I found out I got into NYU over almost a month ago. I found out I got into Emerson about two weeks later, and ever since, I’ve been successfully putting off actually making any sort of decision.

I gave my school a heads up about getting into grad school, and being the amazing boss and friend she is, my assistant principal told me to take all the time I needed to decide.

But I didn’t decide. Obviously I needed to visit first.

So, I visited New York, went on a tour, and got all my questions answered. I realized I like the neighborhood, and I got all the right answers when I talked to a student in the program. I told myself I liked what I saw, but I still couldn’t decide. Not until I got my financial aid information. Obviously.

Earlier this week I got my financial aid information. I got a scholarship I applied for and work study, but still, seeing how much I would need to take out in loans was (and still continues to be) a bit daunting.

And now I have nothing else left to wait for, which is mildly terrifying.

It’s terrifying because I kept thinking that by waiting for these things – visiting, getting questions answered, finding out about aid – and an answer would magically appear, a choice would be made for me, but it hasn’t happened. Nothing has become more clear.

I know it is because no matter what information I’m given, deciding to leave a job that pays well, that lets me work with people I genuinely like, that makes me feel like I’m doing something important is really difficult, especially when I’m looking at the prospect of student loans and tiny New York apartments.

On the flip side, however, I’m not really happy with my life right now. It isn’t terrible, but it is barely what I want right now and certainly not what I want forever or even the next few years, so shouldn’t I change it? Why should I wait? If I didn’t go now, I’d probably want to go next year or the year after. I never planned to stay at my school for more than four years. Plus, if I don’t do this, what else would I do? There isn’t anything else I want to do more. If what I really want to do is pursue educational theater, why shouldn’t I just suck it up, take the loans and go do something I’ve been saying I want to do for a while now?

When I look at it that way, it seems crazy not to go, but I’m still not totally used to the idea that I can just change my life drastically because I feel like it. It feels weird. It feels like too much power, almost. I’ve also never taken a risk like this. There is no guarantee that I’ll find the kind of job I want or really ANY job after graduating. It’s terrifying to think about.

I’ve also started seriously thinking about how horrible it is going to be to tell my students, who I’ve followed for the past three years, that I won’t be there to see them off their senior year.

But on the other hand…ugh. I think I’m stopping for the night. This could go on for a while.

Man…decisions are hard.

Tonight, I did yoga in my bedroom and started to cry.

I’m going to let that sink in for a minute, because a year ago, I would’ve laughed at the ridiculousness of that statement. One, because I used to think I would hate yoga, because clearly, it’s just holding poses for long periods of time and “Om-ing”. (I’ve, obviously, since been proven wrong.) I also would’ve laughed, kind of a nervous laugh, but laughed none the less, that a Tuesday could render me into a blubbering, downward-facing mess, but alas, that day has come.

What led to this? Kind of a lot of things. Months of making choices that make me feel vaguely shitty about myself in my personal life. A job that is slowly sucking me dry. A week (well really, months) of waiting to hear back about jobs and from schools and hearing nothing EVEN THOUGH THEY SAID I WOULD HEAR FROM THEM TODAY! (Perhaps I should get back into child’s pose before I start crying again…)

All of this led to last week, when in a rash bout of stress-writing, I submitted an application to be a Stratejoy blogger. I had thought about applying before, but my life was never really a mess (not that all Stratejoy bloggers are a mess…I just would’ve had NOTHING to write about because I was pretty content), and I can’t say I’d actually considered myself in quarter-life crisis mode, but in that flash of stress-writing, I realized….I am now!

