Basic Training

1. I didn't make the musical when I was a freshman in high school.

2. After making varsity as a sophomore, I was cut from the cheerleading squad as a junior.

3. I did not get picked for the Teacher Exchange Program to Uganda for the summer of 2008.

That's it, my friends. Of all the endeavors I have hoped to attain, I can only think of three that have not ended up as I hoped. Three. Maybe there are more, but right now, in this state of mind, I can only think of three. I am not saying this to be cocky; I am trying to make you understand that I have either failed at taking risks in my life, or I have been pretty blessed. I think it is probably a combination of both. I haven't been trained in the realm of loss. If I can't win, I usually don't play. And, regardless of how gross it makes me sound, I usually win when I play. Not that winning is what I am talking about here, but you know what I mean.

When I got that email to go to Uganda, I nearly fell out of my chair. I was made for it. I knew it down to the very fiber of my being. I knew it. I prayed and talked and thought and wrote and thought and prayed, and I was sure that if I was supposed to go, I would. The problem is that I didn't honestly prepare myself for the possibility that I wasn't going to get picked. Like I said, I am not trained in such thought. I was made for this program. For the past two months, not a day has gone by that I have not pictured some aspect of going to Africa. Each day, I have imagined the flight or the children or the teachers or the schools or the food or the impact this adventure would have on my life. For the past week or so, I have been planning on what I would give to Paul to tell everyone at Morris Fork. I was mapping out my doctor's appointments and my plan for saving money and when I would take the break from graduate school. Not a day has gone by. Sincerely.

This break hasn't been too great. Yesterday, when I put into thought just how "not-great" this break has been, I thought to myself: At least I will have the joy of knowing about Africa before it is over, and I can start my semester by taking my students along for the ride to prepare. When I was getting ready to go to my mom's tonight, I signed into my hotmail account, and before I signed in, I thought to myself: Maybe I will have an email telling me I am going! When I saw Amy's name in my inbox, I started crying before I clicked open. I scanned it without reading it the first time. And then the tears really started to roll. "Thank you for trying," she said, "but others were better suited to the program."

No, Amy. You must be mistaken. Didn't you get the memo? I was made for this. How could there be any person who wanted to go more than me? Amy, didn't you hear? My heart has been crying for this opportunity long before even I could hear it.

The rational side of my brain knows that there are probably thousands of people who are more talented and passionate and have more money and are actually better suited for this, but right now, I just want to throw up my hands and cry. You see, maybe my life has been one open door after another because I don't work well when the door is shut in front of my face. Obviously, my heart will heal. I am usually the one who plays the "fixer," and I am fully aware that this too shall pass. I am aware that I am not meant to go because that is what I prayed, right?

It is just an odd feeling when God and I don't agree.

PS. This story isn't over. I will go one day. Of that I am sure.

Scream.

AGH. UGH. BLEK. BAH. ARGH.

Shut Up and Dance

So, I am finished with another semester.

I have spent a lot of time in my head recently (does that make sense?), so a plethora of topics have been swirling around to write about; however, I am frightfully tired, fairly uninspired, and quite at a loss as to the lackluster celebration that is in my heart right now in terms of this, what should be the most glorious time of the year.

I just don't want to disappoint anyone anymore. I don't want regulations or rules or anyone pulling me in a direction I can't go. I want to fix my family. I want to be a good friend. I want to be a better teacher. I want to actually follow through. I want to get ahead. I want to be understood. I want to understand. I want to follow God rather than simply wave to Him once in a while. I want to sit and relax and laugh.

But, I have to pack and do laundry and come up with Christmas gifts...and prepare for my next grad school class to start...and figure out how I am changing next semester.

By the time I get my head wrapped around the fact that I am finished with one of the hardest semesters of my life, I will be starting what is promising to be the hardest. I hate to be a Negative-Nancy, but there is a bit of a shadow over me right now, I guess.

My hope is that it will disappear with the rise of the sun.
Have a very blessed Christmas. I am off to North Carolina.

Tormented by what I do not change...

Here I am again. Four days left in the semester. Drowning in work to do. A thousand things on my mind. Wasting time telling "someone" what "everyone" already knows.

