Beginning Teaching

In which our Heroine successfully teaches three classes, gets hit upon by the night manager at her hotel, navigates Greenville in the rain and finds a Target where she purchases, among other things, a bubble umbrella.

(Side note: perhaps I need to lay off the 19th century novels for a bit!)

I love my job. I'm exhausted after day 2 of teaching, but I love it. This is what I was born to be. I was really nervous about my adult class, but it went well; it's small, but everyone worked really hard, which was encouraging to me. I had my little kids today; they're really funny. I had one little boy who wanted to tell me all about his dog-most of them are pretty shy, though. I'm amazed at how easily I slip into the role of teacher; it's definitely a lot more natural than I thought it would be. Tomorrow, I have 3rd graders, a 4th-5th grade mixed class, and a middle school class. I'm not really sure what to expect with them, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless.

As mentioned above, last night was weird. I realized that I had forgotten to pack toothpaste, so I went down to ask the manager for some. I was already in my sweats, wearing (what else?) a Meredith t-shirt, so when he asked me where I was from, I didn't think anything of it. I told him, and he goes "No, really?"

Thinking that was odd, I replied "Yes, really."

He responded "I would have sworn you were Portuguese or something"

My thoughts at this point: Portuguese?!?!? Um.... what?

My response: "Nope, both of my parents are Irish."

"Well, whatever it is, you wear it well. You're a pretty girl."

And then I walked away, toothpaste in hand, puzzling over the bizarreness of the encounter.

My last adventure (so far) has been driving in Greenville. This evening when I got back from dinner, my Twitter update read: Reason #45067 I will always be an MCG: my innate ability to find a Target in a strange city, no matter how lost I get there otherwise. I had been hoping I could find Target or a drugstore or something because I've had this sore throat since I got here and today's nasty rain didn't help at all. Sure enough, as I found somewhere to eat, I noticed a Target, so I ran in after eating and bought a DayQuil/NyQuil combo pack, some throat lozenges, a clear bubble umbrella (which I've been wanting for the longest time), and some dark chocolate. Hey, a girl has to celebrate a successful first week of teaching, right?

Now I'm in bed, getting ready to go over my lessons for tomorrow one more time. I teach all day tomorrow, then drive home in the evening and on Friday, I fly to Atlanta to teach all day Saturday and fly home Saturday night. I'm going to sleep all day Sunday, I do believe. Good thing I love my job so much!

Grownup life is... interesting

So, I bought a car this weekend. It looks like this:

That is not my car, though, but it essentially looks the same (picture acquired from here). I feel like I've officially entered the grownup world, as I now have monthly car payments and insurance payments. Which is OK, since I have a job.

Speaking of that job, I start in the classroom tomorrow. The pre-teaching jitters have begun in a major way already. I think part of it's because my first class is adult students and I'm worried about being too young. I've talked about this ad nauseam with my supervisor, who keeps reminding me that I am qualified for this job. I just have a horrible tendency to undercut my abilities. I'm trying to keep in mind, though, that I am a performer; I've gotten up on stage countless times and sung for crowds of strangers-heck, I did a solo for generals at the Pentagon! So why I am so worried about teaching 7 strangers how to improve their reading? Go figure. But I do know this: a little performance anxiety is good. Nerves mean that I'll have an adrenaline rush when class starts and, though I'll be absolutely exhausted after 2 and 1/2 hours, I'll be sharp and focused. And then the next day when I have my babies (no really, I have 4 and 5 year olds the next morning), I should be good. Little ones are easy! Really, though, it will be good tomorrow, I think. I know the material really well and I have pretty good classroom presence, or so I've been told. Updates to follow!

On being a teacher

This morning, I had a wonderful breakfast/visit with my friend Kiran. She's a sweet girl who's just getting ready to start her senior year at my alma mater (which still sounds weird) as an English/Theater major. We've known each other for a while, but really bonded last semester in Chaucer; she was the one who showed me a Youtube video before class that made me laugh so hard I literally cried while sitting on the floor howling. Kiran rocks!

After our delicious breakfast at The Flying Biscuit, I did a few errands and then went to Tar-jay for my classroom supplies. I start next week as a summer teacher for the Institute for Reading Development and I could not be more excited. I filled my basket with teachery things: a massive box of crayons, paper, scissors, tape, hand sanitizer, bandaids, pencils, pencil sharpener, pretty-colored dry erase markers and erasers... teacher things. As I was checking out, the cashier remarked "Oh, you must be a teacher."

