How To: End the Semester of Death

Greetings! It's been a while, because there was Thanksgiving and finals week and weeks before finals week and a bunch of other stuff. There was so much to do. It was terrifying. But now that's all over and it's almost Christmas, and after that I'll have three weeks to live in a giant room all by myself while my roommates all embark on excellent adventures. But I'll tell you about that later. Anyway, here's all the things you need to know about ending a semester that has been terrifying, just like everything else in your life.

Step One: Write three lesson plans in 5 hours. That was what I did as soon as I returned from my short-ish Thanksgiving break. I was initially freaking out a lot, because the first two lesson plans took me a total of more than 8 hours to accomplish. But apparently, with practice, you get better at things. Who knew? So I finished three whole lesson plans in only 5 hours and it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

Step Two: Make a commercial about a raccoon, but make sure it's in Spanish. And by make I mean dub a commercial that's already in English into Spanish using movie magic.

Step Three: Sleep a lot. Basically, you should be sleeping any time you have free time. Even if that means sleeping on the floor or the weird, slightly uncomfortable couch or on a chair in the union or at a desk on the third floor of library. Also, because this is widely accepted as a practice for a college student, no one will even think it's weird that you're sleeping all over the place. It will just be great, and you will get extra sleep! Although, if you go to bed at a reasonable time, you probably don't need to sleep as much during the day, but if we're honest, no one goes to bed at a reasonable time.

Step Four: Buy ice cream a lot. Also you should buy brownies and make them. And then eat the whole pan with some friends in one night while watching a movie. Because that kind of activity is better than studying at all times. No question at all. Also, make sure you mix the brownies and ice cream together, because that makes it 7 times more delicious. Yes, this is an exact science.

Step Five: Listen to songs about zombies. Specifically this Spanish song called "Un Zombie A La Intemperie" by Alejandro Sanz. I have to thank Spotify for that one. That kind of means, in English, A Zombie to the Open Sky. Kind of. It's weird.

Step Six: I guess you should probably actually study. If you have to. Really, this step is mostly optional. I would guess that most people skip this step because it's really unnecessary, probably, in most cases, basically all the time. Studying probably just will stress you out more than you need to be stressed out, because you'll think about all the things that you're studying that you should already know, but now you've had to spend a lot of time studying instead of just knowing like a magician.

Step Seven: Play a lot of board games. I kind of feel like this is a self-explanatory way to let off steam and become less stressed about school work and more stressed about how you're going to defeat your friends.

Step Eight: GO TO YOUR HOUSE AND THROW AWAY ALL THE THINGS YOU'LL NEVER USE AGAIN. This is the best part of finals, probably. Make sure you get all the useless papers and random unimportant notebook notes and burn them. Or just recycle them, because that's probably better for the environment.

Step Nine: Celebrate. Interpret this as you will. Don't do anything illegal.

How To: Proudness

It's been such a lovely week, generally!

Except for how it snowed yesterday and I almost died trying to get to and from work because they don't plow the sidewalks until it stops snowing.

And how Olson 305 is dying of illness right now. That hasn't been much fun.

But now the snow looks really nice outside and it's so white and sparkly and it's almost Thanksgiving which means I get to go home and eat food and sleep in a bed that used to be mine before a snerb took it over, even if I have a ridiculous amount of homework to get done over break because I'm a procrastinator and I should be doing it right now, but I have become ill so I'm not going to do anything, except fun things, because that's how it works when you're sick. You do only fun things and use your sickness to get out of the work things.

I've been trying to keep a positive attitude because I kind of realized that I let the first things that happen to me during the day influence the rest of my day. And this is most obvious when I go to work at 6:30 in the morning. Because I like my job, but sometimes (all the time) people are rude and upsetting and ask for too much food, like, no, I cannot give you this entire tray of sausage, I'm sorry there are people who also want food who unluckily happened to fall in line behind you, you cactus.

And if I let those people get to me, I tend to hold a grudge against them all day, and that's not much fun. So this week I've punching people in the face when they upset me, and that makes me feel a lot better all the time. I'm so proud of myself for that.

ALSO IN SPANISH NEWS:

I'm sorry I talk so much about Spanish, but this is my blog and I don't care if you are annoyed at the lack of other things that occur here, because Spanish is great and if you don't think so we can't be friends anymore (probably a lie but also be careful, because I punched people in the face this week so nothing is for certain).

SO, IN SPANISH NEWS:

The other day (Thursday), I had to present my lesson plan for my Content Area Reading class, and I presented the entire thing in Spanish! I wasn't even really nervous, because of how much I know Spanish. I just taught an entire lesson to ten of my peers in Spanish and it was great!! And I was so proud of how much I proved to myself that I really do know Spanish and can speak it in a fluid, coherent manner.

But then! After that internal self-validation, my classmates were talking after class and here is a transcript of what occurred: (it's not bragging if I already told you I'm proud of myself, right)
Person 1: I really liked Jen's lesson plan! She's really so good at speaking Spanish!
Person 2: Yeah, sorry guys, when I do my lesson plan in Spanish, it's not going to be nearly that fluid or anything.
Person 3: Me too. I had no idea she was so good at speaking Spanish.

So there's that. External validation is important too?.... Right...?

And then after I left, my professor, who happens to be the same professor who took us to New Mexico last year, ran after me as I walked down the sidewalk, and she asked me, "Jen, when are you studying abroad?" And I told her and then she patted me on the back (very strangely, as is her prerogative (thanks for that word, Dad)), and said, "Your Spanish really is quite good, you know." And then she ran away from me very quickly, and yes, I really do mean ran, because she's a weirdo.

So that was a nice good thing to hear after my lesson plan!

Also, I think it speaks to the fact that I made the right choice in changing my major to not education because after I did so well on this lesson plan, I was proud of myself, but I also didn't feel any want to continue teaching lesson plans like this. I just wanted to do the Spanish part of it. It's really great that I keep finding all these little signs in my life that I made the right choice, because my brain likes to freak out at me for deciding different things. It's building my confidence.

Speaking of different things, I now have a bunch of super weird classes that I'll take next semester. Spanish, of course, which I'm super excited about (if that even needed to be states) is a class about Heroes and Revolutionaries. And then, though, I have anthropology, economics and an introduction to international studies class, which I'm also excited about. AND EVEN BETTER: I'm auditing a linguistics class about grammar, which will be so great I might die but probably not really!!! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Oh, I forgot another Spanish news thing. Maybe I won't tell you, because I've done enough bragging for today, but suffice to say, it was really cool and I liked it a lot.

And we won the Spanish talent show! Did I mention that before? My great Spanish class won the talent show which is awesome, especially because we're not very good at dancing. That probably just shows you how not good at dancing and things the other contestants were, though. So that's cool.

Do I have any other Spanish news to share? I don't think so. Probably just that one thing that I won't tell you unless you ask. (What? Was that a hint to ask me about it? No..... What...? No.....)

Don't forget to eat delicious mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving, and also to speak Spanish all the time or else we can't be friends (lies--or are they?).

A Little Something Strange

Hey strange people! Guess what?!?!?! It's the first time I'm going to do something on this blog today! Can you guess what it is? If you're one of those people who like to skip ahead or read the end of things before you read the beginning (no, I'm not talking about you, Mom, not at all), you may already know the answer to this strange mystery. But if you're a normal-ish person who reads things in chronological order as determined by our culture, because other cultures have different ways of linguistically representing time in writing, you will still be confused by my strange rambling. Everything is so strange. But your patience may be rewarded, depending on how you think about rewards.

Anyway. First order of business: Life update. I have a lot of classes right now and lots of them involve writing lesson plans. And those of you who have been around since last year will recognize that pattern that begins to evolve around this time of the year that means I'm using this blog to procrastinate on real work. The fun part of classes though, is that I get to write lesson plans in Spanish, because Spanish is great! Except, my education teachers don't really speak Spanish, so that means I basically have to write all my lesson plans twice, because I have to translate them into English so my strange teachers can actually understand what I'm doing. It's kind of frustrating.

One of my lessons is a reading lesson about a short story in which a poor man finds a bag of gold in the forest and the rich man claims the poor man stole from the bag of gold and then the king turns them into parrots and cooks them over a fire (only parts of that summary are true, but I'm not going to tell you which parts).

The other lesson is on a bigger scale, and involves actually planning a whole unit about actual things and it's terrifying and so much work and I'm dying. But not really. Just a little bit. It's hard to figure out ways to make informal commands interesting to 9th graders who don't love grammar like I do.

The other two education classes are like death, and I don't want to start with them because then I'll have to rant about them and possibly bore/offend you. Which would be bad.

OKAY I'LL START WITH THEM. YOU'VE CONVINCED ME.

First of all, educational psychology, you are so scary and actually, no I changed my mind I don't really want to complain about you because literally we haven't learned anything important, because the teacher used to teach third grade and still kind of treats us like third graders. We spent 45 minutes watching her take notes as a demonstration on good note taking. I think that if we've gotten this far in our educational processes, we've probably already learned an effective way to take notes for ourselves, BUT I GUESS NOT BECAUSE WE'RE THIRD GRADERS. Sorry, I forgot how old I was for a second.

Also, TIME FOR THE SURPRISE! I was so annoyed I doodled this picture in my textbook.

This is an image of a monster with people coming to stare at him, because he looks weird, and that's what our culture does when it encounters something it doesn't understand. 

It was an act of rebellion again everything that is happening in that class. Also, it's probably an accurate depiction of one of my roommates. I won't tell you which. You'll have to decide. Maybe you can even vote, if you feel so inclined.

