We're gonna make it to the beach on time

How do people live in places besides California? I can't even comprehend.

If you close your eyes does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

Coming back home is never quite the same once your friends have moved away from their parents' houses down the street to their own grown-up houses. I still come back to town like I did in college, staying in my old bedroom. But everyone else is gone and they don't have a winter break anymore.

Such a California girl

The only church I need is running along the beach on Sunday morning, then hearing this song on the radio. Fucking spiritual.

I'm dreaming of a sunny, 75˚ Christmas

So it's almost time for winter break, somehow. This semester has been amazing and I think I am more committed to becoming a better teacher than I was this time last year. And I love these amazing little beans and their beautiful, bright faces. But at the same time, I AM SO READY FOR A BREAK, SOME OF THESE KIDS AND THEIR SHIT, I SWEAR.

Also, I am not digging the cold weather. I hate driving with ice on the roads. Like, Missouri, can you get your shit together and salt the roads? Jesus fucking christ.

So let's make things physical

All I dream of lately is how to get you underneath me

I am so into this song right now, it's ridiculous. I need to stop listening to sexy music. IT'S JUST FRUSTRATING.

Lethargy

I have been completely lazy this week. After school, I've just gotten home and sat on my couch. No planning, no grading, no getting shit done. I FEEL SO TIRED. I have so much to do. Ugh. Fuck rainstorms. Fuck Halloween. Fuck doing anything but sleeping. I am so tired.

Some nights

Just spent all day watch Don't Trust the B-- in Apt 23 (which is hilarious; James van der Beek as himself is a work of art). Then fell asleep on my couch. That's what happens when you go to jazz clubs 'til 3 am then have to get up at 8:30 to coach a soccer game. Today is just one of those days where you eat a lot of food and listen to Kate Nash and evaluate how being alone/lonely makes you a stronger person.

Secret confessions

#1: I am seriously thinking about moving to Mexico City next year with my friend Evelyn.

#2: I would seriously consider staying in Kansas City another year to loop with my students (a.k.a. teach them for another year).

#3: I am still crushin' on an old crush from college and really want to move back to Oakland.

#4: Or maybe I should just run away to Italy and live a charming, romantic, most-likely-impossible European existence.

You know, focused and ambitious. Whatever.

It's a new art form: showing people how little we care

We're so happy even when we're smiling out of fear
Let's go down to the tennis court and talk it out like yeah

Um, where did September go? When did I discover that I absolutely love 3rd graders? How did I get here? And why are you in my apartment?

Things I Have to Remind Myself Constantly

• buying new clothes might make you happy but it doesn’t make you less lonely
• it’s okay to do things by yourself
• it’s okay to be sad
• it’s okay to see a movie alone and cry (at the movie, not because you are alone)
• (although it would be okay to cry because you are alone too)

Day at a time, I suppose

Can we all just take a second and remember how fucking amazing Omar from The Wire is? He is the sickest at laying the smack down. Also, his tie looks hella dope.

I die a little

It's August already, and I am back in Kansas City. I do not like it one bit.

Entonces quiero que me llames enamorado

Entonces quiero que me llames enamorado 

Tierno, suave, también puedes decirme cariño, ángel 

Mejor llamáme deseo, papito, chongo, caballo, hipogrifo y delirante 

Llamáme loco, fresco, tímido, discreto, atento y caballero 

Llamáme primero 

Porque no probás con anunciarte 

Llamáme a gritos con calentura 

Diciéndome sexy en egipcio 

Llamáme amigo, común, elegido, regalo 

Llamáme para inventar caprichos 

Llamáme con nombres falsos

Do I wanna know?

I've dreamt about you nearly every night this week
How many secrets can you keep?
'Cause there's this song I've found that makes me think of you somehow
And I play it on repeat til I fall asleep

I am very upset right now

I had two black students this year named Trayvon (albeit with different spellings). Will they end up like Martin? Will someone see them in a hoodie and assume they are up to no good? Will a lawyer be able to convince a jury that they deserved to die and therefore their murderer gets to walk free in "self-defense"? Or will a lifetime of discrimination and oppression play out in less violent but no less devastating ways?

Sleepless in Oakland

It's only 11 pm and I wanted to go to bed an hour ago, but my body just wouldn't let me. That's what I get for staying up late and drinking too much last night. I think I always say this, but long island iced tea: NEVER AGAIN.

Parallel universe

My favorite thing about New York was when two subway trains would run parallel underground and you could see into the other train. The speed gives the metal between the windows the fell of an old-time film, where the slides aren't fast enough and your brain can process the skips. It's like looking into another world: another car full of people, some reading, some talking, some with headphones, all going to the same place as you but on a track in another universe. Like a film projected on the tunnel walls to fill the tedious gaps in between stops. Lives running parallel to ours but never touching. I could see people talking, gesticulating wildly and could practical hear them. I wonder if anyone in the parallel universe looked over at me and thought the same thing.

