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Mrs.

No, you are not hallucinating. And, yes, that is my left hand. :)
March 10, 2012 = Mrs.

I can feel a hot one.

Summer! And, boy, is it a HOT one. Geez, Louise, I'm melting!

So, this summer was supposed to be all about rest and relaxation and work sprinkled in when I choose. Uh ... not so much. I'm taking a class for grad school, which happens to be the one and only grad school course offered in my degree plan ALL summer long! (And you're telling me the recession is ending?! Hmmmmmm ...) The good news is that I am truly enjoying the class. The bad news is that it is every night from 6-8. Yep, that is PM. Cuts into summer fun just a tad, but I hear that earning a Master's is a pretty cool thing to do.

I'm also involved in A LOT of training for teaching. I will be the new department head next year at EHS in ELA (school is all about the acronym - I have learned to smile and nod), so I have tons of commitments as far as leadership and what-have-you.

Speaking of the department head thing ... can you believe it?! After my FIRST "real" year of teaching. I'm pretty impressed. Not necessarily in myself, but that my administration and fellow Englishees (yes, I just made that up) have so much faith in me. It is both awesome and horrifying. Say a little pray for me. I think I might need it once this coming school year kicks off. Teaching, coaching, Master's, AND leading the English department. Whaaaaaat? I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

Good-ness.

This year has been a very big learning year for me. About myself, about what I can handle, about growing up, about life in general. I think I have probably "evolved" more in the past year than all my other years combined. (That might be a slight exaggeration, but you get the idea.) It's taken me the better part of 29 years, but I think I finally know how to live MY life. You know, the one I want for keeps. It's not been without it's ups and downs, but I think the moral of this year is that everything is falling into place.

I also keep promising myself that I am going to write more. I'm not too sure when I will have the time, but it is certainly on my list. In the meantime (you know, the time like now when I have zero free time), I think I might work on getting some of my older poetry together, writing up a little letter, and sending it off. Why not, right? Right.

I'm also going to "paint." I put it in air quotes because I'm not actually good at painting - I just really, really like it. What I will do with these paintings-to-be, I have no idea. All I know is that I need to get back in touch with my creative side. Might as well ... can't dance. :)

Aaaaaaand ... my Firehouse sub has arrived! Choo-choo! Have a nice evening. I will be in touch soon. Peace and .... stuff.

Nailed it.

Quote of the Day:


Nothing is so stable as change. - Bob Dylan


I cannot express how profound this statement is proving in my life as I type these words. Nothing is so stable as change ...

My life is definitely changing today.

Hoppy Easter, Bunnies!

Good Friday, indeed.

Dad's in town! I haven't seen him in a year and a half. How crazy is that?!

Go home, she says.

If there is something to be learned from life it is to expect what befalls you. Zoe looks forward to the mixture of benevolence and routine and choking lust that added together in the right order and proper amounts might on a dark night, be mistaken for love. She says be nice to your mother. Help her out. Explain the video again, no backchat. Get out in the sun and don't stint when it comes to oil changes and love letters. And always thump a melon's belly for ripeness. She reads that Edison spent fourteen months looking for a suitable filament for the electric light bulb. Many materials, which at first seemed promising fell down under later test and had to be laid aside. She isn't surprised when Shapiro sits down beside her, like they are about to sing a piano duet together, and asks her to marry him. It never comes to mind to say no. He tells her to stay away from technology until things cool off. The next day he comes into the office drunk, dressed for an idea he had the night before. He holds his coat like a bullfighter's cape and attempts to backstroke his way into it. With one arm free to catch himself, he uses it like a wave, then falls to the ground, staring up at her from what she thinks must be his special place in the universe. Go home, she says.

by Andrew Meehan

Spring Breakin'

Lack of chitter-chatter indicates life has been a tad more than hectic of late. Teaching, coaching, and two evening Master's classes. 'Nuff said!

Got back home from San Antonio (track meet) last night around 12 ... er ... 1:30am (time change), showered, and went straight to bed. Woke up and had breakfast with the fam at Aunt Kay's. It was delightful.

The rest of the day has been shopping, laundry, and tidying up around the house. (Things that I truly enjoy and have missed the time to do properly.)

