Show Me the Money

This is one of those wise-words-of-my-dad moments, so if you're not in the mood for some life advice, go ahead and move on. I, on the other hand, am not above any advice to this whole adult world thing that I'm living in right now. It's a humbling experience and I grab hold of any wisdom I can to put in my pocket for later.

I was on the phone with my dad the other day after school. He's really good about calling me to check in over the phone. Our conversations are usually about 10 minutes or less, but it's just a good thing to touch base from time to time, and he remembers to do it more often that I remember. We were meandering through our usual catch-up conversations. Usually one of these questions is: "How are the boys?" Or most recently, "How is the boy?" and one of the questions is most definitely, "How is your situational awareness?"

Then we somehow got on the issue of money and how we know people on both ends of the very broad spectrum of the haves and have-nots (not to use the terms in the hyper-politicized manner you're thinking of; I'm no Marxist) and how we all fall somewhere in between. I know children who do not eat dinner at night; some of my kids only eat the school breakfast and school lunch provided in their classroom. I also know there are people who do not blink twice at a meal that costs 10 or even 100 times what one of those school lunches cost for their daily lunch. We all (or most of us) come in contact with either end of the spectrum from time to time.

I was talking over some money things of my own with my dad and going on one of my worry trips about whether or not, in the coming years, I'll be ready for things like down payments on houses and the like. I'd rather not be another twentysomething drowning in her credit card debt (I am thankful to have 0 dollars of that...) and manage my money somewhat logically, but even then, I get worried about money. My salary is not very exciting. Let's just say I didn't get into the charter school gig for the money. 

But. But. But. Hold on a second. I also am extremely blessed. I have enough to cover rent, food, gas, and even have more than enough left over for clothes, plane tickets, and the odd expense that is coming on the horizon, like how this laptop on which I'm typing is about to byte the dust. (Okay terrible pun. Couldn't resist.) I do not need to go without dinner, and I do not need to think of contingency plans if my landlord evicts me. I do not ever need to wear the same shirt 5 days in a row, and my large dress collection is a little embarrassing. In some ways, by society's standards, I am considered poor because of my salary, but in most ways, in all the ways that influence my daily life, I am actually very rich. And this goes around in my head as I know friends who make twice, three times, and even four times my salary as fresh college graduates.

This is where my dad comes in. He reminded me to be happy for those with the big salary. He reminded me to be compassionate and understanding for those without one. He said all that is fine. We'll stay in this life with however much money we have for about 70, 80 years. "I would hope, that above all else, that I am spiritually rich."

And I hope so too. Because at the end of my 70, 80 (maybe 100? maybe less?) years, I won't be wishing I did anything else but this for my first years out of college. It's very simplified, and sure, I'll have changing opinions on how I use my money here and there, but I think that's a good guiding north star in keeping some perspective. Take that advice and save it for later, friends, because this one's a keeper.

Incidentally

I had a really good day at school today. Which is good, because yesterday had me thinking I should throw in the towel altogether. Isn't it funny how life can swing back and forth like that? My math lesson went well, my kids were generally kinder today toward one another, and we packed up for dismissal without any problems. Let me tell you: that was an accomplishment. Because if you think it's easy to pack up 23 6-year-olds without a hitch, you're delusional. But when I got home, after I sorted the mail and dropped my stuff on the floor with a thud, I sat and stared at the wall. Because even though it was a good day, it didn't feel like a good day.

It didn't feel like a good day because there was an incident.

An incident, of course, means that something happened with a weapon, violence, or the gangs near my school. An incident means that something unsafe just happened and now you need to react. Today's particular incident involved passersby carrying a firearm near our older elementary kids on the playground and asking them to look at it and take it from them. A ten-year-old was asked to take a gun and shoot it today. During his recess. That's the world we are living in. That's the Chicago we are living in. 

When you hear that there's been an incident as a teacher in my school, you kind of just shut up, listen to directions for contingency plans that you need to know right now (dismissal locations, Gym/Recess schedules, and other logistics), and go read your email or meet with the administration at the end of the day to get the more descriptive details after the fact and after everyone is safely home with whomever picked them up from school. It's happened more often than once in the last year, and it's even happened more often than twice in the last year. For the sake of my parents and other people who worry about me and where I work in the city, I'm going to leave it at that for the count of incidents around which I've had to maneuver my class of children. Today this incident meant that my kids had Gym in the classroom instead of walking down the street to the big space where we usually go. There are only so many running in place games, jumping jacks next to your desk games, and rounds of "heads-up-7-up" you can play with kids before they get to the point where they just need to go run around in a big space. But, because of the incident, it was the safe decision to have Gym in a classroom. And I'm thankful for my awesome principal and co-workers who keep it together in the midst of chaos for the sake of my kids. 

