Phlox & Zinnia

I’m not exactly sure what to write about. Somehow the days keep slipping past my fingers and the “write a blog post” item on my to-do list keeps getting pushed to the bottom of my list, alongside “call the parents of people in my new advisory” and “go to sleep on time.”


Here are the thoughts that have been stewing in my brain:

I watched a video recently in my quest to find good art videos so the students in my art class can get some semblance of an art education from me about lettering, which is a style of art I can definitely get behind (and maybe one that I will try out someday). What stuck in my mind was a comment that the artist, Jessica Hische, made: “The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” Ambivalence struck me—that comment makes perfect sense on the surface, but what does it mean that I procrastinate by skimming Twitter threads, watching niche gaming YouTube videos, and reading Young Adult novels? What’s my dream job—reading books? Searching the internet for fun content?

This Friday we didn’t have school and attended a regional Professional Development. Rather than attending the art teacher session, which is the role I am currently filling, I went to the middle school English workshop. I honestly did not have high hopes for this development. The company I work for isn’t the best with being at the forefront of good pedagogical techniques; however, I gained some good and practical strategies. I also just got to hang out with my coworkers, which was lovely since I barely see them anymore apart from 2 minute “how is everything going” chats.

We talked in that session about shifting discussions in class to be more student-focused, which requires a lot of scaffolding/teaching in the school that I am at since the students don’t listen to each other to start off, and it brought to mind another theme that is running through my life—community. Students crave community, even if they don’t recognize it, and it’s my job to provide the structure for the community (which I haven’t done yet). We all crave community. I realized this again in my house church’s discussion of the most recent sermon at Creston CRC on Luke 17:11–19, Jesus healing 10 men of their skin disease. Noah Kruis made a point that in these stories, Jesus isn’t saying that our physical disabilities are symbols of our sinfulness and made to be healed but are instead the representation of how we are cut off and excluded from other people. Jesus heals that exclusion and brings us back into community. If community has been such an important part of my life the last two years in Project Neighborhood, why shouldn’t I bring that community into a classroom? What’s stopping me, that the kids yell at each other? That I’m new? That we need to get all of this stuff done?

I love reading the post calvin and have enjoyed it even more now that I’m a writer since I feel known on the blog; however, I’m having some serious imposter syndrome. I feel like I don’t have anything new to say, and when I do have something to say that it’s just going to turn out like an uninteresting think piece. “But Alex, just write what is interesting to you!” Maybe. I also feel like my piece for November should be in tribute to Mom since it’ll be posted 2 days before the anniversary of her passing, but I don’t know if it’ll feel forced or shoehorned. I just want to write pieces like Courtney Zonnefeld’s meditation on grief, Katerina Parsons’ exploration of coming back to your home culture after being in a vastly different culture for years, Josh DeLacy’s journey through a line in a public bathroom, and Gwyenth Findlay’s subtle look at nostalgia through hockey. What do I have to share?

I want this blog to be more coherent and for me to spend more time on it. I’m considering to switch it to being hosted on Glitch, a sort of DIY place for websites, and its blog template. That feels like a good job for me to get my feet wet into coding again (and also include more pictures), but I haven’t found a Saturday to sit down and do it. Now that I think about it, I keep just piling on events to do and friends to meet weekend after weekend. And my body hasn’t gotten the memo that I don’t have to get up at 5 on weekends, so here I am, doing some of the stuff I haven’t been able to get to yet.

You deserve a better post, but this rambling and winding essay is pretty representative of my life right now. When I get my crap together and can stop avoiding the practices that actually help me process things, I’ll let ya know.

Recs:
These two poems by Mary Szybist. Space Struck (haven’t read it yet but am sure it’ll be good. She’s coming to the Festival of Faith and Writing!). Overnight Sourdough Waffles/Pancakes, which I’m about to go eat. Lucy Dacus’ cover of Dancing in the Dark.

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).

There's been 4 days of school, I've taught 4 classes of creative writing, and only one of them has gone well. I know the learning curve is step but whew, I'm just trying to stay positive.

The Sunday before the first day I was hit with a wave of anxiety before I even got out of bed. I went to church and read more of my book and tried to keep my mind off of things, but this feeling of unprepared-ness lingered. Just who were these kids, and what did I think I could really teach them? Who did I think I was?

I mispronounced name after name on my attendance and only got through one activity that I had planned. The second day I went too far too fast, careening straight over my kids' heads. By talking about mentor texts academically, I lost them, and I lost a part of their trust. Wednesday was the worst—I got completely off track and my students just dissolved. I subbed for another teacher later in the day, and the students got so out of control that the behavior specialist had to stay in the room. When my boss asked if I wanted to debrief, I was feeling defeated.

But we talked through everything, and I got some actionable steps. I rewrote yet another lesson and finally got my students engaged in what I was presenting. I successfully pushed into other classrooms and helped to manage behavior. I was able to put my foot down, and students took me seriously.

Instead of getting down on myself about feeling exhausted after only teaching one class or beating myself up about not knowing where the heck to go after this (because I haven't done that at all...), I'm trying to see my role like a gift. I've already been able to see students in multiple classes throughout the day and get the one-on-one interactions to get to know them. In observing other teachers, I get to see the kind of tactics that work and the kind of tactics that do not and what I want to put in a classroom.

