On Thursday

It’s the feeling of forgetting to blink, of staring at nothing in ignorant unproductivity, then starting and sighing and returning to work.

It’s the feeling of swallowing carefully, and carefully again as a week of speaking loudly settles in the throat.

It’s the half slump of fatigue mixed with resignation to the task.

It’s looking ahead to the next thing that needs to be done, and finding instead a blank and empty space, stretching across a few days with curious whiteness.

It’s the edges of your numb consciousness beginning to twitch with life.

It’s the first deep breath that isn’t followed by a sigh.

It’s the surprising, foreign feeling of wearing jeans, more fitted, more stiff, more durable.

It’s stretching, yawning, unfolding, unsagging, unnumbing, unwinding, un-growing up.


It’s Friday.

Christmas Cheer

Without a single Christmas decoration in my apartment or classroom, and with my car radio nearly permanently tuned to NPR, I was beginning to feel like Christmas was passing me by. On Thursday I realized that there were only 21 days till Christmas, and I hadn't given it any thought except to panic about my Christmas shopping. It seemed like the season was hardly present at all.

Little things kept reminding me that it was really Christmas-time, though. A Christmas tree lot in a parking lot I drive by everyday, the Christmas music I'm stubbornly playing on my computer in the mornings, the lights on houses on the way back from institute, and the decorations in the mall after a movie. Then, Friday and yesterday, I got a double-decker dose of Christmas, and it felt fantastic. After work on Friday I drove to Salt Lake and met up with Cuny. We spent a cold evening wandering through downtown, going out to eat, and seeing the lights.   Afterwards, I headed to West Valley to the Hale Centre Theatre. A friend of mine had cast tickets to The Christmas Carol.  Then, yesterday, I was delighted to find out that White Christmas was on TV.  Basking in the Christmas glow I'd begun to accumulate, I happily watched Love Actually with my roommates, too.

   

Then, this morning I woke up early, as usual.  It seems that sleeping in will be a skill I have to relearn every summer, because it's certainly not working right now.  As I rolled over at 7:30 and peered through my blinds, I found that the world had turned into a snow globe!  So I lit a candle and placed it on my window sill, curled up in a blanket, and watched the snow fall while listening to President Uchdorft's talk about love.  It was possibly the best way I could ever think to spend a wintry Sunday morning.

   

So, after a weekend of intense holiday therapy, my fears that Christmas isn't really coming this year are safely laid to rest, and I can say to one and all with joyful confidence...

   

Merry Christmas!

Lost and Found

After a month of not being able to use it, I finally bought batteries for my camera yesterday so that I would have it for the teacher talent show today and the Thanksgiving holiday. I started looking for it in the most likely place, and then branched out from there. I finally resorted to the throw everything from the floor on the bed trick to get to the bottom of some of the larger piles that have accumulated in my room like so much silt from the river of my life. I did eventually find my camera, back where I had expected it to be in the first place but where it had magically disguised itself as a pile of papers all three times I checked that shelf. As usual, while looking for my camera, I found all sorts of things I didn’t realize I had lost. Some of the best were:


My passport—how’d it get down there?
Socks.
More socks.
Lots of socks—why can’t I find any of these when I’m looking for them?
A sweater I was convinced I gave to D.I. five months ago.
My bike helmet.
My Post Secret Book.
My mittens
A purse I’d forgotten I’d owned.
Several receipts and a few more socks.
My floor.

Moving My Taw

Whenever I ask my mom what I was like when I was little, she tells this story about how I related to my siblings:

Whenever my older siblings would sit down to a game of Monopoly or The Farming Game or Risk, I, like any other little two-year-old (or so) would want to play, too. However, unlike most little two-year-olds, instead of expressing my frustration at not being able to play by running through the middle of the board, scattering pieces and ruining the game, I would sit quietly at the edge of the board as if I was playing. My older brothers and sisters would give me a piece they weren't using, and every few turns I would roll the dice and move it a few spaces. Then I'd hand some money to someone. Every once in a while, they'd hand a few ones to me to keep me happy. I didn't want to ruin the game, or simply pull all the attention to myself. I wanted to play, and I did my best through careful observation to do what they were doing. When they played risk, I was happy as long as someone let me roll the dice for them. In The Farming Game they let me put on the little plastic stickers for their crops. Besides showing that I had both lucky and very patient siblings, this story also shows something about my personality.

Fast forward 22 years or so. Change the game to skateboarding, and change the board to a mini-ramp, and you've got almost the same scene. The siblings' parts will be played by the people there about my age who were practicing slides and nose stalls and all sorts of other tricks I don't know the names for. Because of the way a mini-ramp is set up (it's sort of a small half pipe), everyone is facing each other, taking turns, and, hopefully, cheering each other on. Usually I stay off the mini-ramp unless there's no one on it but my boyfriend and me. I'm usually next to the mini-ramp, partially blocked by one wall, practicing my ollies over and over and over. I'll spend an hour just jumping up and down. It's perfect for me. I'm out of the way, I can practice, and I have a view of almost the entire park. But it also means that I'm always watching and listening to the group on the mini-ramp. What they're doing looks so fun, and they're working hard and enjoying themselves so much, that I always want to join in, but I don't want to be the two-year-old running through their board game. But I'll sneak on and practice when there's no one on it, rolling slowly back and forth, trying to pick up speed. The best comparison to give is that I'm a kid just learning to pump on a swing, while the others are doing backflips in mid air. I'm not about to monopolize their swing.

Well, Thursday, as I was practicing with Nick on the deserted mini-ramp, one of the other guys came back to use it. I'd watched him skate for the last half an hour or so, and he'd seemed friendly and nice, and he was only one person, so I decided to stay on the ramp. So, when he and Nick had each had a turn dropping in and practicing, I would slide on my rear end down to the bottom of the ramp and roll back and forth for a while. And, like I said earlier, if you've got a good group on the mini-ramp, they cheer each other on. So I'd roll back and forth, to the enthusiastic coaching and encouragement of Nick and Other Guy. With a bit of help, I started to get the hang of it.

Then, last night, I was practicing on the mini-ramp again, getting better slowly, when a whole bunch of Other Guys (including the original) came over. Bravely, I stuck my ground, partially because there was no way to get off the ramp without blocking it. After a few people had gone, Other Guy (the original) pointed to me and said with a grin "It's you're turn." And suddenly I was skating with lots of encouragement and advice from everyone. I didn't take as many turns as the other kids, but that feeling of just starting to be part of the game was there. I was moving my piece, getting a few bucks, and the others were willing to let me play that way. Although it made me feel somewhat like a little kid again, it felt great to finally be part of the game.

Saying Nothing

There are a few notable disadvantages to blogging as rarely as I have been blogging lately. The first is that I feel obligated to blog when I have the time and opportunity, whether or not I have anything to say. The second is that, by the time I actually get around to blogging, I don’t have anything coherent to say. All I posses at the moment for a reader’s enjoyment is a collection of random thoughts, disjointed ideas, and a few teaching moments. No single one of these tidbits is really blog worthy, and post containing all of them would simply be a jumbled mess. Try as I might, I’m not pulling out any coherent themes by which to group this miscellaneous experiences and thoughts. The only recent events worth blogging about is really too personal to smear crudely on the public wall of the internet.

So, this blog isn’t going to say anything. It’s just going to ramble politely and conclude emptily. Abruptly.

Nonsense

Sometimes I sit at my computer screen sifting through the internet, as bored as all get out, and fighting sleep every moment. I want nothing more than to lie down and sleep; after all, it is past midnight. But for some reason, I have this compulsion to put it off, keep drifting from sight to sight, opening up endless new tabs and typing in new addresses. All the while I wonder, why aren't I in bed?

On Not Being Behind

I realized something this week. I am not behind. My grading is proceeding right on schedule and I will have end of the term grades ready in plenty of time for next week's deadline. My learning targets for this term are actually all taught. Two more class periods will finish up Malcolm X. One of those class periods is already planned.

