The life of a Catholic school teacher

Is it a silly idea to make a few resolutions for 2010? I can only think of 2 New Year's resolutions in my life that I ever kept. One was a foolish decision that changed my teenage years into the true definition of teen angst; and the other was the year that I vowed to quit smoking and succeeded.

I suppose I could resolve to make this a year of weight loss, but honestly, just the thought of losing weight makes me feel tired and lazy. Though I am quickly spiralling to the point where I am just not willing to take being heavy anymore. There will come a time when I'm 100% ready to committing myself to weight loss. Now is not that time though.

So what do I resolve for 2010?

#1: Finish the hexagon skirt, sweater, and hat/scarf combo that I'm knitting.

(These projects have been 'in progress' for quite a while.)

#2: Read all of the books I have bought before buying any more.

(Though I love to read, I find that knitting is my hobby of choice in my free time. I only read when I'm in bed and about to fall asleep. As you can imagine, not much reading gets done. Unless it's a book that I can't put down.)

Here is a list of the books that I own, that I am planning to read for the first time this year:

1-The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
(Currently reading this right now).
2-Dedication by Emma McLaughin and Nicola Kraus
3-More Than it Hurts You by Darin Strauss
4-Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea
5-Dear Zoe by Philip Beard
6-Alt Ed by Catherine Atkins
7- The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
8-If I Only Knew Then by Charles Grodin and friends
9-Slam by Nick Hornby
10-Our Lady of the Forest by David Guterson
11-Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson
12-The Friendship Test by Elizabeth Noble
13-Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
14-Escape by Carolyn Jessop
15-Wicked by Gregory Maguire
16-My Life as a Furry Red Monster by Kevin Clash
17-The Bachelorette Party by Karen McCullah Lutz
18-1984 by George Orwell

I think I'll stick with those two resolutions, since there is a lot of 'work' entailed with each one. Wish me luck!

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Because of the medicine I take at night, I can always count on being in a very deep sleep all night. As a result, I am able to have, or remember, very vivid, lengthy dreams every night. The dreams I have usually always leave me scratching my head. I have a couple of dream interpretation dictionaries on the shelf because there are some strange things that pop up in my dreams. I still haven't found the meaning behind coming across an orca whale stranded in the parking lot of a hospital that I am rushing into. There are some recurring dreams that I have that I don't have to guess the meaning behind. I quit smoking about 6 years ago and every now and then I'll have a dream where I am smoking. Though in the dream, I have already quit and I know I shouldn't be smoking. There's a feeling of guilt that accompanies the act in the dream. I always wake up feeling very relieved that it was just a dream and my decision to quit is reaffirmed. I find that those dreams usually come at a time when I'm tempted to start up again. There is one recurring dream, however, that I find relevant to Christmas. Every now and then I will dream about waking up on Christmas Eve, only to find that I have missed the entire Christmas season. I've missed all the Christmas music, the television specials, and the general air of anticipation. Now here it is, 4 full days before Christmas and I haven't missed anything 'Christamsy', but how can it possibly be that it is only 4 days until Christmas?! That's the part that baffles me. This entire year has gone by SO fast! It seems like I have been flipping pages on the calendar every other day. This isn't the first time that I have noticed time going by fast. Every Christmas, for me, brings about a sense of "Where has this year gone?". I look at Christmas as an adult as the direct opposite of Christmas as a child. When I was a kid, as I'm sure it is for every kid, Christmas took forever to arrive. Now, the days left can be counted on one hand. I don't think time is going to slow down any time soon though. The next step in my life will be to have children of my own and I'm sure that all parents will agree, time passes by so quickly when you are watching your children grow. So for now, I'm going to do my best to cherish the remaining time that I have before the Christmas music stops being played constantly on the radio and a new year is upon me.

