School's out forever
Today is my last day of graduate school! I just have a final project due on July 17 and I'll officially be a Master. When I mail formal letters I can put M.Ed. after my name, which is the nice, pretentious touch that my correspondence has been missing. Of course, most people in America seem to think that a Masters in Education is the equivalent of a Masters in fingerpaint art and science and can't imagine why I'd get an advanced degree that would only earn me a pay raise large enough to pay for the two classes I took this summer. Actually, I'm starting to wonder that, too. I guess so I don't feel so uneducated around my parents, the Ph.D. and M.D. They, in turn, wonder why they had to pay for my Wash U education when I don't earn more now than it cost per year, even though the tuition included room and board and I have to pay for it now. And why I had to pick such a "soft science" major in college, anyway.

Ooops, now I'm not as excited. Does anyone want to buy a sad M.Ed. a drink tonight?

Hell Week
I made a big mistake and registered for two classes for this week, from 9am-4pm and 4:45pm-7:45pm. Which means I leave home at 8:30 and get back at 8:30. But I have no motivation for my morning class: it's mostly a huge group of teachers from South Carolina, whose accents are already driving me crazy, and the two teachers love to tell anecdotes that never end. And they make us do really degrading activities like jigsaw, which is basically "prove that you did the reading by explaining it to 5 people you don't know as they stare with glazed eyes into space." My plan is to write my papers for the afternoon class during the morning class, which worked really well this morning! But I have so many important things to do, which I haven't had time to finish yet:
-Get car insurance finally.
-Pay my students loans...oops.
-Do like 5 readings for classes.
-Go to HR and sign my contract, which I was supposed to do before school ended.
-Vacuum my apartment.
-Bake some scones.
If I make it through this week with some sanity, please give me a hug!

Adventures in wildlife rescue
This morning, I started out on my run and just when I was turning the corner, I heard a cheeping sound. A little baby duck run right past me and under a parked car! There were some phone repairmen nearby and they helped me to catch it. Cutest little duck ever! I was impressed at how fast it could run with its little flippered feat...I've tried running in flippers and it's really hard, so I can just imagine;) I had no idea what to do with a tiny little duck, so I carried it into the First Universalist Church and asked them to call animal rescue. Apparently, they don't rescue animals. And then the Humane Society never called back. So the last option was to drive it to the Animal Rehabilitation Center in a box. Getting extremely lost in St. Paul is even more frustrating when you have an animal quacking at you. So I dropped her off- they told me she's a mallard- and I told them that her name is Molly Ringwald, which was what I called her all morning...since she's a girl, she couldn't be Duckie (haha).

The Sleeping Bug
I think I caught a bug. or maybe I just messed up my sleeping pattern by going to bed at 2am today. Anyway, I slept until 9am, laid in bed eating cottage cheese and watching some episodes of season 2 of Entourage (I love the Pivs!), and taking naps. I stayed in bed until 2pm, when I got up and ate some baked lays. Then I got a bowl of neopolitan fro-yo and went back to bed. I slept until 5pm, then got up and ate a lean cuisine burrito and watched tv. I don't even remember what I was watching because I was so spaced out today! At 8pm, I remembered that I had an assignment for class tomorrow, so I typed that up quickly, and now I'm ready to go to bed again. I never left my apartment once, didn't get dressed until 7pm, and missed a party :( I desperately hope that I'm not so completely lethargic tomorrow. It's like my head is filled with cotton balls.

The only good thing, besides slow churned light Breyer's, is that I found out that someone else likes Matt Pond PA:)

4 happy notes and a sad one

Did you know that at the Byerly's in St. Louis Park they have a conveyer belt, like for luggage at the airport, that transports your groceries underground to a convenient place where sweet, eager teens will put it in your car for you?

My cousin Peter, who is 10, used the word commisurate today. The way he used it was correct. It seems miraculous to me to hear kids understand and use words like that!

