In Which I Learn Things about Myself (also teaching)

Thing the first: I don't think I can teach in a very low level class. I lack the ability to break things down beyond what I feel are their most basic components. There are only so many ways I can explain a thing and if you can't get it after that, I can't help you. This is tricky for me because, for many things, I pick them up without great difficulty. I can't make parts of speech any simpler than "types or categories of words." Just not gonna happen. My master teacher says that it's good to know this about oneself. This is why I'm not in elementary schools. I should probably teach AP classes.

Related to this is the matter of vocabulary. I have spent a great amount of time cultivating my English vocabulary. I enjoy having just the right word for just the right situation. When working with ELD and low performing students, I can't use my full range of language because no one will know what the hell I'm talking about. In my first period, I was reading an essay about poetry slams to them and it had a bit that was the main point of poetry slam. I was describing this and the only words I could think of were "manifesto" and "creed." That's great except those words have zero meaning to these kids. It's frustrating.

Thing the second: I am extremely hard on myself/I lack self-confidence. Also, I'm really stressed out about everything. Unfortunately, being aware of one's issues is not the equivalent of fixing or not having issues. Even my student teaching supervisor, who I've talked to all of four times, said that I'm being too hard on myself. Well, if I knew how to be easy, or just regular, on myself, I would do it. I'm pretty sure I'm suffering from Impostor Syndrome. Uhm, yay? I wish I had any idea how to deal with this. It's kind of fucking me up because I'm so unwilling to talk myself up that I'm botching employment opportunities. But I feel like I'm lying when I say I'm good at things, so it's really hard to know what to do.

Thing the third: my master teacher has a 7 year old daughter who is really smart and I am kind of the adult version of her kid so we're kind of giving each other insights about that. My master teacher pointed out to me today that part of what messes me up is what when I'm faced with a choice, I see 400 options or courses of action, whereas a normal person sees maybe two. So I get overwhelmed, can't decide and sometimes go in a completely different direction. I do really well when someone narrows it down for me a little bit. I mentioned to her that I had no idea what I was doing in resume and cover letter writing, and she pointed me in the right direction and I was able to fix it immediately. But when there's too much choice, I am ruined.

Otherwise I am really enjoying student teaching. I am feeling a bit less shy about it now so I am being more normal/goofy. I think I have a pretty good rapport with the kids, which is great. I've realized that my favorite teaching game is password (put a word on the board, a student in front of the board, and the other students have to get the first student to figure out the word). I also like putting the "confetti" text effects from MS Word on things because it amuses me (and also the students).

I've been busting my ass to get a job. I think I've applied for like 70+ positions now. I hope I get something. I've also started applying for some non-teaching jobs. I want to work with information, either as a teacher, librarian or archivist of some sort. So, I've been looking up major university libraries and applying to some jobs there. Something will work out.

Deciding is Always So Hard

I have been thinking, as of course I always am, about What I Am Doing With My Life. I've applied for a few jobs: language analyst for the NSA, which would mean moving to maryland; and Staff Services Analyst (a position that encompasses many different jobs) with the state of California, which would mean staying in San Bernardino County. And as ever I am on the horns of dilemma. I am fucking loving being back in the circus. Like, it's the thing that was missing from my life the last 5 or whatever years while I was in college. So even though I am no great fan of Redlands, I am starting to feel like I would be willing to stay just to do circus for the rest of time. However, if I stay in Redlands, working for the state, doubtless I would not be doing language-based work, which I also put a lot of value in. I feel like I'm stuck asking myself "What's more important: The life of the mind? Or the physical arts that I take so much joy from?"

In some ways, I might feel comfortable staying put. I have proven to myself over the last year that I can maintain my studies even without school. On the other hand, I had barely touched my unicycle over the last three years when I was busy wtih school and work. And I know that it was upsetting me to not be doing anything circus-y. So I'm asking myself, if I were to move to Maryland, would I be able to keep it up? Would I be satisfied enough doing Arabic and whatever for the government? Would I be more satisfied doing a job like that than whatever job I could get with the state of California while staying here in the circus. Because in the end aren't all desk jobs still just desk jobs and maybe it wouldn't matter anyway?

At the moment, I kind of feel like whichever one calls me back first is the one that I'll go with. And I really think that right now, I'm leaning towards staying in Redlands. I just know it's going to be a hard to feel 100% right in any decision.

Enough speculation, let's talk about what's awesome! In my ongoing quest to expand my repitoire of unicycle-based jump rope tricks, I got my friend Tanner involved for some two person tricks yesterday. We tried jumping side by side with each of us turning one side of the rope, which I think went pretty well. More sweet ass unicycle tricks to come. And eventually I'm going to make a damn video, but it's so hard to remember.

The Tribulations of Lindsey

I take back what I said about being okay with the cold now. It was -6c yesterday and I pretty much died. I wanted to go out today, but it seems to be snowing again and I'm just not sure I can handle it right now. The main reason I want to go out is to go do Barnes and Noble. I have a $30 giftcard and it is refusing to work on the website. This is disappointing.

For my phonetics class this quarter we have the option of doing a paper OR a final. I always prefer to write a paper. But you have to find a native speaker of a language that you're not familiar with and do a few sessions of them saying some words in whatever language and then you transcribe it and write "I thought this k would be unaspirated, but the speaker pronounced it as an aspirated k." Logically, to do this project, you need to be able to read the script and use a dictionary. So it makes good sense that when a girl from my class emails everyone to say "Does anyone need a korean speaker? My friend really wants to do it." I say "sure, I could use a korean speaker!" *Learns the korean writing system* We'll see how that one goes.

I had to order the new version of Al-Kitaab book 2, the one with the DVDs, for the Arabic class for which I'm doing all the work and getting none of the credit. Furthermore, there is only one guy in this class (supposedly)! It's all girls and they were like "hey, our one guy is not here today!" But the prof is really cool and she is from Palestine. I can understand everything she's saying but I can manage to formulate any responses. Especially none in formal ARabic; I can only speak like an Egyptian. Which isn't so bad, if one is in Egypt...

next week, I have a short paper due for my sects and violence class. We were told that we don't have to do research and can make up information, it's just to show that we can write and support a thesis. WTF. This seems like a completely useless exercise and I should think that if you're in university takinga 300-level class, you can write a thesis. I just can't understand how people would not know that.

Well, it is a three-day weekend and I don't have much work (any work?) for school. I do need to work on the gs.c newsletter (which I now have a staff for o.0) and I'm probably just going to relax...maybe go out if it would ever stop snowing >.>