Professional Development

Yesterday there was no school unless you were a teacher.  One of the things I really really like about my job are who I work with.  They are my people.  We are all different ages and have different life circumstances but we have this really huge thing in common and I love it.

Also, in addition to the teacher thing, during our lunch break a few of us were talking about our church callings present and past, our Relief Society lessons yesterday, and then the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  So you know, just the usual....

After our meetings that felt worthwhile and encouraging, we went to a shooting range for some team bonding.

Not a natural fit for people who work in a strictly gun free zone but there we were.

One of my friends took this picture and texted it to me.

Even though I shot a gun a few times growing up, I was clearly out of my comfort zone.  After my first few shots, the guy working there said, "Would you like me to show you how to hold it?"

"Yes, please."

We loaded our own magazines and let me tell you that looks way easier in the movies.

It's nothing that I'm going to start doing as a hobby but it was a fun experience and little did I know that my job which takes up so much of my leisure time would give me such good friends!

More than just theater tickets

I mostly feel hassled by Mark's job at the Hale Theater.  I used to feel a little hassled by Emma's job there too but since she doesn't live at home it doesn't bother me anymore.

The problem is the timing.  They usually have to leave around 6:00 and it used to be before Adam got home from work and now it's hard to get myself in order to make dinner because I've been at work.

This weekend, I had a window into how really great it is for them and I will feel less angsty about the inconvenience of the whole dinner thing.

For starters, Mark worked a lot this week.  He was scheduled Tuesday-Thursday and then 13 hours on Saturday.  Emma has recently been promoted to be a door manager and Friday was her first night alone at the helm.  She was short ushers so Mark volunteered to work even though he tries to hold Fridays sacred for his friends.

Then, we did manage to have dinner on Friday night and Mark said a blessing before we ate.  He prayed for Emma on her first night being door manager.

Hearing Mark pray is one of the delights of my life.

Saturday we stole a little time in between shows and took Emma and Mark to a late lunch.  I loved hearing them chat about work.  I love seeing the dynamic of Emma being Mark's boss.  It's not always rosy; Emma has never not ever been afraid to tell either of her brothers what's on her mind.  She told Mark to vacuum a part of the theater when they got back and I know for a fact that Mark hates vacuuming more than any household chore.  He earnestly nodded at her and said, "OK, I will."

Adam and I had tickets to the theater Saturday night.  We stood in the line to pick up our tickets from our boy.  I said something to him about being the cutest usher and the woman in line in front of me gave me a sideways look.

Then we stopped into the box office and showed Emma the tickets Mark had reserved for us.  She decided she could do better so she printed us new tickets for better seats.

She said, "Come back and see me during the intermission."

At the intermission we decided there were empty seats that were better than ours so she gave us the go ahead to change seats again.

It's not just nice to have a resource to upgrade your seats though.  Here's the part I loved the most.  During the intermission, Mark was in the lobby and Emma was in the box office.  Mark was head usher and he and Emma were talking through their headsets and troubleshooting some of the technology up front not working.  Emma was helping a patron and dealing with the activity in the lobby and then she said into the headset, "I'm on my way."

She said, "They need help with concessions."

Adam and I stood in the wings off to the side of the lobby and watched in awe as Emma and Mark deftly served drinks and candy and counted changed and had these friendly tones of voice that aren't always...in full view.

I was thinking what a great thing it is for them to be responsible for something and have to problem solve when things go wrong.  There was nothing we could do to help and they didn't seem to need us anyway.

It felt kind of like when they first rode a bike by themselves.  Wow!  Look at them go!

Grateful Friday

I'm grateful for BYU--and living close to BYU.

Wednesday night Adam went to Salt Lake City to watch the BYU choirs and philharmonic orchestra perform their Christmas concert as part of a choir conference. In March? But he loved it.  And Emma loved being able to sing in a Christmas choir because she was in France when they did the actual concert at BYU.

I wish I could have gone!  I was knee deep in grades and exhausted so I wanted to go to bed earlier than the 11:30 time he got home (he drove Emma home so he could spend extra time with her).

He sent this picture:

Also, the BYU Dunk Team came to my school yesterday:

Sort of blurry picture of a picture but it was awesome and the kids LOVED it!

At one point they had all the teachers come to the center of the gym and they had the students scream and cheer for us.

If they had really wanted to gift us, how about 10 seconds of silence?

It was nice though and those dunk team kids are straight up athletic.

I'm grateful for my students who desperately wanted me to be picked as a volunteer at the assembly, who hug me and say they love me before they go home in the afternoon, who are over the moon about my prism and rainbows it makes and who told me indignantly that I didn't need to go to professional development meetings because I am already "a really great teacher."  It melted my heart; they are awfully sweet.

I am grateful for my teacher friends.  It feels so nice to have friends.  We are united in purpose and experience and they inspire me with their goodness and incredibly Christlike outlook on life.

I am grateful for our children who are understanding of my life and are supportive and encouraging.  They are mostly better than I deserve.

Speaking of supportive and encouraging, I'm appreciative of Adam and my mom for their constant reassurance and belief in me.