Second of all, diverse and exceptional learner is even worse because the professor is vaguely (and did I mention that this is a class about diversity?) racist, sexist, homophobic, and able-ist. Which I'm pretty sure is not a good way to be if you're suppose to teach future teachers how to not be those things. But I'm just a lowly student. I know nothing.

Which is apparently what my professors think we students really do know: nothing. Like, why are we learning how to take notes? Why did you GRADE OUR NOTES like we're 8? Why do we work in groups to do nothing? Why do we debate theories that are actually basically the same thing, and should not really be compared to each other in terms of differentiation? I don't really have answers to this because I know nothing. Right.

So, all this complaining is probably getting a little tiresome, but I just wanted you to have a little background for the thing that I'm going to tell you now.

And that thing is: I've decided to switch my major!

And all you people who have known me for more than like three years for sure know that this is a huge decision because I've always wanted to be a teacher and that's all I've thought about for forever and changing is a major life decision that led to quite a few life crises during the past few months. But now that I've decided, I'm actually super, duper, really really excited!

I'm going to be majoring in Spanish (so don't worry, I haven't entirely changed everything about my basic personality) and international studies. I'm really excited to start studying cultures and all the things that entails. Plus, SPANISH IS GREAT, HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE IT?

And I don't want you to think that I'm just changing my major to not education because these education classes are horrible or too hard or something, because that's not true. Certainly, they are frustrating, but I've just kind of had a feeling that education isn't something that I should be doing right now at this point in my life, and I've had this feeling for a while (a couple months, at least). It's weird to see something that you were once so passionate about slowly slip away from you and become something strange and unfamiliar, and it's a little bit sad. But I think that for a while, I was starting to feel like being a teacher was a duty that I had taken on, something I had to fulfill, like a promise to someone else, instead of a calling that this was what I wanted to do with my life.

And as someone who has spent many years in a classroom, I don't want to inflict duty and apathy on students who deserve passion and excitement.

Also, I would like to point out that I still really, really value education, and that I think it's important to consider the ways in which our educational system could be fixed or changed or manipulated to fit our students better, and that I want to make sure everyone has access to the best education that they can possibly find, and I want to emphasize the excitement that I get from learning. I just don't really want to be in the middle of it anymore.

WHICH IS SO WEIRD AND DIFFICULT.

But I am really excited about international studies and Spanish and I'm ready to move on with my education, even if it's in a different direction than I initially planned. Even if it's in a different direction than my six-year-old brain planned as I made my brothers be my students before they could even speak (and also before they could even sit up without help, probably. Sorry, Matt and Packy.)

And that is why this post is so strange. It's because everything is so strange, and through this strangeness, I've learned that things aren't always set in stone, even if your mind is made up. Because sometimes your mind doesn't really know what your heart wants. Brains are really good at thinking and reasoning through problems, but they're not so good at feeling the emotions behind problems. And that's why sometimes, I think, it's probably okay to let your heart do some decision making. Not all the time, because hearts are pretty sneaky and will stab you in the back with the knife of betrayal if you let them think too much. But sometimes, sometimes it's okay.



PS: Okay, so I didn't know that when I posted this on Facebook, it would display the picture of the surprise instead of the picture it usually puts there, so if you want to complain about the lack of surprise, please contact Facebook. Sorry.

In Which I Ramble A Lot About Spanish and A Little About A Goose

Good morning, strange one! It's always morning! Don't question me! I feel like it's been a while since I wrote things, considering my last blog post was like three sentences of me complaining in a confusing manner. But here. Let's talk about some stuff.

My classes are mostly like death, in the fact that we learn nothing. It's super frustrating, because the things that we should be learning are very important to many people's careers, and also, like, the future of our planet, because we're supposed to be teaching the youth of our country to be good and relevant and kind and helpful and conscientious people, but if the teachers can't even teach us the important information, how are we supposed to pass that on to our children? Probably the world is going to be ruined. 

So, remember a few weeks/months back, when I told you guys that I took classes in which we built towers out of marshmallows? Well, in a stunning twist of fate, it appears that education classes are actually a lot harder than that. Like, I have a bunch of lesson plans to write in the coming weeks. One was actually due today, and I feel totally unqualified to actually write lesson plans, considering that I've only had seven weeks of education classes, but who knows, maybe I'm more qualified than I think. I mean, I kind of know Spanish, which is the important part. 

Speaking of Spanish (which is great and I love it forever and ever), yesterday Olivia and I went to visit our Spanish professor to ask her about our translation of a song that we were doing, and she looked at it for like two minutes and then told us it was great, and then proceeded to ask us about our lives and ourselves and our personal plans for half an hour. How did we get so lucky to have such a great professor? Also, I was super proud of myself, because we definitely had that conversation in Spanish, and it was like, "Wow! I had a real, meaningful conversation about life, IN SPANISH, with a real life person!" It was a good boost of confidence for me, because even though I mostly know Spanish, sometimes I have life crises in which I believe I in fact do not speak Spanish at all. But apparently that's not true, so TAKE THAT FOOLS. 

ALSO SOMETHING HORRIBLE regarding Spanish, which you might think is impossible, and normally I would agree with you, but this is probably the one exception, anyway. As I mentioned before, I have to translate a song for Spanish. It's a song a called, "Dynamite" by that one guy, probably Taio Cruz. Which would be fine, if all we had to do was translate it. But we actually have to record ourselves as a class singing the Spanish version AND THEN we have to dance to the song at the Spanish Talent Show and it's so horrible because I don't dance! Noooooooo! My professor is basically like, "Si no ganamos, fallan." Which means, "If we don't win, you all fail." Because the talent show definitely has a winner. And apparently she likes to instill the value that winning is the most important thing in life.

Did I mention that she's like the best Spanish teacher ever, though? (Apart from Senora Bina. No one can beat her. But still.) 

Also, my lesson plans are in Spanish, because probably if I were actually teaching a Spanish 4 class, the class would be in Spanish, but neither of the professors who grade my lesson plans speak Spanish, but both of them were like, "make your lesson plans as close to accurate as possible" but that means they have no idea what I'm actually saying so I could sayings like, "Espero que tengas un gato sin pantelones" and they'd be all like, "Wow, Jen, you lesson plan is great. Please become a teacher right now without having to go through all the rest of the teacher-y programs. You're great" and it would be wonderful. Unfortunately for them, I didn't actually write phrases like that. 

What if you were attacked by a goose right now? That would be super weird. 

How To: Upset

I
am
so
upset
and
I
literally
have
no
idea
why.
someone
help
me
figure
out
my
life
hurry
hurry
hurry
you're
not
hurrying
fast
enough.
I
just
want
a
turtle
is
that
too
much
to
ask?
but
also
I
guess
some
other
stuff
too
like
a
basic
understanding
of
life
and
its
goals
for
me
as
a
human
person
but
probably
it
would
be
easier
to
get
a
turtle
at
this
point
and
that
just
speaks
to
the
difficulty
of
life
understanding
attainability.
I
miss
too
many
people
and
I
don't
even
know
people.
Paige
I'm
going
to
go
to
your
house
right
now
and
visit
your
tiny
dog
because
I
need
to
cuddle
it.
someone
who
understands
my
strange
aversion
to
hugs
should
come
and
give
me
a
hug
right
now.
okay
that's
weird
enough
for
today.
please
resume
normal
programming
as
if
that's
a
thing
you
ever
get
here
on
my
blog.

Quick Post Day

Just a short post today because I have no good reason, but I wanted to write some stuff. So:

My family came to visit this weekend! It was great to see some weirdies and my mom! (Just kidding, Mom, you're weird too! Don't worry!) Packy wore a baseball hat all day and he's basically old now. So that was weird. Matt gets to be Donkey in the school play of Shrek: The Musical, which is super cool, and also Matt is really weird. Dad still likes radios and horrible puns, so I guess that's cool, if you think being really weird is cool. And also Mom got a job working as a hemotologist or oncologist or something like that. (Yes, she's qualified to do that. No, I didn't forget something important in that statement.)

I didn't see Dan, because he's a loser and goes to college. Who goes to college? Not me. College is for weirdies. (I'm trying to see how many times I can say variations of the word "weird" in this post. It's pretty high so far.) But I occasionally talk to Dan, and apparently he has friends, so I guess I shouldn't worry about that weirdie so much. THAT'S A LIE, DAN. I DON'T WORRY ABOUT YOU STOP THINKING I DO AND GO AWAY.

Short note: I think the point when you know you're where you're supposed to be happens when you find yourself thinking, "Wow. I don't know who I would be if I didn't know the people I know now. I can't imagine not knowing these people. What would have even happened if I went somewhere else for college?" And I'm proud to say that I hit that point. It only took an entire year, but it happened. And it's great. Thanks to all my friends I met at college. They're all super great and wonderful.

The moral of that story is that it's probably okay if it takes you a bajillion years to figure out where you are or who you are or what you do, but when it finally happens, it's pretty much the best feeling ever.

Okay. Enough feelings. That's all. I like you all.

Ha Ha, I Lied Last Time When I Said I Would Write More Often

Sorry about that. Life is so scary.

But you know what else?

LIFE IS GREAT. LIFE IS AWESOME. LIFE IS FULL OF HAPPINESS AND SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS AND CATS AND CUDDLY TINY DOGS AND COOL PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU AND WHO YOU LOVE AND FAMILY AND WEIRDOS AND SNERBS AND SPANISH AND TURTLES AND ORANGE THINGS AND COLLEGE AND FRIENDS AND FOOD AND IRON MAN AND MUSIC AND HAIR AND NAIL POLISH AND LEARNING AND CHILDREN AND FROGS.

