Not again.

This does not bode well for the immediate future of my writing habit. I am notorious (among myself) for the reverse binge-and-purge of good deeds.

But I could not stop myself.

In another requisite end-of-year reflection, I am forced to recognize how quickly this year has passed. The What Significant Things Happened in 2008? Game was played by my mom and me on Christmas Day as I drowsily drove home from my sister's house. It was meant to keep me awake, as the game Cows was not cutting it.

This year passed with such swiftness, I believe, because of how compartmentalized it was. This is how I think of it: Post-Graduation/Pre-Honduras, Honduras, Post-Honduras/Holly's Wedding/Pre-Teaching, and Teaching. For each segment of time, I was oblivious to anything but my immediate physical and mental surroundings and the tasks at hand. Each chapter, if you will, flowed neatly into the next one in such a way that, without my notice, I graduated college one day and finished my first semester as a real teacher the next -- with a whole year gone in the process.

Perhaps the most surprising realization of all (maybe I exaggerate) was the inspiration for this entry. Looking at my links (almost unfamiliar from the lack of seeing them regularly), I saw the one to my Flickr photos. I knew before I clicked it what I would find: My premium account has expired. The year passed and I did not make my payment. What was more than a thousand photographs and several nifty albums dividing them up has been reduced to 200 pictures, being less than half of my Honduras album. I have not yet decided whether or not to upgrade and save the account. Its practicality has, too, expired for me.

It seems strange to me that silly little bits like this mark the passage of time.

Considering the new year's resolve.

With the new year fewer than two days away, I am almost inspired to renew my dedication to this blog. Almost.

More than half of my school winter break (to be politically correct) has passed, and I am just now unearthing the tools of teacherliness that have conveniently been out of sight -- and undoubtedly out of mind. I'm trying to get last semester -- in all its incompleteness due to snow days -- graded and out of the way, but today, I found myself preparing for this coming semester during which I get to be an English teacher, too. In theory, it sounds exciting. A little bit, anyhow. We'll see. So I must carve out that path for myself and my students. Plus, I need to apply all of my lessons learned from this past semester to rethink my strategies and routines for this semester. Is organization next to godliness? Or is it preparedness?

And so it is now time to reflect upon that hideous false construct of the new year's resolution. I am leary of saying them out loud, much less writing them down, much less publishing them for others to see. I think it is a curse akin to that of the senior yearbook ad. (Refresher course: The couples who take out an ad in the back of the yearbook in order to profess their love for another are doomed to break up before the yearbooks come off the press.) I'm not sure I've accomplished any goal I've ever written down save purchasing an item on a grocery list, which is still a dubious example.

With the above in mind, I will not share my list of very specific tasks I have proposed for myself, both personal and professional. But there is a list! In my mind and nowhere else. Of course.

The ban on MySpace cleared out the crowd.

Ah, Election Day.

The leaves have peaked around here, and the weather's nice. It took me three seconds to vote. Now, I'm at the public library where there is a book sale, and I wonder what it must be like to be the author whose books have been pulled from the shelves, branded with a bold "WITHDRAWN" stamp, and shoved onto the "Reduced! Unmarked books only 10 cents!" table. I bought one Newbery Award winner. How'd that make it on the table? And a ton of audio cassette recordings. Famous speeches, Charles Kuralt essays, a Garrison Keillor broadcast, and a Studs Turkel series because I know that he just died and I don't have a clue who he was. I'm a sucker. I know.

Anyway, I'm getting ready to multitask -- enter grades and catch up on Nerdfighteria while I sit here with the public library computer lab crew: the match.com dude, the solitaire guy, the YouTube lady. We're pretty cool, all of us.

Tomorrow, I'm going to see John and Hank Green. And that's all that matters.

Decision-making and the art of lawncare.

Last weekend, after a week at school that made me actually love my job, I decided that it was time to start looking for a place closer to school. After all, if I'm going to be keeping my teaching post for at least two years, I should be looking for a more reasonable dwelling with a commute time of fewer than 45 minutes each way. Thusly began the hunt.

It was frustrating -- not because I wasn't coming up with any information. I was. My word-of-mouth and school-wide email inquiries were turning up results faster than I could sort through them. But I was frustrated because this week had me chained to my desk until well after dark, long after the hour it is advisable to track down uncharted rental property. Plus, I was just too tired to do the sifting.

Thank goodness for this week. No, it didn't make me love my job quite as well as last week did, but it did give me some time to think. I still haven't followed up on any of those leads. Freeish-time is only now peeking around the corner. Who knows? Maybe I'll go apartment hunting. Maybe I won't. Yes, being closer to school would be nice, but maybe I'm just conning myself with all those glittering pros on my pro-con list. With gas prices going down and with home getting more homey by the minute, I'm not sure if sleeping with a shotgun beside my bed is really what I want right now.

Here's what I've decided:

The grass is no greener anywhere else than it is where I stand at any given moment. I should tend it and cultivate it. I should water it and be grateful for it. I should choose to see the tender shoots of green beside my feet, instead of tromping them down. And if anyone else's lawn looks more lush and velvety green than my own, it is because that person chose to make it that way, and if that same lawn doesn't stay that way after the previous owner leaves and I set up camp, it is because that person took his or her attitude with him or her, I've brought mine along, and it's the same attitude that kept my little patch of grass brown and brittle before. And I can't forget that every place goes through seasons. Nowhere -- short of Narnia -- is grass really perpetually green. But it is almost always certain to come back if I wait long enough.

If I live here or if I live there, life is life. Good or bad. I can choose to run, or I can choose to change myself. Running seems easier, but it's only temporary.

don't get me wrong

I know. I've disappeared. What can I say?

I sometimes get the feeling I spend way too much time on school, but I haven't figured out yet how to manage. I've never really understood the saying not enough hours in the day until now. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I don't currently understand how someone can be a teacher and a person. You know, a person who has a family, has friends, has hobbies, reads, listens to music, watches movies, gets on Facebook... And to be a real person while being a good teacher? I don't know. Maybe my definition of person is skewed.

One teacher told me that someone once gave her this advice: "I think you would be a better teacher if you didn't work so hard."

I could understand that. "I think I'm in danger of being that teacher," I said.

Another teacher who was standing with us then asked me, "Are you married?" I shook my head no, and she laughed knowingly and confirmed, "Oh, yeah. You are in danger."

I guess you compensate and displace. You can only fill up the time you have available and then the excess gets pushed out. Maybe I've made the mistake of making all of myself available.

I know, I know. It's my first year. It's supposed to be this way. I'll find the rhythm. I'll catch my breath. I just wonder when.