Although I wasn’t chosen for this season, I did get some encouraging words from Molly, who is the queen of encouraging words, and thus, I’m trying to appreciate the whole experience, in my infinite hope in the “everything-happens-for-a-reason” philosophy, for pushing me to realize I need to do something about this kind of deep-seeded funk I’ve gotten myself into that has led to this yoga crying. I’ve been trying to baby-step my way out of it for weeks – attempting to drink less (and failing), attempting to eat better (and mildly failing), attempting to go to yoga three times a week (and going, maybe once) – and have yet to have any success. I was attaching hope to the blogging thing, thinking that if I got it, I could blog my way out of the funk by broadcasting all my madness in the hopes that it would go away, but I realize that isn’t really a solution. I can’t wait for someone to hand me a solution through blog comments to all the issues I’ve been dealing with in the past few months. I need to do something about it myself…and just blog about it here – blog comments welcome.

Thanks to all of that and my hitting my version of bottom tonight, I’m starting The Joy Equation tomorrow in hopes that it will help me take some steps this month and beyond to do less of the things that lead to tears falling into my nose as I cry in downward facing dog and more things that make me dance around my room in joy to Broadway songs, which I actually enjoy much more. Surprising, I know. Sadly, I also know that tomorrow, I’ll still be panicked waiting to hear from this job and various grad schools, still be annoyed at kids not doing their homework, still feeling kind of lonely at work and at home, and still counting down the days until June 15th when this year will be over. It’s hard to start to change when so many things are (momentarily) staying the same, but I hope I can at least try, since waiting until June for SOMETHING to give will definitely drive me to more nights like these.

Things have been…difficult lately to say the least. Work has been particularly draining this semester due to having more kids coupled with less help and a ridiculous schedule, and combining that with weird personal situations and general laziness has led me to quickly fall back into my “blog…what blog?” mentality, so imagine my excitement when one of my best friends, Josh, the king of all things Disneyland, invited me to get away this past Sunday to Disneyland with his two roommates and their girlfriends. It took me about 2.7 seconds to text back (in the middle of teaching, mind you) with a “YES” followed by a frightening number of exclamation points.

The day was going to be everything I needed – fun, relaxing, and line-free thanks to one of the girlfriend’s Disney disability pass which got us past almost every line in the park. (She assured me, when I mentioned feeling mildly awkward in a line with people in actual, you know, wheelchairs and such, that she needed a doctor’s note to get said pass and that she really did have a legit medial reason for needing it, and with that, I was satisfied.) We frolicked around both Disneyland and California Adventure, hitting up all my favorite rides – Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, Splash Mountain, California Screamin’, Toy Story – in minimal time. It was, to use an overused word, epic. PLUS, I got treated to even more Disneyland trivia thanks to Josh and his years of reading every book about Disneyland, possibly ever. At the beginning of the day, we figured we should Fast Pass the new Star Tours ride, since the line was long, and we weren’t sure how much the pass would help. Thus, we spent all day getting more and more excited for our trip on the new Star Tours (now in 3D!), and finally, around 7, full of corn-dogs and fries (the only acceptable Disneyland dinner, obviously), we headed over to board.

After a quick wait in line (yay, Fast Pass!) we loaded in at Gate B, right in the middle of the car, as Josh always asks to get the best seats on a ride, which I highly recommend; they usually only make you wait like 2 or 3 more minutes and it makes the rides MUCH better. Josh let out one final plea to not get the Pod-Racing version – as every ride on the new Star Tours is differnt and thus there are some much cooler rides possibilities than others – as the Disney employee checked our seat belts and told us to enjoy the ride, adding, as they always do on this ride which is based on things on your Star Tour going horribly wrong, “I’m sure nothing will go wrong!”

We then waited for about 3 minutes during which nothing happened. I don’t know how many of you have been on Star Tours, but basically, it is one of those rides where you sit in a box with 20 other people with a screen in front. As the box moves around, the screen makes you feel like you are soaring around space, enjoying a Star Wars themed adventure. Unfortuantely, after three minutes in said box with nothing happening, I started to get a bit antsy. I’m not super claustrophobic unless I start feeling trapped and in that moment, I definitely started feeling trapped…and started feeling that corn dog. Finally, the ride began – a non pod-racing version, happily – and it was pretty sweet. I was totally getting into the ride as we soared over some crazy planet – clearly, I terribly have never seen Star Wars- when suddenly the ride stopped. We all groaned as the lights came back on, and we sat uncomfortably for another 2 minutes before ride attendants came back in to apologize. At this point, I kind of wanted to just get off and forget the 3D magic, but they assured us that they would just start the ride over. And, I mean..”I’m sure nothing will go wrong!” Again.

