Season 1, Episode 7: The One With the Step Backwards
Oi.
I just finished my last week at a public school institution.
That happened quickly.
As I've alluded to in my last few posts, I've been vaguely aware of how much (perhaps I ought to say how little) time I had left at the school for a while now, but I obviously wasn't able to fully wrap my head around that.
In fact, in the last few weeks, a lot of things have happened that I haven't quite been able to wrap my mind around- the least of which being that I'm done with high school.
In the last 20 days, I've accumulated a list of about 30 lasts and changes that occurred, none of which were unexpected, but nonetheless, I wasn't prepared for many of them. A few of them stood out as particularly impactful to me, so I suppose I'll give you all a bit of a run-down.
I had my last chance to stand and perform on the stage at my high school.
I suppose this isn't the biggest thing that's ever happened to me, but as someone who didn't choose to pursue music as my career in college, this was rather a big deal for me.
I've grown up performing in front of people and to be entirely honest, after stepping away from that stage... I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to perform like that again.
Ever since I was little, I've been writing songs (I distinctly remember one of my first involving my being very upset after getting in trouble for something), dancing, singing, being comedic, and just all around performing for my family. It was once I got to high school that I realized I could keep doing all of that, but that I could also have the opportunity to share it with others too.
My school district has always been really great about emphasizing the role of the arts in curriculum and so I've been blessed with amazing opportunities to perform on a whim at more casual "coffeehouse" style performance nights, or in friendly competition "sing-off" events, or even in the school's talent show.
Next year... I won't be in those types of classes. I'll still be in love with music, certainly, but I won't be in four classes a day dedicated to music, nor will I have those opportunities in front of me whenever I want to reach out and grasp them. That's going to be a really hard transition for me, not going to lie. I'm the kind of person that can only alleviate stress by doing something else to distract me from it, and in many ways, enrolling in so many music-based courses was my attempt at finding a constant stress relief during my senior year.
If I was worried about a test in my English class the next day, well, to take my mind off of it, and to give myself a break from studying, I could always go and make sure I knew all of the parts for my show choir's rendition of Burn by Ellie Goulding.
If I didn't think I could handle one more minute of trying to learn comparative government in front of a computer, well, then I could go and attempt to learn the accompaniment for the school musical.
With music, I've always had a home, a fallback plan, and a place to go, and suddenly, it seems to me as if that's about to be taken from me. Sure, I'll try to engage myself in music-related activities and such, but I'll never have the exact experience and opportunities that I have now, and that saddens me a bit.
I left my school, and more importantly, my teachers, for the very last time.
I get very attached to school, which is, I guess, a bit of an abnormality for teenagers these days, but so it goes. I've always loved having the opportunity to push and engage myself in ways that I had never dreamed possible before, and so, I've always greatly appreciated the educators who made that happen.
I wrote basically an entire blog post about this on June 10th of last year (http://titledmusings.blogspot.com/2015/06/episode-2-where-feet-may-fail-pre.html), but I get even more attached to my teachers than I do to school itself (that part is not as surprising) and so transitioning from year to year has been a bit difficult. Especially last year, when I left a lot of my normal teachers because they changed schools, or I wasn't taking their classes anymore, I had a rather difficult time trying to figure out what my next year was going to look like.
You see, I tend to associate my teachers with my family. The goofy drama teacher is the fun uncle, the young teacher that jokes around with the whole class is the cool cousin, etc.. But somewhere along the long line of teachers that I've had in high school, two of them managed to become my "at-school-parents" in a way.
