(giving)thanks

Peppermint tea, space heaters, chocolate, books, family, experimental theatre (the good kind), miniature schnauzers, faith, English-foreign language dictionaries, time with Teresa, candlelight, the Bible, emails from Stephanie, pumpkins, democracy, ballet flats, My Utmost for His Highest, modern art, the color green, mix tapes (old school), pumpkin pie, soccer, the Peace Corps, hazelnut lattes, bikinis, thank-you notes, freedom (of speech, press, religion, expression, sexuality, etc), "Grey's", wine, World AIDS Day, the colors of fall, fleece, raspberries, incredible friends, encourage-o-grams, snow globes, running shoes, picture frames, email, literacy, scarves, running, a good beer with good friends, creation, high school football, UNAIDS, Jesus, crossword puzzles, memories (New York, London, high school, and beyond), pineapple, and the fact that this list keeps growing.

What are you thankful for?

i turn my camera on

Today, I went to the doctor.

I haven't been to the doctor in a long time. Mostly because I don't really like doctors and don't like taking medicine and, in general, feel that I take good enough care of myself that I don't really need someone poking and prodding at me all the time.

I can't even remember the last time I went to the doctor for just a routine checkup (not to have my shoulder pried open or to have my infected ear looked at or to get shots for travelling), so Mom said it was time to go. Besides, she had just gone to a new doctor and really liked her and thought that I would like her too.

And I did. I just didn't really like all of the things that this doctor's visit amounted to, including but not limited to:

-a full phyiscal
-a breast exam
-a pelvic exam
-a pap smear (fun!)
-a tetnus booster
-a whooping cough immunization
-a blood test
-a urine sample
-and an examination of all my moles to make sure I don't have skin cancer. If you've seen me in a bathing suit, you know how extensive that was.

And, surprise!, I'm healthy. What a shocker. I have a normal blood pressure, a healthy BMI, a regular-sized uterus and overies, and excellent reflexes and circulation.

What I don't have, incidentally, is my certificate of clearance from the California Comission on Teacher Credentialing because the School of Education mixed up my file with someone else's file (there's a Megan Janelle Garcia out there, apparently) and while I probably won't be kicked out of the program for this, I might not be allowed back into the classroom until after Christmas.

So, you know, just a normal day back at home in the Bay Area. At least Iget to see Teresa.

find an old-fashioned girl

Hooray, my unit's over and I'm going home on Sunday! I'm so looking forward to spending almost an entire week and a half in sweatpants and fuzzy slippers and watching lots of junk TV.

i think ill stay in bed

I'm going out this Friday. This is a big deal because I haven't gone out since, like, August but I'm in desperate need of a good time with good friends and since Nick and Joe have promised to be there, it's on (feel free to join us, of course). It's been an unnaturally long three weeks of solo teaching and I'm aggravated and discouraged by a lot of things, but I've been listening to some pretty good music lately and tomorrow's lesson looks like it might break the mold (just a little. Enough to get my kids interested but not enough to get the district angry) and, sweet Jesus, Bethany is back in the USA and I get to go home on Sunday and stay there for a whole week.

This post brought to you courtesy of the beginnings of a migraine, Rufus Wainwright, Caramel Apple Cake from the Nugget, and the letter zed (because, let's be honest, don't I always wish I was in London?).

have you ever been alone in a crowded room

My heart is breaking. Breaking! I just got an email from one of the boys on my team:

Hey Meghan,

Soccer was awesome with u and Dave and steve

=P

Cya soon hopefully!

--Ricky--

P.S. I hope ur not my English teacher

just kidding =P

Why are seventh grade boys so adorable? I just want to keep every single one of them.

So we ended up taking 4th place. We lost the consolation game in a freaking shootout, which totally bites, but the boys had a great attitude about it. Our team party was super fun - I got lots of adorable gifts (a team picture signed by all the boys, a shirt with our team logo on it signed by all the boys, and a girly, sequined soccer pillow signed, of course, by all the boys) and one incredible gift - a $100 gift card to Border's from the parents! They said they've never had such a fun season and have never seen their kids enjoy themselves so much. Yay us!

I'm glad to have my Tuesday and Thursday evenings (and Saturday mornings) back, but I'm going to miss those kids (and their parents) so much.

In other news, I love that Amazon.com snows.

PS - My name is not spelled with an H. Why do people insist on doing that?

when the night feels my song

Despite the rainy weather yesterday, Davis AYSO chose not to postpone our tournament, so I spent several soggy hours on the soccer field, nose running, lineup disintegrating, and umbrella turning inside out. In the end, we won both of our games, beating an undefeated team, and moving on to the semifinals. Two more games this afternoon and then the standard team pizza party where, I just realized, I'm going to be expected to give a speech of some sort. Awesome

I spent the rest of the afternoon curled in a blanket on the couch, alternating between reading Jodi Picoult's new novel The Tenth Circle and watching miscellaneous crap on television (my roommate is gone for the weekend, so I took full advantage of an empty apartment). After some Top Chef and a Six Feet Under marathon, I found myself listening to the third (fourth?) season of Laguna Beach as I really started getting into my book. There were several episodes rerunning, namely Spring Break (in Cabo, of course) and Prom and it made me realize that no matter how much I may lament that I'm almost 23 and a real adult now and have to go to grad school and pay my own bills and (on some level) am kind of sad that I'm not "dating" anymore... I'm really glad that having those responsibilities that that "title" means I'm not in high school anymore because, holy cow, high school stinks.

This spring, when I graduate from grad school in the Mondavi Center (for the credential degree, at least), it will be five years since I graduated from high school in the Flint Center. Five years! I never thought I'd get out of there, and now look where I am. Crazy.




My senior portrait.

would you still be in love baby?

I don't mention him nearly enough, but I have a fabulous boyfriend. Like, this kid is incredible for not only loving me to the extent that he does (and putting up with my schedule and not getting mad when I fall asleep in the middle of important conversations), but for just being an all around great guy too.

Yesterday we had a belated 9-month celebration (also because Daniel claims we haven't gone out "in years!") and saw The Prestige (which we happened to really like despite some mediocre reviews) and then went into Sacramento for dinner. The plan was to eat at Zocalo, but the wait was almost an hour, so I pointed across the street and we decided to eat at Paesano's instead. An excellent choice.

I was going to write more about the evening, but I think I'll end with this instead:

"Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you that you love, well, that's just fabulous." -Sex in the City

hmmm edited for photo goodness:

if that's all we can take

Wow, today sucked.

First, it's Wednesday which means staff meeting/collaborative planning at Norwood from 8:45-10:45am. I used to not have to attend this, which meant Wednesday was a sleep-in day (or get-to-the-gym-really-early day), but then some teacher was like "why aren't the student teachers coming to collaborative planning?" so now I have to go and all I do is sit for two hours in a freezing room while they argue about curriculum and API scores and my coffee gets cold and my stomach starts to grumble. Awesome.

So then I walk into my classroom and review my agenda and remember I have to give not one, not two, but three tests today. Three tests on material I know my kids don't know. This isn't my fault, mind you. It's material they should know but don't because they've been to lazy to learn it and today was accountability day. So after 45 hellish minutes of painful testing, I had to lecture my students about discipline and responsibility for their actions and how if they don't start giving 100% in my class, they aren't going to make it through high school, etc etc. It was not fun. And then I gave them like an hour of English homework and told them that if they ever tell their resource teachers that they don't have any English homework again, they'll be doing English homework until their hair turns gray.

Then I came home and started my period. Too much information, I'm sure, but it's just been that kind of day.

I watched last night's Veronica Mars, hit the gym, then headed over to UCC for band practice at 6. We didn't start practicing until 6:45 because the guys were screwing around with their guitars and couldn't get anything to work. This is why vocalists hate band practice. Alex is on his honeymoon, which meant everything was left up to the staff and then half the staff didn't show up. Fabulous.

But then we split into guys'/girls' discussion groups and the ladies talked about Esther and we had a really fabulous discussion about taking risks and crisis of faith and it just reminded me how incredible my life is and surely tomorrow will be better.

The End.

or step aside

Also, I ran into Annie at the gym today (she was working, I was working out) and we decided that if I decide to take a job teaching up here and don't move back to the Bay next fall, we will live together.

This makes me very happy.

let it be

I miss having free time. And not free time to clean my room or catch up on lesson plans (which I did today), but free time to hang out with people and have a life outside of school.

Yay, grad school.

I'm babysitting tonight. Pheobe finally stopped crying about 20 minutes ago and I'm watching Stephen King's Dreamcatcher - an OK movie and much better novel. Man, I love scary movies.

I like October because October means Halloween and Halloween means lots and lots of horror movies on TV. I love horror movies. Good ones, bad ones, cheesy ones, terrifying ones. I love them all. And I'll watch them over and over again, even if I've seen them a million times already. It's kind of ridiculous. I'm glad the kids are asleep.

Tomorrow Daniel and I are driving down to Carmel (hooray!) for Alex & Erica's wedding (double hooray!). I'm looking forward to great weather, late-breakfast/early-lunch in adorable Carmel, and a really fabulous wedding with all of my absolute favorite people. Then, I get to go visit my parents and do laundry! A full weekend, indeed.

I just found out that I have to dress up for Halloween at my junior high. But I still need to be able to move around and teach and be taken (somewhat) seriously. Any ideas?

From Junior Year, ...

I carved this pumpkin!

who do you think you are

If you're looking for something sweet, may I recommend The Nugget's German Chocolate Brownie? Daniel brought me one (and some other delicious treats) to enjoy while we watched Saw II on Saturday night when I got home from the Corn Maze (full evening, I know). I finished it just now (it's that huge!) and it was delightful.


In less sweet news, Saw III comes out on Friday and whoa man, am I excited!

lily dreams on

Last night, I took some of the girls in my seventh grade small group to the 35-acre Dixon Corn Maze. It was, in a word, epic.

From Corn Maze!

Edit: I just got an email from one of my girls thanking me and saying how much fun she had. Holy crap, I heart junior highers.

watch things disappear

I've spent more time with ADX in the last week than I probably did the last half of my senior year. What an incredible group of girls they have this year - it's very exciting. More exciting than that, though, is finally being part of the awesome sisterhood of ADX alum and having the opportunity to sit together and retell all the greatest ADX storeis and remember what it was that made ADX special enough to take the plunge and pledge a group that, at the outset, we knew basically nothing about. There are so many things I loved about ADX when I was active, and even more things that I love about ADX now that I have the chance to step back and view it as a whole.

We are girls who travel the world separately and reminisce together. We play hard, pray hard, and laugh harder. We move across city lines, state lines, and country lines but stay in touch through exorbitant cell phone bills, "mondo emails", and the not-nearly-often-enough coffee date. We graduate, get real jobs, get married, have babies but still sit around living rooms giggling like we did during our first active retreat. We are the first to know when life gets tough and the first to know when life is just incredible. We are bridesmaids, godmothers, and lifelong confidants. We are smart and sassy and just a little bit stubborn. We believe in the life-changing love of Jesus Christ and the life-saving power of a good joke. We rarely pass up an opportunity to spend time with eachother (or spend money on shoes) and willingly go out of our way to give someone stuck on campus a ride or bring someone stuck studying for O-Chem cookies. There is something amazing about ADX girls, and it's not just because we're intelligent or adorable or undeniably crafty - it's that we believe in eachother, we believe in miracles, and we believe in the same God.

Yeah, it's cheesy. You'll get over it.

Winter 2006 with the Alpha-Alpha class

this is the sound of settling

Sometimes I want to scream, "Is this it?!"
at the exact same moment I want to scream, "This is everything!"

From Camp of the W...

we used to be friends

For those of you who read this and don't actually know me (anyone?), my family owns a grocery store in Palo Alto. It's uniquely situated in the middle of College Terrace and a block from the Stanford campus. We've been there, family owned and operated, for over 50 years. There are, in fact, only 2 family-owned and operated grocery stores left in Palo Alto, and we are one of them.

There are a lot of things that make JJ&F really special. One is that the store is, at least superficially, run almost exactly the way my grandfather ran it back in the 50s. We have customers who have shopped with us for their entire lives. People come in not just to shop, but to see friends and catch up with people. My dad is one of the only butchers left in the Bay Area who breaks his own beef (we get a whole cow from Harris Ranch and do all of the cuts ourselves). We are a neighborhood market with specialty items and a gourmet meat department.

And we're being forced out of business.

This has been going on for about a year, but it's a complicated situation. First, there was going to be a big remodel, per the request of the property managers. Then, we realized we would have to close in order to remodel, and my dad wasn't willing to take that risk because we are already in close competition with Trader Joe's and Whole Foods and closing the store for an indefinite amount of time is just recipe for losing customers. Then the property managers got angry and all hell broke loose. The store is being sued, my dad is being sued, they say we owe a ton in back rent, we are counter--sueing because they never told us they raised the rent, etc etc. The fear, of course, is that we will lose in court (although it's not likely) and the store will close and we will have, quite literally, nothing. Not only will we not get any money (because the other option is to sell), but we'll owe all of these bogus back-taxes and rent. And it sucks because my family has worked so hard for so long and it may all end up being for nothing. And all along, no one has known anything about it because my dad wanted to keep things quiet

Yesterday, the Palo Alto Daily News published a big story. Because they couldn't contact us for an interview, they only had the property manager's side. We were made to look pretty bad. My dad was super upset because now he has to field questions at work because, obviously, our loyal customers are going to be caught totally off gaurd.

Today, the San Jose Mercury ran a story. This one was better, but things are still really up in the air right now.

The whole situation just sucks. My dad just turned 60 and all he can think about is how he's worked so hard his whole life and he's going to have nothing but debt when he retires. This store is all we have ever known. And, even more than that, it's like an institution in Palo Alto and to see it go.... Well, it would just be bad.

So, I don't know. If you pray, pray now. I hate seeing my family so sad.

just a momentary thing

I haven't done a meme in.... well, ever. But I thought this was kind of clever. Answer in two words only!

1. Explain what ended your last relationship?
Geographically undesireable

2. When was the last time you shaved?
Wednesday morning

3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.?
Sleeping in!

4. Were you any good at math?
That's funny

5. What were you doing 15 minutes ago?
Driving home

6. Your prom night?
Super anticlimatic

7. Do you have any famous ancestors?
American Indians

8. Have you had to take a loan out for school?
Thanks, parents!

9. Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile?
Yeah, duh

10. Last thing received in the mail?
Junk, bills

11. How many different beverages have you had today?
Milk, juice

12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machine?
Short ones

13. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to?
OC Supertones

14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach?
Junior high

15. What's the most painful dental procedure you've had?
Wisdom teeth

16. What is out your back door?
Train tracks

17. Any plans for Friday night?
Lesson plans

18. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair?
My fav

19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns?
Gross, no

20. Have you ever been to a planetarium?
Not yet

21. Do you re-use towels after you shower?
Never ever

22. Some things you are excited about?
Thanksgiving break!

23. What is your favorite flavor of JELLO?
Anything orange

24. Describe your keychain(s)?
Jump drive

25. Where do you keep your change?
Laundry basket


In other news, I have to create and maintain a "professional website" for my EDU 180 class - kind lame, but check it out.

no sleep tonight

I'm sick again.

I went to school anyway because, you know, it's my job, and came to a really depressing conclusion about growing up...

See, when you're a kid and you go to school and you get sick, you go to the nurse and relax for a while and they call your mom and she comes to pick you up and take you home and you lay down on the couch for a while and she brings you medicine and doesn't let you do anything until you feel better.

When you're an adult and you go to school and you get sick, you suck it up and deal with it. That, or you decide that indeed you are too ill to stay, so you drive yourself home and lay on the couch and watch crappy daytime TV until you get thirsty or need more medicine or need to take your temperature, at which point you drag your sorry butt off the couch and get a glass of water or dig through your medicine cabinet fruitlessly for ten minutes, only to realize that your thermometer has disappeared in the move and you took the last of your DayQuil the last time you were sick.

These gastrointestinal pyrotechnics are getting old. I miss my mommy :(

you have been the one for me

I figured maybe I should write about something of substance...

On staff retreat last weekend we did a value-sorting exercise, where we were given 30 values and had to sort them according to importance in work situations. Inevitably, things like "working on the frontiers of knowledg" and "precision work" and "stress/pressure" ranked very low on my value continuum. Likewise, "helping others", "creativity", and "independence" ranked very high. However, so did "mental stimulation" and "working alone".

Which brings me to the conclusion that, if you've been paying attention, has been brewing for quite some time now:

I hate grad school.

I hate group work and partner sharing and stupid projects. I'm tired of observing teacher's whose teaching strategies I don't agree with and I'm sick, sick, SICK of keeping observation journals. The more I sit and listen to lectures on learning theories and EDI and minority representation, the less I want to even be a teacher. Yesterday, I turned in a big project. It was this:


Miss Garcia's Learning Theatre. A visual metaphor of how I learn. Learning is like theatre. The lights illuminate your prior knowledge, the audience assesses both the individual as well as the ensemble performance, blah blah blah.

Am I really doing arts and freaking crafts? I'm 22 years old and I'm making posters for homework. I'm reading boring books that aren't telling me anything about teaching except that it's "the most important job you can have", and no one will just let me teach anything. I'm bored. And anyone who knows anything about behavior management knows that the kids who are most distruptive in class are the ones who are bored. Does anyone remember me in junior high?

When do I get to teach Steinbeck? I'm over it.

Now is the winter of our discontent.
-Shakespeare, Richard III

stop hey whats that sound

OK guys, seriously, watch Veronica Mars tonight. 9pm on the new CW.

If this show gets cancelled, I will be majorly bummed.

you know youve gotta help me out

There's this fabulous little place in Claremont that Stephie took me to called 21 choices (there's also one in downtown Pasadena). It's basically Coldstone, but approximately 1 billion times better AND with handmade frozen yogurt and specialty flavors that change daily. Tonight, I could really go for French Vanilla with some Twix mixed in. I miss LA. And Stephie...

Staff retreat at Tucker's cabin this weekend was super-fun as usual. Sadly, I represented basically the entire female staff all weekend and it was... tiring. As much as I love being "one of the guys", I really missed Monika and Bethany and wished that Kelly and Cathy could have been there so we could discuss small group things that pertained to girls. Oh well, maybe in January. It was fun, however, to be there with the high school staff and to have a couple of days with nothing to do but enjoy the scenery and a little serenity. I needed a break.

My dad turns 60 this Friday, so I'm heading home after our game on Saturday morning to celebrate a little and attend Palo Alto's Glass Pumpkin Patch with my mom. It's fall! I'm so excited!