Merry Christmas

     Before you think I'm lame for writing a post Christmas morning, let me tell you we've already opened our stockings and played with those items. (I got an environmentally friendly waterbottle, argyle earmuffs, dress socks, and toe warmers for my ski boots.  I love our family's santa.)  Now we're getting breakfast ready (belgian waffles) and getting ready for the day.  In our family, opening presents is not a rushed five-minute free-for-all, it's an hour long Event.  Presents are only opened after breakfast has been eaten and teeth have been brushed (that was torture when we were little).  So I naturally have this little pockt of time to watch my family bustling around the house, admire the sparkling tree, listen to my Japanese Christmas music, and write a quick post.  

     I'd love to write a long post about what Christmas is like in my family and how cold and windy it is in Idaho and how much I love it, but writing a post that long on Christmas morning would most certainly be a waste of my Christmas morning.  So I'll simply leave you with a few pictures of my Christmas Eve transformation.  

    

Oh, and I got a second fondue pot especially for cheese. Those who fondue with me, rejoice!

   

Anyway, back to my transformation.

   

Before

     

    

    After (and keep in mind, these pictures are not the greatest since I took them myself in the mirror):  

      

Nihon ni ikitai

             It was my first day as an ALT at a new school.  I stood in the genkan of the school, eyeing the shoe lockers to see if the school had already set one aside for me.  Meanwhile, excited chuugakusei in thier blue uniforms passed me whispering and occasionally calling out the brave "hallo!" or "Goodo Morning!"  I found the faculty room and was listening to the morning meeting, which they were doing have in English for me, and I thought how wonderful it would be to be at the same school for an entire year.  Instead of coming in for only three months, I would be there from beginning to end, coming back to the same students at the end of every vacation.  It was a warm and happy feeling of expectation.  I was going to be invovled; I'd help clean the school and everything.  

            Of course, it was only a dream.  But I missed Japan for the rest of my dreams and when I woke up this morning.  If I could make it the practical thing to do, I'd be teaching in Japan next year, but most of the schools I've looked at won't take me without at least one more year of experience.  And being an ALT feels like taking a step backward from being a full-time English teacher.  So it looks like I'll be hear for another year.  I guess that's the right decision.  My students are just as kawaii as Japanese students after all.

          I've been leafing through my books of haiku looking for ones that would appeal to my students as we begin our poetry unit.  I'll leave you with one that I found on the front page of Mainichi Shinbun's English website and that reminds me of watching the rain fall from my rooftop in Japan:

          potholed road --

          the puddles of rain

          mixed with stars

          --

Gautam Nadkarni (Mumbai, India)

"A Lotta Livin' to Do"

If one are a hardcore chocolate addict, which I am, one is tempted when baking chocolate chip cookies to not limit the number of chips in the batter to the stingy amount suggested by the hard-fisted recipe.  Grasping the cheefully colored bag of chips, one blithely adds just a few more, and then a few more.  If one is possessed by an adventuresome kitchen spirit, which I am, one may even blithely pour in the whole bag.  No handful of dough could taste better.  Unless of course one were to add the white chocolate chips and the mint chips, too.  Then maybe a few kinds of nuts and some sort of dried fruit like cranberries should be added.  (Not raisins--raisins kill your soul.  That little girl on the raisin box is a witch collecting the souls of raisin eaters to maintain her eternal youth.)  

The problem is that when one tries to roll out the dough it won't stick together.  There just enough of the sticky matrix of paste to hold onto that much excitement.  Like a molecule with too many electrons, the ball of dough will slough off its extra parts until it reaches a comfortable equilibrium, littering the cookie tray and the counter with nuts, berries, and chips.  

This past week has been such a cookie.  There just hasn't been enough paste of normal life functions (sleeping and eating included) to hold together the mixture of experiences.  Massive, 80+ page final projects, plays, concerts, times with friends, school dances and spelling bees, the never ending train of lessons to prepare and teach, and the quicksand of grading.  I haven't slept in the same place two nights in a row the whole week.  

But, with the exception of one last quick assignment to turn in, the university has no hold over me anymore.  I turned in my last project.  I'm not sure I can fully grasp the reality of that statement.  My last project, at least for a few years.  No more marking of time by the number of finals weeks I've survived (12).  I'm going to go home, drink a clear class of water with no additives and see if I can find a plain shortbread cookie.  Although I will still technically remain enrolled until I graduate in April, I am no longer a student.  After about 18 years of school, of marking age by year in school, of setting goals based on school, of being partially defined by school and my performance in it, I am finally free.  I'm creating a new identify.  I'm not a student, defined by my experiences as one, though they have molded my past.  I am a teacher.  I've gained a new level, reached a new stage in life, become an adult, become the enemy, whatever you would like to call it.  

I am no longer a practicing student, the religion I've espoused my entire life.  Am I lost or am I found?  I don't really know.  But from here on I will be making up my own recipes, taking my own lumps, whether they be chocolate or raisins, and washing my own dishes afterward.  

Hello world.  It's nice to finally meet you.  Let's get to know each other better, ok?