My parents are finally home. They apparently brought me back something "real nice" from Vienna...I hope it's some schnitzel, because I've always wondered what that was (from the Sound of Music song).

Somehow one side of my family lost hope in one member and are shunning this person. I'm ashamed that it came to this; rumors, revenge, and a generally passive-aggressive attitude that leaves everyone confused and with aching pain.

Call me Elsa
I never feel connected with my ethnicity, Polish-Russian, until I'm carrying something heavy on my hip! Today I walked home from the grocery store with way too much food in a heavy bag, all hoisted up on my hip, a canvas bag on my shoulder, my new beaded sandals on my feet, my hair in a bun. Suddenly, I felt the need for a babushka, the headscarf my great grandma always used to wear. In my state of burden, I could just hear the sounds of Polish folk music in my head...I might as well have been muttering to myself. This all makes me think that if my family was still living in southwestern Russia, I would probably be married to a farmer, have six kids, and trudge all the way to the market and back every day with a bag of beets, potatoes, and pickled whathaveyou. I envy people who have a connection to the land and culture.

So, fingers crossed, St. Petersburg '07.
Oh my gosh! I was just looking up pictures of Russian women to show how much I look like them, but I actually think this IS my greatgrandma! ;)

(It does look eerily like her, though, which explains my need for lots of L'Oreal wrinkle decrease cream).

Life lessons from my grandma i
Since my parents have become European jet-setters (for 3 weeks, anyway), I've started calling my grandma more often, just to get advice. I just like talking to older people about my problems, because I feel like my friends are just like me- kind of unqualified due to inexperience in the world: we mostly confused ourselves even more when we try to figure something out. Anyway, my grandma doesn't sugarcoat anything. The answers to most of my dilemmas are followed by the qualifier, "But that's life, sweetie." Grr...there are still answers, right? She's too existential for me! I want hopeful suggestions.

So her main piece of advice for me, raving about car insurance woes, complaining about my loan bills, and generally confused about my future, is...to have a plan:) Alright, grannie, this is my plan:
1. I'm going to get my Masters Degree this month. I'll pay for the classes I'm taking this month with the small increase in my salary b/c I now have a Masters Degree.
2. I will start writing my novel (the new career plan instead of Law School, which, according to my grandma, would suck the life out of me and we'd no longer be able to associate). I already have the major plot points, so today I'm going to start character research. And this is not going to be another one of those ideas where I can only see the end product. I already have a cute little notebook.
3. I will work harder to emotionally compartmentalize my life. During the school year, I put my social life on the back burner because I didn't feel I could deal with that and be a good teacher (which was my excuse for all of college, too). There must be a way for me to turn off my neurosis and just get back to work after a semi-traumatic relationship situation. I need to harness my chi and make a bigger social circle.
4. I will run everyday.
5. I will eat one healthy meal a day. I'm going to keep it at that because it's manageable, and most days I will do better than that (self-empowerment!) but if I forget sometime, it's not defeating.
6. I will go to Edward Jones and invest money.

My two-year goal (which would make God get the giggles) is to be engaged to an kind, intelligent, handsome man who will go to church with me, have a bigger group of loyal friends, be a healthy, financially sound, less neurotic, M.Ed. after my name girl-about-town, and have a best-selling children's book.

Okay, that's my plan.

Here's what I've done in my first week off from work:
I've started a book sprint. I'm a very impatient reader, so I'll buy a ton of books, and then either read them each day-by-day, or cast them aside if they're not initially fascinating. This week, I reread "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Enrenreich, then "Almost French" by Sarah Turnbull, part of "Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell, and "Any Place I Hang My Hat, " by Susan Isaacs. The last was the smartest relationship novel I've ever read! Very good. My next book is "The Bookseller of Kabul" by Åsne Seierstad.

My graduate class is kind of fun, because I get to see my friends from last year's classes, but also tiring, because some of them are so tangential when they discuss what they've learned from teaching. While I love writing papers again, educational theory can be so fluffy and seems to be mostly common sense (when something doesn't work, reflect on why, and help that form what you try next), but which only through repeated drillings is actually put into practice.

