On the first day of preschool

August 30, 2010


Let’s talk about the point when we let go.

No. On second thought. Let’s not. Because this isn’t letting go in the traditional sense.

This is simply me, writing a note to my little girl, sticking it in her backpack and watching as she toddles up the steps to her first day of preschool.

And this is her, at ease and excited, taking in the situation and accepting her role as a child who’s ready to learn. To learn differently, without the eager eyes of her parents looming over; instead, with the freedom of individuality.

And this is us. Realizing that it all moves so fast. That cliches are true. And that while we’re not letting go, we are beginning to ease up on the reins.

That, though she can’t yet read it, she’s been given the go ahead.

“Sierra -
Enjoy this – your first day of school.
You are going to have a great time.
I am already so proud of you.
Love, Daddy.”

I can’t wait to hear how it turns out. Every single day of it. I can’t wait.

And until the end of each of those days, I’ll learn to slowly let go, a little at a time.

Tags: Education, Sierra |

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What I’ve Been Reading – Furthering Education

January 25, 2010


What I’ve Read:
On Writing – Stephen King
Content Strategy for the Web – Kristina Halvorson
The Elements of User Experience – Jesse James Garrett

On WritingSelf-improvement is a multi-billion dollar industry.

Okay. Just kidding. I don’t actually know how much money the industry makes. One thing’s for sure: it’s got a monopoly on annoyance and self-importance, and if you could put a price on those two traits I’m sure the industry would be somewhere in the multi-billions. AMIRITE?

I prefer my self-improvement to be self-driven. And for me, it often is.

It’s driven by a nagging feeling that I’m quickly being driven in to obsolescence by content mills and marketing directors who feel they can cut corners by writing their own copy. Driven by the knowledge that getting published requires an insane amount of collaboration between luck and circumstance, not to mention an actual amount of talent. Driven by the demons of self-doubt. By a writer’s constant sense of impending failure. By whatever it is that drives writers to write whatever it is they write.

So sometimes I read books about writing. And, because I like the Web and writing for the Web and learning about the Web and adding skills and adding to the multi-billion dollar self-improvement industry, I read books about things that aren’t writing.

In terms of those books about writing (and I’ve read a few – see: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and Elements of Style Illustrated by Strunk and White), Stephen King’s On Writing is easily the best. For real.

It’s easy to pass Stephen King off as mass-market pulp purveyor – the type of tripe you find on the stands at the airport – but, come on. The dude’s a very good writer.

How can you tell? Easy: he wrote an entertaining book on writing. As in, I’d recommend it to people who aren’t writers. I’d recommend it to writers who feel they’re too cool for Stephen King.

Elements of User ExperienceThe book actually splits itself into two parts: one part life story, one part “how to write.” The two play off of each other rather well – the “how to write” part driving his life story, the life story giving a human quality to his “how to write” part. Some things you’ll learn: how to edit, how to drink a lot and recover, how to forget a large part of your career thanks to alcoholism, how to stop over-explaining, how to hole up and just write, how to have a near death experience, how to start your own newspaper as a grade-schooler, how to submit stories and expect nothing, how to be humble, how to understand that writing fiction is about as scientific as Intelligent Design.

Sure, it was inspiring. So inspiring that I took all of the lessons and jumped headfirst into another field: User Experience. And, once I had finished that, I jumped headfirst into yet another field: Content Strategy. (Which, I now realize, takes the craft of writing (featured in King’s On Writing) and applies it to the Web by way of User Experience. So, really, everything came full circle and this trio of books made perfect sense without making perfect sense at all.)

Content Strategy for the WebA bunch of other people can discuss Elements of User Experience better than I am able to. And I’ve already touched on Content Strategy for the Web – or, at least, my newfound interest in the field. The books themselves don’t matter that much when it comes to a “What I’ve Been Reading” post; in fact, the three books featured serve as one entry, one stage in my life when I understood that I needed to become better at something and I accepted all available resources to make it happen.

Kerrie bought me On Writing for my birthday. Knowing that I’m always three days away from finally starting a short story, she may have figured it would serve as a kick start. Instead, it made me more introspective, pushing me toward redefining what I want my writing career to be.

It may not have made me a better writer – just as the other books may not have made me a better Web person – but it did help me focus on simply being a writer, for better or worse.

Tags: Books, Content Strategy, Education, Literature, Technology, What I've Been Reading, Writing |

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Penta-seen

August 31, 2009


I don’t want to get all High School Biology Teacher on you, but This. Blows. My. Mind.


©IBM Research – Zurich | Photo from IBM Research – Zurich’s Flickr page.

It’s a pentacene molecule. 22 carbon atoms. 14 hydrogen atoms. Smaller than I can even comprehend. And, for someone who spent two hours a day in science classes throughout college, surprisingly breathtaking.

Not because it’s so small. And certainly not because it’s a clear picture, or because of the technology involved.

It’s breathtaking because it’s exactly the way we always thought it would look. Five circles of atoms, hooked together in the same way as my Organic Chemistry 201 textbook.

But seriously. THOSE ARE ATOMS. IN A PICTURE.

(Via Make the Logo Bigger. Funny how I learned about a major breakthrough in science from an ad blog.)

Tags: Education, Photography, Science |

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The first day of school

August 18, 2008


Sometimes it’s hard to believe I was there once, scanning my schedule one last time before I ran to my next class, anxiously memorizing the room number. Because let’s face it, there’s nothing dorkier than stopping in the middle of the hallway and checking your destination; nothing has ever so perfectly predestined a cruel de-booking, a cackle, an entire audience turning on a swivel, looking your way. Standing out like a construction cone.

