PLUG

This is Seth Philpott:


He makes good music.

I found a link to his myspace page via this girl's blog (very funny, that one), and thought to myself, "Well, well, well, I like these songs very much, I do." But when I looked up "Seth Philpott" on I-Tunes, there was no love.

So I messaged Seth Philpott and said, "Hello there, I do not know you, but I would like to listen to your songs, so can you help me get them please?"

And he wrote back and said, "Hello there, I do not know you either, but I am happy that you like my songs. They are not on I-Tunes, but I will email them to you if you like."

And I said, "Yes, yes, yes, I like."

But then I had no emails from Seth Philpott. So I was all woebegone.

But then I got one! In fact, I got three! He sent me all three songs from his EP "Busted Soul" and I like the songs even BETTER after listening to them twice or thrice times than I did the once. He has a great voice, writes great words, and guess what: HE EMAILED ME HIS SONGS FOR NOT A SINGLE PENNY.

I'm not saying that to encourage you to demand free songs from Seth Philpott. The man's not a charity, okay? Some of us have to work for a living. Honestly. But I DO tell you that to present this particular singer/songwriter as a NICE, GENEROUS guy, and to encourage you to friend him on Myspace and send him messages that say, "Hey, get your songs on I-Tunes already so that we can pay good money for them," and also: to all you Nashville peeps? GO TO HIS SHOWS.

Because he's a nice guy. And he sings GREAT. And he makes real good music. I think my favorite TUNE is "Hold On," but best line must be awarded for, "We followed time 'til we found its end/How can I live in a world you're not in?" from the song "A World You're Not In." The sentiment kills me every time.

Best of luck to you Seth. Thanks again for the music!!

Monday Pile

Around my 25th birthday, Annie called and said, "Your present is coming a little late-- but I'm working on it! I've started a little birthday pile for you!"

I have nothing in particular to write about today, but many little things. Therefore, I give you: a Monday pile of blog.

1.) I had so much fun going out dancing Friday night. Teacher Greta was officially left at the door with the bouncer man. However, I woke up the next morning with a sore neck. Why did I have a sore neck? Oh: from the HAIR-TOSSING. Which prompted a compulsory inquiry of my friend Meg: "Was I an OVER-TOSSER on Friday night??"


I'm the one second from the right-- underneath Josh, with the arms. See? Mid-toss.

What a blast.

2.) HOWEVER, during the Friday festivities, I somehow lost BOTH the back of my phone, and my earring. My phone is a little nudie now! Such an exhibitionist.


3.) I downloaded "Viva la Vida" this weekend and CANNOT GET ENOUGH. This album is gorgeous!! Like-- EVERY song is unbelievable. Go Chris Martin. And dude-- why the heck didn't you bust out this kind of stuff earlier??


4.) I was completely unproductive this weekend. I did hardly ANY job application work. But I did go for a walk around Greenlake with Meg on the radiant Sunday, gobbled up "Beautiful Boy" by David Sheff, saw a cool play at the Rep, and had a gorgeous dinner with gorgeous people in a gorgeous house on Mercer Island on Sunday night. Until the gorgeous dinner pictures are uploaded, here's a pretty one of Greenlake for #4's illustration:


There are other ways to be productive in life, perhaps?

5.) I bought PERFUME this weekend! This has been a goal for some time now: to find a "signature scent." Alright boys, roll your eyes, but regardless: it has seemed like an important step into LADY-HOOD to find a pretty perfume to wear. Annie knows: I've sighed and bemoaned my scentless-existence for a while now. And now I am 25, and so the need has seemed more imminent, and I had birthday money, and I FOUND some this weekend! In fact, I found two:

This one is super girly:


And this one smells like limes and summer:


When I wear them, I feel like such a lady. I imagine I LOOK like one too, sniffling and snuffling at my wrists all the time.

6.) I WAS productive today! Wonderfully productive in fact, I got a HUGE job application done. This feat was met this evening, however, by news reports that the state of Washington is slashing the budget for schools and that thousands of teachers will be losing their jobs. How does that bode for a new teacher with no prior experience?

Badly, my friends. Quite badly indeed.