And probably lots of other things too. Today is just a great day to be alive and be thankful for all the things that you're normally thankful for, but don't necessarily tell your thankfulness too. "Thanks leaves that make cool patterns on the ground." "Thanks taco meat." "Thanks shiny orange pen." Just like that. It's not that hard! Do it! I encourage you to thank a bunch of the things that make your life exciting and tell them. And don't you tell me that they're just things and they won't care about anything. Because they will. They give their lives for you, and the least you can do is share your appreciation.

Also, of course, make sure you tell your favorite people that you love them, because those people are great, and they mostly made you who you are today. That's the good thing about people--they turn other people into better people. I want to make sure everyone who reads this knows that they are loved and appreciated. I am so lucky to have the people I have in my life. I never ever want to take them for granted. Because people are scary. But also, people are the best things ever. Way better than even turtles, probably. (GASP)

In a shocking turn of events, I am still a manager in the Caf. It's great. I'm so grateful for all the students who work with me, because they're all amazing, and they work really hard. I'm grateful that I'm really good at my job, because it makes me happy to do things that I like and have fun with. The people though, those are the ones who make it the most fun.

I still sometimes get annoyed at the people who can't figure out how to scrape their plates, because it's really not that hard, but maybe they don't have ears, and therefore they are excused from throwing their napkins in the trash. Who knows.

Also, I have classes, in another shocking turn of events. They're so education-y. I have to start planning lessons for actual students in actual classrooms, and it's a little bit terrifying and actually really hard and time-consuming. Take that, math majors! Just kidding. All majors are important and significant and relevant to life. Also, we built marshmallow and spaghetti towers in two of my classes, so you may have a point about the lack of rigorousness in education classes. BUT ALSO NOT, SO DON'T TEST ME.

Spanish is great, and we're learning a lot about grammar, which is great because grammar is my favorite and I love it. We get to review kids books, which is basically another great way to do education. Also, because it's a grammar and translation class, we have to do our first translation for next? week by translating something we wrote ourselves. At first, I was like, "Noooooo. I don't write anything! I'll have to use some super lame academic paper about the plague and I'll hate it and probably die!" but then I realized that was silly, and in fact, I have a blog in which I occasionally post things, and by things I mean writing! So, I think it would be pretty ironic if I took this paragraph here, about not having anything to translate for Spanish, except actually having something to translate for Spanish, and translated it into Spanish. But that would also be hard because I basically write long, deathy run-on sentences. So, maybe not. We'll see.

And in one of my classes, we're learning about understanding, and it's really confusing, because according our textbook, you can't define understanding, but to understand understanding, you have to be able to understand the definition of understanding, but the authors refuse to define understanding, because you can't define understanding, so they just say things like, "Understanding is great, but first we need to know what we mean by understanding. Unfortunately for you, understanding is un-understandable because we hate you, and hope you quit education and turn into a squirrel. It would be easier than trying to rectify the understanding paradox of inadequate understanding." (I paraphrased a little.)

It might even be more confusing than my philosophy class last semester....

I suddenly became really tired, probably because of all the emotions I was putting into the understanding paragraph. Trying to understand that stuff really drains my energy. I shall have to go take a nap. Good thing I have death class right soon, so I can get a good, long nap in. Those desks are so comfy.

Also, tell someone important that you love them today! Because it feels pretty great.

The end.

How To: Cafeteria Life

Hello friends. It's been a while, and not even just on this blog, but in actual communication with the people I actually communicate with. I'm sorry about that, and it will soon change, because I have FINISHED TRAINING FOR STUDENT MANAGERS. That means, among other things, that I no longer have to work an average of 12 hours a day, which is super exciting. And I will have more time to write and do things, and you know, classes start tomorrow, too I guess, but those aren't important. I've been here for like three weeks anyway. And also you should tell me about your lives, because I feel like I've missed important things while I've been working so much.

As much as I might complain about working (which I've come to understand is a thing people just have to do, even if they don't really have anything to complain about), I do actually enjoy it. I enjoy the people I work with, and we get along well. Spending so much time together has made us pretty good friends. It's kinda like SPAT camp in marching band in that regard.

That being said, it hasn't all been turtles and ice cream. It's been hard work, and I've gotten to do a lot of things that have frustrated me in strange ways. But I guess that's how you learn. You figure out why you're frustrated, how to get around your frustration, and the next time that situation happens you're totally prepared.

For example, yesterday I vacuumed the entire cafeteria by myself after dinner. It only took an entire hour and it was kinda hard. But also there's a strange soothing-ness to vacuuming. You know that no one will come bother you, because you're already doing something important. It's just you and the carpeting and the large backpack of a vacuum. It's actually a good time to get some introspection done, if you're into that kind of thing. You can reflect on life and your choices and how you got to be the person you are, and who is important in shaping your views about the world.

On the other hand, you can also contemplate the possibility of sucking up an entire cucumber slice with the nozzle. Which is admittedly less earth-shattering when you come to a conclusion, but still an important part of the process. And in case you were wondering, it is NOT possible to suck up an entire cucumber slice. But, see, then you can try other solutions, because bending over to pick up the strange vegetable by hand is just too much work, so you end up smashing the cucumber against the wall of a booth until it's small enough to fit into the vacuum. And once again you've figured out how to overcome the challenges life has given you.

Also, there's not really a feeling comparable to vacuuming a grape or cherry tomato, and I can't even describe it. You'll just have to try it for yourself.

Also, part 2, since these three weeks have been pretty mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting, emotions flow to the surface of my face without really having to be prompted by much. Like, when someone picks emotional power ballads to play over the speakers while we're cleaning, my brain is like: *emotions* at least you have this vacuum to suck up all your tears. So there's that.

To add to the emotions of last night, (like really, what is wrong with me, why is cafeteria work so emotional?) here is the transcription of a conversation I had with a person. Pardon the censored bad words that I have to use.
Me: Enjoy your meal!
Person: Give me some more pork.
Me: Sorry, that's all I can give you. It's a portions thing.
Person: WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!!? (Infinite internal screaming, I'm guessing)
Me: You can always come back for seconds.
Person: Wow. I've never had a caf worker be such a b****. You know what? I don't give a s***. I don't want this stupid-*** food anyway! *storms away like an evil snerb*
Me (not out loud because I'm a decent human being, most of the time): Sorry for trying to feed you. I hope you starve or at least eat only lettuce for the rest of your life.
So that was a cool time. I don't even like people. Someone tell me why I'm attempting to enter a profession in which all you do is deal with people all day every day?  I don't even understand myself.

But aside from that, mostly it's been a good time. I've become an excellent mopper. That's a person who mops. I don't know if you got that. ALSO! It's super fun to use a squeegee, and I recommend that if you've never had the chance to use one, you do so immediately. It will be well worth your time. And  if you can't do that, just say the word "squeegee" a couple times, and you'll immediately feel better.

Today, the last day of training, the chef lady made us have a meeting. And I was super worried that we were all in trouble (because she's kind of scary (and also because I'm kind of just always worried about getting in trouble even if I've literally done nothing wrong, but that's another story)), but it turns out she just wanted to tell us how proud of us she was/is and how much she appreciated our help with all the new people coming in and how great the night went and how great we are in general and then she started crying and it was emotional and SQUEEGEE SQUEEGEE SQUEEGEE

Okay. I'm better now. For now. Tomorrow I have exactly one class, and also I get to work for real. With real workers, and I hope it goes super well. It'll be great. I have yet to successfully change a milk bag by myself, but there's plenty of time for improvement I hope. I just don't want to die. It'll be fine. Yeah. Fine. It's great. We won't die, me and my student workers. No dying allowed. That's my motto for life.

Get it? Cause life is the opposite of death? Ha. Ha. Okay. I should go to bed before I actually have an emotional breakdown. Yeah. Good luck on your classes and lives guys! Tell me about things that you like!

How To: Parties

I told you all about how there were a bunch of parties for student managers and how I didn't want to go to them because they're parties and I hate parties (maybe hate is too strong a word, I less than tolerate parties) but anyway, there was apparently a mandatory party last night and I went to it because it was mandatory and I hate the word mandatory because it's stupid, so there and this is how to do parties.

How was that for a run-on sentence introduction?

But not only was this a party that I was required to go to, it was a party that required me to wear things other than shorts and a t-shirt, which I dislike. So I wore a dress and it was blue and great, but just because it was great doesn't mean I didn't hate it.

I met up with some other people who were walking to the party, and they all lived in these two dorms right next to each other, and they all stared at me as I walked up the path from my far away dorm like I didn't belong, so that was nice way to begin the evening.

When we got there, it was super loud and full of death/people/alcohol/people. And then we had to wait for even more people to get there because we were doing introductions about who we were and what we were planning on doing with our lives, like every single other time that you've met new people at college, but anyway. Soon everyone got there and then the most normal part of the evening was over.

Then, of course, the excitement began. And by excitement, I mean alcohol. Because you can't have a good party without alcohol, of course. Everyone knows that. Gosh.

So people started playing games that involved throwing ping pong balls into plastic cups filled with smallish amounts of alcohol. Don't worry. I didn't play, because I am young and fragile. It was interesting to watch though.

Here's a thought: why does standing alone at a party make people automatically think you're not having fun/you're lonely? Like, I was having a perfectly fine time watching weirdo coworkers drink themselves into hilarity, and then these people come over and try to engage me in conversation. Does it make me a bad person that I'd rather just watch all the people than contribute to the madness? I don't know. Someone should find the answer for me.

Although, to give credit where credit is due, the people here had a very strong plan of where to hide all the underage people if by some stroke of bad luck the authorities did  show up and ask what kind of party we were having where people who are barely 19 are surrounded by multiple types of liquor, even if they're not drinking it themselves, you know it's still probably illegal, but you know, why don't you write about it on your blog and get everyone you know in trouble? as if they care that alcohol was purchased and fed to youngin's.

