Speak For Once

I want to share one of my favorite poems - probably my most favorite poem.

I recently found it in a box of mementos from my past. I was introduced to this poem by a professor - the first professor I ever had. And he gave it to me (as well as the rest of our class) before our very first college final. Every time I come to it, I feel that it speaks to my core - the center of who I am. You could say that reading this poem reminds me of who I am. Enjoy.

"In the evening we shall be examined on love" (-St. John of the Cross)
And it won't be multiple choice,
though some of us would prefer it that way.
Neither will it be essay, which tempts us to run on
when we should be sticking to the point, if not together.
In the evening there shall be implications
our fear will change to complications. No cheating,
we'll be told, and we'll try to figure the cost of being true
to ourselves. In the evening when the sky has turned
that certain blue, blue of exam books, blue of no more
daily evasions, we shall climb the hill as the light empties
and park our tired bodies on a bench above the city
and try to fill in the blanks. And we won't be tested
like defendants on trial, cross-examined
till one of us breaks down, guilty as charged. No,
in the evening, after the day has refused to testify,
we shall be examined on love like students
who don't even recall signing up for the course
and now must take their orals, forced to speak for once
from the heart and not off the top of their heads.
And when the evening is over and it's late,
the student body asleep, even the great teachers
retired for the night, we shall stay up
and run back over the questions, each in out own way:
what's true, what's false, what unknown quantity
will balance the equation, what it would mean years from no
to look back and know
we did not fail.

-T. Centolella

Lessons on Flirting: aka Getting What You Want. How do I do that again?

How do you woo a city?

I love Austin. She's beautiful, young, hip, fresh, and affordable. She's got a great sound, a fun scene, and a beautiful landscape. Yet she does have one flaw... she doesn't love me back.

If I had to give the summer so far a theme, I would title it "Unrequited love: the sickness of loving that which will not love you back." I have found the place I want to be, but it doesn't seem this place wants me.

Since moving in May, I've probably applied to four jobs a week, give or take. How many have I heard back from? Two. How many have I received interviews for? One.

I have made great friends and have had a lot of fun, but can't seem to find the job necessary to keep the fun going - to make the money necessary to live.

So now I must resort to wooing the city. Call me arrogant, but I thought my love for Austin would be enough. I'm completely smitten. I'm happier than I've ever been in any location! I feel at home, like I could live here forever. But how come I haven't found a place for me yet? Why is Austin playing so hard to get? Has she been used and abused too much before? She is one of those popular girls - everyone loves her. Many come here hoping and dreaming to make it big....I wonder how many she turns away. I hope I'm not one of them, but it's the signal I'm starting to pick up on.

I recently traveled home to San Diego and had the most wonderful time I've ever had there. After my stay of 10 days, I can say that I was not ready to leave. Normally I can't take more than a week at home before I feel like I need to get out of there and back to my real "life." But this time when I left San Diego, I was sad, tired, almost in a haze. And when my plane landed in Austin, I felt that sense of rejection all over again, and longed for sunny soCal where my friends love me and want me there to hang out with, watch their babies, coach their basketball teams, and lead their youth at church. I wanted to be back in the arms of the city who loves me.

But aren't there more jobs out in the heartland? Isn't Austin one of the best cities for working young adults? Yes. But just because there are more jobs, doesn't necessarily mean I will acquire one of them.

So, I ask you, my fellow readers. How can I woo this city?

My friend Ted told me that I like to woo and have a history of wooing people. And to this I will say that's the Kelsie of the past. The Kelsie of the present likes to be wooed. I like to be chased, pursued, fought for. I tend to think that my love should be enough - an act of reciprocated feelings and devotion. So I'm rather out of my element here in Austin. How do I do this flirting thing again? How do I flash a bright smile, tilt my head, and ask the city where she likes to have fun? How do I find what she's looking for and show her I have even more than she desires: I have what she needs?

If you have any advice, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, this Kelsie might just be packing her bags and heading home to the good California lovin' that's emanating from the west.

