Muppets times three

It took me three times of seeing the movie and one time of downloading the soundtrack on iTunes to finally get this quote.

Sooner or later, you have to believe in yourself, because that's what growing up is.

(Jason Siegel to Walter, when he is about to perform for the first time as a Muppet)

Living in San Francisco means...

Every time that I'm back in Pennsylvania, I struggle to explain to other people how much I love the city I live in. I'm becoming more of a rarity in York county, as my other SF friends are moving back east. But this post from the Bold Italic (slightly edited), seems to sum up my thoughts for the city that I hold so dear.

Living in San Francisco means having worked at a start-up, made lattes, mixed Bloody Marys, sold shitty clothing, waited on morons, and invested your heart, your soul, and all your energy into a nonprofit. It means still walking dogs, still trimming weed, still babysitting, still doing random gigs from Craigslist, still participating in clinical test studies at UCSF, still doing whatever the fuck it takes to pay rent in this city. It means thinking that half a million dollars for a one-bedroom condo is totally normal.

Living in San Francisco means moving to the Mission and complaining that it's getting gentrified.

It means knowing the Marina actually isn’t that bad after all. Knowing that Nopa is a restaurant and that the neighborhood is called the Western Addition. Knowing that Upper Haight is always about five degrees colder than Lower Haight. That 6th and Mission is both sad and shady. That the Outer Sunset and Outer Richmond are more than just fog-engulfed neighborhoods with fine ethnic food. That there’s a certain magic in North Beach, as long as you don’t go there on the weekends. That the Financial District is full of suits, Noe Valley is full of babies, SOMA is full of condos, and the Castro is full of gays. Actually, every neighborhood is full of gays.

Living in San Francisco means continually dealing with impermanence.

It means having places you love close up forever. It means having friends get married and move to Oakland. Friends who leave to join the Peace Corps. Friends who go to rehab. Friends who lose their minds. Friends who move back to wherever the fuck they’re from. Friends who OD and never move again. It means dreading the inevitable earthquake that will ultimately wash this city into the sea.

Living in San Francisco means never leaving the house without wearing layers. Having just one wardrobe. Owning lots of hoodies. Owning lots of scarves. Owning lots of hoodies and scarves for your dog. It means having pale legs that get sunburned every time it’s warm out. Calling in sick to work because, for once, it’s 80 degrees and you want to drink a 40 in the park. Enduring the cold summer months and savoring the warmth and festivities of Indian Summer. It means being worried that the term “Indian Summer” may not be politically correct.

Living in San Francisco means embracing any cause for celebration.

It means having a costume box for events like Bay to Breakers, the Love Parade, Burning Man, Halloween, Decompression, the How Weird Street Faire, or whatever new dress-up holiday gets added to the calendar this year. It means accidentally buying blow in the Beauty Bar. Having a medical marijuana card. Getting 86’d from Zeitgeist for doing something stupid. Getting 86’d from Zeitgeist for no good reason at all. Drinking with 75-year-old Beat poets at Specs. Dancing in the streets when Obama won. Dancing in the streets when the Giants won. Dancing till 4 a.m. at The Endup, at Club Six, at 1015 Folsom, at some underground warehouse in the Bayview where the directions weren’t even sent to you until 10 that night.

Living in San Francisco means having friends who are sex workers. Friends who have PhDs. Friends who have PhDs who are studying sex workers. It means having gay friends, straight friends, and friends who are somewhere in between. It means being open-minded about people – unless, of course, they’re Republicans.

Living in San Francisco means waiting an hour for a cab if there’s the slightest bit of rain.

It means riding the Night Owl and thinking you’re gonna get mugged by the teenagers in the back. Taking the 22 from the Marina to the Dogpatch and observing the city’s vast spectrum of existence. Sitting on BART and trying not to think about what lives inside those cushions. Riding Muni and seeing feats both beautiful and wretched within seconds of each other. It means walking these streets and witnessing broken beings weeping, sleeping, peeing, drinking, shitting, fighting, smoking crack, shooting up, screaming, bellowing, raging against some hellish torment that only they are privy to. It means having a local bum you kinda look out for, slipping her a buck or two, even though it’s been her “40th birthday” every day for the past five years.

