Bare Necessities

The longer I teach English, the more art supplies I accumulate. They're necessary I tell you! In addition to the expected unlimited supply of paper, pencils, and pens, I've discovered that my classroom cannot be considered complete without the following:

40+ boxes of crayons. Occasionally I have them draw symbolic representations of chapters, or go through essays and color the thesis statement a certain color, rhetorical questions another, etc.

15 pairs of scissors. I wish I had 40, but they're expensive, so every year I buy another five or ten. I had my creative writing students write snow poems and cut out snowflakes. I had my 8th graders cut different kinds of articles out of the newspaper and label them.

A large basket or box of miscellaneous colored pencils. I have my students make up mythologies fourth term, which means they make up imaginary countries, which means they draw maps. Which means they need lots and lots of colored pencils. Additionally, my creative writing students are using these all the time.

At least 5 glue sticks. Once again, I wish I had 40. The ones I do have are a few years old now and probably need to be replaced.

4 rulers. I'd love to have closer to 15 or 40, but they're not called for as often as the rest.

Paperclips. I've already gone through about 3 boxes this year.

A dozen or so sharpies, black and assorted colors. These are essential for when we make posters, label notebooks, or any of the other many uses we find for them.

Legos. Seriously. My first year of teaching I bought $25 worth of Legos so that I could have them to make a model of the 5 paragraph essay. I use if every year.

I'd love to keep a supply of construction paper and posterboard in my room as well, but I haven't gotten around to investing in it yet. Maybe next year. Other random things I have learned to keep with me in the classroom include:

My magic 8 ball.

A fake hand I confiscated from a student my first year of teaching.

Enough candy to pass out to all of my students if needed.

A mini library of books.

Bandaids. These kids seem to bleed a lot.

Post it notes, post it notes, post it notes. I go through them constantly.

Index cards, hundreds of them.

two staple removers

A halloween candy bucket

hand sanitizer

lotion

a tooth brush

a glue gun and glue sticks

Extra grocery bags

moving boxes

I opened my big mouth

Every Monday, school gets out an hour early. The students go home, and the teachers use this time to "collaborate," to meet together as "professional learning communities (PLCs)." Basically, we get together, work on department goals, common assessments, and maintaining our sanity. For instance, today we were looking at sections from the new national core standards that will be adopted in Utah next year. In case you don't happen to work as an English teacher, let me tell you that junior high school English has changed a lot since we took it. When I was in 8th grade, the big project I remember was writing one page descriptions or stories of different things in our lives (my parents, my room, my birthday, etc.) We had to do 8, or maybe 10, of them.

My 8th graders are preparing to do their newspaper portfolios, in which they will find and collect 20 different newspaper articles of different types, as well writing their own classified ad, an obituary of their favorite cartoon character, and a fully fledged essay posing as an editorial. The essay will have a thesis statement, topic sentences, and at least one counterargument. It will include at least one emotional appeal and one ethical appeal. This will be the second such essay they have written this year.

The new core will shift the emphasis from persuasive writing to argument. After reading three or four pages about what the writers of the core meant by "argument," we as a department concluded that they meant nearly the same things as persuasive writing, just without the ethos or pathos and with as much logos as we can get them to articulate.

As we talked about the changes that this would mean, I thought about how I had learned how to analyze and put together a good argument. Although I did some of it in my English classes, nothing could compare to the education that being in debate gave me. So then I said it. I opened my mouth and said, "Can we have a debate class? I'll teach it." I was half kidding, but then my department chair said she'd pitch the idea to the administration. I might teach a debate class next year instead of creative writing.

It'd be a lot of work, but man would it be fun, and I think I could help give the students enough practice with argument to help their writing. But most of all, I can't believe I just volunteered to teach a new class next year. Volunteered! To pioneer a class! I'm not sure what came over me. Only a few minutes before I had been thinking, "Thank heaven that next year I wont' have to teach anything new! I'll be able to just work on the refining what I've taught this year and implementing the new core." Then I opened my big mouth asked to have more work.

I'm a teacher, and I'm crazy.

Farewell to Security

In a poem I've quoted before, Emily Dickenson wrote:

Parting is all we know of heaven,

And all we need of hell.

Parting is heaven because it means opportunity, change, adventure, and the first day of the rest of my life, etc. It's chance to pursue dreams delayed, forgotten, or eclipsed. It's a purposeful striding into the unknown, casting about for a course, unshackled by bonds of any kind.

Parting is hell because it means change, danger, and farewell to all that is safe. It's losing the anchors and mores that have kept you in one place long enough to put down roots and enjoy life. It's stepping into darkness from light, cutting the ties you lovingly wove and tended, and then watching the edges bleed as you stumble into the darkness, casting about for a course, no safety line of any kind.

For a year and a half I have been together, and now I am parted. For 18 months I have been found, and now I am lost. It doesn't matter whether I stepped away of my own free choice or not. I've lost something precious and now there is a hole where it was that I have to fall into before I can climb out. As I fall I rotate quickly through fear, excitement, daring courage, longing for what is behind, and panic over my choice to step forward when I was so happy where I was. So, I'm not ready, but here I am: it's time to fall, crawl, grope, grow, and change. Good luck me.

Generation Chasms

My 7th grade classes are starting to read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton this week. The novel is set in 1967 and that is, I explained to them, one year after my dad graduated from high school. We went through a powerpoint of 1960s pop culture and slang, and then ended on a list of things you wouldn't have seen in the 1960s. We talked about the lack of pull-tab soda cans, the internet, any form of video or arcade game, and finally, no CDs, DVDs, or even cassette tapes. Then I pulled a record out and explained how it worked (Thank you Dad for explaining that to me when I was little, my kids were impressed), and passed it around so they could all see. Some kids were familiar with records, but others were clearly fascinated. I heard them telling their friends about it in the hall.

They also have no concept of when things developed. I had one student raise his hand and say, "Didn't they have something called a 'walk...man' in those days?" I laughed and told him he was 20 years off.

Then I had other students swear that Atari was around in the 1960s. To these kids, the 1980s are retro. The 60s and 70s are history. Which makes sense; they're 15 years or so behind me. To me, the 1960s and 70s were retro, the 40s and 50s were history.

