Pour Myself a Cup of Ambition

Tags

Dolly Parton, first day of school, happiness, school memories, school pictures, teaching

Getting back into the swing of things has proved to be a little challenging. I love this blog, but it has definitely taken a back burner. But I think it’s safe to say that I am back with the pedal to the metal, raring to go.

The challenges of the past two weeks:

• Waking up at going to bed at a respectable hour.
• Leaving work at a decent time.
• Traffic, especially because of baseball and the Giants.
• Making time to exercise.
• Sore legs. This is ridiculous because I have been teaching for 11 years. But my poor feet and legs have been in flip flops or running shoes all summer, not high heels.

The glories of the past two weeks:

• Self-sufficient students. I swear to you, I ask them to do something and it’s done. Instantly.
• Awesome coworkers who were happy to see me back.
• Hyper-organization due to sharing a classroom with the french teacher.
• Warm classroom days in Palo Alto, fog-cooled nights in San Francisco.
• Being social with friends.
• Some, ahem, attention after returning a little slimmer and a little tanner.

I love the beginning of school. It reminds me of growing up. In fact, I love the Fall as well. Autumn clothes, autumn leaves, sharpened pencils. Everything clean and crisp and organized. Hopefully it will stay this way for at least a month!

In elementary school, all my friends and I went to the same hairdresser. Our moms were all friends, and each of us had matching Dorothy Hamill haircuts, lacy ankle

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You Know We Sang in the Sunshine, We Laughed Every Day

Tags

Dolly Parton, ee cummings, happiness, happy, life, mom, necklace, Raymond Carver, starfish, Stars, sunshine

I think about today’s songs, and the first word that comes to mind is “happy”. The songs aren’t always happy, but they are the songs that cause me to forget all inhibitions and sing along as loud as I feel. They’re chore songs, so to speak. I remember vacuuming my slanted summer rental in Boulder one summer after a bag of birdseed fell into the stove, and rolled everywhere. In our pajamas, my two roommates and I drank wine and vacuumed out the stove, all while we danced and sang to Diana Ross and the Supremes. Top of our lungs sang. What a release.

I have been focusing lately on what makes me happy. I got the cutest phone call from my nephew L tonight just to say hi. We laughed as I told him a joke. Phone calls and one-on-one time with my nephews and niece make me happy. Today, I picked up Cathedral by Raymond Carver, a collection I haven’t read in a long time. I love Carver, and his craft never fails to amaze me. I read while I munched on juicy cherries bought at the farmer’s market yesterday. My clean apartment feels good to lounge around in with the sun streaming in the windows. These little things make me happy.

And then there are stars. I have this thing with stars. Poems about the stars, drawings of stars, starfish, songs about the stars. You get the drift. My favorite ee cummings line is “a single star is uttered and I think of you”. This, like the songs today, like the