Last day

It's amazing that by the last week of school, all the kids who ever hated you for giving them consequences for their actions or rolled their eyes at you or gave you attitude have started saying You are the best teacher! or I will miss you! I held it together until the last group of students to get on the bus were all crying, which made me cry. BUT IT'S SO SAD. You spend an entire year getting to know these kids, figuring out their ticks, seeing them (practically) every day, 8 hours a day, worrying about them constantly. They are like your children. And then one day, they are gone. And that's it.

They'll call me freedom

So, like, this week has been insane, because it's the last week of school and it's bound to be. From last Friday, when we had our spring recital and all the 6th graders learned the song "Wavin' Flag" in two days and then I was signing their posters and I started crying, to other (less happy) stuff I'd rather not mention, this whole week is just a whirlwind of insanity and I don't know what the fuck is going on half the time. Also I just found out I'm teaching 3rd grade language arts in English (as opposed to math in Spanish) which is just like.

Sometimes it's just like what the hell

Ok, so this is a problem I put on Friday's quiz:

"You have several options for a cake. You can have tres leches, chocolate, or strawberry cake. You can have chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry for the frosting. Draw all the possible results."

This is the answer one girl gave me:

Chocolate: cookie, M&M, vanilla
Vanilla: algocha*, jam
Strawberry: pineapple, peach, apple

I'm sorry, but what? What? What is going on here? Bless this girl's heart, she does try, but I don't know what kind of math they teach in Venezuela that makes her come up with the answers she comes up with. (Sidenote: She came to the US from Venezuela in January. Also the quiz was in Spanish so it's not like she doesn't understand it.)

*algocha is what she wrote in Spanish, I looked it up and I still have no idea what it means

Don't leave me tongue-tied

Somehow, it got to be May, and there are 15.5 days of school left. (Unless there is another snow day because it's been snowing in motherfucking MAY.) I can't wait to get the hell out of dodge but at the same time...

Where was all the time I had to teach all the things? Like math? And how to be a good person? And the scientific method? And Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz?

Songs I've had stuck in my head during standardized testing

 

My students were like, Why are you dancing?, because THERE IS MUSIC IN MY HEAD THAT'S WHY. Also state tests are super boring. To take and to proctor. Boooooo!

On the airbourne properties of time

Time flies, except when it doesn't.

Like when the weekend, spent at a math competition at a suburban high school connecting with my most enthusiastic math-learners, has suddenly arrived at noon on Sunday, which means the day is half over, which means Monday is almost here.

Or when time seems to freeze when you get called to the principal's office in the middle of teaching because one of your students straight up left school during the transition from lunch to recess and he (the principal) tells you that sorry, he has to write you up, nbd, but you should really be more vigilant from now on.* But that was Thursday, and it seems like a month ago.

We start state standardized testing on Tuesday. Where my babies are subjected to a series to test designed to let (mostly) white, middle-class students succeed while poor students fail. I can't believe it's almost May. Even though school weeks seem to drag on, especially during school hours when I try to tell myself to breathe and not look mad so I can just get through the lesson and thus the rest of the day, on the whole the year seems to have flown by, probably because I'm doing my best to block out the most painful parts. I remember the times that were especially difficult, but I don't really. It's more like I know they were there, but I can only see them out of the corner of my eye, never fully in focus, never fully realized.

TFA will no doubt tell me to reflect on this whole year, but how can you reflect on the things you barely remember anymore? (I am in way no using this deep, profound blog post to avoid lesson planning.)

*Don't worry, the kid was fine, he just walked home and his neighbor called the school to tell us they found him.

Everyone in the big machine tries to break your heart

Re: yesterday's post, it turns out someone has already explained my feelings more eloquently than I ever could:

It's that time and that place and that song, and you remember what it was like when you were in that time and place. And then you listen to that song and you know you're not in that place anymore and it makes you feel hollow.

Safety Not Guaranteed

You can't go home

I had a wonderful spring break in Oakland, but as much as I enjoyed it, there was a part of me that felt hollow. I wanted (wished? hoped?) it would be just like college, but it wasn't. It was awesome and so much fun, and I remembered why I had loved all my old friends so much, but no matter how hard I tried, there was that miniscule little detail that was not there and ruined the illusion. There was always that shadow of this real life I have to go back to looming over my head. I talked to my former boss at my tutoring job and she told me I should come back this summer and teach Summer Bridge again, which now I really, really, really want to do, and it's totally possible time-wise, plus it would give me a nice supplemental income. Or is it just another excuse to try and relive something that I can never recapture? Should I just let sleeping dogs lie and move on with my life?

I don't want to think of the Bay as a past life, because obviously I can easily move back there and build a real, adult-type life. But is that really what am I doing? Or am I futilely trying to grasp my romanticized memories of college?

Segway ride

Segways are the most ridiculous mode of transport but also SO MUCH FUN. Definitely the best way to travel 'round San Francisco. And to think I've been walking and taking the bus like a chump for so many years.

I've become a gym bunny

I went to the gym everyday this week except Tuesday, when I couldn't find parking.

I also bought $125 running shoes yesterday. Because I'd been using my old sneakers for 2+ years and also they weren't actually running shoes, but walking/cross-training shoes. My new shoes are blue and silver and purdyyyy. Also my ankles hurt less when I run.

I think I have become one of those annoying fitness-y people? Whatever though. It's not like I have anything else to do.

