Coming Clean

My darling friend, J, has been putting up brief snippets of her diary recently. I decided I'd do something in the same vein. I've really been meaning to tell this story, if for no other reason than to get it out there, but that rather ignores all the true reasons I'm telling this story. It's not a happy story, or a funny story, and it's not necessarily a sad story either. But it's the truth. As unbiased as it can get when recounting the end of one relationship and the start of another.

The true end. You all already know the false end, when K and I broke up over the summer. Perhaps I shouldn't say false, as that tends to imply that I intended to deceive. Maybe the first end is better.

Either way, come K's fall break he wanted to come visit me. I couldn't think of a reason to say no. The two guys I was crushing on at the time either weren't available or not interested, and by the end of that weekend, K and I were basically back together. I say basically because, well, we never said we were just dating each other. Only people at my university knew, and even then, I didn't go around telling anyone; they usually found out by accident. Whether it was seeing him visit me or asking where I was on a particular weekend, people started to find out. Most were surprisingly supportive - they felt K deserved a second chance, something I flipped back and forth on while deciding if I should get back with him in the first place. My parents eventually began to suspect something around Thanksgiving, when I said I was going out to watch a movie with K and some other friends. They didn't approve of my hanging out with him. I pretty much told them to shove it.

I can't say that things were the same, because they weren't. Things weren't better, or worse, but they weren't the same. It was just nice being with someone familiar, even if neither of us would consider it a real relationship. That became just another one of our issues. I didn't trust him to be loyal to just me. He didn't trust me not to hurt him. So neither would let our eyes wander and neither would let the other close enough to hurt or be hurt. Neither of us were terribly happy in the relationship, but that didn't stop us from trying to make adjustments for each other. I'd visit more, he'd compliment me more, things like that. There was always a solution, there was always something we could do to make it better, maybe not immediately, but that would eventually happen and we'd be happy. And we'd hold onto that like none other.

Until there were no solutions anymore.

Throughout that semester, K had been interviewing for various programming positions. He ended up with a few offers around the country. The one he was most interested in was in Phoenix. The one from a company he had previously worked for was in KC. I felt many of our issues could be resolved if he were to take the job offer in KC. He liked the company, already knew all the people he'd be working with and he'd be close to me. Once I graduated, he could move on to where ever he pleased and I'd follow. The week he was doing final interviews with the company in Phoenix, we got into a huge argument about him not really preparing for the interviews. He had settled on an Indy based company (KC company hadn't gotten back to him yet, I was still holding out) and he didn't really care anymore. I was upset because I felt this was foolish and immature. During his Phoenix visit, he wouldn't talk to me. Until one night.

It was Sunday, right before finals week. B had been flirting with me all week and weekend and we'd hung out...5 nights of 6? Something like that. That night, I was over at his friend's house with him and two other couples, one male member being his closest cousin. They got drunk. We played Presidents and Assholes and it just so happened that I would be the one who could tell B what to do. This mostly was just "take a drink" but the hostess decided to get creative about it. She had been drinking a lot when she leaned across the table and asked, "So is this the girl you're trying to hook up with?" I cracked up while B remained silent (I swear he shrunk in his seat a little). Then, "I don't have to answer that if she says it, right?" "No, but you do if I tell you to. So answer the question." A pause. "Can I just drink?" "Sure, take a drink, but answer the question." "I don't hook up." If it hadn't been apparent where we were headed by then, it certainly was clear now. It wasn't just flirting, there were intentions behind it. On both ends, so don't think I'm trying to shirk my role in all this. Not half an hour later though, K texted me after almost a week of no communication. He wanted to talk to me. He missed me. I waited until I could leave without arousing suspicion, then booked it back to my apartment.

It should have been really simple. It should have been I come clean about flirting b/c I was feeling ignored , K gets understandably upset, we promise to work on it. Instead it ended up with K telling me to pursue a relationship with B and him logging off on me. Two hours later K starts texting me, saying he was wrong. I tell him I knew he was and it's okay. I tell him after finals, I'll see him in Indiana. Not three days later he's telling me I shouldn't make plans to see him over break and I'm trying to see B before I leave and it never happens and I return home frustrated, thinking this will just be a repeat of last semester.

The first few days suck. I spend my time texting L who is home in STL and avoiding my family. I spoil the dogs with attention and walks. I keep to myself. Until K texts and asks me out for coffee with another high school friend, H. I say yes. I don't know if they planned it, but H spends the whole time telling us how good it is that we've worked things out and we immediately fall into the role of the happy couple around the holidays. But, at least for me, that's all it was. An act. That blanket you throw on even though it's worn too thin to keep you warm. I knew that when Christmas came we wouldn't have gifts for each other and we wouldn't see each other's families and come New Year's I would be going to the annual party alone. I did go alone, but I ducked out early and headed over to my second mom's party, M, where the rest of my family was. At midnight both K and B text me. I don't remember what I said, only that I made a conscious decision to string both of them on and see which worked out. I'm not proud of that, don't mistake me. I'll tell you why I did it though: I didn't trust K to have his mind made up one way or another, and I couldn't trust B to actually be into me since he'd basically led me on at least once before.

The next day my brother and I headed out for a ski trip to Colorado. We stopped over at my university to save on hotel money. I decided we should go directly to B's house as he had invited me over to watch movies. We ended up cuddling on the couch until around 4am. My brother later tells me he felt like he was cockblocking just by being there. For the rest of the drive to Colorado, B and I start this game to keep me awake. We ask each other questions back and forth. I don't think of K until the fourth day of the trip when he texts me to see how it's going. We briefly update each other, but the sheer number of texts B has amounted against him speaks volumes. I brush it aside, knowing that K and I work better in person, still not wanting to fully believe that B liked me.

When I get back to IN, my parents are on vacation so I spend a few days at K's college before heading to mine. It's there we have a conversation about where he'll be working. He chose Phoenix, sent in his acceptance in the first few days of the year. I swallow my concerns, knowing stating them again would be viewed as not having faith in the relationship. Besides, it makes no difference now. Instead, I choose my words carefully and explain that I'm worried about doing the long distance thing again. I don't know that I can. I make it about me, a "me issue" instead of an "us issue." K holds me and tells me we'll make it work. But I don't believe him. When I leave I tell him that I don't think the relationship will work out in the long run and it would probably be best if we backed off. I thought this was us breaking up. He thought this was me continuing to voice my concerns.

When I get back to my university, it isn't long before B asks me out on a date. I accept. K and I have hardly been in contact, but there's enough doubt in my mind that I need to clarify he and I are over. It's the first day of class. I figure I should call him. I say I can't do this anymore and he just says okay. There's a silence for a bit, then he says he'll be right back and I think he's either gone to yell about me to his roommates or to get tissues. He comes back shortly. I say I'm sorry and he says I know and we hang up without another word. Later that week I go on the date with B. After the extremely...eventful date where he locks his keys in his car, I get a rose, we get stuck in snow trying to get out of my apartment complex, and fall asleep watching movies at his house, he asks me to be his girlfriend. Again, I accept.