Anger Issues

I had a close friend that used to get so angry and frustrated with people that he could barely speak.  He felt every moment of idiocy and thoughtless disrespect like a personal wound.  We used to talk about it, and I would shrug and say that they were imperfect people with good intentions who mess up a lot.  But now that I think about I wonder which one of actually had more respect for the people around us.  My friend, who thought that they were jerks that were being hypocritical, or me, benevolently considered them idiots from whom I shouldn't expect much.  He at least believed in them enough to be angry with them for failing to live their potentials.  I just gave up on them as faulty, flawed, and hopeless.

Now I find myself often adopting a similar attitutde toward my students sometimes.  I don't ever really get angry at them.  Sometimes that's because I'm a fairly laid back person who doesn't take discipline problems personally, but often its because I treat them like three year olds.  I don't expect them to be able to control themselves.  So instead of teaching behavior lessons I tend to just stop behavior.  Instead of teaching them to police their own behavior, I'm doing it for them.  Instead of teaching them not to bring distracting items to class, I'm just taking them away.  

So I guess I need to work on getting angrier and expecting better of my students.  

Untitled

I wanted to write a blog today. I wanted to write a good one that would make my friends feel closer to me and my posts more looked forward to by my readers and me more...popular. But as I reached for my mouse I realized I had nothing to say. No moving words, no great profound thoughts. I could do another montage of random thoughts about how I like my new earrings, the new whole grain poptarts, and my new favorite teaching funny, but I don't feel like philosophizing about myself today. I just feel like being her.

But I really should post, because I finally bothered to learn how to post pictures. I've always been too lazy to learn. It took me all of ten seconds. We'll pretend my old-fashioned text-only blog was that way because I was stragically waiting, figuring that the longer I waited, the easier they'd make it for me.

So here I am, left with increased ability to express myself through pictures, the urge to express something, and no real thought yearning to be expressed. So I typed "expression" into Getty Images, hoping to find something that would say what I didn't know i wanted to. It gave me thousands of pictures that all said all sorts of things, but nothing that "expressed" anything to me. So I typed in "beauty" and got a large assortment of beautiful people and some scenery. This got me closer. I opened a picture of a tree in a new tab, then typed in "green." After a moment and a smile I added "wind."

Now I was getting closer.  





That aching feeling of wordless expression, like something is passing directly in and out of my heart without words, is one that belongs to green, wind, trees, and the stillness of thought when we close our eyes and feel the world around us.

So I added "leaves."  Now there were only 54 results.  

So I kept looking, searching places I knew they would hide pictures of windy stillnesses and sunny shadows, greens and reds flashing accross the screen as I "thumbed" through the virutal pages.   I never found the perfect picture.  So instead I'll leave you with two poems.

Trees--Joyce Kilmer

I THINK that I shall never see  
A poem lovely as a tree.  
  
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest  
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;  
  
A tree that looks at God all day, 5
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;  
  
A tree that may in summer wear  
A nest of robins in her hair;  
  
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;  
Who intimately lives with rain. 10
  
Poems are made by fools like me,  
But only God can make a tree.

 

e.e. cummings
 
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Dialogue with my inner 5-year-old

5 Year Old Me: I want that.

Me: I'm sorry, there's no way that's gonna work out.

5YOM: Really?

Me: Really. Sorry.

5YOM: Really Really?

Me: Really.

5YOM: What if I tried really hard and gave up this and did that?

Me: Nope. No way means no way.

5YOM: Oh. What if I waited? Then would it happen?

Me: I'm sorry, but that's never gonna happen.

5YOM: Never?

Me: Never ever.

5YOM: What if I waited a month? Then would it happen?

Me: sigh. No. It's never gonna happen.

5YOM: Never ever?

Me: Never.

5YOM: What if I waited a whole year? Would it be alright then?

Me: No. I'm sorry but never means that no matter how long you wait or how hard you try, the answer is still going to be no, no matter how many times you ask.

5YOM: oh.

Five minutes or five days pass.

5YOM: I want that.

Miscellaneous thoughts

Yes, I do love grocery shopping at two or three in the morning. The aisles are empty, people whistle along to the music, and sometimes we late-night shoppers smile at each other in sympathy. Chances are, if I'm grocery shopping that late, it means I've got everything else I had to do done for the day, so whether this grocery trip takes ten minutes or twenty won't make that much difference, so why not sift through the bargain bins?

Nat King Cole did a multi-lingual version of L-O-V-E. His Japanese is atrocious. Seriously sickening.

I'm wondering what country I should teach in next year. Any suggestions? And yes, the US is still an option.

I had an attitude adjustment this weekend. Thank heaven, I sure needed it. You know something? I like my life. Take that world. I intend to live it up and down and backwards and sideways and all over. I'm done sitting and watching.

I'm going to start chasing dreams again. Because I can, and because I want to.

A toast

I just skipped grading papers to read The Gospel According to Larry in one sitting. I don't regret it at all. That's my advice. Smile. Drink in rain and tears because each drop is a private moment between you and God. Smile because you can.

Hurrah for snow!

