When I was a little girl, and people told me, “Oh, you look just like Emma Watson!” or “You look just like that girl that plays Hermione,” they might as well have slapped me across the face with anvil fingers.
Year: 2012
I Care So Little About Football
Posted onI care so little about football. I learn the bare minimum so that when my students try to engage me in a conversation about football (which is hourly) I can reply with something like: “mumble mumble, oh yeah backup refs mumble mumble.”
Giving Hufflepuffs a new reputation.
Posted onAdmittedly, my Facebook and Instagram coverage has been thorough, I thought blog world might find joy in our new bundle of joy.
Teaching: I am a Moose in the Headlights.
Posted onI’m a talker. I’m a sharer, as previously acknowledged. I’m an “experience the world through reliving it verbally” kind of person.
So it’s very strange, but I just haven’t really wanted to talk about my new job as a teacher very much.
My Exhaustion is Thorough, but Not Expended.
Posted onDear Blog,
You’ve never been less important to me. Did you know I have a million other priorities? Did you know that I feel guilty for even clicking into blogger at times like these?
Did you know that my exhaustion has never been so completely thorough?
Did you know that I feel like every ounce of extroversion I have ever felt has been sucked from me as though I have been strapped up to “The Machine” in The Princess Bride?
Did you know that there are students that aren’t very nice? Did you know that there are some students who argue with teachers? Did you know that students don’t believe that reading is important or even relevant to them?
I have a suspicion that you did know these things, Blog. You sat with your wry smile thinking about my silly optimism, knowing I’d fall of the grid, knowing that teaching would consume me, knowing that there was a cruel world out there that I was refusing to see.
But guess what, blog? I bet you didn’t know about Thompson* (name changed), who stayed after class too tell me that he was a mute, and only talked to nice people, but felt like he could talk to me because I was a nice person?
I bet you didn’t know about Marissa* with her piercings and her teeth decals and her earnest desire to succeed at English, even though it was her second language.
I bet you didn’t know about Brad*, who told me I was a good teacher at my deepest moment of secret need.
To the Thomspons and the Marissas and the Brads out there, you are the reasons I teach this week. Thank you.
I’m a Sharer.
Posted onI’m a sharer. When I say that, I don’t mean like, “Hey, here’s a bite of my sandwich;” more like, I tend to share personal details a little too readily with an slight dose of hyperbole. I can’t help it. It’s in my blood. My sister’s blog is titled, “And Then Some” for Heaven’s sake.
A Nap About High School
Posted onToday was a special day, and here’s how I know it: I napped for an hour. A Whole Hour.
I am a frequent napper but usually only for five-ten minute bursts. I call these “synapses,” because they are short like a synapse and help me get something working again. But today, I had a genuine nap, though it was nothing special in and of itself. In fact, it gave me a headache afterwards.
A Chicago First Anniversary
Posted onRight before I left, Jeremy and I celebrated our first year of marriage in Chicago. It was a little bit of fanfare, because our real anniversary was on Sunday and Latter-day Saints try not to spend money on Sunday, so we celebrated Saturday. Both of us felt like it was cheating a little to celebrate the day before though, so we went ahead and celebrated Sunday anyways. That felt real and wonderful and romantic.
Reality Check
Posted onI’m in my Princess Room. In Colorado. This room has gold walls and a luxurious purple bed spread, and just to make it more princessy, I used to have a plum beaded canopy with ornate beading and embroidery. My style has changed drastically since this room was mine, but it still makes me upset if I come home and find a poster missing or my closet re-prioritized. Home doesn’t feel the same without my mismatched posters.
But I’m at my childhood home now, which is where I was before our grand Chicago adventures. It already feels like I woke up from a long dream rather, like I’ve just spent a pleasant weekend in Colorado and Chicago never happened. Lucky my blog negates that thoroughly.
Things are about to get crazy, and the world might start spinning off its axis. I head to Provo as soon as I pick myself up out of bed. I start decorating my classroom, I start moving back into our old and beloved apartment. I start attending meetings (and a wedding) and hopefully reconnecting with old friends. And then I start my big girl job… I’ve had a low-level stomach ache for the past three days and I think that it’s a manifestation of my anxiety. This is about to get real.
So I’m blogging in defiance.
Chicago Wrap
Posted onI sneezed my way through the last year. Like, I had a ton of allergies (I always feel like such a tissue-toting geekazoid when I admit that I sneeze–on average–30 times a day), but also I feel like this year blew by as fast as a good set of sneezes.