Oh…how naive we were. The ride began again. Sort of. It began in that the little box with 20 people started moving, yet the screen, the thing that makes you feel like you are moving and having and adventure and such, never came on, so we remained 20 people being jostled around in a large box…for about 5 minutes. It was, quite frankly, the longest ride I have ever been on. I ended up in the fetal position in my seat, closing my eyes, hoping that it would help me feel like the screen was actually on. Kids behind us were yelling about the malfunction, but apprently the only place Disneyland doesn’t have cameras is on this ride. I felt nauseous and trapped and really really just wanted to get off of this stupid ride. Josh was partiuclarly upset that we were missing the Yoda laden version of the ride, apparently a cool option. All I could think of was not throwing up. It you have never shaken in a box after eating a corn dog covered in a solid inch of fried corn-breading before, then you don;t know what true ride-induced nausea is. I. was. Dying. After about three minutes, we stopped, and I thought I was home free, until Josh assured me that no, this was just the lull before something else crazy happened.

Finally, the second the ride stopped, I literally ran off, as everyone else yelled to stay on the ride, hoping, obviously, that we could go on again. I was having none of it. A Disney employee asked, not knowing what had happened, if I needed medical assistance. I assured her I just needed to sit down as my friends followed me and explained about the problem. Another employee then came and told us that if we went back to our seats, they would be moving us to another gate to do the ride again. I hesistated, but eventually clutched my stomach and walked back into the box of shaking neasuea. By this point, everyone on the ride had bonded through our two rides, and we all collectively clutched our seats as our third attempt started. And of course…we got pod racing. Josh cursed. I was simply happy to have gotten through the ride in one piece with my corn-dog intact.

So, not entirely the relaxing day I was hoping for, but I happily never vomited (small wins!) and the rest of the day was magical. We even ended our day on the train with a delightful conductor who pointed out a secret armadillo in the dinosaur land you ride through between Tomorrowland and the front gate. (What’s that? You didn’t know there was a secret dinosaur exhibit on the train ride? You’re welcome for that magical tid-bit.)

The next day, of course, I was snapped back into reality by rear ending someone, because life can’t all be like Disneyland…well, the non-nausea inducing part of Disneyland.

One of my 2012 goals is to “be happy being single.” This should be easy enough. Being single means getting to do whatever (pardon my language) the fuck I want to. All. The. Time. I can spend a full Sunday on the couch watching nothing but Dance Moms, Mrs. Doubtfire, and 500 Days of Summer. I can spend my Thursday nights marathoning The Wire and getting drinks on a whim with my TFA friends. I can go dancing with my college girls on Saturdays and get brunch every Sunday with everyone. I also live alone now (which is AWESOMELY AWESOME by the way. You should all try it sometime), which adds even more to this “All What Amanda Wants to do All of the Time” business. (It also means every show on my DVR is mine, which is epically fantastic. Also great? Ample fridge space!)

It also means I should have significantly less drama and angst in my life. When any of my friends or I am in a relationship, there are always so many questions – where is this relationship going? Why didn’t he call me today? Why did his voice sound so weird on the phone? Who is he texting all the time? Why is he hanging out alone with that girl he’s “only friends” with ALL THE TIME? Well, not all the time, but enough that is annoying and a thing and I’m going to ask questions about it, goddamnit! I mean…yeah, there are a lot of questions. And sometimes stress and angst, thus being single should be easy! Stress and question free! All Amanda All The Time!

But for some reason, for the last few months, it hasn’t been all easy. It has kind of sucked. And I know it’s sucky, not because being single is inherently sucky, but because I, on some level, am making it sucky for myself. It is sucky because I sulk about it to myself when I get asked these questions by my friends, when I see people holding hands or sitting on the same side of the booth at brunch (which, I mean, NO ONE SHOULD DO!! Just eat your eggs without getting handsy. It is not that hard), when I see stupid RomCom commercials and hear single girls behind me in CVS bitch about how Valentine’s Day isn’t fun for anyone because its about corporate greed and making single people sad! (Oh, CVS girls, you are just sooo original.) It’s sucky because I (horribly) have internalized that being single is somehow a reflection on my self worth, like it means that I am somehow less than a woman who is in a relationship and that no one wants me , not that I have yet to find anyone worthy of my awesomeness, which to be frank, is probably closer to the truth. (You are loving my humbleness right now….) I have grown up in a culture where, for girls, love is the goal, and since I have yet to attain it, I am somehow missing some big, important facet of my life and should be spending all my free time searching for it and sulking for not having it yet. It is even more sucky because I regularly deny to myself that all of the proceeding facts are true. I tell myself that I have actually truly internalized all the feminist literature I’ve read (and fully believe) and am totally happy with my awesomely independent life-style, but honestly, I still feel kind of sucky. It’s a terrible vicious cycle. I make myself feel sucky for being single and then feel sucky for feeling that way instead of feeling sassy and awesome and on and on and on.

BUT step 1 of my 2012 goal is to admit all of this, here on the internet, to try to begin breaking the cycle of sucky. I desperately want to fully enjoy being single because it is in so many ways, for me right now, the best possible thing. I need time and energy to focus on not failing at my job, on filling out grad school scholarship applications, and on finishing The Wire season 1. Plus, I need to spend as much time as possible with my amazingly awesome friends, who I will miss terribly come fall if I end up using those grad school scholarships and momentarily leaving LA. So, deep breath….new mantra: single is super not sucky.

Also, full disclosure, I will for the time being, be on E-Harmony, (Thanks enabling work friends who are also on E-harmony!) because single girls still like dates right? Right…

Every time vacation rolls around, I find a way to convince myself of all the great things I’m going to get myself to do, all the things I’m going to make time for, and (usually) all the posts I’m going to be writing on this blog.

And then regular life starts again. I get up at 5:30 and by the time I get home at 6, all I want to do is curl up in my brand new, ridiculously comfy, adorably pink Victoria’s Secret robe (can you tell I’m excited about it?) and watch The West Wing online. Blogging kind of gets forgotten.

Last time this happened in August, the no-blogging cycle included distractions from intense amounts of stress, tears, and hair-tearing-out. This time, however,  my distractions includes time spent obsessing over text messages, photog-ing with some lovely blogger friends, and finally seeing Avatar in theaters, thus allowing me to once again join in on discussions of American film. Last time, the stresses and complications of life kept me from blogging, or at least, kept me blogging only posts that made my mom call me to ask if I was still alive. This time, I kind of don’t want to blog (and kind of can’t blog) about what’s going on in my life. I can’t really blog about work (laws about child safety and privacy and all) and I can’t blog about my personal life much, as well, it’s personal, lots of people I know in real life read this blog, and (stupidly) I don’t want to jinx things by spewing about them all over the internet.

And that is the sucky thing about this blog. I started it to get things out, get feedback, and free myself from some of my thoughts by sending them out into the abyss of the internet. Now, however, I can’t do that. I rarely talk about the things that are actually on my mind here. I have to wrack my brain to think of things to put on this thing, most of which have little to do with who I am at the moment or what is actually happening in my life.

Sometimes I wish I could start over anonymously, but sadly, I don’t think I have time to deal with the complication. It’s sad, though. It would make a pretty interesting blog.

For now, I’ll say, life is very good. Busy, still stressful and tiring, but actually, really, really good.

Ha..hahaha….HAHAHAHA. Ha. heh.

Oh, sorry. That was obnoxious. That was just me laughing at the mild ridiculousness of this question, the latest prompt form Gwen Bell’s Best of ’09 Challenge.

My biggest challenge? I’m living it this instant, surrouned by papers I should’ve graded weeks ago, a week from a huge school-wide exhibition my students are no where near ready for, wishing more than anything I could be watching the finale of Top Chef instead of slowly melting down in my room…..

What is my biggest challenge? Balance. I can’t seem to find it.

I put off work. I relax.

I feel guilty. I overwork.

I oversleep. I feel guilty. I work harder.

I snap at my students. I drink too much.

I undersleep. I drink too much coffee.

I get hyper. I have a good day. I think I have it figured out.

I break down. I have no idea what I’m doing.

I procrastinate. I cram. I overshedule.

I yell at my kids for not being on top of their shit. I laugh. I’m a hypocrite.

My biggest challenge? Getting up everyday knowing I’ll go to sleep with more to do. Figuring out how to live my life and do my job without failing at both.

I hope by next year my biggest challenge is something I know I can work through, because I’m having doubts about this one.

Everyone says being an adult kind of sucks. I accept that. I know paying bills, and dealing with insurance companies, and getting your car checked, and living on a budget aren’t fun but are neccessary parts of being an adult. I never expect my life to be all happy rainbows and freakishly adorable puppies. I do, however, hope to one day not dread Mondays. I do hope to one day have a job that doesn’t keep me from doing all the things I love to do guilt free. I do hope to have a fully decorated home and  possibly a living room that looks like this.

What I just can’t figure out is, how possible is all of this? Do the people who seem to have all the things I want really have them? Do they have jobs they love? Do they have time to take pictures, to decorate their homes for the holidays, hell, just to hang pictures on their walls? Do they have time to sit on their couches, sipping hot chocolate and watching Christmas movies without the threat of the impending work week hanging over them? Are these realistic things to hope for, or am I going to give up pretty good job after pretty good job hoping for something no one actually has?

My job is hard. It’s frustrating, and time consuming, and exhausting. It takes up most of my time. I don’t dislike it, though. In fact, most of the time, I like it. I do not like, however, that in the past four months, I have yet to find the time to hang pictures in my room. I do not like that I have yet to find time to upload and edit my pictures from Thanksgiving. I do not like that I feel guilty for going out last night, as it prevented me from getting as much work done today as I would’ve liked. I do not like that I get tired at 9-o-clock at night and that I have to leave my friends’ birthday parties early because if I stay, I will fall asleep on their couches. I do not like that my job makes me feel like if I’m not working 24 hours a day 7 days a week, I’m not doing enough. I do not like that I constantly feel inadequate. I do not like that my job feels like my life, when I know I am so much more than my job. Even though I like my job, are all these things that stand in the way of my true happiness enough to encourage me to actively seek out another job in two  years when my commitment is up? Or will another job come with the same problems and then some? Are these things that will follow me around no matter where I go?

I hate that I can’t just be content. I hate that I can’t appreciate the good things without letting the not so good creep in and piss me off. I hate that I’m constantly afraid I’ll never get the things I want or that I’ll spend my life settling for less than what will make me truly happy for fear that being truly happy is impossible.

Maybe it’s the two day food coma I’m in. Maybe it’s the Sandra Bullock/Ryan Reynolds three-movie marathon I just had with my sister. (That’s The Blind Side, Definitely Maybe, and The Proposal, in case you were wondering) or maybe it’s the fact that I’m lonely in my relatively large apartment for the weekend, but I’ve finally realized and accepted something extremely important:

I have no idea what I want my life to be like: what kind of person I want to be, what kind of person I want to be with, what kinds of things I want to do, what kinds of places I want to live. No fucking clue.

