J'Espere

We're going to pretend I never had this brief respite from blogging. Long story short- got a job in Raleigh, moved to Apex, M and I are getting married in May, and then I'm making the move to Cary. It's a crazy triangular world I live in. On the other hand, it's kind of perfect that I'm blogging almost exactly a year after my last post. Valentine's Day. And this year its going to be fantastic. For one thing, I'm not training for a marathon right now, so no 20 miler on V-day. For another, we now live in the same area. Most importantly, we're going to see "Gone with the Wind" tonight. Thats right- the 1939 classic film that won 10 Academy Awards. On the big screen. M has never seen it. I quote it constantly. It's time for this to mesh. Plus I figure after we're married for a while, he won't answer so positively to so many things I suggest. I haven't seen Gone with the Wind in a few years, but when I think about it, remember some ...

The irony is it's one of my favorite holidays, but I hate to plan anything for it. How much sense does that make, right? So I left it up to M., and as always, he came through in a much better way than he would probably give himself credit for. I left him completely in charge of it. So we went to dinner on Saturday night like so many other couples, but Sunday he made pizza, and his pizza is ridiculously good. I mean ridiculously. Like i crave it. Sunday afternoon I went for a run, and had him pick me up so we could go watch the sunset at the beach. We returned to the house in time for me to find flowers that he had managed to get while I was gone. The best part of this weekend, however, was that Wrightsville Beach got snow! It snowed about 3 inches Friday night/Saturday a.m. and it was beautiful. How often do you see snow at the beach? Especially in NC, right? I love that we got to hang out by a fire and watch The Godfather Part II (because nothing says love like Al Pacino telling D...

Last weekend was insane. Friday night I drove to Raleigh, Saturday morning I flew to DC, Sunday morning I ran the Marine Corps Marathon, and Sunday evening I flew back to Raleigh, followed by Monday morning, when I got up at 4 a.m. to drive back. I'm sure most of you want to know why I keep putting myself in this position. I can't really say. There is something about running around a city or town or place that makes it that much more special. It's just different than driving through. I feel like I got to experience DC, got to see how the city was laid out, the crazy traffic patterns, and at the end I did get a medal from a Marine as well as a government issue snack bag (slightly iffy). What I noticed was this time around I ran slower but recovered faster. And I think that was because I was definitely undertrained. Besides starting a new job this year, I started work in an elementary school, which meant that by the end of September I had the H1N1 or swine flu or whatever it...

is the reason I haven't been writing much lately. Or at all in almost a month?? Seriously? The good news is....I have a job! I'm a librarian! For real! It's exciting! I keep putting up exclamation points about it! What's interesting about a job like this, and I suspect most teaching jobs is that you come out of school with a particular ingrained philosophy. Essentially it's based on whatever is trendy at the moment and I have discovered I am no exception. So far I find myself not trying to fight the system, understanding that all an administration cares about is test scores, and encouraging kids to read outside the box anyway :-). The school I'm at does Accelerated Reader (of which I'm not the hugest fan) and is a PBS school and is a massive school! The first week I lost my assistant, which was not fun. 680 students, more than 30 teachers, and I'm it for the library. While we have some amazing volunteers, as you can imagine they are not the same as havin...

Enough said. Really. I have spent the last few weeks sending out cover letters and resumes, setting up phone and in-person interviews. Sitting in front of panels listening as they explained what my job would be and asked me questions about everything from what I would do if a student removed all the balls from each mouse in the computer lab, if the county I worked in withdrew all funding, or how I would work a children's program for high risk kids. I have received offers and feel fortunate that a few places think I would be a good fit for their library. Finally, out of eight interviews, one interviewer asked me why I would be the best fit for their library, and why they should choose me. I wish it were obvious what was going on in my head. I am a good fit because I am young but not too young, I have fresh ideas, but I'm thrilled to be learning from those with more experience than me. I am a good fit because once I dug up a rare article on Colombian guerrillas written in Spanish...

"My hair is curvy." - Z.H. That's what he said, and it cracked me up. Out of the mouths of babes, right? I think it might become my mantra. Today I watched as he tried to conquer the high dive. He climbed up the stairs (they have stairs for high dives now??) and stood on the board, staring down at the water, which must seem 100 miles away. He stood and stood until someone came through who wanted to definitely dive off the board. So the lifeguard kicked him out. I went over and asked him what happened, and he shrugged, said he felt a little scared, and immediately threw himself off the smaller spring board. I completely get it. What I liked about watching him this morning was his amazing ability to recover. When I arrived, he told me that he had gotten a blister that burst on his hand from monkey bars yesterday, and then this morning he had a swim lesson and playtime at the pool. But he seriously just threw himself back into his life. When he couldn't go off the high...

My Life in Something Small Current mood: confident Category: Blogging So, since the last time I posted, I have: a. fallen in love b. written a master's paper c. started training for my second marathon d. seen the mountains in two seasons e. returned to yoga after a long absence f. graduated with a Master's degree g. become the most over educated Nanny I know of h. has more time to actually think about what i want to do than at any other period of my existence. I don't think I've ever been this excited about being unemployed in my entire life. Usually i run around like crazy looking for the next gig to get me through but this time I'm determined to take it slow and figure out what it is that I'm looking for. Back in the fall all I was doing was running, putting aside all my other training and trying to seek out something that can't be found by simply moving. In the spring I was so focused on my master's paper I almost destroyed several friendships and w...