Commuter Life (AKA Traffic on Traffic on Traffic)

Twice daily, I cruise I-695, with my CDs riding shotgun.

And by "cruise," I mean "drive somewhere near the speed limit about 12% of the time and sit in horrendous traffic 88% of the time."

I spend a lot of time in the car these days. Since I leave my house by 6:45am, it typically takes about 25 minutes for me to get to my school. The way home can be rough, though. It can take anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour for me to get home from work.

And, man, do I get bored.

When I was a student, my options for in-car entertainment were limited: FM or AM. My 1991 Buick Regal had a faulty cassette player, and after it mangled three of the five cassettes I'd tracked down, I took the hint and stopped trying. Staticky radio it was.

Now that I have a car that's actually younger than me, the horizons of driver diversion have expanded exponentially. Not only have I tripled the number of radio presets available to me, I can play CDs (gasp) and even play music from my phone through Bluetooth (double gasp)!

I revel in the ability to listen to my CDs and Pandora stations, and typically alternate between the two in week-long phases. Currently, I'm on a neo-soul kick, featuring mainly Amy Winehouse, Fitz & the Tantrums, and the like.

Millenial that I am, I've tried many a podcast as well. But I have yet to find one that I can really get into.

Recently though, I rediscovered the wonder that is an audiobook.

When I was a kid and my family went on road trips, we listened almost exclusively to the Harry Potter series. It was pretty much the only thing we could agree on. Plus, we'd all read the books, so if one (or more) of us dozed off in the middle and missed a chapter or two, it wasn't a big deal.

It's crazy how lost you can get in a good book, even when you're driving. My commute flies by for the two or three weeks that an audiobook lasts me.

Here are a few of my recommendations for audiobooks, if you're interested:

1. The Harry Potter series. Obviously. Even if you've read them before, listening to them is a great experience. Jim Dale does a great job with all the voices throughout the series. 
2. Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella. I like a lot of Sophie Kinsella's books...they're light, easy reads, and they can be pretty hilarious at times. (The humor in her novels has been likened to that of the classic I Love Lucy, which y'all already know I'm a fan of.) This one is her first young adult novel, and actually one of the first audiobooks that I listened to "cold" (without having read the book first). It's about a teenage girl, Audrey, who, as a result of her anxiety, wears sunglasses constantly (it helps her avoid eye contact and feel safe). The cast of supporting characters are rather ridiculous, but in an authentic way. Plus, there's just something about having someone read to you in a British accent. 
3. Still Alice by Lisa Genova. This book is set in New England, and it's clear that the author (who reads her own book aloud to you) is also from that part of the country. Still, her accent is only a tad distracting, because the story itself is so compelling. It's told from the perspective of the title character, a Harvard professor diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. I don't want to spoil anything, in case any of y'all decide to read (or listen to) it, so I won't say much more. Definitely recommend this one, though. Lots of feels, and lots to think about.

I usually get audiobooks from the library in CD format; I haven't tried Audible myself, but I know you can download audiobooks in mp3 format with them if that's more your thing.

Been wanting to write this post for a while now, so my Christmas present to myself was actually setting aside some time to blog. Hope y'all enjoyed reading it.☺

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year if I don't post again before then!

Happy Holidays from my family to yours!

Lies I Tell My Students

Honesty is the best policy, right?

Wrong. If you work with children, you tell them whatever it takes to get through the day.

#1: "The principal is coming to watch YOU learn."

What I'm Really Saying: "She's here to watch me teach, so you'd better not act up."
Does it work? ...eh.

#2: "Yes, I'm grading this."

What I'm Really Saying: "Like I have time to grade every single little scrap of paper that you write on over the course of a school day. Do your work anyway."

#3: "We had a rough start to our day, but you did a great job of turning it around, so I'm going to give you back the recess you lost."

What I'm Really Saying: "It's a really nice day and I want to be outside. So even though you were horrible this morning, we're having recess."

#4: "I'm not going to repeat these instructions. Listen carefully so you will know what to do."

What I'm really saying: "I'm going to say these directions six times, but you still aren't going to listen to them, and then you're going to call across the room when I'm working with a small group that you don't know what to do. And then I'm going to lose it."

#5: "I don't listen to tattles."

What I'm Really Saying: "I'll listen to your tattle, because one time you told me that so-and-so said the S-word, and that S-word turned out to be 'stupid,' and I need a funny story to tell at happy hour later."

**If you know me at all, you know that this is all highly satirical. And yet, I feel obligated to say so because some people take things WAY too seriously. To those people, I say:

Alternate title for this post: Jess Goes Overboard with Teacher Memes.

I Lied.

Okay, so remember way back to a month ago, when I promised that I would be posting again soon? Well, "soon," it turns out, is a relative term.

The first five weeks of school have simultaneously flown by and dragged on. Noteworthy incidents include:

• A student cutting his own hair on the third day of school;
• Vomit (luckily into a trash can, but it was a close one);
• Finding out that one of my students knew literally ZERO English (and of course, I knew ever-so-slightly-more-than-ZERO Spanish);
• One student cussing out another student (who had told the first student that his hair looked like noodles);
• Two nosebleeds from two separate students on the same day (unrelated...I think);
• A decidedly failed experiment in which my students chose their own seats;
• And countless technical difficulties.

