Prochain arrêt...

I guess the irony of the (not very unique) name I chose for my blog is that we never quite arrive at a destination, but life is really more like an endless ride with intermittent stops. You choose the vehicle- I think I prefer a high-speed train, sharing a cabin with my best friends and family or perhaps sometimes an unwanted guest between certain stops. Anyways, I could extend that metaphor for pages.  The point is, I have arrived at a pretty big station.  I am incredibly excited and anxious to finally have my own classroom to walk into at the start of the school year this fall.  I have been immersing myself in everything I can possibly imagine- books, websites, people, materials- and they are inspiring me more than I ever imagined.  However, I feel overwhelmed at how much information is out there, how many different approaches there are to one thing, and it is absolutely mind-blowing.  Didn't someone say, "You don't know how much you know until you know how much you don't know"? Well, I'm learning there is a lot that I don't know, but I can't wait to find out.

I so did not take this picture- from the TrainWallpaper website.  I kid you not, that is the website.

"There's no point to any of this..."

"It's all just a... a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know... a Quarter-Pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle... and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt."

Troy (Ethan Hawke) from the 1994 film #RealityBites

I think Ethan Hawke is a pretty mediocre actor, but he has some of the best, most quotable lines in film.  Anyone seen #BeforeSunrise?  (I'm also a huge Julie Delpy fan- see #2DaysInParis.)  Anyways, this quote is pretty apt, I think.  It's not meant to be depressing or anything.  And I don't smoke, so insert some other vice there- drinking coffee, maybe.  Instead, I think it's kind of relieving.  We shouldn't always be so worried about what the point is all the time, like who we're supposed to be, or who we're going to end up with, or where we're going to live, but maybe it's more important to just sit back and enjoy the things we can while we're still alive.

For instance, I also happen to love the sky before it rains.  I also love the windows open on a summer's night.  I love my dog, especially when she's sleeping at my feet, like right now.  I love reading books- like actual books, just holding them in my hands or even just looking at them all in the bookstore.  Hopefully iPads and Nooks don't totally destroy this one for me.  What do you love?

 Stormy skies (and the tobacco fields)

 The city lights

 Little kids

 Puppies (even when they're not really puppies)

My brother reading to his daughter (she's 4 now)

Sunflowers

Sunsets

Let's try this again...

So, it has occurred to me that lately I am in an excellent place to start doing this again.  I started  and stumbled along for a little while, and then got to a pretty bad place in my personal life, and to not talk about it would have been impossible, and to talk about it would have been just pretty much the worst idea ever.  So I come here now from a good place, and a place where perhaps I can actually talk about some things that may be interesting, maybe even useful to someone other than myself.  Really, I just want to write again because I no longer have my college newspaper as a venue.

 I have found a semi-teaching job at a good public high school in the area, but I sometimes work some pretty thankless 13-hour days.  I like my job because I get to work with the same students every day (different from substitute teaching), and because these are students who really need the help.  The only problem is that usually they don't want any help and they will do anything sometimes to avoid me. I feel like sheepdog trying to heard them from their study halls and the library to the classroom to get them to do any work.  The students are mostly 9th and 10th graders who have very little grasp of reality, and are failing many of their classes, if not all of them.  I think there are moments of clarity though when I get through to them, and they are mostly good kids.  I would be lying if I said I wasn't dying for spring break.

Hopefully these will get better... I'm just getting my footing again...

When I wrote this earlier, I was watching my nephew, who is so grown up now, play quietly while his younger sister was napping and his twin was out at a friends.  It's funny how they can be terrors one minute and little angels the next.  But I love them always.  It is their 6th birthday on Monday.