Thoughts on Teaching and Life

About midway through last week, I had started to have difficulty closing my mouth. My jaw hurt to move and it made eating difficult. I thought I pulled a muscle. Fast forward a week, and after I left work, I sat down and felt overwhelmingly dizzy and fuzzy, followed by a high grade fever and a burning sensation when I breathed. After a visit to the doctor’s, it turned out that I had such an advanced sinus infection that it went into my jaw and my ears. I pretty much had a face infection which is probably from a URI I powered through the last couple of weeks which I probably got from being sick all the way back over the summer while backpacking and never taking the time to take care of myself and trusting the advice of an Austrian doctor that seemed more impressed with my German last name than with really helping me. Seriously, what is it about Austrians/Germans being so in-awe of Americans with German ancestry that come back? I’ve experienced that several times in my travels and always at the strangest of moments.
 
I’m taking horse pills for antibiotics that are killing my stomach and caused me to cough and vomit at the same time today, nearly coating my trusting feline companion that has been within inches of me since I came home from the doctor’s yesterday. It was the weirdest sensation of my life wherein I stood and just looked at the mess in disbelief as in; did that really just happen to me?
 
I know I’m not the only one that has had a really stressful and difficult year. I’m not even complaining, because within all of it, I’ve had a lot of good too. I guess in this ridiculously long blog, I’m just realizing how important it is to take care of you and not focus on everyone else all the time. It’s a hard lesson to learn, especially as a teacher where we’re pretty much paid to do nothing but take care of everyone else and worry about every little detail. 
 
Or maybe I’m just loopy on decongestants and antibiotics. Kudos if you actually read this mini novel.

The Day That Was

Ever had one of those? I had the one to end all of them today. There was a bomb scare in town today. It was scary. It was close to where I work. It was like my worst fears coming true and after the week we all had with Boston and really the year, including Sandy Hook, it's an absolutely terrifying world sometimes. I don't want to get up one morning and die at my job, I think that's become one of my bigger fears after the year that we have all lived through. It's been a lot.

So there was that.

And then as I get to lunch, I just want to sit on my phone and eat my food. I don't want to talk to anyone. I'm tired, I'm grumpy and really, what a morning that was. But, people love to talk to me. Broken people gravitate to me like I am the mothership of all that is broken and lost in the world. It can be human and it is even animals too.

I once had a guy that I dated tell me that it is because it is very calm and peaceful to be around me. Being around me is comforting. I guess, I mean that guy turned out to be a total looney tune so I guess he would be able to tell me why I am the epicenter of the lost, the broken, the crazy, the damaged and even those that are just different.

Today wasn't anything new. I'm sitting at lunch and sure enough this elderly woman moves to sit across from me. Within a minute, not even, we go from talking about life abroad to how she moved with her husband to Sweden and for 27 years loved him, raised his children and lived there with him, teaching. That is until one day he decided that he didn't love her...after 27 years...and goes off with the woman he decides he does love. And she's just too broken to watch him be with her so she leaves. She leaves the life she built, her children and even her grandchildren and comes home to substitute teach because no on wants to hire her here because she's too old and has too much experience that no one wants to pay for.

She made me glad that I have pretty much decided that I am just one of those people that don't have someone out there in the world. I'm one of those alone people and that's both relieving and even enlightening when I hear stuff like this. Craziness.

And as if that wasn't enough, there was a kid in my class today that is somewhere on the autism spectrum. I felt probably Aspergers. We were BFFing over the past couple of days and he would always ask me for help so I would help him.

Today he realizes that it's take your child to work day tomorrow and thus this conversation follows:

Child: "Tomorrow is take your child to work day and if you're still our teacher then that means you'll bring your kid! And we can meet them!"
Me: "Oh. It is isn't it? Well that's sweet, but I don't have any children."
Child: "Well, I hope that time comes for you soon."

Ma, have you been talking to my students?

Creating Beauty

I guess when things fall apart you sort of get two options - let it destroy you or take it as a means to start something new. Since it all changed, I've been focusing on the starting something new. I've been working on and finishing most of the projects I have started and had yet to start since I now seem to have all of this free time on my hands.

This weekend was really laid back compared to my non-stop weekend last week. I read about half of Lisa Genova's Left Neglected for my book club and I started to knit a Ravenclaw scarf that I have wanted to make since forever, but never really got around to making. Next fall, hopefully when I have my English teaching job, I will totally be rocking my Harry Potter scarf to class.