The first, my "at-school-mom", is a choir teacher that I've had for both my first choir, and show choir. She's had the "privilege", as she put it at our choir banquet, (I might have called it "unfortunate task", but it is what it is) of teaching me for all four years of high school, which means she's also had the fantastic opportunity to see all of my bad hair days, meltdowns about finals, and boy drama. At the same time, she's also gotten to see me grow, and has helped me grow by giving me leadership opportunities along the way, and through her teaching and instruction, I've always felt at home. She came with the choir on our spring break trip to Hawaii, and she made sure that all of "her girls" were feeling all right and were taking good care of themselves (wearing sunscreen, going to bed on time, etc...) and it was then that I realized that she's been doing this the entire time that I've known her. It is in her nature to mother her students, which is particularly effective when they're all girls, and in doing so, she became a sort of second mom to me. She was the first teacher to know about the tragedy that occurred later on in this week, and she was the first to offer both her condolences and a hug. She's kept an eye on me as I've gone through high school and in conversations with other teachers, has defended on my behalf. She's gone above and beyond as a teacher, and I'm going to miss her terribly, but I absolutely cannot mention her without bringing up my "at-school-dad".
This one is an interesting one for me because it seemingly came out of nowhere. In my post last year, I discussed how much I would miss my English teacher, who I had been taught by for two years, and so I would've assumed that he would be one of my more sentimental connections upon leaving the school. But then I retook a class.
Now, I got a lot of crap from my friends about this, but I retook the historically junior-driven APUSH class this year. Perhaps with the insight that I wanted to have its curriculum align with the curriculum of my (planned) AP Government class, it would make more sense to people, but in most cases, my friends were just confused (No joke, was still being questioned on this during my last week at school). Anyhow, my schedule ended up not working out the way I had planned, and so I ended up not taking AP Gov through the school, put in a mildly ironic twist, was still enrolled in APUSH. No matter, I loved the class the first time, and figured I would enjoy it just as much the second time around. But that's where it gets interesting, because it really took me the entirety of junior year to realize that I enjoyed that class. There were a seemingly copious amount of notes assigned every night, my friends in the class seemed to outperform me on all of the essays, and most importantly at the time, I didn't actually like history. Crazy thought for someone who's going into a Government and Politics Major.
There's a pretty long story to that one, but suffice it to say that my over-achieving, well-known, brilliant (I do love her, I promise) sister had been all about history, and I was determined to chart my own path for life. I very adamantly protested any sort of interest in social studies, and pretty much threw myself into music, the one thing she had never been incredible at. As much as I loved (and still do love) music, there had to be a breaking point, a line that I would somehow cross to realize that my life didn't need to be devoted to outshining my sister's legacy. And so, ironically, I found that moment in the class that was probably one of my sister's favorites.
The teacher for that class initially didn't strike me as anything in particular, other than very tall. He was kind of funny (he made a lot of dad jokes), and moderately engaging while teaching, but as time went on, I began to see how invested he really was in his students. He would go around, once or twice a month, and throw a tennis ball around and ask us all questions, "what's your favorite ice cream flavor?", "what are you doing this weekend?", and "who is your favorite Cubs player?". He actively made an effort to make a challenging class fun, but I wasn't able to recognize that until about 3rd semester when he suddenly wasn't there. He went away on paternity leave, and in his place was a young, rather inexperienced, and clearly not well-prepared substitute who read copies of the online notes in class. That was when it hit me. All year, I had been challenged in the class, which had seemed annoying, but now.. Well, now I was bored. When my teacher came back, I finally connected the pieces. Great teachers lead to engaged students. That's exactly what this teacher was (and is): great. By the end of that year, he had helped me to realize that it was okay for me to like some of the same things that my sister did- that didn't make me less than her, nor did it make him compare me to her (one of the things that I take the greatest offence to, as a youngest child). It just made me...Me.
So when I ended up in the class again this year, I was pretty excited to say the least. I walked in and began formulating a plan on how I was going to thank him at the end of the year, and finally settled on an idea inspired by the men of the 1980 USA Hockey team- a collection of funny quotes their coach (in this case, my teacher) had said. So I got to work, noting every dad joke, every "sexy Ben Franklin" reference...everything. I spent the year looking forward to 6th hour everyday, because it was, in a sense, my home base. I was confident in my knowledge of the material, I had my favorite teacher again, and I was looking off to college in the distance.