I started to reply "No," but then caught myself. "Yes ma'am, I am. Just stocking up on classroom supplies."

"Do you teach year-round? There's not usually much call for this stuff in June."

"No, I'm actually preparing to teach summer enrichment classes."

That was the end of our chat, but it made me realize something that I don't think had sunk in yet. I am a teacher. A real, live, trained teacher. And just because I don't have a teaching license from the state doesn't mean that my work will be any less valid. In fact, I think there are 2 important facts about my work this summer.

1) I've been trained for it. Sounds obvious, but it's not like they're throwing me in there with a bunch of books and kids and saying "Good luck (you'll need it)!" I've been working quite intensively since the middle of May to prepare for this and I think I'm pretty ready.

2) I love books and reading. Those two things combined are the whole reason why I'm doing this job (although monetary compensation is also nice) and because the point of this is to pass that love on, I think I'm going to be good at it. Scratch that. I know I will be. Because when I did my in-person training, I had 25 strangers giving me feedback and they all told me that I was a teacher. They had no reason to lie to me, so why should I lie to myself? All I have to do is trust my gut and follow the lesson plans and I'll be good. I'm doing what I love and I love what I'm doing (so far, anyways!), which is a recipe for success. And the thing that I keep thinking is: "How cool is this that I get paid to read with other people and help them love what I love?!?"

It's going to be a good summer

God, Divine Goodness, and Conversion

"We want, in fact,a not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven--a senile benevolence who, as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves', and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all'" (31).

-C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

On Sunday night, I was very tired and a little down in the dumps. Not depressed at all, but just feeling like I could burst into tears at any moment. I decided that what I needed was some quiet time with Jesus, so I went with my dad to his adoration hour at the Perpetual Adoration chapel in the next town. I brought with me Lewis' The Problem of Pain, not because of my aforementioned mood, but because some dear family friends gave it to me for graduation and I wanted to read it. And I'd already started it and was ready to read some more; it's one of those books that begs for me to respond to it through underlining, notes in the margins, and lots of thought. Plus it seemed like a good book to meditate on.

The chapter I read on Sunday was titled "Divine Goodness"-the quote above comes from that chapter. That particular quote stood out to me because, as Lewis says, I don't think many people would quite format their theological views like that, but it seems to be a pretty prevalent idea nowadays. And to resist that idea of God is difficult at times: why would He not want us to be happy doing whatever? Lewis answers that question a few pages later. He talks about kindness and love, saying that while there is kindness in love, they are not interchangeable terms. Lewis then says that

It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense. (33).

Why do I bring this up? Well, it's because I've been grappling with something for some time. You see, I love conversion stories. I love reading them and hearing about them face to face. There's something about the deeply personal aspect of listening to them; I feel like I really get to know the other person in a more intimate way than otherwise. My only problem? I'm a cradle Catholic, baptized as an infant, raised in the Church all my life... I don't have a conversion story to tell. Or at least, I didn't think I did.

That particular chapter of The Problem of Pain made me realize, though, that I have become a bit complacent in my spiritual life, something that isn't good. I'm an adult, and a confirmed one too, so I need to be responsible for my spiritual life and make adjustments if it's not where it should be. Easy? Not always, but that's what a loving God requires of us: that we daily die to self in order to become transformed into images of Him through grace. And so I've come to realize that, while I may not be the one sheep out of the 99 who has a dramatic story, that's OK. My conversions come in small ways, quietly, and I'm not often inclined to share them. But the overarching point is that I do have them. My task, then, is to respond to my loving God.

Mass attire

Well, I'm feeling like a failure as a blogger. It's been 3 weeks since my last post; though, in my defense, I've been really busy. I'll catch up on life and all that at some point, but I read a really thought-provoking article this morning and wanted to share.

The article, "Adore the Lord in Holy Attire-On Proper Dress for Mass" by Monsignor Charles Pope, can be found here. Msgr. Pope's whole premise is that our culture, which has by and large become a very casual culture, has lost our respect for important occasions. He says that "Here in America we have become extremely casual about the way we dress for just about everything. It seems we almost never dress up anymore. This has changed somewhat dramatically in my own life time of just less than 50 years." Now, I'm only 22, but I do understand where he's coming from. In my own family, my parents have always made a point of having us dress nicely for Mass; in fact, I don't think I've gone to Sunday Mass without nylons since I was about 11 or 12. My younger brothers all wear khakis or dress pants and either a polo shirt or a button-down shirt and tie, as does my father. The only exception is younger brother #1, who is at a military college and therefore often wears his dress uniform when he's home. My mother and I wear skirts or dress and generally make an effort to look as nice as possible. This is pretty typical for my parish, but it isn't always for every parish.

