Puppypuppypuppypuppy!!

Yep. We got a dog. His name is Indiana and he's awesome. He's about a year and a half old, and we couldn't ask for a better first dog. He's already house trained and already seems to really like us.



We played a lot today and went for a couple of walks. I'm just so excited and totally floored by how quickly and smoothly the adoption went and by what a good dog he is. He's such a good boy. :)

Oh yeah, that patience thing...

Why why why does the Post Office have an automated system that makes it impossible to speak to a real human? Usually there's an option at the end that says something like, "If you'd like to speak to a customer service rep, press 98." Not the post office. I was recently mailed something. The sender did not know my apartment number, so he just mailed it without the number, assuming that it would magically appear in my mailbox. Now he is demanding that I have the contents of this mailing when it is clearly not my fault that I am not in possession of the thing. So now, when I'm tired and cranky because I opened at sbux this morning and under the impression that this extra job was going to be over (because he said it would be over at the end of June), I'm supposed to run all over town to find this stupid thing. gah

Back from wherever I was

Hello dear friends who read my blog (if any of you still check it, since it's been so long since I last updated). I apologize for my absence. My summer has finally started, so hopefully I can write a little bit more consistently now. Here is a short list of what I've been up to that's been stressing me out so much lately:

- School (4 summer classes that demanded a lot more of my attention than I thought they would)

- Work (2 jobs, one at Starbucks which is pretty straightforward, one at a law office where I'm just supposed to get as much work done as possible whenever I can, which made me feel like I should always be doing work, and I probably should've done a lot more than I actually did)

- Job search (looking for a full-time teaching job - a fruitless endeavor in this county, so I'll probably start looking elsewhere soon. More on that later)

- Moving (you know, from one apartment to another)

- Short trip home (for my cousin's wedding! That was this past Saturday and was much more of a joy than a chore. Sooooo beautiful)

So I was really stressed out and don't handle stress well, so I sort of cut off communication with everyone except for those who actively sought communication with me. I'm sorry for that. I'll be better now.

Lately, I've been learning that I need to return to my focus on patience. I have very very little. A couple of years ago, I was really thinking and praying about it a lot and thought I had gotten a little better about it. Since then, I've become a stressed out crazy-person (sometimes) and need to return to this focus. I need to have patience when I'm driving or talking to someone who is taking a long time to get to their point. I need to be patient when I don't want to be doing the activity I'm involved in with friends or whomever. I need to be patient when I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing with my life and feel like my little plans are thwarted. I want to be more fluid, to just go with the flow and remember that things will work out for the best and probably not at all how I thought they would go. I had this plan in my head that I would get a teaching job in May or June and would have the rest of the summer to plan. Well here we are on the first day of July, and I still have no job. I just heard back from the school where I really wanted to work that the position I was applying for was filled by a tenured teacher from another school because he'd been laid off at his school due to budget cuts. The school district has to protect its people, and in this time of hiring freezes and gigantic budget cuts, they can't afford to take risks on brand new teachers. My current line of thinking is that maybe taking a year to substitute and continuing to work for the lawyer to get some different experiences would not be a bad thing to do at all. And we're probably going to be leaving Gainesville next summer anyway, so working at a school for one year and then leaving isn't really fair to the school anyway. But, as my mom and Matt say, who knows what will happen in the next few weeks before school starts? Only God, and He wants me to work on patience, which means I don't get to know the plan. Not bitter about that... really...

I know that many many people are in this same position. Some teachers I know are in the EXACT same position, but more broadly, a lot of people are struggling with being uncertain as to what the next step in their lives should be. I guess it's pretty common for our age group. These "transitional" years get shoved into this category of something to just get through, and then we can start our real lives after that. I don't like that at all. I would really like to consider myself as someone currently living, not someone who will be living at some point. So let's work on that. That, and patience.

Rise and shine!

A song that I often think of when I first wake up in the morning goes like this:

"Rise, and shine, and give God the Glory! Glory!
Rise, and shine, and give God the Glory! Glory!"

And so on. It's peppy and happy and you jump up and down and clap while singing. We used to sing this song at various camps and at LOG on the last morning of the retreat. It can be kind of an obnoxious when you're super tired and just want to stay asleep. This song would actually make people angry at LOG on Sunday morning after hardly sleeping for a weekend. But man does this song wake me up. I wanted to sing it this morning when I was feeling sick and tired at Starbucks. I should have sung this song during the 3 hr break between my 2 classes, but instead, I cried and was stressed out and had Matt come pick me up from the library because it was raining and he gave me a pep talk and I didn't get any homework done. I was glad for the talk and glad to not think about school work for a little while.

