Disappearance Factor

It's difficult for me not to disappear when I'm at the Family Estate. I quickly get lulled into this sense of having "lots of time" to do things, to the point that I only actually do things when I can convince myself that I only have a few hours. I've had some more adventures.. I want to do an entry on my various travels within the state of Georgia, for one. I'll try to get to this before I head down to Valdosta, but can make no promises, as my "lots of time" feeling has also affected how much or how little I've really prepared my hall decorations and packing.

Speaking of GHP-- there's a pretty strict policy regarding blogs and internet content dealing with the program. For this reason, rather than stop writing, my usual MO is to just take my blogging underground. I'll probably continue to use this blog, but restrict readership. This means you'll have to submit a request for me to allow you to continue reading, at least for the duration of the summer. No worries! I just basically can't have it out there in the public eye where someone will see my candid report of my personal shenanegans and call the governor on me. Because, as we know, I'm pretty irresponsible. (/sarcasm)

I'm also really behind in my google reader and other things at which I suppose I'll play catch-up on my first floor duty, or something.

I'll have six days between the end of GHP and taking off for Japan. I envision those days as super hectic, a near-week in which I will have NO TIME for ANYTHING.. so I'm preparing like that, althuogh I will probably have to have or make time for something.

I kind of suck at packing..

Visibles Later

It was great living in an apartment instead of a dorm room, so you could have more space, and move from place to place and still be home.

So.. now you have crap strewn across several rooms, instead of contained to just one.

Packing is.. going. I got frustrated and starting taking down the posters somewhat prematurely, if you're going by tradition. I think it felt like I wasn't making progress at all since it wasn't visible. Weird.

Just found a home for my bed in a very nearby house of a friend.. she has an empty room she would love to transform into a guest room. I would love to put off deciding what to do with my bed for a full year. Viola. If I move back to Kansas, I can totally just get it back from her.

Yeah, I said if I move back to Kansas. That is still up in the air, and not something I can even begin to think about seriously right now. I don't like to admit to being stressed out, but I can't ignore the fact that I locked my keys in the car twice yesterday and have been crying a lot, and randomly. I like to know that I can come back... as I wrote in my little freestyle ditty on pale orange paper: It's good to know there's room in Kansas for me; space in the wheat state where I can be free. But all I can handle right now are possibilities, not decisions. There's enough motion for me for now.

I react in ways that make my roommate say I show "no integrity." Maybe he's right.. I feel a little scattered; to be integera is to be whole, one unit. But if he means my actions and decisions and words and admonitions don't mesh into one another.. then he doesn't know me quite as well as I might have thought. When the ends of my rope are frayed, I actually do have a tendency to act out a little... always responsibly, as is my way. Those surprising words the other night were mine. "I can make all the terrible decisions I want. I'm leaving." I begin to feel pressed for time, and take action to do and say all the things I might not have the chance to do or say soon. I begin to feel like in a few weeks, none of it will matter anyway, because I'll be far away. I do a few things that seem on the surface uncharacteristic of me. But that's how I cope with the fact that it's hard to leave.

It's all good stuff I'm headed for, I know. I don't want to seem ungrateful, which is part of my hesitance to even admit to being upset. I'm going to see my family soon. On the way there, some really good friends. And then, GHP. And then? Japan! It's all good, all of it exciting and amazing. But the impending adventures still hang just above me, and that little part of my heart that gets mutinous every time I wrench it out of its new home is complaining again. How many times will you do this to me? I may be used to packing and moving. I'm also tired of it. Not enough, just yet, to stop it. But I can feel that mutinous part moving within me, slow and inexorable like the tide.

Apocalypse

Someone just sent this lovely article to my summer-job listserv. Mosquitoes, loathed by me anyway, are overrunning the town where I'll be spending six weeks this hot-season. Time to buy that serious bug spray, the kind you can't use on babies or the elderly.

But it's alright.. because between this, other strange events, and OMG-Swine-Flu, I think the world is on schedule to end in 2012 like it's supposed to. If I survive, Georgia will be the place to be (I'm going to visit those standing stones while I'm in GA in a couple weeks).

I'm feeling that frazzled semi-world's-end feeling I get when I have to leave any place for some great length of time. Yes I want to go to Georgia. Yes I want to go to Japan. Why do I have to leave Kansas to do so?