Anyway.

But, so there, I went to a party. It was actually the first college party I've been to, ever, so I guess you could say I hit a milestone in my life just now. It was pretty terrifying. And dangerous. Not really. Nothing dangerous happened. It was probably the closest I've been to illegality, though, unless there's some weird law out there that I don't even know that I'm breaking, but that's probably unlikely. Plus, there aren't even any more MANDATORY parties to go to, and there are a few events that I might go to, like movie night or ice cream night or set the college campus on fire night (that last one's probably not real). I'll let you know how it goes.

In other news, I let someone talk me into working today--my second and only full day off--in catering. I've never worked there before. And it's from 3 pm to midnight. So I might die. But apparently you get tips, because people who attend weddings give you tips. I will be so versatile in dining services once these three weeks are up that no one will know happened to me. It will be great and I will be great and the greatness will prevail!

In conclusion: Don't go to parties and don't work too hard because you might die! The end!

General Intro to LIFE

Hey strange people. I have moved back into college! That means (hopefully) blog posts are back to being more regular and not so randomly placed once upon a random day once per month. Luckily for you. I know I'm definitely your only source of entertainment.

Anyway, I'm at school so early because I got a lovely promotion to Student Manager in the cafeteria. That means I get to yell at people and tell them what to do while generally meandering aimlessly and occasionally devouring desserts while talking with my peers. Or I get to do the important things. I've heard it both ways.

But these past couple of days, there is basically only one group of people here, and those people are the football team. SCARY. They're very large, and they like to eat large portions of meat and potatoes. Which means, when I worked the salad bar, there was literally nothing for me to do, because football players don't eat lettuce. Because goodness knows you might lose some calories while chewing celery and WE CAN'T HAVE THAT, NOW CAN WE?

Slowly, more people are trickling in. I think I saw like four other girls today, instead of none. That's an improvement. And apparently the rest of the sports teams will be moved in by Wednesday, which means there will be more people to feed! Yay, un-boredom!

So far, in the cafeteria, as part of my training, I have learned how to clean the dishwasher, using especially toxic materials. "Especially toxic" apparently means that you have to wear a giant plastic face mask, like what a welder wears, except plastic, and gloves that go up to your armpits before you can even touch the hose with spray. So that's cool. Basically you look like a mutant.

Also, today, I got to go see how to turn on and change the carbon dioxide containers that go to our pop supply. Did you know that when you're drinking industrial pop, the carbonation isn't just part of the pop? In fact, the CO2 is pumped in from very large, heavy, gas tanks. Don't drop them on your foot. I think that's the most important lesson I learned from that session today.

Other than that, there really isn't much happening here. I have no one to talk to, since NO ONE IS HERE. So if you want to call or Skype or text or send me a letter or an email or a note in a bottle (you'll have to use the river, not the ocean, sorry) or carve a message into stone for me, there is a 100% chance that your actions would make my day/hour/minute, depending on the extent of my boredom.

The dorm I'm staying in has no air conditioning, which initially was a problem, because it was like death here, but it's kind of cooled off, which I enjoy. I do not enjoy, however, that there is not a drinking fountain on this floor. It's super annoying and I am super annoyed and do not enjoy it have I made myself clear.

Back to cafeteria stuff: apparently there are parties every night that I'm supposed to go to, so I can socialize with my new peers? But here. Let me provide you with a list of things that I both do not enjoy and that cause me stress: 1. parties 2. socializing with my new peers.

So. I guess that's why I didn't go. Plus, also, too, apparently these parties mostly involve drinking and alcohol, which I am not legally allowed to consume, and also, I don't want to. So there's even less incentive to go. But I kind of feel bad for not going. But also not because I don't want to. My life is so complicated.

Instead I stayed home in my dorm and played video games. That's always the best way to go.

Only like two and a half more weeks til school actually starts! I'll try and keep you updated with more things that I learn while working in the cafeteria. It'll be super dangerous, and I'll probably break something. All the cute people will watch me break that something. It's basically tradition now, so I don't know if I can stop it. It might be bad luck.

How To: Horoscopes

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been a bajillion years. Calm down. I don't do interesting things, so I've decided to write about your futures. Mwa ha ha ha!

It'll probably be great, but also, I'm not a skilled horoscope writer so have patience, you snerbs. Also, these horoscopes will be your future for the next year, because I'm lazy and don't want to write them continuously. Plus, the chances that something I write comes true in a whole year are pretty good. I guess. Unless I write something like, "You'll walk to the moon." Because that's physically impossible. So, here we go!

ARIES (March 21- April 19): You, my strange friend, are about to have the weirdest year of your life. You'll probably find a large mammal, but actually it will just be a reptile dressed as a mammal, because people are inherently afraid of reptiles. This speaks to your ambition to be yourself and not hide under the cloak of a furry animal, instead putting your scales our where everyone can see them. Fear not, because there are still those who love their reptilic beasts.

TAURUS (April 20- May 20): You will stop creating things for a little while, because you will be very busy with an intriguing article of clothing. It may be colorful, but more likely, this piece of clothing will be dark and mysterious. It will require your full attention to discover its true purpose, and whether or not it is worthy of your time, and when you determine if you should like to keep it close, you will once again be confronted with art. Don't mingle the art with the mystery.

GEMINI (May 21- June 20): An angry anonymous philosopher once said, "Many people think that the world is there for them, but in reality, the world is there for everyone else." This saying will resonate with you as you explore uncharted territory in an underwater adventure. Be sure to keep close tabs on everything you see, because nothing is not of use to you. Pay special attention to anything that reminds you of french horns.

CANCER (June 21- July 22): Many things that you come in contact with are overrated. Anything that looks like it might be worth some substantial value should be treated with the utmost disrespect. Don't forget to polish your garbage every three hours, because it often feels under-appreciated.

LEO (July 23- August 22): If you like reading, this is your year. You may become a fluent reader of all of the languages of the world, and at the very least, you will learn one new word from a language you already speak. You might think this is not an accomplishment, but if you think about it, any learning is better than being dead.

VIRGO (August 23- September 22): A boulder can stand in your way without being an obstacle. There are always ways to get around your problems, and this year will provide ample opportunity to prove your problem solving skills are adequate. If you find yourself facing a mountain, just make sure you've brought your hammer to chisel away at the rock. Even if it takes forever, it's better than turning around and going back.

LIBRA (September 23- October 22): New things are dangerous, but at the same time, if all you do are old things, the danger becomes repetitive. Try to mix up your dangers, alternating new and old, until you feel comfortable enough to rewrite history with a dangerless society. Provide for your friends with less danger than ever before.

SCORPIO (October 23- November 21): While circumnavigating the globe, theoretically or in reality, be sure to pack enough food. The worst thing that could happen on a trip of your lifetime would be to realize that your apples will only last for a couple days. Anything less than 150,000 pounds of food would be lacking. Also, invest in a large cargo plane.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22- December 21): Firstly, you should try to be born in a different month, because your star sign is too hard to spell. Secondly, after you've completed that task, apply for a patent on your newly developed time machine.

CAPRICORN (December 22- January 19): An energetic wave is coming your way. You will be unable to complete the boring tasks because the exciting ones take up too much of your time and energy, It's better this way, because boring things are a waste of your resources. You should plan extra time to sleep, because all this energy does come with a crash, and when that happens, you might end up sleeping for years on end.

AQUARIUS (January 20- February 18): Oceans and skies await you. You'll have to chose whether you want to dive into the depths of the fishes or fly high with the birds. Either choice will yield disappointing results, but the alternative is staying on land, and land is rich with failure. You can go for the unknown or stay in the safe but disappointing familiar.

PISCES (February 19- March 20): Oh darn. You've lost something. Probably multiple things. But this year will be a year of return. You should find yourself a trusty shovel and dig at every chance you get. Not only will you find all your lost items, you may even stumble upon some strange, well-hidden pirate treasure. This is especially true if you move to a desert island. Watch out for sharks.

How To: Philosophy

I'm so almost done, I can almost taste it, except that's probably actually just the Milkway chocolate-y goodness that I ate, but the end of the school year probably tastes the same way.

Anyway, I still have a philosophy reading/debate/paper to write, and also a Spanish final that I really should study for, but no one actually taught me how to study so that's out of the question, and also a linguistics take home final/paper to do. And I still have to clean things. I hate cleaning. But what I'm here to talk about today, while I'm procrastinating like a crazy person, is philosophy.

I don't understand why philosophers have to write like the goal is to get as few ideas across as possible in the most pages as possible. Especially modern day philosophers. Like, I maybe understand (not really) why people from the 12th century write word upon word upon word of the exact same thing, and I also acknowledge that most of these are originally written in Japanese, and so it could be lost in translation, but if you're writing in 1995, like my current philosopher, maybe you could speed it up a little bit? This is the age of technological freedom and not spending more than five minutes reading a thing lest you bore yourself to tears! Get with the program, um, Merold!

His name is Merold Westphal. Let me know if you know what he's trying to say about religion and postmodernism.

I guess there's probably a reason I'm not going to be a philosopher. I do like thinking about things and concepts and ideas, especially when I can understand them, but I do not think I could spend my life writing and analyzing texts about life. So I give lots and lots of credit to those people who can.

Anyway, when you start out reading a philosophical text, you should always have your highlighter handy. Because if highlighting passages doesn't make you feel like you're making progress, nothing else will. Be careful, though, because unless you have one of those fancy highlighters with the clear tip, you might accidentally highlight too much and then you'll wonder what you've done to deserve such anger.