Yearbook is still a learning experience, but I'm figuring things out. Today my lifetouch rep came and looked over what we've done so far, gave me some tips, and said it looked good. My students' first deadline is in two weeks. They're a little behind, but I think I've planned enough time for them to slip a little if they need to. But the pages they're putting together look good.

My ward choir performed. They did well. I'm planning the Christmas program. It looks fun.

Put all these things together...and I'm not behind. I'm not in a panic. It's the end of the first term, and everything's fine. I don't really know how to function this way. I expected chaos. I expected to need to turn my internal stress dial up to "Ruin Your Health" and blast my way through the next few weeks. After all, I still haven't begun to plan the next term yet. But I already know how I'm going to start it.

I can hardly grasp this new, strange, and slightly exhilarating sensation. Instead of barrelling down a hill wondering which patch of gravel is the best one to crash in, I'm cruising confidently down the slope. If I were to sum up my reaction to this new (and probably temporary) state of affairs, it would sound like this:

"What the...!? I'm not behind? How'd that happen?!"

Oh yeah, one more...

Just as a shout out to cavdawg... I was running late this morning, again. :)

   

But, unrelated to that, I have done, yet another thing that puts me in the "Wow, it looks like you're having a mid-life crisis" category.  You see, I have never dyed my hair.  I planned on never dying my hair.  I was firmly taught that dying one's hair meant that you forfeited the natural highlights that had developed over years.  Not only that, but you would be trapped into paying to have your hair redyed over and over and over, with your only option for escape to cut it all off, or dye it back to your original color, but this time without those natural highlights.  It would be years before you could recover.

   

Yet, Saturday morning, I enlisted a lovely assistant, 

and he dyed my hair.  !!!       !!!      !!!    

    

My reasoning was thus:  

   

I have actually always admired funkily colored hair.  Especially super short, funky-colored hair.  Now, after years of coveting it, I finally have super short hair.

   

Second, it occurred to me one evening last week that my super short hair exempts me from all the tragic consequences of dying my hair.  I can dye my hair any color I want, and, in about a month, I'll cut all of the dyed hair completely off, simply to remain my current hair cut.  Presto, hair back to the way it was before I dyed.  Exactly.  No redying, no trap.  I was free to experiment consequence free.  

   

So, embolden by my immunity, I reached for what I'd always secretly wanted, and I have gone from hair like this:

   

To hair pretty much like this (the flash made it turn out slightly more red than it's actual color):

Miscellaneous

Tonight is going to be catch up on my blog night.  I've been very good tonight, and graded lots of papers, so I deserve a little extracurricular life.
 
Pictures of dress up day have been requested multiple times, so here are a couple from 80s day.  It looked better in person, but you can get the general idea.

   
Second, last week, on Monday, I went to a "content day" for the district.  All the junior high and high school English teachers came to learn about and discuss a variety teaching topics.  It was held at a local high school.  I took plenty of notes related to the topics the seminars were about, but I also took notes on other things I was thinking.  The result was somewhat humorous.  So, without further ado, here are my thoughts from content day.


8:05 Wow.  That is one tall drinking fountain.  It's chest high!
         This school smells like hamsters.
8:30 I actually WANT to learn Spanish!
         Crap!  ESL kids don't get study skills for homework help anymore?  Crap crap crap.
9:20 I need a hair cut--time to call Amanda
         Socratic Seminar??
9:55 I like trail mix two times only: when I'm hiking, and as a "snack" at one of these seminars.
         Teachers at this school have really fun bulletin boards.
         There has got to be a book about analyzing people based on their doodles when they're bored.  You could analyze personality, intelligence, creativity, penchant for organization and neatness, etc.
10:00 Why did houndstooth come back in?  Is it piggy-backing off of Argyle's recent surge in popularity?
            Sigh.  I want a real plant.  Something that good with artificial light.
10:05  I don't like corduroy pants, but I do like the word curduroy.
            Is giving students candy that's not individually wrapped even LEGAL anymore?
10:07  What does it say about me that most of doodles are geometric patterns?  What does it say that I can't draw a non-skewed geometric pattern to save my life?  They always turn out with non-uniform angles...and slightly bent lines.
10:10  How can I get my hands on the Dr. Brain series? Especially the Lost Mind of Dr. Brain.  I loved those games.
10:15  Give me lamination, double-sided tape, and magnetic things, and I will change the world.

Running Late

I admit it.  I am a "snoozer."  Not only that, but I'm a snoozer with three alarms set every morning (all on my cell phone).  I have alarms going off every two to three minutes from 5:21 a.m. to around 5:45 when I stumble out of bed toward the shower.  

    

This morning, I somehow turned them all off.  This means that instead of stumbling out of bed at 5:45, I fell out of bed and my stomach kept sinking all the way to my toes as I looked at the clock: 6:31.  Crap.  I try to leave the house between 6:45 and 7:00.

    

This post is purely to brag.  I made it out the door, looking pretty good, before seven o'clock.

Playing Dress Up

I wrote this post last week and forgot to post it.  Enjoy!

   

I have always enjoyed the chance to play dress up.  Costumes, fabric scraps, my mom’s cast offs, my older sisters’ makeup, you name it, and I probably dressed up in it.  We have pictures of me heading up the road in my mother’s heels and my diaper.  In our basement were two laundry hampers full of old costumes and scraps of unused fabric, and every sleepover included playing in “the scraps.”  Although I have outgrown playing with barbies and my brothers’ GI Joes, I never seem to have grown out of playing dress up.  Well into high school, my closest friends would come over and we’d still pull out “the scraps” and come up with ridiculous outfits, although we didn’t pretend that we were orphaned princesses running away from arranged marriages to live with gypsies/marry the stable boy/take care of other orphans. 

  

Half the fun of any play I’ve ever been in was dressing up and finding the perfect hairstyle, accessories, and nuance of makeup to complete “the look.”  Anyone who has ever lived with me can attest that getting ready in the morning for me is nearly always another game of dress up.  What “look” can I complete today?  From super classy to punk, from conservative to hippie, I am nearly always sliding among styles from day to day.  I take pride in my ability to put together a complete and authentic look in a limited amount of time from the resources at hand.

  

Having a steady, professional job has, however, brought an element of boredom to the game.  I’m dressing up as nearly the same thing everyday: a teacher.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some fun subtly experimenting with that one, too.  I tend to drift along the continuum between the ultra-conservative teacher look (a tight bun, a dark-colored sweater, and my great-grandmother’s pearls) and the slightly nutty bohemian teacher who teaches her students to chain themselves to trees and wears pirate earrings.  But, as much as I try to spice things up, there’s only so much I can do when playing the role of “teacher” for the hundredth day straight. 

  

…Which is probably why I so enthusiastically embrace dress-up days at school.  Once a year my school has “Blast From The Past Day,” and students and teachers can dress up from any decade from the 50s to the 80s.  Last year, I went with the idea suggested by my long, straight hair and wore flowing skirts and a blouse and sandals and drew a peace sign on my check with eye-liner.  This year, I was a little puzzled. I sat on my couch last night trying to figure out what to do.  The long straight hair has been chopped off; I have boys in my classes with longer hair than mine.  So it must be time to update my “look” by a few decades.  Which put me square in the 80s.  In about half an hour of borrowing and exploring the depths of my own closet, I suddenly had an outfit.  Oversized shirt (white with colored stripes and bright orange accents) tied at the natural waist with a hot pink undershirt, black pencil skirt pulled up to the natural waist, gray leggings (I wanted something brighter but was constrained by the limits of what I already owned or could borrow from neighbors), shoes and bright red socks took care of clothing.  Large, wooden hoops I purchased at a dollars store a year ago and a huge, tacky necklace purloined from my grandmother’s jewelry box for a gypsy costume a few years ago took care of accessories.  Then came the most fun parts.  Blue and pink eye shadow, lots of it.  Bright blue eyeliner and hot pink lipstick.  And, last of all, the hair.  With the assistance of some very very sticky stuff, I now have a four inch hawk. 

