Journaling

I have been thinking a lot about the journaling/writing process lately.  I started this blog over 10 years ago (back when blogging was the new thing) but I have been writing as a way to process for a lot longer than that.  I first started keeping a journal when I was about 12- 7th grade. Most of my early journals focused a lot on my relationships- friends, boys, my family. As I got older my journals included all those relationships, but also more about events- what I was doing and seeing- especially as I started to travel and do and see more. Those journals were private, not meant to be shared. The internet, social media, blogging, facebook changed this process for me a lot.  When I started blogging, I didn't stop writing in my journal, but I wrote different things online for the public audience than I did for myself. I think that both of these processes are helpful to me and I like them for different reasons. I don't exactly have a huge audience (I pretty much think that it has mostly been my parents, tbh). Taking this month off of facebook has made me think a lot about my online presence and how/what I share. I will have more thoughts on that in a few days when my #30daychallenge is up. Also, next month, I am taking my previously private journals public- participating in Mortified Live- in which I will be reading some of my writing from 7th-8th grade on stage in front of a large audience. It should be interesting. Or if not interesting, mortifying. I guess we shall see.    

30 Day Challenge #2- 30 min daily workouts

For February (plus a day each of January and March, because Feb is such a short month) I decided to try to work out every day for 30 min.  These workouts could be anything- I tried out dance, yoga, zumba, kickboxing, pilates and more. 10,000 steps (approximately 5 miles walking) also counted as a workout. For the first half of the month, I did really well (especially considering that I was going from barely working out at all to trying to exercise every day) and for the first 20 days, I only missed one.  Then came my trip to Boston for Geek Bowl and what I returned with . . .  #geekbowlplague.  I spent the rest of the month fighting a nasty cold that turned into a really gross sinus infection- working out was no longer a priority.  Even though I didn't reach my 30 day goal I still exercised more than normal and discovered some good things, like how many free short workouts there are on youtube that I can do in my living room. I have three more months this year that involve physical/workout challenges and I hope to continue to do some of the dance/zumba/yoga type workouts if not every day, then a couple of times a week.  Up next: facebook free for 30 days. 

30 Day Challenge #1- Food Tracking

For the month of January (or rather, the first 30 days of it) I decided to track all of the food I ate.  I used the app myfitnesspal and entered everything that went into my body.  I used the default settings on the app, which figured out that I should have an average of 1750 calories a day in order to lose weight.  I didn't specifically set out to reach that goal, just to track, but I think that the act of tracking definitely had an effect on my calorie intake overall. I successfully tracked everything for 30 days and actually didn't even find it to be that hard with the app. The app has lots of foods, including many restaurant menus, preloaded and has the ability to scan bar codes for just about anything that has a barcode.  The hardest things to track were homemade items that I didn't cook myself or restaurant items when the app didn't have the menu, but for the most part, I think that I was able to make best guesses in those cases. I also tracked my water intake, weight, and exercise, just because the app does that too and why not. It turns out, that I lost 5 lbs in these 30 days. I don't necessarily attribute that all to the food tracking (it is January and we just came off a particularly heavy holiday season), but I don't think it hurt. I think that I ate less overall than I would have normally just because I was more aware of it. Up next- 30 min daily workouts!  

30 Day Challenges

For me personally, 2017 was a year. It wasn’t a good year, it wasn’t a terribly bad year, it was just... a year.

So on to bigger and better things in 2018. Instead of making New Years Resolutions that I’m sure I would eventually break, I’m splitting up the year into 12 convenient chunks (otherwise known as months) and giving myself a challenge for each one. I’m starting in January with a food journal. Other challenges coming up this year (subject to change): 30 min workouts, Facebook free (this will be a hard one) knitting, meditation, sugar free meal planning, 10,000 steps, letter writing and a few more to be determined. I’ll update you all on my status and completion each month. Let’s go 2018!

For anyone curious, here is my complete list (still subject to change) and thanks to everyone for the encouragement!

January- food journal (track everything I eat)
February- 30 min daily workouts
March- No Facebook
April- No added sugar
May- Read everyday
June- 10,000 steps
July- Letter writing
August- Meditation
September- Strength training
Oct- Knitting
Nov-  workouts agian
Dec- Gratitude

Life as a first year teacher: Trimester 1

I am one third of the way through my first year of teaching.  It is hard.  It is fun.  It is scary.  It is frustrating.  It is confusing.  It is empowering.  It is exhausting.

I am exhausted.  Anyone that says that teachers have it easy and get lots of time off has absolutely no idea what they are talking about.  I regularly spend several hours a night on weeknights and time on weekends grading or planning.  I am getting up at 6:00 every morning (and as I've said before, I'm not a morning person) and I was spoiled by getting enough sleep in Albania that in order for me to function, I have to go to bed by 10:00.  More than the sleep thing though, is the mental exhaustion.  Most days I get home and my brain is just tired.  It is hard to do more than collapse in a pile on my bed and watch bad tv shows.  I have seen very little of my friends and family since school started. 

