"The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself." . E. B.-L.

6/29/2010

Ten Overrused Cliches/Proverbs/Platitudes By Which I Will Attempt To Live My Life

10. "Live every day like it's your last." Wise words, especially for someone who is currently unemployed and struggling to retain hope that she won't remain so for the entire upcoming school year. It's easy to get wrapped up in the issues that cause you the most stress and concern, but I will attempt to make every day...every monotonous, just-like-the-last day, important and significant for some reason. I will make each day count.

9. "Do unto others as you'd have done to you." I'm not at all a nasty person by nature, but I've noticed I've become unusually snarky and un-Christian in my comments regarding strangers and celebrities lately. It's not in the big things, but the little ones, like blaring my horn at the guy who cut me off - twice - while I was on my way home from the gym today. Upon further thought, I figured out the guy was probably unfamiliar with the area and confused about where he was going (judging by his slow speed). Sure, he was in the wrong for his less-than-stellar driving skills, but my blaring the horn didn't help him at all, did it? And it didn't help me one iota, either. If he was lost and confused, I just made everything worse. And in his shoes, I wouldn't have appreciated the hair-raising blare of my horn.

8. "Pick your battles." My husband and I are perfectly matched in that we're very similar in most ways, and the ways in which we differ, we create a nice, workable balance. We both talk louder when we debate issues. We're both creative and extroverted. We both love being outdoors as much as we love being indoors. We both like a wide range of movies and music. However, he likes cooking more than I do - which is great, because he cooks and then I clean the kitchen by my own standards (which rank on a totally separate scale than his). He gets easily heated, I remain calm. He's a planner (by profession and otherwise) and I'm flexible and open. He's an optimist, I'm a pragmatist. However, we have one thing very unfortunately in common - we're as stubborn as a pair of donkeys (mules are just too small to fit this analogy). We don't argue often, but we can have 5-10 minute spats on things that don't deserve nearly the amount of significance we grant them - namely things like what to have for dinner, how many WW points are in a food item, and what movie to go see. And for what? Neither of us ever wins...we both have our say until we feel like crap for how we mouthed off and inevitably apologize. By following the advice in the above-mentioned platitude, we could spend a lot less time sparring over food and more time consuming it. PS - I'm usually right about the WW points; he underestimates. ;-)

7. "What's meant to be will be." I say this a lot in regards to the job issue (or more specifically, someone else getting one that I wanted), but only recently have I begun to see the truth in it. Looking back on my life, I can't think of a single event or decision or circumstance that I would change if given the chance, even though many times I've been disappointed about the outcome of things immediately after they've happened. In the end, things really do seem to have a way of working themselves out, and I just have to keep that in mind as I truck my way through applications that harbor no responses and interviews that harbor no job offers.

6. "The best things in life aren't things." It's true. The best things in life are as follows: love, family, friendship, God, sunshine, cats, dogs, discounts, and sushi. Well, okay. SOME of the best things are things.

5. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Keep it in your head and smile wickedly to yourself. When someone asks what's up with you, say you're just gassy.

4. "Make new friends, but keep the old." I've been fostering a lot of great new friendships in recent months, which is great! Yay me! I can't, though, fully relish in the feeling of my posse growing, because of one thing. I'm horrible - HORRIBLE - at keeping touch with people who are far away, since I'm not much of a phone or e-mail person when it's not for business purposes. I'd rather sit face to face and engage in conversations complete with eye contact, double entendres, hand-talking, and roaring laughter than tap out a mindless, one-sided e-mail. But, um, duh. Who wouldn't? How selfish of me. Furthermore, having grown up and spent 25 years roughly 800 miles from where I am now, I need to get it through my thick skull that the people who I care about, who care about me, want to hear from me and want whatever contact they can get from me, electronic or otherwise. All it takes is a few months of no phone calls, no cards, no-emails to make most people feel as if you don't care. I don't want to let any old friendships fall by the wayside. If you're reading this - and you know who you are - I do care. I promise.