Rain, rain

It was rainy all day, but the nice kind of rainy, the kind that reminds me of Berkeley. Didn't really need an umbrella but everything was overcast and seemed brighter. It was 50˚ which seems positively warm now. Didn't even wear tights with my dress.

Watched 2 Days in New York, which was wonderful. An awesome follow-up to 2 Days in Paris. Julie Deply just gets it. And by it I'm not really sure what I mean but I know it's something she gets. I want to be cool and beautiful and awesome like her and also I kinda wish I could date Chris Rock? And also be French and live in New York with adorable children? You know, normal desires for my indecisive, hopelessly lost 22-year-old ass.

I've been talking to a bunch of people about living arrangements for next year, when I will most definitely not be living with my current roommates. One of my roommates actually asked me earlier this week, in a rare moment when she was talking to me, about where I was thinking of living. I was like Uhhhhhh not with you fucking assholes that's for sure but only in my head; out loud I just hemmed and hawed and was like Oh I'm gonna try living on my own I think I've never done that maybe it'll be a good experience. Ugh. As long as I get out of this pinche apartment with these pinche people, I'll be happy. Being alone, like actually alone, is better than feeling lonely amongst passive-agressively hostile roommates.

I can't even think anymore

My brain is so tired

Double snow day!!!

We got a shit-ton of snow (yes, that is a technical term) so we got what was going to be a four-day week turned into a two-day week and it has been MAGICAL. Our cars are snowed in our parking lot so we had to walk to dinner last night and brunch today, which was so nice because we just walked through the streets since there weren't many cars and the snow is still white and not muddy and gross and everything is pretty. It almost feels like college, when I lived in a town where you could actually walk places instead of having to drive everywhere.

In other words I NOW UNDERSTAND WHY SNOW IS SO GREAT I LOVE SNOW!

Why am I so socially awkward

So the boy I was awkwardly flirting with via text has basically stopped texting me back the last few times I tried to initiate a conversation. Like, is it something I did? Or didn't do? Did I text him too much and he was like Who the fuck this bitch think she is? or does he think I'm super crazy and clingy because I'm texting him too much for no reason, although I really haven't texted him that much. There are just a million paranoid theories floating through my mind and I don't have the gall nor the social skills to confront him about it, because my guess is it's probably not even intentional; I'm probably not even on his radar and he's just being a normal person and I am the weird one.

I am going to do something about it this time, so I tell myself.

R & R

You guys you guys you guyssss I am going to a bar on a Thursday for like the first time since college because I decided to take off tomorrow for no other reason than I am going insane even though the kids were not little shitheads today but whatever YAY FOR MENTAL HEALTH DAYS!

Really though what is my life

"The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd: the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence."

— Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

Tomorrow is Monday so I should really go to bed

You give me fever, when you kiss me 

Fever when you hold me tight 

Fever in the morning 

Fever all through the night 

But what a lovely way to burn

Tomorrow is Friday and I should go to bed

"But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes. People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore." -Kurt Vonnegut

How to pick up girls

Yesterday I was sitting outside a coffee shop, eating a croissant and reading a book and minding my own business. Some guy with his friend walks by and says, “Hey! Will you be my new friend?”

“No, not today, sorry,” I respond, then immediately go back to my book.

“Aw, you’re mean,” he says. “I’m gonna go slit my wrists now.”

Fuck you, asshole, who thinks it’s okay to try to make women feel uncomfortable and guilty just because they don’t indulge your bullshit pick-up lines. I know this is fake suicide threat, but fuck you for thinking that’s in any way an appropriate thing to say (loudly) to a stranger just because you didn’t get what you want. I am sick of men thinking they are entitled to my attention simply because they plucked up the courage to speak words to me. I don’t owe you shit. Fuck off.

If it kills me

There will be feast and dancing in Jerusalem next year

Not lonely, just alone

…he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered. He wanted her to be a virgin and not a virgin all at once. He wanted to know her. Intimate secrets: Why poetry? Why so sad? Why that grayness in her eyes? Why so alone? Not lonely, just alone - riding her bike across campus or sitting off by herself in the cafeteria - even dancing, she danced alone - and it was the aloneness that filled him with love. He remembered telling her that one evening. How she nodded and looked away. And how, later, when he kissed her, she received the kiss without returning it, her eyes wide open, not afraid, not a virgin’s eyes, just flat and uninvolved.

 Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

I think things will get better.

Might

So I might've drank some wine while I was lesson planning and now I might be buzzed and trying to flirt via text with this boy I might like because he is so nice and makes me feel like I am not a terrible person.

Note the word might.

Actually, disregard the word might.

Oh god I am turning into a Mid-Westerner

I went line dancing last night. It was a lot of fun.

This is exactly what all my Californian friends think I do with my life out here. And now it's coming true. Oh fuck.

Ojála que se acaben sus penas

Sometimes I listen to rancheras and Patsy Cline and get kinda emo.

Happy fucking new year

2012 was pretty good 'til about June, then shit sorta went downhill. It didn't end well so I sure as hell hope 2013 is better, although to be honest I'm not holding out much hope.

This is depressing as fuck.