Pain

"Sometimes what seems like surrender isn't surrender at all.  It's about what's going on in our hearts.  About seeing clearly the way life is and accepting it and being true to it, whatever the pain, because the pain of not being true to it is far, far greater."
-- Nicolas Evan, the Horse Whisperer

The past few months have been filled with a lot of pain. A lot of being honest with myself and with what is really going on in my life and my interactions with people around me. I don't like feeling hurt. I don't like feeling things that cause discomfort. For physical pain, there is a pill you can take that makes it all go away....but for the pain that resides in your heart, the only way to heal yourself from that pain is to let yourself feel it and be honest about it.

For so long, I chose not to see what was actually happening in my life.  Choosing not to see that someone chooses someone else.  Choosing not to see that life changes, people move on and we all grow and change.  It was easier to hold so tightly to the world that I created and not see the world that I actually live in.

Often it's easy to pretend that our friendships are what we want them to be, when in fact they are falling apart.  It is easy to pretend that we have the relationships we want, when in fact we don't.  It's easy to believe we make the decisions that will make us ultimately happy, even if they inflict pain now, when in fact we don't.

Denial is not a river in Egypt.

Pain is how we grow. Pain is how our body heals. It's not always fun. When I look back at all of my surgeries, there was a lot of pain involved in each one. The pain of surgery is far greater (at least in my case) than the pain of living with whatever is "wrong" in your body. But part of our being created in the likeness of the Lord is that humans are able to see ahead, endure something that is more painful now for the benefit of feeling less pain in the future. To endure pain, sometimes, is necessary. And as you grow, the pain lessens and hopefully in the long run you will be be "better" and experience less pain.

Cohelo wrote in "The Alchemist:"

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

When I am alone...

The black hole of time that is NDNation:

When I was alone, I can close my eyes and feel the brittle wood of my square-foot on the bench, hear the trumpets and horns bellow from the corner of the endzone songs that I've known my whole life, sense the awe, admiration, and dedication to the sport and the legends who have come and gone and are still being made, and I can see the bright blue sky, the cheering masses, the flying flag, and the gleam that never shined brighter than when it came off of eleven golden helmets streaking down the field.

When I was alone, Notre Dame football was always with me.

Irish06

The past few weeks have been difficult. I feel lost most of the time.

I have this silly habit that I started when I took the LSAT. Whenever I see anything with Notre Dame on it, I take it as a reminder that God is here, he does love me and he will never leave me.

This afternoon, after another not so fun day at work I drove home. As I got off the ten I was almost on the brink of tears (for many reasons, but largely hormonal). I turned off the freeway onto 4th St. and saw that the car in front of me had a personalized license plate that said Irish06 and a Notre Dame alumni frame. I needed to see that at that moment. And it happens a lot just at the time that I need it. One day I was struggling with something and I went for a walk. As I walked through downtown I saw three different people wearing something with Notre Dame on it. On my first day of work I was early and so I went to Starbucks, as I left, the girl who opened the door for me had on a Notre Dame sweatshirt.
I know it's silly. And I know tht God is always there and that he always loves me, whether I see eight million people in Notre Dme clothing or none at all. But sometimes it helps to have that little reminder.

Faith is Where Your Ass Is

Warning: random thoughts ahead:

Faith is not where your head is. Faith is not where your heart is.  Faith is where your ass is.   You have to show up. I haven't done a very good job of showing up lately. Even if my heart isn't there, I need to show up.

Sometimes, you don't know what to believe in.  Our head tells us what we think is wise to do. Our heart tells us what we'd like to do.  Another part - our soul, our gut, our conscience - that tells you what you have to do.

Why do we stay when we don't want to, or leave when we don't want to - because it's right.  Sometimes we make decisions because long range, this will bring us life.

If someone comes up to you and asks, "Are you happy in your life?"  It's not a good question.  It's a question to torture yourself.  Are you happy in your relationship?  Are you happy in your career?  It's hard to answer yes because it's the wrong question, it asks a different question than the one we need to answer.  The "good" question is, "Is there meaning in your life?"  Is there meaning in raising children?  Is there meaning in going to church?  Is there meaning in making the right choice when you want to make the wrong one?  Is there meaning in your career?

Imagine Jesus on the cross - and if someone came up to him and asked, "Are you happy up there?" Then most likely the answer would be "no."  But if someone asked if there was meaning in him being up there, then yes, there was more meaning than we can perceive or understand.

 If we go back to the "Dark Night of the Soul," that I talked about with Mother Theresa...then we see that sometimes her heart wasn't in it, her head wasn't in it, but SHE was in it.

