One equal temper of heroic hearts

There's a stack of boxed wall clocks in the break room at work. The boxes are of a certain dimension that, for half a second, I mistake them for donut boxes. When I remember what they actually are, I become very sad. This happens at least three times a week.

...It's good to be back in the saddle again.

I spent part of today trading e-mails with a guy I'm pretty sure I've been secretly in love with since we met at a party my first week of college. He's invited me to spend Labor Day weekend with him at his family's lake cottage and I'm trying to be all nonchalant, like, "Oh yeah, I get invited to lake houses by hot guys all the time; where's my regatta scarf?" when, on the inside I'm really all, "206 is the magic number, baby, because that's how many bones you have and that's how many I'm planning to jump."

My parents and I drove up to Valpo last weekend to move my stuff out of Todd's apartment. He was decent enough to break down most of the furniture and move it into the living room, but I still had a ton of books and brik-a-brak to box up. We filled a whole UHaul trailer with my half of the apartment. I'm not going to lie: it felt good to get my stuff out of there. Todd and I are on good terms and can carry on a civil conversation, but I think this last weekend made the break-up, well, real. I still felt like I had a link to my old life with all of my furniture and books in another place. Todd wasn't there, which was okay. He got a chance to go home to Fort Wayne to see friends and family and he took it, so my parents and I could come and go from the apartment as we pleased. It took about an hour and a half. The only time that I really got somewhat nostalgic was when I went through all of the LPs we'd bought together; I was sad to leave "Beggar's Banquet" and "The Stranger," but Todd had bought those on his own and it wasn't right for me to take them. I don't have a turntable to play them on anyway. I was able to move some small things back to my apartment: pictures, some glassware, other small items. I really feel like I'm making this apartment -- this town -- my new home. I finally got a gym membership (and am currently sweating it twice a week in Zumba classes) and found a classic rock station that comes in clear on my stereo. I'm happy in my job, happy with the friendships I'm making, and happy with the new creative opportunity in my novel project. Money's tight and I'll be happy when I will be able to stop paying rent-and-a-half for two apartments, but I'm nowhere near starving or deprived. I'm just learning how to manage my money and my time more effectively.

I'm not in any hurry to date again. I like the freedom that being single provides, and I have always been happy in my own company. I'm open to whatever comes next, but I also think that this time is an excellent opportunity for me to find out who I am and what I want in a partner. And there's no rush to figure out either of those things.

I think another_myself and I are going to watch an episode of Doctor Who together tonight. I can't wait until the second half of the series; it's in, like, two weeks, right? I NEED MY DOCTOR. I AM MARTHA JONESIN'.

ALSO. awesomesquared, I AM LOOKING AT YOU AND YOU KNOW WHY.

I started watching Luther this week and, honestly, I can't watch any episodes after it gets dark outside because I am legitimately worried that it will give me nightmares. There is at least one moment in every episode (of the three I've seen so far) where I throw my hands up in front of my eyes because what's happening on screen is freak-out-level disturbing. Of course, the writing is amazing (would have to be, for this kind of show to fly) and I'm quickly becoming a fan of Idris Elba because, my god, that man can act. And you don't even notice that he's acting while he's doing it; his reactions are so natural and so well-timed that, even from the first scene in the first episode, you're in his head. And that can be a very scary place to be.

INTERLINK graduation is this morning. I can't believe we've come to the end of another term. It was probably the most stressful term I've had here so far, but also the best in terms of what I learned and how I think I came along as a teacher. We've a week's break after this and I'll be going home for part of it. On Wednesday of next week I'll be seeing these guys --

-- the idea of which is still gives me happy tingles every time I remember it.

All right. Gotta' put on a shirt and go to work.

Thanks, all, for your thoughtful reading recommendations on my last post. In the end I decided to re-read the last book in the Pendergast series, as a refresher for the sequel that comes out at the beginning of next month. I'm sure I'm going to eat right through that book, though, so I'll be picking up some of your suggestions when I'm next at the library. (Which will hopefully be when Cute Bespectacled Librarian Boy is also working.) A lot of you recommended Game of Thrones, so I'll probably start there.

