Get a Life

My favorite teacherpreneur/teacher supporter/teacher blogger/adulting coach is Angela Watson. Teacherfriends, have you heard of her? You need to get to know this lady. She runs a Facebook page of which I am an avid member called The 40 Hour Teacher Workweek and publishes weekly bite-sized podcasts through her station Truth For Teachers. Two weeks of her podcast were covering 8 ways to avoid teacher burnout. It's that time of year when we teachers need that extra inspiration to not get overwhelmed with life and crawl into a hole. One of the items on that list made me chuckle, but it was this: GET A LIFE. I love it so much.

It is so easy to get sucked into teaching and make that into your de facto lifestyle. I have those weeks. All of we teachers do. Those weeks where there are no things on the schedule after school, you stay until 6, get home, make dinner, mindlessly consume some sort of media (hello Netflix) as you search Pinterest and teacherspayteachers for MORE teaching ideas and then go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Can we all agree that those weeks suck? I have a hard time finding my life very interesting if those weeks become my routine. People who only think about work are BORING and I don't like to be one of them. 

Although I sometimes fail at it, one of my real goals this year in moving to work at a school geographically closer to my home was to establish more of a rooted lifestyle, connected to real people. Essentially: I wanted to GET A LIFE and have more of a network and life outside of school. The truth of the matter is that I don't live close enough to see my college friends every day. I hate that, but that's okay! We keep up and see each other when we can. We are still so close and I wouldn't change it for the world. I also, though, need the day-to-day people in my life that can come over to my place for dinner, drop something off quickly, or say "hey, do you want to join something with me?" It's been really hard for me to make that happen, but moving to work at Timothy has been so amazing in making that sort of progress. 

Looking back, in fact, God's made this happen slowly but surely all over the place. I played in a local women's volleyball league on Thursdays (it became my absolute favorite night of the week), started working out after school one night a week with two people from school, joined a small group (not exactly local, but still. closer than the city!), and started going to a Bible study with my mentor from church and another coworker. It's felt really good to have those groups grow in my life. Another BIG one for me this year has been Book Club. Ohmygoodness how freaking great is Book Club?! 

Reese, Michal, Kim, and I meet every few months to hang out with the pretense of discussing books. But the cool thing is, while they are fun to just be around in general, they actually enjoy discussing books! It's incredible. We've read three books so far and are on our fourth. I love to read anyway, but it's been really good to read books outside my own choices. (Reese is the ultimate book-picker though so I trust her taste.) Here are a few we've read. Feel free to read 'em too.

#1 Bone Gap by Laura Ruby.  Okay. So I might have gotten a little overeager with this book. You would know that if you are my friend on Goodreads, because I recommended it to every single person I know in one fell swoop. This recommendation was for two reasons. First, I just died of it-too-good-to-be-true-ness when I read it. Second, I was just learning how stuff works on Goodreads and accidentally clicked a button that recommended it to everyone I know. But for real, go read it. It is so stinking original and beautiful and heartbreaking and victorious and for-the-underdog in all the best ways. It made me afraid and brave all at once (and isn't that what being brave is, anyway?). It's a ridiculous combination of Young Adult angst, magic realism, mythology, unreliable narrators, and coming of age goodness that makes it too good to be true except that it isn't. It's true.

#2. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Now this one was wildly popular, but we all had somehow missed it in 2014, so we attacked it. I will say this: it is just absolutely beautiful. There were lots of times where I paused and was like: "Woah. That's just a pretty sentence." I love that there is an author out there who knows a bunch of stuff about World War II, radio waves, seashells, and diamonds. It makes me glad that we haven't specialized so hopelessly that people still like to learn about lots of different subjects. It surely isn't plot driven on the whole, but the sentences really are so pretty that it's okay. (It definitely helps if you're a person who appreciates pretty sentences, though.) And just be warned that this book will break your heart. Ahhh and can we just talk about the can of peaches! I have never felt like I tasted something just from reading it like I have with those peaches. And sweet goodness don't even get me started on Frederick.

#3. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.  The premise of the book feels oh-so been-there-done-that cliche, but the book itself is anything but. Here's the premise: a crazy flu epidemic kills off 99% of the world's population. The ones left behind lose all infrastructure and are jolted back to the Dark Ages as they band together and try to manage/survive life in this new world. Also, you get an inside view of a deceased actor whose tabloid fodder of a life turned out to be a bit more significant than we all initially thought. The thing is, there are so many great moments here. There's a lot of Shakespeare references that make you feel smart without requiring you to know a TON of Shakespeare in advance. The part that made me die right on the spot was one character's comic strip based off of the landscapes of Bill Watterson's Spaceman Spiff in his iconic Calvin and Hobbes. I didn't know anybody thought about Calvin and Hobbes as often as I did, so I just about fell off my chair when I found it in a mainstream book. There were definitely times where I wanted the book to be pushed in a different direction, or to be paced with a faster plot, but then again, I appreciate that there can be a book in the world about post apocalyptic teenagers that doesn't revolve around a will-they-or-won't-they love triangle. Basically, if you're a band geek, Shakespeare fan, or comic strip nerd, this is wonderful. 

Aren't they great? Go check them out. We decided to make a nonfiction pick this time and are currently working on Evicted by Matthew Desmond, a book that follows families struggling against poverty in Milwaukee. I'm naturally drawn to nonfiction like this, so I'm patiently waiting for my copy to arrive so I can swiftly devour it. 

Happy reading, friends. Isn't it fun to get a life?