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So tonight I decided to take up my typical grading papers post on the floor of the living room in front of the t.v. with my papers spread out over our long, narrow coffee table. Future hubby had long since fallen asleep on the couch, which is typical of him in the evening. Friday night programming on t.v. does not present many options for me. None of the shows that play on this night peak my interest. So once the 8:00 hour struck, I turned the channel from my normal line-up of re-runs to hopefully find a channel that I could leave on while I graded a stack of papers that had piled up due to being out sick this week. What I came across was a Jim Carrey movie that I had not seen in a very long time. I soon became aware of the fact that not much paper grading was getting done. I was captivated by this movie. "Man on the Moon", I must admit, is one of his best movies, and probably the only movie that he has done that made me cry at the end.

You have to understand something about me...Jim and I...we go way back. For the life of me, I have no idea what it is about this man that has caused my infatuation. I know for sure that it started when I was 11. The movie "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" had just hit theaters and I had just had the opportunity to see it. Blame my budding hormones if you will, but something about the movie struck me. Add to that, my grandmother who found an article about Jim in the weekly edition of Parade magazine. Something just seemed to click for me. The movie, then the article. After that time, I became obsessed. I started a scrapbook of every picture and/or article I could get my hands on. This was before the Internet, or at least before I became aware of the Internet and the availability of stuff that I could put in my scrapbook. Before the Internet, I constantly scoured magazine covers for any sign of a link to Jim. My mom was my cohort in my quest to fill my scrapbook. She even tore pages out of magazines, and one time, even stole the whole magazine out of the doctor's office for me.

This obsession lasted....well, I think it continues to last. My proof? The fact that even as I sit here writing this, I am seriously distracted by the movie on t.v. that has not ended yet that I simply can not tear myself away from. I own the movie, I can watch it anytime. In fact, I own every Jim Carrey movie. They're in chronological order in my t.v. cabinet. Yet, here I sit, captivated by this movie.

I no longer have the scrapbook that I labored over for years. I think that upon moving into my very first apartment, I saw the scrapbook, contemplated it, and decided that I was too old for movie star obsessions. I hate to think that I threw it away, but I honestly think that I did.

I can't feel bad about the scrapbook though because I take solace in the fact that I own the holy grail of Jim Carrey memorabilia. The item that I own is better than any scrapbook. It's even better than a mass produced autographed glossy picture, which I understand can be obtained by writing to some address out in California.

Before I tell you what I have, I have to give you a small mini-lesson on the history of Jim Carrey. He is originally from Canada and that's where he got a jump start on his movie career. This was in the early part of the 1980's, when he was in his twenties. I have in my possession, a Canadian magazine with him on the cover, from the 1980's. He's pimply faced and everything. There is a feature article about him within the magazine that details his career, which at this point in time, wasn't much of one. The magazine, just so happens to also be autographed by Jim Carrey. There's a great fan website online that is devoted to the man (www.JimCarreyOnline.com). Several years ago, the lady who met Jim Carrey at the time of the magazine's release took several pictures with him AND the magazine as proof that it is indeed an authentic autograph. This lady came into some hard times and put the magazine up for auction on this website's message board. I happened to be the highest bidder at 245 dollars.

So here I sit in my apartment, watching this movie, knowing that I have this piece of Jim Carrey history. I almost feel proud of it. I don't think there is anything in the world of Jim, that can top my piece. This artifact is the origin of Jim. It goes back farther than any prop from a movie of his that can easily be found on eBay.

With this piece of history in my possession, and with the hard economic times we're living in, I am tempted quite frequently to put this piece up on eBay. But what would happen if I did sell it to the highest bidder? The money I would make off of it would very quickly go to my debt, and then I would be out of a great piece of memorabilia. Of course, I also know that things are more valuable once someone has died, but I don't want to be morbid about it.

So again, here I sit, with this incredible memento, and while it's in my possession, I feel sort of close to Jim. I look at pictures of him and feel that I have some sort of connection. After all, Jim and I go way back.

P.S. I'm not really as crazy obsessed as I sound. But then again, I might be. This is the longest blog article I've written so far I think.

