The Best Intentions

I was thinking to myself of how I had the itch to write something, then checked my blog and realized it's been two weeks since I've sat down to write anything with any kind of intention! No wonder the itch. No wonder the messy brain. No wonder the lack of focus. That's what you get for slacking, Anna. Do you have that one thing that you need to do in order to think clearly? Is it running? Or perhaps cooking? Maybe reading? Mine happens to be writing, even in silly little spurts like I am now.

I wouldn't dream of calling this post a piece of writing with intention, but it is a piece of writing nonetheless and it is mine. Even if it's unintentional. It's just going to blurt out however it comes. I have a random mess of jumbled thoughts in my brain that can only start with that very word: intentional.

Intentional is the favorite label that Christian-college-students use to describe everything. An intentional spiritual life. An intentional dating relationship. An intentional dorm life culture. Once, after I was out of college, I came into contact with this kind of thinking. I went on a few dates with a guy who said he wanted to "date me intentionally." I thought, "Well, that's nice! I'm not sure what that means. I would hope that you're dating me on purpose, but it sounds very respectful!" It turns out, in that case, that it was a weird reason to make dating kind of like what I would imagine "courting" to be and it was all too Duggar for my tastes. (No diss to the Duggars. I just can't weather the floor-length denim skirts. I like wearing pants! And tank tops! And I don't want 26 children!) All in all, "dating intentionally" felt a little weird...sort of like I was supposed to never cut my hair again and get really into quilting. It was over pretty quickly. Six months later, a guy named Brian asked me out. I suppose he did call me intentionally, but it wasn't all weird, and I liked how that worked out much better.

Unintentional food bliss at Dimo's in Wicker

I am trying, though, in my life, to be more intentional about things, so that stuff doesn't just happen for no reason, or by default, but rather by choice. My teaching, when I first started out, was not intentional. It was haphazard. Things just happened because they happened and there wasn't a lot of design going into the interworkings of my day. Now, my classroom is a place I absolutely love to be. My kids love it and I love it. I think through most of where I want everyone to be and how I want things to go. I'm clear with my kids about those intentions and we work hard on it together to follow through. This third year in the classroom has been like a breath of fresh air for me: I've realized that with just a few explicitly agreed upon intentions, my entire classroom culture can be successful both in academic growth and in the ways we treat each other.

Here's the two problems I'm finding, though, about being intentional. First, a lot of unintentional things are so fun! (See: random pizza place we tried in Wicker Park last weekend. Not in the plan, but definitely the best thing that could've happened.) Although I don't think that living with intention means that you can't embrace spontaneity. The second, and biggest problem? It takes so much work! I'm finding that this year's intentions with my teaching have been a success. Of course I have a million things yet to learn about teaching, but I feel really good about what I've put together and what I'm trying to do every day at work. Now ask me about my devotional life this year. Or the pile of unfolded laundry that's been growing into different shapes over the past few weeks. There are tons of great intentions for those areas of my life, too, but I just don't have the mental real estate available to manage them right now. I've been wanting to write more often, but the intentions there can't happen when my mind is swirling with guided reading plans, our solar system unit, and how to teach prepositional phrases to seven-year-olds. I'm in the middle of all of that and my overwhelmed mind just can't take the freaking 15 minutes or whatever it takes to fold the dumb laundry.

I don't think it's a surprise that so many wandering souls and hipster English majors are drawn to Thoreau's concept of living deliberately. There is something so captivating about the concept of knowing that you lived a life, and that the life didn't live you.

I'm hoping, that with time, God can start to work through my intentions to expand that mental real estate so that every movement of my day, from the laundry to the lessons to the letters I type, can be on purpose. Can be deliberate. Can be intentional. Maybe a big part of being in your twenties means excavating different spheres of life to make them closer and closer to being intentional. I'd like everything I do, my relationships, my work, my joy, my movements, my words, my breathing, to all be deliberate. Maybe that's not something I'll master by the time I'm out of my twenties, either. Perhaps it's more of a lifelong kind of thing.

I think it is a worthy endeavor.

Unshakable

About a month ago, I had the privilege to be a guest at Beth's (my mother-in-law!) ministry group's retreat. She started a women's ministry, called Woven, with two of her best friends. They are the cutest three ladies ever and also some of the smartest. I was never the "women's ministry" kind of person in the past, not for any reason in particular other than ignorance. I've never actually been on a retreat with any church in my adulthood since high school, so I had no idea what this weekend would be like. I'm so thankful I was able to go.

