Cry Baby

I cry whenever I hear Les Mis music.

And this is how I feel about the challenge being over. It is that epic.

Complete

Finals are finished. Projects are done. I'm done with finals. Over, ended. And gone.

Thank goodness.

Classroom Management, Curriculum, and Challenge

Classroom Management Meeting with Miranda- Complete.

It wasn't that bad. I still have another semester to work on her. If I decide she is worth it... (I would also like to opinionize: yes you teach at BYU, but there are definitely times where you cannot claim inspiration or scriptural references as reasons for an action or lecture. It comes down to ethics-how things should be done, because it is the right thing to do. I've had several of these experiences lately and I'm tired of it. BYU is a school. Run by the church yes, but that doesn't give rights to those people who take advantage of the ability to say "the spirit prompted me to be a jerk"... That's all.)


Curriculum Project- Not even close to complete.

For my Curriculum class, which, incidentally has been a fantastic class, our final project is a huge curriculum Unit of Instruction. I don't know how to explain it other than it's a lot of writing. I had to choose a class that I would like to teach and make a course curriculum for it, and add a whole bunch of other things to it and voila! A Unit of Instruction...

Bad explanation, I know. But I've been working on it all semester, and the past couple weeks, and every time I sit down to work on it, I find more things that need to be included and fixed. Last week I was about 70% done with it. Today I feel I am about 45% done with it... It should be the other way around...


Challenge- one week to completion.

I am at a breaking point with this one. So far, I've had the self-control to be ok with one day of sugar a week. The first week was rough. But the rest were alright.

This week is awful. Every where I look there seems to be only sugar screaming at me to eat it. There may be an entire table of salads and yummy potatoes, but the cookies are demanding their attention. There may be the most amazing glazed ham with swiss-cheese on rolls, but the baklava is tantalizingly swimming in my vision. I stalk food blogs- including the food network- and everything is Christmas cookies.

So- here are my cravings (not only to eat, but just to bake- just to be able to make them without feeling like I've sinned....)
















I can't even look at grocery ads. In case you wanted to know- Stephen's Hot Chocolate is on sale at Macy's. Ice cream is on sale at Fresh Market (it's December...). Cinnamon glazed almonds, candy canes, crumb cake, and chocolate/yogurt covered pretzels are on sale at Sunflower Market. And you can buy brownie platters at Smith's.

It's all that my eyes want to see. One more week...

Courage

I think I have good reason to dread going to this final.

Let's call my teacher- the one who told me what she thought of me- Miranda. (Only because one of my favorite movies is The Devil Wears Prada and I would cry everyday if I worked for Miranda Priestly...) For Miranda's class, instead of a test or a project for the final, we have an interview. I go into her office, and she'll probably tell me more of what she thinks of me.

She called it "reproving with sharpness." Sometimes, she said, students need a wake-up call. I send out negative vibes... I keep remembering more little remarks she said over and over again...

It's difficult to say exactly what hurt the most with Miranda's lecture. A week after, there is still hurt confusion. Was it that I really looked up to this teacher? Was it because of how she said everything? I don't know. All I know is that I don't want to be what she thinks I am.

It makes me think of my first year on PAC. I came into the program as the clogger. That's all I did. So- way excited to be on PAC. I get to learn more, I get to perform more, I get to stretch my dancing abilities, right?

Wrong. Right from the get-go, I was the foot-work dancer. Large group numbers, of course they need bodies to fill in, so I was cast. But anything that involved moving your feet in fast rhythm, I was your girl. I did foot-work. I didn't do anything else. There was no growth, unless it was performance-wise. However, I don't feel that my first year was a complete waste. It was just hard to be typecast. My second year was much better. That is when I felt that I grew the most. It took me all the way to my last year to really feel that I was thought of as a dancer, not just a clogger.

And here I am, on my first year of PAC again...

Only it's with a teacher that thinks I'm awful. And I only have a semester to try to change it. (but is she worth all the effort I have to put in to making her opinion change? I think not, but that is a topic for a whole other post...)


Last note, thank you to those of you who think I'm nice. I think you all are nice too.

Disclaimer: This post is written in a very depressing vein. You are warned.



People think I'm mean. I've been told that.

People also think I'm elitist. I've been told that more than once.

Today, I went in to talk to one of my teachers. What followed was a conversation that was mostly one sided. She told me what she thought of me:

I am elitist.
I have no respect for authority.
I am irresponsible.
I expect special privileges.
I think I'm better than the rest of the class.
I am not a team player.
I think the art education program is a waste of time.

She is scared to let me become a teacher because I will be unapproachable. I will scare students because I am mean. I will scare students away from art, so they will never want to do it again. And I will bad mouth the art ed program once I am away. She isn't the only one who thinks this. She has talked to multiple teachers in the program, and they think the same thing.

She said every one of these things to me. Every single one was like a punch in the gut.

Needless to say, today wasn't the best of days.

a brief complaint

Colin said it so eloquently already, however, it's time for my complaining about life right now. I'll make it brief.

The hardest part about this week for me isn't that-
- I'm not missing sleep
- I'm not with friends complaining about rehearsals til 1am
- I'm not performing Hopak
- I'm not falling behind in school (well, that's actually not really true...)
- I'm not in Christmas Around the World

The hardest part of this week isn't even necessarily that we didn't choose to have this happen. It's difficult to describe the hurt that comes when you feel something is 100% right, and then it is taken away from you. However, that isn't the hard part.

The hard part is that I miss this:












I miss dancing with Colin. (like performing dancing. he pulls me into the kitchen every once in a while and we dance to whatever song is on pandora at the moment. that is happy.) I miss running around historical museums in costume. I miss having everyone point to you and want to take pictures with you because you are white and American. I miss putting on nasty make-up, putting in nasty hair, and frantically looking through your pile of costumes for that apron you're missing. I miss carrying around my 12 pairs of shoes necessary for rehearsal.

Oh my, I miss rehearsal! Now that is saying something. I miss the feeling of working hard on something that you can't quite get right. I miss the beads and the silks and the headpieces. I miss the lights, the stage and the nervous anxiety before a show. I miss wearing tights. I miss stretching after a long show while listening to Ron. I miss the bruises and the sweat, I miss the muscle rubs, I miss the sore tightness in every muscle in my body.


I thought this semester would get easier. It hasn't. But missing all those things isn't the hardest part. I miss dancing with Colin.

But I miss this more:



















Good luck Emily- you are beautiful. Dance hard.

For me.

Amen

All I can say, is ditto to Colin. Amen.