Simply put, that's where the story ends. But it's never that simple with me, is it? The first few months of dating was a huge adjustment to me. I'd find myself saying phrases I used to say all the time with K just out of habit (example: like 2 or 3 weeks into it, I was being a playful-annoyance and to make sure B knew I was just joking around I flipping said, "Love me?" like I flipping always did with K. I about had a heart attack and thank god B pretended not to hear me b/c I was mortified the rest of the night) and I fell into the routine I had with K. I don't know if he realizes, but B broke me of my old habits. I stopped being so controlling in the relationship, I started voicing my complaints instead of letting them fester or internalizing them. Being in a relationship was so much easier and happier and more fun than I had remembered. B's fantastic communication skills started rubbing off on me and have helped our relationship so much, I'm not sure we'd have made it this far without them.

But then there is still K. First, he defriended and blocked me in every way possible, and I understood because he was upset with me. Then he unblocked me started texting me all the time and wanted to visit before he moved to Phoenix. Then he stopped talking to me because he didn't want to hear about my relationship (even though he wanted to tell me about his). Then he wanted to be friends with me, but I was going through a really rough time and couldn't put any decent effort in. Now he's in a "doesn't want to be friends" phase, only this time it's because he doesn't like me. But you know what? I'm okay with it. Sure, it hurts that someone I had a relationship with doesn't think I'm a person worth being friends with, but if he can't see that I'm a good person, that's not my fault. I still hope that K and I can be friends again someday, but I think it's very unlikely to happen.

So if you didn't make it through all that, basically about a year ago I cheated (definitely emotionally, not physically (at least in my book)) on two guys to get into a relationship that is going amazingly well that I might have just jeopardized by posting the story on the blog. Yeah, I think that about covers it.

Grocery Greeters

Lately, I've realized I don't like going grocery shopping alone. Even though it usually means taking two or three times as long to get what I need (for some reason, I'm really efficient at grocery shopping and many of my friends are not), it's okay. Because someone is there. To save me from them.

Now, when I say them, I don't literally mean the greeters at your grocery store of choice. I really mean the people who take it upon themselves to talk to the young woman shopping by herself. In the past few months, I've had someone give me advice on how to choose a mate, someone else tell me a joke about sex, someone else discuss the nitty gritty details of her custody battle and yet another fully stop me and explain the merits of particular brands of hard cider (though I had very fruity girly alcohol in my own hands). Along with the few regulars (as I call them), "Where'd you find X?", "Which X is better?" "How do you choose X-produce?". But those bother me far less. Let me be so so very clear. I do not seek advice, I do not speak to people who don't work at the place I am shopping (nor do I work at these locations), I am not a therapist and I do not like hard cider.

It's not as amusing as you'd think. In fact, it kind of scares me. I don't mean to seem like I'm terrified of strangers, not at least in this case. We're all grocery shopping, we're just going about our routines. It's okay to feel some sense of camaraderie. But seriously? I don't know you. I don't know your name, I didn't ask you a darn thing. The lady who told me about her custody battle? She started the whole thing by asking me about Diet Coke cans. Apparently, they've changed their design and it's all just too much change for her to handle.

...

Lady, hold it together. I've been through tough times too, including talking about murder and roommates in my first class of the day right after my roommate was murdered. It's okay. You're stressed and possibly on the verge of tears, but you're managing the best you can and that's good. But don't you dare think it's acceptable to walk up to some random person and rant to them.

When these situations happen, I find myself making noncommittal grunts and nods, sometimes even a half-smile. But I don't encourage them. I don't know what it is about me. I've got my list, I've got my cart, I'm moving through the store with purpose. Why do they feel like they can come up to me? Do any of you have stories about grocery greeters?

i-oh-what?

Apple is really starting to bother me. Especially their "introducing iOS5" video. If you don't feel like watching, it basically goes like this.

     We have unobtrusive notifications now! And you can go directly to view that message/email/missed call! We are awesome! What do you mean Android has been doing that the whole time...? No, no you must be lying, we are clearly superior. This puts us years above anyone else because the way we do it is so stylish. Wait, you mean people actually created skins to make it look prettier on Android? Pff, why would anyone want to change the amazing styling of Apple. They can't do that. We are king.
     We also have a cool new newsstand for your magazines if you have purchased one of our $500+ tablets. Because we have exclusive contracts with magazines for publishing them electronically. Because we are Apple and we are God.
     Wanna know what else we added? NOTES! No more need for downloading the Evernote app because we thought it was such a great idea, we just incorporated it into our stuff. Yaaaaay us. Guess what else we thought was cool! Photo apps! So we are now letting you edit photos after you take them. Whooo, are we awesome or what?
     Oh hey, oh hey! We've now integrated Twitter! Zing, take that Android! WHAT?! NO! STOP SAYING ANDROID HAS DONE THIS! YOU LIE!

The only positive thing I can say? If you do have an iPad, new Safari capabilities seem fairly cool. And if you have an Apple to television wireless thing you can connect your iPad even more. So basically...if you've spent a whole bunch of money on Apple products before, they work even better together. Which is nice and is what they should be striving for anyway.

I don't know, I don't mean to sound like I'm hating on Apple so much b/c I really do quite enjoy my old Leopard-running MacBook Pro. But I don't like their calendar and I don't like their mail and I find myself using Google products a lot more.

Oh, but what does it matter anyway? In 5 years everything we use a computer (or the "smart" aspects of our smartphones) for is going to be done through a web browser. Operating systems will be obsolete.

Total

According to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, it is a transitive verb and there are three definitions of the word total. The first is "to add up" as in compute. The second is "to amount to" as in number (though I think sum works better with amount to). The third is what we are concerned with. "To make a total wreck of: demolish; specifically: to damage so badly that the cost of repairs exceeds the market value of the vehicle." Again, I would make a substitution of "total wreck" to "completely wreck" but I have this thing about using the word you're defining in its definition.

It is believed that I totaled my car Saturday night around 9pm local time 6 miles from the Illinois-Missouri border heading back to college. I was 100 miles or an hour and a half away from my destination, heading back from Indiana. I said bye to my mom and dogs 10 hours before. I dropped my best friend J off at the airport 7 hours before, after getting Ethiopian food and cupcakes (Here Comes the Bride survived the wreck intact, amazingly, but I left it in the car and it got rained on and then it got hot, sorry J). I visited my second mom and her family 5 hours before and faced the inquisition about the relationship between B and I. And now my car had hydroplaned and spun off the right side of the road and was sitting facing oncoming traffic, backed up the dirt that is built up to form an overpass.

Let's get the facts you're all concerned about out of the way. Yes, I am fine. I have whiplash and a scratch on my arm and a cut on my leg but beyond that I am FINE. No one else was in the car with me. No other cars were involved. No people were hurt. No rails, poles, lights, whatever else the government would love to charge me for had it been ruined was damaged. It is just my car.

