the prospect of peace

It is Friday night. I should be completing my lab notebook and preparing for Wednesday's presentation, but I am not. I'm not so sure why I think I need to spend my Friday night doing homework, but that's the feeling I get. I've had a rash of wanting to get things done ahead of time. (I wanted to use an antonym for "procrastination," but I couldn't find one. Looking at thesaurus.com, I did notice that "retardation" is a synonym for "procrastination." O, the comfort I find in that.)

I did another great exercise in Murray Bible-ity today. I continually freak out about not being able to graduate in the traditional four years. The truth is that I can, but I'm paranoid nonetheless. After manipulating my checklist of required courses into manageable chunks called semesters, I can see that if I take a reasonable, not even strenuous, amount of credit hours over the next two academic years including summer 2005, May 2006 will see my graduation. The thought of graduation, in and of itself, is also highly intimidating. But what scares me about the upcoming semesters is not the number of hours I will have to take. I've tackled larger course-loads in my day. It is the prospect of what courses I will be taking concurrently. There is no way to avoid taking a big scary education class while also taking a big scary English course or multiples of the same kind. The necessary evil of what is known as an area: like double-majoring without a minor. What happens when collegiate study becomes an elective-free endeavor is an intense, 100% hard-core battery of academia. Now that I've likened the future of my college career to hell, hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised when it is not hellacious at all. Hopefully.

All of this recent talk and contemplation of attaining a degree makes me realize that I'm in school to be a teacher. No matter how many times I resign myself to this fact, every time think about it, it is like a hilarious revelation. And it's not that I do not want to be a teacher, but it is occasionally ridiculous to me that I am not only mastering an area of study, but also I am training for a very specific occupation. Not every major is like that. Many are degrees that could lead down nearly any path. I cannot decide if that is freedom or ambiguity or if a professional degree at the bachelor level is an embodiment of objective and ambition or unfair restraint. I have to at least tell myself that I don't have to be a teacher so that I don't suffer from academic claustrophobia. Wouldn't it be similar to not utilizing a minor? Lots of people never do anything with their minors, right? Not to say that I haven't learned many valuable things that I can use whether or not I end up in education. Not to say that I don't anticipate being in education, at least for part of my career. It is just a matter of keeping myself sane.

And this speculation leads to another question: If I'm not a teacher, what will I be? Sadly, that's a question that has been somewhat of a guide. Mostly, my answer to that question is that I do not know. Possibly a very immature mode of decision-making, but it's what I've got. I suppose that I think I am taking the safe road by aspiring to be an educator. Isn't that how many people become teachers? Of course, that doesn't make them good teachers. Yet another fear of mine. Will I even survive as a teacher? I honestly cannot answer that question, but there are very few questions about the future that anyone can answer. But I do have two different dreams that, I guess, could co-exist. I like to think of one of them as practical and the other as ideal, but those two adjectives are not necessarily binary opposites. Both could be the practical ideal. It seems practical to me to want to be a great educator. It seems ideal to me to be a writer of some sort. But then come the doubts. What on earth makes me think I can be a writer? And then the one that undermines any shred of confidence I might have. What on earth makes me think I can be a teacher? (So it is quite obvious I have little confidence in myself.)

The operative phrase in both of those questions is this: what on earth. I believe that any ability of mine is not really mine at all, but is a gift of God. But are these my gifts, or just selfish ideas for myself? Living for myself would be quite disastrous. (I have just come to a mental place where I somehow cannot form an intelligible sentence, so I apologize.) So I all I really do know, despite all my planning and freaking out, is that my future is in my hands in that it is up to me to put my future in God's hands. To worry and fret is to waste time, energy, and the prospect of peace.

they read all the books, but they can't find the answers

Hello.  Today has been a little different.  During an average week, my class does not meet on Wednesdays, but today we did.  We went to the WATCH center to fulfill the observation clinical experience for the course.  I overslept, which is odd because I got to sleep two hours later than I usually do, but the change in schedule messed everything up.  But I was not late.  I just didn't get to do all the things I wanted to this morning before we met.  Anyway, the experience was quite entertaining and enlightening.

I just ordered another book from half.com.  I really should stop, but at least I'm buying useful and necessary texts.  Well, okay, part of the time.  I mean, I find value in them, or I wouldn't by buying them to begin with.  Recently, I have gotten The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis, Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam, Jr.,  and The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, a book that most English students are required to buy early in their studies, but I somehow managed to not have to buy it.  And then today, I ordered The Penguin Dictionary of American Usage and Style.  I researched a long time before choosing it over The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style.  But after sifting through reviews, numbers of pages, list prices, and availability of hardback editions, I made my choice.  I'm aware this is boring you to death.  But oh, how I love it.  Thank you to half.com, I'm eventually going to have an extensive and essential linguistic and literary library.  But that would have to include the nearly-$1,000 twenty-volume Oxford English Dictionary.  So maybe I'll just stick to a couple cheap books.

I am about disability-movied out.  Last night, I completed my triad of films with The Other Sister.  Good movie, but I believe I Am Sam is far superior.  For the past four weeks, I have been submersed into the world of all sorts of disabilities, and I can say that I've learned many valuable lessons.  I have learned how to accommodate for these students and how to make each student in the classroom successful.  Students with disabilities are not the sole responsibility of the special education teachers in a school system.  Of course, all of this is easier said than done.  But I have learned that it takes a very uncommon individual to understand and work with these people on a constant, everyday basis.  I do not know that I could do it.  Kudos to those who do.

The monsters that have been growing in my kitchen sink are about to attack, so I better go take care of those.  And homework, homework, homework, kind of like Marcia.  But soon enough I'll get a little break before classes and such start again.  During that free time, I absolutely need to brust up on my Spanish.  Mi espanol es muy mal.

open windows

 

I walked to class today instead of driving.  It was a cool, misty, comfortable morning, and that feeling has lingered into the day.  It sit here with my windows open.

 

I am wearing my hair in the little buns, which is something I do when I'm in a strangely good mood.  I specifically remember doing this four semesters ago when everyone had already left to go home for Thanksgiving break.  I had stayed up nearly the entire night to write the ill-fated book review for CIV101.  I was incredibly tired, but incredibly hyper at the same time.  Campus was bare, so with my CD player stuffed into my hoodie pocket, I sat out for CSC lab listening to, and singing along with, some CD had I just burned.  I remember sitting in the floor outside of the computer lab on the second floor of the business building waiting for my instructor to arrive.  Several classmates had already gathered there, too, and I remember some of their faces as I disregarded their presence while I happily got down to Dave Matthews' "Everyday."

 

I grabbed my grocery list, my journal, and my C. S. Lewis book around 12:00 and headed out the door.  I dropped by McDonald's, where I saw the Ice Pimp, to get lunch, and I took it to the beloved park where I sat with my windows down (it's just that type of day), ate, wrote, and read.  Very enjoyable.  Then it was off to WalMart for groceries.  Not quite as enjoyable.  But now I am home, and I have three movies about disabilities from Blockbuster to watch.  (Note:  MSU students can rent two and get one free.)  I'm racking up lab hours for SED by watching A Beautiful Mind, I Am Sam, and The Other Sister.  So it looks like I'll be pretty busy with that, huh?  I feel like I have so much to do, but I guess that is because there are only seven days of this class left.  That includes the completion of all fifteen lab hours, an observation "field trip," six chapters, two quiz-like tests, and a group project.  This class has flown by much more quickly than the last.  Before we know it, summer will be over.  But that's okay.  I love fall.  Maybe that's why I love today so much.

cold day in july

an identity, a job, and mother nature

Yeah, yeah.  So I have an identity crisis when it comes to backgrounds.    Don't mind me.

Ladies and gentlemen, you are reading the blog of an employed woman.  Not that I'm working yet.  Not that my job even requires work.  But I have the spiffy title of Lab Supervisor.  For a massive fifteen hours a week, at a whopping wage of $5.15 an hour, I'll be keeping tabs on the computers and users of those computers in the open labs in Applied Science and Hart.  Not too much money, but not too much work.  It's better than nothing, and I can get my homework and reading done on the job.  And I've scheduled my hours so inobtrusively, that I can probably pick up some more hours as a tutor or something.  Hopefully.  Anyway, I start when school does, which is another month.  I wish I had've had a summer job.  Oh, how I needed it.  But none of my applications availed that outcome.  So this is the end of that long road called Emergency Job Search.  Now, onto Real Job Search.  We'll see.

I am home for the weekend.  And it's already been an interesting one.  Before I left Murray, I took my SED test that I think went well and I snagged a job.  Before I got home, I met Mom in Madisonville and we went to WalMart.  It was a little stormy, or maybe more than a little because the lights went out.  That's a fun time, literally, being in that store with little lighting.  Blackout party, aisle five.

It is true.  Bad weather follows my parents, and fittingly so.  The only time I'm ever in a storm is when I'm with them.  And the last few times I've heard thunder in Murray, they were visiting.  Strange times.  Maybe Mother Nature is trying to tell me something, but I'm afraid to ascertain just what that is.