Things That Make Me Happy

There are many things that make me happy, some of which I caught on camera the last few days.  Here's a sample of what I got on film.  It's not an exhaustive list of the good times I've had with friend and family the past few days, but I wanted to share just a few of the joys of the season for me this year.  Enjoy!

My hair is getting longer, and, despite not having it cut since last April or May and four months of dreads, it still looks pretty good.  It's been years since I had hair this long or my natural color.  I like both.

Out both of my bedroom windows are huge pine trees.  They may me incredibly happy.

I pretend I'm sleeping in a tree house sometimes.

The vanity in my apartment is big, well-lit, plentifully supplied with mirrors, and makes me very, very happy.  It is especially nice because it has room for all my jewelry boxes.  The jewelry rack was a Christmas present and a very necessary one.  

Yesterday morning there was a cat climbing up the tree outside my window.  It was fascinating and adorable.  

My students wrote letters to Santa again this year.  We give them to the Macy's Believe campaign, which donates $1 to the Make a Wish Foundation for every letter to Santa they get.  My students last year knocked me down with an incredible 1746 letters.  This year, my students recruited family, friends, their other teachers, and complete strangers to come up with a whopping 3761 letters.  This is the finished stack.  

Coming home for the holidays always makes me happy.  As soon as I stepped out of the car tonight, I was hit with the crisp, cold Idaho air, a mix of pine smoke from the family's fireplace, and the smell of cold fall leaves.  Add in an evening singing Christmas songs with my Dad at the assisted living center, a beautiful sunset over the fields and trees, and coming home to Christmas lights, and it's been a wonderful evening.  

Sitting on the couch, uploading pictures to my computer, watching our overly affectionate dog try and distract my mom from reading a magazine while both of them compete for the spot in front of the fireplace is another one of those "essence" of home moments.

Weekend Glory

It's not that I don't enjoy my job and my day-to-day life, because I do, but there is something truly glorious about a weekend.  Two whole days off in a row.  I can have a friend come over and not worry about what time they leave so I can go to bed so I can get up early.  I can see the sunrise; I can see hours of wonderful sunlight.  I can cook large amounts of food for the week and have time to clean up the mess.  I can go climb at the gym during hours when they're aren't many other people.  I can actually make a real breakfast.

Or, like this morning, I can wake up early (6 a.m., I went to bed at 8:30 because I have a cold), and lay warm in my bed for a while.  Then, when I'm tired of that, I open the shutters in my room and snuggle back into bed.  Outside each of my bedroom windows is a gigantic pine tree, and with the shutters open, I can almost pretend that I'm sleeping in a tree house.  After a while I get up, make myself a cup of hot chocolate, turn on the Christmas tree lights and sit in the corner of the couch.  From this position I can see the moon setting when I look over my left shoulder, the Christmas tree glowing merrily on my right, and a little bit of sunrise over the mountains dead ahead.

The view from my balcony.

In a while, I'll make some oatmeal, grade some papers, clean the apartment, and turn some music.  Later I'll go climb with friends, then go to the Streetlight Manifesto show tonight.  But for now, I'm just enjoying the silence of a sunrise, bathed in  the glow of my Christmas tree.

I love weekends.

What is Santa Like?

Children all over the world stay up late on Christmas Eve, trying to catch a glimpse of the elusive Santa.  They write letters to him, they sing songs about him, they put out cookies and milk to bait him closer, and in one TV show (Doctor Who) a little girl even prays to him.  

Every year, Macy's has a Letter to Santa campaign, and for every letter they collect they donate $1 to the Make a Wish Foundation.  Therefore, every year my students and I band together to write hundreds of letters.  They write them by the dozens themselves, they recruit little brothers and sisters to write letters, they take them to family Christmas parties, Mutual activities, and even have former teachers have their classes write letters.  Last year my students wrote 1746 letters, donating $1,746 to charity.  This year my students are determined to beat the record.  

So, in order to have them practice their argument-writing skills and get more letters to Santa, I had them write to Santa again today, presenting arguments about why they should receive presents.  They needed to include at least one emotional and one ethical appeal.  As they were working, one student raised his hand for help.  As i was giving him an example argument he could use to convince Santa, he listened carefully.  When I was done, he said in all seriousness, "That doesn't sound much like Santa...Santa sounds more like...Al Gore."

Then he looked at me like I'd gone crazy while I walked away shaking my head and cackling like the Wicked Witch of the West.  

Comparison

In the summer of 2008, I finished my last, regular classes for my degree.  Although I did have a class and a project to complete for my internship and first year of teaching, it didn't have a textbook, it met once every other week, and we mostly talked about how teaching was going.  When I turned in my final project in December of my first year of teaching, I slipped my 80 page packet of pain, tears, and teaching into my professor's box with feelings of elation and unreality.  I was done. I wrote several blogs about the idea.  The idea that I was no longer a student, having been one since I entered preschool at the age of four was liberating and paralyzing.

