musical fruit

I'm one week into my final month of employment, and i have yet to line up another job. Also if i don't get all of my test scores in by October 1, i'll have to put off student teaching yet again. Which will mean that i can work more hours this fall (assuming i get a job), but will also mean that i took this plunge for no real reason.

Well. There is a reason. It's time.

I feel like a baby bird getting nudged out of the nest, and there's going to be that initial elevator-drop-adrenaline-rush-stomach-in-my-throat sensation, and then i'll catch the air and soar away. And i know that i'll look back on this one day as a great adventure. Especially if i have kids, because as hard and scary as it is to contemplate supporting myself for the next however long on my savings account, there's no way i could do something like this if i had to support someone else as well. And what if i have a job in the future that i hate? What if i'm stuck in it, miserable every day, because i can't afford to leave it because of all these whiny gremlins demanding food? I FED YOU YESTERDAY. DON'T YOU KNOW HOW TO USE THE STOVE YET?

Yeah. I probably won't have kids.

Hey, speaking of feeding, i'm anticipating a lot less of that in the coming weeks. No more picking up an exotic vegetable or foreign spice just because i'm curious to find out what it tastes like. In fact, if i don't have a job by the end of August, there's a good chance i'll be living on rice and beans for a while. It's not so bad; i've done it before, and you'd be amazed how long it takes you to get tired of really well prepared rice and beans. And i'll try to supplement with some kinds of fruits and veggies daily, and maybe once a week i'll have eggs or a burger or something.

To be honest, it will be kind of great in some ways. It's a little like a cleanse, right? getting rid of all the preservatives and salt and sugar and artificial flavorings i've consumed lately, focusing on clean, whole foods with natural, simple ingredients with very little fat or carbs. And it will be something of a relief to not have to think about recipes for a while. Don't get me wrong: i love recipes. But sometimes, standing in front of a pile of tofu, endives, sweet potatoes, feta, and baby dill pickles (actual current contents of my fridge) and trying to figure out what to make for dinner is more exhausting than it's worth. I'm all for creativity, but i'm also all for calling the Chinese restaurant and shoveling MSG prepared by someone else into my face.

I won't be ordering take-out for a while, though. I won't be going out, either. I was heading home yesterday and it took all my willpower not to drive four blocks to Wendy's. All i could think about was French fries and a bacon cheeseburger. Instead, i made buffalo chicken macaroni at home. It made enough for leftovers, too, which Wendy's would not have, and the ingredients probably cost about the same as the Wendy's would have.

So. It's gonna be lots of rice and beans. Unless i get that job at Trader Joe's, in which case, HELLO EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT ON DELICIOUS FOOD!

perfect love casts out fear

One of the things i like least about Catholicism is confession. The veil in the Temple was torn at the hour of Jesus' death! We no longer have to appeal to any other person for access to God! For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present not the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all Creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord! I don't like the idea of being compelled to tell my sin to anyone but Jesus, to have anyone but the Holy Spirit tell me how to make amends for what i've done. I don't like being told that someone else has more clout with God than i do. And my shriveled little feminist heart is REALLY pissed that confession must be to a priest, who is necessarily male.

One of the things i like best about Catholicism is confession. We are to live in community with one another, to hold each other accountable, to rejoice and mourn together. It's important to show each other our wounds, our scars, our vulnerabilities, our imperfections. It's important to struggle together, to lift one another up. I love the acknowledgement that no one is so holy that they have nothing to confess (except maybe the Pope. I'm not really sure how that works out.). Everyone has someone to confess to, and something to confess, and you should go regularly, because you're going to fuck up regularly. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Confession requires a level of self-awareness of our flaws that does not come naturally, and that must be practiced and learned. Confession teaches that self-awareness, as well as humility and contrition.

Lately, i've been confessing a lot. Mostly i've been confessing my fear. I'm afraid that i won't find a part-time job to carry me through student teaching. I'm afraid that i won't find a full-time job when i'm done student teaching and that i'll be skating through life by the skin of my teeth forever. I'm afraid that there will be some huge emergency (i'll get cancer, my car will explode, my apartment will burn down), and i'll be unable to work for a while/unable to get to work and student teaching/homeless, and will have to wipe out my entire savings account just to survive, which will then prevent me from finishing my student teaching and then i'll be back to square one, trying to finish this damned degree and become a teacher and start the new chapter of my life.

I wish i could tell you that this confession comes from a desire for a more holy and transparent life and all that other stuff i was talking about above, but that's simply not true. It's mostly because i am too desperately afraid to hide it any longer. I can't keep pretending that i'm blindly optimistic about the future. I can't keep smiling when i talk about leaving my steady, dependable job that pays my bills. I can't hold back the floodgates any longer. 