Tonight is my last night of teaching GRE prep downtown. After that, I'm officially obligation-free. I'd pushed my official departure date to next week, because I thought it would "make more sense" to drive to Vandy's graduation from here than to drive to Belmont's from there. If you do the math, it actually makes the opposite of sense. I am starting to feel like I'm cheating myself of my last weekend in Kansas; most of the people I want to see will still be there next weekend when I am also in Nashville for Belmont's graduation/on my way to Georgia. I am not sure I'd even go, this weekend, if it weren't for my roommate who's kind of counting on it. I owe him more than that.

So, it's the end of this world. And yeah, yeah, whatever.. the beginning of the next. But I was never good at leaving any place, even for someplace better.

Random Gifts

So I began the last entry by introducing the idea that I was organizing things. I said that one is music.

It is so.

I am preparing to convert myself to iTunes for a couple of reasons. One is that I am probably going to be the DJ at GHP again this year. My co-DJ last year was in charge of technology, partly because my computer has very little music (and even less LEGIT music) and partly because he rules. The Man has decreed that he will not be returning (I grow older and I question this Man, but I find myself at His mercy and will not yet march into His Office with rhetorical guns blazing until I have disarmed him against myself and my loved ones -- that is to say, I want my job back for one more year, and still want my friend and roommate to have a shot at coming with me!) this year. This is a bummer.

The other reason is I now have an iPod. You well know I would probably never buy one, but also would not be ungrateful to be given one as a gift. So, the Universe gave me one in the fall.

I'm really not kidding. I was taking one of my signature walks and I noticed this thing lying on the sidewalk. I put up signs so its owner might reclaim it. But honestly, it's the oldest form of the cheapest iPod ever made, the Shuffle. New Shuffles are the size of a postage stamp and come in sweet colors. What I have procured looks more like this:

Earphones and all.

But yes, it was free, and yes I am partial to throwing a bunch of music into a bin and letting technology randomize it for me. I thought I lost this little thing in October, and was at peace with that (easy come, easy go). But I found it a few months later under the seat of my car. I took it jogging with me a few weeks ago and kind of liked having it. It certainly saves the trouble of skipping CDs and the like, and is much more compact; mine has a low storage amount (512 MB), compared to later versions, but is still able to hold way more music than any CD.

I am a huge fan of the rough-and-tumble aspect of my fine little iPod. Cast down onto the pavement, having suffered who knows what kind of weather, it could not reasonably have been expected to work anymore. But work it did, and so I am glad of it.

(I am a bit smug about my collection of found and won items, including my grant-laptop, my found-iPod, and my won-Xbox360; this also extends to our furniture, discussed in a previous entry.)

Somewhere Under the Rainbow

I realized sometime on Friday, as my actual position became more clear to me: I work for the man.

And not the good kind, not the life-affirming man. I work for the man I've never understood nor liked much.

Here's how this happened:

The school district in which I now make my meager living has to maintain a bunch of stuff in order to be accredited. This includes having a certain number of seniors making a certain level of scores on the ACT. Our current goal is getting as many people as possible to score over a 21.

Now I don't think I have to tell you how I feel about standardized tests; they are great for college, as long as they are part of an overall picture, but testing the hell out of our kids isn't going to make them smarter, or even see how much they know. It's going to see how well they take standardized tests. Once again, a fine skill for measuring college aptitude (I.. guess?) but not, I think, for judging a school's merits.

So what's happening is, this district needs to pull it up, so they've called in the experts. Kaplan really does have some sweet techniques that will make test-taking a lot easier for these students. But, they are seniors. And it's March. It's too late to be applying to school, so unless they are taking the year off, they have already either gotten into the school they want to go to, or they have decided not to go-- a higher score can help them personally because they can get more money from some schools, but mostly this is something that will help the school record and boost toward accreditation. They are now being pulled out of this or that class every couple of days so I can teach them how to better take the test.

And sure, they'll be kicking the crap out of the test, if they pay attention and put in a little effort. But they're missing real class for this, because somewhere high up there was a mandate that these kids within a certain scoring range go through a certain number of tutoring hours and retake the test. I feel bad for them, even as I am trying to motivate them to listen to me and do what I say.

I want to believe that I am helping someone by giving them the tools to improve their lives. I want schools to be rich and full of resources, and clamoring with kids who want to make the most of all of it.

It's about time for me to go back to Fantasy Land (GHP), eh?

Listserv Love

Shortly before going to Nashville, I received what I was calling "a booster shot of happy." This was the activation of the new GHP listserv. I had begun to get e-mail introductions from staff members, new and old.

