Stages

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

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

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

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

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

Advancing

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

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

A teaching secret

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

meeting fate

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

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

Doing the math

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

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

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

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

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

Weird Dreams

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who needs roller coasters and illegal drugs?

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

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

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