missing junior high...

And not the way you think. I spent the first two weeks of my own junior high as "Michael" because I'd just moved and didn't have the courage to correct the P.E. teacher.

I miss TEACHING junior high. Strange, huh? For all the times I've been called a saint for doing it--- you either love it, or you don't. End of story. I loved it.

Many things I recently discovered reminded me of this:
1. Lindsey's friend Tiffanie, who I have heard much about but never had the chance to meet. The Big Butts story of January 29, 2007. I can't figure out how to link straight to it.
2. I don't know this person at all, but it reminds me of the lunchroom at first lunch. I can't explain why.
3. Student bribery and overlooking the rules just for once to get something done? I have!
4. Interesting to me that all teaching blogs have the poor things looking for a release that won't get back to their students or get them fired. The story about the boy who couldn't remember how to spell his name made me happy.
5. This person has a happy balance between repressed anger and joy. I like it. Especially the boy who came back to visit.
6. Junior high crushes on teachers ... such awkwardness...
7. Co-teachers!!! I feel ya, Ms. Cornelius and shrewdness of apes!
8. Mating habits of freshmen. So true. I have told many a boy that deodorant really IS important, especially after P.E. Who knew teaching involved all this?
9. Riso machines. I can change cartridges in the dark. And I have...

Nostalgia. Did you know that when I was younger I used to confuse the meanings of "nostalgia" and "nausea"? Maybe I still am.

vernal falls

I want to make this picture into a poster and hang it on my wall. It reminds me of an awesome, but difficult, hike to Vernal and Nevada Falls in Yosemite at the beginning of this month. It also reminds me how much I've become my mother. When we visited the Grand Canyon I never actually saw inside because my mom had a tight grip on our sweatshirt hoods and would not let us THINK about getting near the railing, let alone the edge of the canyon. I took this photograph and then proceeded to spend the next five minutes nervous that the guy standing on the rock was going to DIE! He dove in, swam around, didn't come out from a little cave for awhile, and then swam WAY TOO CLOSE to the pounding waterfall. I was freaking out, and he wasn't even my child. Heaven help the poor kiddos. They will never see the Grand Canyon either...

family home videos

I have spent my whole life believing that none of my life has ever been recorded on video, and blessedly so.

Spent Labor Day visiting the cousins. It was 106 degrees and 35 percent humidity, so no one wanted to go outside. After we'd eaten ourselves into a food coma, there was little left to do but pull out recently discovered family home videos. Apparently, however, they'd already watched them all at Thanksgiving, when I was on my honeymoon. Nevertheless, we start into them again. Let me tell you- the inlaws are a good time. The videos were from the Christmases of 1989 and 1990- prime real estate. This puts my husband in kindergarten and first grade. Past the giant head of infancy and into the odd "mini-human" stage of life. Anyway. All the cousins are very recognizable, it's just watching their quirks in miniature. The gifts were creative- though we had bridged into a new decade, they are squarely in neon pants and bandannas with beads and the kicker- a denim visor with lace attached. The best part is, the aunts still feel the need to compliment the strange offerings. They still gasp and ooooh and try to get the kids excited 15 years after the fact. If you had dubbed out the aunts in 2007 and in 1990, there would have been dead silence because each kid just opened the gift and stared at it, in a strange "I'm not really sure WHAT this is, but I should definitely go give Aunt K a hug."

In contrast, my family has essentially none of our lives recorded on video. Within the last month a video surfaced that my grandfather had taken of me at nine months- extensive footage of me sitting on the front lawn eating grass. "MA-chelle, does that taste good?!?" The video then cuts out to me, a year or so later, trying to learn how to swim at my grandparents' house. Basically, this is them leaving me in the water (terrified) and then yelling from the side "Paddle with your arms!" "Close your mouth, you'll swallow less water!" while I scream bloody murder. Good times with the family.

Last but not least, a good friend of mine just sent a video she had taken of me midway through college. I'll let it speak for itself:

Not my finest (or most coordinated) moment. I'm glad our eternal judgement draws on more than just surviving video footage...