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Don't we all, at one point in our lives, say that we are NOT going to be like our mother or father? I've never really said that, well, yes I have, but more importantly, I never thought I would turn out like my mother in the following way. When I was a kid, my dad and I were huge movie buffs. My mom wasn't a fan so much. My dad and I were always trying to get her to watch a movie with us without reading, or crocheting, or doing something during the movie. She wouldn't ever just sit and watch the movie. I could never figure out why. Now, years later, I'm the exact same way. I'm not a fan of going to the movie theater anymore because I would feel funny taking my knitting in with me. I've never actually done that, but just the fact alone that I would get some funny looks, has deterred me from trying it. My fiance and I are big fans of getting movies from the OnDemand channel at home, or buying new dvds that we haven't seen and hoping that it turns out to be a good one. Though I still enjoy watching movies, if we're doing it at home, I have to be doing something. I generally don't read like my mo did during movies, but knitting and crocheting is a big part of my movie watching experience. Sometimes if it's a really good movie, I don't get much done because my eyes are glued to the t.v. screen. Maybe it's a result of me getting older. Maybe it's a result of the fact that I'm crazy obsessed with knitting right now and can't pass up an opportunity to knit while I'm sitting on the couch for a movie anyway. Whatever the reason, I can't ignore the fact that I have found the very first thing that I am doing as an adult that my parents did when I was a kid. I can only imagine what else I'm going to discover as I continue to age.

Look! Look! Look right here! My obsessive knitting has produced half of a skirt! I'm so excited about this project. When I'm finished, there will be 6 rows and it will be ankle length.

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My brain has stopped growing. It really has. My psychiatrist confirmed this fact. Apparently, I have reached the age that this happens. As a result of my brain reaching full maturity, I have become a very introspective person. I find myself reflecting on my own life suprisingly often. I'm on the verge of many big life changes. Marriage, motherhood, home ownership. I don't k now when these changes will happen, I'm 27 now, but oddly, I am not at a point where those things are possible. Marriage? Yes. Motherhood and my first house? Not yet. In fact, I'm finding it hard to even think of myself as an adult. Could it really be time for my 10 year high school reunion? I marvel over the passage of time. What do you mean they have a 10 year anniversary dvd edition of Titanic? It was just recenlty that my temporary best friend in high school and I were swooning over that movie in the theater. I'm confused that nobody checks my i.d. anymore. I should still look 18.

My favorite kind of music is the music from the 90s that made an impression on me during the years that would help shape my adult persona. I always turned a deaf ear to the 'weird' music my mom made me listen to growing up. It's only now, as an adult, that I can appreciate my mom's love of oldies. The music that was popular in her 'day'.

Nostalgia strikes my heart very easily. The smell when the furnace first kicks on brings the feeling of being at home with my parents during the Christmas season. Warm rays of sun through a window on a cool day flashes me back to waking up on Thanksgiving morning and feeling the warmth of being at home with my family. So many other examples come to mind. Music is a huge trigger of nostalgia for me. So much so, that I have burned several compilation c.d.s that I have dubbed "Sarah's Nostalgia Series". These are full of songs that take me back to different times and places. These places aren't necessarily worth revisiting, but, for the duration of the songs, I can truly feel that I am back...then. Whenever or wherever 'then' may be.

I don't know that my future husband, J.P., understands this desire of mine to look back and meditate on time gone by. I worry that my need to journal through these reflections will be misinterpreted. After all, shouldn't I be able to tell him anything and everything?

I wonder if this fascination with my past will fade away. I can only imagine what raising my own children will do for my desire. After all, time will always move forward, new things will happen all the time, and I will be here to process it all through a brain that has stopped growing.