3. "You never know what you can do until you try." This deals mainly with my newly acquired fitness pursuits. I am in the best shape of my life, and doing things I never thought physically possible. Yet I still hold stubbornly onto one irrational fear - running. I am terrified, to death, of running. I jog for shreds of time, I elliptical until my legs feel ready to detach from my hips, and I do just about everything else. Why am I so scared to run? Beats me, but I better figure it out before August 21st, the date of my first 5K. My goal? Run the whole thing...no walking or jogging. It's lofty, I know, but I feel the only way to get over my fear is to tackle it head on (oh look! Another platitude!). Plus, it'll make great practice for the full marathon I've already committed to running in Tennessee next April. I start training for the 5K after our camping trip. Wish me luck. :)

2. "No regrets." This one is tough for me, especially the part of me who likes to overanalyze every detail, each possibility, sucking every ounce of spontaneous enjoyment out of each decision until the whole thing lays limp and deflated in my memory. I regret drinking because it leads to hangovers. I regret pizza and cheeseburgers because they lead to gas and weight gain. I regret spending money because it (curiously) leads to having less. But for what? I don't ever drink enough to do something totally crazy, like grab the ass of an old man. I don't eat enough pizza or cheeseburgers to make much of a difference on the scale the next day. And as for spending money, Jim says I'm a dream wife (i.e. an afternoon spent strolling all of my favorite stores at Eastwood Towne Center and I leave with only a $25 pair of clearance capri pants from J. Crew that coordinate well with most everything in my clearance-and-outlet-filled closet). What's the point of regret? It defeats the purpose of making fun, impulsive and often selfish decisions - which I firmly believe everyone should do once in awhile.

1. TIE: "Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today"/"Actions speak louder than words." Part 2 is in regards to entries 10-2. None of the fluffy words and fun little anecdotes matter if I don't put the thoughts into action. Which I fully intend to. Starting tomorrow.

6/26/2010

The Best Day, Part 1

In my opinion, there are two types of "best days." There are those that stand out because of the events and experiences that fill them - days spent on vacation in exotic locales, those consumed with joyous events like graduations, weddings, and births, days that are memorable for meeting someone who will change your life, etc. However, there are also "best days" that are wonderful for no one particular reason. These days can fall in any part of the week, can be spent alone or with company, and can happen anywhere at any time. Seemingly unremarkable, these are the days that wouldn't make for decent conversation topics, since you'd be the only one to understand and appreciate what made them so great, and yet regardless, you know you'll likely remember them for a long time just the same. Yesterday was one such day for me.

It started by being awoken at the crack of 9 (the latest I've slept in weeks) by Jim, standing over my side of the bed and cooing my name in the tone that usually means only one thing - he wanted breakfast. He suggested we finally try Golden Harvest, the little hole-in-the-wall place we'd been hearing about for months. This place is as famous for its studio apartment-esque size as it is for its creative, abundantly portioned breakfasts, so he thought a Friday morning might be a good time to get in without waiting. After a week of cold cereal and egg white on English muffin breakfasts, something with meat and potatoes did put a grumbling in my stomach. Taking a cue from the streams of sunlight that poured in from between our window blinds, I grabbed a blue cotton sundress, threw my bedheaded hair in a messy ponytail, and we headed out.

A half hour later, we were seated at Golden Harvest, awaiting the arrival of our Mar's Specials. Three eggs (or egg whites, as we'd requested) scrambled with smoked turkey, mushrooms, tomatoes, scallions, and Swiss cheese, with a heaping side of crisp and seasoned home fries and two slices of dry whole-wheat. Basically heaven on a plate at 10:00 a.m. on a beautiful, summer Friday. As an added bonus, we weren't alone. When we'd stepped inside earlier and seen all six (no joke) tables this place housed were full, a lone gentleman sitting at the table closest to the door noticed us and asked if we cared to join him. Touched and intrigued, Jim and I sat down with Other Jim, a retired Grand Ledge resident with a white high-and-tight and an affinity for decaf coffee. Between mouthfuls of the most delicious looking biscuits and gravy I'd ever laid eyes on, Other Jim told us about his children, meeting his second wife (in 1981, and we couldn't tell if he was a widower or not by the way he spoke), and his garden. We, in turn, just sat and listened. After awhile, I got the feeling that Other Jim wasn't the stereotypical lonely old person who just wanted someone to talk to. He was just a sociable man who had no problem sharing a small table and stories with strangers. In that way, he had a lot in common with a young couple whose combined ages likely didn't surpass his own. It was a random, yet nice experience.

