Overlooking palm trees and the freeway

I'm sorry it has been so long since I last posted. In order to make sure I did not do any work at home during orientation week, I left my computer at school every day. It accomplished my goal, but it also meant no time for updating (bc I also made sure to leave school as soon as possible each day during orientation). Regardless, I am here now, so let's get caught up, shall we?

Orientation week was okay. It felt longer than usual, but that had nothing to do with the kids. I taught five classes of incoming seventh grade boys every day for 45 minutes. It was a lot of day, but the boys, for the most part, were polite and funny and aiming to please. Hard to complain about that, really. I don't have a ton of entertaining quotes and interactions like I usually do, but here are two that I enjoyed.

1: In the cafeteria foyer. I am directing my boys into the lunchroom silently, thereby disrupting their chance to talk with any of the girls, who are also walking through the foyer on their way to gym.

Me: In a line, gentlemen. A line. A single file line. No, no talking. The girls will be here next year. Keep walking. (Mind you, I'm saying this as I'm essentially herding them into the cafeteria).
::boys are in and seated::
M: (overheard) Man, Ms. Miller be wreckin' our game!

That's me, ladies and gentlemen, a game wrecker.

2: Thursday morning, waiting in the gym to be directed to our bus for the day-long field trip to Univ of MD. I have just laughed at something my friend Amy has said.

T: Ms. Miller, you have a pretty smile.
Me: Thank you. ::smile::
T: Yeah. You have a pretty smile, but you never do smile.
Me: You know, the other day I was walking down the street and a stranger asked me if things were really so bad (true story, kids...I was tempted to yell that they were). Maybe I should work on smiling more.
Amy: You're very observant.
T: Yeah. Ms. Maxwell, are you related to Ms. Miller?
Melanie: No. Why?
T: You have a pretty smile too, but you never smile either.
Melanie: That's because I'm angry.

I like Melanie's answer best.

Midway through orientation week my principal told me that the seventh grade will be smaller this coming year. This is great news bc it means that our upper grades are leveling out and fewer kids are leaving/being held back. It is less great news bc it means we no longer need to teach seven sections of Civics (Ian taught five, I taught two). She offered me the chance to keep my schedule as is and have Ian take on two sections of ninth grade world history or to leave Ian with five sections of Civics and for me to become a dedicated high school teacher, taking on two sections of ninth grade world history. I struggled with it for awhile, but in the end decided to keep my schedule as is. There are practical reasons (not having to prep a new class) as well as idealistic ones (my passion is for government, not social studies, and I really do enjoy teaching middle school in addition to twelfth grade), but it was a challenging and interesting thought process to go through; I really pushed myself to make sure I wasnt taking the easy way out and avoiding a new career challenge.

After orientation, it was time to prepare for my trip to California. (The subject line, P.S., is a reference to what I can see from the small patio on which I am currently sitting.) My preparations included buying new sandals and a new swimsuit and then not thinking much about the trip at all. I baby sat on Saturday and Brian and I saw the new Die Hard (if you liked the other ones or you like movies where things go fast and blow up (in implausible, but visually awesome, ways), I'd recommend it). There was a lot of surreal-ness to the trip for me. Not that I didn't recognize I was going, but that the length of the trip would hit me at odd times. Still, Monday I packed enough clothes for twenty-six days and a lot of different occasions into a suitcase and small bag and dropped my car with Brian's mom. Brian dropped me at the airport Tuesday morning (I held it together pretty well, but there were definitely some intermittent tears on my part throughout the airport) and after five hours on a plane, I met Maggie at baggage claim.

So far, the vacation part of the trip has been great. We have a much bigger SUV than we bargained for to tool around in (sometimes, folks, the upgrade is not really an improvement), but I managed to only get it stuck in the covered, below ground parking at our hotel once. Yesterday we had our first celebrity sighting (James Gandolfini! Tony Soprano! In baggage claim? I guess...) and then wandered through Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Today the plan is for a lot of beach time and then, maybe, Transformers or maybe shopping. Tomorrow, a little touristy stuff if we don't get to it today, and then a trip down to San Diego to rendezvous with my family. All in all, it should be good.