I'm also confessing out of a tiny, slim hope that one of these times, when i'm telling someone about how badly i need a job, they will say, "My best friend was telling me about an opening in her company that sounds exactly like what you described! She owns the company, so she can hire anyone she wants, and she trusts me, so she'll hire anyone I tell her to, and you're awesome, so I'll tell her to hire you!" And then i'll be editing magazine articles online on my own schedule, or cleaning someone's house, or sorting mail, or flipping burgers, or spreading manure, or telemarketing, and bringing home $250/week, and getting through this scary, uncertain chapter.

But mostly it's fear. It's a clinging, clawing black parasite of fear and anxiety that climbs into my body and squeezes my heart and ties my stomach in knots and keeps me awake all night in terror and nausea and anxiety. It whispers in my ear that i will be homeless; that i will have to work as a stripper; that i will have to move back in with my mother; that i will never be able to leave my current job; that i will ruin my credit; that i will die at forty-seven as a cashier at 7-11, coughing nicotine tar out of my lungs and telling hobos and drunk teenagers about how i was going to be a teacher and a poet; that my boyfriend will tire of my anxiety and depression and will leave me to pursue his own happiness; or that worst of all i will do it, i will make it through and get my job and student teach and then get a real teaching job and i'll be living my dreams and i will hate the reality, it will be even worse than the terror i live in now and all of the worry, all of the stress and anxiety and work and hardship, it will all have been for naught.

And so i confess. I tell my friends that i have not been sleeping at night. I tell my co-workers that i don't really have a plan, and that it's freaking me out. I tell my parents that i'm stalling. I tell my boyfriend that i've been sending out applications since January and have only had one interview and that it didn't go anywhere, and i'm starting to lose hope. And when it's late at night and i can't sleep, and the parasite is all twisted up inside of me, i whisper to God that i am afraid, i am so afraid.

And God reminds me that He has called me to this, and that He does not call without a purpose. He reminds me to trust in Him, that when i graduated and had no direction, He provided a full-time job making more money than i could ever have hoped for, a job in the same building as my classes and within walking distance of my apartment, He provided that apartment and a generous lender so i could pay my deposit, He provided roommates who could move in exactly as the old ones moved out, He provided friends to buy me dinner when i couldn't afford to feed myself and an almost free car when i needed transportation, He provided cash when i needed a bus ticket to see my brother before his deployment, He gave me a window between classes so i could see my brother when he was hospitalized, He has provided second and third and fourth jobs and paid internships and cheap chocolate flavored wine and teacher friends to learn from and a support system at home and at work that i can confess to, not a sparrow falls that He doesn't see it, and though i stumble i will not fall down, because His hand is upon me.

And He reminds me that even if things don't work out the way i thought they would, even if my fate is to live out my worst fears (though probably not the stripper one; that's unrealistic. I'm a terrible dancer.), even if i never do the things i want to do, He has called me to try, and He does not call without a purpose. If my fate is to be a cashier at a 7-11, and if i have to get a masters degree in education to get there, it's because that's what God wants, and He will be there with me. I will find Him wherever i am, because He goes before me to lead the way.

Bless me, Father, for i have sinned. It has been far too long since my last confession. I have let my heart be ruled by fear. I have failed to trust in You. I have forgotten Your promises. I have believed that fate and luck were more powerful than Your will. I have held my fear close to my heart, closer than Your word, closer than my friends, closer than my memories of what You've done for me before, closer than You. I have pretended to be self-sufficient. I have pretended to be certain. I have not cast my cares on You. I have not taken Your yoke upon me. I have worried about tomorrow. I have believed that no one could help me, not even You. I have believed that You would let me fail. I have doubted Your purpose. I have doubted my calling. I have doubted Your perfect love. I have forgotten the sparrows. I have been afraid, so afraid.

For these and all the sins of my past life, I am truly sorry.

Lady Problems

So i have a list for this year. I have a list of "responsible adult get my life started" things that i need to do in order to feel like a responsible adult and to start living the life i want to have. They range from the simple and obvious (change my official residence from Maryland to Massachusetts) to the slightly more complex but completely necessary (find some doctors that accept out-of-state insurance and start scheduling check-ups for the first time since 2009) to the specific and expensive (register to take teaching licensure exams).

These items have been on my to-do list since graduating from college in May 2011. Some of them have been postponed because i couldn't afford to do them, some because they were important but not urgent, and some because i forgot. But it's getting more and more important that i figure this shit out. For one thing, i can't do my student teaching until i take and pass my exams, and i can't graduate until i do my student teaching, and i can't get a teaching job and leave my current job until i graduate. So i kinda need to take those exams. And lately i've been having some weird circulation issues that may or may not be indicative of something more serious, so i should probably get some check-ups and whatnot.

