Long Time Coming
Life has been crazy lately. I have felt for the last week or so that I was hanging on by a rope. But every time I felt my hands begin to slip, God knotted the rope around my fists and I could hang on. It’s been good, but very stressful. I’ve been so busy I’ve barely had time to breathe, and this weekend, when I finally crashed, I was so exhausted that I felt my body wasn’t so much experiencing sleep as just gulping it down. But things are more calm now. I’m on fall break for two weeks, and I have a relaxing Sunday afternoon before me, the first one in several weeks. I’m lying on the couch, surrounded by books and magazines, a sweet little nap in my immediate future before I make lasagna for dinner. I should be able to post more often now. Life is good!
Joe and I went to the UK/WKU game last night in Lexington. I know it makes me a traitor, but I’m really glad Kentucky won. I didn’t go to Western for its sports program anyway, and in this family, if I’m going to be a fan of anyone, it better be UK. It was a fun game to watch! Hard to believe I actually like football now, but I definitely do.
The only down side to the game was the absolute morons behind us. I think I attract these people. They were foul-mouthed and ignorant, and I felt terrible for the parents with young children around us, because their language belonged in a rated R movie, not a family setting. At first I was embarrassed, because they were in red, and I thought, Great. The idiots are from my alma mater. But as their conversation continued, they revealed that they were in fact–you guessed it–from Louisville. And once again, all is right with the world.
High School Flashbacks
A while ago, I wrote a blog about elementary school memories. Today, since I have to spend my afternoon grading papers, I have high school on my mind. Here is a list of some unforgettable high school moments.
1. The first day of school, riding the waves of students through the crowded halls. I finally spied an upperclassman I knew from band and suddenly felt at home.
2. Helping to push that huge couch from room to room during Author’s Banquet so my friend could sit on it while she gave her Emily Dickinson presentation. I was Jane Austen. I wore a very flattering bonnet.
3. A teacher who recited a list of the curse words we were never allowed to say in her class.
4. Managing to get over the whole permed-hair craze. I had some very unfortunate experiences with perms in middle school.
5. Reading the Christy Miller books again and again and again and sighing with my friends about how our school had no one like Todd.
6. Staggering off the field at a band practice, nearly passing out, because I had only eaten M&M’s for lunch. I did things like that frequently–not really eating lunch, I mean. Because then I could save my lunch money and buy magazines. Sigh.
7. My friend sitting behind me in Algebra II, flicking my hair with her pencil and fuming because she couldn’t find any split ends.
8. Riding in the back of someone’s truck to Amanda’s house after a band practice. She took a big drink of water and spit it over the side of the truck, only we were going fast and the whole mouthful hit me in the face.
9. Getting my permit and crying because I’d been too busy reading for the previous 16 years to notice how to get anywhere in my small hometown. This infuriated my father and he refused to give me any directions, so we drove in circles while I bawled.
10. And finally–just for you, Marla–the noisy clicking eraser that I used to annoy my friends. I never said I was cool.
GO CATS!
I never would have guessed it in a hundred million years, but I really like football. When Joe and I first started dating, I made fun of him for his slavish devotion to the Kentucky Wildcats. I was incredulous that his idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon involved sitting in front of a TV with a pizza. And yet, somehow, slowly, I have been converted. I realized on Thursday night, when I hurried home from parent-teacher conferences so I could watch the South Carolina game with him, that the SEC has thorougly sucked me in. There’s still a ton about football I don’t understand, so no way am I going to make a big commentary about it here, but it’s by far my favorite sport to watch and talk about and learn about. I’d much rather watch UK than anyone else, but any SEC team will do. So I’m pretty fired up today, after going to Louisville yesterday to watch the Cats beat UofL. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season. Go Cats!
The Perfect Job
Good Morning, America! Watching GMA is one of the highlights of every vacation for me. In fact, I am such a huge nerd about it that I asked my husband to make sure I was awake before he left for work today, to ensure that I got to watch at least an hour of it. I don’t really watch straight through–being the ultimate multi-tasker, I pretty much don’t do that with any TV show anymore. I read, write, check e-mail, and, of course, eat cookies through the whole thing, but I love listening to it even when my eyes aren’t on the screen. And I love GMA because there are always a couple of stories that catch my attention and draw me away from whatever else I am doing while watching.
This morning, one of the things that caught my attention was an interest inventory Robin Roberts did to analyze her personality and predict the other careers she could have had. Aptitude tests always interest me, because I like having someone tell me about myself. I know what I think about me, but I tend to be incredibly short-sighted about myself. I always overlook a lot of possibilites, and usually these tests smack me with some insight about why I behave the way I do.
I realize that’s ironic, because the tests themselves are often very-short sighted. Of course Robin’s results didn’t tell her she should be a host on GMA, and she’s brilliant at it. There are too many amazing jobs out there for a test to be able to cover them all, so they tend to stick to generics. Be a coach, a computer programmer, a chef, a radio announcer. A teacher.
I’m bothered by the career aptitude tests though, because I dislike the myth that your job defines you, that there’s one perfect job out there that will make you happy forever. I love my job. I spend a lot of time and attention on it, and it’s very fulfilling. But there are many parts of my life that have nothing to do with it, and I find those parts to be extremely satisfying too. I’m grateful for my job and feel very lucky that I get to do it. But ultimately, contentment has to come from God.
September 29, 2008. Tags: career, Good Morning America, interest inventory. Commentary. 2 comments.