I'm thinking Maggie might be awake now (it's seven am and I've been up for an hour), so I'm going to go start getting ready. The three hour time difference sure makes getting an early start easy! Have a very happy Independence Day everyone!

What I did

This morning I ambitiously posted a list of things I wanted to do today. See below for a refresher. Here's what I actually got done today:

• Put together a sketch of the Civics summer school assignment. I did not, however, actually create the assignment packet for the kids or the rubrics for the teachers. I might just stay after school and/or use my midday break on Monday to get this done.
• Showered at the gym. Note that I did not work out at the gym. The water to my building was turned off so I simply took myself and my toiletries bag over to the gym and showered there. Nice for the membership to get some use.
• Met Brian for lunch. This was quick, since he has a lot at work right now, but it's always fun to get to see him in the middle of the day. Plus I had a yummy portabello mushroom sandwich and we ate outside.
• Bought aforementioned dress. It is just as green and wonderful now as it was when I tried it on last night. And it was $40, which is excellent.
• Read through and made adjustments to the lesson plans for summer orientation. Since I helped write them, this did not take long. I don't even have to go in on Sunday like I thought - it should work for me to arrive an hour early Monday to make copies, straighten the room, fix the boards, etc.
• Put away the mail, clothes, shoes, etc that had accumulated in my room over the course of the week.
• Took a nap on the new couch. It's long enough for me to lay on, which was an awesome discovery! It is also nice and deep and mostly comfortable for napping (I think I'll need to purchase some softer throw pillows one day).
• Posted this blog.

In all, a moderately unproductive day and yet, I'm not too worried. Doing pretty much nothing is not a bad way to spend your last day of vacation.

Finally recovered

Yesterday morning, after going to sleep around 11:30p the night before, I woke up at 7:45a. Last night, I went to bed at 11p and woke up at 6:36a. This compares with Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning when I slept until 9a or later. My body seems to have finally recovered from the year of teaching. The sad thing is that it happened just in time for me to go back to work on Monday. I can't decide if I would like it better if we just went straight from the last day of school into the orientation. I think it would suck, but not as much as this bizarre pseudo-vacation. Not that the week off has sucked, it hasn't. Just that having the week and then having to go back is rough. Oh well.



Things I'm going to do today:

• write the Civics summer school project (32 hours of work, plus rubrics)


• look over and plan for orientation lessons (this may or may not include a trip to school)


• read at least one more section of Aristotle's Politics


• look for dress I found yesterday while shopping with EBeth (seriously, it was an AWESOME dress, but both dresses in my size had snags in the overlay)

It hit me this morning that I leave for LA in 10 days. I am in no way prepared for this trip. I should probably get on that. I need to do a lot of reading. I need to figure out how to pack for a month away that includes a wedding, a vacation with my best friend, a weekend with Brian and a lot of time in the classroom/library. I need to wrap my mind around the emotions that come with being gone for nearly four full weeks. Still, with all of that, I am excited about this opportunity and I know I will learn a lot. And that's something. I'm going to go ahead and get started on my day. I hope you have a happy Friday!

school's out!

I had just written a great post. Then I accidentally deleted it. It follows, then, that I am now too irritated to post properly. Here's the idea:

• Students went home Friday. Bags, suitcases, milk crates...all lined the parking lot waiting to be loaded into cars, vans and taxis while teachers gathered in the faculty lounge for ice cream and good byes.
• Graduation was Saturday morning. Twelve high school seniors gathered to be cheered, celebrated and supported by hundreds of friends, family and educators.
• My third year of teaching has officially come to an end. I almost can't believe it. We celebrated with a nice dinner at Brassiere Beck; if you like Belgian-esque food, it's worth checking out.
• Year four will be previewed for five days starting June 23rd as I teach generic Social Studies to the incoming seventh grade boys. I cannot begin to express the guilt, joy and relief I feel in knowing I will teach boys again next year. Feminist principles be damned, I guess.
• Day one of summer vacation went exceptionally well. I woke just enough to say good bye to Brian as he headed to work this morning. Then I slept until about 9a, which, for me, is rather luxurious and had breakfast. Later I went back to my house, showered, ran some errands and met Brian for lunch. I walked for awhile before succumbing to the heat and humidity, went home, turned on the AC and spent two hours talking and thinking and reading about whatever seemed interesting to me in the moment. Then I got a pedicure, read for a while at the dog park and headed back home for more reading in climat control. All in all, a spectacular start to the week off.
• I read Atonement today, which I recommend. It's a great story with good characters and a solid message that manages to not be preachy or excessive in its development. Plus it has a rather wonderful ending.
• My couch is being delivered tomorrow. The delivery window makes me think back to student govt days when you'd tell people to arrive at odd times in hopes of entreating them to arrive on time (8:07am? Must be something...). At any rate, it will be nice to have a couch, even if I rarely use it. Without one, the apartment seems less like somewhere a 27-year-old professional lives and more like somewhere a college intern is squatting. And no one needs that.

