One Down...

Survived. Liked it. Feet hurt. Head hurts. Rain=no fun to be in trailers. Teaching actual content tomorrow=paranoia.

Best comment of the day: "You know, I think it might be sort of fun to be in your class this year. Sort of."

AHHHHH Addendum

In fewer than 12 hours, I will be standing in front of a classroom full of students. My students, to be specific. And I will be teaching them...... what? Unclear. Here's a rundown on my life right now:

The Good:

• The waiting is nearly over. I've sort of been thinking of this day ever since January 7, when I found out about TFA. Of course, I was more preoccupied with that pesky case of mono back in January, but regardless, this day has loomed large for quite some time now. I'm glad it's finally here and will be over and done with soon enough. No more holding my breath.
• My classroom turned out slightly better than I expected. Yes, I'm in a trailer, which leaves lots to be desired (see upcoming section appropriately titled "The Bad"), but the classroom as it exists now is palatable. Pictures will come soon. Hopefully I can snap some tomorrow morning before the kids come in and "work their magic," aka destroy what I have spent the past week creating...
• Labor Day Weekend is five days away.
  

The Bad:

• I don't want to say anything bad about my school, because honestly I'm thrilled to be there. I think it's a great environment to work in, I like the people I've met so far, etc. etc. However, it has been a rather rushed week, what with all the training/meetings (like being at Institute all over again). We couldn't get into our rooms until Monday, and my cozy little trailer is still bereft of technology: no TV for morning announcements, no overhead, no computers, no clock. Must remind self ot bring a watch tomorrow. Oh, and the desks are too short for fifth graders. But I'm sure all this will get worked out over the next couple of days.
• I don't know what to teach. Like, really don't know. The fifth grade team is awesome, but we don't know yet if we're departmentalizing (each teacher taking one subject), team teaching (pairing up in twos, so each teacher has 2 subjects), or being totally self-contained (every man for himself), and we won't know that until we see how the schedule works. Needless to say, this is causing great deals of frustration and stress. Will I be teaching math? Reading? Science? Any of them? All three? As of right now, I have no idea. So, that's fun. Tomorrow is just going over procedures, rules, and the like, so I'll be able to get through that OK, and I'm sure my team will help me with the rest of the week. But still.
• Labor Day Weekend is five days away.

The Ugly:

• Probably me after the sleepless night I'm pretty sure is coming.
  

So, that's an abbreviated version of what's going on in my life right now. There was so much more I wanted to say, but my brain still hurts and I should concentrate all my energy on two things: 1) Preparing for tomorrow and 2) watching the Closing Ceremonies. Mainly the latter. Related note: Up until faaaaar too late in my life, I thought that "latter" was pronounced like "later."

DNS: Have you ever stopped to consider that our national anthem ends in a question? "O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave???" How much cooler would it be if we all did a Scooby Doo-type inflection at the end of it? Home of the brave??? Also: every sentence in this paragraph except this one has ended in a question.

OK, must get to work. For realzies. Wish me luck!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

My brain hurts.

Coherent (?) post to come this weekend. Let's just say that school starts on Monday, but right now I'm more prepared to beat Usain Bolt in the 200m than teach 5th graders...

Cue Gob Bluth

Yes, it's the final countdown (dee dee deeee duh... etc. etc.). School is officially less than two weeks away and I am officially less than prepared. Yikes. But I'm feeling good, and I'll tell you why, though without a numbered list, since we all saw how well that worked...

• The Olympics. I'm a girl who likes her sports. That's just what happens when you grow up with rabid Duke fans. Well, maybe just with Andy and Dad--I don't think we can count Cam as a sports fan just quite yet*, though he's getting there. Anyway, I'm a big fan. But the Olympics seriously just take the cake. You can keep your NBA finals, your Superbowl, your World Series. LBJ, DWade, and Kobe agree: this is the biggest stage athletes will ever be on. And though the games are not without flaws, they remain faaaaar less tainted than that little bicycle tour through France, for instance, or the Barry Bonds Steroid Era from which baseball seemingly can't escape (though they're making progress?). And they come with faaaaar less drama, too. Wait, wait: I should be more specific, because there's plenty of drama in the Olympics (just watch those Morgan Freeman-narrated VISA ads). What the Olympics is blithely bereft of is the Brett Favre type of stuff. The contract negotiations. The "Manny Being Manny" (aka Manny Being an Idiot) junk that distracts from the game. All the Olympics have is pure, unadulterated SPORT, and it's breathtaking. Oh, and in case you were wondering: yes, I *do* cry every time the US wins something.
• Some favorites: Obviously, I am in love with Michael Phelps. I think they take away your Social Security number if you don't like him. I personally am fascinated by his ears. They're quite spectacular. And that relay?? I mean, there's not much to be said about it without overdosing on exclamation points. If you haven't seen it, go find it now in the vast expanse of the interweb.
  
