I give kids crap about this stuff all the time. And here I was, in the same position. Now, I'm not as bad as most of the kids who have phones; I have subjected them to many rants about how addicted they are to immediate feedback and constant contact. (They love those, let me tell you.) And I am serious - I really wonder how close to addictive behavior this is and why no one really seems to be worried about it.
And therein lies the problem we shall discuss today: what a colleague or two of mine like to call "immediate needs gratification," or "The ING." "Avoid The ING," my English-teaching friend cautions. And it's so hard any more, what with the interweb, cell phones, iPads, iPods, and all kinds of things that give us immediate feedback.
And that immediate feedback then becomes needed in every facet of our existence. We have to have immediate results when we start something or do something. Twice today I have sighed and "encouraged" two devices - my Garmin GPS on my bike and the laptop I am using right now - to HURRY UP. Yeah, GPS unit, find those satellites in space faster, dammit! You and your little 1.5 x 3" sealed box that tells me how fast I'm going, where I am going, how fast my heart rate is, plus a billion other functions... GO FASTER. Really? My cell phone was a little slow getting something online the other day. "Stupid thing." IT TALKS TO SPACE AND GETS ME WEATHER, A WORLD OF INFORMATION, AND A GOOD PLACE TO GET A BURGER. Go faster... Remember the phones we had when we were kids? My house had exactly one phone, attached to the kitchen wall. By a wire. It had an actual DIAL on it. Now my iPhone 4S is too slow and I get pissed when Siri can't understand what I want.
"First world problems," my students call them. Yeah, sounds about right. Your phone doesn't talk to space fast enough? What a shame... GPS gave you incorrect directions? That stuff was all military secret technology 20 years ago...
So we let this run our daily lives. "Why am I not very good at trombone yet??" Well, kid, you're 11, you just started in September, and, unlike World of Warcraft or whatever, there are NO online cheat codes to make you better. YOU HAVE TO WORK AT IT. EVERY DAMN DAY. If you gave it even half as much time as you give to that electronic device that was supposed to save the world of education but you use it as a toy to play games with, you'd be in the dang Chicago Symphony already.
And so that brings us to food. And losing weight. I frequently have to remind myself that these extra pounds did not arrive here overnight, and I should not expect them to leave that fast, either. "Why have I only lost 8 pounds?" Maybe because you gained 15 over the course of a full year and you can't just get rid of it all by Tuesday... So I keep at it, hoping that little by little I can work it off. And it seems to be going OK at this point. I even got asked last week by a student if I was losing weight. "I don't think so; this time of year the fat just kind of shifts around..." (She thought that was funny; there's probably another blog post about our inability to accept compliments!)
I have been paying at least a little more attention to my intake, and I notice that smaller amounts help (whoa... no WAY!), but more surprisingly, less/fewer carbs make me happier as well. Slightly higher protein and fat holds my appetite at bay longer and I don't feel that awful, weird bloated/full/ugly thing that I get after bread products or fried stuff. I love bread... Sigh...
OK, I'm back :)
Also, this past week was quite a victory for both Dana and me - we cooked some stuff last weekend that we were able to eat as leftovers and such, and neither of us went OUT for a meal for like 5 days. FIVE DAYS. Seriously, that's a record during the school year. And it was good stuff, too - chicken and pork chops and asparagus and other vegetable-type things. I also had several (yes, several) glasses of milk this week.
Speaking of victories, it's June 1st. Here's the latest in the statistics column:
Weight as of Jan 1 - 226
Weight as of June 1 - 215
Net loss - 11 lbs. (YAY!)
13 workouts in May
142 miles on various bicycles
4 weight lifting workouts (heading back Monday, I think - physical therapist says I should be OK)
So there you have it. Five months to lose 11 pounds. Seems like forever, but if you multiply that out over the year I think it equals 24, maybe? Which isn't bad. And summer is coming up, and June and July are usually 6-700 mile months :)
This post needs a pic. Hmmmm... I'm STILL waiting for my phone to email it to me!!! This is taking FOREVER!!!! Ah, there it is... Here is a shot from the new Salsa Mukluk 2 from a couple weeks ago at Lake Michigan near Saugatuck. What a blast! You'll get to hear about that bike soon.
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Excellent!
ReplyDeleteI, too, am hooked - not necessarily on "faster" - but "bring it to me with zero glitches because I do not have time to deal with this crap". I guess that is about "faster".
Entitled? Yes! Heck, if my microwave breaks down I have to remember how to turn on the stove to heat my food up. And, you know - remember to put water in the pan to boil hotdogs.
Kids - whether they are students, our own children and/or grandchildren - are on to us, bro'. Just like we were on to adults when we were their age: All of our lectures about telling them how to do life are worth less that poop if we can't back them up with our own actions.
So what do we do, Keith?
I have a plan!!!
Our bro', Kevin, used to say to his kids when they wanted to do what we adults did: "Shit rolls down hill."
In other words:
1. Us adults will give you kids shit because we CAN.
2. But more important: there are certain privileges us adults have (because most of us have earned it) that YOU have to wait for. Like bitching about technology not working fast enough and more efficiently and all of that because ADULTS pay for it and you do NOT. And, if you desire freedom from adults (like Mr. Walker and his eldest sister, Pam) put the technology down, do your school work and GRADUATE so that you can make a living and earn the right to BITCH.