We also had a brief confusion as my students stated with authority that Nintendo was around in the early 1960s. Confused (I had just told them there weren't even arcade games in the 1960s, not even Pong), I asked why. It turns out that many of my students thought that the Nintendo 64 had come out in 1964 and were surprised to learn that they were, once again, 20 years off.

My students did, however, show a remarkable knowledge of 1960s TV shows. I guess I Dream of Jeannie will never die.

Legos, Fishtanks, and Vomit

I spent nearly five hours today planning a single lesson. The lesson itself will last little more than an hour and I'll teach it twice and then not again for a year. At least it was an important lesson: how to write a good paragraph. Writing a good, coherent, and smoothly written paragraph is one of our department goals for seventh graders this year, so it's important to teach it write. I'm insanely proud of the lesson, so much so that I'll be greatly disappointed if it turns out less than wonderfully. It involves, like many of my lessons, powerpoint and a random analogy. I've compared five paragraph essays to legos and vomit, and now a well written paragraph is a fish tank. I wonder if all these analogies help me teach more clearly, or if my students think I speak in riddles. Sometimes I feel like the Guru from the B.C. comic strip. If they climbed up the mountain and lay gasping out their question, "What makes a good paragraph?" I would stare out over the mountains for a few moments, contemplating my vast stores of wisdom, before replying with a sarcastic quip or a bizarre analogy: "A paragraph is like a fish tank my friend..." "Preparing to write an essay is like digesting food...." "This Lego model represents the five-paragraph essay, let us meditate together on the lessons it can teach us..." "Personal pronouns are like the bridge crew of the starship Enterprise...." "Indefinite pronouns are like power rangers, the black power ranger in particular....." "8th graders are a lot like chickens...." etc. I lose track of all the different analogies I've used to explain things to my students.

You see, analogies are like my appendix. I've always had one everywhere I go and no matter what I talk about, but I'm still trying to figure out if they're good for anything.

Frustration levels on the rise.

Results of my preliminary research are indicating that 7^th grade boys and a completely different species from me. My 8^th graders I can, for the most part, understand and empathize with. But some of those 7^th grade boys have even larger holes in the chemical structure of their brains than my 8^th grade ones do, and I’ve been laughing at my 8^th graders for years. Some of the 7^th grade boys seem to have this idea that if I’m not actively telling them to be quiet, they don’t need to be quiet. If I haven’t told them not to hit each other or steal each other’s stuff in the last five minutes, it must be ok. I’ll tell them to stop talking, they’ll say, “Oh, sorry Miss Eddington!” Ten seconds later they’re talking again. I can’t just shoot them dirty looks to get them to stop being obnoxious (kicking each other, tapping their desks, headbanging, etc.) because they haven’t the slightest clue that what they’re doing might possibly be annoying! It hasn’t entered into their prepubescent head that they aren’t the only one in the classroom and that the Amazing Miss E might have limited patience with their antics.

They make my 8^th graders look, by contrast, so mature and dependable, so independent and reserved. Heaven bless my 8^th graders.

Clockwatching

Before any break in school such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, or summer, I usually hear at least two different teachers express the following sentiments: The students have no idea that their teachers are actually more anxious for the bell to ring and the break to begin than they are. I'm sure I'll hear the same thing at lunch today, when there is only one period left before Fall Break. At the risk of repeated these already oft expressed sentiments, I am even more excited than my students for the day to be over. I'm checking my watch every five minutes. I've under planned my lessons, as if by planning less things to do I can make class go faster, which is actually probably the opposite of how it works.

I don't have grand travel plans, or far away adventures planned. I do have a lot of grading to do. But I'm looking forward to four glorious days of freedom, where I am responsible only for me, and where I can go skate any time of the day. Maybe I'll cook. Maybe I'll play video games. Maybe I'll clean up my classroom. Maybe I'll just enjoy the fact that for a few days, school isn't ruling my life.

Hurry up Fall Break. Get here faster!

Getting back together with an Ex

We met in sixth grade, and at first I intended for us to be just friends. Instead, we went steady for seven years. Weekends and weeknights, long bus rides together, mornings and evenings. Sometimes I'd ignore him for a few days, but I'd always come back. I had more classes with him than anyone else. We stuck together through braces and every awkward phase I had throughout all of middle and high school. Then, after high school I left him in my hometown and moved on with my life. Oh, I'd still get out with him on the occasional summer vacation, but my life was given over to other loves. I hardly gave a thought to him, and when I did, it was with a sort of carefree nostalgia. I never really expected to return, although I regretted the loss of the relationship and closeness we once had.

But lately, after six years apart, he's been sneaking out of the corners of my thoughts. I'd be listening to a song, and suddenly I'd crave his unfailing company and all the adventures we once had together. As this happened more and more often, I began to wonder: Was it really to late? Getting our relationship back to where it was wouldn't be convenient or easy. It would take conscious effort and work. We weren't in school together anymore. I'd have to make consistent advances to get him back.

But finally, I could stand it no more. One of those songs that made my fingers tingle for him was playing on the radio, and I said out loud, "Dang it! Alright, I'm going to this for real!" I inwardly made the commitment as I picked up the phone and made the call I'd been contemplating for weeks. Instead of answer on the other end, I got voicemail. Plunging in, I spoke quickly, before I could change my mind.

"Mom?" I said, "Can you send my trombone back with Rachel when she's home this weekend? I want to start playing again!"

We're living together now. He's there when I go home, waiting in my living room. We've only managed to spend a stolen half hour together here and there, but already it feels so good to have him back. Like coming home. My steady. The boy I've kissed more than any other by far. Perceval. Percy for short. My trombone and my longest love.

Friday's Ramblings

What students may not realize is that their teachers are often more excited for the weekend than they are. All Friday long I’m jittery, and have a devil-may-care attitude about getting things done. I have all weekend to grade the huge stack of papers, why start now? Why bother telling the kids to be quite? If I can put up with it for another half hour I won’t see them again for days, and then it’s just three days of school till fall break! So all day long, despite the impressive to-do list in my head, I’ve been doing other things. Writing emails to old friends, writing a blog about avoiding work, etc. It’s great. I know I’ll probably spend most of tomorrow here anyway, so why work now?

