And then she went all Dead Poets Society in the lunchroom

She looked mostly like this ... but a girl ... and with a pink fauxhawk, a mini skirt, and combat boots.

You know what makes your day after a good self-esteem crushing parent?  A visit from an old student who just stopped by to tell you thank you for helping her get a five (the highest possible score) on her AP test. 

You know what makes your week after two self self-esteem crushers?  When that student hugs you and tells you she's taking AP classes at her new high school this year and it's made her realize you were "freaking amazing and also awesome." 

You know what makes your year?  When she then jumps up on the lunchroom table in the middle of your current AP students and yells "Attention peasants!  This lady (throwing her arm back to gesture towards you)  Knows.  Her.  S--t!  She got me a FIVE on the AP test, so you guys should TRUST her. Because she is AMAZING.  And also awesome.  So listen.  That is all." And then the lunchroom gives her a standing ovation.

You know what the best bit was?  That the only part of this I borrowed from Dead Poets Society is the picture.  I might have to quit teaching right now because I'm fairly certain this cannot be topped.  Thank you former student whose name I'm omitting because you're still a minor!  You are the absolute best!

Be Careful What You Wish For

Because it just might turn out to be a 4 foot long gopher snake.

Last November, my roommate told me that they kept getting mice in the house the previous winter. I definitely spent the next several months crossing my fingers and knocking on wood that I hadn't seen any yet. Today I met my benefactor: a non venomous snake in the yard. I'm one part fascinated, 2 parts grossed out, and about a half a part grateful for his rodent disposal services. I guess all told a snake in the yard is waaaaay better than mice in the pantry, right?

I ran over my foot with a cart

And as I was repairing it with toenail clippers and off-brand Neosporin, I caught myself thinking, "Please help this to be a good idea!"

I'm relatively certain that's not how prayer works, but I hope God thinks I'm funny.

Leaving Home (Again)

Nine months ago I admitted that I failed at being a real adult and reluctantly moved back to my parents' house. As I sit here supposedly packing my bags for adulthood attempt #2, I find that I am reluctant to leave again. Turns out home is a pretty nice place to be.

Did I ever tell you about this little running joke God and I have where He tries to teach me to stop judging people and I pretent I don't notice that's what He's doing? It came to my attention one afternoon in a Soviet style apartment house in Erfurt. See, I've always been selectively judgmental. Certain triggers that I didn't even consciously notice, like guys who came home from their missions with terrible American accents in their mission language, had me assuming they just didn't try hard enough/didn't love the people enough/were dumb/etc. I know, I'm a snob, right? So no one should be surprised to find that I never could get rid of my American accent in German. Anyway, I was beginning to notice this 2 step pattern (1. Secretly judge someone 2.Experience what I'd just secretly been judgmental about) when we went to go visit an adorable Kazakh grandma named Paulina. The whole time we were there I kept getting distracted by this mole she had on the inside of her eyelid. I kept thinking how annoying it would be to blink or try to close your eyes. I laughed out loud and said "Okay, God, I get it already," when I woke up the next morning with a blister on the exact same spot as her mole had been. He has a good sense of irony, that one.

Point of the story: living in your parents' basement as an adult gets you sent straight down the "loser" chute on the Eggdicator. So of course, that's what I ended up doing. And I while I was there I met some pretty amazing people who were also living at home as adults for a surprisingly wide variety of reasons. Lessson learned (again). Apparently what I need to do now is start judging people for being rich, gorgeous, and fabulously happy!

Gainful Employment

Starting August 16th, I now have it. Yay! I got the official "on paper" (which is to say "on PDF") offer today. I'm super excited to be at Summit Academy next week, and I'm looking forward to a great first year with them.

Cheaper by the (Almost) Dozen: Days 2 and 3

I'm still not sure if the title of this post refers to the number of parentless cousins we amassed here on Saturday night, our average per diem egg usage, or the number childcare related favors I've already called in, but one thing's for certain: there's a reason you don't buy kids at Costco (and I don't mean those pesky little child trafficking laws). Heaven bless the older four for their self-sufficiency, the youngest two for being cute about needing things, and most of all the genius who slipped 2 hours of free babysitting into the Sunday block! Yet another reason this church is true ...

20 Years Later

Today was the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, and if you know me at all, you know that this called for a party. My roommate got the used shipment boxes from her work last week, I got a few cans of spray paint, and a little good-natured chaos ensued.

We stacked the reassembled boxes on our front walkway to make the wall. It got a whole lot more graffitied than this before the night was over.

We roasted marshmallows while we waited for the spray paint to dry, and then I yelled "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" and we all charged it and knocked it down. This was the aftermath:

Then somehow my hometeacher ended up jumping out of a tree. Do not try this at home.

For those of you who were worried, these cardboard boxes made surprisingly good landing foam.
He only broke through the first layer (there were four). Then one of the neighbors called the fire department, but the firefighter who visited us in his gigantic fire truck inspected the portable fire pit we were using on the sidewalk and said everything was in order. He declined our offer of a s'more.

It was a fun party with good entertainment and great friends, and it gave me the opportunity to celebrate how grateful I am that the Wall did fall because it allowed me to serve my mission there. I wouldn't be the same today without all those wonderful people and the experiences I had learning to feel and share Heavenly Father's incredible love for them.

