New beginnings

So it has finally happened. I got a teaching job!!
     I graduated with my second degree from Athens in December and have been stressing out ever since. I had a few interviews in January, but nothing panned out. I then started applying to EVERY job I could in Alabama and some in Tennessee too. Last time I remember checking the number of jobs I had applied to was in the 200's! With all that work of following up with an email and many, many prayers I only had five interviews during May and June. I know a lot of schools were getting out and planning for the next year, but I am a stresser. I like to have a plan and have plenty of time to do it instead of being rushed at the end and having to struggle to get everything done. Since this was my first year to be a teacher I was praying someone would take pity on me and hire me.
     Then I got the call! A principal from my first interview called me two weeks after the interview and offered me a job teaching 7-9th grade English. I knew nothing about the school, but knew I wanted a job. She told me to take 24 hours to think about it. I was on my lunch break and couldn't contain my excitement the rest of the day. I made a pro/con list, but the only cons I could think of was moving to a city where I didn't know anyone. Applying to 200 schools I knew I would most likely have to move, and wanted to but when reality set in I didn't know if I was ready to move away by myself.
     I have had a wonderful and supportive mother who has taken care of me and helped me throughout my 27 years of life. I have lived at home a majority of my life, except a few year when I went to college. I love being alone, but could I handle doing that and not become even more anti-social? I decided I can do this for a year! One year. After one year I will have more interview opportunities, I'll have experience, and I will have been at a school where my principal is very passionate about her students success. I was all in! I was now an employee of Pickens County High School!
     And then panic set in. I had to pack all of my stuff, find a place to live, unpack all my stuff once I moved, decorate a classroom, make lessons for two grades I have never taught before, and make friends....... I had moments where I couldn't breathe, but then I realized I would be doing the thing I have been working so hard for over the past years. I couldn't let fear and anxiety stop me. I was ready.
     I went with my mom to find an apartment and we found it after looking at three places. I knew it was the place because it was gated, had a pool, and a huge closet. I then had to finish my two week notice at Academy and finish packing. While I was packing I realize how much stuff you accumulate over 27 year of life, especially if you are a pack rat like me. Then it was time to move. My older sister, friend, and brother in law were instrumental in my move. Actually the movers I payed were the best help because I live on the second floor and there was no way I could carry my 40 boxes of books PLUS all my other crap.
     I was moved after two days and a lot of sweat, moving in July is a horrible idea. I am two days into working at school officially, and in less than a week the kids will be coming! I am so excited for this year, and will try and document it as best I can.

Disappointment defined

While I always thought I understood the word "disappointment" I found out you can know a word and its meaning, but until you experience it it doesn't register fully. 

     I became a team lead at my job in May of 2014. I was over a department and people. I had a wonderful department manager who helped nurture me and teach me the ins and outs of management. He taught me what to look for on resumes and how to conduct phone and in-person interviews. When hiring people you get good and bad ones. I saw a lot of different types of people apply. 

     Then there was a dad who approached my store director about the possibility of his daughter working for us. You have to be 18 to work at my job, so it was weird for a father to come in and talk up his daughter. He told us his daughter has autism. The high school she went to had work study program for special needs students. She had worked stocking for a grocery store and another store. My store director approached me with this possibility.

     I knew it could be difficult, but I wanted to help her in any way. I interviewed her and she was got overwhelmed and began to cry. It broke my heart. She wanted to do so well, but when she got flustered she couldn't speak so that just added on to it all. I knew after that I wanted to hire her. Her father had said no one else would even interview her. It took time to get her acclimated and find things where she could work and not get overwhelmed. I was proud to work for my store and under my store director to allow me to hire someone who may not be conventional. 

     Let's jump forwards to today. My older sister came in my work and tried to find me. She asked the girl I've spoken about where I was. She became flustered, and my sister became agitated. When my sister found she asked, "what's wrong with her?" I informed her about her situation. But then she said it. The sentence that made me understand the word "disappointment". She asked me why I would do that. I didn't understand what she meant. I have watched the employee mentioned grow and develop over the past few months. 

     My mother always raised me to respect and accept others -no matter the circumstance. I thought she had raised us all that way, but when my older sister asked why I would give someone a chance when no one else would my heart broke. I hope I can no harbor this disappointment against my sister for long, but it's hard. I just hope more people are more open minded. 

Am I just a number?

I said it would never happen to me.

And it didn't.. not technically,
but it was closer than I ever wanted to be.

It was move-in wee for freshmen at the University of Alabama. The week when you leave the familiar, your family, and friends. You trade that for the "best" years of your life.
   
