teachING, an update

So I think I should probably make a separate teaching blog, or at least give it it's own page on here, but really, who has time for that?

Now on to it.

First of all, Subbing:

I'm doing this a lot, mostly at two local districts. One being where I student taught, and the other being it's rival district. Both are wonderful. Honestly, I drive home from work every single day quite giddy with joy, all smiles, with my head in the clouds, because I've enjoyed my day so much.  Who knew work could be this way?

I didn't know if it would work out this way. Me liking subbing and all. I get overwhelmed by new things, and in a lot of ways, every day is new and different,  but its not overwhelming (usually); its wonderful. Or perhaps its just all wonderfully overwhelming. Yes, I think that's it.

I've taught as low as 2nd grade and as high as 10th. I love seeing the age differences. In elementary buildings I love their smiles and laughs and rosy red cheeks as they tumble in and out of my room. All coats and scarves coming to and from recess or lunch or library. In high schools they are calmer, but funny. Oh so funny, and some days we laugh and laugh as much we learn. And high school students will even cut you a break some days. Like the day there was a tornado drill and I hadn't been subbing long and it all panicked me to no end. I made them line up as if they were in 4th grade or something because I was too terrified I would lose someone along the way. They did it, with smiles and playful eye rolls. They followed me down to the basement hallway like ducks behind their mother. It was a sight to behold. If you think I'm joking, just ask them. When I'm in a high school or middle school, its a daily exchange of little mercies to each other.



Next, applying:

Yes, the application process for a full time position has begun. I find this process equal parts terrifying and exciting. The interviews haven't started yet, but hopefully that doesn't mean they aren't coming. I wince, and hope, in no particular order.

 That's all I can really say about it. I know my resume smacks of the green inexperience of a recent overexcited enthusiastic (er...) college grad, but hey, I wrote one heck of a cover letter. That has to count for something...right...right???

School districts: If you are somehow reading this, which I'm sure you're not, please interview me...please? I promise for a  newbie, I'm not half bad.


So that's that. More on some thoughts on subbing and general teaching thoughts (I read a great book I need to tell you all about) later. I'm thoroughly enjoying this phase of life right now though. Everything seems a big blur of opportunity and newness and I want to enjoy it. I don't want to give in to the voice that says "No one will hire you! You're too brand new. You'll be lucky to even get an interview. Schools aren't hiring, their cutting, and besides you don't coach anything...." Sometimes that voice is my own, and sometimes it comes from your regular, run of the mill, pessimist  (These are the same people that told me my first year of marriage would be awful, and so would student teaching...and buying a house...or graduating, or any other detail of life large or small...who needs them anyway???)

 I want to see the newness of it all for what it is--a beginning. A very very good beginning.

Happy Sunday everyone! Enjoy your week!

the story of shearing day

Up at 5:30 to pile on layers and layers of mismatched winter-wear. Long johns, jeans, sweater upon sweater, hats and scarves. A little while later she arrives and I hop into the car. Bleary-eyed, but quietly wild with anticipation, we hit a drive-through for some coffee and a quick a breakfast sandwich. After all, who has time to make breakfast on a big day like this?

A freeway and a few curving country roads later we arrive and step out into the cold. The farm is on a hill so the bitter chill of winter weather (still? it's March) swirls around us along with a few stray sparkling flakes. Magic. My heart jumps with excitement as we near the barn. I can hear the sheep bleating, not as gentle as some would think. They are hungry (no food before shearing), they are scared (why are we up and moving already?) and they don't seem to mind speaking their mind. Blurting out call after call.

It's funny how I love these sort of days but how unaccustomed to them I really am. I clumsily climb over the pen, limb over tangled limb, and introduce myself to Du-Roy, a white Shetland ram. I look at him and my friend unsure of what to do next. She explains to me what "rooing" is. Rooing?

It is the process of gently pulling away the previous years coat and exposing the new years' coat. The wool is thick, and soft, and greasy with lanolin. (Lanolin is an oil that sheep secrete, and before you cringe in disgust, go read the ingredients on your creams and lotions. Its probably listed.)