After he gave us his address and phone number ("Stop on by anytime and pick up something from my garden!"), Other Jim left and Jim and I tucked into our own breakfasts (every bit as good as everyone promised they'd be). We marveled at the fact that sadly, things like that just don't happen anymore. Diners, even those eating alone, just don't offer up spare seats at their tables to strangers anymore. It's as if people took those cautious warnings from their concerned parents to heart...forever."Don't talk to strangers." Nope, no problem there. We don't trust anyone, we have no interest in anyone outside of our own circles, and we automatically feel sorry for retired old men who just want to tell us about their gardens. "Poor guy...he must be all alone." I feel bad now even having had that thought, but temper this guilt with the thought that many people, especially those our age, likely would have smiled and shook their heads at Other Jim's offer, preferring to wait an unknown amount of time for their own table than to take him up on his kind invitation. Sad, but true, I think.

Perhaps this is part of what makes the morning of June 25th, 2010 the beginning of a "best day." A nice conversation with a new friend over a steaming plate of protein and dairy goodness. What could be better?

6/24/2010

"Reality "show" "romance"

So...they broke up.

If anyone doesn't who they are, you, my friend, have a lot more will power than I do. These two happen to be the product of the last season of the television show "The Bachelor," which I have tried many times to refrain from watching, but keep getting sucked into.

Do I think I'm watching a TV show about two people who want to fall in love? No. Do I think I am watching a show about two people who think they're going to fall in love? No. Personally, I think it's a show about 25 (well, 26 including the titular character his or herself) famewhores who want to parlay a stint on a show that presumes to be about finding love into a career filled with crappy TV jobs that are basically just handed out to people with little to no prior experience. Think jobs that have "correspondent" and "guest" in their names. But, watching the show happens to lead to two habits I not-so-secretly partake in - following "Hollywood" gossip and schadenfreude. And it must be said...good or bad, real or fake, the show is what people in the biz would likely call "good tv."

In the end, I'm sure I'm not alone in awaiting the fateful days when the resulting pairs which these shows manufacture inevitably split. I read the Us Weekly and People magazine articles that pit them against each other in rival interviews, allowing them to rehash the details on their relationship's demise in the same manner as that of its blossoming - publicly. And every time, with every couple, I am left with the same feeling.

I recall watching the second season of the Bachelor/Bachelorette installments what seems like many years ago, when a dancer named Trista Rehn searched for love among a sea of successful, attractive, available men. She was put up in a beautiful mansion, wined and dined on what most would consider "dream dates," swooned and fought over by multiple men at one time, and eventually proposed to by the "man of her dreams." I was young with a non-existent love life at the time, still living with my parents, working at a local convenience store, and putting myself through community college. In short, I was the kind of viewer who actually saw "reality" in this "show," a kind of reality that I desperately wanted and knew for certain I would never have. She found a fairy tale. Where was my fairy tale?

Fast-forward a few years later. I watch the show online a day or two after it airs on television. I am job-hunting and cleaning and running errands and doing laundry and everything I can to keep my mind off of how much I miss him, even though he's just at work and this is everyday life. There was probably a time when I would have been embarrassed to admit that I miss him after only a few hours, that no time compares to the time I spend with him, including the time I give up for him on Monday nights when the show airs, but know deep down he'd give right back to me if he truly thought it would make me happy to watch it then. Sometimes I wish we lived in a dream mansion, but many times, one bedroom, two cats, and a balcony that houses a few dead plants feels like one just the same. Because of him. Sometimes I think about how nice it would be to be constantly wined and dined in fancy restaurants, but many times, a buy-one-get-one dinner with coupon at Hershey's Steakhouse feels like the Ritz. And sometimes (rarely), I think about what it would be liked to be married to the strapping fireman and living a highly publicized, but "picture perfect" life in Vail, Colorado. Many times, though, I go to bed thanking God for my own Prince Charming, a government worker who wears Kohl's polos to work most days and leaves his socks around the house. A Prince Charming so great, he doesn't pick on me too badly for watching crap television like The Bachelor and getting all worked up over it.