Anyway. Tomorrow, i am taking some personal time in the morning to visit the RMV and become a Massachusetts resident. I'm excited -- i like living in Massachusetts, and i've known for about five years now that this day would come eventually, and having that Massachusetts ID will make it a lot easier to get alcohol, but i am NOT enthusiastic about spending time in the RMV (or the DMV, or the MVA, if you live in other parts of the country. Whatever you call it, i think we can all agree that it sucks). But i'll bring a book, and by the time i leave that will be one more thing crossed off of my list. Next item: get my cat fixed. And then get back on birth control.

lenten bucket list

This is the time of year when people use God to guilt themselves into giving up bad habits delve deep into spirituality and self-sacrifice and work on cleansing their daily lives of things that distract them from God and Bible and Prayer and Such. Some people use it as a kick-off for the rest of their lives, like quitting smoking or gluten. They figure that, for 40 days of prayer and meditation and joining in the sufferings of Christ (who actually fasted for 40 days and then was beaten and tortured and horribly killed, so totally the same as you giving up caffeine), they can get a leg up on a better life and look more holy doing it.

In years past, i've given up pizza, sweets, soda, and meat. I actually gave up meat twice; the first time, i mostly just ate lots of bread and cheese. The second time, i worked on finding vegetarian meals that i enjoyed and making more deliberate choices about what i ate, and it was a choice that i carried with me. I now identify as "flexitarian", which means that i often eat vegetarian meals, but have no health/moral objections to eating meat sometimes (one of my favorite meals: veggie burgers wrapped in bacon).

This year, i toyed with giving up meat again, but i just don't eat it often enough for it to be a real sacrifice. I also toyed with adding a positive practice instead of deleting a negative one; i thought about adding another two days to my workout routine. But recent life changes have prompted me to redo the entire routine anyway, and i have no clue how i would fit any extra days in there right now. No need to add religious guilt to my personal health guilt. And then i simultaneously forgot and decided i didn't care this year.

But i do want to make my life better. I do want to take what God has given me (talents, time, resources, etc.) and do good things with them. I do want to live a life to be proud of. I do want to accomplish things. I've already done so many incredible things (spending six months traveling around Europe, graduating from college, a missions trip to Nicaragua, spending a month on a boat in Puerto Rico, moving far away from family and friends, getting tattoos, eating snails and octopus and tofu and weird fried baby fishes and scrapple and cashew fruit, teaching myself different skills, and so on), but there is so much left to do.

This season of loss and lamentation and desperate hope encourages quiet reflection. It also encourages getting off your ass and doing something to improve your life. And this year in particular, when i have been surrounded by so much death and sickness and reminders of mortality, i've been thinking about the things i still want out of life, big and small.

So here goes:

• i want to finish this damned degree
• i want to get a full-time job teaching English in a public high school
• i want to get married
• i want to go to Greece
• i want to learn to make a souffle
• i want to be published
• i want to have kids
• i want to attend a same-sex wedding
• i want to vote for a female candidate for President of the United States
• i want there to be a female President of the United States
• i want to buy a house
• i want to buy an electric/hybrid car
• i want to plant, tend, and compost my own garden
• i want to make money from something i've written
• i want to get a chest freezer
• i want to learn to make my own preserves
• i want to take a shooting course
• i want to take an archery course
• i want to go to Venice
• i want to make my own cheese
• i want to keep bees (NB: this may prove to be an unrealistic goal, in which case i'd like to instead aspire to meet a local bee-keeper and buy all my bee products from him/her)
• i want to go to Ireland
• i want to get back to volunteering with a riding therapy group
• i want to make enough money from writing that i can be a stay-at-home mom/housewife and still contribute significant financial support to my family

Life is fluid. Goals change and move. New desires arise and old ones die out. So this list will likely (hopefully) be continuously updated over the years. But it's a good start.

New Year, New Obsession

I mentioned before that i'm trying to be healthier. Let's talk about how that's going.

I have been faithfully going to the gym three times a week for an hour each time for the last week and a half, except for one time when i gave up after forty minutes because the elliptical was hard to use. Don't laugh. It's tough to find your rhythm at first. Plus my knee was really hurting and i wanted to cry. But i still made it through forty minutes, so suck it.

Originally, i was planning to switch between the treadmill and the elliptical. The elliptical is better for my knees, because it's a lower-impact machine, but for that same reason it's not as good for muscle tone and bone strength. When you're forcing your bones and muscles to propel you forward and hold you upright, they get better at doing it, and then when you're old you won't have to worry so much about things like osteoporosis or becoming feeble. But i've noticed that i turn my right foot slightly outwards, which is probably why my right knee hurts way more than my left one. This tendency is easier to see and correct on the elliptical, so i'm mostly sticking to that now.

