My Moment

So, I had a moment this morning. I had a couple of moments.

Today was the phone interview with the department. There's really only so much you can do to prepare. I was informed beforehand that we would discuss my academic goals and interests as well as my teaching experience. I made a few notes and read up on the professors who would be interviewing me. But today, panic set in. The bigness of it all began to loom and I felt super intimidated and insecure and unprepared.

I had a moment (i.e., a mini-meltdown involving tears and snot). They come (more often that I'd like to admit), but they go. I eventually pulled myself together before the call came right on the dot.

I've had interviews in the past where I know I nailed it. Where I felt confident and in my element. I did not feel that way after this interview. I didn't feel like I blew it, but I felt like I rambled and that my responses weren't as specific and serious-sounding as I would have liked. I felt like I answered the questions, but I didn't feel like I did so impressively. At all. And it was conducted in Spanish, and even though I usually feel comfortable speaking it, it's still not my first language. I didn't sound as fluent and as confident as I would have liked. When they asked if I had any questions, I asked them very practical questions about the conditions and the requirements of the teaching assistantship, if I were offered one.

After it was all over with, I semi-devolved back into sniffles and tears, and in the middle of talking it out with someone, I checked my email, not even 30 minutes later, to find this from the graduate admissions director:

Dear Chantell,

I am delighted to inform you that the Spanish Admissions Committee has recommended that you be accepted into the PhD program, and that you be awarded a teaching assistantship. Final approval must come from the Graduate School, but I wanted to let you know right away that the Commitee was very impressed with your application and your telephone interview.

In fact, your dossier is so outstanding that I am going to nominate you for a Graduate School Assistantship. This is a special award that provides 21 months of support (two academic years plus the summer in between), and allows students to do research under a faculty member's direction. After the first two years of your program, you would continue to be supported through a departmental teaching assistantship.

These are highly competitive awards, but you definitely qualify! We should know the results by the end of February.

In the meantime, please accept my warm congratulations. We truly hope to welcome you to our graduate program this coming fall.

You're kidding me, right? Like, I JUST got off the phone with them and thought my interview was not even close to impressive. And THEN they're nominating me for a Grad School Assistantship too?! (Which is fancier than the departmental one.) I had to stop and laugh at myself for being such a doubting crybaby. And I had to stop and thank God. I think He's trying to show me that I really need to chill out. For real. That I really am going to one day have to trust Him to take care of me.

I was kind of ambivalent about this whole thing at first. But now I'm looking forward to it.

You Procrastination Slave, You

Another quick list:

1. Gotta get a lesson together for my Intermediate Spanish class. Blast me for always waiting until the last minute! (Least I got copies made and squared away for Beginning already. Bless the industriousness that does eventually emerge from time to time.)

2. Gotta finish writing my short story series before midnight this Saturday. Blast me for being a glutton for time crunch punishment!

3. Junior Bible Quizzing tournament Saturday morning. And guess who's an assistant coach . . .

4. Got a phone call back from the Romance Languages department! Director of Graduate Admissions told me I was a fabulous candidate, that my resume looked great and that they wanted to interview the strongest candidates first! The interview (phone interview) is this Friday and will be conducted entirely in Spanish. Downside: Fluffy answers about wanting to "explore" blah, blah, blah won't cut it. I have to be specific about my interests and goals. They need to know that I'm serious, and be left with no inkling that I might be a wanderlust-laden, indecisive girl-woman. I can't say, "I've always been good at school and I don't know what else to do with myself, so I figured I'd give a PhD a go." Let's pray the good Lord lays something on my heart before Friday afternoon.

After this I have to keep writing my stories.

1. I have a friend with whom I can play pick-a-language when we talk on the phone. We start out in Spanish, usually, spend a little time in French, and end in English. It's amazing when I stop to think about it. He's the only one I can do that with.

2. My side-job Spanish classes seem to be a hit. I got a really sweet email from a student saying she loved my enthusiasm and enjoyed the class. I had people who aren't in the class tell me they heard about how good it was. Wow. The downside to such praise is that now I have to keep it up.

3. I am trying so hard not to think about turning 29 in a couple of months. It's not a big deal. People turn 29 every day. But it's taking everything in me to fight off a spreading sense of panic. I'm living at home and I have stuffed animals on my bed, fuzzy bear slippers on my feet and wear college t-shirts over pajama bottoms with hearts on them. My future is hinged on entering a PhD program which I'm ambivalent about. The only official relationship I've ever had was embarrassingly long ago, and the history after that been strewn with ambiguous disappointments and inappropriate disasters. I cannot afford to let this quicksand pull me under again. There are only so many times you can bounce back.

4. I'm a teacher. I'm a math teacher who majored in Spanish. I'm also a Spanish teacher who originally majored in English. I teach teenagers (Miss Smith). I teach adults (Chantell). I teach children (Sister Chantell). I teach toddlers (I wan sum appo duce). It's what I've always done.

