Its The End of the Blog As We Know It

Funny how this blog has overlapped so nicely with my long and arduous trek through the world of potential home ownership.  On day 7, I found out that my offer on a house had been accepted.  Today, the sellers had to respond to my post-inspection proposals by 7pm.

Somehow the first 72 hours of the wait didn't bother me too much.  I think the stress inducer was that in the seller's request for an extra 24 hours, they gave a firm deadline of 7pm.  I can handle an ambiguous "evening" response, but an exact time?  By 6:45, my heart was pounding, and I was checking my phone and email every 30 seconds.  Will they accept my conditions?  Will they deny me and force me to continue renting forever and ever?

By 8:30, it was too much, and I texted my realtor to find out when we'd know their response.  She called me back as soon as she got to a computer and shared the news.  They almost met my price reduction.  They were vague about a couple of things.  They didn't respond about another.  So my realtor emailed them back with questions, and we're waiting.  Again.

Almost as if to welcome me into the uncertainty that is home ownership, my bedroom ceiling fell in tonight.  Okay, that might be an exaggeration.  Two ceiling tiles fell, and there are two still hanging tenuously.  But it was quite a surprise to come home and find a stream of water pouring onto my dresser and onto the floor.  I called the landlady, and she called the AC guy.  He'll be out to fix it tomorrow; the AC is off until then.

More waiting.

So, on my last day of blog writing, I find myself in a comical situation.  Waiting on information on top of my covers and under the fan.  Covered in slow-drying natural tanning lotion in anticipation of Friday.  Wondering if I'll get any sleep tonight between the temperature, the likely collapse of two more ceiling tiles, and the looming housing decision I have to make in the next 72 hours.

I could use some prayers.


...
I'll be honest, I'm not exactly sure how to end this blog.  I loved writing it.  I loved the messages and emails and comments people sent me periodically (especially when a staff member referenced a blog entry in response to one of my emails: "I know, I read your post last night").  Of course, I am also super looking forward to coming home tomorrow night and having two more free hours to my name.  That's gonna be awesome.

Thanks in particular to Denise for starting this whole challenge thing.  To Becky for being a devoted reader and commenter.  To Mick and Svetlana for "liking" everything on Facebook (and thanks, Mick, for constantly reminding me how much you liked it).  To others who also commented, thank you: Virginie, Lisa, Sue, Tommy, etc.  I have appreciated the support and the motivation to continue on.

I'll try to post sometime in the future with updates, especially on the housing ordeal, but I doubt it'll come at any regular interval.  As much as I love to write, I'm pretty sure I love to get 8+ hours of sleep more.

Thanks again!

Florida (and under-the-blanket-sleeping), I'm coming for you!

The Calm Before the Storm

I actually feel like I'm on top of things at work.

Unfortunately, whenever I feel like I'm on top of things, it usually means that I've miscalculated my to-do list and will therefore soon be at school until way past normal (and/or way before normal) in order to get myself back to Only-A-Little-Behind.  This happens a lot around major grading-related milestones...progress reports and quarterlies being the two biggies.  I've always considered myself a good time manager, but in teaching, there's no such thing as good time management.  There's just bad time management and better time management.

The good news about being overwhelmed by the amount of grading, planning, and copying that needs to happen before Friday's trip to Florida is that I have something to distract me.  And distractions I need as I wait for a response from the sellers of My Maybe Possibly Future House.

I am the lady in the waiting.  Over the last few weeks, I have waited to see the house, waited for a response to my offer, waited for information from inspections, waited for information from more inspections, waited for estimates, and now I am waiting to see if the sellers will accept the price reduction and contract changes we proposed Friday.

I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job of being calm and patient about it.  Tommy, the organist at my church, keeps reminding me not to get too attached just yet.  Anything can happen.  And he's right, and knowing how I felt when the last house fell through, I really don't want to get attached and then be heartbroken.  I hadn't put a dime into that house, and I sobbed for a good twenty minutes after I got the phone call.  I'm already at least $2000 deep in this one.  Just thinking about the money I'll lose if this falls through makes me want to cry.