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I suck at writing. I really do. When I was a kid in elementary school, I decided that I wanted to be a writer. For several years I was convinced that I could be a writer when I grew up. I wrote stories in school and even won a prize in the English fair a couple of times. In middle school, my English teacher even picked me to be the one to write an article in the local paper about school uniforms and my opinion against them. However, I continually labored under the illusion that I was good and that I could really and truly write a book when I grew up.
High school began to change my mind about that. I served as co-editor of my school’s literary magazine during my eleventh grade year. Being behind the scenes of the magazine, meant that I also coordinated the English fair entries for my school. As a result, I entered a ton of my own writing, simply because I didn’t have to have it pre-selected by a teacher. I could fill out the entry form myself, throw it out there and see what happened. Well, what happened was that I won 4 awards that year. Two of which were the 1st and 2nd place of the Personal Narrative category. So you might say that I should have a high opinion of my writing skill. However, during my creative writing class, which served as the pre-requisite for the literary magazine, I was given the assignment of writing a fiction story. My fiction story ended up being a ten-page expose of how I lost my virginity to the school’s widely popular burn-out. I was suffering from teen angst and couldn’t see past my own life to write about anything fictional. My flaky teacher at the time returned my public diary to me in a brown envelope with a note on the outside. She had written that I should hang on to the story and then open it in ten years because it would make a great beginning to a novel. Oddly enough, that was almost ten years ago, and here I am writing, not a novel, but a blog. However, it is not a fictional account of anything.
I also discovered that year that I could indeed write good fiction, in fact I won 1st place in the fiction category of the English fair. However, the story that won was written for my grandpa who had asked me to write a story for him about miniature people living in his Christmas village. So I can’t even write a fiction story on my own with my own ideas. My last and final attempt to do so was in a college creative writing class in which I tried to re-count the story of my life through fictional characters. After the disaster that story turned out to be, I realized, I suck at this. Fiction writing will never be my thing.
Instead, I’m going to say screw it. I’m not going to even try to write something fictional. I want to write about my own life. It’s what I’m good at. Besides, isn’t it a well known fact that you have to write what you know in order to write well? My life is all that I know. It’s all that I will ever know. My purpose for writing this blog is to not only make true the compromise I made to myself when I decided not to pursue a writing career. I decided that I was going to be a teacher. That evolved into my first choice. So to make amends with the fact that I was going to disappoint my grandpa and not become a writer, I decided I was going to be a teacher with a writing career on the side. The thing is though, I don’t care if this blog leads into a career or not. I've certainly not heard of many blogs that do. I just want to write this blog and tell my story. I’m not in college anymore; I don’t get opportunities very often, if at all, to write papers, so this is my final paper.
This is my life, or at least significant moments, memories, and thoughts of a person who can have many labels: teacher, Catholic, mentally ill, animal lover, future wife and mother, estranged daughter. As of July 11th of this year, I added another label, 27 year old.

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Here it is, another Saturday, and I'm at home preparing to do the same three things I do every weekend: clean the apartment, do school work, knit.

The apartment always needs cleaning, despite the fact that there are only two people living here. Our landlord did not feel the need for us to have dishwashers in our apartments, so dishes pile up quickly and have to be washed by hand. What joy!

School work isn't so bad, considering teaching is what I have waited my whole life to do. I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be a teacher. So I don't really dislike doing school work, I just wish it didn't take up so much of my time. I'm in my fifth year of teaching and have lesson plans, and paper grading down to a science, but with a large class this year, the paper grading goes on forever.

I love knitting but since school started back this fall, I haven't had time to do it as much. I am currently working on a short-sleeve cardigan sweater, and a skirt. I am SO super excited about the skirt. It's an ankle-length skirt made up of 6 rows of hexagons. Each row has 7 multi-colored hexagons. They get larger as the rows go from the waist down. It's very labor-intensive and full of tiny stitches on size 3 needles, but I'm on my third row and because there's a lot of repetition in making the hexagons, I don't have to worry over figuring out the pattern. Hopefully it will be ready for a debut by the time the weather gets cooler, which won't be for a while since I'm in North Carolina and the weather doesn't ever get as cold as I would prefer.

Future hubby wants to take a day trip to the beach tomorrow, but I have serious issues with going on a Sunday. I hate not having a day to recoup before going back to work after a trip like that, even if it is just for a day. It's late in the beach season, which, hasn't stopped us before, but I really like being at home. I know he doesn't like it. He's the type to want to get away as much as possible. I like being at home. I hope that doesn't progress to me being a shut-in one day when I'm old and grey. Maybe I'm just lazy and enjoy being at home and the possibility of taking naps. Oh well.

I'm off to wash dishes while watching a great movie/musical, Hairspray. I couldn't get enough of this moive when it came out a couple of summers ago. I've decided that I have to clean first because I don't like the idea of sitting down and doing school work in a dirty place. Is that weird?

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