5. Sometimes I find myself in the middle of doing something, and I'll feel outside myself. Like I'm not the one doing it, but I'm watching myself do it from an imaginary psychological distance. Sometimes I'll be struck with the fact that I am myself and that I will always be myself and that the world will only look to me the way I see it and that I will never be able to see it through any other eyes, gender, race, culture or experience and that no one else will be able to see it through mine. At no time will being me be over, and then I'll move on to the next thing. This is it.

6. I feel abject when I have nothing to do, when I'm not working towards something. So I fill my coffers up with tasks and get involved with things. Then I feel pressured because I have a lot to do and deadlines loom and showtime arrives and evaluations hover. Because there is always a reckoning.

7. I get annoyed with myself because my existential quandaries are nothing unique to me. There's not some special, weird thing about me or the situations that arise or the things I think about them or the ways I cope with them. It's actually standard procedure. It's not an everlasting problem needing a solution. It's just how it is.

8. I think I'm addicted to pepperoni pizza. I never tire of it, and I crave it quite often.

Life Nuggets

Why does so much of my bloggery revolve, in some way, around Starbucks? The Bucking Star. It's just that place I go to, and leave smelling like coffee grounds.

I've been waking up better, steeling myself less, involving myself more. Trying to take care of and move forward in the now, trying to spend less time conjuring the unforeseeable future. I remember in high school calculus, learning about imaginary numbers. Imagine that. The square root of a negative number which doesn't exist, isn't real, but has concrete application. The square root of my future doesn't exist in this plane. I've resolved to stop trying to make it a real number.

This, of course, from a Spanish teacher turned math teacher out of necessity. (The square root of which was choice.) Well, math, science, ACT review, Spanish and everything-in-between-teacher-tutor-in-one. It's what I've been summoned to do at my new learning center gig. It'll do. Even when I see faces from my public school past reappear for after-school homework help. Hey, Señorita! Our new Spanish teacher is really strict. She took up my phone the first day! Well, praise the Lord. Someone permanent, experienced in teaching Spanish, and "mean." Just what your unruly behinds needed.

When I write stories, I snatch nuggets from my own life and coat them with fictitiousness. (sigh.) That's what I should be doing now. Coating life nuggets with fictitiousness.

Enter a girl in Starbucks, alone.

Enter a girl in Starbucks, alone. She sits at a table, with laptop open, intent on getting started on a short story series. Enter a balding, bespectacled, 30ish man.

Man: Is this seat taken?

Girl: No, go ahead, not at all.

The man takes the chair and sits at a table in front of her. Facing her. He sets out his laptop as well. One of the baristas calls out a drink.

Man: Is that your drink?

Girl: (slightly puzzled as to why the man is addressing her) Um, no . . . I already ordered mine.

The girl's cell rings. She talks to a family member about her whereabouts, mentions what she's working on, promises to meet said family member in a few minutes.

Man: So, are you a writer? I'm sorry, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation and I'm curious.

Girl: (Giggles self-consciously) Well, no . . . I-I mean, not professionally . . .

Man: Well, I guess we're all writers somehow, right? I guess I could say I'm a writer too, with these papers I have due. So, what do you write about?

Girl: (Again, she giggles self-consciously, not really wanting to answer.)

Man: I know, I'm sorry I'm being nosy. I'm just curious because, well, you're really cute and you seem like a really interesting person.

Girl: (Flattered yet unsettled, wondering how this man could consider hitting on her. What makes him think I'm his type? He's older, white, balding and short. Don't people tell me I look younger than I am? Shouldn't this be a deterrent?) I write Sunday School literature for teens.

Man: (Not sure how to respond.) Oh . . . that's cool.

Girl: (Attempting to turn the tables on him.) So, what do you write?

They strike up a mildly interesting conversation. She learns that he's an officer in the Air Force taking military science courses on base. He learns that she's traveled a bit and speaks Spanish and French. She becomes slightly more interested when she learns that he has a Masters in International Relations because she considered going that route. He tries to prolong the conversation even though he knows she's about to leave. She thinks he talks too fast and is trying too hard. She has a sinking feeling it's going to happen in 3, 2, 1 . . .

Man: I know you have to go, but um, I think you're such an interesting person and wanted to know if maybe we could get together for coffee sometime.

Girl: (Hoping her voice conveys regret, shaking her head.) I have a lot going on.

Man: (Getting it.) Oh, you do? (pause) Well, hopefully I'll see you around sometime.

Girl exits from Starbucks, alone.

"Ice" Day

Southerners always flip out at the very wisp of a threat of bad weather. Always better safe than sorry, I suppose, but the case, more often than not, is that reality falls short of the hyped up forecasts. Then again, I'm in Montgomery. Things are worse the further north you go.

So, I've been treated to a three-day weekend. What must I do in order to feel productive?

1. Write letters to my friends in French. I know . . . I could just send them messages on Facebook, but I'm stubborn and old-fashioned and need to practice my French. Plus, I think it's special when you write things out by hand.

