I Still Don't Understand Why People Like Spaghetti...

My students have this theory that I hate everything.  While that's not true, I do tend to dislike things generally considered staples in American society- AKA, hamburgers, Forrest Gump, all levels of socializing past writing this blog with the purpose of updating you people without ACTUALLY having to speak to anyone face-to-face.  KIDDING.  That was actually a very un-funny joke.  I ACTUALLY write this blog to entertain myself and not go insane while holding a job that, by definition, you must be some level of crazy to take on.  Which is not the point.  The point is that I don't hate everything, and the amount of times I have to refute that claim has driven me to ask... What do I like?  What am I obsessed with?

The obvious answers here are- puppies, yarn, Leonardo DiCaprio movies (seriously, guys, how can you not?), music, and possibly sports... but I like to pretend that's not an obvious answer so as to seem less manly.

What are my less obvious obsessions, though?  Well.  I'm glad you asked.  I've been waiting for someone to come along and ask, "hey, what are some things that you suddenly realize randomly throughout the day that you have a creepy appreciation for?" and then I have planned on saying "Let me tell you."

Guys, I love novelty glasses.  And mugs.  Really anything I can drink my coffee or delicious water out of.  I have a very strange collection.  I honestly cannot pass the mug section of any store.  I almost bought a moose mug the other day.  IT WAS HAND-GLAZED.  The only thing that held me back from buying it was the fact that it would actually be the SECOND moose mug in my posession.  This thought did not stop me from buying the ceramic mug with a travel lid that had hippie art on it.  What can I say.  I'm a sucker for classy (to be interpreted here as "entertaining") mugs.

I also love five dollar movies.  They're a weakness.  If ever you want me to be poor, which I would prefer you didn't, take me to Walmart's entertainment section.  I will buy the WORST movies if they only cost five dolla.  Example- less than two weeks ago I sent a picture to my best friend with the caption "This is happening."  That picture was of four Mary-Kate and Ashley movies for seven dollars.  This isn't a five dollar movie, but, mathematically, it is less than five dollars a movie.  I rest my case.

I used to have an obsession with Converse.  In all honestly, I still have that obsession, it is just far less practical to keep up with now that I'm an adult than it was was I was in high school.

I am oddly obsessed with paisley patterns.  I have a penchant for buying candles.  I own literally shoe boxes FULL of candles.  My dad does not allow me to burn candles in the home.  Add that to the list of reasons I need to move out.  Also on the list are sleeping in/watching Netflix without being judged all day on a Saturday.  Also I really like living in a weird nest of clothing on my floor.  Do I really NEED my floor space to be clear?  Really?  To survive?  No.  That's all I'm trying to do here- survive.

Student Section- "Ms. Glass, you'd be a really great elf for our tribe."

Ummmmthanks?

"Do You Have Any Teaching Stories?"

Yes.  So.  So many.

(Disclaimer: It has been one of the longest weeks of my life with a lot of built in time for driving and being awake late into the night.  This blog is all over the place, probably doesn't use the best wording, and is very opinionated/soul-search-y/Jesus-y.)

A gentleman who I go to church with, and who has really been a support in my life from the time I was very young, asked me this question the other day.  I started answering with an "Ummmmmm."  The men in the group thought it was because I was trying to come up with one.  After a few minutes they realized that I was trying to narrow the selection down.

The last three weeks have been a trial.  My students have been testing, and I've had yearbook issue after yearbook issue, not to mention stresses outside of school. It's been a long time since I've been this stressed.  We're talking dreaming about yearbook, waking up in cold sweats because my list of things I have to do is longer than most of the stories my students have to read in my class, and those were the days I slept.  I realized how high my stress level was and started taking a hard look at my life.

That's when I realized-- I'm at THAT stage.  I won't generally be getting into my relationship with Christ on my blog, as I generally believe the personal side of that needs to be... well, personal.  At this point in my life, however, accountability in all facets of my life is kind of a big deal.  Therefore, I'm gonna get real about Jesus in my life for a second.

I started thinking about the times in my life when I had more going on in my life than I currently do and how I was much happier in those times.  I started thinking about my next to last semester of college when my grandpa was sick, I was supposed to be starting my internship, and I was traveling to Oklahoma City every weekend instead of working and making money, which was making it difficult to be paying some of my bills for the first time-- and how I was still more at peace than I am now.  I noticed one important difference.  At the time, I was reading my Bible through.