Living in San Francisco means coming over the Bay Bridge and having your heart race a little when you see the city’s skyline.

Crossing the Golden Gate and smiling at the way the fog sits right on top of it. Snaking up the 101 and Candlestick Park being the greeting that tells you you’re almost home. It means visiting Middle America and being thought of as some kind of socialist gay hippie. It means traveling Europe and being considered one of the enlightened Americans. It means missing burritos, missing pho, missing Tapatio. It means missing Dolores Park, missing farmers’ markets, missing the ability to walk wherever you need to go. It means flying back from two and a half months in South America and getting a little teary-eyed watching Doctor Doolittle , just because it’s set in San Francisco.

Living in San Francisco means the midday smell of pot.

Cold winter winds that cut right through you. Sweet summer strawberries grown not too far away. Crisp salty air by the ocean. The occasional sound of gunshots. Being able to actually count the number of stars visible in the sky. Warm whiskey and late-night chatter on a new friend’s rooftop. It means walking by bodily waste and unfortunately being able to tell that it’s from a human, just by the way it smells. It means feeling the hum of the city as it gets revved up for another Saturday night.

Living in San Francisco means loving this city for all its fantasies, its freedoms, its fuckery, and its follies, and being excited to read something that begins: Living in San Francisco means...

Advent

As the Christmas season approaches, I find myself more impatient than ever. Maybe it has to do with advent and waiting. Or maybe because there are just five more days left before Christmas vacation from my fourth graders. Or because I want a dog, I should be able to get it right now. But I can't even find one, or when I do, it's not the right one, even though it's named Freddie Mercury. Things take time. Relationships build. And I don't need to be anxious waiting for something to happen every minute.

MANANANA

The Muppets have brought me back to this place of childhood curiosity this Thanksgiving break. I grew up with them, I pretend like I am them, I even dressed up like one of them for Halloween this year. The movie brought back this cast of characters that I felt like I knew already, even though I hadn't seen them in a while. They have grown, Animal has gone to Anger Management, Fozzie has tried gigs in Reno, and Miss Piggy went to Paris. One of my favorite parts of the movie is when Jason Segel tells his brother Walter, "Growing up is becoming who you want to be."

That's my theme right now. I'm growing up, becoming who I want to be. That means I've worked really hard on an apartment that I want to be the way it is and I have to say, a month later, I'm proud of how hard I've come solo, individually, independently (another line from the movie).

But I've also had a lot of help and I started to tear up during church today when Fred was talking about letting other people help us. My friends Stephan and Kimberly drove a Uhaul around with me one Saturday in search of furniture, my friend Shane filled my water cooler and helped me hang things that I couldn't reach, my friend Julie helped me get the lights on my tree, my friend Barclay went with me to the art store to get my last can of Malachite spray paint, the list goes on and on. This Thanksgiving, like the Muppets, I'm learning what it feels like to grow up but also to let other people help me along the way.

I'm not sure where to begin

The last few days, few months, year has been so full of change. Packing up my apartment, ie throwing clothes in a pickup truck and transporting load after load across the panhandle, felt like a cathartic, scary change that had been brewing for a while.

It felt a lot like cleaning out my classroom at the end of last year and moving out of New York from the summer. And then starting over with a numbness that I can't explain because I can't even really process all that is happening. The realization won't start until you burst into tears, projecting onto your best friend after she is running late or breaking down in another teacher's room because you don't know how to teach fractions to fifth graders and you don't want to get yet another teaching credential to eventually have your own classroom.

You'll be sad for a little while, but then excited, because this is what you wanted- to grow, to flourish, to paint in a studio, to start at a school that values professional development, to get the dog that you've been wanting for four years.