As you might have guessed, the crash was rear impact, which is why my "injuries" were so minor. My back windshield shattered, the whole trunk crunched. The airbags did not deploy. The driver side window shattered, we're not sure if it just happened or if it was b/c of my head. Either way, my glasses flew off and out. So did my deodorant, but I picked that up later (and promptly dropped it when the police pulled up b/c who wants to be caught holding deodorant while the police give you the 5th degree?). I thought I lost toothpaste, but that was just in the bottom of the bag. And my cell phone and laptop chargers were on the floor in the back so I didn't lose them either. I HAD my H&M black jacket when I left the crash sight, but it either got left at the truck stop the police dropped me off at (friends were on their way) or in the back of the police car. I also lost a debit card, but I let the bank know and closed the account the next day. So all in all, not too bad.

I mean, considering. You know. =/

I don't know if it's the racer in me, but it was really really difficult to say bye to my car. I know I'm lucky and I know it could have been much worse, but all I can think of is that I should have been able to save it. I remember thinking as the accident happened, "I got this, I got this, oop, there it goes," and then it spun. And I didn't get emotional at the wreck site or riding back to A's when it was storming or when my mom flipped out when my parents picked me up the next day. But seeing my pretty little car next to mangled hunks of metal and thinking, "Oh, she's not too bad, I'll get her back," and then having the tow guy tell me the rear axle is broken and it's probably totaled? Yeah, I started crying. But it's stupid because I know a car is just a possession at the end of the day. It wasn't near as severe as losing a person or an animal, but on the other hand it's not as mild as donating your favorite stuffed animal or toy from your childhood. The only thing I can think of that's comparable is if you ever did something to break your laptop and it couldn't be fixed but even then, that's not quite the magnitude. I don't know, maybe it's just me because I have connections with cars since I'm weird like that.

It's ironic that I was talking to B the week before saying in my family we run our cars into the ground before getting rid of them. I was telling J just a day or two before that though I plan on keeping my Mazda 3 until after college, my next car would have to get at least 40mpg because gas prices are bound to go up, though I hope not too much before they can create a fuel efficient car that's about as zippy as mine. Let's see if they have.

A Miss on the Radar

 Question: does this scream lesbian to you?

Because apparently to the gal working the Steak n Shake drive-thru it does. And to a female couple walking around Walmart.

But what is it about the outfit? Fedoras were once considered kind of "lesbian fashion" but every female (and a bunch of hipster male) celeb and their mom has been seen out in a straw fedora in the past couple of years. Plaid shirts, those too are lesbian fashion? Whoops, someone forgot to tell American Eagle, Hollister, Macy's, Guess, etc for the past 3 years. And it's not just that popular stores are producing these fashions. It's the way they do it. Sure, my plaid shirt is felt and rather quiet tones, but it's super fitted and show-y which makes it more "straight girl fashion." And sure, "femme" is a type just like "butch" is a type but "femme" lends itself more to 50s and 60s and pin-up. Which I'm not doing. And wanna guess the lower half? Not baggy jeans and Converse - had I done that maybe these looks and flirts would be warranted. But skinny jeans and boots.  Super tight skinny jeans! Like I struggle to get them down when going to the bathroom tight! And my loverly grey boots with heels.

I don't have much of a radar. I mean, I dated someone who's more attracted to men than women and had no clue until the relationship was falling apart. I've been friends with people for months before they're like, "Oh hey, I'm (not hetero)" and I'm floored. But I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

On one hand, I think it's nice that I define people by their personality as opposed to their sexuality. And sexuality isn't something that concerns me too much. No, that's false. I'm interested in sex, and I'm very interested in how people come define themselves as sexual beings, but I'm not much concerned with knowing which team they bat for. So. It's good that I don't have a radar because it forces me to like people for other reasons? Something along those lines? (Can it really be that simple?)

But on the other, it's awkward to join a group of rugby girls and get hit on for a couple weeks and not realize it. Back when I started playing, I wondered about my coach for a few days when someone randomly mentioned her wife. And I was like, oh, that's simple, it really should have been obvious to me before. But then I started wondering about the other girls. And sometimes it became obvious because of their relationship history. So and so used to date her over there but she's bi now and they hate each other and those two right there have been dating for almost a year and the girl that's telling you all this, well she's the only other straight girl on the team (but hey guess what, she's bi now XD). I feel like life would be easier if I knew everyone's bunk buddy gender preference because then I could read their intentions a little better. Like are they being nice to me because I'm a new teammate, because they want to hook up with me or because they actually think I'm a cool person. (Probably a combination of the first two, most likely not the last one.)

And I'm completely ignoring transgender and those who have little interest in sex and a bunch of other categories and that's not necessarily cool either. But, and this might be a little rude, I feel like it's rather easy to identify a transgendered person. And someone who isn't interested, well can't a friendship develop just fine anyway?

I still feel like I should try and develop a gaydar. Not because it will be terribly important to have, but because I people watch enough that it would add to the accuracy of my statements. XD (Calm down, I'm mostly joking people!)

Dimples!

My best friend posted an adorable video blog about her disliking her hair and dimples. Now, I am no stranger to the concept of a love-hate relationship with my hair and don't even get me started on my pimples, but I love my dimples and I love my freckles and I am here to prove it.

J did this pose during her video blog. It's kinda goofy, right? But you see those dimples? That one true dimple right by my mouth? That outer line that looks like it's about to form a double chin? That weird one on the other side that comes straight from my nose?

Aren't they cool?! Aren't they weird and cute and adorable?! The correct answer is yes. Yes they are. Always and forever, dimples are awesome.

Question 6: Balance

It is required that every semester at my university education students do some sort of service learning. Usually these are in schools or after school programs, but what specifically you do varies with the location. Currently I help out a junior high teacher with her study hall. It's fun and what I do is always different.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time trying to get a group of students to work on some worksheets, but it just wasn't happening. It makes sense - these were additional worksheets. That eliminated any intrinsic motivation for completing the worksheet, and the teacher provided no reward for doing them, offering no extrinsic motivation. It was a bad situation and quickly deteriorated into making jokes about jerking it and race (it was a diverse table and they were lighthearted). I had to remind them to watch their language and their volume and it was getting out of hand. I figured if I could control the conversation, I could control the language and volume and then we'd work on getting back to the worksheets.

So they started asking me questions, where I would be speaking the most. One tried to get me to guess what nationality he was (correctly answered Vietnamese, but at least a generation removed). He asked how could I know this when I just learned his name? Well, I grew up in SJ I told him. 50% Asian, I kind of had to know the differences. For example, I eliminated Korean and Japanese before he and I ever spoke based on the shape of his face. Someone said he wasn't Chinese, and that sold it for me. We moved from there to how I came to be in Missouri, how I picked my major and how I picked this school to service learn at. Then they started asking more personal questions.

It started out harmless. Two were surprised I was in college - they thought I was in high school. I told them to guess my age. After telling them my age, I told an anecdote about getting carded going into an R-rated movie earlier this year. When I said my 21st birthday was this weekend, one made a drinking gesture and I said, "Yeah, after this weekend, we'll see." "Legally." "Well...yes." The implication wasn't lost on any of them. It was the way I said well. I shouldn't have used it at all. It sparked this.