However, I am inexplicably not freaking out. I have every reason to be FREAKING OUT, but I just sort of keep coming back to this feeling that God will take care of me, and that God really DOES want me to be a teacher. Whether that means subbing for a year or more until I get hired, whether that means moving to Nashville, whether that means moving to podunk-town, WA-- I believe that He wants me to be a teacher, and that He'll work it out.

That's just a nice feeling.

I believe that is the end of my Monday pile of blog. Hope you all now feel inspired to toss your hair, or to viva your vida, or to smell nice, or to go for a sunshiney walk, or to feel at peace with wherever this madly spinning world is taking you.

Saturday Morning

I woke up to the rain this morning. I pulled the shade, and sleepily watched it pour down; form a river running down the alley; listened to it lighting on the leaves, softly drumming the roof with a larking, inconsistent song.

I burrowed under my covers and watched it stream down. Let that cool, morning, rain-light bathe my waking room through the window and guide my consciousness to rising.

There are few things more delightful than watching rain pour down outside, when one is inside, tucked under covers with a good book and a hot cup of coffee. I have nowhere I need to go this morning, and nothing pressing needs to be done.

Bliss.

SPRING BREAK

I made it!!

We didn't even bother trying to hold the kids' attention today. Instead, the whole school went to the zoo. The whole school! Viola and I somehow managed to farm all of our kids out with chaperones, so we just wandered around together, occasionally getting adopted by some of our 9th and 10th graders who would follow along with us, and then we would all exclaim together over the howler monkeys or the peacocks. We laughed a lot, it was a great time.

When we got back to school, we had 45 minutes left of 6th period-- Musical-- so I taught the kids this "Guardian Angels" exercise, which is a trust game. The kids were skeptical at first, but everyone ended up getting really into it. Yay!

After school, Viola-- who is sick-- snuffled and sneezed her way through typing up a recommendation for me, which ended up being REALLY nice. Thank you Viola!! I'll put that to good use this next week, which will mostly be spent madly filling out job applications.

But.

FIRST:

I am going out tonight. I am going out dancing with friends. I am going to be a SINGLE, 25-YEAR-OLD GIRL, who does NOT need to worry about teenage boys reading into things, who does NOT need to wear boring professional clothes, who is ALLOWED to go out dancing with people her own age, who is ALLOWED to wear red lipstick if she wants, and who doesn't have to be Teacher Greta for one whole week!

Not that I mind being Teacher Greta. I actually really love being a teacher, and I suppose I'm Teacher Greta when I'm a teacher, so presumably, Teacher Greta and I at least have a warm working relationship.

But sometimes, it's fun to just be a young woman out on the town with her friends, with no professional responsibilities. Sometimes that is just FUN.

I even get to sleep in tomorrow. Woo hoo!!

Will now be accepting "Boyfriend" applications*

Yesterday, I was in a cooking mood.


What can I say? Sometimes I just feel like chopping things with a large knife. Gramps was gone, and the thought of a nuked frozen dinner just failed to entice. Found some chicken breasts in the freezer and decided to invent from there.

I love inventing.

It is why I succeed as a cook, but generally struggle as a baker: you can't experiment with baking. Once, when my sister Heidi and I were trying to make scones, I suggested we add fruit. "Scones OUGHT to have fruit in them!" I insisted. The only fruit we had were apples, so we grated some up, and threw the apple in with the mix. It ruined the consistency, and we ended up with cakey-cookie-plops rather than neat triangular scones. Heidi got mad at me. Heidi's great at baking. She follows the rules.

You can experiment with cooking though.

I went to the store and looked for something balsamic-y. Found a dressing by "Stonewall Kitchen" called Balsamic Fig Dressing that had a chicken-related recipe on the side. Grabbed a brownie mix for fun as well, and headed home to play.

I found some almonds and chopped them.


And then I sliced some onions and began sauteing them.


Cut the chicken into cubes, and then threw it into the pan with the onions. Drizzled the whole thing with a tiny bit of olive oil, and the Fig Balsamic dressing.

It started to smell good.

I had this idea that apples might make a yummy accessory to the whole thing-- I know, again with the apples. But I thought it might provide a different texture, and taste, yes? It was an oddball idea but you CAN experiment with cooking, so I decided to try it. If I hated it, I just wouldn't eat the apples.


Threw the apples into the pan, and topped it all with the almonds.

The smell from the pan got a little too sweet at that point, so I went to the spice cupboard. Found: garlic salt: a favorite, and Rosemary: to cut the sweetness of the dressing and the apples.


