the last day

There are a lot of really dumb corny sayings about how life goes fast and sometimes you don't realize that until you're looking back blah blah blah don't miss out remember blah blah blah life is fast!!

It's true, though.

I just snuck into the guidance office to leave a note for all the seniors. I'm excited for them to graduate. I'm excited for them to explore college, excited for them to fail, but only excited about that because I'm excited for them to learn from it and grow in doing so.

I really am kind of amazed that the next time I head back to Dartmouth, it will be permanent. I mean, I'm still crashing on couches (thanks friends you rock for that, by the way), but this time there's no heading back on Sunday afternoon, no more jokes about how I'm only sort of on an off term. I finished my off term. I'm coming home.

I just had a lot of very profound, articulate thoughts as I was walking through the empty hallways on my way home and they are not anywhere near this blog post.

I'm glad I didn't really have to say goodbye. I don't like goodbyes very much; if I want someone to not be in my life, they won't be. If I want someone to be in my life, I will do my best to ensure that is the case. At any rate, goodbyes just aren't necessary. They're just this dumb formality, really. It's not goodbye so much as Okay so maybe we won't be seeing each other in person any planned time in the near future. That's all.

I was on a field trip today, which rocked, because I spent ninety percent of it chilling (if you can call it that, sup ninety plus degree weather) in Bryant Park and I also got to hang out with my dad for a while (hi dad! that was fun!). My last real day in school was supposed to be yesterday, because field trip today, but there was a freak storm, a mini-tornado or something that brought down a ton of trees and power lines and knocked out most of the city's power, so school was randomly cancelled on Thursday, leaving me without a real last day. Whoops.

Have you ever felt like you're stepping in on somebody else's life? Since pretty much every job I've ever had has been temporary, I always feel like I'm just sort of around for the time being. A pop-up ad just kind of abruptly appearing in other people's routine situations. Like, I had this great show where I got to perform a whole set of my original songs at the place where I go to open mic night, and afterwards I jammed with this guy who plays there regularly and it was a lot of fun, and he was all We should do this again, and I had to be all, Yeah, that'd be so cool except for the part where I don't live here. I have too many emotions and attach myself vehemently to so many situations and people, and it is so weird to feel like I'm just popping in briefly on someone else's real life. As if what I'm doing isn't real life, because it's just temporary.

The way I get around this, I guess, is by reminding myself to be present. So when I'm jamming with this guy at our show and I think about how I'm just sort of here for this one night, I remember that I am in fact here and I should enjoy that and be here now. So I do. Not just at the show, but I tried to do it in school as well, tried not to pretend that I would be peacing out so quickly but tried to remember about my impending departure and use that to be more invested in whatever I was doing that hour or day or week.

Anyways, I woke up at 5:30 this morning and I'm really damn tired and it's kind of crazy that this is my last night living here. And so it goes.

Love,
Jamie

8 pm, still at school...

I am writing this on my phone while at the senior awards ceremony. I somehow managed to be busy until this started at 6, so I have not yet eaten dinner and it doesn't look like that'll be a thing that happens anytime soon. Normally that wouldn't be too much of an issue, but today I decided to tackle the monster that is cafeteria food for lunch, and I ate the "prime rib", which looked astonishingly familiar to all of the unidentifiable lunch meat ever made. I actually kind of somewhat enjoy the taste of mystery lunch meat, and didn't mind eating it, but then digestion happened and I discovered why the previous interns said never to eat school lunch. Worst cramps ever.

Today, I also had a less-than-pleasant experience with some of the school's administrators. I'm not going to go into detail but basically I don't understand how someone who has absolutely no empathy or understanding of anyone's life experience but their own could ever end up working in education. It broke my heart a little bit.

I am exhausted. Also can't believe this is already my last week working in the school. Damn.

Is there a pregnancy scholarship?

This is a thing that just happened:

I'm sitting in the office working on some stuff that needs to get done by the end of my internship, looking at my computer, when two girls come in and start saying stuff like "I need my child support!" and "Is there a pregnancy scholarship?" at which point I look up and see two girls who I know are definitely not pregnant, and then I notice that they've got balloons tucked under their shirts. "It all happened last night! Do you want to feel it kick?" "I'm still trying to figure out who the daddy is. I've got it narrowed down to 10 guys. All brothers. They're on the same basketball team." "It's kind of awkward walking through the hallways." "Hang on, take a picture of me doing the heart!"*

I smile. They're enjoying themselves. Besides, this is just balloons under t-shirts. It's not real.

But it is real. Because I've seen and talked to plenty of girls in this school who say these exact things (or some version thereof), except they're not talking about the balloons under their t-shirts, they're talking about the children growing under their skin.

I kind of want to cry.


*The heart - make a heart shape with your hands on your belly. Bonus points for a kissy face and protruding stomach.

omg dory will u marry me?!

Today someone proposed to me with a ring made out of some stretchy string à la candy necklaces and the ring also had a whale-shaped bead on it. Spent the rest of the day making Finding Nemo jokes. It was good.