"Do you smoke?" "No, second hand smoke gives me headaches a lot so I haven't." "What about pot?" "I'd imagine that would do the same." "I've smoked it before." "I have friends who do." "REALLY?!" "Shhh, yes, but that doesn't mean they do so around me. They respect me and know that I don't approve." "You know it's not even that bad -" "You know that if I were an actual teacher I'd be required by law to report that to an administrator? Please don't talk about this more, you could get in real trouble." The table just stared at me. "But you're not going to report it now?" "I could, but no, I think that would be unfair given how our conversation had been going." I don't mention that I don't have anything to go on besides "So and so said he tried pot once," which might receive a talking to, but probably not.

The whole conversation had been interspersed with comments along the lines of "Omg, you're so cool," and now they just looked at me in awe. In their eyes I'm not a teacher; I'm a friend. I don't want this because it gives me no authority. I won't be able to effectively punish these kids for not doing their work now. I can't hand out punishments, that's reserved for real teachers. That's how it went down. I told one of the students to get a new worksheet b/c she had written nonsense all over her current one and she wouldn't do so. I eventually got so fed up, I brought her over to the teacher and the teacher made her finish the written over worksheet AND another one before the class was over. I had no intentions of making her finish the work, I just wanted to see a section done properly. But I couldn't even do that because the student saw me as a friend, not a teacher.

Looking back, I don't see much wrong with the things I said. I think it's appropriate to speak frankly with your students in secondary education and own up to what you have and haven't done. I think it's ignorant of you to assume they are going to be perfect kids. When I was their age I had been offered pot a few times and knew how to get it if I desired. I was ignorant regarding sex and drinking, but not enough to think it never occurred. If I pretend middle schoolers are too young to know about these things, I limit my ability to reach these students. If I pretend I didn't participate in these things, regardless my age, I harm my credibility as a person. What I did wrong is not establish myself as a teacher FIRST.

Every professor here talks about new teachers wanting to be friends with the students and be considered cool and the problems that creates. I'm not going to lie, it's nice being called cool, being asked to be their student teacher the rest of their time at the school. It's really flattering. But it's not effective. Even though I like the feeling I get, knowing these students trust me and see me as someone they can turn to, it doesn't outweigh the fact that I can't keep them as "in line" as I should be able to. It's tough finding this balance between relating and governing. I like democracy, but (at least in my experience) that isn't how effective classrooms are run.

But this is helping. Every semester I get more experience in the classroom and I know my shortcomings. I know it seems like failures are the only things I talk about in these education posts, but I don't mean it to seem that way. This is me realizing what needs to change, and I am changing them. Remember when I posted about how I needed to change how I dealt with students? I'm getting really good at it. Sure, I slip up, but that's this one group. Everyone else is under my thumb. Did I tell you all how I was having a conflict with a student? She wouldn't respect me, so I approached her on a day when we hadn't interacted so much and was like, "So I get that you don't like me, and that's chill, but I don't know why and I'd like to." And you know what? She listens to me now. It took two minutes and we corrected what was becoming a major problem. You guys, I'm getting it. I am doing well. I just know I can do better.

Ski Culture

I've wanted to write this post for so long, but just haven't found time. I guess I should be making time to write for myself, instead of for classes, but it gets so tedious toward the end of the semester.

I don't know how many of you have been to resorts on vacation, but I've kind of noticed two groups. There's those who go to do things and there are those who go to do nothing. There's also the locals. And in most places you can't easily tell who the locals are because they hide away in their secret hang outs, but at a ski resort, it's different. They wander around with the visitors. I love this mixing. I always feel like I'm halfway between a visitor and a local because I consciously know that the shops I'm going into, the restaurants I'm being dragged to by friends aren't places locals go, yet I go anyway. I sense the slight distain from the locals as I rush by with these friends, all dressed up, knowing but not caring that this isn't appropriate for where we're going. Sometimes I think I should make an effort to act more like a local because it's what I long to be, but I know it would come off as unauthentic.

This mixing just intrigues me so much! You can pass a lady in a knee length full fur coat heading to the fancy shops at the end of the street and then a snowboarder with neon clothing rushes the other way to get to the gondola for one last run and then the gals making your crepe have that dark tan on the lower half of their cheeks and you just know they've spent most of their days off on the slopes. That mixing doesn't happen elsewhere, I don't think. In other countries I feel like the locals are always pushing a sale on me. At beach resorts I feel like I'm being catered to too much. In a ski resort, you're just free to do whatever. Sure, go shop, buy stuff from us, we get paid either way. Sure, head up the mountain, ski all day, good luck finding our powder stashes. Sure, stay around the apartment, get drunk, go hot tubbing, it's what we do if we feel like doing nothing. That's what I feel like the locals are saying to us visitors. Sure, come enjoy this place with us. It's okay, you're welcome here.

There's just this calm, laid back attitude and then there's this unique fashion that would be silly anywhere else. Oh, the fashion!!! It's so much fun to watch the people and the way they dress. There's the people who have no clue what they're doing, wearing jeans and three sweatshirts or just everything borrowed on the slopes and there's the locals who have the bright neon clothing and sideways beanies and there's the old school skiers who are still rockin' the one piece suits and there's the random consmogleration of them all. And that's me. I dress like a toned down snowboarder but can ski double blacks all day long. It just makes me so happy to see people wandering around in their skate shoes and ski pants with an oversized hoodie, heading to a bar with friends. Just like I practically live in jeans and a t-shirt, it's regulation gear here.

Ahhhhhh!!!!! I just love everything about skiing. If I don't end up in a ski town for at least 5 years of my life, everything else had better be freaking fantastic or else I'm calling my life a wash. This is all making Colorado seem far more ideal than Seattle. Hm...

Question 5: Getting There

Now that I've changed my major, people keep asking me what I want to do. And I'm finding that answer is even more complicated than before.

See, I want to advise a high school newspaper and teach honors/AP courses. But the exact location is flexible. And the way to get there is undetermined. But you can't just say, "I want to run a high school newspaper and teach AP courses," because then the person asks, "How will you get to that point? That's not a job you can just walk into," and I'm obligated to explain.

So I graduate, right? And now I have a license that's valid in 8 states, none that I really want to be in. But I can teach there for 5 years, go back to school to get my master's, and then I'll be solid for teaching nationally. Or I can do Teach for America for two years and be solid to teach nationally (however, if I do this option, I still need to figure out how to get a master's before I teach for 5 years). And then I can get my butt to one of a few places. See, if I go to Seattle it's more going to be that I'm closer to being ready to have a family. If I'm not, I'll head to somewhere in Colorado or Truckee or hell, even Alaska and teach the little rippers how to write. And offer extra credit for beating me down the slopes. (No joke, I would do that. Wouldn't that be the most awesome teacher ever? It's like if you lived on Hawaii and your teacher said, hey catch a more awesome wave than me on this day and you get extra credit.)