Months, years, school days, holidays, and summer vacations passed.  I found out that many of the teachers around me were headed to classes in the evenings and during summers, accruing credits toward extra endorsements and advanced degrees.  Frankly, I thought they were nuts.  No way was I going to try and be a teacher--with lessons to prepare, exhausting days to teach, and endless papers to grade--and add into that the stress of assignments of my own to read, prepare, and submit.  I couldn't fathom having to grade end of the term projects and also make time to take a final for my own education.  So for years, every time someone came to a faculty meeting to recruit for an online university, or passed out fliers for classes offered through the district, I would quietly snort in derision.  Besides, my life was never stable enough.  Where I would be teaching next year, or if I would be teaching the next year, always seemed up in the air.

Then, things changed.  I got to a school where I'm not the lowest teacher on the totem pole, a place I can anticipate staying at for a few years, even if I change subjects (I've yet to teach the same class line up two years in a row.).  Then, I committed to teaching for at least four or five more years, at my current school, unless something unexpected and drastic happens in my life (a change in marital status, a quarter-life crisis, etc.).  Therefore, I've been going back to school.  I take a once a week class for my G/T Endorsement, and I take a once a month teaching American history class, and I'm partway through a independent study history course on ancient world history.

After three or more years of not being a student, being back in class is both a familiar and a strange feeling.  My reactions to being back in the seat instead of up in front have been mixed.  I have noticed that

--I'm a worse student than I used to be.  After getting used to the hectic pace of teaching, I have a hard time sitting still and devoting all my attention to one slow- or medium-paced thing at a time.  I tend to make sarcastic comments to the other people at my table and do three things at once while listening (like blogging).  I notice all the other teachers are just as bad.

--Being a student is not as exciting as teaching.  As a teacher, you are continually in the spotlight, always the center of attention, and the constant star of the show.  As a student, you are at the mercy of others' interests, schedules, and are nearly anonymous.  As a teacher, things are constantly changing.  The students change every few hours, the circumstances change, when I'm bored, I mix up the lesson and change how I teach.  I am continually doing three things at once, and usually I'm mentally scanning ahead to the next five things I need to do.  However, as a student, I sit.  I take notes.  I listen.  I accept what's handed to me.  It get's boring after about six hours.

--Being a student is a lot easier and more relaxing than being a teacher.  Today I got to put my feet up on a chair in front of me, surf the internet while taking notes, and learn fascinating things about the constitution taught to me by skilled teachers.  I got to do this while wearing jeans and a hoodie.  Nobody asked me to solve their problems ranging from not having a pencil, having had a Red Bull for lunch and now their hyper, to the fact that their parents are divorced and they spent the weekend at their dad's and they left their bookbag there and so they don't have their project and won't be able to bring it to me for a week and a half.  For once, I get to sit back, open up my mind, and take in information in a relaxed manner, instead of being a continuously playing one-man-band, eight hours a day, five days a week, with papers to grade and lessons to prepare in between.  I remember when my biggest problems were getting my three papers in at the right time and completing cleaning checks on time.  That was hard.  But it was individual; it was my problem and my own neck on the line.  As a teacher, I have over two hundred kids waiting to get their papers back, their parents are waiting to see their students' grades, administrators waiting for my compiled and analyzed data, and students waiting daily to be entertained and educated.  Then there is of course the bills waiting to paid, nutritious food waiting to be prepared and eaten, a dirty apartment to be cleaned, friends to be kept in contact with, and perhaps exercise and recreation or relaxation to keep myself sane.

Becoming a part-time student in addition to my teaching has made me busier: classes and homework take time.  However, except for giving me less time to complete everything else I need to do, it has not made me any more stressed.  Compared to everything else I do, my work as a student is quite relaxing, though time consuming.  It does make me almost wish for those good old days of student hood.  Where you finished all of your assignments every four months and tossed a finished class neatly into the past.  Now I'm never done with everything until summer vacation, and summer vacation is more than a month shorter than it was when I was in college.  No one hands me a two-page syllabus that contains everything I'll need to do to make them happy clearly defined.  My responsibilities are nebulous, often self-defined, and ongoing.

Honestly, I love teaching, and every year it seems to be easier for me, and every year I feel like I get better at it and do better by my students.

Honestly--and it may be the fault of the winter blues, the dating game, or the school year being in the murky middle of its run--I'm feeling a little burnt out.

Dark Days

It's truly stunning how much of the day is dark this time of year.  I never used to notice.  Even if the sky didn't get light until seven thirty or eight, my first classes weren't until eight at the earliest.  Then, between classes, I'd get to walk outside, probably resenting the cold air.  If I had an extra hour, I would go study somewhere with window where I could watch the grey sky or the snow.  Perhaps I would lament the dreary weather, but I would always know what the weather was.