To sum it up, a rather eventful first month.

To say that I am tired would be a vast understatement. To say that I am frazzled would be an understatement of mythical proportions.

I mean, I knew that the first year of teaching would be tough, to say the least, but....the metaphor that I'm using at the moment is that I am just barely treading water. My head frequently dips below the surface, I feel like I'm drowning, and I'm going literally nowhere but somehow I'm still floating.

Too much negativity? I concur. I just had to get that off my chest.

And now for what I love about my job:

• The hugs that I started getting from my students on the second day of school.
• Math. (I hated it as a student, but I LOVE teaching it!)
• Writing positive post-it notes to my students (on a semi-regular basis) and watching their faces light up when they read them first thing in the morning.
• Posting teaching memes in the faculty bathroom. (And only one other person knows that it's me doing it...heeheehee.) This one got the most laughs:

• My classroom. It's chaotic, but it's my own personal disaster zone.
• STAR time (Students and Teachers All Reading) at the end of the day. I'm reading my class Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and even though it feels like nobody is listening sometimes, they always ask me at the end of each day whether we're reading Harry Potter today. 😊 Now if I could just get them as excited about the stuff in the curriculum, we'd be in business.

Anyway. That's it for now. It's about 3 hours past when I wanted to be in bed. Just wanted to let y'all know that I'm still alive.

Ish.

First-Day Thoughts From a Slightly Frazzled First-Year Teacher

Back by popular demand...it's your favorite travel-blogger-turned-working-schmuck!

What up blogiverse? It's been a while. (As my mom has repeatedly told me, both in person and in comments here.) Just so y'all know, I started like 7 different posts over the summer, none of which quite made it to the finish line. These will be turned into one giant mega-post in the not-too-distant future--I promise!--so stay tuned for that.

Anyway, here goes with a brain dump of the thoughts that crossed my mind over the course of my very first day as a full-time teacher:

Obligatory first day of school picture.

• I know I'm forgetting something.
• I can do this. I can do this. 
• Of course, I got a new student at 9:14 in the morning. There's still a full minute before the kids will be walking in the door.
• Damn, I got good at learning names!
• What am I forgetting?
• Those shoes are cute...wonder if they make them in my size? 
• When's lunch?
• Man, these kids can't stop talking. 
• Yes...lunch time!
• Crap, lunch is over already?
• Man, these kids really can't stop talking. 
• I know I'm forgetting something.
• Well, I hope everyone got on the right bus. 
• Wow, the day just flew by. 
• Wow, we got nothing done today.
• *big exhale* I made it. 

I was astonished to find that I actually wasn't that nervous. I mean, sure, I had a few first-day butterflies, but no panic whatsoever. I guess knowing that I was as prepared as I was going to be made it possible for me to just focus on my students when they arrived.

It probably also helped that I had my (many) mishaps when I was in Europe. At the apparent insistence of the universe, I learned that even when shit happens, I'll get through it.

A healthy attitude for a teacher to have, I guess.

The Camping Trip That Was, and a Flurry of Interviews

Around the time of the solstice, Evan and I kind of spontaneously went camping in Shenandoah National Park. I say "kind of" because Evan had been planning the trip for about a week and a half, but I had somehow missed the memo. Much scrambling to pack ensued as a result, but I managed not to forget anything major.

We got on the road right after work and--in spite of a pit stop for s'mores makings--found ourselves on Skyline Drive in time for the sunset, which was about as picturesque as it sounds.

Slightly less picturesque was our dinner that evening: canned soup eaten by the light from our headlamps. (By the time we got the tent set up, it was dark dark dark.)

It was pretty chilly up on the mountain, so we slept pretty well. So well, in fact, that we were unable to wrest ourselves from our sleeping bags until almost 9:00am. So much for getting an early start on our day of hiking. Since our early start was already shot entirely to heck, we decided we might as well linger over breakfast.

Breakfast of hiking champions.

We finally left the campsite around 10:30. After a brief stop to get a map from the ranger station--no cell service *gasp!*--we were on our way to Old Rag Mountain, one of my all-time favorite hikes. Thanks to my killer navigational skills, we made it there without any wrong turns or stopping to ask for directions.

Fresh-faced at the start of the hike!

Since it was a Thursday, we had the mountain pretty much to ourselves, aside from a family with several kids, one of whom swore up and down he'd seen a black bear. (In a disappointing turn of events, we saw no such bear. This will go down in history as the only time that I have visited Shenandoah without seeing at least one bear.)

As we approached the rock scramble to the summit, we were both dying a little bit (okay, a lot of bit). Apparently walking 10-plus miles around European cities for 4.5 months does not keep one in shape enough to climb a mountain. Who knew?

"Just leave me here."

Nevertheless, we persisted, and made it to the summit.

I'm occasionally capable of taking a decent picture. 

We wound our way back down, and made our triumphant return to the campsite. Evan pulled out all the stops when making dinner that night: crispy salmon with orzo and broccoli. It was one of those meals that I was halfway through before I thought to take a picture, so I'll have to just leave it up to your imagination.