It’s the same feeling I used to get when I knew I was going to be up late for an essay in college. Since I was going to be up half the night anyway, then I had all the time in the world. As soon as I accepted that bedtime was flexible and dependent on when the essay was finished, I had all night—an extra 8 hours—if I needed it. So I would go to the store, take a shower, reread all my research materials, rewrite my introduction five times, and then watch a few youtube videos. It wasn’t until about 2 a.m. that the sense of urgency would set in. I would realize that I was more than halfway through the night and less than halfway through my paper.

A similar feeling will creep up on me tomorrow afternoon. I’ll realize that I’m more than halfway through the weekend and less than halfway through my grading and already burnt out. I know this, I recognize this, I can predict this, but for some reason I’m still unable to bring myself to actually work on anything useful today. I am, and always have been, and mostly likely always will be, a serial procrastinator. I’ll procrastinate anything I don’t feel like doing, from grading papers to eating if I think it’s going to take work.

On an unrelated note, I just finished the Hunger Games trilogy. I liked it, and I’m glad I own it. But the main character reminded me of a less self-sacrificing, more trash-kickin’ kind of Bella Swan. Unsure why anyone would love her, tortured by her insecurities, and yet beloved by all and adored by both the handsome men, who are willing to put up with her inability to choose between them because they’re so in love with her. Now, in Katniss’ defense, unlike Bella, who started insecure and obtuse, Katniss starts out relatively happy and competent. Her life has been hard, but bearable. Then, life tortures her into a complete mess. I don’t blame her for being unable to make decisions and having destroyed self-confidence after that. So, in conclusion, I like Katniss better than Bella, and Gale and Peeta are both cooler than Edward and Jacob.

The end.

The Promised Post

So, I promised you a post about dropping in, so that those of you who have know idea what it is can have some idea of how awesome I am. Additionally, it's 7:30 on a Saturday morning, and I can't sleep in because I'm a teacher, but I definitely don't feel like diving into my grading yet, either. This gives me the perfect time to blog.

So, dropping in. Dropping is a pretty essential skill for a skateboarder. Without it, what you can skate is severely limited. However, everyone I've ever talked to was scared to death when they first learned to drop in. I was no exception. What I was was old enough that I could ignore the peer pressure and put off learning to drop in for a very long time. Teenagers don't have the luxury of being afraid in front of their friends, so they are constantly hucking themselves and their boards off new drops and trying new tricks and hurting themselves. Because of this, most teenagers are also much better skaters than I am, since I content to roll around in my comfort zone for quite some time before trying something new--if it's not too scary.

Dropping in is hard to explain if you don't know what coping is, so here's a picture to illustrate:

http://www.bmx-zone.com/articlePic.php?id=398

The metal bar at the top of the ramp is called coping. Most quarter pipes, half pipes, bowls, etc. all have coping.

http://www.coastalbc.com/skate/photos2007/70212wmw64.jpg

This means that if you can't drop in, you can't get down the ramp or bowl from the top. You'll have to slide down on your rear and then roll around from the bottom, which will both mark you as a total noob and mean that you'll never have enough momentum to go very fast or very high.

In order to drop in, you put your board over the edge with the wheel over the coping but the tail still on the flat part of the ramp. This angles the board up toward the sky. Then, you put your back foot on the tail and one foot up toward the nose, balancing on one foot on a board balanced on the edge of a slope.

http://0.tqn.com/d/skateboard/1/5/L/B/Dropping-In-Ready-Tailset.jpg

Then, in one fluid motion, you lean waaaay out into space and put your foot all the way down to the sloping ramp below. You need to get that board from tail position, with those front wheels hanging out a foot above the ramp, to rolling position, with all four wheels on the downward sloping surface of the ramp. You and the board are going to make a controlled fall more than ninety degrees, almost like a quarter turn on a horizontal axis. At the same time your board starts to move forward and, if you've done it right, you roll down the slope. If you don't lean forward far enough, you'll fall backward and hit the pavement and/or the coping with various parts of your anatomy. If you lean to far forward, you'll fall forward and hit the pavement with various parts of your anatomy, possibly including your face. Keep in mind you'll have all the momentum in your fall you would have had on your board, so you'll be hitting that pavement nice and hard. It's probably gonna hurt. And when you first learn to drop in, that lean into space feels about as smart as throwing yourself off of a concrete cliff riding a plank with wheels on it so that you won't be able to make a stable landing, which is pretty much what you're doing. This is what dropping in looks like if you're cool:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/dont_miss/2003/07/bury_skate_park/images/skate_drop_in_270.jpg

http://tumyeto.com/images/uploaded/elijah-drop-in_opt.jpg

This is what dropping in looks like if you're me:

And there you have it. Dropping in. Not really that exciting because everyone can do it, but I'm pretty darn excited that I can finally do it. Now the only problem is that when I drop in I have a lot of speed, and because I've been rolling around and the bottom of things for so long, I don't know how to turn when going that fast yet. So I tend to drop in and either coast till I'm going a comfortable speed or just bail. But bailing while moving that fast is also a risky process, as the scrapes and bruises on my elbows and knees can attest. But, who cares? I can drop in. The rest will come.

This is me looking more cool:

And this is Cuny. My skatecoach and inspiration.

Make-up

Make-up, a collection of powders and pastes used to augment, draw, or conceal facial features. My relationship with make-up has spanned a decade or so. Over the years, I have worn a little make-up or a lot of make-up. There were times in my life when I wore green stick, foundation, powder, blush, eyeliner, mascara, and eye shadow every day. There were other times when all I needed was the green stick, powder, mascara, and eye-liner. But for the last ten years, I have nearly always worn make-up. Since make-up--especially mascara and eyeliner--takes a few days to wash away completely, there have been very few times in that decade when I saw myself completely without make-up of any kind. After a camping trip or a ski trip or if I'd been sick I might see myself make-up free, but as soon I was back to civilization and health, I would quickly reapply. I liked make-up; I liked the way I looked when I wore it. I didn't feel like I wore it for other people; I wore it for me.

However, this past spring I realized that I no longer liked the way I looked when I wasn't wearing any make-up. I felt like I looked strange, blank, unfamiliar. And this bothered me. I don't mind wearing and liking make-up, but I didn't like the feeling of needing it. I didn't want to feel dependent on it, uncomfortable in my own skin without a few artificial touches. After ten year with make-up, I found myself self-conscious without it, and not liking the face I saw in the mirror. So I decided that make-up and I needed to take a break. I refused to let myself not like my own face without modification. If I wanted to wear make-up, that was fine, but I couldn't wear make-up because I couldn't accept my own natural face.