My very own fairy tale. Resplendently ordinary and everyday, nothing that would titillate an audience save for two cats who are titillated by anything on a string, but it's mine. It's given me a lot of insight and experience so far, and left with me with my final impression of reality romance shows like The Bachelor - they're "good tv." Nothing more, nothing less.

Thanks, babe.

6/23/2010

Am I The Only One Who...

Do you ever think about the strange, idiosyncratic behaviors you partake in every day and wonder if you're alone? Are you the only one who does these things? Typically, these are exactly the types of behavior about which one stays secretive, but because I'm brave (and I know of only one person who is following my blog, and he happens to see me do these things every day), I'm going to put 10 of my personal odd behaviors out there in the hopes that I am not alone.

Am I the only one who...

1. ...picks up and cuddles my cats after seeing one of those awful, emotionally manipulative ASPCA commercials?


2. ...peels grapes?


3. ...feels guilty about watching crappy reality shows like The Bachelorette and Keeping Up with the Kardashians, as well as the resulting schadenfreude when the lives of those fame-whoring people ultimately blow up in their faces?

4. ...sometimes YouTube's the most random things, like old music videos from the 90's or SchoolHouse Rock clips, when there doesn't appear to be anything better to do?

5. ...uses YouTube as a verb? I don't know if this has caught on the way the verb "google" has...

6. ...will go back and re-write an exceedingly long text message or e-mail from scratch when it doesn't come out exactly the way my right brain says it should?

7. ...still occasionally (and by that I mean seldom) buys fat-free potato chips made with Olestra?

8. ...will overload my arms and hands with grocery or other bags upon returning from a shopping trip, to the point that I'm practically opening my door with my teeth, rather than make a second trip?

9. ...randomly and irrationally fears that a freak accident will occur at any moment after spending an extended period of time on an expressway?

10. ...wishes a documentary film-maker followed me around for a day (or more), a la The Office?

Oh, really? Just me? Whelp...okay, then.

Yoga and Circuit Training and Biking Oh My

One of my big goals this summer was to continue my road to fitness and maintaining good shape. I've done well with the help of Weight Watchers and a husband who is both support system and motivator and gradually gone from begrudgingly going to the gym a few times a week to committing every single day to some form of activity, gym-based or otherwise. I never believed I would be one of those people who enjoyed fitness, so this is a huge step for me. I'm not an athlete, and suffice it to say that my 5'11, long, solid build is God's punchline when people joke that I SHOULD be an athlete. However, I can barely hit a ball, shoot a basket, spike a volleyball (make any other form of contact), catch a football, or reflect any other aspect of athletic ability. And although I lack hand-eye coordination, balance, and basic coordination, I make up for those things with spirit, a sense of humor, and a never-ending quest to remain in a single-digit pant size.

On that note, in the past few weeks, I've attempted to mix up the basic elliptical/weight machine/Wii Fit routine I was formerly plugging away at. My top three below:

1. Yoga: I can't hit a ball, but I can apparently suspend the weight of my lower body over my upper body for extended periods of times. Oddly enough, it feels pretty good. I love how lean and taught my body feels after a good yoga session. I'm still a novice, but I love it more with every attempt.

2. Biking: As of last month, I am the proud owner of my very own big-girl bike for the first time in well over ten years. I love it! I'm still getting used to riding on busy street sidewalks and in pedestrian-laden area, but I just get such a rush after a long ride down the Lansing River Walk trail or through the beautiful MSU campus. Who knew my legs could do the miles they can?