We lounged by the fire after dinner, me making s'more after s'more while Evan made healthy life decisions.

No regrets.

After a little bit of stargazing, we crawled into the tent and were asleep within minutes. Of course, we woke right up a few hours later when the tent threatened to blow away.

It's so much harder to sleep through a tropical storm when there's only a thin layer of fabric between you and it.

We finally gave up trying to sleep around 6:00am, and, after fighting the gale-force winds to pack up the tent, decided that trying to cook breakfast would be more trouble than it was worth. So we put my navigational prowess to use once again, and headed towards home.

Our phones started buzzing shortly before a Wawa came into sight (the first sign of civilization!).

Evan immediately Googled "breakfast near me" and came up with Frost Diner, right across the intersection from the Wawa. The diner didn't look like much, inside or out, but we could tell from the seats packed with locals (even at 9:30am on a work day) that it was going to be good.

We each ordered a #4: three ginormous pancakes, three eggs, a pile of potatoes, and a side of bacon and sausage (both of which went to Evan).

Needless to say, we were stuffed. (Also needless to say, I forgot to take a picture before tearing into it.)

We made it back home before noon, and decided that it was a beautiful day to wash our cars. Of course, by the time Tuesday rolled around, my car was no longer sparkling clean.

What was significant about Tuesday, you ask? Well, that fateful Tuesday was the day that I had three (count 'em) job interviews lined up.

I'm getting really good at bragging about myself.

And now, two weeks (and five interviews) later, I have a full-time teaching job lined up for the fall! I'm going to be signing up for benefits and everything. #adulting

Third grade, here I come!

Hire Me! (Please?)

Guess what? Your favorite blogger has a summer job!

If you had asked me about a week ago what my summer plans were, my answer would've been "a whole lot of nothing." I wanted to enjoy my summer, dammit. But then I spent an entire Saturday doing absolutely nothing and realized that if I tried to spend the whole summer that way, I would be stir-freaking-crazy. Not to mention the fact that I would blow through what little savings I have managed to accumulate since coming home from Europe.

So I decided that I might want to be employed this summer after all.

First, I thought of jobs I'd previously held: the last two summers, I worked as a campus tour guide and answering phones in the admissions office at Towson. But since I'm no longer a student, neither of those is an option anymore. My next thought was returning to the daycare that I worked at for the two summers prior to the tour guide gig. But since I'll already be working with children nine months out of the year, doing so in the summer was extremely unappealing. And I've heard so many horror stories from friends who work in retail or restaurants that I had to rule those two sectors out as well.

I might be getting a job, but I'm not getting one that will make me miserable.

Around the time that I was brainstorming possible not-life-sucking summer jobs, Evan and I were planning to do the "treetop adventure" course where his sister works. Serendipitously (is that a word?), she mentioned that they were hiring. So I sent in my resume, and within five days, I was hired.

Trust me, I'm a professional.

I feel like I'm getting used to the whole interviewing thing. Which isn't to say that I don't still get nervous; of course I still get nervous. But it's no longer the debilitating, burst-into-tears-in-the-hallway-beforehand brand of nervousness. Now it's just a little bit of tension; once I actually start answering the interview questions, I'm actually fine. Fake-it-till-you-make-it: surprisingly effective!

As for my school-year job prospects: I've been on about eight or so interviews, but so far...nada. The typical timing for a new teacher getting hired is sometime in July. As in next month. As in five whole months after I sent in my application.

So. Much. Waiting.

I just want to know where I'm going to be and what grade I'm going to be teaching, that way I can start planning lessons, getting things for my classroom, and--oh, I don't know--figuring out where I'm going to live starting this fall. *sigh*

I know it's all going to work out. I'm not worried, per se...I just feel very in limbo at the moment, not having any of that figured out.

Hopefully the employment gods smile upon me soon.

What's the Opposite of a Green Thumb?

Answer: Jess's thumb.

My track record for gardening is rather grim: I kill pretty much every plant that I attempt to grow. Sometimes I forget to water them for days at a time, but usually what happens is I water them too much, worried that I forgot to water them the day before.

Cause of death: an excess of love.

Because you always want what you can't have, I want SO badly to be a successful gardener. I have this mental image of myself wearing a floppy straw hat and overalls, carrying baskets laden with homegrown fruits, veggies, and flowers as I walk barefoot through neat rows of flourishing plants.

I know. I'm ridiculous.

I think part of it is that I love productive hobbies. I took up knitting while I was traveling partially because it was something to do on all of the trains, buses, and planes I spent hours on, but also because I had something to show for it around Christmas time.

See the scarf my aunt is wearing? Yeah, I made that. (No big deal.)

Gardening is another one of those productive hobbies: you put in the work, you get yummy food and pretty flowers. Bam.

My great-grandfather had a substantial garden, which my grandparents and great-uncle still maintain. When I was younger, we would spend a few days there every summer, and we would be put to work, pulling weeds, watering, and harvesting the produce. Each night, we would eat the fruits (and vegetables) of our labors.