So I decided to give it a try. Last spring break, I gave up make-up for a week. And I loved it. After the first few days I got used to my own face again, and found little bits of additional freedom that wearing no make-up gave me refreshing. I could go exercise or swim without worrying about my make-up. I didn't have to periodically check my eyes for circles or lines of mascara or anything. It never got in my eyes or stung. If I cried I wouldn't have to redo my make-up. If I wanted to, I could wash my face part way through the day without having to carefully remove the make-up and then reapply.

I returned from spring break and found myself increasingly reluctant to put on make-up. Not only that, but I started questioning the face wash and zit creams I'd been using since my 16th birthday. I decided that during the summer I would go natural all the way. No face wash, no make-up.

And I did. And without the make-up, I didn't get as many break-outs, and all summer long I just wore my own face without modification. At first, I would still put on make-up for church, but soon I disliked waiting a day or two for the last traces of eyeliner and mascara to disappear. So I gave that up, too. I thought I would return to make-up when school started, and I did for a week. Then I stopped.

I haven't stopped wearing make-up on moral grounds, or as a feminist statement, but simply because I wanted to make sure I didn't become unfamiliar with my own face. I've kept no wearing make-up because I'm lazy and I like the extra amounts of liberty that no make up gives me. I still like the way I look with it. I'll probably pick it back up again some day, and I still wear it on special occasions. But I like that I once again like my face just the way it is, and that my eyelashes never feel stiff, and my face is always clean, not covered.

Zombies in My School

At my old school, I knew exactly where I would hide if zombies attacked while I was there, or if they attacked and I could get there. I knew I couldn't hide in the apartment I lived in--it was on the ground floor and had a huge sliding glass door through which zombies could pour quite easily. So I settled on the satellite/trailer where I taught at Lehi Junior. There were no windows that wouldn't require climbing that were big enough to crawl in. I could live off of the food and candy in the classrooms. It wouldn't be nutritious, but it would keep me alive. And, if the main hall was breached, I would retreat to the bathroom. It had both a key lock and a bar you could pull across. I would have water and a place to use the bathroom, although, if the water supply was shut off, I would go to the bathroom in the sink because it had a drain and drink from the toilet tank. This would let me live for at least a month or more.

At my new school, the nearest bathroom only locks from the OUTSIDE. Meaning that it would be a good place to lock a rogue zombie, but a bad place to hideout myself. No, at American Fork Junior, the best place to hide in case of zombie attack is the faculty lounge. It has no windows, it locks, contains couches for sleeping, vending machines for a food supply, and has two separate bathrooms. These could be used as sources of water a final retreat since they are an additional locked door.

Anyway, I need to go enter grades.

Happy

Today I am overwhelmed by awesomeness. Today I get to go to the wedding of one of my best friends since the fifth grade. That puts us at about 13 years of friendship. I've told all 250 of my students just how very excited I am for today. Then, on top of that, I just read her blog and found out that she got a job and is probably moving to Salt Lake City soon. I can't even express how happy I am.

So, despite having to teach the Holocaust this week, today is pretty much the best day ever. Ever. Ever.

Catch-up

Although I definitely have more time during my summers, and although I am up and about and doing things worth blogging about, I never seem to blog. Oh, I have two or three drafts of blogs I never finished, but nothing concrete to show you. So, as I get ready for the rush of fall, today I will post a partly pictorial summary of summer. It will be long, but think of it as an entire summer worth of blogs condensed into one mega-blog.

First things first. School ended, and I left for Island Park with Allie and Rachel. Oh, and I was a blonde at the time.

When I came back, Cuny and I decided that we should road trip to Tucson for the heck of it, and also for a friend's birthday. We did this despite both being sick at the time. While we were there, Cuny got REALLY sick, and we spent all night in urgent care.

Less than six hours after returning from Tucson, I left for Ohio to spend two and a half weeks with my nieces and nephews and my brother and his wife. This was the longest I've ever gotten to hang out there, and I loved every day of it. We fixed chili and rice, went to the skate park and the pool, and played way to many card games. And I became a flaming red head.

After my time in Ohio, I headed to Indiana for a few days to spend time with my sister and her husband, whom I hadn't seen in forever. We went shopping and watched movies and world cup soccer and hung out and talked for hours. My sisters really are some of my best friends.

When I came home I stayed for only a week, long enough to meet with teachers from my new English department and plan some curriculum,skateboard, go to Cuny's family reunion, and chop all my hair off. Then I ran home for the weekend with Rachel to spend the fourth of July with Dad and to be there when my nephew got sealed to my brother and his family. Well, of course I mean to wait outside and babysit while my nephew got sealed to my brother and his family, but that just means that I got to read my book while the next nephew in line took a nap. And then we spent half an hour playing with a tape measure. Good times.

When I got back from Idaho, Cuny and I spent our time skateboarding. Seriously. Nearly every day. We canvassed parks from Salt Lake to Springville and had a marvelous time. We had packing to skating down to an art--including refrigerated water bottles and tupperware full of watermelon and carrots and humus for our ravenous, post-skateboarding tummies. This is also the span of time when I finally caved and spent $300 on a wii and wii games and wii accessories. I should regret this purchase, but I don't. I've had way to much fun on that thing for the rest of this summer to regret it. The only regret is that I only have two controllers, and that my wii will probably continue to suck money out of my purse in the form of new games and accessories for quite some time. Oh, and I died my hair a sort of purple/black. This also seems to be the part of the summer where I stopped taking pictures. Hmmm. Oops.

Then, Cuny and I went backpacking in Yellowstone National Park for three days. Romantic, right? Add my parents. Oh, and throw in my high school band director for good measure. And then fill the air with millions of frenzied mosquitoes and grape-sized flies. This backpacking trip will remain one of the most fun and beautiful I've been on, but not necessarily the most relaxing. The mosquitoes were so bad that we couldn't stop to rest on the trail, or sit down to eat our meals. We had to keep moving, and even then we walked in little buzzing clouds. At every meal we would fish between one and five mosquitoes out of our cups as the meal progressed. There was refuge only in the tents, where the first five minutes would be spent in cold-blooded murder of the tiny vampires that had followed us in. But, even with the mosquitoes, it was wonderful. We hiked over 30 miles in three days and saw hot springs and waterfalls and sunrises and moose and bison and meadows stretching away like lakes. Not only that, but at the end a day and ten long miles, I had someone there to give me a foot-rub! We wore him out though, you can tell. Pictures of this trip were stolen from Cuny's facebook.