Will I ever get ahead?

ARGH!

So, I have been living at my mom's taking care of the family for the past week, and I haven't been on my normal online routine. This is probably good for my school work, but it has left me a bit befuddled as far as getting my thoughts out to ...those four people that read this... is concerned.

Also, my page looks differently on my mom's computer. I am sure it looks differently on yours. Just to let you know, on my computer, all the words are over the picture, so it looks nice. On here, it says "or lack of what is found th". Argh. That is annoying.

Alas, I still can't spend any quality time writing a good post. Maybe sometime soon. Maybe.

Rumblings...

I am posting soon. I just keep forgetting not to spend hours working on other stuff. :-)

I am certainly not drifting right now. Each day is packed with a punch. It is just a lovely realization.

Meaningless stuff that makes me smile.

Pretty fantastic lines:

"I've been spilling my guts all weekend, and I don't know a thing about you."

"I'm allergic to fabric softener. I majored in Comparative Literature at Brown University. I hate anchovies, and I think I'd miss you even if we never met."

Out of my hands...

Overnight to New York, New York. Check.

Sometimes, I wish I could put a double in my classroom while I am teaching so that I could focus on helping students grow in all the other aspects of their lives. And sometimes, I wish it were the other way around.

No matter, it's in the mail. (Well, it will be in the morning. Silly Veteran's Day...that isn't supposed to be offensive.)

No, but seriously...

Okay, three pages? Are they serious? SIX QUESTIONS in THREE PAGES? Do they know who they are dealing with here? I could use three pages for ONE question, let alone six.

I don't know how to answer them either.

What do I expect in visiting an emerging country? What does that even mean?
How will I deal with Western privilege?

etc. etc.

I thought the application had to be POSTMARKED by the 15th. No, it has has to arrive by then. Oh cripes.

You sound like you are on the verge of death...

Have you seen the movie Love Actually? I am not going to spend my time on here writing about the validity of the messages in that movie, but I am going to talk about the beginning. It starts in the airport. It talks about watching all of the stories unfold and how "love actually is all around." Well, that introduction is beautiful to me. It reminds me of how much I love watching people. Let me explain.

I do not have a great track record when it comes to accomplishing anything once I come home for the evening. I am just not motivated, or I spend so much time planning or working on grad school (or on Facebook...) that I don't get any grading finished. Tonight, I actually got my butt into my car and drove to Borders to try to be productive. What was I thinking, really? There is not much in this world that distracts me more than a giant store filled with books and a cafe filled with interesting people to watch. However, I did finally grade the S2 tests, which is a grand feat.

I love the idea of writing. I love the prospect of publishing a book someday, but my own writing never lives up to my own expectations of what is good. Creating a story is not something I am innately good at doing, and my eloquence is usually lost with an abundance of prefacing. (Such as now.) I know what is good, but I don't know how to produce it most of the time. Tonight was the first time I ventured into Borders since the release of Harry Potter. (Even then, I was erely laughing in the parking lot.) I can't go there very often because I get lost in all the words. I could sit in that store for hours on end and not regret it at all, but that is the problem. Maybe when I am finished with grad school, I will get a part-time job there. I could be that fun, passionate employee who knows about books and reads to small children. I digress. There is something about book stores that makes me fall more in love with words, and so, as I was grading tests while sitting in the cafe, I couldn't help but jot down notes for what could be a great story one day.

There were three tables that captured my attention. One was a table of old men, obviously familiar with each other, but I am not sure how. One was a man tutoring two guys in math. And, the last was a small family of three, a dad, a mom, and a young baby girl dressed in a white knitted sweater and white pants with gold ruffles at the bottom.

The math tutor just made me want to try my hand at math again. It has been awhile; maybe I would be better at it this time around. That guy could be my tutor. He was a REALLY good teacher.

The Old Men's Club was obviously the funniest of the three. They were there to hang out with each other, it seems, but two of them were playing a fierce round of Chess. While the two in the middle were playing, the other four chatted. Let me share a few of the moments I overheard. I couldn't stop laughing to myself, especially as I was across the cafe and could clear these words clearly.

"Where did you learn how to play chess? In prison?"