Admittedly, felt a little skeptical about the combination. But DANG, it smelled good.


Finally, it was time for the moment of truth.


And I tell you it was GOOD. IT WAS INCREDIBLY GOOD. The rosemary was the perfect final touch-- the glazed onions with the chicken blended beautifully with the apples, but the rosemary kept it from being overwhelming-- and the nutty taste from the almonds added a roasted flavor and great texture. It was SUCCULENT. I tell you, I was pleased with myself.


Cheers to that then, yes?


Unfortunately, the brownies...


... Which I'd hoped would be a smashing success to greet friends with at movie night... turned out far too cakey. Realized later that I'd thrown in an extra egg. Whoops. So much for turning around my reputation as a cakey-cookie-plopper-baker.

You can't experiment with baking. You have to follow all the rules with baking. I don't like following all the rules. I like INVENTING.

Especially when it tastes this good...

Earmuffs

School was fine today. We showed the kids the Merchant of Venice movie, since we ran out of time to finish it before spring break. There's a great modern version with Al Pacino, but it's peppered with bare boobs. Obviously, we couldn't show the kids THAT, so I "blanked" out the screen each time a boob interfered. Viola was impressed with my timely blanking and congratulated me several times.

All in a day's work.

Completely off topic: Gramps and I watch Dancing with the Stars together every season, and--in case you're not a huge dork and didn't know-- it's back on. Normally, if Gramps and I are discussing the attractiveness of any of the contenders, he's confessing his enjoyment of Edyta's skimpy costumes. Grandpa! But this season-- confession-- I can't stop fanning myself over Gilles Marini:


Dreamy right? His only prior fame came from appearing naked in the Sex and the City movie. But even though he doesn't totally qualify for being one of the "stars" on the show, the man can CHA-CHA. Holy smokes.

I don't normally get crushes over celebrities-- I mean... except for Jim Halpert or Josh Ritter or Legolas or Wesley, or... um... that point is perhaps moot. But Gilles is BARELY a celebrity! Which makes the necessity for fanning THAT much more noteworthy, in my opinion.

Anyway. He's sure getting famous quick. Because I'm definitely not the only one swooning over this particular Frenchman. (He's FRENCH even!!) Go Gilles, DANCE. You just GET that Glitter Ball trophy.

Addendum:
In this blog, I used the words, "boobs," "skimpy," "sex," "naked," and "dancing." Sorry to anyone trying to read this with an active internet censoring program. Especially sorry if this blog made it blow up.

Also used the word "blow."

Shoot.

Oh, Haaaayell No

Viola started the day off with more talk about the weekend and the boys being crushified, and me being, apparently, the anti-ice-princess. We spent almost our WHOLE prep period talking about it-- and she kept saying, "I know you didn't mean to, BUT..." And I kept saying, "Lesson learned, I feel mortified, I will be a firm, stern teacher from now on, I get it." I was really hoping to just move on from the whole thing, so to spend almost an entire HOUR talking about it again was so not a fun start to the day.

Then this weird situation came up with a girl who had come in to talk to me before school-- she had some heavy stuff on her mind, and then she ended up crying during 4th period... When she tearfully left after class, she lingered outside our door, and mentioned to several of her friends that she had talked to me about things earlier in the day. I was torn-- should I have gone to talk to her? Or should I be the Teacher-With-A-Clear-LINE, and just let the girl fend for herself? Complicating things further were the dynamics with Viola-- this girl and her have known each other a long time, and I worried that I would be "stepping on Viola's toes" to try to counsel this girl instead of letting Viola take care of it.

I was all stressed and bothered and worried.

Finally, 6th period-- musical-- rolled around. Jane and I took most of the high-school kids into the auditorium to start working on "Who Will Buy," one of the show's big songs. As she was standing up front, I noticed Aaron-- the naked-chested-hallway-chaser-- madly texting from his seat on the edge of the auditorium. I walked up to him and held out my hand for the phone.

"Why don't I hang onto that for the rest of the class?" I asked.

He pulled up the waistband of his sweats and threw the phone into his pants. "Whoops! How'd that happen?" he said. Then his phone dinged and vibrated with a return text. He closed his eyes halfway and grinned. "Ooooh..."