Pause.  Rewind to the summer of 2012.  Let's take a second to get some perspective on me and my views of Super Summer.  I am anti-Super Summer.  I guess that's kind of ridiculous, considering I've never been.  I do, however, have my reasons.  Growing up as a church kid, with all the opportunities and responsibilities a church kid had, didn't quite impact my life the way it should've.  I hadn't gotten deep into my faith.  I gave Sunday School answers with the best of them, and it was rare, if ever, that I lived my salvation outside of church.  This isn't to say that I was a bad kid or made bad decisions, it's saying I made the right decisions for the wrong reasons.  Back to Super Summer.  My opinion of Super Summer comes purely from the fact that I was a student who acted how I was supposed to.  I became a (sort of) leader BECAUSE I WAS SUPPOSED TO.  That's what I see in a lot of Super Summer attendees.  Again, not all.  This is a generality.  I know some of you looooove Super Summer and had great experiences there and I'm not trying to discount them.  I'm just throwing this out there from the point of view of someone who specialized in going through the motions.

HOWEVER.

Super Summer challenged me, and I didn't even go.  One of my good friends (one of those few who truly went completely for the growth she got) came back that summer with a challenge for the whole church.  She asked us if we'd ever read The Bible.  The whole thing.  How could we believe in or defend something we HADN'T EVEN READ?  This spoke to me on an English Major level.  I wouldn't go around recommending a novel I hadn't read, so how was I supposed to recomend Christianity if I hadn't read the text God WROTE?

So I read.  And I stopped reading for a while.  And I'd read again.  And repeat. I wanted that "read it in a year" title, though.  So I got it.  I caught up and read it in a year.  That's what got me through my senior year of college when my grandpa passed, and one of my instructors made me rewrite a unit plan the week before I graduated and wasn't even in town, and I had to present research, like, in front of people, and on and on the list goes of things Jesus alone got me through.

Then, I got lazy.  The stages of getting lazy with my relationship with Jesus are as follows- Be completely devoted to the relationship and wonder why I ever thought this might be hard work. Be lazy for a short period of time.  Be conscious of it and think to yourself "It's only gonna last a few days" (and be wrong).  Be lazy for a few weeks and think "I'll get back to it soon.  Like, on the first, so it's a nice, round day for your little obsessive mind to handle" (and be wrong, again).  Be lazy for months and think "I would start it up again, but I'm so tired and I've got so much going on" (Get over yourself.  So does God.  He's GOD.)  Watch your entire life stress you out for weeks and weeks knowing exactly what would fix this (AKA your bestie, the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE).  Finally stop being an idiot and start talking to said bestie about your life probs.  Cause He cares.  And then.  Crazy thought.  You decide "Hey.  I like talking to Him so much that I might take a second and listen to what He has to say" and READ YOUR BIBLE.  Can you tell I'm a little annoyed at how many times I've seen this process go down?

I don't know why I expect my relationship with God to be flowers and rainbows and all happiness all the time.  No relationship is like that, not even our relationship with God.  This has nothing to do with God.  It's all about our selfishness and sinfulness.  I guess I expect this because people kind of avoid the conversation about how hard it can be, or, at least, that's how it is in my experience.  People will say "Your life won't be perfect or easier because God's in it," but the idea that at times a relationship with God can require work just like any other relationship worth having seems to get pushed to the side because people don't want to scare people off.  We want to talk about all the positives.  We hear a lot of "Living like Christ can be hard," and "Being committed to your quiet time can be hard," which both imply that a relationship with God is hard... but how many times have we heard it said that actually BEING in a relationship with God is just as hard as maintaining earthly friendships and relationships?  How many times do we hear that we're probably going to get frustrated with God because it is our nature to be frustrated with anything, including ourselves, at some point or another?  We need to be a little more open with the fact that sometimes being the friend and child of an all-knowing entity is kind of intimidating.  We don't feel good enough-- we aren't and don't have to be.  There are times when we feel inferior to many people who are close to us.  We get frustrated with God's timing, then we feel guilty that we're annoyed-- again, normal for humans to be selfishly annoyed with anything not going our way.  We also get frustrated when our friends and loved ones won't make decisions that impact us.  We are occasionally selfish and indulgent with where we'd rather spend our time-- not really okay, but a fact of life.  This is like ditching your parents.  At the time you think you're so cool for ditching them, but, in the end, you really wanted to see that movie or just spend time with them.  The common denominator is that the majority of the people in your daily life whom you treat the same way as God still love you, especially after you apologize and try to make it right.  So why would God, who created you, love you any less, especially after an apology and an attempt to fix your life before Him?