Now, I am walled away much more securely from the outside world.  This morning I got to school just as the eastern sky was lightening and the mountains were outlined with the pale colors that mark the early stage of a winter sunrise.  I walked through the big glass doors and through the foyer drenched with morning light from the giant skylights, took a right, went up the stairs, took a left, a right, a left, and then another left to my classroom.  All those stairs and turns serve to make sure that not one bit of daylight from those glass doors or skylights will ever reach my eyes unless I'm headed to the copy room.  My students come in saying things like, "It's raining!" or "Miss E! Did you see the snow?"  And all I can do is be jealous.  Their feet trail wet leaves from an outside world I sometimes forget exists outside the contained box of my classroom.  The temperature in my room has little connection to the larger world.  If my room is cold or if it's warm have very little to do with if it's cold or hot outside.  On cold days it's slightly warmer in my room because they turn off air conditioning and stop the fans pumping in outside air.

When school gets out, I don't leave before 3:30 or 4:00 (contract time).  By then, the day's strongest rays are gone, and I only have a few precious hours of any daylight whatsoever.  This makes my half an hour drive home one of my favorite part of the day.  There I am, driving along and surrounded by windows which let me see outside in nearly all directions!  It's fantastic.  Then, when I get home, there's only an hour or so left before the long stretch of evening.

Now I'm not trying to complain, I do enough of that already.  I do play outside when I can, and when I get home from school I make sure the shutters of my apartment are wide open to let in the fading light.  When I'm feeling particularly the darkness of the world around me, I have one of those natural light lamps my mother got for me last year.  It doesn't really get me down, this dimness, I just don't know how to express how very dark it is these days.  The idea that it will continue to get darker, that in a few days the eastern sky will not even be visible when I get to school and head indoors and that there will be even less light when I emerge, seems dizzying.  On weekends, when I'm in my apartment, or out and around in the wide world during daylight hours I normally spend in my classroom, I'm always surprised by how very bright it is outside.  I never see sunlight that bright except on those precious weekend days.

Thank heaven there's only a few more weeks of school.  The weeks before and just after the solstice, the darkest and dimmest of the year, are part of my Christmas break.  That means I'll get to see sunlight those days, and by the time I get back to school, it will be no worse than it will be the next week or so. After that, the world will gradually lighten for me, growing brighter and brighter through the long months of winter and spring, until I arrive at school to a glorious full sunrise and leave in the merry afternoon light.  Finally, when summer vacation comes, I will surrender completely to my newly found sun worship, soaking in the double freedom of no school and nearly endless day.

So bring on the next few weeks of increased darkness.  I will grit my teeth, stare at the merry lights on my Christmas tree, and say to the blackness just outside my windows, "All hail The Sun!"

UT Senator Osmond Listens in Class

Senator Osmond recently proposed a bill that would introduce sweeping changes in the way teachers in Utah can be terminated and in the security of their teaching contracts.  Then, he set up a series of meetings with educators to hear what they had to say.  This is his blog post on what he learned from the experience.

I haven't been teaching long--I'm in my 4th year, but I have already encountered many of these issues.  Not only that, but I've kept my ears open.  I've worked at two different schools in the same district since I started teaching, and the discussions I've heard around the lunch table and during collaboration about legislation and legislators in our state have nearly always been negative.  I watched the drama unfold last year as a social studies teacher at my school got attacked for being "socialist," first by a parent and then by a Utah legislator, for teaching the pros and cons of different economic systems without bias.  My mom's been a teacher (in Idaho) since I was five, and I've spent the last twenty-one years listening to what she said about the state and fate of public education.

In my personal, inexperienced opinion, I think Osmond expresses the situation well.  The problems he outlines are things I've either seen in my own classroom, felt in my own experience, or heard substantial amounts of anecdotal evidence of around the lunch or collaboration table.  I don't know much about Senator Osmond's politics; I hadn't heard much about him prior to this issue, but I do applaud his willingness to listen to the rank and file in public education and then honestly describe what they said.

It's worth a read.  It's so worth reading I'll link to it twice.

Thoughts on a Wednesday

Tonight I will take the final for my evening class, and I will hopefully be two credits down the road to a Gifted and Talented endorsement.  Only 14 more to go.  The next 2 credit class starts in two weeks.  By the end of this school year I should have six post-bachelor's credit to my name.

I gave my first negative teacher evaluation the other day.  As nice as my teacher is, and as much as I learned in the class, it had absolutely nothing to do with her.  It was all from the chapters in the textbook.  It still killed me to give such a nice lady such a bad evaluation.  Teaching has hardened me in a lot of ways; I can now give a sweet kid and F and not feel more than a twinge, but grading teachers is still hard for me.