Also, highlighter related, you should probably actually read the entire thing you're highlighting and decide where to stop. Because I just did this: I was highlighting a sentence that was seemingly very relevant to my thoughts, but I didn't read the whole sentence, and I was highlighting, but all of a sudden, the information wasn't important any more, but I had already colored half of it bright neon yellow and how could I stop now, in the middle of a sentence, because either it would look horrible, or the last half of the sentence would think I didn't love it and I would be the creator of a huge familiar tragedy! So I highlighted the entire ginormous paragraph and it's not even important. Snerbs.

I also advise that you, once you've read the first couple of pages, go to the last page and read the essay backwards. Because the last paragraph actually has some important summarizing information in it. And, writers, tell me this: Why don't you put the essential informative summaries AT THE BEGINNING of the text? Is it because you hate me? I could have saved myself half an hour of trying to figure out your argument on the first page if I had know you put the important stuff at the end! I don't understand your irrational abhorrence of clarity.

But, you really do need to start at the beginning. Because then, at least you've tried. Effort is 93.7% of the battle. I calculated that. In my head. Because I'm a math major.

How To: An Ode. In the form of prose. To fruit. That has been dehydrated.

Oh, my strange kiwi that I just discovered the beauty of today. If I was about grammar, that sentence would have been "Oh, my strange kiwi the beauty of which I just discovered today" but I'm not about grammar. I'm giving up on that. I give up on everything except dehydrated fruit and acoustic covers of pop songs.

And gummy bears.

Only because I just bought some today, along with my dehydrated fruit, because I have lots of money, but don't worry, guys, I'm down to less than $300 now, but just barely. Plus, both of those things feel healthy because they don't contain chocolate.

But really, though. Who invented kiwi that could have all the liquid SUCKED OUT OF ITS SPINE, because it's delicious. The worst part is that the bag only comes with three pieces. Maybe I'll buy the store out of all its mal-thirsted fruits. Because I have $292.94 to spend on food in a week.

As I sat in wonder of this strangely addictive fruit substances, I wondered why all the fruits were kinda squishy (that's a technical business term, guys, don't hurt yourselves) except for the bananas. Do the bananas get a special process, or something? Why are they not squishy? They're like little banana chips. Crisp and crunchy, just as bananas should be. Of course.

BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID THEY PUT THE MOST TERRIFYING THING IN THE FRUIT OF DEHYDRATION BAG BECAUSE IT LOOKS GREAT AND TASTY AND ORANGE (because everyone knows that orange is a delicious color) BUT IT'S ACTUALLY TERRIBLE AND GROSS AND PROBABLY KILLED A PERSON IN A PAST LIFE.

Even though people can't reincarnate as inanimate objects, they can reincarnate as TREES which give off fruit. I can't even tell what fruit it was supposed to be back before it turned evil. Probably sulfur. The ingredients say sulfur, and I bet the maker accidentally dehydrated just some sulfur and put it in the bag with the delightfulness.

The lovely pineapple is also great. It's probably my second favorite after the kiwis and the bananas. No, I'm not wrong. Stop yelling. I don't like yelling. I don't even like things. I just live here. But only for another week. Please make it go faster. I beg to the [insert non-offensive term for whatever you believe in].

My friends all got together and took pictures together and my dad told me that it's not like they're going to spend three weeks together and forget about me but my insecurities are feeling angry this evening so I'm trying really hard to not let it bother me but it's hard because it is.

There's also a different weird orange fruit thing that's pretty delicious, unlike the EVIL. But unfortunately I can't tell the difference between the two different kinds so it's a game of chance. I'll be thinking I'm safe, but then I DIE but not really that's an exaggeration.

Also, there's a starfruit, and it basically looks like I'm going to eat a starfish, and I'm kind of afraid that it'll actually be the texture of a starfish, so I'm putting off eating it because I'm like the cowardly lion, except occasionally I have good hair days.

Okay, here's the actual ode (except not in the form of an ode, because that's hard and a lot of work):

Oh fruit
So sparkle
So chewy chewy chewy
Except for banana
Why have you no juice left?
Because you might
GET THIRSTY
and/or get a head ache
Because water is important
And hydration is essential
Oh fruit
So sad
So thirsty thirsty thirsty
Why have you to die?
Because you might
BE EATEN
by me
Because yum yum yum
Yum yum yum yum yum

How was that? I should be done now. But really, why should I give up on genius? I know! We'll make it a system: you pay me money and I'll write an ode just for you and it'll go on my blog. And all the people can read it. Just kidding. You don't have to pay me money. I'll do it for free. You just have to request one, and it will be great. And I promise to make it great. Greatness is my guarantee! I'll eagerly await your call.

(No, really, I'll write you an ode if you ask me to. Do it.)

A Journey

I have a ginormous head ache. It's pretty great. I'm also really bored and should be doing things besides writing this (which seems to be a common theme among the beginnings of my posts) but too bad. So I'm just going to write and see where this goes.

The sunset outside my window is pretty incredible right now. It's mostly orange surrounded by some dark gray-ish purple and them some yellow clouds overhead. I don't know what I did to deserve this view, but maybe I was a good child in some universe.

There was once a child who tried to be a good kid, but everything he did was entirely wrong, because people just didn't understand what he was trying to do. They said, "No, no kid. That's not how good people behave, why aren't you doing the right thing?" But they just didn't understand. Because somehow the "right thing" became a social norm in which trying to ignore all the problems of the world was good. The kid didn't want to ignore the problems, so he tried his gosh darn hardest to fix them all one by one. Soon, though, the kid realized that his futile efforts were being wasted, because no one else could understand what he did. They shunned him, they exiled him, and the kid grew up on an island all alone.

I wore a dress today, because dresses and nice clothes are supposed to make you feel good about yourself. But it's kind of weird when people who normally mostly just ignore you randomly come up to you and say, "Wow! You look so nice today!" I know it's supposed to seem like a compliment, but it kind of just makes me feel like they usually think I look like a hobo. But I also don't care. I like how I look. I also went to dinner today wearing my dress, because I was too lazy to change, and tennis shoes, because my feet hurt from wearing nice shoes all day, and an old high school jacket, because it was raining and I needed pockets. And I didn't even care that people probably thought I was a super weirdie. So that's a plus on the self-esteem side of things.

But his island was the best place on earth. There was no hunger or pain or danger or hatred or indifference. There was only the kid and his pets and his love of the world. Soon, though, the kid was lonely, and he missed his abilities to help people. He felt the poorness of the world growing and knew there was nothing he could do because he was stuck on the island.

I should draw more. I don't even like drawing. I like doodling though, which is like the baby version of doodling. It's pretty great, even though I hate it when my notebooks are filled with random scribbles. I need a special notebook that I can just doodle in. And I need colorful pens to make everything more colorful. If someone wanted to get me those for my birthday, that would be pretty great.

He decided that he would use his new found magical powers to transport his island to a place where people didn't take helping others for granted. He waved his unicorn's horn above the island and the magic filled the air, swirling and dancing above the lush purple leaves of the Jenaple trees. The island took off from the water as if it were a helicopter. All the people who had exiled the kid stared in wonder and awe as the inexplicable kid flew his paradise to a new land.

Do you know what I'm about? I'll tell you. I'm about happiness and if not that then contentedness. I'm about tolerance. I'm about playing with children and making sure my brothers always think I'm weird, even if I don't talk to them everyday. I'm about thinking about things. I'm about worrying about things that won't matter a year from now. I'm about Spanish. I'm about figuring out how to tell people I love them, even if it's scary. I'm about grammar. I'm about learning and teaching and helping. I'm about working hard but making sure it's fun to sit still. I'm about music and wonder. I'm about toast (occasionally) and butter. I'm about judging in a completely not judgmental way. I'm about forgiveness and remembering. I'm about keeping the best friends I have. I'm about magic. Mostly about magic.

They begged and pleaded and screamed and cried for him to land his island. They wanted to share his magic, they finally understood what he meant by trying to be good. But the kid just shook his head sadly. He knew they would never be able to fully appreciate his magic and his words, because they had not yet lost their most fatal flaw. He almost took pity on the people, but there was nothing he would ever be able to do for them. He knew they had to come to the understanding, not through a magic which certainly could have cured their shallowness, but through their own suffering.

I think I've lost a lot of my clothes since coming to college eight-ish months ago. I was looking for shorts to change into, when I, you know, finally decided that sitting in a dress wasn't comfortable enough, but I could not find them. I know I brought like three pairs to school, and I could not find a single one and I was about to start dying, but then it turns out they were hiding at the front of my drawer. Which makes no sense, because I haven't worn shorts for a bunch of months, so why would they be at the front, riddle me this, Joker??

As he left the farthest corner of the land, he heard the faintest cry, the words of a little girl. She said, "Kid, I'll never stop looking for you." He peered over the edge of his island, and the girl, holding a tiny green balloon, missing all but her two front teeth, waved a tiny hand. "Kid, I'll never not believe in the goodness," she said. And he smiled back at her, revealing a grin of only two front teeth.

I wish I liked singing and dancing in front of other people. That would make life a lot more easier/funner maybe. Maybe people would think I like having fun! Maybe you don't need to sing and dance to have fun. Maybe that's a culturally perpetuated stereotype that we should be breaking down through sociology. Maybe I should be praised for my timidness.

He was not a kid anymore. He knew the world he was leaving would be safe in the new kid's hands.

You're the new kid.

How To: Surrealism

It's been a very strange week this week. For example, I thought that I had written a post just, like, yesterday. But it turns out that it was actually sixteen days ago. The fact that sixteen days ago feels like yesterday begins to concern me.