After the trip, I stayed home for two days. Then I went back up to Idaho to go camping with my parents and Rachel, my brother Aaron and his family, my brother Jared and his family, and a friend from Germany. I loved getting to see all of my family this summer, every sibling and every niece and nephew. Especially because a few of them seem to share my penchant for playing multiple games of monopoly in the course of a day. I knew there were other people like me out there, I just had to wait a few years for them to be born into my own family and get old enough to play.

Finally, I returned home to my long abandoned apartment and my much neglected roommate and my long-suffering boyfriend. Since returning home I have skateboarded like crazy, hitting parks as far away as Park City, and begun to panic about my classroom. You see, today is the 15th of August, and I have all day meetings for school starting in five days, and students coming in nine days. However, my classroom is still under construction. You could see why this is making me edgy. I've taken to going into school two or three times a week and getting the newest updates on my room and the expected completion date. A teacher without a classroom is a lot like a pirate without a ship, or a crab without a shell, or a book without a cover, or a flea without a dog. They (the principals and custodians) tell me I should get in my classroom on Wednesday. (They say this with a hopeful look on their faces. I can tell if that's because my getting into my classroom by Wednesday is a pipe dream, or if they're just hoping I don't get mad because I can't get in yet.)

So that pretty much brings my life up to the present day. The only thing more to say is that I have, at long last, learned to drop in. If you don't know anything about skateboarding, that means nothing to you, but it has come to mean the world to me. It means that I have taken a tangible step toward not being a beginning skater. It means that all sorts of things I couldn't even think of doing before are now open to me. Basically it means I'm awesome. I will try and post some pictures of what dropping in looks like so you can appreciate how truly amazing I am. Oh, and I have dark brown hair. For the moment.

Into limbo

Yesterday was our school's yearbook day. It was one of the most stressful days I've been through all year. As yearbook advisor, I had to coordinate the distribution of over a thousand yearbooks (all individually checked for quality) to more than a thousand students in dozens of classes. Each book is labeled with the student's name and placed in a box for his or her class. For weeks we've been typing labels and organizing books. Without going into too many details, yesterday had me seriously thinking I should go blow the stipend I received for being yearbook advisor on something crazy, because I had just earned it. Big time.

Because I've been pushing so hard to get all the final projects graded, the yearbooks out, etc., I have given very little thought to moving out of my room. Finally, yesterday afternoon, after losing my patience, my temper, and my sanity, I staggered back to my room, thinking that I would take the rest of the day to get caught up and to figure out how I was going to do this moving thing. As I opened the door to my classroom I gasped in surprise. There would be no respite, no afternoon of getting caught up, no leisurely moving things out. My back counter was already piled up four feet high with boxes the teacher who will have this classroom next year had moved in while I was dealing with the yearbook.

So here I am today, taking the posters off my walls and reflecting over the past two years at Lehi Jr. Most of these posters I hung less than a week before school started my first year of teaching. In many ways, this classroom feels an awful lot like home. I've spent so many hours sitting at my desk, covering it with papers, uncovering it bit by bit, entering grades, teaching, talking to students. I still remember the blog I wrote about the first time I saw my classroom. I still have the series of pictures I took as I decorated it step-by-step. Now, as I look around, it looks like someone is playing that slideshow backwards.

Disassembling this place feels like going back in time. More than once, after taking down a poster or flag I remembered that the reason I had hung it in that spot was to cover up a hole in or stain on the wall. Now my desk is like an island, still covered in papers, the little flower pot, and with the stapler, tape dispenser, and tissues at the ready. All around it, my classroom is turning into a barren and increasingly unfamiliar space. Who knew that classrooms were such blank spaces? Spaces that could be filled with an incredible amount of personality and life with just a few colored bits of paper and cloth and the collective experience of the hundreds of students who have come through this room in the last few years. And who knew that all of that personality and shared experiences could be simply wiped away like the notes from my students I cleaned off of my white board this morning?

To make matters even more disorienting, I'm moving out without moving on. The classroom I will be in at my new school is going to be remodeled this summer, and no one knows where it will be or when I will have access to it. So I am moving all of this stuff, so useless outside of a classroom, into Allie's and my spare bedroom. Next week I will turn in the seven keys I have to different doors around this school and receive none to replace them. And while my pocket will feel lighter and more carefree without their considerable weight, I think I will also be somewhat homeless until there are at least few to replace them.

Well, I've run out of things to say and time to type. Don't let my current yearbook-hangover fool you, I think this transfer will be just fine. But cleaning out my classroom while the next teacher slowly piles her things in the corner (she's brought in three more cart loads today) makes me feel like my life here is already ended, even though the last day of school isn't until tomorrow. Somewhere yesterday, Miss E., the 8th grade English teacher at Lehi Jr. died, and I'm just her ghost, a faded spectre shuffling about my "unfinished business" while the living busily and cheerfully move into the vacant space my life once occupied.

Confession

I can't help it. I know I should be more patient with him. I know that he doesn't limit his attention span to twelve seconds on purpose. I know he doesn't mean to disrupt class by coming in late, talking, whining, and sighing so loud I can hear it clearly over everything else. I know he doesn't intend to be one of my most annoying and frustrating students. I know that I have to give him extra patience, so I know that I shouldn't take out my frustration at not being able to punish him when he's a pain on him. I know that I should be even more loving and patient and understanding since he just got back to school after being gone for a month because he fell off a cliff and landed on his face over spring break. I know he had extensive reconstructive surgery on his face, and am daily reminded of it by the scars stretching across one side. I know that his nose could quite possibly break if bumped at all. I know he's even more scatterbrained and stressed because he's behind in all his classes from his time in the hospital. I know that for naturally active person with a 12 second attention span, being unable to play basketball and horse around must be an agony of torture, reducing his attention span and usually sparse impulse control even further.

