In lieu of posting something new today, which I was thinking about in between my new yoga routine that’s now two days old and putting off doing work for my actual job by reading interview materials for a potential new job, I’m going to send you over to the wonderful Renee’s blog, where my Powerful Woman Monologue is up! I wrote it after a particularly annoying day talking to my students about Twilight and after FINALLY watching all of Miss Representation with my sister. I’m so happy Renee put this project together, as it is an awesome way to spread awareness about a prevalent problem we all too easily forget about.

I’m happy to say my students are in the midst of the project I referenced in the piece, and it is going amazingly well. It was amazing and empowering watching their eyes open to the ways media can manipulate our views of ourselves and others, and I am proud of myself for making my students a bit more media literate and, hopefully, a bit more accepting of themselves and those around them.

Please check out Miss Representation’s website to learn more and join the movement!

So here I am. Still alive after all these months. Who would’ve thought? I certainly wouldn’t have thought that I would be sitting here in November, single, living in my own apartment, questioning my next step, having accomplished none of the goals I set out for myself in my last post what seems like a life-time ago but well on my way to accomplishing new goals and being totally fine with all of that.

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!)

1. The new staff at my school. As my school is a new charter, we are adding a grade every year. Thus, we doubled the size of our staff in, this, our second year. Luckily, our new staff is as ridiculously amazing, funny, smart, and collaborative as our old staff, leading us to have ridiculously amazing, funny adventures while competing in a scavenger hunt around the South Bay and do ridiculously amazing, smart, collaborative things, like craft engaging curriculum for the 10th grade. Win.

2. My Toms wedges

3. The Neil Patrick Harris-directed production of “Rent” at the Hollywood Bowl. Having never been to the Hollywood Bowl AND having never seen “Rent” live made seeing this production one of the best nights in a long time. As did the impromptu Ke$ha dance party my friends and I had in the parking lot after the show while waiting for the cars to clear out. Throw in the fact that my (dorky) “High School Musical” loving heart got a kick out of seeing Vanessa Hudgens writhe on stage to “Out Tonight,” and you have an epic night.

4. My last week of summer. Last week (aka my last week of summer 2010), I finally met my boyfriend’s family, by taking his niece to Disneyland (my THIRD time since April. Childhood win!) and by going with his family to a Dodger game (which they won 9-1). I also went skating with said niece, my sister, and my roommate, which I haven’t done since I was 10. Lastly, I slept in pretty much every day until 9, which is late for me. Best.

5. Mad Men. Despite the fact that they cut out the scene my roommate was an extra in (Damn you, editors!), I am SO happy to have Don, Peggy, and even Betty back in my life.

6. Feeling like I’m good at my job. For the first time since I started teaching (granted, its only been a year), I feel like I have some sort of grasp on what I’m doing, and I finally feel like I’m the one truly directing what is going on in my classroom, instead of just following along with the crowd because I’m too afraid to venture off on my own. This is all mostly due to the fact that I’ve been helping new TFA-ers get accustomed to my school, but I’ll take it however I can get it. Hazzah for never being a first-year teacher ever again!

(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.

Almost a year ago, I packed my car up with all my stuff, shipped it cross country, then packed the rest of my belongings in a ridiculously large bag, and boarded a plane to Vegas.

The first Annual Bloggers in Sin City extravaganza was a lay-over for me in between two lives. On one side of the weekend was college, my parents, the East Coast, and my last little bit of non-adulthood. On the other side was my own apartment, teaching, a new(ish) city, and some old friends. In between was one of the craziest, most ridiculous, most fun weekends of my life.

I met awesome bloggers, danced on the Strip. saw a Cirque show, ate some delicious Italian food, drank cheap foot-tall drinks, watched hilarious you-tube videos, played in the most beautiful bathroom in the US, and laughed until I cried.

Tomorrow I leave for round two. On either side of the weekend is the same life. A life I’m pretty happy with. A life I’ll be happy to return to on Monday, but this weekend, I’m hoping to capture some of the ridiculous  magic of last year.

See you on the other side.

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.