Career counseling

Every year, I ask my students to evaluate the class. For my seventh grade students, I ask them to suggest a job I would be good at outside of teaching. I just finished reading them and this year, the suggestions were (note, I copied them verbatim):

• Mom, Mom and Mom
• Principal
• Tutor
• Behavior specialist/helper
• Disciplinarian
• Police officer (wha...?)
• Senator
• Lawyer
• Person that does something for the government
• Computer technologist

Cracks me up.

Also, day two of finals and lunch is chicken strips, buffalo wings and fries. Mmm...brain food.

One post, two parts

Part One: Done, but not *done* done.
The remainder of my students went home on Tuesday afternoon. It was, by far, the strangest, most anti-climactic end of a school year yet. The boys worked on finishing their Project Citizen work. In this project, the class identifies an issue in their community, figures out who the target is and then evaluates current policy in order to propose their own policy to address the issue. Finally they identify ways in which to gain support to get their policy adopted and present all of the information via a binder, a display board and an oral presentation. It's a lot of work, a lot of chaos and some years it works better than others, but it is also a great project for the last few weeks of school and it reinforces a lot of what we studied during the year. This year, the projects weren't the best I've ever seen, but they were decent. The difference was that we worked until the very last day of school, so there was no standard, stereotypical last day of school stuff. They worked for the first half of class and presented for the second half and then they left. It was very bizarre and has led me to have no end of year joy, relief or sadness. Just sort of empty, as if there was no real closure.

It's a very strange feeling, being done with my third year (well, not really *done* done - that will come with the end of 9th-11th grade finals on Friday...and then again when orientation ends on the 29th). In many ways, this year was by far the easiest. There were no tears (and only one or two close calls) and many less nights spent venting about my day. I got more of a handle on behavior management, I came the closest I've ever come to nailing down an Econ curriculum, I felt more confident about my lessons/material and I was told by several observers that I had a clear comfort and command of the classroom. When I think back to my first months of teaching, I marvel at how far I have come, even if I know there are miles to go before I am anywhere near where I would like to be.

Perhaps the biggest change this year, though, is that I allowed myself to take a step back from the classroom. I took on more leadership and I spent less time at school. It was hard to not attend every event and I sometimes felt bad not spending hours on the weekend prepping lessons and activities, but the quality of my life has been greatly enhanced by that change. I still struggle with finding the balance between my personal life and my job and finding my place in the school community, but I suspect that will always be the case.

I have never been certain that teaching is the career for me and there are always dozens of instances that make me think it is not (there were still days, for instance, where I thought about how nice it must be to have a job where you can reasonably expect not to be disrespected/yelled at/ignored and/or confronted on a daily basis), but, at the end of the day, no matter how awful the instance, I love working with my students and I enjoy sharing my knowledge with them. I have never had a job that did not have a purpose, did not lend some value to my life, did not make some sort of a meaningful difference. I once dated a guy who proudly proclaimed that his job was not his life, but that it was something he did to support the life he did have. I don't think my job is my life, but it does give added meaning to the life I have and I value that immensely.

Part Two: The Interview
I was at the bookstore the other night and two women (who I took to be recent college grads) were discussing job interviews as they looked at a book someone has written about how to answer tough interview questions. (Seriously. That's a real book.) One woman mentioned that she hates when interviewers ask about your biggest weakness. That she never knows what to say. Over the years, I've worked out a pretty solid, professional answer (although Brian told me once that he had a coworker who wanted to answer with "Prada," which I think is fabulous), but it got me thinking.