Still, after the tenth time he had blatantly interrupted my class "on accident" in the first fifteen minutes of fourth period, the reason my anger didn't boil over, and the only reason I faced the class with a delighted smile as I turned away, was because I, accidentally, for the briefest of milliseconds, imagined punching him in his fragile, reconstructed nose.

That probably makes me a bad person. But hey, I didn't yell at him like I was about to, right?

Mother's Day Tribute

When I was 18, I got my first official “boyfriend.” I was giddy and happy about it, until I realized that having a boyfriend was usually public knowledge. And while I didn’t mind the people at school or all my friends or, heck, even the teachers knowing, I wasn’t so sure about my parents. As I thought about it, I realized I didn’t even know if I was “allowed” to have a boyfriend in high school. Everyone else’s parents seemed to have clear rules on these types of things, but it had never been an issue for me before, so I had never asked my parents about it. Not to mention, when you’re 18 and beginning your first official relationship since the fifth grade, telling your parents is an agony of awkward. I considered not telling them at all, but they were bound to notice unless I actively hid it from them, and I didn’t want to have to sneak around in my real relationship, especially when there was nothing they could possibly disapprove of in this relationship—except, perhaps, its existence…

I decided to test the waters with Mom. One day, as we were driving back from somewhere, I said with pretend innocence, “Mom, what would you do if I got a boyfriend?” This was supposed to give the information I needed without disclosing any on my part.

I think I can count the number of times I’ve fooled my mother on one hand. This wasn’t one of them. “Why? What boy do you think highly enough of to make your boyfriend?” I was caught red-handed.

Besides reading minds, my mother has several magical abilities, and it would take a book to list them all. For instance, I’m fairly sure that she has visions. I don’t mean the in the Joseph Smith and Nephi kind of way, although I’ve never asked her, but visions nonetheless. Frequently these visions were a source of confusion and extra hard work for me. When she decided to plant bushes and trees all along the edges of our lawn, and sent my sister out to plant and weed and whine about it, I grumbled about “Mom’s projects.” When we tore up the lawn to install a sprinkling system, I thought it’d never recover. When she decided, years later, to plant MORE TREES along the edges of the field, and sent me out to weed and whine again, I grumbled about “Mom’s projects.” When she decided to rip off one side of the house and throw everything into confusion by remodeling, I thought it was fun, but crazy. But, it turns out the Mom has visions. She can see the future. She looked into the future and saw how beautiful our house and lawn could be and then spent years gradually turning vision into reality. She did the same thing with our cabin, and she does the same thing with nearly everything she touches.

Ask her to plan a family reunion, and, before you know it, you are sent off to help take care of bits and pieces you don’t understand until you see the final product. And that’s another thing she taught me, visions require hard work and planning, sometimes years of it. But more important than being aware of the work involved, she has shown me, on countless occasions, not to be afraid of it. So what if it means upsetting the just-fine status quo? So what if that’s a project that will stretch for years? So what if you don’t know the first thing about what you’d like to do when you begin? All of that can be dealt with, and I’ve watched Mom do it countless times to prove it. She taught me to dream big, and to dream creatively, and to not limit my dreams to things that feel safe and easy.

Now, when I want to try new things, things that seem foreign to my experience, or even to the idea of “Eve” that I saw for myself, I don’t spend much time freaking out. Last year, when I was asked to take over the yearbook and make a good looking product from scratch without much training or instruction and a staff of fifteen 14-15 year olds and sell it to a thousand of their peers, I could say “ok.” When I decided I needed a new hobby, I wasn’t afraid to try something completely different. When I was told I would be moving schools and teaching more classes and starting from scratch again, I didn’t waste time grieving and moping. I remembered Mom, and everything she’s taught me about opportunity and work. When you need to create a yearbook, you do it, whatever it takes. When you need to change schools against your will, you make it work and make it work well. Mom has taught me not to be afraid of change, voluntary or un-. Her example gives me courage, hope, and determination.

I think Mom had a vision for the type of home she wanted, one in which anyone would be welcome, and her children would rather bring their friends there than leave. A home full of good places to take naps, curl up with a book, or sit talking with siblings and parents. I know that I am only aware of the tiniest percentage of how much planning, effort, and vision that took to create, but the result is that we all love our home, and we all love being there. When I bring friends home for the first time, they always say something about the atmosphere of our home.

There are so many things I have learned from Mom, so many memories of things she taught me. When I set out to write this, I had a list of five or ten that I had to cover. I’ve made it through two so far. My mom is someone whom I look up to, whom I respect and love and admire more than I know how to express. As I do this “growing-up” thing that I’m doing, I’m beginning to piece together my own vision of the future. It’s a vision of who I want to be, and I know I will spend the rest of my life working it into a reality. That vision looks an awful lot like my mom.

Mommy--Wow! I'm a big girl now!

I would just like to take this moment to broadcast to the world that I, for the first time in a very, very long time, just voluntarily cleaned the bathroom. No one made me do it. No one assigned me the chore, threatened me with a cleaning check, or in anyway hinted that my bathroom was past due. In fact, since I've only lived here for a couple of weeks, by college standards my bathroom was still quite shiny clean.

Nevertheless, this morning I woke up, walked to the store, bought my very own cleaning chemicals, carried them home in a reusable grocery bag, and then cleaned the whole darn thing. All by 9 a.m. Go me!

Don't Fear the Reaper

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Recession, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Budget Cuts, and shun

The frumious Unemployment!"

---Adapted from Lewis Caroll's "The Jabberwocky"

Well, sooner or later, the Recession comes for all of us. This morning it came for me. The good news is I will not be asked to take on a before or after school yearbook program--which I was dreading. Yearbook is enough stress and work as a full class. The bad news is that I also will not be at my current school any longer. Despite my principal's best efforts not to cut math or English, and he's cut every single department so far, he is still one position too high. So he looked at cutting half a math and half an English, and the halves would do half time at another school. But split schedules like that are as stressful as most forms of torture, and the other schools actually need whole positions, not half. So, it looks like I'll be teaching at the next junior high over.

Given the current economic climate, and the budget cuts, I'm very grateful to be guaranteed a job in the district, and, as it is, this looks like the most workable transfer possible. I'm still a little bit in shock, and I'll be devastated to leave my school, my classroom, the yearbook I'm just barely learning how to run, the English curriculum I finally have worked out, the staff and administration whose names and quirks I know, and the school where I'm slowly building a reputation with the students. But, all things considered, I have much more to be thankful for than I do to grieve over. I have a steady, guaranteed, full-time job, benefits, and my new school will even be a mile closer to my new apartment.

