Time To Recoup

Lately, whenever I get excited about an opportunity that falls through, I have to go through a little down time. Before I moved to Nashville, I could jump into a new project after barely absorbing a moment of disappointment. Now, I don't hop up so quickly.

I joke with former coworkers about my escape plan from my current job and the progress I'm making - or not making, really. There was the private housekeeper job at the home of the Dollar General founder and his wife, a children's book writer. How could I not get hired with my hotel and bed-and-breakfast experience, or my enthusiasm? There was the reporter job at the Nashville Business Journal, for which I was unqualified, but the editor interviewed me anyway because I was so determined. Some brokers who left the office where I currently work asked if I'd like to interview to be their assistant at the new firm, but the other two men on their new team hired an assistant that had just returned to the city after living in Kentucky. I did my best to procure an assistant job at Thomas Nelson Publishers under the VP of Marketing, sending notes and, finally, a cardboard book with three boxes inside. The title was, "What To Expect When You Hire Christine"; one box said "Save" with a fake watch inside to represent time, one box said "Make" with a roll of fake money inside, and one box said "Have" with a ball inside. Then Thomas Nelson Publishers instituted a hiring freeze. Three weeks later, they laid off ten percent of their workforce.





On the 13th of this month, I submitted my application to Teach For America. Last year, nearly 25,000 applicants applied for 3,700 positions. The date was the final date for submission out of four possible dates, but I had just read that they were going to be starting a corps in Nashville on the 12th. I filled out the application in two nights, including the 500-word essay, the 500-word letter of intent, and the 500-word description of how I overcame an obstacle. Over the ensuing week and half, I began to really see myself as a teacher, planning out lessons in my head. I felt sure that my life experiences and hard work supporting myself during college would be positive points, but as of yesterday, I was officially rejected. Never mind that they only have a limited number of positions, and I was probably only one of thousands who were rejected; it still stung a little. I decided long before that, though, that I would not be too disappointed and would apply again at the first deadline for next year.

The experience at least pushed to the fore my lingering desire to teach, the desire I've squelched for so long for lack of funds. I could try for Nashville Teacher Fellows next year, too, which is a similar program, and if I could raise the money, I could go to Western Governor's University to study teaching over the next few years. There are other options. I just need a day or to to heal from yet another bruising.

Visualization

I've been praciticing visualization lately. After reading Kathy Freston's Quantum Wellness and Joel Osteen's Become a Better You, I committed to working on myself from the inside as well as from the outside.

First I started with visualizing myself in a new career. That hasn't been going so well, but perhaps it is because I haven't committed to any sort of career yet. It is more like trying on clothes, seeing if I can imagine myself as a writer, a teacher, a baker, or an assistant in a publishing company. Lately I have been particularly drawn to the visualization of teaching because I recently applied to Teach For America. It may be the only way I can break into teaching without breaking the bank.

My most successful visualization so far has been visualizing myself as a 6-foot tall supermodel. Maybe I will never attain that career, but I do these visualizations while I'm walking, even if I'm just walking to the restroom. I try to carry myself like I am tall, slender, and practiced in the art of graceful walking. So far, it has helped me carry myself more confidently, and I feel better! I also feel slimmer! It's a challenge to not rush around like I usually do, or to not be self-conscious about my hair or worry about my belly. This practice takes my focus away from my imagined flaws and puts them on my envisioned exquisite beauty and charm. It makes me smile. When I'm in the restroom, I practice Joel Osteen's suggestion of telling myself I am smart, I am creative, I am beautiful, I am annointed, I have a purpose, I inspire people, etc. If I ever do get to be a teacher, this is something I can give them: the experience of visualization in creating a better self, even if is something small like walking taller. Of course at that point, I will have also visualized myself into a new career!

Let's Jump!

