We keep on waitin’ (waitin’), waitin’ on a job to come

The job search.

No one really described how grueling the process would be. Well, yes they did, but never with enough detail to represent how it would actually feel.

Why is it such an annoying process?

You get a call, which pumps up the adrenaline and makes you feel like you have succeeded in actually obtaining the job. Then you interview. Then you wait. You’re in the dark about it all, and it really sucks. After so many situations in my life where I have had to wait on something, it doesn’t ever seem to get easier. Maybe this situation is much more prevalent because it’s my first ever “big girl” job. The job that people expect of me since, after all, I do have a college degree (almost).

The thing about being in the dark is that for so many moments, you don’t know if you’ll be able to see the light again. It’s like walking in a 200-mile-long tunnel. Once you reach a certain point, you can’t see a thing, and you won’t be able to see again until that final bend.

I’m at mile 100 in this tunnel, and it’s so complicated because I could decide to turn around and walk the 100 to get back to where I started, or I could keep walking to make it to the end. It’s the same distance, after all, right?

I’ve worked so hard to get this far, and thinking back, I always thought that in the end, a job was a “given”. I assumed it would be at the finish line of a half marathon, waiting for me to stop running and to relieve me from the numbness in my legs. But just like running, I have to push myself until the end in order to finish strong. Finishing strong is not easy, because you have 13 miles behind you and you’re exhausted.

So for now, I will keep pushing. I’ll make it to the end of the tunnel, I know I will. But if you see me and can tell that something is on my mind or is making me grumpy, know that it’s probably because I’m waiting.

The Story of a Girl Who is Really Bad at Tests

The dreaded GACE.

It wasn’t until the moment I thought I failed that I also thought my life was over.

Did I really spend this whole year working my butt off, learning how to be a teacher, and devoting my days and nights to kids to fail a test that doesn’t even measure my ability to teach? I was horrified. Spent my whole weekend drowning in the fact that I have to take this test again, and, to make it even better, spend 123 dollars of money I don’t even have.

I am the worst test taker. That is why I don’t give my students tests, because I know the feeling of test-anxiety and forgetting everything you have ever known once a piece of paper is put in front of you. Unless it is school-mandatory, I will never give a multiple choice exam.

This does not measure what students know. It only measures how well they are able to memorize facts and regurgitate them only to forget those same facts once they turn the test in. That isn’t my purpose as a teacher. My purpose is to make them better thinkers. To teach them how to react to situations in life that might throw them off – through literature. I want them to show me what they know through their creativity or through their explanations. I want them to teach me what they know and what they have learned. Tests, in my opinion, don’t adequately do anything for the student.

All of these emotions were swarming through my mind as I reflected and realized how students feel not for one test, but for the four they might have in one school day.

This is simply too much pressure.

Pressure to perform and excel through proof of a number. Pressure from their parents, their peers around them, and their teachers. It is the worst feeling to fail a test and then get backlash from all of those people. You feel disapproved, unintelligent, and not enough.

Until you realize that you actually didn’t fail the test.

First of all, to have that unclear of scores is insane to me. Why wouldn’t I assume that I have to pass at the professional? I am going to be a professional teacher, after all. The emotions I felt after realizing I actually passed were surprising. If this is what it feels like to pass a test this big, I feel just as annoyed about passing that I do about failing. I didn’t get to experience the bliss of advancing in my degree and having the burden lifted off my shoulders.

But here I am today, alive and well. Just trying to be thankful that it is one less thing I have to worry about now.

Plus, I got an 88-dollar refund back.

Spinach and Forks

I would consider myself to be a fairly organized person. My room is always tidy, my floors are always swept, and I mostly have a particular spot for all of my belongings. I don’t settle for clutter, and if you know me, you’ll see me put my plate into the dishwasher thirty seconds after I am done eating. Though I have the occasional piled-high load of laundry to fold, I think I’ve got the structured and clean-mom mindset down (though I am far from being a mom).

One thing that took me on a run for my money was when I realized how often I forget a fork.

You’ve surely been here: packing your lunch consisting of the daily spinach salad that takes you twenty-minutes to eat. Why is this salad taking SO long to eat? It’s like the spinach reproduced while it was sitting in my lunch box.  You shamefully have a stem sticking out of your mouth as a someone walks into your room. I need to stop packing this dang spinach salad.