My family has a decent-sized backyard garden these days. More often than not, it's been kind of an overgrown mishmash of squash, bean, and tomato plants, all of which produce far more than we could ever eat by ourselves. We've also had a few incidents of accidental gardening: the seeds from something in the compost heap sprout in the garden, and the mystery plant thrives amidst all of the intentionally-cultivated plants.

To me, there's just something so appealing about growing your own food. You're so connected to the process: you know exactly what went into the food that you're eating. Fruits and vegetables from the grocery store are always a bit of a question mark in that respect.

Homegrown foods also just taste so much better than mass-produced, sat-on-a-truck-for-500-plus-miles, grocery-store produce. (Saving money is just an added bonus.)

So I'm giving this gardening thing another shot. I'm currently attempting to grow carrots, sunflowers, peppermint, spearmint, and wildflowers in my family's garden. The sunflowers are doing the best so far (they're fairly hardy plants, thank goodness), but the mint isn't doing too bad, either. The carrots, well...too soon to say.

Stay tuned to find out whether I can break the curse of the non-green-thumb! Feel free to share any gardening tips or stories that you have. ☺

Run, Jess, Run

Well, that was fun.

I can say that now, because I'm done. At the time that I was running, especially the last mile, "fun" probably would not have been my first choice of word to describe my 5k.

The morning dawned overcast and humid. It wasn't too hot, though--thanks for sparing me that much, Momma Nature. I got up at 6:00 to eat some eggs and toast (breakfast of champions!), and then went back to bed for another half hour or so of shuteye.

I arrived at the course at 7:45, thirty minutes before the start. Twenty minutes of that were spent in line for the bathroom (of course I forgot to go before I left the house), and then I did a quick little warm up and some stretching before taking my place at the start of the course.

Not having done a race in over two years, I kind of forgot how much of an effect the race-day vibe has. It was exciting! The music at the start, all of these people running together...it was great!

Here we go!

The first two miles were on level ground or downhill, so I was feeling pretty great. I was passing people pretty easily. My running app clocked my pace at 8:20/mile, which was a bit faster than I'd been aiming for--which I partially credit to race-day adrenaline--but since that pace was feeling good, I went with it.

I sort of regretted it when I started the final mile, which was ALL. UP. HILL.

I mean, on the one hand, I'm glad that I pushed the pace a bit when it was still feeling good, but maybe I should have saved a little bit more so I could tackle those hills. Instead of passing people, I started getting passed by a few.

By the last quarter mile, I was breathing none too quietly, and I'm sure my face was none too pretty. But as the finish line came into view, I decided that I was going to chase the guy about 25 yards ahead of me, and beat him to the finish. Which I did, before promptly flopping down on the grass in the shade of a large tree.

Post-race bagel: essential.

Evan met me at the finish and took on the role of my unofficial photographer as I got my race results, and my medal.

That's right, I got a medal.

1st in my age group (females 20-29), 8th out of 40 females overall, and 35th out of all 96 5k-ers.

Bam.

Time to start training for the next race!

T-Minus 2 Weeks to 5K

There are 6 days of school between me and summer...and two of them are half days. #icandothis

Thank you, small child. Never grow up to be a 5th grader. 

Teaching has kind of been my entire life for the last few weeks, hence the lack of new blog posts. (Sorry...I know you all LIVE for the witty, detailed accounts of my numerous and varied daring deeds.)

But now I'm training for a 5k, my first race in approximately forever, so I feel like I have something worth writing about again.

I've been trying to get back in shape ever since I got back from Europe. (Sure, I walked several miles a day while adventuring, but I also ate a LOT of croissants.)

For a while, my post-Europe exercise regimen was going well: I was hitting the gym at least 4 times a week, and I could feel my body slowly starting to return to its pre-macaroon fitness level.

But then I fell into a rut. My gym habit became more exercise routine than exercise regimen. If my progress were a geographical feature, it would have been a plateau. And all that was before I even started my job.

Corralling first through fifth graders into learning all day--on top of writing lesson plans and learning all the ins and outs of a new school--left me with very little energy by the end of the day, and the last thing that I wanted to do was hit the gym or go for a run.

All of these factors added up to a bit of an identity crisis for me; I've always been "the fitness nut." The freak who got up extra early before her 8AMs every morning to hit the campus gym the minute it opened at 6:30. The crazy who ran a half marathon and then drove 3 hours to play in a Kronum tournament. The nut who always took the stairs instead of the elevator, even when the elevator was right there.

The fact that I wasn't running six days a week, wasn't doing any strength workouts, wasn't doing yoga at all had me questioning whether "fitness" was still part of who I was.

Deep stuff.

So I got good deal on a Fitbit and headed off to the beach for Spring Break. And it helped: I got my butt out of my beach chair and took long, romantic walks along the beach at sunset...just me and my Fitbit.

Once I felt like I had an obligation to get up and move (those 10,000 steps aren't going to take themselves), I actually did it. The whole obligation thing also worked for soccer: I joined two teams, which gave me a social obligation to show up (can't let the team down), as well as a financial one (I paid $60 bucks for this league...I HAVE to go to the games). Not to mention, soccer is more fun than weightlifting.