Two years IS a big deal

I checked my mail on the way in from work this afternoon (afternoon! Hurrah for Fridays!), and was unprepared for what I found there: a letter addressed to Sister Cox in some very familiar handwriting. So familiar because it was my own. At first I couldn't believe it - it can't be! It's too soon! But indeed it is the letter that President Borcherding had each missionary write to him or herself on the last day of the mission, to be mailed to you two years from your release date. Two years! I did the math in my head and realized that, yes, I am 24 and one half years old today, which means that I will have been in the same country for two solid years this Sunday. That hasn't happened in 5 years, which must mean it's time for another vacation!

Anyway, the letter is very short, but it got me thinking about my mission, and especially about the end of my mission. I knew then that I was going through some interesting stuff, but I had no idea it was only the appetizer, and it was all still preparing me for more to come. I often have that same feeling out here 4 hours past the end of Civilization. I guess that our whole lives, really, are preparation for the next - teaching us what we need to learn so we can succeed in more eternal realms. I can't help but wonder: what are God's learning outcomes for this unit? How am I progressing toward them? And right now while I'm waiting to lose my job (please please please lay me off) and praying that the plan includes a change of location in early June the next question is the most exciting: what's the next unit and when can it start?

Grateful for the small stuff

I meant to title this post "Addendum 43b" because the kid making sandwiches at Arby's today was one of my students who's been out sick for the last 4 days, but is still handling people's food. He may have just been running the register... I delusionally hope. I digress.

After a long day of dealing with all the crud in my kids' lives, I just feel really grateful that I'm not in any of their shoes. Two of the other teachers decided to call the sheriff about one girl's home situation because she comes in and tells all 3 of us everyday about how she spent all night taking care of her alcoholic mother. I think they made the right decision, but her life still isn't going to get much easier in the near future. I'm having to kick one student out of my class because she's just mentally snapped beyond the point where I can keep her in my class and try to help her because she's exploding every day all over everyone; I just lost another one who got arrested and will apparently be staying for awhile, and just this week figured out that my favorite underpriveliged hot shot can't read. He's good at playing things off and covering it up... either that or I'm just slow because he's been in my class since the start of the school year and I just now figured it out. I can't get him any special ed services because the district doesn't want to take on any more cases with the impending budget cuts, but the good news is that my inclusion teacher is willing to take him to her office and read tests and things out loud to him so he can at least do them... and he's willing to get over his pride enough to accept that help, so maybe this time around he will pass the class!

This year I'm thankful for the Briggs family

Yes, I know it's a little late for the I'm thankful post, but since thankfulness is a year round virtue, I think it's okay. Anyway, today was a really stressful day at work, and I was kind of mad at the counselor and some of my kids, so I took a drive after work to just chill. Sometimes I forget how hard my kids' lives are, and I get frustrated with them, but when I stop to think about it I just can't handle thinking about all the stuff they have to deal with all the time. It literally breaks your heart. So with that on my mind I headed to the community Christmas concert to sing with the LDS choir. As soon as I got there, the Briggs' all came to chat with me, and it was nice to realize that it actually feels familiar and normal to hang out with them - I've missed that family feeling a lot in this town. So halfway through the sing-a-long as I was squished between Jordan and Brother Briggs to stay warm and Sister Briggs asked what kind of Lebkuchen I want them to bring me back from Germany it hit me that I do have a family here... and I'm glad for them. three cheers for the Briggs!

Lists - the new chain mail!

Hold on, I think when I said chain mail I meant chain letters, which are also slightly newer than say, chain mail. Oh, well. All my little positive blogging buddies have inspired me, so here are 50 things I like (in absolutely no order whatsoever):

1. Raindrops on roses
2. Whiskers on kittens (technically those two are in a particular order)
3. Making unnecessary side comments .... with elipses and parentheses
4. General Conference Weekend
5. Vacuums that suck
6. Pillsbury Fun-Fetti Cake with pink frosting
7. Excessive capitalization
8. Subway's Southwest sauce!
9. Hoodies
10. My gym pants that I still have from freshman year.... of high school
11. My niece Evie!
12. Communists...or at least the ones in the DDR
13. Automatic dishwashers
14. Old fashioned woodwork
15. Everything Jeffrey R. Holland has ever said
16. Having a real job
17. Fuzzy slippers
18. Writing letters
19. Catching up with old friends....since old ones are the only kind I have now :)
20. The movie Dil Chahta Hai
21. Dreams...especially ones where I'm in a Bollywood movie, or at Hogwarts
22. A
23. My daily phone call with my mom
24. Being home alone
25. Clean floors
26. My bed
27. Unexpected gestures of kindness
28. Making people laugh
29. Shoes!
30. Thinking I'm witty
31. Not getting dressed on Saturday
32. Watching it rain
33. Red toe nail polish
34. Surprisingly, my car
35. Rereading my favorite books
36. Accidentally speaking Denglish
37. Pictures
38. Cranberry Almond Crunch with Vanilla Silk
39. Chicken fried rice from the Chinese place under the Church in Rostock
40. Kinder Bueno. Oh so bueno....
41. Squeegying my windshield
42. Misspelling onomotopoeias
43. My Doener man in Erfurt
44. Adventures! but not the real kind. The kind that never involve death, peril, or adrenaline and are in fact only adventures because I pretend they are.
45. Not being sticky
46. New journals
47. The cute ladybug on my Capital One card
48. Getting the mail
49. Getting lost in thought
50. Children's stories