I like living where I do. I don't mind the twenty minute commute to work that much, and I like being able to go to the grocery store or the coffee shop without running into my students. But today, as I watched the glorious snow fall in soft but determined globs all around me and turn brown as it hit the slush filled freeway where cars moved slowly forward like cows wading through mud, I wished I lived closer to work. It took me forty minutes to get there, and I barely made it by contract time. Looks like I'll be leaving earlier tomorrow.

But still, hurrah for snow! Maceys is collecting a letters to Santa, and for each one that it receives it will donate $1 to the Make a Wish Foundation. Because my students have been reading letters, and because we've writing letters to the editor today, this morning's warm-up activity is writing letters to Santa while listening to Christmas music and watching the snow drift past the window of our classroom.

Hurrah for snow!

My favorite literary device

"Caution: Slow, Ironic Twists Ahead" was the sign on my friend's door growing up.

"Isn't ironic, dontcha think?"

"Life is funny; life's a mess. Sometimes a curse sometimes a blesssing."

"Roll the bones. The night has a thousand saxophones so get out there and rock and roll the bones!"

I think my love for irony is a defense mechanism I have developed so that I can laugh at my life.

As I told my students the other day, "Real life can be so much weirder than fiction."

If someone were to write a book about my weekend, they would probably be criticized for making things "too coincidental," for having irony almost too perfect to believable. It has to be the trick of the filmaker to make them movie better. But no. Ladies and gentlemen, this exercise in irony is my life.

Transportation Woes

Last Monday:

A split hose caused an incontinece problem for my car, Gigi the Jeta, and she "peed her pants" all over the parking lot. I limped her to the mechanics and was able to get it fixed the next day, for the easy price of $115.

Friday night:

Someone steals Gigi the Bike.

This Morning:

Another door has broken on Gigi the car. It wasn't even cold this time. Now I have two doors that don't open from the outside, one door that will break anyday, and a driver's door that doesn't open at all. Soon I'll be crawling in and out of windows. I'll have to stay at school until everyone leaves in order to not to damage my dignity.

But apparently I have it easy. My mom told me this story:

We had a car like that just before (and after) Aaron was born. After strapping Isaac in through the window, I climbed in myself, 9 months along. I tried to go out when noone was around!

wow. :)

Just now I returned home a friend's house to notice that there were more bikes than usual chained to the stairs outside my apartment. Absentmindedly I studied the little crowd of bikes while I fumbled for my keys. Then I realized that Gigi the Bike was not in that crowd. Gigi the bike has been in that crowd since May. I quickly checked around, thinking that somehow my bike had been in someone's way and so they had magically unlocked it and moved it. Then I noticed that there was one more lock dangling from the staircase than there were bikes. My lock. Cut. My bike. Gone.

Worth calling the cops at 2:30 in the morning? Probably not. Gigi the Bike is gone I think. Yes, I'm angry. Mine wasn't even the nicest bike there, just the most convenient. Wouldn't it have been easier to go steal someone's bike on campus where they have less chance of being seen. Oh well, poor Gigi won't get them much drug money, or help them pay for their new entertainment center or college. She wasn't that nice. But she was a lot nice than any other bike I ever owned. Well. I guess I don't need to worry about the fact that her back brakes don't work anymore. It is now someone else's problem.

The Readiness is All

"We defy augury: There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?"


No, I'm not thinking about death tonight. I'm thinking about something totally different. But this quote means a lot to me.

I'm luckier than I deserve to be, and far happier than I ought to be. But I do have a dream that I am now forced to acknowledge as most likely doomed. It's not that I can't hold on to it any longer. I could go on like this for quite a while. But holding on to that dream, no matter how fond it is or how closely it has intergrown with my life, personality, and happiness, well, holding on to it will never bring it a day closer than impossible it seems. So, if I let go of it now, I won't let go of it later; if I let go of it later, I won't let go now, the readiness is all, but I am far from ready.

Anniversaries are ticking by. Two weeks and one week. Years and days are passing. Am I leaving this dream betimes or belatedly?

I am luckier than I could ever hope for. But I wish on every single one of the trillion stars in the sky that things were different. Except one. On that last faint star I'm wishing that I even knew how to begin to give up.

*sigh* It's 2 a.m.

Hurry up please it's time.

Goodnight moon; Goodnight lamplight;

Goodnight sweet ladies, goodnight.

Stepping Back

Today I did my hair in a bun! Surprise! I do my hair in a bun nearly every day. In fact, today was the fourth bun in a row this week. I think Monday was a ponytail. But today, I reached back into the deep and distant past that most of you don't know, and pulled from it a hairstyle I haven't sported since my earlier high school days: the complex braided bun. I think only two people in my readership know I mean by that. Let me assure them, it was a simple one, not one of those crazy eight-braid, four twist, strung together with ribbons and old-fashioned yarn kind. You see, I used to be the queen of buns. I had long, perfectly straight hair, and I could do buns with twists down the sides, buns with braids down the sides, buns with ribbons, buns made up of old fashioned brades that looked like woven hair, big buns made of little braids, etc. So today, as I searched for a hairstyle I could wear that wasn't my usual bun, I suddenly remembered, that, if anyone knows how to do a bun, it's me. So I quickly whipped up a couple of braids and twisted them into a bun, feeling much better. Of course no one noticed. Let's be honest, there's actually not that much difference between a braided bun and a regular twisted one. But still, it felt nice to do something different. And like I was channeling a previous edition of me for a few minutes there.