Man talking to other man in hooded sweatshirt: "Why don't you take that stupid thing off your face?"

"So, are we going to have a new mayor?"
"I don't know. I voted for him today."
In astonishment: "You voted for Bart?"
"No, the other guy."

"Howard, why do you have such a terrible message on your voicemail?"

Howard: "What do you mean?"

"It sounds like you are on the verge of death."

It made me wonder what my guy friends will be like when they are in their seventies. Will they gather at Borders and play Chess? Will they still be involved in Fantasy Football leagues and go bowling together on Tuesday nights? Will they rant about the good ol' days and hit on the young girl that works at the cash register? Will they be around after their wives have passed wondering if love will ever come knocking again? I wonder.

And, then, as my mind tumbled away from the retirees and back into irony and plot, I heard a calm voice reading Dr. Suess. I could recognize Hop on Pop anywhere. I looked over, and there was a young dad reading to his infant daughter while holding her in his arms. He was whispering the words very gently, gingerly resting his chin on the top of her head, holding the little cardboard book in front of her eyes. His soft tone and his endearing smile made me melt. First of all, the moment was simply adorable. Secondly, I got this strange sense of pride when I saw that he was trying to give his daughter the gift of reading long before she recognizes what that means, and I was proud of that little family. I know that is cliche and stupid, but it made me look around the rest of the room and wonder what each person's favorite book was, whether or not their parents read to them as children...

So anyway...maybe someday, I will tell that story in the form of a story, rather than a rambling gathering of observations, but this is my medium for now.

It was a good night.

This is all just a bit of silliness, really.

So, I had to do a load of laundry before setting off to Turkey Run for our "Camping-in-Frigid-November" adventure. Layers, people, layers.

I had to run the dryer through twice (as usual) in order for all of my clothes to finish drying, and when that was finished, I went out to get said clothes. I happened to dry a lot of socks in this load, which can make for a very interesting experience. I think I tried at least six or seven times to pick up all the laundry at once before I was finally successful at carrying the pile the three feet into my apartment. I must have looked pretty silly as I stooped to get the clothes, dropped something, stooped down again, dropped something else, etc.

I started giggling to myself because there are times when I wish that I was being watched by a hidden camera like The Truman Show. You know the moments; they show up at unexpected times, and they are so real and ridiculous that they scream excellent television. But, no one is watching usually. (Thankfully, I guess. If someone were watching me while I was picking up my laundry, I would probably be creeped out...) So, I laugh, in spite of myself, because truly, life is just silly, and sometimes, no matter how many socks you drop, you just have to smile.

And then Moses heard a voice...

So...talk about answer to prayer, eh?

I felt like I needed to get involved on a deeper level in Uganda. I felt like I was possibly being called to do something with government. I was scared to give up my beautiful home at Perry.

And then, BAM...

Maybe you should join the Teacher Exchange in Uganda this summer?
Oh, okay.

After spending a few days in a whirlwind of thought and excessive worrying, I have made my decision. I am applying. What does this mean? No Morris Fork. No camp (although it is a remote possibility). LOTS of money. Postponing my graduation from graduate school. And putting my mom through a cycle of worry like none she has battled before.

But, none of that really seems like a big deal to me. I have absolute complete peace about it. I am working on the application, and if this is God's will, then I know it will happen. I started to worry about analyze what the IC people want me to say, what they are expecting, etc. I stopped doing that. I will answer honestly. I will not pretend to be anything I am not. If it is meant to be, it will be. I am sure of that.

Want to know what I could be doing? Okay, I will let you know...in brief...

Week 1: Teachers travel to Uganda, arriving at the airport in Entebbe—a city located one
hour from the capital city of Kampala. Because the North and South exist in such
dichotomous educational conditions, an important part of the assessment process will
begin in Kampala. U.S. educators will tour a secondary campus in Kampala prior to
heading to Gulu. The initiative will not be framed as a comparative experience, but
beginning the program this way will offer perspective for teachers as they gradually
begin to understand the education standards within the country and how those differ in
the various regions. Once in Gulu, educators will spend their time becoming more
familiar with the city and the culture, as well as attending workshops led by Invisible
Children staff.