I got a Facebook message from one of my friends from graduate school this afternoon. She's currently teaching English as a second language at a women's college in Hiroshima. She wanted to let me know that there would be a couple of positions opening up at the college soon -- in September of this year and March of next. I checked out the position and it looks pretty interesting; you teach a bit and then participate in a group-focused research project, the subject and parameters of which are determined by your individual discipline. It sounds pretty cool. I mean, I wasn't exactly looking to go overseas within the next year (I have plans to do so eventually, but after I've accumulated a little stateside teaching cred first), but it's good to know that the opportunities are out there.

And, anywhere I go, I need to be sure that I can still see first run movies in theaters because, OH MY GOSH, YOU GUYS, THERE ARE COMIC BOOK MOVIE TRAILERS BEING LEAKED ALL OVER THE PLACE AND I'M JUST LIKE



BECAUSE 2012 IS GONNA' BE THE YEAR OF THE NERD.

Oh my gosh, have you ever had one of those naps that's, like, "Hello, I'm going to fix everything that was wrong about today that you totally didn't know about, so you're welcome"? I have gotten out of the habit of taking naps. It's my schedule, I'm sure: get up in the morning, go to work until about three or four in the afternoon, come home, run, eat dinner, plan for the next day; there's not a lot of room in there for napping. Well, today I took a nap for the first time in months. 'Did it "classic style," too: I pretty much just faceplanted on the couch and didn't move from that position for an hour. It was awesome.

The term is clipping right along. We're already into the middle of Week 6, which leaves just three weeks until the end of the term. I finally feel like I'm hitting my stride with this research paper class. Last week was so revealing: I just let go of a lot of expectations and started focusing on what my students needed. I was putting a lot of (unintentional) pressure on them (and myself) and it just started to burn us all out. Last Thursday I brought in donut holes and green tea and we all sat around for the first part of class, discussing the research paper and fielding questions from one another. It was fantastic and I think it really helped overall class morale. I'm learning (sometimes painfully) that this whole process is really a complex balancing act and that, in the end, it's impossible to control everything. I've got to let some things go. I've got to give my students the information they need, but it's up to them to follow through on it.

Things are going well for me. Without getting too into it, I continue to develop myself spiritually and see daily improvement in my overall attitude and outlook on things. I'm learning to trust my instincts and to rely on my emotional barometer; if something upsets me, I allow it to upset me. If I'm happy, I'm comfortable saying that I'm happy. I am not doing as much free writing as I would like, but I think that's probably because I'm stacked to the ceiling with work stuff right now. My plan, by the end of summer, is to put some serious time into the rough scratchings of my novel. I would like to put together an outline by the end of August so that, if possible, I can do NaNoWriMo this year. I've always wanted to participate and I feel that the structure would compel me to write on a regular basis. Even if I end up missing the 50,000 word goal I will still have made some progress in the right direction. Is anyone else planning to participate this year? Can we be NaNo buddies? I can ply you with Oreo Balls and iTunes playlists.

Right. Off to grab a bite to eat and then grade some papers.

I just got back from the INTERLINK potluck dinner. Once every term, all the teachers, staff and students from the program get together outside of class to share food and play games. This term we had the party at a park near my apartment. The weather had been shaky all day and we weren't sure it would play along, but it turned out to be a really nice evening. One of my students brought his family along. He has three little girls, all under the age of seven, and a little boy. His smallest girl, Sara, kept coming up to me and putting her arms up to be held. I'm not usually around a lot of kids and don't consider myself really good with them, but this girl was absolutely adorable, so I couldn't refuse. Every time I held her she kept putting her hands into my hair, running it through her fingers and playing with it. I melted. I just did. She would put her cheek on my shoulder and stroke my hair and I would feel her warm little breath on my neck. I think I carried her twice around the park and back before I returned her to her father. And his other little girl, Zahar, kept coming up to me and wrapping herself around my legs. At one point she tugged on the edge of my shirt to get my attention. I turned around and she pointed to my hand, which I showed to her, palm up. She then spit an ice cube into my open palm, giggled, and ran away. I'm not quite sure what kind of a cultural gesture that is, but I think it means we're best friends for life or something.

