1) The Buffet is the soul-sucking worst: Why ANYONE would elbow their way through a crowded room full of vaguely stale, luke-warm food only to spend twenty minutes frantically pushing through swarms of extended families calling out each other’s names only to find a table on the deck in 40 degree weather a 10 minute walk from the nearest water station when there are BEAUTIFUL dining rooms with real chairs and servers and equally “free” food (my dad liked to remind me that while I wasn’t paying a bill then, the food wasn’t actually free) is BEYOND me. What I’m saying is, avoid the Buffet.

2) People like terrible entertainment: My sister and I regularly (and by regularly, I mean once) got to bars early to get seats for the entertainment we were excited about – mainly a British cover band doing Beatles songs for an hour and The Second City touring group’s improv shows- but in order to keep those tables we had to sit through things like “Men versus Women Challenge!” which my sister adorably thought would be a “battle of wits” (to which I responded sadly, “WHY would that be it?”) and which was actually a contest to determine important questions like, which gender can fit more people on a single bed sheet or which sex can locate their shoes faster when they’ve been left in a giant pile on a bed sheet. (Props were clearly limited). What was sad was not that these games were offered, but HOW MANY PEOPLE SHOWED UP! SO. MANY. PEOPLE! Like standing room only. And they LOVED it. The cheering was deafening. And then they all left when actual good acts came on. It baffled me, but at least answered my question of who all these people are that are watching 2 and a Half Men. This also led my sister and I to decide to start a TED cruise, where in all entertainment is intellectually stimulating and awesome.

3) Harry Potter World is the best place on earth: This is how my mom actually convinced me to go on this trip. I had doubts, but the second I found out I could visit Hogwarts, I was in! My sister and I spent 8 hours in this magical wonderland, doing everything from drinking Butterbeer (see below: And yes, that would be a commemorative mug), to buying wands, to reading all of the ride warnings, which were written as proclamations from various departments in the Ministry of Magic. We again got on our pop cultural high horse when we decided that people should have to take a Harry Potter quiz to get in after I overheard some girl in Honeyduke’s saying she’d “only like seen one of these movies.” THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE TAKING UP PRECIOUS SPACE!?! *deep breath* Anyway, it was ridiculous and awesome. The line for the Hogwarts ride alone, which leads you through the castle and includes holograms of Dumbledore, Harry, Hermione, and Ron, would’ve made the whole trip worth it.

4) Large groups of people and children make me tense: My goal on this trip was mostly to avoid being around lots of people, which is difficult on a boat holding over 4,000 people. This led to a lot of me sitting on our balcony reading, which was beautiful and fine with me. My family also suffered from this anxiety, which also led to us getting some primo seats in Great Stirrup Cay, Norwegian’s private island. I found some small note on the island map which noted an “adult” beach, which was THE BEST. Few people. No children. No noise. When we walked by where they actually wanted you to be sitting, the place with all the food, music, entertainment and people, my mom simply stated, “Why would ANYONE want to sit over here.” We’re clearly a fun bunch.

5) You meet cool people on cruises, despite previously stated annoyance with people: My family’s cruise friends included: a Ukrainian neuroscience researcher and her husband who sat with us doing the Second City Show. She was very interested in my teaching and hilariously and for no reason lied to her husband about my sister and my ages, which he seemed genuinely confused by; a Serbian lifeguard who lived on the private island (or had for three days at that point) and informed my sister and mom that the Norwegian staff often have parties with the staff on the Royal Caribbean island next to them; a South African woman who had lived in Israel and now lived in Chicago but hated it because of her kid’s school who was also very interested, but also confused by, Teach for America. She did, however, tell me I was changing the world and thus may have been my favorite.

6) Boat movement is weird, especially in windowless rooms: I have only been on one other cruise in my life, which was one around the British Isles. I remember it being very smooth, which now in retrospect makes a lot of sense as we were merely floating in the small stretch of water between English and Ireland. I now realize that most cruises involve more movement and thus more dizziness and nausea for me. Thankfully, my mom had Sea Bands, little wrist bands that look like eighties sweat bands that have little plastic balls that push on your pressure points and supposedly help with sea sickness. I still think they are more psychosomatic, but they helped. They also cut into my skin giving me weird scabs on my wrists. Not cute. In bathrooms, however, nothing helped. Feeling a toilet seat moving beneath you is just weird and upsetting.

7) Boat movement will continue long after you get off the boat: I also don’t remember this from my last cruise, but I definitely felt like I was moving, especially again in windowless rooms, for a full four days after the cruise. This makes walking around a mall not the funnest.