I'm using this app called My Fitness Pal to keep track of how i'm doing. It's pretty easy, and i like it a lot. Instead of one of those programs that tells you to eat four cups of steamed broccoli and do sixty crunches, this program is just a way to track what you're already doing and how successful your efforts are. When you set up your profile, you tell it things about your current status (weight, age, health conditions, etc.) and your goals (faster, stronger, thinner, etc.). You also put in your fitness plans (run thirty minutes every day or whatever.). Based on your age, weight, sex, lifestyle (as in, are you a sedentary office worker like me?), and fitness goals, it gives you a recommendation for net calories and an estimate for when you'll reach your goal. Each day, you input what you've eaten and what you've done, and it tells you what your net calories are. It also tells you how well you're matching your fitness goals by saying things like, "If every day is like this one, you'll lose one pound a week!" or "If every day is like this one, you'll be down to 214 pounds in five weeks!" (NB: they didn't ask me to write a review or anything, and the app is free. I highly recommend it.)

I usually eat very well, so the only real difference is that i'm being faithful about going to the gym three times a week, and that i'm giving myself less leeway for things like snacking. It used to be that i would sometimes get hungry in the afternoon and run over to the school store for some chips and a candy bar, to keep up my strength in the two hours remaining until dinner. (Go ahead and roll your eyes at me. I rolled my eyes at myself every time, but i did it anyway.) Now, when i want a snack, i eat something healthy, or i just stay hungry. I mean, i live in the USA, and i have a job and a home. I can live for five hours without food. I need to stop being such a drama queen about hunger, when i'm so much luckier in that regard than so many other people.

But let's take a minute to talk about my healthy snacks.

Have you ever eaten roasted salted almonds? Not chocolate covered almonds, or almonds crushed up in ice cream or a candy bar, or almonds coated in toffee or honey and cinnamon. Just plain, roasted almonds, lightly dusted with sea salt.

Did you know that they taste like cream?

One of my roommates was mildly obsessed with almonds for a while and ate them every day. But she ate, like, wasabi almonds, or chocolate mint dusted almonds, or whatever. They were all dressed up in other flavors. I don't know why anyone, having tasted what a plain almond is like, would ever want to mask that flavor. All i want to do is pair it with other amazing things, like dried cherries. Dried cherries! Why would anyone eat dried cranberries or raisins when there are tart, spicy, wine-like dried cherries in the world?! Dried cherries or dried apricots with plain almonds can render me speechless. Pair with a tiny bite of dark chocolate and it's hard to imagine anything more mind-meltingly delicious. (Of course, i say things like that and then i hear Tina Fey's voice in my head saying, "I don't know. Have you ever put a doughnut in the microwave?")

And then there's raw honey.

I've been learning more about honey and bees, because i'm worried about Colony Collapse Disorder (Google it. It's terrifying.) and what it means for the future of the planet, and i'm interested in healthy, natural foods that taste amazing, and i want to support local apiarists who treat their bees well, and i want to be exposed to real honey, not the processed clover crap that comes from a plastic bear. (Apparently, apiarists who make clover honey tend to treat their bees very poorly.) Bee Raw has shown me things about honey that i never thought possible. Their Florida orange blossom honey tastes like floral green tea. Their Maine wild raspberry honey tastes like butter. And the orange blossom honey with aged cheddar cheese and fresh bread is like manna from Heaven. Did you know that you could eat honey with cheese? Did you know that when you do, it will change your life? Did you know that raw honey can help reduce or eliminate suffering from seasonal allergies? Did you know that raw honey blends smoothly into even cold liquid, unlike processed honey, which tends to sink to the bottom stubbornly? Did you know that raw honey, whisked together with lime juice and a little mustard, makes a low-calorie salad dressing or marinade that is better than anything you could buy in the store? (Except Ranch, obviously. Nothing is better than Ranch.)

Don't worry. This isn't about to become a health and fitness blog. It will always be the bizarre hodgepodge you've come to know and love: bitching about my roommates or work or money, gushing sappy garbage about my boyfriend, talking about my mental illness(es), updating you on my comic book, reflecting on my daily devotions, and making absolute statements about education and writing and civil rights and the economy and politics and so forth. But sometimes, i will also talk about honey or the gym or salads. I'm growing as a person. It's beautiful and magical, so come with me on this crazy journey of life or shut up and read someone else's blog.

Reason #13 Why I Should Live With My Boyfriend

He understands the concept of "not dishwasher safe".

Jeremiah 50-52, Lamentations, Ezekiel 1-23

Although i read all of the above passages, the stuff that stuck with me was all from Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 12:24
"For no more shall there be any false vision or flattering divination within the house of Israel."

Ezekiel 20:49
Then I said, "Ah, Lord God! They say of me, 'Does he not speak parables?'"

NKJV


The first passage made me think of C. S. Lewis (i have got to read more apologetics). I think it was "Surprised by Joy", but it may have been "Mere Christianity". Anyway, he was talking about one critique of Christianity being its weirdness and lack of rational, logical conclusions. According to Lewis, "Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we were expecting, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that twist about it which real things have." We like to believe things that are flattering to us, that make us feel better, that are easy to understand. God doesn't offer that.

