back to school

around this time of year, when i see everyone else getting ready for school, i really start to feel like 1) i'm old, and 2) i wish i was in school, too.

school is the best! you're learning new things all the time, you're surrounded by fun people, you're doing productive things (this is debatable, i know. we've all done our fair share of busy work :)), you're working toward a larger goal. and you get to buy and use school supplies for their actual purpose (school...). and you get to buy new back-to-school clothes and nobody questions it because, yeah, you're going back to school.

this longing probably just means that i need to be in a school setting in some way. what is fall without school? not as fun, that's what.

today i...

turned in two papers, early, i might add. i was in the zone, thankfully.

got back together with the library. we've been off basically all semester, but the library was good to me today.

watched the "goodbye michael" episode of the office and remembered how incredibly good it was. i cried, sitting in my little carrel, and i thought about how much i'm sure i will cry during the series finale in a few weeks.

wore a neon shirt and loved it.

watched a sweet mormon message about living up to our privileges. (i made a goal to watch a talk every day--when i don't have time for a talk, it's a mormon message.)

went to chipotle for dinner. in sandy. we really need one of those down here.

for a day that i thought would be spent entirely in the library stressing over papers, this one turned out to be pretty good.

things a lifelong love of english has taught me

i've loved english/language arts as long as i can remember. this stemmed from a love of reading, of course, but that's not the only part of it that i love. i resisted for a couple years, trying to deny my love of language and literature and my eventual love of teaching, but i couldn't hold out for long. here are some things that have come in handy throughout my life as a result of my studies.

• "every slaughtered syllable is a good deed." (mr. phillips, 11th grade)
• latin and greek word parts (mrs. hippie, 10th grade)
• spelling is awesome and will get you far in life--but spelling bees are nerve-wracking (mr. harman, 6th grade; mrs. adams, 5th grade)
• i will pretty much read anything. i won't like or love or even remember all of it, but i will try my best to read all of it. it is a rare occasion when i don't finish a reading, if it's a novel at least. don't ask me to like and, presumably, finish a bunch of poetry. blech. (disdain of poetry--susan howe, winter 2008, i think...that was a long time ago.)
• british literature, especially victorian novels, are my go-to (lorraine wood, winter 2009)
• shakespeare is king, and hamlet is particularly important (pretty much every english teacher ever, especially mrs. riley, 12th grade)
• even though i love to write, i'm not sure i have the imagination to do it for real. but that doesn't mean i haven't tried (or won't try again) (creative writing classes through the years, but mostly pat madden, fall 2011. though that essay class did give me the most hope and the best tools for future creative writing.)
• i really love vocabulary (mrs. adams, mr. phillips, mrs. gregg)
• grammar is important no matter how boring it seems (debbie harrison, winter 2010)
• really beautiful writing is sometimes more important to me than story--this semester i read edith wharton's the custom of the country. the story is pretty fascinating, full of intrigue, with an anti-heroine you love to hate and a transatlantic plotline, but what really amazed me was wharton's prose, lines like these:

  words were flashing like brilliant birds through the boughs overhead; he had but to wave his magic wand to have them flutter down to him. only they were so beautiful up there, weaving their fantastic flights against the blue, that it was pleasanter, for the moment, to watch them and let the wand lie.

  there are probably more lessons, though not including how to get this aligned all the way to the left again--i'm definitely not in computer science. sometimes i question this decision i've made to devote my studies to this discipline that can feel stale, but then i remember that it has brought me a lot of joy and taught me some things that have made me who i am. this is starting to sound cheesy, so i guess i'll wrap it up and go finish my peer review for tomorrow :)

student/teaching

these past couple years one of my biggest challenges has been finding a good balance between being a successful student and a successful teacher. having my own classroom, albeit one where the rules and curriculum were created for me rather than by me, was amazing. i loved teaching writing 150 and interacting with students and figuring out who i am up in front of them. but, teaching is time-consuming. it's not as time-consuming once you've done it once or twice, but there are always things to worry about and tweak and grade. in the course of becoming a teacher, i forgot about myself as a student. i've taken a lot of graduate seminars, and they never seemed to really capture my interest like so any of my undergraduate english classes did. i felt dissatisfied with my coursework, so i started thinking of myself more as an instructor than as a student.

this semester, i'm not teaching. i guess i'm kinda sad about it, because, like i said, i love teaching, but this also means that i can remember what it means to be a student. i am determined to be the best student i can be this winter semester, my last at byu, my last as a student for what i hope will be a long while. it's easy to have good intentions at the beginning of the semester; this i know. but my primary job this time around is to be a student, and i want to excel in that job rather than just get by, like i have been for the rest of my graduate school experience. i'm pushing my cynicism aside and taking my education back into my own hands.