8 ) Towel animals are kick-ass and make any night better: See photo evidence below.

9) You can reach a point at which your body can consume no more food: It took a week, but it happened. I think it was this dessert that did it.

10) My family is the best: Being on a boat for a week could’ve made me slightly loopy – something about my liking to have control and being vaguely claustrophobic – but my family made this trip hilarious and fun and relaxing and awesome. They are simply the best.

11) (And I almost forgot!) Running on a treadmill on a boat is the ACTUAL soul-sucking worst – or at least tied with the buffet: It’s like running up and down a hundred little hills!

Looking back over this year, I would say that a word to describe it would be unexpected. This year did not go as I planned, again see last year’s goal list. There are, however, some things I would definitely put on my Eff Yeah List: knowing myself enough to know that my relationship wasn’t working and having the courage to leave, working for Teach for America and in the end feeling like I did “widen my impact” as TFA lingo goes, actually committing to and having some success in running, moving in by myself and loving it, not letting moving in by myself turn me into a hermit but actually using it to be MORE social and making some new fabulous friends, and of course, eating ridiculous amounts of brunch.

There were lots of things this year, however, that were not so full of Eff Yeah-ness. They included feeling like I’m not doing a good job at my job for the first time, making some boy decisions that were probably not the healthiest, drinking a BIT too much red wine, and hurting my knee several times whilst running. Which leads me to my word for next year…

Element.

This one takes a bit of explaining. I just finished reading a book by Ken Robinson, an educational innovator and writer who is pretty kick-ass – seriously, if you have not listened to his Ted Talk about Education and Creativity, leave this place now and go watch it – called The Element, ironically partially as an assignment for work. (You shall see the irony in a minute) In it, he explains about The Element, or the intersection of your passions and talents, and how important it is for us personally and as a society to find our own elements and live in them. While reading, I finally accepted that I am not living in my element. I am doing something I am pretty good at and that I like, but I am not consistently doing the things that I LOVE and am GREAT at doing. My goals for next year all have to do with finding the time and making the big life decisions that will lead me towards my Element, and if I don’t love something – an activity, a person, a job – I want to have the strength to let it not take up my time and my life.

From that point, I put some goals in place in various buckets. Some are extremely tangible – running: run 3 races (5K, 10K and half marathon are my goals now – I’m not setting an actual distance goal just yet as my knee is still wonky, and I don’t want to set myself up for failure.); cooking: cook a REAL meal (nothing frozen) at least once a month. Invite people over. Blogging: Post at least once a week.

Some buckets are much more about mind-sets. Knowing I have some big work decisions coming up, my biggest goal there is to not let fear dictate my decisions. For relationships, my two biggies are to simply stop making bad decisions and be happy being single. (I think these two are related…)

I’ve also tried to anticipate that I may be leaving LA (albeit only for a year or so…) in this next year, so I did make a bucket of Fun LA things, which include going to a new restaurant/bar each month and doing the Hollywood Sign hike – my favorite LA-y thing – at least two more times.

All of my buckets encompass things or people I love, and in a lot of cases, don’t spend enough time doing – blogging, photography, cooking, etc. I really want to find my Element not just at work but in my hobbies and free time – how can I best use my time to do the things I am passionate about?

Overall, I’m satisfied with 2011 but not entirely happy with it, if that makes any sense. I know that this next year could land me in a totally new place – both literally and figuratively – and I hope my goals will help guide that change process in a positive way. Here’s to 2012!

I’m going to give a warning upfront: there is about to be a WHOLE lot of self-love up in this post, but right now, I kind of need to write this down. I need to send this message out into the universe as a way of making it actually sink into my own head, as I’ve spent some time in the past few months making decisions and putting myself into situations that did not always make me feel like an awesome person, and really, it was my fault and my decisions to be in those situations, but really, I want to say this now, for myself:

I’m pretty fucking awesome.

I regularly make people laugh out loud. I have interesting taste in television and books. I will listen to pretty much any music that anyone has ever liked, ever. I always compromise and try to make other people happy. I go out of my way to say nice things to people. I rarely get angry, and I think I take a lot of things in stride. I’m understanding. I work out regularly. I’m an amazing cook AND will offer to clean dishes. I’m a pretty excellent dancer, and I’m social at parties. And if I’m being really honest with myself, I’m pretty good looking! I take care of myself. I spend an uncomfortable amount of money getting my hair cut, and I’m fairly stylish. I love my family and am (I’ve been told) an excellent friend. Other people’s parents love me, and I am excellent at giving running commentary to terrible television shows and movies. I work hard and have ambition. I’m intelligent and can hold an interesting conversation. I will call you when something good happens to you and be the first one to suggest a celebration, and I will happily drink wine with you to cheer you up after a terrible day. I’m fairly clean, and I leave awesome messages on Facebook for people’s birthdays.