I had also bought a new bed several months ago, but it's black and the furniture I inherited from my great aunt is not. And so I started messing with some of it, like the rocking chair that got ruined over the years and an old chair that I think I actually got from a garage sale:

The rocking chair was harder. I added the decal you see on the top which meant that I also had to gloss part of the chair and make it match the rest of the chair. It looks great though, I even antiqued it a little bit.

I spent yesterday gardening. I planted over 50 lilies in the front garden. They are my absolute favorite and I tried to include every kind that they had at the garden center. It's going to be beautiful when they bloom. I also added wild flowers in between them. It's going to be a sight!

Today I tried to re-teach myself self portraiture. I was never very good at it and since I haven't really kept up with drawing, I think it's going to take a lot of practice to get it right:

And then I watched endless amounts of LOST. About half way through my marathon I decided that if I was a character that I would be John Locke because he's the realist who always tries to see why people do and say what they do. He also always seems to pick the wrong person to love, with any kind of love, not just romantic usually because he always tries to see the good in people. It sort of sets him up for failure and to get burned...story of my life. 

Then, just like that the weekend is over and I'm back to work tomorrow, doing both jobs. I just have to keep believing that this upcoming year is going to be MY YEAR in every sense of the word....

I love LOST for all of the different side stories and how they all come together, even before the crash. And I absolutely love the love story of Bernard and Rose:

Life changes while you're busy making other plans...

Things happen to you in life and sometimes those things are absolutely amazing and sometimes they are the most rotten, horrible things that come your way. It can be hard, but if you're lucky you're strong enough to get through those bad things and if you're really, really lucky? Then you have friends and family that love you and are there for you when you need them.

And eventually, you overcome that bad thing that happened and you arrive on the other side of it. It's unexpected and you are shocked when you do, but you get there and it's good.

I arrived on the other side probably sometime this weekend. My friend Laura had randomly texted me Friday afternoon if I was interested in seeing Rocky Horror and if I'd want to get dinner at Old Bay in New Brunswick.

Heck yes!

Old Bay was just like I remembered it: dark, overpriced and eh, but the company was good and we laughed about old 80's commercials and TV shows over dinner. I had a drink which was called swamp water. It tasted like lime, but it was so green that it reminded me of that ecto-cooler HI-C juice boxes that we used to have growing up:

And then we headed over to The Den to catch some Rocky Horror! I didn't know much about it, had never saw it and all I did know about it was that Tim Curry played the lead in the movie version. Apparently, if you are attending your very first show, you get marked with lipstick - "V for Virgin" and they find some way to embarrass you during the show.

I got V'd and then I was embarrassed and the show was great. Midway through I realized that someone I was once good friends with was there, but because of differences of opinions we hadn't spoken for many months. Rocky Horror though fixed a friendship and thus, all was forgiven. Funny how life simple does that for you eventually.

Saturday brought book club where we got lunch at the Loving Hut in Matawan. I was a bit leery of an all vegan place, but it was really good! I got vegan won-ton soup and it was amazing. The won-tons were stuffed with mushrooms:

At book club we discussed that awful Julie Klausner book. We were all in agreement that after the introduction, it just went down hill fast and by the end of it you just wound up hating her for being dumb and gross for 100-something pages.

Afterbook club and vegans goodies, came my friend Keriann's last night out. She's moving to Colorado for work and for love, so it's not terrible, but I'm going to miss her. We grew up together and had only recently rekindled a friendship. I wish we had more time before she leaves, but she has an adventure to get to, so safe travels and good luck to her! Copious amounts of pictures were taken and there was much fist-pumping to be had:

Sunday should have brought more New Brunswick and a fundraiser, but I was so exhausted from the night before that I opted to stay home. At nearly 27 years old, my body declared that it is too old to be out until 2am after being out until 1am the night before. I was absolutely beat and wound up napping midday. I did finish the softest baby blanket in the world for a non-existent baby though. The yarn had been on sale and it was just so soft that I had to buy it and thus make it:

And! If all of this wasn't enough. I was notified today that I was officially registered and enrolled in a graduate writing program that I had literally applied to on a whim several months ago. I never thought I'd actually get it, but thank you, Miss Burton's Class because it is you that I submitted and it is you that they liked enough to admit me.

I start June 17th.

I'm amazed with how much my life has fallen apart, changed and slowly has begun to come back together.