Now, Msgr. Pope doesn't say that everyone ought to be wearing the most expensive clothes available, but rather that we ought to always dress in a way that makes us aware of why we go to church, to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. He says "Going to God’s house IS important. Being ministered to by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords is astounding." And he's right. We ought to dress in a way that makes us reflect on the extreme importance of the One whom we are going to receive. But here's the cool part about being Catholic: that doesn't mean the same thing everywhere. Like I said, in my parish, everyone dresses as nicely as they can, but for the Igbo people from Nigeria, that means their traditional dress: dresses with headdresses for the women, pants and tunics for the men, all highly embroidered and colorful. For the Montagnard people from Vietnam, it means, again, traditional dress. Most of the rest of the community dresses in traditional Western dress clothes, but the point is that it's totally possible to express individuality and culture within the body of the Church.

In the Latin rite, today is the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, also known as Corpus Christi. Our homily today was about the transformative power of the Eucharist; the visiting priest talked about how when we eat regular food, we take what the animals and plants were and change it into what we are, but when we receive the Eucharist, if we are properly prepared, Jesus makes us more like him. He said that "Animals and plants feed us for a day or a week, but Jesus feeds us for all eternity." And that, truly, is something worth dressing up for.

Alum life

Me and my wonderful parents at my graduation party

Well, I've been an alumna for exactly 7 days now. It's kind of like a birthday: I don't feel different, but I know that something's changed. I don't think it will really hit me until August, when I don't move back here and start classes again. Yesterday was Reunion Weekend here and I was giving a bunch of alumnae from the 80s an apartment tour. One asked when I would graduate, to which I shyly responded, "Well, I graduated last weekend. I'm class of 2010." She shrieked "You're one of us! Congratulations!" I hadn't really thought of it like that before. I am an alumna. Strange.

Graduation weekend was wonderful. The baccalaureate service was very lovely; our speaker, a Methodist minister/alumna (we like to keep it in the family around here!) talked about Lydia in the New Testament and how, as we go out into the world, we should be women of faith and women of purpose, just like Lydia. That afternoon we had Class Day, where the seniors and sophomores donned our white dresses and gathered in the amphitheater to recap our 4 years here and celebrate sisterhood. That was the first time I really cried; standing on the island, waiting to take apart the daisy chains that formed our numerals, I was holding Louisa's hand, with Hillary on her other side and it hit all three of us at the same time. Imagine the three of us, standing there, holding on to each other with all our might and sobbing because the realization that we'd be right back there the next day to take our diplomas and leave came upon us that suddenly.

Graduation morning dawned bright and early. I did lose my tassel on the way to line up, but my friend VC found it and gave it back :). My name was spelled right on my diploma (magna cum laude, too!), I remembered to shake Dr. Hartford's hand before I took the diploma from her, I didn't fall on the island, and I got the biggest hugs from my advisor and our class advisor. The graduation party was a lot of fun too; part of my family, who didn't go to the ceremony (we had a LOT of people in town), went to the shelter early to set up and they did a beautiful job. We ate, laughed, took lots of pictures: all in all, it was perfect.

And now I'm an alumna. It still sounds so strange. I'm in the process of moving out of MC for the last time (!!) and training for my new job. I'm going to be a reading teacher this summer, but before I get into the classroom, there is three weeks of intensive training that I have to go through. I'm on day 4 of week 1 and it is a lot, but I think I'm going to enjoy it. This whole being (almost) a grownup thing is a little scary, though. Mostly exciting and just a little scary.

5 days

I'm a bit melancholy tonight. I cried for the first time (like big cry) about graduation. And I miss Ireland. I really want to go back, but that's just not in my immediate future. Which makes me want to cry again. So instead, I'm looking through my study abroad pictures and making a resolution to go back just as soon as I have a little money.

This one's one of my favorites; it's an alley in Waterford. I didn't do any editing on the picture. It just turned out with this cool fade-into-black effect.

EDIT: It probably didn't help my Ireland-sickness that I watched P.S. I Love You last night with my roommates. Not that the movie's really about Ireland. But there was plenty of beautiful countryside and pretty touristy towns, enough to make me wish I was there again.