Sunday, January 23, 2011

looking back, moving forward

Now is a period of untapped opportunity
A time of relative comfort, inhibiting new adventures.

Now is a sequence of routined days
A patterened life, discouraging risk.

Now is the moment to stop continuity
to feign courage
to get back in the game.

Now is for carpe diem
dance, be mine
life, behold

Friday, January 14, 2011

vapor

I miss high school. I miss big groups of friends and looking like a babe in cute little cheerleading outfits and I miss classes and learning at an acceptable rate and I miss laughing and dancing and flirting and living and loving and wasting the only pennies you have on dumb things like frostys or american eagle jeans. I miss weeks of ease and weekends where we did something every night other than sleep. I miss energy and spirit and personality. I miss clubs and activities and singing and running and acting and being on teams. I miss boyfriends when they were new and simple and only good. I miss being dependent and having food and getting spoiled with done laundry and washed dishes. I miss walking through each hour of the day as a big group of people: invincible together. In some ways, I even miss hating drama! And I miss college: high school with privileges.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

I'm in love :)

Sunday, May 30, 2010

those days that make you wonder what the point (of all the other days) is...

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Hey! What are you doing this summer? You working?

Yea. Full-time. No pay.

Here's what is "expected" of me this summer... (a.k.a. work that I have no choice about doing or not, even though I am not on a summer-salaried job):

* The school ordered a new two sets of class novels, one for grade eight, one for grade seven.
Assignment: slowly and critically read the novels, marking the margins with commentary, create units on the novels, anticipatory sets for the novels, supplementary activities for the novels, chapter quizzes and final tests for the novels, make keys for all of the activities, sets, tests, quizzes on the novels.

* The school needs to prove its curriculum accreditation.
Assignment: put together a list of all the writing assignments that are done throughout 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, write your own example "key" of each, create rubrics for each, prove that writing on each of the 5 levels of intensity is done in each grade level.
Assignment: get together with the elementary and high-school teachers to match up what they require with your requirements so that students build their writing skills over the course of their entire education
Assignment: after meeting together, revamp and re-do what you have assigned for the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades concerning writing

* You have been assigned an additional course, "Yearbook", for the following school year.
Assigment: read over the course outline, plan out the calendar of due dates, work with the yearbook publishing company to network out prices, figure out how on earth you drag a yearbook into a year long course???

* Keep your teaching license up to date so that it is "legal" for you to be a teacher again the following fall.
Assignment: take a five credit course with a final paper at the end proving your integration of skills into your curricula; this follows hours of videos, tests, and papers on curriculum-planning

* Next year you will be teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th grade grammar, reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills.
Assignment: go through three ENTIRE textbooks and create keys, supplemental activities, teach yourself the material so you are ready to teach the students the material, create tests, quizzes, worksheets, keys for all of these, AND find a way to incorporate "fun!" activities for each of the levels of "Communicative and Language Arts."

* Some students earned failing grades in your classes, so you need to put together a summer curriculum for each individual student so that they can "pass" the summer term and move on to the next grade level.
Assignment: figure out each child's areas of weakness, communicate with parents to get work to them and from them to grade over the summer, "write out" lessons that you would be speaking/lecturing to the children during the school year

* Every year you notice what worked and what didn't work in the classroom for that year.
Assignment: go through every activity, test, lesson, whatever, etcetera, that you completed in each grade for that year and analyze what could be improved and what went great. re-write your lessons, re-write your worksheets, re-write your tests, re-write your rubrics, re-write your keys, and re-do what you could have done better.



How can you expect teachers to get a summer job when they have a summer job? A required-but-not-noticed job? An under-the-table-don't-know-about-it-unless-you-wedded-a-teacher job? An unpaid, unappreciated, important-to-the-future-generations-of-our-Nation job?

That's right. NOW try and tell me teachers have it slack-easy in the summer.

I don't say all of this to complain. I love my job and would do this for volunteer work ANYday! But people need to understand that "time off" and "summer vacation" as a teacher is not the summer vacation they knew in their childhood as a student in-between school sessions. Teachers don't get paid enough.