if anyone wants to reach me between now and april, i'll be in the library. and if i'm not in the library, you should probably steer me in that direction :)

a thought on teaching

for the past few semesters, i've tried to convey the expectation to my students that getting an A means more than just meeting the minimum requirements of the course or even of the A itself. i want my students to actually earn their As, which means meeting with me beyond a single conference or going to the writing center or having multiple peers review their papers.

this semester, more than others, i have students who are concerned about earning that A. last night i met with three students after 6pm because that was when i could meet. they wanted my feedback so they could turn in A-quality work, and they were willing to sacrifice some of their tuesday evening to do so. i grumble about having to traipse up to campus after a long day at work when i don't technically "have" to be up there, but really i'm glad to help my students achieve their goals.

have i said that i love teaching?

best compliment ever

student: do you watch the office?
me: i do.
student:...pam beesly...
me: haha yeah
student: [nodding] yeah, i can see it. you're cool like pam.

almost as awesome as when i heard a neighbor shouting out of his house last night around ten: "hey, what setting do i put it on to dry a full load of garments in one shot?"

first day of school thoughts

…which also, in part, apply to the first day of church in a new ward.  

•  everyone is dressed in their very best. the first day of school was always one of my favorite days because i got to show off all my new back-to-school clothes. i can probably recall, down to the accessories, several of my first day of school outfits from various school years through the ages. you have to wear your best, because you never know if the person sitting next to you in PDBio, or Sunday School for that matter, will end up becoming a really great friend…or maybe more. 

here i am this year. happy first day of school!

• i’m still feeling somewhat removed from campus life. i thought i already had my last days at byu, but now i’m back again. i was in limbo before, straddling the line between student and professor, but now it’s even weirder.

• i have one class this semester—the second half of new testament—and i purposely scheduled it at 9:00am so i will wake up at a reasonable hour and get things done. yesterday i hiked up to the jsb and walked into one of the stuffiest spaces i’ve ever inhabited. at first i thought it was just the crush of bodies on the first day of school, a bunch of sweaty college kids rushing around trying to figure out what is going on, but then my classroom, which had far fewer people, was a sauna. apparently, the air conditioning was busted on the first floor. needless to say, it was hard to pay attention in class in such a feverish state. hopefully tomorrow everything will be made right once again.

• i really am glad to be teaching again. i might not love everything about writing 150 as a course, but i love meeting new students every semester and getting to know them. i realized during training this year that it really will be awesome one day to have my own classroom, maybe even, dare i say it, a literature classroom, where can have my own assignments and read stuff i picked out. but, in the meantime, writing 150 is a pretty good gig, and i’m excited for the new semester. my students seem responsive. i mean, they laughed at most of my jokes, which is a good sign.

quotes to get me (and maybe you) through finals and beyond

Perseverance is a positive, active characteristic. It is not idly, passively waiting and hoping for some good thing to happen. It gives us hope by helping us realize that the righteous suffer no failure except in giving up and no longer trying.  {Joseph B. Wirthlin}

I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all, and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy. {Og Mandino}

We must not give up hope. We must not stop striving. We are children of God, and it is possible for us to become what our Heavenly Father would have us become. {Dallin H. Oaks}

Sometimes the decisions are so difficult that we are tempted to stop choosing and just do everything—or nothing. But am excellent person is in touch with his motives, and he can use his own judgment along with the counsel of good leaders and of the Holy Ghost to help him make his choices. {Donlu DeWitt Thayer}

 *quotes found in my byu freshman mentoring planner in four consecutive weeks. i think someone's looking out for me.

reminiscinces of london: the globe

my one class this semester is "english renaissance drama." if you recall, my specialty is not english renaissance drama. however, i have a love for such things, and the description of the course said it would be worth my time.

anyway. it is already proving to be interesting, especially since the other day we started talking about renaissance london and the experience of going to the theater. as brother young was describing the globe theater, from its thatched roof to its thrust stage and the yard where the groundlings would stand for the production, i was in london once again, with my great friends, having the time of my life.

when we were in london in the summer of 2009, we saw two plays at the globe: as you like it and troilus and cressida, both shakespeare, but of decidedly different quality. i shall tell you about them now, if you like.