We wait on shearers and get to know the flock. A moving sea of sheep slowly become recognizable faces. There are two brand new lambs to cuddle and make over.  Soft and brown. A week old, but already bouncing, skipping, all energy and wool. Their new faces show none of the fear that is written on faces of the others. Red, the English Shepherd keeps his close watch on mom and babies, his eyes shift as we pass the lambs from person to person.

The shearers finally arrive and the real work begins. There are two quiet young men, tall and lanky, that do the actual shearing. All day their faces shift from the focused scowl of a worker, to the softened smiles of a caretaker. The rest of us are bagging fleeces, sweeping the shearing the stations, handing off the shots and medications for each sheep, and wrangling sheep back into pens.

Its amazing the differences in sheep personalities. We start with rams, their fleeces so big, you could just roll up in them and sleep warm for days. Rams, for the most part, fought very little. Then the ewes. Some were quiet and calm. They looked uncomfortable, but just seemed to lay back as the wool fell to floor, soft like a cloud. Others though, struggled and bleated and kicked and rolled. It was a wild fight, and sometimes I wonder, who is really winning?

When it came time for returning sheep to pens, I have things to learn. Some seem to know right where to go. Then there are others. With these, there is plenty of panicking, running, and grabbing, and that's just me. Some sheep bolt past the gate, while others run the opposite direction. A real chase down. Mimosa, a small ewe, standing about a foot and a half off the ground, has me on the ground in a matter of a few seconds. She darts into her pen and we both slowly stand, look at each other, and wonder what just happened. Equally traumatized. With time I am better. Realizing sheep need direction more than force. They need a calming hand, rather than a powerful one. The shearers seem to know this. One of them scoops up the smaller ewes in his arms and carries them gently to the pen himself.

When the sheep are all shorn and the wool all bagged. The sheep enjoy their new lightness, unfazed by the cold. They scratch and shake, and dance their own noisy freedom dance. They rub against each other, reacquainting themselves with what they mistake to be new pen-mates. (Really, they don't recognize each other now.)

 The llamas are next.

 Octavias (above) and Lucky. Both of which have been aware all day that some part of this would eventually involve them. And they don't seem to like it. The llamas stand and spit, and wobble this way and that, but in the end, they are shorn to, and return to their pens.

The wool is carried into the garage heaping armload after heaping armload. Bag by bag. Some other day it must be cleaned and carded.

 We say our goodbyes and head home, cold, tired, and smelling of hay and lanolin. But we are happy.

I arrive home and peel off the many layers in exchange for warm pajamas.

I am asleep, warm on the couch, in a matter of minutes.

learning jazz

I start out
       clumsy

on the keys
I cLunK andIclutter
on the beat up baby grand in the front room from 1926.
It just doesn't sound right,
doesn't sound the way it should,
Whatever "it" is.

Then with time,
it gets better.

Smoother
Kinder
Calmer

lt runstogethersogoodsoripeandreadytobepickedjuicyandhotandsweetandcool.

And
    Then
         It

Swings

Just like it should
                              Unpredictable

but expected all the same.

It starts to sound like red lipstick, and smooth Scotch, and sweat and smoke that hangs over our heads in some dim seedy club at 2am like our problems hovering over us,
out of sight
out of mind, and pressing down on us thick and heavy all the same. Like us.

With a foggy sigh.

Its there somewhere, it just takes time to find it.

waiting, snowing, reading, smiling, giving

Well, the new year has started off slowly for me. Yes, I realize it's February and I'm talking about New Years. I graduated in December (finally!!!) and have since been waiting on my license to process. Ohio, land of the slow. It's February and I'm still not working. Sigh, its a waiting game, and in a way, winter seems the perfect time to wait.

I know I've talked about winter and waiting before, or at least winter and resting. I have to be honest, it is about this time of year and when I start to almost physically ache for spring. The snow still falls, and the bitter winds still blow, and we have nothing to do, but wait, and hope.

With all of my waiting, I have been doing my usual wintertime activities, just in greater abundance. I've been reading like crazy.

I've started the Harry Potter series. I'm currently on book three The Prisoner of Azkaban.   I was reluctant to read these. I had already watched all the movies and wondered if I would be able to keep interest in them. I was wrong. They are fantastic, in the truest sense of the word. I open each new book, sometimes butterflies in my stomach to see how she is going to describe the magical plots I already know.