Well that explains the location. Now how do I get the exact job I want? If there is an opening for a journalism teacher, obviously I'm going to jump on that. But chances are that won't happen. So I'll take an English teacher position, teaching regular 9th and 10th grade classes or electives. I'll involve myself in a club or something, offer to run the debate club...along those lines. I'll work my way up - start teaching honors courses, push the school to have AP classes and volunteer for the training to teach those courses. If I'm not at the school or district I want, I'll keep my eyes and ears open for opportunities, while making sure that none of the administration are aware by keeping good relationships with them.

It's really not that complicated, it's the same thing that any teacher goes through when getting where they want. I'm working with a teacher who is about to move his family to a suburb of Chicago so he can get his master's and possibly work at his old high school. It's not like he's exactly unhappy here - he's quite the celebrated teacher and the administration likes him and he is paid enough to live in the nicer neighborhoods. But this place isn't his goal and never was, so he's moving on.

It seems like the first ten years of my career will be spent getting to where I want to be. And by that point, I probably will be about ready to take a break from teaching to raise kids. And then the cycle starts all over. Find available job, get to school I want, start working toward the exact job I want. It's really no wonder most teachers leave the profession within 5 years.

Lifelong Friends

I don't get this whole finding friends in college thing. I really don't. This is where you're supposed to make all the friends you'll invite to your wedding, right? I've made one friend I am certain I will invite to my wedding. Just one. After almost 3 full years. So where's the whole bridal party that I'm supposedly going to find in college? My mom's bridesmaids were her closest sorority sisters. And one high school friend. My high school friends talk about their group of college friends like they'll be lifelong friends and all be in each other's weddings and be important to each other forever. Bleh. I detest even thinking about being invited to a wedding of one of my peers, let alone the logistics of one I'm involved in. So let's be clear. I'm not saying I need to be all 27 Dresses about a bridal party, but I really feel like I'm missing out on a majorly important college experience with the lifelong friend thing here.

Straight up, I have 4 friends I would die for. I can't say that yet for anyone I've met in college. I can't point to my group of friends in college and say, "These are people I will stick with my whole life." All my other close friends, including those 4, have a group they can say that for. I can't figure out what it is that I'm missing. I've done all the right things. I've been friends with all my roommates. I've joined clubs and done sports, but no friends really came from that. I have groups of people I talk to in each of my majors/minors. I have groups I party with. I know people. But I'm not amazingly close to any of them.

Maybe I've just already made my lifelong friends. The people I know will stick by my side my whole life are people I met in (or prior to) high school. I'm not quite there yet with any of my college friends. I feel like I should be, especially with a few of them. Maybe the issue is that I have high standards for close friends. I'm easy to get to know, easy to call a friend, but it's a whole different story if I call you a close friend. Once you're a close friend, a lifelong friend, I have all these expectations that we'll stay in touch and that I can call you up when shit goes down and that there won't be limits to what we talk about.

I don't mind that my college friends aren't my lifelong friends, but I do want some of them to be. I guess it just takes a lot of time for me to get to that point with people. That's okay, I suppose, it just makes me feel like there's something wrong with me that I'm not there yet. I love my college friends, but I want to make sure I don't forget about them after graduation. There's not really a way to ensure that though is there?

Only in College...

Can you come to an English class, reeking of alcohol and still have more intelligent things to say than most of the class. Oh, don't worry, not me. I'm just making an observation. I adore these humanities classes, and hate them at the same time. Mostly b/c the smell is making me wish it were Spring Break already. I swear it's some sort of fruity rum this guy was tossing back.

Well, that and the fact that I'm driving myself insane. You can always tell that something is wrong if I start cleaning. And I not only cleaned Milo's cage tonight, but my entire room and started doing crazy laundry and reorganizing my closet and some of the kitchen. Multiple tests in one week stinks. It's more than that, but I really don't feel like getting into it when I should be studying.

But! After my test it's just planning for Colorado! Which means hair cut, car wash, oil change, brake system flush, alignment check (which will be "Oh hey this part on your front axel is messed up. Let's fix it for a grand even though it drives straight and nothing is bowed out." So long as nothing's changed from that, we're good) annnnd new windshield wipers. I think that's it. I'll vacuum and add wiper fluid too. I suppose my care shouldn't be all about my car. I'll pack too. Gotta get the Wii together. XD

Oh, and hey ladies, on most cars you should be able to do everything but the alignment check yourself (and even that you can do an unofficial test - does it drive straight when you put your wheel straight?). I can't b/c my car is stupid and requires a special $40 tool from the company to change the oil and won't let you flush the brakes unless it's in the air. Retarded car, not letting me show off. But! See, there's these things that cars have called manuals and they have instructions on how to do everything including: change a tire, change oil, flush the brakes. You can change your headlights too! Or see how long it takes your dad to do it, get frustrated when he doesn't listen to you, take the bulb from him and do it yourself in 30 seconds. So don't be a man and read the instructions! It'll make you sexier.

Question 4: Burnt Out

My mom and I took a cruise to Alaska over the summer. It was a more formal cruising style and for dinner we were assigned dining partners. Our first dining partner was a 65+ retired man who spent his time travelling around the western hemisphere with various companions. I kid you not. The one this year (well, the last 2 years) was a 40-something home economics teacher from Texas. They were a hoot.

But this lady, goodness…she should not be allowed back into the classroom. She called her former students “gnats.” She told me I should never go into teaching, especially not high school. That I’d never change or impact these kids lives. I had to stop myself from laughing. I wanted to tell her that if she really thought that she never made an impact, positive or negative, on her student’s lives then she was surely delusional. During dinner, this woman got up to use the bathroom. My mom leaned over and whispered (not that she would have needed to, the man already had 2 bottles of wine so he wasn’t much occupied with us) that she was clearly burnt out and needed to get out of the school. She probably was impacting her students negatively. I shouldn't let her get to me.

Last week in my education preparation class we started talking about teachers and stress. How new teacher stress is different from normal teacher stress. How 40% of education grads will get a job and won't hold it for 3 years before leaving the field permanently. It's over 60% for after 5. And maybe it's that they changed career paths, maybe it's that they are now married with kids, maybe they died of being over-stressed. Regardless. They're gone from being a formal educator for good.

I'm concerned about becoming one of those statistics. I helped out one hour last Monday and then on an all day field trip and I thought to myself that I simply couldn't stand it. On Wednesday I felt ill, so I told my teacher I wouldn't be coming in. I probably could have, but I was so relieved to just have an excuse to not go in, even just for that hour. I actually did get worse as the day went on, so I ended up not going to volunteering later, but I had been dreading that since waking up in the morning. If there were any doubt in my mind about being a high school educator, this would have knocked the questions out of me. I can't deal with people who are younger than 14 for days on end. I simply can't deal with it. I'm not certain I'll be able to deal with 14 year olds every day, but hopefully I'll serve my time and then get the Honors track kiddos, or higher power willing, the college bound AP students.

