Weekend Snapshots: Last Student Graduation Edition

Things to remember from this weekend:

• The immediate feeling of forgetting what the city is like. Accepting it's a different world.
• Hug attack when my girl saw me.
• "I'm glad you made it," from her mom.
• Gossip sessions with everyone. Hearing their redemption stories.
• Swimming in the lake. Even if I didn't jump off the cliff.
• Wandering trails a mile from where I used to live, but never knew about.
• Being told, "It's good you left when you did."
• Sprinkle ice cream cones and cheese balls.
• Telling the Hallmark movie it's being ridiculous for not having any mud on the cars driving a dirt road to camp. Looking at my dust-covered rental as proof. 
• Getting to know my replacement. A year after she's been replaced.
• Sitting outside writing the goodbye letters.
• Shout-out during the graduation speech. 
• Nicknaming my girl's friend within minutes of meeting him.
• Meeting my other girl's fiance.
• Worrying about their future. Even the ones you don't worry about, you do.
• Seeing past graduates. The one home from military for a few weeks. The baby-daddy holding his kid. The college-girl set to graduate. The runaway this time honestly released from jail. The college freshman pumped for next year. The gangsters chilling.
• "I knew this is what you were getting me." "Good. I mean, I told you years ago. Had to look hard to get the right color pink."
• Interrupting conversation every few minutes with, "Wow. You really can see the eclipse."
• Failed cell phone calls. Of course.
• Cooking with the roommate. Because we miss doing that.
• Getting a warning for speeding. Despite a rental car and an out of state license.
• Realizing I never spent time in the city when I lived here.  Driving new routes, discovering better food, exploring new parks.
• Reconsidering calling a place this size a city.
• Reading this post in the airport. Watching the video. Finally starting my cathartic cry.

[Edit: things that I forgot]

• Watching Grey’s and sharing a bottle of good wine, because that’s what we do.
• Going out stargazing. Deciding not to turn around, but to follow the other path back. Failing to find the other path. (Ooops.)
• 34 graduates. Optimistic 9 going away to college. Cross your fingers for that ninth one.

Sweetie Pie

Heard this song on the radio, and had to find a version worth listening to again.

Love how this song connects homes for me.

Pecan Pie is a Thanksgiving requirement in my parent's tradition (and that home)

Sung about by Golden Smog who played at the Obama rally near college home

which I attended during a crisis during my teaching home

but didn't discover until at my grad school home.

I'll edit with a pecan pie recipe if I remember.

Snow, Show, and Vertigo

This week's blizzard was awesome for at least two reasons.

1. I got to play in snow!

2. Snowstorm sleepovers!

My roommate from teaching and I were talking this evening about how we miss the social life we had in the middle of nowhere. I'm more social in the city and am happy about that. But I miss the weekend getaways. And we both miss the low-key, hang-out at someone's place sleep-overs that were a normal part of the culture out there. Here I feel like I need an explanation or excuse to have a slumber party. It's not the, "so, can I come over for the weekend?" call.

But with the blizzard I could totally say, "Do you want to cancel on dinner tonight or plan on spending the night?" And the next day, I could call my friend from the coffeeshop, saying I'd walked the two miles to get first friend back home. Could I come over to her place? Spend the night? Excellent!

I should make this a more regular occurrence.

Anyway, I've finally uploaded pictures.


Poor cars stuck on every sidestreet.

I still haven't shoveled my car out. (No, we don't have to switch sides of the street.)


The horizon disappeared. "That's why it's called a white-out," my friend told me. "Yes, but I can see the tree. It's not that white out."


There weren't many people out in the morning. It was still snowing, so I guess that's legit. But the people who were out were friendly. Like this guy, taking a photo of the snow plow. He'd been out looking for skis. Couldn't find them.


I wish I had cross-country skis.


Though I'm doubt they'd help me reach the door. Those are supposed to be steps. I'm still not sure how what I walked on matches the ground underneath.


Loved the playgrounds. In the morning.


And in the afternoon.


The slide seemed so much shorter when there was no drop at the end.


Love the patterns of snow sticking to the wall.