The week before last I got really, really sick.  A nasty infection hit on that Wednesday, and I took my first sick leave from work and skipped class to go see a doctor (The first time I'd been to a non-dentist type doctor since high school).  I was so sick that I fell asleep in the parking lot of the Smith's where I went to fill my prescription.  I slept slumped in the front seat of my car in my work clothes for an hour before I managed to stagger in to the store to get my medicine.  Luckily, antibiotics work fast.  Within 24 hours of beginning my prescription, I felt much better.  Which was good, because within 48 hours it became clear I had Strep throat, too.  Back to the doctor, back the pharmacy for another set of antibiotics.  Luckily, antibiotics work fast.  Within 24 hours of beginning my prescription, I felt much better.  Which was good, because I have to teach school and go to class and grade papers and clean my apartment and get back to rock climbing.

I took my last antibiotic yesterday morning, thank heaven.  It's been years since I took an antibiotic, and the double round definitely proved to me that they're not generally a healthy thing.  Like most medicine, it's skillfully applied poison.  My digestive system is pretty messed up now, and I even got the dry skin and rash I'd heard of but never experienced myself with antibiotic use.  Here's hoping that a lot of water, yogurt, and sleep rebuilds the bacteria farms in my gut.

I'm getting back to climbing.  I haven't been able to put together a regular climbing schedule since July, and between teaching school, taking classes, moving, getting sick multiple times, etc., I hadn't made it climbing more than four times since school started.  I've lost a lot of ground and muscle (and gained some weight).  But I still love this sport, and even though I'm not as good as I was, I know how to get there again, and I know it shouldn't take me long if I make it a priority.

While cutting snowflakes for my Christmas tree last night I thought, "Dreams are like paper snowflakes.  You craft them late at night in solitude, then tuck them between the pages of some book to press for some future time.  They're beautiful, painstaking, and very, very fragile."

I was listening to a This American Life episode this morning, and heard this, "Her steps were brisk and determined, like a school teacher's."  I don't know how many school teachers' walks you have studied, but this is almost universally true the teachers I know.  We whisk down halls, and when we're in a hurry we barge or barrel down them, heaven help whoever or whatever gets in our way.  I have to periodically remind myself that I'm not in hurry half of the time, I can take the time to walk like a normal person.  I once barreled down the aisle between desks in my classroom so fast that when I got caught on the sharp edge of a broken desk it cut me through my pants.  This intense, brisk, determined attitude spills over to nearly everything I do.  I type briskly and determinedly, I grade papers briskly and determinedly, I give instructions that way, I read that way sometimes, I do my make-up that way, I blow dry my hair as quickly as I can.  A friend of mine recently informed me that I chew like someone is timing me--all the time.  And I clench my jaw while I sleep.  That's right, I even sleep with determination.

I Dream of Shower Curtains and Doctor Brain

Last night I had a lot of strange dreams.  I dreamed that a whole bunch of girlfriends and I were discussing a movie, and a friend I found the perfect Christmas present for a friend I've been stumped about for ages.  I had found all the old nostalgic computer games we used to play in junior high available for the game systems she and her husband have.  The games were only $5 each.  It was going to be glorious.  The look on her face when she got a copy of the Lost Island of Doctor Brain and Quest for Glory would be fantastic.  The absolutely perfect present, so much so that when I woke it took until I got to school this morning to realize that it wasn't real.  But after that dream is when the real weird dream started.

I was getting married, and I was trying to decide what to wear.  Back in the bedroom that was mine all growing up, I tried on several skirts and shirts that I had brought with me from my apartment for the occasion, only to realize I'd forgotten the shoes to match.  Getting desperate (We needed to leave for the wedding soon!), I ran down the hall and asked Mom if I could wear her wedding dress.  It's not my dream design, but I liked the idea of wearing my mother's dress down the isle--and I would be walking down the isle (It was going to be a Catholic wedding at this point in the dream, although later in the dream it was a church gym wedding, uck.)  Then we could grab some flowers from the front garden and put them in my hair, just like Mom did for her wedding!  Perfect.  Problem resolved, I quickly put on Mom's wedding dress, which was conveniently hanging in her closet.  Then I hurried off to the wedding, which we were apparently quite late for, so late we never had time to put on jewelry, carry a bouquet, put the flowers in my hair, or even have Dad snap a few pictures since we hadn't hired a photographer.  At least my hair looked fantastic: it was much longer than the shoulder-length layers I have now, and it was elaborately curled and styled in a trailing up-do.