 

On Smelling Bad

This morning I awoke in the predawn darkness to one terrifying thought:  I had forgotten to set my alarm.  I had gone to bed with phone in hand, ready to set the alarm, but had fallen asleep before I could perform this vital bit of preparation.  I groped in the blackness for my phone—I couldn’t find it.  What time was it?  How long had I slept?  Was I going to be late for work?  I quickly sprang out of bed, remembering just in time that the floor was filled with my duffel bag and pack I hadn’t bothered to unpack the night before.  I flicked on the light, found my phone, and stared intently at the numbers displayed so calmly on the screen.  6:09!  I was both in trouble and in luck.  I had slept in by almost half an hour, but I also hadn’t slept in too late to make my carpool if I skipped a few little steps in my morning routine.  You see, getting ready in a hurry is all about priorities.  My teeth got brushed; my hair did not.  My hands were washed, my hair and face were not.  Another layer of make-up and hair gel later, I was out the door. 

      

I arrived at school expecting to feel a little gross.  Slightly hairy legs, greasy hair, and two layers of makeup will do that to a girl.  What I didn’t expect was a spate of vile smelling gas and persistent bad breath, despite the fact that I had brushed my teeth this morning.  There’s nothing like being in front of people all day long to remind you that you neither look nor smell your best.  I worked with over a hundred 8^th graders today.  My only consolation is that, at their age, they’re so concerned with how they look that they have few thoughts to spare for my condition.

Why I Teach

Today is the third day of school, and today, during my first class of the day, I was suddenly reminded of several things.  The first was several reasons why teaching is difficult--students who won't stop whispering, calling out, etc.  but then there were a few things that reminded me of why I love to teach.  I spent ten minutes in class today quickly memorizing all my students' names.  I forced myself to be able to say them in any order, and to call them by the names they wanted to be called by.  As I correctly listed them off, one girl grinned and said, "That's the first time anyone has remembered my name."  I'm always surprised at how impressed my students are when I know their names in the first week of school.  Although sitting there while I repeat their names over and over again to memorize them isn't very exciting, I start to see a change come over a few of the faces in the crowd.  It's most obvious in the shyer students, the ones that never say anything, so it takes longest to learn their names usually.  The look of surprise on most of my students' faces when I take class time to learn their names can best be articulated as, "Oh!  You actually care about getting my name right.  Cool."  At the age of 13, they all need more adults that care enough to learn their names.
   
But the reason that means even more to me came when I was explaining pronouns and antecedents.  Antecedent is a big scary word, and the definitions of the two words do little to explain their meanings or functions if one isn't adept at extracting meaning from definition.  But the concept is actually surprisingly simple.  The trick is explaining it right.  Today, I did it right.  I knew I had when, just at the part of my lesson I had hoped would make the idea crystal clear for them, one of the smart alecs in my class suddenly blurted out in surprise, "Oh, I understand!"
 
What's much harder for me to explain than antecedents is the sense of joy and fulfillment I get from seeing their surprise and grudging respect when I learn their names.  One of the best feelings I know in the world is when my students grasp something that most people think is hard, especially if I can credit it partially to the way I explained it.  I don't know if it's a selfish thrill or not, but I love to see them soften toward school and learning and start to succeed.  I love it when I help them see that it's actually easy.
   
In that way, we feed off each other, my students and me.  They need the sense of success and accomplishment that comes from coming to know that they can succeed, and I need the sense of success and accomplishment that comes from showing them that they can succeed.
 
So, if you'll excuse me, I have to go plan a lesson on verbs.

What D&D Character Are You

129 questions later...

I Am A: Lawful Good GnomeWizard/Cleric (2nd/1st Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-12

Dexterity-11

Constitution-12

Intelligence-16

Wisdom-11

Charisma-14


Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.


Race:
Gnomes are in wide demand as alchemists, inventors, and technicians, though most prefer to remain among their own kind in simple comfort. Gnomes adore animals, gems, and jokes, especially pranks. They love to learn by personal experience, and are always trying new ways to build things. Gnomes stand 3 to 3.5 feet tall and live about 350 to 500 years.


Primary Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.


Secondary Class:
Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need, while an evil cleric seeks to spread his patron's vision of evil across the world. All clerics can heal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death, and powerful clerics can even raise the dead. Likewise, all clerics have authority over undead creatures, and they can turn away or even destroy these creatures. Clerics are trained in the use of simple weapons, and can use all forms of armor and shields without penalty, since armor does not interfere with the casting of divine spells. In addition to his normal complement of spells, every cleric chooses to focus on two of his deity's domains. These domains grants the cleric special powers, and give him access to spells that he might otherwise never learn. A cleric's Wisdom score should be high, since this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)





Detailed Results:

Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (26)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (24)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (20)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (18)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXX (8)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXXX (11)
Chaotic Evil ---- X (1)

Law & Chaos:
Law ----- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Chaos --- (0)

Good & Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Neutral - XXXXXXXX (8)
Evil ---- X (1)

Race:
Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Dwarf ---- XXXXXX (6)
Elf ------ XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Gnome ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Halfling - XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Half-Elf - XXXXXXXXX (9)
Half-Orc - (0)

Class:
Barbarian - (-23)
Bard ------ (-19)
Cleric ---- XXXXXX (6)
Druid ----- (-21)
Fighter --- (-6)
Monk ------ XX (2)
Paladin --- (-2)
Ranger ---- XXXX (4)
Rogue ----- (-8)
Sorcerer -- (-2)

Wizard ---- XXXXXX (6)

    

Figure out your own D&D character by taking this survey.

Ghosts in the Machine

Two years ago, I lived in Japan for a summer. It was an incredibly vivid experience; itt felt like living in technicolor. After I returned, memories of Japan surrounded me so constantly a psychic would probably not have seen my aura as a color, he or she would have seen it as the smell of cement on a humid day, the sound of n approaching train, a travelling companion's smile, and a thousand other things that stuck in my head. It took me two weeks after returning to the home I had grown up in before I felt like it wasn't just a vacation spot. Although I was happy to back in the U.S., and to eat the brownies I had missed so dearly, and to hug my parents and siblings, I kept feeling that I needed to go "home" to apartment 203 and my little room, furnished only with my futon and the contents of my two suitcases.

After two more semesters of school, I had the opportunity during last year's summer break to spend a week in Germany. There were many wonderful and uniquely German things that I saw and experienced, but, to be honest, I spent a great deal of time in Germany surrounded by thoughts of Japan and the previous summer. The small streets and humidity made me feel like if I just ducked down the right side street or took the right train long enough, I would be at my apartment in Tokyo. I would climb the stairs, open my door, and my old roommates and companions would be there. I could climb up to the roof and feel the Tokyo breeze and I knew I'd be back where I belonged. I walked through Germany surrounded quite often by ghosts of Japan.

Then, this spring, I nearly got a job that would have moved me to Japan for at least a year. Since I got back from Japan, I have thought a lot about how it would feel to return to Japan after two long years. I used believe that I just couldn't do it without my old travelling companion. After about a year, I figured I could go back by myself and enjoy it, but pictured myself nearly drowning in memories and nostalgia when visiting old favorite places.


Well, the day finally came. Strong-arming my suitcases up and down escalators as I left the airport didn't give me much time for reflection, but as I sat on the train and looked around, listening to the same woman's voice warn passengers that the doors were closing, there was a sense of coming home, of picking up where I had left off. Today I visited nearly several of my favorite parts of Tokyo in one day. I spent a lot of time staring through the leaves of my favorite Japanese maples in Meiji Jingu, I sifted through the clearance racks of at least a dozen stores in Harajuku, and I walked through Yoyogi park.