Featured Workshops for U.S. and Ugandan Program Participants
1. Cultural Exploration
2. Language Training
3. Historical Foundations of Ugandan Schools
4. Education in War Time

Week 2: The workshop series will continue, and teachers will receive their school
placements. Teachers will create residency groups; each residency group will be placed at
a school for the duration of the trip. Groups will be comprised of one or more teachers for
each of the following disciplines: English, science, mathematics, and social studies. Each
teacher will be paired with a Ugandan instructor in the same field. The in-school
experiences during the week will focus on observation, relationship building (with
teaching partners and students), and dialogue with the school community. All
participating educators will have an opportunity to roundtable with one another at the end
of this week, affording each schools’ teachers the opportunity to ask questions of one
another, cast vision for the remaining weeks, dialogue about specific needs/desires, write
an initial self-assessment, and create a method of evaluation and documentation that will
benefit all parties once the initiative has concluded.

Weeks 3-6: The third week marks the continuation of the team teaching that will take
place the remainder of the trip. Teachers will work with one another and the student body
on the given curriculum, exploring student-centered methodologies, while remaining
focused on the material needed for the exams in August and November. Throughout the
experience, educators will engage in support groups with one another. This collaboration
enables teachers and administrators at different schools to brainstorm, develop strategies,
relate work to the texts, create lessons together, and crystallize concepts. All participants
will also attend Invisible Children’s second International Teaching and Learning
Conference in Gulu, Uganda.

Yea...and I get to go rafting and on a safari. Bonus.

My mind explodes when I think about it, literally. I can hardly fathom this possibility. Tomorrow, when I get up to teach at FCA (oops...that wasn't supposed to happen, but maybe it was...) I think I might cry. I am bursting. BURSTING.

Just a few emotions rolling around in my brain...

Egad.

I HATE how much time I waste. (Now?)

I HATE how much I complain because I don't have time.

I HATE how much I want to do things other than what I need to do.

I HATE how I always feel like I am letting someone down.

I HATE how guilty or selfish I feel most of the time.

I HATE how I feel trapped inside my brain.

I HATE feeling misunderstood.

I LOVE that I have so many papers to grade, so many activities to join, so many minds to influence, so many people depending on me, so much to give, so many thoughts to think, so many opportunities to express myself, and so much life to live.

I just seem to get these two worlds confused sometimes.

Why Naps Are Dangerous for My Brain

Okay, so I was grading tests, and of course, I fell asleep. Note: I was grading them on my bed under the covers. As if I expected any less. So, maybe I should learn not to take naps when I am extremely behind in my grading and have not accomplished even CLOSE to what I intended to accomplish over Fall Break. I had a very strange dream. And this one was so real and so strange that I feel the need to write it down to be able to remember it. Details are already sliding out of my consciousness, but it was just so real. And, it must, somehow, be connected with my feelings of guilt and failure over procrastination. Since I deem Jordan and Dana to be the only two people reading this, the names might mean nothing, but I will use the real people's names nonetheless for myself. :-)

Okay, so the start of the dream was in the gym. Originally, I thought it was graduation, but it definitely was not that because of the rest of the dream, but it was something that filled the gym. I was wearing a peach-colored dress that was quite cute, but I have never seen it before. Next, the details get hazy, but somehow, I am left with only my underwear on, but I am covered by a towel. (No, they do not get hazy because I am embarrassed; I simply don't have any idea how I ended up wearing what I was wearing.) So, keep in mind that I am like that for the rest of the dream, and I see TONS of people, but I am never asked why I am not wearing clothes, nor does anyone seem to care. The towel is JUST big enough to cover me, though, so it slips throughout the dream, which I find horrific, but it seems that I was the only one with that on my mind. The rest of the dream has this urgency to it; I am desperately trying to get to my classroom or somewhere with clothes, and I am interrupted by a circus of people.