It's like riding your bike in the darkened panhandle at night, lights flashing leading the way, but unsure of the bumps in the road and the obstacles en route.

Cleaning out my inbox

It's been a while since I've been able to sit down and actually respond to non-urgent emails and organize my gmail. Usually I deal with email on a daily basis as-needed and it feels like a chore. I'm trying to see things in my life as opportunities, not things to check off the to-do list.

For the first time this weekend, in Napa with the YUTES of City Church, I started to feel like my mind was clear again. There was nothing pressing to do that I had to do that second, except be with kids and roast marshmallows with them, share my story and listen to theirs. It's been a long time coming- I can't remember being de-stressed in a really, really long time.

Maybe the first 6 weeks of school being over, relationships grieved and changing into hopeful new ones, and free time have all contributed. That, and pilates twice a week, happy hours during the week being re-instated, Sunday night dinners with friends that feel life-giving, and reading books again for fun, not for academic purposes. I highly recommend Tales of the City if you have ever lived in San Francisco.

There will be times when I won't be able to get the negativity out of my head or the fact that I haven't gotten a dog yet or been as productive as I had hoped on a rainy day will get me down.

But there will also be sunny days, when the blue angels will fly in a heart above your school as you are watching the kids at the end of the day before a three-day weekend, when you will believe in God, His provision, and be able to trust in it.

You teach what you are

is what I heard tonight at a panel, sponsored by the school district that I work for, promoting arts and education, even in these troubled times. I was inspired again today- and I feel like it's been a while. I've started to become routined into the daily grind, thinking about where I have to go more than the things that I will encounter on my way there. There will be the kid in my class with autism who yells out "Hot wings!" in the middle of a writing lesson, completely unrelated, and I will try not to laugh. The autistic kindergardener who I spend the afternoon with will finally start to learn that he can't break down when his pup-pup or stuffed animal is taken away. I have to see the little things- in a new school, overwhelmed by a new school year, instead of trying to impress everyone all of the time and have everything figured out right now. I need to teach what I am- that is, someone who crashes their bike on the sidewalk, wears a toy watch, and always smiles. Another thing I learned tonight- "The greatest ill in the world is self-hatred."

I climbed all of the hills on the way home today

on my white Public bike. It was a cathartic moment at sunset, as Back-to-School night and my last summer paper are behind me.

I'm starting to come into my own at my new school, trying to enjoy something being new and unknown.

It's almost September and August has felt like a long month, with my head spinning from the excitement of transitions and the newness of it all.

You can do anything

Gem Renrag, my roommate Caitlin said to me, as I ended a relationship and moved tons of books yet again into storage.

You can start over at a new school. You can come back to an old apartment and not get stuck in your old ways. You can still be yourself, but cry because you are sad. Or smile because you are happy. You can take days to unpack and still not get started on your last paper that you have to complete this summer. You can struggle riding a new bike and start looking for a dog that you've wanted the last four years.

Back to SF and still trying to figure out what's changed within me and the city around me these past 2 months.

27 things learned about myself while in NYC this summer

This summer was one where I was stretched and challenged, beaten down and built up, hot and sweaty, then freezing cold from A/C seconds later.

I rediscovered myself artistically, by failing first and then attempting to transcend my failures. Here goes, 6 weeks encapsulated in 27 digits.

1) My screenprinting teacher told me I'm leaning towards fabric design with my prints.

2) Leaving a place and coming back makes your realize how much you loved it in the first place.

3) Relationships where it's hard to communicate are impossible to maintain.

4) I want to illustrate a children's book one day.

5) I'm inspired by being around other people like myself- teachers who love art and of 8 in my cohort, 3 are vegetarians.

6) I need Christian insight in my life in order to believe what I know to be true.

7) Sufjan and I aren't meant to be at this time (doesn't mean ever).

8) Watermelon pink beaded bridesmaid dresses photograph really well.

9) Crying before a wedding because you burnt your eye on a curling iron doesn't mean that it was just the curling iron that hurt.

