Eternal Sunshine

Very.

I am passionate about this topic and could go on about it for days but I won’t bore you. If you would like to hear my off topic, over-dramatic tangent about this subject, read on. 

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“Okay guys, partner up and complete this assignment.”

In some classes this isn’t a problem. In others, you have those awkward moments that we all know about and there are tons of tumblr posts and gifs about those moments but I won’t use them because I want to approach this from a more serious standpoint.

Today this phrase was sounded and it seemed that everyone in the class of 50 had partnered up immediately. I looked up and there was no one left. Even the girl behind me who I offered a brownie to the day before was on the other side of the room. The only other person I could see who didn’t have a partner was a quiet boy who does good work, says intelligent things, and makes jokes but doesn’t interact much with most people. When he speaks in class people suppress snickers at his stutter and shyness. When I reached the laptop cart I began asking if he wanted to work with me but as soon as the words came out my friends waved me over to work in their group. With a mere apologetic smile I ducked through the aisles to accept their offer. I felt terrible but let it go.

I just went on Facebook. It’s his birthday today. I went to his wall to write something and apologize for ditching him but only one other person had left a wish and I’m pretty sure she’s a family member. At least to ease my conscience…”It’s only midnight”; people will fill his wall with love later and I didn’t actually ditch him on his actual birthday. 

Social dynamics are so interesting and sometimes pretty disheartening. There’s a stigma of being the kid who’s always without a partner and there’s also a stigma about associating with those people. We watch people get bullied or alienated every day but it’s so hard to be the one person who breaks away from the crowd to give that person a chance. Why is it so hard? And all the while I can’t help but think that person no one ever cared to or was able to reach out to will become a big shot in the future and the rest of the people will be [star]st[r]uck, exactly the lowly way they were before: speechless. 

This education system just trains us to search for short cuts. 

I blink awake slowly. The clock reads 6:30 and I’m ready. But then I realize that “Oh…crap…” I misjudged the time I was supposed to wake up so the time I jumped out of bed was the time I should have been jumping into my car. “Great..I’m going to be late on the first day of school. I can already tell senior year is gonna be awesome.” Luckily and strangely, I bolted more easily than I ever have before. 

I quickly threw together a lunch then proceeded to feed my personal blender. Frozen fruit, raspberry iced tea, baby carrots? Meh, why not? It’ll be like homemade V8, I mused, simultaneously remembering and cursing my failing eyesight. 

I stuffed my face on the way to school and quickly learned that trying to take swigs of a berry smoothie on the highway may not be the smartest thing to do and fat drops of the staining agent splattered onto my white shorts. Luckily for my fantastic first day of school outfit I opted to wear whatever I rolled out of bed in, which just happened to be reversible shorts. Even more luckily the material was something that I easily wiped the stain off of. 

I’m going to make the best of this year. I still need to make that resolution…

I was going to go into detail about the first two days but nothing terribly exciting happened.

Although I did notice that our brilliant administration planned ALL faculty meetings to be on Tuesday and Thursdays. At least now after working at Kids Teaching Kids I know why they have to have so many meetings…they’re just winging it and making sh*t up as they go…(yeah that’s right we all know) But seriously though… so much more respect for educators now. 

Here is my commentary for the day of the camp counselor message thread on Facebook. We didn’t have out staff meeting today…usually we just lock the kids out and talk about them. The message thread similarly is mostly a lot of angst and throwing our hands up in the air.

1. I wish there were like buttons in message threads.
2. I like how helen can be spelled HELLen
3. I think the kids will hate us too…and we’re gonna hate them…so much hate and rage. and love. deep deep down. 
4. So much respect for teachers; they probably look forward to the weekends more than we do. 
5. I just came back from C2 and met a second grader who reads and writes extremely fluently. I wanted to kidnap him and kill my kids. 
6. I’m gonna be mute for the rest of camp because I don’t know how to watch my mouth. I need anger management.
7. Pretty sure kids can detect earthquakes like animals can. [They were ALL acting up like no other today]

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Things that pissed me off today:

- Being late. I’m chronically late to everything. This better change before school starts…I have trouble getting out of bed and judging travel time. 

- Traffic.

- People who don’t use turn signals. Especially when they merge WITHOUT LOOKING. I really want to have a road rage moment where I do what my friend did: speed up next to the dbag and flick them off. I would also add some snarky insults.

- Hitting every red light when I’m already late.

- I hate feeling stupid. Adobe products make me feel stupid. Therefore I hate Adobe.

- I didn’t want to disappoint my secretary or my OCD self so I spent the last way-too-many hours trying to make something presentable on Photoshop and Illustrator. My first copy was made with washable markers and then a first grader spilled water on it…at least it wasn’t my laptop…

- The frozen berries medley I was SO excited about turned out to taste like sh*t. I guess it’s intended for smoothies…AKA they don’t expect you to get the full taste.

- I left my blender and cup in the building so I guess that means no smoothie tomorrow morning unless I make it there…

- Children.

- Children I hate touching belongings I love.

- Children who are about to enter the fourth grade and don’t know how to add the number one to a number or plan a story or multiply or read.