Still, something was missing. So I applied the obligation tactic to running and signed myself up for a 5k, my first race in almost three years. I even coerced Evan into signing up too. Then he (conveniently?) broke his toe last week, so there goes my running buddy.

Running became part of my identity about eight years ago. I started running in high school, at first just to get in shape/stay in shape for soccer. But then I joined the track team my sophomore year, and I was hooked. I found myself running extra miles after games and practices during the soccer season, that way I would stay in racing shape for the next track season. (And yes, my soccer teammates gave me crap for that. Every. Single. Time. Yay, petty high school drama!)

I attempted almost every event a track meet has to offer (including long jump, to disastrous results) before I settled in as a mid-distance runner, usually running the 2nd or 3rd leg of the 4x800 relay. But once I went off to college, I--inspired by my fellow running addict and best friend--decided that I wanted to run a marathon. I started by training for the Iron Girl half marathon, and then forked over $90 to register for the Baltimore Marathon in the October of my sophomore year of college.

On the morning of the race, I got up at 5:00am, Sharpie-tattooed my mom's cell number on my arm (just in case I collapsed mid-race), and headed for M&T Bank Stadium, where the race would begin.

Silly pre-marathon Jess. So much pain ahead of you.

The 26.2 miles are a hellish blur in my memory, but a few details stand out: seeing my mom at the halfway marker (luckily I was still able to smile and wave at that point, because she snapped a picture); stopping by the water stop at mile 20, which supplied runners with Baltimore's favorite beer (Natty Boh), and tears of pain streaming down my face as I ran over that colorful bridge by MICA (the sight of which makes me flinch to this day). I have a vague memory of running the last .2 miles through Camden Yards, and crossing the finish line with legs that I could no longer feel.

Halfway there!

I don't think the post-race pictures of me with my tinfoil blanket and my medal quite capture the sheer exhaustion--both mental and physical--that I was feeling. The pride doesn't show either...that came later, after my 5-hour-long recovery nap.

The last race that I ran was another half marathon the following spring (the one that I finished and then road-tripped to New Jersey for a Kronum tournament, nut that I was). Since then, I haven't raced, but I kept running fairly regularly, and I still hit the gym up until I graduated last spring.

Going to Europe shook up my whole life (which was kind of the point). But it meant that when I got back to the States, getting fit was a struggle. So I'm excited to be finally getting back into it (tough as it is).

Any fitness tips? Recommendations for yoga videos? (That's next on my to-do list.)

Thoughts on Adulthood

So no one told me life was gonna be this way...

Now that I'm settling into what I suppose you could call "being a grown-up," I find that I have a lot less time to think, or at least to fully work through the thoughts that I have. So that's what I'm going to take a minute to do now.

Bear with me and this brain-dump of a post.

• Money is very abstract. Especially when you bank entirely online and pay primarily with credit/debit cards. Suddenly you look at your account statement and go: I spent how much now? It's so much easier to keep track of how much you're actually spending when you pay with cold, hard cash. 
• On a somewhat related note, why can't the US just get with the program and have chip readers everywhere? I can't get it right! I try the chip reader, they tell me to swipe; I try to swipe, and they tell me to use the chip reader. UGH.
• No one loves their job 100% of the time. And that's tough for me to accept. It's not just that some days are more challenging--challenging is fine. When my day is challenging, I feel rewarded and accomplished at the end of it. It's the days when I get home and I'm just so completely drained--mentally, physically, and emotionally--and the last thing I want to do is get ready for another day tomorrow...after several months of doing whatever the heck I wanted in Europe, it's especially rough having days (rare as they are) when I basically hate everything ever. 
• Since getting home from my trip, though, I find myself going out and actually doing things more often than I did before going to Europe...I guess I just got used to doing so much cool/fun stuff every day that it's become something of a habit. (Which is GREAT.)

Throwback to awesome things that I did in Europe.

• I hate other drivers. I used to think that Virginia drivers were terrible, but now I realize that it's actually just everybody. Turn signal? Speed limit? What are those??
• I am a sayer of "yes." As in, whenever anybody (especially at work) asks a favor of me, I say yes. I want to be agreeable, I want to be helpful, but at a certain point, I need to realize that saying yes to everything means that nothing will be done as well as it should be (or if it is, I'll certainly be worse for wear as a result).
• Having a new (well, 2015) car is amazing. All the fancy features are great--hello, back-up camera and Bluetooth connection!--but it's especially nice not having to worry whether I'm going to make it to Point B from Point A, and how long I can put off the next expensive but extremely necessary repair. (RIP Babs)

• Adulthood is a constant state of simultaneously needing to do things that you don't particularly want to do and daydreaming about what you would be doing if you won the lottery and never had to go to work again. 
• Adulthood is also realizing just how messed up this world is and just how daunting, discouraging, and difficult it is to make any sort of progress toward fixing it. 
• It is very hard to say no to my inner child. She keeps tugging my sleeve, saying things like, "We should eat ALL of the ice cream RIGHT NOW!" and, "This Fart Blaster is AMAZING! We NEED it!" And I have to say things like, "No, we'll get a tummyache if we eat all of it, plus also we'll get fat," and, "It's too expensive; we don't have the money for that right now." Basically, I'm no fun anymore. 

