haven't written in a while. Too tired to write much now.

1. student teaching is going well. it's hard, but i'm learning so much every day.  It would be ideal to just have 8 semesters of student teaching instead of college, but i'm not sure i could survive that.

2. remicade still sucks, but i'm lucky enough to have people around me who can handle me when i'm not myself after my infusions

3. i'm reading a trilogy by C.S. Lewis - I'm on the second - Perelandria. uh-mazing.

quote from said book:

"One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind.  Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of.  One joy was expected and another is given.  But this I had never noticed before - that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside.  The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you.  And if you wished - if it were possible to wish - you could keep it there.  You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got.  You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other."  

What this says to me: One, we send our souls- i love that.  we're always in control of ourselves - our attitude, our thoughts, and our actions.  Disappointment is a choice.  Joy is in every circumstance - James, my favorite book, echoes this.  We so often get into thinking that we are subject to our surroundings, even to our ow bodies, but we were made to be so much... higher, (not the right word) than all of that.  Our eyes are just in the wrong place.  

"The world is so much larger than I thought.  I thought we went along paths - but it seems there are no paths.  The going itself is the path."  'nuf said.  

reading books like this lets me breathe easier.

so that's also numbers 4-6 due to length.

7. Guero made us some awesome bookshelves  i have three of them and they hold like 20-some books each. they rock, as does guero.  

8. no fulbright. i would be stressed about what happens after graduation in may but i'm too busy loving life and reading a lot and spending time with my omaha peeps.

8. my kids are wonderful aside from 7th period. i only answer to "miss" and i'm known as the "weird, quiet one" to the other teachers which is fine by me.

9. i miss my family

10. i haven't climbed in too long. i'm starting to feel sedentary.  if only i had the energy to do anything but sleep after work... took a ton of blood tests, nothing seems too off, other than my unbelievable fatigue and exhaustion.  i'm trying to wait it out for now but it's frustrating all the same.  

basically, i'm fine, how are you?

it's a bitch to grow up

nothing to do with anything but what's on my mind

i know the sayings like the back of my hand.  Live your dreams. no fear. follow your heart. 

but what if you don't know what that looks like?

i need to decide now if i'm headed for academia or become one of the million average who are trying to change the world, many to no avail.

this fulbright scholarship idea is killing me.  there is a keyhole through which you must pass in order to really get into the world of academics and research papers and formal language, proper attire, knowing the right people, saving face.  and i'm not sure that's what i'm looking for. but if i don't use this to at least try and get a foot up, i'll be just like everyone else who didn't even try. and i don't know if i can handle that. 

it's just not what i want to do - it's what some one else thinks i should do who's higher up than me and who has the power to say things like that. partly for their own gain. and i can't blame them. i just refuse to become one of them. 

and yes, maybe this is one of those things you have to sit through to get where you really want to be, but what if it's just one more thing in a long line of requirements and loopholes?  i can't live my life like that. 

yeah, i want a year abroad, but there are other ways to do it.

yeah, i want grad school. but what's the rush? i mean, i know if i don't start i'll never get it done.

but i'm 21.

and i'm scared shitless.

it's a bad sign when every time i think about it i feel tears rush into my eyes...

fulbright means a year away from the ones i love, and a year away from teaching... it would be research, which sucks.  but it would be classroom research, which is meaningful and important and somebody should be doing it for the benefit of everyone else.

and what do i do until then? i wouldn't leave for a year and a half. meanwhile... work? for a year? doing what? teaching? what school would hire a teacher they know is leaving in a year.

and what a major let down to do all this hard work for four years straight and then not even get a job doing what i love, what i went to school and put all those hours in for.

not to mention the honors thesis...

somedays i feel like i can't do all this. and i don't even know which parts i want to keep doing.

today is one of those days.

on another note: i student taught my first day today with real kids haha

1. saw 2 white kids all day.

2. spoke more spanish than english.

3. had all my students call me Miss. not because they couldn't remember my name, but because that's what they call every female teacher. i like it.

4. helped break up a fight.

5. toured one of the biggest schools in the state.

6. ate lunch. not in the cafeteria (wierd).

7. found out what teachers really talk about. yup.

8. graded many many papers.

9. read two spanish short stories

10. got an id badge: ms. - no first names here... wierd. 

it's a bitch to grow up.

i realize i'm way behind so here's a shot at catching up. 

holidays were great.

guero and  i are both moved in to our new homes for the semester - thanks to much help from the family.

i just started student teaching at south high here in omaha. today was just teacher planning day and I already got lost, but i'll figure it out. there are a couple other student teachers who seem pretty nice who i could probably cry to if i needed to. the majorit y of the classes i'll be teaching are esl classes with 2 higher level spanish and 1 level II spanish.  we'll see how the kids are tomorrow. 

i think i'm sick again - something that involves being really really tired all the time. i'm sleeping insane amounts, and maybe part of that is left over from trying to make up from last semester but i think it's something else...

learned to play settlers of catan - sweet game.  

missing my lincoln friends, but i'm learning to love living on my own. 

did i mention my piano was in my room??  love it

i realize that this is a weak attempt at a month's worth of my life but it's all i can think of right now and i'm getting really sleepy...