So, I shall now tell you how to deal with some of the surreal situations you might encounter. Please do exactly as I say, no more no less, lest you die. On the scale of things that are bad that can happen to you, dying is at the tippy-top.

Perhaps you have entered the kitchen of your college or university, and perhaps you see, so nicely, placed upon a tray, two legs. Yes. Legs. And they're probably, like, legs of lamb, or something that someone was once planning on cooking and serving to the unsuspecting students, but for right now, they sit, staring at you, whispering, "Why can we no longer walk, Jen? What has happened to us?" And you just don't even know what's going on, because they've been there for like three hours. To solve this problem, I recommend ignorance. Yes. Simply don't look at them, ever. Ever ever ever. Pretend like they don't exist. The end.

And let me introduce you to another scenario. Pretend you have always worked with a person, and you've always assumed her name is Joyce. Joyce, however, occasionally wears the name tag of Denise. But you know she is Joyce just the same. And so one day you go to work and say hi to Joyce as she passes you by, and as you round the corner, THERE JOYCE STANDS ONCE AGAIN. But you swear you just passed her, and you look back and indeed, Joyce is on the other side of the wall, but Joyce is also in front of you looking at you strangely, as if she knows that you've just discovered her secret. But the Joyce in front of you has "Denise" pinned upon her shirt. And it occurs to you that there must be two of them. That in fact one Joyce must be named Denise, and they just look exactly the same. To solve this problem, I recommend ignorance. Yes. Simply don't look at them, ever. Ever ever ever. Pretend like they don't exist. The end.

Now pretend that you knew a person. And you really liked and respected this person, and they were a pretty great friend, and you liked to help them and talk to them and do the things with them. But all of a sudden, they began doing the not things. They began earning your disrespect and you find yourself at odds, because parts of you still think they're worth it, but most of you knows that they're just going to be pulling you down into the quicksand of pain and worry and you should just let them go, because the things they do, they're just not worth your brain and heart power. And you feel sad. To solve this problem, I recommend ignorance. Yes. Simply don't look at them, ever. Ever ever ever. Pretend like they don't exist. The end.

On to less scary things, children of mine.

Pretend like you were taking a shower, and you brought your clothes with you, because you're not about wandering around the hallway mostly naked except for a towel. But then pretend, all of a sudden there are five people waiting in line for the shower, and you definitely should hurry the heck up. So you finish and you try and bolt out of there as fast as you can, except you're mostly freaking out about having no clothes on. And people think you're weird and you can't handle your brain. To solve this problem, I recommend wearing clothes all the time. Even while showering.

Pretend your favorite chef has just yelled your name. Pretend that she wants help removing some of the pans that she has just taken from the pan rack, because they have holes in them to, you know, help drain water and things from them. But she doesn't want them. "I don't want the holey ones, Jen. I can't cook bacon on the holey ones!" And then she leaves and you have no idea what happened. To solve this problem, I recommend laughter. Laughter is the only thing you can do in these situations. Holey trays filled with bacon.

Pretend you had such a lovely week and that none of these strange things happened to you. Because they all happened to me, and them happening to just one person is enough for the entire world. Don't forget to not die. I'm opposed to dying! And I'm opposed to you dying! So there! Camilo Canegato would be proud of you. Just kidding. He basically killed someone. Yet another surreal experience! Poor Camilo, je je.

How To: Have a Writing Career

A short anecdote by me:

So, I began writing a super long time ago. Like, probably when I was 4 or 5. I mean, you've seen that story I wrote with my brother when we were but wee ones. However, I like to think that I've improved since then.

I used to just have notebooks filled with random thoughts and things that would make good stories, but somehow, there always just happened to be a thing that was like, "All your stories are weird and no one would read them so you might as well stop writing because they're horrible." That's basically what my internal monologue is for a lot of stuff, actually, and it takes a lot of work to combat that stupid little voice.

In sixth grade, I wrote this story, and it was about a girl who kept being abducted, but then she found out that aliens were protecting her, but the aliens were really confusing and the people trying to kill/kidnap her were really evil and she had to get a little tiny baby alien to protect her as her personal body guard, and it was actually a really good story.

I'm pretty sure that I deleted it.

Unless it's miraculously saved on some flash drive somewhere, that 60 pages of writing by 11 year old me is gone forever.

That stupid little voice is why I have more than fifteen first ten pages of stories on my computer that I never look at again because they suddenly sound stupid in my head after I come back to write some more.

I think (know) that middle school made me stop writing. Suddenly people were grading my work, suddenly I didn't have enough time to think up my own plots, suddenly there was no extra space in my brain. I told myself that if I could just get through middle school, I would have plenty of time to write in high school. Ha. Yeah, that didn't happen.

And then, it was "get through high school and write in college!" And that's kind of happening. I write a blog. But it's not the same. But maybe some people aren't meant to write stories.

The fact that the last two years of my English classes have basically been people telling me that everything I write is bad doesn't really help this situation either.

Somehow, though, I think that all the people who ever try to write go through this process of WHY IS EVERYTHING I WRITE HORRIBLE AND WHY DO I SOUND LIKE A CAVE PERSON WHEN I READ THIS STUFF? Maybe that's the point. Maybe we can't be great at something unless we dedicate large amounts of time and effort and practice to it, unless you're born some kind of genius child. And I don't think I'm willing to spend my life writing. Actually, I would be, but I just don't think I'm good enough. I'm looking for something I'm good enough at.

Sometimes, I'll have these brilliant ideas or even just sentences that could be the perfect beginning or end to a story, but inevitably I'll be walking around campus or hiking through trees and won't have anything to transcribe my thoughts. Why can't I ever have thoughts when I'm at my desk or in class where I have an ample supply of paper?? Oh, right. Because indoors and education drag creativity back into the dark abyss of anti-individuality where everything must be the same and equal so we can all pass a test, goodness knows that's the most important measure of your abilities, so you gosh darn better not have an original idea about anything.

I'm very jealous of all the people who know how to write stories. You should teach me. But for now, I'll settle for this strange blog on which I share all my thoughts about thoughts. It can sustain me and my creative endeavors.

Mostly, I just hope I don't give up something that once made me so happy and excited (and still sometimes does!) just because I feel like I'm not good enough. I'm trying to learn to write for me and not my stupid little internal voice that hates things. That's not me. I'm better than that! Yeah! Optimist!

Random Thoughts with Me

That's because I don't really have anything that can be written about for an entire post, even though--YES I KNOW I HAVEN'T WRITTEN IN FOREVER SORRY FOR FIGURING OUT HOW TO HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE IN COLLEGE--I've been away for so long. So here are a collection of things that I've been thinking about since I've not been writing.

1. Today I had to watch a movie for my scholar's class tomorrow. It was about a guy who walked the tight rope between the Twin Towers. And they tried to make it less scary by playing calming flute music over all the terrifying footage of the guy tilting and swaying 200 feet above the ground, but in my head I just scream: BE CAREFUL PHILIPPE, YOU'RE GONNA DIE. THERE'S A REASON NORMAL PEOPLE DON'T WALK ON TIGHT ROPES WITHOUT NETS.

2. Also, a lot of this movie is in French, and so as I read the subtitles, there's one part where Philippe says, "Out of frustration, I took all my clothes off." I'm kind of hoping this was just a phrase that couldn't be correctly translated from French to English, but at the same time, I hope this was what he actually said.

3. At work last Friday, I got assigned to work a serving line that I don't usually work, because there are never enough workers on Fridays. Anyway, this line is the one where you get to cut up giant chunks of meat into little slices. But since I'm not supposed to work it, I was excited when this other guy came to replace me so I could go back to my normal job! But apparently, he didn't really know what he was supposed to do. So I showed him, but I was really weird about it, because that's who I am. And somehow, knowing how to do something that other people don't know how to do gives me weird confidence. So this is how I instructed him: "FIRST!" I said, scarily, "you need to put on this plastic glove. THEN! You put on this cutting glove and your hand will get all gross and weird and it might fall off. THEN! You put on this other plastic glove. Then you take this giant chunk of meat and drop it here and then you SLICE IT LIKE IT'S DONE EVIL. Do you think you can handle that?" And then, I don't know why, he just looked at me like I was really weird. So I left him to fend for himself. The weirdie.

4. I'm thinking about getting a pet turtle.

5. Then again, that thought really isn't a new thought. I'm basically always thinking about getting a pet turtle.

6. Someone made a comment about marching band the other day, and made me kind of frustrated. I'm not even in marching band anymore, but that doesn't mean that I didn't dedicate of 1,000 hours of my life to it in high school. The comment went something like, "Why do schools give so much money to the marching band? They get to buy new tubas and we only got new uniforms two years ago!" Okay, this may have been an exaggeration, but the point is the same. So, strange comment maker, allow me to say some things. 1. In our band lobby in high school, there were pictures from 1999 in which the people were wearing the same uniforms that they wear today. If I can do some math here (which I maybe can't but I'll try), that means we've had the same uniforms for 16 years. That's 8 times more years than you. Also, tubas are expensive, and we don't buy new ones. We get to use rented ones from someone else, if we're lucky. I feel like I have more things to say about this. Maybe I should make this topic an entire post sometime. Okay.

7. Do you know how hard it is to shop for clothes? Maybe that's just me. I don't know. But inevitably I end up buying two of the same thing in different colors just because I found something that I like, finally, after being in the store for like three hours. Just kidding. You probably couldn't force me to be in a store for three hours. ALSO: I was trying to buy a swimsuit, and they're all called things like "Sexy Swimsuit for Women" or "Sexy Red Swimsuit with Cats" like, maybe I just wanted to buy a normal swimsuit that doesn't make me feel weird about either purchasing or wearing it. Can that be a thing? Not that being sexy is weird. Oh, gosh, now that I've offended all the people.....

