As I walked up the Science Building stairs to the 3rd-floor computer science lab, where I spent many-a-hour fighting with tricky lines of code, I was struck by the familiarity yet unfamiliarity of the situation. Here I was, dropping off the car keys to my junior year sister (because yes, we are still sharing a car surprisingly) and not looking or feeling too out of place. Whenever I passed someone on the path, I felt the sense of superiority you feel when you see someone whose surprise birthday party you are attending later in the week—an inward smile when you know something they don’t. I know I’m not a college student, but they are none the wiser. At the same time, I felt this overall sense of not-belonging; knowing that this campus was once my place but is not anymore, even if I’m the only one who knows that.
I guess that’s a part of the deal when you graduate college and you still live in the same town: when you do some of the things you did in college, nothing has really changed and yet everything feels different. If I want to go to a concert at Calvin, I can’t buy the $5 student price anymore. My schedule conflicts about when to go grocery shopping are more consistent than “I have to meet with these people to work on a group project this Saturday” or “I have three exams coming up this week so I need time to study this weekend.” As a now non-student member of the Oratorio Society, the choir I’ve sung in for the last 4 years, I actually have to buy a robe (and now $25 doesn’t sound like such a steep price anymore). I get to have a chat with my roommates before I go to bed because staying up past 10:30pm just isn’t an option for me anymore.
These changes aren’t always bad. In a sense, it’s kind of comforting to me that my setting at home hasn’t changed because I can concentrate on my ever-changing situation at work. Since my position is a push-in position, I still kind of feel like a student teacher who is learning from the masters. I’ve been called fake teacher more than once, and whenever I step into a class for the teacher to step out for a moment, one student inevitably goes, “Where’s Mr./Ms. So-and-So?” At the same time, I am teaching by myself for one hour a day every day, and that’s teaching me a lot about student motivation at this particular school and what it means to be consistent in discipline. It’s not easy, and I feel like there’s not a lot of learning getting done in the classroom, but I’m doing the best I can and feel like I’m at least learning a lot.
I’m still trying to “find myself” as a teacher, and perhaps using “still” there is rushing myself too much (since I’ve been teaching for maybe 2–3 months tops), and it’s a little strange doing it in the limbo space that I’m in—not a full teacher, still connected with my college (now university). But I kind of love it too. It’s really nice not having the full pressure of being a teacher, and honestly I’m not killing myself over making lesson plans. When I’m ready, I will shift into the other part of my job, which is being a building sub (including in the elementary school). I don’t know exactly how that will go, but I’m counting on it to continue building my skills and preparing me for whatever will come in the future. As for now, I’m just going to keep giving myself space to learn and fail and also love my life outside of school too.
______________________________________
“Okay Alex, so you have a job and you think about it a lot, I get it.”
Yeah. I do other things outside of school too, kind of.
Lately I’ve been watching Bachelor in Paradise remotely with my dear father. We started just texting during it, and now we’ve evolved to full-on speakerphone chats about the people we want to go home, the predictions for how relationships will turn out, and in my commercial breaks our daily lives. After spending the summer at home and hanging out with him a lot, it’s been really grounding to connect again, even if it is over 20-somethings manufacturing their own drama because our society believes you need to have a partner always to be complete.
On one of these conversations, I also got to talk to one of my other sets of parents, the Bulgers. I found myself talking about how I’m thinking about trying to pursue teaching computer science at the secondary level, which I hadn’t really spoken to anyone seriously about until now. In August, I searched computer science teacher positions just to see what was out there. It’s scary because I was never taught computer science and honestly I don’t know how much I retained in college and I didn’t really get any pedagogical training for computer science specifically; however, my heart is still yearning towards it for some reason. Maybe it’s because it feels easier to explain the importance of computer science than English; maybe it’s because I want to stretch myself beyond just the bonds of Mrs. Lori Johnson’s path.
I’ve been kind of reading my Bible more consistently, and after reading The Power of Habit I am trying to create new “cues” and “routines,” the most successful one being doing yoga for 10 minutes right after getting out of bed. I’m trying to do that with prayer too. Elizabeth and I have been talking a lot about what it means to love God and what that looks like, and that’s something I want to think more about as I start to work towards becoming a member of Creston CRC and continue to work with students who traditionally have been underserved.
I walked to the downtown library last Sunday and got out a bunch of poetry books, and now I’m very excited to read them all. So many books, so little time.