It reminds me a little of that story that I told about the toenail removal a couple of days ago.  I really, really thought I had my nerves under control when that doctor was jabbing my toe with the long, painful needle.  It wasn't until I turned and looked at the last minute that the anxiety (and unconsciousness) rushed over me.

I hope that doesn't happen with this house.  I hope that my patience doesn't turn into sad disappointment or overwhelming stress.  Oh how I hope it won't!  It would be great if tomorrow evening they accept my proposed changes without a second thought, and from there, I walk a smooth path to home ownership.  But the fact of the matter is, there is no guarantee.

So until I sign on the dotted line and hand over a check on Halloween, I'll just have to continue wishing and hoping and waiting.  The stress of quarterlies and sub plans will have to occupy my thoughts like sugarplum fairies at Christmas, and my trip to Florida this weekend will have to block out thoughts of anything but volleyball, tall hot guys, and my really terrible tan lines.

I look like the Tennis lady, but less tan and fit.  Who wouldn't be crazy about that?

Always Be the Shittiest House On the Block

Every Saturday, I play in a quads volleyball tournament on a grassy space not far from my house, and for the last year and a half since I started, I have been relegated to the lowest-level net almost every single week.

In the beginning, I understood.  I was a pretty terrible player.  I couldn't serve over the net most of the time.  I wouldn't spike because I didn't know how to put force behind my hit.  I would regularly shank the ball into the not-that-nearby street.  I just didn't set.  I get it, I sucked.

This week marks 11 weeks that I've been working out with a coach.  For those of you who aren't pregnant and, like me, cannot really comprehend large amounts of time given in weeks, that means that I started in mid-July, so it's been about two and a half months.  And I've noticed a drastic difference in my playing in that span of time.  My setting still needs a lot of work--I mean, everything does--but my passing and hitting has been much improved, especially in the last month or so.

Yesterday, it was "Pick Your Partner" day, and my friend and I ended up on an awesome net full of players who not only play well, but who also have a vast amount of knowledge to share.  Since most of the pairs that my partner and I played with were guys (and hard hitters), I ended up playing setter or defense for all four games.  On a lower net, I'd be kind of pissed that they stuck me there--because women can hit, dammit!--but on this net, I was well aware that I was the weakest hitter.  So I took it as an opportunity to practice playing defense and work on my passing and digging.

And I was awesome at it.

Sure, I didn't get everything--I'm still learning--but I passed with great control most of the time.  And that means something on an upper net.  Good passes are so much more valuable because you can count on a great set and hit to follow.  That's the thing about playing with people who can hit and block and move.  Who are always in the right place.  It makes your job as the defense that much more important...and that much more satisfying.

My setting wasn't the best.  But I got to practice with people who wanted me to hand set, who would call my bad hand sets without judgment of me as a player, and who gave me a ton of advice.  It was like I was being coached by nine other people for an hour and a half.

And they were awesome at it.

At the end of the tournament, my partner and I ended up in last place.  We lost three games and tied one.  But I had so much fun playing that it didn't even matter.

Our volleyball group is full of different levels of players.  Some just started, and some used to be pro.  And what I've learned is that my best option on the path to great play is to surround myself as often as I can with players who know more than me.  It's how I learned to speak French as well as I did.  It's why I chose to pay boatloads of money to go to UVA over getting a scholarship at a small school in Georgia.  As a teacher, I spend most of my day with (small) people who know less than I do about pretty much everything (except maybe Minecraft and One Direction), and while I find myself personally satisfied with the relationships I form, I also find myself intellectually stunted by the actual information I teach.  Because you never want to be the smartest kid in the class.  You never want to be nicest house on the block.

Volleyball has given me an opportunity to learn and grow in a way that my job can't, and I love it.  I love getting better at things.  I love sucking at something and then becoming great at it.  For me, it's a rush, like falling in love or cliff-diving.  I love the fact, too, that volleyball gives my height and arm span a place and purpose.  Being tall means being out of place most of time, being a "giant" among men, but in volleyball, it's a huge advantage.  It's a gift.