we saw as you like it fairly soon after we arrived in london. we had a full day, including class and a trip to the falconry demonstration at the british library. so by the time we got to the globe i was already somewhat fatigued. therefore, i was skeptical (i maybe whined a little to myself) of standing for the duration of the play, as those with the cheapest tickets do. but i was (still am) determined to make london part of me, and this seemed the right way to do it. by some lucky circumstance, i was right up against the stage, which gave my legs some respite while also providing the best view of the action.

at one point, celia's blue dress brushed my head and it was one of the great moments in my life. basically, my first experience at the globe was magical, and i couldn't wait to go back.

one of my views during as you like it.

on our last weekend in london, we got tickets to another show at the globe, troilus and cressida. romeo and juliet, the other big show that summer, was sold out (disappointed), but we couldn't get enough of that renaissance feeling, so we went anyway. that friday morning, will, julianne, and i went to the globe exhibition, where you learn more about the history of the theater itself and the tradition of drama that emerged out of the period. we took a tour, led by one of the players, where we sat in one of the boxes and watched the stage crew setting up for helen of troy, an upcoming production. it was awesome and was a perfect thing to do on my last friday morning in london town.

that night we headed down to bankside once again for the performance. we had tried to figure out the plot of the play the night before, but the details were still a little hazy. it didn't get much clearer as the show progressed, but the atmosphere, being down in the yard right up against the stage, close to the other spectators, friends and strangers alike, was delightful. we joked about the ridiculousness that was troilus and cressida, i swooned over the cute actor who played one of the characters, whose name i can't quite recall now, and i chuckled at the airplanes that would occasionally pass by overhead.

this looks scandalous, which is maybe appropriate, because the play was rather scandalous. but i think (if i'm remembering correctly...) this is troilus and cressida  with cressida's uncle, pandarus.

what also made that night magical was meeting, rather fortuitously, two lds siblings on vacation, one recently returned from a mission and soon returning to byu, who were standing next to us during the show. we bonded at intermission and realized they weren't staying that far away from our flats. this of course led to frolicking over the millennium bridge, possible rapping and beatboxing of some sort, and revelry on the tube. altogether a lovely, lovely night.

all of this is to say that i miss london. still. everyday. i have so many amazing memories from those weeks in the summer of '09, and i will cherish them always.

and i'm thinking of buying some tickets to performances at the globe this summer. that way i have to go back to london, right? who wants to meet me to see taming of the shrew in july?

on roommates

roommates are, as some might say, a blessing and a curse.

they are a blessing because you can sometimes talk to them for hours and hours about anything and everything and they don't think you are weird.

however, this is also a curse, because it makes me want to be at home hanging out with them instead of doing all my work, the work which will possibly save me one thousand dollars or allow me to graduate or lead me to a good grade or ensure than my students have a productive day in class.

they are also a blessing because they get me and actually want to be with me, too.

however, this is also a curse because, why would i want to be around other people who don't love me as much or understand my meaningful looks or listen to my dating advice (i am still amazed this is still going on, seeing as i have no qualifications for giving dating advice.)? and, it's a curse because, how am i ever going to find a boy who does all that stuff too (minus the dating advice, most likely)?

so now i am going to leave the library because i can't bear the thought that they are having fun/deep conversations without me. although, my justin bieber album just came on, so maybe i should stay just for that...

melancholia

do you ever just feel like there is something a little off? you aren't really unhappy, but you aren't really happy either. i'm feeling like that lately. i guess it is unrealistic to think that life is going to be one extreme or the other all the time; i probably wouldn't actually want it to be like that. but i feel like i need to do something to snap out of this slump.

i think what i probably need to do is quit thinking about how weird i feel and get out in the world and do something worthwhile, like serve people in need or do some yardwork or...something. i'm all for introspection and bettering yourself from the inside out, but sometimes i think i spend too much time inside my own head. i'm alone with myself and my own thoughts for so long that i get discouraged by all of the things i haven't done or all the ways i fall short. i worry about those things so much that i'm not actually doing anything.

so, i think i need to get out of myself in order to be happier and more satisfied with life. because, in reality, i have it pretty good. i have two good jobs, one doing the thing i love, a nice apartment, an awesome family, good friends, a testimony of the restored gospel, many talents, a comfy bed, and two floppy straw hats. i have a lot to be grateful for and not a lot to be ungrateful for.

