Colon-Right-Parentheses

Oh wow. Remember when I had a blog, and I did stuff with it? Actually, if we count mental posts, I have made plenty since that last one. There was one about my classroom management philosophy that was probably going to sound like a whiney know-it-all who is not actually in the field yet. There was a morose woe-is-me kind of thing about having little money during the holidays. There was a picture-laden post about the new house we recently moved into.... But none of those posts happened. And really, now that I'm on break I'm not dwelling on classroom management. Yeah not working sucks, and the money thing is always going to be hard, but on this day after Christmas, I'm all warm and fuzzy and miles away from things to complain about.

So I'll skip right on to the new house post.

Sooooo verryyy bluueeeee

We moved in the first week of December, and we are so excited to finally be in our own space again! ewww I used the word "space."

It has hardwood floors, a double oven, and a countertop stove, and the rent is even affordable! The house is super old (1936 old), but it comes with lots of quirky charm, like how you have to learn how to turn each separate doorknob differently to close the doors. We also have a dishwasher that was probably made in the 70s, but it works!

And hey, here are some more housey pictures!

And then it was Christmas. And we decorated appropriately.

Not pictured under this tree (because, for some reason, it was at his parents' house still) is the gift Michael gave me, a drawing tablet! Wohoo!! I've been messing around with it, and I drew this little guy on request:

He's cold as ice, foo'

I need to put this tool to use on the comic I actually work on, but every time I stare at the page I'm supposed to be backgrounding I just draw a blank. It's like all the ideas I could have run out of my head and out the door. Hnnrrrghhhh...

In tablet-related news, I will quite prossibly be updating the look of this site, maybe adding a more frustratedly unemployed graduate for the background.

Anyway, that's it for me! I apologize if the train of thought of this post felt erratic and went nowhere! Maybe one day I'll get around to posting that classroom management philosophy.

On learning from failures

And now for a refreshing change of pace...

I took the GACE for middle grades Social Studies a month ago. Yeah, they make you wait a month for your scores. Anyway, for the past four weeks I have been mentally planning how to approach posting the results of the almost certain failure of a test I had taken. Because my confidence was that high. I settled on a story about how once in my life I turned a massive failure into a learning experience that ultimately helped get me into college, as a way to show that I was staying optimistic about this score and that I would keep trying for my dream job because one day it would really happen...... and then today I got my score back. I passed. I did more than pass -- I actually did very well. But I'm going to tell the story anyway.

I started playing the flute in 7th grade, and since I was switching over from the saxophone I thought I needed to be really good right at the beginning or my parents wouldn't let me play. I had always wanted to be like Lisa Simpson, but the sax was heavy and my flute friends looked so cute with their little instruments that you could pack in your bookbag at a whim and hurry to catch up to someone. I, on the other hand, needed a skateboard to transport my instrument. Sadly nobody gave me one. I turned to my friend Heather, so that she may impart her flutey wisdom unto me. And she did. She just... didn't actually know a whole lot about it either. I'm not saying this to rag on Heather, I'm saying this to paint a picture of me as an entering freshman flute player (side note: Freshmen, as we all know, are notoriously annoying. Flute players, as we might know, are notoriously annoying as well. Imagine, will you, what kind of unholy combination you get from the two. Mr Schnettler, if you're reading this -- I apologize). We're talking notes written in, no knowledge of tuning... I didn't even know that the higher register notes were fingered differently. I thought you just blew harder to go up an octave (Allison, my section leader from 2002, if you're reading this I apologize).

But I learned. I practiced. I stopped writing in my notes and started paying attention to things like tone quality and dynamics, and I learned how to finger the higher octaves. On one of my chair tests that year, I scored higher than most upper-classmen. Of course at this point in time, we all thought it had been a fluke, and I was placed a little lower in the order, but what can you do. In preparation for the All-District Band audition, I learned my major scales and took private lessons with the resident first chair (Well, she was actually second chair, but the first chair was one of those unbeatable "always first chair" types, so we just counted the first after her as "First"). I was one of the only people in my grade who could say I knew my major scales and my 3-octave chromatic scale, even if the lowest note rarely came out (still doesn't).

But I didn't make All-District Band. I wasn't too broken up about it; I knew my sight-reading was dreadful and that the people I had heard warming up in the holding tank for auditioners deserved to be there much more than I did. I had failed, yes. I couldn't change my score. But you know what else I couldn't change? I couldn't un-learn my major scales. I couldn't un-learn my 3-octave chromatic scale. I couldn't take away the knowledge I had gained in my practicing, and I knew that I would only continue to build on that foundation. That was the only year that I didn't make All-District Band.

You may know that I entered college as a music major. While that was clearly not the course my life took in the end...of my college career, that one failed audition set in motion events that led to lifelong friendships and a college where I found my true academic love: creative writing. Side note: Freshman year of high school I wrote a "personal essay" about my audition experience. "Personal essay" is just a public school way of saying "creative nonfiction piece" -- so it could be argued that music led to my end major in more ways than one.

So, while I did not actually fail my GACE, I'm sure I have many more failures ahead of me in life. I don't mean that as negatively as it sounded. There will be more. And I am okay with that, because our failures are valuable learning experiences. And, like the nerd I am, I will never ever stop learning.

There are no words for this.

Ships that don't come in

And so things got complicated...

I don't know where to start. I guess I'll start with Wednesday, when I had the interview. Yeah, a real interview. It started off so disastrously I thought that they would have to cast Tina Fey to play me in a movie. First, I left a little late. Map Quest said it would be an hour and a half, and I left with just enough time, which was stupid I know. Then, my GPS decided that, to get Southwest it would make me go West first, as in through Atlanta, a route that was needlessly complicated and tacked on an extra 10 minutes. Which made me 10 minutes late. Which is never good. After missing two exits, I found the school and made my way to the office to wait. Then I realized that my blazer was covered in hair. Cat hair or fuzzies from my fleece jacket, I didn't know, but the presence of the hair was bad enough. I attempted to scrape off the hair using tape, and hoped that nobody would walk into the office during the preening. Thankfully nobody did.

The interview went well, actually. They showed me around the school, asked lots of questions, and seemed to mostly like what I had to say. I wasn't sure how well things had gone until Monday, when I learned that references were being called. Apparently that's a good thing? So, once my final reference had confirmed that contact had been made, I waited.

And waited.

And now it's been over a week since the interview, 2 days since the last call (I think), and the longer I wait the less likely it feels that it is going to happen. And I sit in someone else's classroom every day and anxiously check my phone for missed calls from unknown numbers only to find several (SEVERAL) calls from Newton County Sub Finder. And I wonder if the kids in whoever's classroom I'm in at the time would really be different if they were mine or I'm just fooling myself. Can I convince an apathetic teenager to give reading a second chance to change their life? Can I help students to see why we shouldn't act for reward or in fear of punishment, but simply because it is right? I want to believe that one day I will be able to make a difference, but I just can't see it happening.

