Yay for no more CSETs!

Since about 11:00 am on Saturday, I’ve been quite content. The last week has been fairly stressful, with midterms, big projects, and CSETs constantly looming. Interestingly, completely out of my normal form I was possibly even over prepared for everything; I stressed out right up until I actually started taking the test/planning the project/writing the paper, and then I instantly realized that I was totally okay. It was a pleasant reminder that I can actually get things done and be responsible, semi-functional adult.

I had some vague ideas of what I wanted to do after the big tests were over, but I ended up mostly vegging out and doing some minor creative work – like hand-making bows for my niece’s gifts, which I got a lovely thank you call from that made me smile (there’s just something particularly fun about “I love you aunt Rachel!” in an adorable 3 year old’s voice). But I’m okay with it; no big things due this week, and if I do say so myself I deserve some off time. I’ll be back to the grind tomorrow, but this weekend I’ve enjoyed myself.

For youth group this week we did more guerrilla raking – popping up at people’s houses to do yard work. It was more interesting since one of the kids was working through some grieving, and had some physical side effects, probably from lack of food. Grieving stuff is uncomfortable enough for me, because everyone handles it differently and I often don’t know the person well enough to know if they want to be alone or have someone be with them, be distracted or talk about it, etc. Adding in the physical stuff, it was hard for me to balance coddling versus being too harsh and/or cynical. By the end of the time she seemed okay, but it got me thinking about how to handle some of those situations.

Also on my mind is how my friendship is progressing with Heather. I didn’t notice it as much until I had some time away from her, but when she and I are together I tend to get pretty monopolized by her. I don’t mean that to say that it’s her fault or something like that, it’s more like I tend to gravitate and talk almost solely with her than with other people. I love the girl, and I love hanging out with her, especially since I don’t see her as much any more, but I’ve gotta work on that.

Finally, on a more positive note, I’m working on getting better about my follow-through. I think I’ve improved a lot in terms of situations involving other people, but in terms of things I commit myself to that are individual I don’t do a great job of being discerning. Often, it’s in terms of projects. There are so many interesting and creative ideas to try, and I whenever I get bogged down in a longer-term project I’m apt to distract myself with smaller, newer, more “exciting” ones. And then I feel guilty for not finishing what I started. Recently, I started writing down future ideas and limiting myself to 2 to 3 at a time. I’ve even crossed some off without doing them at all, not because they’re bad or I don’t like them. That may be great for someone else to do, but especially if it’s not already in my sphere of common projects (sewing/quilting/knitting/minor amounts of jewelry-making) or something that I would have use for, or want to make for someone else, what would be the point of spending time on it? That in and of itself weeds out a lot of things.

I’m also working on this for my personal productivity. I tend to fall in the trap of expecting too much of myself, like that I’ll go home and study and work on projects from the moment I get home from school until I go to work, or that I’ll get everything done super early. Those are good things to do, but trying to do that all the time just can’t work out. I need some healthier expectations for myself; it’s a bad sign when I feel guilty for sleeping more than six hours or having some down time.

Fall Colors

I should be doing my homework right now. Or sleeping. Or working up the willpower to go to the communal meal tonight. Instead, I’m entranced by the beautiful fall colors out my window. Being in fake light all day, albeit pretty good fake light, is getting to me, and realizing that this is probably one of the last beautiful days before winter gets its icy grip on the world isn’t helping.

I wonder how silly it would look to take a cup of tea, a blanket, and my laptop outside to do homework and sunbathe (probably more of the latter than the former). Probably fairly silly, and I’d be guaranteed a few snarky remarks from Patrick whenever he gets back, but I’m feeling like it’s worth it. Quick! Rationalize it to myself! Ummmm….tea might make me feel better with all those antioxidants and whatnot, I can stay warm with a blanket, and I might get homework done. Maybe. Well, I’m convinced!

