That's how things are today.
A little (I hope) visit from the stomach flu (I hope)(what I mean is that I hope it's just the flu). And the weather is yucky. And I'm still waiting to hear from agents, and from BYU. And at the doctor's office the other day (new doctor--seems to be on top of things, believe it or not) I found that my weight is at an all-time high since post-partum days.
As I said, blah.
Which is why I don't post on my blog. So . . . are you glad I did?
.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Gettin' all new-agey on you
A quote from a tiny little book I've been nibbling from, Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person by Hugh Prather.
Perfectionism is slow death. If everything
were to turn out just like I would want
it to, jus tlike I would plan for it to,
then I would never experience anything
new; my life would be an endless repetition
of stale successes. When I make a mistake
I experience something unexpected.
I sometimes react to making a mistake
as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of
making a mistake seems to be based on the
hidden assumption that I am potentially
perfect and that if I can just be very
careful I will not fall form heaven.
But a "mistake" is a declaration of the
way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a
reminder I am not dealing with the facts.
When I have listened to my mistakes I
have grown.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
While I wait
I’ve been doing some interesting things lately to get my mind off the waiting game (waiting to hear from BYU, waiting to hear from agents). A few weeks ago, I went to Atlanta with hubby to hang out in a hotel while he attended an optometry convention. I usually greatly enjoy these trips because I love being alone and being lazy. I did plenty of lazing around this time, especially because it snowed there (dang! you leave SLC in February in the hopes of getting some sun and what does it to?), and since no one there knows what to do with snow, everything shut down. The buses stopped. The trains stopped. Our hotel was downtown, where there’s nowhere to eat but expensive, schmancy restaurants ($12 for a granola parfait for breakfast? really?), and those restaurants and our hotel were understaffed and opened late (or not at all) because their employees couldn’t get there.
So it was cold. So I mostly stayed inside. One morning I did make myself get out and I went to the Georgia Pacific Aquarium. It was great, as aquariums (aquaria?) go, but I found myself a little lost without a child accompanying me. It seems that all the joy of a place like that, for me, has been in pointing things out to my children. And then I got a little sad, because I realized that even if I had had my children with me (and I know they would have enjoyed it, at least the younger ones), they wouldn’t have been as thrilled as they once were. They’re getting older. Which led to a sort of mid-life crisis.
I’ve been on a low-level mid-life crisis for some time now (beginning, maybe, with my illness and the fear that it’s only downhill from here, physical-wise, and then taking a big blow with the whole BYU not-being-thrilled-at-the-prospect-of-having-me-attend thing), but it seems that things are coming to a head. I turn 40 in June. I haven’t minded getting older before, because it has taken so dang long for me to feel like a grownup anyway. But in the last few months I have been more aware of the things I’m leaving behind, irrevocably. I am not sentimentalizing those years with little kids in my house (as I promised myself I wouldn’t—it was hard, hard, hard), but I don’t like letting go of anything FOREVER (witness my inability to lose track of junior high school friends). It’s weird to think I will never give two little toddlers a bath again (well, OK, there’s grandparenting), never hear their little diapered bodies scampering down the hall to climb into bed with me in the morning, never point out the seahorses to them at the aquarium.
Yes, grandparenting. I begin to see its charm.
I’m not unaware of the affect that the BYU thing has had on all this. Because when my future is uncertain and not particularly exciting, I have only the past to look at with rosy glasses . . .
So, anyway, the trip to Atlanta was a little bit bittersweet. Add to that the problem with the food (too tired by the end of the day to want to spend a lot on a fancy dining experience, even though I usually like that kind of thing, left us hungry and wandering around too much) and the lack of an exciting project to work on in the hotel room, and this vacation was not as good for me as some have been.