Until suddenly that distance was not very far at all, and I was preparing for AP exams and final-esque projects, and over-committing myself to the point of stress. I would walk into 6th hour and not talk at all and by the end of the period, I would've been engaged at some point in a quiet conversation with my teacher asking if I was alright. That's why he became an at-school-parent to me, that casual concern in my well-being during two of the most stressful years of my academic career thus far. In a moderately amusing conversation with my mother this week, I revealed that I was really close to many of my teachers because in some cases, I was around them more than I was around my actual family, and she smiled and said she understood, but I just sat there and couldn't stop thinking about that.
When I asked him to sign my yearbook, he wrote a very sweet note about my achieving my goals (included in the note: "SCOTUS?") and wished me the best of luck in my future, and that was when it hit me.
I had been going about my last week of school like I had three months left, but in reality, it was only three days, and then, on Friday morning, only about three hours.
Many of you who are close to me know that I absolutely HATE missing school. And so, when I wasn't in attendance on the Tuesday during my last week of high school, I got quite a few questions directed at me, most of which I answered the next day. But a bit of a flashback is required here, so I'll include a bit of background.
On Monday the 16th, I had a mandatory rehearsal to attend for my show choir. I headed directly to our school's drama room, when suddenly I received a call from my mother, who, in summary, said that she was sorry but that she wouldn't be able to attend my senior honors night, because my uncle had been in a severe accident and she was heading to the hospital to be with her sister for support. I cried, excused myself from the rehearsal for a few minutes, but then returned and carried on with the rest of the evening as planned. I finished the rehearsal, went home, and proceeded to attend the senior honors ceremony. When I got home, my mother informed me that I would be staying home from school on Tuesday, as she wanted to be with her sister, and she needed someone to stay with the dogs, and couldn't call anyone on short notice. I agreed, obviously.
My mother left the house at about 8:00 the next morning. At 9:30 I called her because I myself felt ill, and when she picked up the phone I knew everything had changed.
My sociable, charming, good-natured uncle had passed away, after just over 40 years with his wife, my mother's sister. He was a great man, always telling me to chase after my dream, that I "did great kiddo" and he will be sorely missed, by both myself and the rest of our family.
The thing that really struck me about this tragedy was its timing. I'm a terribly sentimental person. I cry watching soldier coming home videos, and a few choice sappy romance movies, and pretty much any book to which I become emotionally attached. Naturally then, I had spent a lot of the weekend before (which was prom, mind you) thinking about how much everything was going to change.
I suppose I have a bit more experience with moving schools than some, but regardless, change is always difficult. It somehow always seems to feel like a step off a diving board where you can't see the pool- even if you have a plan and know what's coming next. So I'd been thinking about it a lot anyway, and then, to have a tragedy occur in the middle of my very last week... I was, understandably, a bit high strung this week.
But interestingly enough, I was able to go to church for the first time in a few weeks this morning, and after some nightmare-inducing traffic, I arrived about fifteen minutes late to the service, but just in time to hear the beginning of the message.
It was about Gideon, one of the judges from the bible, (His story is in Judges chapters 6-8, it's one of my favorites, check it out!- you won't be disappointed!) and the overarching message was that sometimes a step forwards for God will look like a step backwards for you.
The pastor discussed Gideon taking 300 men to fight an army of 200,000 and explained how the 300 were left untouched in order to show that it was not them who defeated the enemy, but rather God in them.
That got me thinking. In all of this change, all of these seemingly backwards steps, there has to be a bigger plan, a plan that I couldn't have dreamed if I tried. Even though this "list of lasts" and these changes seem massive and insurmountable to me, God's got a plan for me, and if I trust him, He'll use me to put it into place.
All in all, a pretty sappy post, but what do you expect from a hormonal teenager who leaves for college in three months?
Much love and many thanks to those who read my blog ♥
Signing off,
Amanda
I just finished my last week at a public school institution.
That happened quickly.