So I'm starting to focus on how I can prevent burn out. They say it's because of a lot of stress, so you have to know how to balance your work life and your home life. Try not to bring grading home with you, get it all done at school. Go in early and stay late and deal with all your students' problems (b/c you're their awesome teacher, you have to be there for them 24/7), but don't let that flow into your home. It seems contradictory to me, so I'm ignoring that. I'm going to find an outside place to relieve stress. I'm also hoping to incorporate exercise into this.

I've been researching yoga studios in the city and there's a few different options. Unfortunately, yoga isn't exactly an inexpensive thing to pick up, so I'm starting with a few community classes on the weekends after break. We'll see where things go from there. This is kinda my only idea for stress relief so far. I'm trying to think of what I do when I get angry or need to get away. I go driving on random roads, I eat a lot of ice cream, I roller blade, I spend time with dogs. This semester it's been mostly the ice cream. I'd do the roller blading more if the trails around here were paved and not gravel. I can volunteer at the local humane society, but I need to get my future job in order. I know most of the roads around the city by now and, as I said, cutting back on the ice cream. So! Yoga! What do you guys think? Will I completely fail at this or will it actually do some good?

Kids of a certain age

B's comment was in passing, but it really struck me. I was talking about the field trip I helped out on earlier today and the behavior of the kids. He said he was so glad he'd never be that age again.

I agreed immediately, but after thinking about it I'm not so sure. So I started thinking about all the field trips I took in middle and early high school. All the notes I passed with J between classes. All the freaking epic 7th grade Core moments. All the crushes, some passing quicker than others, one lasting far far too long. Even though I am glad I'm not going to be that age again, there's certainly a nostalgia for it. And perhaps even a sense of missed experiences.

I feel like J and I should have documented our notes. I feel like I should have become closer to C sooner and started doing cartoon sketches with her. I feel like I should have gotten into DeviantArt more and explored photography and writing at the same time. I feel like I should have been bolder around guys at the race track. Good god, that would have caused mayhem. It's not that I regret not doing any of this, I just feel like that age is sort of incomplete. I wasn't the one to start a bus wide attempt to make truckers laugh. I wasn't the one to run around on a field trip with my friends, linking arms as we ran station to station.

It took a lot of control not to laugh when a kid made a joke with a swear word in it and instead shout out "Hey, language!" Maybe I'm not ready to be a teacher yet. I still relate to these kids too much, see too much of how I act when I'm around my closest friends in each of them. In one sense I hope two years changes that, but the general feeling is that I'm dreading that. I'm not ready to grow up. I'm not ready to leave "that age" behind. I never want to stop having fun with my friends without needing alcohol. I never want to forget what it's like to sit on cement and eat lunch outside. I never want to stop enjoying life the way I did when I was younger.

'Spress Yo'self!

"We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents." - Emerson, Self-Reliance

I suspect most of you have stumbled across that line before in a high school literature course. It seems to really sink in with me finally. I've been thinking a lot lately about how to express myself and dealing with general negative emotions, specifically anger and sadness. And then J has this bloody brilliant post about flying off the handle on someone and how her anger scared her. So I'm going to take time to take these thoughts that have been swirling in my head for half a year and put them down.

There's different stages to my anger. The first is just scratching the surface, and it's usually resolved in 5 minutes b/c I'll have calmed down and forgotten why I was angry in the first place. The second is if you actually irritate me. And when most people turn away from confrontation, I seek it out. I want to argue until things are worked out. I hate walking away from someone when I'm angry. We both know we're upset so why hide it? It seems cowardly and like you don't respect me enough to think we'll still be friends after this is resolved. Isn't the whole point for this to be resolved? So let's get to it, and fast. About halfway through arguing, I forget what we started arguing about. And about the same time I calm down and rationally think about what was said and come to some conclusion where we're no longer mad at each other and everything is good. Just don't breech that topic again for a week-ish. I'm fine with how I handle this. It's not a perfect way of getting angry, but it works for me.

But when I get really angry, that's when it gets bad. My anger has never scared me. Ever. But I'm not ignorant enough to believe it has never scared anyone else. It's not that I enjoy getting angry, but there is a certain thrill to it. You hit that point when you get so angry that you start to shake and maybe even cry and you don't know how to evaluate these emotions, how to understand them, quantify them, express them. My "super anger" needs to be expressed in some more effective way. It's not that I shouldn't express myself (Emerson would be so disappointed if I suggested that) nor am I ashamed of how my anger currently manifests itself. I just know it's not good! See, when I get really angry, I get aggressive. I flirt with being verbally abusive. I spew random hurtful insults just because I can. I turn into this irrational being with these huuuuge blinders that block any counterpoint, any attempt to find some middle ground. That's not...anything positive. At all.

So how do I address that this needs to change without changing who I am? It seems to me that I wouldn't be fully expressing myself then. I would be shamed into silence. I would be limiting myself. And that is more or less precisely what I am trying to avoid. I feel like I just need to stop being as much of a bitch when I get angry. I should just stop being petty when arguing and then everything would be okay. I haven't been really super angry in a while and don't plan on getting that angry any time soon, but I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm quite the opposite with sadness. I hide that away under lock and key. No one is allowed to know I'm sad. Recently, my boyfriend and I were cuddling (I know, cue the ewwws) and he randomly asked if I was okay. I said yeah, but truth is I was hit with a wave of sadness about 30 minutes earlier while doing homework. There was absolutely no reason for me to be sad and I'd managed to hide it thus far so why ruin a perfectly good snuggle session by saying that I was mildly sad without any idea as to why? But just like I dislike when people turn away from anger, I bet he at least somewhat dislikes that I didn't let him know I felt sad. So that's making me feel guilty and a bit sad, but hell will freeze over before I let on to that in person.

I don't know why I feel so differently about sadness than anger. If anything, I should think that anger should never be expressed because it was so severely punished when shown as a kid...and my parents never ever argued in front of my brother or I. But sadness was okay. Being sad was fine. I just stopped showing it somewhere along the line. Maybe it was a sort of backfire or rebellion to how I was brought up. I don't know. I don't know! I want to express these emotions honestly and freely, but without making a freaking scene. I feel like I've never expressed negative emotions in a good way. Ever. And it's about damn time I learn how to do that. We all gotta grow up sometime, right?

[insert Jaws theme here]

I grew up in a city that only had one national level sports team. I'm really not sure I would care had I not. But for as long as I can remember, I was taught to love hockey, love the Sharks, and hate the Ducks and the Flames. It's not like we were hurting for national level teams in the area. Two cities both about an hour north each had national baseball and football teams. The opposite sides of the bay were always in conflict with each other. But it seemed so far removed from the technology centered environment. How did the violent sport of hockey fit in any better then?

Somehow it worked. Even back in middle school drama class, when we were asked to portray a common occurrence without words, we sat down to watch a Sharks v. Kings game. And 90% of the class got it immediately. I can walk around campus during hockey season and I'll see someone with a shirt or keychain or hat of another team in our division and I'll high five them (or make some crack about they shouldn't bother trying to dethrone the team that's won the division so many years in a row, depending on the mood). It's like being a hockey fan is immediate membership to a secret club, and maybe that's what all the nerds loved about it. So hipster, liking something that's not cool. And it's considered foreign! Even better!