They were born under wand'ring stars

The mind of a junior high schooler is a curious place. I'm serious. It's full of random roadblocks, suddenly strong opinions, and whole marshes of exaggeration where a fact or story could get lost and never find its way back out. For example, a week or two ago, I told the story to my students of Dr. Mengele shooting a woman and her child when the woman protested being separated when entering Auschwitz.

When this story showed up in one of my student's papers, it contained some entertaining conclusions and embellisments. I don't have the exact wording with me, so I will do my best to recreate it. The original topic was "Should the Jews have fought back against the Nazis?"

Plus, there were like 20 Nazis for every 10 Jews. I heard this story once where a woman tried to hold on to her baby, and the Nazi pulled out a pistol sized shotgun and blew them both away.

If this how a straightforward story emerges from the maze of their brains, you can only imagine the entertaining political analysis I hear; part I-heard-it-on-the-news-in-passing, part my-parents-said-that-somebody-said-something-sorta-like-this, and part I-just-thought-of-it-but-am-suddenly-willing-to-swear-its-truthfulness.

I ot Angry!

Once upon a time, last school year, I wrote a blog about how I rarely let my students see me angry, even when they probably needed to see it. I think I've either grown more Chutzpah or become callous, or both, but I think the problem is getting solved. The beginning of class today was a bit chaotic because we were turning in projects and I was besieged by nearly a dozen students with problems that needed solving. I turned from helping a student one on one to find my B4 class chatting merrily, as if I hadn't clearly written instructions to read silently on the board, and as if I hadn't already told them twice to stop talking.

Suddenly my voice was loud and full of acid, and I was prowling up and down the aisles. "Why are you still talking? I don't care if I didn't have the time to yell at you to be quiet. You know you need to be reading. If I am unable to babysit you, you need to take responsibility for yourself."

A year ago, I had no idea how to give a speech like this. And I never would have been able to maintain the level of anger and disappointment and danger that dripped from my voice for more than a few seconds. Now it just rolled out so naturally I didn't have a chance to stop and question my authority or my right to say such things. Neither did they.

Now, I'm not advocating being angry all the time, yelling at students, or even lecturing them on a regular basis. But I believe that when they're in trouble, they should know it and feel it. Otherwise, they don't seem to notice that they're in trouble until you call them up after class and nicely explain to them they've got detention.

"This To Shall Pass"

This is, without question, the coolest of these sequences I have ever seen.

And hopefully the url are works this time. Ok... Good.

Discovering the Blogosphere

Recently I attended a literacy conference in Salt Lake for teachers. While there, I went to one particularly convincing presentation that, among other things, showed me how to do all sorts of nifty things online. So, I took the presenter's advice and have been expanding my blog reading list beyond blogs belonging to the people I actually know. This eventually led me to the thebloggess.com, which is proving to be hilarious.

Today I read a story she posted a few days back about Read Write Web's article about Facebook. Their article came up on the google search for "facebook login," and suddenly scores of people were arriving at their article. These people took one look at the red borders, the advertisements, and assumed that Facebook had simply changed its layout again. They then proceeded to leave numerous angry comments begging to allowed to log on and talk to their friends. RWW even posted a banner on the article alerting users that they were not at Facebook, but it was largely ignored. Two days RWW wrote another article entitled "We're Still Not Facebook." Even that article still got comments from confused visitors searching for their pics and their farmville.

For a good laugh, go through the original comments and read a few. It doesn't take very many before you start laughing.

Testing, Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3...

Having finally tired of the pinkness of my blog, and because of various other frustrations with my template, I am in search of a new template for my blog. I will be testing out various templates until I figure out which one I like best. Feel free to leave comments about what you think looks good, works well, etc. I'd love feedback on this. :)

Thank you!

My first Olympics

Clarissa,

Thank you for your letter! I actually never expected to get one. I figured the post card was my letter. So I was surprised and delighted to receive an actual letter. Thank you! It was great to hear from you personally. :) I'm glad you're enjoying your area, companion, etc. My life lately has been dominated lately by the international phenomenon that has been the 2010 winter Olympics.

You see, I've never really watched the Olympics before. I remember watching figure skating was I was little, and occasionally a few minutes of downhill skiing, or maybe even speed skating, but after the age of ten, I never really watched the Olympics at all. Every two years, they would catch me by surprise, coming seemingly without warning or preamble, briefly appearing in people's conversations or on the news, and then disappear. This year, I discovered that Allie, the roommate I thought I knew so well, was a rabid olympiophile. Stephanie K. is also a long-time fan. Even Stephanie T, who often chooses to watch TV in her room rather than in the living room with the rest of our apartment, suddenly appeared out of her sanctuary and spent an unprecedented amount of time on the couch.

My education began with the opening ceremonies. Stephanie K. and Allie had planned a party weeks in advance with Canadian themed food. The TV was turned on an hour before the ceremonies actually began. When I began to make fun of some of the cheesy commercials or reporter comments, I was sharply reprimanded by Steph K to kindly "tone down the negativity." She said this with the kind of tone I usually heard reserved for people who had just received some kind of personal insult. I held my tongue in shocked silence for the next twenty minutes.

Despite their being over two hours long, I LOVED the opening ceremonies. They were beautiful, moving, and impressive. Of course, there were bits I made fun of (cautiously). I remember asking who one of the reporters was and being told it was (insert correct name), who's ALWAYS part of the Olympics--in a voice full of "I can't believe you're actually asking this question. Are you really that unaware? Do you even know where Canada is?"