• Synchronized Diving. The ability to do a two-and-a-half pike with a triple somersault at the exact same time as another human being off a ginormous platform into a comparatively tiny pool of water was never a quality I was sad to lack. Until now. I am blown away by this event. And I totally agree with one of the commentators who said something along the lines of, "Of course the Chinese excel at this sport." I mean, seriously, talk about precision. Did you see the Opening Ceremonies??
• Speaking of said ceremonies: omg. We had some friends over to watch it, and about every three minutes, one of us would just exclaim, "CHINA!" in disbelief. Be afraid, America. Be very afraid. Somewhat related note: we successfully convinced one of our friends that dragons were real. Amazing.

I think I was making a list that contained elements other than the Olympics, but I honestly can't think about anything but the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. On another semi-related note, I am fascinated by the process where a city bids to become the Olympics host. I have no idea why this is so interesting to me. I guess it's because the cities bidding are always cities that I really want to visit (a list that includes just about every city in the world, so maybe that's not it...) Anyway, if you don't believe me, check my facebook: it's one of my interests. Right up there with Chipotle and flip-flops.

Our final TFA session is tomorrow. Hallelujah! Though, I must say that the past few days have been overwhelmingly more helpful. We're transitioning into the real, concrete stuff, blissfully moving out of the abstract. Yes, the abstract is important, but I'm ready to start making posters! And, you know... writing tests and stuff....

District orientation starts on Wednesday. No rest for the weary. I'll put up some sort of school-related post as soon as I stop living 100% Olympics.

'Til then, GO USA!
--amfm

*Unless you count DDR as a sport. Some do.

Blog One-dot-Oh

Oh, hey. You'd thought I had forgotten you all, I'm sure. Well, in the words of Horace Slughorn, "Oho!" You're so wrong. Rather, I have spent the past X number of days moving into my house, making a mess of my room, spending lots of money at Charlotte's finest shopping establishments (Target, Wal-Mart, Harris Teeter, etc.) ((P.S: "Harris Teeter" is the name of the grocery store--how awesome is that?)) What I have *not* been doing, of course, is blogging. And for that, I apologize. However, I have taken a break from hanging bulletin boards and vacuuming and the like to assemble a list of Curiosities--things that have been percolating in my mind while I've been settling into life here.

Without further ado:

1. The bug in my sink. Yes, this does sound like a book my fifth graders might be reading this year, but it is, in fact, NOT fiction. Every night around 10 pm, I walk into my bathroom and discover a very small, thin bug in my left-hand sink (why yes, I do have two sinks!) This has happened for 6 or 7 days now. I'm sorry to say that I usually flush him down the drain. Please don't tell PETA. I am curious if it is the same resilient bug every night (if so, he really needs to just drown already) or if there is a whole family residing somewhere in the bowels of our plumbing system. Will keep you posted.
2. 
   
3. Security Questions. Today I had to do some very important financial what-have-yous, and they involved creating an online account with a bank. This being a bank (ideally, very secure), I had to choose not one, not two, but three security questions. And oh my, what a range. This wasn't your standard "Mother's Maiden Name" level of security. This was First Child's Baby Nickname (N/A), Place You Met Your Spouse (Also N/A), Street Your Childhood Best Friend Lived On (Applicable, but for the sake of security, I won't reveal!) level of security.
   

1. The Way I Use Parentheses. I think I overuse them. Discuss. (Or don't) ((see??))

1. Blogger's Numbering Mechanism. It is actually impossible to do a double-spaced numbered list, so I'm stuck with this bass-ackwards system. Apologies.
2. 
   
3. "Course One-Dot-Oh." This is the online "class" we have to take for TFA right now. It's a bunch of readings and then a few exercises, and it's what we're all furiously working on this weekend (when we're not blogging and/or overusing parentheses, that is). In all our TFA literature, it's referred to as Course 1.0. There is a Course 2.0, in case you were wondering, but there is not a Course 1.5. Why not "Course 1" and "Course 2"? Why the .0? The other puzzling thing is how the entire staff says "Course One-dot-oh" instead of the more conventional "Course One-point-oh." Just something we've noticed*.

That's it. I should get back to One-dot-oh, I suppose. Or maybe finish unpacking. Either way, sorry about the lack of substantive updates. I'll placate you by saying that perhaps a video tour of my room will be in order soon? (Thanks, Carly for the idea!)