10) Getting to see the homes where your friends from SF, who are like family, live is like getting a glimpse into their soul.

11) People in the South are the most skilled in their hospitality.

12) New Yorkers have a harsh exterior, but are often times kind and sensitive at heart.

13) Ivy League schools try to make you think that you won't be able to make it through the semester, only to make you doubt yourself and then realize that you were always going to be able to succeed all along.

14) Blue Bottle tastes better in San Francisco.

15) The East Village is more alive at night than the Upper West side.

16) Seeing familiar faces in an unknown city will always make you feel more at home.

17) Sleep in a city will always be hard, thus why you will need 12 hours or more at night for weeks after.

18) You never realize how people will be coming back into your lives, weaving their own stories in and out of your own.

19) Weddings are an incredible way to celebrate with friends, but something I'm not yet ready for myself.

20) Having quiet time before starting the day will inevitably make a city experience somehow more peaceful.

21) I will always have more at the end than when I started- aka 70+ pounds more.

22) When times get tough, go to F.A.O. Schwartz, and build your own muppet puppet that looks like the female version of animal.

23) Wear comfortable shoes or just keep buying sandals because your legs will be sore everyday from the city walking in different places.

24) Look back over your photographs at the end with a friend, so that you realize how much you actually accomplished in a relatively short period of time.

25) Bring friends together from all parts of your life, at a Sufjan Stevens concert or a Sicilian meal in the East Village.

26) Somehow, all of your worries will be solved in ways that you never even imagined that they would be.

27) Let your friends give out your phone number at weddings, because you have a hard time doing it yourself.

Rain on the way home

reminded me of Midnight in Paris, how Owen Wilson's character likes to walk around the city in the rain and Rachel McAdam's character does not. It made me think of how we can see a circumstance beyond our control as favorable or unfavorable. Just like how right now, I can't control how much ink gets soaked into the screen or how much reading I have to get done for tomorrow. But I can choose to see what I have as a positive- that I'm having this opportunity, even though it's intense and hard and everyday gets closer to the end when I have to turn something in and feel proud of it, as opposed to seeing myself as not being able to do it.

I can see New York as a place where I'm not connected to many people, or I can see it as a good thing- being done with church right after it's over and having more time to wander around on a Sunday afternoon and getting to go and see the inspiration for City Church.

I can see Columbia as a school where I'll never feel confident and I'm self-conscious about everything I turn in or I can see it as a place where I can learn and grow as an educator and a person. I can rely on other people to tell me I'm doing the right thing, or I can believe it for myself.

Screenprinting

May not be my venture back into the art world. I'm learning to accept failure. I've almost cried every time in the studio as I get anxious with an exacto knife trying to get my stencils exactly right. I will get sweaty with anxiety, cover myself with ink, and compare myself to my classmates, before it's all over. Talking with Aldwin today from Paris!, I realized that both of us will always doubt our decisions. I've been doubting being here since I first set foot on Columbia's campus- every day I go through a rise and fall of emotions about whether or not I can actually do this and not fail at it. Or whether I can survive this city in the summer- it's magical, it has every art museum imaginable, you could eat out every night and still not get to all of the restaurants, but it's also humid, grimy, and there's something about it that makes me cough and sneeze constantly.

Sufjan Stevens wasn't in Brooklyn last Saturday, or at least not where Maggie and Moses and I were walking. Nor was he at Vito's church. I think I'm looking for signs that will make this experience seem worthwhile on a daily basis, and I'm not sure I'm going to get any. I might say an intelligent thing in class but then seconds later, dissolve realizing that I haven't gotten through all of the readings for that day. But, like most artists, I'm learning to trust in the process more than anything else- to trust my professors when they say that this will all make sense in a week and I will somehow master screenprinting by "just doing it over and over again."