And this is what I need to get through my stubborn, not good enough, self-indulgent and frustrated skull.  I don't know what I'm talking about because I am not in charge.  I don't get to call the shots in my life no matter how much I like yelling "I do what I want."  I am not orchestrating the entirety of everything, ever, so it's not up to me to fix everything or be perfect.  It's up to me to let myself be changed for the better and realize that my life will do what it's supposed to in spite of me and my mistakes, stubbornness, failures, indulgences, and frustrations.

So I decided to pick up the read through your Bible thing again.  This time we're going chronologically rather than canonically, so we'll see how it goes.  I mean, as far as positivity goes, we're already improving.  Yay team.  Also, in case you can't tell, this is a self-accountability blog.  For myself.

Also, I ate carbs for three days last week (goodbye thirty-two day streak of not eating chips) (I just couldn't say no to the sea salt and vinegar Pringles.  I mean, honestly) (... And then also one quarter of a taco salad shell).  I hate myself for it.  I woke up feeling so awful and groggy on the fourth day.  This carb shenanigans has to stop.

Student Section-
"He was like... two midgets taller than me."
"When did we start using midgets as a unit of measurement?"

Getting Meta About Subtweets

Today's topic is a problem I deal with often, considering the age group I am generally surrounded by.

That problem... is blame.
"Ms. Glass, why did you give me a zero on this assignment?" Why didn't you DO the assignment?
"My parents took away my phone for no reason."  Really.  NO reason? Drug use had nothing to do with it?
"I was just a few minutes late.  I don't understand why I'm tardy." Because, by definition, late equals tardy.
ETC.

These, and other statements, have led me to appreciate just the kind of person my parents raised me to be.  My parents raised me to be responsible for my own actions.  A zero on an assignment is not the fault of the teacher.  Sorry parents who call wanting to know why your child has a 13%, but that's some clear lack of assignment-doing, which, contrary to popular belief, is NOT MY FAULT.  My parents always taught me to own up to my decisions and/or indecisions.  This applied in all aspects of my life.  First of all, they didn't stand for my decisions embarassing me or them. I needed to stand up for what I believed in, not be an idiot.  Second of all, they taught me real quick to admit when I was wrong.  It just gets worse if you don't, especially in the real world.

Now, this is not to bash any of my students or their parents/guardians.  Because I see it all over the place.

I know so many people who turn to social media and say "I hate this about my life, I hate this about myself, I wish I had this opportunity."  This doesn't exclude me.  Let's be real.  What is this blog?  Accountability for weight loss and travel. A documentation of my journey. I wouldn't need that documentation or that journey if I had changed my life before now.  Honestly, my Twitter is basically a long string of subtweets.  I'm working on it.

The most interesting thing to me is when I first started losing weight. I lost a decent amount of weight (I guess) over a summer, but it didn't seem significant to me.  What was interesting about this is that even though I only lost what seemed like a small amount of weight to me, people were asking me what I was doing.

Is weight loss a miracle?  I mean.  Yeah.  It can be hard to lose weight.  Especially if you're completely set on not giving up dessert every night and your daily cappuccino/coke/energy drink.  Some people can still eat those things and add vegetables to lose weight.  Others find it easier on a plan of some sort.  I just tracked calories, avoided pop (like I have for 5 years), and worked out like a beast (also known as swimming for an hour a day.  With SERIOUSLY moderate effort).

People are still asking me this.  The answer hadn't changed until very recently.  Which is fine.  For a really long time, my weight was plateaued (due to the answer not changing) even though I was eating healthy and excercising.  I understand being in a weight loss rut.  I had to break that rut, and I had to be serious about it.  So I decided to try this LC (forevermore the abbreviation for Low Carb) thing.  When I tell people I'm trying that for one hundred days, their faces really intrigue me.