Still working on transferring all of my music from various technologies into my new laptop/iPod. When you have over 3,000 songs in your collection, the process takes a whole lot of time! Not to mention playlists ... oh, playlists!

I plan to spend the rest of the week organizing, catching up, getting ahead, relaxing, running, breaking into p90x (am I insane?!), reading, cooking, and movie-ing. Perhaps a few happy hours somewhere in there, too.

Every Word on Kindle! How could I forget? I plan to log a few hours getting my fix with that as well. Seriously ... talk about some wordy crack for the ol' noggin! Can't put it down.

What else? Too much?

I'll leave it there. A week of no stressing over cut backs, lay offs, lesson plans, copies, research, evening classes, literature reviews, teenagers, alarms, and track workouts. Bring it!

2011

Happy New Year!

I think I'll leave it to Mr. Duritz to express exactly how I feel, as he tends to do so well.

"It's been a long December, and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last."

Here's to 2011!

Deck the Halls!

I'm very much feeling the cheese of the Christmas Spirit today. Shopping for others is TOO MUCH FUN!! :)

(It's also quite nice to have a J-O-B to allow me to buy what I really want to buy.)

By the way ... The Glee Christmas Album is a fantastic listen for the holiday.

Or, you know, it could be just be all the glitter I've sniffed over the last few hours while wrapping presents ...

Tuuuuuuuuuurkey!

THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!! (Almost.)

I'm so excited, I could squeal. Today is all about tidying the house ... THEN ... I'm going to TRY to finish my Christmas shopping. I know! Before December even begins. It's so awesome, I don't even know what to do with myself. :)

I have a truly blessed existence.

Can't help it.

I don't care what anyone says, Taylor Swift's new CD is pretty darn good!

Splat!

One of my students stole my wallet out of my purse today. I'm very disheartened and ... sick ... about it. I advocate like hell for them, I do everything in my power to help them out, I spend almost all of my "free" time trying to plan and prepare and figure out ways to assist them in passing and doing better, then one (or more) does this.

It's not about the money, or the information, or the debit/credit cards, or the pictures ... it's about so little care or respect that they don't even blink.

It had to have happened during one of the passing periods when I stand outside my classroom door because that is the only time I am not in the room monitoring. It also had to be one of my own students who I teach every day because my purse was very well hidden ... which means they had to have been paying attention for a while.

I'm absolutely sick about this, and have no idea how I am going to walk into my classroom and look all of them in the face tomorrow morning. Gross.

And the tree loved a boy.

I hate ironing! ... and a breakthrough.

I have been ironing for the past 30 minutes, only it feels like I have been doing it all day. I swear, if I never had to iron another piece of clothing or take out another bag of trash, my life would be complete.

In completely unrelated news, progress reports are going out tomorrow. This means that I spent all day Saturday grading papers. It could have been worse, of course, but I'm certainly ready to get my evenings and weekends back. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing this happen anywhere in my near future. These teaching/coaching hours are NO JOKE!

Again, I would seriously be in trouble right now if I did not have Alex, my family, and a few really awesome friends supporting me and keeping my head above water. I've also made a few terrific friends at school. My "team" is absolutely amazing, as are a couple of other girls (teachers, that is ... not students) who relate to the stress and provide that "I'm right there with you" comfort.

I'm really enjoying teaching, though there are many (many, many, many) challenges that come with the job I have accepted. Not only is this year a huge transition in curriculum, but there is also the challenge of finding a way to fix something that has been mostly broken in the past years. I chose this profession to help kids, to give them a form of support and stability that a lot of them do not have otherwise ... and I feel that I am accomplishing that goal so far ... but, man, it is not easy.

Then again, that is yet another reason that I have always known teaching was what I should do: it's not easy! I don't want a career that I could do in my sleep, I don't want a career that is minimal interaction and little impact. I want a career that keeps me on my toes. Teaching does that and so much more!

I did almost cry in class the other day. We were talking about "reading" in terms of how we read literature versus how we read advertisements versus how we read people, and so on. (Basically, we read everything the same ... it's all about perception.) The kids were a little confused when I asked how you read people, so I had to explain a little bit.