This week has been hard.  It has just been a confluence of circumstances that made me have a bigger than normal work load and smaller than normal prep time.

Next week doesn't look much better.

In the meantime, it feels wonderful to have people that have my back.

Don't look at the wall

Don't look at the wall.  Your car goes where your eyes go.

-Mario Andretti

A few days ago I listened to a podcast from my very favorite podcaster, Emily P. Freeman, and she quoted the above Mario Andretti quote.

And so I've been thinking about it like I think about Emily P. Freeman's podcasts all the time.

I've been wondering what my wall is.  And here's what I've come up with:  my wall is this irrational feeling that I'm letting everyone down.

I'm not doing enough for Mark, Adam is picking up too much slack, I single-mindedly do what's right in front of me and things slip through the cracks, I'm pretty novice at this whole teaching gig but I want to be an expert teacher because I love those kids and I want to be the best for them.

It's exhausting.

And not helpful.

I need to keep my eyes where I want my car to go.  I want to be loving and helpful and kind and open minded to learning new things and improving.  I want to be flexible with life's curveballs and resilient.  Focusing on my failings won't get me there.

Sunshine

Maybe I can blame it on growing up in a house that had lots of windows but no curtains.

I like sunlight.

I'm the one who goes out on the deck barefoot to take a picture of the morning light hitting the mountains.  My feet were cold but the mountains were stunning.

I think I'm the only teacher who keeps her blinds open during the day.  I think the consensus is that the playground would be a distraction but I just ignore the little faces that press curiously against my window and they eventually get bored and go away.

I bought a prism to hang in my window because what's sunshine without a myriad of tiny rainbows?

It came from Amazon in a two pack so last night I was trying to decide where to hang the other one at home.

The problem is that the sun moves with the day and the season and what I really want to do is walk around and hold it in the maximum sunlight all day.

I took a picture to send my kids--so they could congratulate me on my rainbows.  Emma complied.

I didn't even realize until later that my sunshine quote made it into the picture too.

 Grades are due Friday and I'm NOT READY.  I'll need all the sunshine in my pocket I can get today.

Math thespians

Last night Adam and I went to the school to judge math projects.  Very much as exciting as it sounds....

Every student needed to have at least one representative there to judge the projects.  It was a huge part of Mark's grade and I decided my job was to go around and make a deal with all the other parents, "Let's just go REALLY EASY on these kids."

You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

Adam and I were a team.  He would ask questions about sine and cosine and ask about what challenges they had.  I would smile and nod encouragingly and tell everyone they did a great job.

People clearly gravitate to their tribe.  The students mostly worked in pairs.  There were the earnest math whizzes who knew a lot about what they had done.  There were the jocks who kind of didn't seem to.  There were the artistic girls who had gone all out in decorating their posters.

Then there were the drama kids.

Mark was with Jensen a.k.a. Jean Valjean in the recent blockbuster Les Miserables at Pleasant Grove High School.

Look at that kind parent acting so captivated!  We all had a part to play.  All the world's a stage.

A lot of the kids mumbled along presenting their work and were hard to hear but these two spoke with enthusiasm and hand gestures and made eye contact at key intervals.

I sort of wanted them to break into song.

Adam told them after, "You didn't need to be good at math.  You just needed to act like you were good at math."

"Exactly!" Jensen said.

Rejoice

Maybe because I recently came across this picture of my grandparents on Family Search, or maybe because Elder Oaks reminded me so much of my grandpa last week...I don't know.

But I have been thinking about them.

By the way, I love that picture.  I think I mostly love the goats and I love my grandma's handwriting.  My dad wasn't born yet when the picture was taken but I asked him about the goats and he told me some goat stories.  I said, "I did not think Grandpa was the type of person who would have goats."

My dad said, "Well, he did."

I am one of many grandchildren and one of many girl cousins about the same age.  As such, I didn't ever have a lot of one on one time with my grandparents, but I always felt loved by them.  I had the good fortune of having them nearby for most of my growing up years.  We celebrated holidays together.  They'd come to our house for birthdays.  We would roast hot dogs over a fire in their yard on willow sticks that my brothers and/or boy cousins trimmed with their pocket knives at least once every summer.

I also heard them speak in church and I heard them pray.  I saw them serve in big and small, but always consistent, ways.

I saw them react to really hard things that happened to them (like their house burning down or people they loved making bad choices).  I am sure they had private times of discouragement but from my distance as one of many granddaughters, I never saw them downcast or in despair.  I saw them optimistic and full of faith.

The older I get, the more there seems to be a potential to be weighed down by sorrow and discouragement and disappointment.  The more people you love the more worried and anxious you can become for their welfare and choices.

President Nelson said (and I think my grandparents lived this):

The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything with the focus of our lives.

One of my favorite passages of scripture is the second half of 2 Nephi 4.  I have been thinking about this sentence from verse 28:

Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul.

Once upon a time, my grandparents hitched up two goats to a cart and bundled their young family up and took a picture.  Then they sent it as a Christmas card.  If that doesn't make my heart rejoice, I don't know what does.