The latter half of this week was tough. By the time Thursday rolled around I felt like I had run out of steam. I had to really sit on some of my students today and that always makes me grouchy. We're really picking up speed on their research papers and it's especially difficult because many of them have never written anything like that before. I have to take them through the research process, the step-by-step outline and the citation process before they begin to write. A lot of things that I have taken for granted or committed to reflex memory -- like how to cite sources -- are completely new to them and it takes time to transfer that knowledge. Add to that the fact that our terms are only nine weeks and you really start to feel the crunch. I just need to pace myself and be available to answer questions when they have them. I also need to take this weekend to seriously decompress. I think the biggest thing I've got planned is going to see 'X-Men: First Class' (if it's still in theaters) and/or going to the library to apply for a library card. I'm ninety percent planned for Monday, so I can afford a little downtime.

I am also considering an X-Files series re-watch, starting this weekend. Who's with me?

Back from hiatus and, though I have not been actively posting here, I have been following my friends' page and trying to keep up with everything that's been happening (farstepper, I'm looking at you in particular and sending best wishes for a speedy recovery). So far, what I have been able to ascertain is that a new X-Men movie came out and more than half of you are excited about it, and the other half of you are watching Game of Thrones (which I am excited about), but that no matter who you are or what you're watching, you all find James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender incredibly attractive. I have not been able to get out to see X-Men: First Class yet, mostly because I am not really sure where the theater in this town is located. And because I still feel weird about going to see movies by myself. The only two movies I've seen on my own have been Iron Man and Thor (while I was home for the last term break) and that was okay because the chances of me running into someone I knew were rather slim back home. Here, I'm paranoid that I'm going to go to the theater and there's going to be a whole crowd of my students there, and I will have to explain why it's not weird for a twenty-seven-year-old woman to go to the theater by herself to watch Professor X and Magneto try to get into each other's X-suits.

My refrigerator has not been refrigerating lately. I've had a bunch of food go off because the temperature hasn't been low enough to keep things fresh. And, get this, my brain has been in such a state lately that I've actually thought I was faking myself out about it. Like, there's no way that this fridge couldn't be refrigerating; it has to be my imagination. But after I bought fresh strawberries and they went off a few days later, I knew I had to make a call. I got in touch with maintenance while I was at work this afternoon and by the time I got home they had installed a brand new refrigerator. They had even arranged all of my stuff in the new one! I can't tell you how nice it is to be able to drink water that is not room temperature.

I guess the whole refrigerator problem is indicative of how things have been going for me lately. Not that I'm falling behind or freaking out, but there just seems to be a lot more pressure riding on this term than there was before. I've started waking up in the wee small hours of the morning with ideas for lesson plans. When my alarm goes off I can't remember them. To my credit, I'm taking more responsibility and initiative than I have in the past. At work and in class, I want to make sure that I am on target with the expectations of the program so I have been checking in more than usual, making sure that my superiors are aware of the trajectory of my class and my impressions of problematic students. All of this cross-checking and attention to minutia wears me down though, and by the end of the week I'm pretty much good for nothing but a good collapse into bed. At the same time I'm making a conscious effort to break out of my comfort zone by saying "yes" to outside activities that would usually put me off. This weekend, for instance, the school is taking a trip to an amusement park. I think I might go, if only to chaperone. I haven't been on a rollercoaster since high school. It's so weird, because I like to think of myself as this gregarious, outgoing person a lot of the time but there are just so many occasions when I fall back on seclusion rather than take a risk by going out with other people. I'm trying to train myself to not immediately shut down when invited to do things; I'm twenty-seven and I have been "safe" for a lot of my life. Not that I'm signing up for recklessness lessons or anything, but I don't want to look back on my life in ten years and regret not making the effort to go out and do things.

After work I went to get my hair cut for the summer. They took off about two-and-a-half inches of length, added some layers and framed my face. I think it looks pretty good. It also felt kind of like a transition exercise: getting rid of something heavy and old in order to be lighter, different. There are so many signs of change around me that I felt like a physical manifestation of that change would help me to accept it more readily.