Last night I went to a choir concert. I think I may have forgotten what a renewing experience a beautiful live concert can be. By the end, I felt like I had gotten some kind of emotional tune up, and some of the blockages and grime that were backing up my system were simply dissolved away. It was like stepping into the past, when I used to go to things like that all the time.

Tonight I made another smart decision that I probably wouldn't have made a few years ago, way to go me! That's a step forward. But then I found myself on a rickety set of wooden stairs way past my bedtime having a conversation that was nearly identical to more than one conversation I've had in the past. The same reasons, the same lines, the same reaction. Years pass and people in my life come and go, and yet I can't really say how many times I've had this same conversation. Four? Five?

There's a line from a Rush song that goes: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Stages

A friend of mine, unknown to half of my readership, wrote a blog about not over anyalyzing things, just jumping into the fray, and living things fully. About letting go and just taking action. I fully support that course of action for my friend. But it got me thinking about how I'm trying to do the opposite. The comment I left on his blog this morning:

"It's funny how we end up in different stages in our life. I'm currently in a stage where I'm trying desparately to hold myself back from jumping into a battle I want to fight and searching desparately for the "smart" decision and clinging to it. Smart decisions aren't my specialty."

It's true. They're not. I have, for years now, lived by the motto: Never let the prospect of future pain intefere with today's happiness. This may be wise or foolish. It let me be happy in sad situations, have lots of fun, and savor a million moments. But it also got me into trouble and left me in a lot of pain with no one to blame but myself several times. There were a lot of times where I sat back on my heels and said, wow, that was stupid and this hurts, but, wow, that was fun! So my recent project has been to make "smart" decisions. To not rush into pain headlong for the sake of present happiness.

And honestly, I've never felt more paralyzed. When your smartest course of action is inaction, it's frustrating. Every day I feel like I should be jumping into the fray, only to reanalyze it and continue sitting on the sidelines waiting for things to change without me. They say that madness is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting the different results. Doing nothing every day and expecting things to change seems mad to me.

But, there is no denying that, in this particular case, I should do nothing. Every sage advisor would tell me the same. So now I'm frustrated, helpless, but smart. Is this really progress?

Advancing

I'm starting to think of this whole teaching gig as an RPG. Today I advanced a level and learned one new TS (Teaching Skill): Working a Mass-Copy-Making Machine. This TS is a top priority for any Novice Teachers, especially because it has a special effect: Double-Sided Copies. It also works well when used in tandem with other Novice-level TSs such as Using the Few-Copy-Making Machine, Printing to the Nearest Random Classroom, and Making Overhead Transparencies.

As I gain skills and experience points I am able to take more actions per prep period. If I budget time wisely, I may still have time to make my first attempt at Making Absent Work Packets. Wish me luck!

A teaching secret

The real reason my desk at school is covered with papers is not because the computer takes up the whole thing. It's because the spacious bottom drawer is where I hide my chocolate frosting and peanut butter for when I need to make Reeses On A Spoon.

meeting fate

I used to be a little jealous when teachers went to faculty meetings. I knew that everyone complained about them and that the teachers spoke of them in tired, resigned, and frustrated tones. But some part of me didn't like being shut out, didn't like knowing that information was being dispensed that I couldn't access. They seemed so mysterious. From the student perspective, I never saw teachers together. They were always isolated in their classrooms, their main interactions were with us. Occasionally I saw two or maybe three in a small cluster, but rarely more than that. But for faculty meetings, they would all gather in a single room and lock the door. Then, a while later, they would all come spilling out, and teachers you had no idea knew each other by sight would come out laughing together. All of a sudden the faculty was a cohesive body, separate from us. I certainly didn't want to come early those mornings and sit through boring meetings that not even teachers liked, but I still was a little jealous.

No more. Four hours of faculty meetings this morning, four hours of meetings yesterday, four or more the day before, and another six or so the day before that. I have been stuffed full of miscellaneous information and it's leaking out of my mouth, my ears, and when my eyes water I lose the evacuation route for my room and the new tax exempt code for the school credit cards. I am now "in the know." great.

Doing the math

Just yesterday a friend told me I was heavily influenced by my emotions, and I readily agreed. It's undeniably true. Given that fact, it's odd that when I sit down to make important decisions in my life, I turn to a good old fashioned pro-con list. The funny thing is then anylizing which decisions have made the important-enough-to-get-a-list list. A sample of the decisions that have so merited over the last few years: Going on a vacation with my brother, teaching middle school, taking a vacation by myself to a town I'd never been to, breaking up with a boyfriend, telling my parents about something I would rather hide from them, going on a mission, etc. The thing that I'd like to point out here is that some of these are emotionally-based decisions that most people would make with their feelings. What did I do? I sat down and made complicated lists--occasionally with different colors of pens, or I think once with a rating system (really important pro, slight con, etc. )to add more accuracy, and sometimes going back to make notes on the items on the list or to scratch out items that cancel each other out. While other people are out taking walks in the woods to acertain how they really feel, I am expressing my feelings as columns on a list ("what I want to do" is a pro, as is "what I should do," but "would hurt like the dickens" is a definite con).