I moved into Burke West. My two high school best friends were in a different dorm rooming together. I felt like they had chosen each other over me. I was the reject.
-- Luckily three guys from my high school were going to live in my dorm, just a few floors down. And now that we were away from the politics of high school we could be friends now.

One of the first few nights of Welcome Week they invited me to their room to "hang". I worked up the nerve to go, so I wouldn't just sit in my room -alone- like I had the night before.

Their room was on the second floor
down the front hallway
all the way down on the left side
across from the fire escape stairs

I ran into two random guys, who greeted me as if I was a long lost friend,
on my way down to their room.

Once I made it to their room we all started drinking while we watched South Park
- what all college freshmen guys hold holy. I had to go to the bathroom, and was suppose to go to a designated girls floor so I went to the third floor. When I came back down I bumped into an ogre-like guy who towered over me and was rather intoxicated.
He pulled me into his room to show me all the alcohol he brought with him, as if they were trophies or awards. I wasn't impressed, but that didn't slow him down any.

Soon I was being backed up onto his bed by his abnormally big body,

How did I get pinned like this, 

with no escape?

I am against his mattress with his overwhelming weight holding me down.

I try pushing on his chest 

Not making any lead way.

-Then his slobbery mouth finds mine

And all I want to do is vomit.

My only goal now is to get his nasty mouth off of mine.

His hands- move over places no one else has touched before

making me ill, once again,

This buffoon is going to win...

He can't, he just can't. 

I close my eyes thinking this will block him out.

But

Then I don't feel him on top of me anymore, and a hand is on my shoulder. A guy I met earlier in the hallway, who turns out to be the giant's roommate - and my savior.

I would see that behemoth from time to time on campus, in the cafeteria, or in the elevator. 

Making me remember that time, that almost time.

I never thought it would happen to me, 

But it almost did. 

If that stranger hadn't helped me He would have succeeded, 

And I would have been his conquest.

I was lucky.

That's the beauty of it all.

It's still so vivid. I was a perfect student, in regards to behaving. It was almost sickening, or so I gather from the way my sister talks about it. I never pulled a card or disobeyed a teacher, but that changed in high school. 

I was in 10th grade and believed, still do, that I knew everything. In English we had to do a poet study. Choose a poet from a list, tell their biography, pick a poem, and discuss the meaning. I chose "Heart! We will forget him" by Emily Dickinson. It is about a heart broken woman who is trying to forget about this great love of hers, but her heart isn't helping her any. Well I gave my synopsis of the poem, and my teacher told me I was wrong... 

WRONG?!? 

How could I be wrong about what I believed the poem was about. She was a stickler for abiding by what the book or those great people who write what Emily truly meant. 

Her poems weren't published until she died. They were her personal diary. She wanted them burned, but her relative published them, which I am still thankful for. 

-well that is when I knew I wanted to be an English teacher. I want people to understand their opinion matters. They can take away an emotion or truth away from a text someone else may never see or get. That is the beauty of literature and poetry. 

People can see or feel what they feel, and it doesn't have to be what the author wanted their readers to get from their writings. The writer already had a chance to put their thoughts and feelings into the words they wanted. It is the readers ten to grasp onto whatever they find. 

I just read "The Sky is Everywhere" by Jandy Nelson. It is beautifully written. It is definitely YA and focuses on a somewhat love triangle. It also is focused on a family, mainly a girl, who just lost someone and how you keep going while knowing the loved one never will. Nelson constructs  a beautiful version of that through Lennie. I believe my favorite part is the fact that Lennie leaves poems or conversations that did or didn't happen on scraps of paper, walls, anything she can write on through out town. It is as if she is so full of words and can't contain them. She writes them and discards them as if she feels that is the only way she can make sure they really happened. 

While I loved the book and will recommend it my favorite part is Q&a with the author. They ask her normal, run of the mill questions, but one question showed me the beauty of Jandy Nelsons's soul. They asked "What do you want readers to take from this story?" She replies with a beautiful response about one paragraph towards the end summing up the whole book to her. - but then she siad the magic words. ---"Every time I come across this paragraph, I think to myself, well there it is, the whole book crammed into one paragraph! So for me the ideas in that paragraph kind of ring out, but every reader will take something different from the novel and that's what I want, that's the magic of it all. Reading is such a wonderfully personal and private affair." 

She gets it! She gets me!! While I loved the book, and fell in love with the characters and their humanness. My favorite part of the book was that Jandy Nelson gets it. She understands that her work will be read by many different people in just as many different places in life, and it's their choice to take away what they want from this book. 

It's yours to take.

In my own time

Every few months I seem to need to validate my life. I am sure this is the same for everyone, so I'm not sure why I feel like my life is the only one not going to "plan". 

