Pre-Pep Rally

This wasn't even game day, and it's not even the actual pep rally.

Round Three...

After many weeks of sky-high stress academia and life alteringly-awesome people and a couple weeks of utter relaxation with my family (who are equally as awesome), I'm back in Brownsville for year two at my school and year three in the teaching gig. I write from my bare classroom, being used today and tomorrow as the in-service room, after which I will begin plastering the room with butcher paper, border, clever posters, schedules, motivational sayings, Bible verses, and my own tangibly high expectations for my students.

Meanwhile, my community (minus four from last year, plus four newbies) is already having a ball. We spent yesterday evening plotting, over tacos and beer, which room of the house to convert to a chapel.

Frankly, I'm just giddy about the start of the new school year. I suspect it will be, to use the ubiquitous phrase, totally awesome.

Stay tuned.

Hand Motions in Heaven

If you've ever been to a youth conference...



It's funny 'cause it's true. Thanks to my dear Bookworm for reminding me of this.

How Could I Compete?

An e-mail I sent to a couple of my far-away ACE friends. Jackie and Zeiser are my housemates.

Last night, Guadalupe Regional had a fund raiser at Mr. Gatti's (pizza and arcade; kinda like chuckie cheese), which Jackie, Zeiser, and I attended. The three of us sit down at a table some distance from the "cool kids". Five minutes go by before one of my 8th graders comes over, points at Zeiser, and says, "Is that your boyfriend?"

With as straight a face and as flat a voice as I could manage, I said no. So she looks at Jackie, points Zeiser again, and says, "Is he YOUR boyfriend?".

It gets better. As the three of us are leaving, a 7th grader stops us, asks me the same question and gets the same answer, and likewise with Jack.

"Then why did they say he was dating one of you?" She looks at Zeiser, and says in a tone of voice that suggests HE wouldn't lie to her, "Are you dating either of them?"

Straight face, Zeiser goes, "Them? No. You ever heard of Shakira?"

Happy Friday, y'all.

Brilliance (Mine) and Guardian Angels (God's)

I know I posted some of these pictures of my black eye before, and I know y'all probably don't want to see more. But, I can't stop thinking about how it happened.

It's not a big deal at all. I'm 100% fine and so is my eye, even if my pride still stings a little. That's exactly the thing, though: it's not a big deal, though it very easily could have been a huge deal.

(Morning after, quite swollen)

What happened was this: We have a weight lifting thingy in our house. I was taking the weights off the bench press bar, thinking that the bar itself was heavy enough to stay down when the disc weights were off one end. All three of my male housemates, who have weight lifted for real for years, say they've done exactly the same thing (which makes me feel better). They also said that works most of the time, "unless you're dealing with a cheap home set".

Which, evidently, is what we have.

The instant I slid the last weight off the right end of bar, the weighted left end plummeted to the floor, swinging the right end of this 50 pound solid steel bar up through the air. The left end slammed into the floor and the right side swung around and fell into the window. I stood stunned, thinking, "Wow, that could have really hurt me."

Two of my girl roommates were standing behind me. "Oh my God! Andie, did it hit you?"

"No." ...I don't think so, anyway.

"Did it break the window?"

I checked, then turned to them, laughing. "Nope! What a close--"

"You're bleeding!"

"What? No I--" I touched my forehead. Sure enough, they were right. They whisked me off to the kitchen, cleaned me up, and helped me find preemptive pain killers and an ice pack. We marveled that it didn't hurt at all -- I still barely felt it -- and how much worse the whole situation could have been. It was starting to sting, but I felt totally lucid and my eyeball istelf was (and remains) fine. I went to bed.

All the next day, as I deflected my students' questions about my shiner, my mind kept wandering back to what a nearly miraculous thing had happened, or perhaps not happened. I truly don't mean to make a big deal out of the whole thing or read too much into it, but had I been leaning even half an inch further forward -- which I had been a second earlier -- well, suffice it to say I don't think I would have gotten off with just a sweet shiner.

(Swelling down, colors becoming flashier.)

As I mulled all this over, I remembered the time my baby sister, at about two years old, escaped out the sliding door and was missing for about five minutes, until our mom found her in the middle of an intersection with cars coming at her from three or four sides.

(Tiny Baby Melissa, wearing everything in her dresser.)

And I remembered the time my best friend and I in my Grand Am were almost rammed by an SUV. And all the other times, as a kid, when I should have been seriously injured. And all the close-call stories my dad told me. And plenty of other stories in which, had one thing been a millimeter or a half second off, the ending would have been decidedly less happy.

I'm an odd sort of Catholic, probably because I wasn't really raised Catholic per say, and where some people have devotions rooted in childhood, I barely have an awareness. It's taken me years and conscious effort to get to know the Blessed Mother and make her a part of my life. Guardian angels, frankly, sat for a long time in the same place in my brain as fairies.

Like my faith in God itself, though, I am beginning to find the existence and presence of angels an undeniable reality.

See, I don't believe in luck or coincidences. That I and so many I know have skirted disaster so many times does not mesh with pure chance. Like so many other things, my rational brain forces me to look elsewhere for an explanation. It makes perfect sense that the same loving God who made us and redeemed us would keep us safe from our own brilliance, and would do so through whatever means He knows will serve us best.

I could easily have broken something not easily fixed, either on me or the window, or gashed myself wide open. I should have, in fact. If you look closely at those pictures, you can see several neat and parallel scrapes along my eyebrow from the threads of the bar brushing right by my eye. Could we explain this away with simple chance? Sure, this one event, but that leaves... well, pretty much the rest of my life to account for.

My nuns in the convent last year often prayed to their guardian angels, and often had the kids do so as well. A few weeks ago, in a situation where I was concerned about my safety, without thinking I called on my guardian angel and instantly felt assured and secure. My point (finally) is that I'm finally paying some attention to my angel and hoping to get better acquainted.

That, and giving him some public recognition for keeping my graceful tail out of trouble and my eyeballs intact for almost twenty-four years.

Little White Lies and the Amazing Technicolor Eyelid

last night

this afternoon
(note the purple, blue, and red around my eye)

Let me just say upfront, I'm fine. My pride sustained far worse injuries than anything else did in this incident. I write tonight, aside from the interesting study of mild swelling turned to multi-colored lids, is to give you a word of warning:

Avoid, at all costs, any kind of visible injury if there is any chance you will be seeing middle schoolers at any point and in any context while said injury is healing.

It's been a humbling day. Comments I got:

• "What happened?!" (that was from a coworker)
  
• "Ma'am, what happened to your face?!"
• "You look like Popeye."
• (slack jawed look of disgust)
• "Ma'am, just let me know who I need to beat up and I got 'im."
• "Holy crap, are you okay??"
• "Ha ha ha ha ha! Uh, I mean... (chuckle) Sorry. Ma'am are you (snicker) alright?"
• "Eeewwwwwww."
• "Listen, you don't need to be in that relationship. Just break up with him, you don't need him."

...And of course, everyone wants to know what happened. I change the story every time.

• Raccoons.
• Badgers.
• I saved a baby from a run-away horse.
• I was trying to build a tree house and it fell down on me.
• You should see the other guy.
  
• Ninjas.
• Pirates.
• Ninja badgers.
• Pirate raccoons.

A Look Back, a Little Early

Just like last year, here's a photographic, slightly epileptic, look back at this year for me. Highlights:

• My 2nd VIDES formation camp, this time having a clue
• My 2nd semester teaching, still without a clue
• The St. Vitus Fools, our drama club, and our production of "Looking Glass Land, which was a sucess largely because no one could tell none of us had a clue.
• More nuns, all indescribably wonderful.
• Leaving the nuns, with a full heart and some tears...
• ...and arriving at Notre Dame to start ACE...
• ...where I met some of the most incredible people ever, and certainly the heaviest concentration of awesome I've encountered yet
• My second convent full of community mates, this time unconsecrated my own age
• My second year of teaching, with a little bit of a clue
• And meanwhile, my family continued to be awesome and weird

Please note: There are two people who were as important in my life this year as anyone else, and more important than most, even though I only saw them once in April for a few hours each (hence the painful dearth of pictures and sinful under representation). You know who you are. This year would not have been nearly as wonderful without your constant long-distance support, laughter, and presence. Thank you. I love you more than I know how to say.



All the pictures in the movie are available here, should you be inclined to take a more leisurely look.

Two Reasons to Watch This

1. It's a delightful rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas.
2. It was sent by a friend to me and several common friends with this note:

"Makes me think of Andie. Every time. (Get to 1:56 and I think you'll understand)"

I can't deny it, I do get pretty excited when I hear this song.

I'm so glad I'm an ND student now...

...because now I get to laugh heartily at things like this. It seems Domers are taking it to another level, what with the fact that we're having a winning season and all. Behold, the most awesomely ridiculous hats ever:


Recognize it? It's a wearable mini version of Notre Dame's most distinguished landmark:


I love it.

Push Ups, or "Look, Mom, I'm Irish!"