So there ya go...consider my brain officially dumped. (Thank the universe the weekend starts now.)

Anyone else have these thoughts? Any advice for a rookie adult?

Spring Break!

The week leading up to Easter was my first Spring Break as a full-time employee, and let me just say that it arrived in the nick of time.

The closer we got to Spring Break, the crazier my students got, making me even crazier in turn. All of this added up to making Friday the 7th felt more like Friday the 13th. At least until the O's game.

By this time, I was also feeling the itch to travel again--it's true what they say: once the travel bug bites, you're infected for life.

However, being still somewhat broke from my big Euro trip, I decided that a low-budget road trip was in order. I hit the library to stock up on audiobooks and beach reads and plotted a course for a small North Carolina beach town called Kill Devil Hills.

I'd chosen it for its relative lack of popularity, because city beaches are typically far too crowded for my introverted taste. I got up for the sunrise each morning, parked myself in a beach chair, and lounged by the water all day, taking nap breaks in between novels.

What the beach looks like at sunrise.

What I look like at sunrise.

It was a blissfully uneventful four days, and by the time it was over, I was recharged and ready to be around other humans again.

The five-hour drive to Greensboro flew by, and I was soon in the company of one of my favorite dogs (and her human).

We were craving pizza for dinner, and since we'd gone to Sticks & Stones the last time I visited Greensboro, Syd and Brian decided to introduce me to what they insisted was a North Carolina institution: Mellow Mushroom. (It turns out that the chain actually started in Atlanta, and there's even one in Maryland, but that's beside the point.)

The pizza was amazing, the beer was a revelation (it was called Bitter Unicorn Tears, for crying out loud), and the company of Syd's friends--fresh from a spelling bee at a nearby bar--was delightful. (Side note: spelling bees need to be a thing at bars everywhere. I'd totally be down to switch it up from trivia night every once in a while.)

After polishing off the pizza, we moseyed on over to a local brewery called Gibb's, a magical place with $5 brews, friendly bartenders, and Christmas-lit outdoor seating. Our night ended with bad dancing to even worse karaoke.

We laid low on Friday, with aspirations to go for a hike giving way in favor of laying in the sun and drinking coffee. Syd's cousins, Lee and Margs, arrived that evening, and we made a smorgasbord of fajitas (and maybe a blender or two of margaritas to go with).

The sun rose bright and early Saturday morning, and--in spite of our late-night Coldstone run--we weren't too far behind. We got on the road back to Maryland, the boys and Rue in Brian's Hyundai, and me, Syd, and Margs in my car. It was probably best we divided that way; we ladies ended up belting out Taylor Swift for most of the drive.

Except for when that turkey ran in front of the car in Middle-of-Nowhere, VA.

Luckily, no animals were harmed in the making of this blog post. (I braked in time for the turkey.)

Hello, Rat Race.

Yup. Your favorite blogger is now officially employed as a long-term substitute. My life now rotates around planning lessons for small (and not-so-small) children. And going on interviews for a permanent teaching job for next year. And making payments on my car loan.

Incredibly exciting stuff, I know.

Pretty much.

(Almost) everything is going according to post-Europe plan. Job, check. Car, check. Whole30...not so much. Oops.

Here's how it happened. After a couple of weeks of applications and interviews in various school districts, followed by a week or so of radio silence, I rather rashly accepted the first job I was offered (which I think is a fairly normal thing for a recent college grad to do), and promptly had a panic attack (also a normal thing for a recent college grad to do?). 

To be honest, it's been kind of overwhelming: I'm the substitute librarian at my school, which means that I have to learn the name of every single student in the school. I have to teach teeny, wiggly little first-graders, surly fifth-graders whom I have to look up at to look in the eye, and everything in between. I have to shelve the books, which despite my best efforts end up in the wrong places, facing backwards on the shelves, their pages bent with almost origami-like technique.

I knew that jumping in in the middle of a school year would be rough, but it's even more so in a job that I'm not technically qualified for. The teaching stuff I've got down, it's the extra librarian piece that is proving more difficult. Ain't nobody got certification for that.

But I'm also excited that I took the chance to do something a little bit different. I wouldn't ordinarily be able to be a librarian with my current teaching certificate, so, even though it's tough, and I'm learning that it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life, it's a new experience for me. And if nothing else, this experience is confirming my belief that I want to teach second grade. (AKA not fifth.)

So, you know. I backpacked around Europe and learned how to take chances. Not a cliché at all.

And now it's Spring Break and I'm finally getting around to writing a blog post about a job that I got a month and a half ago. Working full-time means my days just fly by, and suddenly I realize, holy moly, I was in Ireland three months ago.

And, yes, I am still talking about it.

Taking Steps Toward Zero Waste

When I was in England in December, I found myself wandering into a lot of bookstores. By that point in my trip, I had read all of the books I'd brought with me several times each and was in desperate need of a new read. It was comforting to once again browse through a bookstore where the books were actually in my language.

