California Geography

Having now driven around quite a bit for job interviews, I am more familiar with California geography than I ever thought I would be, than I ever really wanted to be.

My dad seems to know just about every route and alternate route and backroad in the state. I used to think that he was some kind of logistics savant (he may be that still), or something, but now I realize he knows so much because he has driven everywhere. Twice. For my most recent journey, I was driving to northern California (Willits, specifically) and I mentioned I was trying to beat the traffic on the 210 by leaving early. "You're not leaving early enough for that," he told me, "you should take the 138 to Lancaster..." what then followed was an extremely specific set of instructions, whose accuracy was, in fact, corroborated by Google maps. "This part of the 138 is called Pear Blossom Highway. It passes through some weird town, Little Rock, I think." I was not sure why he had so much information about the middle of the god damn desert, but I decided to roll with it.

The thing about taking a back road, especially one that snakes through the desert, is that you're never sure it's going to work out until you get to the end of it. It just seems like you're driving into oblivion. Like if the world were flat you might drive off the side of it without noticing, scrub brush and the odd Joshua Tree seeing you off. But of course, this is what makes it a viable alternate route: there are no people. I know I'm not in the middle of nowhere on the 210 because it's so full of people. But then again, it's so full of people.

So my job interview was in Willits this time. I drove up to Ukiah (about 25 miles south of Willits) and spent the night there on Thursday. Friday afternoon I had a lesson demonstration--for actual students on the last Friday of the school year. Nice--and interview. I didn't get out of town til around 4P.M., but I drove the whole day home that day anyway. Normally, when driving to that part of the state, one goes through Oakland, but I knew at that time of day it would be a bad idea. So, I decided to go via yet another less-traveled road. I took the 20, which links up the 101 and the 5, and I spent about 40 minutes driving right next to a giant lake, I looked it up later and found out that it's called Clear Lake.

I've applied to so many jobs, over 200 now, and most of the time, I don't even look up where they are, I just apply because I'm so desperate for work. So, driving through the state I'm seeing all these town names that I recognize for putting in applications. I found myself saying things like "Oh, so that's where Elk Grove is," on my drive back.

I really hope I get a job soon because I can't keep experiencing geography at this rate.

More on student teaching experiences

I've now done a month of student teaching. I am not sure I have  ever been this exhausted before. Student teaching on its own wouldn't be so bad, but then I have my student teaching seminar once a week, and circus every day. Essentially, I have no down time. I'm looking forward to spring break, even though I'm going to be working during it.

It's interesting working with the lowest level ELD class. In that class, most of them are Spanish speakers, there's one guy who speaks Arabic and one guy who speaks Vietnamese. So I can communicate with everyone, except this Vietnamese kid. I keep saying things like "This weekend I'm going to start learning Vietnamese!" because it's frustrating for me not not be able to speak the other person's language when I'm trying to teach. I guess this is how my master teacher feels pretty much every day; I don't know how she does it. This Vietnamese kid came to class late in the year, so he knows even less English than the other guys in the class. This week, I brought in a really good picture dictionary that has English and Arabic words with each picture. I let him flip through it and point things out to me that he wanted to learn. From this, I learned that he likes chess, motorcross and boxing. The problem came in when he pointed to the Arabic transliteration listed with each picture, asked "what's this?" and then proceeded to try to pronounce the Arabic words of things. Which is dandy, except he barely knows any English, so the last thing he needs right now is Arabic vocabulary. I'm going to be so mad if that kid learns Arabic.

One of my classes is for "long term" ELD students and this particular class is mostly for kids who need accommodations. About one-third of them have IEPs so the class is basically one big accommodation. This is interesting for me to teach, since I am not really familiar with the low end of the academic spectrum. There's one girl, in particular, who I keep noticing. I can tell she's trying, but she just can't quite make it happen. She gets this look on her face that's so sad when she gets things wrong. Normally, if you wanted to be smarter, my advice would be, "read everything all the time," but you can't say that to someone who has a 3rd-grade reading level (well, you can say it, but that would make you the asshole in this case).

We started doing a whole-class SSR for this period. So, either my master teacher or I reads outloud for 10ish minutes, and then we ask the students to draw a picture of what they understood. They're actually pretty interested in the story, which I was surprised about. They all stay quiet. I've only heard one or two people complain that it's "stupid." Traditionally for SSR, students read on their own, but with this class that would be a total disaster. Probably none of them would bring something to read, so we would have to provide it, and then I'm sure they wouldn't get as much out of it as when we read outloud. This is something I want to incorporate into my class, when I start teaching on my own. Even if I'm teaching a first  year language class, I think it would be beneficial. Students would be exposed to more vocabulary than just what they get from their textbook, they would see the language in action, in context sooner, and it would make reading in the target language accessible. My master teacher pointed out that the only problem with that plan is that I'd have to provide all the books myself. I pretty much collect books anyway, so I don't see that as much of a detriment.

In other topics, I am finally going to go to Mexico! Despite spending most of my life in reasonable proximity to Mexico, I have never been there. In fact, I've never been to any Spanish-speaking country, which simply offends my sense of decency. Once student teaching is over, I'm going to Mexico City to sightsee and, as I put it to one friend, "look at museums and buy handicrafts." I'm super excited about it. Both my parents have told me that they will not stop worrying the whole time, since I'm going by myself. I told them too bad, since I'd already booked my tickets. It ends up being like a birthday present to myself and a celebration for being done with my credential, which is nice.

