Spring Has Sprung!

I have been feeling springy! In the good ways and the bad.

Good things about Spring:

• I (very briefly) felt motivated to do some spring cleaning after reading Finely Ground's blog about doing a little bit of cleaning every day for three weeks.
• The hubs put up the pool! Even though there are likely a few cold days left, we found this solar cover on Amazon.com last year. We'll let you know how it works!
• Spring Break came and I took a trip to St. Louis for Kawa Kon and went to see The Hunger Games in full capital costume.
• There are only 28 work days left until summer vacation!!!!!!!!! (I'm not usually a fan of multiple exclamation marks, but this is my first day back at work from Spring Break, and I felt the occassion warranted multiple exclamations.)

Bad things about Spring:

• I (very briefly) felt motivated to do some spring cleaning after reading Finely Ground's blog about doing a little bit of cleaning every day for three weeks, and got depressed when I thought about all of the actual cleaning I would have to do before I could even begin the "deep" cleaning.
• Two words: liquid snot.
• Spring Break came and went before I could even give it a high five (and, to no one's surpise, I didn't get ANY grading done.)
• There are only 28 work days left until summer vacation, which means no pay checks for four months.

I drew the following picture on Draw Something to express how I feel:

A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.

--Emily Dickinson

Godspeed.

Lent

Let me start by saying, no, I'm not Catholic. However, I have been thinking about giving up/taking on something for Lent. (For more information on Lent, this is a really helpful website. I especially like the section titled "Confusion about Lent.") I know, I know. Today is Ash Wednesday, so it's a little late to be thinking about it, but here are some ideas I have run across.

1. Giving up Coke, or sodas in general. This one is very common because caffeine is so addictive that people have a hard time giving it up. I think this one would be especially difficult because I do so much driving. I'm afraid I need that caffeine to stay awake on my daily commute. Plus, I already had a Coke this morning. Oops.



2. I also thought about giving up going out to eat. I don't think I realized how often I go out to eat, but I could save quite a bit of money by doing this. The problem with this is that I am a part of a small group of individuals at my workplace who go out to eat almost every week, and usually if one of us doesn't go, none of us go. I know this sounds silly, but I would hate to break up the group.



3. I have a friend who is giving up half of his meals. From what I understand, if he used to eat a breakfast burrito in the mornings, he would now only eat half of a breakfast burrito and have the other half the next morning. When he goes out to eat, he puts half of the food in a to-go box and eats the rest later.



4. I read one suggestion that you make a list of 40 people who have made an impact on your life in some way, and write a letter to one of them every day of Lent. I think this sounds beautiful. When I took a psychology class in college, we talked about positive psychology and how these types of things can really make you a happier person. This one is a good possibility.



5. There's always the idea of giving up facebook. I've done this before, and it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. In fact, I hardly missed it after the first two days. This fact alone makes me think that this idea isn't the best one.



6. Some people give up television. I feel like television is my escape from reality, so I'm not sure I want to give this up. Plus, if I'm being honest with myself, I think I would just spend more time on facebook as a result, and I would probably end up watching everything I missed after Lent was over. Therefore, I thought about "refining" this one:



7. Giving up reality tv. If I am going to use the excuse that television is my escape from reality, why am I watching reality tv? Interesting. I would miss Top Chef, The Biggest Loser, and Project Runway terribly. But do competition shows count as reality tv? If not, I don't think I watch any reality tv.



8. Giving up the elevator. My left knee genuinely aches for hours and sometimes swells up after I take the stairs, but I talked to a friend (who is a nurse) and she said that I should see if it gets better over time or continues hurting before I decide whether or not to let this stop me from taking the stairs. (Actually, she said I should go to the doctor, but without health insurance, that is not yet an option. I'm working on it.) So if I did this one, it would have to be on a conditional basis because I would hate to be making something worse.



9. This one is kind of radical, but I think it may be one of my favorites. Give up your snooze button. I probably hit snooze at least 5 times every morning. I wonder how much time I waste doing that. If I did this, the question would be do I just set my alarm for a later time, or do I actually get up early and do something with that time?



10. Give up good parking. The idea behind this one is that you only park in the back of parking lots and reflect on why you give up things for Lent while you walk to wherever it is you're going.

So, now I just have to decide.

Godspeed.

Thinking Too Much

So I know I've gotten off to a poor start with this blog. I think I've only posted on time twice, but that's who I am in a nut shell I suppose.

The real problem is that I feel like a fake. I read a lot of different blogs and the blogs I read seem to have one of two things happening:

1.) The person writing the blog has a seemingly perfect life.
2.) The person does not have a perfect life, but is incredibly clever.

Now, I am fully aware that the people who fall into category #1 do not have a perfect life, but that doesn't change the fact that every blog post makes it seem as though that person has a perfect life. Ultimately, I do not want to misrepresent myself on this blog. My life is far from perfect, so I don't want people to confuse me with that first group. (I should also clarify here that I don't think there is anything wrong with those people in group #1. In fact, one of the things I worry about is using my blog to complain about things, and I imagine most of those group #1 people are trying to avoid doing that.) I also don't feel as though I am consistently clever enough. Don't get me wrong. I have my moments. I can be downright witty sometimes. I just don't feel this occurs often enough for me to blog on a weekly basis. So, I'm still going through the stages of figuring out what I want this blog to be.

For now, I'm going to link to something that I saw on Pinterest, because it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

http://c4d3nz4.tumblr.com/post/17362649147/whelming-c4d3nz4-i-dont-post-things#notes

Godspeed.