Then, last week I took my three youngest, who are off-track, down to St. George to hang out at the grandparents’ condo. The actual time in St. G. was great (got another rejection while I was there but also another request for a full . . . ) and I enjoyed hanging with my kids. But getting down and back was quite an adventure. First, on the way down, I was directed off of the freeway just outside of Cedar City and had to take a long detour through the mountains which made me very nervous and cranky. (All that went away, though, when I heard the reason for the freeway’s being shut down: the 20-car pile-up you may have heard about in which the girl who was on her way to her wedding was killed. Oh, man.) Then, on the way back, I hit a snowstorm so bad I had to get off the freeway and get a motel room in Fillmore. Other than the hours of white-knuckle driving that day and the next, that part of the trip turned out to be kind of a highlight, because my kids and I had such a relaxing, fun time at the hotel that night.
Finally, we hosted a reunion party at our house for our Berkeley friends who are back in Utah now. It’s strange how much those people feel like family. I have a hard time imagining who and where we’d be now if it hadn’t been for our Berkeley experience. In many ways I hardly know those people, but they are very dear to me.
So now here I am with three more weeks of off-track time to get through. I’m trying to tell myself to enjoy it; I always regret it if I just count the days. My kids get more and more fun as they get older (hey—can I try to remember that when I’m missing the toddlers?) and if I can just make myself plan time with them, these will be fun days.
But . . . still waiting on BYU and those dang agents . . . (BTW, did I mention that I found out that I am the ONLY alternate on their list? So odds are pretty good, I guess . . . )
So it was cold. So I mostly stayed inside. One morning I did make myself get out and I went to the Georgia Pacific Aquarium. It was great, as aquariums (aquaria?) go, but I found myself a little lost without a child accompanying me. It seems that all the joy of a place like that, for me, has been in pointing things out to my children. And then I got a little sad, because I realized that even if I had had my children with me (and I know they would have enjoyed it, at least the younger ones), they wouldn’t have been as thrilled as they once were. They’re getting older. Which led to a sort of mid-life crisis.
I’ve been on a low-level mid-life crisis for some time now (beginning, maybe, with my illness and the fear that it’s only downhill from here, physical-wise, and then taking a big blow with the whole BYU not-being-thrilled-at-the-prospect-of-having-me-attend thing), but it seems that things are coming to a head. I turn 40 in June. I haven’t minded getting older before, because it has taken so dang long for me to feel like a grownup anyway. But in the last few months I have been more aware of the things I’m leaving behind, irrevocably. I am not sentimentalizing those years with little kids in my house (as I promised myself I wouldn’t—it was hard, hard, hard), but I don’t like letting go of anything FOREVER (witness my inability to lose track of junior high school friends). It’s weird to think I will never give two little toddlers a bath again (well, OK, there’s grandparenting), never hear their little diapered bodies scampering down the hall to climb into bed with me in the morning, never point out the seahorses to them at the aquarium.
Yes, grandparenting. I begin to see its charm.
I’m not unaware of the affect that the BYU thing has had on all this. Because when my future is uncertain and not particularly exciting, I have only the past to look at with rosy glasses . . .
So, anyway, the trip to Atlanta was a little bit bittersweet. Add to that the problem with the food (too tired by the end of the day to want to spend a lot on a fancy dining experience, even though I usually like that kind of thing, left us hungry and wandering around too much) and the lack of an exciting project to work on in the hotel room, and this vacation was not as good for me as some have been.
Then, last week I took my three youngest, who are off-track, down to St. George to hang out at the grandparents’ condo. The actual time in St. G. was great (got another rejection while I was there but also another request for a full . . . ) and I enjoyed hanging with my kids. But getting down and back was quite an adventure. First, on the way down, I was directed off of the freeway just outside of Cedar City and had to take a long detour through the mountains which made me very nervous and cranky. (All that went away, though, when I heard the reason for the freeway’s being shut down: the 20-car pile-up you may have heard about in which the girl who was on her way to her wedding was killed. Oh, man.) Then, on the way back, I hit a snowstorm so bad I had to get off the freeway and get a motel room in Fillmore. Other than the hours of white-knuckle driving that day and the next, that part of the trip turned out to be kind of a highlight, because my kids and I had such a relaxing, fun time at the hotel that night.
