While my life on paper looks pretty much like it did before, there are some minor changes. Still Teaching For America, though as an official alumnus now and not as an active Corps Member, and I did move up a grade with my kiddos. Plus, I joined the TFA staff bandwagon, working at their Summer Institute this past summer, which was both the most ridiculously tiring and stressful and most ridiculously fun job I’ve ever had.

Still living in LA, but I made the move from my super trendy, Grove-adjacent neighborhood, to a less trendy, more quiet, much much much closer to work neighborhood within walking distance of Nicole and Drea. Also, I’m living alone for the first time, which was mildly terrifying at first (like double-checking the locks every night before I went to sleep and then getting up again after 10 minutes of being almost asleep to check them again terrifying), but now that I can come home, sit in silence while watching a DVR full of shows that only I have taped, I’m starting to enjoy it. Plus, I get to feel all adult and accomplished when I do crazy things like unclog my shower drain after being annoyed with the standing water for a month. (That’s an adult thing right?)

And there was that whole, I was in a long-term relationship and now am not thing…which I’m fine with. I’ve had a crazy single summer and have been spending more time brunching, dancing, and just generally hanging out with my amazing friends and some new amazing friends, all of whom say I’m way more fun than I was last year, so I’m going to call it a win. Also, I may be contemplating joining a synagogue just to meet new cute Jewish boys, which I think God would be totally fine with…so maybe I’m not totally fine with being single, but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

The other big change is that I’m thinking I may be done with teaching after this year. While I certainly don’t hate it, I’m starting to feel the “wow, I’m actually completely burned out” feeling, which may have something to do with that ridiculously tiring summer job and the fact that I”m teaching a new grade/subject for the third year in a row, and have thus never been able to reuse any of the work I’ve done for the past two years, and yeah….I’m feeling a little done, which means I need to now have that whole WHAT THE HECK AM I GOING TO DO NOW conversation in my mind for the next 8 months, which in turn means a lot of grad school applications, TFA staff applications, and web searches for jobs in theater education to see what comes up. So you’re welcome for the slew of angsty, where-do-I-want-my-life-to-go posts that will be coming your way in the next few months.

That’s all I’ve got for now – hopefully now that I’m a regular person again, after a lovely two-year hiatus, I’ll make this posting business a regular part of my week again. I mean, I owe it to the awesome redesign to at least give it a chance. (Thanks, Steph!)

Rash decision one: Give up theater, after a life time of dance classes, voice lessons, summer theater camps, and a performing arts high school, after a terrible college program audition (complete with crying phone meltdown to my mother) and a comment from my high school drama/playwriting teacher that my play read more like a sitcom. Instead of pursuing an BFA in Musical Theater (which I could not have done solely due to lack of necessary talent…) or even a BA in Theater Studies, I decided to major in Television and Film with the new dream of writing for Television. It was quasi based on my lifetime love of television, but looking back, it was also quasi reactionary. Even so, that decision shaped the next four years of my life.

Rash decision number two: Apply to be a counselor at a Jewish summer camp. A completely random decision a the time, having never attended camp myself. It came up after a third or forth viewing of the MTV Documentary “Fat Camp” with my friend Nick my second semester of college, during which I talked about how I almost went to sleep away Jew camp as a kid, but chickened out at the last minute. I thought about how I had nothing to do that summer and about how much fun I’d had the summer before working at a Performing Arts Day camp, and how I’d always secretly wished I had just sucked it up and GONE to camp that summer, so I, of course, randomly started researching and applying to Jewish summer camps in the Midwest. I heard back from several, got hired at one, and proceeded to have the best two summers of my life 20 minutes outside of Cleveland, Ohio, which in turn led to both my amazing Australian adventure with my two camp BFF’s and my third rash decision.