But I was. Twelve years ago I started my senior year of high school. On a day much like today, I’m sure – a cool summer morning, hiding its intentions under a guise of ozone and cloud cover, waiting until noon to spring out and melt everything you had foolishly left on your vehicle’s dashboard; a wet trail of grass, beaten down by hundreds of new shoes, left wasted and muddy from the parking lot to the front door.

You’d sit down, a little melancholy, waiting for the bittersweet first bell. Summer, as you knew it, was over – seemingly over faster than last year, if you remember correctly. Yet, this was a time of adventure. You had no idea who would be in your class, how difficult your teachers would be, whether you’d suddenly realize you enjoyed a subject. It was the perfect clean slate. It was, for some, the best day of school all year.

Driving by today, I got that pit in my stomach again. The same one you’d get in homeroom, waiting for the year to finally start. At the stoplight, I felt strangely nostalgic as I watched the kids file from their cars, meet their friends, don their new backpacks and hike inside, across the same halls I once did, to the same lockers I once occupied.

Lincoln High School, the only alma mater I actually feel some connection to. The only time I had teachers who really inspired me.

And then the light turned green. I looked away, faced forward, and drove off. Toward what twelve years ago would have been considered the future. What, to me, is simply considered “the now.”

Tags: Career, Education, On... |

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S.O.S. RIF

April 21, 2008


Reading is fundamental.

Still, it should come as no surprise that to our current administration doesn’t hold reading in as high esteem. True or not, the perception is there. You’ve heard all of the jokes; the “reading is hard” image, etc.

But if anything points to these perceptions becoming reality, it’s this. President Bush is proposing to eliminate all funding for Reading Is Fundamental’s book distribution program.

In other words, no more free books to those who need them most.

Since 1966, RIF has provided more than 300 million books to underprivileged children. From RIF’s CEO/President Carol Rasco:

“With 13 million children living in poverty in this country, the need for RIF has never been greater,” said Rasco, “With a recent report showing a declining interest in reading among adults and teens, supporting children’s literacy is critical to reversing this trend.”

We’re dropping in the education standings. We’re perceived as a dumber nation, growing more and more complacent in matters of education. Now, we’re proposing to drop another program that can only help – a program that, over the past six administrations, has gone uninterrupted.

I understand that cuts need to be made somewhere. I get the fact that our budget is a mess and something has to be done. But why make the cut here, especially when trillions are being wasted on a war that a shrinking minority even approves of. (That’s your obligatory useless war message for the day.)

It may sound like nothing, but it’s quite the contrary. Some families don’t have the means to buy seemingly extravagant items like books. And the children suffer, unexposed to reading, already years behind when they make it to the school system, given less of a chance to succeed in the future. It leads to special classes, an increase in poverty and a greater strain on our nation’s economy.

I’m not saying that four free books a year are going to change the world. But, hell – it sure can’t hurt.

Check out RIF’s Web site at www.RIF.org and let your voice be heard. E-mail your Senators and Representatives. Let Bush hear how important this is.

And then hope he actually cares.

(via Condalmo)

Tags: Books, Education, Politics |

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A new School of Thought

March 18, 2008


I usually ignore e-mails from strangers asking me to promote their blogs.

Today, though, I sidestep that unwritten rule. I received an e-mail last night from Fred Deutsch, a school councilperson in Watertown, regarding his blog, School of Thought.

It’s well written and unapologetic. Best of all, it champions technology and the importance of being a forward thinking, multi-platform educator. It points out the positives of blogging (see, Bob Costas?) and shows how it can be beneficial to a school district’s constituents.

Most of all, I reminds me of my past, of just a few years ago when issues of school importance weren’t just articles in the newspaper, but actual roadblocks in my career.

Allow me to get personal here. I was a teacher once, a failed venture that I probably don’t give myself enough credit for. I was once intimately knowledgeable of school issues; of the difficulty of implementing No Child Left Behind and the scary reality of declining budgets. I stood in front of 20 or more kids five times a day and attempted to make sense of the Krebs Cycle, DNA replication, basic physics and organic chemistry.

Often, I stood in front of 20 or more kids five times a day and handed out worksheets, pressed play on movies, read my book and played babysitter.

The average person changes his or her career five times. Counting my high school jobs, I’ve gone from retail to food service to maintenance (with several more stints of retail in between) to substitute teacher to call center manager to writer. That’s six. I’m due to stick with something for a while now, thanks.

But I’ll always remember teaching as my first grown-up job, my post-college, “You’re a big kid now” career. I had a title, an identity – Corey Vilhauer, Teacher. I commanded respect from parents based not on my abilities but on my position, seen as a professional, even if I was never quite paid like one.

I soured on the job pretty quickly, losing heart and all desire in a matter of months. Substitute teaching can tear you apart if you’re not made of the right stuff. I wasn’t. And while I respect educators more than any other profession, I understand that I was never able to earn that respect within myself.

In the meantime, I’ve found a local outlet to stay abreast of what’s going on in our state’s schools. With Sierra just four years away from public schooling, I’d better read up before it’s too late.

So yeah, that’s a really long, introspective and egotistical way of saying “check out School of Thought.”

Tags: Blogging, Education, Politics |

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