I was FLOORED.

ALL the pent up furies from the weekend and the subsequent talks and lectures rallied together in one single furious expression on my face, and one single enraged tone of voice.

"Aaron that is UNBELIEVABLY inappropriate!" I hissed. "I don't EVER want to hear that kind of crap from you again!!"

He looked surprised, and chastened. Then he grinned and said half-heartedly, "Sorry."

"No. I can't believe you just said that Aaron, SHAME on you. Don't you EVER pull that crap with me again." And I walked away, still fuming.

After class, he walked out in front of me, Leon tagging along at his heels. I called after him with a voice full of nails. "Aaron, I really hope I never see anything like what you pulled in class today again," I said.

"Greta, I'm sorry," he said, looking genuinely apologetic.

"That was so rude," I said.

"I'm sorry Greta!" he said. He sounded upset. I'd really made him feel bad!

"That was unbelievably rude," I repeated.

I told Viola about the interchange and she gasped. "Yaaaaaayyyy!" she crowed. "That was EXACTLY what you needed to say! I'm glad you came down so hard on him, he NEEDED that! And he wants you to like him, Greta, so I bet he feels really bad-- he'll probably never do anything like that again! Good jooooob!"

It was another prickly day all around, but I felt like I'd gotten one thing right. At least the teacher instincts are closer to where they need to be than they were this weekend.

Still-- at this point...?

I AM SO READY FOR SPRING BREAK.

Road Trip Recap

Other possible titles for this post:
"Too Young to be Old; Too Old to be Young."
Or, "Big Ball of Awkward."
Or perhaps, "Student Teacher Temptress." Please God, no.

Gah. I'm still cringing.

The boys talked about their drinking stories the whole way up. Little Lincoln ended up going in a different car so they had no incentive to censor-- apparently, I wasn't reason enough. I told them, "I'm going to pretend you're talking about Koolaid." Tried to distract them with traveling stories, but as soon as they had a chance to talk again, we were once more talking about inebriation and destruction of property.

Annie texted me in response to this report: "Haha! I love how comfortable they are with you!"

Well... or not. Told Viola about the car ride and she said, "You really shouldn't let them talk about that stuff-- it could misconstrued as you, like, encouraging them to do that. You just have to be careful-- make sure you tell them that they can't talk about that anymore with you."

"Right. You're absolutely right," I nodded. Thought: "Stupid. Stupid. How did I not figure that out when they were talking about it?"

Then she said, "I have to tell you what the girls told me in my car: apparently Dylan has a HUGE crush on you!" She laughed.

"Oh nooo..." I said.

Tried to act normal about everything though. The boys rode in my car the whole weekend, so I tried adjusting my demeanor to a more ADULT, PROFESSIONAL, I-am-NOT-in-fact-closer-to-your-generation-than-to-my-middle-aged-colleagues kind of attitude. I think I was kind of awkward about it though. I ended up being mostly sarcastic and grumpy.

Friday afternoon, I heard one of the girls, Kimberly-- a chatty, brash, self-identified lesbian say, "I want Greta on my team!"
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing!" she grinned.

I found out that the boys-slash-Kimberly called out "My team" whenever they saw someone that they wanted "dibs" over-- that they were attracted to. I reported this finding to Viola.
"Wait-- didn't someone call you for THEIR team?" she asked.
"Yes," I said grimly. "Kimberly." And she laughed again.

The worst was Friday night though. Jane, the theatre teacher, had to go tell the kids to be quiet. She'd mentioned earlier in the day that she felt like she always had to be the bad guy, so I decided to go stand beside her in solidarity. She was standing in front of the guys' room, and when I stood beside her and looked into the room, I saw Aaron in just his shorts. My eyes opened wide and I turned right around to walk back to my room.

This was a mistake. Because by LEAVING, it meant Aaron was able to CHASE AFTER ME. Which he did. Naked chested. And then tried to thrust his naked-chestedness into the room as I tried to shut the door on him.

Are you cringing? Because FRICK, I am.

This is what I should have done: I should have been stoic and aloof in the first place, and stayed the course beside Jane as she told them to shut up, never mind the scantily clad high-schoolers. OR, if I couldn't have done that, I should have turned around on Aaron and unleashed the wrath of a thousand furies by roaring, "THAT IS COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE AND YOU NEED TO STAND DOWN SOLDIER!" Instead, I freaked out, tried to run away, ended up batting him away like a stupid teenager, and just about burned up in blushingness.