It was raining hard outside the church, and I had to dash inside.  The ceremony itself is pretty hazy.  Apparently I married some guy I knew in high school.  That's pretty much all that can be said about him.  He wasn't a guy I had a crush on, or one I was particularly good friends with, we did go on a date, once, but mostly he was just there.  After the ceremony I changed out of the dress and sat on the porch back at home with my mom.  I slowly began to realize that as far as "my dream wedding" went, it was a bit of a disappointment.  No pictures, no perfect dress, rain dampened hair without the flowers that would have made my mother's dress the perfect choice, and a plain ceremony in a nearly undecorated gym, to a man whose last name I barely remembered.  In fact, when I tried to say my new name in the dream, I had to think a minute, and now I realize I got it wrong.  In the dream I realized that I would no longer be "Miss E." to my students, and that "Mrs. Logan" sounded awfully grown-up and boring (And it's the wrong name!).  This is when I began to get the idea there was something strange about my wedding.  Why hadn't it been planned properly?  Why was it so rushed?  Why did I have to think so hard to remember my husband's last name?  But I was already married, and everyone around me acted as if it was completely normal, so I tried not to question too much.

However, my confusion grew when, we sat on the porch, Amber came walking up the driveway.  To be clear, I have never met Amber.  She just married one of my closest guy friends from high school a week or so ago, and I'm headed to their wedding reception on Friday.  So to see her strolling up the driveway on my wedding day was a surprise.  Apparently she had been talking to Tommie (a friend of my brother's wife's mother's), and had somehow learned from her that I had made a lot of big life decisions lately.  She had come to discuss them with me and see if I was 100% sure about all of them.  She didn't even know I had gotten married.  (This confused me further.  As I apologized for not telling her and her husband, one of my closest friends, about my wedding, I wondered, Why hadn't I told them?  Why were none of my friends at the wedding?  No Jeni, no Di, no Allie, no sisters or brothers or college roommates. In fact, where was my husband right now?  The wedding was over, why was I sitting on the front porch of my parents house in a t-shirt talking to my mom and my friend's wife whom I'd never met?)

I continued to try and explain myself and my wedding to her, because she was clearly confused by my sudden marriage, and my brain began to reel.  It should be noted that we were no longer talking on the porch at this point.  We were in the backyard, and I was wearing a backpack with glider wings attached and was trying to catch air on the Idaho breeze while explaining my terribly confusing wedding, as well as my life decisions, to Amber.  The more I tried to explain to her, the more confused I got, and not even the prospect of flying with my glider wings could distract me.  It occurred to me that, now that I was married, I was going to have to stop seeing the boy I'd been sort of dating.  Hmmm, I thought, that was poor planning on my part.  I should have thought of that.  The dream finally ended with me pausing in my muddled explanation to finally wonder, "Why in hell did I marry that boy?" and realizing that I had absolutely no idea and that I had probably just messed up the rest of my life.

If I had to guess at the origins and meaning of this dream, I would trace it to a few things:  First, two boys I once had epic, long-term crushes on got married in the last two weeks.  Not only that, but people have been talking to me about marriage an awful lot in the last week.  There were a few people over the week, many of whom I did not expect to bring up marriage, of all conversation topics.  Then I spent Saturday catching up with a girl friend who was having boy trouble, and she spent a lot of time on the subject.  Then the next three people I talked to also brought it up.  Sunday morning my climbing partner brought it up, my sister and I talked about it, I'm headed to one of my friend's receptions this week, and the other boy actually called me this week and we talked about his wedding for close to an hour.  When I went to sleep last night, my brain must have had some things to work through on the subject.

If I were to hazard an interpretation, I would say that my brain was working through the fact that I'm not married, despite wanting to be married since the age of 12.  Then I think my brain and emotions were working through all of that to the conclusion, which I often conclude and reconclude, that it's o.k.  Marriage wouldn't necessarily be the best thing right now, and if I could tear off and marry a decent boy tomorrow for the sake of being married, I'd almost certainly regret it.

The next dream involved that boy I've sort of been dating knocking on the door of my old apartment, selling shower curtains.

'Tis the Season

Yesterday I went to Walmart to grab potting soil.  After half an hour in the store, I exited into November air that was beginning to swirl with snow.  But that's ok, because I was pushing a huge cart on which sat the box for an enormous Christmas tree I'd talked myself into buying.  Someday I will only use real trees, I am a real tree snob and look down on fake trees as paltry representations of Christmas.  However, real trees are expensive every year, and this fake tree is only expensive one.  Real trees require stands and hours spent stringing lights and watering and vacuuming.  In my one bedroom, I-live-alone apartment, a fake tree makes much more sense.  I can set it up in a matter of minutes, its pre-strung lights blazing merrily.  When the season's over I can pack it up just as quickly into a box in the closet, where it will patiently wait another year.  I can spend my time making homemade decorations instead.  Besides, after many college years of no tree or Christmas decorations whatsoever, even a fake tree makes the apartment feel like it's swimming in Christmas.