Then I think about my car. Last summer, when my Shadow crapped out on the first day of graduate school classes, I never imagined that I would ever drive a brand new car. I never imagined that there would be a salesman desperate or foolish enough to give someone like me her own set of keys to something so amazing. Me sitting in a new car was not something I could really see, and for the first three months, my heart jumped every time the phone rang. I was convinced someone was calling to say that they had actually realized what they'd done and why on Earth would they have ever given a graduate with barely a job and a mountain of debt her own car? But the call never came. And the car is still mine, and every time I sit in it I remember what it was like that day on the lot when I thought "no way this will ever be mine."

So I imagine that the job thing is going to be something like that. When I got that first offer, the one that was un-offered due to paperwork, I thought "No way this is happening. I'm not ready for this, I'm not good enough, there must be some mistake if they wanted me!" And, as it turned out, nothing actually did happen. But I have to believe that one day something will. This is what I've wanted since I was in second grade and I attempted to teach (force) little Cory down the street to read. I can't let one summer, however disheartening it was, break me.

But it's so frustrating. There is so much that I want to do, and right now I feel like I'm on pause. At the most I make $80 a day, and most days it's more like $65. If things continue like this, we'll be able to keep our heads above water, but we'll be barely scraping by. We can't travel, we can't do anything fun or go anywhere, and even a dinner at Applebee's will be a splurge. And I know it's not my fault but it's hard not to feel guilty about the situation. If I had a job things would be better. We could live anywhere, we could go places, see people who live far away, and have money left to save for that whole "starting our lives" business. Michael could even save for school. But because I can't seem to find something full-time, and the most I can do is pretend to be someone else's teacher and try to convince teenagers that I do know what I'm talking about, we can't do any of that. We can't do anything.

I blame paperwork. If you want to get down to it, I blame my stupid school for not processing my stupid grades. It's hard to convince myself that everything happens for a reason when nothing is happening. Fifty years ago, processing would have been done with a stamp. I would have found "Phil" in his office, slipped him a 20, leaned over his desk, and said "let's see if we can't get this process sped up a bit, hmm?" And bam. Instant success. But now, because the school trusts a computer to do its job, all the grades are processed at once, over several days, in the middle of August. I hate to keep going back to that, but it really is the root of the problem. Although I guess the problems is that I didn't want to be in class straight from August of my senior year until the next, next May. Which is how it would have gone if I'd taken the May class a year earlier, like I could have. And sure, that would have been the best option, if I hadn't just read about 15 books and written no less than 70 pages of capstone work (that's not even counting all the other papers from the year), squeezed two honors classes into one semester (one of which I didn't even need), and started the year exactly one day after re-entering the country. That is what I would say is the kind of year you need at least a month's break from before beginning another ridiculously hard degree. Still, I guess if you look at it that way, the whole thing is kind of my fault. But it's easier to blame computers and lazy, incompetent registrars. I don't even think 'registrar' should be a word. Just look how awkward and ridiculous it is.

And now I guess I should talk about the house. Remember the house. Let me put it in capitals so you'll recognize and revere its importance. The House. Yeah, that one. Remember how we loved it, and how we were devastated to find that it was being shown and preened like a prize-winning Pomeranian? And remember (you might not) how we found out how much the previous renters paid for heating/air every month, and then we closed the book on that dream and started searching other horizons for living space? Okay, good. Then you're caught up to speed.

So we looked at an apartment over the weekend. We were going to look at three, but (As is our style) we looked at one, fell in love, and mentally cancelled the hadn't-been-made-yet-anyway appointments for the day. We put down a deposit (to prevent other people from snagging our turf, more than anything) and headed home. When we got there we were informed that the owners of the house were growing desperate. So desperate in fact that they wanted to sit down with us and a few other knowledgeable people (that 'e' before 'a' in 'knowledgeable' has always bugged me) and see what we could possibly do to improve the house so to have lower bills. The thing is, if I don't get the job we can't afford the house no matter what. I highly doubt they can lower our bills enough to make it affordable for us. And if I do get the job, it will make my commute an hour and a half instead of just an hour. And when you're going both ways, those thirty minutes will add up.

I'm beginning to wonder why every situation I find myself in is some kind of catch-22 and why nothing can ever actually just work out easily. Is this really what it's going to be like?

On a brighter (and completely unrelated) note, last night I woke up when Michael came in, like I always do. He asked me if I was going to open my eyes, and I wasn't planning on it, but I figured I hadn't seen him in over 12 hours. The least I could do would be to have a brief conversation with the boy, in which I was conscious and actually looking at him. I rolled over to face him and saw that he had bought me roses. He said, "I've never bought you roses before, and I saw these at the store and decided to get them for you." Right now they are on the night stand, but I'm planning to set them up in whichever dwelling we move into (hopefully soon, I might add, so the roses don't turn into some kind of Beauty and the Beast situation). So I guess everything is not all bad.

Halloween: A look back

I have always loved Halloween. Not because of the candy, the staying out late, or even the graph I made every year of how much of which type of candy I got. Seriously. I did this. For fun.

No, Halloween is a chance to, for one night only, become something else. It is a day where your imagination can take over 100%, and you leave yourself behind. Am I unhappy with myself? No. But just this one night, you can be whatever you want. It's as if the entire world is under a spell for only a few hours. Come to think of it, I think there is a movie where that actually does happen....

Anyway. I went home today and poured over no less than twenty photo albums to put together this timeline of alter-egoes I have taken on. I wish I could say there are 23 photos here, but sadly there are not. Some are missing, some never had photos taken, and then there were those few years that I was a baby.... But I did my best with such short notice. You will notice a few things as you flip through my life in Halloweens. One: There are no repeating costumes. I have never, ever worn the same costume twice. I have been similar things, yes, but never in exactly the same way. It is a personal rule of mine. Two: Many of these are home made. I try to spend as little money as possible on my costumely endeavors, because part of the fun is in creating the persona for yourself. Three: In some ways, this is also a timeline of the improvements of photography technology over the course of my life. See if you can spot the year my mom got a digital camera!

Ready? Too bad - here we go!!

First Picture I could find: 1990, age 2. I was a cheerleader, and my brother was a ninja turtle.

1991, age 3 and a My Little Pony that my grandmother made. That's my brother again, being... A... different ninja turtle. I'm telling you, those who read my capstone piece. I'm not lying about the carpet color being an homage to the turtles...

1994, age 6. There are a few years missing between the last one and this one, and to tell you the truth, I don't remember what I was during that "period of missing photos." Check out my best friend Cory as Sonic and Eric... still a ninja, though not a turtle this time...

I thiiink this was 2nd grade. Or 3rd, maybe. The one that is missing between these is some version of Pocahontas, but my dad took us T or T'ing that year, so I think he has the photos. I particularly love this one, because I thought penguins held their arms out like that naturally. I didn't know it was because their bodies are so round that their flippers rest in that position. I spent the whole night with my arms out like a lunatic.

This one. This one is my masterpiece. I think I'm in 4th grade right here. I had this onesie (all the cool kids slept in onesies...) that had a mix of animal patterns, and I got that bear head/hat when I went skiing. I put them together to create some horrible genetic experiment gone wrong. I made people read my sign explaining the costume. Dig those sneakers.

6th grade. We're missing a doubles shot of my sister and me as matching dalmatians, me with my baton in my mouth because for some reason I thought it looked like a bone. I also had string attached to my tail so could wag it at will.