The whole weekend was a miserable confrontation with THE LINE. I feel like "the line" has been well-established with my freshmen and sophomores. They KNOW I'm their teacher, and they treat me as such. None of them would ever even THINK of chasing me down a hotel hallway, and if they did, I KNOW my first instinct would be to ask them incredulously, "What the H are you doing??" But I haven't practiced being a teacher to seniors yet-- and they haven't seen me as the up-front teacher of a lesson, or as the governor of a classroom. To them-- I'm the exception. I'm the cute young intern who lets them get AWAY with stuff. Of course they do: kids are always pushing boundaries; it's MY job to assert myself and make sure they follow them. But when a 6'2" mostly naked 18-year-old is chasing me down a hallway, my instincts kick in, and unfortunately: my instincts in those situations still say RUN.

Complicating things further is the fact that, under normal circumstances, I WOULD probably pal around with these kids. When we dropped them off at the dance on Friday night, I started getting into the music and thought it would be fun to go in and dance WITH them-- but realized, of course, that I couldn't. I "got" all their pop-culture references, and all their jokes. They're all cool, interesting people-- and being with the boys put me in the same frame of mind as being with my little brother, who's their same age. I realized that my reaction to their stories in the car-- laughing and chiding them-- was the same kind of reaction I have when my little brother tells me a story of misbehavin'. That was the instinctual response. But the response that I must learn is not the "big sister" response. It is not the "25-year-old" response. It is not the "friend" response. It is the TEACHER response.

"Teacher response" hindsight is 20/20. And makes me feel incredibly foolish when analyzing the actions that actually occurred.

Viola returned to the subject today, saying that I should have distanced myself from Dylan as soon as I realized that he had a crush on me, and went on further to say that running away from Aaron seemed flirtatious. I spent the rest of the day feeling horrified and mortified. Morhorified. Though she told me she knew I didn't mean to come across that way at ALL and that I clearly wasn't doing anything wrong intentionally, I just had to be very careful with these boys. Her ending disclaimer didn't make me feel much better.

I know I'm learning still. I know I'll have a brand new slate next year. I know that the next time any one of these situations happens I will KNOW how to respond. But in the meantime...

Gah. I'm still cringing.

Road Trip

So here's the story.

Tomorrow (Friday), I'm driving to Bellingham with Viola, the theatre teacher Jane, and about 11 of the students. We're going to a high-school theatre conference thing to perform a cutting of our school musical, Oliver. Today, after our final rehearsal, we figured out which kids would drive with which teachers. Jane and Viola claimed kids first.

I got all the boys.

This is my car:

Aaron: Our tech guy. 18, tall, one of the star basketball players, handsome, volatile, troubled, easily angered. But smily.

Leon: Playing Mr. Bumble. Also a Senior. Square, swarthy, and typically wears long jerseys, baseball hats, and big gold chains with fancy medallions. Speaks with a lisp; sings like butter.

Lincoln: Playing Oliver; our little one. Absolutely adorable. Just on the verge of puberty, which terrified Jane during casting since she worried his angelic high voice might drop mid-quarter. Long lashes around sweet blue eyes, and some of the biggest feet I've ever seen.

Dylan: Playing Fagin. Dyed black hair, long long skinny legs, wrapped in long long skinny jeans; giant gauges in his ears. Has apparently been a model for "edgy" publications. The best actor in the bunch, and when he rubs his hands together as the avaricious Fagin, and unfolds his long legs in giant, cartoonish steps, he's absolutely hysterical.

That's sort of my school in a nutshell. Or-- a Honda Accord, rather.

I'm actually really excited for my carload. I hope we have fun!

Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

Today was awful.

Things just fell apart. I made mistakes. I got criticized. I couldn't respond. I spilled coffee all over myself, and then someone else spilled the remainder on a bunch of papers and got mad at me for leaving the lid off and "letting" it happen.

I cried on my way home, and now I feel like I have a mouth full of thorns that I'm not allowed to spit out.

Days like this make me ache for the last day of school. Pleasepleaseplease hurry up. Just let it be over.

Wishing I could go back here:


I guess that's what summer vacation is for, right?