8. I have to go eat dinner. I wonder if there's anything delicious.... Stay tuned to see if I survive! (It might be a couple of weeks, the way this is going so far...)

How To: Chalkboards

You would think, this being the age of technology and computers and basically mind reading, that a college that charges upward of $45,000 a year to attend and use its facilities could find the place in its budget for upgrading from the typical, probably antique chalkboard to a more user friendly, technologically advanced whiteboard. But no. That would just be too practical.

And you don't learn practicality at college.

You learn other life skills, like the sound [f] is a voiceless labiodental fricative.

Or that sometimes the adjectives go in front of the noun in Spanish, but only if the adjective is not comparative, or if it is subjective to the person describing said noun.

Or that in some Hindu philosophy, everything is the same thing, and everything is different things, all at the same time.

But practicality? Nope. Never. Who would ever need to learn things like self-discipline or efficiency or time management or how to cook something besides eggs, all things that come with learning practicality?

It wouldn't be that hard, college! To teach us how to be practical. All it would take on your part is showing that chalkboards are a thing of the past, and that you understand that having a more efficient writing surface in your classrooms is the PRACTICAL thing to do.

Now, to be fair, I'm not sure if buildings like, say, the science and math buildings, have whiteboards. I don't really have classes in there. But if they do, then I refuse to be fair anymore, because this is going to turn into a rant about why society places higher value on math and science and engineering and "things that take real brain power" than English and history and languages and humanities, even though you better know how to read and write and talk before you know how to do high level calculus if you want to get along in society, but that's besides the point. And maybe freaking out about math getting whiteboards long before the languages even get to know what a whiteboard is is not the best way to draw attention to this strangely inequitable divide that has haunted me through most of my high school career and all of my college career, but you have to start somewhere. But anyway. I was talking about chalkboards.

So, the classrooms I frequent are generally not equipped with such grand technology. I don't know if you remember this (because you'd probably have to be alive during the Middle Ages), but chalk is not the most pleasant of substances. It's all dusty, and if you do it wrong, it makes hideous, eardrum shattering noises. And, did I mention that it's dusty? There's no good way to get it off of your person. Either you leave it on your hands and suffer through having scary, probably flammable chalk dust all over your important appendages, or you wipe it off on your clothes, and then people laugh at you all day because you have white splotches all over your otherwise excellent appearance.

Or, of course, you could just leave the room to go wash your hands, but the bathroom is probably six floors away, because whoever designed the building decided that it was only necessary to have one bathroom in the entire place. (Did I mention that this building was the languages building, not the math one, which happens to have bathrooms galore? Oh, sorry. Off topic again.) But then you waste precious class time. And you're basically paying for all that class time, class time that you had to spend in a bathroom, washing terrifying chalk dust off your hands because your in danger of being too expensive college REFUSES TO BUY WHITEBOARDS FOR YOU.

Is this a sign that I care too much about little things? I don't know. Maybe. But maybe the little things make all the difference.

Here. Advice to the children who are choosing a college right now: Disregard everything else about the college of your choice, and go make sure it has whiteboards in every single classroom. Do it. Do it now. Drive to your college and break into the buildings and check out the whiteboard situation. Once you've done that, then go back to all your other requirements. Trust me, though. Whiteboards can make or break your day.

Just make sure you break them before they break you.

A Life Update

Oh hey. Hey. Long time, no see. Sorry about that.

Do you understand how much busier life is once you're taking 18 credits instead of 14? It's a lot busier. PLUS: the classes are harder and scarier and filled with danger-er. And I had to write about the plague. I think you probably knew that, if you've been reading this blog and its scarce updates. But anyway. All I'll say about that is that I finished it, for now. So there.

In other news, I'm currently on spring break! It's almost spring, so, you know, they can call it spring break. Apparently it's usually next week, in which case, it would actually be spring, but no guarantees that it would actually be warmer. Because this is Minnesota. Gosh.

Anyway, when it was nice out, I got play some sports with some weird siblings I have. We even got all of them involved, at least for a little bit! Except when we were all playing hockey, Dan smashed my thumb with his hockey stick, and basically broke my finger, except not really, but I like to complain. He says he only did that because I kept grabbing his hockey stick and pushing it out of the way, but that's probably not true. He's basically a meanie.

I also went to work. It was terrifying. Actually, not really, but still. I stared at a machine that said, "DANGER: PIECES CAN CAUSE SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH" all day for two entire days. That doesn't make me confident that it wasn't a dangerous job. Plus, all the little tiny pieces of steel sliced and diced my hands. That's probably bad, right? Don't worry. I'll be fine though.

Also! I found out that I got a promotion for next school year! I get to run around and yell at children! And by children, I mean other college students. And by run around and yell, I mean manage in a calm and collected manner, because that's what I said I was going to do in my interview, and they can probably fire me if I do it wrong. But that's exciting, anyway. It means more money for less work, which I could definitely use!

There's a bright red cardinal sitting outside on the tree, and he's being very distracting. Gosh, cardinal guy. Don't you understand I'm trying to write a thing??

In other, other, less important news, I'm currently being addicted to Maroon 5. For some reason. I don't know how long it will be until it wears off, because that's what addiction means, right? That the thing you're addicted to will wear off? Yeah. But--OH NO A BLACK COLORED BIRD SCARED THE CARDINAL AWAY. WHY WOULD YOU BE SO MEAN, BLACK COLORED BIRD? WHY???--their songs are currently playing on repeat on Spotify forever, and ever, ____. (I left that blank there to see if any of you fill it in the same way I do. Hint: It's probably because I went to Catholic school for nine years.)

And now I'm pondering what I should have for lunch.... That's probably the most important decision I'll make all day..... We'll see. Yeah..... Lunch.....

But beyond that, nothing interesting really has happened.... Um.... I guess I'm winning against the girl in my Spanish class who thinks she's amazing at Spanish, and that if you haven't studied in a different country, you can't possibly know anything about Spanish (a comment she's directed at me more than once). So there's some victory in there! Whose essays get used in class as an example of what to do, girl? That's right: mine. Not yours. So.

And on the topic of languages, I think it's now my life goal to learn as many languages as I possibly can. Maybe I'll drop out of college and travel the world to learn all the languages. (Probably not. But it would be a nice thought.)

DON'T DROP OUT OF COLLEGE TO FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS, GUYS. HOW ELSE WILL YOU GET A JOB TO SUPPORT YOUR LIFE THAT ISN'T FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS?

How To: Self-Induced Panic

I only have a week and a half to write a 12 page paper. And yet, here I am, writing this post instead. Because who wants to write papers? Not me.

Except by choosing to not do things that are important, I kind of limit myself to two states of being: 1. (the rarer option by far) Working on my project, or 2. Panic.

It would probably be a lot easier if the things I thought I wanted to research were actually things that were important in the 14th century. It turns out witchcraft wasn't important. So then I just started looking up random things. Because that always ends well.

And now I mostly just go to bed super worried and stressed about the lack of progress I am making. Plus I should work on all the other things that I should work on, like Spanish and linguistics and religion and actually just writing this post is very very concerning to me I might die. And I have to work.

On the other hand, occasionally it's not my fault that I can't work on stuff. Like when the internet is basically shut down for a day (most likely because of the 500 students trying to do research all at the same time, not to mention any normal internet activity). I was going to research things yesterday. I really really was. But noooooo. The internet was being lame, and I was forced to watch Fringe! Ahhh! Way to go internet.

But because of this strange inability to use the internet, I found a book to read about things, and then I kind of decided on a topic and probably even created a thesis, which was excellent and filled with magic, and then I decided that I was progressing too fast, much faster than was healthy, probably, so I stopped doing research.

One thesis a day is enough. No need to work strenuously.

Plus, there are only so many minutes one can force themself to read about death and people whipping themselves. So, you know, no need to get so macabre.

Ha. That was a joke, because my topic is Danse Macabre. (Yeah, marching band! Yeah!)

The end. Because I should probably go at least pretend to do important things.

How To: Plague

No, calm down. Calm yourselves down. Gosh darn it. Stop leaping to conclusions! You don't even know what I'm thinking right now! You and your overactive imaginations. Snerb snerb snerb. No! No one has the plague! Especially not me! I'm opposed to things like illness, so horrible germs just bounce right off me. There's no need to worry.

But the actual worrying part comes when it turns out I have to a giant research project about the plague. Yes. The actual plague. Like BLACK DEATH BLACK PLAGUE GROSS PESTILENCE PLAGUE-Y PLAGUE OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. Ugh.

It's so unfair. One of my friends gets to write about children's literature. I could write about children's literature. But noooooo. I get to write about the pulsating pustule puffer plague of people who refuse to bath on religious grounds.

And there are beautiful entries in the book I have to read, such as, "Victims violently coughed up blood, and after three days of incessant vomiting for which there was no remedy, they died, and with them died not only everyone who talked with them but also anyone who had acquired or touched or laid hands on their belongings." (From John Kelly's The Great Mortality)

Thanks for that, Weird English teacher.

So I think I'll probably write about this guy who kind of might have started the Plague, if you so choose to believe in things such as curses and witchcraft-y things. He seems more interesting than investigating actual parts of the Plague. Plus, real medical things are gross. (I can't even deal with my brothers pulling out their loose teeth, so plague symptoms? I might actually die.)