I am empowered.  It really is amazing being in the classroom and seeing students change and grow.  They are doing that, and I am helping them do that!  My students are amazing and when I see them succeed I feel like I am succeeding.  I feel empowered and powerful in the best way.

I am confused.  There are so many things to navigate as a new teacher.  District, school and classroom politics and policies can be overwhelming.  Nothing quite makes sense and I sometimes just have to sit back and hope that things will just work themselves out.

I am frustrated.  Some of the things that just don't make sense can also be super frustrating.  Why are they making us do it that way?!? What am I doing wrong?  Why isn't this kid responding to this? Why don't they turn in their homework?!

I am scared.  I live in a little bit of fear every day that I am doing something totally wrong, that this will be the day that my class completely falls apart and just when that happens the Superintendent is going to walk into my classroom and see the utter chaos that is reigning.  I am terrified that I am a bad teacher and that I will fail my students.  I lose sleep at night worrying that my students won't be successful in my class and I won't be able to teach them what they need to know to be successful later in life. 

I am having fun.  I am trying every day to have fun.  I am having fun teaching and I hope that my students are having some fun learning.  I am definitely having fun with my colleagues.  I love the teachers that I am working with and as a team we have done a really good job of making sure we are having fun.

It is hard.  Teaching is hard.  It is hard to get up every day and be on.  It is hard to go to school every day and not fail my students.  It is hard to make decisions every day that effect the lives of my students and not know if they are the right decisions.  I don't know that I've every pushed myself as much as I have for the past three months.  I am pushing myself every day to be the best teacher that I can be for my students and it is hard.  But it is worth it.

I am one third of the way through my first year of teaching.  It is amazing.  

Readjustment

Last week I had coffee with Connie, an older volunteer that I became close with in Albania when we traveled together for the holidays in Italy. Truth: when I grow up I want to be like Connie. When she came back from PC, she bought an RV and for the past two years has been driving it around the country, staying for a few months at a time near friends and family. During our conversation, she asked me about how I have readjusted to life in the US. I had to think a lot about this question. My first answer is "great!" everything is fine! Because that is the easy answer. And things are pretty good for me right now- I have a good job, I have a good place to live, I'm close to my family. I have stopped having panic attacks in the grocery store. The past three years have really been about settling into adulthood- figuring out what I really want to do with my life. So in many ways, readjustment has gone very well for me. There are a few things that I noticed however when I think a little bit more about how my life is different from my life before I left. While I have made many new friends (mostly through camp and school) and have remained close to some of my old friends, I have also noticed that I have grown apart from a lot of people that I used to be very close. Why is this? There are a whole bunch of reasons, I'm sure. I've been away for most of the summers since I've been home, I've been working and in school and am less likely to go out during the school year. I got used to a more solitary life in Albania, too. I value the time I get alone more than I did when I was younger. Some of it may also be my old friends. Many of my friends have gotten married and had kids in the past few years. While this obviously doesn't mean that we can't be friends anymore, it sometimes means that our paths don't cross as much anymore. This was also something I was thinking about a little while ago- in my life BPC (before Peace Corps) there were always tons of activities that my friends organized to get people together- there were parties all the time, regularly scheduled theater, kickball, cooking club, concerts and so many other things. In order to see people,you didn't have to plan or do much, just show up at the party. Now these sorts of things are fewer and farther between, so in order to see people, you have to make an effort and when events do happen, not as many people show up . . .

The timing of this for me is that I noticed the change when I returned from Peace Corps, but I realize that it is also just a sign of getting older and growing up. So it might not just be readjustment to life back in America, but adjustment in general to life as an adult.

Camp

Sunset at Sky High

The spring of 2011 found me home, but I didn't really know what that meant. I had been around the world and wasn't really sure what to do next. With a summer open, I decided to do something I always wanted to do, but never really thought I would, go back to camp. As a child, some of my best memories are of camp. I was that kid, the one that never got homesick because she was just having so much fun. From year to year I kept a list of my counselors real names in a notebook, but I always kept it secret until the end of the week (not my secret to tell). But by high school, my interests had broadened and new activities like marching band made camp harder to do.

The summer of 2011 was epic. I was home. All of a sudden I had a place and a family and I knew that I would keep coming back for as long and as often as they would let me. I grew up at Flying 'G', but Sky High had my heart. 2012 was going to be the best summer . . . Until fire disaster shut camp down and financial disaster kept camp closed. I had a few choices for the summer of 2013- look for a summer job in the city, work for day camp in Denver or look for a new camp to call home (at least for the summer). I knew I wasn't done with camp yet, so I started my search.

I found Barker and thought that it might just be perfect. Only four hours drive from Denver and in the most beautiful part of New Mexico, the Enchanted Circle. It ended up being a very hard summer for a variety of reasons. Construction at camp wasn't finished on schedule, leaving us without a kitchen or showers, we were understaffed for most of the summer and there were lots of difficulties with communication with the council office. But for all that, I still loved camp.

This month I have scheduled three weekends at three different camps- volunteering and working. I highly doubt I will be back in New Mexico next summer (although stranger things have happened) but I do think I will be at camp somewhere. I just can't stay away.