Random Thoughts

I just had a lovely bit of small talk with a gentleman as I was making my train connection. It took me a minute to realize I’d met him in the grocery store a while back. I’d helped him pick out a pork loin when he wasn’t quite sure which kind his wife meant, and we’d talked for about 10 minutes about this and that.

My heart will always be in NY but I’m definitely developing a fondness for the community in this neck of the woods. I have chats with my neighbors as they walk dogs. Joggers in the park give a little wave as we run past each other. My next door neighbor clears our walk, because my elderly landlord can’t.

Maybe this is normal and I just never noticed before. Maybe I never stayed n one place long enough before. But it’s definitely endearing.

Closure to Start the New Year

Closure is a rare thing. I didn’t get it entirely, but at least I know that the issues with me and K really WERE her hangups.

She’s had a few months to process it all, and still hasn’t totally wrapped her head around it but she did share the bits she’s managed to understand and it makes sense. And she apologized for everything.

She’s not an emotional person – a stark contrast to a person like me who can aptly be described as a ball of feelings. I think part of it is her need to constantly feel in control, and feelings kind of throw giant monkey wrenches into that plan. I think there’s more to follow here in her own evolution, but we’re staying friends, and that makes me happy.

Things my students say…

“Miss, you were in my dream last night!”

I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear where this was going, but of course he told the story…

In his dream, the school was being attacked. We were trapped and  everyone else gave up, and was just willing to die. But I busted down a door and helped them escape.

Apparently I also scolded him for leaning out the window of the rescue helicopter. “See, even in my dreams you yell at me!”

I’m not sure how to process this. On the one hand, I guess it’s flattering that he thinks I would rescue them in a crisis and keep them safe (and that I’m a badass that can bust down doors!) But the fact that the school being attacked is part of his reality frightens me.

Running on Fumes

I wonder if this is how a marathon runner feels at mile 22. I’m tired, burning out, and losing motivation. My grades are awesome. Good enough that even if I drop a few I’m still in no danger of failing. I wouldn’t make Dean’s List maybe, but I’d graduate.

The only thing pushing me to not do that is that I really would hate to have wasted all that hard work from before. That, and I’d then have to defend those grades in my Master’s Defense. No thanks.

I need an infusion of joy. A boost of energy. Something more positive than “it would suck to fail now” to help push me to the finish line. Is there an academic version of a gel pack?

Weird Realizations

So, in watching this TED talk I had a realization.

First of all, she’s right about a bunch of things. But something silly stuck in my head: nine months. I have my kids for nine months. Of course when you say “nine months” to just about anyone, but especially a woman, the first thing that comes to mind is pregnancy.

And really, that’s kind of what it is.

It takes 9 months for me to give birth to 160 7th graders. It takes 9 months to take these 6th graders from wherever they are developmentally and attempt to get them to where they need to be to move up. And good gravy, some of them are preemies. But just like those babies, they grow up right before your eyes.

But it’s worth it when you return to school and they literally run down the block to greet you. It’s worth it when I get the excited waves down the hallway. I hardly recognized some of my babies today – they grew so much over the summer it seems! Let’s see how much of what I taught them last year stuck in those brains.

Oversensitive

That’s what people have called me for years. Over time I internalized it, blaming my supposed over-sensitivity for my constant over-analyzing of situations and taking things personally that maybe really weren’t.

Well, to K, AV and everybody else who has ever said I was oversensitive, piss off.

What you call “oversensitive” is my gut telling me something is off. It may or may not actually have something to do with me, but it’s there and I’m done ignoring it for fear of being accused of said overs-sensitivity.

Had I listened to said gut, I would have actually spoken up when K started texting less, calling less and otherwise appeared to be losing interest. I could have saved months of awkwardness and a $400+ flight to Arizona if I had just had the guts to say something to M. I might have saved AB and myself the anguish and expense of moving to a new house, only to move back out of it three months later.

Yes, I am highly empathetic and sensitive to changes in patterns, moods and behaviors. I am also extremely emotional, partly because I internalize a lot of what I notice, and partly that’s just who I am. And at times yes, I take things personally that maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe.

But at the end of the day, I’m done telling my gut to shut up just because I don’t like what it’s telling me or because I’m afraid of causing waves. Because my gut is rarely wrong.

It’s not you…

I’m a little tired of

“I’m not happy”

“Was it something I did? Or didn’t do?”

“No, you’re awesome, it’s just… I don’t know what it is, but I’m not happy.”

I’m not even mad – you either feel it or you don’t. It’s just… this keeps happening and I truly don’t understand it. How do I go from being “awesome” to “meh” without having done anything wrong? And when she can’t articulate any reason WHY she’s not happy, I can’t even look at the relationship as a growing/learning experience.

I’ve gotta be doing (or not doing) SOMETHING…

More brags

So, sitting in a workshop about scaffolding lessons today, a little ways into the program I was relating an instance where I tried a scaffold that flopped.

The facilitator asked me to “think back to when you were a first year teacher.”

I had to interject with “well, I AM a first year teacher.”

“Wait, what? You certainly don’t sound like it.”

I have gotten that reaction from no fewer than half a dozen other professionals… apparently I don’t talk or act like a first year. I’ve been called a “natural” by my AP, my principal, my mentor and my professor.

Yeah, I think I’m on the right path now…

Gratitudes 5-26-14

I’m grateful for the bruises, cuts, scrapes and sore muscles that are the evidence of a weekend in the woods well spent with good friends. There’s a certain satisfaction in coming home, showering off the sweat, bug spray, sun block and mud of a good time.

I’m grateful that I’ve almost made it through my first year of teaching

I’m grateful for the beauty of nature

Red with Gold Glitter

It’s called Inferno and it is the current color on my nails. For most women this is far from noteworthy, so why mention it? Because I did them myself… just because I wanted to, and it made me feel pretty.

Wait.

Again, this probably doesn’t sound like a big deal to anybody but me. And in the grand scheme it isn’t. But it’s an outward manifestation of something that’s slowly been evolving for the last few years.

I never liked being girly. I used to make fun of the so-called “girly girls” for being prissy, helpless little things. Then I realized what it was: it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be a girly girl… I didn’t know how. I’ve always felt awkward and unrefined in that way. Like a perpetual 12-year-old fat girl that doesn’t know how to put on makeup, can’t put an outfit together and cringes at skirts because it means she has to sit like a lady.

Then somewhere in all of this things started shifting. And now I feel like that 12-year-old who’s trying to figure it out, except I feel exceedingly stupid, because how did I get to 35 and not know how to do these things? So it’s easier to play it off as not caring than it is to admit to a defeciency.

Then there’s dealing with the shock from people when I DO actually make an attempt. I’m never sure if it’s because they percieve it as being out of character for me, or if I look foolish because I’ve done it badly. Cue my inner awkward adolescent.

Seriously, can I get a fairy godmother to give me a crash course so I can stop feeling dumb?