I come into the guidance office, where I pick up my mail. In my mailbox are a few letters from parents asking for things that I do not have to give them, as if their students have lost them. I don't know what they are talking about. Also in my mailbox are two "fake" phones. They have batteries, and they work, but they are a gel-like substance that is soft to the touch, and there are also numbers and names on the back of them, as if I am supposed to know what they are. I try to find someone in guidance who knows what I am to do, but to no avail. However, in the hallway of the guidance office, where the conference room is, there is Ben Martin, in a very un-Ben Martin t-shirt. He is outside a room, and there is another student, who I knew when I was sleeping but now do not know, and Ben says, "Hey, are you _____?" He uses the kid's last name to identify him, which seemed strange to me, and the kid says, "Yes!" Ben says, very enthusiastically, "You are on the list! You made it!" The kid jumps up and kicks his legs in a toe-touch fashion, and knocks into the wall. Ben jumps up exactly like Jack Black and punches the wall. They both high-five, and I just stand there numbly watching this hilarious interaction.

Moving on...when I try to enter the main hallway (remember, I am urgently trying to get somewhere with clothes), I find myself amongst hundreds of screaming students. It is the Robotics team. This is where the new people find out if they make it, and they are doing the whole ordeal publicly and very dramatically. Basically, all the hopefuls are by the glass on top of the main stairwell. The team as it is lined up on the stairs and some newly-made rafters facing the hopefuls. It kind of looks like the Deal or No Deal setup. Very glitzy and very over-the-top. So, in a very slow process, Steve Wherry calls out the new members, and they cry like beauty pageant girls and jump to the other side. There is a crowd of people at the bottom of the stairs and all around just waiting and watching. Some of the team members that I specifically remember: Mikey Hughey and Jamie Cartwright. Jamie is wearing matching shirts with four other people in a line, and when I walk by him, he jumps out of line and flexes. Yes. Mike is standing in the middle of the new rafters, and there is a white light shining on him that makes him look like the most prized recruit. On the not-members-yet side? Alex Carlisle and Steve Sizemore, among many others. There is girl who graduated last year or the year before as well, but I can't remember her name. When she gets called, as the last person, she body surfs onto the other side and falls down the stairwell.

By this time, SOMEHOW, I am back in the guidance office, watching this in front of the windows. Susie Schoch is beside me, and she rushes out to the girl who just fell down the stairs and screams, "Hey _______, what do you think about the challenge you have just been chosen to accomplish?" The girl says, "It's awesome!" (I found that humorous in my dream.) Then, as I am standing in the guidance office, I notice that there is a classroom set up in the waiting area for kids who have bad report cards/progress reports, and so the place is also packed. I notice my lack of clothing again, especially after my towel dropped as I was watching the Robotics parade, and I am unaware as to how long it was down. I quickly fix it, and I eerily glare at this kid at the back of the guidance office, who I swear was the only one who noticed my clothing mishap. On my way out the door, Emily VD jumps out of the crowd. I am excited to see her, as she is out of the country this semester, and she immediately asks me about my dress that I was wearing earlier. She said she has the same one, but it doesn't fit her, so she needs to borrow mine. I tell her that there is no way my dress will fit her, but she says she can make it work.

Okay, this is longer than I expected. I am getting bored. The parts that are left include figuring out what to do with that phone based on the wisdom of Bruce Kalb and having a sort of stand-off while walking up the stairs with various teachers. Finally, the dream ends with me staring up at all the "rejects" from the Robotics team, and I feel so badly for them because they are so upset, and the manner in which they were told seems so wrong. Steve Sizemore is last seen crouched in the corner of the stairwell with tears streaming down his face, and I am frantically (still in a towel) trying to find Alex to see if he is alright.

The End.

Fall Break...just in time for a few rants on the state of living

Rant #1

So, over the course of the last two weeks, my computer came down with an illness. I invested MANY hours trying to fix it, and finally, after all other routes were blocked (literally and figuratively), I did a full system recovery, which basically wiped my computer of everything that I have put on it since I bought it in 2005. This was a great idea because it is now back to normal, and in some ways, it is better. Last night, as I was saving all of My Documents onto CDs, I had this thought. First of all, I was actually almost making myself SICK because I was scared that something was going to go terribly wrong. My nerves were shot, and after another six hours of staring at the screen, I didn't know if I could handle anything else. I started wondering if it is healthy (let alone sane) to have so much invested in an object. Then, I started thinking about how much of my world revolves around a computer. Then, I started thinking about the supposed future of education and how much MORE my world is going to revolve around a computer. It made me more sick.