I am 25 years old. I graduated from UNA with an English degree in 2012. I loved my classes and teachers (for the most part). They helped me grow and gain different perspectives I wasn't aware of or didn't think needed to be shown to me. I am a very confident person, some would say overly confident. I love learning, but hate being wrong. That's why I love school so much. They teach you new and different perspectives to value and assess things without telling you and your views are wrong or off-putting. 

Since graduating I have started back going to school at Athens State University. My GPA has been screwed over ever since I went to Alabama and pretty much failed out. This is a really embarrassing time in my life I don't talk about enough. I am ashamed for failing and not allowed back at Alabama, but I was depressed and didn't realize it. I'm not trying to make excuses, because it was my fault. But... It takes a hell of a long time to raise GPAs up high enough to a respectable level. 

I love school and I'm dedicated (now), but I had to go back to Athens in undergrad to get my teaching certificate.

I am close now. Only took me 8 years to almost be done with school, but that's my path. 

I use to think other people were failures of it took them a while to figure life out. I'm not sure if that was me and my secluded thinking or if that is what society expected from people. But we have to stop seeing trials and set backs as punishments or failures. 

I am working at Academy sports and outdoors. Trust me, I am not the person you expect to help you find the right grill or bait, and I can't really do either. I bull shit it like 85% of the people I work with. I recently got a "promotion" - it was more of a step to the side- but it is stuff I love. I am dedicated to my work, and want to find new ways of doing things to better it. It takes a lot of time for me to figure out a process, but I enjoy that sort of thing. 

I do not want to be there forever, but who says that I won't. I may graduate and not find a teaching job right away- I hope I'm wrong- but things don't always pan out. I may get a teaching job and hate it or just plain suck at it. I don't know. I'm not sure I would want to know either. 

I still have dreams to go over seas and teach girls in the Middle East or India and one day own an orphanage - but who knows when that dream will come close to being real. It may be far fetched, but it's mine. It fades and I have to rekindle that love, but it's mine. 

I don't know what I was trying to get out of this ramble anymore- I think it morphed into a baby soap box- but I hope someone read this and related and felt not alone for a second... 

What I intended from this post was keep going. It's hard and hurts but don't quit. It may take you longer than you or others thought but why should that matter? 

I read this article and this writer gets me - there are parts that hit home with me that I didn't mention so I hope you take time and read her article too. 

http://elitedaily.com/life/motivation/invisible-timeline-okay-track/855006 

Well hello 2015

2015 began with me passing out at 9:30 thanks to NyQuil. I have been sick a lot this year. Each year looks different to me. 

This year I hope to actually accomplish some things. 

1)I want to be more dedicated

I am not sure how this will translate, but I don't fully immerse myself in things anymore. I do with work, but that's because I have a sickness just like my mom. I want to be dedicated more to reading and writing. These two things are my passions. I fall in and out of love with them, but I want to pursue them more this year. 

2)read 25 books. This isn't a lot, but I had this goal last year and didn't achieve it. I am not sure how many I read, but it doesn't feel like that many. This goes along with the dedicated theme

3) be better with money. I spend money like it is nothing. I need to start saving for student loans, my trip to Alaska in May, and when I won't have a full time job next semester. Plus I just don't manage money well. I buy excessive amounts of... everything really. 

I realize looking back at last year I write several drafts, but only posted one thing last year. So that is where I will begin. Working on old thought and ideas. 

I'm amazed at people

People have blown my mind lately with their intolerance and stupidity.

    I know this seems like it will be negative, but few people lately have amazed me with their ignorance, prejudice, and lack of intelligence.
    I have been observing at a middle school for school, and the teacher I was with went out of town. She set up other teachers for me to observe, so I could complete some of my days. I was excited to see how other teachers taught, but then I observed something that broke my heart. One of the two teachers I kept switching between had an inclusion class I was going to watch. I am in a special learners class, so being able to see how a different teacher and special ed aid interacted would be helpful for an assignment for my class. Well that quickly changed once I saw her lack of willingness to help and teach her students. I realize I am not in that class everyday, but teachers must persue their students and be dedicated. That particular teacher also said that she wishes "those" (special education students) people were seperated from the "normal" students. I didn't know what to do or say. I was shocked someone had that menatlity, especially someone who works with children everyday.
       I was crushed someone would say that about students. They are children, who need extra support. Why wouldn't you want to put forth that extra effort to help others. This woman also said she would make her kid take honors classes to be seperate from those kinds of kids. I am not a special education major and I don't know much about it. Even though I am neither of those things, I care about people and want all children to succeed the best they can.