LESSON PREP

Today was a very chill day—one where I felt like I was sauntering through each minute, unrushed, sane. It was a good feeling, and rare.

Evening classes went very well—my students are extremely sharp, motivated, and interesting, which makes the hours go by quickly. We also laughed a lot today, which helps—apparently, modal verbs of obligation and of probability can be quite funny.

Now I'm back at the dorm, drinking tea and scouring YouTube for videos appropriate for the next chapter in my Listening and Note-Taking Class. The theme? Children's Media. (There have been worse lesson-planning tasks.)

If you need a flashback or a smile, check out some of the following links:

Classic Sesame Street with Sid Caesar

Elmo's Song

Bill Nye the Science Guy Theme Song

Bill Nye—Gravity Demo

Bill Nye on Quicksand

I omitted the Teletubbies clip. I wouldn't put you through that, after you've been so kind as to read this post and to put up with many other ramblings and musings over the past while.

Best to you in this day and always, wherever you may be.

MAYBE

As usual, I'm up too late over here in Lithuania. There are probably at least twelve things on my list that should happen before blogging (especially ironic, as I taught a segment on time management to my first years this week), but I had a bit of a realization today: I haven't been doing much that I enjoy recently. My brain is screeching to a grating halt, and it's only week four at LCC. Not writing or reading for pleasure, and not resting enough, for me, is like forgetting to replace the brake fluid in a car....or like loosing the cartilage in my knee caps way too early in life. I'd rather not have knee- or brain-replacement surgery quite yet.

Do you know, I talk a lot about how much I believe in rest, and yet, given the opportunity, I fail miserably at it? Even Jesus, the Son of God, knew when to get in the boat and call it quits. It's part of being fully human, and I'm terrible at it.

Maybe it's a control issue. Maybe it's because I don't really believe that the world won't unravel if I don't get this—this very last thing (followed by nineteen other last-things)—done. Maybe it's because I want to know or be sure of exactly how things will turn out. Maybe I think I can keep up with time, or hold it for just a lick, if I run fast enough.

Are you at all like me?

Maybe not. Maybe you are good at giving up control, and not-knowing, and not-being sure, and not holding all things together.

Then again. You are still reading. Maybe.

WHO KNOWS?

i am always surprised by where i end up.

i don't mean, when i head to the market for some tomatoes, i instead end up at the post office—i mean, i strike out with a question, or turn a new page, or have a conversation, or get on a plane, and though i may have started out with a sort-of intention, i got curious. i happen on something i never would have thought of.

fiction is one of the best ways to find surprise endings. reading or writing. it's the—well, how could there have been an elephant that crashed through the roof of the opera house? that's impossible!—when reading, or the—i wonder what choice this prince will make if he is afraid. i wonder what happens if he hordes fear and loves ambition most of all...—when writing another chapter or narrative turn.

when reading and writing, you've got to throw yourself in there (with the chickens and foster kids and insecurities and calluses) without the answer straight in front of you, written in very neat lines.

tonight, i am looking forward to sleeping after a long, hard, good first week in klaipeda, lithuania. after a long trip and just a few days of university orientation, suddenly i'm supposed to be a teacher, with four classes and syllabi, as well as confidence and expertise and poise and a large dose of creativity. also, sanity. (how do you all do it? i can't imagine yet.) but i also have a few lithuanian words; i've had a good meal from a local restaurant, a view of the harbor and its ferries; i have wind-pinched cheeks and a day of rest tomorrow—time, the market, the sea.

i have no idea yet how this year will look. but i've started writing. and, as with any story, there is bound to be hard and good and bad all together, and, at the very beginning, mostly questions. here's to jumping right in.

who knows where i might end up?