I know that I can't always be the learner.  Sometimes, like the people I played with yesterday, I'll have to take a step back and share my knowledge.  But for now, I'm just going to revel in the opportunity to grow.

I'll Pass

As promised, I watched another movie last night, placing the DVD for Thin Ice into my blu-ray player and taking a spot on the couch immediately after finishing yesterday's blog post.  The movie was supposed to be "wicked entertaining," and I was looking forward to being entertained.

Thirty minutes in, they kill someone by hitting him repeatedly in the head with a hammer and then chop him up into pieces before shoving him down an ice fishing hole in a frozen lake.  I had to stop.

It made me sick to my stomach.  The resulting anxiety raised my blood pressure astronomically.  It made me grapple with whether or not I wanted this normally awful human being to get away with something even more terrible, just because he wasn't as bad as the other guy.  Well, the latter might actually be an edifying internal conversation, but it was a Friday night.  I just wanted something entertaining, as promised, not to weigh moral quandaries as I bit my fingernails.

My reaction to the murder scene is not surprising to me.  I had the exact same experience a few years ago when my older brother suggested that I watch the television show Dexter.  For those that don't know, it's about a serial killer that kills serial killers.  I never made it past the first episode.  I couldn't overcome the gruesome bodily harm happening to the people in the show, not even if they were the most terrible, horrible people that ever existed.

One time in college, my boyfriend and I went to the downtown mall in Charlottesville to watch The Last King of Scotland there in their small theater.  The end of the movie is pretty gory, and I think my boyfriend may have lost feeling in his hand from the vice grip I had on him.

Even the Hunger Games movie made me nauseous.


I just don't like violence.


Part of it, too, is that I have no stomach for seeing internal body parts/fluids.  Last year, I watched one of those doctor shows on Netflix.  In this one, most of the characters in the show were surgeons.  I liked it, except that every time the surgeons cut into a body and blood appeared, I had to turn away.

Blood in real life is no different.  Worse, perhaps.  Earlier this year, I got a toenail removed.  The doctor showed me a long needle (yikes), and reminded me that it would sting.  Trying to be a mature adult, I turned my head while he injected the anesthetic and took deep breaths.  I reminded myself that it was a routine procedure, no big deal.  But as soon as I they finished, and I turned back to look at the constellation of red on my toe where the doctor had repeatedly stuck said needle, I started feeling dizzy and nauseous and just really bad.  Seconds (minutes?) later, I woke up disoriented and pale with doctors swarming around me.  "I don't think you should consider medicine as a career choice," a nurse joked.  I don't think I'm ever getting a toenail removed again, if i don't have to, I thought.

So, after the ice fishing hole scene in Thin Ice, I'd seen enough to know I wasn't going to like this movie any better by finishing it.  I pressed "stop."  I told the blu-ray to "eject."  I connected my TV to Netflix and watched a sitcom about a guy in his twenties who unexpectedly ends up with a baby on his doorstep (because we don't have enough movie/tv shows with that storyline).  The acting's pretty terrible.  The characters are ridiculous and the opposite of nuanced.  And it was exactly what I was looking for on a Friday night.  I may have lost some brain cells, but at least I kept my dinner down.

What Do Harry Potter and Hallmark Have in Common?

Yesterday, I finally watched a movie.  I said "screw you" to the world, to my obligations, and to sleep (in other words, "screw you" to myself), and I sat in front of a Hallmark Channel movie called 12 Men of Christmas for an hour and a half.

I'm pretty sure I've written about this before, though maybe not on this blog, but I love the Hallmark Channel.  In fact, if I could only pick two channels to watch all day long, they would be the Hallmark Channel and ESPN.  Now that I no longer have cable, I've been going through withdrawal from both.  Because somehow I am both an incredibly stereotypical and also incredibly atypical female.  I believe in high school I learned that this was called an oxymoron.  Or was it a paradox?  Whichever it is, I am the poster girl for an SAT word with at least one r and x in it.