- Children who don’t listen to me. And challenge me.

- These are my favorite jeans but they keep sliding down.

- I talked to a cute guy but then I creeped on him on Facebook and got really disappointed and sketched out. WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN? You meet someone you think is pretty cool and then you look at their Facebook…I hope it’s not like that for me :’[

- THERE IS A HURRICANE THREATENING MY SUNNY BERMUDA VACAY. RAIN RAIN GO AWAY. COME AGAIN…NEVER. I think we need a break from natural disasters, thanks Mother Nature. 

- The way Facebook statuses are allllll the same during big events. But some of them are pretty clever so I go on a liking spree on my news feed and it’s a ball. 

- Cell towers and service out of wack. 

- Being so damn angry and bitchy and cynical.

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Now it’s almost 1 AM and I guess the best way to end the day and balance my stress is to close with a list of things that made me happy today:

- Food! Like I said yesterday, I had a parfait and smoothie and strawberry Nutrigrain bar for breakfast. I feel really healthy with my dietary choices lately. Then for lunch I made myself a sub and even the pickles worked themselves out. 

- I got along with my mommy today. Slash…we didn’t really interact because we were both busy. But what little interaction we had was very positive (no lectures or put downs!) and she brought me food from Panera! Even though I don’t like Ham & Cheese…It’s healthy though…ish…and I FINALLY GOT COOKIES. And Mexican food for dinner. And Panera for lunch tomorrow what’s goood.

- I was on the phone with my friend’s dad who made a wager with me about my SAT and college stuff…it was pretty lighthearted and encouraging. He reminded me to work hard AND play hard. There’s a time for everything.

- Someone I found myself to be concerned about was actually looking out for me too. That was really nice to know :]

- When I was sitting in the library (I think it’s the new cool place to be) with some friends, my laptop computer, and surrounded by studious, literate people, I thought about how blessed I am to be where I am. Never forget to count your blessings. 

- I had a pretty good C2 session. Despite being (like always) ten or so minutes late. (That’s like $13 down the drain damn it. Stop being late Demz come on now!) Wait oops this is the happy part. I love my tutor because he’s hilarious and we can talk about ANYTHING but I still learn a lot (somehow…how does learning work? It’s fascinating. You don’t really notice it…but it happens and it’s amazing).

- I’m a little sore from my mini work out last night. Hurts so good.

- I love my shoes and these jeans.

- I got gas without incident. Although the pumps and registers/scanners were all down and that amused me. And then I ran into someone from school and it wasn’t totally awkward.

- I remembered all my bank account sign in info within three tries! Haaa sad.

- My cat snores really loudly. So cute.

- I met a second grader who reads super fluently and is adorable. I wanted to kidnap him. I guess it’s sad for my fourth graders but good for him! And good for me for not having to compete against the future him for college slots. 

- I’m watching a new Lady Gaga music video. Okay it’s a week old but I haven’t seen it yet. 

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKvQvWTZFWg

- I figured out a lot of about Adobe. But it’s extremely time consuming. 

- Lupe Fiasco

- Music, guitar, singing, yelling at my kids in their native accents and working on my impressions. Performance and playing pretend…takes me somewhere else. Somewhere less stressful.

- I’m apparently an AP Scholar with Honor. I don’t know what that means and it’s probably not a big deal (one of those “everyone who passes gets one” awards probably) but my mom was proud of me…so…winning. Oh wait…I just Googled…not very impressive but WHO GIVES. 

- Okay You and I probably both get the point by now…the little things make life not only bearable but enjoyable.

- Oh wait one more thing: I experienced my first earthquake today! And the first thing I did was tweet about it. What’s incredible to me is the sociological/ psychological phenomenon that in times of chaos suddenly everyone’s on the same team. People who hate each other reassuring each other…parents who put there kids here in the first place because they have to work full time rushing to the site to check on their little ones, people trying to get in touch with people and family members they wouldn’t usually try to contact…

If I get the patience to face Adobe again soon I’ll make some “I Survived the 2011 D.C. Earthquake” t-shirts. 

“Words That Don’t Exist in the English Language”

L’esprit de escalier: (French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means “the spirit of the staircase.”

Waldeinsamkeit: (German) The feeling of being alone in the woods.

Meraki: (Greek) Doing something with soul, creativity, or love.

Forelsket: (Norwegian) The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.

Gheegle: (Filipino) The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.

Pochemuchka: (Russian) A person who asks a lot of questions.

Pena ajena: (Mexican Spanish) The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation.

Cualacino: (Italian) The mark left on a table by a cold glass.

Ilunga: (Tshiluba, Congo) A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.

Original post found via StumbleUpon

I first saw an article (similar to this post) in an issue of Reader’s Digest. Maybe I’ll share that sometime; one of the entries made my LOL for about five minutes straight. Most of these seem pretty familiar. Incredible, isn’t it?

There are few things more extraordinary than the human language. Out ability to communicate and express ourselves characterizes and defines us as a species and as a community. 

There are also few things more extraordinary than other forms of language as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmq321zjkvs

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