Happy Anniversary!

Today is the first anniversary of my head on collision with anxiety and depression. What is the appropriate item for a 1^st anniversary? Paper? Tin? Copper? A friend suggested “Nut Shell” and someone else suggested “Tin Foil Hat”. Those both sound pretty good.

It has been a trying year, and yet one of growth and movement.

I learned that I am “Sick, not Weak” from Michael Landsberg. The host of the TSN show OTR has battled depression for many years. He uses the hashtag #sicknotweak in his twitter feed along with providing support and encouragement to those who have mental health issues. I also view the Bell Let’s Talk day from an entirely different perspective. Coming to grips with my own mental health issues has been, and continues to be, a journey towards getting better. Another encouraging Twitter resource is the hashtag #iamnotashamed. It seems mental health issues come with a stigma and label that something is irreversibly wrong with the person who has those issues. They are categorized as somehow different than a physical ailment that can be treated with medication or surgery.

Well, I have depression and anxiety issues. I am not my diagnosis. I am not suffering from these illnesses, I live each day with them at my side and in my head.

One year ago my wife said adamantly that something needed to change. I agree, and I think I have changed. I’m back to work full-time. I am coaching. I teach Sunday School and I’m trying to be a better husband and friend. All the while I am learning to not listen as much to my inner critic and to work through my issues instead of be crippled by them. I’m changed.

While I’m learning to come to terms with my mental health issues, my physical body is beginning to give me problems.

I’ve had back issues for years, but around Thanksgiving I began to experience excruciating pain in my sides and back on both sides. By the end of November I spent two weeks in and out of hospital having 2 procedures to deal with kidney stones. Over the Christmas Break I had another procedure, which proved to be unsuccessful, and I have another surgery planned for February 12. So, in addition to living with  my inner critic, I have near unrelenting pain in my back.

Before one year ago I would have been crippled in more ways than one by either of these conditions. Now? I think something has changed enough in me that I can face these, and other situations, with logic and move through them without them affecting me as negatively as before.

That, I think, is a positive thing.

 

Reflections

I started this blog after attending the Saskatchewan iTSummit in 2009. Actually, I had started using Facebook Notes for some reason or another, but was discouraged from using that by several negative comments regarding my one and only post there. So, I moved to WordPress, presumably because I could write in relative anonymity. I went back through my posts and in-between blogging for a masters classes and occasional personal posts, there hasn’t been a whole lot of educational content there.

I guess I still struggle with the notion of whether anyone cares about what I’m posting or not? Further to that, is that a problem?

I tweeted about the Toronto Blue Jays’ need to fire their current manager a few days ago and received a rather angry reply from someone about it. I replied in a tweet that it really didn’t matter whether as it was my opinion and I had a right to it.

That’s a big step for me to admit, and to write here.

I have an opinion, and I’m entitled to it. If evidence is provided to me to change that opinion, that’s fine. I can change. However, the here and now opinion is the one I want to express, and need to, if I’m going to refine and become better at what I do. I’ve avoided doing convention and conference presentations for precisely this reason. I know how to do something, but I don’t want to elevate myself to the status of where I could describe how to do it to other people. But that’s just it, there are many people who don’t know how to do something and my “hiding my light under a bushel basket” may be keeping them from learning how. To that end I am doing a PAATA convention session on Twitter, and how it can impact your personal and professional life. I’m not an expert, but I know some things and can help people new to the medium with their misconceptions and fears about it. I’m also writing a chapter for an eBook about social media and personal learning networks (PLNs) for my last masters class.

So, does anyone care what I blog or post about? Maybe. Maybe not. Does it matter? No. I think I’m saying something relevant, at times, and if people want to listen that’s fine. If they don’t. That’s fine too. The important thing was to express what I was thinking and to then reflect over time about the change or growth.

 

Social Media and Old Friends

I couldn’t sleep last night for some reason. I suspect it was the cold short ribs I ate as a snack at about midnight, but I could be wrong. So, I went to my computer to play a bit of a mindless game and maybe do some creeping on Facebook. I wandered around a few of my old Bethany buddies’ pages and then started looking for a few people I was good friends with many years ago. After an hour of fruitlessly searching for them on other friends pages and all over the Google-sphere, I gave up.

I was struck by several things, however.