In the meantime, bringing it home has put me into extreme holiday mode.  Even if the tree is currently in the closet, waiting the right snowy afternoon and maybe some company to set up and decorate, I'm whistling Christmas tunes, and my mind is on the holidays.  For example, I happen to have nine large, tart apples on my table, and on a rainy or perhaps snowy Sunday morning I'm asking myself, apple pie or apple crisp?

Fall Break Mystery Adventure

Way back mid September, two of my friends took a mid-week backpacking trip.  I hiked in one afternoon after school to say hi and see the scenery.  As we sat by their fire, we started scheming a trip when all three of us could go--which meant we needed to wait for my next long break from school, more than a month away.  Knowing our opportunity for adventure would be in mid October, we tentatively planned to head south to warmer mountains.

After that, there was very little about this trip that I planned.  I am usually a planner-type-person, I pack seven kinds of jackets and decide a week in advance what day I will pack.  This trip got out of my hands, and I found myself in the uncomfortable position of being a week away from leaving and not knowing which day we were starting our trip, what day we were coming back, who was coming, or even where we were going.  Trying not to imply that I didn't trust their planning and endeavoring not to be annoying, I would casually ask my friends, as if it didn't really matter to me at all, when we were leaving and where we would going.  Every time I asked I got a different answer.  Once they told me that one other friend was coming, then two, then four, maybe more.  We were going to Zion, maybe the Grand Canyon, maybe some backwoods places not really close to anything I'd heard of.  We were all driving together, then my two close friends were going to stay a few extra days, then they were going to stay for two weeks, then they were going to leave two days early, too.

When Monday came, I was becoming increasingly apprehensive.  This trip was sounding awfully vague, which in my experience often meant badly prepared for and not as fun as it could be if it had actually been plan.  Then, all of the plans changed again that day.  My friends decided not to stay in the woods for weeks, so suddenly we could drive together again.  Brian had our campsites, mileage, and water needs planned from personal experience gained while spending two entire months camping in the area he wanted to take us to.  Then, all of the other people dropped out, and it ended up being just the three of us, just like we had originally planned.  I must admit, I seriously underestimated the planning habits of my camping companions.  We stayed up late getting things ready Tuesday night (about 2 a.m.), and when I headed to school Wednesday morning, I was not only exhausted but worried.  Things were a mess.  Our stuff was piled in random stacks and bags and grocery sacks and paper bags.  Dishes were set out on random countertops between two different apartments, things still needed to be purchased, and I was feeling panicked.  How was all that going to be resolved when I was away teaching all day?  The guys were supposed to pick me up from school that day and we'd take off from there.  I would have no time for last minute packing and reorganizing.  I would just have to trust them to work all morning to magically organize and plan and pack everything.  I was skeptical, I was doubtful, I was downright unhappy as I put the finishing touches on my sub plans for Monday and entered grades.

I have to hand it to them: the boys pulled through.  They picked me up from school with a car packed full of meticulously organized bags of food and supplies, extra things packed for just in case, and all of it arranged with Tetris-esque precision in the car.  We drove off into the sunset, and I relaxed and just let the guys handle the trip.  Seriously, they handled everything.  When we pulled up to a campsite in southern Utah that night at midnight, they had a fire built and dinner cooking without any help from me.  I didn't even know where things were packed.  So I set up the tent and got the bags ready, and just kicked back.  That first night we stayed up late, really really late.  We looked at the stars, we built a big fire, we ate cheesy pasta, we sang songs, we watched the moon rise.  We saw dawn start to lighten the eastern sky.

This is only one of the about two dozen fire pictures I took.

Did I mention it was 5 a.m.?
Did I mention we'd stayed up until 2 a.m. the night before packing?

Then we finally went to bed.  Since I get up at 5:30 everyday, I woke up long before Brian and Will, who both work evenings at a restaurant and hotel.  So I explored around our camp.  We were camping in a juniper forest, which opened up into the strangest woods I'd ever seen only a hundred yards from our camp.  It was a deadwood forest.  A fire had killed, but not burnt the trees years before.  It was almost spooky, despite the cheerful daylight.

What my waking up before everyone else looks like.  

When the boys got up and we finally ate breakfast/lunch, we started gathering wood, an easy task with the deadwood forest so close.  We were headed into the real desert after this campsite, and there would be no gathering wood for the rest of the trip.  So we compiled an impressive stock of the some of the best firewood I've ever seen and the guys lashed it to the top of the car.

"I'm gonna wrangle this wood and take it the market." 

The ability to break down trees sort of went to his head.

