You can settle for less in ordinary life...

This week started with a shazam of sorts.

Monday morning, I had my first "observation" for my education class.  I need 15 hours of this observation for the semester, where I go to a local high school, sit in on my assigned class, and apply the theory I've learned thus far to the students and teachers I see in this setting.

This observation was scheduled for 7:50 to 10:00.  AM.  Yes.  It was ugly and disgusting, and I was dreading it.  Sure, I looked forward to the experience, the opportunity to finally get into a classroom, but waking up that early?  Yeah, no good.

The service-learning department set us up with willing local teachers based mostly on our schedules, though some consideration was taken for grade and subject preferences.  I asked for junior high, because I've been considering that as an option, so I'd like to get some experience with it.  That didn't work out, though, so I was placed in an AP English class at a public high school downtown.

I observed two classes because the girl who carpooled with me was going to observe the second class, so I just stuck around and added to my notes.  I can't describe how...useless I felt.  Not just because, for the first time in my life, I was in a classroom where I had no specific role in what was going on, but because those classes were completely beyond my realm of understanding.

It made me realize, I think for the first time, the breadth of what I'm trying to accomplish by becoming a teacher.  I'm going to be taking children I do not know and possibly will never understand or be able to relate to, and trying to teach them things that may or may not mean anything to them, and I'll have to work around and through all the darknesses in my own soul, as well as theirs, and everyone in my classroom is going to be vulnerable, whether they know it or not.

This all felt a lot more radical and shattering on Monday.  That that day was nearly 22 hours long didn't help my mental state by the end of it all.

I've always known I've been pretty sheltered all my life, either by my own volition, or through the insulation of my high school, my circle of friends, my hometown, etc.  But it hasn't before occurred to me on such a frightening scale that that shelter is going to severely hinder my ability to be more than just an instructor to the students I teach.

...

I still have three years to work through all this, though, so I'm not going to give up hope entirely.  But suddenly, teaching seems more like a challenge than a calling.

I had more to say, but I've spent too much time updating this thing.  I have homework to do and a nap to take.

<3 spadeALLcross

My life is a canopy over my head...

Wow.  It's ridiculous how much my life is running away with me right now.  As happy as I am, and as much as I feel like I'm generally doing a healthy combination of the things I love to do and the things I need to do, at the end of every week so far this semester, I've looked back and thought, "Crap!  Look at all the stuff I forgot!"  We're only three weeks in, and I'm already feeling like I need a few days off just to catch up on everything I feel like I'm missing.

But it's pretty exciting, actually, having a full life again.  The past two years, I've had school work and a generic social life to occupy my time.  With all the free time I had...things could get pretty boring pretty fast.  Now, my days are more whirlwind, and there have been nights where I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow, but this is a good change of pace for me.  I have stuff to do now, and more than just two friends.  I'm a little worried about my school work, but I trust myself to get it done.

Anyway.  That's the status of my psyche right now.  I'm about to conk out and take a nap, but before I do, I'll [finally] post some pictures of my abode.  I only have my room fully photographed thus far, because I kind of forgot that people would care about the rest of the house if they haven't seen it.  As far as I'm concerned, my bedroom is the coolest place ever...and the rest of the house is kinda great too.

This is my desk and work area.  It looks cluttered, but it's not really.  I just haven't taken the Jarritos bottles out to the recycling yet.  Settle down; we just got our recycling container yesterday, so I'm not being negligent.  

This is above my desk.  The dry-erase calendar is for deadlines and television shows.  Batman and Robin are for comic relief.

This is my sleeping area.  My lunchbox is also here...I somehow always forget to take the icepacks out of that.  Oh, and there's the open window through which the neighbors' dogs stare at me.  Kind of creepy.

D'aww, Eeyore's adorable.

And here's my favorite part.  My reading nook.  It's actually become more of a nap nook recently, but that's certainly not a bad thing.

And here's my other favorite part.  My adorable closet.

So that's my room.  Right now, it's actually quite messy because I didn't have time yesterday between class and work and homework and work to put things away properly, and because the sudden storm that hit a couple nights ago did me the honor of wetting my bed.  I will fix it either presently or tomorrow.

Okay.

Naptime.

<3 spadeALLcross

Burning slowly, my one and only.

