Takes a Little Time

Image courtesy of luigi diamanti/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’ve discovered lately that my cranky meter relates to how I’m taking care of myself.  Right now that mostly means free time/fun time/not-keeping-myself-busy time.  (Blogging is an appropriate example.)  If I have kept myself too busy, I get cranky.  I get myself worked up about everything and anything, and if Brian is around, I attempt to drag him in as an audience.

My intuitive health report told me that I need to examine the greater purpose for my actions so that I do not become resentful.  I am presently very upset and resentful, so I’m taking a look.  I thought I had my schedule set, going into last week, and then my full-time job switched my schedule on me and threw me into a tizzy.  Suddenly my huge chunks of evening time had disappeared.  Where did they go?  Let’s see:  I’m getting more sleep.  I have a little more time to get ready in the morning.  I have a little more time at night.  That’s good.  I still have no Wednesday evenings because of Metaphysics class, but I have chosen that class for my betterment.  I will have no Tuesday nights because of my improv class, but I have chosen that as one of my passions. So, that leaves me the rest of the week to monitor.

Gatherings with friends are tough right now because I love my friends and enjoy being with them, but then I end up choosing between them and myself.  The same goes for volunteer activities. I know it’s good for me, but right now it’s just not good for me.

So, right now I need to force myself to focus on me.  I know “force myself” is not the best way to look at it, but it’s 8:26 in the morning, and I need to take the dog out and allow for highway traffic on my way to work, so I can contemplate this further in the car.  Cindy talked with me this morning about shifting “my energy”, shifting my perspective when I look at things.  So, I’m going to add that to my purposes for this week.

When I get home from work, the first thing I’m going to do (besides Wednesdays) is do something fun.  Something fun that is not tied to work in any way.)  That is my assignment.  And during work — especially my weekday job — my purpose is to build my concentration.  My final goal for this week is to pursue Chicagoland area temp agencies for office positions and to look at indeed.com for research into the types of jobs that fit my skills and interests, using key terms: “bilingual” and “creative ideas.”

Gotta go. But I’m feeling better already. 🙂

Secret Shortcut — FINAL

For those who haven’t read it, click here for the blog post with the first draft of my writing student’s adaptation of The Secret Shortcut by Mark Teague.

This is my student’s final version that he gave me today after working on it for a few weeks.  He’s done a nice job filling it out and being creative with it:

“Mom, Bob and I are going to be late for school.  Why didn’t you warn us?  I di — siiigh.”  While I was frantically choking down toast and putting on clothes above my pajamas, my friend was tapping his toe while saying: “Hurry up, hurry up!”

On the way to school we discovered a huge lion effectively blocking the entire road; he said we could pass, but only if we could solve a riddle.  I was about to go a different way, but then my friend pointed out that I didn’t actually know a different way, so the lion said: “Throw me out the window and find a  grieving wife; pull me back but through the door; watch someone giving life.”  First I tried a clarinet swab and the letter A, and then a baby because if you throw some one’s baby out the window, you’ll usually find a crying wife, and if you pull a baby through the door, you can refer the door to a wife’s stomach.  I also tried the letter “A”, but none of them were right, but then Bob said the letter “N.”  (window –> widow  door — > donor) Finally, we could pass, but it took us like 1 hour, and we were late.

Before we got to school the teacher was teaching the class how to do “5x+7= . . . You’re late!”  The teacher yelled at us for like 5 minutes because we were like an hour late.  I told her the story of the 20 feet high, 6 feet across giant lion, and she didn’t believe us.  So, for all our trouble we got an hour in detention.  I mean seriously, giving us detention because of a so-called lie and being a little late.  Wait a minute!  Is putting us in detention when you’re in elementary even supposed to be legal?!

On Friday day my friend and I encountered a thick fog with an electrically-charged banana in it that chased everybody that was in the fog.  When we went in we found out that it could teleport and tackle really well.  So, we tried running across, but I guess trying to outrun a teleporting banana is pretty darn hard.  Because it didn’t work one bit.  We had about one more try before the bell rang.  So, we tried flinging ourselves over with a catapult that I built at home.  But that seemed impossible because it was 1 foot wide and 1.5 feet across and built with Popsicle sticks and super glue.  But believe it or not, it worked  We did a victory dance until we saw an onrushing goblin clan, so we ran back to my house, but it turned out that they only wanted to make friends.  To make a long story short, we just ditched them.  We got to school exactly one hour late.  But instead of giving us detention, our teacher sat on us for 5 minutes while the rest of the class laughed at us.  But what made them laugh even harder was the fact that I was saying “Nieooooo. Nieoooooo. Stop, please!  Nieoooooooo.  Nieoooooooooooooooooo please. . .” the entire time.