i've been feeling lately like i really truly want to teach high school. i'm not sure what i need to do at this point to make that happen, but i'm going to find out. i thought that ship had sailed and i had embarked on a new career path, but maybe not. i'm kind of excited about it though. in the meantime, i'll take any teaching experience i can get. i still can't believe how little sleep i got last night in anticipation for today's eight'o'clock class. i definitely got up on time, but i was totally exhausted. i think my spiffy and stylish powerpoint and dorky anecdotes really won them over :)

school's back in for summer

school starts tomorrow. at 8am. i don't wake up before 8am. hardly ever. last semester when i was relief society president and had meetings every sunday at 8 i almost died. i was never late, and i was still completely primped and primed, but it wasn't easy. so, i know this term is going to be something of a challenge for me.

i had every intention of coming home from our father's day celebration tonight and getting my lesson plan ready and going to bed super early to make sure i got enough rest for class tomorrow. i mean, i want to set the example to my students--this may be too early to get up and be functioning in the summer, but we're here to work. i mean business! i guess i still intend to do that tomorrow, but all of my plans kind of went out the window when i got on the computer. i've been internet deprived this weekend, though it was somewhat self-inflicted, and there was stuff to catch up on, dang it! and now i'm blogging. but i'm still hopeful that i will be in bed dreaming of new students and worrying about how i'm going to cram three papers and a group project into seven weeks fairly soon. i've taught this stuff twice before; you'd think i'd have it pretty much down by now.

also, i think the keyboard on my new laptop is a little bit more spacious than my old one. i feel like i can't type or something; i keep missing keys and spelling things wrong. double letters (or leters) are especially troublesome. hopefully i'll get used to it soon. also (again), i just installed microsoft office 2010--exciting! i think i am way more excited about this than i probably should be, but i can't wait to use powerpoint and actually have some cool, modern-looking templates to apply! my students are going to be blown away!

awards and prizes

sometimes i get into this attitude where i think that everything i do is substandard. sometimes, this is true. i don't always live up to my potential, though this is something i am constantly trying to improve.

(i just realized that the above statements could have come from anyone. pardon my impersonality for a moment.)

but, every once in awhile, cool things happen to me which show me that, yeah, even though i'm not perfect and even though i know i should quit leaving my big papers until the night before and do my reading during the day instead of my catching up on america's next top model (guilty pleasure alert!), i'm still kind of cool and i still kind of know what i'm doing. 

i guess i'm tooting my own horn a little bit here. but sometimes you just need to do that, you know? it's so easy to get caught up in the things that aren't going perfectly that i think it's healthy to dwell on the good things when they come along. 

last night was the english department awards banquet. you have to be winning something to go--it's not just open to everyone, because it's pretty swanky. three course meal, jazz band, salad and dessert forks. that kind of thing. i got to go because i won, rather unexpectedly, second place in a writing contest. my essay will be published in an online journal and i even received a cash prize. i wish more of my friends could have come to the banquet, too, but when i got home we actually studied and worked. in the same room. not at the library. so, another success story. :) and there were cookies involved--always a plus.

i also found out last week that a paper i submitted to a conference was accepted. yay! i get to take a little mini-vacation to scottsdale in october and present my paper at a regional conference, which, while it isn't the hugest deal, is still something of a big deal.

and, yesterday i bought my ticket to disneyland!!!!! one week to shopping, sunning, and playing at the happiest place on earth.

i still have a million things to do before the semester ends, but i wanted to take some time to remember that not everything is crazy and stressful and depressing. life is still good, after all :)

a weird week

this past week was crazy busy. usually this type of thing happens at the end of the semester. this go-round, however, had me feeling pre-finals-week-like anxiety in the middle of march. go figure. the bright side of this whole endeavor, which included several trips to the library (which never happens), about 20 pages of writing (not including all the notes i had to take just to be able to start writing), planning a relief society activity, meetings with three different professors, grading papers, and a bunch of other stuff not relating to school or work (read: goofing off because i can't take all day diligence sometimes)...i forgot what the point of that was in the recounting of all the events of the week.
oh yeah. the bright side is that, hopefully, the end of the semester won't be as crazy as usual. in fact, i'm planning on taking a trip to california, land of disney and the oft-dreamed about h&m and sunshine and miguel's jr., during reading days.nbd, as rebecca would say. let's just say i'm ready for a break from the pressure of grad school.
we did still have some good times this week, though. delicious dinner at la jolla groves, concert at sammy's, mustache man sighting, rainbow cupcakes, dinner group, paper composing parties peppered with jokes, poignant life questions, laughter, gun sounds, and youtube videos, and, of course, girl talk (aka talking about boys/love). the one weird thing about the summer will be not having these awesome friends close by anymore. sniff.