Recs
Consider volunteering with a youth organization, maybe specifically in mentorship. Mentors are so important to young adults, and it just requires having time and building relationships.
Don’t waste an hour of your life on YouTube (like the author did last night), but if you really want to you should be watching Brian David Gilbert or Lil Nas X’s new song “Panini” (which was way more catchy than it has any right to be).
I guess that’s a part of the deal when you graduate college and you still live in the same town: when you do some of the things you did in college, nothing has really changed and yet everything feels different. If I want to go to a concert at Calvin, I can’t buy the $5 student price anymore. My schedule conflicts about when to go grocery shopping are more consistent than “I have to meet with these people to work on a group project this Saturday” or “I have three exams coming up this week so I need time to study this weekend.” As a now non-student member of the Oratorio Society, the choir I’ve sung in for the last 4 years, I actually have to buy a robe (and now $25 doesn’t sound like such a steep price anymore). I get to have a chat with my roommates before I go to bed because staying up past 10:30pm just isn’t an option for me anymore.
These changes aren’t always bad. In a sense, it’s kind of comforting to me that my setting at home hasn’t changed because I can concentrate on my ever-changing situation at work. Since my position is a push-in position, I still kind of feel like a student teacher who is learning from the masters. I’ve been called fake teacher more than once, and whenever I step into a class for the teacher to step out for a moment, one student inevitably goes, “Where’s Mr./Ms. So-and-So?” At the same time, I am teaching by myself for one hour a day every day, and that’s teaching me a lot about student motivation at this particular school and what it means to be consistent in discipline. It’s not easy, and I feel like there’s not a lot of learning getting done in the classroom, but I’m doing the best I can and feel like I’m at least learning a lot.
I’m still trying to “find myself” as a teacher, and perhaps using “still” there is rushing myself too much (since I’ve been teaching for maybe 2–3 months tops), and it’s a little strange doing it in the limbo space that I’m in—not a full teacher, still connected with my college (now university). But I kind of love it too. It’s really nice not having the full pressure of being a teacher, and honestly I’m not killing myself over making lesson plans. When I’m ready, I will shift into the other part of my job, which is being a building sub (including in the elementary school). I don’t know exactly how that will go, but I’m counting on it to continue building my skills and preparing me for whatever will come in the future. As for now, I’m just going to keep giving myself space to learn and fail and also love my life outside of school too.
______________________________________
“Okay Alex, so you have a job and you think about it a lot, I get it.”
Yeah. I do other things outside of school too, kind of.
Lately I’ve been watching Bachelor in Paradise remotely with my dear father. We started just texting during it, and now we’ve evolved to full-on speakerphone chats about the people we want to go home, the predictions for how relationships will turn out, and in my commercial breaks our daily lives. After spending the summer at home and hanging out with him a lot, it’s been really grounding to connect again, even if it is over 20-somethings manufacturing their own drama because our society believes you need to have a partner always to be complete.
On one of these conversations, I also got to talk to one of my other sets of parents, the Bulgers. I found myself talking about how I’m thinking about trying to pursue teaching computer science at the secondary level, which I hadn’t really spoken to anyone seriously about until now. In August, I searched computer science teacher positions just to see what was out there. It’s scary because I was never taught computer science and honestly I don’t know how much I retained in college and I didn’t really get any pedagogical training for computer science specifically; however, my heart is still yearning towards it for some reason. Maybe it’s because it feels easier to explain the importance of computer science than English; maybe it’s because I want to stretch myself beyond just the bonds of Mrs. Lori Johnson’s path.
I’ve been kind of reading my Bible more consistently, and after reading The Power of Habit I am trying to create new “cues” and “routines,” the most successful one being doing yoga for 10 minutes right after getting out of bed. I’m trying to do that with prayer too. Elizabeth and I have been talking a lot about what it means to love God and what that looks like, and that’s something I want to think more about as I start to work towards becoming a member of Creston CRC and continue to work with students who traditionally have been underserved.
I walked to the downtown library last Sunday and got out a bunch of poetry books, and now I’m very excited to read them all. So many books, so little time.
Recs
Consider volunteering with a youth organization, maybe specifically in mentorship. Mentors are so important to young adults, and it just requires having time and building relationships.
Don’t waste an hour of your life on YouTube (like the author did last night), but if you really want to you should be watching Brian David Gilbert or Lil Nas X’s new song “Panini” (which was way more catchy than it has any right to be).