7 days later

Here I am, officially a New Yorker, or inhabitant of New York during the summer time. I've had moments of thinking, "What am I doing?!?" while trying to navigate registrars, financial aid, and subway stations crowded with people. One thing I've learned is how I have to stick up for myself, but also depend on God. I went through some periods of pretty intense loneliness last week, thinking, "Meg, why would you ever give up what you had in San Francisco for this?" But I've had moments where it's all felt worth it, where crossing Central Park at the end of the day, eating out with an old friend from college and high school, getting a drink with a new roommate at our local bar, exploring a new museum (for free!) and finally figuring out my way amidst the maze of Teacher's College seemed to overshadow all of the hard things about moving to a new place. Day by day, as has been the trend the past few summers, I've had to depend on God more than ever- getting to places, praying that I'm taking the train in the right direction, hoping that someone will help me with all of my luggage, and that I'll feel connected to someone at some point during the long, hot, hazy days.
Classes don't start until tomorrow, and maybe then, I will realize more of my purpose in being here. Or maybe not. Maybe I had it figured out that it would be an idealistic end to an enduringly difficult school year, where all of my problems would melt away and I could rediscover myself in a new city. But, as Maggie says, I'm still me, still Meg, the problems don't leave you wherever you go, and no where is like you actually imagined it will be.
All that to say, I miss you San Francisco, but I'm thankful for Blue Bottle care packages, youth prayer requests from Emily, family a train ride away, and notes from former students and dinner dates with future colleagues that make me think, "I can do this," as though I'm being cheered on from the sidelines from 2,500 miles away.

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of

Is what I've been playing since being at Katie's lake house last weekend and realizing the audacity of what I've gotten myself into. I've basically moved most of my things into storage, including my classrooms, lugged two bags of luggage across the country, begun thinking about my new job, and said goodbye to many who won't be in San Francisco when I get back. It's been a long month, a long two weeks, figuring all of this out.
In North Carolina now, I'm starting to realize how much I am giving up. I missed my roommate Rachael's bday yesterday, I'm not going to see my favorite French-American families everyday next year, I won't be able to speak French on a daily basis. I'm going to have to confront my fears and create things this summer even if I think I can't right now. I'm going to have to step into a new public school and start over my career as educator at ground zero. I'm going to try and manage a long-distance relationship, even when I don't even feel capable of having a relationship with someone who lives across the street from me.
There are good things in the midst of all of the transition: driving solo across beautiful parts of the US (Yosemite to the mountains of Cashiers), reconnecting with the south and realizing how friendly everyone is, feeling taken care of by families that don't even know me, and knowing that I'm doing this, even though at times it seemed impossible.
I'm excited, scared, anxious, calm, ready, all at the same time.

L'annee de changements

"Meg, this year has been one of changes for you," so my French colleague Laurence told me today. It has been five years after college, exactly on this day, and I think that makes sense. A lot has happened in the last five years since I've graduated- I've lived in France and San Francisco, I've made great friends, I've been to Africa twice, I've gotten my teaching credential, worked at a French school, and learned about myself. Now, I'm on to giving my attention to what's next- a new city for the summer, more school, relationships, a new school to start at in the fall.

It's going to be an emotional last week of school, of that I'm sure- I choked up just walking my normal route from the bus stop to school today. It's the first school I've ever worked at, the one in which I've gotten to interact with some of the coolest parents and families I know, and speak French everyday. Where teachers toast to my new future, people know me, I know them, I take their kids to the beach, they drive me home. In some ways, I'm scared to leave a place where I'm known and loved.

It's the year of changes, and sometimes it's better when they happen all at once, right?

On the eve of 27

I feel more loved than I would have ever imagined, from the woods in the middle of nowhere. After having an eight-year-old throwing up with me most of last night, I did not want to wake up this morning and face the fact that I would be in the woods for my birthday the next day.

Something about today changed all of that and now I'm okay about tomorrow. It was the mysterious package at my dinner table from "my friends in SF" who made me feel so loved, complete with coconut water, seaweed, peanut butter eggs, dried bananas, and gummies. Barclay, I have a feeling that you had something to do with it! I started looking through the photographs in the package, wondering why there were photos that I didn't recognize the people in them in there. With a bunch of eight-year-olds swarming me, I came to realize that the photos might not be from people I know, but that they each had a note on the back from some of my life's most important people that brought me to tears. Even people from Africa and Pennsylvania. People who know me so well that they know what to do to make me feel less lonely this week, when I was scared of feeling abandoned and unnoticed.