More importantly, I'm learning that I can relate to students who come from vastly different backgrounds from me and how they can teach me. They've already surprised me with their determination, their ability to stand up for themselves, and their genuine heart. They want to believe education can help them, but that has been proven to be a lie for them time and time again since they are African American. I just want to make sure I'm not getting in the way of that education, to let them learn in the ways that connect with them the most powerfully.

If you asked me how my first week of school was, I'd tell you it was exhausting and a bit demoralizing and made me question if I really know anything. But it was also a recognition that I love students and I would to better center my class on building strong overall community and strong one-on-one connections. We'll see how week 2 goes.

I’ve been avoiding this blog, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because this month I haven’t been a Negative Nelly™.

Real talk? I love my job as a camp counselor. Yesterday I spent a good 30 minutes looking up new friendship bracelet patterns partially so I can find new stitches to teach the kids and partially because I just rediscovered my bag of friendship bracelet string and there’s nothing like the ego boost of when a camper sees something you made and goes “Woah, can you teach me how to make that?” I spent an hour of so half-watching “Marvel: Agents of SHIELD” with my dad and making the confetti bracelet.

I’ve been working at a day camp with the 5 and 6-year-old girls ever since the summer before my senior year of high school. My love for it steadily grew as I got older, wiser, more clear with boundaries, and more understanding of co-counselors—maybe they don’t have to adore every second of hanging out with children to be a good counselor. I’ve gotten to the point where I have my routines: I spend the drop-off time coloring on the floor, trying to make conversation with the new kids, then I transition to doing the 7 different activities with the kids and honing in on the quiet ones or the more troublesome ones, and at the end of the day I play cards with the 5-year-old boy who sat on the floor and cried quietly the first day he was in after-camp care. I get beat by middle school girls at Egyptian Rat Slap, I lose my voice yelling to get kids to listen to information about after-camp care, I say hi to the Badgers (5/6-year-old boys) during morning snack, and I go home and watch TV rather than read the library books that I keep renewing.

This job has been instrumental in me recognizing that I want to be a teacher, which is a tad ironic since it also made me realize there is no way on God’s Green Earth that I would want to be an elementary school teacher. It’s the relationships—even the ones with campers who after 3 years of being out of my group have finally stopped thinking I’m cool and have stopped hanging out with me and with campers whose names I cannot remember for the life of me. I know now that teaching is all about relationships, and I know I love having relationships with kids because I work this job. I love that I can invest deeply for a summer and then skim the surface of that relationship as time goes on as campers get older and remember less about their crazy 5-year-old antics. Now that I really think about it, it’s taught me to let go of campers who I really loved and allow them to grow into someone who doesn’t need me to stand inside the bathroom just in case they can’t get their wet swimsuit on their body again. Even though I still have some doubts about my professional path (as does nearly everyone except for my two parents—thanks guys), being a counselor shows me that I’m aiming in the correct general direction.

It’s also just plain fun to be a counselor. Messing around with 5-year-olds is an art; whenever I go swimming in the pool, all my campers go, “ALEX IS THAT YOUR SWIMSUIT?!?!” and I get to say, “Maybe” or “No, I’ve been wearing this all day” or “What are you talking about?” I get to make a camper giggle and say a few sentences, a camper who at the beginning of the summer the counselors questioned if she could speak English at all. I get to play card games (mostly War because they are 5) and eat chicken nugget and tater tot leftovers. Sure, when kids talk over me I get frustrated and sometimes I get sick of repeatedly telling kids to not touch the wrestling mats or cross a line close to the rock wall and I don’t like all of my campers, but it’s overall good.

I’m already sad that in all likelihood I probably won’t be working at this camp again. RIP Alex, Gazelle Counselor Extraordinaire.

Recs: If you like romance novels (I mean, this is like pure romance with nothing else), The Hating Game is great and I’m insanely late to its hype train. Here’s the friendship bracelet tutorial playlist that I curated yesterday; the “Rag rug” or confetti pattern is the one I’m working on now. Chef R Paul and I will be trying out this Grilled Zucchini Taco (scroll for a bit) recipe for Bachelorette Men-Tell-All night tomorrow, so my resident vegetarian Sarah will let you know how it goes.

P.S. This is weird and unplanned, but this post parallels the themes I wrote about exactly a year ago in "Hand Holding & Bracelets." The camper who I said wouldn't want to hang out with me anymore is the same camper I'm talking about who actually stopped hanging out with me. AND I watched Brooklyn 99 today. The universe is pranking me or something.

P.P.S I got accepted to write on the post calvin, so I'll be posting an essay there every month or so! I'm not planning on giving up this blog or letting it go completely public, but I honestly have no idea how next year is going to go so stay tuned for the fate of this blog.

WANTED:

White blond young adult female presenting. Medium height and slightly heavier build. Spends some time reading but more on Instagram and podcasts. Avoids texting her friends. Stays up at night worrying about the changes coming in the future.

This woman is dangerous and emotionally damaging and needs to be contained. Bring her in at your own risk. Last seen 4 years ago looking at a text which reportedly said that she needed to stop sending out “needy vibes” and that “God does want her to have friends.”