As I've alluded to in my last few posts, I've been vaguely aware of how much (perhaps I ought to say how little) time I had left at the school for a while now, but I obviously wasn't able to fully wrap my head around that.
In fact, in the last few weeks, a lot of things have happened that I haven't quite been able to wrap my mind around- the least of which being that I'm done with high school.
In the last 20 days, I've accumulated a list of about 30 lasts and changes that occurred, none of which were unexpected, but nonetheless, I wasn't prepared for many of them. A few of them stood out as particularly impactful to me, so I suppose I'll give you all a bit of a run-down.
I had my last chance to stand and perform on the stage at my high school.
I suppose this isn't the biggest thing that's ever happened to me, but as someone who didn't choose to pursue music as my career in college, this was rather a big deal for me.
I've grown up performing in front of people and to be entirely honest, after stepping away from that stage... I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to perform like that again.
Ever since I was little, I've been writing songs (I distinctly remember one of my first involving my being very upset after getting in trouble for something), dancing, singing, being comedic, and just all around performing for my family. It was once I got to high school that I realized I could keep doing all of that, but that I could also have the opportunity to share it with others too.
My school district has always been really great about emphasizing the role of the arts in curriculum and so I've been blessed with amazing opportunities to perform on a whim at more casual "coffeehouse" style performance nights, or in friendly competition "sing-off" events, or even in the school's talent show.
Next year... I won't be in those types of classes. I'll still be in love with music, certainly, but I won't be in four classes a day dedicated to music, nor will I have those opportunities in front of me whenever I want to reach out and grasp them. That's going to be a really hard transition for me, not going to lie. I'm the kind of person that can only alleviate stress by doing something else to distract me from it, and in many ways, enrolling in so many music-based courses was my attempt at finding a constant stress relief during my senior year.
If I was worried about a test in my English class the next day, well, to take my mind off of it, and to give myself a break from studying, I could always go and make sure I knew all of the parts for my show choir's rendition of Burn by Ellie Goulding.
If I didn't think I could handle one more minute of trying to learn comparative government in front of a computer, well, then I could go and attempt to learn the accompaniment for the school musical.
With music, I've always had a home, a fallback plan, and a place to go, and suddenly, it seems to me as if that's about to be taken from me. Sure, I'll try to engage myself in music-related activities and such, but I'll never have the exact experience and opportunities that I have now, and that saddens me a bit.
I left my school, and more importantly, my teachers, for the very last time.
I get very attached to school, which is, I guess, a bit of an abnormality for teenagers these days, but so it goes. I've always loved having the opportunity to push and engage myself in ways that I had never dreamed possible before, and so, I've always greatly appreciated the educators who made that happen.
I wrote basically an entire blog post about this on June 10th of last year (http://titledmusings.blogspot.com/2015/06/episode-2-where-feet-may-fail-pre.html), but I get even more attached to my teachers than I do to school itself (that part is not as surprising) and so transitioning from year to year has been a bit difficult. Especially last year, when I left a lot of my normal teachers because they changed schools, or I wasn't taking their classes anymore, I had a rather difficult time trying to figure out what my next year was going to look like.
You see, I tend to associate my teachers with my family. The goofy drama teacher is the fun uncle, the young teacher that jokes around with the whole class is the cool cousin, etc.. But somewhere along the long line of teachers that I've had in high school, two of them managed to become my "at-school-parents" in a way.
