love – Page 67 – hannah ananas

Zoom, zoom

Today, with great excitement and delight, my mom and I had some fun together on the Vespa.

It was my first time having a passenger on it, and I was cautiously excited.

Thinking back, I used to ride the dirt bikes with a friend on the back, and that always seemed to be fine – I have no recollection of even thinking about how it might be different or difficult when compared to rising solo…, so, I guess, it really wasn’t any big deal back then.

We also weighed maybe a hundred pounds at the time…

Although, my mom and I both weigh not much over a hundred pounds, so there’s not too drastic a difference, however, it could have been a 40-pound difference then to now… and 40 pounds is a lot of added weight, when I am used to carrying and managing only myself and my own body weight for something.

Anyway, it went well, and I figured out along the way what I needed from her, which eased most of my concerns regarding having a passenger with me on the back.

We went to a lovely park, and walked out over the water together, being delighted idiots together, grateful for our blessed friendship with one another, as well as our opportunity to be in such a nice place and to be there together.

Awesome view of said water ^

We had many little stops we made, and we crossed loads of people who heartily shared their approval of and appreciation for our means of transportation.

And I think my mom was surprised at how much she enjoyed it all.

She, at one point, was sharing with me about her eight-year-old self’s first ride on the back of a bike – apparently she left marks on Uncle J——‘s skin from her having held on so tightly. 😛

We did not have such an issue today, but she did joke about and then genuinely compliment my awesome state of abdominal health (aka I’ve kind of got some impressive abs, which can be felt, even though they aren’t visible).

It was a really lovely bonding time for the both of us, for a silly set of reasons, but we just really loved being able to finish off our day full-o-whatever-nonsense-we-for-some-reason-has-to-be-handed today by being silly and happy idiots together by the water. 🙂

We eventually ended up at Kroger to get eggs and drinking water… aka two of the worst possible items to be managing on a bike of any kind, let alone when it’s a first go at riding as a duo on the thing…

We, of course, were fully aware of this thought before even bothering to go.

And, naturally, it was a total success, even with our snake-shaped stick we found on a beach during one of our many stops in our mini-adventure.

And it was a two-and-a-half-gallon jug off drinking water – aka the big ones – and not just a single gallon.

All-in-all, I had a wonderful time and feel totally accomplished.

Post-a-day 2019

Food belly

I tested out eating ‘normal’ food last night at dinner with friends.

We went and had Korean food – the irony of the situation being that a friend of mine came with us, and she was visiting Houston from Korea – and agreed, as is typical for Asian eating situations, to have everything be shared (a style I rather prefer, as I have said often).

They asked for dietary restrictions, and I mentioned that I had mine, but that I was going to use the night as a tester for whether I’m okay eating ‘normal’ foods from time to time (because this diet is a lot to keep up, and it seems a bit nuts to keep up every day for the rest of forever, especially considering holidays and cultural events that have foods that just don’t fit the bill…).

I ate food with them.

It was delicious.

While eating, I noticed quite quickly some physical responses to certain foods (e.g. having to clear my throat from excess mucus somewhat constantly after eating the dish with dairy and the high gluten one).

Afterward, I noticed slight discomfort, but nothing too bad – it was only somewhat noticeable.

I was pleased.

Good thing, I thought.

I went home, delighted with the evening with friends, as well as with the food situation with my body – no, I had no intentions of eating that way anywhere near often, but yes, I would be able to take part in special occasions like tonight.

I go to bed, ready to pass the *** out, because it is so late by then.

At 5am, to a searing pain in my lower stomach, I awaken, almost in a bit of a fit.

I rush to the bathroom, unsure as to whether something needs to come out by gravity, or whether I need to hurl…

… it feels like both.

……..

Almost an hour later, I have managed not to throw up, despite the rising panic that it was wanting to happen, I have cleared out a good amount of what was hurting my bowels so badly, and I go back to bed, exhausted, only to feel another wave of nausea hit me when I lie down flat.