Then we drove the rest of the day.  We camped that night in northern Arizona, far away from cell phone service and paved roads.  The next morning (Friday), we drove to the trailhead and hiked Mount Trumbull.  The trail wound through rocks and juniper into a forest of beautiful pine, tall, straight, and draped in perpetual late afternoon light.  The ground was carpeted with long needles, ranging in color from the orange of freshly fallen needles, to the gray-white of sun-bleached older layers.  On top of the needles were plentiful dark pine cones, making a beautiful contrast to the pale needle ground cover.

We reached the top, ate lots of trail mix (this trip involved the consumption of gallons worth of trail mix), and enjoyed the view and the sunshine.  Then, as we descended back into the forest, we stopped to play baseball.

Up to bat.

The pitcher.

After our hike we drove to a spot to see some rock art and got a bonus of a beautiful sunset on the hike out.

That night we drove to Tuweep/Toroweap, which is described like this,

If you’re a serious solitude seeker who doesn’t mind a little extra effort to achieve some peace and quite, then boy, do I have a spot for you! It is called Tuweep, and it lies on the north rim of the Grand Canyon on land known as the “Arizona Strip.” It is one of the most remote places in the United States, with one of the most spectacular views in the world. It takes an extra dose of adventurous spirit and the ability to put up with everything “primitive and rustic” to enjoy this adventure, but if you can make the effort the reward will be well worth the trip. For most adventurers, Tuweep can only be accessed by one of three bone jarring, tooth rattling dirt roads, the shortest of which is 60 miles, and the longest a wearying 90 miles of dusty, rutted, sometimes impassable dirt. For this reason, Tuweep experiences far fewer visitors per year than any other site on the canyon.

(http://www.swaviator.com/html/issueMA02/Tuweep3402.html).

We didn't see the view that night, though Brian assured us it would spectacular when we woke up.  By the time we got to Tuweep, it was well past dark, and the only part of the description we could testify to was the "primitive" road.  Although the campground had few amenities (no running water, garbage, check-in, cell-phone service, etc.), it did have a very clean and comparatively sweet-smelling pit toilet.  After two days of camping on BLM land, it seemed like like an incredible luxury.  Although we got there after dark, Will had been planning our dinner since Tuesday, when he stayed up late spicing steaks and packing them into individual bags to let them soak up the spices for days.  He had gathered special wood on Thursday to create better coals to cook over, and when we finally arrived at Tuweep on Friday night, he got down to business.  While we waited for the coals to be perfect, Brian and Will got to work on the hors d'oeuvres: Triscuits, summer sausage, and cheese roasted over the fire with a double sided grill Will and Brian jerry-rigged with twisty ties.  What did I do to help?  I read out loud to them, told them stories from Norse mythology, and pitched the tent.  I felt thoroughly spoiled on this trip.  Will even let me have the first steak.  It was fantastic.

The master chef crafts the perfect coals.

Appetizers

A serious stake over serious coals.  

In the morning, we woke up to this:

We packed up everything we needed for breakfast and hiked an easy fifteen minutes to the rim itself: a 3000 foot drop down to the Colorado River.  It was completely breathtaking.  I'd never seen the Grand Canyon before, but I had high expectations.  However, no expectation can really prepare you for the reality, complexity, enormity, and beauty of that canyon.  After goofing around taking pictures on the edge for a while, we cooked our oatmeal, Then we spent hours just laying in the sun on a cliff edge, alternating staring out at the canyon and up at the impossibly blue, completely cloudless sky.

Then Brian taught us to make walking sticks from a Yucca cactus, which led to hours of crafting, and then days of horseplay and sword fighting.  After hanging out at camp for a while, we packed up our pasta supplies and two different kinds of tea and headed back out to the rim to watch the starts come out over the canyon.  The stars were some of the most awesome (in the old-fashioned booming voice and quick intake of breath kind of way) I have seen in my life.  That led to more hours of laying on rocks watching the sky.

The next day, Sunday morning, we clambered around on the rocks at our campsite, and then moved on.  We drove several more hours on the "bone-rattling" roads to Whitmore Point, where even Brian had never been.

A trace of civilization.

One of the side roads we stopped by for a bathroom break.  

It ended up being one of the coolest places we went on our trip.  At some point in the last few million years, a lava flow cut over and through the sandstone of the canyon and actually dammed the Colorado River.  The dam lasted 20,000 years before breaking.  This makes Whitmore point a confusing and delightful mix of lava rock both porous and smooth, river and lake rocks, and the characteristic sedimentary rock of the canyon.  While exploring a side ravine we nick-named the Dragon's Nest, we saw a tarantula.  It was blocking the only easy way out of the ravine, and I gathered up my courage and sprinted past it into a patch of cactus.  Go figure.