After the opening ceremonies, I assumed that the majority of the fuss was over. My roommates would watch their favorite events, when they had time. Other than that, life would continue as usual. Out of the last sixteen, Olympic days, I think there might have been one on which the TV was not on and tuned to the Olympics. Steph K and Allie would rush home early to spend hours doing homework and watching the Olympics, getting worked up over events I didn't even know existed. Even events that were usually sacred to our apartment (like American Idol) were unimportant enough to supplant watching the sixth speed skating race we'd watched. I found myself watching an hour of the preliminaries of women's curling. It was just assumed that that was the plan. I remember coming home and finding the Olympics not on, so Nick and I put on some music and began to make dinner. After about ten minutes, my roommates came in, saw the situation, and asked in surprise and disbelief, "You don't want to watch the Olympics?" I immediately gave in to popular demand and turned off the music so the Olympics could be turned on. Another night, it was close to 9 pm, and Allie and Nick and I were sitting on the couch with, surprise, the Olympics on. Nick and I were looking up stuff on online and pretty much ignoring it. Allie gathered up her stuff and asked us to let her know when the figure skating came back on. I told her I was probably going to turn them off as soon as she left, and she seemed surprised and perhaps a trifle disappointed--I hope not in me.

Now that it's all over, I have to admit. I'm a little bit glad it's over. It will be a relief to be able to talk in the living room without feeling guilty for distracting from the constant, sixteen day, omnipresent, all important, main event. However, I also have to admit, I think I will make room in my life for the next Olympics. I enjoyed watching the incredible skill and passion with which all of the athletes participated in their various events. I liked hearing their stories and the drama behind their performances. Additionally, I am a fan of events that bring people together, foster communication and friendships, and promote solidarity. The Olympics definitely qualifies on multiple levels. It brings the athletes together in teams, then into competition with other teams from across the world. This in turn brings fans and families together, and millions of people around the world are suddenly sharing a communal experience. It even produced an unusual amount of together time in our own apartment. It gave me a topic of lunchtime conversation that I could actually contribute to. Not only that, but I learned a lot about a lot of sports and countries I didn't know about before.

So, in conclusion, the Olympics and I are going to be friends in the future. I'm looking forward to the summer Olympics in London two years from now. True, I will probably not ever let them dominate my life quite so completely as my roommates do, but I think I will never ignore them again either. All in all, I have been grateful for the education experience which my roommates and Vancouver gave me these past few weeks.

Wow, this email turned out to be much longer and more Olympics-dominated than I intended it to be, sort of like my life the last few weeks. I think I'll probably end up copying and pasting this into my blog.

Anyway, thanks for the letter, and I promise that my next email won't be all about the Olympics, really. :)

Eve

Receding in the Distance

I have been aware lately that time has passed, a good deal of it.  I'm not sure what irregularities of the space time continuum it may be due to, but my minutes keep turning into hours, which are then transformed into days, which turn in to weeks, then months, and then entire years.  I looked around at many of the people in my student ward one week and said, "Wait a second, when did all the people here get younger than me? And by how much?  You mean to tell me I'm three years older than that girl over there?  No way."  

    

I got together with a group of friends from my home town, and, to my astonishment, the past had done an incredible expansion job.  The people I'd seen just a few months ago were suddenly the people I hadn't seen in three years or more.  The boys who used to be freshmen in my trombone section were suddenly good-looking returned missionaries with plans, futures, and sometimes girlfriends that might become wives.  How did the past grow like that?  I swear there was only a couple years between me and high school, and suddenly it has grown to several years.  Is my childhood retreating?  Am I running ahead faster than it can keep up?  Or is it pushing me away?  

   

I have noticed this phenomenon growing more and more prevalent, until it is affecting even recent events.  My students handed in their journals and I began to wade through grading them.  Where the heck did that week in between their handing them in and my returning them spring up from?  

   

I was home just the other day.  But suddenly, over a month has interposed itself between myself and home.  

   

I don't feel like the present is going by any faster than it was, nor do I feel like the future is approaching more speedily; this strange happening seems to have restricted itself to the past.  Something is wrong with our past; don't you see?  It's growing too fast!  If we continue to allow our past to expand like this unchecked, it will soon overtake the present, and then even the future.  And then our whole lives will be past and then they will be over, with no more room for present or future, today or tomorrow, just an endless and ever growing procession of yesterdays.  Soon there will be so much past between me and my childhood I might lose sight of it, and then my adolescence will follow it into obscurity, followed soon by my youth.  

   

There's no doubt about it: Time is getting too pushy.  I want to tell it to quit butting in.  I don't mind the present moving on, or the future coming, but the way the past is taking over is a little bit dangerous, don't you think?  We had better strengthen our presents and futures.  We need to shore up our faltering todays and tomorrows, so that even when they have turned into yesterdays they will be too strong to let the past burst through and break them.  Otherwise the past will keep intruding into our memories, seeping them away into the Distant Past, which is on the doorstep of Forgotten and Unimportant.  I can handle my life changing and flowing and moving ever onward, but I am not such a fan of things arriving at Forgotten and Unimportant.  Which is why we need to make our current lives all the much stronger and more vibrant, so that they can become the past without being swept so away from us.  

   

Speaking of being swept away, this post has now gone in an absolutely unforeseen direction.  What I really wanted to say, is that Allie and I found an apartment to live in and will move in April.  We'll be moving into our first non-student ward, full of professionals.  We'll no longer be renting by the room or living with provided furnishings.  It's exciting, and it's reminding me that we are growing up and getting different than we used to be.  That all. :) But the melodramatic post about time was so much better than what I wanted to say that I'm leaving it as is.  Enjoy!

Clever student

I've been at my school sorting and grading papers all morning.  As I flipped through the pile of haiku I had my students write, one caught my eye.
 
His winter haiku:
 
Tis the season to
 
be jolly fa la la la
 
la la la la la
 
I am constantly amazed at the creativity and cleverness of the students I work with.
 
From another student, one who is usually completely oblivious to just about everything.
 
Fall:
 
Orange leaves fall
 
all things die
 
except me.

Prepared

   Everyday, I call my students' names one by one to check if they are prepared for the class.  In my class, being prepared means that one has brought the following six things:

  

A pen or pencil

Notebook (for journal)

Binder

English folder

Reading book

School planner

   

    As I left the apartment this morning, I congratulated myself on being "prepared" for the day in my own way.  For me, "prepared" means the following:

   

I have eaten breakfast and read my scriptures.

I have a homemade lunch in my hand.

I'm leaving early enough to get to school by about 7:15, but 7:30 at the latest.

I know what I'm teaching that day, and maybe even the next.

There's a skateboard and palm guards in the back of the car.

I have a bag of extra, casual clothes that I can skateboard in just in case I don't go home before having adventures after school.

  

Spontaneity seems to take more preparation these days.