I curl over to one side, and strategically place body parts to help ease the once-again increasing pain in my belly, and somehow fall back asleep.

Today, I felt okay all day, but still exhausted from not enough sleep – had to get up too early today – and somewhat low on energy due to the bit of food debacle early this morning.

I told my friend about what happened, and she said that we are sticking to my dietary restrictions from now on at dinners. 😛

Well, I survived it, which is great, and I now know not to do it unless I want a lot of pain and discomfort – which, I don’t.

The point is that I have lived and learned on the matter, and I can move forward content with my dietary restrictions, and people who get weird about it can go eat a can of glass… just saying… 😛

(Haha – for some reason, that last bit really makes me chuckle, it is so absurd and came out of nowhere.)

Post-a-day 2019

Love you long time…

Waiting on an unknown kid to return the borrowed keys that now need to open a door for me, I chitchat with the coach whose keys they are.

I turn as a kid enters, see that he is beginning to hand the mass of keys back to the coach, and I say, somewhat smirking-smiling, “You’re the one I’m waiting on for these keys?”

It is one of my students.

He hands the keys over while I am saying this, and he gives me an affirmative answer, along with a small chuckle and a reasonably large smile.

Just as he is beginning to show his pearly whites and adorable little grin, I notice that he is about to run into me… no, that isn’t it,… without any pretext, he has simply stepped toward me, arms outstretched and he now hugs me, sweetly, while telling me that he misses me.

(Remember that my teaching ended last week, and this was my first day not being their teacher anymore.)

“You wouldn’t have even had class with me today,” (they have a sort of rotating schedule), “so you haven’t even had time to start missing me.”

“I know, but I still miss you.”

I love being in the classroom with kids, but I also really love being in this kind of relationship with them, where they speak comfortably yet still entirely respectfully to me, and interactions are more like real life, and less like a staged hierarchy of nonsense rules of society and propriety (mostly totally due to arbitrary age decisions).

I love kids.

And I love offering what I have to share that can help them move forward on their respective paths to glorious adulthood and making a beautiful difference in this beautiful world.

Yep… And I also love hugs…

Post-a-day 2019

Third Grade

And, some nights, you begin telling your mom about various memories from third grade – a class you’ve always remembered as one of your favorites – and she ends up telling you that it is time for you to go to bed, because you have become a bit of a blubbering mess of surprise emotions…

I mean, I do, anyway… 😛

I had no idea how much negative emotion I had stemming out of that class…., a lot of which came from that teacher.

I’ve always loved that teacher.

Tonight, in recalling these incidents and the way they made me feel at the time, and how they somehow exploded me with tears tonight, I said to my mom that, as a teacher, I never want to make my students feel that way – embarrassed, incompetent, incapable, unworthy…, unloved.

I hadn’t ever had these particular incidents in mind, but perhaps these third grade memories have played a somewhat significant role in my open expression of love to my students.

I’m not sure a single student of mine could say honestly that he/she thinks I don’t love them – they all know that I do.

As if my actions weren’t clear enough, my constant verbal expression kind of makes it too hard to miss – but my actions, most likely would say, are already sufficient for them to experience and to know that I love them.

My mom said that it is merely part of life, and that I, therefore, necessarily will end up making a student feel that way at some point… I need merely make sure I clean up the situation immediately, whenever it does happen, whenever the student is distraught by my words or actions…

Part of me is terrified at the idea, but part of me feels like I already do a version of this.

I tell kids constantly that they are wrong or have done the wrong thing.

At the beginning of the school year, their faces look momentarily panicked, until they realize that I have clearly put no grade of them as people into my comment – I mean exactly what I have said, and only that which I have said.

In a rather short time, students don’t even flinch at my words that, traditionally, when coming from a teacher, end up embarrassing the student and making him/her feel stupid or inadequate or [insert upsetting self-identity adjective here], because they realize that I love them and that my words have nothing to do with that love dissipating – I tell the kids they have something wrong, because I love them and I want them to learn the right ways, which happens to require them to learn, too, what is wrong and how to fix it.