It always starts as an interest in my losing the weight, how they want to lose weight, and then... the question.  How'd you do it?  They are generally interested and ready to jump off the deep end, drink the punch, whatever they have to do. When we get to "Give up bread," though, everyone balks and bails. I'm not saying LC is for everyone.  I'm not even saying it's right for me.  I still love pasta.  And bread.  And ice cream.  I'm saying I think it's interesting that people want something as difficult as weight loss without changing any habits.  I don't ever know what they want to hear from me if they don't expect working out and changing what I'm eating as my answer.  Did I find the magical weight-loss unicorn? Am I hiding said unicorn in my shed so that I can braid its mane everyday to lose a pound and I won't have to share with anyone?

Same goes for travel.  Inevitably when I actually travel, people will say to me, wow, how did you afford to go to those places while getting your Master's AND living on teacher money?  Or when I inevitably travel alone, they will ask me, weren't you scared to go to that place by yourself?  The answers will be things like I didn't go to movies.  Or really anywhere.  And my splurge purchases, made so that I could feel like I was getting somewhere in life, were useful for travel.  And UM OF COURSE I'm afraid to go somewhere alone.  I struggle to order PIZZA by myself.  My fear, though, is always--  if I don't go now, when will I ACTUALLY go?  I can't live without seeing the world, so I'll make a few sacrifices of comfort for some amazing views.  Plus, maybe going somewhere by myself will help me realize I'm capable of pushing a button at Sonic to order an orange tea all on my own, like an adult.

My point is- Yeah.  YOLO is too much.  In all honesty, though, we DO only live once.  I only get one chance to be healthy and see the world that God so beautifully provided for us, so I'm going to do something about it.  Start small and DO SOMETHING about whatever it is in your life that strangles you.



Teenage Proverb of the day-
"BROmance is not ROmance."


*I know this song doesn't really say exactly what I'm trying to say, but I am extremely inspired by the line "Everything that drowns me makes me want to fly" from One Republic's "Counting Stars."*

Super Bowl and Low-Carb are not Compatible

As I was cooking my low-carb meal I had the thought "If people saw this they would judge me so harshly."  That's because my "low-carb meal" was, in fact, bacon-wrapped, cheese-stuffed jalapenos.  Guys, I don't even care.  It's what I'm eating and it's gorgeous.

ALSO.  Judgers.  If you still eat at a certain burger-based fast food restaurant, there is no reason I should be hearing anything from your face.

If you're wondering, there's an egg cooked into that bell pepper.  Well.  Sort of.  There were some failures involved with this meal.

On to my favorite topic of the moment- Travel.  I've started reading a LOT of travel blogs.  It's probably becoming an issue in some aspect of my life, although I am definitely too obsessed with reading travel blogs to notice.  There is a method here, though.  Though I love my friends, my plans with them tend to fall through.  This being the case, I am trying to prepare for many situations I may get mysef into.  I'm not really extremely excited about the idea of a solo backpacking trip, but if it needs to happen, it will.  The good thing about planning a trip to a foreign country three years ahead of time is the planning.  I'm a planner.  I'll allow for some freedom in my plans, but I want a basic outline of where I'm going and how much it costs.

Guess what.

Travel Bloggers have been there and legitmiately done that.  I'm taking some advice.  If I do have to go by myself, what are the safest ways to backpack or places to backpack?  Where should I absolutely go?  What are the behind-the-scenes places that no one knows about?  What to pack?  How to budget?  I've learned so much in less than a week.  I will periodically be posting pictures of these places.  This will be done partially to guilt trip someone into going and partially to help myself remember where I want to go .

And let's go ahead and add to the list that I want to go to Iceland.  Real bad.  I just need to see the world, dig?

In order to see the world, I'm having to brush up on some languages.  I'm pushing myself to remember Spanish and learn more, and I also am starting one hundred percent from the beginning on German.  It's gotten pretty funny.  Because mom still understands German from her time living there, she knows when I'm wrong most of the time.  The phrases I struggle with are phrases I already know in Spanish, though.  When I come to a phrase I CANNOT remember in German, I end up getting frustrated and yealling a combination of German and Spanish, i.e. "Ich soy una Frau!!!" German- I Spanish- Am Spanish- A German- Woman.  Perfect, I think.  Diversity.