Try explaining all of this to eight-year-olds as your eyes well up with tears- you tell them that you haven't spent your birthday without your friends in SF and then they get offended that they aren't your friends and aren't important to you. Which of course, you say, they are, but they aren't your same age. They will then say that teachers are your age, but you'll say it's different with these friends, not wanting to go into all of the details.

Thank you to those of you who put this together and shared your kind thoughts and words to a Ms. Frizzle in the gold country of the Sierra Nevadas on this eve before she turns 27. I'm eternally grateful...

Film fest

Here it is, my fourth! film festival since being in SF. Hard to believe that two years ago I saw 500 Days of Summer before it became big or witnessed American Teen with my friend Pryor that solidified my commitment to the big screen.

I picked the movies this year before I saw the members' preview. Knowing that was a gamble, I did it anyways, trusting my instincts, and they paid off. So far, I've loved all of the movies I've seen for different reasons:

The Whistleblower, for attacking the difficult topic of sex-trafficking

The Future, for the cat's narration and paws

Life, Above All, for the realistic portrayal of AIDS in Africa

Page One: The New York Times, for showing the behind the scenes of a major journal

and tonight,

Terri with John C. Reilly in attendance, for demonstrating an understanding of the difficulties of teenhood

Today felt like one of those days where I wanted to crawl back into bed- from the minute I woke up and found out that my teaching credential status had been posted online (I'm credentialed! and passed PACT!), to getting anxious about parallel parking, to leaving messages for everyone I wanted to talk to. I woke up from my nap, showered, eager to go to the film festival and make the pilgrimage to the Sundance Kabuki once more. I wanted to enter another world, where I could feel like I had made it, where I could lose myself in a story line, and become surrounded with other cinephiles.

Two more to go- Incendies and American Teacher, to escape to before the festival is over.

Where you invest your love, you invest your life

Mumford and Sons. I've been thinking a lot about that line after I heard them perform live at Coachella in a crowd of 20,000 people, going ga-ga over the Irishmen. The song is "Awake my soul" and seems to me to connect a lot to what I've been thinking and feeling lately.

I've been working so hard at my job and giving my love to these kids, sometimes I feel to no avail. I'm wondering if I didn't do it, would it matter? Would the 13-year-olds that I mentor care if I stopped showing up

for them? I sometimes think that they just need a warm body in the room. But the reality of it all is that where I'm putting in the time, the efforts, making relationships, there I'm investing my life.

I'm listening to the kid who is acting out, I'm emailing a parent back about how to better serve the school community with an online lost-and-found system, and I'm working until 7 PM trying to create better learning environments.

But would I want it any other way right now? Sometimes I think that having another outlet would help for me to pour into, but I don't think so. I wouldn't have funny stories to tell at night to keep people laughing or be able to drink sparkling wine on a weeknight to recover from the day or perform science experiments where I'm throwing popcorn in the air, so that my kids can act as birds trying to catch insects.

Har har, har har, har har, har har.

Coming out on the other side

The camping trip with the first graders last week was a turning point for me. A turning point that after the trip, after spring break, it will almost be summer. Meaning that I will have made it through my first year teaching. Two grade-levels, an intense private school, tutoring and babysitting on top of it. That's just the negative: there is actually a lot of positive. A well-resourced school with intelligent, wonderful families who send their talented children to me, who will I believe change the course of the world someday. I want to jump up and down and scream at the top of my lungs, I'm so excited to have made it this far.

Spring break for me has been less than climactic after this shift. It's been getting things done that I normally don't get to do, spending time with people that I care about, and catching up on things that are on my "to-do" list. Figuring out jobs and what I'll be doing next year, as well as putting everything in God's control. Realizing that no matter how hard I try, I'm not going to be the one who is making the choice.