This guy apparently cursed the king of France because the king of France decided to burn this guy alive for going against the church in one of his public statements. And I guess being burned at the stake is a pretty good excuse for cursing someone. Although, if I were going to curse someone, it probably wouldn't be with plague. There are probably way worse things. Like banishing all the turtles of the world. Or making sure no one could wear orange ever again. Those would be horrible things. And if I died by burning, I'd certainly want to punish the world just like this guy. "You have crisped me! I shall steal your happiness! May a million billion years pass by before the world sees another turtle grace its putrid land, and when the first turtle emerges from the dust of your deaths, may the remaining failures among you bow to it and worship it as a deity!" That would be my curse.

Way better than a stupid plague.

Man, I wish I could have actual powers to curse people. Except there are many flaws in this plan. Like, if I were to actually curse the world with no turtles and hope to still be alive, I would be pretty upset. Maybe I would amend the curse, so it would be that I would be the only one to have a turtle. Many turtles in fact. I could have a whole hoard of turtles, and they would be my magical friends who would embrace me and my life at every chance they got, and we would rule the world from a magical throne that I would make out of evil, only because I would use all my powers to rid the world of evil, and turtles for others, because they don't deserve turtles. So, um, this got kind of confusing. So sorry.

Anyway. If I spend as much time actually researching things as I do writing blog posts and doing other "important" things, I would probably actually be ahead of the game. But alas, I have no such self-control. I'm filled with the extreme desire to finish all 5 seasons of Fringe and catalog them. It's a struggle. Maybe I shouldn't have so much freedom. Maybe I should live in the library this semester. That would be easier to get things done. Plus, books about the Plague live in the library!

Ahh! Except maybe the books about the Plague actually have the Plague, and I probably shouldn't touch them but then how would I get my paper done and oh no I've invented an impossible to solve paradox maybe I should just get to write about children't literature that would be a good solution in which I would both be happy AND not have the Plague.

Please and thank you.

I FORGOT THE LINKS GUYS I'M SORRY PLEASE DON'T HATE ME

The weird version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJEoASUMZbI

The original version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6DA_WwO90c

If you're scarred for life, please don't sue me.

How To: Round Two

Oh yeah. Back at college. Because everyone knows that New Mexican heaven can't last forever. And don't get me wrong. New Mexico was amazing. And I miss my kids (if I can really call them mine) and the 55 degree weather and trips to incredible rock features and talking with other people who really care about the same things I care about and dancing to the Pizza Song (see possible links below) while making our own homemade pizza.

But at the same time, I kind of missed the chill of wind when you have to walk to a class that you really really like, like Spanish! and seeing snowmen pop up all around campus after there's been a blizzard and talking to people with different opinions about different things and also the pictures on my desk of all my friends.

So I must simply readjust my settings from New Mexico expectations to real life Iowa expectations.

But coming back for second semester is a little strange, I think. It's easier to get into a routine, because you already know what to expect, at least from things like food and living and work and all that stuff. All you really need to adjust to is your classes, and since you've been going to school for basically thirteen-ish years of your life, that shouldn't be too hard!

And even greater, maybe you even have friends to eat with!

And maybe you have an easier time of just talking to new people in your classes!

And maybe you aren't afraid!

Yeah. That's "How To: Round Two".

Because I do have friends that I like to eat with. And they are lovely people who make me laugh and who think about things the same way I do and who enjoy similar things as I do (Yeah, Settlers of Catan!) and who don't judge me for eating pizza and ice cream, even though it's Friday, and on Fridays we eat pizza and ice cream, even though I definitely forgot that today was Friday and instead ate a fish sandwich and the ice cream machine was broken but it's the principle that counts, right?

And it's way easier to talk to people in my classes, just because I think I kind of know now that even if you think you're basically sounding like a weirdie, everyone else thinks they're sounding like a weirdie, too. And life is all about balance, even if that balance is knowing everyone is as weird as they think they are.

And somehow, you're not afraid people are judging you for walking to the laundry room, because FREAKING EVERYONE has to walk to the laundry room. It's not like you're the only person who does laundry in the whole building. And you're not afraid of people judging you for buying a bag of chips at the weird store, because FREAKING LOTS OF PEOPLE buy chips at the weird store, or else they wouldn't sell them. And you're not afraid of people judging you for taking a shower, because (are you sensing a pattern yet?) FREAKING EVERYONE takes showers. Man. I'm pretty sure life is a lot easier when you realize everyone is just as freaked out about stuff as you are.

So I'm taking some fun classes, like tennis, where I think the main goal so far is to try not to hit people in the head with BOTH the ball and the racquet. And also I have linguistics in which I have to learn a new alphabet, basically. And philosophy of religion, which is like stabbing my brain with a stabber thing. And Spanish! Yah! Yah!

And I also get to work. Today, I served fish to starving villagers. Basically. Except they weren't villagers. But they were probably just about as civil as starving villagers. Anyway. I also am an expert at cutting lemons into wedges now. So if you're ever in need of lemon wedges, I can gladly accomplish this task for you. Even though it was terrifying, and I was like, "Why are these people trusting me with a knife when the first day I worked, I dropped an entire tray of coffee cups on the floor??!!??!!" But no one died. And since number of deaths is the way I measure success, I'm pretty sure I won.

I think I'll be able to survive this semester. I think. It'll take lots of food and possibly a pet turtle, but I will survive!

Confessions of the Sickly

It's been two weeks since I've written things. I apologize for my lack of timeliness on this thing. Can I use the excuse that I've been busy? I use that excuse a lot. Maybe I should come up with something better. Like: I got trapped in a swamp full of alligators, but they all wore bonnets and it turned out they wanted to throw me a tea part, but I don't even like tea, so I just pretended to drink it so as not to be rude, but also because they could have poisoned it or something. How's that for an excuse?

In actuality, though, I have been kind of busy. I had my last week in New Mexico, my last week with my students, and then we had to drive home. And so I am home now! Except I've been sick for five entire days. I like to call it "The Disease that Proves to Me How Unnecessary it is to Breathe more than Once ever Five Minutes". And also I lost my voice. You never want to talk as much as when you can't. Plus, I CAN'T SOUND ANGRY ANYMORE, because if I talk at any pitch other than a strange whisper-y thing, my voice vanishes into the distance like a rabid donkey.

So I've mostly been sleeping and focusing on breathing and trying to not cough up a lung and drinking hot chocolate out of my turtle mug that I bought at the Flea Market in New Mexico and also catching up on all the TV shows I missed while far away with poor access to the internet. (Not necessarily proud of that last one, but I'm not going to lie to you guys.)

And I wanted to write about my final thoughts from New Mexico, but since it's been a while, I hope I haven't forgotten all the things I wanted to say!

I think when I headed down there, I was expecting this experience to completely solidify my desire to be a teacher. I wanted it to make me know for sure that this was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Unfortunately, that was not the outcome.

DON'T WORRY, YOU PEOPLE WHO ARE WORRYING ABOUT ME RIGHT NOW. I still want to be a teacher. I still think that it's what I should be doing with my life. It's just that New Mexico had me thinking more about the reasons why I want to do it. In fact, there were times in the classroom when I sat there and said to myself, "I don't even know what I'm doing here. I don't want to do this with my life." And then the kind of panic that you have when you're having an existential crisis set in, because I've only ever wanted to be a teacher, and that's it, and I've literally never thought about doing anything else, and what if I decided to not teacher--what would I do with my life?

But I think I realized that I just don't want to be the kind of teacher I was observing.

I want to be the teacher who can connect with all the kids, not just the loud, social ones. I want to teach things, not just throw information at kids with the hope that they'll pick something up. I want to see the understanding in all the kids, not just the bright ones. I want to not leave the bright ones behind because "the bright ones don't need us" (actual quote from my teacher).

There were so many kids that I got to work with just because my teacher had already kind of given up on them, either because they were too slow to work at her pace, or because they were quiet, or because she was just too loud to cater to their style.

I had so many small victories with those kids who the teacher didn't pay attention to that I think I've secured my future in just small moments, small smiles. I'll tell you just a few of my favorites:

One student is a very hard worker, a very quiet student, but he works very slowly. My teacher has a policy that if students try but don't finish, she gives them a 70%, no matter how well they've done (which I think is just horrible, but whatever. It's not my classroom.) So I worked with this student, and he finished on time, and when he presented he got 100% and it was amazing!!! YES!

There was another student who would sit at the back of the class and not do anything. He'd have an assignment, but never write anything down. On the first day, I went up to him and asked if he was done, if he needed help, things like that. He told me no. And there's nothing you can do about it, and it makes me upset, because no one ever offers to help him, so he just feels like he doesn't deserve help. So everyday, I'd go up to him and ask if I could help, always with the same result. Until I had been there about eight days. On Thursday of the second week I was there, I went to ask if I could help him, and he said yes. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHH. And I was so happy, and we worked and he finished and it was amazing until he said to me, "No one ever asks to help me. I didn't think you meant it." And then.... I don't... I can't.... GAH, NEW MEXICO, WHY DO YOU HURT ME IN THIS WAY????

So I've obviously had a ton of mixed emotions on this trip. I mean, what do these kids do when we're not there? They're stuck with teachers who don't care enough (or have enough resources--it's not entirely their fault) to realize they can finish with ten minutes of help, or who don't even bother to ask if someone is struggling.

But I think in teaching, you just have to realize that you can't get to everyone, and that the victories mean more than the failures. And now I'm kind of just missing the happiness I got from seeing the smiles on kids' faces when they finally understand. But don't worry, self, you'll have plenty more chances to find that feeling. Don't worry.

Suggested life motto: Don't worry.

Suggested life action: Go eat the gummy worms that your mom bought you yesterday.

But really, though, Jen, you should follow your own life motto and don't worry.