-My first “you’re my favorite teacher” note
-Having a friend and colleague who’s a Professor of Science Education think that my classroom management idea is SO awesome, he shared it with his class. (ahem, his class of teachers in training!)
-Earning a “highly effective” (highest possible) rating on one of my elements on my first official evaluation.
I finally dragged my behind out of bed after lazing around for two hours. It’s a glorious early fall morning – cool, breezy and sunny. My absolute favorite kind. And now I’m lounging in flannel PJ pants and my most cherished hoodie. another guilty pleasure.
The only thing souring this morning is the loneliness of it. I know I’ve talked before about the fact that I am a snuggle addict. I absolutely crave physical affection. And these are the kinds of mornings that are just perfect for sharing with that special someone.
I guess for this morning I’ll have to settle for the sweetness in my cocoa.
I am a New Yorker. I will always be one.
I’ll argue whose pizza is best, juxtapose random yiddish phrases and Italian swearwords and can parallel park like a beast. New York City Champagne is the best tap water on earth. I had to hitch-hike home the day the towers fell.
For the last few years I’ve been living right across the river in NJ. Most recently, Bayonne (birthplace of George R.R. Martin… no kidding, I pass his childhood home every time I run in the park near my house).
I don’t dislike Jersey. I’ve got some good memories here, and I actually really like my current neighborhood. But there’s something in the familiarity of going back home. Where my accent comes back because everyone else talks the same way. Where my niece and nephew play in the same backyard I did. Where the people who helped form who I truly am as an adult still congregate.
My first full time job out of college was truly a dream job. I got to work with animals and kids and I adored it. I adored the people I worked with. Over the 7+ years I spent there, we became more like a family. We bickered and argued but through it all when shit hit the fan we were there for each other. Whether it was setting up each other’s rooms when somebody was running late, dancing like a fool at someone’s wedding, or supporting one another when a loved one died. And I don’t mean one of those sad little handshakes and the generic “I’m sorry for your loss” that you give a mere coworker.
I hadn’t seen most of these people in at least 5 years. And I was sad that I was seeing them because one of our own just lost her mom. But it was so incredibly good to see them, hug them again. She was greeting people at the door when I arrived. She immediately stopped her conversation and came over, enveloping me in such a genuine hug I almost cried.
We waxed nostalgic about the good old days. We got caught up on what’s new.
I need to be better at keeping up connections. These are my roots. I need to water them.
I keep jokingly asking this question when various little things happen:
But ultimately, it isn’t any of that. It was the moment I realized I’ve taken this huge step to finally do something that makes me happy. To do something bigger than myself. To make the growth of others into my life’s work.
The moment when I realize that we are all busting our asses and spending time drying each other’s tears because we know how much those kids are counting on us. Because we know that they can’t afford for us to be bad at this. To be in a profession driven by compassion and intelligence…
I am a teacher.
It’s a funny thing.
For starters, it has taken me a very long time to acknowledge that this was even a thing in my life. I was an outcast as a kid. I was awkward and odd looking and really wasn’t popular. Junior high, cruel as it is, didn’t help any. I can recall thinking of suicide, though thankfully the thought of at least my family missing me put that to a stop.
So it’s weird when I look at myself now, and days like today. I have literally hundreds of friends. A handful of what I would consider close friends.
Usually my social calendar is obnoxiously busy. I literally have to pencil people in and make plans months in advance if I have any prayer of seeing people. And yet, either nobody is hosting anything today for the holiday (and going elsewhere with people in their other circles I don’t know?) Or do they assume that I’ve already got plans, being the social butterfly that I am?
Whatever. I need sleep anyway.
Things that made me smile:
Things that made me cry
My first Pride, but certainly not my last. It was a great day.
I’m sitting here, staring a twenty year-old savings bond, given to me by my grandmother when I went off to high school. I think she’d find it fitting that I’m now using it to buy a computer to enable me to go back to high school… this time as a teacher.
Grandma valued education very highly. Whenever I’d ask what she wanted for Christmas, her birthday, mother’s day… her answer was always “good grades.” In college when I needed to take a summer class in order to graduate on time, it was grandma who paid for it. I swear if I ever get rich I’m creating some sort of scholarship in her name.
It’s a little weird, cashing it in. We were always told to save them for something important. For “a rainy day.” Well, with this fellowship program, it’s raining alright, and I need things to keep me swimming.
So thanks, grandma.
I’ve noticed that when I have dreams that I’m driving it’s a metaphor got me and my life.
Last night’s dream involved me trying to exit off a highway, when a red pickup truck in front of me towing a large write object started fish-tailing. I swerved to avoid it, but hit the barrier wall.
I pulled over and got out. I was uninjured, but the car had scraping on the left rear quarter panel where I’d hit the wall, and I’d blown the tire.
Somehow I was able to “inflate” the car and push out the dents, leaving only paint scrapes and the messed up tire.
As I stood assessing the damage, a tow truck pulled up, and the guys started looking at it with me. I started to recount what had happened. When I turned to point to the ramp, a tractor trailer was jack-knifing, and heading for us.
Once again I jumped clear of the accident, but the truck was totaled and the driver injured, so we ran to help him.
I get the feeling I’m going to narrowly avoid some nastiness in the near future.
There’s little that comforts me about church anymore. But one of the few things that I still enjoyed was singing. That was until they changed EVERY responsorial hymn; the melody and the words. And I can’t for the life of me discern WHY. It’s not like they’ve changed the meaning of anything… the changes seem to be just for the sake of change.
I used to love belting out those hymns with my choir girls. There was comfort in the familiarity. Now even that’s gone.
I’ll give anyone a prize that can give me a real reason for the change.
There needs to be some sort of word or phrase to describe somebody who falls in between butch, or even tomboy, and femme.
It’s taken me a while to become comfortable in my own skin, and sometimes I’m still not entirely there, but I’m much more so than I ever have been in my life. Sometimes I like not fitting into a category, other times my weird OCD need to put everything in order – to be able to categorize and describe everything – gets annoyed by the fact that there is no category for me. It’s a weird feeling, because I have no desire to alter myself to the point of fitting into one of the existing ones, but it’s not exactly like I can just create one.
Most of the time I’m too practical for my own good. I never wear skirts at work, because there’s two things I can’t fathom – 1. crawling under a desk to fix a computer in a skirt and 2- wearing stockings every day.
On the other hand, there are times when I feel under-dressed or somehow, inappropriate in pants. When I was younger I used to joke that at least the guys got to be comfortable in pants and flat shoes. So I kind of surprised myself with what happened as an adult… When my first girlfriend’s mother got remarried, she had to wear a dress since she was in the wedding party (and let me tell you how NOT happy she was about that). She really wanted me to wear a suit. So I did; black jacket and slacks, and a blue shirt to go with her dress. And I never felt so completely inappropriately dressed. I might as well have shown up in jeans. Of course everyone said we looked nice and yadda yadda, but *I* didn’t like the way I looked.
For so long I worked in an industry where if you dressed all girly and impractical, you’d get laughed at. Hiking boots, khaki shorts… that was what we all wore. Could you imagine showing up to lead a trail walk wearing a designer suit? So not happening. So that got ingrained in me after all those years. And only recently am I realizing that I need to change out of that.
But I’m at a purge point. I’ve decided that I’m getting rid of anything that I wouldn’t want a potential new partner to meet me in for the first time. I realize how that sounds but it’s really more about my own comfort level than anything. One of the things I learned from my last relationship is that when you look good, you feel good. I know, duh.
Silver Tides 