I was invited there along with Rachel and Michal, two of my favorites, as we listened to Beth and her friends, Julie and Kim, lead us in thinking and praying and sharing. (Two years ago, I didn't know any of the three people in the picture below. Now, I consider them all to be my family. How cool is that?!) It was so good to be alongside of them.

The weekend's theme was Unshakable. The whole idea, or at least what I took away from it, was to ponder the times in life when we are shaken, even in those first-world-problem ways like anxiety and discontent (because those are extremely real storms to weather nonetheless!), and how to position ourselves spiritually in a posture of readiness and gratefulness for any storm we experience, in light of the reality of who God is. I think it is a beautiful thing to talk about. Anyone can list off the Proverbs 31 cliches, call it a Women's Bible study, and make us feel endlessly guilty about not measuring up. I think it is incredible when someone can drop the fronts and get honest about the hard things. The things that suck. The things we can't explain or don't want to explain or can't face. I love that our God is concerned with flailing, struggling, shaken people. It's kind of awesome to acknowledge that not measuring up is sort of part of the gig of all human beings, and that the only one who can fix anything happens to be the one who endlessly loves us and holds the world in his hands.

One of the coolest parts of the whole shebang was the feature of a Prayer Room. The room was centered around Psalm 46 (...which was read at our wedding! ...and one of my all time favorites!) and was so timely for me. I think it was timely for our world too. The mountains can be shaking, nations can be in uproar, kingdoms can be falling, and we, little old us? We need only to be still. We need only to know who God is. In the end, it seems, knowing God is what this is all about. Knowing God helps us orient ourselves to understand who we are, why we're here, and allows us a small view into redemption beyond terrible things like cancer, depression, fights, hurt, death, and sorrows.

Beth said herself that this weekend, though titled Unshakable, does not mean you actually won't be shaken, as if you could rise above emotion or experience. In fact, we are all guaranteed that we'll be shaken in this life. To me, being unshakable is knowing that outward chaos does not mean God can't grant me a peaceful heart.

You guys? These days, when we're hearing news about armies taking over, lives cut short, kids going hungry, and hate and evil gaining ground on every side, isn't it is so, so good to know where you stand? And on whose rock you stand? You stand with the one who will break every bow, shatter every spear, and end every war. All conflict melts away at his voice.

I know the One on whom I stand. I am so thankful to have people in my life that remind me of Him.

Stuff Students Say: February Edition

I know I know...two days late. My bad. Things, though, are looking up! It's March! It's technically a spring month! Warmth is coming! My kids and I consistently compare this Chicago winter to Narnia...a classic case of it's-always-winter-but-never-Christmas in the doldrums of January and February. We made it through alive, and now it's time for the big thaw to come. Here's a few gems from my kids this month.

(I was trying to introduce an inquiry-based project to my class, and asking them to think about times when they got to be in charge of their learning.)
Me: Who likes to be in charge?! Raise your hand if you like to make your own decisions sometimes!
Student: LIKES to be in charge? I AM in charge!

Mrs. Whartnaby I want to be your child.

(After a fiesta in Spanish class to celebrate all the names of foods they learned)
I feel like a fat buffalo. 

Student 1: Are you Taylor Swift in disguise as our teacher?
Student 2: Yeah and then at night you put on sparkly dresses and sing the Shake It Off song?!

(We named our class teddy bear Brian the Third, after my dad who is Brian and my husband who is Brian.)
Look! We're making Brian do the splits in his gymnastics class!

Finding adverbs is the most fun thing I've done today. 

Mr. Brian should teach us for a day and you should teach his students for a day so we can get to know him. He could do it! Second graders are just like high schoolers except not sassy or bossy. 

(Holding up a tablet during our Reading block)
Does Wifi come through the light as a solar power? 

Whales and the Best Movie I've Seen in Awhile.

Last night Brian and I rented Boyhood to watch after going out to dinner. We wanted to see it since all the Oscar buzz surrounding it has our interest, and the concept seemed pretty original: the same cast, filmed over 12 years, following a boy and his family through hard, real, and mundane seasons of life. Mason, the protagonist, maintains a level head and a tender heart through the tumultuous childhood he's given. On a more aesthetic note, the soundtrack choices and small inclusions of pop-culture to help mark the time (Gameboy Advanced, 20 Questions, Pokemon, Britney Spears) were perfection.