A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel , yes, you read correctly, its a graphic novel now. I've never been a reader (viewer?) of graphic novels so this was a new endeavor for me. I loved it! I've already read the first three regular novels in the Wrinkle series, and I adore them all. This was a whole new experience. I read (looked at?) each page slowly, and just took it all in. The dialogue, the artwork, the use of space--it was a new and visually interesting experience. I included this image of the first page, rather than the cover, so you can get the idea. I may venture out into some more graphic novels. Although, Meg is one of my favorite characters of all time and I don't know if anything else could quite match up.

Its funny that so much of my reading has been stories I know and love in new formats (for me).

I have also just started Mother Teresa's In the Heart of the World. I grew up very baptist, so studying a catholic, as wonderful as she was, was not looked upon highly. Recently, I have run across quotes by her here and there that have made there way into my heart and mind. I checked this out of the library, its a series of thoughts, prayers, and stories by Mother Teresa. So far its beautiful. I am touched by her giving spirit and it has changed the way I pray already. 

I mentioned that I graduated in December, my graduation date was December 14, 2012 to be exact. I suppose for many of us, that date has become a dark day due to the events at Sandy Hook. I wanted to write about them, I wanted to write about graduation, but I couldn't. Those events overwhelmed me in a way I couldn't and didn't want to describe and at times they still do. I didn't know how to celebrate in the face of grief. I was shocked by the events in Connecticut, I was shocked by the public's quick and all too political reactions. I don't think for a minute that we shouldn't look at and develop new policies, it's just that those events, those families, those teachers, those students, were so quickly exploited for political agendas of the right and the left. It all just tore my heart up. It made me question my career choice, it made me question if the world could be a good place. The world seemed darker. Hope seemed ripped out of our hands. 

Slowly, I began to "recover". I realized that the solution, isn't in politics, its in kindness. This had been called naive by so many, but I just can't get passed the notion that if we really looked, really looked at the people around us, the world would be different.

All this to say, the words of Mother Teresa have served as a healing agent for me. I needed to remember that people can be kind, that I can be kind, and that it matters. It really matters. I cannot change the whole world, but I can help the person, the people around me. I can give, I can love, I can smile, I can cry, I can forgive, I can pray. Those things matter. They are not weak things. They are not naive things. They are the strongest of things. They are our hope. The hope that nobody can rip from our hands.

"We never know how much just a simple smile will do." Mother Teresa

findING your way...

This is your adventure.

It is not what you thought it’d be.

It is not always as exciting as you’d once imagined,
at least not on the surface.

It is darker and scarier than you could have dreamed.

Some of the days seem long, and tiring, and you don’t always feel like
the hero you’d always thought of,

Strong, valiant, and brave.

Other days seem difficult and impossible, the kind they never told you about.

The kind filled with back breaking work, or even the slow strange tears of failure.

There is sweat, the kind that causes you to stop for just a moment and wipe your brow, before you just keep plodding on.

It’s not at all like they said.

It doesn’t feel like an adventure.

-

But it may be one still, an adventure that is,
and it’s yours.

-

There, beneath what seems so dim and cold.
Or, so ordinary and normal, not the stuff of some great story.

It’s there.

The quiet slow kind of adventure,
the kind that makes you who you’ve always wanted to be.

Someday it may come, quicker than you dreamed, or slower,
that is not for me to say,
nor you,

Someday, You will find yourself again on some marvelous mountain top.

Standing on two strong legs,
And that will be your adventure too.

You will have conquered, and fought, and rejoiced, and sang.

But this, this dark and ordinary day,
this one moment,

this, dear friend,

This is your adventure.

Live it well.

books and thINGs i like lately

Last week was my first full week of not student teaching (my last week was the week of Thanksgiving). I have to be honest, I was rather despondent and ridiculous last week. I missed it. By "it", I guess I mean "them"--students.  I knew I would miss it, I just never knew how much. I didn't really get much done, except for an inordinate amount of moping. It was a sad thing to behold.

However, this week, I have been able to begin enjoying my time off before the 1st of the year when I will begin subbing. Isn't it terrifying exciting??? I have finally begun to read, knit, decorate, and clean...all things I love (maybe not the cleaning, but it was necessary...trust me.) I have been reading though... a lot...I love it.

