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CAT Tracks for July 31, 2011
BETTER TO LAUGH THAN CRY |
Watching the machinations of Cairo School District Number One can leave a person emotionally drained...
...exceeded only by those who experience it firsthand.
As you have surely noticed, I am apt to resort to humor, gallows humor, during the times that try CATs' souls.
Some don't appreciate it...
My wife frequently pulled the plug on my sarcastic reactions to the mad (maddening) actions of Boards of Education and/or Superintendents. I would come home late from school board meetings, often after midnight. Julie would be asleep. Mind racing too much to sleep, I would close the door to the computer room and spend the wee hours pounding away on the keyboard, venting my frustrations...using what passes for my humor to try to show the absurdity of the latest affront to common sense and common decency. Along about 4 a.m., I would grab a couple of hours of sleep, awakening to the bleating of the alarm at 6 a.m. (Yes, I knew Groundhog Day long before Bill Murray!)
Some have complimented me for having writing skills...others would roll their eyes at that assessment. If the former are correct, I can thank a long list of teachers who plied their trade at Cairo's former St. Joseph's Catholic School, Cairo High School, and Southern Illinois University. They taught me the mechanics...including the nuns who turned me from left-handed to right and fought me to relax my death grip on a pencil. (My stubbornness won that battle!)
But...
Mechanics lack soul. Enter my own personal soul sister...Julie Newell.
Julie was a tough task master when it came to writing...and speaking (serving as she did as an unofficial speech coach, assisting for years a true legend of Cairo High School...Jeanette Posey. (When teachers' strikes forced me to stand before the camera, I always knew that a critique was in the offing. Julie would quickly eliminate my nervous tendency toward "uh, uh, uh", telling me to simply pause and collect my thoughts. "Look the camera in the eye, Ronnie. You need to project confidence. If you don't believe in what you are saying, how can you expect others to support you." And, damned if she didn't get me through it.)
So, when that alarm went off, I would crawl out of bed and go get the copy of my latest literary effort and submit it to Julie for her review/approval.
Often I would beam like a school child when she pronounced my efforts as "Perfect, I wouldn't change a word!"
Then, again...
There were many times when I would shift nervously and hang my head as she read... SILENTLY. "Ronnie, what they did last night was NOT funny. They are playing with people's lives. They are hurting people and you are making light of it. This is serious...and you need to treat it as such!"
Sigh...
Sometimes I would mount a feeble defense of my blood, sweat, and tears...but, in the end, I trusted Julie's opinion more than mine. Julie was my touchstone.
But...
...what does all of that have to do with this?
If my "humor" has gotten out of control of late, well, I'm sorry. It's the only way that I can avoid turning CAT Tracks into an R-rated missive filled with undeleted expletives of the four-letter, 12-letter, pardon-my-French variety. In fact, a few X-rated thoughts have crossed my mind...
Sarcasm allows me to vent my frustrations without offending the faint of heart.
As for Julie's frequent admonition to "take it seriously"...
...trust me, I do. Every damned time!
Hell, there are times when I wish that I could just curl up in the fetal position and have a good cry...such unnecessary hurt and downright evil done unto the employees of Cairo School District Number One! How can people be so callous and uncaring?
Then along comes the article below...
...a recent study that asserts that crying doesn't help, except maybe in one-third of cases.
Do you feel lucky?
The article also cautions against the possible embarrassment of crying in front of a group. (Feeling emotional...seek one-on-one comfort. Stay out of the teachers' lounge...think happy thoughts when in front of your classroom.
POSTSCRIPT:
It should be noted...
...the author of the article below used humor to convey the sad news.
From the msnbc.com website...
Crying shame: Tears don't make you feel any better, study shows
By Cari Nierenberg
It's truly a sob story for those prone to waterworks displays: Shedding tears only improved mood in one-third of cryers who kept tabs of their bawling behaviors, finds recent research.
Apparently weeping isn't the cathartic emotional release it's often cracked up to be, sniff, sniff. Please pass the tissues.
Science has previously looked into boo-hooing with mixed results: After viewers in a lab setting watched a sad film clip, weeping was rarely found to boost mood -- but this might not be the best place to burst into heartfelt tears. Other studies have asked participants to recall past crying episodes. But retrospective surveys might not necessarily reflect actual behavior since memory can be selective, and people might not remember those times when wailing made them feel worse.
This new study, currently published online in the Journal of Research in Personality, asked 97 women aged 18 to 48 in the Netherlands to keep a daily crying and mood diary over a two-to three-month period. Men were not included in this experiment because the data was originally collected as part of a larger trial exploring the link between crying and the menstrual cycle.
Each night, participants logged their daily mood, their urge to cry, and whether they shed any tears. If they wept, they kept further details of each sob session, such as the reason for it, how long it lasted, how intensely they bawled, where it occurred, whether other people were around and how they felt afterward.
Scientists ended up with 1,004 crying episodes to analyze: Their results showed that the average boo-hoo lasted eight minutes and took place in the living room, usually alone or with one other person present. Conflict, loss, or seeing others suffer were the most common triggers for tears.
For the majority of cases -- 61 percent of them -- sobbers reported no change in mood compared to how they felt before moisture streamed down their cheeks. Thirty percent experienced a better mood afterward and nine percent felt worse.
"Only a minority of crying episodes were associated with mood improvement -- against conventional wisdom," says Jonathan Rottenberg, an associate professor of psychology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, and the study's lead author.
The study found little evidence of any psychological payoffs from crying. But interestingly, it observed that participants who sobbed with the greatest intensity -- but not for the longest amount of time -- enjoyed the biggest bang from their bawling: Their moods benefited the most from shedding tears.
"Crying is not nearly as beneficial as people think it is," says Rottenberg.
Rather than encouraging people to cry, it makes more sense, he suggests, to encourage them to bolster their social networks. "When crying helps it's likely not because of the tears but because it recruits social support and draws attention to important problems," explains Rottenberg.
While crying around one other person likely leads to comfort and active problem solving, sobbing around more people might spark feelings of shame, he says.
