Happening today: Oh no catmageddon…and oh yea I’m starting a temporarily stable job soon. No biggie.

The fact that this video exist is the 2^nd best part of the week, and I must admit it came in 2^nd by a very narrow margin, because cats are totally tubular.

I’m quite enjoying a relaxing night at home scouring the internet.  Here’s another link because nothing beats Ninja Turtles vernacular and the internet makes me so happy that sharing is a necessity.  Take note of #9, they loved cats too!
15 Reasons The Original "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" Were Totally Tubular

          Now here is where some of the jokes wind down and I talk about something of substance rooted in the real word. The interview apparently went well unbeknownst to me.  The greatest part…I was the best at something!  Who cares that I’ll actually get to be in a place I like doing a job that I love.  I’m just excited that I was the best interviewee.  I’m the best at everything, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise.  Overconfidence or sarcasm?  You’ll never know.

          The only unfortunate thing (so far, who knows what will unfold in a classroom full of teenagers every day) is that it’s a long-term sub position and will end May when the school year does.  However, it will be so so so wonderful to be in the same place every day working around the same wonderful people.

I’m feeling two extreme emotions right now….

 

# 1 "Looking up"

# 2 "I'm happy, totally happy, not at all nervous that I will make mistakes and the other teachers will hate me for my existence."

          I’m not nervous about the kids or my ability to teach. That needs to be stated, because I’m afraid the interviewers will somehow stumble upon this blog and the irrational fear will rise that if I don’t show at least a little bit of confidence they will judge me and question their decision.  I know that’s not going to happen, but the thought still occurred in my irrational crazy mind.

          Denise has pointed out more than once recently that I doubt myself too much.  I do, but I’m slowly learning not to. A meager thing for some but big to me, is that I’ve been trying harder to be a people person.  I can be when I need to be, but not in small everyday situations. I started a conversation with a worker at the grocery store though about bananas.  I stared at the bananas for a minute and he asked if I needed help, so I said I was looking for a small bundle, and I didn’t want to tear a few off from a big bundle because that’s just sad and annoying when all that’s left are a few bananas no one takes because a careless selfish person like myself left a small bundle behind no one wants because bananas are delicious and who doesn’t want to takes as many as they can get in one bundle?  There’s another win for me today: That may be one of the longest run on sentences ever.  If you read a lot I dare you to find a longer one, except don’t actually tell me because I want to think I won at another thing today.

So I had an interview today...

The morning began like this:  Panda Bean (my second lovely cat that doesn’t know what solitude is) sat on my portfolio.  I put it in a place she never goes, but I guess she felt like exploring new territory and watching closely while I spent entirely too long looking nervously in the mirror.  When you have cats nothing you own is really yours.  They lay claim to everything, especially when you need it most. Here’s proof:

Toilet paper, not mine

Lesson plans, not mine

Hair ties, definitely not mine.

Countless craft supplies, also not mine.  I guess he needed to have a say in the direction of my Christmas crafts.  Future potential roommates or not yet existent husband please take note that I’m not usually that messy.  

I don’t have many pictures of Panda Bean because like me she doesn’t sit still for very long.

          And so the interview; I didn’t get anyone’s name wrong this time!  During my last interview in the summer, I gave the wrong name of the teacher I worked with for 2 months.  His name and the wrong name both start with Z’s.  Did I get points for that at least?  I need as many points as I can get during interviews because I flounder.  Hopefully getting the Z right helped me fail by only 80% instead of 90%.  The 10% credit I give myself is for saying my own name right, remembering to shake hands and to sit still like a lady.  In future interviews I’m going to start spouting math problems so they don’t think I’m entirely stupid.  Answering 2+4 will totally display my high intellectual abilities, right?  Please tell me I’m right.

          A big part of my nervousness was that I’ve met the interviewers before.  I work in the building occasionally and have interviewed there twice for similar positions.  They were super nice and relaxed.  I am just much more comfortable around complete strangers than people whom I sort of know or can at least recognize their faces and remember their names. Another reason for my nerves is that I really want to be there.  I’ve been questioning what to do with my life lately and wondering if I am able to get where I want to go, especially because I just don’t do the whole people thing well, aside from kids.  Working with kids is the only time I don’t doubt myself.