Okay, so someone told me that I haven't posted in "four years." This, I realize, is a hyperbole, but nonetheless, I feel it is necessary to inform my readers that the time between posts is officially lengthening. I can no longer realistically post every day. I will try to post a couple times a week, though, or at least as interesting things occur. I still need to post pictures of my room. This will happen sometime this week. Maybe even Tuesday or Wednesday. Not today or tomorrow, though; far too busy.

But to quickly summarize everything that's happened since "Tuesday," the last time I posted:

I love my new janitorial job, though the timing is kind of sucky. Also, they've evidently changed things up at my other on-campus job, tour guiding, so I have to relearn some things. Had to think on my feet for a tour on Thursday, and will have to do so again for one I have tomorrow.

Classes are really great. I actually have stuff that's not English for this semester, and I'm really looking forward to being able to break up my schedule like that. My Econ prof is great. Maybe not a good Bruce replacement, but he's really funny and young and I understand him when he talks, which is a plus. Granted, all the stuff we're doing right now is review, so it's not really hard to understand yet anyway. My bio prof is...kind of a stereotypically old prof. He has energy for his subject, but his attempts at focusing that energy in a hip and fresh way fail 9 times out of 10. I'm actually pretty excited about my Education class; this prof seems a lot better than my last one.

Life is pretty hectic during the week, but that has skyrocketed my productivity levels outside of class time, which is a huge plus. I'm not really having a problem with sleep yet, which is also a plus.

But I do need to get to bed now. So night night.

<3 spadeALLcross

All I know is my steak tastes better when I take my steak-tastes-better pill

Mary: So, Jared, how are the Timmer apartments?

Jared: Oh, they're great. Well, crappy in comparison to KHvR, but still pretty good. And I have an awesome roommate, so I'm enjoying myself.

Mary: Oh yeah? I remember you were worried last year about your roommate...

Jared: Oh, well, I got a different one actually.

Mary: Yeah? Why?

Jared: Well, he's still in jail, so he couldn't come.

Ahh, the first day of school. Quite enjoyable, actually. Things went generally well. I enjoyed my classes ("Intro to Creative Writing" and "Shakespeare"), and though they will certainly prove challenging, I look forward to their continuation throughout the semester. I got a ton of odd-jobs done that I needed to get done, and even made good headway on my homework.

In my creative writing class, the professors made some off-hand comment about workshop groups, and it made me realize that, in my brief history as a serious fiction (and ill-fated poetry) writer, writing groups have been the one thing that ensure that I write. Not only does the pressure of creating work for others to read spur me into writing just anything as long as it's something, but the pleasure of getting feedback from those others often spurs me to take new risks and really enjoy my writing in a way writing on my own never does. This revelation is...well, huge. It's why NaNoWriMo, though grueling, is so much fun for me. It's why my Creative writing class last semester (ironically a higher-level course than the creative writing class I'm taking this semester) was by far my best experience as a writer ever.

In summary: I need to find a [semi]-permanent home in a writing group.

Work started tonight, too. It was actually very fun. Evidently, I was put in charge of all the gym floors and the stairs in the Hoogenboom Health and Rec center. I dust-mopped all the gym floors, and then swept and mopped the stairs. I worked with a freshman media-productions major named Taylor and listened to a post-modernist philosophy lecture on my iPod.

Now to bed!

Well, first a word from our poor, neglected sponsors.

<3 spadeALLcross

P.S. I actually wrote most of this either before the end of the day, or during the day/night of the eighth. Sorry if my insincerity and outright lies bother you.

This day we fight!

Good day, all things considered. Woke up, did some stuff around the house [quietly, as the roomies were a-sleepin'] and then went and hung out on the floor for a bit. That was really fun. I got to see everyone again, and I even met some of the freshman. Sometimes I wish I still lived there. But then I come home to my house, and I remember that I love it here too.

Then Ben and I went to Meijer. (Who is surprised?) We tried out the "new" Meijer on Kalamazoo, which is closest to our houses, but also the most jankity. It now has everything we'd want to buy, but it's all very hard to find. Generally pretty good, though. It doesn't have a full parking lot yet, which could cause problems in the future.

Then Ben and I went back to his house, watched some NCIS with Jonathan, watched some TNG by ourselves, and then went out separate ways for dinner. I tried to unpack some stuff, but was so distracted I didn't get much of anything done before Ben V came over and he and Amy and I started hanging out. Then Carley and Christie came home from their respective haunts, and then Ben N came over. We played Catchphrase.

Oh. My. Word.