The first, my "at-school-mom", is a choir teacher that I've had for both my first choir, and show choir. She's had the "privilege", as she put it at our choir banquet, (I might have called it "unfortunate task", but it is what it is) of teaching me for all four years of high school, which means she's also had the fantastic opportunity to see all of my bad hair days, meltdowns about finals, and boy drama. At the same time, she's also gotten to see me grow, and has helped me grow by giving me leadership opportunities along the way, and through her teaching and instruction, I've always felt at home. She came with the choir on our spring break trip to Hawaii, and she made sure that all of "her girls" were feeling all right and were taking good care of themselves (wearing sunscreen, going to bed on time, etc...) and it was then that I realized that she's been doing this the entire time that I've known her. It is in her nature to mother her students, which is particularly effective when they're all girls, and in doing so, she became a sort of second mom to me. She was the first teacher to know about the tragedy that occurred later on in this week, and she was the first to offer both her condolences and a hug. She's kept an eye on me as I've gone through high school and in conversations with other teachers, has defended on my behalf. She's gone above and beyond as a teacher, and I'm going to miss her terribly, but I absolutely cannot mention her without bringing up my "at-school-dad".
This one is an interesting one for me because it seemingly came out of nowhere. In my post last year, I discussed how much I would miss my English teacher, who I had been taught by for two years, and so I would've assumed that he would be one of my more sentimental connections upon leaving the school. But then I retook a class.
Now, I got a lot of crap from my friends about this, but I retook the historically junior-driven APUSH class this year. Perhaps with the insight that I wanted to have its curriculum align with the curriculum of my (planned) AP Government class, it would make more sense to people, but in most cases, my friends were just confused (No joke, was still being questioned on this during my last week at school). Anyhow, my schedule ended up not working out the way I had planned, and so I ended up not taking AP Gov through the school, put in a mildly ironic twist, was still enrolled in APUSH. No matter, I loved the class the first time, and figured I would enjoy it just as much the second time around. But that's where it gets interesting, because it really took me the entirety of junior year to realize that I enjoyed that class. There were a seemingly copious amount of notes assigned every night, my friends in the class seemed to outperform me on all of the essays, and most importantly at the time, I didn't actually like history. Crazy thought for someone who's going into a Government and Politics Major.
There's a pretty long story to that one, but suffice it to say that my over-achieving, well-known, brilliant (I do love her, I promise) sister had been all about history, and I was determined to chart my own path for life. I very adamantly protested any sort of interest in social studies, and pretty much threw myself into music, the one thing she had never been incredible at. As much as I loved (and still do love) music, there had to be a breaking point, a line that I would somehow cross to realize that my life didn't need to be devoted to outshining my sister's legacy. And so, ironically, I found that moment in the class that was probably one of my sister's favorites.
The teacher for that class initially didn't strike me as anything in particular, other than very tall. He was kind of funny (he made a lot of dad jokes), and moderately engaging while teaching, but as time went on, I began to see how invested he really was in his students. He would go around, once or twice a month, and throw a tennis ball around and ask us all questions, "what's your favorite ice cream flavor?", "what are you doing this weekend?", and "who is your favorite Cubs player?". He actively made an effort to make a challenging class fun, but I wasn't able to recognize that until about 3rd semester when he suddenly wasn't there. He went away on paternity leave, and in his place was a young, rather inexperienced, and clearly not well-prepared substitute who read copies of the online notes in class. That was when it hit me. All year, I had been challenged in the class, which had seemed annoying, but now.. Well, now I was bored. When my teacher came back, I finally connected the pieces. Great teachers lead to engaged students. That's exactly what this teacher was (and is): great. By the end of that year, he had helped me to realize that it was okay for me to like some of the same things that my sister did- that didn't make me less than her, nor did it make him compare me to her (one of the things that I take the greatest offence to, as a youngest child). It just made me...Me.
So when I ended up in the class again this year, I was pretty excited to say the least. I walked in and began formulating a plan on how I was going to thank him at the end of the year, and finally settled on an idea inspired by the men of the 1980 USA Hockey team- a collection of funny quotes their coach (in this case, my teacher) had said. So I got to work, noting every dad joke, every "sexy Ben Franklin" reference...everything. I spent the year looking forward to 6th hour everyday, because it was, in a sense, my home base. I was confident in my knowledge of the material, I had my favorite teacher again, and I was looking off to college in the distance.
Until suddenly that distance was not very far at all, and I was preparing for AP exams and final-esque projects, and over-committing myself to the point of stress. I would walk into 6th hour and not talk at all and by the end of the period, I would've been engaged at some point in a quiet conversation with my teacher asking if I was alright. That's why he became an at-school-parent to me, that casual concern in my well-being during two of the most stressful years of my academic career thus far. In a moderately amusing conversation with my mother this week, I revealed that I was really close to many of my teachers because in some cases, I was around them more than I was around my actual family, and she smiled and said she understood, but I just sat there and couldn't stop thinking about that.
When I asked him to sign my yearbook, he wrote a very sweet note about my achieving my goals (included in the note: "SCOTUS?") and wished me the best of luck in my future, and that was when it hit me.
I had been going about my last week of school like I had three months left, but in reality, it was only three days, and then, on Friday morning, only about three hours.
I lost a family member in a very sudden way.
Many of you who are close to me know that I absolutely HATE missing school. And so, when I wasn't in attendance on the Tuesday during my last week of high school, I got quite a few questions directed at me, most of which I answered the next day. But a bit of a flashback is required here, so I'll include a bit of background.
On Monday the 16th, I had a mandatory rehearsal to attend for my show choir. I headed directly to our school's drama room, when suddenly I received a call from my mother, who, in summary, said that she was sorry but that she wouldn't be able to attend my senior honors night, because my uncle had been in a severe accident and she was heading to the hospital to be with her sister for support. I cried, excused myself from the rehearsal for a few minutes, but then returned and carried on with the rest of the evening as planned. I finished the rehearsal, went home, and proceeded to attend the senior honors ceremony. When I got home, my mother informed me that I would be staying home from school on Tuesday, as she wanted to be with her sister, and she needed someone to stay with the dogs, and couldn't call anyone on short notice. I agreed, obviously.
My mother left the house at about 8:00 the next morning. At 9:30 I called her because I myself felt ill, and when she picked up the phone I knew everything had changed.
My sociable, charming, good-natured uncle had passed away, after just over 40 years with his wife, my mother's sister. He was a great man, always telling me to chase after my dream, that I "did great kiddo" and he will be sorely missed, by both myself and the rest of our family.
The thing that really struck me about this tragedy was its timing. I'm a terribly sentimental person. I cry watching soldier coming home videos, and a few choice sappy romance movies, and pretty much any book to which I become emotionally attached. Naturally then, I had spent a lot of the weekend before (which was prom, mind you) thinking about how much everything was going to change.
I suppose I have a bit more experience with moving schools than some, but regardless, change is always difficult. It somehow always seems to feel like a step off a diving board where you can't see the pool- even if you have a plan and know what's coming next. So I'd been thinking about it a lot anyway, and then, to have a tragedy occur in the middle of my very last week... I was, understandably, a bit high strung this week.
But interestingly enough, I was able to go to church for the first time in a few weeks this morning, and after some nightmare-inducing traffic, I arrived about fifteen minutes late to the service, but just in time to hear the beginning of the message.
It was about Gideon, one of the judges from the bible, (His story is in Judges chapters 6-8, it's one of my favorites, check it out!- you won't be disappointed!) and the overarching message was that sometimes a step forwards for God will look like a step backwards for you.
The pastor discussed Gideon taking 300 men to fight an army of 200,000 and explained how the 300 were left untouched in order to show that it was not them who defeated the enemy, but rather God in them.
That got me thinking. In all of this change, all of these seemingly backwards steps, there has to be a bigger plan, a plan that I couldn't have dreamed if I tried. Even though this "list of lasts" and these changes seem massive and insurmountable to me, God's got a plan for me, and if I trust him, He'll use me to put it into place.
All in all, a pretty sappy post, but what do you expect from a hormonal teenager who leaves for college in three months?
Much love and many thanks to those who read my blog ♥
Signing off,
Amanda
P.S. I officially am committed to the University of Maryland for next year ☺ (Go Terps!)
I love you <3
ReplyDelete10/10 great use of so it goes
ReplyDelete