I’m done with Institute. I can’t yet process that and should probably be sleeping right now, so until I can form coherent thoughts on the last five weeks, I’ll leave you with a (slightly edited for the internet) email I received from one of my favorite summer school students. It pretty much sums up how weirdly amazing (and challenging and frustrating and ridiculous) the past five weeks have actually been:

Hey ms b, just wanted to take the time and say thank you for everything you have tought us. Being in your class has been a better experience from all my other teachers and I finally understand English well now. Mr. W and yourself are great teachers I hope both of you have great luck in teaching in the future and thank you again for making me understand English way better.
-Sincerely
E

This past week has flown by. I got to LA last Saturday, spent the weekend with my lovely sister, Stephanie, spent the week seeing my LA program buddies, Grace, Patrick, and Sarah, plus caught up with some other newly minted alums from my school. It was pretty much the perfect last week of freedom – watching endless amounts of TV with Stephanie, lounging by the pool with Patrick and Sarah, having one more night out on the town, and SLEEPING. Oh the sleeping…

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.”

This weekend I went to Vegas. This weekend I met 25 (give or take) of the most awesome 20-somethings on the planet. This weekend, I made some new, amazing, ridiculously wonderful friends. This weekend was completely made possible by the internet. 

Crazy, right?

Although I don’t think I can do justice to the weekend on my own, I do hope to add my voice to the chorus of wonderful bloggers saying that this weekend was something special. Sure, it looks cool enough on paper: 25 people from around the country who know a creepy amount about each others lives but don’t actually “know” each other converge on Sin City for a weekend of fun, but what actually happened was somehow so much more than that. It was instant connections, heartfelt conversations, and hours and hours of laughter. It was looking around the room and feeling like you really got everyone who was there. It was not being self-conscious or fake, but just being able to be 100% yourself after “knowing” someone for about 5 minutes. 

Sure, there were highlights:

• Discovering an “all-day” happy hour (which, I’ve gotta ask, aren’t those just your actual prices at that point) with Steph, Kerri, and Rachel, and four hours later, realizing that EVERYONE ELSE ON THE TRIP had converged there for $5 wine and bathroom photoshoots. (#1 bathroom in the country!)
• Discovering MORE people who love the Kaitlin/Rick sketch as much as I do and acting out said sketch in said #1 bathroom in the country. (“I don’t wannnaaa goooo, Rick!”)

• Eating ridiculous amounts of fried food outside a wedding chapel with Doni and Nicole, where Nicole pronounced that if you are within a stone’s throw of corn dog nuggets, maybe it isn’t the best place to make a life-long commitment.
• Watching Matt achieve an EPIC goal on the strip. 
• Dancing and belting out “This Kiss” with Nicole and others during the Bellagio fountain show. 
• Watching Cirque du Soleil with my mouth hanging open, looking away only to look at Nicole and make my “Whattheeffjusthappened?!?” face.
• Getting the most rich and delicious $30 meal ever with some lovely Chicago gals at Stack, even if the waiter wasn’t so happy with us. 
• Discussing marriage and hot boy body waxing with Allison and Kerri in the Luxor pool. 
• Staying up late, chatting with my new favorite people about the internet, life, drama, growing up, and….oh who am I kidding, this entire trip was a highlight.

I cannot express how happy I am that I decided to go. I knew it would be fun, but I don’t think any of us expected it to be…what it was. Thank you to everyone who came and made it so fun! I can’t wait to see you guys again.

And now, some internet appropriate photographic highlights: 

Rachel and I in the ridiculously nice bathroom

Nicole, Doni and I dancing in the streets.

Andrea, Kerri, and Allison with...a pink gorilla suit?

Kerri, Rachel, and Doni looking fierce.

Nicole and Stephanie being rockstars.

Allison, Kerri, and Nicole getting excited for some Mario Batali food.

Well, here I am, all packed and ready to board my flight to Vegas in the morning. It’s weird. Last December, coming home to live for the semester instead of staying in Boston seemed like the worst thing in the world. I’d miss my friends. I’d miss “senior year.” I’d be bored. I’d feel useless. I wouldn’t accomplish anything. 

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