Finally, I took the train to my "home" station. As I left the station, I didn't need to look where I was going, I knew the way. There was the sushi restaurant, the King Kong Pachinko parlor, the store that sells a hundred little wrestling figurines. I ducked inside the grocery store we were once so proud of discovering (it was an extra ten minute walk from our aparments, but it was at least 10 yen cheaper for everything) and bought myself some of my favorite dessert. Nearer and nearer to the old apartments I came, stepping into stores I had once visited nearly daily.

Finally, I see it. Just past the recyle shop, down a side path, and then climb the stairs. They're steep. There's more dust than I remember. I stop outside the door to my old apartment long enough to whisper "I'm home." Except I didn't feel anything. No rush of nostalgia, no yearning for past experiences. I climbed up two more flights to the apartment where the rest of our party had lived and where I'd spent the majority of my time. This, for sure would take me back. But still, just simple curiousity that was quickly satisfied with a quick look at the red door was all I felt. One last flight up to the top of the stairs, and I was opening the door to the roof. It looked smaller than I remembered. I stepped to the railing and looked out over the street like I used to do nearly every morning. The breeze felt familiar, and all the shops were where I remembered them, and bicycles still sped past below me, but there was no tug at my heart strings, no desire to stay.

It was odd, because that roof had been my sanctuary, my retreat. I had spent hours upon hours up there. Talking, reading, thinking. But now it was empty. Not even a ghost rose to greet me.

I suppose that's the thing about ghosts: you can't predict them. I guess I hadn't realized just how many of those ghosts that used to haunt my steps I have laid to rest over the past two years. I have a million connections to Japan, and I felt many of them reactivate today. Meiji Jingu is heart-rendingly gorgeous and still one of my favorite places on this good Earth. Takeshita Dori is still a blast, but the connections I expected to feel the most were oddly silent. As I sat on the roof I found myself thinking, "I don't need to stand here and wait for nostalgia to hit me. I have a million memories of this place, I don't need one so disconnected from the rest." I honestly feel no need to relive the past. Living it once was enough.

So, I'm ready for new memories of Japan. Somewhere over the last year or so, I stopped wanted to come to Japan to recover the life I lived that brief summer and began wanting to come to Japan simply because I like so many things about being here. What I think this very long blog is trying to say is that I came back to Japan and found it very much alive and demanding to be recognized in the present, not confined to the past and populated with ghosts. Goodness knows, the 12 million living people here are more than enough.

So, hello Japan. I'm back, and you're still Awesome.

Crouched at the Starting Line

Tomorrow morning at a very early hour, about 4:30 a.m., I will begin another epic journey. First I will be driven to the airport by an unfortunate saint who volunteered to get up that early on a Sunday morning. From Salt Lake City I will fly to Seattle, where I will wait five hours before boarding another plane. This flight will be long, probably boring, and supposedly "overnight." It must be overnight, because I when I finally remove my now-seat-shaped rear from the cushion, I will have arrived at the next day. Oh, and another continent. Because I'm headed to Japan. I'll be gone for almost exactly three weeks.

While words cannot express how excited I am to be in Tokyo again, this trip have challenges that my last one did not. Last time, I had what I believed to be a remarkable amount of disposable income to simply throw around and travel. This time, I'm completely two-dimensionally broke.

But I am, nevertheless, going to return to old haunts, find new sights to see, and breathe air resplendent with both humidity and pollution.

But at this instant, I find myself slightly over prepared. My suitcases are packed, the items going into my carry-on are carefully strewn about the living room. I've packed up all my clothes and music, and I'm waiting until I hit the airport to start reading the books I've packed. All I can do at this point, is wait. Wait for the clock to tick off a few more hours until bed time. I suppose I'll go clean anything that will go bad in three weeks' time out of the fridge and record a new answering machine message informing people that I am off on adventuring once more.

Yeah, I think I'll do that. It beats going over my train schedule for the fifth time.

Yatta!

Yesterday afternoon I did something slightly impuslive.

Well, as impulsive as something that I've wanted to do for over a decade can be.

But, yesterday I finally put my years of indecision aside and took drastic action.

For those of you who read my blog and also talk to my parents on a regular basis, don't tell them yet. There's a possiblity I might be going home today, and I want to surprise them. :)

Profound Thoughts, Maybe

I feel obligated to write today and say something incredibly profound. Now is the perfect time for profound, reflective thoughts. I have cleaned my room, said good-bye to the last few students for this year, officially accepted my job offer at this school, and I am merely sitting at my desk with nothing but summer projects to do, waiting for the administrators to tell me I can go home, which won’t happen for another few hours. I have survived my first year of teaching. I am no longer a “first year” teacher. Now is the perfect time to fill in this empty blog space with all sorts of profound thoughts about teaching, how I’ve grown as a teacher and as a person over the year, and other such reflective topics. However, I don’t really have anything to say. I did learn a lot about teaching, and I did grow a nearly unchartable amount as a teacher and a decent amount as a human being over the past few months, but I don’t have any profound thoughts to offer all the people who keep asking me what my final thoughts on the year are. I guess the closest I could come is to say that, after nine months of school, I like teaching. That’s pretty profound, but only to other people who have spent time after school or during classes wondering if this is really what they want to be doing with their lives. I don’t know about the rest of my life, or the next five years, or any such far away lengths of time, but now, today, I like teaching. I’m excited for next year.

Perhaps the real reason I have nothing more profound and earth-shattering to say than “um.. I like teaching?” is because I haven’t been reflecting on the past year for the past few months. I’ve been gearing up for the future. I have a million plans for my summer, and a million hopes and dreams and challenges being thrown at me next year. As an added incentive to forward thinking, my future has been up in the air nearly constantly over the past few months, and, now that I finally know better what it will look like, I am surveying it with great interest.

And I’m determined to make this summer awesome. For the past nine months, it has often been an all-consuming task just to keep up. A common thought pattern was: “I can’t do __________ because I don’t have time, or energy for that matter.” It’s a fair argument to make that I might not have done _________ anyway, being naturally lazy and often inclined to say that learning new things takes too much effort. Now, things have eased up, and summer is stretching before me. I am determined not to let my natural laziness or summer lethargy find my summer over before it’s begun in August. I am planning to make things happen. I will get back into climbing. I am learning to skateboard. I will bike lots of miles to beautiful places. I will learn new songs on the guitar. I will spend lazy moments in the park. I will cook fantastic food. I will put miles of roadtrips on my car to see things I haven’t seen yet. I will stay up late talking; I will get up early to see the sunrise.

In short, I am resolved to let neither fear nor laziness stop me this summer.

Gannungagap

I wanted my students to have experience with more mythology than just the Greek and Roman varieties, if you count those two as separate, which I don’t. So I spent an hour this morning researching Norse mythology. The more I read about it, the more fascinating it is. It is unbelievably complicated, which gives me the challenging of picking out the essential bits for my students and simplifying it down, and is very different from the mythology I’m used to studying. However, although its outward forms are unfamiliar and strange, it is also a mythology with which I, and all of my students are intimately familiar. Although Greek mythology is the one whose stories we know, and for whose gods we named out planets, and the pantheon we study over and over in school, Norse mythology is the one that has captured our fantasies since our ancestors lived in the deep forests of Europe. Our academics may have adopted the Greek mythologies, but our folk tales have many more elves and dwarves than they do chimeras and centaurs.

Not only that, but it contains even more fun words than Greek mythology does. Although I love words like Diomedes and Hephaestus, they can’t compare to something like Gannungagap and Ymir and Niflheim.

Two unrelated notes:

1) I have now officially applied for my own job. Applying for the job I already have feels slightly weird.

2) In a brief moment of boredom, I cyberstalked someone today. I admit it! I googled them. And I found pictures of them when they were in high school and the address of their blog. I guess I have now officially joined my generation.