Finally, we hosted a reunion party at our house for our Berkeley friends who are back in Utah now. It’s strange how much those people feel like family. I have a hard time imagining who and where we’d be now if it hadn’t been for our Berkeley experience. In many ways I hardly know those people, but they are very dear to me.
So now here I am with three more weeks of off-track time to get through. I’m trying to tell myself to enjoy it; I always regret it if I just count the days. My kids get more and more fun as they get older (hey—can I try to remember that when I’m missing the toddlers?) and if I can just make myself plan time with them, these will be fun days.
But . . . still waiting on BYU and those dang agents . . . (BTW, did I mention that I found out that I am the ONLY alternate on their list? So odds are pretty good, I guess . . . )
Friday, March 05, 2010
How it's goin'.
Well, it’s goin’.
I still feel strongly that I will get in. Both because I have felt so settled about it all along and because the odds are pretty good. Also because I can’t imagine anything else for me for next year.
BUT.
The magic is gone. I used to be so excited about it all, and now I feel just draggy and sad and tired. And, despite the reassurances of the guy I spoke to at BYU that I had easily made the first cut--which means I have been deemed capable of succeeding in the program--I am doubting my abilities. If/when I get in, I will go in cowed, worried. Maybe I will slink in. Which is not what I had imagined for myself at all. This has been my biggest loss through all this, the biggest price I’ve paid.
And, if I let it, this doubting feeling can infect me and bring me very far down. All writers vacillate between thinking their work is something special (or we wouldn’t bother trying to get it published at all) and thinking that they are the biggest frauds out there. All of my doubts have risen to the surface and are having a party. Have I been fooling myself all along that I might be able to write?
Here is where your encouragement, dear blog readers, has been so helpful to me. So life-savingly helpful. Thank you, thank you for your comments.
(I should say here that the guy I spoke to at BYU sounded very positive about my application and made me feel a little better. He’s doing more research and will have more info for me soon about why I was placed where I was, but it seems that the reason is not obvious on the surface, anyway. Which is good and bad. Good, because it’s nice to know that I’m not obviously below standard. Bad, because it may have come down to a matter of personal preference—the preference being expressed by the very teachers I had hoped to study with. Which makes me feel awfully awkward about meeting them in class this fall. I’ll be sitting in a class knowing the teacher said about me, “She’s obviously prepared for this program but I’d rather not be teaching her.”)
Then there is the little question that comes up every so often: what if I DON’T get in? What if this is the year they don’t draw from their alternate list? What in the world will I do with myself next year, all year long? Should I try to work? At what? My kids are in year-round school, which means they are home for all of September, December, March and parts of May. I can’t stick them in day care for those times. I could substitute teach, I suppose. But if I did, who would get my kids off to school in the mornings? If I do think I might teach, I should probably renew my teacher’s license, which expires this summer. But I am one credit short—should I quickly complete a one-credit independent study class?
My mind goes in circles. I still believe I’ll be in grad school this fall. How silly to lose faith in that and rush off to take a class. But what if? What if what if what if what if?
So that’s where I am. Trying to float on my back in this little pool of waiting, but occasionally forgetting to breathe and sinking down and sputtering around for a while until I can get myself stretched out again.
In other news (is there really any other news? Yes, yes, my life is bigger than all this) my ESL student, Maria, recently took another placement test. We were both delighted to find out that in the 18 months I've been teaching her she has gone from level one to level five!!!! This is one hard-working chica. I'm very proud of her.
And child #2 got an A+ on his (huge) Egyptian project (the one for which I had to find him an Egyptian "costume" five minutes before school). We got the news this week that he was accepted into the honors program in middle school. He has chosen NOT to go to the ALPS junior high. Child #3 and his parents attended our first Anger Management class last night. He and #4 got the letters that they were accepted into ALPS again next year. Seems there are a lot of people getting acceptances around here . . .