Rash decision number three: Apply to Teach for America. After my second semester junior year experience of interning and hating life in LA, I felt lost. My rash decision to major in TV was looking like an epic failure after discovering I didn’t, in fact, enjoy working in television, and I had no idea what to do with my life. The only vague thought I had was to maybe apply to Emerson to study Theater Education and circle back to my original love of theater and my new found (Thanks to Camp!) love of working with kids. I doubted I would get in, however, with my limited camp experience teaching drama one summer and my one vaguely related to education class, the Politics of Education. Then I saw one of those pesky recruitment signs touting the (horrifying) statistics about low-income schools, which reminded me of all the things I learned were broken in the education system in my one education class. I went to an info meeting, told my mom I was thinking about applying, and filled out the application in a day, figuring I would let fate decide, since I didn’t really have faith in my decision making skills at the time. Then a funny thing happened. Fate decided I should be a teacher.

And that’s where I am now. One year into my two-year commitment to TFA, which is when everyone in TFA starts asking “What are you going to do next Spring when you finish?” They, of course, are asking so they can steer you into staying in education, thus fulfilling step two of their two-part plan to close the education gap. And for the first time in a while, I’m not feeling like making a rash decision that will throw me in a completely different direction.

Maybe it’s just because my life is going pretty well right now that I don’t feel like changing it and, eventually one small blip will send me looking at law school applications, but for now, for the first time ever, I’ve drafted out a plan for the next five years of my life, based on where I am now right now. It’s weird to write out where I want to be five years into the future, because for the last five years, my plans have been changing and evolving on a regular basis. There has never been a constant, because I have always felt unsure, like I wasn’t good enough to act or I wasn’t cut-throat enough for Hollywood. It’s kind of scary to feel stable and to plan, because I have a history of planning and then pursuing those plans only to chuck them out the window and do something totally different. I even wrote my college admissions essay about how I did this, and after that, I changed my mind again!

But maybe those rash decisions were all just leading me here, to the place I was supposed to end up. I just had to make those giant, seemingly random leaps because I wasn’t going to get to this place fast enough unless I made mistakes, took on random jobs and left a few things up to fate.

Maybe planning just feels scary, because, as I’ve seen, life doesn’t go according to plan, and I’m just afraid to fail. In the past, as my plans have changed or been only a few months ahead of me, I’ve never technically failed. I’ve gotten everything I’ve really tried to do. I don’t know how I would handle it if I made this plan, went for it with all I had, and then didn’t succeed.

Then again, life is scary and unpredictable, as I’ve seen, and I might fail, but I think I need to focus on the fact that right now, in this moment, I’m so incredibly grateful that I made those decisions, and that life, unpredictably, brought me here to this place where I can make plans for my future, because when I think of what my life would have been had I not made those random, rash decisions, I wouldn’t have all the life experience that is now factoring into my plans. I guess I just have to trust that even if life doesn’t go according to the plan, it can still lead you to a good place.

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.

You see, I’m already missing sleep a bit, which doesn’t bode well for my next few weeks, because yesterday, I officially started my 2-year commitment with Teach for America. This week is what is called Induction, basically an intro to the region with just our fellow LA corps members. Next week, the true madness begins when corps members from four other regions will join us for Institute, which is the actual training part of the summer. This week is all about learning about our area, our mission, our goals, and all the nitty gritty bureaucratic details we need to take care of to actually qualify to teach come August.

That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a teensy bit crazy – not overwhelming quite yet, but getting up at 5:30AM on a Sunday definitely isn’t standard operating procedure in my life, so…a bit crazy. I think the only thought I’ve been really capable of forming so far is that it is so nice to finally be around people who get it – get why I’m doing this, get what Teach for America is, and get how I’m feeling at this juncture in my life. I’ve already met some crazy cool people, and I’ve already been BLOWN away by conversations I’ve overheard and been a part of. I had no doubt coming in that the corps would be an amazing group of people, but to finally see this group and be able to start to see the possibilities of what everyone here is going to accomplish is pretty amazing. Just seeing the ’08 corps members who have just finished one year of teaching – seeing the passion they have for their kids, seeing the eloquence they have when speaking about their experiences – is insane.