In order to apply to the KU School of Education, I had to meet certain requirements.. one being the public speaking class or equivalent. I hadn't taken one in college, and my drama classes from high school also didn't count. So I took an exemption test instead, which required me to write and give two speeches, one informative, and one persuasive. For my informative topic I did Cephalus and Procris in Ovid's Metamorphoses (I know, can you get more obscure? But this was a big part of my senior thesis so I had plenty to say), basically about how Cephalus spins his story to make himself look good (as then, so now). And for my persuasive, I presented why programs like GHP are important and should be funded. I got in contact with the academic director of the program (Dale Lyles), and did some research on other states' programs with the same aims.

Basically it got me all excited for the summer. GHP is a six-week program for gifted students that covers all kinds of topics. I went for Latin in 2003, but subjects range through the performing arts, visual arts, humanities, and sciences. It's a beautiful mixing bowl of the best and the brightest, given opportunities to grow and learn and get to know one another. I've been working for the program since 2006, and this summer (2009) will most likely be my last, at least in the capacity of Residential Assistant. I might return as a teacher someday.

The point of the program is to encourage our high-potential kids to keep at it, to reach for their potentials, for the greater good of themselves, and those around them. The timing of the renewed listserv emails appearing in my mailbox could not have been better. I was in a bit of a slump, but had just recently delivered an impassioned speech on the importance of the program and its ideals.

Over the next several days and later weeks, I was cheered to see that some of my favorite people are returning, even though some are conspicuous by their absences. One of the favorites got married; someone else has an important job they can't give up. A few were dismissed and while I disagree with some of those decisions (some truly good RAs were let go, this year), it doesn't change the fact that I think the program is still a great thing, an important thing, and a thing I'm glad I get to take part in one more year.

I'm excited to see my old friends and meet the new people!

Em Not in KS, Part I

My Nashville weekend was a whirlwind, but not a blur. I must have run the entire spectrum of emotions within Friday alone (but then again, if you are awake at 3:30 am and don't go to bed until midnight, you have a lot of time in which to do this). Happily, this began with the stressful negative stuff that comes from being tired and traveling, and it ended with the elation that is the natural result of being done with something.

True to form, I didn't give my interview much thought until about two hours before, so caught up was I in everything else. This includes Thursday evening, when I was supposed to fly to Nashville, but volunteered to take the next available flight when money was thrown at me in encouragement. My roommate was scheduled for the 6:30 flight anyway: why shouldn't I go?

This left me at the KC airport around dinnertime, with no one on the way to pick me up for hours. In a last-ditch effort for a companion with whom to kill time, I called Barbie.

Barbie has been the Dorm Director at my summer job as long as I have worked there. She recently fell in love with D$'s best friend and moved to Kansas City, though I have not seen all that much of her in the month or so she's been living in the midwest. [Don't worry, I'll be saying more about my summer job, D$, and all the rest as time goes on.. if you have specific questions, feel free to leave them, though!]

In the end, she and her boyfriend came to get me. We all went out to dinner, and then they drove me back to the butterfly apartment. I now have a good handful of Southwest credit and am free to plan spring break.

My roommate was insisting on leaving at 4:15 the next morning, so I dutifully set my alarm for 3:44 and woke up at 3:30. The flight was uneventful, thankfully, and when we arrived, John was there to pick me up. I was cranky and strange, though a bit better once I'd had breakfast (a sweet 101-year-old diner in Nashville called ...

Alright. I have to take a tangent. I just forgot the name of the restaurant, so I began to enlist Google to help me figure it out. I started fooling around with Google Maps, and the next thing I knew, I was clicking forward from the Google mapped location of Johnny's apartment, walking along the Nashville streets like it was a Myst game. In this way I "walked" right up to the restaurant so I could read the front of the building. It is called Varallo's.

Technology these days... wow.

Anyway, I was even better after I got to nap from about 10:30 to noon. This is when I promptly began to worry about my interview, and feel unprepared. Upon meeting up with my friend Dean, I made him practice interview me, rather than have a really decent conversation. I fretted and asked for tips and read articles about the current political and economic state of Japan.

But, as it was wont to do, the interview was pretty smooth. While I never quite feel satisfied with these things, I also know that I gave a pretty good interview, and that the judgments made on me in those 20 minutes of reckoning were probably positive ones. As a result, the next blog I start up might be "MiriNihonDe" or something like that.

And, just like that, I could begin to really enjoy my Nashville afternoon.