So I'm going to try to spend my morning walking around Uptown, mysteriously jotting down notes in my journal, while sipping an (inexpensive) coffee drink. It's time to put the plan in action.

School's out for summer
How weird it is that I have 3 months of vacation starting Monday? As the last day of school drew near, I began reflecting on the year...

When did I get a job? It's been so fast. We all waved good-bye to the buses yesterday as they drove off. Most teachers clapped when they were gone, one cried because he was leaving for a new school, and I just relaxed my cheek muscles after a day of constant smiling. I'll miss those kids so much! One, who's moving this summer, just walked on by me at the end of the day, and I was like "Wait a minute, mister..." If any of them had been at all sad, I would have lost it and cried, but hey, they're 8 and the excitement of summer vacation is overwhelming.

I haven't made any very good friends at school. Some of them are really nice and fun to chat with there, but I always feel like joking around in the staff lounge and choosing specific people as friends is somewhat unprofessional (we're supposed to be a community of educators, anyway). At the end of the year party yesterday, I realized that I'm also a little bit different from most of the teachers my age, too. First, I was the absolute only person to bring wine. I couldn't open it, and I didn't think anyone would drink it besides myself, so I just left it there. Second, everyone was obsessed with these games, played with golf balls on ropes and "goals" built out of pvc piping. It was such a competitive game. Everyone was drinking beer, and one teacher even brought a bottle of whisky to pour into her coke can!

Public education is a struggle. It always will be until salaries increase, curriculum is either standardized or left alone, and the teaching profession becomes truly competitive. I am currently fighting to get a bigger classroom next year. As an ESL teacher who has small class sizes, my space in the school is the least of anyone's priorities. So, I was assigned to an office for next year! It's about the size of a walk-in closet, but I will be teacher about 60 students everyday in the room. There is no AC and it's right off a busy hallway. I'm arguing for the rights of my students, but in some ways the fight seems somewhat personal and self-serving as well. And what I have always hated about public education is the argumentative teachers, who are fighting for "their" rights. This profession needs to be free of self-interest, because eventually you'll talk yourself blue in the face and make everyone mad at you, and nothing will be accomplished. Everything has to be about the students. But, as a professional, I don't want to be in a 7x7 room for an entire year either. Sometimes I want to scream "I went to a good college, I almost have my Masters, and I could be making much more money doing almost anything else, so please give me some respect!" But then again, it can't be about me, because then I'm one of those teachers. I think this summer will be a much-needed break.

Oh, and finally, I will never never never live in the suburbs again. Just driving through them, with all the stadium-sized grocery stores and generic chain restaurants along sidewalk-free, litter-lined three-laned streets made my stomach contract and my throat feel dry. I hate being reliant on my car to get places, feeling trapped in a house in the center of a generic subdivision, and all those little trees that replaced the beautiful ones that were cut down for building!

Anyway, have a good summer!

Questions for you :)
1. Do you have a good DSL/wireless internet provider, who also offers phone service? Please recommend one to me, since I hate Qwest with the fire of a thousand suns and have actually sworn at the automatic directory voice when it misunderstood my needs for the millionth time. And my last bill was $371.00, for reasons which no one working there can seem to explain to me.

2. How do you handle having a full-time job and keeping your life together? My apartment is a disaster right now and there's till dirt on the floor from where my cat knocked over my potted plant on Thursday. These are the things I need to do tomorrow:
*Separate 390 crayons into groups of three and tie them with ribbon for the ESL Award Ceremony on Monday.
*Write thank-you cards to all of my colleagues (22).
*Wash the pile of dishes by the sink.
*Go to church.
*Vacuum.
*Do three loads of laundry.
*Clean out my old car because it has five years of sloppy-Nicole build-up inside.
*Hopefully go for a run around Lake Harriet.
*Get a new insurance policy on my new car.
*Sign my old title over.

When do people have time for spontaneity without losing all control?