I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I have never bled the colors of any of my schools. It's always been teal and black. And now that it's getting to the last month of the season I am starting to hit my panic mode. It's not that the Sharks are doing poorly - they've actually quite turned it around since the mid-season slump. It's just what I do. This is when I start listening to every single game and start yelling at my computer and wearing my Sharks shirt on important game days. It doesn't quite fit with anything else I do, just like the Sharks themselves don't quite fit with anything else in their city. Yet a beloved part of the city they are, so yell I shall.

Random Consmogglation

A few things fairly quickly here:

Remember last year at my service learning volunteer place I made dinner for 20 kiddos in about 20 minutes and it turned out pretty well? Well I made dinner again. And deboned two chickens. Guys, I don't even cook chicken breasts when they've been all nicely cut and cleaned and packaged. But there were chickens and they'd been boiled and now they needed to be deboned. And there I was. So...now I know how to debone chickens. It's really not as difficult as you might think.

This morning I was on the bus, listening to Rush rather loudly b/c I didn't sleep much the night before. I had Yyz (come on, it's on Guitar Hero guys, you've heard it) on and was rocking out and the guy next to me taps my shoulder. "Look, I love Rush, but I'm seeing buttons here. Can you change the song?" Annnnd that just made my morning.

This morning I also went to get Starbucks on campus. There was a line of at least 10 sorority girls ahead of me. B says they are notorious for ordering skinny vanilla lattes, so I text him making a joke that it's the invasion of the skinny vanilla lattes. 3 of the 5 girls ahead of me order skinny vanilla lattes. The other two order lite versions of various chilled drinks. Good god, I hate it when I'm right. Then I come along (having just started to play Rush b/c this place needed some nerding-up) and order a delicious fatty java chip thinger and get a few looks from the nike-sport short clad crowd. A: one. Latte invaders: zip.

And if you all could just do me a solid and skip to 8 minutes on this video and think of the most perfect spring day and I think you have a good sense of how I feel right now. J, new thing for us to do together. Just an idea. XP

Defriended

It's a strange thing for someone like me to deal with losing a friend. I mean, yeah, sometimes it happens. But it's not supposed to happen like this.

I know I wrote on here that I'd never speak to K again. But that was then. He and I became friends and over this winter break we were super close, but drifted a bit at the start of the school year. When I went home this weekend, I had dinner with him and his 3 roommates. And watched the two latest episodes of Chuck. And talked about my relationship. And when I left, I felt confident he and I were still awesome friends.

Then it's the next morning and I'm on Facebook and I don't see any posts from him, which is weird b/c he chronically posts. So I go check his page. And I can't see his wall. Oh, hey, I've been defriended. So I shoot him an email asking why. I know it's not a mistake that I've been defriended and it's okay, I'll put up with the minor insult, just tell me why. I get "Good bye" in return and when I send a "What? No! Why?" his way, I receive notification that I've been blocked and my emails will go straight to the trash. Oh. Do I dare even try the phone? I send the same message via text. No reply after 4 hours. I call him. One ring, then voicemail.

I honestly have no clue how to handle this. The logical part of my brain is winning and I haven't done anything, but the angry part is telling me to drive to his college and demand he explain himself. Or at least contact his military-to-be roommate and get him to kick K's butt. Another part thinks this will blow over in a week and it'll all be okay. But my fear is that it won't. Regardless of how the romantic relationship wound up, this kid was my closest friend in Indiana for four years and I'm not one to just give up on a friend, even if all signs are saying to. J can attest to this. You can tell me not to be friends with you and I just won't care. If I say we're friends then we're friends, damn it. I don't care if you like it or not.

But there is really so little I can do in this case. That's the part that's driving me the most insane. Not the not knowing why. Not the timing. Not the supposed reasoning. The fact that I am powerless to change this is what's upsetting me. I am powerless to help my friend.

Foodie

I'm going home this weekend for the first time this semester, and it's not seeing my family or my dogs that I'm the most excited about. Nope. It's not attending the baby shower for our crew chief's wife either. It's going to the grocery store and getting the foods I can't find here that I'm looking forward to the most.

Seriously. I miss so many foods. There's these peach candies that only one store around the city sells and they only have them every now and then and I've been craving them since the beginning of February. And there's this type of cheese that my mom gets sometimes that I can probably take half a block of. And there's this bread that I bought once at a bakery downtown and it's all herby and wonderful and it's the perfect size for sandwiches.

I don't mean to make you all hungry, though I certainly am while writing this. And I don't mean to neglect all the wonderful foods that can be found around campus either. But I'm a foodie. It's what I look forward to when going places - the different foods you can find. Like when I pass through STL, I try and have lunch with B. And we usually go to a sushi place near his house. When anyone comes to IN with me, I bring them to a famous local burger joint. When I visit Chicago, I always always stop for a Jamba Juice on the way. Going to California? Round Table is a must, if I can't make it all the way to Willow Street or that place up in Truckee. And when my brother and I visited Colorado, we just walked into different food places for dinner until we found a place we wanted to eat at.

But none of this seems very typical "foodie" to me. When I think of a foodie, I think of someone who eats organic 90% of the time and goes out for fancy lunches at local non-chain restaurants (still haven't broken my habit of spelling that in Japanese first) and upon seeing a menu in French, can order without much difficulty pronouncing anything. They cook dinner every night and there's always some new recipe that they're trying out...that's a foodie, right?

But I think there's this sub-section of foodies without means, and that's where I place myself. I don't quite have the time to be cooking fantastic meals every night, though with a little practice I have no doubt in my abilities to do so. I suppose I could start going to the farmer's market and buying fresh produce every week, but it just seems such a waste when I end up having frozen meat taking up space for months at a time.

It just seems sad to me that I satiate my desire for exceptional foods by snacking on pita chips and gouda and nice dinners out with my dad when he's around on business and perhaps spoiling myself every once in a while by going to my favorite local deli. This is a college town and they totally cater to our hipster appetites. I should be able to be a successful foodie here. Any ideas for me?

Note to self:

When you're sick, please don't drink. It only makes things worse. Now you can't go to the junior high tomorrow to help out. I mean, really? Not cool.

Should you be sick again and choose to drink, please don't decide to sing songs at the top of your lungs past 1am. Please don't sing songs you really can't sing, including (but in no way limited to) 1985, Free Falling and Santeria. Now what are you going to do if you get called on in class, huh? You sound like you're about to cry, if you can even make noise at all.

Should you choose to do these things anyway, please don't put off your two essays, reading analysis, 100 pages of reading and studying for your test on Tuesday until Sunday. Night. At 11. I mean...really!

Seriously self? The hell were you thinking this weekend?

...oh, but it was worth it. XD

V-day D-day

So I'm seeing someone. Yeah, it's going pretty awesomely. But here's the problem. It's almost that stupidly romantic commercial holiday that I've never really done anything for.