2. Begin writing a series of short stories for Word Aflame Press Sunday school literature. I wrote a series for Youth last year and it was fun, so I've been entrusted with another one.

3. Get into some Harlem Renaissance books I purchased from the Schomberg Center when I was in NY.

4. Gear up for my professional development Spanish classes starting back up next week.

Here's to productive "ice" day Mondays!

Hash It Out

Writing here gives me a way to hash it out.

I realized that I didn't even formulate a New Year's Resolution.

There are two big things that I need to work on: trusting God and being consistent.

Frankly, 2010 was a year of a series of bad decisions. It would be unwise to enumerate them here, but I have to own up to the fact that I made many decisions based on fear and lack of trust in God which have resulted in an emerging pattern of inconsistency. If I plan on ever finally facing my demons and overcoming them, this cannot continue.

There's no golden ticket. No one is going to rescue me. If I'm ever to regain ground, I have to do it on cold, hard, realistic terms.

It doesn't have to be so grim and dire. I need to learn to accept the fact that life never stays within the lines and that just because bad decisions can't be undone it doesn't mean that we cannot move forward or that God is not still in control.

I was reading Genesis during a bible study the other day and was struck with the beauty of the creation story. God spoke things into existence. They were good. He gave things a name. He separated the light from the darkness. He created order out of the void.

I got an email the other day from the Romance Languages department of where I'm applying to enter the PhD program. All materials have been received. Soon they'll schedule a phone interview to be conducted entirely in Spanish. I need to be ready to give specific answers about my goals and interests.

There are so many bright spots I can focus on. My life is being lived right now.

Sometimes . . .

a jazzed up frozen pepperoni pizza popped in the oven that comes out fresh and bubblin' is enough.

One of Those Posts

I hate writing posts like this, but there's an irritating part of me clamoring to express itself and will not cease until I relent. You've been warned. I'm so sorry.

I cannot express how much I wish I could just relax about things. I'm so hard on myself. Everyone tells me I'm too hard on myself and I realize in more sober moments that it's true, but that doesn't stop me from doing it.

I wish so badly that the most insignificant things didn't make me tear up. I wish I could take things like a G, suck it up and soldier on. But the least little thing that doesn't happily follow along with the way it's supposed to happen in my head makes my eyes water. It's so annoying and spoiled and just ridiculous. I am too old to react to life this way. When is it going to register in the depth of my being that the last time I was a 12-year-old girl was a little over 16 years ago? What is it going to take for something to slice through my constant formulation of impossible expectations to reveal the fleshy, raw fact that it's never going to happen the way it's "supposed" to? It's just exhausting, but most of all, utterly unnecessary.

I suffer from an irrational, debilitating fear that springs upon me like a panther that I will never be satisfied. That the idea that I'm going to finally arrive at this golden place is a fraud. That I'm sinking deeper and deeper into a self-fulfilling prophecy that I'm afraid of never being happy therefore I never will be. Like I'm watching a train wreck about to happen from afar but at the same time, I'm in it.

I hate that I can't seem to sit still. I flit and flutter and rove and wander. I hate that I consistently second guess myself. I hate that I can't see the forest for the trees because I'm so blinded by the present.

Please. Open my close-minded eyes. Please. Lift me out of my complacent egocentrism. Please. Give me a desire to choose life every day. Please.

Aromatherapy

You'd think that eucalyptus and spearmint scented body wash and lotion would smell like medicinal Doublemint. Imagine my surprise when I opened it up and got a whiff of sweet blues.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of my life.

So, I got back from NYC in one piece. It was lovely seeing my buds.

I'd say the highlight was going to Harlem and going to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture on Lenox Avenue. Yes, the Lenox Avenue.

Down on Lenox Avenue the other night

By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light

He did a lazy sway . . .

He did a lazy sway . . .

To the tune o' those Weary Blues.

But now I'm back here, and back in that place. In that place where I'm kind of starting over, starting something new, starting a new chapter and don't know where it's headed. But first the old one has to end.

Tomorrow I have to drop off some lesson plans and collect my stuff. Am I going to see people who are going to ask me stuff? I don't like explaining stuff. I can imagine that feeling that's going to settle over me when I turn the key, struggle open that jammed iron door, and smell that high school building smell and hear my footsteps echo down the too-early halls. When I sweep my dusty, gum-speckled wooden floors and memories and hurts seep through.

And my side job . . . I'm pretty sure the gig's still on, but how is it going to materialize? What if not enough people sign up this time around? And my supervisor.

And the new job. Do I really know what I'm getting myself into? We've all heard of jumping from the frying pan and into the fire. From sizzling to burnt.

And me + PhD? My professors finally slid their recommendations into pre-deadline home plate, lucky me. Everything else has since been cast upon the waters. What shall I find after many days? I'll find out in February or March.

Here's to tomorrows.