Trying Not to Think About IT

aka Breakup FAQ

It's been about 36 hours since Ian decided to break up with me. I've hit most of the Kubler Ross stages of grief in the meantime, except, of course, acceptance. It is a pretty surreal experience and I am sort of having a hard time believing it. Just when I thought things could not actually get any worse, they did. This is the worst.

When Ian first broke the news I was under the impression that it was mostly about another woman, his coworker. However, from the conversation we had last night, I have learned that she's not so much a cause as, perhaps a symptom. Ian came home last night, leaned down to take off his boots and just started crying. He said he spent all day thinking about how much I must hate him. Then I cried too. We cried and talked for about an hour and a half. I told him that I had been happy, even though other things hadn't been going right for me, I didn't see why he felt the need to do this and please just put it all back. I came to understand that his actions didn't stem from any dislike of me, but from a sharp sense of self-loathing. He said that all his life he was always the one who was stupid and no one liked, and he felt like he was, to an extent, just treating me the same way. He also didn't want me to feel held back in terms of career goals, etc. Hearing all this and watching him cry just made everything harder. It's easier to just be mad. Now I am even more conflicted since this is obviously not a breakup from a lack of love.

This morning he told me that after this conversation, he realized just how much I had cared. I just wish he had realized it sooner. Right now I hope that maybe after I go abroad, I'll move back to Seattle for grad school and maybe we can take it slow and help him work through some of these issues. I know in some ways, this is a naive outlook, but it's all I've got at the moment. Ian said he wouldn't discount the possibility.

I love being in Seattle, and I'm really sad that this could be a permanent move. The question that some people have asked is, "Why are you leaving, it was your apartment in the first place?" This is true. I was planning to go abroad in January to teach English anyway. However, the original plan was to leave all my shit and the cats with Ian, but now I am going to be moving to Redlands and staying at my dad's house in the meantime. My dad is flying up on the 29th and we are going to hitch a trailer to my Camaro to haul my stuff back.

In some ways, I feel like I am less limited now. I am going to apply to more grad schools, and I don't have to worry about how long I am abroad. On the other hand, I am so sad that I feel like I will never be able to live properly again. I feel like Ian was trying to do that trick where you pull out a tablecloth from under a bunch of crystal and dishes. Except it all is broken. I am basically crying about something every 20 minutes. I can't think about anything without being upset. Doing things that would normally involve routine interaction between us (e.g. Ian leaving for work) seem to be the most upsetting. I also have zero appetite, a pounding headache and keep hoping that I can sleep it away. But of course, I woke up this morning and everything was still there.

In conclusion, this is the stupidest breakup ever.

Please enjoy this video offering

a man a plan a canal panama

Since my last posting, I've still been on the "nothing is working out" path, both failing my most recent attempt at the Spanish interpreting test and not being able to get a new job. In light of this, I decided that I needed a new plan, since I am obviously not going to pass this stupid test anytime soon. Without further ado, new plan:

Reapply for grad school for next fall
Teach English in Egypt for about 6 months starting in january
Get accepted to grad school (one hopes)
profit.

Or something along those lines. I was reluctant to consider another try at grad school mostly because I feel like I haven't done anything to distinguish myself in the intervening time so why both again until I do something? Except that I can't seem to do anything, so I was in a bit of a failure loop. I am seriously regretting not applying to more graduate programs last year because I probably would have at least gotten into the UW arabic MA, had I applied. At the time though, I had ruled it would be stupid to stay at UW, but I have since reevaluated this position. This time I am going to apply to Berkeley (again), U of Washington and the Monterry Institute (For MA translation and interpreting). I am hoping that with some more international experience under my belt, I'll have better luck. And even if I don't get in again, by next spring I'll be able to retake the contract linguist test for the FBI, which I suppose I will pass with studying and being in Egypt, and I will probably try for medical interpreting in Arabic as well, but we'll see.

I am excited to go to Egypt. This is going to get me out of my pessimistic rut of the moment. I'll be taking a TEFL (teaching english as a foreign language) course this month and then looking for a job. I've been having fun planning out the trip and things I need to do to get ready; I like making lists and planning. I intend to be better prepared then last time I went. For one, I already have a nice camera. Also, I'm really hoping I can get something in Alexandria rather than Cairo. Cairo is cool, but I think it would be pretty sweet to be on the coast. I'm also hoping to do a little extra traveling about while I'm in that area of the world, since last time I didn't really go anywhere (no money, you see). My current, tentative plan is to fly to Spain after my teaching term is up. I was looking at some 5 day Mediterranean cruises that go out of Barcelona and that seemed like it could be pretty awesome. I was also contemplating taking the train up from Barcelona to Paris and then flying back from Paris, but the Eurorail is a little more expensive than I thought it might be. So, we'll see.

In other topics, I am really getting interested in sewing. I've made three skirts so far and they have been well received. I have fabric and such for two more projects and soon I will have a sweet skirt-based wardrobe.

In any case, I just hope some things can start working out for me now.