That was the most hilarious game of catch phrase ever. Possibly the brightest highlight: Ben N, a man who does not swear or use dirty words, possibly more because of a physical handicap than a moral compunction, frustratingly yelling the sentence, "THE VERB FOR BEING PUSHED OUT OF A VAGINA!"

I was not on his team, which is good, because I was laughing too hard to be of any use anyway. Also, Carley said, "It's a big store, kind of like Marget!" The answer was Target, she was trying to say Meijer as a clue.

Then we played question/answer telephone, which was also very funny.

Then everyone went home, I did some last-minute stuff before classes tomorrow, and then I went to bed.

Then, at 4:00 am, a car alarm went off and didn't stop going off. It woke me up, and now I am blogging about it.

Summer is officially over.

Goodnight.

<3 spadeALLcross

We gotta stop meeting like this, hun.

Another crazy dream, not as terrible as the last, but still kind of hard to stomach in places. Americans had been enslaved, I think by some European nations, and we had pretty much given up hope of ever being rescued, since we'd never been very nice to anyone but the Europeans, I guess. Anyway, there was a class system among the slaves, and one guy in his twenties or thirties had a lot of "money" that he had used to build himself a really nice hut that stayed out of the heat, and a little corral for his car. He had also used it to buy one of the slaves; I think it was Megan Dincher. He had her stay in his hut all day while everyone was working, because he was afraid of this other slave who was in love with her and might have tried to steal her.

Meanwhile, Ben Verhulst, Ben Niewenhuis, Carley, and I watched all of our friends die off one by one [in a weird movie-like montage] from a plague that the slaves were all prone to for some reason. We carried of J$ and Jasmine, Breems and Luke, some of my more remote high school friends, etc. And then the four of us were all relocated and we thought we'd never see each other again.

I got to hang out with all the old people and the little tykes, which was creepy, because this wrinkly old woman [whom I shared a sleeping bag with because the nights got really cold] was evidently a very...excited lesbian. Then, one day, while working, I came across Megan Dincher's prison hut, and saw that there was a guy trying to break into it. I went to go stop him, and found Ben, Ben, and Carley, as well as some more of my remote high school friends had already tried to stop him.

Eventually, we were all crammed into this little hut, and I some how figured out that it was this guy who was in love with Megan (though she did not reciprocate) who had bought her prison hut and everything, by giving Megan's owner all the money he needed.

We decided that instead of turning the one guy in, we'd all try to escape. Somehow we made it to South America in a matter of a couple hours of a train ride. But there was still slavery down there; there were training camps for children who would one day be old enough to be slaves. We got stuck in one of those; they were going to hold us there until one of the camp overseers could come and pick us up and take us back to the states. So we tunneled our way out of there, and discovered all these wonderful places, including a place where Chilean children chase penguins into ice caves. We were all really scared that someone would find us, so we were soaking up as much of the landscape as we could, since it was much more temperate in Chile than it was in America, where it had gotten unbearably hot.

Then my phone went off and I decided it was not a good idea to try to go back to sleep in a dystopian society.

Other than that, today went pretty well. I washed off my new bookcase, packed up my car, finger painted with Annabelle, showered, watched some Royal Pains with Dennis and my mom, watched the beginning of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, ate dinner, then left Illinois. I listened to the tail end of The Prisoner of Azkaban and then switched to music for the last 45 minutes of the trip. Now I'm back in my Michigan room that smells like Thai Dragon Fruit or something like that. And I'm not dying of heat exhaustion. Life is good.

Goodnight, World.

<3 spadeALLcross

Peter swam across the water, found it on a beach.

Woke up late today, no weird dreams that I recall, worked off and on all day on some stuff for D&D, photoshopped [terribly] a picture for my mom, and visited with the family as they came and went. Patrick was the best man in a wedding today, and he needed our help to get into his three piece suit (complete with cufflinks, suspenders, and those stupid little fancy buttons), so I helped him with that. Then, at nine, we all went to a restaurant/bar in downtown Palatine for Dennis' show. About halfway through, most of the place cleared out, and these three women walked in. They were probably already inebriated from a previous excursion, or else they are just very... exuberant people in general. They put on more of a show than Dennis did. And I got to see Andi Kauth again; haven't seen/heard from her in probably years. It made me miss the old poetry slams, and Writer's Week. I feel like my later high school years were when I had the most energy for life, and writing, and everything. I've mellowed so much in the past three years...it changes day to day whether I like that or not.