But, don't I choose this? I like to be connected just as much as the next person, and whether or not it helps or hinders real communication, I really like being able to communicate online. I am getting an education through the computer, which makes it extremely important. And, one of my favorite hobbies, photography, is now also attached to the computer. I have valid reasons for seemingly being completely dependent on this thing, but still, it worries me. It made me want to go somewhere where I can leave it all behind. It made me want to retreat. It made me want to disappear.

And then...I lost all of my Morris Fork pictures. Basically, that includes anything from Morris Fork for the past three years. I was REALLY upset at first, but again, I starting thinking about why. Do I need the pictures to remind me of why the place is special to me? Do I need the pictures to validate Morris Fork in my heart? No. They are just pictures. They aren't life. I LOVE pictures, as you probably know, but the digital world has definitely decreased my connection to the ART of photography. Instant gratification isn't always gratifying in the long run.

The whole process was disturbing. But, it is fixed now...I guess.

Rant #2

I have no idea if anyone is reading this, besides Dana, but see if you can catch what I am talking about here.

I waste WAY TOO MUCH TIME AND ENERGY trying to figure out how to impress people. It isn't always a conscious thought, but it is there, deeply ingrained into my very existence. I analyze and re-analyze conversations, I try to do what I think others want me to do, I wonder how I can be better all the time, etc. I don't think it is bad to want to be your best, but I just realized yesterday that if a person doesn't love me for who I am, why should I bother worrying so much? I just don't want that to be a battle in my head. I don't want that to be a concern of mine. I just want to be. Me.

Getting My Hands Dirty

So, I just watched Blood Diamond. It was very good. It was good for the reasons for which you don't want to say a movie is good. Do you know what I mean?

And it, along with numerous other influences in my life recently, made me think again about how big the world is and how small I try to live it. And my heart has recently been on this strange ride that fluctuates between apathetic and raging with fire to correct injustice in any possible way. I just have so much to learn; it is overwhelming. But, I don't want to sit on the sidelines, and I want to bring people along with me. I seriously want to play this game.

I guess, sometimes, I wonder where my life will take me. I have always thought of myself as kind of a down-home kind of girl. I have always wanted roots that run deep, and I pretty much banked on the fact that I would reside in Perry Township and teach in Perry Township for the rest of my days. I would get married and have a family, and my children would play with Aubry's children. All of our friends would grow older together, at some point abandoning our need to act like children to become adults, and then our children would be children together. Yes, that dream has played out in my mind once or twice.

But, what if I never have a family? What if that just isn't going to happen? Is it such a bad fate after all?

What if I realize that I could be used somewhere else, doing work that not many other people, especially those with families, would ever do? What if it is my plan to shake things up a bit out in the wide open spaces of lands far away?

What if?

What if I am supposed to be the teacher running for office? What if I am supposed to lead educational reform, rather than shut my door and teach it? What if my voice could travel to Washington? What if I could be a voice of reason in the midst of irrationality?

What if?

What if I am not going to do what I always thought I would do? What if I have to dig up my roots and live on my feet for a while? Would I be missed? Would it matter? Is it supposed to matter?

I just feel this rumbling inside of me, and I am not sure what it is, but maybe my dream of changing the world through the lives of my students is not where my story is supposed to end. Maybe I am supposed to be more. Well, not more. Just different.

What if?

Talk about great beginnings...

So, guess what I found? I found Stephen King's The Body, which later became Stand By Me. This is how it starts, and geesh, I have never been so excited to read something written by Stephen King.

"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them—words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saving it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.

I was twelve going on thirteen when I first saw a dead human being. It happened in 1960, a long time ago…although sometimes it doesn’t seem that long to me. Especially on the nights I wake up from dreams where the hail falls into his eyes."

If only I could be a professional procrastinator...

So, I felt I needed a new format to aid in my newest endeavor. I want to write about life, as it is, and I am tired of being too busy or uninspired. I told my CWC members to devote a part of this year to learning the craft of writing and thinking, so I should do the same.

So, here we are.

(Thanks, Dana. I tend to follow you in my internet trends.)