But anyway, this one's pretty odd when you think about it. What would people from the 50s think of children dressing up in what were once normal clothes for them, as a costume?

Walkin' like an Egyptian in the 7th grade...

Dressing up as a time period seems to be a trend... That's me on the left (in case you didn't know by now) being a "Renaissance Princess." 8th grade

-----we're missing a few here. I do apologize, for some of them were really spectacular. -----

9th grade: Lil' cat (okay that one was cheesy and store bought)

10th grade: Get ready for this. A bag of groceries. Actually there is a picture for this one, somewhere, but the person who took it failed to capture the essence properly. I had an Aldi bag on as a skirt and had made a sign thingy on which I had taped various boxes and bags of groceries. Most people thought I was trash, though.

11th grade: School girl, although all night people said I was Britney Spears.

Which brings us to....

Senior year, and costume I affectionately refer to as "halfsies." I had a cape too, but for some reason it got left out of this shot... Come on, there's a little of both in all of us.

2006, freshman year of college, I started a new tradition of wearing my Halloween PJs during the day and a "real" costume at night. So I guess this is the year of the bunny in Pajamas and the ladybug.

Sophomore year. That first one is "My own cat, Scooter, in festive pajamas." The one on the bottom is a mummy, NOT a zombie!! Mummies are my favorite monster, and this is still one of my favorite costumes ever -- even if it did kinda fall apart.

Junior year, I mentored young writers, so I decided against the pajamas. This is Penelope, from the movie of the same name. On the left is my SAI big sister Reba as a spider web. Super awesome!

Senior year, I had a boy who was enough of a good sport to don a themed costume with me. Here we are, as a child and his teddy bear! Go ahead and say, "Aww..." You know you want to.

In this hilariously complimentary themed costume from 2010, Michael and I are a raccoon and an employee of animal control. Poor Michael has a lifetime of silly theme costumes ahead of him....

Annnnd here we are at Halloween 2011, disguised as scarecrows. He turned down the Ash & Misty idea, but there's time yet to convince him...

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So there you have it, friends. That was my life in Halloweens. I hope you enjoyed yourself - I know I have! Tomorrow I'm going to hit up Wal Mart and buy all their half-priced candy, then make my graph --- I mean EAT IT ALL without attempting to quantify or represent any kind of data relating to the candy whatsoever!

Why I hate Twilight

I know, the dead horse has been beaten into submission and it promises it will never crap during a parade again. Wait, what? Anyway, I'm in a bad mood, it's been a bad day, I'm frustrated at lots of things and rather than list them all (*Cough* today's 6th grade class, the fact that I don't sub every day, the fact that I don't have a real job, the house that we won't get, how expensive things are/how much money we don't have, smarmy politicians, friennnddssstuffff *cough*), I'm going to go for a scapegoat. Twilight.

Now, I complain about this a lot. But, I'm rarely ever actually specific about what it is I hate so much about this series. And, since I want to tear something apart, and this is the only thing I can legally do that to, here we go!

Reason #1: The writing

Okay. I know that within the realm of creative writing, there has to be some room for, well, creativity. I majored in it and everything; I know the rules. I also know that, if you are going to break the rules, there has to be a reason. It has to be "intentional and necessary," as my thesis mentor constantly reminded me. Twilight (which I am too lazy to put in italics, and seeing as it shouldn't be a book, I feel it does not really even deserve italics) doesn't seem to have a literary reason. Reading this book I just wonder constantly "was the editor of this coming in and out of a coma while doing their job?"

There are tense issues, subject-verb agreement issues, comma splices (which we all make, but I mean come on. That IS why there are editors in the publication world), awkward and unnatural dialogue, big words that don't mean what she thinks they mean, big words that she chose to sound smart, and way, WAY too many adverbs -- to name a few of the problems. If you need an example, check out the blog Reasoning with Vampires, in which author Dana breaks the books down one-by-one, line-by-line in some cases, and red-pens the whole freaking thing. It's pretty spectacular and it is also quite educational. Yeah, I majored in English and hope to teach it, but I still don't know everything.

Need an example? Take your pick. Educational and hilarious, and the blog is full of them. It's become a favorite past time, for when I need something to hate.

"But Kimmy," you might say. "Twilight is written imperfectly because it is from the voice of a teenager! It focuses on what she sees, and her voice is that of a 16-year-old girl."

No. Her voice is that of a 10-year old girl. I return to the previous statement: If you are going to break a rule in writing, is has to be intentional. Reading Twilight, it just seems like there is no editor, not like I am reading a real adolescent girl's thoughts. This is in large part because the writer makes NO effort to give the narrator any kind of personal characteristics to actually define her voice. In fact, the narration is so hollow, even in times of action, that I felt like the whole series was nothing more than a flashback. It started flat, never really rose, and ended on the same plateau.

"But wait!" You might call out, pointer clicking on the X in this window -- done with my complaining already. "The writer left her hollow so you, the reader, could fill in yourself in her shoes!"

Ah, you thought you had me with that, didn't you? Yes, I've heard this one many a time from team Twilighters. But here's the thing: As a writer, you HAVE to develop a character. You absolutely can NOT leave it bland so people can fill themselves in. You don't have to have anything in common with a character to be able to relate to them; the character could even remind you of someone, or maybe could have traits you wish you had yourself. You know what I'm not, and will never be? A boy, a wizard, the "chosen one" for any kind of grand quest, owner of a snowy owl, British, expert broom-flyer.... But you know what book series I will love forever, and am legitimately sad that I can never read again for the first time? Harry Potter. Why? Because, even though Harry and I have very little in common, I like him as a character, and I genuinely care what happens to him. The only -- repeat -- ONLY thing that we know about Bella -- the only thing that seems to matter at all is that she loves Edward. So, if we don't love Edward, we have absolutely nothing with which to relate to her. And as it happens... I don't love Edward. At all. Which brings me to number two...

Reason #2: The Message

Sure, so the character is bland and lifeless, the writing is as polished as a middle schooler's first draft, and all we know is that she loves this guy. Sometimes this other guy, too, but usually just the first guy. The one she ends up with and has what is literally a demon spawn child with.

Wow, she has a baby with him? A baby that nearly kills her as it grows inside her? He must be a great guy, really worth all this time!

Not even remotely. He stalks her, he cuts he brakes, he watches her sleep (after breaking in to her house), he repeatedly mentions how easily he could kill her (which only causes her to praise him for holding back), he also repeatedly mentions how bad for him she is, how bad for her he is... none of this is sounding like a good kind of guy. Oh, and he breaks up with her. In a forest. Then she goes catatonic for like 6 months, finally lets herself start to be happy again (Even though she intentionally puts herself in danger just to hallucinate that he is with her.....) he comes back into her life and she's all "Oh of course I forgive you! Turn me into a vampire LOL!" Because it's okay for a guy to hurt you that badly, as long as he's sorry enough afterwards.