I still feel strongly that I will get in. Both because I have felt so settled about it all along and because the odds are pretty good. Also because I can’t imagine anything else for me for next year.
BUT.
The magic is gone. I used to be so excited about it all, and now I feel just draggy and sad and tired. And, despite the reassurances of the guy I spoke to at BYU that I had easily made the first cut--which means I have been deemed capable of succeeding in the program--I am doubting my abilities. If/when I get in, I will go in cowed, worried. Maybe I will slink in. Which is not what I had imagined for myself at all. This has been my biggest loss through all this, the biggest price I’ve paid.
And, if I let it, this doubting feeling can infect me and bring me very far down. All writers vacillate between thinking their work is something special (or we wouldn’t bother trying to get it published at all) and thinking that they are the biggest frauds out there. All of my doubts have risen to the surface and are having a party. Have I been fooling myself all along that I might be able to write?
Here is where your encouragement, dear blog readers, has been so helpful to me. So life-savingly helpful. Thank you, thank you for your comments.
(I should say here that the guy I spoke to at BYU sounded very positive about my application and made me feel a little better. He’s doing more research and will have more info for me soon about why I was placed where I was, but it seems that the reason is not obvious on the surface, anyway. Which is good and bad. Good, because it’s nice to know that I’m not obviously below standard. Bad, because it may have come down to a matter of personal preference—the preference being expressed by the very teachers I had hoped to study with. Which makes me feel awfully awkward about meeting them in class this fall. I’ll be sitting in a class knowing the teacher said about me, “She’s obviously prepared for this program but I’d rather not be teaching her.”)
Then there is the little question that comes up every so often: what if I DON’T get in? What if this is the year they don’t draw from their alternate list? What in the world will I do with myself next year, all year long? Should I try to work? At what? My kids are in year-round school, which means they are home for all of September, December, March and parts of May. I can’t stick them in day care for those times. I could substitute teach, I suppose. But if I did, who would get my kids off to school in the mornings? If I do think I might teach, I should probably renew my teacher’s license, which expires this summer. But I am one credit short—should I quickly complete a one-credit independent study class?
My mind goes in circles. I still believe I’ll be in grad school this fall. How silly to lose faith in that and rush off to take a class. But what if? What if what if what if what if?
So that’s where I am. Trying to float on my back in this little pool of waiting, but occasionally forgetting to breathe and sinking down and sputtering around for a while until I can get myself stretched out again.
In other news (is there really any other news? Yes, yes, my life is bigger than all this) my ESL student, Maria, recently took another placement test. We were both delighted to find out that in the 18 months I've been teaching her she has gone from level one to level five!!!! This is one hard-working chica. I'm very proud of her.
And child #2 got an A+ on his (huge) Egyptian project (the one for which I had to find him an Egyptian "costume" five minutes before school). We got the news this week that he was accepted into the honors program in middle school. He has chosen NOT to go to the ALPS junior high. Child #3 and his parents attended our first Anger Management class last night. He and #4 got the letters that they were accepted into ALPS again next year. Seems there are a lot of people getting acceptances around here . . .
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
AML Meeting
The AML Annual Meeting was fantastic. I think. I was actually running around more than usual and didn't get to sit through even one session all the way, but I think they were all good. From what I can gather.
Here's a link to Tyler Chadwick's fantastic report.
It's too bad, but the day is really a blur to me because I exhausted myself and then came home to That Envelope from BYU. But I really think it was a success. I especially enjoyed the reading at Charlotte England's house in the evening, and also meeting some people face-to-face like Tyler Chadwick, Larry Menlove, and Sandra Tayler. Great day. (Until the very end.)
Here's a link to Tyler Chadwick's fantastic report.
It's too bad, but the day is really a blur to me because I exhausted myself and then came home to That Envelope from BYU. But I really think it was a success. I especially enjoyed the reading at Charlotte England's house in the evening, and also meeting some people face-to-face like Tyler Chadwick, Larry Menlove, and Sandra Tayler. Great day. (Until the very end.)
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