Monday morning, in our few remaining hours before we needed to start the long drive back, we hiked down to the Colorado River.  From Whitmore Point, the hike is fairly easy and safe, and takes an hour at most.  We jumped into the cold water of the river and washed off days of dust.  I'm not sure how effective that was, even with the biodegradable soap I had brought that we gleefully scrubbed off with.  The water was nearly opaque.  But it still felt fantastic to clear out five days of grease from my hair and layers of sunscreen from my skin.

While we dried off on the river bank in the warm Arizona sun, a flotilla of rafters drifted by.  Two men in a duckie came up to chat, and we found out they were on DAY 16 of their float trip. They must have been on the river a long time, because they talked like they were from a renaissance fair, and seemed so happy to see us that they began throwing us Canadian Beer.  In the end, we ended up with a free six pack worth of non-Utah beer (This is significant because beer is both more expensive and watered down in Utah).  Too bad beer tastes gross.

We finally got back to the car and began to drive home.  We arrived at St. George and our first paved road, water fill-up, gas station, and cell-phone service in four days.  We got there with about ten minutes of gas left in the car and two gallons of water.  I clutched my cell phone for half an hour before we got there, waiting to call my mom.  Because I hadn't known where we were going, I couldn't prepare her for me being out of contact on a mystery camp trip with boys she'd never met.  I was worried there'd be helicopters searching for us.  The guys watched the gas gauge anxiously, I watched my phone.

We drove and drove and drove.  The guys eventually fell asleep, and I took over driving for the first time all trip.  I listened to This American Life, I sang Broadway songs, nonsense songs, jazz, hymns, anything I could think of.  We got back to my school, and I climbed into my cold car, which had been sitting in the school parking lot for six days.  Then I drove the weary half hour back to my apartment, and dragged my dusty pack up to my apartment at about 2 a.m.  Three hours later I staggered up off my bed and out the door to teach.  I hit the ground running this week.  I've got 200 projects and papers to grade by Friday, I've got class and homework, and I've got a trip home planned this weekend.

Despite the stress it's placed on this week, and despite my apprehensions going into it, this mystery adventure turned out to be one of my favorite trips I've ever taken.

Restoring My Honor

Every year during my high school days, my high school would host a novice debate tournament.  From my sophomore year on, I attended it as a judge, but my own novice year I was a competitor.  As usual, my mom handed me a couple of dollars to buy food at the tournament, since I'd be there for lunch and probably dinner.  This time, however, I lost the money.  When lunch came I couldn't find those precious dollars anywhere, and I was hungry.  Science had proven that if you don't eat enough your brain slows down and your concentration suffers--consequences I couldn't afford at a debate tournament.  Clearly, this was an emergency.  Then it occurred to me that this tournament was at my own school, and that my very own locker was just around the corner, in that corner was a little colored cardboard box, and in that box was some money.

Enter moral dilemma:  The money wasn't really mine. I was a member of Key Club, and we had been "trick or treating for UNICEF."  The money in that little cardboard box was the donations I had collected from my friends and peers.  The box was printed with facts about how it only took something like four cents to buy enough vitamin A to prevent a child from going blind.  But I was hungry!  If I didn't eat, I was sure I was going to lose my debate rounds, and for such a silly unforgivable reason as losing a few dollars!  I couldn't let that happen!  So I sneaked down to my locker, opened the little box, and stole $3.14 from charity.  I'd bring money to replace what I was taking on Monday, I told myself.

Monday morning, I forgot.  It's ok, I told myself, The fundraiser goes until Halloween. I technically have two weeks to bring the money.

I put it off, I forgot, I didn't have exact change, I forgot.  Halloween came and went.

The next year, I wasn't part of the Key Club UNICEF drive, but I saw my friends wandering around with the same, bright orange boxes asking for donations to save children.  A voice in the back of my head reminded me that I owed $3.14 to a good cause, and I resolved to bring the money to donate to the drive.  I forgot, I put it off, I didn't have exact change, I forgot.

The same thing happened my junior year, and again my senior year.  I graduated from high school having never paid my debt.  No big deal, right?  I just stole money I had collected from people in the name of charity and let kids go blind.

Every once in a while, at college, I'd see tables for UNICEF set up around campus and immediately would be struck by an attack of conscience.  But I also never carried cash, and was just as forgetful as ever.

This morning, eleven years to the month of taking that money from my locker, I cleansed my honor.  I went to the UNICEF website and made a donation that reflected the original debt plus a whole lot of guilty-conscience money.  The satisfaction I feel is a bit like the feeling of actually getting ALL of the ring around the sink drain cleaned and scrubbed off, and the sink looks back at you pearly white like it hasn't been in years.

I challenge people to duels now, 'cause I've got honor again!  My unstained honor will not be smirched again!

Crap.  I owe that one kid from high school $25.  Do you think he has a website and except credit cards?