How I've changed since High School

In the spirit of the most recent "5 yr mini reunion" I thought it would be appropriate to make a list of the ways I've changed since high school.
1. I'm excited about becoming a teacher. I had some jobs that showed teaching as one of my skills, but I was very resistant to the idea. So resistant I tried to be an electrical engineer.
2. I don't watch the ground as much when I walk. I still tend to stare at the ground a lot but I've now mastered being able to look up and around me as well.
3. I walk a lot slower. In high school I was always in a rush to get to class (yeah I was one of those nerds who couldn't get through the hallways fast enough). Now I'm one of the slower walkers I know.
4. My temper is a lot less and I know better how to deal when I get mad. Much better with just deciding to chill about it or get my anger out in other ways such as exercise. If I hadn't, I think I'd be one of those 20 something women who have heart attacks.
5. I lost weight. I had an advantage that I was a bit fat in hs so when I came to college and skinny people were putting on the freshman 15, I lost the freshman 30. I'm pretty close to getting myself in a positive place about my weight which is good considering I'm moving to LA where I'll see a lot of rather thin people.
6. My focus turned a lot more to social justice. I've always believed in social justice, but college did a lot to kick me in the pants in this area. I'm a lot more likely to recognize hegemonies. (yeah, big college word)
7. I embrace my nerd side. The side of me that was never cool in high school and very aware of it has evolved into the side of me I embrace and lift up. As I've talked about with Ellen, this is crucial to being a teacher. Let's face it, your students are VERY likely to think you're a nerd- maybe a nerd they enjoy, but a nerd none the less. Now I'm ok with playing that up.
8. I'm ok with Springfield only being my past. In high school I always had dreams of getting out, but when my parents moved to Rantoul my freshman year I have to say it really threw me for a loop. I realized that at that time I thought I needed Springfield to always be my grounding. I've since learned I really never need to go back. (Although- I did have tons of fun being there this time).
9. I wear make-up... and not just t-shirts and jeans. This I still blame on my English major status, but who would of thought that I would ever wear anything other than a t-shirt and jeans and bother with make-up?
10. I figured out reasons I'm likable. In high school I don't think it ever occurred to me why people may want to be friends with me. They were my friends because we had classes together and we had fun (and often because they really liked Amelia.) Now I can see reasons just about me that people may find me interesting and fun to be with (Let's hope I remember those in LA).

Highlights from my trip

1. Getting a job, but you've already read about that.
2. Having people to go out to eat with to celebrate that new job.
3. Splitting 3 bottles of wine between a past roommate and I.
4. My sister-in-law being willing to hang out so often even though she had a paper due the day I left.
5. Sitting down to dinner, forgetting about the fork in the bowl and Krysta saying "We're all friends here" as we all realize we're actually all family.
6. Jess saying "well we're your friends too"
7. Jared's one-liners all through game night.
8. Doug and Kenneth hailing insults at each other during mariokart.
9. Getting to be the annoying little sister waiting in line at Trader Joe's
10. Joining a message board and seeing a string of posts about the fact I am moving out there soon.
11. A phone-call with Mikey to catch up on everything.
12. Our last meal out, none of us had to talk to decide what dessert we should share.
13. The last time till I live out there that my brother had to drive me to the airport.

Kind of a sappy post but I tend to get in a sappy mood after a good trip.

More reasons my new job is amazing

1. They want my input on curriculum.
2. Two of my classes will be whatever curriculum I decide.
3. The principal wants all of class to be project based learning rather than lecture based.
4. When I asked how much money I had to put on a play, my fellow teacher told me as much as I want.
5. My SLC has a soundstage.
6. The Auditorium is being renovated (and so are the school buildings for that matter)
7. I don't have to teach To Kill a Mockingbird.
8. It only took me a half an hour to get there this morning from my brother's place.
9. All of the faculty we met were happy.
10. When I walked into a classroom, the teacher was ok with the people not precisely on task.

Things I don't know about cats.