Today I revisited an old decision to not do something I had desparately wanted to do, it's not important for the purpose of this blog to know what it was, but some part of me still thought that maybe the math would work out differently this time. I made the list and checked it twice. It took up two pages, contained three different sub lists, each with its own set of pros and cons, and even had a few paragraphs of further miscellaneous factors at the end. I looked at it, I read it out loud to myself. To my dismay, the pros and cons were of almost equal number on every list. All of a sudden I found myself with dilemmas. For a decision of this magnitude, how margin of safety did I need? 50/50 wasn't a safe enough bet, I thought. Besides, if you're going to make an emotional pro/con list detailing all the benefits and risks and effects you'd end up with, you have to make sure that you can live with each and all of the cons. One good con can knock out the whole decision.

But in one way, making all of the lists this morning did help. Looking at the neatly balanced columns, each filled with things I wanted and things I feared of weighty or slight import, I felt very justified in being confused everything I thought about it. Since satisfaction in this matter is denied me, I'll say Hurrah! for a little validation!

On an unrelated note, I dreamed that with a random boy in my ward and my father I went to this crazy new age hot springs resort with very modern architecture, stayed too late, nearly passed out from fear of heights on a "delicate lacy arch" (which is code for a high suspended stone walkway full of artistic but gaping and treacherous holes) and was noticed by a suspicious-looking fellow in a black jacket who proceded to throw his knife at me until he finally managed to get it lodged in my sweater (luckily not lodged in me) and I called 911 and reported him. Then I dreamed I visited him randomly years later and he was getting an enthusiastic divorce and was doing research about where he had gotten the blade, named Yorrick, in the first place. It turns out it had ties to the Chinese mafia. He was just showing me pictures and profiles of the people involved when the dream shifted.

I guess my dream makes about as much sense as my lists. :)

Weird Dreams

I think I was married. I'm not entirely sure about that part. But I'm sure that I was pregnant. If I was married, the father/husband had left me, not knowing that he was going to be a father; in fact, I'm not sure he would have known we were married. Hey, it could happen. So really, he hadn't done anything that awful, since he thought he was just breaking up with a girlfriend, not leaving his wife and the mother of his children.

But anyway, back to me. My sister-in-law and one of my sisters was also pregnant. We were wandering around together doing pregnant things (doctor's appointments, etc.). I remember being scared because my baby was going to come early and I was worried that he/she wouldn't make it. I remember trying to think of what I would name him/her. I also remember thinking about how on earth I was going to phrase the email to my former boyfriend/husband: Come home, you've got to come back into my life, you're going to be a father. And I remember feeling the baby's heartbeat... wow.

At this point the dream slowly started to disintegrate, because, probably shocked into practicality by my motherhood- and birth-related fears, I began to try and remember facts. How far along was I? My dream self asked. This woke up the logic part of my dream, and it had access to real memories, which were then taken through the filter of the dream into even weirder logic and memories. Hmmmm... the logic half said, let's see. Well, you were pregnant before your wedding, so that's why it was such a hurried, hushed up affair and why he doesn't know about it. My dream self was shocked. The shock woke up the logic half even more and gave it freer access to facts. Still trying to figure out how far along I was, I asked, How long ago was my wedding? That will give me a rough estimate of when to expect this baby and when it will be safe to have. Dutifully the logic half mused, You know, I don't think you're married at all. I have no memory of your wedding. So must not be married, you're just pregnant.

At this point, I remember being more shocked and a little sad, but very grateful to my family, because they were supporting me and hadn't said a thing about it the whole dream. Dumbfounded, I simply stared and thought for a few moments, with my hand on my stomach, feeling the baby's heartbeat.

But my dream self, assuming the responsibilities of a single mother, was more curious and logical than she's ever been. I agree, I don't remember my wedding so I'm probably not married, I conceded, but then, by that same logic, neither do I remember how I could have become pregnant, so how do you explain that? The computer-esque logic half replied simply: you're not. The dream obediently shifted and I suddently wasn't pregnant, had never been pregnant, except that my logic half and I remembered being pregnant. My scared little dream self was relieved that I wouldn't be bringing a premature baby into the world without a father or a husband, but I still mourned and cried because I couldn't feel the baby's heartbeat anymore.

So that's what I just woke up from. Let's just say I'm still kind of reeling, weirded out, and confused by that one.

Who needs roller coasters and illegal drugs?