The way the schedule at school works, there are A days and B days, and some classes meet only on one of the days. The office puts up signs to remind kids what day it is, lest they forget.

omg, ur right! Today is a B DAY... my (half) B-DAY! lolzzzz

Okay. Enough of that. Today was actually a B(ig) day because today was our parents' dinner! A couple people from Dartmouth came up to speak to the parents of the new students in the program (the students got to come, too). I had to plan the whole dinner, which was an adventure because I've never actually ordered pizza or made a huge salad before. I'm making big progress on life goals here, man. Anyways, long story short, it was a success and that made me happy.

In other news, the Rangers are currently crushing the Caps and it's making me super happy because playoff hockey is the best. So many memories of my butt imprint on the Collis couches last spring.

It is late. The only reason I am still awake is because I took a shower. And because the NHL starts their games too late at night. I guess I can't complain because at least there is an NHL right now! Okay, bedtime.

i lost my voice

I came to school on Monday with pretty much no speaking abilities excepting a straggly whisper. Every kid's reaction to this was "Whoaaaaaa what'd you do this weekend?" Um... acquired allergies? Cheered for the frisbee team? Sang too loud in my car on the drive to Hanover because so much Wicked played and I was super excited about that? It was a serious rager...

In all seriousness, though, this past weekend was awesome. The Lodge is finally open (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and it was beautiful and perfect to finally spend time there. I took a picture of my dinner because as always I was given way too much food and as always it was the most delicious.

A mysterious, wonderful kind of curry, and egg-free cornbread! SO GOOD.

While at the Lodge, I talked to a friend who also happened to do the same internship I'm doing now. She made me feel a lot better about the fact that I go back to Hanover a lot, because she had done the same thing during her internship. A couple of my friends on campus didn't seem to understand why I came back so frequently, because they took off terms in cities like Boston and New York, where they actually had people their age around to socialize with, and where they lived with their own families or with friends their age. Moreover, it's not that their work was more or less emotionally strenuous, just that none of them were in an actively emotional work situation from 7 am to 5 pm every day of the week. So I guess it makes sense that they wouldn't understand the necessity of an escape from work and to caring friends on the weekends, because they had that sort of escape when they returned home from their jobs each afternoon. It was truly relieving to talk to someone who did understand exactly what this is like and actually empathized with my desire to return to Hanover to get some emotional relief and comfort and actually relax on the weekends.

Speaking of emotional, this past week has been a constant reminder of the fact that the world can be a pretty messed up place. On Tuesday, someone came in to talk to me around 9 in the morning and asked, Hey, did you know what those police cars were doing outside of school earlier? During lunch, kids were talking about the girl who got jumped on her way to school. During the last period of the day, when I had brought a bunch of kids outside to study/play frisbee, another faculty member came out and gave me a letter from the principal to distribute to the kids so they could bring it home to their parents. It detailed the events of the morning - basically, this girl had been walking up the street to school with a bunch of friends when a car came speeding by. She shouted at the driver because he was going way too fast, and he stopped the car, got out, and attacked her. Her friends nearby fought him off, and she wasn't hurt, and then the cops came to school to discuss the incident.

Then, yesterday, I was talking to a couple of kids in the English classroom where I like to hang out when the school lockdown announcement came on. I was a little surprised because we had a lockdown drill in late April and all of the faculty had been alerted to the fact that there was going to be a drill. Turns out this lockdown was not actually a drill - someone came into the school with a knife to attack some kid who owed him money or something. Apparently the entire E wing was shut down. I was in the AB wing when this happened, so we locked the door like we were supposed to and just went on talking and watching Arrested Development on the projector. It was almost baffling to realize that somewhere else in this giant building, faculty members were trying to stop a guy with a knife from attacking a kid. Generally when you sign up to be a teacher, I feel like you don't sign up to stop armed attackers from infiltrating the learning process. The school is so big that when stuff like this happens, its effects might only graze you tangentially, but it's still pretty sobering to realize that not only does stuff like this happen in the world, it happens in schools, these places where we're supposed to be safe and learning.

The announcements just came on: "...We would like to remind you that tomorrow is prom day. Any student planning on attending the prom is reminded that tomorrow is a full school day. You must be in school until 11 am if you plan on attending the prom. Any student who is to be excused early must have a signed note from their parents..." Monday is going to be hilarious. I can't wait to hear about prom. If I don't go back to Hanover Friday afternoon, I'm going to stay here and go see the Great Gatsby with some of the kids who aren't going to prom, so that'll be cool too. But hearing about prom is going to be so, so, so much fun. Monday is going to be awesome.

