deaths, a contentious divorce, and addictions of loved ones.  Oh, that was ugly! Perhaps you’ll stop reading now?

My primary focus is my family. I am a mother of four grown sons, and a grandmother of two boys and two girls. I am parenting one of the granddaughters because her parents were unable to raise her and I am waiting and waiting and waiting again for a court date for adoption. Rather than wail (or is it rail?) at the slowness of bureaucracy, I try to be patient, because there’s not a thing I can do but wait.  Because that is a sensitive situation, that’s probably enough said on that. However, if I were to participate in a protest, it would involve the lack of timely protection of children due to insufficient funding and personnel, both in OCS and the court system.

My work life is at UAF’s Community and Technical College. I teach as an Associate Professor in the Applied Business and Applied Accounting programs. I love teaching and getting to know my students who vary so much in age, ethnicity, and life experience.  About half of the courses I teach are in the classroom and half online. My department is a congenial group that has become a second family.

I am a Christian and am so very thankful for my rescue at a very dark time in my life. It is wonderful to know that I am loved no matter what and that grace and forgiveness are freely given to any who ask. I would usually not share that information because some people have preconceived notions that Christians are narrow-minded crazies, but I am trying to be honest and transparent and not too narrow-minded crazy.

I’ve had some memorable Alaskan adventures. I spent six summers working as camp cook at placer gold mines in remote areas. Memories include a face-to-face meeting with a bear outside the cookshack, learning to bake bread in a wood cookstove, washing 50 cloth diapers every 3 days in a barrel with a plunger, jumping out of an airplane as it barely touched land to hold the wing down against a crosswind, and learning tons about how to make do with nothing. One of the people we worked for was Joe Vogler–there’s an interesting person. All of that was when I was considerably younger.

I started to tell more about my history and living for many years at Haystack, north of Fairbanks, but sometimes just the telling is wearying, so delete, delete. I will say I moved to Alaska the day after I graduated from Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman University). I began teaching at Palmer High School the next fall.

I am old enough to have been impacted by death. Both my parents died fairly recently, as well as my former husband. I also grieve for severed family relationships. I did everything I knew to help and support loved ones with addictions, but nothing I did made a difference. (Rude comment or snort by reader is appropriate here).

I enjoy doing activities with my 8 year old girl. She is active in soccer and Girl Scouts. She has also participated in ballet, gymnastics, and swim lessons. She is learning to play piano. We spend lots of free time with my sons and their families. I have wonderful sons and daughters-in-law that all help parent her. She gives me great purpose and obviously I could and did go on and on about her.

Gramma fun:

I found out this afternoon that when you play soccer with an 8 year old, you are in danger of an inability to breathe, not just from being out of shape, but from laughing so hard. Help! I’ve fallen and cannot get up! True statement.

 

Where do I exist on the Web? I Googled myself to see:

• UAF Community and Technical College
• Jean Heusinkveld|Linked In
• GooglePlus
• GooglePlus again
• Twitter @jeanheusi
• Diigo: jeanheusi
• Scoopit (never really figured out that site)
• Credly
• YouTube
• QuizUp
• Podomatic
• Prezi – Sitka fun (didn’t ever finish)
• Facebook
• Pinterest , jeanheusi (of course)
• Skype, jean.heusinkveld
• iteach participant
• other class work
• Obituaries for family members.

In the not so visible arena, I exist in many shopping web sites, publishers web sites, school district and kids’ activity sites, ancestry, and professional organization sites. When I look through my password safe it’s a bit unnerving at the number of places where I have some sort of login.

Things I would change about myself:

• Be more organized/productive (at least I didn’t say I was too busy)
• Be more assertive
• Be more kind
• Be quicker witted (I think of what I should have said 2 hours later!)
• Be better at remembering what I’ve read or experienced
• Be a better parent (don’t they all say that?)
• Be a better writer–oh, but that takes practice, which takes… Time!
• Be more focused
• Be more healthy
• Be better at taking courses online–it’s like you’ve all got the secret code, which I am unable to decipher
• Just be a better person. I know I am loved as I am, but….

And yes, of course, I do realize that if a person truly wants to change, they certainly can. One just has to be willing to give up whatever impediments may exist.

Now you want hobbies. In my spare time, when I’m not parenting (ha!), I escape on my tablet watching videos, playing games, or reading novels. I do activities with the grandkids–ride bikes, go to musicals, walks, swimming, arts and crafts, games. There are lots of hobbies I used to do, but no more. I’d like to get back into cross-country skiing though. Every two years I get together with 11 of my high school chums in a different location. I enjoy re-experiencing the ties and camaraderie with folks who knew you before life kicked you around. Although we are all obviously aging, we feel young and silly again. We are also able to share pain and problems we’ve encountered. The long weekend somehow makes our real lives easier to face upon return.

Our instructor gave us prompts of possible lists to include, I think I saw one about dreams, but the list is so long how will I find it again? My recurring childhood dream was the MGM lion that roars at the start of movies would jump out of the TV and chase me up the stairs to my room. I always woke up in terror. As an adult I haven’t had recurring dreams, just weird ones where I wake up convinced someone has died (they didn’t) or that they are living (they aren’t). I wake up confused about what is real.

I think I have fulfilled the yawpiness of this yawp as I near the midnight hour of the due date. Totally wandering into unexpected places. I hope my future writings are more coherent.  I wish this sounded less like a basket case.