There is a place where we don't think, we don't feel, we just KNOW.  Father Rolheiser calls our moral center. How do we get in touch with that place when we've lost it. Show up. Pray.

My favorite movie of all time

Favorite all time scene...

But I like this one too.

OK...closely followed by this scene:

I'm just gonna go watch the whole movie.

Boo Friday

I wanted a hamburger (I've wanted one all week), but it's Friday, so I can't eat meat.

So I ate this instead:

Also...how does my desk get so messy?

So far today (as of 1pm) I have:
*  gotten in a yelling fight over survey questions with Berkeley
*  lost an entire data set
*  spent four hours trying to figure out how to execute one command
*  tortured myself via Facebook
*  eaten ice cream and a Baby Ruth bar

Time for the weekend?

A Very LA Day

Despite my lamentations that I am not a very good Angelino....somedays I am horrified by my Angelinoness.

I woke up to my alarm/iPhone.

 I rolled over and checked the New York Times, the weather and the traffic to see how long it would take me to get to work.

I got into my Prius.

I drove from the West Side to Downtown, because really NO ONE wants to actually live in downtown!!!

Yup...that's my actual building (but I didn't take the photo).

For lunch, we walked down Figueroa St. to the Gourmet food trucks. I debated about whether I should  have an organic salad or a Kobe Beef burger (of course, from a cow that was free range raised and grass fed!).

After work, I waited in massive traffic to get on the 10 west to drive home.

 But the good news about sitting in traffic is that I got to sit and look at the Hollywood sign for quite some time (through the smog).

Finally, after passing the 405 the traffic opened up and we all felt free to drive at least 80 miles and hour, because if you can - you should.

To quench the rage that filled my insides from battling the poor drivers, I went to a fancy spinning studio in Brentwood.  We all hopped on our outrageously technologically advanced spinning bikes and pedaled to live music on the unneccessarily large screen TV, while the instructor flipped through songs on Apple TV.

Having tortured myself in a stationary manner, I climbed off my bike, threw on my overpriced Lululemon fleece and headed to Whole Foods.

While perusing the foods in the Prepared Food Bar at WF, I spotted Joel McHale (of The Soup fame).

After selecting some organic quinoa, falafel and some free range chicken, I headed to the checkout line to pay $7.99 a pound for my meal.  Quality vs. quantity, right?  The other things I picked up (organic low fat sour cream, whole wheat pasta, local organic vegetables and gluten free cereal) were all nicely packed into my reusable bags.

One of my favorite parts of my day, is when I am driving down Pico (on my way home). At a certain point, you reach the crest of a hill and as you descend, you see the beach.  It is always beautiful and reminds me of exactly how lucky I am to live in Santa Monica.

Since I don't have cable, after I showered (with organic, non-chemical soap from Trader Joe's), I sat down to read before I went to bed.  On the docket:  The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, The Economist and "The Social Animal" by David Brooks.  Somewhat coincidentally, I happened upon David Brooks while reading his book "Bobos in Paradise."

And then I blogged about it.

I am ashamed.

Even it means you appear to be Bat Shit Crazy.

Dear Whole Foods

I heart you.

Carry on bringing me awesome food!

Moving on, growing up....

"Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young."


I feel very lucky to have friends from many eras of my life.  This past weekend I spent with my best friend from graduate school.  My life has stayed relatively the same.  I still live in the same general area, my family is close, my friends are still the same, I still do the same activities.  But her life has radically changed  - probably for the better. She moved across the country, she has new friends, this is her first time being an "adult" (and by that I mean she has a job, rather than going to school) and she lives far from her family.


Although she is seven years younger than me, somehow she is a grown up. They go to dinner parties with elaborate menus.  They have a couples/work softball team.  Most of the discussions revolve around gardening, couple activities, home decorating, and their dogs (predecessors to future children).  It was all very strange because nearly every person was younger than me - but the content of their lives was so radically different.


I'm not sure what I want. On one hand, I want to do those grown up things.  I finally realized a few months ago, that I'm ready to come to the same person. In no way do I want to give up my independence, but I'm more willing to bend and I want to make someone else happy - rather than just myself.  But I never want to lose the "fun" part of being a kid/teenager. I never want to stop giggling when we pass the sign that says "Cumming" on the freeway.  


As important as it is to hang on to the people from your past, it is also important to remember that those people are changing and thus your relationship will also change. Some people may need to be let go because your lives don't mesh anymore; but I think those cases are rare.

Welcome to Hotlanta!

In celebration of Cesar Chavez (a champion of worker's rights), I am visiting Georgia, where they historically fought for slavery and segregation is still rampant! Hooray me!