Second, this made me think of Jesus and of my church and of the debates about the reliability of the Bible. Some people think that every word of the Bible should be understood literally: the world was created in six days of 24 hours each, Eve was created from Adam's rib, women should not speak in church. Others say that the Bible is a collection of stories and poems that point to a greater truth beyond mere literal fact. I've written a little about this before, so i won't go into all that now.

But here's the thing: it is possible for something to be true without being literal. And throughout the entire Bible, God has spoken to His people in stories, in parables, in allegories, in metaphors, in poems. He almost never speaks literally. I don't know why this is, but it's true.

My pastor occasionally preaches in parables instead of traditional sermons. Some people don't like it. I usually feel like it's more authentic that way.

It's more confusing, more layered, more nuanced, and more open to interpretation. Probably because God isn't interested in building an army of robots. He wants people who will be in relationship with Him and with one another. If the Bible were absolutely, literally true in every instance, none of us would ever need to talk to one another or to God. But the fact that it is open to interpretation means that we need to spend a lot of time in intentional community and discussion. We need to be open to one another and to God, we need to be aware of different points of view, and we need to be humble and curious. Because He does, in fact, speak parables.

Dear Amtrak

On the evening of Sunday, June 10th, I went to the Wilmington, DE station to board my 11:36pm train back to Boston. Your website recommends arriving 30 minutes before you are scheduled to board; I was there 45 minutes early. I had already printed my ticket, and I checked the departure board before going to the platform. The board told me my gate, and had the correct time listed for my departure (11:36). By 11:45, I was beginning to wonder if there had been a delay. Although the platform had electronic message boards to alert passengers of any changes in the schedule, I had not seen anything at all about my train. By midnight, I was seriously concerned. I called my father, who went online and discovered that power outages down the line had delayed all trains by at least an hour; my train would probably not arrive until one AM.

The message boards on the platform still said nothing.

Eventually, trains began arriving. However, the message boards were not being updated properly, so they were giving last boarding call fifteen minutes before the trains had even arrived at the station. As you can imagine, this caused some confusion.

I was scheduled to be on the 66 train to Boston. Eventually, a 900-something train pulled into the station. The electronic message boards had no information about what train this was, the conductors announced nothing, and I didn't see anyone to ask. I assumed that my train would be the next one and settled down to wait. A security guard working at the station came to me after the train had pulled out to inform me that that was the last train of the night. I eventually had to pay an extra $69 for a train that left at 4:50 the next morning. I will miss a day of work, not to mention a night of sleep.

I understand that delays happen from time to time, and that they are no one's fault. I understand that there are mechanical difficulties, communications snafus, and any manner of other mistakes that cause confusion. However, it is your job to work as hard as you can to keep all of your passengers informed of any changes in their travel plans. All stations need to be made aware of delays, and need to update their passengers accordingly. When you know that there has been an issue, you need to work extra hard to ensure that everyone knows what is going on. Plans change, and it's not necessarily anyone's fault. That's okay. What is not okay is not telling anyone that plans have changed.

I have been deeply disappointed and greatly inconvenienced by your mistakes this weekend. In future, please endeavor to suck less.

Tired, hungry, frustrated, and broke,
Diana Lark

Reasons to Live With my Boyfriend

I've been posting individual list items on this topic for a while now. Some of them were humorous, but all were serious, in that we both have really terrible roommates.

However, i am currently paying $400/month in rent, and my utilities are only about another hundred. You can't beat that deal in the Boston area, unless you want to live in a rat-infested shoebox in a bad neighborhood. His rent is a little higher than mine, but still pretty good. I recently saw a one-bedroom apartment advertised for $1100/month, not including utilities. Next spring, i will be starting my student teaching, which will involve one whole semester of full-time, unpaid teaching. I'm looking for federal grants and part-time work, but i'll mostly be living off of my savings. Unless i find an insanely cheap apartment (like, less than $500/month including utilities) by September, there's no way i can fork up first/last/security and pack up again. It just won't be worth it.

But the time has come. John and i have reached a place in our relationship where we need more time for one another, need more attention from one another, but we can't always give it. He gets home at 3:00 and spends a few hours doing laundry, or eating, or doing the chores his roommates haven't, or lesson planning. I get home at 5:00 and spend a few hours cooking, cleaning, and doing homework. Once rush hour traffic has settled down, he heads over to my town for a choir rehearsal. Then i head to a 4-hour class. By the time we are both done with our day, all we have the energy to do is fall asleep, so that he can get up at 5:30 and get to school in time.

We see each other almost every day, but we spend very little time together. One of us is always in the middle of something: i am doing homework, or he is paying bills, or i haven't eaten all day and am too hungry to think straight, or he is talking to his parents about his dad's health, or he is looking at apartments and i am doing laundry. Even the weekends are usually filled with all the errands we didn't have time to do during the week.

This is the point in the relationship when most people would get married, but we've only been together 13 months, and we've really only known each other for about 17. We still need to find a church that we can go to together. We still need to finish our masters' programs. Have you ever moved in with someone who was a close friend, and within two months you could barely stand the sight of them? We need to make sure that doesn't happen with us. We've seen many, many, many couples who jumped into marriage, and while they married the right person, their speed put unnecessary strain on the relationship and they are now struggling and doubting. We have the rest of our lives to be married. We can take our time with the steps in between.

In the meantime, we miss each other. We need a mutual place that we can come to. We need to do the hard work of orienting our lives around one another. We need to share the space in the refrigerator, in the closet, in the garage, in the bathroom. We need to spend Saturday morning in bed, snuggling and having tickle-fights, because no one needs to get up and go home to do laundry. The laundry is right here, and we can put a load in the washer and get right back in bed. We need to argue about whose turn it is to buy milk, about which direction to hang the toilet paper, about which dishes go in the dishwasher and which are hand-wash only.

You say that your heart is mine. This, then, is love: i have learned to be at home in you, and in so doing, i have found myself at home in me.

announcement

This isn't earth-shattering or anything, so no worries. I just want to let you know (although you'll probably figure it out on your own pretty quickly) that i'm going to change my posting schedule. I have been posting twiceish a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, with bonus posts when i felt like it. Moving forward, i will be posting thriceish a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with bonus posts when i feel like it.

The Friday posts will be religious/spiritual/faith-based/faith-seeking/Bible-studying/etc. in nature. I'm mostly doing this as motivation for my intentional pursuit of a deeper relationship with Jesus, but also (a little bit) to post more often, because that's a good thing (or so i've been told).

The first of these posts will likely go up next week. Probably. We'll see.

If I Won the Lottery

The first thing i would do would probably be a shopping spree on Amazon, buying every book and DVD i have ever wanted. Then i'd start looking for my dream house. I'd be able to actually hire movers this time, instead of making friends with people who have trucks and/or vans. I'd be out of Beer Street, and my boyfriend and i could move in together.

Then i'd pay off my school loans. All of them. I'd give my two weeks' notice at my job, train my replacement, and leave to focus on school. I'd be able to do my student teaching (one whole semester of unpaid, full-time classroom instruction) without worrying about bills.

I'd give to my church and my school. I'd be their new favorite alum.

I'd put most of it into my savings account, for future emergencies and kids and more grad school.

Oh, grad school . . . I'd definitely go back, again and again and again. I'd get an MFA in poetry, a Ph.D. in developmental psychology, maybe something in theology or Biblical studies or history. Or all of them.

I'd teach for a while, until John and i were ready to start having kids. I wouldn't mind being a stay-at-home mom, as long as we could pay the bills without too much stress. And i could write. Between the diapers and the Cheerios and wiping off the kitchen table and kissing boo-boos and hiding the cookies and the endless nursery rhymes and laundry and wiping off the table again, that is. I could blog, and i could write poetry, and i could get back to my secret novel, and i could write journals for my kids, and i could Tweet, and i could write letters to my congressman, and i could doodle on my own skin and paint words on the walls of my home and write labels for our organizational plastic bins and copy out my mother's best recipes and transcribe quotes and update my Facebook status and scribble letters to my brother and sisters and put love notes in my husband's and kids' lunchboxes and go through my old diaries and frame my thoughts anew.

Oh, the writing i would do!

I'd give to charities. I'd give away my car and buy a hybrid. I'd sponsor and foster and adopt kids. I'd fund microloans. I'd install solar panels on my roof and plant my own vegetables. I'd plant trees. I'd buy organic.

I'd teach part-time, here and there. I'd only take the jobs i really wanted, though. I'd teach English and psychology and life skills and writing and decent behavior to others and kindness and unconditional love and developmental reading and poetry and patience and assertiveness and looking out for others and philosophy and journalism and close reading and literary analysis and humor and surrender and romance and practicality and interview skills and research skills and debunking internet myths and budgeting your money.

I'd buy lots of really comfortable, flattering clothes, like jeans and cardigans and ballet flats. I'd get Lasik eye surgery, and maybe laser hair removal. I'd go to the doctor more often. I'd be able to go back on birth control. I'd buy myself a really long strand of real pearls. I'd buy myself some chocolate. I'd buy one set of really nice underwear from Victoria's Secret, and then go back to Marshalls for the rest of it.

I'd pay for my sisters' college, and any of my brother's bills not covered by the VA and the Marines. I'd give generous loans to my siblings, to college students, to my own students and friends, when they needed help, because i've been on the other side of that before and likely will be again. I'd take college students out for dinner, because sometimes they can't afford food and are too proud and self-sufficient to ask. I've been there, too.

I'd give to local homeless relief efforts. I'd make socks for clothing drives. I'd feed my kids' friends who maybe couldn't always count on a meal at home. I'd buy Christmas presents for children of prisoners, kids in orphanages, kids in homeless shelters, kids in institutions and rehabs, kids in dingy apartments far from home.

I'd save, not so that my kids never had to work hard or worry, because these things are good. I'd save so that i would always be in a position to offer them a safety net or a hand up in times of absolute emergency, because these things are good, too. I'd save for my retirement. I'd save for if (when) the economy falters again. I'd save because how could i ever spend that much money in one lifetime?

Oh, the things i could do if i ever won the lottery . . . Unfortunately, i understand that you have to actually buy a ticket to win. The odds are stacked pretty high against you either way, but they do improve marginally when you participate. I guess i'll just keep holding out hope that one day, someone will give me a ticket that will turn out to be the mega-million-jackpot winner. Until then, i'll keep on working and saving and trying not to worry too much.

Reason #11 Why I Should Live With My Boyfriend

After our lunchtime quickie, he was talking about how excited he was to go again later in the day when we would have more time. "Yeah, that's right," he concluded, "we use sex as foreplay!"

Reason #9 Why I Should Live With My Boyfriend

So that neither of us will be the only person in the house who cleans the bathroom.

Reason #8 Why I Should Live With My Boyfriend

So that neither of us will be the only person in the house who takes out trash.

Reason #7 Why I Should Live With My Boyfriend

So that neither of us will be the only person in the house who changes light bulbs.

Reason #3 Why I Should Live With My Boyfriend

Sometimes, i get all dressed up for work and i look super hot. And then i come home to an empty house. And then i am tired, and i put on sweatpants and an old t-shirt. And then he comes by later and i'm not hot anymore.

Reason #2 Why I Should Live With My Boyfriend

So that neither of us will be the only person in the house who turns off lights.

Reason #1 Why I Should Live With My Boyfriend

So that neither of us will be the only one in the house who does dishes.

Philosophy of Education, Part 4

My Foundations of Education class required an essay on my personal philosophy of education. The syllabus listed no page number requirements. When we asked the professor how long it had to be, he simply said, "Explain yourself."

Mine was six pages long and is reproduced here, section by section, for your edification and reading pleasure. Part 1 can be found here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.


What is my role as a teacher?

                As a teacher, I must help my students to be prepared for whatever lies ahead. I have to be aware of my students’ skills, abilities, and passions so that I can help cultivate their strengths and guide them to success and fulfillment. I must ensure that I never denigrate any student’s desires or goals, but find constructive ways to encourage them to reach for more.

Through personal, one-on-one encouragement and general modeling of my own life choices and where they have led, I can and must show my students that their lives are in their own hands to do with what they will. For better or for worse, we all have some measure of control over our futures. It is in my power to endow my students with a sense of the great responsibility and privilege that they each have: the freedom of choice. The choices are not always good or easy, but they are always present.

I must also teach them ethics and life skills, whether by direct instruction or by indirect modeling. The method of instruction will be partially dependent on the rules of the school. Some schools may not allow me to give explicit moral instruction, even if asked directly to give my opinion on an issue. But by striving to keep my two selves congruent and by always being honest with my students, I can at least show them how honesty, openness, and self-awareness have impacted my own life. Even if I rely on direct instruction, however, I can never try to force my own ideals or convictions on my students. All I can do is share my opinion and model my own beliefs and attitudes.

My final point is the most obvious of all: I must share my passion for my content. As a teacher, it is my job to share not only my knowledge, but also my enthusiasm. As an English teacher, I will encounter many students who find reading boring. I will encounter many who struggle with reading because English is not their first language, or because they are hampered by a learning disability. I will encounter students who do not care about parts of speech, who hate to write, who can’t be bothered to read anything that doesn’t feature vampires or wizards or whatever the current literary trend is. And I must teach them all Shakespeare and Dickenson. I must teach them all to avoid passivity in their writing. I must teach persuasive essays, analytical essays, and research essays. I must teach many forms of creative writing and adaptation. All of English language arts and literature are in my hands, and I must strive to pass as much as possible to my students.

But teaching a subject is not only about passing along information. It is also about sharing a passion. Not every student I encounter has to leave with a deep appreciation for Shakespeare. But they should all understand why I love him. I must make it clear that, while this may not be everyone’s cup of tea, there is nevertheless great value in the study of literature and language arts. There is value in being well-read. There is value in being a skilled writer. And no matter the path your life may take in the future, the study of English is not a complete waste of time.

I Don't Want To Be A Teacher

Here's the thing: I am passionately interested in education. I've mentioned before that i was homeschooled, but i haven't said much about it before. That's a subject for another post. For now, i'll just say that public schools were ill-equipped to handle me appropriately.

I have two BAs, one in English creative writing and one in the psychology of child and adolescent development. I wanted to work as a counselor with high school students. Not a school counselor or a guidance counselor, but a psychologist who worked with troubled children and teenagers.