First, I asked the first thing they notice about a person when they meet them. Answer: appearance (of course!). I asked what you can learn from someone by simply taking in their appearance. A lot of discussion and responses followed, mostly about how much money a person has (clothing brands and jewelry), if that person takes pride in themselves (are they put together and not sloppy), how old that person is (roughly), what race and sex that are (sometimes ambiguous, but mainly easily recognizable) ... things like that.

What I really wanted them to focus on were the deeper "things" they could read, not just superficial things such as appearance. To lead the discussion in that direction, I then asked what you can tell about a person once they begin speaking. I asked if you can tell if someone is genuine or fake, kind or rude, intelligent or uneducated, etc. One of my volleyball girls (who is in one of my Pre-AP classes) answered that you can definitely tell all of those things about a person very quickly. I asked her to elaborate.

She said that she could tell I was a really nice, genuine, and caring person within the first couple of minutes of meeting me. Also, that I would be a great teacher and coach. I asked how and she went on to list all of these amazing things that she thinks of me to the whole class. The whole class then joined in and starting listing all of the things they "read" about me during our first meeting ... and every, single one of them was wonderful.

It was EVERYTHING I could do to not burst into tears. I guess you never know how much you actually reach these kids until it's blatantly thrown in your face. I had no idea until that moment, and it is those moments that make the time and the stress and the emotion completely worth it.

I'm tearing up a little right now just thinking about that day. That's one of those that will stay with me for the rest of my life, I'm pretty sure.

1st 2 Weeks & Pictures

Lordy, the past few weeks have been INSANE! I blinked and the second week of school is now over. So far, so good!

I am very happy about this long weekend, though. I need the extra day, especially since our volleyball games are on Saturdays, leaving me only one day without something school-related to do.

Sunday is also the first Tech game of the season. Whoop, whoop! I enjoy any reason to cheer ... in a completely non-cheerleader kind of way.

We also went to a wedding a couple of weeks ago. I will post a couple of pictures below.

Mini-post

I have FINALLY been able to get into my classroom. I am having too much fun figuring out how to decorate it. Pictures to come soon!

Leaving town tomorrow for Mike and Amanda's wedding in Austin. Can't wait for the mini-break!

When I was 17 ...

Heard a new song recently, and I swear it was written about me at 17 (18, 19, 20, and probably even 21 and 22, if I'm being honest). Time has proven to be a truly amazing emotional phenomenon ...

Beautiful Disaster

She loves her momma's lemonade,
Hates the sounds that goodbyes make
She prays one day she'll find someone to need her

She swears that there's no difference
Between the lies and compliments
It's all the same if everybody leaves her

And every magazine tells her she's not good enough,
The pictures that she sees makes her cry

She would change everything, everything, just ask her
Caught in the in between of beautiful disaster
She just needs someone to take her home

She's giving boys what they want,
Tries to act so nonchalant,
Afraid they'll see that she's lost her direction

She never stays the same for long,
Assuming that she'll get it wrong
Perfect only in her imperfection

She's not a drama queen
She doesn't wanna feel this way
Only 17 and tired

She would change everything for happy ever after
Caught in the in between of beautiful disaster
She just needs someone to take her home

She's just the way she is,
But no one's told her that's okay

She would change everything for happy ever after
Caught in the in between of beautiful disaster
She just needs someone to take her home


- Jon McLauglin

(I added the actual song to the bottom of my playlist.)

Woooooosh ...

My schedule has gone from 50 to 4,000,000,000 in the span of a few days. It's a really good thing that I have the amazing support of my family and Alex. Without that, I'd be in some serious trouble!

Call me "Coach"

Volleyball tryouts and two-a-days started today. I'm exhausted and exhilarated all at the same time. I'm really impressed by the girls and am really excited about getting further into coaching. This year isn't going to be all about winning (though, of course, I would like to). This year is going to be about improving on skills and technique. We have some AMAZING athletes in our group! With a little more direction, I have a feeling they'll be dominating ... if not this year, definitely by the time the freshman are juniors.

I'm also pleasantly surprised that I can still PLAY volleyball. I knew that I remembered what to do, but I had no clue I could still PLAY! I can still serve and pass and set and even dive (fun!) almost exactly the same as I could when I was younger. My attacking (hitting) has lost a step or two, but it's nothing that I can't recover with a little more practice. I just need to rediscover the timing and the power. I'll get there ... the girls and I will together.