In all seriousness....I'm visiting one of my very best friends. I'm so excited to spend three days with my best friend. We haven't seen each other for more than 8 months and we picked up right where we left off.

I thought I could add photos, but I guess you'll have to wait (or check Facebook)!

Value-added?

The LA Times (the deplorable publication that it is) published their own analysis of LAUSD teachers using a value-added method.  It got people all up in arms. 

Value-added gets me all hot and bothered (in the good sense).  Just look at this and tell me you don’t get a funny feeling in your nether parts:

y = Xβ + Zv + ε where β is a p-by-1 vector of fixed effects; X is an n-by-p matrix; v is a q-by-1 vector of random effects; Z is an n-by-q matrix; E(v) = 0, Var(v) = G; E(ε) = 0, Var(ε) = R; Cov(v,ε) = 0. V = Var(y) = Var(y - Xβ) = Var(Zv + ε) = ZGZ^T + R.

That is statistical porn!

That is a sample of the equation that LAUSD is allegedly using to assess teachers using the “value-added” method.  Essentially, we can use a student’s previous test scores to predict the growth that we would expect from that student (given demographic characteristics) and we can then see what actually happens and use the difference between the predicted and actual values to assign how much “value” a teacher added (or subtracted).

It is a complicated statistical model.  It’s hard for me to argue the use of this model with teachers because I’m not sure that I agree with assessing people’s performance using a mathematical model that it takes a few graduate degrees to understand.  But, the alternative seems even more unacceptable to me. 

Currently, most teachers are deemed “excellent" through observation, even though the majority of our students are not able to pass standardized tests (yes, I realize that this is not the only assessment of a student’s progress, but alas it is what counts right now).  We also look to see what percentage of a teacher's students were "proficient." The problem with this is that a teacher who starts with 80% of his or her students proficient at the beginning of the year is judged the same as a teacher who began the year with 20% proficient students and ended the year with 80% of his or her students being proficient. 

Simple Growth Model: If we just look at a snap shot of a student's progress in the academic year (either using a pretest and posttest, or a compare a student's previous score to the current score), then we get a very hazy picture of what happened and we essentially have no way to control for demographics that obviously will affect academic growth. 

Chicago Public Schools has a pretty easy and intuitive explanation of the value-added analysis.  They have a powerpoint that goes into some Oak Tree Analogy - which may be useful.  But I think this document provides the best explanation:  Value-added explanation.

We must overcome all adversity. The only reason for a person to exist is to be the best they can be. If you don’t have any desire to be the best that you can be in every single phase of your life, you need to check your values. This attitude will develop perseverance. 

-Lou


The choices that you make each and every day make the person you are in the long run.  By choosing to be the best you can be today, you will be the best you can be in the future.  Sometimes I struggle to balance living "one day at a time" and looking toward the person I want to be in the future.  But truly, you have to do both at the same time.  By making small choices today, you will aggregately be the person you want to be in the future.  You can't live passively in the day and expect to be something more than less than what you could be in the future.

The Black Plague

I am finally returning from the dead.  I really thought I was going to die.  I spent my birthday on the couch. I got up to go to a late lunch with my parents in Redondo Beach and then I went back to bed.

On Saturday, a friend I went to preschool with got married.  I also lived with her two brothers (who are also my friends) when I lived in DC a few summers ago. It was really good to be with good friends who have known me so long.  It was fun to reminisce about the "old times."  The times that we went camping together and our parents made us stand in a line to do the dishes in tubs and we had to rotate jobs.  Sleeping outside at their house in Chatsworth and waking up to make pancakes on the griddle in their backyard.  Although I was friends with the bride while growing up, I am closer to her brothers now.  We all lived in a one bedroom apartment together for a summer.  Strangely, none us of us slept in the bed in the bedroom.  Chris and I slept on the couches in the family room because we usually fell asleep watching TV. And Matt was a waiter at a wine bar, so he often got home late and he always slept on the floor.  It was a good summer.  We went camping in the Shenandoah.  We walked from the White House to Georgetown for some yummy home made ice cream. We caught lightning bugs on the nature reserve behind our apartment.   I miss them.

My boys - resting on a hike

I also went to visit the house that I was born in.  I just drove past. It was so much smaller than I remember it being.  And it struck me, that this is often how things happen. Something that is such a huge part of our lives at a certain point, slowly becomes smaller and smaller and smaller. And even places, events, memories and the like that we place such importance on at the time become less and less a part of our lives as we grow more distant from them. In some aspects of our lives, this is a good and healthy thing.  But it's important to hold on to some of those memories that make our lives and the people that we are surrounded with really count.