A Tired Teacher’s Ideas for Classroom Projects

A year ago, I wrote this.

Yesterday, on his recently-established blog, my Daddy wrote this. I haven’t linked him until now because I’m not sure just how much he wants his missions blog connected to my nonsensical-ramblings blog , but I’m proud of his preaching anniversary and thought I’d share.

That said, if you go there and are anything but nice to him, I will roundhouse kick you to the face.

I love PostSecret SO much. I cannot stand it when I get to the end of the postcards each Sunday morning.

I know everyone’s linking this story, but it’s great. Go see Trace’s write-up at PopFi.

As Scout mentioned, last Friday we were able to meet for a much-needed coffee and catch-up session. It’s always a pleasure. As she said, we had a revealing conversation about blogging and what our blogs had become and what we wanted them to be.

Looking back through my earliest blog moments, as she and I talked about, I see that I used to be a lot more random and even whimsical. Honestly, I didn’t think anyone but the three people I’d mentioned my blog to as a tentative testing of the waters was reading for the first few months. Thus, I really did allow myself to devote entire entries to the songs going through my head, my migraines, random lists of nothingness, or how Ryan Adams was making me feel that particular day.

Thing is, I led a much more mercurial existence then–I had all these random jobs and was living in my favorite city and doing all sorts of cool things and meeting all sorts of cool people. While I was definitely undergoing some pretty heavy life stuff, I could still dwell on the groovy–and, sitting in my cubicle at the legislature waiting for my next writing assignment, I could access Blogger whenever I thought of something.

Now, I use Twitter for such. In fact, nowadays I’ve become one of those people who say things that annoy me–you know, stuff like, “who has time to [insert whatever verb is neglected by them in favor of their more superior and enlightening verbs, like...breast-feed or whatever]?” However, I do have to say…the time I have now to sit, think through what it is I want to communicate to a much more intimidating crowd of readers, and actually make it through to the end without putting myself to sleep is indeed scarce these days.

Some days, I cannot help but blog–I need to get out my frustration/loneliness/worry in a succinct (or not-so-succinct, sometimes) narrative. At heart, I’m a writer. That’s a title I don’t often bestow upon myself, but in this context, it definitely works–I’m a person who expresses myself best through the written word, for better or worse. As a child, teenager, and young adult, I wrote it all down in my journal. Now, I blog–and blogging carries with it the special benefit of kind feedback from those nice enough to read my yammerings.

So…when I sit down to blog, what is usually on my mind is teaching. It’s only natural, as if I’m not teaching, I’m preparing to teach or taking a class that’s required so that I can keep my teaching job. These kids get under my skin and drive me up the wall and every other cliched metaphor. They make me like them and then they hurt my feelings in ways only a teenager can…and only a teenager wouldn’t understand the gravity of.

And then there are incompetent coworkers. But we’ve gone down that road.

Even when I’m not blogging about teaching, I’m blogging about what I want to do with my life besides teaching or how I wish I were a “real” teacher or stress related to teaching. The entries get longer and more serious. Sometimes it feels like a bait-and-switch–you started reading the nonsensical ramblings of a confused city barista having her quarter-life crisis but ended up enduring the tired narratives of a haggard, often-discontent “classroom teacher.”

But…it’s me. And my blog–rather, my writing–is an extension of me. I don’t know how long I’ll keep this bloggy thing going, but I hope I stick with it, and I hope you stick with me.

Oh, but back to my conversation with Scout. She and I came to the conclusion that it’s the things we care about the most that we worry the most about writing about. For instance, the dear Finn always seems to apologize when she talks about the Bean…well, obviously we love hearing about what she is going through as her baby grows and changes within her, and we love how she writes about it. And ‘Coma calls her more introspective posts “Annoying Autobiographical Pauses,” though to her devoted readers they are anything but.

When we are able to distance ourselves from the subject–whether it’s music or politics or the fundamental absurdities of life–we can take the criticism. Even if there’s no criticism, we can deal with the thought of someone not caring as much about it as we do. When the subject is us, though, and when it’s in the form of writing, which to most of us is like breathing only more self-consciously precious…it’s kind of a punch in the gut to think that you’re bored with it, thus we feel the need to apologize beforehand for being so seemingly self-centered.

Well, I say “we,” but I’m really only speaking for myself. And about myself, of course.

All that to say, I’m not going to apologize for the shift in mood that my writing may have taken. But it’s just something I’ve been thinking about. Oh, but back to Twitter. It’s so easy to use to get the little random thoughts that go through my head, as well as the “I need to vent–quickly” moments, out there. It also helps me feel connected to others as they share the same things. So, in lieu of blogging time, I have been Twittering more often lately many things that once would have been short blog material.

I don’t want to blog about this anymore.

Okay. I was at work for literally 12 hours today, and a crazy track star’s mom tried to make my life miserable tonight, and there really is nothing on television, so I’m thinking bed is in order.

This one: And this one, the release of which I didn’t know about until today and that I couldn’t be more excited about:

*Were I still in Nashville, I’d be buying them at Grimey’s. Support your local record store!

You know, I spend a lot of time on this blog bleeding all of my so-very-important feelings and thought processes through my fingers. When I get too terribly navel-gazy, as I feel I’ve done with the past couple of entries, I usually feel guilty and consider taking the posts down. It’s part of that blasted introversion I just can’t seem to shake no matter how old I get. Regardless, I (usually) leave them up because they’re part of me just as this blog is in many ways an extension of me, or at least the sides of me I don’t mind extending to you.