I've started to exude this inner confidence and calm that is unlike me. But I think that going through this year has made me come to terms with owning my inner strength. I now take naps in the middle of the afternoon (because it's Lent, and I'm supposed to do something nice for myself each day). I laugh a lot, especially around six-year-olds who wear monkey pajamas and call me MEGGGIIIIIEEE. I knit. I can better pursue friendships. My mind turns to self-pity less often. One day soon I will start painting again.

P-A-C-T

I just submitted it and the weight has lifted. I'm about to burn it onto a CD and then this chapter of my life will be closed, or I hope. Earning a credential, though I want to minimize it, has been this incredible journey of making a decision about what I want to do as a profession, committing the time to pursuing it outside of my job, and having an amazing group of people in my cohort who are going through the same things I did. Who will talk to me for an hour when I just needed someone to tell me "Submit it" or who I can talk about charter schools with or who I can go to concerts on a weeknight with or who I can drink with on Friday night.

I'm scared about losing this group of people as much as I am about moving to New York this summer or submitting my report cards for my school administration to review. I have learned that we learn best from each other, which is what teaching should actually be about.

Avenue Q

I might just as well be Kate Monster.

She has big eyes, brown hair, and she's a monster kindergarten-assistant teacher who lives in a city and hasn't found love yet. Her mentor teacher is crazy and calls her one day to sub for the class, in which she hopes to implant progressive ideas into the defunct curriculum. When she finds a boy named Princeton to love, she is on the top of the world. Long story short, but Princeton breaks her heart and then begs for forgiveness by asking for money from everyone he knows in order to help Kate start her Monstersorri school.

So, I'm a muppet stereotype. We knew that all along.

Happy

There's this new documentary called Happy that hasn't even opened yet but it's been in my thoughts since I saw it last night. It talks about how 50% of our happiness is genetic, the other 10% comes from our circumstances, social status, etc., and the other 40% from the following 5 things:

1) Gratitude

2) Exercise/meditation

3) Being a part of a community

4) Giving back in some way, getting outside of yourself

5) Enjoying an activity such that you get into it- the "flow" and feeling like you are doing something worthwhile

I have all of those things and I find myself unhappy sometimes. I don't realize all of the good that I do have in my life, I don't realize how important it is to take a yoga class or meditate each day, how lucky I am to live where I live.

Colored tights

have earned me respect from the French teachers I worked with, made me recognizable along my bike route to and from school, and have continued to add to my Ms. Frizzle-like reputation.

I'm thankful that I can wear colored tights in February in California and not freeze. Make it through another week of first-year teaching. Go to counseling and feel like I am connected to the counselor that I am seeing. Talk to my brother on the phone. Be in the sunshine and soak it in- on the fourth floor of my school during a yoga class, at the Grove on a sunny day, on the playground. Read-aloud books that I would want to read as a kid. Try to teach kids the way that I had been taught. Eat and share community with other people. Celebrate important events in other people's lives. And more than anything else, realize that by expecting nothing, I am always pleasantly surprised.

Me Five

Third graders are slowly but surely winning my heart over. They may not hug me the minute I walk into a room, but there will be a Turkish boy who will say to me "Hi Miss Garner" every time he sees me, like he means it, which will be worth just as much.

They will ask me what I am doing there when it isn't my day to have English with them and sometimes talk back and threaten me with "Why?" or "I didn't do anything!" But, they will also be able to write letters to Michelle Obama that are meaningful, personal and heartfelt, talk about their feelings in a more mature way, and comment on each other's work on a gallery walk around the classroom. They may not be able to say the most positive things, but they will be able to comment on another's by saying "Me five!" and "Me seven!" attaching their notes to everyone else's. They will think that somehow I became a teacher who took race into consideration when I accidentally wore eye makeup the day that I was showing them how whites and blacks were treated while teaching them about MLK.

