Hits from the Blog...

Notes from a recreational blog user:

"He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances."

--Jack London, To Build a Fire

My Mom has always said that she worries about me least when she doesn't hear much from me.  Many mothers may assume that not hearing from their young daughter is a red flag; a cause for concern about potential ditches on the sides of roads or lunatic stalkers outside windows or a run gone wrong in the rugged Front Range wilderness or even some twisted JonBenet shit (I do live in Boulder after all), but my mother sleeps best when I don't call. Not calling is a sign that I am happily busying myself with the things of life. So, this blog started at a life intersection where it is easy to get lost--displaced amongst the things. Not quite as lost as the frozen dead dude in Jack London's above quoted story, but I was certainly directionally flummoxed and unsure where to turn at the corner of Hate My Job Avenue and Painfully Single Nearing Thirty Street. While the frozen dead guy had nobody but a dog to turn to for advice (who it turns out the dude really should've listened to cause the dog ends up neither frozen nor dead), I had massive modern outlets and I was using them all...frequently.

I was calling home quite a lot to get appropriate directions towards Happy Fulfilled City so as not to detour down the lane that leads to Bitter With Too Many Cats (And Maybe Even a Bird or Ferret That You Weirdly Carry in a Pocket with You In Public to Avoid Interactions with Actual Humans) Cul-de-sac. Dissatisfied with my job and struggling to make myself pleasant company in social settings, I found blogging to be simpler than womaning up to the real world.  And so it is that when my blog began the posts were reliable because I was miserable. The ebbs and flows of life's day-to-day minutiae felt more like title waves and droughts with each shift creating tectonic impacts worth writing about. However, now that the plates of my life have become stable, it has had the reverse effect on my blogging.

While I wish I were a better blog abuser--one who's every daily action from the mundane to the extraordinary is immediately transcribed in her head as a post-worthy story--I find that I am still struggling to acknowledge the significances in all my things of life. This is somewhat ironic because in my eleventh grade classes I am currently teaching memoir writing and a large amount of instruction time is spent reminding students that often the seemingly simple or boring parts of our lives tell the best stories. I'll try to be better attune to the stories I may be encountering everyday, but in the meantime I'll give you the looks:

Tramps Like Us...

Somehow weekly blogging has diminished to monthly blogging. I have no idea what I've been doing. I think I may have blacked out a little. This is usually an excuse reserved for a debaucherous night rather left forgotten here or there, but I'm gonna go ahead and throw it around as a catchall for the last month of my life...a reverse black out. Instead of eliminating memories of drunken scandals that illicit my own mother to call me a "tramp" (to be fair, there was LOTS of tramping in furry boots through snow when this accusation occurred), I've been mentally blocking the ridiculous monotony of my day-to-day. Sadly, even my attempts at salaciousness are more Amanda Bynes than Lindsey Lohan. Here it is:

Baby, we were born to run. So, I run. I run a lot. That's what tramps likes us do. During the week I hit up the 24-Hour Fitness and try to find a treadmill that actually turns on. On a good day, I spread open the pages of my new US Weekly and flip through pages of glossy pictures of people I don't know and things that don't matter--its is overwhelmingly refreshing. The people are pretty and fake and Charlie Sheen doesn't explain to me that his paper was three days late because he was on a three day coke binge and it wasn't really his fault that he had couldn't be there when it was due because there was that court ordered rehab thing he had to do. I love celebrity gossip because I don't have to care about it. Their lives are fuel for my feet as they slap the machine and keep me going for one more mile.

Weekend runs are becoming a surprising highlight of my life lately. Long Saturday runs with great company makes me happy. I thought I would hate this marathon training gig, but it suits me in a way I never anticipated. Its always good when we can still surprise ourselves.

I watch The Wire. My work boyfriend passed along season 1 of The Wire to me over winter break. It is awesome. All the hype is true and if you haven't watched this show yet, you should.

I drink hot chocolate. I had a former boyfriend who's biggest pet peeve was people drinking from mugs. This crosses my mind almost every night of the winter in Colorado because that is how often I drink from mugs. Mugs appear in our apartment like protesters in Egypt. Tall mugs, short mugs, matching mugs, plain mugs, fat mugs, travel mugs, Muslim mugs....ok, not Muslim mugs. Clearly mugs don't pray 5 times a day.

I apply for jobs. I need a new one. If you find one for me, let me know.

Are you bored yet? I mean, this is really the problem with blogging. I am the problem with blogging. The average person is not actually that interesting and you shouldn't want to read about me, so I'll just put up the pictures:

This is what slackers look like...

I haven't posted in weeks, but I have been documenting. The quality seems worse than usual on these pictures. Hmmm. Perhaps that's just a reflection of my mood. Thank goodness Sundance is this weekend. Best weekend of my year, always. More I will update for this week upon my return!