I love my cat. I'm ok with my brother's cat but it'll take a while before we're at loving stages. There are however in all of this a few things I don't get about cats:
1. What makes cats know to go in a litter box?
2. Is it genetic or something in the raising that makes some cats vicious as young kittens?
3. Why do some cats love milk and others could completely leave it forever?
4. Why does my cat love olives so much? Is that related to the fact she's a cat?
5. When did we figure out that domestic cats eat fish? and on that same subject, why isn't their mouse flavored cat food since we know domestic cats eat mice?
I know, random post, but I'm a curious person (and we all know what curiosity does to cats...)

Reasons I'm glad I took the Monroe Job

I have a job at a high school!
This is a list of reasons I'm glad I took this job:
1. The two drama classes I get to teach. I like variety. One of my favorite parts of the Franklin student teaching was that I had 3 classes to prep for.
2. That I get to start a theater program. Um holy cow? (yes I come from the 1950s)
3. I don't have to teach a prescribed method of writing. I may have inserted my foot in my mouth in that interview, but I stand by what I said.
4. They are positive about the change happening in their school. Very crucial.
5. I was hired by the people I will be working with. Pretty cool to see a Principal leave the decision almost entirely in the hands of his staff.
6. I can still live by my brother! I think the plan is to commute to the valley which isn't ideal but I've heard it'll be like 40 min to get there are more like 30 min to get back which is so not that huge of a deal.
7. I get high school students. This wasn't a must by any means but I do enjoy working with the older kids (10-12 grade too).

Things I'm worried about for tomorrow.

I've got a job fair tomorrow that will hopefully help me to find a specific school I'll be at.
Here is a list of things I'm worried about:
1. What to wear- seems dumb, but I've been to job fairs in Illinois and I know what to wear there; what do I wear out here during the summer?
2. How to find out about specific schools- I wish I could walk into an interview that I knew I was walking into. Instead I have no idea about what schools will be there. Not even a clue. I've done research on a lot of schools, but there is no way to research as many high schools and middle schools that may be there.
3. Did I bring the right stuff? I have over 30 copies of my resume and 10 copies of some letters of recommendation. Is that the right stuff? I'd feel a lot more comfortable with this if I were in Illinois I think since I know the Illinois standards (but then again would I take anything else if I were interviewing in Illinois?)
um.... so we'll see...

Elements I find important in a good job

Obviously my efforts are entirely becoming a teacher, but after holding numerous random jobs I do have some elements that I classify as making a job a good one:
1. Intellectually interesting.
2. Movement around allowed (past just rolling your chair).
3. Dress code allows for some flexibility.
4. Changes with time either through promotion or other environmental factors.
5. Allows for interaction with others.
6. Does not remind you of Office Space. (The hardest one)
7. Salaried work- particularly if you don't have to think about keeping your own time card.
8. Does not require that you use an "employee bathroom" (although in schools, faculty bathrooms tend to be a perk, I do enjoy reading the graffiti on the walls of the students' bathrooms)
9. Allows you to post things like a list of elements I find important and get paid for it...

when it rains it pours

I know that I just posted a new list but I had started that list a long time ago so it doesn't really count as today.
Reasons I like Chicago: (In honor of my current trip to Chicago.)
1. Walking. Every time I go I either walk or take public transportation. These win huge brownie points with me.
2. I like the people I know who live there. This may rank as most important if I were to rank these lists.
3. Tracy's Apt. One of the wonderful people in my life who calls Chicago home has a great apartment at Washington and Halstead on the 34th floor with 2 walls of windows that look over the city including the Sears Tower. I got to see lightening strike the Sears Tower last night. :)
4. The pizza.
5. The weather. This one is weird but I like that nearly every time I come to Chicago the weather will be different. It does make life exciting.
6. The tourist stuff is largely close to each other. Goes back to the walking idea, but I like that in a city this large you don't have to drive to each tourist attraction.
7. Carl Sandburg wrote a poem about it. I know, I'm a nerd about English stuff. I'm also a nerd about things that relate to buildings or pieces of my childhood (like Abraham Lincoln) and I went to Carl Sandburg Elementary.
Anything else I like about Chicago is largely just what I like about big cities. I don't end up spending large amounts of time here so that limits my ability to get super detailed and I'd put theater on here but second city is stationed in a lot of places and I'm sorry but The Fox in St. Louis blows away any theater building I've seen here. The city does have its perks though.