--amfm

*"we" here refers to a group of Corps members, and is not--in a rare occurrence--the "royal we."**

**I think a sort-of-good/sort-of-bad name for a band (sogsobnfab) would be "Royal Wii." Like Nintendo Wii™.

I want a pet puma...

I'm just going to jump right in. This post is going to cover a lot of ground (literally?) and so will be split into two parts.

Part the First: ROAD TRIP!
A thousand apologies for not doing the "Where in the World is Anna?" follow-along thing. I was going to make a little graphic, and even found an Electric Blue™ Volkswagen Jetta® to stick my head out of, but then I started looking for a good picture of myself. Wow. There were some truly horrific pictures of me taken this year, and they're all posted on Facebook™®©. So that derailed the project.

The drive was excellent. As you may know, I really, really enjoy driving (seriously--via the internet that may have come off as sarcastic...), so I was totes stoked at the prospect of 16+ hours in the car. I split the trip into four days. Day One was a piece of cake: KC to St. Louis. I coulda done it with my eyes closed! (No, I couldn't have) I spent the night just outside St. Louis at my awesome cousin Helen's and had peanuts on a salad for the first time in my life.

Day Two was the longest leg. So, maybe it was a piece of... pie? Is pie harder to make/eat than cake? I guess I don't really understand that expression. Regardless, Day Two was St. Louis to Chattanooga, TN. Let me tell you a little something about Kentucky: that state is underrated. I had a lovely time throughout, especially at the Taco Bell in Paducah.

Not only is Kentucky underrated, it is also magical. Maybe people don't know that, hence the underrating. But for a stretch of 3 miles or so, every bump I hit on the road was timed perfectly to "Knock Three Times," by Tony Orlando and Dawn, which is the song I happened to be listening to. I'm not kidding. "[BUMP] [BUMP] [BUMP] on the ceiling if you want me..." It was extraordinary.

I spent the night in Chattanooga, and then spent all day Monday doing two things: shopping at stores and shopping at my grandma's house. I did not get much in the stores. I did get a lot from my grandma's house. Thanks to my grandparents, I now have a gorgeous antique bed, a perhaps even more gorgeous fainting couch, and also an armchair. That was a conscious and conspicuous omission of "gorgeous," but what this armchair lacks in beauty, it more than makes up for in comfort. Perhaps somebody will say that about me some day? (My apologies; that was weird)

So that was Day Three. Day Four was Cha-Cha (Chattanooga to Charlotte, if you need it spelled out). I started the day by having a fight with my GPS because it wanted to take me north via Knoxville and I had planned to go south around Atlanta. After hearing "Daniel" (the British voice) tell me he was "recalculating" about 700 times, I decided to just turn it off and find the way on my own. WHOA! Well, I called Dad to make sure. But yeah, I did some real, old school navigation. Hold your applause, please.

I got to Charlotte in the afternoon on Tuesday, and after swinging by the TFA office to pick up some paperwork, I arrived at 1924. OMG, it's better than I remember. I love this house more than I love almost all of my blockmates. Combined. Sorry, guys. (MColl, you're the exception)

This brings us to...

Part the Second: LOAD FLIP! (no, it doesn't make sense; it just happened to rhyme)
Umm... Charlotte is pretty much the best. I have spent many hours just lounging about my room and wandering around our house. It's in a definite state of transition (a state of definite transition? Definitely a state of transition?) right now, but that's OK because let's be real: my room is never going to be clean, so why bother?

Thanks to my extremely awesome grandparents (gnfab?), my furniture came on Wednesday, and I even made my bed in gratitude. Wednesday was also the day I was processed by the school district, having missed that part of Induction due to Graduation. I heard all about my benefits (I get dental!), got my ID badge (which looks surprisingly fake), and was drug tested (always a delightful experience), so I'm all set to go. Oh, and I'm teaching fifth grade. I actually found that out in Kansas, but just forgot to tell you all.

I'm still unpacking and spending lots of time/money at Target and Bed, Bath, & Beyond (thank you Bob & Sharon for the gift certificate!!!), and perhaps one day I will actually be fully moved in with all the required furniture, etc. I may even decorate the walls--whoa--but that day is not today. Oh, well. At least I can "borrow" wireless from someone else on this Pleasantville-y street, so not a bit of Hollywood gossip will escape me (congrats, Brad and Angie! Can't wait to meet the twins).

I guess that's about it. Now for some of our most beloved (?) blog segments:

Daily Bit of Meta (DBoM): I have been waiting for this experience for months: having my cell phone ring while listening to "Sweetest Thing." For those not in the know, "Sweetest Thing" is my cell phone ring. You might have been able to figure that out on your own, but I don't trust you. Anyway, it finally happened. It was awesome. Maybe more 'coincidental' than 'meta,' but I don't have a Daily Bit of Coincidence segment on this blog, now, do I??