I am well aware that these are terrible movies.  They are horribly predictable.  Give me anything from the Hallmark Channel, and I can tell you the romantic storyline within five minutes of watching.  Better yet, I don't need to watch it at all.  Girl and boy don't get along.  Something happens.  Girl and boy can't resist each other anymore.  This one was no different.  I'm almost positive that it was supposed to be a spin-off of Pride and Prejudice.  There's even a part where he shows up randomly to announce that he's in love with her and that it sickens him, and there's also a skeevy guy that she almost falls for who ran off with his best friend.  Then things work out and they live happily ever after.  Like Bridget Jones' Diary, but with significantly worse acting and visual effects.

I really hope you weren't planning on watching this movie.  So many spoilers.

When it comes to poorly-written and -produced romantic movies--girls, back me up--we don't watch because we want to be surprised.  We watch because falling in love is already a shaky, uncertain, and sometimes elusive path in real life, and when we watch a movie, we want to know from the opening shot that the woman will end up happy.  Yes, this probably ruins real love for us and makes us idealize relationships too much, but it's a nice departure from reality.  Maybe I shouldn't speak for the rest of womankind.  I like the predictable storyline.  I need to escape from reality sometimes.

Beyond the comforting repetition of a common plot line, I also like the view.  Romantic movies are always full of unrealistically attractive men.  Take last night's movie, for example.  The main character moves to a small town in Montana that has less than 20,000 residents, and almost every man she meets looks like a model.  There was a scene with the Search and Rescue Squad with more attractive single men in it than I've seen in real life in the last month.  Even the guy who was supposed to be geeky and plain was more attractive than most real men.  In the same vein, all the other women were pretty plain.  My roommate and I both agreed that we might have to consider moving to Montana.

Tonight, I'm watching another movie.  Something called "Thin Ice." It's got a few Academy Award winners, and was shown at Sundance.  It'll probably be good.  But romantic movies are like drugs and Pringles.  Once you start, you just can't stop.

Turns out it's a Lifetime Channel movie.  Same diff.

When It Rains, It Pours

1. My inspection period ends tomorrow.  That means that I have 24 hours to gather all remaining information and make a carefully crafted and financially-considerate choice about what conditions to add to the terms of the contract.  In other words, I have to negotiate with no real knowledge of how to do so in a real estate context (or any?).  This is like when I studied abroad in Morocco and was regularly gouged in the markets.  I'm just not good at it.

2. Quarterlies are next week.  That means that I need to finish writing the quarterlies, create an answer sheet, copy them (for a total of more than 1500 pages), AND finish grading all the other stuff that I haven't graded yet from the quarter (200 or so projects).  All of this on top of regular teaching duties.  Sometimes I wish some random distant relative would leave me all of their money so I could teach for the fun of it, without all the lame parts.  Of course, with my luck, that relative would have like seven dollars in the bank.

3. My internet has been acting up at school.  I would have finished the quarterlies this afternoon, except that the internet went out sometime between 2:00 and 4:30pm.  FOR THE SECOND DAY IN A ROW.  Are you thinking I should try an ethernet cord?  Well, I've had one plugged in for the last six years.  Apparently the ethernet ports in my room don't work.  So my students and I are at the mercy of the ever-variable wireless networks in the school. Awesome.

4. This blog isn't over yet.  I have loved writing these posts, but they take hours to compose.  And I just really, really want to spend one evening--just one evening--splayed out on the couch and watching a movie.  With that in mind, I borrowed two from the library last weekend and made a mental commitment to watch one before Saturday.  There has not been a single open, two-hour period in my week.

5.  I just got a new provider and a new phone.  This may seem like a super exciting thing, and learning Android is pretty fun, but what it mostly means is that I spent 2-3 hours yesterday trying to figure out how it works and how to transfer all of the information from my old iPhone.  I'm still working on that.

6. I just remembered that I still need to register for an online account for my new cell plan.  #onemorething

7. I'm going out of town next weekend for a volleyball tournament in Florida.  This is simultaneously AMAZING and worry-inducing, considering my experience there in April and the fact that it falls on the last two days of the quarter, respectively.  But the end of the quarter is just going to have to suck it because NOTHING is going to get in the way of my having a good time on this trip.  With all that's been going on lately, I feel like I deserve it.

Of course, it better not rain.

Lazy River?  Yes, please.