Favorite Professors

In my time here I had the gamut of professors. Since doing least favorite professors can be mean-spirited, I decided to focus on the positive (in no order)

1. Professor Brunet: A French Professor in the ECE department, this woman came to both of the women in engineering camps I went to (one as a camp attendee one as an older, wiser chaperone- for college students....) she was willing to do any of the bizarre games and very fun to have around. I like a professor who can act like not a professor.

2. Professor Kwiat: This man acted like he enjoyed teaching physics. A lot of professors will act like the enjoy their subject area, but this man seemed to get great enjoyment out of coming up with demonstrations and ways that we could better understand the concepts. Profs don't have to take teaching classes, but in some cases I know a few that should- this guy wouldn't need to.

3. Odom: My first English teacher (he was working on his phd when I had him for 256), this guy's class made me know I was in the right major. Survey classes in English can be boring (255 cough cough) or a whirlwind (Barrett's 209 cough), but this guy made the survey class to this day one of my favorites. I think it was his enthusiasm and willingness to let us discuss things.

4. Professor Parker: I know this puts me on a very select list that I really love this man as a professor, but I do. His class fascinates me. Watching him interact with people is amazing (and a sight I got to see better from a discussion based class rather than the criticism lecture format). He's also ridiculously intelligent. I hate an English class where I feel like I know everything- both times I felt like I knew nothing, which really drives my desire to do better.

5. Professor Baron: Hilarious. Especially hilarious to see him interacting with people who don't realize he's hilarious. Also, isn't too big on people needing to raise their hands. He'll walk all over you talking if you aren't assertive, but I never had that problem in his class.

6. Spencer: Ok so he's a professor, but honestly I could never call him anything other than Spencer. In a different way, this was also a class that I felt I knew nothing sitting in. Also a class that I didn't have to raise my hand in (common theme?) which was amazing for me. AND he runs his class very aware of his practices and the purpose.

While I wouldn't jump on the opportunity to take an electrical engineering class or physics class again, these English profs I would definitely want to take class from again. I will give an honorable mention to Prof Clift. She would have made it on the list I am sure if the classroom dynamics would have been different (the ones out of her control). I would also take a class from her again to see if things could be different.

Events in history I most remember from my childhood.