Brian and I had the same favorite part. When visiting his dad on the weekend, right before they fall asleep, Mason asks him a question. It goes like this:

Mason: Dad, there's no real magic in the world, right?
Dad: What do you mean?
Mason: You know, like elves and stuff. People just made that up.
Dad: Oh, I don't know. I mean, what makes you think that elves are any more magical than something like a whale? You know what I mean? What if I told you a story about how underneath the ocean, there was this giant sea mammal that used sonar and sang songs and it was so big that its heart was the size of a car and you could crawl through the arteries? I mean, you'd think that was pretty magical, right? 

The best thing about the movie, I think, is how it elevates what we Americans might call a "regular" or "normal" childhood to expose it for what it is: incredibly rocky and tough to go through, something that should be celebrated when it's conquered. We've heard the story a million times: a kid's parents get divorced (or never get married), his mom struggles to raise him and his sister as she moves from one drunken jerk of a husband to another, and is constantly clawing her way through for herself and her family. She attends night class, gets a better job, and yet, still, even when the bills start to get paid on time, the brokenness follows. We watch Mason go from a six-year-old boy who gets in trouble for putting rocks in the pencil sharpener at school to a mature, introspective teenager who goes through love, heartbreak, and asking the big questions about what he is supposed to do in this life and why this whole rig is here in the first place. Through the lens of this film, this kind of childhood, although common, is no longer normal. Or just regular. It's real and hard. Kids go through it and kids survive it. I think Mason's survival is amazing. Boyhood champions a not uncommon (but not unimportant) story, bearing witness to its struggles, and pointing ahead to opportunities still to come.

I suppose you could call it a classic coming of age story, but I've never seen one quite like this before. I think it was well worth the 2 hours and 45 minutes; I almost wished it were longer! Movies like this remind me why I love to think about things like worldview, purpose, perspectives, and of course, magic.

Valentine Brownie Points

Brian has just been RACKING UP the brownie points this weekend. First, he called my dad a few weeks ago and asked my parents to go on a double date for Valentine's Day. Not only did this secure his place as number-one-son-in-law-for-life in my parents' eyes, it just made my heart burst with all the feels you get when the guy you love cares what your parents think about him. It was precious. We all went out to Trattoria Stefano, a fancy schmancy Italian place in Sheboygan. FABULOUS. After eating all we could possibly eat, we made the obligatory stop at my dad's favorite mini mart (he is a serious mini mart aficionado) for the best gas station coffees and hot chocolate you can find for miles around. Believe me, my dad knows. He's done his research.

So after he got the points with my parents, B racked them up with me, making me the sweetest and best Valentine's Day mix this year, along with a note that I can't share for fear of taking away from the stoic, manly facade he's built up for the sake of public image (PSA: he's actually made of marshmallows and gumdrops on the inside). Enough of the mush, though. Let me share with you some of the great songs that graced my ears on the drives up to and back down from Wisconsin. These are screen shots from my phone as I Shazam-ed the titles so that I could share a few of them with you all.

First? Thunder Clatter by Wild Cub. This is one of "our songs" if you could consider us to have "songs" specific to us. It played at our wedding when we walked in the reception, and it was the subject of many jam sessions while we drove back and forth to each other's apartments in the engaged-but-not-yet-married stage. It's a great song that still gets me.

Next, we have Jim Croce. The title is self-evident. 

Thirdly, no trademark Brian mix is complete without one of his musical idols, Neil Young. I have to admit, I used to think the whiny voice was a little overwhelming, but now I appreciate his nuanced genius. 

Van Morrison is next. Neil and Van are Brian's staples. At this point you might notice that all of Brian's selections are of songs released before we were both born. This is cheesy, but when we first started dating, I remember a slow dance in his apartment to a Van Morrison vinyl. (Actually, I just said that it's cheesy so you guys wouldn't judge me. It wasn't cheesy at all; it was an adorably charming move on his part.)

Ah, he does modern music, too! I like this song for its electro-coolness, as well as the band name, Anna of the North. Hey, Anna of the North? That's me! 

Back to the oldies with James. 

And finally. Last but not least, we have this hilarious tribute to one of the worst musical decisions ever: a song named Wifey. Go listen to Next and laugh. Brian has a hip hop streak :) 

All in all, I've concluded that you shouldn't believe what they tell you about guys giving up the chase once you're married. They just tend to know you better, so their gestures are less corny and more personal, like hanging out with your parents and curating an awesome Valentine CD. B's brownie points, as always, keep on climbing. 

On Being Done With Having a Hard Time

Today. Hmmm. Well, I'll just say that it involved a flat tire, a dead cell phone, and being locked out of my apartment. All of this is small potatoes in the realm of real problems. I'm privileged to have a car with the flat tire on it, enough money to buy groceries, and an apartment from which I can be locked out. This "bad" day made me think of some other truly bad days I've had in my life...but more on that soon. 