And it’s only just begun. Mostly, we’ve been sitting participating in sessions about the philosophies and core values behind TFA, the kinds of goals we are going to be setting, and TFA’s expectations for us, but we’ve also been listening to people’s stories about why they decided to join “The Movement”, and it’s amazing to hear all the things that have brought people to this point. I honestly (and I’m trying not to let this get too cheesy) am SO excited to see what this group of people accomplishes in the next two years and beyond.

And yes, my title is a direct reference to my favorite cheesy high school film, “HIgh School Musical” inspired by the TFA staff members constant insistence that “we are all in this together.”

Four months later, I’ve gotta say, I was so wrong. This semester “off” has given me room to breathe. It’s given me time to get ready for a big change in my life. I’ve gotten done all of my Teach for America assignments, which from talking to other corps members, I’ve learned isn’t too common. I’ve been able to save up money to get myself some gifts of the electronic sort. (I’m looking at you D90 and Blackberry.) I got to spend time with not just my parents, but my grandparents and extended family in the area. I got to travel back to Boston and LA when I needed a break, but I got to just be for a while. 

Because tomorrow the madness begins. This weekend, of course, I’ll be in Vegas. Then I’m flying into San Diego to see my mom’s family and get my car, which shipped out this morning. Then after two weeks of relaxing slash getting done all the last minute stuff I need to get done in LA, it’s off to Induction, with a “break” in the middle for a workshop with school colleagues in San Diego, then it’s back to LA for 5 weeks of Insitute, then another 5 day workshop, moving into my apartment with Jillian and Josh, TFA Orientation, a week of inservice days, then TEACHING! It’s insane how much is about to happen. I think I need to take it one week at a time or else I’ll have a panic attack. 

And finally, I have to write some proper thank-yous to the two people who made these last four months possible. 

—————-

Mom and Dad – (who I know will read this entry before anyone else – and warning, Mom, you probably shouldn’t listen to any Miley Cyrus songs while reading this.)

(Thanks for posing for more pictures than I can count!)

Even though I can get stressed and obnoxious, grumpy and annoying, I have so enjoyed these last four months with you guys. I don’t know anyone else who loves and loves to spend time with their parents as much as I do, and I know how lucky I am for that. Sometimes, I honestly feel too lucky to have you guys as my parents. 

Mom, I’ve loved our Monday movie dates, our lunches at Panera, our secret shopping sprees, and our walks with Sookie. Please keep the kitchen company when I’m gone and don’t order pizza every night. I’ll send you the recipe for my green beans if you promise to make them once a week. Thanks for freaking out about American Idol with me and watching every subsequent interview, and in exchange, I’ll forgive you for baby talking to the dog 24/7. I promise I’ll send you reminder emails every day about what you should watch each night on TV.

Dad, even though we can’t always agree on politics or what to watch, I think we can both agree that House is awesome and always an excellent choice in television viewing. Thanks for putting up with my clogging the DVR, letting me drive the Prius most of the time, and of course, for Australia AND the computer. I’ll never let you in on how I got both, but I do appreciate you falling into my trap. When the next Star Trck movie comes out, I hope we can go see it together, if only to have another reason to yell “KKAAHHHNN!” Please make sure Mom doesn’t use the dog as her stand-in too much, and I’ll attempt to watch Fox News once a month for you to balance out my views. And yes, I do love my room. 

I love you guys and will miss you more than anything. Being far away from you is the worst part about moving to LA. 

Love your best youngest daughter,

Amanda

Two weeks ago I headed into Boston for probably the last time in a while. That fact has yet to sink in. I probably won’t be back to Boston for at least a year or two. *Deep breath* Ok, continuing…the first part of my week there was dominated by Senior Week events. Saturday, Jillian and I headed to Martha’s Vineyard for a rainy day excursion. Highlights of the day included eating at a ridiculously cute diner right out of “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives” and seeing this: 

The other events were all essentially drinking parties in various “exciting” locales. First up was a beach party in Quincy, MA, which was really just an excuse to get us all to ride on school buses one last time and have a large dance party. 