I won't keep posting this often but I feel like I've done a lot of personal lists at this point and its time for one that maybe if you're reading this you can play along.
These are the events in history that I remember most vividly from my childhood (before high school) (They are not in any specific order):
1.The first Gulf War. My brother and I (or I should say my brother and he used me to help) made a video with micromachines (tiny cars) of a car chase looking for Saddam Hussein. We obviously didn't exactly understand the whole they can't catch this one guy concept and I honestly don't remember anything else besides that people wanted to find him and we couldn't.
2. The Somalian Civil War. This one I think is one of those world events that really altered the way I look at the world. (Of course they all do but this one especially turned my perception in ways that people who may not remember this didn't). I was pretty sure that the continent of Africa was VERY important to the US and that Somalia in particular was a world player in how things got done. Now I see a very different world- one that would rather lump the continent and treat it as one giant country and one that likes to largely ignore the entire continent unless it can make for a feel good moment about how we're helping those poor people over there. My childhood reflected a very different mood.
3. Oklahoma City Bombing. This is th other one that really altered the way I look at the world. My first view as a threat to this country was of a white male. It seemed an especially real threat to me since there were kids in that building and I was a kid. I have to admit a certain ignorance here- when September 11th happened, my history teacher told us that regardless of who would eventually come out and say they did it, Osama Bid Laden would be blamed for it. I had no concept of why he would say that since in my mind people who did awful things to the US were people like Tim McVeigh. I don't know whether this reflects a very isolationist view or a deconstructionist view.
4. Zaire becoming the Democratic Republic of Congo. In sixth grade, we had to reports on a country. My friend really wanted someone to do Zaire with her, and I agreed. It was awesome to learn all about the country and we had news events every single day because there was a Civil War going on. The day before we were to present these projects, the Civil War succeeded and our country changed everything- the flag, the currency, the name, the government. We managed to get a lot of it changed on our report too. It was so fascinating and probably counts as my first real awareness of how countries change hands through violence. Sure the Somalian Civil War is on this list, but I much more remember that one because the US was getting involved and the news stories were largely about gathering sympathy for the Somalian people. This one the US at least publicly stayed out of. It's a place I wish I could visit, but much as I hate to admit it would probably be too dangerous for me to. The country has switched hands a couple of times and if you ever read "Heart of Darkness" this is where that takes place.
5. Princess Diana's Death. This was one of those "you'll always remember where you were when" times. I was watching TV and a scroll bar started saying that Princess Diana had been in a car crash and broken her arm. Now I barely knew who Princess Diana was and the idea that she'd get a scroll bar for a broken arm seemed ridiculous. That is of course until the bar changed from "broken arm" to "severely injured" to "died". The reaction was incredible. Suddenly you couldn't live in this world without knowing Princess Diana. I think it was the first moment in my life that I became acutely aware of the power of someone dying to suddenly remind people that that person was living.
6. Columbine. This is one of the other "you'll always remember where you were when" moments of my childhood. I had just gotten back from school and for some reason turned on the TV in my parents bedroom. All I could see was them taking stretchers out of the school. It was awful. I had a really hard time trying to work through this one. School kid coming home from school and seeing another school where something awful had happened. That's a really difficult lesson to work through. Schools in my town responded pretty heavily- almost to the point of overboard since I know they were discussing putting metal detectors in.

Beyond these things there are a few other events in history I remember- The USSR falling apart (my brother was really excited about that one because every map was suddenly going to be wrong)

Reasons I can't wait till August.

This list thing seems to have me posting a lot. I'm sure that'll stop soon.
Here it is due to my supreme frustration with being here-
Reasons I can't wait till August:
1. My job will be done. I'm not doing anything that I want to do or desire to do and I'm kind of over doing jobs that have nothing to do with my desires. That's why I have a college degree in a major I enjoy- so I can do things I enjoy.
2. I'll be done going to my church. I love my church very much but right now they are going through this huge transition that stinks. I'm done with having to put up with stupid drama at a place where people go regularly to be told to love each other.
3. I'll be out of the ant-infestation. Hopefully my apt in LA will be better as far as insect-infestations go (as in less not more). I'm sick of the smell of the raid and I don't like having to clean up 9000 dead ant bodies after spraying it.
4. I can start making new friends. I need some. I have great friends here, but I'm ready for a new batch of people. That's really hard to do from a "you have two months here and then you leave" perspective.
5. I need to be around people not obsessed with meeting their one true love and getting married. I really just need space in this department. I need freedom and fun not a life-long partner.
6. Mikey's going to be gone most of the summer so I might as well be in LA. We'll have July together, but even then it won't really be very much time.
7. I hate that stupid feeling actually in seeing all of my friends that I'm half ready to say goodbye but half not. Some of them I feel like I've left already mentally. Others I'm not going to be ready to leave, but I'm not really bothering to connect to them any more since I don't want to half to leave them.
8. Maybe then my softball skills won't be an embarrassment. Or my tennis skills. That's what practice is for right?

I'd like to say this is the only time a list like this will come up but I bet tomorrow there's another one just like it...

Things I most often lose

Those who know me most know I have a hard time keeping track of stuff, so as an ode to my forgetful manner here are the items I am most likely to have no idea where to find them.
1. My cell phone.
2. My keys.
3. Stamps.
4. Slippers.
5. One sock out of a pair.
6. Pencils (most often in my hair)
7. Blank CDs.
8. Remotes.

Not a very original list...