this made me think of you.

"In friendship… we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years difference in the dates of our birth, a few more miles between certain houses, a choice of one university instead of another… the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting — any one of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly, no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly be saying to every group of Christian friends, “You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.” The friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauty of others."
-C.S. Lewis

I Greatly Esteem Him...

Yay - Congrats Sarah and Spencer! We are all so excited for you. Sarah, I hope you don't mind that I stole this pic from your blog, but it was too cute to pass up. Whitney, I hope you already called Sarah back so this isn't a huge surprise!

Front Room Conversation

At times during my recent renewal of the application process, I have often thought how great it would be if I had the 4WMs with me. Just the other day I was picturing sitting on the couch in the front room of Hampstead #7 in the evening. Here's how the scene went...

Jo: I really hate this application process. Don't I deserve better? I feel like my whole life is on this one little paper and it can't, in any way, encompass who I am or how I would succeed at a job.

Whitney: (sitting on the loveseat with her laptop also on her lap looking up grad schools instead of working on her lesson plan) I know, seriously! I hate feeling like I have to sell myself to someone else!

Jen: (sitting at the other end of my couch with her feet tucked up under a blanket while she falls asleep and tries to grade) If you grade these essays for me, I'll do your applications for you. Where do these kids learn their grammar anyway?

The door bursts open and in a flurry of cold air, Sarah runs into the room and slides across the floor on her way to the window to get a good look at someone in the courtyard with his significant other.

Sarah: Shoot! I can't see her face! You guys have all seen her and I haven't. Oh, Jo, did you get my email? I sent you links to 17 different jobs that I think you would totally be great for! Also, I have a friend who knows someone....

Anyway, do you get my point? I was just thinking of this scenario and smiling a little as I continue to miss my 4WMs.

Things here haven't changed much. My week pretty much consists of going walking, calling into work to see if they need me to come in (which they invariably don't), running errands, doing little chores, applying for jobs, and going to Institute. I head out to Arizona next week and then will drive back with one of my sisters. They are all coming out to go to a Garth Brooks (don't laugh) benefit concert for the fire victims next Saturday at the Staples Center. Chelsea wanted to have a girls outing (the 4 of us and my mom), but David caught wind of it and really wants to come as well. So, the five of us will leave the kids behind and head up to LA for one of 5 sold-out Garth Brooks concerts in 2 days. I hope he's not too tired to perform. After that, if I haven't heard anything from this recent spate of applications, I will probably head to Borders or Barnes and Noble to beg for a job that has more than 20 hours a week.

I love you all and get so excited to read your updates. Keep em' coming! Oh, and Jen, I really feel like I am in closer contact with Kate and your mom than you - we need to work on that. I will try to call you soon.

So a sixth grade teacher...

To dismiss all rumors that I have fallen off the face of the planet, I am writing to inform all the white mothers that I am alive. Well...barely. I am back in Utah and am a sixth grade teacher in Springville. I still can't believe it. I started on Wednesday, January 2nd. It is only 15 mins away, and I was blessed to randomly meet a girl in DC that knew an intern at my elementary school that would give me rides. Okay, it sounds kinda crazy and probably doesn't make sense, but my point is that I have a ride to work. I wasn't nervous about moving to Utah without a car, but then I actually moved here and realized that UTA is nothing like the DC public transportation. The metro runs like clockwork, and UTA...well, it doesn't. I had a horrid flight to Utah on Friday, and I didn't get to Provo until Saturday at 2am! I then met my principal at my school at 6:30am. Needless to say, I did not look very good. Acutally, I looked disgusting. Great first impression, huh? I only had three days to set up a classroom and have it up and running by Wednesday. It was truly baptism by fire. I have never experienced so much stress in my life. Poor Jeff had to attempt to console me over the phone as I continually burst into tears. The worst part about the whole thing was I didn't have my own transportation. I was forced to rely on my brother and sister-in-law, which feels horrible. I hate that feeling of being needy. Things only got worse as I realized that they had no time to help. I realized that I had absolutely no way of getting to the school to set up. Horrible! Horrible! Horrible! But I did get there finally and did all I could do. My first day was great, even though I had only slept three hours the night before (I hate how I get so anxious). I finished my first week today and have so much to do. I can't even believe it! And these kids...oh my goodness, they actually do what I say. It is a miracle! I can't even believe it. I mean you get the eye rolls, the sighs, and the looks of pure disgust, but the kids don't bang themselves into the walls! They don't talk back to everything I say to them, no one has told me not to touch them cause they "don't like White women," and I haven't called security on any student because...oh wait! They don't even have it! I have definitely entered another dimension. Is this teaching? Is this why people stay teaching because they have kids like this? I am going to say yes. The strange thing about it all is how the teacher's view me because I have taught in DC. These teachers that have taught for decades all came to my room to meet me (or gauk at me, I am not sure which) and hear me tell stories of DC. They stood there in amazement. It was strange listening to the other teachers talk about how they heard our principal rave about me before I had even gotten there. He was very cautious about hiring someone over the phone, so he talked to basically every mentor teacher, supervisor, liason, and professor I'd had contact with in the education department. When he called to offer me the job, he commended me for the "reputation" I had established. I didn't quite know what to say. And I guess he was just so excited he told the whole staff. I think it is strange for people to decide someone is great after never seeing them teach. But I chose the school over the others because he was so excited about me, it was so close, and I felt the most comfortable talking to him. Although, I am afraid for the sudden disappointment he will get after observing me "in action." He will randomly peak his head in my room to say hi while I'm teaching, but I just get so nervous when he does. Today it was even more strange because another principal that had offered me a job stopped by just to see me in person. When they both entered my classroom, I didn't know what to do with myself. I don't like feeling like an exhibition, especially when you don't feel like you are one that anyone would be interested in coming to see. It's all fine thought, but I miss my kids in DC. These kids are great kids, but I loved my kids in DC. I never loved a class that much. I loved them despite all the things they did or said, and I just miss them. These kids don't really need me. Not really. I keep telling my parents that I could just stay home and they'd be fine. I realized that I missed them even more after I was talking to Bridget and she burst out laughing after I said, "Well, what had happened was..." She said that I really had taught in DC cause I was talking like the kids. I don't think that's supposed to happen ha ha. I miss kids telling me that someone is "joning on them." I miss the random dancing outbursts of "Soulja boy" in the hallway. I miss Michael and Ronyae. I miss kids that hugged me and wouldn't let go. Oh goodness...it's okay though. This is fine for now. I am having fun, but there is just so much to do always! Always! Always! Jenny, it never ends does it? Bleh...who knew a career choice meant a life commitment. Bleh, bleh, bleh. I just have a question for you Jenny - how can you grade all those papers all the time? Yuck! I was talking to another teacher at the school and telling her how Natalie said I was a fool to go into elementary education, but I think elementary isn't the hardest. They are all hard. When I think about having to read all those essays, I realize that is definitely not something I could do. Way to read those papers Jenny! You go on and read those papers! Ha ha ha ha. That's what Autumn, my mentor teacher would always say. Ahh, Autumn. People keep asking me how it was, but I hate telling them. I don't do it justice because it's just so hard to explain all that happened everyday. I loved Amidon's song the kids would always sing. Sometimes I catch myself just singing, "Oh Amidon! We can make the world a better place, Oh thank you Amidon..." I think my favorite was the following motto they'd recite every morning: "I am somebody. I am somebody. I can do anything. I can do everything that I put my thoughts and actions towards because I am somebody." It was of course written by Mr. T, ha ha ha. Isn't that so great? So funny. I wish you could've heard how they said it. So great! But it's time to move on I guess to Utah. Not what I thought, but it will be a new adventure I suppose in its own way. I love and miss you all. Now that I am back though I am a lot closer to all the white mothers...