This morning I saw my classroom. It feels a little bit like meeting a new roommate or a sibling's fiance. Although the place is new and unfamiliar, I am keenly aware that it will soon occupy an integral part of my life and thoughts. I stood there, trying to imagine how I would feel about the place a month from now, two months from now, six, a year. I imagine the expanse of freshly shampooed carpet filled with desks, the cupboards filled with my books and supplies, and the desks filled with students--shadowy forms now, but they'll soon have faces and goofy haircuts all their own. It was a little bit like writing the first entry in a brand new diary: The pages seem to house the spectres of the lines that will be written; It was a little bit like standing on an empty stage in front of an empty hall: The audience, props, lights, and excitement are almost tangible, depsite the black blankness of the stage. My classroom. Try saying it a few times to get the feel of it. My classroom. MY classroom. my classroom... My Classroom. It will soon give birth to lots of other Mys: My books, My desks, My computer, My bulletin board, My rules, My expectations, My problems, My test scores, My students...My students.

I'm headed off to Germany with a bookbag empty of homework and a head full of questions. I am a vacuum ready to absorb and combine and unify. Normally when I go on vacation I am full. Full of books, full of information to squeeze in and process in whatever corner of mental space I can find, and full of things I ought to be doing. But for the first time in a while, Tomorrow has a captial T for me. It's not a common noun, an ordinary thing already pre-planned and pre-filled and pre-ceded by days just like it. It's a proper noun, a title, a place, a state of being, a day that doesn't follow the basic pattern the majority of my days have followed for my four years at college. Tomorrow I go to Europe, and when I come back I start getting aquainted with my classroom. I'll ask it all of my questions and see what it says.

What I'm trying to say is that things are changing. My life and its basic pattern is adjusting drastically. I've been a student for eighteen years, ninteen counting preschool. I haven't not been a student since I was three years old. Now, connecting with the experienced non-student me (my inner three-year-old), I'm taking unsteady steps again, figuring things out again, making it up as I go again. I've got a lot riding on my inner toddler, but do you know what the nice thing about toddlers is? They're practically unbreakable. They can roll down the stairs, fall out of moving vehicles, scrape knees, skin elbows, get dirty, make messes, cry hard, and bounce back up to keep living. So now that it's finally time to be an adult, I'm going to fully release my inner child, catch it up quickly on everything of importance I've learned since I chained it to a desk, and let it play in a classroom of its own. Based on all of this, adulthood is only, afterall, childsplay.

this blog is not about you

I have a friend, and a good one. We've been friends for two years now. We met in weird circumstances, and he's one of the few people with whom I've ever bonded instantly. Our friendship has survived just about everything that usually kill these types of friendships: dating, dating other people, not talking for four months, different religions, not seeing each other for almost two years, completely different outlooks on life, etc. You name it, and we probably disagree on it completely. Yet we still call each other just to talk, and we always talk for at least two hours if we can manage it. He's still one the people with whom I feel the most comfortable, even though I know he doesn't agree with my entire lifestyle. Why are we like this? I have no clue. In fact, this blog isn't even about him.

This blog is about the fact that I have four hours worth of grading to do, but I don't want to do it. This blog is about the fact that I'm struggling to keep my eyes open, so it's not really fair to my students to grade their presentations right now, but I really don't have any other time I can do it. It's about the fact that I procrastinated grading their presentations yesterday so it's all my fault. This blog is about the cd that I'm listening to: Falling Into Infinity by Dream Theater. It's a cd that a friend gave to me in high school that I didn't like. I really like it now. This blog is about grammar (aren't they always). It's about how much I respect the students I TA. It's about the crazy stream of thoughts that is always going through my head. This blog is about leftover chocolate fondue on grahm crackers. This blog is about my friend, this blog is about someone else.

You know something? I don't think this is really a blog. It's not even a rant. It doesn't qualify as "blowing off steam," because I'm not actually writing about anything that's bothering me. It's not a tirade; it's not a sketch; it's not really worth reading. I think it's a sigh. This whole blog is a sigh. It's everything that goes into the sigh that you heave as you try and shut down the fire-hose of thoughts blasting through your mind and de-slump your shoulders and clear your mind as you turn to what you ought to be doing. It's that sigh.

*sigh*

the giddy grammarian

I sat next to him; it was very romantic. He had my complete and total attention. I was studying every nuance of his words, carefully weighing and assessing them. His first sentence had snatched my attention from reality like a hero snatches a damsel in distress from the jaws of death. In that moment, all I cared about was helping him achieve his dream. Unaware of myself, I leaned in closer to the source of the words. Instinctively, I reached out my hand and traced a smooth line beneath

a part of his sentence that sounded awkward. My face was only inches from the paper, and my pencil absentmindedly underlined the puzzling, fascinating words again. "Hmmm....this part doesn't sound quite right," I told him. "Yeah," he said. As I studied the sentence, flipping words around in my mind and trying possible variants, I realized I didn't remember what the author of the paper I was reading looked like. I glanced up quickly to remind myself. Oh, right. Blondish hair, nearly colorless eyes, nice smile. check. Back to the paper. Maybe if you changed the compound verb into a participle? beautiful. When the author of a paper is leaning over the paper, too, honestly evaluating my suggestion, and excitedly running his creative hands through the pile of words on the page. And when something I've said makes a rough path of a well-begun phrase smooth and the author laughs to find the blockage out of his way...I love it when I connect with a paper like that.