A Dream Deferred

"A Dream Deferred"

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

--Langston Hughes

The long awaited email finally came. Amity Corp sent an email that nicely thanked me for my time and effort and told me that they will not be offering me a position. It's been less than a week since my interview; I guess they didn't need to think about it very long. I'm not really sure what happened. I know my interview didn't go spectacularly, but I am also rather overqualified for the position. I really really wanted to go back to Japan. It was the only teaching related thing that actually called out to me as something I wanted to do. And I was so proud of myself for being brave, being willing to strike out on my own, and for following my dreams. I felt so good about trying this, about giving it my all, that it's disheartening to have it simply disappear without even a fanfare for farewell--just a simple, silent email that I happened to see just as my last student headed out the door for the day.

I do have other options for going to Japan, but they would all include a major step backwards in my career and my usefulness. It looks like I will be here next year. And who knows? Maybe the year after that. Cancel all the excitement, all the premature good-byes, all the hopes.

But all is not lost, and I really have no right to complain. Just yesterday a small miracle happened. My principal informed me that, contrary to everyone's reliable information, there will be an English position open at my school next year. I love my school, and there are many real advantages to staying here. So I do have a plan, an option, and an opportunity. I'm still bummed, and I feel like I just got yanked back three months emotionally, when I had just resigned myself to staying in the country at least another year and hopefully planning on staying at my school. I was genuinely looking foward to it. Then my job fell through and I started searching for a dream to chase and found it in Japan. Then, yesterday I found out the that there will be a job to apply for afterall, and today that the dream I've been chasing for months isn't possible anyway.

I'm a little emotionally confused. I'm happy that I might get to stay, but crushed that I can't go. So, I think I'll eat some chocolate, read a book, pick the yearbook staff for next year, and maybe go for a bike ride. If the past while is any indication, what I want will have little effect on my actual options, so it's best to be happy. Assuming that my future doesn't suddenly reverse course again in the next while, I'm looking forward to next year...in Utah. That is, I will be after some ice cream and chocolate and just a dash of moping.

Westward Ho!

This may surprise some of you, but I'm flying to Seattle today.

I'm flying to Seattle to interview for a job that would take me to Japan for the next year. Remember a few blog posts ago or so when I mentioned applying for a job that I really wanted? Yeah, this is it. I got an email from the company on Tuesday night asking me to be in Seattle this weekend for the interview. So I blew my savings on plane flights and hotels, and I've packed all my suits and professional clothing in my backpacking pack. I was up until midnight working on an example lesson plan and the accompanying props. Speaking of props--major props to the friend who came over and took me grocery shopping and helped with my props until nearly midnight, but they don't read this blog anyway. But without them, I probably wouldn't have gotten any sleep at all.

I'm gambling a lot this job opportunity, but that's what trying to fulfill dreams is all about right? Taking risks. It's about not doing sensible things like fixing one's car and instead using that money to buy last minute plane tickets to Seattle and moving to foreign countries to live by one's self. It's about going for broke. Right?

I wouldn't call myself incredibly well-travelled, but my record's not bad. I've travelled to three foreign countries and two other continents. I even have a fair amount of solo travel experiences. I've flown to Hawaii, Japan, Washington D.C. etc. on my own, and I've wandered around strange cities many times. But I don't think I've ever done a trip quite this solo. I've never bought all my own tickets and reserved all my own hotel reservations. I've never not had someone to meet me in the destination city, whether at the airport or near to it. This is my first trip completely on my own. Chances are, no one else from my interview group will even be in the same hotel. The number of things that could potentially go wrong on this very high-stakes trip (did I mention that I blew my whole savings? and that I really really want this job?) are rather alarming, but, overall, I'm staying confident. I'll have my cell phone and my computer, and there are few problems that can't be solved with internet access and phone calls to friends and family. I've looked up the necessary bus schedules, and I've got double copies of all the important information.

So, wish me luck, both with the travel and the interview.

On an Unrelated Note

I love clothes, and I have a lot of them. My attitude was always that there was no such thing as too many clothes as long as one did not spend very much for them. Because I am an avid thrift store shopper and a seeker out of hand-me-downs and cast-offs. I hold on to old clothes on the chance that they can be revamped into a different outfit as fashions change. On the whole, my efforts have been rewarded. Without spending much, I amassed a larger wardrobe. But, as part of graduation celebrations, my mom bought me a new skirt and two new shirts. As I took them home and went to put them away, I was forced to acknowledge a strange and new idea as reality. I had too many clothes. I have extra drawers and places for sweaters and a closet and a dresser and every possible place that could hold clothes was bursting. Drawers needed to have the clothes in them forcibly compressed before they could be closed. No matter how carefully I foled them, my clothes were always wrinkled from being stuffed, albeit carefully, in the drawers.

So my roommate of five years and I sat down and went through every drawer and threw things out with ruthless disregard for sentiment and future possibilities of some clothes returning to fashion. We eliminated old clothes, redudancies, things I liked but didn't love or need. Some clothes left that I hadn't worn in a year, but most of the discarded items were things I did use frequently enough to justify keeping them. I have a lot of clothes, but I wear nearly all of them. But I had to face the fact that I had too many clothes. For those of you who have lived with me, you know how hard it must have been. :)

Now I have three medium-sized garbage sacks full of things destined for DI. All my drawers close now. There's even room for a few more items, although not many. I'm excessively proud of myself.

On another unrelated note: I have applied for one job that I know I want. I know that business hours at their office haven't even started and that no one's seen my applicatio yet, but I'm checking my email every five minutes hoping that they'll contact me. I REALLY want this job. I'm applying for another job I might want today. The problem is that I'll probably find out about this second job before I know if I've landed the first. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the mean time, this may drive me crazy. :)

Third note: I get a new roommate today. I'm excited and nervous. I'm excited to hopefully make a new friend, but I'm nerovus that we won't get along, never see each other, drive each other crazy (I can't stand a messy kitchen, but tend to leave the living room rather...untidy). Or that she'll turn out to be crazy, or dating someone obnoxious, or throw loud parties late at night when I have to be up at 5:15, or be driven crazy by the fact that my alarm goes off at five in the morning. There are million what-ifs. She's probably moving in right now, and when I get home from work today I'll be living with somebody new.

Spring Break and My Future

I did not intend to blog this morning. I haven't been to my school in a over a week, and my desk is a mess and my classroom could use some work. But, I experimented with my bus route this morning, and I have arrived at school half an hour earlier than expected. As I prepare to begin the Monday morning of the "downhill slope to summer" it seems like a good time for reflection on Spring Break, its adventures, and the remaining weeks of school.

Although I have been in school for the past few years, my illustrious university has not been one that granted it students a spring break. I didn't really begrudge the university its decision, since it meant that school got out before the end of April. But this year, as a proud worker in the public school system, I stepped forward excitedly to claim my spring break. Since school doesn't get out until the last week of May, a break in the spring makes a big difference. As Spring Break approached, I made plans, revised them, made lists of things I wanted to do, and generally intended make the most of my long-awaited break.

And, I have to say, I think I did. After school I came home and had no idea what to do with myself. I ended up cleaning and rearranging and reorganizing my entire room. Then I went to bed at about 10 pm. The next morning I was wide awake at 6:30. But, as the day wore on, I began to get more into the spirit of things. I read my book, went grocery shopping, and spent three hours making homemade pies. Reflecting on the week, here are some of the highlights of how I spent my break:

Easter dinner with family and friends
rock climbing
going to movies
going to the temple
reading books
playing computer games
hanging out friends, new and old, near and far
going shopping
cuddling with cute cats
playing with a puppy
playing with my nieces and nephew
talking to my sisters for hours
a relaxing afternoon with my mom and sisters
researching all the possible locations I could request to live in Japan

Now there are only six weeks left of school. Twenty-nine school days. Only twenty-seven for me, because I will be taking Thursday and Friday off to graduate. Six of those days will be taken up entirely by state testing, and four more will be the last week of school, a time when no one actually teaches anything. That leaves me with only seventeen days, just over three weeks. Because our district works on A/B days, that's really only eight more lessons to prepare. Eight more lessons? I just ran out of my room to go share that discovery with one of the other English teachers. Now I'm making myself restless. I know there are a full six weeks left, but thinking that there are only eight new lessons to prepare until the end makes it seem like tomorrow. I can't decide whether these next six weeks/eight days will drag, or fly. But either way, spring is here, and summer just around the corner.