But once i got to college, my focus shifted. More and more, i saw students who were unprepared for academic success. I saw that students on the extremes of the spectrum (gifted or struggling) felt that their needs were not being met, and that average students were bored and frustrated by teachers who "teach the (standardized) tests".

After my sophomore year, i got a summer job in the admissions department of my college. One of the things i was working on was a spreadsheet for a particular academic review committee. This committee made final decisions about students on the low end of the spectrum. Sometimes it was clear that the student worked hard and wanted to learn, but that a learning disability or family situation had gotten in the way of their academic achievements. Sometimes it was clear that a student simply wasn't able to handle higher education.

Managing this spreadsheet was deeply and profoundly depressing. In many cases, it was simply too late for us to do anything. If a student has reached the 12th grade without attaining at least a 9th grade competency in the three R's, what can a college do to bring them up to speed? This child should have been helped far earlier. But now they have somehow graduated, and there is nothing we can do.

But this wasn't only depressing. It also made me angry, and i couldn't quite put my finger on why. One day, i was asked to write a brief description for the catalogue of our academic support program. As i researched this program, i found something that explained my anger. According to our website, the purpose of this support program was to help students who had graduated from high school without being academically prepared for college.

Boom.

The whole point of high school is to prepare you (academically, socially, psychologically, etc) for whatever comes next. If that is college, great. Your SAT scores may not be off the charts, but you should be able to take that next step. Maybe you need a little extra support. But you should be able to graduate from high school and make a fairly seamless transition to college. And if college is not in your future, it should be because you don't want to go to college, and you should still be intellectually, socially, and psychologically prepared to go out into the workforce. It makes absolutely no sense to me that any person can graduate from high school and not be prepared for that next step. What are the graduation requirements that you have fulfilled?

More and more, this issue worked its way under my skin and itched. My head swirled with the names on the spreadsheet, the experiences of my friends, my own memories of public school. I resolved to take my degree in child and adolescent development, get some advanced degrees in human development (and cognitive processes, research, public policy, etc), and take on public education. I wanted to fix the system.

In my junior year, i made friends with an education professor. He had taught high school English for nearly ten years before returning to his alma mater to train the next generation. He began telling me that i should be a teacher. I resisted this. I didn't want to teach; i only wanted to work in education from the outside. While i conceded that a teaching background might give me credibility and valuable experience in my quest, i also thought it would be good for me to do this research without being biased by my own students. I wanted to look at hard data and make my decisions with an open mind.

In my senior year, i had decided to defer grad school for a time. I wanted to narrow my focus a little more so that i could select an appropriate graduate program. I wanted to pay off my student loans. I wanted a break from school. I had prayed about it and felt that it was right to take some time off before pursuing advanced degrees in psychology. But this friend, Ben, wouldn't let the whole teacher thing go.

More and more, i thought about teaching, and more and more i resisted the idea. I don't like talking to people. Teaching is all about talking to people; and not just students, but also parents and administrators. I'd have to do SAT prep, which would go against the grain of everything i wanted to accomplish. I'd have to make lesson plans, which would be boring. I'd have to do the same thing year after year after year, and i'd be doing it for very little pay. I felt no attraction to that path in life.

People began telling me that i would be a good teacher. People who had no idea that i was thinking about this. People began asking me how my student teaching was going because after four years, they had forgotten that i was double majoring in English and psych and just assumed that i was an education major. I was working in a private school and seeing the things done well and things done badly, and i couldn't stop myself from making mental notes about how i would do things.

Finally, i realized that God was definitely calling me to teach. I was pissed. I tried to argue the point with Him, but He wouldn't cave. He kept making counter-arguments, and although He totally could have, He never resorted to the cheap, "Because I said so," rebuttal. But we both knew that that sentence was between us, the unspoken ultimate ultimatum.

If pressed, i'd have to say that my decision to teach was made reluctantly, even irritably, because everyone else has fucked it up and now i have to go in there and fix it. I want it to be done well, and i realize that the best way to ensure that it is done well is to do it myself. But that doesn't make me any less pissed about it. I still plan to get my advanced degrees in psych and to work in research and administrative positions in the general field of public education. But for now, all of that is being deferred in favor of an M.Ed. I'm going to teach high school English, and i'm going to do it well, and i'm going to be pissed about it.

But i'm going to do it well. Ben insists that, once i get started, i'll love it. I think i probably won't hate all of it. This was never what i wanted to be doing, but life hits you that way sometimes. It's a means to an end, and when all is said and done, there are worse ways to fix public education than simply going in there and teaching. And since we've already tried pretty much all of the worse ways, it may be time to admit that we've run out of options.

I don't want to be a teacher. But i do want there to be more literate people in the world. I do want those who want to go to college to have that opportunity. I do want people to speak and write clearly and correctly. And i have enough self-awareness to know that i can't keep my hands out of this effort. I have to be involved. So i'll teach.