No. No it is not. And young girls should not be reading these books hoping to find their "Edward." Bella should not have been left empty for girls to fill themselves in, because she does nothing even a little admirable as a character. She hates herself, constantly puts herself down, insists that she isn't good enough for the vampire who dumped her in the woods just after her birthday (yeah. That happened), is a terrible, manipulative friend to those close to her, and ultimately only cares about one thing/person. Who, as I have already established is not worthy of her care and/or attention.

In closing...

to be perfectly honest, this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are other issues, like the half-assed allusions to famous classics (STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO ROMEO AND JULIET!!), the fact that Bella claims to be such a star in literature but can't string a sentence together, and the general jealousy that this writer is famous and I'm not...

But I'm going to end it here. Also...

Suggested reading

So, smart girl, what should we read?

Other authors have managed to pull off the teenager voice while still creating characters that are sympathetic and interesting. For example...

-Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (I'm only on book one, but I like his voice. He sounds like a middle-schooler, he gets embarrassed when a girl grabs his hand, yet I don't have to read the book and correct it as I go or "fill myself in" to the character)

-Going Bovine by Libba Bray (You want a book that is straight from a careless high school kid? This is your book. Drug references and F-bombs everywhere, but there is heart to this book and heart to this character. And guess what? You don't have to picture yourself as the main character because there already is a clear main character!)

-Harry Potter (not in first person, but still fanciful and a truly wonderful adventure of a book series)

-The Hunger Games (outstandingly well-written and characters that you alternate between hating and loving, but never loathing in quite the same way that you feel for every Twilight character)

Yes, that is also essentially a list of my favorite books. But they do what Twilight tries to do. Actually, the story that she attempted to tell could have been a good one. But there are so many flaws, that if it had been placed on my editing table, I would tell her to start over and tell a story that has redeemable characters, sentences that make sense, and a message that will actually help her readers. "The most important thing in life is to have a boyfriend, even if he's undead, a hundred years old, and basically abusive." doesn't cut it.

Lunch Ladies: A Tribute

If you're ever in a school for long enough, you will inevitably hear about the cafeteria food. Most of the negative hype comes from books and movies, which depict the food as shapeless, scary blobs, sometimes moving, sometimes hairy -- but never anything could legally be classified as "food."

Seriously. What is this?

Pretty much all students talk about the cafeteria food -- how That Girl Over There found a bug in her food, how The Head Football Player swears his chicken was served to him raw. I'm sure I joined in on the gossip at some time during my schooling, even though I've never had a negative experience regarding cafeteria food. Granted, that's partly because I brought my lunch nearly every day from kindergarten through 12th grade. Everyone does it (and isn't that as good a reason as any to do things?), but what they don't think about is the fact that, behind the scenes, people are actually cooking the food for them. And that the food has to be approved, the kitchen inspected, the procedures rehearsed and repeated -- until the product is fit to be served. And people forget to think about the hairnets behind the wall where we deposit our sticky, gooey lunch trays.

I know this, because my mom is a lunch lady (or a cafeteria worker, if you're PC). She cooks for other people's kids all day before coming home and cooking for her own family -- as do all of the other lunch ladies. In my schooling/student teaching/substitute teaching experience, people rarely stop to talk to the cooks of the school food. But more people should take the time to do so.

When my mom left her job at the high school cafeteria for a middle school, six or seven members of the football team came up and gave her a hug goodbye. members of the football team. At a high school. Another student gave her a box of chocolates as a parting gift. This was a shock to me, as I have never seen people talk to lunch ladies about anything other than their account. I can only hope the middle school students treat her just as well.

I've had lunch ladies bail me out on two separate occasions. Once, when I was in high school, I left my lunch in the gym. When I went to retrieve it I found that it had been eaten. WHO EATS SOMEONE ELSE'S LUNCH?! Since one of my high school lunch ladies was the mother of my brother's best friend (some serious name-dropping), I asked her for help. She let me charge my meal so I wouldn't go hungry. Then, just last week, a lunch lady did me a solid in a much less desperate situation. I had simply noticed that the day's lunch was something out of heaven: Chicken Fingers and Mashed Potatoes. I had cold spaghetti in the teacher-fridge, but I wanted the chicken. I asked if there was any way at all that I could charge for the day and swore that I would pay her back the next day. She agreed -- but on the following day refused the three dollars I offered.

It's little things like this -- hugs, the occasional free chicken tender -- that help to restore my faith in humanity. There are people out there who really do care, who have a heart of gold. I just never noticed how often that golden heart beats below a standard-issue set of scrubs and an apron.

Take the time to talk to your lunch ladies. Their jobs aren't easy, and so few people show gratitude for the meals these ladies (and, yes, sometimes men) cook for them. Be the football player, high school royalty who cares more about others than his reputation. Those lunch ladies are someone's mother, wife, sister or friend -- be nice to them!

Stand up

The whole "Occupancy" thing has been getting a lot of attention. To be honest, I thought it was something having to do with the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, but then I started looking into it more. Brace yourselves, because I Graduated, Now What? is about to get....political. I love the Occupancy movement, partly because it's so unclear to which party these people belong, and I love anything non-partisan. "Angry about our economic, social, and political problems" is not the official stance of either side.

What does Occupancy mean to me? I think it's a little like the Declaration of Independence. A bunch of people, pissed off, standing up and saying "No more of this. You suck, and we're done with you." It's the average person (fact: the "middle" is overlooked in almost everything, from the classroom to the professional world -- yet it often makes up the largest piece of the population) sticking it to the man. It's people who have heard "That's the way it is, and there's nothing you can do about it" one too many times.

The Occupants call themselves "The 99%," and claim that almost everything, from policy decisions to everyday things (for lack of a better word) are made to benefit the wealthy, the 1%. And it's not fair.

"But wait, you whiney, lazy, little brat," you might say. "Those people worked hard to get where they are. And you could too, with a little hard work."

Not true. Despite what we may believe, America is not the meritocracy it pretends to be. Read Malcom Gladwell's The Outliers for research on this. Successful people have been helped by timing, luck, knowing people, a natural disposition for others to serve them, and even the placement on the calendar of their birthdays. It's true, people who are born in earlier months are frequently more successful than those born in later months, especially in sports. I'm not making this up; read the book.

The fact is that who you know matters -- sometimes more so than how qualified you are. Those in lower classes and even in middle classes usually stay there. Look more closely at those Cinderella Stories you grew up with, and you will see how outside factors (factors OTHER than "just a little hard work") came into play during the success stories. Check this article out if you need some more evidence. I'm not saying they don't deserve to be there. I'm just saying that getting to the top is much, MUCH harder than people make it out to be -- and that those middle classers who feel overlooked and stand in the street holding signs have just as much right to voice their frustrations.

Then there's the bailouts. I don't know the whole story (does anyone, really?) but I DO know that when members of my family lost their jobs, nobody was there to bail them out. I know that there are millions of people who have lost their houses because of this economy, people forced to move, forced to downsize, forced to the streets in some cases. Is there anyone bailing them out, the occupants ask.