Adventures in Adventuring

Confession:  I skipped FHE again.  

Justification:  I skipped FHE for awesomeness and adventure.  

   

Some time ago, I learned that the Lotus Temple in Spanish Fork offers free yoga classes and meditation on Monday and Thursday nights.  I was immediately interested.  I would like to try yoga, and I like free, and I've liked every devotee to Krishna I've met.  I let the idea roll around for a few weeks while I thought about it.  Then my car broke, and it seemed like I'd never go anywhere that far away on a week night ever again.

   

But I didn't count on the addiction of exercise.  I'm not someone who has ever had the self-discipline to exercise on my own.  I always enjoy exercise, be it running, skiing, hiking, biking, pilates, lifting weights, or anything else, but I have never had the self-control or self-motivation necessary to make it part of my life.  This year of teaching has been one of the most sedentary of my life.  I would go weeks without even walking a mile at once.  Then I made the decision to go car free (see previous posts), and my life began to change.  I now walk a mile every weekday morning and afternoon.  I walk or bike to the grocery store and anywhere else I care to go.  And those walks and bike rides are turning into my favorite parts of each day.  Each day they go by more quickly and more easily, and I feel healthier, happier, and more motivated to do just about everything.  

    

Sunday I went on a 9 mile bike-ride just for fun before the morning Conference session.  As I sat by the side of Utah Lake watching the sun come out from behind the mountains and listening to birds sing, and as I biked through the wooded trail by the river back to my apartment, I thought to my self, "Heck yes. More of this kind of thing WILL happen in my life."

   

So yesterday morning I investigated bus schedules to see if there was anyway I could make yoga classes possible.  Starting in my dress clothes 20 minutes from the nearest bus stop in Lehi at 3:30, could I make it to 8000 South Spanish Fork in my work-out clothes by 6:30?  Then, after the class, could I catch the last of the night back to Provo in time?  The answers to all of those questions turned out to be yes.  Except for the last one.  As I sprinted toward the bus stop (after walking and jogging about two miles from the Lotus Temple along the side of a highway after dark) I watched the last bus leave me behind.  So, I stood on a street corner in Spanish Fork and sang songs to myself while my wonderful, kind, and caring roommate came to my rescue.  Defeated but defiant, when I got home I opened up google maps and switched to street view.  Click-by-click, I began to scout for bus stops.  After ten minutes or so, I found it!  A closer bus stop to the south of the temple!  A-ha!  I should now only have a 10-20 minute walk to and from the temple.  

   

Yoga will happen again.  I loved it.  I sat in a big open room made of beautiful marble and smelling faintly of incense and took deep breaths and stretched slowly as the sunset streamed through the many windows and the parrots on the floor below whistled and called to each other.  I stretched muscles I didn't know I had, and got a glimpse of the kind of strength, flexibility, and balance possible through regular practice.  I didn't worry about where I would teach next year, how the economy was doing, or what I would do with my summer.  And afterward, I felt great.  The instructor did put in clear but tactful plugs for vegetarianism and the spiritual aspect of yoga, but I'm not opposed to either of those.  The end of the session always includes chanting, which I'm a little less excited about, if only because I don't like chanting the name of someone else's deity 108 times.   But on the whole, it was wonderful, challenging, and relaxing.  

Haiku

The more I learn about and read of haiku, the more I like it.  After teaching my students about it and having them write their own, I like it all the more.  There are some truly stunning haiku that I think anyone would love.  

   

Whether you are a haiku novice, skeptic, or a full-blown haiku-phile, the poems published by the Mainichi Shinbun as their annual selection of English haiku are well worth your time.  Scroll down to see the top selections.

   

Here are two of my favorites from the list:

   

3rd Prize:
    
meteor shower
I drift
from wish to wish 

   

Jacek Margolak 
Kielce, Poland
   

Giraffe sneeze
Sounds of savannah
What a long snot 
T. McLean 

    
Edmonton, Canada

Chookme!

One of my favorite parts of posting comments on my friends' blogs is typing in the security word.  They are nearly always hilarious.  Often I'm tempted include whatever made-up word it's asking my to type in my comment so my friends can share in the fun.  This week's favorites are dropu and chookme.  I think I'll go add the security feature to my own blog just so there is a little more randomness in this world.  

   

As Willie Wonka once told his guests, "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men."

Anniversaries

Today makes one complete week since I gave up my car.  I know that I will have more and better observations and after a few months of my new lifestyle, but here are a few things I've noticed so far:

   

1.  The cheapest part about getting a used bike is the bike.  I'm headed to the store to buy another $50 worth of stuff, making my total bike-related expenditures close to $200.  Granted, these are all one-time purchases, and all together it's still $225 cheaper than buying the new bike I had wanted.  Plus, even if I did buy the new bike, I would still have needed to buy the pump, the patch kit, the tire levers, the chain grease, the rack and panniers, and the lights.  So, this is still the cheaper option by far.  If only my bike would change gears... that will be this weekend's project.  

   

2.   In the past week I have been to or talked to the employees of at least six different bike shops.  They have all been courteous, friendly, and genuinely interested in meeting my needs, not selling me expensive gear.   If these are the type of people I get to be around if I become a "cyclist," sign me up.  

   

3.   Bike racks are usually closer than the closest parking spots.  Take that, car drivers.

   

4.   Anyone going to give up his or her car should spend a few days walking or bussing everywhere before switching to a bike.  It will make whatever bike he or she ends up with a dream come true: fast, easy, cargo-carrying, and convenient.  

    

5.   Yeah, helmets really are dorky.  Really.

    

6.   The extra planning it's been taking me to coordinate places to store my bike, times to catch the bus, etc. has actually had a positive effect on other details in my life.  I've packed a lunch every day this week, and my room's clean.  After taking an hour a half to get home, the five seconds extra momentum needed to put away my clothes and wash a tupperware seems like nothing.

7.    You know that feeling of independence and freedom you have when you have a car?  You have the ability to take off any moment of the day or night and run errands, go for a drive, pick something up quickly.  That ability and the accompanying feeling is, unfortunately, largely curtailed when your primary modes of transportation are busses, your bike, and your own two feet.  But the compensation is that you can go all sorts of places cars can't, and you can still go nearly anywhere you care to go, you just evaluate how much you care a lot more before you set out.  

   

8.    Naming your bike is worth it; you're going to be spending a lot of time with he/she/it.  Maggie and I have spent several hours getting acquainted already, and I anticipate many happy hours spent riding her and several frustrated hours learning to fix and maintain her.  She and I are going to be going a long way together.  

Transportation Solutions

At the beginning of the school year, I was charged with green energy and conscious of a decaying automobile.  I planned to ride the bus to work for at least the first few months of school.  I tried it once or twice and discovered that it just wasn't practical.  If I drove to work, I could leave at 6:50 and get to school by 7:15.  I could leave the school in the afternoon whenever I wanted and be home 20-40 minutes later, depending on traffic.  But when I rode the bus, I had to leave the house at 5:48 and was dropped off about a mile from school at 7:00.  After a 20-minute walk, I arrived at school, an hour and a half after I had left.  I wasn't leaving the school until five or six o'clock most nights, meaning that I wouldn't get home until six or seven thirty.  Only to leave again less than twleve hours later.  

   

As a first year teacher in the first few weeks of school, I just wasn't that on top of things.  I was at my limit just surviving day to day, and the extra effort seemed impossible.  I was embarrassed to walk through town in my casual clothes after school and wait at the bus stop on the town's main drag to be picked up.  I didn't know how to load my bike onto the bus.  I didn't want to wear a helment.  So, except for a few times when my car needed repairs, I never rode the bus.  Sure, I wanted to be car-free and everything, but it just wasn't practical.  After my bike got stolen, being car-free was even less practical.  Daylight hours were short, and girls aren't supposed to walk alone after dark.  Since I usually got home after dark, I resigned myself to driving the few blocks to the coffee shop and grocery store.  And it was cold.  I was coming home exhausted every day, and the last thing I wanted was to bundle up and shuffle through the cold to carry my groceries.  The green revolution of my life would have to wait.

