It is the first official full week of my summer vacation, and it has taken me this long to wrap my head around the fact that I’m not a first year teacher anymore. Everyone kept saying that this would be the hardest year of my life, and while my job was difficult and stressful and took up a lot of my time, this was actually one of the most fun and most fulfilling years I’ve ever had.

I think, as opposed to calling it the hardest, I would call it one of the most eye-opening years. I’ve learned and grown a ridiculous amount, as a teacher and as an adult, this year. I thought that today, as I try to wrap my head about this past year and all the knowledge and wisdom I’ve taken in, I would attempt to recount some of the nuggets of goodness I have acquired this year. Here goes:

- Kids lose EVERYTHING. Staple things to their faces…or just teach them to be organized before doing anything else.
- There will always be one more thing to do. At some point, you just have to accept that, stop working, and go buy shoes.
- Coffee cures all, most importantly, mid-afternoon caffeine-withdrawal headaches that come on from not drinking coffee in the morning. On a related note: don’t get too addicted to coffee.
- Grading sucks.
- Kids get annoyed when you take six weeks to grade an essay that took them three weeks to write.
- Kids will call you out when you misspeak, misspell, or misquote ANYTHING. They will take great pleasure in it.
- Students are oddly interested in their teachers’ lives. Tell them a little something about yourself to get them interested in anything else you are talking about.
- Staying up late to get work done helps no one. You cannot face a classroom full of children on less than 6 hours of sleep without exploding.
- If kids don’t know WHY they have to learn something, they won’t WANT to learn it. Explain why you are making them take three pages of notes or write that fourth response to literature essay if you want them to care enough to actually complete it.
- Make time for students before and after school, even if you have 9,000 other things to do. If they are asking you for extra help, they deserve your time and undivided attention.
- Don’t take things personally. Take obnoxious teenage comments as constructive criticism. Fix the problem. If kids complain that they’re bored, be more interesting. If kids complain that they have too much to do, teach them to manage their time.
- Kids care. Even when they act like they don’t, they really really REALLY do.
- The kids you think aren’t listening sometimes are. They kids you think are angels sometimes aren’t.
- In the end, you’ll be surprised by who claims you were their favorite teacher. You’ll claim you don’t care if kids like you, as long as they learn, but its still ridiculously nice to get the “Thanks and I’ll miss you!” hug on the last day of school.

I probably have more, but I’m tearing up. I’ll leave you with my favorite student letter to me on the last day of school, not because she said nice things (She did), but because of how observant she was and how well she seemed to know me. It completely caught me by surprise. I always forgot that these kids had to stare at me for two hours a day, five days a week, for nine months. They noticed EVERYTHING I did.

“I think it was really funny how you would sing or hum when you were trying to get the class to calm down or when you used to “hmph” really quietly. lol You are a great teacher Amanda, and I love you for that.”

And now….to summer!

(Photo stolen from Andrea.)

So….Vegas happened.

It was, once again, ridiculous and magical and full of hugging and laughing and inside jokes and and and me looking FREAKISHLY good in hats (and also a bit like Jason Mraz when I quickly glance in the mirror after several afternoon drinks).

(FYI I look good in all hats. I feel I may have mentioned this in a post before…oh yes, here.)

So, there was my ride with Ev’yan and Andrea, during which we stopped for SONIC, which I have not had in years and which made me flash back to sitting in the back of my boyfriend’s truck after Battle of the Bands when I lived in Alabama in 10th grade. Yes, that happened.

Then there was the mad sprint Nicole and I went on while trying to get to the Planet Hollywood “I Just Came from a Theme Party” Bar Crawl before everyone else, caused by the fact that instead of actually, you know, walking towards the giant hotel marked “PLANET HOLLYWOOD” we walked in the opposite direction, forcing us to haul ass back the correct way in order to beat the large group slowing converging on the bar and causing me to almost knock down a small child.

A little later was the time I fell asleep (also known as passing the eff out) only to wake up to Kerri to shouting that she needed to go out and “live my life!”

The next day, there was us getting free stuff by the pool before  Chelsee and Michelle (and husband) ran around the strip like crazy people looking for a giant statue of David and taking some photographic evidence.

After that there was a ridiculous amount of laughter, Kori teaching us that life is never that bad when you’ve got a jaw and that hooker cards are meant to be organized, me rediscovering I look great in hats, a delicious meal that was made “breader” by bread, Amy and I discovering we are clearly soul-mates, fountain-jumping, 60-year old brides belting out “Simply the Best” (“Maybe her husband IS simply the best…”),  insane amounts of dancing at Margaritaville (but sadly, NO Ke$ha!), AND a tiny penis straw.

Lastly there was an incompetent cashier, creepes covered with bacon, (finally!) champagne, and more carbs than I care to mention.

And after that, I went home and  there was LOST. OMGLOSTICRIEDFORFOURHOURSANDSTILLCANNOTPROCESSWHATHAPPENED….

But, yeah…Vegas. Vegas was awesome, as I knew it would be. The end.

This weekend, I flew across the country to see one of my best friends from high school, and one of the few genuinely awesome people I know, make her professional acting debut as Belle in the National Tour of Beauty and the Beast. Um…what!?

It was madness. There were huge pictures of her lining the lobby. There were little girls dressed up as her milling in the lobby. There were audible gasps as she entered the stage in her iconic yellow dress. I feel like I just was one of those little girls gasping at Disney Princesses, now one of my best friends IS one. What is my life? When did this suddenly happen?

We went back stage. She showed us around her dressing room. We had dinner with the cast, and I grabbed drinks with her after the evening show. We reminisced about all the bastards that were bastardly to us our senior year of high school, who were jealous of her freakish talent and angry that I sided her her, and who now have babies, and ex-wives, and apartments next to our old high school. I feel like it was just last week when we were wandering around the mall in Ohio, gossiping about people we hated and how awesome our lives were going to be some day, and now…they kind of are.

*cue bragging*

I’m living in LA. I’m a part of a nationally recognized organization that takes about 4% of the people that apply to be a part of it. I make good money (for a 23-year-old). I have health insurance. I drive a pretty sweet little Prius. On weekends, I run into Mathew Perry and Elizabeth Perkins on the street. (Note: I love the UCB theater for that…) I have friends who feed my passion for fancy food and mash-up parties. I can vacay in Vegas. (Note: I GOT MY ROOM FOR VEGAS! yesYesYES!).

And my friend? She moved to New York last Spring, and got called into this audition a mere two months later. She ran into Julie Andrews in the bathroom at her temporary job in Macy’s. She’s touring the country, with her ensemble boyfriend in tow (with stops in San Fran, Chicago, Florida, LA, and HAWAII) as an effin’ princess and when she waves at little girls? They spontaneously combust into tears.

And those bastardly bastards from high school?  Living in central Ohio. Raising babies alone at 22. Working dead-end retail jobs. Performing in local theme park shows. I mean, maybe that’s what they want. Maybe they are truly happy, and maybe I’m overly judgemental, but (and you are free judge to me for it) the inner 17-year-old in me (and in her) who had to deal with side-long glances in the hallway, bitchy comments during my monologues (Note: I went to a performing arts high school), and snickers at the posting of cast lists is taking great pride and happiness in the fact that I’m “successful” and happy and awesome and they…to me…are not.

But that is not what I wanted this post to focus on, while it is fun to focus on that sometimes. What I meant to focus on is that sometimes I don’t recognize  my life at all. I’m used to changing and moving and doing new things, but sometimes I find myself flying down the 405 or walking around the Farmer’s Market or standing in front of a classroom of 14-year-olds or watching my friend waltz in a giant yellow dress in front of 3,000 people that I stop and think “When did this become my life?”

I love impromptu day trips to The Getty, when I remember what it feels like to be intellectual and realize just how beautiful California can be.

I love Saturday night dinners with my sister where even after spending 4 hours together we still have endless things to talk about while splitting gnocchi in four cheese sauce and spinach ravioli in sage butter sauce. (Food swoon.)

I love Friday nights spent waiting for the valet, complaining about reruns of “The Office” while standing behind a cast member from “The Office”, after seeing my favorite actor from “Friends” in an improv show and before seeing my favorite actor from “Parks and Recreation” walk past with my second favorite character from “Will and Grace”. (“I feel like I’m living Must-See Comedy Thursday!”)

I love scrapping plans to go out in exchange for playing “Lost” drinking games during which mind-blowing first season episodes send everyone running into the kitchen for refills.

I love annual Sunday morning coffee dates with my three best LA friends when I realize how much I love The Farmer’s Market, Coffee Bean Hazelnut lattes, and the fact that my three best friends live in LA.

I love endless texting and impromptu dinner outings with new LA friends that remind me that surprising things can still happen to me.

I love how I’m at a point in my life where Facebook stalking makes me feel insanely good about myself and my life choices rather than the other way around.

I love that even though I spent 5 hours working today, I’ve been insanely tired for a week, and I still feel that stress creeping over me, I’m weirdly happy right now. Love.

(PS I love all of you, who continue to read this on-again, off-again blog of mine. Although I suck at responding, my heart leaps a little bit every time one of you comments! <3 I’ll try to stop sucking.)

This year has been mildly ridiculous, to say the least. I graduated from college, moved about four times, once across the country. I started my first real job and had several mental breakdowns along the way. I haven’t been the best blogger through all of it, but I’m saving resolutions for tomorrow. Today is just about looking back, so let’s go.

January

I rang in 2009  in Australia, a trip which I recapped past the point of necessity. After I got home and moved in with my parents (since I technically graduated from school in Jan. 2009), I celebrated the Steelers going to the Superbowl (if only they were on the same path now…) and (shamefully) found myself sitting inside a thick Twilight haze.

February

I started the month by taking my first of many trips to Boston for my best friends birthday. I decided to lose 15 pounds by graduation. (I got to 10, so win?) I hit a wall with temporary unemployment, then quickly was given a big project when my 10 pounds of Teach for America reading material arrived in the mail. I freaked out about being an adult and vlogged for 20SB vlog day (which I’ve since remembered I deleted out of embarrassment.)

March

Things perked up in March when I got my Nikon D90 (AND STARTED WRITING ONLY IN CAPS! Clearly, it was necessary) and immediately replaced television with photography. Then, instead of recapping my trip to LA or my weekend in Annapolis, I mentally decorated my future apartment and made Bakerella’s Cake Pops.

April

I was a little lazy with posting until I had a dilemma in car buying, wavered, then finally bought my beautiful blue 2005 Prius (which I’m still obsessed with. 45 mpg? $20 to fill up? iPod hook-up? Yes, yes, and yes.). I then celebrated Passover with some help from my non-Jewish father, failed at blogging (a common trend, no?), fought about gay marriage with a ridiculous pageant queen, and started a new photoblog (which I also failed at). Then, I finally figured out and listed the things that were causing me to fail at blogging.

May

I headed up to Boston for Senior Breakfast at my college and finally decided I was ready to move on from Boston and from college. (I’m starting to doubt that in retrospect…) Then I headed back to Boston a week later for Senior Week. And, you know, for my official graduation from college. Still bizarre to think about.

June

I was officially hired by a school in LA and decided things were going a little too well. I said good-bye to my parents (and learned later I made my mom cry). I took a little trip to Vegas you may have heard something about. I got to San Diego and hung out with an “old” college friend. I finally arrived in LA and started Teach for America Induction and met my future co-workers on a two day trip back to San Diego.

July

I wrote my first and last edition of quotes from the always stressful, sometimes funny Institute and wrote my first of MANY posts about balancing the stress of teaching with just about everything else in my life, in this case, seeing Harry Potter at midnight, a very important priority in my life.

August

I finished Institute and wished I had time to actually document what was going on in my life (which should be the official theme of this year.) Off-line, I started work and started school. I became a teacher.

September

More of the same. I wanted to blog. I wanted to be a normal person (by making a list of things I was going to do, none of which I did until about 3 months later). I wanted to not be tired all. the. time. Things weren’t bad, but they weren’t (that magic word) balanced.

October

After a major downer of a week, things weren’t bad for the moment.I reflected on my 22nd year as I moved into my 23rd, and I  played a little high low game in order to reflect on the good things that were happening in my life.

November

I took a trip to Berkeley to see American Idiot and came back with a severe case of grass is always greener syndrome. I had a week-off for Thanksgiving and was thankful for my awesome co-workers and my Gilmore Girl-like dinner situation. I then promptly discovered I have no idea what I want out of life. At all. Still awesome.

December

I started attempting to reminisce (and again promptly failed at the attempt), thinking back on my trip to Australia. I wondered if I would ever simply be happy and reflected on how my life right now is my biggest challenge.

So that was my year: a whole lot of boredom and family bonding into a whole lot of working and complaining about balance. I still don’t know what I want. I still don’t know how to feel about where I am right now. I still don’t know where I’ll be in a year and a half when this whole TFA thing ends. In this moment, I’m thinking about scrapping the whole regular job thing and giving this photography thing a go, but that’s just today. I can’t trust I’ll feel this way in a week, but that isn’t today’s discussion. Today is looking back. Tomorrow, I’ll be looking forward. Let’s go, 2010.

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.

Instead of being all negative and whiney, I’m going to try to follow some of the excellent advice you guys left me and be postive and happy about all the things that are going well, because, really? My life is going pretty well.

Well, I will pause for a brief moment of bitchery….The DMV can suck it. They can suck it HARD. Yesterday, I took my second trip there in two weeks, waited in 4 lines, gave them $1500 (well, my dad gave them $1500), was told I had to pay a $200 late fine because the LAST trip I took ended in utter failure (I contested this…angrily), yelled at the people helping me for the first time ever (I’m overly nice to everyone. This was a big deal), and after 5 (yes FIVE) hours, finally got my California plates and driver’s license. I think, however, it cost me my faith in government. I’ll have to watch copious amounts of The West Wing to get that back.

Anyway, things that are going well…

Friday I went bowling with my co-workers, like all of them. I don’t know if I emphasize this enough, but the staff at my school is comically amazing. They actually make intelligent, thoughful, and caring decisions about students, about what would actually be best for them, about how we can make them successful, happy, and prepared for work and college. It makes me sad and mildly angry that not every school can be run like mine is, with students being the most important factor in decision making. It makes so much sense, yet it seems like no one does it.

Besides being awesome teachers and all that business, they are fun. Like ridiculously fun. Like cheering louder than the entire bowling alley when I finally (amazingly) got a strike after 6 frames of gutter balls and starting dance parties in the middle of the lanes after a number of drinks. I doubt my high school teachers were ever this much fun, although, I kind of hope they were.

My kids are also kind of amazing. I’ve gotten two emails over the break from kids wanting to know what they can do to pull up their grades, and I spent two hours after school on Friday sitting with two girls in my class discussing Twilight and eating cookies. How is that not an amazing end to the week?

And the best thing about my job slash life? We have this ENTIRE week off! It’s literally the longest Thanksgiving break I’ve ever heard of, and despite spending the better part of my day yesterday at the DMV, it’s been an excellent break thus far, and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. I’ve played beach vollyball, seen New Moon, eaten all-you-can-eat tacos, gone to the dentist (where they let me watch House while getting my teeth cleaned!), gotten my haircut, and been to a mildly ridiculous birthdary party. Tonight my sister is coming over to help me cook dinner, drink wine, and watch Glee. She’s staying over tonight to prepare for tomorrow when we will embark on a Gilmore Girl-esque thanksgiving adventure. We start at noon by meeting our San Diego relatives for lunch at the Montage in Beverly Hills for, what I assume, will be a ridiculously fancy Thanksgiving “dinner.” We’re then heading out to her neighbor’s dinner and then to her boyfriend’s dinner. I anticipate not being able to move by six.

If that is the case, I’m sure I won’t be able to type, so I hope everyone has an amazing Thanksgiving!

I play this game with my adivisory girls that I learned from my elementary school cousins in Boston called High Low, where you say the good things that happened and then the bad. They aren’t great at it, as their answers are always mildly vauge and tend to the negative side (they’re 14. Life is like totally rough for them sometimes….and totally boring.), but I think I can find some specifics to highlight from my week.

Highs – My Birthday!

Low – I’m old!

High – I found out one of my students, who, yes, occasionally tires to sleep in my class, but is, on the whole, pretty well behaved, is completely horrifying in two of her other classes. This, obviously, isn’t a high for her other teachers, but it made me feel like I am doing something right.

Low – Constant. Chattering. My kids NEVER shut up! They aren’t bad kids. They aren’t disrespectful, most of the time. It’s just if I stop talking or give them ONE minute to get off-task, the talking begins. I’m working on it, though…

High – My best TFA/co-worker friend who is the resource teacher at our school invited me over Thursday for Apple-Cinnamon Pancakes. She clearly is a rock star. I honestly don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t run and fall into her giant red bean bag chair at the end of a tough day, or send completely random, whiney emails to her during class. Plus, she’s ridiculously phenomenal at her job, so she helps me out with mine.