Notre Dame is rather infamous for the number of traditions it has, some reaching pretty far into the realm of minutia. Every official ND dance ends with Billy Joel's "Piano Man", for example. Every single dorm has its own formidable bucket o' traditions. Every night at the Backer, which is not even an official Notre Dame establishment, finishes with "Proud to Be an American", the Notre Dame fight song, "Oh, What a Night", and "Happy Trails". In that order. Every time. And when you sing the fight song, there's a part where girls are supposed to yell and one where boys are supposed to yell.

Here's a pacticularly unique tradtion I hadn't heard of until I got there this summer: in the stuent section at the football games -- I don't know if you knew, but Domers are pretty serious about football -- with every score, a group of people will pick up one person and do "push ups".

Here's how it looks up close.



And here's how it looks from afar when the whole lot of them are doing it.



Two of my housemates teach at St. Joe's, which has its homecoming game Friday night. The St. Joe fight song just happens to be exactly the same as the Notre Dame fight song, and three of the six housmates present were ND alum. So, when St. Joe scored and the band started playing the fight song, naturally they all decided we should do push ups. Being the smallest one present not wearing a skirt, and being totally game, I soon found myself the object of a lot of odd stares as my housemates threw me in the air nine and then twenty-five times (we missed a touchdown), counting as we went.

I am now truly and undeniably an Notre Dame student.

I Enjoy This Video

My reasons are several:

1) It's funny, objectively.
2) It's Notre Dame, of which I am now a student, so go Irish!
3) That kid, the leprechaun, is a year ahead of me in the ACE program and I played basketball against him yesterday. Well, let me rephrase that: I ran around the court like a headless chicken while he and his team ran circles around me and made baskets.

Bar Songs

Yeah, I said it.

I admit it, family. I go to bars.

I go to loud, crowded, gross, stifling bars, and I flail around like a fool.

Whew. Feels good to go public. Anyway.

In undergrad, I went rather infrequently because the crowd that frequented most of the bars in Delaware was not a crowd I wanted to be jammed into a tight space with. One of the beautiful things about the social side of ACE if that we all tend to go to the same places, so I can go, insert myself in a crowd of known, trusted, and not-creepy people, and dance like a fool, carefree.

These are just a few (I have a play list of more than twenty) of the songs that make the entire mob of people scream, sing along with full off-key voices, and dance like idiots. I will provide no explanation or justification. Make your own conclusions.

The Unofficial ACE 15 Song

We had a retreat in April that involved a scavenger hunt, and one of the clues was a lyric from this song. When we got here at the end of May, the same tune reared its festive head over and over during that first week -- people's cell phone ringers, karaoke, wedding receptions on campus, the dining hall, such on and so forth. It has become the unofficial anthem of the ACE 15 cohort.

Donuts

One year ago today. Newark, Delaware.

My roomie is all grown up and graduating soon!

Good job, Becky Face.

Trogdor

Towards the end of the summer of 2006, right before our senior year, one of Mark's friends gave him a duck for his birthday.

A real, live, flapping, quaking duck.


The logic of such a gift to a guy who lives in dorms where no animals are allowed (the students are destructive enough), to this day escapes me, but logic aside, Mark became the proud owner of a duck.

He named the duck Trogdor.


Trogdor lived contentedly in his crate in Mark's dorm room, at least until the RA and Mark's roommate both ran out of patience. The duck had to go, or Mark was out of the dorms and in debt (breaking dorm regs apparently carries fines).

Out of all of Mark's friends, guess which was the most responsible pushover who happened to live in a house, not a dorm or apartment?

Trogdor stayed with Bec, Megan, and I at out little house for a couple of months, stinking up my room and working his way into my heart. We spent hours on the patio, where he would sit on my feet until I tried to touch him, when he would run just out of my reach, then return to his perch.


Anyway. The point is, that's why I named my giant stuffed duck Trogdor the Great.

A Spectacular Backfire

I really don't go for people making a fuss about my birthday. This is especially true at school, where I neither expect nor want my coworkers and students to pay tribute to my entrance to the world. In the past, my strategy has been to be very elusive about when my birthday is, since if no one knows it's coming they can't do anything about it.

I employed the same method with my students this year. The problem, and what I didn't consider, is that when you intentionally withhold information -- especially personal information -- from middle schoolers, it just makes them that much more hell bent on finding out.

Thus, I've spent all year deflecting the question of how old I am and when my birthday is. It quickly became a game: trick Miss C. into giving up the big day! And I kind of enjoyed it. It was funny.

Then they discovered that each teacher has a list of the other teachers' birthdays. And some of the teachers have this list hanging somewhere. By about a month ago, I think half of the student body had the day committed to memory.

So my plan backfired. Big time. And I knew this yesterday when, as they always do at morning assembly, they asked who had a birthday and the entire fifth grade class said, "Miss C.'s birthday is tomoooooooroooooooow!"