Jillian and I on the bus!

The next event was a Habor Cruise which should really be labled awkard encounters at a party you can’t leave, as that is really what it is. Luckily, there was ample space for dancing to forget the awkwardness, and I got to wear my fierce new green dress.

All in all, the night was a success for nothing else than for allowing me (and pretty much everyone on board) to break out into a rousing rendition of “I’m on a Boat” at least once.

Later in the week, I got to start checking off items on my “Things I Always Wanted to do in Boston” list. First up was going on the Sam Adams Brewery tour. Our tour guide was super fun, and not just because she gave us three glasses of free beer, PLUS a free glass! 

Surprisingly, one of my favorite events was the COM (That would be the College of Communications) reception, as most of my friends throughout college were in COM, since I lived on a COM floor my freshman year and most of my classes have been populated by the Communications crowd. I saw and talked to a ton of people I haven’t talked to in forever, realized even more people I know are moving to LA, and caught up with one of my best friends who is doing Philadelphia Teaching Fellows next year, who promised we could swap war stories next year and start our own Charter School in two, which will be named after some Arrested Development quote as that is all we talk about most of the time. 

Friday, my family descended on Boston. Stephanie arrived super early on the red eye. Her friend from grad school, Jenny, came later in the afternoon, followed by my parents and grandparents. We all hung out Friday night, me taking pictures of everyone else playing street baseball. (I guess I should note here that I have three cousins between the ages of 6 and 9 that live in Boston. It wasn’t just my grandparents playing t-ball.) It was like something out of an adorable suburban movie. 

Saturday, we did the final touristy thing I’ve been dying to do since I got to Boston: the Duck Tour! It was epic, of course. We heckled people from out hot pink boat, and I got to drive in the Charles River. Cheesey fun was had by all. (Pictures are coming, and will most likely go on my photoblog. All the the pictures on here are from my point and shoot. Duck Boat pictures, obviously, required the DSLR.)

Saturday night, we headed out to my favorite restaurant in Jamaica Plains for my final celebratory dinner. We got cupcakes from Sweet (again, photos on my other camera have yet to be uploaded….), and everyone toasted to me, as I toasted to my family in Boston for being amazing these last few years, and everyone got full of off a crazy good meal. 

Sunday was…surreal. Putting on my cap and gown, I felt like a fake. College graduates are old. They are adults. They don’t scream and fall on the floor when their favorite Idol contestant wins. (Yes, that happened, followed by my yelling “You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me!” when an emergency alert came on 10 seconds later.) They don’t sing at the top of their lungs to Miley Cyrus every time they get in their car. They have jobs and houses and *gulp* families. Yes, I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but this is my last milestone before things like “marriage,” “kids,” and..ugh….bills. I don’t feel old. I don’t feel like an adult. So sitting there in that cap and gown thinking about how long ago the last time I donned one of these ridiculous outfits seems yet how fast it all went. The actual ceremonies were surprisingly great. At the COM ceremony, I realized how many people I actually knew in school and got completely weirded out by seeing them all in cap and gown. We had a speaker from the TV industry, which to all us TV and Film kids was a ridiculous shock after four years of having Journalism and PR shoved down our throats (and being pointed to the basement of the arena for line-up.) The speaker for the undergraduates reminded us all about our first class in college, and I flashed back to the day I received my first C ever, in that very class, and cried about it for days and the amazing feeling I got when I ended up with an A- in the class. Ah, memories. Then I walked up on stage, shook my department chair’s hand, and got my diploma folder. 

After a ridiculously quick bite to eat at U Burger (oh, U Burger french fries….I think I’ll miss you most of all…) I met up with Jillian to line up for the big, all-university commencement. It was madness. Larry Bird AND Steven Speilberg were awarded honorary degrees. Our Congressmen, Mike Capuano, gave an excellent speech that started by giving a verbal beat down to all the haters and complainers that seem to flock to BU in huge numbers for bitching about how uncool our commencement speaker was. Afterwards, I filed out with thousands of my fellow new alumni, gave Jillian a huge hug, and left the BU campus with my parents for an indefinite period of time for the first time since I was 18. 