Someone would be lucky to have me, and someday, I sincerely hope that someone I think is pretty fucking awesome sees that too.

(One more note: Kate Monster’s part in “It Sucks to be Me” from Avenue Q may be playing on a constant loop in my head right now….I do see the similarity in tone and message here.)

I sounds so cliche, but it feels like yesterday. It feels like yesterday I was walking down the street in Boston, trying to drink in the city. It feels like yesterday that I got the email that I needed to prep for a phone interview at a small charter school, that I read their entire website and instantly fell in love. It feels like yesterday since I packed and pumped myself up for the madness that would be the first ever Bloggers in Sin City Meet-Up. It feels like yesterday that I was cooking my parents elaborate good-bye dinners. It feels like yesterday that I was offered an amazing job at that small charter school.

I feel like all I’ve talked about (if I’ve talked at all) these past few months has been how fast my life has changed and how different it is now, but most days I don’t think about it. I get up, I got to work, I come home, I got to sleep. I don’t think about how much time is passing. This week, though, my Austrailian BFF (you may remember her from my insane, amazing trip to visit Australia last year) is visiting, and I realized that while I feel like I just saw her, it’s been a YEAR AND A HALF. I visited her right after I finished college, and that was a YEAR AND A HALF AGO!

I know this is going to happen again with the Vegas trip this month too. It doesn’t seem like that first Vegas trip was a lifetime ago, but in a way, it was. I went to Vegas on my way out to LA. I literally had half my life packed with me in that hotel room. I’d never stood in front of a classroom before, nor did I know what the hell to do if I did.  Now I consider LA to be my home, and I like to think I have some idea of what to do in front of my classroom.

The month of May is reminding me that while I miss some things about my old life (all of which I was reminded of when I took my students on a college tour last week….oh all-you-can-eat dining halls. How I miss you so!) that is now feeling farther and farther away, I feel very settled right now, like my life is where it should be. Hopefully, next May, I’ll feel the same way.

Thinking back over the last few months, I realized that the only times I’ve really been driven to post has been when I’ve been stressed, tired, or needed to vent. Lately, I haven’t felt like that. These last three weeks, I’ve been genuinely happy. Work has been stressful and crazy, but good. My personal life has been weirdly calm, simple, and comforting. I’ve figured out that when I’m happy, I kind of just want to keep it to myself. I don’t want to share it with the internet. Maybe I think I’ll jinx it. Maybe I’ve taken one to many TV writing class where I’ve been told no one likes stories without conflict or drama. Maybe (no….for sure) I’m not as amazing a writer as some of my blog friends, who can make even the smallest and happiest  things in their lives interesting and funny in a way I can’t.  Whatever it is, I don’t like writing about good things.

And the weird slash sad thing is, I haven’t really missed writing about my life, probably because I’ve been pretty happy living it. And now thinking back over the last three years since I started blogging, I’ve found that the times I’ve blogged the most have been when my life has been at its (relative) worst. (Note: I’m not claiming my life has ever been terrible.) For instance, I think my blog hit its creative peak the miserable summer I spent living basically alone in Boston before my senior year. I needed blogging to be creative and sane and to have human contact. Now, my creativity and human contact is tapped out during the day, so when I come home, the last thing I feel like doing is giving any energy to the internet.

I don’t know what this means for my blog right now.  I’m still trying to figure that out. In a way, I kind of want to take an indefinite break and keep living my life. On the other hand, I love my blog, despite my neglect. And I don’t plan on being happy forever. I don’t think I’m that lucky. I’m sure in the future I’ll have another miserable summer where I’ll need my blog to stay sane. I don’t know when that will be, though. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

I’ve had some of my toughest weeks teaching yet, mainly because four of my students were asked to leave the school, upsetting not only me, but also most of my students right as we started a new project I really need them to be excited about. I’ve been feeling bad for these students and wallowing for myself, feeling kind of responsible for not catching some of these problems earlier, neither of which I should really be feeling. Also, the amount of work I have caused me to come pretty close to having an actual panic attack this morning, as opposed to the ones I hyperbolically claim to be having most Sundays.