books and tapes and other stuff

I've recently become obsessed with audio books. Listening to them helps me feel intelligently productive during times that I would otherwise be bored and/or killing brain cells from the drudgery of daily tasks like my commute to work. I check them out from the library (which for some reason feels like a recent discovery -- I reserve all my movies, books and CDs there online and they tell me when to pick them up, so I feel like it's a slightly modified and free version of netflicks) and listen to them in the car, and - depending on the day/CD - at work. Right now I'm listening to Blink on my commute and This I Believe at work. The funny thing is I still call them "books on tape." Oh, and I think all of you should join goodreads.com so we can be friends on there and keep track of what each other are reading and what is good and what is not so good. Do it.

For Christmas, Spencer and I spent most of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my parents' house which was really nice and quiet and warm and delicious. Other than that, my "holidays" consisted of getting New Year's Day off to get my life moderately organized for 2008, seeing Juno twice, and eating way too much. I've discovered that as far as the holidays, you make do with what you've got. I had two days off for Christmas and one day off for New Year's so they felt like really nice little breaks. If I had more than that, I'd probably feel the same way. Or at least that's what I try to tell myself everyday.

Every week or so, I have something to remind me that I'm in grown up land now. Things like car payments, investments, etc. This week it's traveling for work. On Sunday I will fly to Vegas for one week before I come back for a day and then turn around to leave for San Francisco for another week. I'm not sure yet because my experience in this department is severely limited, but I'm pretty sure that traveling for work is not nearly as cool as traveling for any other purpose.

Whitney, are you in Utah? Jenny, thanks for the lovely Christmas party. :) Jo, it was so so good to see you in California. We need to do that more often. Love you all.

January = Depression

I hate January. If memory serves me correctly, Jo and I have had this conversation at least half a dozen times, but I will repeat it again: it stinks. At least in December, the holidays are just around the corner, and we can pretend that the snow and cold are in reality romantic. Icy is anything but romantic, though, when January hits. I had to stave off several crying bouts as Nigel took out the tree and sawed the poor little thing. When we took down our Christmas lights, I mourned a bit. And then my students came trudging in this morning as if they were recovering from a 10-day hangover. Drawn eyes, exhaustion lines across their faces, looks of "teach me if you dare," and several other pleasantries made my return to school charming. It didn't help that I felt like I had just overcome a 10-day hangover myself. Nigel starts school on Monday, and then it's back to normal. He's actually sick in bed right now, and I'm trying to avoid the bug. So far, so good.

I suppose I should end such an unhappy email with something exciting: Nigel found me an edited version of Amelie for Christmas. If you are ever in the area and care to watch, let me know. I haven't heard from some of the other mothers in so long, I feel slightly disconnected. Whitney, are you done with school? Jo, has the craziness of work ended? (You were the subject of a conversation recently: while discussing blogs, Kate mentioned that she was listed as a friend on yours. She found that great fun. Mom then proceeded to ask Kate how you were and what you were up to. It seems they have both forgotten that I knew you first. We were fighting over knowing you! How fun.) Sarah, where did you go for Christmas? Did you get much time off of work?

Hope you all enjoyed your holidays.