   

Well, this week's events have brought that revolution to pass much more quickly and less voluntarily than anticipated. 

   

I would like to proudly announce that I am now car-free.  Gigi is now only to be used for emergencies and job interviews. (Did I mention I found out that I didn't have a job next year the day after finding out my car was broken? Yeah. Good times.)  Maybe it's because I'm more on top of things now and more relaxed about teaching. Maybe it's because I usually leave school in the afternoons at 3:30 or 4:00 now instead of 6:00.  Maybe it's because I found a bus that leaves at 6:13 instead of 5:52 in the mornings.  Maybe it's because it only takes me half an hour to get ready now, so I can still sleep in until 5:20.  Maybe it's because I know that the weather is only going to get warmer.  Maybe it's because I know I've got no other option (fixing Gigi isn't going to happen anytime in the next few months).  Whatever the reason, I haven't minded the bus rides or cold walks the past few days.  

   

So I've purchased my student bus pass and a bike from DI to shorten the walk from bus stop to school.  That gives me an initial outlay of about $150, not counting the bribes I'm paying people to teach me how to fix my bike.  I'm keeping a record of how much I'm not spending with this transportation method (daily bus fare, gas money).  I figure this will pay for itself before school gets out.  That's not even counting the money I'm not spending on Gigi ($650-850).  

   

As an added bonus, I figure I just drastically reduced my carbon footprint, right?  I'm saving the world.  And I'm doing my part to support the local mass transit system.  And goodness knows, UTA could use some supporting.  In conclusion, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not going to look at this as a catastrophy or an inconvenience.  I'm going to consider it the realization of a goal.  Pride, after all, makes an excellent salve for cold fingers and frustration at longer commute times.  

Transportation Woes, Again

The following blog contains whining.

    

Sigh.  $650 to fix the car.  That's the best case scenario (I limp the car home, and a guy my dad knows fixes it and figures it doesn't really need all the repairs the shops are telling me it needs).  I got it checked at two different shops today, and they both estimated repairs at over $800.  It needs a new clutch, a new cable, and a new pedal assembly.  It only cost a couple thousand in the first place, and I could get about $500 dollars if I sold it.  I'm a little tempted just to forget I own a car and buy the bike I've been drooling over and a monthly bus pass and bite the hour long commute bullet.  The bike will only cost $425, and a bus pass will cost roughly the same amount as gasoline for the car.  But no one will have a Kona Smoke in stock for me to try out until mid-April, and if I don't get a job at the same school next year, I'll need a car for interviews.  And it's snowing right now.  And there's a possibility Mom and Dad might get me a bike for graduation.  

Either purchase would break the bank and put me in debt.  Debt that would take at least two to five months to pay off.  

The Story of My Life

This week is "Parents in School" week.  Parents are invited to attend some of their students' classes.  A parent can come for part of a class or multiple classes and is provided with lunch.  The custodians give the teachers extra chairs in their classrooms, and the administration urges the teachers to make it a positive experience for everyone.  Only two parents planned to attend my class, and one came today.  

   

I was worried, let's be honest.  I did not know whose parent was coming, just that one would be there.  The class he/she would attend is my rowdiest, hardest, most out-of-control.  I refer to them (sometimes affectionately) as my "runaway class."  Both possible meanings (that they resemble runaway horses or that they make me want to run far, far away some days) are equally applicable to this class.  I usually end this class feeling like a terrible teacher and an idiot.  Sometimes I'm so angry I could cheerfully throw a desk across the room and I spend time in the car on the way home giving my steering wheel the lectures I wish I could give the offending students.  Other times I put my head on my desk and cry.  I have referred three people from this class to the principal's office, one has been moved to alternative school, and four have had detention with me in the last 48 hours.

   

So, into this den of pubescent energy was going to come a parent.  Most likely, this parent would belong to one of the quiet, over-achieving "good" kids that sit through this class with pained expressions on their faces and frequent eye-rolls when people won't "shut-up."  This parent would get to watch me take 90 minutes to fail to teach this class.  In other words, I was not excited to have this parent come.  

   

As the students filtered in, I tried to prepare.  The assignment was on the board, I had planned activities that would give them as little opportunity to be jerks as possible, and the room was neat and orderly.  One of my best students strolls in and announces, a little embarrassed, "My mom's coming today."  Of course, it would be her mother.  This girl's approach to life is maximum effort, least wasted time, and she is one of the most frustrated of the eye-rollers.  I could just picture her equally determined and put-together mother sitting in the back of my classroom with an expression of dismay and disappointment on her face as I struggled to control the boisterous youths that the government had confined to desks.  

   

The dreaded mother arrived, looking meek, but that could be just the exterior.  I taught my lesson.  In less than ten minutes the class owed time after the bell, and I had had to shout over them multiple times to be heard, asking them to quiet down.  Things went better during the reading, even this class enjoys being read to.  While the rest were working on grammar worksheets, I pulled my detention servers aside one-by-one.  I thanked the ones that were showing improvement, and reminded a couple of the goals for improvement we had set, mentioning specific behaviors that were cropping up that we had agreed would not be a problem again.  After I got the class to the computer lab, the students were separated enough that this mother and her daughter could focus on the project research, instead of the antics of my wild horses on the other side of the room.  

  

Half an hour before the bell, the mother came up to tell me she had to go pick up her kindergarten student.  Here it came, the disappointed look, the shake of the head.  I thanked her for coming, and she told me that ... she appreciated me and that I had her sympathy.  She said she wasn't sure she could do what I did.  "I had forgotten what junior high was really like...I've never seen such disrespect in my whole life!  I just wanted to go up and strangle a few of them.  I wanted to ask them if their parents knew how they were behaving."  

   

Relief flooded through me that as I assured her that this was my rowdiest class, and that not every class was like that.  She left shaking her head, but not at me.  She wasn't going to go home and tell her husband that I was a terrible teacher and then call the principal to tell him the same.  She left thinking, "Wow, junior high teachers have to put up with A LOT."  And, as much as I love my students, she's right.  I know I'm not a terrible teacher, and I know that these students are just young people trying to get what fun they can out of adolescence, but the fact still stands that I put up with a lot.  

   

Here's a sample of my favorite one-liners that my students have seen fit to announce to the room.  Most of these happen during class, sometimes in the middle of one of my sentences, or when I ask if there are any questions.

   

"You're cupboards are dirty, woman!" Luckily, this was after school, because he would have been in the principal's office if it had been in session.

"Why don't you just do it for me?"

"You hate me 'cause I'm Asian!"  This one I heard about three times a day for a while.

"Can I go play in the snow?"  This one was asked every five minutes at full voice during a lecture on pronouns.

Me, "Are there any questions? Yes--"  "I'd like to take a free pass on this."  Me: "Haha. Any other questions. Yes, again--" Same student: "I'd like to take a free pas on this."  "There are no free passes.  Any other questions? Yes--"  Same student: "It's time for me to go play outside."

   

"He said he hates me because I'm Asian!" Said in the middle of an explanation of a project while pointing to a student I'm sure has never said that many words the whole time he's been in my class.

"I'm bored!"

"This sucks!"

"This class is gay."

   

I do love my job.  Really.  But this is just from three students.  In the same class.  And just a few of the most memorable one-liners.  It's wearing on me.  I'm getting so I start each day with less and less patience.  I'm getting ruder and ruder to those students, because they are such jerks to me and those around them.  

Explosion in my head.

I just found out from my friend's blog, that Hugh Laurie, better known as House, was Jasper in 101 Dalmations.  