On the other hand, I started dating someone. This does not seem like that big of a deal to most people, but to me, who has been technically single since I was 16 and who has been screwed over more than once by boys in the intervening years, this is a (lovely and) big deal. Things are going eerily well, and the whole situation is literally the only reason I’ve made it through the past two weeks of ridiculousness. With all the other crap going on, I’m just trying to enjoy the this stage while its still fun and new and…filled with me smiling.

On yet another hand, my summer plans are once again up in the air. I was all set to head back to Camp this summer, but now scheduling issues have come up with my school, and it’s seeming less and less sane to fly off to Ohio for every single day of my summer vacation. I’m feeling more and more like I need a real and true break this summer. Plus, I possibly have a part-time job I could take with Teach for America in the summer that would alleviate the money issues that led me to seriously consider camp in the first place, but the whole situation still sucks.

And that is my roller coaster. Crying at school. Smiling with the new boy, and desperately scrambling to figure out what I’m going to do with my July.

_____________________________

My name is brandy. And I have a blog.

And a plea.

I use my blog to showcase the crazy I meet everyday, share the stories of the kids I teach and document my love for tequila, dairy products and the abdominal muscles of Ryan Reynolds. Rarely do I talk about personal issues on my blog- as personal as the dude that I adore (who I actually met through my blog- single ladies, let that be a very good reason to blog, the possibility of meeting someone as wonderful as my man), but I need your help. And it involves my dude.

He’s a guy who made math comics for my class, so they would love learning about addition. He’s the kinda guy who sends my friends gift cards when they are having hard times, who remembers every story I ever told him, who was the first person I celebrated with when I got a teaching job. He’s the guy who sent flowers to me at school- dozens of my favourite pink roses just because he loves me. He’s a guy who has spent a year patiently explaining (and re-explaining) everything there is to know about football during the important games when silence is preferred. He’s made me word puzzles and comics and stayed up late playing Scrabble with me (even though I beat him almost every time). He’s listened to me cry about school and family and jobs. He is everything I never knew I needed and everything I always knew I wanted.

The holidays have hit us hard. He’s recently been told he may have something called multiple myeloma- an incurable cancer, that gives a person an average of five years of continued life. Though this news has came as a shock, he continues to be exactly who has always been- spending his time worrying about me, rather than worrying about himself. He’s the most selfless individual I know- (he stayed late on Christmas Eve to work, so his co-workers could leave early) and a post like this would never be something that he would promote or encourage but when I’m overwhelmed and feeling helpless, the blogging community has always given me tremendous support and comfort, two things I desperately need at this time.

As I write this, the future is uncertain and we aren’t sure what’s happening. He’ll need to see an oncologist soon, to verify what’s going on in his body. My hope is that everyone who reads this think positive thoughts and if you are a person who prays, could you add him to your list? (You can refer to him as ‘brandy’s hot awesome dude’). If you don’t pray, please keep him in your heart.This cancer is only a possibility and I believe that the prayers and positive thoughts of people can make sure it never becomes a reality.

I want to give a big thank you to the blog owner who scraped their original blog plans and graciously put this up. My goal is to get as many people as possible to see and read this post. If you are reading this and want to help, copy and paste my plea into your blog or send a link through twitter, so more people can keep him in their thoughts. I would be so very grateful (even more grateful than I am to my friend who first showed me the picture of Ryan Reynolds on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. If you haven’t seen it, google it. You. Are. Welcome).

I realize this all sounds dramatic, a Lifetime movie in the making- but this is life. Right now. And I’m throwing away any hint of ego and am humbly asking for you to pray or think kind thoughts. If you are able to pass this on, thank you and if you know anything regarding MM- please email me (my email is on my blog). This isn’t a call for sympathy or a plea for pity. It’s just one girl hoping you can think positive thoughts for the person she adores. If my current heartache provides you with anything, let it be with the reminder that life is short, love is unbending and no one knows what could happen next. Maybe it is silly, but I really do believe that positive thoughts can make a huge difference. Thank you for reading this and if you haven’t already? Please tell someone you love them today.

I did.

Take pictures and play around in Photoshop, that is….not, you know, play by fences. Although, that is fun too….

Ok, so that was a lot of words, but this past week was a lot of things. And I took a lot of pictures. And I need a day to organize and digest and unpack. Once I do all that, I’ll update. Excited yet? I thought so.

Now I’m off to try to clear out my DVR. I’m glad I have my priorities in order.