Tomorrow is more family time, putting air in my tires, cleaning off a bookcase for me to bring to school, and then going back to Michigan.

<3 spadeALLcross

I need some sleep, I can't go on like this...

I've been having troubles staying asleep past five or six hours for the past few weeks, and the past couple of days it's been really catching up to me; I've been falling asleep at friends' houses, while using my computer, and even while eating. It hasn't been a whole lot of fun, so I decided when I got home last night, that I would try to catch up on all that "lost" (I went through most of the past school years on five to six hours of sleep a night without any problems, so I don't know why I can't now) sleep. I went to bed at 10:00ish and promised myself not to get out of bed until at least 9:00.

That failed. I woke up at 1:00 just long enough to look at the clock and roll my eyes. Then I woke up again at 5:30. If I had gotten up then, I would have gotten almost exactly 7 hours of sleep, and my body definitely wanted to get up then. My mind started churning about stuff I had to do today, expecting me to get up and start doing it. But I refused, and eventually, though it took a while, I got back to sleep.

Mistake. I had the worst dream of my entire life between 5:30 and 7:30 this morning.

In the dream, my mom and I went to a movie together. My mom had suggested we see it because she'd heard it was revolutionary film with a lot of really poignant social commentary, etc etc. (In real life, my mom would not recommend that kind of movie: if a movie is depressing, she doesn't want to see it. More and more, I'm finding that that is my view too. Revolutionize me with real life, don't make my escapism tragic) Anyway, so we went. But while we were watching the movie, we were in the movie. It was weird, and no one questioned it; dreams are like that.

In the movie, the US was going to war with Egypt for what ever reason, and the president had decided to fire a nuke at them. So, we fired one, and then everyone started preparations for someone to fire one back at us. The president went into his bunker and a bunch of people kind of stowed away with him (not the Vice President, oddly. He decided to stay above ground). My mom and I got into the bunker, somehow, and the First Lady showed us around, since she had been in charge of the décor.

For what ever reason, there were windows facing DC (which suddenly had rolling hills of open fields and camels...?) and holes in the ground to, as the First Lady said, "Let the smell out," whatever that meant. We were all milling about in the giant bunker, just kind of chilling. This part was funny; it felt like Dr. Strangelove a little bit; when dealing with the end of the world, all these people could do was fuss about the stylish curtains in the fallout shelters. While dreaming, I was thinking, yeah, this is quite the social commentary. Good movie, I thought. People should see how ignorant we all look.

Then the first bomb hit. We watched it out the window. For a dream full of surrealism and an American President of a different color, it got everything about nuclear warfare spot on. At least, the bomb that exploded maybe three miles away from the windows in our bunker acted exactly like the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs did, according to all the reports I've read. We watched from safety as the camels and random people who didn't have an in with the President were instantly incinerated, and the shockwaves tore at the landscape. Then the ground beneath us started to heat up, and (this part I'm not sure is realistic) the molten crust of the earth below the bunker started to boil and pop into the holes in the floor that the First Lady had been so proud of. There was a little boy there, I'm not sure who he was, but I grabbed him and he and I lay on the floor, my back to the lava pits that we were all too close to, me screaming in pain and promising him I would protect him. My mom got too close to one as it bubbled and popped and the skin on her arms...well it was gross. Then Ben's roommate, Luke Breems jumped into one of the holes. I'm...not sure why. Breems is probably one of the most sane people in that house he lives in...but it was a dream after all.

It was very gruesome, very vivid, and for a while, I forgot it was a movie. The President was scheming with his staffers on some way to escape the lava, and they recommended he lock himself away in the sub-bunker (that looked suspiciously like the fallout shelter from Blast From the Past) and he agreed to do so. Meanwhile, all the people who's started to burn alive were turning rapid, including the little boy in my arms, the First Lady, Breems, and my mother. I started yelling at my mom that I'd had enough, that I wanted to leave the theater, that I didn't care how revolutionary the rest of the movie was, I didn't want to see it or live through it. her eyes went wild and she bared her teeth at me and I started hitting her with pillows and trying to escape.

When I woke up, I started crying immediately and groggily made my way downstairs to my mom on the couch and started the slow process of forgetting the dream. But it's still as vivid to me now as it was when I was in it.

...

Aaaanyway...