   

"I'm not, at this moment, exactly sure where the puppies are."

Found: My New Internet Addiction

I recycle.  I reuse, I reinvent, and I buy used as much as possible.  One of the highlights of my Presidents' Day was checking out the 50% off sale at Savers (two skirts and a shirt for $8).  And I want to do more.  I want to make tables out of magazines, funnels out of the tops of plastic bottles, and decorations out of old books.  And then, last Friday, I found out about "freecycle."  Basically, it is a national network of people set up to get people with extra stuff in contact with people who might want it.  I joined the Provo area group on Yahoo groups, and I'm already in love.  There are over 3000 members in the group, and all throughout the day, people post things like "OFFER: box of canned foods."  It turns out that they were given a box by a friend who was moving, and now they don't need it.  The first person who emails them is welcome to come pick it up: free.  There are posts like "OFFER: Antique grand piano, cracked soundboard." Pay to move it and it's yours.  "Wanted: Odds and ends of yarns for scrap project."  When an item has been spoken for, the offer-er will post a quick "Taken" notice.  When a needed item has been given, the recipient will post "Received."  

   

So far today I have 1) found someone who wants the two or three ghastly-colored half skeins of yarn I have in the top of my closet, 2) found a free 3rd Edition Turabian style manual, and 3) found a lady who is cleaning her garage out and just giving the stuff away from 4-5:30 today.  I intend to stop by on my way home.  

   

We all have times when we'd give our extra stuff away if we just knew who needed it.  We all find times when we need something we know someone else is wishing wasn't taking up room in their closet (like a breadmaker, baby or maternity clothes, sunday coupons, etc), but we don't know that person.  Freecycle is one step ahead of and twelve steps more personal than the thrift store.  It's a chance to give your stuff away before someone has to buy it.  Also, the person who wants your item is usually willing to meet you somewhere or come to you to pick it up.  So go ahead, clean out your closet and your garage.  Now you can give the stuff away to someone who needs it directly.  

   Freecycle.

Bookbag Timecapsule

I admit I'm one of those people who analyzes people based on the contents of their grocery carts, glove compartments, and the items found in their purses.  Corndogs and bananas...college-age bachelor, but post-freshman because he's buying fruit.  Today, I reached into the small pocket of my bookbag, a place where I pack things I think I might need and then forget about.  And then I laughed, because I had forgotten about so many things that have been in that pocket for a year or better--some of which I use, some of which I've never touched.  Here is the list, along with a rough estimate or guess of where each item came from and how long it's been in there.  I leave the personality interpretation to you.  I was aware of the existence and location of items 1, 4, 6, 12, and 13.  The rest were trips down memroy lane, like some kind of accidental time capsule.  

   

1.   My wallet--black with red trim and a skull and crossbones.  It's only been in there since this morning.  Purchased in a gift shop in Germany.

   

2.   A Great Value breakfast drink mix given to my sister by her visiting teachings superivsor and that she gave to me be cause I drink breakfast shakes.  It's been in there since around Thanksgiving?  You never know when you're going to need a meal.  Or the address of her visiting teachees....

   

3.  My last paycheck stub.  It's been in that pocket for a little less than a week.  You know, for my "records."  That I keep.  Really.  ... But I can't throw it away right?  They're taking over my room.

   

4.   Four packages of Swiss Miss hot chocolate mix, three with marshmallows, one without.  One week.  For after school.  

    

5.    A temporary tattoo of a death-metal looking skull with black wings.  I remember purchasingi it... but I have no clue where or when.  Was it at a hockey game?  Sometime this fall.

   

6.    A small bottle of "Passion Rose" scented lotion, given to me by my sister for Valentine's Day...two years ago.  You should always have lotion with you.  

   

7.   A sandstone-colored plastic spoon that says Delta on it....   ....  ?  

   

8.   A reciept from the Courgareat Taco Bell dated 7/23/08.  I got a chhesy double beef burrito.  It was probably gross.

    

9.   A package of multivitamins...probably a few months

   

10.   Two mini-handwarmers.  A stocking stuffer?  Stolen from Mom during the Christmas ski trip?  Yeah, probably.

   

11.   Five dollars worth of nickels.  You know.  For the nickelcade.

   

12.   The broken shards of another plastic spoon.  The two must have had a duel.  The Delta one, being stronger and more widely travelled, seems to have decimated the cheap, flimsy, white one.

   

13.   The reason boys don't go looking through ladies purses.  

Conclusion of Research

I will not get dreadlocks soon.  I may never get them.
   
But I think that they can be gorgeous.
   
And I might get them someday.
 
Okay?

Respect

Say what you like about classic rock, but mindless it is not.  Pink Floyd quotes T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" and Dreamtheater covers James Joyce and Shakespeare.  Rush quotes Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.  

    

Sometimes I think the rockers are not the destroying angels and the forces of entropy personfied they are made out to be.  Sometimes I think they are the strongholds of civilization and art.

     

So, from an English teacher and lover of poetry, Rock On.

"Thank You Shadow-Self--I'll Do Battle With You Later"

In today's fastmoving pop culture world, I have traditionally stayed out of the fast lane. Usually one of the last to know of a new fad, I barely considereds showing it to all of my friends before finding out that it was already passe. Take Rickrolling for instance. I don't know how long it's been around, but I heard about it the first time when xkcd mentioned it, and I had no clue what it was until a friend explained it to me in December. Two weeks later, MSN declared it a technology trend that needed to be "laid to rest." *sigh* I never even got the chance to Rickroll anybody. Although, it might not be dead yet: this website has just declared an official Rickrolling contest with prizes from amazon.

I completely missed music trends like nsync or Brittney Spears. I went through my life, singing songs from the 1940s and knowing more jokes from Jack Benny than Saturday Night Live. That's why I was surprised when a quirky site my brother-in-law showed me my sophomore year in high school gradually grew in popularity until it was plastered all over young adulthood with t-shirts, stickers, window clings, plushies, and dvd releases of the site's videos. Status could be obtained by mentioning how much paraphenelia one owned. I am talking, of course, about Strong Bad and the rest of the Homestarrunner crew.

Suddenly, I was one of those high-popculture snobs scoffing at those who liked it only because it was popular. "I've liked it since way back," I'd say with a condescending smile. "I was introducing other people to it and talking like Strong Bad with my friends long before you knew it existed. It's cute that you're trying to get in on it now." Although I couldn't afford the accessories that would proclaim my superiority, some part of me felt it. And it was true. When the makers of Homestarrunner were just barely starting to go full-time, over a hundred emails ago, Di and I had already lost consciousness of how often we talked like Strong Bad.

Now, the site has long since faded in popularity. I have met one person in over a year who still follows the site regularly. The t-shirts and window clings have disappeared, and those still sporting them are quietly pitied as the oblivious souls who probably don't realize when their romantic relationships are "over" either. Except for the occasional, "Sewiously guys," or a cheerful "Deleted!" no one is talking about it, or making it their default page anymore.

But......

If the secret truth is told, which it is, since I'm blogging it, I still keep up with my old friends at Homestarrunner. That's right, it's still there. And there's still new material every week. I never really stopped, and keeping up takes less than five minutes a week. I still think it's funny. Homestarrunner.com has been around for nine years, and has never once sold advertising space and the site. No text adds, no popups, nothing. It's no longer the only thing like it on the internet, so it's lost the fresh hilarity of a new idea, but it still makes me laugh. So there. I liked it before it was popular, I liked it while it was popular, and I like it after. And, if someday it goes through one of those periods of retro popularity that suddenly and breifly vaunts an obscure subgroup of long-time nerds into the position of popculture leaders who have "liked it all along," I may be one of those nerds. But even if that happens, I won't triumph because my vehicle for popculture superiority has returned, I can live without that, but because watching the world fall in love with it again would be watching an old friend who deserves the attention and praise as "one of the originals" finally get it after being harshly discarded by fickle friends.

"Turn off your computer and go outsite or something--nerd!"