For me, it's personal because of the fact that I just graduated and it was like opening a door in a tree in the woods and walking into Halloweentown. With every letter and phone call I make, I feel like I'm standing in a mime box, screaming at... who? Who's listening? Nobody is listening, because I am just a resume in a stack of a million, and it doesn't matter that I love English, or that I want this more than probably anyone else in that pile. Then there's my college, which totally shoved me out the door and left me on my own -- and who was there to help me get a job this summer? Who was there to push the paperwork so my certification would go through in time? Nobody. Nobody was there, because they don't care. Because once they get my money, I become just another graduate, and the people at the top really can't be bothered with the problems of peasants. And there was nothing I could do about it.

Until now. No, this little sign and my "Peas on Earth" pajamas are not going to change the world. The other day I was discussing the Occupancy with some other people, and someone said, "It's all a bit silly, really. I mean, what is it going to do?" What is it going to do? Maybe nothing. But you know what definitely accomplishes nothing? Not trying. You think there weren't people who sat around while the colonists were chanting "No taxation without representation" and signing whiney papers? That those people didn't think the whole thing was "a bit silly?" But where would we be if those people hadn't exercised the free speech that they hadn't even earned yet?

Is the Occupancy going to be as landmark as the Declaration? Of course not -- at least probably not. And I apologize for the possibly hyperbolic comparison. But for so long people have been standing around sporting "WTF" expressions, saying "someone should do something about this, why doesn't someone do something?" And now someone has.

And so, to those of you who wish someone would do something, STAND UP! Wherever you are, stand up and OCCUPY!

Oh, come ON.

You know that scene in movies where the character gets fired, gets dumped, accidentally runs over his dog, finds out he's out of milk, and walks to the car only to find it's out of gas, decides to walk to the store and then it starts raining? And he just shouts, "Oh, come ON!"

Or she. It could be a she.

No, I didn't get fired, get dumped, run over my dog/cat, or run out of milk (it is raining today, though -- and I AM out of gas). But I still feel like shouting "Oh, come ON!"

They started (or maybe had already been) showing the house. As in The House, as in the house we want. As in the house we WOULD have already, if not for my stupid school's stupid policy and stupid paperwork and the least flexible and accommodating principal EVER. The beautiful house that is perfect for us, is perfect distance to town, is literally right next to one of the schools where I occasionally sub, and whose rent was almost too good to be true. That house.

WHY?! This house has been on the market for YEARS, literally YEARS, and nobody has bought it. It has had one set of renters. ONE. Maybe they're asking too much to buy it, maybe people don't want a house that was built in 1819 (I think that was when it was....), but for whatever reason the house has been on the market for years. I repeat. YEARS. Now that we both have jobs (yes - this was going to be a MICHAEL GOT A JOB HIP HIP HOORAY! post, but now the happy has to share with the angry) we can most probably make the amount we'll need in around six weeks. Possibly more, but not much more. And then we could have it, have our own house (ish), and once again be out on our own. Except that they're showing it. And today, as I was driving home I saw that they are clearing some shrubbery and giving the sides a major scrub down. Because the Universe hates me THAT much, that it would dangle this house for the entire summer, allow it to stay unoccupied the entire time we are unemployed, and then -- six weeks before we can make it -- take it away.

Six. Weeks. The freaking thing has to stay unoccupied for roughly six more weeks. After that many years, can't it wait a little bit longer?

And while I'm whining, why can't I get a job?? Why do people (even people who specifically TOLD somebody to tell me to email them and remind them who I am) ignore my "please hire me" emails?

I'm taking the Social Studies GACE this weekend, because I gave up on getting a job based solely on my sheer love for the subject and profession itself (because for some reason that's not enough). I've been studying for the past couple of weeks, and I still have no idea what to expect from this test. I have a feeling I've been studying the wrong thing and am about to waste almost $100 on failing.

And, while I'm still whining, regarding Michael's job: I am so, so, so, excited that he has one -- and this one is even a good fit for him! It's relevant to what he did last year, similar machinery, and should be enjoyable for him. But I don't know how his first day went, because I don't get to talk to him about it. I kind of feel like I will never get to talk to him again, until weekends, because we now have complimentary hours -- in a way that doesn't remotely compliment anything. I'm coming home as he's leaving. I'm going to bed as he's getting home. I'm waking up while he's passing through one of many REM cycles for the night. We don't even have a minute of overlap.

And the house. Six. Weeks.

Say it with me.

OH, COME ON!

Keep on pushing, Sisyphus.

Just Keep Swimming

I should write more. I don't know what happens, really. At the end of the day, driving home, I always think of brilliant, witty, insightful things I want to write on here and then I get home and.... Crash. Being someone else's teacher for the day is pretty draining sometimes, but it shouldn't be enough to wipe my short-term memory. Maybe all the pressure I put on myself to work EVERY DAY and have money to pay for crap takes up all my brainspace. Let me clarify something. I'm not whining about having to work every day. I WANT to work every day. But as a substitute, it's possible on Friday that the following week's calendar will be totally blank, and you just have to hope someone has a reason to stay home those days and that they call you. Being a substitute is a little like being a vulture.

As it happens, I HAVE managed to book my week. Next week has one little star on it (I put stars on days I work, so that one day when I look at my month at a glance it will look like the night sky. And I will be content), but that's it so far. Even though, for the most part, I have gotten called every day, it's still stressful going to bed and just hoping you'll do something with monetary gain the next day. That being said...

October is a landmarkedly awesome month. And do you know why? October (which, despite it not being the month of my birth has always been my favorite) is the first month that I get to... *drum roll* ... let's make this super dramatic....

PAY ALL MY BILLS ON MY OWN!!! Yeeessssss!!! Yeah, because sometimes even after graduate school you still have to have parentals and kind strangers (note: I have taken no money from kind strangers) in your corner to bail you out with the unemployment lasts a liiiittle too long. Like it did. But now, behold, for I have deposited my FIRST PAYCHECK!!

It wasn't actually as much as I was expecting. Freaking taxes. You mentally account for them, but it always, always feels like they take more from you. Boo, hiss, fairtax, please?

Before this gets too political, I'm going to end it here with this last little tidbit. Things are actually going pretty well and seem to be looking up somewhat. Lots of sub work, some long-term stuff on the horizon, and still running job searches and sending out "please hire me" letters every chance I get. I feel like I get progressively better at my "please hire me" letters, but, oddly enough, I never get any more hired.

Oh. And, because it totally deserves an update: Ferris has mastered the hallway. He now follows us into every room upstairs, freely and without reservation. The stairs are another story. In a related story, sightings of the resident animals upstairs have become increasingly less frequent.

A true champion

So Much Potential

And now, a message from the drama llama:

"Dear Kimberly, I know you've mentally mapped out the stories from last week's substituting adventures, and I'mma let you get there, I'mma let you finish, but first I have to introduce something to you. It is called 'The Potential Job Situation.' And it goes a little something like this."

I've been substituting for a wonderful school system in a little town so cute it might as well be Star's Hollow (hometown of the Gilmore Girls). There's a long-term sub opening for next semester, and for a while I thought I was pretty much a lock for the job.

Then I found out there's another substitute, at the same school, who wants the same job, and who has already done the same job, for that school, last year.

When the air is let out of your balloon, it sounds something like this: Pffffftttttttbbbbbthhhhhh

I'm also hoping to be involved in a local tutoring, um, thing, that starts in October. Provided they get all the students they need. Provided I can work around subbing. But at any rate, it's still more money.