At a bookshop in London, I came across a book called Zero Waste Home. This book totally struck a chord within me, and--after standing in the store reading it for a good twenty minutes--I had to buy it.

Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson

For those of you who have never heard of the zero-waste movement, it's exactly what it sounds like. You basically minimize the amount of garbage that you produce, with the goal of working it down to no garbage produced.

Sounds pretty extreme, and I have to admit that zero-waste seems like a pretty high bar to meet. But I've begun to notice just how much garbage a single human produces in a single day.

According to the EPA--yes, Mr. President, we actually DO need this federal agency and it would be great if you didn't try to annihilate it--in 2014, the average American generated about 4.43 pounds of garbage per day. That means that each person living in the US of A makes 1,618 pounds of grabage per year, for an annual grand total of 258 million tons of American garbage!

As a result of this personal awakening, I have personally been striving to reduce my negative impact on the planet, more so lately than ever before. But I was never really sure how to go about it. I mean, I've always been a recycler. But zero-waste goes way deeper than recycling.

The strategies for reducing waste can be grouped into five broad categories, nicknamed the 5Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rot (and only in that order).

Today, I'm just going to focus on that first one: Refuse.

Refuse means saying "no" to things that you don't need. Sounds pretty easy, right?

But it's hard to say no to free pens, free samples, free notepads. It's hard to tell the cashier, "I don't need a bag," after they've already started loading your items into a plastic grocery bag. It's hard to call the junk mail companies up and tell them to take you off their mailing list.

But if you don't genuinely need those things, they're just going to clutter up your car, your house, your office, and end up in the garbage eventually anyway. So just say "no." 

Saying "no" also decreases the demand for those cheap pens, those plastic bags, those promotional postcards, which means that fewer will be made in the first place. 

Those plastic bags suck anyway.

So my challenge to you, dear reader, is to take a moment--right here, right now--to think of some opportunities in your near future when you might be offered free stuff. And then visualize yourself saying "no, thanks." Sounds very cheesy, I know, but if you think about it ahead of time, you're less likely to automatically accept those freebies when they are flung your way. 

I seriously recommend that you get your hands on a copy of Zero Waste Home yourself. (You can borrow mine, if you want.) It's full of all kinds of tips and tricks.

And if you have any questions about zero-waste, leave them in the comments. I'm just beginning to embark on this zero-waste endeavor, and I'd love to know that I'm helping others to do the same. 

I'm not asking you to drastically change your lifestyle in one fell swoop. I'm just asking you to take these baby steps with me. If a lot of people each make a little change, it adds up to a big impact. 

About Me - 2017

Welcome to my blog!

I'm Jess, and I'll be your author for the duration of this journey. Please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times. Exits are located at the front, at the rear, and on either side of row 14.

A little bit about me: I am an elementary school teacher in the Baltimore area, and in my spare time, I love going new places and trying new things!

I got started blogging in 2016 when I backpacked around Europe for 4 and 1/2 months. Since I got back, I've been more of a weekend adventurer/day tripper, but I've been using my school breaks to really indulge my travel bug. 

I'm a dog person, a lover of large cups of coffee, and a recovering Type-A personality. 

I hope you like reading my blog, but even if you don't, I'm going to keep writing it! If you do like it, though, please let me know by commenting. ☺

Trivia Nights and the Camping Trip That Wasn't

I've always been a bit of a sucker for trivia. I was one of those weird kids that watched Jeopardy every evening and did the Washington Post crossword puzzle with my dad. I still am one of those kids, if I'm honest.

On any given Thursday night during my college years, I could be found sharing a table with four friends (y'all know who you are), spouting random factoids in the hope of winning a gift card and a witty t-shirt.

Well, two Thursdays ago, I made my trivia comeback: Rachael, Taylor, Evan, and I went to Homeslyce, a Baltimore-based pizza chain, for their trivia night. It was my first night in Baltimore since my Europe trip, and it was well worth the wait. The pizza was good, the beer was better, and our fifth-from-the-bottom finish was something we were not at all ashamed of. I was especially proud of my performance in the '80s movies category. (Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago, anyone?)

The debut of The Rookies Rollin' Up
(great team name, we know)

Since the weather was freakishly un-February-like, Evan's and my plans for the following evening included a one-night camping trip. We loaded up Evan's new CR-V with camping supplies, and as we were about to walk out the door, Evan pulled out his phone to make a game-time decision as to where we were going to camp that night.

As it turned out, we weren't going to camp anywhere. Because even though the weather screamed May, the calendar steadfastly insisted that it was February, so the campgrounds at the local state parks weren't open yet.

So we unloaded the camping supplies and invited friends over to a bonfire in Evan's backyard instead. We couldn't let perfectly good s'mores makings go to waste, now could we?

After we'd stuffed our faces with marshmallow-y, chocolate-y, graham-cracker-y goodness, we moseyed on over to our friend Brad's house, a few backyards over, to make use of his hot tub. Because if you can't go camping, a hot tub is the next best thing.

The next morning--instead of the camp-stove-cooked pancakes that we'd originally planned as our Saturday-morning breakfast--we went to The Original Pancake House in Rockville. Evan had been telling me for months that I had to go there for breakfast, so we finally made it happen. I ordered strawberry pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns (duh), and coffee (double duh), before making my trademark mistake: forgetting to take a picture of my food before I scarfed it down.

I bought this card in Edinburgh because it basically summed up my travels.

So you'll just have to take my word for it: it was all pretty dang tasty.

Monday night found most of the usual suspects at Pub Dog, which we had recently discovered also has trivia night.

We tried our hand at shuffleboard in between rounds, and--despite a little bit of self-sabotage *coughcough* Outlander *coughcough*--we managed to place third, scoring a $10 Pub Dog gift card! I credit my parents with the victory. We had no clue what that Duran Duran song was, nor did we realize that Hagrid had been a Bond villain.

Yep, I'm the cool kid who brought her parents to trivia night.

Oh, and I bought a car!

#adulting

See? I can still do fun stuff without traveling the world.

But dang, do I miss those croissants.

Whole30 Failure and a Road Trip

So, remember how I was doing the Whole30?

Yeah...that didn't work out.

It was off to a good start: on day one, I ate a bunch of veggies, some eggs, and drank lots of water. I drank my coffee black, too, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. All in all, I went to bed the first night feeling super virtuous and healthy. This Whole30 business was no big deal.

By 11:00 the next morning, though, I was HANGRY. The struggle with being a pescatarian on the Whole30 is that your protein is either eggs or fish. I was pretty much over eggs (having eaten them for breakfast almost every day before starting the Whole30), and we all know that seafood is not exactly a budget option. Since I have basically no income at the moment, I was missing out on my protein, which is SO not the point of the Whole30. Still, I was determined not to be a quitter on only Day 2.

But that night, I went out with some friends to a local brewery. I ordered a water (ignoring the incredulous look from the bartender), and tried very hard not to be jealous of my friends, each of whom had a craft beer in hand. This feat was made far more difficult by the fact that the smell of beer a-brewing less than 20 feet from where I was standing. The straw that broke this camel's back, though, was a pizza commercial on the bar's TV. Game over. I ordered a taproom blend and toasted my failure before our little group headed to our favorite beer and pizza place.

In hindsight, who the heck starts the Whole30 three days before the Superbowl anyway?

I put the Whole30 experiment in my rearview mirror (for now) and focused on my upcoming job interview.

That's right. I'm making moves towards employment. #adulting

In between substituting as a preschool teacher and masquerading as my sister so that I could use her gym membership, I purchased my first pantsuit and dusted off my lesson plans, hoping to be somewhat prepared and presentable by Friday at 10:30am.

When I was waiting in the hallway for my name to be called, the HR lady asked me point-blank if it was my first interview, because I looked so nervous. I--feeling rather stupid--confessed that it was. But you know what's great about the education industry? Everyone genuinely wants to see everyone succeed. The HR lady and my interviewer were both incredibly nice, and made me feel as comfortable as I possibly could, given that it was my first real interview.

So with a huge sigh of relief, I hopped in the car after my interview and made a beeline for North Carolina. Evan and I were headed to visit my bestest friend in the whole wide world, whom I hadn't seen since before I left for Europe. Nothing eventful happened on the five-and-a-half-hour drive down, aside from some quality Snapchatting.

Classic.

We arrived in Greensboro just in time to walk in the freakishly springlike weather to dinner at the local Filling Station, where I had a pretty darn tasty veggie burger, made with garbanzo beans, spinach, sprouts, and some sort of yogurt sauce. As per usual, I forgot to take a picture before I started eating. But I did get a picture with my bestie, and that's what really counts.

For dessert, we hit up that finest of Southern establishments, Cook Out, for some of their famous shakes. Mine was a mint-Oreo concoction that was well up to the challenge of satiating my sweet tooth. There may have been some hushpuppies involved as well.

We kicked off our Saturday with a trip to the local bakery for some coffee (iced!) and muffins. I had a pumpkin-chocolate chip one, which satisfied my craving for all the pumpkin-y things I'd missed by spending the autumn in Europe.

In the afternoon, Syd and I went for a hike at the nearby lake, to take advantage of the completely un-February-like weather. After several hours of enjoying the sunshine, we were pretty hungry, so we headed to a farm-to-table pizza place. After we all shared the rosemary-olive oil french fries and sweet potato fries, I ordered the Avalanche, a margherita pizza that was drizzled with truffle oil (though apparently my palate isn't sophisticated enough to detect that sort of thing).

I may be a Whole30 failure, but at least I had a salad. 

I have to say, it was all pretty darn tasty. As was the cheesecake we had for dessert from Greensboro's famous Alex's Cheesecakes. (Kahlua and espresso flavored, with a mochaccino on the side, but I once again forgot to document it with a picture. Par for the course.)

Sunday morning brought us lazy hours of drinking coffee, plus some crafty vibes.

We managed to keep Rue out of the paint until the very end. 

We also wandered around downtown Greensboro, checking out a bookstore/coffee shop and a pretty nifty vintage shop, where I scored these sweet socks: 

My new favorites!

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend. 

Time to start planning the next adventure!

Plus, you know, write about Cardiff and Ireland and all that. *sigh* Someday I'll do it.