everythings right

Today was long. School, staff meeting, then BTSA. I left my apartment at 7 this morning and just arrived back home. But today was also good. I wore a cashmere sweater, listened to great music, had flowers delivered to my classroom, got my seniors thinking about Freud, and actually felt like my ELs learned something. And when I got home, Annie had baked cookies. And Heroes is on tonight. And everything is going to be alright.

There's more but... it can wait.

Things I am Thankful For, 2007

my health, a steady paycheck, houndstooth coats, FreeRice, pumpkin pie, ballet flats, students who try, running shoes, candles, stuffed bell peppers, soccer, coffee, high school football, Pottery Barn desk accessories, fleece blankets, kiwi, Lush products, Jesus, Shakespearean endeavors, strawberries, cranberry margaritas, empty weekends for serious writing, fireplaces, family, puppies, books, my roommate, a new cell phone in January, minimum days, yogurt, laughter, etc etc

if it kills me

From the awesome indexed.blogspot.com:

war on sound

I want to change the world... instead I sleep.

I want to believe in more than you and me.
But all that I know is I'm breathing.
All I can do is keep breathing.
All we can do is keep breathing now.
-Ingrid Michaelson

i haven't spoken

Just have to laud the awesomeness of FreeRice.com again this morning. While sipping my (extra foamy) latte and talking to my mom on the phone, I donated over 1000 grains of rice and reached level 41 (out of 50)! Amazing!

Now off to church and yogurt with my small group. Beautiful Sunday.

a few small repairs

I have never liked showering. The undressing. The lathering, rinsing, repeating. The shaving. The exfoliating. The turning off the water and getting cold. The drying off. The redressing. Then the moisturizing and the make-uping, and the hair-drying and styling. It's just always such a hassle.

Yesterday morning though, I stood in the shower for almost a half hour. I wasn't evening doing anything. I just stood and let the hot water run over me and prayed that time would just stop and I could just stay there, warm and alone and relatively content, for a while.

Of course, that's not possible. So I turned off the water and got goosebumps on my just-shaved legs and looked at the clock and realized I was late for work, single again, and legitimately heartbroken (not the end-of-the-world high school kind of heartbroken, but the real I-was-going-to-spend-the-rest-of-my-life-with-you-until-you-changed-your-mind kind of heartbroken). But I put on a brave little face and got a caramel latte on the way to school and smiled when my students complimented my dress and gave the obligatory "Yay, it's Friday!" every time I ran into a colleague and told Nick, again and again over frozen yogurt, "No really, it's going to be OK. I'll be fine," even though I was glad it was dark so he couldn't see my eyes get wet.

But today... I shopped and spent too much money like I only do when I'm sad. And I ate jelly beans until my stomach hurt instead of going to the gym and doing crunches. And I tried to clean my room but just ended up just sitting in the middle of the mess, staring into my closet aimlessly. And I cried because my roommate is away for the weekend and my boyfriend is not my boyfriend anymore and this is the most unhappy I've been in a long time, not just because of the roommate and the boyfriend, but because of school and work and growing up too.

On Wednesday my small group talked about how the world looks at things and says "That is impossible!" but our faith says "With God, everything is possible" and I told them about how when I was in New York, Mike reminded me of Peter walking on the water to see Jesus, but getting scared because of the storm that raged around him. The minute he took his eyes of the Lord, he began to sink, but Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him.

I'm trying really hard not to take my eyes of Jesus and to trust him in this stormy season and to let him love me and take care of me and fill all of the empty places inside me. But I sure could use prayers as well. I'm not so good at letting go of my pride and reaching out for someone else's help.

empty-handed

I'll praise You in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am.
And every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side.
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm.
-Casting Crowns

do it again

http://www.freerice.com

World hunger relief and vocabulary development? I'll give you one guess what my students will be doing on our minimum day next Wednesday.

Also, last night Bethany taught me how to make a ringtone out of any song in iTunes. I now rock out to "Mmmbop" whenever I receive a phone call. Glorious.

its a perfect shame

Another crappy day at school (I have good ones, I promise). I don't have a problem with behavior management except for the students who have no understanding of "good behavior" in the first place. God, they just drag me down.

I got my hair cut today, and it looks pretty fantastic and sassy if I do say so myself.

I found an old letter from David on my computer today that he sent me the summer of 2003. It made me cry and wish that sometimes I wasn't such a bitch and that life wasn't as complicated as it is.

I've been unnecessarily emotional and unusually devoid of words lately. I need a holiday.

better than just getting by

Rough day at school, but now I'm home and (supposedly) grading piles upon piles of papers.

I'm far more stressed out than is really necessary, and about stupid things too. This weekend I became so fed up by a number of things, that I started researching schools for next fall. My old high school is already accepting 08-09 applications and I can't help but get a little excited about that, even though it's only week 12.

Well, it sounds bad that way, but week 12 means that in 6 weeks, I'll be halfway done. That is crazy.

I don't like thinking about leaving Davis, but at the same time sometimes it's all I can think about. I don't know what to make of it, but it can't be making this stress situation any better.

oh crystal ball

I just remembered this gem from COTW 2005:

Josh Pell: Wanna know the most annoying sound in the world?
Mike: Teens?

