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| HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TEACHER
1. You can hear 25 voices behind you and know exactly which one belongs
to the child out of line.
2. You get a secret thrill out of laminating something.
3. You walk into a store and hear the words "It's Ms/Mr. _________"
and know you have been spotted.
4. You have 25 people that accidentally call you mom/dad at one time or
another.
5. You can eat a multi-course meal in under twenty-five minutes.
6. You've trained yourself to go to the bathroom at two distinct times
of the day: lunch and conference period
7. You start saving other people's trash, because most likely, you can
use that toilet paper tube or plastic butter tub for something in the
classroom.
8. You believe the teachers' lounge should be equipped with a margarita
machine.
9. You want to slap the next person who says "Must be nice to work 7:15
to 3:15 and have summers off".
10. You believe chocolate is a food group.
11. You can tell if it's a full moon without ever looking outside.
12. You believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says
"Boy, the kids sure are mellow today."
13. You feel the urge to talk to strange children and correct their
behavior when you are out in public.
14. You believe in aerial spraying of Ritalin.
15. You think caffeine should be available in intravenous form.
16. You spend more money on school stuff than you do on your own
children.
17. You can't pass the school supply aisle without getting at least one
thing!
18. You ask your friends if the left hand turn he just made was a "good
choice or a bad choice."
19. You find true beauty in a can full of perfectly sharpened pencils
20. You are secretly addicted to hand sanitizer.
and finally,
21. You understand instantaneously why a child behaves a certain way
after meeting his or her parents. | | |
| Okay, I was commanded to update (thanks Todd), so this is me updating. It's funny how life changes on you. Three years ago, I was a senior at Ouachita, looking forward to graduating with a degree in history and theatre performance, and now I am working in a church - something I thought I would never do. I also work in the special education department at Krahn Elementary - another thing I swore I would never do. I don't even like kids, but these kids? God has to have a sense of humor because I love these kids, snot, drool and all. I am also half way through my masters program at Southwestern Seminary. When I was at Ouachita, I knew, KNEW, that I was going to go to Fayetteville and get my masters in theatre production. But nope, here I am, in Houston, Texas, doing all of these things that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was not cut out for. God's amazing! Even more so, He is constant. You see, the awesome thing about God is that He never changes. He doesn't have "oops" moments, which some would argue means that He isn't blonde. However, I would argue that He does have more fun, so there!  Anyway, back on topic - He is the same yesterday, today and forever, and that means that those times that I think He is far away or wonder why things change, the question has to be directed at myself. I am the one who changed. For the better? I hope so, but not always. If God is distant, it doesn't mean that He has decided He doesn't like me anymore and isn't going to be my friend. God isn't in middle school. The problem is me - I have changed. I have put distance between me and God. If my life is different from what I imagined it would be, it isn't because God changed His mind about His plans for my life; rather, He changed my plans. So what's the point? The point is the great comfort we can take in the character of God. Change is all around us. Marriages break up every day because feelings about the other person have changed. Jobs are quit because expectations have changed. Friendships drift apart because people change. But God does not. He is constant. Truth is truth and it is not dependent on my opinion for validation. | | |
| I love going back to school. The clean binders, the crisp paper, the anticipation of a semester's worth of knowledge being crammed into my head - it makes me happy.  Don't get me wrong - I hate homework and papers and exams as much as the next person - and with the load I have this semester there will be plenty of all. But there is something about the first day of class that makes me giddy. Finding out who else is going to be in class with me, getting the syllabus, using my brand new pen and highlighter for the first time, knowing that an "A" is just 18 weeks away (even if last semester I got a "B" for which I am completely not bitter about even if the prof was just a really big poopy-head). I love it!! What can I say? I am a nerd at heart.
In other news, I might be out of a job soon. For those that don't know, the restaurant business kind of has this unspoken rule that everyone has to work on Sundays. However, my restaurant has always been pretty lenient when it comes to my schedule, giving me Sundays off because I pretty much work every other day of the week. What can I say? My managers love me. Unfortunately, it is causing issues of favoritism at the restaurant, and my boss asked to talk to me about it last week. During this meeting, she told me I was going to have to start working at least one Sunday shift a month. I told her I couldn't do that. Between church in the morning and Bible study in the evenings, I can't do it. I know my calling and my convictions and sometimes we have to stick to those. I told her if I was going to have to choose between work and church, I would pick church. Now, the really cool thing about this conversation was that when she asked me what I would do if I left Chili's, I was able to tell her that even though I don't know what I would do, I knew who did, and I had to have faith that the God who would hold me to my convictions would be the same God that would provide another job for me for sticking to those convictions. Yay, witnessing. On a sad note though, she told me she would have to see how this next month goes, and if it still is an issue, she would give me two weeks notice. So right now, everything is up in the air. I know God has His hand in this situation, and I completely trust Him, whatever happens. I won't say I love my job, because I don't. But I am learning that even if I don't love my job, I do love the One that gave it to me, and I am working for Him, and that makes a difference. I guess I am kind of torn because even though I am learning these great things, and even though I don't really love my job, there is security (kind of) in what I have now. The money is good (or at least pays the bills), and the hours work well with my school schedule. It isn't what I want to do with the rest of my life, but for now, it's cool. So, all of that to say, if I have a job, great. And if I don't, I know God will provide. I just hate being in limbo. | | |
| So, for the past two weeks, I have been celebrating the fact that school was over for the summer, and all of my tests and papers and projects were finished, and then I realized - yeah, not so much. I have an 800 page journey through the New Testament (the entire New Testament) to complete before August 1. Yippee! Actually, I don't think it will be too bad, the author is pretty easy to follow, and it is the Bible - I can't be too upset over having to read my Bible. I am in seminary, after all. It is just that I thought I was done. I am going to go pout now.
Ok, I lied, there will be no poutage today. Pouting hurts my head - which already hurts enough as it is. I got home yesterday from church/lunch and had the worst headache. And now, 24 hours later, I still have the same headache. I have taken asprin for it. I have taken the special pills for it. I have eaten. I have slept. I have locked myself in a dark room, blocking out all light. And yet - the headache persists. How do you get a stress induced migraine when you are not stressed? Go figure.
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| So there I was . . . driving into town on a deery, overcast morning, battling rush hour traffic like Chuck Norris battling evil drug lords, when I see the funniest thing that I have seen in a long time. There in front of me, moving slower than a turtle stampeding through peanut butter, was this tiny, beige colored Chevy Cobalt. Granted, I realize that in general, Cobalts are not exactly the funniest looking of cars, but never fear, I am getting there. In the back window of this car were a couple of diapers and a pink stuffed elephant/dinosaur animal thing. (Yes, that is its technical name!) There was also a huge Houston Texans logo sticker in the back window, telling me that this person liked football and had at least one young child. As I am crawling behind this car, I noticed something else, however - its hubcaps were sticking out just a little further than hubcaps normally do. So I decided to keep an eye on this car and its hubcaps for fear that one of the hubcaps would come off and what little progress we were making down the interstate would halt altogether. And like any morning in rush hour traffic, we did eventually come to a halt. Why? I don't know; its a mystery. However, all of the cars were stopped. That was when I noticed that even though the Cobalt had stopped, its rims had not. This Chevy Cobalt had spinners!! It was just wrong, I tell you, wrong!! I have to say it made my morning though. | | |
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