Phlox & Zinnia

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.


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“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 talk to a lot of people about books because when you are an English major, people assume that you acquire a magical knowledge of all things books. But whenever someone starts to ask me about books, I inevitably ask, "Do you have a Goodreads?"

I was clearly too young to be the target demographic when Goodreads, a bare-bones social media designed to keep track of and talk about books, flourished. As I tore through books during the summers of middle school and high school, I didn't really think twice to keep track of what I was reading. And if I ever needed to be reminded of what I'd read, I'd just defer to my mom, who at the age of 48 had more of an idea of the hot young adult books than me at 15. This tendency, and my astounding ability to completely forget everything I had read in a book within 24 hours, kind of put me in a pickle when someone would ask me, "What good books have you read lately?"

Finally, as a rising college junior worn down by my mother's persistence, I sat in front of the computer one July afternoon and clicked "Yes" to connect my facebook account with Goodreads. The rest is history.

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:

1. 17 inches is a lot of snow. -10 or minus wind chill is pretty dang cold.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Sometimes you gotta make a crappy research poster before you can make a pretty one.
7. Crafting a tight essay is hard. You live in a perpetual state of tweaking. Why do people do this writing thing?
8. 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.
9. Baking is a good time. Bread machines are magical creations. Food takes a large amount of upfront investment that pays off in later days.
10. 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.
11. Skating backwards is hard and you look like a goof trying to do it.
12. Calvin does give days off. Who knew.
13. 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.
14. If I could live in a beanie and be taken as a serious professional, I would.
15. Call Me By Your Name and Mad Max: Fury Road are perfect movies to play in the background. Fight me.
16. 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.
17. 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.

On today, my last day of freedom, I’m going to hit up the library, watch If Beale Street Could Talk, stop by campus to pick up a few things, do a little homework, read more of Slayer by Kiersten White, and do a little babysitting. Come Monday, I’ll finally have some new things to say. Stay tuned.

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.