Their bay blades will be their life lines, as well as the Wimpy Kids, Time Warp trios, American Girl and Junie B. Jones books. They will remind you about something until you actually do it- 3 times a day if necessary. They will play games like Animal Herders and Give or Take through recess if they have a chance.

They won't remember you as their first grade teacher but they will think that you are somehow older than their parents. It's taken almost three months to get used to this new teaching gig, but I think that I'm liking the challenge and the excitement of 22 eight-year-olds each day.

Pizza stone

This pizza stone that I carried home today felt like a monkey on my back. Like when will I learn that you can't ride your bike, carry your stuff home from school, and balance a Sur la Table shopping bag on your handlebars.

Or that baking bread, in theory, sounds like a great idea- until you have to figure out how to get the oven to 550 degrees and have a five-hour free block of time on a Monday to figure out how to actually bake it.

I don't know what to do next year and I couldn't fall asleep last night with my head swimming in details of what could be. I feel more at peace today than I have in a while, having to do with being by myself on Saturday and taking the day for my own creative adventures. And, watching two French movies after being inspired by going out for drinks with colleagues on Friday- feeling like I can do this, speak French, act French, work at a French school.

Walking up Fulton with the pizza stone made me realize that I love that I could walk home, even after I had gotten myself into all of this trouble, and that the bread would eventually bake and probably turn out okay. It might not look great, but it will still taste amazing.

I want... that

I’m not much of an outline guy when it comes to writing. And I don’t ask who my readership is going to be. I write what I think is interesting and hope there are other people out there wired the same way I’m wired. It’s a lesson I learned from William Zinnser, and I wonder if we can apply it to more than just writing. We can apply it to business, if you will, and even leadership. When we are ourselves, we tend to find the people who understand us and there is a natural chemistry and so productivity.... (Donald Miller, blog)

The weekend spent in Tahoe with people that know me well was one of wrestling with who I am becoming and who I already have become. Things that I learned from the weekend:

Friendships ebb and flow, they don't always stay the same.

You might not feel loved in a moment but that doesn't mean that people don't love you.

Friends who weren't married a few years ago will get married and it doesn't mean that they will change overnight. Whoever they bring to the table will be an extension of them, so much so that you want to have them around because you know that the other person is their best self when with their significant other.

Cooking takes a lot of time and energy, if you want to do it right- using the best ingredients like sheep's milk ricotta cheese.

Dancing like a real Animal (and wearing a fur vest) to Miike Snow's song only perpetuates your reputation that you are one.

You are not a burden to the world in any way.

There are hipster coffee shops even in the middle of suburbia, central valley California.

Snow-garitas taste better than margaritas.

Martin Luther King is meaningful to my friends and students alike:

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

I love York City

2010 seems overwhelming for me to encapsulate, like I did with 2009 last year. Right now, I'm thinking in terms of the last two weeks and how the respite of York city was just what I needed.

*I voraciously devoured books, I mean stayed up all night reading Little Bee, Three Cups of Tea, and Stones into Schools. Today, I almost finished The Object of Beauty on the way home. All I highly recommend.

*I spent time with friends doing things that with my fast-paced city life, I normally can't afford to do with my time- going on runs, salvaging at Gabriel Brothers, dancing to Wii dance all night long, watching full-on Entourage episodes, driving around to find the Amish buggies and one-room schoolhouses, playing flash scrabble

*I got to spend time with my family- eating meals together, helping set the table, wrap presents, clean up after dinner- the chores that I used to have

*I went crazy with a sewing machine and Lotta Jansdotter's patterns from Simple Sewing

*I watched three TV series- Big Bang, Entourage, and 16 and Pregnant

*I saw friends that I've known since I was in high school and felt as though we are still the same people

*I went to an Irish bar, drank strawberry beer, and danced while eating kettle corn with three of my favorite people in the square of first night York on New Year's Eve

*I learned to play Animal Herders and now have a copy for my third graders

*I merged the SF world with York world and my friends were amazingly gracious while along for the ride