Welp, so much for that.


The end result was actually really heart warming and morale boosting. My 7th graders made me a huge card, and a couple kids actually got me gifts. That's exactly what I was trying to avoid, but I couldn't help being tickled. Among the pile, a large stuffed duck I have christened Trogdor the Great.


The sisters also made quite the fuss. I hear they tried to go out last night to find me Boston cream donuts (my favorite) and, failing that, then drafted my partner teacher into stopping this morning to get me some. They gave me not one, but two lovely gifts, including a statue of Mary Help that will hold a prominent place in my home for a long time.


They sprung a cake on me at dinner, this after the lovely front office staff presented me with a homemade one this morning.


Finally, kudos to my parents for funnest and most clever gift of the year: a box with 23 more-or-less random gifts, including a recorder and a squirt gun. The family brilliant comes through again.

In summary: my grand scheme failed utterly, but this ranks among the top birthdays of my short little life. As usual, I can't complain.

The Time Change Got Me

Alarm goes off. Clock reads at 7 a.m.

I creep out of bed and proceed to get ready for mass across the street at the Provincial House.

Fully dressed, I glance at my phone.

Cell phone reads 8:15.

Mass started at 7:50 (Don't ask. They're nuns, they like to mix it up a little.)

Shoulders slump.

"Ugh."

Glance at as-yet-unmade bed.

"Hmm..."

Re-enter said bed, still fully dressed.



The cathedral has mass at 2. I'll go there.
And no, I didn't just get back out of bed. I joined the sisters for breakfast at 9, thank you very much.

Sympathy for Baby Cows and Cow Boys

I have been to my first rodeo, and just as I expected, it was pretty awesome.

"Pretty awesome". Just let that sink in. My artistry with words is just too much to take in all at once sometimes, I know.

What surprised me and impressed me was how fast these events happen. Some are timed then judged, and the riders have that famous eight seconds to show what they're made of. If they slip -- well, too bad. Likewise, some events happen as fast as the cowboys can make them happen, and for a lot of those eight seconds is a lot, so one teeny mistake means you're out of the running. I felt kinds bad for the guys who slipped up.

I liked the rodeo. I like that it's about bringing your "A game" and putting forth 100%. There's no holding anything in reserve. It's eight seconds to make or break you (or a bone).

I also felt kinda bad for the baby cows, but they all skipped off pretty happily at the end.

I confess, as an Air Force brat, and simply as an American, I enjoyed the unbridled patriotism. As a rabid Catholic, I liked that it started with a prayer. I can't think of the last non-church public event I went to that had that.

I also liked that it reinforced for me that I am, indeed, in Texas, which is the only place on earth I think you would find this:


Yes, folks, that bathroom sign is wearing a cowboy hat and spurs. Amazing? I think so.

Semi-seriously, the rodeo was better than I expected. One ticket got us onto the grounds (which had all the fun, food, and fanciful shows of a state fair with fewer screaming children), into the three hour rodeo, and the concert following. Not a bad way to spend the day.

Family: move here, and we can go next year. Hint...

My 2007 Retrospective

When Dad did his year in review, he carefully strung images and music together and added titles and effects to produce a lovely, relaxed, balanced, enjoyable piece. Well done, Dad.

Me? Due to my utter lack of good-decision-making ability and the ludicrous volume of pictures I took in 2007, I opted to go for complete sensory overload.

Here, in 362 pictures, is my year.

Dela-where?

I lived in Delaware for five years, which is sort of the longest I've ever lived anywhere (sort of -- I lived in western Washington state for five and a half years but went to four schools, which for a kid is more or less the same as moving cross country), and University of Delaware took and will forever hold the title of the school I went to the longest. Yet, somehow, I hold no particular affection for the First State. At all. I enjoyed it while I was there, especially Newark, but I don't get nostalgic about it.

I do, however, get quite nostalgic for the people in Delaware. Them, I miss. Lots. Tomorrow, I venture back to Newark for the first time since (I think) early August, which is the longest I've been away from Delaware since I moved there five and a half years ago. I'm excited, and anticipating weirdness.

Conveniently, Dad forwarded me this clever clip today. I got a hearty laugh from it, since I'm familiar with almost all of the things mentioned within. Then I got a little depressed that I lived in Delaware long enough for that to happen. Then I did the glass half full thing and was glad about that, since that's how I met all those awesome people.

Delaware deserves more credit than I give it. Well... no, it doesn't, but the people who live in Delaware deserve more credit than I can begin to get across. Those people are the living, breathing reason I'm all churchy and stuff now.

Anyway, video: