Not Honey

I stayed at home for Joella's home church this morning. Three of us lingered in the kitchen getting hot drinks.

One dear soul asked if we had any honey for her sore throat. I noticed the special jar with the amber liquid, sitting on the shelf looking as though it were very dear to one of the housemates, though I knew not to whom. Per our policy, however, it bore no one's name, officially making it free game. I was sure, therefore, that none of us would begrudge a guest using some of the precious honey.

I brought it down, and two of our guests added it to their tea. One had never tasted honey in tea before, and the other, as I said, had a sore throat, so may not have had the full enjoyment of the honey at any rate. They retired to the living room when Joella came into the kitchen and noticed the jar on the table.

"Isn't that Leah's hair-removal stuff!?" she exclaimed with wide eyes.

Startled I whispered, "What?! No. No, what!? It looks like honey! It's on the shelf where the honey goes! There's no label!"

"It's not honey," Joella responded with equanimity and mortification.

"What is in it?!"

"Just sugar, lemon, and water, I think. Maybe they won't notice. Just please don't give any more to my guests," and she placed it high up on the shelf while I stifled the loud laughter rolling upward in me.

Forgive me, Melissa and Shirley.

For the Next Seven Weeks

I won't be available. Your Facebook notes and mailed cards have meant the world to me, been part of the strength of my heart. And I hope to even write lots of you back when I'm through with student teaching. But for now, I'm going to focus on making the most of this latter half and finishing well.

Student Teaching, Week Seven

When I look back over the week, I don't see any increase in my responsibilities. I taught less, planned less, did less in the classroom, actually. But why am I feeling so tired right now?

Next week, I'll be teaching Huckleberry Finn in the two college prep classes, and also implementing my own unit plan for nonfiction in my tech prep class.

Some things that I find intimidating about this:

• My computer isn't adapting well to the smartboard. (But we have a smartboard! So awesome.)
• I haven't yet finished lesson plans for the first two days of the nonfiction unit
• I constantly feel as though I am gypping the students out of what's best for them when I'm teaching.
• I wonder how they will react to my personal ideas
• I wonder how my cooperating teacher will react to my personal ideas
• Do I have enough of my own ideas in the unit?
• I wonder if I will be able to forgive myself for all the mistakes I make during the day when I get into the car and drive away
• What if we have extra time in class?
• What if I miss important information for their lives? (Or worse, the PSSA test...hah.)
• Staying organized enough to pull off a couple weeks teaching a full load
• Job applications--yeah, 'bout those.

There we have it folks, the things that go through my mind before I sleep, as I'm driving, while I'm planning, while I'm not planning, while I walk to work, while I get another round for table 55, while I clean out the pickle fridge... And this is the abridged list, I'm afraid.

But the good news is (there should be one line of good news, at least), this afternoon, when I came home, flowers were on our porch. They were for someone else, but we got to keep them, since they had the wrong address!

The actual bad news is that this is the week that Japan was all but destroyed by a tsunami. God, forgive my skewed perspective. Today, I feel for my brothers and sisters in Japan.

Student Teaching, Week Six

The free writes I gave this week were not really freeing. I gave a prompt that read, "what was the TV show you couldn't get enough of as a kid? Why was it so intriguing?" By the second period's papers, I had read a lot about the Rugrats. I realized that I should never assign a writing prompt for which I cannot anticipate a wide variation in response--unless I want to stab myself in the fork with my eye.

I took Airborne almost every day this week, from having a sore throat. Talk more, sleep less, go to a high school, and this is bound to happen to you, too.

I have very patient roommates: Washing dishes? Wait, what? I thought we had a little robot maid that just did that while we were away? No, I haven't actually seen her, but... Well, then, who's been...? Ooooh. Thanks, guys.

I really love to listen to TobyMac on my way to school, and Beggar Folk on my way home. Immediately after school, I feel my brain throbbing against my skull. All the thoughts of the day rush in together: Huckleberry Finn, the five-paragraph essay, literary devices, passive voice, job applications, research papers, the CIRQL project¡ai!¡benditoSenor!¿cuándoseterminaestesemestre!? El Cinco de Mayo. Gloria a Dios.

Ruined: Thoughts on Table Service

Eating out means less to me now than ever. The enjoyment has gone out of it for me indefinitely. I can't stop thinking about how the server feels. Leah and I decided that a woman should judge a good man not only by how he treats his mother, but by how he treats his serving staff. Incredible how some people will behave toward another person who is temporarily in their employ (i.e. a server). Is it a power trip which encourages a customer to behave so poorly to a server?

While talking to other servers today, an interesting observation came up: tips are higher when you mess something up. You can provide quality, timely service--running your feet off to get their drinks and food on the table, dishes off the table, next course on the table, dishes, check please, credit card receipt, "have a great evening!"--and receive a standard 18% tip.

But if you mess up an order--have to have it re-made, run it back for them, hand their food later than the rest of the table, forget to fill up their sodas for a long time, serve them potato salad instead of the requested linguini salad--then, the tip is more likely to exceed 20%. My serving colleagues inform me that this phenomenon is unique to our Isaac's.

Ask Me Why

Me: Becky, you're so good at asking insightful questions. You should ask me why I made two eggs just now.

Becky: Carolyn, why did you have to make two eggs just now?

Me: Why, I'm so glad you asked this! You see, I was only planning on making one egg. But then... A COCKROACH FELL INTO IT!

Becky: [stunned face] ...That's gross. Ew. That's gross.

Me: Sorry, but you asked.

The Un-cooling Process

It's hard to say what student teaching has been like.

It's been so many things. Really fun, mostly.

One of the reasons I wanted to become a teacher was because I had such a wretched time in high school. I felt like my teachers were just overly... safe! It's like they really didn't know how much of an adult I was, or how much challenge I could handle. Sometimes I heard a short speech on how we need fire drills, just in case; or a teacher would explain that no, we couldn't __________ (fill in blank) because someone might feel uncomfortable, a parent might not appreciate that, we hadn't cleared it with the principal, etc.

Now I'm on their end. Here and there, I can tell that it's growing me up. I plan and think with so much more in mind than what would be fun. Fire drills, for example: as a student, I had every confidence that I could safely exit the building that I knew better than my house before being engulfed in flames. But as a teacher, I wonder about the one or two new kids who don't know where the nearest exit is in some of their classes. And if that kid is in the bathroom when the alarm sounds, and he finds himself separated from the crowd, what then? We need fire drills.

A thousand-and-some thoughts like this pass through my head every day. And the result? I'm not so cool anymore. This is the un-cooling process.

Still, some people manage to keep just the right balance between making sense and making fun. Mr. Brett always comes to mind. How did he do it? He wasn't careless. But somehow we still managed to have doughnuts on Fridays and sit in a circle having meaningful discussion on very advanced readings... I'm talking learning: the real, good, fun, lasting-into-college, changed-the-way-I-write, changed-the-way-I-think!-type of learning.

Many of you have asked about my mentor/cooperating teacher. She's a great model for this type of learning. But even if I use the same lesson plan, the same words sometimes, it's not the same experience for the students.

So, we keep going.