On Saturday I was playing in the backyard when my eyes chanced upon a little hole.  When I looked in, I could see what I thought was my school like 20 feet away.  I called my friend and told him to come to my backyard on Monday.  He asked why, and I said: “I’ll tell you on Monday, da Da!  da Da!” in a singing voice (in the tune of Hakuna Matata, what a wonderful phrase).

On Monday I told him about the hole.  After a while we went down the HOLE.  It turned out the school that I saw was faked; it was just some very well-painted leaves painted red.  We tried to get out, but I guess the hole new what we were going to do, so it just collapsed.  So we just ventured around the jungle biome and dodged a few tigers, lions and a monkey for what I thought was 5 hours until I thought I saw our school; it was.  Just then, I heard the early bell ring.  I said to my friend that we might just make it if we hurried.   To tell you something, running wouldn’t be enough so we swung on the vines.  We made it.  Just a femto second (a millionth of a billionth of a second) of a second before the bell rang.  Finally, we make it to school on time.

We kept going into that hole, and after each time, we found a different biome.  Like an ocean or a desert, and each time we used it, we were always a femto second before the bell rang early, no matter how slow or fast we were.

For next week, my student is working on mixed-up Aesop’s Fables, his own creative twist on mixed-up fairy tales.  I’m looking forward to seeing what he comes up with!

Early Mid-Life Crisis?

Yes, I feel like I’m going through an early mid-life crisis, and the worry tears me apart sometimes. I’m not supposed to have one of these until I’m 40, right? But, no, here I am at the young age of 30 trying to figure out what the heck I’m supposed to be doing with my life. And what makes it worse is that I’m an indecisive young woman who wants both chocolate AND vanilla, who hates closing doors behind her, and who would rather dip her toe in at every point in the river, rather than pick a location and wade directly across.

How did I get here? My good friend tells me that this is a normal part of the human process. It’s normal to change situations in life because we are changing beings. If you are a different person than you were 10 years ago, you may not fit in your job anymore. That’s a little more comforting than my explanation: I’ve been wishy-washy all through my life, falling into a major so that I could give myself some sort of identification and falling into a job because otherwise my parents might boot me out of the house. So, as you can see, her explanation is much more pleasant.

So, now what? Afraid to make a bad decision, and comfortable with the familiar (but also bored and frustrated with it), I can’t find a single job that truly interests me. And at this point, I’m not sure if I should be looking for the perfect job or looking for my “rebound” job that will get me from point A to point C. Anything that seems like it could be interesting also seems to have qualifications that I do not have, i.e. experience in that field. Where is the “looking for ex-teacher who wants to try something new, possibly involving writing or editing or something else creative and also leaves the world a better place?” job? (And I’ve actually tried to google something pretty close to that. . .)

A part of me wants a brainless job. And by brainless, I don’t mean a stupid job. I mean, I can go in, do my job without too much stress, and check out and leave it behind. I would like to have a job that isn’t 75% of my life. I remember some years ago I was reading a book with creative job options, and one that sounded particularly appealing was traveling around Europe picking fruit. Permanent career option? Hardly. Not even a full-time option, as it would be seasonal, but how completely lovely. Just me, the trees, and the European landscape. (audible sigh) The simple life. But then, I was the one in my foreign exchange college experience who imagined staying behind in the little Mexican village, instead of returning to the university and the states. I never pursued anything like either of those ideas, and now I’ve truly tied myself down with a mortgage, a boyfriend, and 3 kids( two cats, and a dog, which, let’s face it, are a lot less mobile than 3 human kids).

That means that for now I am a spectator on a stomach-wrenching stage as my pessimist :“You will never find an interesting job that you are qualified for AND doesn’t require you to move/leave your boyfriend and animals/sell your soul, etc” wages vicious battle against my optimist: “Your perfect job is just around the corner. Everything in your life has led up to this point, and you are exactly where you need to be. Just keep visualizing, believe, and go get it!”  And I really hope that the optimist is right!
Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net