It's odd to me, though, that we call these things incidents. I naturally think of the words "incidental" and "incidentally" when I think of the word "incident." "Incidentally" means that something happened by chance or a random occurrence. You know, you might incidentally run into an old friend in the frozen pizza aisle one day. You might incidentally trip on the sidewalk and scuff the side of your new shoes. You might incidentally catch that you have a virus or infection on a routine checkup at the doctor. But these incidents at my school are far from incidental. They're not chance. They're not random. They're not happenstance.

These incidents are symptoms of the growing beast that lives in the poorest neighborhoods of a powerhouse city, the beast that gains momentum every time a kid loses his or her right to just be a kid. These incidents are not incidents at all, but real stories of the patterns of violence and injustice that continue to make the act of growing up and achieving your goals and becoming something new increasingly difficult for kids like mine. 

No one will hear about this incident on the news tonight. No one will read about it in the paper tomorrow. To most, it's either something you shake your head at or worse...just something that's happened...incidentally. Oops! Bummer! Another weapon incident on the West Side! Change the channel. When will this stuff start to really matter to us?

You know what's the oddest thing of all? This incident happened in the same exact spot where, exactly 24 hours earlier, there was an Anti-Violence Rally where teenagers and community leaders spoke out about keeping the peace in East Garfield Park. I suppose one could say that the rally and the subsequent day's events, so closely related and also contrasted, happened...incidentally? 

I, for one, do not even believe in the term "incidentally" at all. I believe that things happen because something or someone causes them; things don't just happen. Chance doesn't cause things. People, both broken and also redeemable in the most confusing and wonderful of ways, cause things. We cause things. And when we cause things, they are for good or for harm. We need more people to decide to cause good to happen. Even when I'm not capable of causing good to happen on my own (because believe me, I mostly just mess things up), I have to rely on the One who can make it happen for me and through me in my life. We all have to. No more incidental incidents happening incidentally. It seems to me like it's time for us to stop pretending that things happen by chance in Chicago and to start causing things to happen in Chicago instead. For good.

Until then, my kids will be living, as 6-year-old kids on the playground, from incident to incident. 

T-SWIZZLE FO LIFE

The immaturity of this post's title is meant to reflect the age I am about to seem after you read it in its entirety.

Thirteen.

Because that was the median age of attendee at Taylor Swift's concert on Saturday night. Never mind I happen to be a decade older than that.

But I don't care, because Karley, Mel, and I had a magical experience at Soldier Field in her majesty's presence and none of y'all haters can take that away. Let' s just say that after all 90 glorious minutes of her performance, the only words I could put together on my lips, parted in sheer awe and dazzlement, were, "Today was a fairytale."

But for real though, you guys. The three amigos have been pro-T-Swift for as long as there WAS T-Swift. Taylor is our age - three months younger than me and three months older than Karley and Mel - and speaks to us in each and every stage of life. We were there at age 17 for her debut album, started college to the tunes of Fearless, finished junior year and the last stretch at Trinity to Speak Now, and met adulthood face on jamming out to the tunes of Red. She was basically the soundtrack to our friendships, relationships, and all the other ships that were going on.

We absolutely love her. Sorry, we are NOT sorry. 

And we kept just saying things spontaneously throughout the night that made us seem all the more ridiculous. "She's so pretty." "She's amazing." "I love her outfit." "That song is so true." "She's the best." "This is the coolest thing I've ever done." "She's SO pretty." And more obnoxious proclamations.

Basically, I had an amazing Saturday night. Sitting with two of my favorite people in the world, watching one of my other favorite people in the world jam out to the songs I've been singing over and over and over for the last six years. Next to 10-year-old little girls out with their soccer moms and red pom-poms. It really was a fairytale.

Jolly Lolly

I had the privilege to attend Lollapalooza 2013 for the day on Sunday. Now, if you're wondering why on earth I bought an all-day concert ticket on the first Sunday of my school year, that's a valid concern. To be honest, I bought the ticket in April without much consideration for the pure exhaustion that sets in for teachers at the beginning of the year. I came home tonight from school and told my roommate Jen that it felt like I had endured a 3 hours of a pillow fight; I didn't have any specific physical pain of any kind, but my whole body felt sore and I had no energy. At least I assume that's what a 3-hour pillow fight feels like. 