And I have my life back now...

Hello faithful friends, fam, and random readers! I would like to announce that I finally have my life back.

Well, I guess technically I never lost it, but as you can see by the date of my last post, I have been off this thing for...well...wayy too long. A lot has changed since my last post, so here's a quick update:

I completed my internship - which I LOVED. I loved loved loved my cooperating teacher, the administration of the school, the other teachers and staff who helped mold me, and most of all I loved my students. The whole reason I want to teach middle school students is because I feel that so many adults underestimate them. They think middle schoolers are too young to understand the depths and complexities of human relationships, emotions, and conflicts. People often think middle schoolers are changing too much to retain any true knowledge, and are more concerned with their wardrobe than their character or future career. But I completely disagree, and after my internship, I know that those who think these things are wrong. My students thought on the level of college students. I'm not exaggerating, either. I was shown that no matter what age, literature tells the eternal truths of what it means to be a human, and as long as you are a human being, you can relate to it and understand its depths. On the contrary to what many educated folks might think, from my experience, I think that middle schoolers are actually MORE-abled to understand literature than adults, because they are more in-tune with their feelings and the conflicts of emotions in their relationships. Adults (even high schoolers) have trained themselves to ignore their feelings, or bury their feelings, in order to cope with the painful relationships they have in their lives. They are less likely to see what's really going on in a work of literature, because they have trained themselves to become blind to problems or their true feelings. Perhaps saying they have trained themselves is incorrect - perhaps more fitting is to say that they have lost their capability, the "use it or lose it" theory at work. Let me use a short story we read in our class this last semester to elaborate. In Avi's story "What Do Fish Have to Do With Anything?" there are cave-dwelling fish who are blind because they live in darkness. They are born with fully-functioning eyes, but over time the fish become blind simply because they do not use their eyes. Because they don't use their sight, they forget how to see.  I would say many adults tend to fall into this category, simply because they've chosen to forget their feelings, or the feelings of others, to preserve themselves. They choose forgetting to cope with their pain or confusion or anger. And they are fully justified, and even rightly so. I have trained myself to forget many painful experiences from my past. And I think that often that's what we must do to move on with our lives. "To forgive we must forget." Middle schoolers are on the brink of adulthood - they are experiencing relationships in ways they never have before, and their emotions are so new and raw they are the most powerful sensation they feel - they can't help but talk about them in relation to characters or scenarios. We had more powerful conversations in our 6th grade classroom this spring than I had in my college courses - simply because these students (these middle schoolers) are more in tune with their emotions within their complex relationships. Many are choosing whether to confess their feelings, or bury them for the first time - forming those habits. I want to teach English at the middle school level to provide a place where my students can learn to choose to confess, rather than bury their feelings. In dealing with the raw emotions, I hope for them to know themselves and work out a way to deal with their relationships. I want them to see their choice in the scheme of things, and navigate the waters of feeling, forgetting, forgiving, and then giving to others - giving what they want, when they want, to who they want. Learning how to be safe, be risky, be merciful.  Hell, it helps me understand how to do so better, too. To navigate the feelings and questions and concerns I have. Because honestly, does it ever change? I always come back to the statement I always tell everyone when they ask me why I want to teach middle school: simply put, life doesn't really change that much past middle school.

Continuing with the updates...

I am certified to teach English language arts, grades 6-12, by the state of Oklahoma, and am waiting on transcripts to apply for my Texas certification.

I have moved to AUSTIN, TX! (Well, technically I live in a town called Round Rock, about 15 miles north of the heart of the city, because this is where my roommate connection lives). I absolutely LOVE it here - love the city, love the fun things to do, love the people to hang out with. I am feeling that loneliness that accompanies any move - the ache of having a close friend who knows you well, supports and encourages you - someone you can just watch tv with or chat about your day with. Yet I know this loneliness will fade in time as I make more friends. Good friends don't come easily, nor quickly.

