It's My Birfday!

No. Corner pieces EVERYDAY!

Hippo Birdie

It's my birthday eve! I like birthdays, I don't know why. Sometimes it's just nice to have an excuse to make a fuss. Don't get me wrong, I don't need much of an excuse to make a fuss over people on an average day. But I like birthday frippery - cake, balloons, cake, party hats, cake, ribbons, cake, confetti, cake. Oh! And it's a perfect excuse to make cake! If there's one thing that I can't wait for when I have kids, it's throwing boss birthday parties.

It's finally my golden birthday. 31 on the 31st. Latest possible one.

Do kids still have birthday parties at McDonalds? I remember so many parties there, at Putt-Putt (including my Sweet 16th - ha ha!), at ice cream parlors, at roller rinks. I wonder whether the outsourced birthday party is still in vogue.

Graduation

Congratulations, Class of 2007.

I knew at least a year ago that I was going to be a wreck at graduation this weekend. And that sense of dread only got worse as this year went on. Students I've known since my first day, including a few to whom I grew quite close, finished their high school career and stepped out into the Real World on Saturday. I (kindly) got called a crybaby, but I wasn't crying out of sadness. Sure, there's inherent sadness in knowing that I will never see some students ever again as they scatter - quite literally - to the ends of the earth. But my tears were mostly from an overwhelming overflow of emotion: pride, reciprocal gratitude, and most of all, love.

When I accepted my job, I was told that teaching was a lifestyle, not a career, but I never expected to get so attached. Consider my models. I had good relationships with my teachers when I was in high school, but none so significant and influential as the ones students have cultivated with me. Times are different, families are different, and it is a boarding school, after all. Students here are so much more than faces in my classroom; the school is their home and they seek out parental figures, despite how much they may claim the contrary.

I'm an only child, but my father claims to have hundreds of daughters. It's not as sketchy as it sounds! He has been a softball coach for years. I more fully understand his sentiment. Even though I have no children of my own yet, I have hundreds of sons and daughters. The protectiveness over them, the fear from not hearing from them, the worry that they're making wise decisions, the joy in their success - it's all what I presume I'll feel as a parent of my own children some day. Just five thousand times stronger, I suspect, because I feel this for kids I've only known for a year, maybe two! I can't imagine what it's like when it's your own flesh and blood. So I'm thankful for the training-wheels experience with these kids. Additionally, it's been helpful to see the hard work required to properly bring up a child. It's so easy for things to go wrong. Deciding to have a child is easy - it's just the biology of conception and birth. Committing to raise that child for 20+ years is not a decision that can be taken lightly - the responsibility is immense! Is it any wonder I'm shy about it?

I don't expect students to be so thankful, either. My yearbook and bulletin boards are covered in love notes from students. It's my prayer that I'm doing exactly what God entrusts to me and doing it well. I try not to seek validation from people; the recognition that truly matters will come from Him. He gives me tastes of it from time to time through students. So when they express their gratitude for what I do for them, I'm actually caught off-guard, and it carries a lot of meaning. They see more than we think they do. (But the converse is also true. We see more than they think we do, too.) And I'm grateful for the effect they have on my life, as well.

Congratulations, again. I wish you nothing but the best. Stay in touch. And don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Just Plane Silly

Scurry away, planes! Scurry away from the Big Bad Thunderstorms!
...
Okay, it's clear, you can come back now.




ATTN REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

With a headline like this, I want *bees in the cockpit*. Don't toy with me.

Swarm of bees forces passenger plane to land



On the topic of planes, here's something I thought of recently, while on a plane at night, looking down at twinkling glittery cities:

What must the earth have looked like from a plane at night before electricity?

I almost immediately dismissed this as a Silly-Girl! thought (duh, Jen, if there's no electricity, there's probably not airplanes). But then I indulged myself. Take God, for example. I mean, He pretty much had the monopoly on views until planes were invented. He got to see the Before and After. I wonder whether He was thinking, "Gee, I can't wait until they figure out electricity, because it's going to make one side of the planet look way more interesting." And that led me to think about what else He can't wait for us to discover or for Him to reveal to us. Airplanes, even. Maybe He was thinking, "check this out - you guys are going to love this view!" But right now - what's He thinking, "Oh, man, it's going to be awesome when they figure ______ out!" about?

Word Up

I love words. Always have. Call me a nerd, but I subscribe to dictionary.com's word-of-the-day e-mails and now OED's word-of-the-day, primarily for the etymologies.

Anyhow, here are lists of words that I've collected for a variety of reasons. Some of my favorite words I like for their meanings, others I like for their sound.

My Favorite Words

defenestration
December
clandestine
fortuitous
pomegranate
nefarious
preclude
reticent
transcendent
ephemeral
turpentine
schadenfreude
surreptitious
apocryphal
inclement
complacency
prurient
interstitial

My Favorite Phrases

"phoning it in"
"sabre-rattling"
"neither confirm nor deny"
"attendant risks"

Inherently Funny Words

banana (I can't stop typing it once I start)
aardvark
pants
pickle
abalone
gubernatorial

Playskool's My First Blog!

Okay. So. I have a blog.

Here's my staggeringly profound first post.