Daily Non Sequitor (DNS): Have you ever stopped to consider just how many times you hit the "delete" key every day? I've probably hit it three or four times in the span of these two sentences. Oh, and there was another five times because I tried to spell "sentences" with a c at the beginning. If you consciously think about the delete key as you type, it will freak you out, but probably only if you're strange like me. Also, do you alternate thumbs that hit the space bar, like a good typist, or do you only use one of them? Me, I only space with my right thumb, and I only shift with my left pinkie. Doing anything else feels weird. Sorry, Mavis Beacon.

More updates on the house, et al as I remember funny things to say. I leave now with two requests:

Request the First:
If I haven't spoken to you in a while, I apologize, but do drop me a line and say "hi," or let me know how you're doing. If you're in Tanzania, please tell me how Tanzany it is. If you're in New York, how New Yorky. You get the drift. I miss you, and I'm terrible at communicating. You can try to phone me, but only if you're willing to suffer the consequences (I am *terrible* at speaking on the phone. It's a real hazard).

Request the Second:
Please throw up a prayer or some good thoughts where prayer and good thoughts are needed. These are strange and crazy times for many of us, and I'm sure good thoughts would be much appreciated by many.

OK, that's it for real. I'm off to go unpack... OH! Actually, I forgot one more thing. If you're wondering about the title of this post, I said that because I've been watching "Planet Earth," the BBC documentary. OH. EM. GEE. It is just amazing. If you haven't seen it, go buy or rent it. Like, right now. And get the one narrated by David Attenborough, because he blows Sigourney Weaver out of the water.

That's it for real for real.
--amfm

The end of an era... and pictures!

Hello again.

So, almost exactly one year ago today, I was "surfing the web," as the cool kids say, and I stumbled across the site 43 Things. Now, I'm as much for goal setting as the next guy, but I wasn't about to go write a list of 43 things I wanted to do and then post them online. However, I was *very* bored, so I made a list, folded it up, and stuck it in my wallet, where it remains today. As of this precise moment, I have completed three of those 43 things. Well, sort of three and two halves, but that's too complicated to explain. In case you were wondering (and I know you were), some of my "Things" include visiting the Galapagos Islands, owning a horse, making my own paper, and learning how to tie a Windsor Knot. So, real Earth-shattering things we're talkin' about here.

Anyway, #11 on the list--which I have now had the extreme satisfaction of crossing off--was "Find one thing every day that makes me happy and record it for a year." I know. It's a bit new-agey, all bubble baths and Enya and finding my chakra. But despite the extreme schmaltz factor (gnfab?), it was actually a really fun exercise. I stapled six pieces of paper together and toted it around for a full year. And this list went everywhere with me. This list has enough frequent flier miles to book its own vacation. And it has enough memories to make even the most Tin Man-esque of us all (Chi) shed a bit of a tear. Yeah, it's been a good year.

Proof that The Happy List exists:


Further proof:
So, yeah. That's it. Handwritten, front and back, pretty much one day per line (though some days required two). 366 entries (pesky leap year). I'm thinking about getting it laminated. Or framed. Or something. Either way, it's an accomplishment. Doing things over the span of one year always feels good. In high school, I didn't eat red meat for the year. As soon as that quest was over (my first meal back was a McDonald's hamburger--hardly red meat, I know), I decided not to drink pop for a year. And then the third year, I wanted to not eat candy, but could never agree with myself on the definition of candy (does gum count? What about mints? These are tough questions).

I highly recommend that everyone start a Happy List. It takes a lot of dedication, and many have attempted this quest and failed (Marielle, Megan, I feel for you). But it's worth it in the end. Maybe some day I'll comb through it and compile a list of people who made The List, and we can see once and for all who makes me The Most Happy. Place your bets now...

In other news, I chopped off all my hair. Or, 10-12 inches of it at least. I love it, but you all are the ultimate judge and jury:

Apologies for the obvious self-portrait. At least I didn't take an emo picture of myself in the mirror, à la MySpace. And here's a weird-ish picture that sort of shows the back of it and actually does utilize the mirror. Whoops:

I guess that's about it. I also guess this means that Real Life (capital R, capital L) is about to begin. Finishing Institute and the Happy List, cutting off all my hair... It's the end of one chapter and the start of a new one. Scary stuff, but I'm excited.

This might be my last post before Charlotte, though Chi wants me to put up maps as I take my drive across the country. I think she's probably also imagining me posing with small-town locals as I go eat Kentucky's best hot dogs and see the world's largest ball of twine (that's in Kansas, by the way). That would be fun... Stay tuned?

Hearts,
--amfm