High – When I told my kids they’d get extra credit for going to this college fair on Sunday and let them know that if they brought me a brochure back from my college, they would get extra credit, they got all excited and were like “We’re going to go tell them we have Ms. B, and that she is an awesome teacher!.” Melt.

Low – Most of my very vocal students are HATING the Steinbeck novel we are reading, which I kind of can’t blame them for. I remember going on long rants against The Pearl in 9th grade, but anyway…it’s tough to get them to look past the fact that, while there is no intense action or high school level drama, the writing is pretty ridiculous, and it’s Steinbeck for pete’s sake!

High – In an attempt to make them mildly excited about the book, I had them start making MySpace profiles for the characters, and they flipped out! Even when they got their reward of free time at the end of class to work on whatever they wanted, EVERY one of them kept working on the project. They were debating what each character would like, what they would say, searching through the book for their age and clues as to what they might write on each other’s walls…they might not write the most academic blog posts on their profiles, but they are more excited and engaged with the book, so I’m considering it a win.

So…I’m going to call this week a success, on the whole. It was definitely uplifted by my birthday, but the rest of the week didn’t suck either.

My 22nd year was, in the truest sense, a life-changing year. My life right now looks almost nothing like my life did last year:

Last year, I was in the midst of high school-like drama. This year, I’m teaching high schoolers. Last year, I was drowning in homework. This year, I’m the one giving it. Last year, I didn’t feel any older. This year, I feel about 100.

In the past year, I traveled half-way around the world. I moved back home and moved 3,000 miles from it. I graduated college. I became a real-live adult. I got my first paycheck over $1000. I partied in Vegas and fell asleep at 8:00PM from exhaustion. I went from being endlessly bored, waking up at 10:00AM regularly, to endlessly stressed, pulling myself out of bed at 5:30AM. I made some new friends, visited some old ones, and moved back in with some cool ones. I’ve cried more times than I can count, over friends, over stress, and over leaving behind an amazing city and four years of (mostly) fun.

But now, I’m entering my 23rd year. I welcomed it with a group of 32 teenagers belting out “Happy Birthday” as they ran into my classroom. I welcomed it with ridiculously large homemade cupcakes with contraband candles burning on top. (I told them not to bring fire to school!) I welcomed it with hand-made cards thanking me for “helping us with problems and being a wonderful teacher.” I welcomed it over beers with new, amazing friends who truly understand how old I feel.

While my 23rd year most likely won’t seem as life-changing on paper as  my 22nd, I’m thinking that by my 24th year, I’m going to be an entirely different person, and for today at least, I feel kind of OK with that.

First of all, thanks for the encouragement on my last (majorly downer) post. Last week was especially rough, and the weekend was not much better. It included breaking out in a stress rash, driving to the doctor to find it closed, driving to my school to find my key didn’t work, and driving home sobbing on the phone to my mom. After a rough start on Monday which included dropping a stack my student’s scrapbooks on my foot, this week has been….not terrible.

My students have been understanding the information this week and have been more engaged than usual. They actually started doing internet research today, and kept checking with me to make sure their sources were credible and reliable. (English teacher win!) I had someone observe my class this morning, and instead of telling me I’m completely failing at life, she basically told me to work on things I already knew I had to work on. It was less discouraging and more validating, having someone tell me that I’m not crazy in thinking there are some things I’m good at and some things I definitely need to work on. I have trouble knowing when I’m being too hard on myself and when I’m not being hard enough. Having another set of eyes helps me see what I can’t – it’s much less scary than I thought it would be.

I also somehow finally got into a grove this week of getting all my work done in such a way that I can take an hour or two at night to just sit back, kind of relax in that I’m-almost-not-able-to-keep-my-eyes-open way, and watch Bob and Jillian scream at sweaty, “Biggest Loser” contestants. Yes, I still have a lot going on, and yes, I still might have another nervous breakdown this weekend, but right now, in this moment, I feel alright, and that is definitely worth documenting.

Oh, and as an early birthday present to myself (12 days!), I bought myself Adobe Lightroom with my educator’s discount. $100 baby! Hopefully, it will motivate me to finally edit the awesome photos I took at my cousin’s bar mitzvah a few weeks ago.