Public Service Announcement

If anyone would like to propose, I am accepting applications on the condition that they are mailed attached to this ring:

Available here for approximately half of my next year's salary.

Meet Your Teacher

As part of the celebration of the end of the school year, the students are given time to go to their new classroom, see their new classmates, and meet their new teacher. The veteran teachers assured me that it was something that wasn't given much thought to, but my inner greenie-teacher was nervous. What if they hate me? What if they're crazy? What if they throw desks at me, rip up all the papers, and escape out the back door???

Thankfully, they filed in quietly and took their seats at the very back of the classroom, filtering their way forward as the seats were filled. A third of my students were missing (with peer-offered excuses ranging from "absent" to "he cut his leg real bad and it was bleeding and he had to go home" to "he disappeared a few months ago... but we think he'll be back next year!"). We talked for a bit about the things they'll be learning next year and their suggested summer studying. Most of them seemed excited about math and science so I'll have to spend the summer looking up experiments for them. One little boy, who immediately earned the mental nickname Pop Quiz, was very disappointed that I wouldn't engage in an immediate lecture on "the little exclamation point that goes by numbers" and later showed concern that we wouldn't be studying factorials.


I then opened it up to them to tell me a little about themselves and what they thought would make their fifth grade year perfect. My favorite responses:

The boy who put "micro-engineering" as his favorite subject and wants to "blow stuff up in chemistry". He also wrote some of his answers backwards and the other side of the paper said "Why Santa is Dead. Ho Ho KaBOOM. Bye Bye Santa."

Another boy also wants to "destroy stuff" but he's willing to fix it too.

Two girls wrote that they were interesting because they were "flexible". Surprisingly, not the same girls that want to hold singing and dancing contests in class.

The overwhelming majority of them just want to "be involved in class". Can do!

The Lanyard- Billy Collins

This has been playing on repeat in my iTunes. It's worth a listen if you can-- his tone tends to add more humor to his poems than you might pick find in the text alone-- but the full poem is below. Happy Almost Mother's Day!

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

Found this at my door this morning:

Senioritis? What Senioritis?

I may or may not have missed 2 of 5 pop quizzes in my last religion class because basketball, dates, and photoshoots took priority. Now, I have a killer final that I have to do well on or my Wednesday nights this semester were for nothing. So while Summer-Jayme says "wing it!", Responsible-Jayme is panicking a little.

Points for SJ: 7
Late Night Photo Scavenger Hunt (52 pts! 1 pt)
Barrett posting procrastination fodder on my wall (1 pt)
Trolling the used bookstore (1 pt)
Bikinis on the porch for hours (1 pt)
Insanity double dose workout (2 pt)
Buffet with Elly, Mexules, and Enoch (1 pt)

Points for RJ: .5
Looked over flashcards with Elly (1 pt)... while sunbathing (- .5)

Definition of a Date

Between the two of us, Elly and I cover a wide spectrum of the dating world when it comes to the guys who approach us. We picked up on the fact that dating around here could use some improvement. We have plans to fix it, but until that gets off the ground (only a year into the brainstorming process!) I wanted to rant about address some of the issues that I have run into most recently.

Most importantly: some guys seem to be forgetting how to ask a girl out.

Now, if your intention is to be friends with a girl, kudos to you (unless you are one of those "nice guys" who try to backdoor their way into a relationship by becoming a bestest friend forever first and then whining when she only sees you as exactly that). But if you want more than that, cut the crap and ask her out in a way that she will know, without a doubt, that you intend to take her on a date.



Elder Oaks mentioned in a fireside that there were three P's of dating. I'm going to piggyback off him and then add one more of my own.

1. Planned Ahead

Here's the thing guys....

Unless I hear the word "date", I'm probably not going to consider it one. The exception is the implied "date" in the words "I'd like to take you to..."

Know what we are doing! And let me know at least a day in advance via actual conversation (not a text). In a recent informal poll taken at every girl's night ever, it was determined that one of the biggest turnoffs during the first few dates are the words "So what do you want to do/ where do you want to go?"

For one, we like to know what we should wear. I'm a high heels girl and I need to know if we are going somewhere that would require a lot of walking so I can hunt down some flats. More importantly, it shows us that you cared enough to put thought into the evening. A date, especially a first date, shouldn't involve spectacular displays or the pressure for commitment, but it should involve thought.

2. Picked-up

I used to tell myself that I really didn't care if I guy picked me up, especially if we were going somewhere closer to his place than mine. But I soon noticed that the guys who were willing to just meet me there were the ones who were lazy in other areas as well. Now I have a strict no-drive, no-date policy that helps me weed out the lazy ones. If he doesn't think I'm worth the drive, I don't think he's worth the date. Once things are more established between us, I'm happy to spend time behind the wheel to see him.

Show the girl the courtesy of picking her up.

3. Paid For

Touchy subject and one that varies depending on the person. I'm a firm believer that whoever asks, pays. Show the girl that she's more than just a convenient piece of estrogen and follow-through with the date you arranged. Down the road, she'll do the same.

4. Privacy

Can I add a fourth one here? Privacy. I'm not talking about alone-at-the-apartment-in-the-dark privacy. I mean showing the girl the courtesy of being on a date with her and only her. Dating is not a spectator sport and you should not be bringing along a panel of judges friends. I should not feel like a contestant on American Idol when I'm with you. Nothing about our date should bring to mind Ruben Studdard comparisons.

Make me feel like the one on the right and I will turn into the one on the left.

Lately, I've noticed that more and more guys I go out with want to immediately introduce me to their friends. Now, I'm not against getting to know a guy's friends. I've stayed friends with almost every guy I have ever been involved with and one of the best parts was that I also got to stay friends with the people I met through them. I even love meeting their new girlfriend or spouse and seeing what type of girl was right for them. But if every date we went on included their friends in some way, you can be sure that I wouldn't have stuck around long enough to get to know any of them. Let me explain.

Part of beginning to date someone, and a part the I struggle with, is being vulnerable to someone you really have no reason to trust yet. If most of our dates involve your buddies, you aren't going to see the parts of me that I would have shown you otherwise. Whatever feelings I might start to have for you are incentive for me to start opening up to you. I don't have any of those feelings for your friends. They might seem like a safety net to you, a group of people to validate your choice or give you a fall-back in case I turn out to be boring. But to me, they are an audience that I don't necessarily want to preform for. Their presence is going to influence what we talk about, what we don't talk about, and how I act around you.

Essentially, if we are hanging out with your friends, we are hanging out. You are friend-zoning yourself by not putting us in situations (read: taking me on dates) that would promote the kind of intimacy that leads to actual dating.

Do I want to meet your friends? Yes, eventually.

Do I want them to like me? Yes.

But I want you to like me, to get to know me, first.