The local research hospital where I go for all of my medical needs has free valet parking. The waiting area for the people who were waiting for their cars was quite full today after my 10 am appointment. As I entered the waiting area, two little girls caught my eye because they were wearing fleece pullovers in twenty-degree weather without hats, gloves, or overcoats. Their mother seemed kind enough, young and proud and attentive. I remember a comedian once saying that children are like little heaters, so I figured these girls' energy must be keeping them from noticing the cold.

The younger girl looked just like her mother, blonde and petite and a little like the Swiss Miss girl. Her sister had brown hair but otherwise looked just like the other two. They were chattering away in their little girl ways and goofing around with little games like, "This is MY mommy!" where they took turns hugging Mommy. The younger girl began to hop around and laugh at her own antics when the older girl blurted out, "Let's jump!"

They lined themselves up next to each other, then hopped to the side of the room, then hopped back to Mommy. The woman did not stop them or corral them to her side but instead smiled as they hopped back and forth across the floor. Smart woman, I thought, to let them use up all that energy. Someone asked their ages - 4 and 5 was the answer - and the girls continued to hop around like, no kidding, little rabbits. They were delightful to watch. All I could think was how nice it must be to have fun hopping around the floor with no particular goal, no rules for a game, no reason at all except for fun.

Sometimes, when no one is looking, I'll hop in the air and click my heels together. I get it. Maybe I just need to do it more.

Georgia Ain't Louisiana, and It Sure Ain't Tennessee

I'm reading a section of Stephen King's On Writing where he talks about writing dialogue. In two of his examples, a southern-style accent seems to indicate ignorance. It's actually that style of speaking I like to refer to as "coun'ry," that slow rolling of words into one another that probably came about because southern humidity was far too oppressive to allow haste in anything, even speaking. Either way, such representations usually show the ignorance of the writer as well as the character. In my short life so far, I have lived in three southern states, four if you count Florida, but no one counts Florida. Each state has not just one version of a southern accent, but several. The great South is like Great Britain: when you're from there, you can tell where someone else is from simply by the way they speak.

In the countryside of Tennessee, you will find what may be the most typical country southern accent I've ever heard. In South Carolina, Charleston alone has the refined Charleston accent of the old south (click here to hear former Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings), the Gullah accent of its slave descendants (click here to hear examples), and the lack of an accent at all in its younger generation (actress Mena Suvari and comedian Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report" grew up there). The rest of the state has a much more common-sounding southern accent but not much of a country accent. Georgia, Atlanta not included, has a somewhat country accent pervasive throughout, although people speak faster in urban areas than Georgians from the actual countryside. Think of Paula Deen without the theatrical emphasis on her Southern-ness. In the mountains around Georgia and in some of the more rural areas, though, you'll find what some call a "hick" accent - see the comic strip above. That's the accent most used to represent ignorance in books because it represents people whom others assume aren't exposed to outside influences or a proper education. It's prevalent in many Appalachian areas, not because the people are ignorant, but because the people are geographically isolated and have developed their own dialects. In Atlanta, the diversity of its residents causes the southern accent to be less pervasive. The African American youth of Atlanta, though, have a way of speaking that is partly an accent, partly a colloquial vocabulary, and entirely their own.

The actresses in the movie "Steel Magnolias" did a fine job of their southern accents, even though Dolly Parton is from Tennessee and Julia Roberts is from Georgia. The playwright who originally penned "Steel Magnolias" for stage was from Louisiana, where the story takes place, and he knew how to write that Louisiana drawl. It's in the writing of the accent that the differences need to appear, and it's in the poor writing of accents where people get confused and begin to attach the stereotypes associated with the way people speak. Did Alice Walker get the accents right in The Color Purple? It wasn't until the movie came out that I even understood what half of the characters were supposed to be saying. Margaret Mitchell Marsh, though, thoroughly researched the history behind Gone With The Wind, and she represented a variety of different dialects as accurately as anyone can, I suppose, when writing phonetically.

North Carolina, Alabama, Mississipi, Texas, and Oklahoma all have their own accents, too. Perhaps authors who are going to write dialogue of someone in the South but aren't from the South should begin with a travel journal!