in other news, i received a pleasant and very unexpected surprise this week. a paper i wrote for one of my classes last semester won a prize (second prize, to be exact) in a contest to be published in our writing department's online journal about teaching writing at the university. so i get to go to a swanky banquet and accept the prize, which i think has some monetary value, always a plus. so that was exciting. my first thought: hey, this is another line i can add to my résumé!

because spring (sometimes) seems like it is right around the corner, here is one of my favorite flower pictures, featuring one of my favorite flowers, hydrangea. (and yeah, i know it's a little blurry. just deal with it.)

burned out

obviously, i'm in school, so i have to do school work.
reading countless books and articles, writing papers and other such things, participating in class, highlighting, underlining, hand raising, laughing at the professor's jokes (okay, sometimes that isn't really work), annotating, trying to think of something intelligent to say, trying to think of something intelligent to write, going to meetings, printing things, copying things, checking things out from the library, researching. etcetera.
it all gets a little tiring sometimes.

sometimes i think about what would happen if i just left school and went and...this is where it gets dicey. what would i do? try to find a job? travel around europe? go live with my parents? (no. i'm not going to be one of THOSE kids.) just read and read every day for the rest of my life?

so, i'm not going to quit school, but there are some days where i really wish i had nothing else to do but read, watch the office, write in my journal, laugh with friends, and eat good food.

confession: some days i end up doing this. i think i would go insane if i didn't.

the point is, even though it seems like it would be so much better if i could just abandon school, all i need is a little distraction every once in awhile and i can get through it. in the long run, i think i will be glad that i have done this master's program, though it has shown me how i DON'T want to live the rest of my life. 

and, there really are some bright spots in my life right now. 

one. i love my students a lot. they are pretty great. they tell me nice things like how i have the perfect name for a writing teacher and how i let them come to their own conclusions and they like that. and they are funny and text me on my birthday and tell me about their weekends and crazy blind date stories. and they write pretty darn well.

two. i have two new (well, kind of new) besties who are awesome and i love and with whom i am taking a trip to california over reading days. this week has been sadly lacking in hang out time, girls, but we will make up for it next week. 

three. this will perpetually be on my list: the office.

four. arcade fire, the avett brothers, a fine frenzy, and, always, always, always, hanson.

five. letters and emails from hilarious and inspiring boys. 

six. sister/sibling weekend. and stake conference, which means not only spiritual enlightenment (when i typed "enlightenment", it first came out "english" :)), but also a break in meetings and...possible sunday nap?

that's all i can think of right now, but pretty good list, right?

life is good, even when it is hard and i don't want to do the things i have to do. it's all worth it!

productive saturday

so usually i wake up around 11 on saturday mornings and then spend the day watching stuff on netflix or generally not doing what i should be doing. today, for once, i actually used my time pretty wisely. 

i woke up on my own at about 8:40. i'm kind of afraid that my body clock is getting used to waking up early, or at least earlier than i usually like to. i dread becoming like my dad, who almost never sleeps past 6am. i don't want to live life like that. 

anyway, so i got up and went downstairs to do the dishes and take out the trash. normally i avoid dirty dishes like i do papers to grade (or write, for that matter), but i scrubbed them all and loaded them into the dishwasher. and i hate taking out the trash when it has started to grow up the kitchen wall, but i sucked it up for the sake of a productive saturday. 

i was delighted to discover that my lovely sister left her curling iron at home this morning, so i spent awhile curling my hair. that might not seem super productive, but, hey, this is my blog. 

(i might also have finished watching an episode of the bachelor and rewatched the latest episode of the office at some point, but that was while i ate my breakfast. a girl's got to keep herself entertained, after all.)

then i actually got started on some homework. i have not been good this semester about doing things (aka reading or generally preparing) for my classes before the day they are due. usually this isn't a huge deal, but it's nice not to have to worry about whatever weird parody i have to write for monday like half an hour before class. i printed some stuff, saved some pdfs, and generally acted the part of a good student on a beautiful saturday afternoon. i also got things ready for tomorrow and my myriad meetings.

at some point i did a couple loads of laundry and started cleaning out my room and getting rid of junk in anticipation of our upcoming move across the parking lot. (the less i have to lug up four flights of stairs, the better.)

anyway, i think that pretty much sums it up. i obviously didn't like cure cancer or anything, but it's a good change to feel like i actually made something of my saturday. hopefully this feeling will carry over to the rest of the semester, though i probably won't hold my breath on that one :)

oh, and here, for your listening pleasure, is one of the songs that kept me company in my solitude today. i could literally listen to it all day. i was really excited when i heard it in forever 21 yesterday. people probably thought i was weird for singing out loud. oh well. don't care!