I can hear the bells....

I am drawing perilously near the end of my collegiate career. And here's a little something that should surprise no one: I have no clue what to do with myself after graduation.

Rather than coping with the natural reaction to this fact (i.e., hyperventilation and paralyzing fear), however, I can only rejoice as I endlessly chant this mantra to myself:

I am almost done with student teaching.

Let me say it again, for no one's benefit but my own:

I am almost. done. with student teaching.

I'll spare you all the laundry list of gripes I have with student teaching in general---99% of them relating to my indescribably lazy cooperating teacher, She Who Must Not Be Named. I'll spare you the thoughts that sleepless nights and endlessly whining students give birth to (among the more PG-rated: school-ditching daydreams such as If I called in a bomb threat, could anyone trace it? Can I willfully rupture my own appendix?) It's more than those things, though.

Never in my life have I felt as incompetent or isolated as I do in Room 18 of Riverview High School. And rarely ever would I succumb to and verbalize these feelings with such abandon. While at times I have the energy to put an optimistic, positive spin on things, I hope you'll forgive my present honesty--there's just such release, sometimes, in not trying to be cute or funny, and instead just admitting that there are so many days when my head's barely above water. But then again, there are days when it's clearly above the surface, and I can catch my breath. These days often follow each other, like a seesaw. I'm glad for that minute variety, I suppose--it's not much, though it does make the descent a little more manageable.

I'm afraid that I've become a negative person, and I'm not usually negative (at least, I hope not). Sometimes everyday feels like a head-on collision with the worst aspects of myself: my negativity, my pathetic fear of confrontation (even with 10th graders), my disorganization, my procrastination. An endless reminder of what I can't do; an endless frustration for why I can't seem to change. What scares me most is not knowing how much of my discontent stems from my situation, and how much is purely and simply my fault.

Does my unhappiness stem from inexperience, or inability? I'm not sure I want to know.

Nothing--especially school--is without its lessons, however. My student teaching has taught me two things. The first is simple and obvious: students who consistently do their work without complaining or presenting a thesis about why they don't have it done are precious, golden gifts from God. I have to restrain myself from falling on the ground and kissing their feet for the redemptive powers of their responsibilty.

The second is about bells. I have come to view bells as nothing less than sacred, much like Muslims view the daily calls to prayer. So many days each bell is a victory; audibal affirmation that I've survived another period, and that time is, in fact, passing. This is the most significant truth I've learned in the past 3 months: that even the longest, or the rowdiest, or the most frustrating periods eventually (and blissfully) end. Even the worst day has a bell at the end of it.

I'll spare you the obvious, cheesy real-life application. But I am thankful that it's there. And maybe not so cheesy at all--just true.

[thoughts on airports, and other things too]

I have always adored airports, truly, deeply. Possibly because everytime I step foot in one I am 74% convinced that I will see Conan O'Brien, or some lesser celebrity (so far, my best is Jerry Springer). I will forever be grateful to my mother for working at Delta for twentysomething years, allowing me the means to travel, and to Georgia, for--incongruously enough--having the world's busiest airport. It always proved the perfect playground for my highly melodramatic elementary-school mind. There is an energy and possibility amongst all those people and suitcases and destinations and colliding cultures that is intoxicating, and hard to match elsewhere.

Furthermore, everything feels more important in airports. Make eye contact with a stranger on the train to your gate and you will feel like you just had the most meaningful interaction of your life. Every glance may be filled with longing and ache and imbued with whatever significance you choose--the chance of our encounters on earth, the inability to genuinely connect with others in the fast-paced modern world, the things we barely catch, or miss--or something else equally true but pretentious. Stare blankly at the tunnel whizzing past your window, lock eyes furtively with a lonely-looking stranger, and feel like you both just communicated the meaning of the world.

Crank up The Kinks on your Ipod and pretend that you are in a Wes Anderson movie.
(Even if you don't admit that's what you're doing, because you can't completely admit to somewhat liking him).

[I recognize and accept that the above description could just be me being completely ridiculous.]

I love how airports give you license to feel like the most important person in the world--much like driving on the interstate gives you license to feel like the smartest person in the world. I find this to be especially true if a) you are traveling alone, and b) (ladies) if you are wearing heels. For gentlemen, a sportscoat will suffice. This somewhat levels the playing field between you and the businessmen no doubt swarming your gate, armed with laptops and ear-fastened, hands-free cell phones, who, it must be said, seem to actually think they are the most important people in the world. Walk purposefully down the terminal. Deliberately check your watch in a harried manner. Talk tersely into your cell phone (even if no one is on the other line). You, my friend, are going places!

My sister and I used to have a game we played when we were fortunate enough to land first-class on a plane, due to my mother's sway over the standby list, cemented by her years of employee-ship. We called it "Kingsley and Stoneman." Kingsley and Stoneman were cutthroat New York businessmen who routinely called all their employees by their last names and fired them over the airplane dinner. The script went a little something like this:

Kingsley or Stoneman: [the following said in the most convincing Yankee accent that 5th grade Georgian girls could manage]: "Hey, Leibovitz, how are yeh? Yeh enjoyin' yeh vacation? Well, here's an idea: why don't yeh go ahead and make it PERMANENT?!?! That's right--YEH FOY-EHD!"

[That's right; Kingsley and Stoneman extensively utilized "you're fired" long before Donald Trump made it a catchphrase. Take note].

I sometimes wonder if airport businessmen are just caught up in the thrill of pretending.

[Do you ever feel officially grown up? Or do you spend most of your grown up moments as a bewildered, delighted impostor?]