No, I take that back, I've done stuff for Valentine's Day. Just one. When I, a high school senior, went to my then boyfriend's college midweek with brownies and roses. That was fun. But the rules were a lot clearer then. We'd been dating for quite some time and had plans for a nice dinner the following weekend. That was also 3 Valentine's Days ago.

But this Valentine's Day? There's no guidelines. It's a reasonably new relationship and while we like each other a lot there's still a reasonable amount of distance between us. Sure, the guy would like brownies and roses, but driving 15 minutes is not the same as driving an hour. Even if it is a surprise. Besides, I've done that before. And I'm a bit less of a romantic than I was back in high school, so that sort of approach, even if done completely different, doesn't appeal to me anymore.

But it's Valentine's Day! I'm expected to do something! I feel like Valentine's Day is turning into my day or reckoning or something. I know I'm placing too much emphasis on this, it's not like it'll determine anything about the relationship or have any real effect but, damn it, it's the first holiday and it's the most stupidly romantic one and I'm allowed to stress a little, okay?

Question 3: Energy Levels

It's been a long week. After having three snow days last week, it kind of felt like we were back on break. But now professors are getting back on track and there's projects and speeches and papers to be done, on top of the regular readings, and usually topped with a bit more because we fell behind so much.

And everyone is drained. Even the teachers lack the enthusiasm of the pervious weeks. In an 11am class on a Friday, the teacher stopped and just looked at us. Two people were asleep. More than usual had laptops out and were on other sites (myself included, as I opened this very page). Despite 13 people (little less than half the class) commenting on the discussion board before class, very few people were speaking up. The professor stopped, addressed the fact that we're acting kinda dead, and changed his approach a bit. Dropped his strict guidance through the discussion and let us have more control. Which got more people speaking. And suddenly 75% of the class was contributing and more hands were raised and responses were generated without prompting.

I'm stunned. As a future English teacher, I'm quite impressed. I thought he was going to just switch to full-on lecture mode and just let us be bored. Or maybe try too hard to get us to talk about what he wanted us to talk about. He seemed really focused on this one thing he wanted us to talk about. But he just dropped what his main concern was and let us talk about what we took from the text. He tied it in when he could, but for the most part we completely changed directions.

And this is what dictates what will be on the test. What we talk about, what we're interested in, will guide the entire class. It's a completely different approach than I'm used to. It requires a lot of faith in your students. I need to learn how to do that. I want to be able to sense the energy in the room and know how to let students guide the conversation without them getting out of control. I think if I tried this right now, we'd end up talking about pop culture, not about early American literature. Which is all good and fine for 5 minutes in a 3000 level college course on a Friday afternoon, but I'm not sure it'd quite be appropriate for a high school course. In fact, I'm fairly certain it's not.

So how do I find that happy balance between running a classroom and simply gently pushing them in the right direction? I need control but I need energy and excitement and those two seem to be conflicting points, at least in my head. I think this is one of my biggest concerns as a future educator. The general classroom management concept...it's something we haven't discussed much in my education classes and, even though I don't get into the classroom for a while, I really really need to learn it. Any preliminary suggestions for me?

Question 2: The Right Path

With a new semester comes a new service learning project. Last semester I volunteered nearly 70 hours at an afterschool program for kids ages 4-17. I worked with them all on so many different subjects. I'd be tutoring a kid in physics one minute, get pulled away to color the next, then sent to the kitchen to chop potatoes the next and after dinner I'd pull kids around the big room on little scooter things. It was a learning experience and I loved it. So much that I'm going to volunteer at least one day a week this coming semester.

But I don't want to neglect my new service learning project either. I assist two teachers as they run an 8th and 9th grade study hall twice a week. It's the last period of the day so the kids are crazy. Two kids were filling out a favorites worksheet and asked me to come over and ask them more questions, as their teacher had done in class. Sure, why not. I notice one student's favorite time is 4:20 and the other's favorite movie is Pineapple Express. Yes, thanks for making that blatantly obvious. I ask them where their favorite place to hang out is and before they can answer I'm like, "Wait, I think I know...X Park?" This park is technically part of my campus and is well known among certain circles for certain activities. Who knows why the cops don't just chill there 24/7. Yeesh. But they laughed and said, yes, that is probably what they would have answered.

It's a different group than I expected. The kids at the afterschool program...that was all centered on getting them away from that stuff. And if they did anything, it was kept secret. For students to be this open, this candid, within 30 minutes of me meeting them? And for them to still show me respect when I (rather rudely) said, "You know, you could be doing other things with your time, then you wouldn't have to be bored here for an hour and you'd get to go home early," was quite unexpected.

During this whole time, the teacher in charge was off working with a specific student. His responses to some of the favorites disturbed her. Disturbed is too strong a word to describe my reaction. To me it just seemed like the student didn't want to be there and he certainly wasn't challenged by the work, so he just did whatever to finish the assignment. But she got all up in arms and spent half the period talking to just him. It seemed like she wanted to get him thinking about going down a different path in life. It's not that I disagree with her, this kid certainly needed some guidance. His outlook was quite dismal. But she was doing it all wrong! She went straight to "Oh no, this kid is terrible," instead of, "Oh no, what did I do wrong?" As a teacher, you have to look at yourself first. What can you change to get the kind of responses you want? How can you get the student interested? How can you motivate them? Singling them out for a one-on-one chat in a study hall generally isn't the best approach.

So the challenge then becomes, how do I know what each student needs? I know how to deal with kids like me, but I don't know how to deal with kids who aren't like me. The teacher I am serving under asked me all kinds of questions about why I chose to do my service learning at this school. I made up some bs answer because I didn't really know. I just walked up to the table without any labels and asked if they had a need for English and math tutors for 8th grade and up. Lucky me that's what they had. But now I do know. My service learning is to help me learn how to deal with kids who aren't like me. It's not to help me figure out what level I want to teach, or what subject I want to teach, or what kind of school I want to teach at. I know all that. None of that will change by going into that classroom. I won't be challenged by that. Service learning isn't to keep you safe. It's to get you out there and learning and changing so you become a better teacher. And what I need to change is how I deal with people. I need to get out there and expose myself to as many different kinds of students as possible so I know how to help all kinds of students grow. It won't be easy. I'm not exactly the most awesome and helpful person when I see someone messing up. But that's my goal through this service learning. And I think it's where I should be going.

Oh Hi

It's 3:40. I just got back from a friend's house. And I realized I did something totally stupid. The person who dropped me off said something to the effect of, "It was nice hanging out with you tonight," and I didn't say anything in response. Now, granted, I'm very sleepy. Less than 20 minutes prior, I had been falling asleep in this person's lap, so I mean, it's understandable. But I really hate it when I do that. I don't think it's too often.

This has been a pretty interesting break, and I still have one day left. I also have one goal left. I think I can figure it out. I can't really update anything online until events pan out in real life which is bugging me so much, but you guys, it's really for the best.