All that to say, not too much is going on right now, or at least not too much that I haven’t repeated over and over by now – homework, CSETs this Saturday (blegh) and my poor nutrition and sleeping habits have done a number on my immune system so I don’t feel good…again. I’m currently being humbled by my knitting project, since whenever I start to feel like it’s easy and I’ve totally got it down, either a) I make a silly mistake and wonder why I did (and why I didn’t catch it until it’s too late to turn back) or b) I can’t even figure out what happened.

The sun and the fall leaves are calling. This is when I wish I could paint better, to capture these moments.

Week 9 Down

Woohoo, another week down! I must say, the highlight of my week was that I finally got a solid sabbath. For the last month or so, I’ve been so busy that the thought of a day off hasn’t even crossed my mind, but Thursday I had no homework due and no class until 2:00, so I spent the morning relaxing and rejuvenating. I’m still pretty tired – I don’t know why, I’ve been getting 6 – 7 hours of sleep a night, and while that isn’t exceptionally good, it shouldn’t be bad enough to make me this tired.

Unfortunately, technology was kinda iffy for me this week. My xbox finally broke down, my camera broke (while it seems it’s just the button that takes the picture that doesn’t work, I have no idea how to get that fixed) and, after months of printing stuff at school because I thought there was a cord missing from our printer, I finally found out that it was working and went to print a paper. It was out of ink. Grar.

School’s been chugging along, and I’m almost done with my placement hours. I cannot express how glad I will be to get that done. After that, it’s mostly just a few more minor papers and some tests, and it’s Christmas! Monday is the due date for one of my biggest projects, an approximately 15 page paper on the subject of my “personal practical philosophy” of teaching (the name should tell you how enjoyable that is), but once that’s done it should be smooth sailing.

Tomorrow’s art class will mark the half way point for this session. While up to this point it’s only been Summer and Josh’s kids, though I may have an extra couple this week, I still feel like there’s value in it. If nothing else, it gives me practice for consistently making lesson plans and making sure I have a purpose in each activity. Since I’ve never put in significant time with kids younger than about 7, it also gives me a better estimation of their attention span, as well as cognitive and physical abilities. So essentially, I’m getting more comfortable with the fact that, just as I don’t judge our communal meals or youth group purely by the amount of people, I’m finding that I can still find worth and purpose doing art classes. Even if it’s just for a first grader and several preschoolers.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a well-deserved date night and a (hopefully) good weekend ahead of me.

Weekend! Well, sorta

This week is pretty busy, and while technically I’m on my weekend right now due to furloughs, it certainly doesn’t feel like it. I’m going in for my school placement tomorrow and Friday, so I actually leave earlier and are gone longer than I would be on a normal school day. Yay? Ah well, at least I’ll get my hours cleared up sooner. 45 hours are a chunk to fit in, and it’s a draining experience; it’s good for me, and I’m glad I’m doing it, but it makes for long days.

I need to prep for this Saturday’s art class. Last Saturday was our first session for the fall, and it went well; it was only Summer and Josh’s kids, but it wasn’t too insanely messy and everything worked out okay.

I forgot to get pictures of making our cave paintings and making bricks (hint: I may have been inspired by a certain cob house in Concow), but we painting our clay bricks and made a cute little pyramid out of them.

Sure, it’s crumbly and doesn’t fit together well, but it was made by kids ranging from ages 2 – 6, what do you expect? Okay, yes, I made about half of those bricks beforehand, but in my defense…actually, no, I don’t really have any excuse.

I made the mistake a couple of weeks earlier promising to help one of my friends finish a knitting project – she wasn’t sure how to cast off, and I thought it would be easier to show her rather than try to explain it – but as soon as a few girls around me saw me knitting, a queue started up of who I would help/teach/make something first for next. I can’t complain too much, it’s not like I have any of my own projects that I’m working on, but I’m not sure I like being the “weird knitting girl that lives in some crazy church in Paradise”. I should probably be used to it by now.

Play me off…

Since I graduated high school, quite a few of my former peers have gotten married, had kids, or both. It’s always been people I was only vaguely familiar with or didn’t care too much about, but for whatever reason it always stung a little bit to hear of another person’s engagement. In my classes, there are lots of wedding and engagement rings to be seen – granted, I’m definitely younger than most of these people.