Awesome.

I have severe grass is always greener syndrome. I look forward to trips then long to sleep in my own bed the whole time. I order one dish at a restaurant and instantly regret all the others I didn’t get. I look at other people and ruminate endlessly about how whatever their situation is, it’s endlessly better than mine. I went to LA and couldn’t wait to get back to Boston, and by the time I ended my senior year in Boston, I was itching to get back to LA. I’m restless and unpleasable. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever be happy or satisfied with what I have or if I’ll always be thinking about what I don’t have.

As I’ve become tired and had a few more bad days teaching – not that they’re all bad or that I’m not happy- I’ve wondered, and I really hate admitting this, but I have wondered if I made the right decision. Is this really what I want to be doing for the next two years? Would I be happier if I’d taken my other proposed path – staying in Boston, studying theater education, possibly working at my old theater job?

This weekend didn’t help. I spent most of the weekend driving back and forth between LA and Berkeley, as my friends and I took a quick road trip to see American Idiot at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. During the show, I almost started crying and not just because the show was phenomenal, which it most definitely was. (If you will be in the New York area next year, get tickets to see it on Broadway! I’m predicting it will be a hit. I mean, Green Day music PLUS the creative team behind Spring Awakening? What’s not to like?)

I got emotional and nostalgic because it reminded me how much I love theater and how much I miss being connected to it. Theater was my life growing up, and I definitely took my ridiculously amazing work-study job at the professional theater connected to my university for granted. I mean, I got free tickets to Broadway-caliber professional shows and got to spend my weekends hanging out with the cast of those shows…as my job. I had conversations about art and life, as well as boggle tournaments, with professional actors from all over the country while doing my homework, and I got paid for it. I mean, I definitely enjoy that my job now is much more challenging and, ultimately, more important that that job was, but I miss being around those kinds of people, I miss being around stage doors, and costume designers, and opening night parties, and overtures. I miss what I experienced this weekend, and I hate living in a town where that experienced is consistently undervalued.

And all that makes me think I’m not yet where I should be. I know I won’t be teaching forever, or at least, not teaching English forever, because theater is too important to me. Eventually, I hope to combine my love of theater with my teaching experience now by getting my Masters like I planned if I hadn’t gotten into TFA, but in this moment, riding the high of live musical theater and my road trip fever, two years feels like forever to be away from that world….and I keep wondering if I made the right call.

I’m tired of hearing my named called impatiently from across the room. I’m tired of making copies. I’m tired of grading papers I know could be better. I’m tired of repeating myself over, and over, and over again. I’m tired of saying things like “I’ll wait until you’re quiet,” and “I’m not saying any of this for my own benefit.” I’m tired of feeling like I’m not good enough. I’m tired of never having enough time. I’m tired of wish I could do more, yet not being able to physically do more. I’m tired of saying “No, I can’t. I have more work to do,” to my friends. I’m tired of not even being asked. I’m tired of being told I’m doing great, while never actually believing it. I’m tired of crying to my mom and putting on a smile for everyone else. I’m tired of spending hours working on something for my kids only to have them complain about it.

Mainly, I’m just tired. All. The. Time.

Things aren’t all bad. I definitely have good days. I have times when my kids make me laugh, when they do something fantastic, when my staff makes me feel amazingly smart, and when I look around at all these 14-year-old faces looking up at me and smile because I get to help them get to where they want to go…but right now, I’m definitely in the middle of survival mode, at least according to the “First Year of Teaching Timeline” TFA gave us all. I’m a little worried, because after survival mode is disillusionment, and I don’t think I could handle all this work on top of being seriously disillusioned.

Let’s think of some good things that happened this week: I got my FREE (yes FREE) membership to an uber fancy gym, Spectrum. I caught up on all my television. I ate Chipotle for lunch today. I finally got my next project (kind of) planned out. And that’s all I’ve got for now. Eh.
: