Random things I come up with when the majority of my students are taking standardized tests and I have nothing to do at work.

Recently, I have been considering becoming a National Board Certified Teacher. For those of you who are not in the education field, this pretty much means that you do a whole bunch of work and take a few tests over the course of a year or two in hopes of passing the tests and work to get a raise in your salary. The idea seems like a good one, but for some reason I just can't seem to get it together.

Ever since I graduated college (and perhaps more specifically high school), I feel like I have really fallen off the successful, intelligent, hard-working, over-achiever map. My high school career was chalked full of an endless number of ridiculously unnecessary awards and achievements. I made all A's, took every AP class ever, joined clubs, excelled at sports, and everything in between. It was exhausting. It was time-consuming. It was addictive. It was more than any teenager should ever have to juggle all at once. Nonetheless, I succeeded with lots of trophies and a flawless transcript as proof. It was good. I guess.

I then went on to college to do pretty much the same thing as high school. However, I was at UA Fort Smith which most people discount as being worthy of mention when it comes to recounting where you graduated from. I was a Lion and not a Razorback or Sooner or Hurricane or some other mascot from schools so prestigious and terrible at sports that I am not even familiar with their mascot. I think my decision to go to UA Fort Smith was the beginning of me accepting that it was my decision alone to enter myself in the race that all of my friends from high school were in. I was okay with wanting to be a teacher and a coach, as opposed to getting numerous degrees and travelling abroad and going to graduate school. I was okay with not having a cool response to rattle off when I ran into a kid from Southside who had sat next to me in all of our AP classes. I was okay with it.

Even though I went to UA Fort Smith, I still achieved and did well. I maintained most of my over-achiever mentality and accomplished everyting I wanted to accomplish. When I graduated from college I remember wanting to teach AP English to really intelligent students at a big high school much like Southside. I wanted to save the world and become National Board Certified as soon as possible. I wanted to continue winning all of the awards and maintaining my flawless resume...And now, I can't even get myself to look at the National Board website much less actually decide to undertake a program specifically designed to identify the best teachers in America. I don't think I care if I'm one of the best teachers in America. I don't think I care if I do a lot of the things I once thought were essential to life. I don't care how much money I make. I don't care how big my house is. I don't care what kind of clothes I wear. I just don't care. I'm okay with being status quo when it comes to areas of my life that I once envisioned very differently than they are today. I'm okay with working at a small school, teaching average kids, and coaching average athletes. I feel so detached from the constant competition that once was my life that sometimes it seems so weird to me that my life used to be the way it was. It's like when I graduated from college I took my life back to the store and asked to exchange it for something else.

So what does this all mean? Heck if I know. Maybe I've had some fundamental shift in the determination of worth in my life. Maybe it has something to do with my acceptance that it's the people in your life that mean the most. Or maybe it has something to do with some other cliche quote about life being about something other than always being the best. Or maybe it means that I used up all of the winner in me years ago. Maybe everyone only has so much energy to exert toward being good at stuff and mine is all gone. Maybe I am sentenced to a life of the perpetual has-been. Maybe I was never that exceptional in the first place.

Before everyone reads this and deducts that I hate my life and am completely dissatisfied with where I am, know that I am not in that situation at all. I'm perfectly happy with my life as it is today. I wouldn't change much of anything if given the opportunity. Maybe it has taken me 24 years to be confident enough with who I am to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks. Or maybe I just needed a really good guy and a couple of dogs to slow me down enough to take it all in for a minute. Maybe that's it...I'm just taking it all in. For a minute.

Blast from the Past

Last night Cody and I got in bed around 10:44 (yes, I know the exact time). We have just recently started letting our two ridiculously spoiled dogs sleep with us. So Cody, myself, Finny and Staley were all cocooned in our cozy little bed. Instead of just falling asleep as we normally do (don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere weird with this), Cody and I started singing songs. Yes, singing. Out loud. Every good song we could ever think of. Our dogs slept as we sang. The songs we sang included, but were not limited to:

“Living in Your Letters” Dashboard Confessional
“Again I Go Unnoticed” Dashboard Confessional
“Sylvia Plath” Ryan Adams (this was just me singing mainly)
“Edge of Desire” John Mayer
“Why Georgia” John Mayer

The list could go on and on. Those are just the ones I remember from the haze of the night. We literally went through every song that we could think of that had any significance to us. After we got done signing songs, we decided to transition into theme songs from television shows we used to watch. We sang songs from Full House
Saved By the Bell
(okay, I was the only one who knew Saved By the Bell’s theme song; I have no idea how I ever married this kid)
Family Matters
Doug
Hey Arnold
Ahhh! Real Monsters
Hey Dude
Salute Your Shorts
…again, the list is too long for me to remember.

I had the best time with my husband last night. Laying in our bed singing songs and remembering some of the best times of our lives. Every time I hear Cody talk about his childhood I wish so badly that I could have been there with him. I wish we could have watched Full House together. Not as boyfriend and girlfriend, but as friends. I wish I knew Cody when he was wholeheartedly engulfed in episodes of Ninja Turtles. Also, at the same time, I appreciate that Cody and I are so close in age that we both understand the references to things of our past. I think it would be weird to be with someone who was much older (or younger). I take a lot of comfort in remembering the way things used to be. Somehow commonalities in our past make me feel closer to Cody today. It’s weird the way that works.

After we had sung all the songs we could sing and recounted all of the best TV shows of our lives, Cody and I found ourselves thinking about how one of these days not too long from now we will think back on last night. We will remember our bed with our two puppies as one of those places that defined us for just a minute. Just like we remember sitting in front of televisions each week to watch TGIF on ABC, we will remember just me and him in our first house with our first dogs. Just us. No kids. No responsibilities to speak of. We will remember last night just like we remember TV shows of our childhood. Cody said it best when he noted that one day, “This will be our place.” The place we remember with a smile on our face, and a recognition that only Cody and I share with one another. As I get older, I not only take comfort in the good times of the past, but I also take comfort in the good times that I know will come in the future. I look forward to many more nights with Cody (and my baby dogs) in our bed. I take comfort in it right now, and I will one day remember it fondly. Just like Saved By the Bell.

And you're welcome for the pictures of Zack Morris and AC Slater with a mullet. Some things never get old.