As much as I try to rationalize my way out of it – because of course if I stop to think about it, there is no way I’d want to be married at this age, for a number of reasons – it still throws my mood every time, especially since this time it’s someone that I know pretty well. I’m truly happy for her and wish her the best, but….gah.

I guess I’ve been socialized in such a way that it feels as though the measure of my womanhood is being able to find a husband and start a family, though I know logically that isn’t true. All of those fairy tales ending with “happily ever after” are finally coming back to haunt me.

To make matters worse, since I found out about this friend getting married, I’ve had Keyboard Cat stuck in my head (link is to explanation).

I’ve been “played off” by my own subconscious.

Bakin’ Goodies

For whatever reason, when the winter gets colder I begin to cook impulsively. Actually, let me rephrase that: I begin to bake sweets impulsively. Last night I baked up some of my mom’s sugar cookies only to eat a couple and send most of the rest off to Alex for his birthday.

Today I was charged with a bigger task: making pan dulce for my culture group presentation tomorrow. I guessed that I could probably make a double batch and have my contribution for Tuesday’s meal, since Tuesday is routinely my busiest and most tiring day.

The first batch was decent, the frosting melted together so it didn’t have the nifty designs and it didn’t rise as much as I hoped, but they certainly looked festive.

The second batch…well…let’s just say that I know for sure now that the yeast I used for that batch is long past its prime (the big one is one from my first batch to show relative size).

Along with all of this was the usual baking mishaps – trying to halve a recipe but accidentally putting in the ingredients for a full recipe, running out of eggs/flour/powdered sugar and generally being frustrated with my ridiculous yeast. (If I remember correctly, in my biology class we proved that yeast is a living thing. Does that mean I’ve had a dead thing in my pantry for several months?)

My group is presenting tomorrow, and I’m pretty well set; book read, movie watched, interview completed, food baked, and I just have to write a summary of all of that. Ironically – since our assigned culture is Latinos – after eating Mexican food tonight I’m having a few digestive issues. To be fair, Alex was sick yesterday so I may have happened to catch something from him and it didn’t show up until I this evening.

The one bonus is that now I get out of my group meeting tonight. Not that I don’t like my group, in fact I enjoy working with them. But I can write out my portion and email it off in about 1/3 to 1/4 of the time it would take to meet with them. AND I can do it in my pj’s and not have to trek down to Chico. Don’t you like how I use “trek” as though Chico is an hour or more away?

Beautiful Sleep-Filled Morning

I slept in this morning, and it was beautiful. I usually try not to get too far off my sleep schedule when I don’t have to be up early, but today there was just no way I could drag myself out of bed. I’m hoping I’m hitting the tail end of being sick; while I don’t feel all that sick, being tired and worn out and having a raspy voice is unpleasant.

The week is almost over, woohoo! Saturday is Alex’s birthday, and my main present to him is FIFA ‘10, but that doesn’t come out until the 20th, so I’m making a stand in – hint: it involves lots of construction paper glued together, stick figures playing soccer, and “IOU”.

Sunday I’m taking my English as a Second Language conversation partner to Johnny Appleseed Days, which should be pretty cool. It’ll be interesting to see how much we understand each other in a much less formal setting and whether there are lots of cultural differences.

Starting last week as part of my silences I borrowed a couple books from Joshua to read. The first one I disagreed with in many ways, so part of my silence was trying to pinpoint exactly what I disagreed with, why, and find points that I did agree with. (I may have panicked my mom by talking about some of those points that I disagree with – maaaaybe I should keep those more to myself until I have them more fleshed out) At one point it started talking about postmoderns, and I put the book down for a couple days so I could go back into it clear headed and not with the attitude of “hey, that’s me you’re talking about!”

In the interim, I picked up a book about the Chronicles of Narnia. I have nothing but good memories of those books, so I thought I’d enjoy it. And I did, up to one final point – as the author begins talking about Edmund, he says that he has come into the next stage of being overtaken by evil, that he is sinking deeper and deeper into sin and has now…become a post modern. Maybe the author didn’t intend for that to be quite such an insult to pomos, and maybe I had just had a really bad week, but that felt like a pretty strong slap in the face.