I got a call today from a county to which I applied for a job (like, a job-job) this year, asking if I would be interested in a longterm substitute position at their middle school.

And the heavens opened up and the angels sang....Death metal.

Wait. Angels don't sing death metal. Why are the angels singing death meta?

Because, as I listened on I learned that this long term job overlaps the other one. The one I might not get, but want very very badly. Whyyy??

You might be sitting there reading this (And I guess if you're reading this you are, in fact reading this...), thinking I would be stupid not to pounce on anything that opens up. But if it were an easy decision, I would have made it already. So let's just give me the benefit of the doubt and assume there must be some reason not to take it.

I love the school where I'm currently subbing. If I could get this long term job here, it could really really help in getting a full-time job, should such an opportunity come along. But if I leave and let someone else have the long term, then I feel as if I'd be taken out of the running altogether. Maybe not, but it will at least hurt my chances that I wanted to leave. Further, there's the tutoring. Yeah, yeah, the tutoring that hasn't started yet. But if it does happen, they want to make me lead tutor for my county. Kind of a big deal to have such a, if I may quote a card from the game Munchkin, Really Impressive Title. BUT, the commute between the school that called today and the tutoring place is.... quite possibly too long to make it in time. And it's just 2 months of work, granted it's two months of guaranteed work. But if something opens up here next year and I've left, it would only be logical to turn to the person who was put in the classroom to fill in, and that wouldn't be me.

So, is it worth staying for two potential jobs that might be building blocks to amount to awesome wonderful jobs? Or is this a "take what you can get" kinda thing? And why do I feel I've posted this very same angst before? And where are my shoes?

Ann M. Martin is a genius

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a babysitter more than a rich kid wants a pony. Specifically, I wanted to be a member of the Babysitter's Club, a fictional organization of 13-year old, fully certified babysitters. At 9, age 13 seemed so old and responsible, but by the time I was 13, I knew I wouldn't have put me in charge of anything living. Mainly because my babysitting tactic, for a long time, was to do everything fun and amusing that I could think of day one, then get irritated because children, as it turns out, need to be entertained and cared for every day. Who knew?

I have, since then, gained more patience for youngsters. I have also learned not to overexert myself on day one and to save some fun things for later, because there always will be a later. One thing I did love about what the Babysitter's Club babysitters brought to the table were the Kid Kits. Kid Kits were these sweet little boxes that the Babysitters filled with stickers, coloring books, crayons, and all kinds of wonderful kid-entertaining things. I imagine there had to have been some glitter, or there would have been an inevitable coup of some kind.

Today, I learned how much smarter than me these made-up teenagers were. I was called in to substitute for a middle school parapro, which meant following different classes throughout the day. As if that wasn't complicated enough, today was also field trip day for one of the grades, so some of the teachers were out. At one point, I led a class (a LARGE class, at that) into a room, seated them, and stood in horror as I realized there wasn't a teacher in the room already! Cue hitchcock-style scream. Of course, being alone in a room with students is not something that is new to me. As a substitute (And even during my student teaching sometimes), I find myself flying solo all the time. In fact, today would have been the first day that I wasn't filling in for the primary teacher. But here's what was severely lacking in this scenario: A lesson plan of any kind.

We were actually supposed to be in the computer room, but the computer room was occupied by another class, so we were told to go to this classroom, and..... And what? "And what?" is exactly the question I was met with, as I stared at 30-ish seventh graders, who were being relatively quiet as they waited for guidance. And none came.

It was eventually decided that they would present their technology projects, which, in a room lacking of personal computers meant that they would be reading from printed powerpoint slides and doing their very best to be quiet and listen respectfully. Uh-huh.

And so I refer back to the genius of Ann M. Martin, writer of the phenomenal series that spurred a not-so-phenomenal movie, and an ehhh spinoff series: Kid Kits. Or something more grown-up and professional sounding, but essentially, yes, Kid Kits. You see, I'd like to gather a handful of lesson plans, varying in time length, for the not-so-unlikely occasion that I find myself standing in front of eager students (whose attention spans are drifting by the second) with nothing in hand. And that is where you, the reader (you know, all five or so of you, am I right?) come in. Throw out some lesson plan ideas for me to use! Try to make them engaging, but educational, without making them feel too much like they're in "school." I know they are in school, but what right does a substitute have to teach them anything? This is why it needs to be sneaky. I will probably work best with English/Language Arts-related topics, but feel free to throw anything in. Current events could work well too. Just so they are doing something, and the class period doesn't turn into heads up seven up. I don't mind if I have to print anything out; I'll probably print out like 10 copies and have them do the stuff in groups or something. One more thing! If these could be altered to fit as many ages as possible, it would be best; I'm on the list for primary-high school, so it's anybody's guess where I'll be!

Anyway, here's my short-list; feel free to add to it!!

5-10 minutes:

Brainteasters, etc.

-Have students brainstorm as many uses as they can for simple items: brick, blanket, fork, box... If time allows, discuss some of the students' answers

-Droodles (clicky): Look at these shapes and see what students think they are. Spend a few minutes jotting down everything they think the things could possibly be. Talk about ideas.

-Circle madness: Have a paper full of circles (students can draw them, or they can be pre-printed). Have students draw on circles to create different things, count how many each student comes up with.

-The famous farmhouse: Draw that shape, you know the one (a box with an X in the middle and a triangle on top of it. It looks like a farmhouse to me... Challenge students to recreate the shape without picking up their pencil, tracing lines, or crossing lines.

15-20 minutes: (or more, really)

Writing!!

-Have students draw inspiration from Lynda Barry's What it is (right here) and write short stories, poems, plays...

-There's always this amazing book, that supplies the first sentence of a story FOR the writer.

-The zombie exercise is always a hit. Basically, students visualize a room in their house, look to the left from a particular spot, imagine themselves picking up the first thing they find, and use it as a weapon in the zombie apocalypse. Usually more of a hit with boys, but girls have fun with it too.

Quick Skit!

-Act out characters of scenes from books and have the class guess who it is.

20-30 minutes

An infinite amount of writing prompts!

Here are some of my favorites, and students can share their pieces with time left over

-Think of your favorite song and a memory you have attached to that song. Write that memory as a scene in a story.

-create a scene: Students brainstorm different methods of travel (anything from submarine to bicycle to spaceship; literally nothing (well... not nothing is off-limits)), then answer a series of questions about the main character (who are they, why are they traveling, where are they going) and write a scene from this information

-aaackk I'm drawing a blank on writing prompts. Help me out, here! Natasha, I'm looking at youuu!!

There's always time for poetry!

-The Jabberwocky lesson plan: Students read Jabberwocky in groups and try to decipher some of the crazy words and say what they think the poem means

A full class period

-What makes a good story: Discuss some elements of stories, pausing to discuss the "hook" in general. Have students pick books from a bookshelf (hopefully there is one!) and read the first sentences of their books. Rate the sentences 1-5 stars, 1 being "I don't want to read this book now," 5 being "I HAVE to find out what happens in this book!" Then have some students read their sentences, discussing what would make them better or why they are great the way they are. Students brainstorm their own first sentences, pick one, and WRITE!

