I Got My Hair Cut...Wanna See?

{March 15, 2012}



















{The next day}

















{Gotta Love Bathroom Shots}











{My original goal was to get a haircut that was low maintenance. If I didn't care about looking like a girl, this WOULD be low maintenance. I've started making time to curl it every day.}

My Process:

• Night before, shower
• Spritz my hair with a concoction I discovered here at a fellow blogger's blog.
• Spend 15 minutes the next day curling it, spritz one last time and I have curls all day which is impossibly incredible given how unyielding it was in junior high and high school

{Because of the recent heatwave, sometimes the bangs need to be pinned back. Glad I can still do that!}

I'm pleased overall, though because my face is kind of androgynous (I make a really cute boy by the way, I've been told so by someone who saw a picture of me and thought I was a boy) I have to put forth the extra effort everywhere else to make sure there isn't any question as to my sex.

Just Checking In...

Seeing how you're all doing...you know...catching up...making sure everything's...cool.

I'm in a blogging rut as is evidenced by my digital disappearance. I've been over at Twitter, being another mindless, tweeting drone like the rest of humanity. I do enjoy it as an art form, being able to make my thought super-precise or run the risk of never getting it out there. Did you know that the Library of Congress is logging tweets into America's history? Like...every tweet by anyone ever. It's true. Don't believe me? I wouldn't either. But it is true.

Unit and lesson planning has consumed my life, as it should. I begin teaching 3/4 of my classes on the 23rd and then I incorporate world lit on the 30th. I'm excited and rearing to go. A bit apprehensive of what happens after all of this. Looking for teaching positions within a 100 mile radius and so far I have come up with 2 for now. Maybe in the summer things will open up.

I'll be really sad if I feel the need to get rid of yet another blog. Holy Matrimony! has suffered a hiatus as well, since I'm married and our lives have pretty much gone back to normal. Maybe I could post a couple of date-night stories when we have them.

Now I'm just speculating as I type, which is a good sign that the blog post is over.

Part Of My Problem

This is an older story, but it's still applicable:

Me [on the phone with a friend who is coming in from the other side of the country to be at our wedding]: Well I have rehearsal until around 4:00 and the bus doesn't come until 4:45 sooo...if you wanted to pick me up...

Friend: Sure, we can make that happen.
[conversation ends. I'm in the car with Jay, by the way]

Jay [feigning hurt]: I could have picked you up.

Me: Did you want to? I can tell him he doesn't need to. I can do it right now.

Jay [continuing to feign hurt, really obviously]: Oh no! No don't worry about it! It's fine. I guess you just don't want to see me! [or something to that effect]

Me:...you know...sometimes when you are pretending to be mad, I think you really are mad and you're just pretending to pretend to be mad.

Jay:..........what?

Me: [repeats phrase...several times]

Jay:....You THINK too much!

And I do. That's part of my problem. I operate on that level of social scrutiny (paranoia maybe?) 24/7. It's exhausting and I would just LOVE to stop...but it's harder than it sounds.

How To Terrify Your Roommates

Yesterday I rode a city bus for the first time in my life. I've ridden buses before, don't mistake me. When I was in middle, junior and high school, a bus came to my house every day to pick me up. But the city bus system is much more daunting. There's much more planning involved, and map reading, and time-table-figure-outing. I'm not a cartographer! How could I possible figure all of that out? Well, it took some help. My roommate offered to ride a bus with me from school to home to show me how it's done. She spared $2.00 to help me out and I really really appreciated that.

However. I was anxious about my first bus ride. Waiting for it kind of sucked and there was a Red B bus that came before the Red B bus that I needed to be on and it caused me all kinds of inner turmoil: What happens if I get on the wrong bus? What if I miss the last bus of the day? What if...what if...what if...?

I also never know how much something I am going to say will offend someone and that's thanks to the lack of filter from my brain to my mouth. My mind moves much faster than whatever conversation is happening at the time and often I can't communicate what's going on in my head at the same speed in the conversation.

For instance, Nicole was explaining to me that the seats at the front of the bus are reserved for handicapped and the elderly, so I should give up my seat if one of them comes on. The first thing that went through my mind was, of course, the Rosa Parks incident that was drilled into my 99.9% white school every February. She refused to give up her seat to stand for a white man, etc...Civil Rights...etc...we all know the story. It was unfair and horrible the way African Americans were treated before they were finally given their civil rights and I remember as a kid I couldn't believe human beings could be so cruel to one another.

Except the conversation broke down like this:

Nicole: Not everyone does this, but make sure that if you're sitting at the front of the bus you give up your seat for someone in a wheelchair or an elderly person.

Me: What am I, a Black person?

...


Now, I know. Open mouth, insert foot. But I just wasn't able to tell myself to shut up before it fell out. I realized as soon as I said it that I very much should not have. So I tried to lessen the blow by looking at Zach and saying, "That was my Rosa Parks joke. Did you get it?" laughing the whole time. Zach stayed rigid and just didn't quite look at me.

As we departed the bus and walked to our building, he gave me a bit of advice, "For future reference, no Black jokes on the bus."

Noted.

P.S. I am not racist. Just underexposed and sheltered. Also, my first bus trip was a success and so was my second on my own. ^_^

Envy

Being a teacher is fun. It really is! Granted, I haven't fully assumed the role of teacher in the traditional sense (I am not the one providing the majority of the content in my classes) but students ask me if they can go to the bathroom...so that has to mean SOMEthing.

However, I will say that I miss being a student. I miss going to class in sweats and a t-shirt. I miss getting to relax my face and not emote when I'm learning whatever it is that I am learning. Going to my ISU classes are kind of a nice break from feigning enthusiasm during some moments at the high school. It's a lot harder to feign enthusiasm when I am not speaking (I do speak some of the time, but I am not given a ton of opportunity to do so yet). It's a lot like when I'm working at Flarget or, indeed, anytime I am just IN Flarget. I feel obligated to smile at least a little bit all the time, so it's ready whenever a guest approaches me. That's just part of my job. Here, though, more hangs in the balance than where a particular sweater is.


((There are so many comic/blog hybrids out there that I read and I know you do too. I have an HP tablet through the school where I'm interning and I thought I'd try it out. Sadly, not even technology can make me a better artist.))


On the other side of the same coin, being a student in a classroom is AGONIZING after being a teacher in a classroom. Even the spatial difference is significant: Up, walking around, speaking loudly versus sitting in a desk-chair (that really is too small for people my height) listening to someone else speak, constantly thinking to msyelf how I would teach what I'm supposed to be learning. I want to be just as active as the teacher but then (even in college) I would be the teacher's pet, and you don't want that label, no matter how removed from middle school you are.

Hermaphrodites

Sometimes, when we're young, we are introduced to words that we are unfamiliar with and someone clarifies them in a memorable way.

When I was younger, my parents watched X-Files. A lot of X-Files. The theme song was essentially my lullaby. One episode that I walked in on late one night had a terrifying worm-person in it. From what I remember (I could look this up but it's more fun this way), the worm-person couldn't reproduce sexually but rather by multiplying itself.

Having just learned what sex was...more or less...I deduced that this worm-person wouldn't be able to make little worm-children and that would be unfortunate for it. So I stepped in to help this worm-person have sex the only way I knew that sex worked, "Well, is it a boy or a girl?" My dad replied, "It's both. It's a hermaphrodite."

And then the camera panned into a sewer drain and we suddenly saw the elusive creature and I was granted an image that will forever be stuck in my head when I think of the word "hermaphrodite":
















Thanks dad.

I Learn Therefore I Teach

Today was my first Friday of my first week of my internship.

I am having a blast! Like most 20-somethings, I was not a fan of high school when I was IN high school. Now that I've come out the other side (and almost am on the other side of college), it's my favorite place to be in the whole world. The environment for learning is so RICH at this school and my opportunities for becoming a better teacher present themselves every hours. I don't want to say too much about it here because I feel that would need to be in a different blog altogether, one about student teaching and nothing else, but I just wanted to communicate that I am feeling like I am in the right place more than I ever have.

Things that I've learned so far:

- In my 9:00 class, I am exhausted. Drink coffee BEFOREhand. It's free in the office, go for it.

- Dressing like a teacher is so much fun, and cheap at GoodWill (I'll have to post a photo of one of my outfits. I'm pretty proud of them to be honest since apparently I "have no fashion sense" according to my sister). Last year I was able to go my entire time at the high school for a curriculum and instruction class without wearing the same outfit twice.

-Learn which students you can be sarcastic with BEFORE you are sarcastic with them.

- Always look at browser tabs when you are helping a student on their netbook. They StumbleUpon.

- Comfortable shoes are super important

- Include students in ALL lectures and discussions. Ask questions or have them repeat instructions to ensure they aren't zoning and also that they are learning.

- When doing group instruction through the netbooks, make sure everyone is in the same place before moving on.

This school is really unique because it implemented a netbook initiative where each student receives a netbook upon entrance to the school and they are used very heavily in every course. It's really sweet and awesome most of the time, but the rest of the time they're just a pain in the ass. Instant distraction plus technological failures make it difficult to teach with them, which is why I came up with a classroom management solution for them when I teach:

- "Hand check!"