(I haven't gotten much done today, and just remembered I have to call 10 parents sometime this weekend to let them know their kid is failing my class. Worst. Job. Ever.)

im sick of waiting

Saw a great bumper sticker on the way home from class today:


Today's agenda:
-laundry
-clean my room
-empty dishwasher
-finish Benchmark edits
-work out
-lesson plans

Next weekend is the NICE Festival in San Francisco and a 3-day weekend. Rejoice!

the most wonderful time of the year

This year's pirate pumpkin. Sweet!

me and the twins

School went into Code Red lockdown today during the majority of 3rd period. Apparently someone robbed a convenience store and decided to hide out on campus, although, nearly 2 hours later, I have yet to recieve official word from the administration as to the actual cause of said lockdown which is, in a word, annoying.

I spent part of yesterday at a truly worthless conference about filing the FAFSA. I tried to get out of it on the basis of being a graduate student and having filed my own FAFSA for several years now, but still had to go. Upon arrival, I realized that all other "reqiured" teachers from my school had gotten out of it, which was irritating. Doubly irritating? Our head counselor, who signed me up for the thing, sleeping through the majority of the 6 hour presentation. It was a monumental waste of time (as I'm finding most conferences and workshops to be) and now I have to make up for the fact that none of my classes got anything accomplished while I was gone! Hooray!

I'm reading a really great book right now called The Thirteenth Tale by Dianne Setterfield. All I really want to do right now is go home and curl up on my couch and read. Oh man, is it good.

And no, I did not dress up for Halloween, which is truly disappointing, I know, but my kids said they would laugh at me and I didn't have anything anyway and I surely wasn't going to go spend a fortune just to be laughed at.

The end.

days of the week

I took the day off on Friday to work on my Benchmark, knowing that I would probably get very little done this weekend. This was a good choice, as I finished the monster at about 6pm and then had the rest of the weekend to play...

...with my new computer!

Oh my gosh, I am in heaven. Now, I am not a techno-geek in any sense of the word. I mean, I like computers and I know how to use computers really well, but I'm definitely not the person who goes out and buys something the minute it comes out just to have it. I'm also not the person who replaces their digital stuff the minute it starts to get a little old, which is how I found myself with a six-year-old computer, running two operating systems behind, that could barely start up without crashing (and a two-year-old cell phone that only rings half of the time, and a digital camera with a corrupted internal memory, but whatever).

I didn't realize how old the old computer was, however, until I plugged this one in. Well first, it's just beautiful. And huge. I bought the smallest screen, and 20" is still a big freaking screen for word processing and playing online sudoku. And second, it's fast. I'm sure it's not really any faster than any normal computer, but compared to what I've been using, it's like moving at the speed of sound after riding a tricycle. I can't believe how much time I've wasted waiting for programs to open or waiting for charts to import from Excel or waiting for the Trash to empty.

In short, I am in computer heaven. More later.

what have you done today

Another super EOG:

I did not get much done this weekend, MA-wise. This means I'm in serious thesis lock-down from here until Sunday night (although I'm hoping it doesn't take me that long). What I did do this weekend was spend Sunday morning in Chico with my brother. He invited me and my parents up to see his new house and have lunch, and then after lunch he offered to give me a tour of the campus, since I've never been to Chico before.

It was a really great time to spend with him and see how much he has grown and matured in these last few years since his accident. He really is a great kid and I was just so proud of him this weekend - not only is he being kind and affectionate with my parents (and with me!), but he's working really hard at school and refuses to give up, even though his major is really tough. I've always looked forward to the day that we could really start to be friends, and hopefully that is coming up soon.

starts to take shape

I got a pretty great Encourage-o-Gram this week:


In other news, I just got back from class and am pretty stoked to get to work on my First Benchmark (only worth 50% of my grade!) which is due next week. Time to sit down with some tea and get busy with vocabulary worksheets and research timelines. Yay!

But in all honesty, for as much as I complain, I really love real graduate school. I like to research and the writing comes pretty easy to me and I'm learning how to be a better teacher in the process, so its a winning situation no matter how you slice it.

I'm also working to make this my "general stuff" blog and move all of my teacher-y research-y things a more formal "teacher stuff" blog over at http://rm205.wordpress.com since I can use any journaling I do about my classes as actual data for my thesis. Check in soon if you're interested in all the exciting goings-on of room 205.

I'm also looking forward to a new computer in the next week or so. Having a real job with a real paycheck certainly has its benefits...

It's so beautiful!

i want your love

"Well, sometimes love seems easy. Like... it's easy to love rain... and hawks. And it's easy to love wild plums... and the moon. But with people, seems like love's a hard thing to know. It gets mixed up. I mean, you can love one person in one way and another person in another way. But how do you know you love the right one in every way?"

"I'm not sure, but I think you'll know. I think if it's the right person, it'll be better than rain and hawks and wild plums. Even better than the moon. I think it'll be better than all that put together."

Where the Heart Is -Billie Letts

get it right

I made it through my entire credential year without doing it, but today I crouched down under my desk after the lunch bell and just cried.

wake up with the rain

Regardless of the last post, I'm still freaking out about my MA. I have another WARP due tomorrow and my first benchmark (worth 50-freaking-percent of my fist quarter grade) due in about three weeks.

Today I have a staff meeting (in about 5 minutes) where the English department will try to tell the ELD department how we should run our programs (I am part of both, of course). There will be no chocolate, because our department chair is male, which is highly unfortunate (the chocolate part, not the male part) because this has been a seriously bummer Monday and I'm not looking forward to sitting through a meeting one single bit.

Ah, life.