But I digress. Back to Lolla. I fought the exhaustion and had an amazing time with my friends Sam and Stephen (and their college friends), and Gina from Trinity. Gina and I ended up getting separated from the pack and just ended up catching the last few bands that we wanted to see. We found out that it is pretty much impossible to find anyone or meet up with anyone due to crap cell reception, but we caught some amazing bands on Sunday. We got tidbits of lots of good ones, but got a good dose of Tegan and Sara, Vampire Weekend, and Phoenix really close to the stage. All of those bands were impressive, and I was particularly impressed with Tegan and Sara. They sounded amazing live. Which, if you sing their songs in the car, you know that it is not easy to sound good live whilst singing their songs. Plus now I want to go buy a real leather jacket because Sara looked super cool in hers. In our efforts to get close to the front of the crowds for these shows, we had a lot of wait time in between. Here are a few selfies from our giddy and happy day on Sunday while we waited for our bands to play. Def going back next year, first week of teaching or not.

A happy day. 

My Second First

Well people, my first day of teaching for this school year is TOMORROW. Yes, TOMORROW. August 1st. I'll bet you're thinking to yourself, "Hey wait, Anna, I thought you just finished teaching last year like four weeks ago!" And to that I would reply, "YOU'RE PAINFULLY CORRECT." Okay, enough of me whining about the fact that my summer vacation is only four weeks long. The point is this: the new school year is starting! I have a few updates for you because so much has happened to my teaching career in the last two weeks.

Room 25. Tomorrow, the lights go on and kids stream in.

The main one? Are you ready for this? I will no longer be teaching second grade. This year I'll be teaching a class of 28 first graders! So while this is definitely my second year, it will in reality be another first, as I learn the curriculum content, developmental levels, and social needs of a 6-year-old kid. As I'm reading into it, it's actually a big difference between 2nd and 1st grade. Having said that, I met a few of them today and yesterday and they are so cute. They're babies. Like literally don't have enough self-control to sit in a chair. Or sit on a carpet. Or sit at all, really.

I'm also getting a new teaching partner in my classroom this year, and I am already a big fan. She has 5 years of experience at our school, so she already knows lots of the families. She truly loves the kids and has pretty strict discipline at the same time. That's what I like to see. Although I will dearly miss my co-teacher from last year (I would not have survived without her), I am feeling really good about my new one already.

I'm a strong advocate for child labor. 

Read, read, read. 

In case you want to know what we do all day. 

I'm feeling so many things on this night before the first day. I'm feeling denial, as I really can't believe that I'm in charge of a new batch of children again. I'm feeling nervousness, because the chaos, noise, and energy that happens in the primary grades of our school is kind of overwhelming when you're not used to it. I'm feeling excitement, for all the work I've already put into our classroom and the things we can accomplish together there. I'm feeling tired, as the 10+ hour work days are starting up again. I'm feeling happy, that the beginning of a new year means that I have a job doing meaningful work with one-of-a-kind children. I'm also feeling hungry, because the grocery list has not been attended to in all of the scramble to get ready. For now, I think I'll go to sleep. If you think of it, start praying for me at 8:00 am tomorrow. Then don't stop doing so until 4:00 pm. (Come to think of it, you can go ahead and repeat that daily process until June 19th.)

Stay tuned for the FIRST GRADE adventures in Room 25. Here we go! 

13.1

On Sunday, July 21st, I ran in the Rock 'n' Roll Chicago Half Marathon. 13.1 miles. Yes! I did it! I'm throwing myself a small party with this blog post. I mainly do this so that one day in December when my life is a mess I can look back and see that, indeed, I was successful in accomplishing something this year. Last fall I ran the Hot Chocolate 15k so I figured I could step it up and try a longer distance. Somehow, I finished at about an 11-minute-mile rate. (All you real-life-runner-people-with-7-minute-miles, I don't want to hear your scoffs.) My next goal will be to do one with 10-minute-miles, but in the meantime I'm just giddy with excitement that I did cross the finish line and that I still have legs. It went oddly well. It made me oddly positive and happy and excited and proud all at the same time. Running will do that to you.

A gross, sweaty, yet triumphant picture of me, compliments of Brian. 

