On Sunday, my housemate Jill and I went shopping for the week. We went to Aldi’s (the best grocery store) and Meijer and were struck by the number of people there. “Must be the after Sunday rush, huh?” Jill said to me as we navigated the treacherous produce aisle. “I really don’t know why all these people are here,” I murmured back as I snagged two loaves of bread. As we were checking out, I overheard someone talking about the storm. “Okay, sure,” I thought.
On Sunday, I planned out how I would make a video on Monday to submit to the #becauseofCalvin challenge, my first day of student teaching. I thought it would be poetic, and I could cheat the rules and mention a bunch of Calvin things that I love. I packed my “teacher tote” because apparently teachers don't do the backpack thing, and decided on an outfit for the first day. I found out around 9:30 pm that night that my school was canceled for Monday. I set my 5:10 am alarm regardless, as Tuesday and the rest of the week were coming.
Other than Tuesday (when I got the news at 5:45 am after I had showered, packed my lunch, and put on my shoes), I found out every day this week around noon that school for the next day was cancelled—due to snow, due to cold, due to winter weather warnings, whatever. I've still gotten up at 5, still gotten nervous about teaching, still felt bad about not doing enough (whatever that means), and still got my first-day outfit hanging in my closet.
Here are a few things I learned this week while sitting in the same chair all week:
Recs
Recipe: Minimalist Baker makes this killer lentil dish, which mixes walnut, pomegranate molasses, lentils, turmeric, cinnamon, and maple syrup into a delectable stew. Shout out to Anne Clay for sharing this recipe on her facebook page.
Recipe: This isn’t much of a recipe, per se, but Shira recommended that I put it on my blog. One day sophomore year, I was over Amber’s house when it snowed. Her family introduced us all to this wintery treat where you take freshly fallen snow (either collected in a bowl or scrapped off the top layer) and sprinkle powdered lemonade mix right on top of it. The result is that snow texture that you loved to eat as a kid (you did, admit it) blended perfectly with the sugary powder. It was one of my mom’s favorite snacks on snow days, and as far as I can tell no one else on the internet is talking about it.
Book: On one of my 5 am reading mornings, I picked up Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which I requested from the library a few weeks ago. I was introduced to Vuong through Kit Emslie’s poem “Someday I’ll Love the Gym as a Good Gay Boy Should” and through Jeff Zentner’s Instagram feed, oddly enough. Anyway, the poems in Vuong’s collection are all breathtaking. I’ll leave you with a line that I loved from “To My Father / To My Future Son”:
Use it to prove how the stars
were always what we knew
they were: exit wounds
of every
misfired word.
On Sunday, I planned out how I would make a video on Monday to submit to the #becauseofCalvin challenge, my first day of student teaching. I thought it would be poetic, and I could cheat the rules and mention a bunch of Calvin things that I love. I packed my “teacher tote” because apparently teachers don't do the backpack thing, and decided on an outfit for the first day. I found out around 9:30 pm that night that my school was canceled for Monday. I set my 5:10 am alarm regardless, as Tuesday and the rest of the week were coming.
Other than Tuesday (when I got the news at 5:45 am after I had showered, packed my lunch, and put on my shoes), I found out every day this week around noon that school for the next day was cancelled—due to snow, due to cold, due to winter weather warnings, whatever. I've still gotten up at 5, still gotten nervous about teaching, still felt bad about not doing enough (whatever that means), and still got my first-day outfit hanging in my closet.
Here are a few things I learned this week while sitting in the same chair all week:
- 17 inches is a lot of snow. -10 or minus wind chill is pretty dang cold.
- You can get a lot of reading done if you actually commit to getting up at 5 am and you don't have anything to do for the rest of the day.
- If a book is good enough, you will make do with reading by the string of lights on the porch a room away because one of your housemates decided he wanted to sleep in the living room.
- Reading is fun, but sometimes you can't keep burning through books. But if you want a book that you'll feel good about completing, pick up a work of poetry. Absorb what you can; let the rest wash over your eyes and stun you with its mysterious beauty.
- On days off, I expect myself to take on all my lingering projects. If I actually make substantial progress on them, I can only usually focus on two of them.
- Sometimes you gotta make a crappy research poster before you can make a pretty one.
- Crafting a tight essay is hard. You live in a perpetual state of tweaking. Why do people do this writing thing?
- Shoveling is a futile effort only made marginally better by podcasts and fellow sufferers. Also, it's very disheartening to wipe off 3 inches of snow off your car only to wake up to another 3 inches that fell overnight.
- Baking is a good time. Bread machines are magical creations. Food takes a large amount of upfront investment that pays off in later days.
- Pushing cars when it's snowy outside actually does work. It’s also kind of fun to be a part of a traveling band of well-doers, waiting on a hilly corner to jump behind anyone’s car at a moment’s notice.
- Skating backwards is hard and you look like a goof trying to do it.
- Calvin does give days off. Who knew.
- 5 snow days sounds like heaven, but when you know you have things to do that you can't start on, all that free time starts to stress you out.
- If I could live in a beanie and be taken as a serious professional, I would.
- Call Me By Your Name and Mad Max: Fury Road are perfect movies to play in the background. Fight me.
- It really sucks when you have a whole week off and the video game you've been waiting for comes out, but it’s in the wrong state. Relatedly, Skrillex is a Kingdom Hearts fan and helped write a great song for the theme.
- Even if you love being at home, reading books, cooking food, playing board games, watching movies, and getting ahead on schoolwork, you'll get to the point where you are ready to have your life back, thanks.
Recs
Recipe: Minimalist Baker makes this killer lentil dish, which mixes walnut, pomegranate molasses, lentils, turmeric, cinnamon, and maple syrup into a delectable stew. Shout out to Anne Clay for sharing this recipe on her facebook page.
Recipe: This isn’t much of a recipe, per se, but Shira recommended that I put it on my blog. One day sophomore year, I was over Amber’s house when it snowed. Her family introduced us all to this wintery treat where you take freshly fallen snow (either collected in a bowl or scrapped off the top layer) and sprinkle powdered lemonade mix right on top of it. The result is that snow texture that you loved to eat as a kid (you did, admit it) blended perfectly with the sugary powder. It was one of my mom’s favorite snacks on snow days, and as far as I can tell no one else on the internet is talking about it.
Book: On one of my 5 am reading mornings, I picked up Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which I requested from the library a few weeks ago. I was introduced to Vuong through Kit Emslie’s poem “Someday I’ll Love the Gym as a Good Gay Boy Should” and through Jeff Zentner’s Instagram feed, oddly enough. Anyway, the poems in Vuong’s collection are all breathtaking. I’ll leave you with a line that I loved from “To My Father / To My Future Son”:
Use it to prove how the stars
were always what we knew
they were: exit wounds
of every
misfired word.
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