Something to remember

          Here’s a helpful hint to the life impaired such as myself: Make sure to vacuum before lint rolling a nice dark purple shirt, because when you drop it on the floor, and you will, the cat hair on the rug you like to pretend doesn’t exist will attack your shirt.  I should win an Oscar for my outstanding ability to drop things and run into furniture and walls. Yea, I have been known to run into walls a few times. Let’s forget that embarrassing fact.

This is me preparing for an interview

I wrote something! It’s not particularly happy, but at least I can claim I’ve done something more productive with my day than eating a banana, which is saying a lot for me lately.

          I think it may be time to pay more attention to this blog, to writing, thinking and sharing.  I used to like writing, but for such a long time I haven’t had much to say.  I don't feel as if I do even as I'm typing now.

          I hide my feelings almost all the time.  In church last Sunday we were asked to turn to someone and tell them one of our greatest worries.  I said "life".  It probably sounded like a sarcastic attempt to evade the question, but I could not have given a response any more true.

“The snow glows white on the mountain tonight

Not a footprint to be seen

A kingdom of isolation,

and it looks like I'm the Queen”

          Alex said I need a hobby.  Jokingly I said sci-fi is my hobby.  That’s a hobby right?  I can read and watch sci-fi endlessly.  Can petting cats be a hobby, and lying under warm blankets?  I have 4 hobbies; I’m feeling pretty good about myself right now!

“Let it go, let it go, can’t hold it back anymore.”

          Perhaps the reason I don’t write often is because I can never finish a thought.  My mind wanders too quickly from one thing to the next and I can’t follow my own brain at times.  FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS!  It doesn’t seem to matter how much I yell to myself, it doesn’t get easier.  And onto the next never-ending thought that sits in the back of my head and creeps into my consciousness from time to time, what is wrong with me?

“It's funny how some distance

makes everything seem small

And the fears that once controlled me

can't get to me at all!

It's time to see what I can do

To test the limits and break through”

          Now things are getting real.  It is time to see what I can do…but I’m afraid to fail, to make things worse for myself.  If you haven’t already guessed, Frozen is playing in the background as I type.  So what is wrong with me?  Nothing?  Everything?  Am I not letting something go?  I wish I had the confidence that Elsa does in those few lines.  I feel trapped by life, and especially by myself.  I have a huge fear of failure and that’s turned me into one of the laziest people I know.  I feel like I’m not the person I should have been if you look back into my life as a teen and early twenty-something year old.  I’m not the person others expected me to be either.  It shouldn’t matter.  Should it?  Should I still have the voices of people from more than 6 years ago in my head telling me to be better? My mom is one of those voices, perhaps the only one worth holding on to.  My senior year of college I hung a note on my wall that said “Mom would want me to do better”.  She was sick and getting sicker.  I was sad and getting sadder. I didn’t see her often at the time, but that notion empowered me.  Six years later and her silent voice telling me to do better only brings me down.  I can’t do better.  I don’t have the energy, the motivation or the focus. Things have gotten in the way.
          I don’t feel normal, I never really have.  I assumed some of my small oddities were just growing up, but at the age of 27 I can see they’re not. That’s really what’s getting me down lately.  After typing and forcing myself to face my thoughts instead of drowning them out with tv and reading like I do most of the time, I’ve gotten to what’s really on my mind.  Me.  I’m on my own mind too much.

I don’t focus well, or sit still.
Sometimes I just can’t think straight.
I don’t sleep well.
I can hardly ever relax.
I don’t remember simple things.
I don’t talk to people easily.
I have seizures (had, maybe occasionally do get partial ones, I don’t really know).
I get migraines.

          And frustrated, I get frustrated. It seems like all these things have gotten worse.  Maybe some of them haven’t. Maybe they are just harder to deal with as an adult with true responsibilities and expectations.

I don’t even know what I can do, because it seems there’s too much that I can’t.
Well one thing is for certain,

“That perfect girl is gone

Here I stand in the light of day

Let the storm rage on

The cold never bothered me anyway”

Perhaps I just need to redirect the storm.