-test-taking strategies: Talk about how to do well on a test. Give the sample test (something I got in class last year) and see how well students can do on a test -- one that basically takes itself! Then discuss the answers and how you can use a test to help you.

-It's always possible to stretch out some of the other things on above lists...

So that's what I have so far. I'm sure if I thought long enough I could come up with more. Most teachers do have a plan for the sub, but in case I'm faced with the unthinkable again I want to be prepared! So... Get your ideas ready.... set..... GO! Let me hear it!

Fear and Loathing in rural/suburban Georgia

When we first moved in, we put Ferris in Michael's room and shut the door. In the beginning, we even locked the door just for good measure. After some time, the doors would be left open and the native cats and dog would wander in to find a new, strange, VERY bristled/hissing smallish version of a cat. Eventually, Ferris developed the courage to cross the hall into the guest room, and he now spends his days running full speed in and out of the guest room and Michael's room. But what is incredibly odd is that he doesn't go any further down the hall. Seriously. Whenever we go downstairs, we can hear him meowing from the doorway. And we know it's from the doorway, because I snapped this picture once as I came up the stairs:

See that little blackish dot on the door? That's Ferris, and that is as far as he will go down the hallway. It doesn't make sense -- at the apartment, he left no nook unexplored, no patch of carpet unscratched (luckily he didn't leave any marks...). But for some reason, he cowers at the prospect of venturing down the hallway. What a fraidy cat, in every literal sense.

It takes one to know one, though. I, too, am quite the fraidy cat. My list of fears is quite long. Sure, there's the usual death, loved ones' death, war, etc -- also throwing up (who is afraid of THAT, I mean really), and of course failure.

I almost faced a fear earlier this week. Michael and I talked about watching The Grudge, a movie that had me awake for two days, a movie that had me running into the lobby during the movie, just for some reprieve from that creepy Ehhkkk-ehhkk-ehhkk noise. I shudder just thinking about it. But then, the dog got trapped in the laundry room and made so much noise that my heart was pounding and I realized was definitely not ready to face that particular fear. All of you who laughed at the silly, screaming little girls in the movie: Shut it, please? Thanks.

Then there's this little gem, thanks to some people from the comic fury chatzy last night:

CLICK FOR TRUE HORROR

(DISCLAIMER: seriously, don't click on that unless you are not easy to scare. It's awful. Oh, and if you DO clicky, you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom. Just do it; you'll see why. Make sure your sound is on).

So yes. Terrified. And terrified of what, exactly? A comic? Asian special effects, and a noise made by the movie's own director? Why? I guess it's because anything is technically possible. What if this is some kind of evil ring-like web page, that haunts you for the rest of your life until it finally makes you lost your mind before the creature consumes you. Or something.

I don't understand my fears. I don't understand being afraid of a normal bodily function, or being afraid of something that was animated and put online. I don't understand being afraid of failure to the point that Homer Simpson's age old wisdom "Trying is the first step towards failure" starts to ring true. Everybody fails, right? Maybe I should assess myself based on the general scrapbook of moments and not just one snapshot. That is what we learned was the best kind of assessment after all... I think at some point we just have to accept our failures, learn from them, and one day be able to see them as lessons, rather than failures. I consider myself to have no regrets, only lessons learned. But I'm not 100% sure that's true. I still kick myself for walking out of a job fair that was hiring on the spot, just for getting one phone call offer, especially when that offer amounted to nothing. And I tell myself that there was a reason that one didn't work out, and that there was a reason I walked away from the job fair. There is really no point in dwelling on what we don't know.

Yet "the unknown" is number one on the list of people's fears, isn't it? We aren't afraid of death because it hurts. Even if it does hurt, it's only for a second and then it's over. We're afraid because we don't know what happens after. We have faith, sure. But the very definition of faith implies that there must be some unknown. Ferris isn't afraid of the hallway because the dog's cage is in it. Usually the dog is in the room with Ferris, dodging the threats that Ferris hisses and growls at him. No, Ferris is afraid of the hallway because he doesn't know what could be in it, where it goes, what lurks behind the doorways ten feet away from the one he knows and loves.

One day I will have to face my fears. I search for jobs every day, because the lack of money overrides the fear of coming up short. And maybe one day I will strike gold, so to speak, and find out exactly why nothing else worked out. And it will all make sense.

But I am not clicking that link again.

Big Bad World One

In the roller coaster ride of highs and lows that is life post-college, the past few days would be filed under "low." If I had a filing cabinet that is. If I could afford one.

I'll let Mr. Coulton explain it to you in song.

Clicky clicky.

for some reason you can only upload videos if you actually have them on file. Laaaameeee... But seriously, that song's cool.

In other news, I am going to tap into a high schooler and post one of those irritating, vague "is this about me" kind of posts that nobody but me really cares about:

I hate when people are mad at me. I hate disappointing people and making them unhappy. And I really hate when they're mad at me when I think they shouldn't be. Because that makes me mad at them. And then we're in this stupid cycle of stubbornness and waiting for apologies and whatever, and then I watch movies like What Dreams May Come, and cry the whole time, thinking about last words and how we never get a chance to make amends for things, and THEN I think that even if I apologized it would be snubbed anyway because, well, who knows.

In other other news, I am tired of disappointing people who are encouraging. Why don't people stop being nice and encouraging for once? If you say " I know you can do it," and then I can't, then I have negated and let down your confidence in me. So if people would just stop having so much confidence in me, I could only have myself to please or let down. I'm trying, I really am. But I often feel pressured to live up to other people's expectations of me, which match my own (which I can't seem to meet on my own). So yes. Please stop being supportive.

I am a terrible person for the above post. And so, so ridiculous. I'd hide it from prying eyes of the public, but this is my place to be raw, or whatever. Today's just not a good day. Perhaps tomorrow the roller coaster will have reached a peak. I'm working, and then getting a hair cut and going to North Carolina, so it really better!

Good things ARE worth waiting for... But how do you decide when to wait and when to leave?

That was a long title. My apologies. My apologies also for the boring cat videos. Apparently not so much of a crowd pleaser. Duly noted.

So, I have a question. A problem. A conundrum. Sometime last year, I had this plan for my future. I was going to work at the local school and live in one of the cutest small towns I've ever seen. If they didn't have an opening, I was going to substitute and try again next year. Then I started thinking that I was limiting myself with this plan. The jobs are out there, not right here. So I pursued some, with no results, and went back to plan A. Well, really I guess it was plan B, since I've started substituting. There are still openings, even after school has already started. The problem is that, still, they are farther away than I wanted.

I could have a life here. There's a house that we want (though it might get rented out before we get the money together to rent-to-own it). Michael's band is here. Our families are here. But the jobs aren't here. Not yet anyway. Is it stupid to stay here, make much less money than I had wanted, and work my way up from the bottom for jobs that still might not be available next year (actually, I'm pretty sure the BIGGEST COUNTY IN GEORGIA will have something again next year, and I will know more about the application process and have a better chance by then)?