Let's be honest and girly for a moment (what else can I be in a pink blog?). By the end of the tutorial, I wanted him to ask me out. Not because he was stellarly good looking. I don't remember his name, although I asked him. And I don't remember that much about our conversation (although I remember clearly that he didn't put "spawned" in the passive voice, and that we eventually settled on the word "hatched" after checking two different thesauruses). And I didn't want him to take me in his arms, or to buy me a million roses. I wanted him to write to me. Because he had written the most interesting and compelling personal statement for his dental school application I had ever read.

I've noticed this about myself. Good writing is attractive to me. Incredibly. It's like a magnet, or maybe a black hole. I read a good point or well-expressed idea and I get all gooey inside. Machiavelli nearly spoiled me for other men after I read The Prince for the first time.

One of my favorite things about my last relationship was that sometimes he would read bits from his journal to me, or stories that he had written, and he was a good writer. Everytime I just wanted to curl up on his knee and purr while he read (like a cat, not a pole dancer).

Because let's face it, proclaim it, and celebrate it: good writing is captivating; it's seductive; it's sexy.

Things I Love:

writing in my journal

watching the sunrise

brushing my teeth

high quality chocolates

boxed chocolates

staying up past two a.m.

falling asleep on someone's shoulder

heartbeats

saltine crackers

pigs-in-blankets

alliteration

miso soup

hanging my favorite mirror

burning incense

burning candles

laughing

making people laugh

eyes

soft chairs

hard beds

people who can read chords and make up a piano part

jazz

old musicals

old memories

letting go of old grudges and feeling that part of you that's been clenched relax

learning new songs

clouds

stars

wind

rain

snow

shade

pine trees

gooey brownies

being able to cry when I want to

picking my nose when no one's around

keeping friends

looking at pictures of myself

thrift stores

discount appliances

beans

pizza

speaking quickly

going on walks

good poetry

people

planets

leaves

secrets

doing something right

a day well spent

a day well and gloriously misspent

intentional misspellings

hugs

original star trek episodes

feeling valuable

coming home

You were right

You were right about me. You really were. You saw everything that was wrong. I wasn't being clear, and I wasn't being fair. I must have driven you nuts. But you know something? I think I might have been right about you too. And I know that you drove me nuts. So you've walked out and I'm calling it a draw.

fish?

As my co-worker leaned over my shoulder and did a good impression of a man-squeal, "Oh they're so cute!!" it occurred to me that I don't really think fish are cute. Dolphins, puppy dogs, little frogs, ball pythons, and praying mantises are cute. Japanese kids are cute. Kittens are cute. Fish are just, well, dumb. I mean, they're probably better than no pets, and I don't really mind taking care of the Writing Center fish, Susan and Stanley. But as I sat there stressing about how much of the special chemical to add to make tap water safe in their tank, and scrubbing out their scummy tank with my hands, and then waiting an hour after work for the to water cool down enough that it wouldn't kill them from transfer shock, my feelings toward the little "darlings" were decidedly neutral.

How are fish cute? They are tolerable at best, and many are down-right bordering on repulsive. They give their owners nothing, not love, not amusement, nor cuddles. he only reasons I can think of for keeping them are to have "something living" in the room, because they look cool when they're lit up in a dark room, and because we as humans like to feel like things are dependent on us, like we're the benevelent lord of something.

I guess I'm just not a fish person.

whew!

Well, today I had my first "real" job interview. The principal, the vice principal, the head of the language arts department, and the teacher who would be my mentor all took turns asking me questions. Things went pretty well, considering I don’t have much actual experience to go off of, It’s mostly repeating what I’ve been taught makes "good practice." I’m supposed to hear back in the next few days.

My principal is a former band director--He told me to tell my mom that he’s a kindred spirit.

I’m never changing my voicemail message (the waitress one). And I’m never deleting the voice message where the principal said in response "Hi, I’d like to order one English intern..." :)

Psych!

Firstly, I just wrote a blog that was too whiny to publish. Does anyone else write a lot of things they don't actually publish?

Secondly, ecovillages are fascinating. If I weren't already too busy this summer, I'd just take off and live in one. I enjoy the middle of nowhere.

Thirdly, why do I seem to create instant friendships and bonds with people I shouldn't get involved with?

Fourthly, I really mean it, ecovillage really are amazing. Go people! They're in over 50 countries; there's over 11,000 in Sri Lanka.

Fifthly, something I've read recently said that the re-tribalizing of the world was inevitable. Prepare to be dis-assimilated. Resistance is futile.

Learned Helplessness; Natural Femininity

In education we have a term for kids who have learned that if they sit there staring at the paper long enough professing not to know how to do something, the teacher will come along and "prompt" them until most of the work is done for them. This teaches them two things: first that they don't need to do the work, and second, they can't do it by themselves.

I have a similar attitude toward car repairs and maintenance. I have no idea where to begin, despite the highly educational experience of having once dated a mechanic. So yesterday I went with a friend to put air in his tires. This made me think, how long has it been since I put air in my tires? The last time was a year and a half ago when a customer at the restaurant I was working at told me my tires were low. That was the first time I had ever heard of tires getting low. But my friend reminded me that, perhaps, I should check them again, in case they had changed somehow in the last 18 months.