For one of these people I could virtually find NO trace on the Internet, which I found pretty remarkable. Even a cursory Google search for my name turns up a lot of information. Since the Bergen Record in Bergen, New Jersey is a pretty large paper, a lot of theses results are admittedly not me. However, the fact that in all the social media and Google searches I could not turn up a single piece of evidence of this person’s existence today was a bit interesting to me. How can someone fly under the radar like that in this day and age? I think of myself as a pretty good search person and…. nothing? Wow. They must be somewhere off the grid living in a hut with no electricity.

The other person I was looking for left quite a large trace. I found them all over the place and where I expected to find them given I knew a bit of where they should be. What was really remarkable to me about this is that even though I could pinpoint them to a specific location there wasn’t any social media presence at all. I couldn’t even find their name in a staff directory for an institution I know they work for. Perhaps they are not particularly social network friendly. Or perhaps it is a grand conspiracy theory to keep me out of the loop about where they are! I highly doubt that.

The total absence of presence and presence but no ability to pinpoint struck me as a huge gap in social media, or a great coup for invisibility in an era of Internet ubiquity. Take your pick. It also occurred to me that many of the friends and followers I have in social media have stumbled on to me without any great effort on my or their parts. I was discussing someone I follow on Twitter, the great Alec Couros, with my wife. I was relating to her some of his tweets and thoughts about education and she casually asked me how I knew Alec. Well, I don’t really. I’ve seen him at a presentation and I know him by reputation and he’s followed me on Twitter and Facebook. Other than that, we’ve really never met face to face. However, I have a great deal of respect for him based on what he blogs, tweets and posts about. Alec is truly a virtual friend. Is that what our future is going to be about? Virtual, rather than real live friendships? Something that actually makes me jealous about people who are friends with Alec is how they Tweet about stuff they mutually have in common, like real friends. My real self is jealous of my virtual self because I’m missing out on that part of the conversation. I doubt anyone has that jealousy about my tweets and posts.

Anyway, if you stumble across Jeanine Joy Janzen or Gwen Vanee, let me know. Or let them know I’m looking for them so they can duck under the radar again… Like you’re part of the conspiracy!

 

We have Twitter integration!

Okay,

Apparently ecto won’t update Twitter automatically, but WordPress will. I’m not sure if I’m happy tweeting all of my blog updates, but here goes nothing.

Yikes!

Update–> Okay, read the publishers website and learn something! I can turn on all notifications in WordPress, or I can download a plugin for ecto that sends notifications ONLY when I want to. Cool. So, if I don’t want to send a tweet for this random piece I don’t have to. But if I write something significant, I might actually want to tweet about that.

Update–> ecto Twitter integration only partially working… I’ll just use the WordPress one until I figure it out.

 

Wow!

I just discovered the world of desktop blog editors. I’m sure there are many fine ones out there, but this one seemed a reasonable price, free to try and about $15 after that. It worked right away with my feed aggregator, seems to have many fine features and will help in my desire to blog more efficiently and easily. That sounds neat to me. We’ll see how things go as I move forward with this sort of new technology.

What’s weird to me is that I have been using technology in my classroom for all of my career and trying to help students use it as well, and then Web 2.0 tools come along and turn that on its head. It’s the kids who are supposed to be using the technology and I’m supposed to help them get there. For an old dog like myself this is a new trick.

I wonder if this thing will post to Twitter when I publish a new blogpost? Ooooo, things to try out next week. Yay!

 

New Course

As part of my requirements for my Master’s degree I’m taking a new course. ECUR 809 – Evaluating Education Programs. Yay! One of the course requirements is that I am required to blog my assignments. So, I’m reviving the old Big River Gromit blog. It’s one of few blogs I know how to use. Funny, you’d think a teacher who used technology every day for the last 20+ years would not fear blogging, but there it is. I use Twitter and Facebook, but somehow blogging is different. Oh well. I’ve gotten more used to using Twitter and how it’s not just a “your life in 140 characters” sort of mind babble. I had an interesting experience with Twitter before Christmas where I was interacting with two SportsCentre anchors while they were doing their show. Led to me getting my wife’s Christmas present and gave me a new appreciation of the value of social media. Facebook has always been a way for me to connect with old friends and family, maybe blogging will open up a different world as well.

So, stay tuned, there will be more “edumacation” content posted here during the next few months.