I Am Reading a Book

I am reading a book. Well, I suppose it would be more accurate to say I'm listening to a book. I have a 45 minute commute to and from work, so I like to listen to books on tape (or iPod) to pass the time in what I consider to be a productive way.

This is at least the fourth time I have tried to read this book, and this is the first time I have gotten past chapter one. Although it seems that as an English major/teacher I should be an avid reader, I very rarely read for pleasure. I'm almost always reading something for a class I'm either teaching or taking, and if I'm not doing that I'm grading papers. Therefore, when I read a book, I like what I call "one-nighters." Those books that I can read in one sitting.

This is not one of those books.

I have been listening to this book for a couple of weeks now, and I feel like it is making me impatient. Maybe impatient isn't the right word. Antsy. This book is making me antsy. There is a character, who at times I would call the main character, though at other times I would say there isn't a main character, who is so frustrating. In a way I idolize him. His brilliance astounds me. I want to be like him. When I am reading and I get to a chapter that isn't about him, I do get impatient. I start thinking, "I don't care about this. What is Howard doing? What does Howard think about this?"

I was in a meeting when it was time for me to get off work today. The meeting was running over, and all I could think about was getting in the car and going home. This may seem like a normal phenomenon, but I didn't want to get home, I just wanted to get in the car. I drove the speed limit all the way home so I could listen a little longer, but then something happened.

Howard disappointed me. Not just a little bit. I was in shock. Surely he wouldn't do such a thing. How could he? I paused it. I didn't want to hear anymore. I had to go back and listen again and make sure I understood what I heard.

How could you Howard?

But then I started listening again, and once I got home, I ran to my office because I was sure that I had a copy of the book somewhere. No more would I be relegated to using gas to immerse myself in this story. (I suppose I forgot that I have the entire thing on my computer.) I grabbed my copy of the book, headed to the bathtub, and began to read.

I've always heard about people getting lost in books, but this is very strange for me. I keep having to fight the urge to turn to the end and see why these things are happening. Why did he do it? I have that vague feeling of being caught between two worlds, but even though Howard seems very real to me (I have been tempted to google him), I can't quite get there. The time period is wrong. No one is really that . . . Howard.

I should probably clarify that the feelings I have for Howard are not feelings of love. Just a senseless admiration. I feel as though I'm going to spend the rest of my life looking for someone like Howard, just so I can know that this type of person exists. If I did meet this person, he or she probably wouldn't like me. I'm too soft. But I don't care. I feel like I need to meet him.

I am reading a book.

Wednesday on Thursday

It's only the second entry and I'm already late! I really did mean to write it last night, I just fell asleep on the couch unexpectedly and when I woke up I was so confused that I just stumbled off to bed. Enough with excuses, on to the blogging!

So I've been thinking about what I want to write all week. What do I really want this blog to be?

If I were a writer, I would want to be a fiction writer, so should I just tell stories? I don't know if I'm quite ready for that challenge.

I don't have kids, so I don't have any cute stories to tell about my kids and what they're up to. Unless of course you want to hear about what Daniel (my husband) and Penelope (my dog) have been up to? No? Well, that's out then.

There's always stories about my students, but I don't know if that's really appropriate. FERPA and whatnot. I really can't afford to lose my job.

Unfortunately, all of this wondering about what to write about leaves me with a rather uninteresting blog for the moment.

Therefore, I have decided to include a little bit of youtube hilarity to make up for my lack of interesting things to say this week:

I feel like I need to come up with a sign off. I think I'm going to go with Godspeed. It comes from "God spede you" which is basically something that was said to someone about to go on a trip wishing them luck in the Middle Ages.

Godspeed.

Here Goes Nothing

You know how when you're a kid you have that dream job and you tell everyone you know that's what you want to be when you grow up? I don't know what my dream job was. I don't remember ever wanting to be a doctor, teacher, firefighter, etc.

I have thought about this a lot. It doesn't seem possible that I didn't have that dream job. Since that time, I've narrowed it down to astronaut. I would love to be an astronaut. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

So I came up with a brilliant plan. Even though I don't remember what I wanted to be when I grew up, surely someone does. That's when I asked my grandma.

"Grandma, did I ever tell you what I wanted to be when I grew up?"
"Yes. You said you wanted to be a writer."

Huh? Really? Me? I don't remember saying that. Ever. In fact, I remember saying things to the contrary. When I was getting that degree in English people would ask, "So, what are you going to do with that degree? Be a writer?" No sir. Not me. I'm not a writer. While most of my teachers tell me I'm a good writer, I just don't have original ideas. Then I would start to wonder what it must have been like inside Shakespeare or (yikes) Poe's minds.

Since that time, I have become a teacher. An English teacher at that. (So what, I like a healthy mix of fragments, run-ons, and comma splices--don't judge.) I absolutely love being a teacher. I know without a doubt that this is the career path for me. Obviously I am not in it for the money. I just love to teach. When I get in front of a classroom of students I feel like I can really be me.

Having said this, that conversation with my grandma still bothers me. Me? A writer? Have I not somehow inadvertently chosen a career that keeps me close to writing by choosing to be an English teacher?

When I was a child, I occasionally tried to keep a diary. I probably still have three or four diaries from my childhood and adolescence. However, all of those diaries have one or two entries, and then nothing. Many years ago I started a blog. I blogged fairly regularly for a few years, but then (wonder of all wonders) people stopped using xanga, and I found that writing a blog isn't much fun when no one is reading it. So then I started another blog. And another. And another.

Now I have started this blog. Apparently I am supposed to be a writer, so I am going to write. On Wednesdays. Hence the name, "Wednesday Is for Writing."

Wish me luck.