And teachers do not simply work 9 of 12 months of the year. Sorry, guys. You've been mistaken.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

I have worked very hard to not realize what is coming up this weekend. But with Travis at work all night, and myself in the coffee shop grading term papers, it hit me that this is a little hint into what my summer will be. The most depressing part about saying goodbye to the man for the entire summer is knowing that he gets to be having all the fun!!! :) I'm almost as jealous of him as I am sad to lose him :)

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Forever Hope

The Lord has blessed me; I received two notes from students this week containing encouraging news. May my students grow. May my life be used for the glory of the Lord. May my work not be in vain.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Proverbs

"A teacher is a person who never says anything once."

I could preach a single bullet point till my lungs go airless, and still one child will miss it. Today I asked a student "do you ever listen to a thing I say???" He just smiled, slyly.

Monday, April 26, 2010

The latest dart that Satan has thrown my way is a new kind of comparison; a deeper level of envy. I work with the perfect couple: always teasing happily, throwing big surprises for one another, talking joyously. Everyone admires them and wants to be them. People invite them over for couple dinners. The kids dream of their future babies. Everyone is involved.

I want to be the one that people want to be.

I question what is wrong with my relationships, seeing what needs to happen so that I can "measure up." I decide, well - I'll never make mine work like theirs because I'm not her. I'm never going to be as perfect as her. If I can't ever be that, then am I at least satisfied with what I am, what my relationships look like.

I don't know.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

JV: Where I Wanna Be!

I have decided to always remain connected to a JV in some way or another :) This weekend was not one to note. I slept all day and all night and am still coming out of it exhausted - - - how do you figure that? I have felt alone and fatigued and frustrated and in despair. Tonight as we were closing our eyes to pray, this young 6th grader slipped her little hand into mine. It spoke wonders. She uplifted me and comforted me and the Lord used her to bless my life. I am once again ready for another week.

After the lesson, we went outside to play a game of baseball. I LOVE JV because when I play sports with them, #1) I am not the worst player on the team, and #2) sometimes I even seem good to them!!! With high school, college, or later - I am the worst one on a team and nobody throws the ball to me or includes me. It's nice that they are "at my level" of sport-retardation. Also, I feel like "I'm BACK!" The real me... I got hit with a ball today on my forearm and there is still remaining a large, red, round spot the size of a baseball. When I first joined JV I came home with a new cut, scrape, scar, or bruise every day. It has been a while and school has kept me home a lot of Wednesday and Sunday evenings, but it feels good to be back crazy and LOUD with the group again.

I can't wait for summer.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Let's be in love again

Remember those days when we were inseperable? Finished the other's sentences? Laughed in the same key?

Remember the days our thoughts were romantisized? Virginia but a coast of beauty and discovery?

Let's be in love again.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Down-trodden

It has been what... nine months since I made my trek to VA? Definitely feels like home, and I am contented in this place. I do have one quarry, however; and that is how difficult it is to be 18 hours away from a loved one that is deeply breaking. I have not experienced "home-sickness" in the sense that I just want desperately to go home to MN for my own sake, but I have felt desperate pleas for God to hold a beloved that I cannot be with in body. It is so painful for me to sit here across the country and listen to a mourning voice through a phone line and not be able to do anything. What a helpless situation. A time when one can only say to the self: Trust that God loves this person more than you ever can. Trust that God wants what is best for this person even more than you ever have. Even more difficult is it to picture a loved one in a situation that I ran away from. I escaped that, yes. But I left you there.
I am sorry.
I wish I were there instead of you. I wish I were there to carry it with you. It is so hard to sit idle by, when my life is working itself out optimistically for the self.

I miss you. I want to take it all for you. I love you.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Virginian weather fluctuates just as much as MN, except instead of 30, 0, 30, 0, it's 60, 30, 60, 30, windows down, windows up, windows down, windows up.

Monday, January 25, 2010

I love the reconciliation of old friendships. It makes them all the more precious and valuable.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Life Lesson #459

Don't make a list. Don't have a plan. You don't know what you need anyway; it'll just screw you up and you'll miss out.