3. Intense circuit training class: Okay, so I just tried this one for the first time yesterday, and it kicked.my.arse. This is not your mama's Jazzersize. The class consisted of a spin session, an upper body sculpting session with light and heavy weights, basic cardio circuits of jogging, jumping jacks, and the like, cardio "stations" that included stepping, lunging, squats, jump rope, and knee raises, and finally, a floor session of core sculpting. It was rough, but in the most empowering way. A day later, I am sore in places I didn't know had muscle, possibly because the muscles in those areas came to life through miraculous conception and the powers of one of the best fitness class instructors I've ever seen. I left the class panting, sweat-saturated, and smiling, so I will definitely be back next week.


 Below: The fruits of my labor. A pair of Express Zelda Skinny's - size 8.
                                                 

My Morning Ritual for the Summer

So Jim gets up and goes to work, usually at around 6 a.m. I wake up at this point, and although there's nothing pressing for me to do on any given day, I find it hard to fall back to sleep. I may stay in bed and guiltfully roll around and feel bad about myself for not having one of those snazzy "jobs" to flit off to for a few minutes before turning on ABCFamily and half-watching an hour of Boy Meets World. Ah...quiet "me" time spent with a late 90's Ben Savage (did he even exist in any other decade?) and the crazy chick with all the hair and lips. Folgers had it all wrong. This really is the best part of waking up.

Shortly after this, I begin my daily job hunt. I start out at K12jobspot.com, searching for all licensed teaching jobs in the state of Michigan. The good news? Tons of new jobs are being posted every day, and many of them are for English teachers. The bad? There really aren't many near me in the Lansing/Eaton county areas. Most of them tend to be in BFE areas that even Jim, whose job it is to know pretty much all the roads in the entire state of Michigan, has never heard of. Apparently the Lansing/Eaton/Gennessee/Clinton/Kent county teachers are pretty cozy in their positions and don't want to step down any time soon. I can't say I blame them.

After the K12jobspot letdown, I scroll through my Bookmark folder which contains links to all non-consortium (meaning "off the grid") districts for which I'd be interested in working.  These typically turn up nothing more than postings about subs (seriously, is it even necessary to put up a posting for substitute teachers?) and food handlers and bus drivers and cattle herders and such. Still, this process will take about an hour or so. Maybe something will come up and I'll put together an application packet (this will be the highlight of my day), but most days, I'll wind up with nothing. Dejectedly, I'll pack away job hunt materials for the day, sink into some breakfast, and try and find some "around the house" jobs to keep me busy for the day. Think laundry, cleaning each room to a level that is unnecessary by both Jim's and my standards, and finding excuses to go to Meijer.

Before you go feeling sorry for me (or worse yet, think I'm feeling sorry for myself), it has to be said that I'm only a month and a half out of the teaching internship. They tell you all the time that the majority of teacher job postings don't come until late July or even August, so I'm still hopeful. I just feel that I would enjoy my summer a whole lot more without the added "will I or won't I?" stress of unemployment. I'd love for a crystal ball to give me a glimpse into the coming months and just tell me whether or not I'll have a job. I could eventually learn to handle the magnitude of either possibility; it's less about wanting  a certain outcome and more about just knowing what it will be either way.

This would seriously help my mental state on some levels, I believe. I'm at the point that I seethe with envy at the thought of any gainfully employed teacher. I hear some of them gripe about their jobs and just want to remind them that they have one and at one point they did not. Do they not remember the fear/frustration/utter nerve-jangling they felt when they were job hunting? Do they not know how hard those jobs are to come by? Of course, I hate this about myself. Jobs are stressful, and teaching is particularly so. Ranting and griping comes with the territory, and I would hate to think my envy over anyone's employment status would hinder my compassion or harden my shoulder to cry on.

Part of me thinks I'll have the sentence "You wanted this more than anything" engraved on a plaque that I'll keep by my desk for constant reassurance on those days that bring out the job-griper in me. It sure would help to keep things in perspective. At this point, all I can do is anxiously await the day I have a job over which to gripe. In the mean time, I'll continue to hunt, and wonder, and pray. And every so often, I'll allow myself a few minutes of Sabrina, The Teenage Witch on ABCFamily. At 8.