This past Friday night, I got to eat dinner with two of my favorites, Sam and Julia. You've met them before, but in review, they are my friends through Teach for America. They were there with me from day one of our training at the crazy summer of Institute, teaching middle school even though we would all spend our first year in lower elementary. We all were at three different schools with different challenges, but our experience was the same: it was a Hard Time. I will be real with you and tell you that my first two years of my adult career life involved lots and lots and lots of bad days. Not just "bad" days either, but the real kind. 

Julia phrased it this way: "It's so great being done having a hard time." All three of us completed two years of teaching at our placement schools, and all three of us chose to stay in this teaching profession after our commitment to Teach for America was done. We all found new jobs for our third year of teaching (a healthy decision for all of our lives) and came together to share about the new things going on. Boyfriends, husbands, apartments, coworkers, classrooms, students, principals, and travels were all on our minds and in our conversation. All those things, of course, in between our rants and raves about the fantastic food we ate at Big Jones, the place where we met. Can you say fancy fried chicken?! (Seriously, go visit.)

At the end of our night, Julia made that comment. About how wonderful it is to be past a really hard time in our lives. And how it is so special to now have that awareness of how hard it truly was, on the other side, alive and okay and still somewhat emotionally intact. I'm realizing, upon looking back, that I had no idea how lonely, depressed, frustrated, and difficult those two years were for me while I was living them. I was so obsessed with making it through the day, finishing my action items from four different managers and bosses, following my to-do lists, keeping up with grad school homework, and surviving each milestone (....Friday......Christmas...summer??...) that I had never paused to take stock and feel, truly feel, the weight of what was going on around me. I felt like a failure, but I hardly had any time to process that. Failure or not, the next day was coming and the next week had to be planned. I just kept going. My full schedule kind of saved me from feeling anything too deeply. 

Does God do that on purpose - overload your life in the hardest of times - to protect you from the hard stuff? Does he add weights to your feet so that you never look up toward the surface to realize that you're drowning? I truly think that's how we all made it: too busy running around to know that we were run down. It was chaos for sure, and these are two of the only people I have in my life who know exactly what that felt like. And yet, in those hard times, we became something. 

We became grownups, advocates (for ourselves and others), and teammates. We became teachers. We became graduates of schools and of an organization with a mission dear to all of our hearts. We became better people, capable of intelligent conversations based in experience, and more fully able to show compassion to others in a struggle because we lived one ourselves. We became more aware of our world and how we can best take our places as agents of change and redemption within it. 

So sure, we all will have "bad" days here and there. We still have hard times...sometimes...and in different ways. But it is so sweet to know, that in the ebbs and flows of life, that you have made it past a difficult season. You've come through a Hard Time and are done with it. Maybe a future season will hold something even more difficult; surely dark days are on the path of everyone's journey, right? But for now, for one Friday night, it was sweet to celebrate the light. 

The best part about being done with having a hard time?

Sharing it with friends who made it through with you. 

Stuff Students Say: January Edition

January is always a little bit rough for me in the teaching realm. You have the post-Christmas break drag to overcome, not to mention a newfound realization that you have SO MANY THINGS TO DO before your kids go off to third grade. It's a combination of a fuzzy brain, a busy schedule, and cabin-fever kids. In spite of that, though, my kids are fabulous as usual and supplied me with some great one liners. Here are this month's gems:

(Said on January 12.)

Wait...Christmas break is over?

My mom wants me to get a drink of water I think. Or she would want me to go get a drink of water. Because I'm thirsty and she doesn't want me to be thirsty. So can I go do that?

If she's the principal's wife does that make her the vice principal?

(Talking about the temptation of Jesus and how he was fasting in the desert.)

Me: What does it mean to fast?

Student: It means to lay off the sugar. 

I wish this day could last forever! I don't want to go home! On the other hand, we would get really tired.

I have a neck injury. Therefore, may I please go to the bathroom?

I lost my sock. I'm off to survey the premises.

(After conquering the task of decoding hard words during Guided Reading)

I feel so powerful!

I want to live in second grade forever! 

Mrs. Whartnaby I lost my sock. I'm off to survey the premises.

Our Unit Benchmark Test, there was a Reading Response that asked the students to think of a time they had a problem and what they did to solve it. A girl in my class raised her hand and said:

I have never had a real problem before. What do I do for this question? I can't answer it. 

#firstworldproblems 

We are reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and when Veruca Salt went down the garbage chute, someone yelled out: 

She just got SERVED!