So…I’m done with college. I know (kind of) what the next two years of my life hold for me, but after that, who the heck knows. It’s weird that my life now has nothing guiding it, nothing organizing it, nothing saying this is where you should be at this age: there is just me, making decisions, living my life, doing what I can and what I want. It definitely hasn’t sunk in yet. 

(And now, even though I liked my commencement speaker a lot, I’ll leave with you Ellen’s message for the class of 2009, because she’s awesome.)

Moving around a lot as a kid and attending four (!!) different schools during my four years of high school led me to not attach myself too strongly to any school or any place. When high school ended, I was more than happy to move on.  I was ready to tackle college, and aside from a very small handful of good friends (Hi Kaitlin!), there wasn’t much I’d miss about high school. Same goes for every time I moved – my family always seemed to time our movings to coincide with a rough patch in my life, so moving to a new place seemed like an excellent way to make a needed change. Sure, there were friends I missed like crazy and little things about each town we lived in I was sad to leave behind, but I never found myself thinking, “I’m really not ready to leave.” 

Leaving Boston is and will be so much different. While I’ve come and gone from Boston for the last four years for summers and vacations, I always knew I was coming back. It always seemed like a home base. This “semester” at home has felt like that too. While I know in my mind I’m done with school, I’ve still known I would be heading back for Senior Week and graduation. I still knew I’d see all my friends again. After graduation, though, I’m going to be joining everyone else in the collective freak-out of “Oh my god, I really have to leave now, don’t I?!”

During Senior Breakfast, they showed a “slideshow” of every group picture from our orientation four years ago. When I saw my group’s picture, I saw my blond, shorter hair, my heinous pink t-shirt I thought was fierce, and one of my best friends I hadn’t realized was in my orientation group until sophomore year when we’d been discussing our various orientation leaders over lunch and discovered the coincidence. It felt like SO long ago, while simultaneously feeling like it was only yesterday, like I still needed more time in this place. Then I saw that same friend presented with an amazing award, and while the Dean of Students read of a list of all the accomplishments my friend had racked up in the last four years, I realized we all had enough time in college. We’d all done amazing things, made our mark there, and maybe were ready to move on. 

That night, I attended a special dinner party for all the Teach For America corps members from my school at the Dean of Student’s house (who, by the way, is the greatest school administrator, possibly ever. I follow him on twitter, and I’m told he once held a High School Musical 2 viewing party at his house. To say I was excited to be invited to this dinner would be a gross understatement.) Talking to the other corps members about where we were headed, about teacher certification tests, curriculum changes, and of course, that pesky achievement gap, I felt ready – ready to take on another ridiculous challenge, ready to call another city home, and ready to leave that blond-haired, pink-shirt wearing college girl behind. Almost. No, I am…I think.  

Friday, I head up for the 10-day extravaganza that is Senior Week and Graduation. At the end of it, my family will join me in Boston, take me on a Duck Tour, and watch me graduate from college. Hopefully, by the end of it, I’ll be ready to say good-by to Boston…but that doesn’t mean I won’t be bawling as I do it.

Some of my favorite finds include:

1. 3-D Chandelier – Urban Outfitters

2. Autumn Kiss – Original Papercut Art – Tinatarnoff on Etsy

3. Yes Frills Jewelry Organizer – Urban Outfitters

4. EXPEDIT Bookcase – Ikea

5. Phone Gocco Screen Print – Labpartners on Etsy

6. Brighton/Vanity Desk – Crate and Barrel

7. Wall Art Vinyl Decal Sticker Decor Headboard – Art Wall Project on Etsy

8. Happiness Ring Catcher – Five Tress on Etsy

In searching for apartment dressings, I inevitably end up on Etsy, which then inevitably leads me to look at pretty, pretty jewelry (and the occasional purse and headband) for hours and hours. I mean, how adorable slash beautiful is this stuff?

