i used to believe

if you haven't already, you should check out my link "i used to believe." it's a great site for adding beliefs you had as a kid. there are some pretty funny and ridiculous ones on there. the following are ones that i added:

I grew up in a very religious household and was always told that cursing was very bad. Around age eleven I began to listen to my own music, even some that had curse words. I was always really nervous about playing the music; I thought God would be so mad he'd melt my stereo. Thankfully, it never happened!

Because I grew up with the cartoon "Transformers," I always thought that, when it stormed, the transformer box behind my house would turn into a huge monster machine. I would keep an eye on it, peeking timidly out my back window.

When I was a child, I thought that when it rained, God had stationed one angel each to a large bucket of water. On the count of three, he gave them the go-ahead to turn them over at the same time.

feel free to share yours here!

some people's kids

i am just AMAZED at how lenient most of the parents of the kids i teach are. how is it that these kids are not being taught responsibility and that actions have consequences? it is so frustrating, and it keeps my hands tied. i can give kids detention, but they may or may not show up. then what? i write them up, but chances are still slight that any action will be taken. so, thinking it may do some good, i call the students' parents. i then have the joy of listening to a tirade of how frustrated the parents are, how they've tried everything, how their child just will not listen. but then the kids show up the next day, in their car, and they get to leave campus for lunch, and i see them cruising around town on my way home, and in class they talk of what they did last weekend and what they will do the next weekend--all because they face no consequences at home. and the parents wonder WHY they are messing up so bad, WHY they are not going to graduate, WHY they feel they can talk to me like a dog.

no, mrs. so-and-so, your son is not going to pass this semester.

yes, mrs. so-and-so, that means your son is not going to graduate.

yes, mr. so-and-so, i have given your daughter plenty of chances and have reminded her plenty of times to get on the ball.

no, mr. so-and-so i will not give extra-credit for a student who has not even done the minimum of what is expected.

but it's frustrating for me, because i want to see these kids succeed. i want to see them break out of their social barriers and not have kids of their own when they're 16, not drop out of school their senior year, not be doomed to flipping burgers at sonic for the rest of their life.

i can remember being so angry at my parents, feeling like they were so strict. now i want to kiss their feet for teaching me respect, stick-to-it-tiveness, and that consequences DO (surprise!) have actions.

on a lighter note, here is a quote i like by oscar wilde:
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

rockin' out

this morning when i was driving to work it was snowing. it was beautiful. it didn't look like the snow was actually falling to the ground, but rather like it was suspended in the air, just hanging there, like still bugs. even though i am DEATHLY sick of snow this year and very ready for sunshine and new growth, the 5 minutes of suspended snow made my day.

that, and something else that was also going on on my way to work: my daughter was rockin' out to the rapture and whatever else was playing on my ipod. she was moving her head to the beat and had a big smile on her face. she loves music, and that makes me happy. she started dancing at quite an early age; she actually shakes her booty. she has a keen ear for rhythm. she sings, too, which floors me it's so cute. i have a confession to make: i absolutely love being a mom. i would never have guess it; i had plans, ya know. plans to live in europe, to get my doctorate, to travel, to do lots of other things besides becoming responsible for another life. but really, i couldn't have chosen a better path for myself. did i choose it? i think it chose me. and i'm glad it did.

Top Fives for Monday

"For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man--when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when the crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live--for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live--for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know--fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe." (Grapes of Wrath, ch. 14)

God, Steinbeck is good.

Here are my top fives for today:
TOP FIVE ALBUMS
1. Death Cab for Cutie--Transatlanticism (has not left my car stereo for two weeks)
--> after number one, the rest are in no particular order<--
2. Jack Johnson--In Between Dreams
3. Pinback--Blue Screen Life
4. Bjork--Medulla
5. Interpol--Turn on the Bright Lights

TOP FIVE SONGS
1. Tiny Vessels--Death Cab for Cutie, Transatlanticism
2. Be Still my Heart--Postal Service (off "We Will Become Silhouettes" single)
3. My Heart--Havergal (mp3, dunno the CD source)
4. From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea--Cure (live version off Show album)
5. Bankrupt on Selling--Modest Mouse, Lonesome Crowded West

And there you have it.

and the answer is:

in the spirit of yesterday's post in which i added something i wrote a LONG time ago, i have come across something else i would like to add, although this is a bit more recent (a paper i wrote my senior year in college in an existentialism class). the reason for this is my mind was sparked by something someone said. sorry it's so long, but hey, no one is making you read it.