Also, I didn't take a picture, but the other night I made a food! It was fun to cook because recipes are done and this is why I like playing with Legos, because you get the pieces and then it's entirely up to you to be creative, it's all up to you to do what you want with what you've been given, and that makes it interesting to be alive. I had a bunch of random canned foods that I had purchased, like sweet potatoes and corn and black beans, and I didn't really know what to do with them, but I thought it might be fun to put them all in a pot and throw some other stuff in there and heat it up, and it ended up being really stinking delicious, and there is a 100% chance that if I had tried to find some recipe and follow it, what I was making would not have been as satisfying or as good. This is why I will never take any sort of music theory or songwriting class. It's why I hated analytical subjects like AP Language and Composition. It's why I don't want to learn about things in steps, recipes, rubrics. It ruins the point of learning. If I have questions, I need to ask them. I don't want to be told what to do before I even ask! And if it's going to help me for you to tell me, well, don't tell me. Show me, and let me figure it out from there. The telling ruins everything.

do talk to strangers

I am officially the worst at updating this on a regular basis. Sorry Grandma! Sorry Dad!

Things have finally started to feel really comfortable here. I don't know if it's the awesome weather or the fact that I've been here for over a month now, but I'm really enjoying being here and actually feel like I'm doing something important and valuable with all of my time.

What is new? Well, May happened. Didn't see that coming. The Lodge opens this weekend, which makes me so unbelievably happy! I cannot wait to be there. But I haven't really even been thinking about that because I've been focused on being here, which is a great sign.

Yesterday was the deadline for students to send in their college deposits, which is pretty exciting because now everyone has a much more concrete idea of where they're going! Mostly everyone is a lot happier/relaxed now that that's out of the way.

New kind of exciting things: I joined a gym and a group of people who play frisbee. I forgot that other people go do things like this, so it ended up being a really good way to meet more people and actually have real interactions with something other than Netflix. The schedule somehow works out perfectly because I can go swimming on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights, and then frisbee is on Wednesday nights and I'm always passing out/driving somewhere on Friday. I am actually starting to enjoy playing frisbee because I finally understand what's happening and can throw/catch it on a more consistent basis. I'm sort of really excited to play at Dartmouth because they practice more regularly than the hockey team does, so it'll be a good way to be active more of the time.

On Monday night after I swam, I realized there is a hot tub there too, which is freaking awesome. So I went over to sit in the hot tub for a few minutes and it was just me and this older guy, you know, hanging out in the hot tub. I decided I could just sit there and be absorbed in my own pool of warm bubbling goodness, or I could be a social person and start talking to him. It's always bothered me when people start conversations just to be polite, though. Not that there's anything wrong with that - it just doesn't seem genuine. If I want to have a real conversation with you, it's not just going to be "Hi. How are you? Good. Me too. The end." I want to know things about you! Everybody has a story. Everyone's story is worth sharing, as long as you're willing to listen. Anyways, long story short, I'm sitting there in the hot tub across from this guy, so I asked him, "If you could have a super power, what would it be?" He told me that he wanted to rule a country, which I guess is a super power. Then he went on for like fifteen minutes talking about power structures and the world and famous rulers and I sort of regretted asking him. Ultimately, though, I was glad I asked because it made me happy about life and people's abilities to interact with each other.

Relevant: The seniors all have a final English project under the theme of "fighting ignorance". Basically, they each pick a topic and educate a chosen audience on their topic. One of the seniors decided to do a project based around the idea that parents teach their kids not to talk to strangers and how that maybe isn't the best way to frame such sentiment. I wanted to hug her.

Okay, I would write more/find pictures to put up, but students are starting to show up which means the wifi's about to become overloaded and stop working. I'll try to update this more frequently in the future.

Books and Learning

Books

Despite the fact that there aren't too many books in the library here to begin with, sometimes the library gets tired of books and will leave them out on a table for students to take for free. Apparently, however, students don't actually take any of the books left out, so one of the English teachers here rescued them and brought them to her classroom, where I got to look through them yesterday. Let's just say it makes sense why the library doesn't want them and why they can't seem to give them away to any students. I mean, really, who doesn't want to read such classics like The Runaway Robot or Dick King-Smith and Lady Lollipop?

I took pictures because this is very real.

Rocks and their stories (my life) & The Runaway Robot (whose name is Rex! and he lives on some planet.)

Dick King-Smith and Lady Lollipop (this looks like a little-kid book. what is this name), The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, and The Muffin Child (whose muffin is oddly reminiscent of a mustache)

This is a Tree, It's Like This, Cat (damn straight), and A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag

In a moment of sheer indulgence, a dramatic reading of the first page of This is a Tree may have occurred. 

Learning

We watched two videos in English yesterday that basically made me remember why I am passionate about education and why I don't think I could be a teacher in the current system of schooling. There's this quote by some wise guy who said something along the lines of "Never let your schooling interfere with your education" and I think both videos spoke quite well to that idea. I'll post links to the videos later (wifi in school is objectively terrible). If you are too excited to watch these videos, and would like to go find them immediately, here are the names:

"I Will Not Let an Exam Result Decide My Fate" - Suli Breaks

"Changing Paradigms" - Sir Ken Robinson (for a more optimal learning experience, I suggest watching the RSA animation of the TED Talk)