1. Ruffle Linen Bag with Lace – Straige

2. Strech Me On Sterling Silver and Pink Swarovski Ring – Always Chic

3. Leaf in a Drop Earrings – Shlomit Ofir

4. Pearl Scented Rosebud Stud Earrings – hot-pins

5. Poppy Ring with Gold Centre – Simone Walsh

6. Citrine and smokey quartz double sterling silver necklace – Essensual Jewelry

7. Long Double Element Necklace – Simone Walsh

And now I guess you can add writing this post to the list of things I’ve been doing instead of what I should be doing. Ugh. Off to do some reading…maybe…oo look at this ring!

Well, that’s not entirely true. I am world’s different than I was in high school, but my changes have been mental. I’ve gained confidence. I’ve learned about myself. I’ve kind of figured out what I want in life. A lot of my high school friends, however, in just four years, have gotten engaged, bought houses, gotten married, and had babies. I feel like I just saw them. I feel like I was just singing next to them in the spring musical,  going with them on midnight runs to Steak and Shake, gossiping with them about our English teacher, and sometimes, I feel like (no, I know that) I’m STILL doing these kinds of things. I feel like they are living lives that I can no longer relate to in any way, like they’re adults, and I’m still this weird teenager-young adult hybrid.  

Not that I want their lives. A lot of them are still living in their hometowns or some remote suburb just like it. Most of them have jobs like cosmetologist, army wife, or fast food restaurant assistant manager – not that these aren’t respectable choices, but they are just not where I see or want my life going, so it’s not jealously I’m feeling. I just…I don’t know… find it so weird that in four short years, all of our lives have taken this ridiculously drastic turn away from each other. We were all the same. We all related to one another. We all hung out, and now I’m living at home after finishing college, planning on moving to West LA to live with my gay best friend, while my former classmate is in a hospital praying with her Navy officer husband for their 16-week-premature baby. (I found their blog about him via facebook – if you want to keep him in your thoughts.)

All my friends aren’t in this situation. I certainly have a lot of high school friends still in college. I have friends who have moved or are about move to New York and LA, and friends who are single and loving it. It’s just easier for me to process their situations, because we are all still on the same level, in the same place. To me, they are normal. It’s hard for me to process marriage when I haven’t had a boyfriend for more than 3 months…ever. It’s hard for me to process having babies when I minorly freaked out at the thought of babysitting a 13-month old. It’s hard for me to feel like I have all the time in the world to get married and have babies when it seems more and more people already have. When did this happen? When did all these people I know as teenagers become adults? One day, we were all the same, and the next, I feel like I don’t even know who these people are anymore. 

I think what’s especially weird for me is my parents were those people – those people I in no way relate to. They were married and moving to Oklahoma for my dad to start his time in the Marine Corps at 22. I’M 22! Does that mean I’m an adult now, too? Maybe that’s the whole problem…

Thankfully, they break it down into 8 easily stomached lessons to get through in the next few weeks. It’s not that overwhelming time wise, but it is definitely overwhelming emotion wise. 

The first reading is about a successful TFA corps members and her struggles and triumphs over four years of teaching in Houston, TX. It is already SO hard to imagine myself doing half the things or having half the successes that she has. In fact, I had a dream slash nightmare about it last night, where I was kicking ass on my first day of school only to have half of my 50 (yes 50! My classroom was for some reason more akin to a college lecture hall, except it was filled with judging 14 year-olds) students walk out of the room in anger over something I’d said, all while I was being observed by the school’s principal and my program director from TFA. I woke up feeling like a failure, reminding myself that it was a dream and I hadn’t failed at anything yet. 

I keep replaying the words one of the TFA staffers told me on the phone the night I was accepted: “We don’t make mistakes. If we choose you to be a corps member, we have no doubt that you can do this. Just imagine that there are students out here waiting for you.” I just have to internalize that myself.