The 2 weeks before winter break:

Merit Ferrets and Insight Trilobites

My first two years of teaching were characterized by copious amounts of tears.  I cried a lot--often founded, sometimes not.  I was a cry baby.  I've often stated that I think I cried more in my first year of teaching than in all the previous years combined.  This may be hyperbole, but, then again, this blog is non-fiction and thems may just be the facts. Of course, it wasn't only the job that was to blame; it was also a year when I learned more than I ever hoped about the pitfalls of falling in love with the wrong guy. However, falling out of love with a dude opened up some prime heart acreage for my students and being in love with my kids helped me to be in love with my job...but left little room to love anything else.

Last year was not characterized by tears but by a general discontent that is most aptly termed "burn out". I was a horrible and sour version of myself. Blogging, along with calling a psychic and traveling to Europe solo, were all "cheer the fuck up" schemes.  I think the trip to Italy worked, but that might also have been a product of the fact that the school year was actually over.  But while licking on many cones of gelato and sipping on even more classes of wine and running a few laps around the rampart walls of Lucca, I got to figuring.  I didn't necessarily need a new job so much as I needed a new perspective.  Sustaining another year in a misery coma was not possible. I know, this is all very Eat, Pray, Love of me (minus any of the love), but, again, this is a matter-of-fact account of my life, and I must admit (reserve your judgments) that I read that giant of chick lit memoirs whilst on my journey and it may have even made me cry once...or twice. So, my new perspective boiled down to this: start planning ahead while not forgetting to enjoy where you are.

This is short and sweet, but it appears to be working.  The biggest flaw in my philosophy so far has been choosing a future plan, business school, that relies on math heavy entrance exams. Damn that GMAT.  I took it last Saturday and it bent me over. In turn, I maintained my enjoyment of where I was on Saturday night by partying like a frat-house pledge.  At school, I have been appreciating the day-to-day details that I forgot about last year.  Silly drawings on my white board, for example.  First my classroom was overseen by the reading bear.  However, the reading bear lost his life in a tragic white-board white-out, but he is survived by the critical thinking koala, the insight trilobite, the think skink, and the merit ferret. This year is happily characterized by random funny moments.

In other realms appreciating the present, I spent some serious time in my closet tonight.  All this studying forced me to neglect my clothes!  I had nearly forgotten how many, many options I still have with all the things I already own!  Perhaps a creativity ramp up next week.

Monday

 Tuesday

 Wednesday

 Thursday-

I was out sick

Friday 

Blogbomination.

Its true, I'm a sad excuse for a blogger. I hope that my lack of follow through and inability to commit to blogging is not an indication of other areas of my life...let's just let that one lie.

This week was Thanksgiving break and tonight's blog is brought to you by pre-first day back from vacation jitters. Granted I spent most of the week staying up past my bed time and sleeping in too late in the mornings, I prepped for tonight with a long run and yoga class. Even they are not enough to curb the nervous energy. Well, at least I am being productive with my should be sleeping time.  Things to do this week:
1. Figure out what the heck I am teaching this trimester. Due Monday.
2. Write about a million recommendation letters for all the Daniels Fund applicants--due Thursday.
3. Complete CU Boulder application. Due Wednesday.
4. Submit Hut Trip proposal for Board approval. Past due.
5. Write thank you notes for all the wonderful people who hosted my kids during Intensives last week (especially the yoga studio where one of my darlings decided thieving would add a lil' je ne sais quoi to our field trip.)
6. Study for GMAT. Due Saturday. Fuck.
7. Drive to Beaver Creek. Try not to get inappropriately drunk on Saturday night.
8. Ski.

I think I missed two days during Intensives.  They were both days when I wore jeans.  One day I wore blue and red flannel long gray grandpa sweater. I can't remember what I wore the other day... but I promise not to wear it again.  As previously inferred, I'm good at that.

Honk and Wave!

Ok, I'll admit it, I had little to no faith and I was wrong.  The bond finally passed this year!  After all those prior opportunities on the ballot, it finally passes in the worst political climate in years.  Go figure.  In two years my garage and windowless classrooms will be nothing more than a good story that kids will tell to impress their own kids "when I went to that school...I walked both ways uphill in the snow without shoes AND my classroom was a garage".  In its stead, a brand spankin' new facility made for learning!  Its really a shame that this years seniors won't get to enjoy it because many of them were truly inspiring in their efforts to make this happen--giving up Saturdays to walk door to door in the community to inform constituents.

Sadly, I also wonder if I will be there to appreciate an outcome that we've been waiting for since I started in the district.  The prospect of moving on to a new adventure is certainly bitter sweet.  More bitter than sweet right now as I continue to drown in GMAT math and struggle to find the time to write essays and fear that application fees alone will put me in the poor house.  Sigh.  Long to do list means short blogs!

Monday

 Tuesday--this flannel shirt is from the girls section at Target and they rule everything around me. I own 4 of them and its all I want to wear ever again.

 Wednesday--great vintage find in New Orleans.

 Thursday is missing.  Can't remember what it was but I know I wore my teal scarf.  Friday was Halloween.  I was dressed as Mr. Kelly, the math teacher on the 11/12 team.

Monday

 Tuesday

 Wednesday

 Thursday

 Friday