It’s all shit, you say. Everything is meaningless. And I hope to God this isn’t the alcohol talking because I would hate to feel like I was wasting my time and emotion on a futile conversation apropos the insignificance of life. The optimistic and idealistic part of me wants to refute that. My inclination is to put up my hands and disagree whole-heartedly. I want to scream and shake my head. But I am not sure. There is a deep, dark part of me that stops, considers, ponders. It can be exhausting at times, and frustrating; you know the feeling when you think you’re overwhelmed by something so emotionally complex and the only way you can escape it is to just sleep, though there’s no guarantee that even then it won’t haunt you in your dreams? Yeah, one of those.
I used to think I was on the brink of understanding. I used to feel I was hot on the trail to finally making sense of this crazy existence of mine. It wasn’t a feeling born out of arrogance; I didn’t feel smarter or wiser than the next; it was just, I don’t know, sometimes you have these feelings and you don’t know why. For me it was usually born out of a passionate discussion about life-related matters, the kind where everyone’s voices are raised and heated but we’re all coming to basically the same conclusion and everything inside you swells and burns with the feeling that you are understood and that you are tapping into a bigger understanding that encompasses many other human beings. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t matter anyway, because that feeling is long gone. I feel more confused and unsure now than ever. And I am irritated.
Mostly I’m irritated because nobody warned me it would be this way. I suppose, though, that a part of me is glad that I wasn’t made to sit down as a young child and listen to the droning lectures of my parents as they explained to me that, though life can at times seem wonderful and blissful, though there will be things that I am desperately passionate about, and though there will be times I feel that I truly understand and am understood and that things happen for a reason, in reality that is all a façade that will come utterly and despairingly crashing down to reveal one undeniable, simple fact: life is, indeed, shit.
But that isn’t the extent of it, either. I’m irritated not simply because I wasn’t warned, but because I was given instead an excuse. The answer to all my longings, my desires, my failures, my misunderstandings was always that God makes everything better. In fact, it was more than that. It was more like only a life with God leads to fulfillment. People who are very kind, compassionate people but aren’t Christians aren’t really happy; they only pretend to be on the outside. The reason my then fiancé and I had such troubles was because ours was not a Christ-centered relationship. The reason our marriage was doomed to failure is because he wasn’t the God-placed head of the household. The reason my younger sister was snorting coke and sleeping with boys was because she had neglected her attendance at youth group, and more than that it was because my parents were at a spiritual crossroads where their relationship with God was not quite up to par and so, in turn, their children’s relationships with God suffered. The reason so-and-so’s business did not flourish was because his attendance at church had slacked and, by the way, he was no longer tithing. The reason anyone anywhere ever feels sad or lonely is simply because he or she is not involved in a deep and meaningful relationship with God. After all, we’re too blessed to be depressed. Can’t they see that?
No, I am certain I would have the same questions, do have the same questions even when I am consistently doing everything I am told I should do in order to have a Christ-centered life. And right now, when I feel I am approaching my lowest point, God seems neither a place of comfort nor a light in the distance. It just complicates things even more. I am desperate for answers, though, and desperate for the truth. I want someone or something to come along that points me in the right direction or that perhaps offers a more viable answer to my unending questions. I remember, as a child, the overwhelming joy of going to the swimming pool on one of those scorching hot, summer days. I was a tadpole. I absolutely loved to swim, and I was good at it. No matter how good I was at it, though, I inevitably always ended up scraping my toes on the bottom of the pool. Anyone who has ever spent lots of time in a swimming pool knows that pain and irritation. You’re playing around, trying to keep your head above water, and with the thrashing and kicking of your legs that sustains you and keeps you up, you swipe your toes across the hard concrete on the bottom. That’s how I feel. I’m trying to keep my head up; I can feel the bottom, I know it’s close because I keep scraping my toes on it. And those scrapes don’t heal right away, either. They turn red and ooze; my father always described it as a weeping wound. Well, I’m full of those. And I’m trying to retain the passion I hold for life, but the more I get to know it, the more daunting and complicated it seems.
So what I want to know is, what is it that keeps me going? If all the things I stand for don’t make a difference, what will it take? If my idealism is creating within myself a denial of the true nature of life, and that true nature of life is exposed for the ugliness and hopelessness that it is, how can I even retain a desire to press on? I have plenty of beautiful things in my life, plenty of beautiful relationships and lots of things that I enjoy, but these things do not by any means negate my questions and my dissatisfaction. They only distract me. They help me keep my uncertainties at a comfortable distance in order to survive. But I cannot be dishonest with myself forever. Or can I? What does all this questioning amount to? The answer is simply, nothing.