After that whole fiasco, and while I battled the inevitable exhaustion that comes from waking up mid-REM-cycle, today was a full, fun day. I went out shopping with my mom, my aunt, and my niece: three generations of Rittenhouse women. We went to Meijer (yup...that's the fourth time this week) and then to the mall to visit the Apple store, f.y.e., Sam Goodie (or whatever...I wasn't there for that), and to let Annabelle play in their little play area.

Then we went home, put Annabelle down for a nap, and began watching the movie, Where the Heart Is, with Natalie Portman, among others. We didn't finish before my mom had to go to a party of a friend of hers who moved to Texas a while back, but is in town for a little while.

While she was gone, my aunt and I went to Barnes&Noble's, where I had an old gift card, and I bought far too many books...but they were all worth it. ... Hopefully. I really hate spending money, especially on books. It's all very counter intuitive, I know, because I love having books, and I love earning money so I can spend it. I struggle with the whole have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too thing. But boy, being around all those books, and holding them, carrying them around the store with me, smelling them, talking to them and about them to myself...it just put me in the best mood. And it smelled like fall outside; I love fall. I'm excited for when it decides to come and stay.

Then she and I went to Starbuck's, checked the air in my tires to discover that I may need to fill one of them up tomorrow, and came home. I played with Annabelle a bit, then put her down to bed, and my mom eventually got home in time for us to finish watching the movie. Very good movie; definitely recommend it. It's a chick-flick, but by no means a shallow, two-bit one.

Now I'm going to bed, with a full mind and sagging eyelids.

<3 spadeALLcross

omgairconditioningbbq!!!1!!1!

Woke up, did some banking stuff, took a shower, yadda yadda, went to Mitchell's and played Mario Kart with Mitchell and Luke, then took Luke back to Calvin on my way out of town. I decided to wait on getting my paperwork done until I'm back on campus Tuesday, because I wanted to get on the road in time to avoid all possible rush hours.

Was in a car for three + hours. Listened to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Got home. Am tired. Going to bed soon.

<3 spadeALLcross

If I close my eyes tonight...

I've been in a weird funk all day. This morning was great, when I woke up and was all well-rested and stuff, and it was even raining a little so the humidity wasn't as bad, and I even got to use my blanket for the first time since moving in. But then it went steadily downhill all day. My guess is that I was just lonely for most of the day, watching Psych by myself on usanetwork.com and waiting for the UPS guy/Ben to come.

Ben came first, and when he did, I got really tired all of a sudden. And then the UPS guy came, and I was hyper. Then we went to see Inception, but ended up going to a later show than we had anticipated, so we went to Meijer first (yes, I've been there every day this week except for Sunday...) to get some screws for Ben's foosball table. Then we saw the movie, and it was great. Again. Then I went home, ate some dinner, tried to watch The Guild, failed, and went over to Ben's, and ended up just watching Psych on TV. Only this time, Nelson was there, so it wasn't all bad. And then I fell asleep. Ben woke me up in time for the Colbert Report, but I fell asleep during that too.

Funk. Gah. Obnoxious. I really wanted and tried to be awake tonight. Failed.

Anyway. Tomorrow, I'm going to Calvin to pick up an employment slip, playing some Mario Kart with some friends, and then going home for the weekend. Then classes start on Tuesday.

Summer is officially over.

<3 spadeALLcross

The seasons don't fear the Reaper. Why this comes as a surprise to anyone is a mystery.

Went to Calvin again to pick up my textbooks, then picked up Carley and we went to Meijer again to pick up the stuff I forgot yesterday as well as her prescription. Then we went back home and ate lunch and I watched Psych on usanetwork.com or whatever site that is. Then I went to Ben's, played sporcle quizzes (I fell asleep while he got in the 49% percentile on the Countries of the World quiz...) then went home, showered, and went to a "job interview." The guy asked me if I'd ever cleaned anything professionally, and I told him that I had to clean the restaurant every day when I worked at Subway, and he hired me and I start Tuesday at the late shift cleaning the Field house. That will be...fun...

Then came home, ate dinner, watched some more Psych, then the landlord came over (unannounced...) to fix our stove, which is exciting because I like making eggs for breakfast in the morning. Then I went over to the Bens' again and played Rockband with Ben and his roommate whom we call J-Money, or J$. I sang a bunch of songs I didn't know, and am now hoarse. But it was fun.

We played "Don't Fear the Reaper" which made me think of The Ripper again. Hilarious, again, I just have to say it.

Now, off to bed.

<3 spadeALLcross