Thoughts?

I had a couple of thoughts I figured I'd write down. They're not profound by any means. I just thought them up:

Why are bugs not afraid of us but birds and most other animals in the wild are? Why will bugs not become afraid of us when we swat at them and try to get them away from our faces? Are their lives so short and meaningless that they don't even value them enough to fear for them? I mean, they serve an important purpose of pollinating and helping decompose and other buggy things, so it's good they're around, and maybe they should value their little lives a little more and stay clear of my mouth and ears when I'm walking to class.

Why does it happen that, while at work at Starbucks, you'll have a lull time and then 5 people completely unconnected to one another will come in all at once? Why can't they trickle in slowly, rather than all coming at the same time? I just always wondered if people wait around outside for other people to show up so they don't walk in by themselves. Seriously. It always happens.

My knee started hurting today. Out of no where. I was riding along in Matt's car, and it just started hurting more and more until my stomach clenched and I thought I might puke (so also, why does pain cause nausea? Am I the only one that happens to?), and now it's more of a dull throb. But I did nothing to bring on this pain! It's the knee I had surgery on in high school, and I always joke that I can tell the weather with it, but I wasn't being serious. It has since thunder stormed like there's no tomorrow, but now it's over, so this knee pain can go away now, please.

Why is appearance so closely linked with self-esteem? And speaking of self-esteem, some psychological research is suggesting that too high of self-esteem can be as bad as to low of self-esteem. If you already think you're great, you're not likely to work very hard in school or be bothered by bad grades. Also, bullies can often have really really high self-esteems so they have an over-inflated sense of self-importance. It makes sense, if you think about it. It's all about balance because self-esteem and humility.

Alright, I've spent enough time putting off my homework. I'd much rather take a nap, but I'm at the library, and I think that's frowned upon. This place is no IU "Wells" library stacks.

Been a while

I can't believe how long it's been since I wrote here. I guess I just got busy. Whew.

I'm in class again, but I'm having trouble finding time to write in here outside of class. The whole idea of personal time right now is almost funny. I had an interview at a near-by high school early last week, and I should hear about that by the end of this week. I'm trying not to dwell on it because I can't change what happens now. I think the interview went really well though. Also, I started working for that lawyer, and that is adding quite a bit of work to my life. I'm getting paid more, so that's great, but a negative impact of all of this is that I'm not able to work out as much. Before, working out was the common denominator that tied Monday through Saturday together. Now, it's a luxury that I can't afford sometimes. Today, I chose to work out instead of getting some work done for the lawyer guy and get paid for 2 hours of work. I'm pretty confident that I made the right choice, but I can't wait until I don't have to make choices like this anymore.

Today is the beginning of week 5 of classes. I have just under 2 weeks of class left. Thank God.

Sorry this isn't more insightful or fun. I'm drained, man...

I'm in another class now.

Let's pretend you don't speak English. Now let's pretend that you are in a class where everyone speaks only English. Now, we'll pretend again. We're pretending that we're trying to become a teacher and have to learn how to teach kids who don't speak a lot of English. This could be a cool process. It could also be pretty scary. Or it could become the most annoying thing on earth.

This is not NOT NOT NOT the kids' fault. The kids I've come into contact with in the process of learning how to teach ESOL classes are so cool I wish they were mine sometimes. The amount of ridiculous supposedly useful strategies are running rampant in my notebook right now. I also have no idea what my instructor is trying to get us to do or think half the time, and she is completely disorganized. I want to like her so much. I really do. But it's just not possible. We're in her class for 6 hours a week, and I come out of class more confused that I go in. She also obviously likes and thinks 2 kids in our class who annoy me more than probably anyone else I know are very funny. Seriously. These 2 guys talk constantly in my class and "contribute" to class discussion by saying really really stupid things, and I just don't want to have to be in the same room with them anymore. But this woman laughs at their jokes and obviously wants them to think she is funny or cool. No, no no no no. Stop. Alright, I'm trying not to pay attention to her and those 2 guys, but I need to pay attention to class or I'll get lost and not know what I have due next week.