a trip down nostalgia lane

i received a visit from my past today. i teach at the high school from which i graduated, and the librarian now was also the librarian then. today i found in my box a gift from her...a copy of a literary and artistic publication from 1995-1996. on page 25 is a poem i wrote. god, i was a FRESHMAN! i was rather amused, though, and so i thought i'd make myself slightly vulnerable and share the poem i submitted. it has no title.

Brightness bounces off these walls--binding tightly walls, one sided face which malls, locks me in my sanity.
Confining surroundings, and my coffee cup's run dry; to the very last drip it is dry, to no avail I sip, then cry.
From above I hear fingers slipping over piano keys, delicate, delicate, softly a sound flows to me.
My childish inhabitants stay inside my brain--cannot decide to scream or pray but they yell while I gleam. Do they hear every word I say?
One throws advice and the other demeans, to choose what is my choice, and guard. To protect a thousand lies which come from every direction and know which is right, from whose mouth comes deliverance?
Confining and closing in on me, I am trapped yet still they scream. Bang my head on tighly binding walls, I've found salvation in a kiss. One touch, I'll live forever, as God is my God, if He is, if there is. What's my power--to live up, break away, fall forever in my hole?
Too many questions, and now they pray. A whine and plead, see me gleam now, in pain I smile; I'm lain all the while, and they hear every word I say.

i guess it was painful to be 14! high school is such a strange, emotional time. i have to laugh when i observe the drama that goes on among my students. one of my senior girls literally screamed at a senior guy for having the same shoes as she did--they then proceeded to fight to determine who had purchased them first. luckily, i don't remember those being the kinds of things that concerned me in high school. i was more concerned with music, partying, feelings, and my then-boyfriend, now-husband.
i'd like to think life has become less dramatic, but sadly, i don't think so.

here, fishy fishy fishy 

hump day

right now i am reading the grapes of wrath with my honors english class. i have read this book a handful of times already but am discovering it all over again. i love that about literature, how you can read something once and then a thousand times more and get something different out of it each time.
"the people in flight from the terror behind--strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever." (ch. 12)

today is wednesday, "hump day," and i am anxious for the weekend. i cannot believe how quickly easter has arrived. easter used to be my favorite holiday; it always seemed so holy and mysterious. now that i don't go to church, though, i have become sort of numb to it. in a way that makes me sad. instead of going to the sunrise service, i will be sleeping in; instead of singing songs and listening to a sermon, i will be cooking prime rib; instead of shouting "hallelujah" and "he is risen," i will be dying easter eggs and watching my daughter play with her ducks and rabbits. strange how things change. it has been a melancholy week for me; perhaps it is because of this absence of reverence. either way, i will revel in it. tonight i will go home, hopefully get my daughter to bed early, take a long, hot bath and drink a glass of marietta.