If life had an interview, what would be your greatest weakness?

I narrowed it down to two.

1. I do my best to avoid conflict. On the plus side, this means that I am an excellent facilitator and mediator and that I am immensely laid-back in many respects. On the other hand, I often compromise or accomodate too soon. Plus, it means that I sometimes fall back on being passive-aggressive (although I am getting so much better about that).
2. I am immensely uncomfortable showing emotion and letting people do nice things for me. I put these together because I think they are related and/or come from the same place. On the plus side, this means that I am able to make decisions and lead from a pretty objective place and that I am incredibly strong and independent. On the other hand, it means that I have an incredibly hard time trusting people and that many people, even those closest to me, don't have a true understanding of how I feel (in general or about them). It also means that when people do nice things for me or do something to comfort or care for me, I often feel guilty or bad about "putting them out".

Then again, maybe my biggest weakness in life is Target. Hey, no one's perfect, right?

(Nearly) fully furnished

This weekend, after much delay, I took a major step towards "grown up-hood" (like "adulthood," but less so) and bought a couch. Those of you who know me well will not be surprised to hear the process. First I mentioned needing to do it a lot and then last weekend I walked through one furniture store in a very noncommittal fashion before calling it quits. This week I decided that it would happen. I mean, really, enough is enough. I am 27 years old. I have lived here almost three years. It is okay to buy furniture. So we went to a furniture store and sat on a fair number of couches, but the only one I liked was a horrific shade of red. Not horrific, but definitely the color of an accent pillow, not your entire couch. The second stop was Macy's (yes, they have furniture; I too was surprised) where we circled once and sat on all the couches (there were about seven). And then I bought the first one we'd seen. It was in my budget, a good color, comfortable and bigger than loveseat, but small enough to fit easily in my small-ish living room. Consider this an open invitation to come sit on it - you can even put your feet up on my $20 coffeetable, although I can't promise they'll be much else going on in that room. Anyway, so that's that. Yay permanency! Or something.

Last week of school starts tomorrow. I have never been so ready. Last week the boys were completely off the chain. Seriously. At one point I was giving rationale for why I asking them to NOT simulate masturbation in class. I couldn't make this shit up. But the project we're working on is going well and I think it will end on a good note. Plus it keeps them busy and occupied through the last day, which is key. Middle schoolers go home Tuesday and then it's three days of meetings (gah) and graduation and we're done. Not a bad year at all, although these last six weeks or so have been rougher than I would have liked. Then I get one week off (HOORAY!), followed by a week of orientation (not bad) and then only a few days until I'm in LA (that's a mixed bag).

Speaking of LA, I got my course schedule and reading list on Friday. Holy crap, kids. It's a damn good thing that I like to read so much. Even still, this is going to be an intense couple of weeks for me. As Brian said, I better come back real smart. I think it'd be impossible not to. We'll see. Now I'm focused more on planning the three day vacation Maggie and I are taking before I start class. Anyone with good "things to do in LA" ideas, let me know.

And now, because I haven't posted in awhile, a list of kudos to close out.

• Welcome to DC, Chris! I am excited (and grateful) to have you as a new roommate and, later, to just hang out in DC after work, etc.
• Congratulations, Beth and Keith! The wedding was beautiful and reflected entirely not only your love of and commitment to each other, but your unique and fun-loving personalities. I hope the honeymoon was as wonderful as it sounded.
• Happy 30th birthday, Maggie! I am so glad I was able to be with you as you entered your third decade of life. You are an amazing and inspiring person and I am truly blessed to have you as my best friend.
• Welcome home, Rachel! Good luck with the transition back to life in the Miller household. Call if you need to vent and definitely come see me before you head to China.
• Enjoy the new place, Lindsey! I am so excited for you (and Lizzie) and I can't wait to see it when I'm next in town.

I think that's it. If I skipped a kudo (is it appropriate to make that singular? Wendy?), please accept my sincerest apologies.