Sure enough, the back left tire was disgraceful. I held a council with my roommates to determine if the tire was just really really really low or flat. We decided it was really low (which was a relief since I don't know how to change a tire), and I anxiously drove to the gas station. There I confidently pulled up next to the air pump. After all, I'd done this once before, and I'd seen it done earlier that day. I grabbed the tire/pressure gauge-thingie from the glove compartment (thank you, Dad) (it was right next to the spare tail light bulb--thank you x-boyfriend) and unscrewed the cap on my tire.

This is where my problems began in earnest. The pin on the air pump was bent, and it was spewing air nearly full force constantly. I managed to manhandle it onto my tire anyway, and was rewarded by watching my tire begin to swell reassuringly. Paranoid of over filling it, I stopped and tried to measure the pressure so far. I couldn't get the gauge to work. At this point I noticed that someone was parked in line behind me for the air pump. Cute Boy In Nice Car gave me a friendly wave, and I returned to my tire perplexed. I manhandled the air hose to my tire once again, tried to measure the pressure again, failed. I didn't even know how much to fill it up to anyway, since I couldn't find it written on the tire anywhere.

At this point I did some quick weighing of options. I could continue to fumble on my own with no idea of what to do--a pressure gauge I couldn't work, a half-broken hose, and zero knowledge--while Cute Boy In Nice Car continued to wait, or I could take shameless action. I have no shame--just pride. So I walked back to his window, smiled sweetly and said, "Are you waiting for this? 'Cause it will probably go faster if you help." Humiliating? definitly. Worth it? yes. Especially because even he had trouble getting the hose to work since our next attempt bent the pin in my tire, so he had to pry it back into position repeatedly with a pocket knife, stopping to fix the hose with the same knife. Finally, about fifteen minutes later, Cute Boy In Nice Car, after checking all of my tires (two were actually over-inflated), sent me smilingly on my way and wished me a good Friday night. I am extremely grateful to Cute Boy In Nice Car, and for all the Nice Boys who have helped me keep my car running when I helplessly survey the engine.

I swear, I don't do this sort of thing for my own amusement, or because of some case of exaggerated femininity (pink blog not withstanding)! I do try to be somewhat independent. But there are few times I feel so helpless as when my car develops problems. Is there a class of basic mechanics for helpless, over-educated dummies? Maybe I should just move to Oregon where they'll pump my gas for me, since I apparently am hopeless, helpless, and stereotypically girlish when it comes to my car.

Single only wish

          Yesterday was my one month anniversary of being single, again. After a relationship that spanned seven months of dating and a year of being friends. *sigh* Guess what? A month doesn't actually go all that far toward getting you over someone like that. I think this month has mainly served to make me get used to the idea of being single again.
       You know something? I have a really bad attitude toward being single. This is my second time being dumped in a relationship I had given myself to completely and had set most of my hope on. Maybe it's just BYU, but I begin to feel like I'm no longer the shiny and new girl gleaming from the single-shelf. I feel like I'm in the back store of the single-thrift store, an already used, slightly worn product with threadbare edges. I won't be able to whisper "that's the first time I've ever said that to anyone" to the next person to whom I say "I love you." I could be on the brink of committing to marriage and not be able to smile with clear eyes and say, "I've never felt like this about anyone." "No one's ever known me/understood me as well as you do" is another phrase I've lost my verbal-virginity for. I can't even say, "nothing has ever hurt this badly" as I try to get over this, because it's the second time for even this. Not that that makes it easier, it just means I'm already familiar with and sick of the feeling.  I know that my experiences actually make me more aware of what I want and 
a better partner in a relationship.  But they've also given me some pretty sweet 
trust issues. 
     Additionally, I'm beginning to wonder about my odds--many people go their lifetimes and only find one person--if that--who understands them to the core and with whom they could happily spend every day. I've found two. So what are my odds of finding a third? What are my odds of finding a third anytime soon?  
    But anyway, besides feeling slightly like second-hand goods, my attitude toward being single is made even worse by the fact that I know how
 good it feels to be with someone.  I know what it feels like to have yourself come 
alive through a relationship, until it feels like life is so much more worthwhile, so
 much more vivd, so much better lived with someone.   And so learning to be single again is like feeling my heart shrink four sizes and slough off skin.  It's like a green tree that suddenly starts losing leaves.  

So what can I do?  Nothing.  There's nothing I can do.  Just lose my leaves, feel my sap retreat to my roots, wrap myself up in a cold blanket and wait for spring.  However it long it takes.  

favorite line I ever censored from an email before sending:

"I hope you have a great day, and do not, no matter what I may say to the contrary, go to Hell."

Lessons

 

It's funny, whenever I feel like seven months of strain were a waste, I suddenly realize that I'm different. I'm more responsible. I budget, I make small things happen, my room has been clean for almost a week. I eat more cheaply, more heathily. I'm better at living my life. I grew up some.

Now I'm learning to be carefree again. It feels almost weird not to have something to worry about constantly. But my carefree life will have a more stable foundation because of you. Thanks.