Who am I kidding? I just love a good snow!

~~~~

From the Life Checks list:

5. Pay to go to a show by myself (I already go to free ones, but this needs to be something I really want to see)

Check. Bam. I'm doing well on this list.

I've got a subscription for one to the local Broadway tours. Went to my first show all by myself.

Now my subscription is the cheap one. I have nosebleed seats. You really notice the set from the next to last row in the theater. But I got a tip at intermission that there were empty seats to the side of the second row from the front. Totally moved. Didn't get ushered out. 'Cause I'm cool like that. Y'know.

I did miss the gushing about the show with friends afterward. But this performance didn't leave me gushing anyway, so perhaps it was just as well that I wasn't expected to.

~~~

Last part of the title is vertigo. Had a bout of it this morning, which was a new expierence for me. There are enough possible explanations and it subsided quickly and, yes, I'll go to the doctor if it continues, but honestly not too worried about it.

The expirence alerted me to how much I take the sense of balance for granted. When every eye movement, never mind head turning, never mind actually walking, set the room spinning I just wanted to sit absolutely still. Except I'm bad at sitting still. So for now I'm grateful that my sense of balance has returned. And I beg it not to leave me again.

T-? Counting down the hours until leaving

Okay. Kinda sorta packed. Still need to wash some dishes. Clean the bathroom. And accept the fact that my room will be a mess while I'm gone.

Made it through my end-of-year discussion with the organization that brought me here. (Notable that I was NEVER evaluated by my school.) Cleaned out the fridge and took food over to a friend who's staying the summer (and has a family to help eat). Straightened out books and papers in the living room/FEMA trailer lesson planning central. Poked around online for way more time than I should.....Ooops?

See many of you soon! *hugs* to the rest.

Returns are hard

The surprise break was great. Even though I didn't get out of town, just having time away from school was good.

But coming back is hard after any weekend. And the longer the break, the harder the return. I was great over the weekend, but this morning homesickness has hit. Hopefully, I'll get excited in the half hour before students come in for class.

Christmas time's a'coming and I know I'm going home

Opening with a sidebar: It's surprisingly difficult to find the lyrics to Raffi's Christmas album online. Especially given that I know the original LP has the lyrics on it.

A week from right now, I should be home. *Smiles* I tell my students that I have my home where I went to college and my home where my parents are (only, I just refer to them by the different states). I haven't been to the latter since moving out here in August. This is my first Advent away from family and I can tell I'm homesick. But one week. (4 days of school.) My cell phone's working again, so that should cut down on the bahness. I hope.

Since my last post, I've continued with the downs and ups. I really need to get better at separating myself from my job. I need to be able to cut down on my prep time so that I can maintain sanity. But it's hard when you don't have a good textbook. Or when you want worksheets to look right. And when I don't have pretty teacher handwriting. By next year this should be easier, right?

All through the night

Teaching theory is full of the importance of creating and sticking to routines. We're creatures of habit and there's comfort in the familiar. It's simplified, but you get the gist of it. The truth of this has hit home for me in the past couple of weeks as I realize more and more of my own routines.

The most embedded, most comforting routine? Bedtime. It's 10:50 now and I most likely won't be asleep for another hour. Never mind that I'm pretty exhausted. The bedtime ritual takes me an hour. (And some friends already mock me for it.) I only recently connected that each of the parts of the ritual go back to the routine my parents first established for me, not just when I was little, but really when I was a baby.

1. Get clean. Shower. Bath. Brush teeth. Whatever. Connection obvious.
2. Write in journal. I had a journal but didn't write on a regular basis until after I left home. Before then, bedtime officially started when I debriefed the day with whichever parent was putting me down that night. Get out all the feelings that needed to be sorted through in order to rest well.
3. Bible and prayer time. Though I don't memorize verses or prayers the same way I sometimes did when I was at home.
4. Read something completely nonrelated to school. Short stories. Long fiction. Entertaining nonfiction. (Nothing too serious.) This is critical for me and the part that I only recently connected to the bedtime stories my parents read when I was an infant.
5. Lullabye. Actually, this is the one part that I omit most nights here. Though it may be my favorite part. Mom and Dad sang to me until I graduated high school. (When I was little there were multiple lullabyes and each birthday, you're a bit older one less song. Only they never stopped that last song. I think the time meant too much to all of us to consider it.) I definitely will hum a song to myself. Or play my lullabye cd. Or the lullabye playlist on my computer. Because it is so ingrained for me, whenever I hear someone's having trouble sleeping, I'll offer lullabyes. It's my favorite part of bedtime, but the part that translates least well to being on my own.
   

Sorry this is rambly. I should go back and edit. But for now, I'm just going to post and get into that ritual.