The only kicker about eating this salad is that often, I have to eat it with a knife, because yes, I forgot a fork and it’s the only thing left in my utensil box that I bought at the beginning of the year.

Have you ever tried eating a salad with a knife?

Well, it’s not pretty.

First of all, the knife’s tip is basically a round edge. You can’t poke anything with something shaped like that. I end up shoving some pieces of salad to the side of my Tupperware, only to get my mouth super close to the edge in order to shovel it in. It’s like eating salad with a spoon, but worse.

It’s a relief to be done with your salad on these sorts of days. First, because you didn’t realize how hungry you were until you sat down, and then because you’re finally done with the dreaded knife-salad. Then, you realize how unorganized you feel.

Being a teacher is a lot like eating a spinach salad with a knife.

I have realized that my brain simply won’t think of things it used to. I know that if there is one thing students are supposed to get out of a lesson for the day, it is the one thing I forgot to say to them. Somehow I figure out how to get the message across, but it is never as pretty and pink that I imagine it will be if I would have told them in the first place.

Teaching can be messy.

But the best kind of teaching comes from the genuineness of your words that impact your students. The kind that helps them understand that you know what you’re talking about. The kind that is influential despite how unorganized it may be.

Yes, my desk is still neat, and my pens belong to one pen holder, but I want to be able to sacrifice my organization if it means that my students will get something out of a lesson.

I want to eat spinach with a knife if it means that my students see that I am real.

In Other News, the Biathlon Event is a Thing

In a lot of ways, I hate the Winter Olympics.

The weirdly tight snow suits, ski jumpers flying through the sky at an ungodly, parallel-to-the-ground rate, and moguls begging to tear the ACLs of anyone who approaches.

In so many other ways, I can’t help but to love the Winter Olympics.

That same strange-ness begs me to watch with glued eyes as I have that sick feeling where you can’t help but watch if a snowboarder has a fall or a figure skater completely eats it on a jump. There is something wistfully enjoyable about watching these Olympians mess up while you simultaneously deal with a pit in your stomach. The Olympics are sort of twisted, when you think about it. These people are the world’s best athletes. Yet, they mess up all the time, and to make it even better, it is televised for seven billion people to see.

The Olympics never fail to surprise me.

For instance, Is a Biathlon event really a thing? Trust me, I’m going somewhere with this.

Apparently, it has been around for quite some time. One hundred and fifty-seven years, to be exact. It combines the seemingly contradictory elements of skiing and shooting. The exhausting, cross-country skiing mixed with the immediate accuracy and control through shooting proves to conclude that this sport is one of the most challenging that exists. Switching from intense, high power endurance to exact control requires an obscure sense of marksmanship.

I learned about this sport when two of my students turned around and one asked me, “Ms. L, have you ever heard of a biathlon?” In my head, I was thinking, a bath lawn? Lawn that you put in your bath? What is this kid talking about? Then he spelled it out for me. B-i-a-t-h-l-o-n. Ohhhh. I see. “No, I’ve never heard of it. Is it a sport?” I proceeded to Google search this event. Mind you – this was a Friday, my students were working in the computer lab to finish the Write Score test (no comment), and there was some down time. I swear, it isn’t every day that I Google this kind of thing for one of my students.

We proceeded to watch a YouTube video, because, that’s what you do when you’re a teacher and you don’t have the answer to a question.

We watch as these athletes intensely sprint through a track on skis and stop, lay down, pull the gun off their back, and shoot at a target. Our eyes were fixated. It all started making sense. As I watched, I realized something: Biathlons are a lot like teaching.

As teachers, we are always sprinting. Around curves, uphill – sprinting to the finish line that is our “lesson.” We plan in advance, train for these big desires to make our students better people, teach them a lesson, and sometimes miss the target when we stop to shoot and follow through. It requires so much trial and error. We have to figure out which skis fit us best and will be effective enough to efficiently teach. We have to prepare our content and know it like we know the gun on our backs. Sometimes, after sprinting so hard, it becomes worth it when you realize that it’s possible to hit all of your targets.

In essence, we as teachers are Biathlon competitors. Striving to win the gold, every day.