Ironically, this song has been stuck in my head since I put both of those books back on Joshua’s bookshelf:

Whew!

It has been a really long week. I’d been going through school pretty well, feeling good and like nothing was too challenging. Then I made a point of looking through my education block class, and it looked something like:

Next week:

Monday – assignment due

Wednesday – reading due

Friday – assignment due

And then the same thing for about 6 weeks. The sudden shock of “oh! Right! I actually have some rather large assignments!” has added a bit of extra stress, as has trying to sneak in 45 hours of school placement. Ten hours down! My first two days were honestly kind of depressing, but my couple hours this morning went much better. I’m glad to see not all days are that bad.

The only really unfortunate part of this weekend is that I’m sick now. I’m having trouble getting to sleep, so I’m letting myself be on my computer after 7:00 so I can atleast get some work done and get rid of some stress. I also need to think of something to do for youth group this week since Joshua is out of town. I’m pretty solidly drawing a blank.

I just keep reminding myself what my Christmas present to myself, or rather reward for getting through this semester is going to be:

iPod touch (if Heather and I haven’t worked out our deal for me to buy her iPod so she can get an iPod nano). Regardless, I will be getting some sort of portable music device (though admittedly, I’m kinda hoping for the touch – costs more, but has much more use to me).

I can get through the next 11 eleven weeks. iPod. I can do it. iPod touch.

That always seems to help =)

My school placement, computer issues, and quilt

Tomorrow starts my placement at Citrus Elementary helping in a 3rd grade class. I’m excited, but also really nervous. Wish me luck!

Last weekend was an interesting experience – I know I’m coming late to the party here, since there were pictures and blogs up within an hour of us leaving – when I went with a group to Concow to help work on a cob house. I had no idea what cob was, but it’s a mixture of straw, clay, sand, and water, that can either be made into bricks and stacked or smushed freeform into straw bales. It was a good day, not only because I got to get muddy and wield a machete (okay, a mostly dull machete) as well as hang out and work with people that I enjoy being around, and don’t always get to see often.

Also last weekend, my computer suddenly stopped working and wouldn’t even turn on. It regenerated itself midweek, but over the course of those several days I realized two things. 1) While it was annoying to have to use Kenny’s computer or one at school just to get a map somewhere or other basic information, I don’t actually need a computer for most of my day-to-day work. 2) I spend far too much time on my laptop, and with it out of commission I wasn’t particularly sure what to do with my time.

Also, once it was working again I noticed that I didn’t sleep as well. I think it’s partially because I lose track of time on the computer and am apt to stay up later, but it may also just keep my mind whirring. In an attempt to at least move in the right direction, I’m no longer using my computer after 7:00 pm. Unless I have some massive essay that is due the next morning or something (a situation which hopefully I won’t procrastinate my way into) I should be able to stick with it.

I started it two days ago, and last night as I got home from work I wasn’t thinking about it; I pulled out the seat in front of my computer and was halfway sitting down before I paused, got back up, pushed the seat in, and went to work on my quilt. I still stayed up late, but I got to sleep almost instantaneously instead of tossing and turning like I do if I’ve been using my computer right before I go to bed.

Speaking of my quilt, it’s coming along nicely. I’m almost done with the front! That’s pretty much the hardest part…I hope. I’m going to try to sew together some of the rows to show my mom today, so I should probably get to work on patching together the last few squares (running out of a fabric right before the end makes life so much more interesting).

Homework status: complete (well, mostly)

I have determined several things today.

Garlic cheese biscuits. Cheese - not biscuit warts. I promise.

- Homemade biscuits with squirt is a really nice fall snack, probably because it still feels like summer.

- Spaghetti and meatballs is always better when made by someone else.

- My math homework was designed to ruin my good mood after finishing all my other homework fairly easily. Not all of my math homework is malicious, just the last problem. So close…so close. It will bother me until we have class again that I can’t think of a way to algebraically prove that the difference between two perfect squares is always an odd number.

That is all.