Plus, if I fluff it out I've kind of got a 'Joan Jett' thing goin' on.

I am also making a conscious effort to take better care of myself, physically. I have begun an exercise regimen and started watching my diet. I am already feeling better. If I can manage the physical I feel like it will be a gateway to understanding the emotional and the psychological. Ultimately, I've got to be proactive in my own life. I have to trust myself and my instincts, allow myself to have emotions and to get frustrated when I'm frustrated. I've been reading a lot more. Praying a lot more. Singing and dancing a lot more. And I'm doing it for myself. The process is incremental and a lot of the time it seems I'm no further along the path to understanding myself than I was a year or two ago. But I'm getting there. I don't think I'll ever fully understand why I am the way that I am, but I hope to be able to find peace with that person and that I will come to love myself for who I am. It's been a long time since I've been able to do that.

Just sharing something from one of my students, in honour of Mother's Day.

I give a daily free-writing prompt at the beginning of every RW class. Students respond to the prompt in their free-writing journals. This week, one of the prompts was You have been assigned to invite somebody famous to come and teach the class for a day. Who would it be, and what would you like them to teach you?

One of my students wrote:

There is a lot of famous people around the world. And I know many famous people i could invite to come and teach. But the most famous person among all is my lovely mom. If I had that chance to invite someone to teach in my class, with no doubt, I would invite my mom. Because she's my first teacher, and the best teacher i ever had. (You're the second of course Miss Katherine).

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. We couldn't do it without you.

We watched The Truman Show in my CS class today, as part of a project on advertising and the media. I told my students that this movie was particularly interesting because, being released in 1998, it really hit before the big "reality TV craze" of the early millennium, and at the time raised some serious philosophical questions about what constitutes privacy and what right we have to safeguard our private lives from public opinion. Which probably would have opened up a very interesting discussion had their response not been "1998? Oh my god, that's so old."

You cut me to the quick, kids. I was a freshman in high school in 1998, but I am not old. Just so you know, the other day, when I bought The King's Speech at Wal-Mart, the cashier carded me because her register told her to check for I.D. before she potentially sold an R-rated movie to a minor. ("Now, honey, I know you ain't seventeen, but I've gotta' make extra sure.") So there.

I don't plan on doing much this evening. We're supposed to be getting an impressive line of thunderstorms later, so I'm going to try to write as much as possible before the lightning arrives and forces me to shut down my computer. No new news on the summer in Vermont, and I am starting to doubt that it will happen this year; the timing's just off and there's still so much for me to do here before I pack up and go somewhere else. (I still haven't started looking at health care plans -- or even gotten a library card.) If it's meant to be, it will find a way to happen. I've just got to do the best I can in the meantime.

And, in a move that was quite unlike me (but not in a bad way), I accepted an invitation of a co-worker to join her for church services this Easter Sunday. And, also unlike me, I think I'm actually looking forward to it. Plans to go home and see my family sort of fell apart this year and, for the first year in -- well, ever -- my extended family isn't getting together for the holiday. Maybe this is the reason.

Good news! Life-changing news! Well, potentially-postal-code-altering news, anyway. My boss poked his head into my office at the end of the day to ask if I was still interested in pursuing further graduate work in TESOL. I said yes, I absolutely was, and he told me to check out this program in Vermont, and that there could be an opportunity for me to do a summer internship that would be partially, if not fully, paid for by INTERLINK! So I might be spending the summer on the East Coast! 'Anyone living out there want to take me to a clam bake? I've always wanted to go to a clam bake. Essentially, since I already have my TESOL certification, I'd be eligible for an accelerated program of study. If things work out, I'll have another Master's degree in as little as two summers!

I'm going to do some digging into the program before I decide for sure and, of course, I have to consider my financial situation before I make any big decisions. But I'm really excited about this. I think it would be quite the adventure, and if the opportunity is there, why shouldn't I take advantage of it?

I also had way too much fun today plotting RP fodder with nerdish. It feels so good to be creative again!