The Student No One Wanted

This is not the story of a group of unwanted children that magically transformed under my tutelage and became thoughtful and independent citizens of the world.  It is not that story because that story is fiction at its finest.  However, this is a virtual nod to a group of children who almost made me cry in the classroom once and did made me question teaching as a profession.

Today was extended planning.  For those of you who don't teach at my school, that means that the administration pulls you out to work on important things that make your day incredibly exhausting.  Exhausting mostly because the one rejuvenating thing about teaching is working with kids.  During extending planning, there are no kids.  And adults' reactions to my jokes are significantly less satisfying.

Setting: Yesterday afternoon in the classroom
Me: This picture shows Stapholococcus.  Anybody ever heard of a Staph infection?
Student 1: Oh!  My mom had that in her elbow once!
Me: Right. This guy (points to staph picture) is a bacteria.  He's not a fun guy.
(pause)
[Students 1-10 groan.]
[Students 10-15 laugh.]
Students 15-20: Wait, what's the joke?  I don't get it.
Student 10: Fun-gi?
[Students 20-26 ignore me completely.]

This afternoon, a colleague and I worked on updating our fifth grade science quarterly, and when 3:30 came around, I made my way upstairs to get more work done.  By this point, I was mentally exhausted.  I'd hit a wall.  But I knew that cell quizzes needed to be graded and sent home tomorrow, and that I should really send home quarterly study guides at the same time.  Once I got upstairs, I just didn't have the energy.  I desperately needed a pick-me-up.  I was trying to do something productive, though, when two teenage boys walked into my room.

At first, I was confused.  Were they looking for another class to help with tutoring?  Then I realized that one of them was my in my homeroom four years ago.  The year that almost did me in.

It was a class of misfits.  They'd given me trouble in fourth grade, but I'd hoped that they would mature over the summer and turn out to be the best fifth grade class ever (because when you're a new teacher and don't know how to deal with significant behavioral problems, wishful thinking and avoidance are your defaults).  Well, they didn't, and that year was one of power struggles, bad attitudes, and frequent conversations with the social worker and disciplinarian.

I had a kid who was constantly angry or disrespectful.  A kid whose ADD fueled a series of poor decisions (oh wait, there was more than one of those).  Kids who couldn't stop talking.  Kids who refused to work seriously.  And the cherry on top: a student whose mother was dying of liver disease, who had emotional issues, and who got suspended for cursing out his reading teacher by email that spring...one of a host of detentions and suspensions, if I remember correctly.

This trainwreck of a kid was one of the two teenage boys that came through my door this afternoon.  He hasn't come to see me much, but every time he does, it reminds me of how much of an impact a teacher's support can have on a kid.  Our relationship was never perfect--he certainly acted up in my class his fair share of times--but somehow, I ended up being the only teacher in the lower school that he ever really trusted or worked for.  In sixth grade, he came back to visit, and the social worker pulled me off my after school duty to walk around campus with him and talk.  Every year or so, he comes to visit me after school, and I hear about all of the mess that he's got himself into.  I don't know why he tells me these things but I guess it's because I listen.  I wouldn't say that I listen without judgment.  In fact, I fussed at him today for a few things he told me.  But I guess he shares because he knows that no matter what he tells me, I'll still like him.  I'll still smile when he walks through my door.  I'll still abandon whatever I'm doing to sit down with him for half an hour and catch up.

I recognize that this story reflects well on me.  I know that there's a good chance that the thirty minutes he sat with me today are the first time in a while that a teacher had a pleasant conversation with him, and I bet that validated him in a way that he really needed.  I'm proud that I could be there for him.  But most of all, I really needed that conversation today.  I was tired and overwhelmed, and he sat and talked to me for thirty minutes.  Thirty minutes that he could have been getting into trouble, watching TV, or texting his friends.  Thirty minutes that I would have otherwise spent lamenting the grades on the most recent cell quiz and wondering where I'd failed my students.

The cell quizzes never did get graded.  I'll probably have to go into work half an hour early to get them done in time.  But as much as I hate getting up early, it'll be worth it, knowing that I ended my day well today.