Once again, my favorite part of the race was the people watching I got to do along the way. Let me tell you about a few:

1. There was the guy in a Pikachu costume, a plush, heavy, and smelly outfit to wear on a race in the middle of July.

2. There was the engaged couple who apparently were mandated to run this race by whomever was facilitating their premarital counseling, because I spent about 1.2 miles with them as they bickered back and forth: "You go run! You hate slowing down for me anyway!"..."No we're DOING THIS TOGETHER, remember? I'll be the jerk if I leave you here!"..."Well if you wanna walk the rest of the way with me in silence then BE MY GUEST!" Whew. AWKWARD. Best of luck to you two.

3. There was this little old white-haired lady wrapped up in a turtleneck and blankets as she sat in her wheelchair and silently holding a tiny sign on the sidewalk that said "Go Sara Ann" and it may or may not have broken my heart of sweetness.

4. There was the Pentecostal church who volunteered to hand out water to the runners who said "You are BLESSED! KEEP GOING!"..."Today is YOUR DAY!"... and "GIRL I KNOW YOU CAN DO THIS!" as I went past their tables. This event was good for my ego.

5. There were the frat boys in the bro tanks and very short American flag running shorts. They wore neon green Ray-Bans and high fived a lot.

6. There was a 12-year-old who ran by me at the speed of lightning right before Mile 1 and by Mile 2 was sitting down on the curb catching his breath. Nobody gave him the pacing talk. Poor kid.

7. There were a lot of chicks in tutus. Weird.

8. Finally, my favorite people were those cheering everyone along; bystanders were indiscriminately handing out encouragement for free to just about every single runner. I saw hilarious signs that read TAKE A TAXI IT'S WAY FASTER, JUST KEEP SWIMMING, and, my favorite, at mile 12, IF YOU HAVEN'T POOPED YOUR PANTS YET THEN YOU'RE ALL CHAMPIONS.  Profound.

Other than the fact that my hamstrings still feel as tight as skinny jeans fresh out of the dryer, I'd say the whole experience was a success.

Peach People

I took a class towards my Master's degree this summer that has my mind spinning. It was a course called "Teaching in Diverse Classrooms" and focused on issues that surround diversity of gender, race, socioeconomic status, ability, and more that we see here in Chicago. It forced me to exercise those dormant brain muscles reserved for uncomfortable, convicting, and troubling conversations that surround these kinds of categories.

We read course texts and took notes and all that good stuff, but we spent most of the time in class reflecting and discussing these things in relation to our own experiences and the experiences of our kids in the classroom. We discussed things like gang rape. White privilege. Segregated proms that are still happening in Mississippi. The pressure on girls to be perfect and the ads, TV shows, movies, and songs that promote it. Racial slurs. The American Dream. Hate crimes. Affirmative Action. Food deserts. Unjust systems, societies, and sovereigns. Immigration. Where they money goes. And more. I know a lot of those things are buzz words for people on both sides of many of those issues, and believe me, my head has been buzzing ever since.

I often left class feeling overwhelmed. But it was good.

When I was a kid, I thought people were peach. I had a crayon labeled "peach" and it more or less matched my skin color. I looked around me and all I saw were other peach people. Every so often I would encounter someone who wasn't a peach person and I mentally noted which crayon he or she might be. I distinctly remember doing so with one of my favorite people: I loved Michael Jordan when I was growing up, and he wasn't peach. So I figured he was "brown" because that's the crayon that matched him. Later on, I learned that my coloring-book-theory of race relations was not acceptable. I was white. Michael Jordan was black. And that's without addressing all the other kinds of people on this earth besides the two categories we so harshly box up with neat little labels.

But back to the class.

Beyond being simply a student, I carried my faith into that classroom with me each day that made all of the brokenness and darkness that we dug up to be all the more harsh, confusing, and disorienting. I still have a million questions swirling around. How could our world look like this, so broken and hurtful? How am I supposed to move on? How can I, just one person, love people like Jesus loves people? How do I embrace all the differences we have and be someone who looks past the neat little labels so carefully affixed by people to other people? I'm somewhat frustrated at myself that at age 23 this is the first time so many of these questions have been on my mind. I'm frustrated at all of us for being so unloving to one another in the most nasty and subtle of ways. How do I even start? I'm just that one person, remember?

In the week since the class ended, I've been thinking about what it means to be a peach person in this black and white world. The starting place, I've decided, has a lot to do with my everyday life. It has a lot to do with the words that come out of my mouth, the thoughts I assume about people, and the time I put into listening to others. It starts with me deciding to be an ally against injustice. It starts with me waking up each day of teaching this year and asking God to help me love my kids for who He made them to be. To encourage all the hues of personalities, people, and ideas that come from our neighborhood on the west side of Chicago. To see the box of crayons for all of its beautiful colors.