That’s a roundabout way of saying that in the face of a tragedy such as this one, I am humbled and count my feeble ruminations as utter dross. I did not know Shane Ruiz, but his death has haunted me since I got the alumnogram by email today. As it turns out, I spent more than one break with the very same university doing mission work. I know what it’s like to grow close to a group of people you might not have spoken to otherwise on campus. I remember the gratification at the end of a week of hard work when you had not only made new friends, but also worked very hard and felt like you may have reached someone. It’s a gratification not of yourself, but of knowing that you have allowed yourself to be used as a vessel for such a purpose–it’s unlike any other feeling.

Shane died in that state of gratification. He was enjoying a much-deserved day at the beach when he was swept away. I know his teammates are desolate and drained after a long flight with one very empty seat before them. My heart is sick for his family. I pray that they can take comfort in the fact that their loved one departed the earth with the words of the Lord fresh from his lips and the seeds of the kingdom just having left his hands.

Picking up where I left off, I may as well let you know what, if we’re ever to sit down together for food or beverages, I will not be ordering:

• sushi (she says, choking back sobs)
• local Mexican anything
• frozen pizza (which shouldn’t have been on my menu in the first place)
• a soy chai latte. or soy milk period. or milk of any kind, though I’d just started to handle cow stuff again. or chai anything, most likely.

There will be plenty of other things we can enjoy together. Not for a while, though.

After having spent Saturday with a monster headache and muscle aches and alternating between freezing and sweating, sleeping and moaning, I decided I couldn’t bear to be sick by myself anymore Sunday morning. In what, looking back, was perhaps not my brightest move, I drove the three hours to Nashville to be with my mommy and daddy. I got there just in time to collapse on the couch.

I’ve been here pretty much ever since, every once in a while picking up the laptop to see what’s going on and try to feel human again. I made it out yesterday evening with my parents and had some soup. Today my dad took me to a movie. Both of these outings were beneficial but draining as well.

So, my spring break has not been what I’d hoped. Then again, I didn’t have high hopes as it was–I just needed time to finish grading and get my grades in, finish a project that I’m predicting is going to be disastrous for class Thursday night, do three article critiques for the same class, plan out the rest of my semester, and get some more applications out. And maybe sleep. Hoo boy. Must not hyperventilate.

It’s just that I don’t do well with stress and/or multitasking. I’ve figured out that I usually need to be doing two things at once. For instance, right now I’m blogging and watching a Charlie Brown Easter cartoon. Many nights, I pop in a Netflix to help me get some grading or homework done. I fantasize about just sitting down and watching a movie, yes, but I don’t think it would feel “right” somehow.

Add another distraction to the equation, though, and I’m toast. That’s why some days I just simply don’t want to go in the classroom. Teenagers have no sense of proper space boundaries or volume levels. The beginning of class is often a free-for-all of absentee note-signing, excuse-taking, question-answering, and makeup-work-procuring. They come at me from all directions as I try to check roll, even when I ask them to come to my desk one at a time.

Back to being sick. I’m 99% sure it was the sushi Thursday night. I’ve felt very off the past couple of weeks anyway, though, and as I rested my head in my hands Friday night, body shaking, fearing the inevitable, I knew in a very deep place that some sort of physical breakdown had been on its way for a while. Life–at least as I have perceived it–has been coming at me in much the same way as I described my students.

There’s not much white space left in my margins for me to put senseless little Holly doodles on, and the lead in my pencil needs sharpening anyway. That’s why I have needed this break. Unfortunately, with a break in routine comes time to think. Combine that with food poisoning and the letting-down of my guard around a family who love me, and the breakdown has been emotional as well.

Thankfully, I tend to be a person who can reach a breaking point and then immediately feel hope the lack of which had led to the dark time. I am thankful for that. I am thankful for a family who always welcomes me home and takes care of me regardless of how old I am or ridiculous I act.

I’ve been feeling very stuck lately. I do all this work for a job that is not turning out to be what I bargained for, as well as for classes that are to “prepare” me to do a job I’m not sure I really want to do, at least not for very long. Thing is, though, I don’t know what else to do, and I have this stubborn need to not let it beat me. I really want to enjoy it and feel successful at it someday.

I constantly question myself–what is it I really want in a career? The answer…I don’t really care about a career. It’s not a very liberated thing to say, but it’s true. The things I really want are still in the abstract. If I had to boil them down to an accessible definition, it would be something like this: I want to go places and do things with the person I love more than anyone in the world and who feels the same about me and our children. I want to live somewhere I can feel a part of a community and a congregation. There will, of course, be music, and I want Dorian to be there. And I also want a dog. I will write, and I’d love to teach a couple of classes at the local college and eventually open a little business. Those last couple of things are optional, though. Mountains would be nice as well, but I got spoiled the year I spent in Nashville, so a good thriving city nearby is also a preference.

That really is it. All this other…crap…just feels so far from that. I do know, somehow, that it’s working toward it, though. We shall see, right?

Okay. Post-sick headache and fatigue are setting in. And, my mom just bought me a People magazine, which was part of her healing ritual for me when I would be home sick from school. I love my parents, and I’m leaving in the morning, and it’s time to spend my remaining time with them.

So, not long after writing that last missive, things took a turn for the worst. That test I was supposed to take this morning–the one that cost a buttload and is essential to getting the license I need to teach? Yeah, didn’t make it. Why? I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say I have not been comfortable in 24 hours or so, and at times, “not comfortable” has equaled “not really caring if I live or die, just please make this end.”

Also suffice it to say, and this is the truly tragic part, I may or may not ever eat sushi again. I can’t talk about this right now.

Awesome beginning to my spring break.