Confessions to date (both explicit and implied):
1. I'm a bit of a quitter (vis a vis my first, sad attempt in July).
2. I'm obsessed with thinking about my blog, then writing--in a blog--about what I think about my blog (and yes, my mind really is this circular all the time, something the blog makes abundantly clear).
3. I'm overwhelmingly anxious about being interesting (this is an important realization for me about me, so the blog is proving valuable in that regard).
4. My friends are very, very smart. (Smarter than you-know-who, that's for sure.)
Here is the latest confession I'd like to present to you, and by you, I mean me:
Number 5. My students are also smarter than me. Not all of them, and not all the time, but man--sometimes, they just school me.
Maybe because I am a young, and--as one student said on Tuesday--bouncy (and he means, so we're clear, that my personality is bouncy, which I think means bubbly, as in happy and good-spirited, but it has nothing to do with my anatomy, so we're clear) teacher, they know me pretty well. I mean, they get me. They're able to make astute observations about my character, and then I have to fake like I'm all mysterious and elusive, when really, they've got me pegged.
And they have a habit of asking me strangely personal, entirely off topic, questions about myself (Kendall, do you like chocolate? Why?! Do you have some?? No, I was just wondering.) And last week, when I was really thinking very seriously about getting a cat, what I would name it, and where I would store the litter box because I want a cat but I do NOT want an apartment that smells like a litter box, and would I be able to have appropriate boundaries regarding the cat, aka not treating it as a human being because I am feeling like I need something to love, I walked into class and was greeted by this:
"Kendall, do you have pets?"
"No."
"Do you want a pet?"
"Well, yes. I think."
"You should definitely get a pet."
"Why?"
"Because they're really good at keeping you company, and you're never alone."
What the...? Where did this come from? What was she suggesting with all the "never alone" talk?
Then, today (and I'd like to reiterate that these questions are posed right as I walk into the classroom, still wearing my coat and my bag and not at all prepared for the interrogation, because interrogation it is):
"Kendall, did you always want to be a teacher?"
"Um...no."
"So, what did you want to be?"
(Here, I scramble because, honestly, I've wanted to be everything under the sun--my earliest career ambition was to work at Fred Meyer's, thereby having round-the-clock access to the bulk candy, my second career ambition: Baby from Dirty Dancing--everything except, maybe, for "teacher.")
"I wanted to be an actress. Then, a journalist. Then, a lawyer--"
"I can totally see that!!"
(Several other voices chime in, that yes, they can totally see me being a lawyer, many heads nod yes).
"Really? You can?"
How could she have known that I have, just this week, started reading What Color is Your Parachute? That later tonight I will be making lists of adjectives that describe my skill set, and answering a series of questions that will tell me what I am meant to do. That I am, right this day, struggling with whether I should have gone to law school, or should maybe go back to school for...something. If I'm going to look for a different job (and everything in me says that I need to), what job am I going to look for?
How do they do that?? My students. It's like they sense my deepest thoughts and worries.
No, I never meant to be a teacher, but here I am, with these crazy, ESP students and frankly, it really does not suck (if you don't count pay, benefits, job security, and Lewiston).
But here is Confession #6: I have this one idea of what I really, really want to do.
I think my parachute is TV colored. So, there's that.
And in conclusion, seriously, Ur-sher, MAKE AN ALBUM.
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