Teaching is teaching.  It happens.  I wake up, go to school, come home, and repeat.  I try to fix problems I see in the system, but that only works if people within the system are open to admitting that how we've done things in the past might be wrong, myself included.

My students are reading some modern Young Adult novels right now, and I can really see some of them begin to interact with and love their books, which is definitely the best and most accomplished I've felt in my job all year.

To add to the good feels- it's a snow day!  Now if only I could get my internet to cooperate with me while I try to watch television all day...

P.S.
Honors Student- "I honestly thought this story was about a man."
Me- "The title is... 'The Captivity and Restoration of MRS. MARY Rowlandson'...?"

What IS hermitude?

Basically.

I get really mad at my students when they don't have high expectations for themselves.  I get frustrated when they don't want better things for themselves than I want for them.  We start testing tomorrow.  This topic is about worn out for me.

I've been re-evaluating my life for a while.  That was supposed to be one of the goals of this blog (which I have neglected, but am now returning to with open arms).  After all, how can I have high expectations if I don't have the balls (sorry mom) to have high expectations for myself?

For a while, my life was defined by *attempts* at weight loss, and how I felt about my body after being a decently fit softball player with super fit arms and legs who eventually downgraded into flab-where-your-pitching-muscles-used-to-be.  While I still weighed less than I did at high school graduation, my goal over the last two years has been to bring that back down and to generally be fit.  After plateauing roughly thirty pounds above my initial weight goal (which has since lowered) for about a year, I got fed up.

I'm a really stubborn person.

I'm also a bit adventurous for the supposed hermit that I am.

By which I mean-- I tend to challenge myself.  I set goals, and, due to my stubborn genes, I accomplish almost all of them.  This has led to a few changes in my life lately.

One- Because of a whim of a lunch date with the fabulous Lauren, I ended up in a discussion about grad school/what we want to do with our lives.  I have been considering a Master's in Library Sciences for about a year and a half, but am TERRIFIED.  No really.  TERRIFIED of the GRE.  I went home after lunch and, crying the whole way, signed up for the GRE.  I take it in two-ish weeks.  Pray, y'all.

Two- I am almost all the way done with my application to grad school.  If all goes according to plan, which my stubborn self tends to make happen, I *should* have my degree in less than three years.  Super exciting.

Three-  I am going to California this summer, which actually has nothing to do with ambition, but I thought it might be important information and may lead into a later point.

Four- (Enter disappointment with weight loss) I saw this video from http://www.onehundreddays.org/ about a girl who made the commitment to work out for one hundred days.  Basically, the website encourages you to practice something for one hundred days to see how much humans are actually capable of accomplishing when they've set a goal and legitimately commit time to it.  This led to a deep thought process culminating in----- giving up carbs for one hundred days?

Yeah.  That's happening.  I haven't had bread in almost three weeks.  This is for real.  My first day of eating carbs again will be on my birthday.  I have a countdown on my phone.  So far, I feel great.  It is, however, challenging.  Especially if you know my family.  Especially if you know my family LITERALLY has pizza night once every two weeks at the minimum, and we also have an extreme affinity for Mexican and Italian foods. Basically I'm eating vegetable pasta.

Five- (Enter possible application of California trip point) I have also decided to... backpack Europe.  No hiking.  I'm not that crazy.  But I am planning on essentially taking a train from Barcelona all over Western Europe and ending in my wish-it-was-home-land, Ireland/also the UK.

My mother is literally going to kill me.

She threatened to put a tracking device in my neck like a dog.  Seriously.  Direct quote- "When they scan her, they'll know she's mine."

I believe that these are all of my huge announcements.  I think that, slowly, this blog will become more about my personal journeys rather than teaching.  Don't get me wrong, my students are hilarious, but they make it hard to blog about them.  I will, occasionally, leave quotes or tell a good story.  I'll leave you with this.

Student One "Oh, her?  I made her eat rocks once."
Student Two "What? How did that even work?"
Student One "She painted my nails the wrong color, and we were best friends then.  So I grabbed a handful of rocks and shoved them in her mouth and held her mouth closed til she swallowed them."

Gems, I tell you.