And they always learn how to fix it, and are praised for their success – their joy always being evident.

In short, I might make a student feel inadequate, but the feeling lasts no longer than a few seconds, before being replaced by something amazing instead.

What was missing for me in all of these memories, was the follow-up, the release of my feelings of inadequacy… the teacher left me to be embarrassed, and so I stayed that way onward and upward in school.

It kind of sucked.

However, if it, in fact, plays a reasonably large role in my expression of love toward my own students, then, perhaps, I needed the negative experiences for myself, in order to be able to love my students so well…

And, therefore, if it does end up being inevitable that I will leave students feeling the ways I felt in third grade at these incidents, perhaps it is merely so that they, in turn, can go forward in life to love even more powerfully than they can love at present.

You know what I mean?

Post-a-day 2019

Le jour last, part II

Today was my last day of classes in this role… it went beautifully and wonderfully.

I sang my students a very important-to-me song and blessing (ukulele accompaniment and lead vocals by yours truly), and they really got it, and it was clear they felt the love.

I felt the love from them, too.

And I felt how powerful it can be when I approach something with my heart, who I am and doing more and more every day to be who I want to be…

When almost every single freshman left class, and just had to hug me – and I don’t mean lame half-hugs, but genuine love hugs – before leaving, I really began to become present to the positive impact I have had on the lives of all of these boys.

And I am extremely grateful to God for, firstly, the capability within myself, and secondly, for be opportunity with these boys.

Thank you.

Sat baam.

Now, to sleep, because I have events and grading to do this weekend, and I just really want to sleep a while…

Post-a-day 2019

C’est le jour last

C’est le jour 1, celui qu’on retient

Celui qui s’efface quand tu me remplaces

Quand tu me retiens, c’est celui qui reviens(!!!)

These are the lyrics to the chorus of this song a lot of my students love. It’s called “Jour 1”, and it is sung by a French artist who uses the name Louane. She sings beautifully, and this song it fun, but I prefer her songs from the film “La Famille Bélier” – Michel Sardou really does have some great songs.

Anyway, we are doing a version of escape rooms as my departing gift to my students (the quarter ends tomorrow). I spent a lot of time putting them together these past couple weeks, and I had the upper level classes today – they went beautifully. Especially the French III was particularly awesome. ::big heart

Tomorrow is the French II and I turns at the escape rooms… I am nervous.

I so far have one helper from French III for each of the classes, and then three students in French II who will be moderators for the three sections/rooms.

For a class of 25, that still makes me a bit nervous…

However, I know that four boys will be home for French II (supposedly, anyway), which drops it to 22 total, and only 19 doing the puzzles… aka about six members per section – that sounds so much better.

I have a plan for how to make it all work – fingers crossed that it goes beautifully and flawlessly, that we all have a wonderful time, and that I give the boys an appropriately love-filled goodbye (I’m singing and playing ukulele for them for a specific blessing/prayer sort of song I love.

De la force!! ❤

Post-a-day 2019

Yikes

I bit a new record tonight.

At first, it was a 9pm departure from school, due to an evening event.

Then, it was a 9:30pm departure, due to working and chatting comfortably with a teacher or two (one at a time, but two of them).

Tonight, as I finished up everything for my super excited escape room style of activity for tomorrow and Friday, I saw the one guy studying away for his LSAT, and knocked on his window to give him a quick hello and chat (he always likes having a forced pause in his studying).

We talked for our approximately average amount of time, and then each went home.

And that was at 10:30pm… crazy.

It is now past midnight, and I can barely function and barely keep my eyes open enough even to read what I am typing…

Anyway, night-night!

Rockin’ it

Tonight, I went to another art exhibit.

And alone, too.