Or should I apply for whatever opens up, wherever that may be? Should I uproot not only myself to pursue something, just because it came up? My career isn't the only one that matters, but I'm in so much student-loan debt, it feels like I'd be stupid NOT to try to get a higher-paying job. And it's not all about money; I want to teach -- have wanted to since the second grade.

How do you know when to wait and when to act? How do you balance "good things are worth waiting for," "slow and steady wins the race," and "nice guys finish last"?

And why do I suddenly feel like Pocahontas in her canoe?

"Just around the riverrrrr bennnnnd"

Saturday Night with Ferris

Last night, Michael and I decided to stay in (which isn't really that out of the ordinary) with our cat friend, Ferris. Ferris started doing hilarious things (which isn't really that out of the ordinary, either), so we filmed him. I apologize in advance that they are all sideways. I don't know how to flip a video.

This first video is a bit blurry, because in my haste to capture the hilarity I forgot to focus the camera. Whoops.

This next video is much clearer, but doesn't get interesting for a few seconds. Then it gets quite interesting, as Ferris and Michael have what is unmistakably a conversation.

No, it's not what it looks like in this last installment of Saturday with Ferris. I know it looks like something you'd have to pay to see on Cat Cinnemax, but I assure you Ferris is just hopping backwards on a hat. he does this with his prey. Then he and Michael engage in a Father-Son game of catch, in which Ferris volleyballs his mouse into the litterbox. Gross.

So that's Ferris. I promise I will not use this blog to fulfill my Catlady obsessions. You have my word, real content in the next post.

Getting long-winded about hate and fate

During graduate school, I did something I'm not proud of -- something that I'm only now beginning to be able to deal with. I hated somebody. I know we say things like "ohh I HATE her," but hate, like love, is a word that we often fling around casually. Those who have people they love know that how we feel about spaghetti and how we feel about our friends and family do not remotely deserve the same word. I hate Twilight. But I hated this girl.

I'm not going to go into what she did, why I hated her, because I'm never going to be able to get over it and deal if I keep flinging mud. Suffice it to say that I felt justified in the emotion, though it was a scary one to possess. Not even the girl who unwillingly stole my boyfriend in high school was on the receiving end of something that damning. And anyway, we're friends now. It worked out.

But this person... Let me back up a bit and explain that it was a hard year. It was like high school again, which I felt was completely ridiculous because we were all in our twenties. But still, every day of class I felt like the band geek trying to sit at the cheerleader table. As you can imagine (and probably know), I was not cool in high school. And, as cruel fate would have it, I am not cool now. Well. By their standards, anyway. So it was a hard year, because most of my college friends had graduated and left me there, and I suddenly went from having a large handful of similar-interest-having buddies to.... being condemned to the Left Side of The Room. Left-siders were.... "other." I did eventually bond with my fellow lefties, but that there was a division at all was a problem.

Graduate school is hard. Nobody really prepares you for how much harder it is than college, and really, it's weird that it is so much harder. Especially for me - because I had grad school and college in the same school. But it is harder -- so much harder. The work is harder (don't let the fact that you have considerably less class hours fool you), the homework takes longer, you put together portfolios, projects, and papers, in MUCH less time than you ever would have dreamed possible in high school. Add to that the fact that I was working part-time AND student teaching, take away almost any trace of a social scene, and you've got a year that is challenging in pretty much every way.

That kind of an obstacle produces a lot of negative energy. Everything was stressful, and when I tried to unwind we were either forced to stay in town because I was working or making the very trying one-hour commute home. All that frustration needed an outlet, and one pretty much presented itself to me in the form of my own personal scapegoat.

I maintain that what the person did was uncalled for, though for the purpose of this discussion what she did doesn't much matter. But what I did in response was equally uncalled for: I took all the frustration with class, fear of not finding a job, loneliness of having no friends, mixed it up in a salad bowl with pretty much anything else that gave me trouble over the course of that year, and mentally dumped it on her head. Anything that went wrong was her fault. Not directly of course -- she couldn't be to blame if I waited until the night before to write three papers -- but somehow, cosmically, it added up. I needed someone to hate, some target for all this negativity inside me -- and she had done something terrible to me already. It just fit. It worked. So, for the rest of the year, she was my focus. Hating somebody takes work, just like loving somebody. When you love somebody, you have to look past all the flaws, the mistakes, the quirks, and love the spirit of the person. Hate requires almost the same process. You have to teach yourself how to be so utterly unforgiving, an un-movable wall of loathing. The difference between the two is that with love comes rewards. You have the comfort of knowing that when they look at you, they too can look past the flaws, mistakes, and quirks and see your spirit. You make each other happy, you grow with each other. But when you hate, there is no good outcome. It's even worse if they're unaware of the daggers you stare at their head, because then you might as well be pouring all this darkness on the floor; it does you about the same amount of good. And sometimes you trip in the mess and wallow, not letting in any of the light around you.

It's not a healthy place to be. But the past year was like trying to fight my way out of a meat grinder -- almost nothing seemed to work out. And now, I am the last the last person from my class to be without a job. It's humiliating, really. But then it does seem to fit in with the meat-grinder year. A year where I never felt I belonged, where I grew to second-guess myself, felt invisible, and then ultimately at graduation more than one person couldn't remember my name. But that's not the girl's fault. She is not where I need to be directing my negativity. I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe what goes around comes around. I believe that, if I spend an entire year refusing to take responsibility for my problems that it would follow that I'd have to continue to have problems until I can grow up and deal with them.

Call it God, call it Fate, call it the Universe (and say it's out to get you -- Matt), call it "Ceiling Cat" (though that's usually who you pray to when your feline friend is in trouble), call it whatever you want. I believe in it -- and I believe that the pieces of the Life Puzzle do eventually, somehow, fit together. There are lessons we have to learn, hurdles we have to jump, and monsters we have to fight. Sometimes the monsters are really ourselves, the inner, darker, slimy creatures that we keep hidden most of the time but have to face eventually.

It's funny, because about four months ago I had a plan for the future. I was going to try to work at the local school (a school I LOVE), and if that didn't work out I would substitute until an opening came along. But then I got desperate. I started fearing that I wouldn't have the dream job, so I chased dream jobs all over the sate (and a few other states). Now, at the end of my search I am exactly where I was four months ago. I'm guessing this is what was supposed to happen.

And speaking of what's supposed to happen, I can't help but feel that the past year might have been a meat-grinder because it wasn't the right thing to do. I applied to exactly one MFA, didn't get in, gave up and pursued another degree -- one I got in without really trying. What if, as a dear friend puts it, the Author of my Story wants their protagonist to do something else with her life? What if the fact that I was given an offer that was then taken away due to a technicality, and then walked into a minefield of a sample lesson presentation -- what if those are walls that have been put up to give the character of my story a detour? What if I need to spend more money, more years in school, and get an MFA, pursue a different path? I'm not going to do anything crazy or drastic right now -- but I can't help wondering if nothing is working out because it's not supposed to. I absolutely loved my student teaching experience, and the actual learning part of the year was incredible. But what if I'm supposed to be somewhere else? Maybe this isn't the plot the Author of my Story really had in mind when the first pages were penned. And maybe one day, I will figure out what kind of Story this is supposed to be.