Books:

First of all, I read The Shack. It has been a very long time since I have read an overtly Christian book. I was reluctant to read this. A couple of students had recommended it to me and I had tried to make a point of reading anything (anything...I started a biography on Jerry Kramer...I didn't make it) that a student is excited about reading. So, with a sigh, I borrowed a copy from someone and sat down to read...

I was shocked. I expected to hate it. I expected it to be cliche, and corny, and disgustingly predictable. It was really none of those things. It was refreshing, and rich, and descriptive. William Young helped me look at the trinity and presence of God with a new perspective that changed me. A way that was able to rid itself of all the theological trappings that dried it out for me so long ago. It was beautiful and it made me remember after posts like this and this, that God is good. He is always, completely and entirely good and worth knowing. I had to read this book in digestible chunks, as it is the type of book that held a mirror up to my soul. My own doubtful and fearful soul. I loved this book.

I also read a young adult novel Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. I was surprised by this as well. It started out a little bit slow, but once I got into it, it became worthy of a book hangover--staying up so late to finish a book that the next day is a little "rough" to get through. It's a book about conformity, and love, and finding yourself in a world that wants to make you anything but. I had never really read Spinelli before, and I grew to love his style in this book as well. 

Links:

I loved this. Elf on the shelf was something which when I first heard about it years ago, seemed like a good idea. Then with the onset of Pinterest, it has become a monster. A truly terrifying, and unruly, Christmastime monster. Moms everywhere are going to great lengths to make this doll seem "alive" and mischievous in their homes with sinks full of marshmallows, and even shaving bald spots on dad's head.  This post pointed out some of this ridiculousness and made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

This. It's an interview with Barbara Kingsolver. She is the author of one of my all time favorite books, The Bean Trees. She also wrote Animal Vegetable Miracle and The Poisonwood Bible (which was on my list to read, then the dog ate my copy of it). I love (love love love!) learning about authors. I especially love when I connect so much with them. That's how I felt with this, like she is an older version of me or maybe I'm younger version of her (not that I'm saying I'm even half the writer she is). She even raises sheep, spins, and knits. Yep, we'd be BFF's if we really knew each other.

Finally, today I found out that you can get a masters degree in storytelling...yep, you heard me, storytelling!!! I had stopped by the school I student taught at to tutor (I do this on Thursday's now. It's to ward off my pathetic despondency). Today, I was invited to sit in on my old Language Arts class because they had a storyteller. She was wonderful and she made even those rough, tough football players sit on the edge of their seats and laugh out loud right along with her. It was beautiful. She also told me that although she doesn't have one, you can get a masters in storytelling. Babe, you're totally okay with moving to Tennessee so I can do this and get a degree that I'm positive will make us lots of money...right?.....right?

So there you have it, my life after student teaching (and before subbing)....

findING a place

Today is one of those days for me. A dark day.

It is one of those days for no particular reason at all, and for every reason in the world.

It has been a gray, rainy, lonely, ragged, tired, heavy, tried-to-pull-myself-up-but couldn't, kind of day.

It is days like this that I must write. Sometimes without really having anything to actually say, but I must say something.

I need someway to move forward. Something concrete to look at. Words. Maybe they aren't really concrete. But they are the something that I need right now.

Words are the something that I need to write or read or hear or speak.

I am an emotional person. I've finally, after many years, embraced this about myself. All of the joy, anger, grief, quietness, anxiety, "blah-ness", empathy, and any other emotion you could possibly think of need some place to go, and today they go here.

They become words.

People need words. It is our words that inspire and move and change us. Words can break us into a thousand bits. The absence of words can do the same. And sometimes that's just it I've noticed. The absence of words can break us to bits. The absence of words can destroy us.

I often wonder why I blog or why does anybody else for that matter, and that's just it. I do it for words. Mine and others.

We need each other. We need words. And although, I will always, always,  value the real life words, of a real life person--flesh and bone and heart and beauty--sitting across from you with the weight of the world or the joy and wonder of it within them, so much more. Somehow, I think we, or at least I, need this. This space. This very odd, public space to give and receive the wonder of words.

So, as I make it through this dark day, that is here for no reason in particular and for every reason in the world, I at least have the quietness, and steadiness of words to see me through.

Thank you for being a part of it.