Yes, I ended up meeting friends there, however, I was going in the first place, whether they accepted the belated invitation or not…

And it was wonderful.

I loved the art, I had fun with the friends, I felt myself, and I felt totally loved, and for being just that (myself, I mean).

And I didn’t even think about this as being an improvement on who I am being in life until after the fact, upon further, late-night reflection…

It was wonderful.

It has only taken me years, but I am finally beginning to embrace and to take advantage of the wonderful arts scene found in Houston.

I am finally going to museums somewhat regularly, and am even going on my own, at times, now.

And I love it.

And I love myself for it, too.

I love being myself, the self I have always had inside, the one who wants to be a museum/goer, who can be found on her own at a museum, contemplating this or that piece with curiosity.

It’s really cool, y’all… really cool.

Post-a-day 2019

Oopsie

Today, at the beginning of one of my classes, my students had an oral quiz.

For oral quizzes, they always have to call the same phone number, which is a Google Voice number I chose years ago for this express purpose.

These students had used the Google Voice number before, and most of them just have it saved in their phones, since we use it every time.

A few students, however, did not have it saved today, and so asked for me to write the number on the board.

Okay, sure.

I think about it for a minute, and then write out the number, somewhat confidently and totally surprised – I always have to look it up constantly at the beginning of the school year, and I hadn’t realized that I had re-memorized it again already…, but go, me!

Within thirty seconds, a few students are telling me something…

‘Is that number right?’

‘I think so,’ I reply, ‘but I can check.’

And so I pull out my own phone to go log in and check the number, which is what I usually do in the first place, so it’s no biggie to me.

‘I don’t think that’s the right number,’ others tell me, a sense of assuredness in their voices.

‘Oh, really…?’ I consider…

Suddenly, it hits me: “Oh!… That’s my best friend’s number!” I declare, quickly erasing the number from the board.

Laughing, I put up the correct number, and I marvel at how similar the two are – extremely similar, with just the middle numbers swapped with the end ones.

I shake my head, and I wonder if anyone had already been in the process of leaving a message….!oops

Guess it would be good to give her a heads up… or, perhaps, it would be more fun to leave her with a voicemail of someone praying in French… 😛

After all, that’s what friends are for, right? 😉

Post-a-day 2019

Nostalgia, an early onset

I finish this teaching assignment on Friday.

And I’m already super nostalgic… and I mean super…

I keep wanting to plan something amazing and sentimental to send myself off…

And I kind of feel silly for wanting to do that – it isn’t actually that big of a deal… so I keep telling myself.

I think what I’m aiming to figure out here is how truly it is or is not a big deal.

I’ve never been so myself as a teacher, and so, perhaps, I have never been so willing to be vulnerable as I have been with these guys… perhaps this is te closest I’ve ever been with students, and the best I’ve ever been as a teacher…, and so, perhaps, it actually is a big deal.

However, if I am off to be my best self the rest of my life, then this is merely the first of many fabulous situations in which I get to be my true self and allow the students to do the same, and we all love each other and get to be super sentimental all we want, any and all the time.

Nonetheless, I keep wanting to play guitar or ukulele and sing a song to and/or with them as a final goodbye.

I don’t have any French songs that come to mind yet, though… jut a bunch of honest and sentimental songs in English… and even a Spanish one, kind of.

Maybe a German song is actually the way to go… perhaps that would be best, simply because German is more my God-love language than any of the others… and that is good for them, even though it isn’t French, because 1) God and 2) still a foreign language…

Hmm…

Let me think on it…

Maybe I’ll just do the birthday song I always do… I love using it for birthdays especially, but it can apply to any day – the Lord gave you life today when you awakened, just as much as He did on the day of your birth… hmm…

I’ll reflect some more, and trust that God will give me exactly what to do. 🙂

But I seriously am already nostalgic, and it hasn’t even ended yet… I shake my head at how silly this is, yet that changes nothing – I am still nostalgic for it all.

Post-a-day 2019