The only complaint I have about my life right now is that I don't have a job... All of those I love have been so encouraging, though. They tell me on average it takes a couple of months to find work. I have only been here in Austin for about three weeks, and I have friends who have been looking for a good job (full-time, with benefits, that they can actually use their degree for) since we graduated college in 2008. But still, I want to feel like I have a purpose here. You know, actually contributing to society through working - something I can take pride in, feel needed for. I guess right now though I need to realize most people my age are having a hard time... and it's our opportunity to develop patience, relationships, charity, and frugality. I try to take comfort in the fact that I'm not in this alone. But still, I wish I could be doing something with my days other than writing, reading, and exploring. I think if I don't find something soon, I might begin volunteering at a Presbyterian organization downtown that works with foster kids and families. They have educational tutors, and even though it's not school time, perhaps I can still help in some way. I'll let you all know what comes of my professional life as soon as something changes. There's a teaching job fair this Thursday, so I'm hoping to find something through that. I will be humble, and look at those who want/need me, rather then simply looking for what I want.

Until then...hope you all are enjoying your life the most that's possible. Hopefully I won't take too long to update again.

From the journal of a pre-service student teacher.

Here's a few things I have jotted down in my student teacher journal about what I have learned so far:

1.) I am a very task-oriented person. I teach direct and to the point – I don’t add in personal narratives, I don’t check for understanding, I don’t try to change what I say – I say what needs to be written down and remembered. The students are silent during my instruction, looking at me with wide eyes (unless I don’t know what I’m talking about, then they let me know that they’re lost and it's my fault).

2.) I will need to be strong and confident as a teacher - in my interactions with students and creating my curriculum, and also with parents. There are going to be parents who make excuses for their children, who want to bash the school and its teachers, and who are going to be down right rude. I need to stand up for myself, stand up for my position as a teacher, and stand up for the public school system.  And I also need people who will back me up – teachers and administrators. [I learned this from sitting in on a parent-teacher conference between the entire 6th grade core team of teachers, the 6th grade counselor, the 6th grade vice-principal, and the student with his mother.]

3.) Schools work much more smoothly when the staff work together to help the students. [Another realization I took with me after the parent-teacher conference.]

4.) I will be silenced in some ways as a teacher. [There are some things that could be said to a customer of a business that cannot be said to a student or parent of a public school, though both the business and the school are a SERVICE institution to the customer and student/parent.]

5.) I am already exhausted at the end of each day and I haven’t even started bringing assignments home for grading.

And as I sit here now reflecting over my student teaching experience (which has lasted a total of 1.5 weeks, since I am sitting at home today rather than in Mrs. Carlsen's classroom thanks to the ice storm), I think the biggest thing I feel at this moment is an affection for my students. I actually miss them today and wish I could be in class with them. I am finally learning most of their names, gaining their trust, and allowing myself to open up to them.

Even though they're 6th graders who might smell because they haven't developed a self-regulated sense of personal hygiene, or who are still completely enraptured in their own way of looking at the world (weather that be through the eyes of their sport hero, their comic book hero, or their new bff who stole their boyfriend last week), they have a sweetness about them and a hopeful imagination that still enjoys to discover the world around them. To them, the "adult world" is still new.  I have not met a single 6th grader in class who thinks they have everything figured out. Even the troublemaker bully in the class, who can manipulate adults and other students to like him, still finds things we talk about in class interesting and fascinating, and he wants to share his own personal story that (most often) has very little relevance to the topic of discussion.

These students are on the tail end of their childhood. Most of them are still kids, and they hold within them that innocence and wonder and amazement that only kids can have. Most of them will begin to lose their kiddish cuteness starting in the next few months to the next year. I know this for a fact as I have seen many of Billie's 6th graders from last year (current 7th graders) stop by her room to chat with her as they pass by on the way to the gym, or the cafeteria, or the bus, and I remember them from last spring when I observed Billie's class.  The current 7th grader they are today is a drastic shift from their cute, innocent, happy-go-lucky 6th grader self. Their faces have pimples, their voices have dropped, and the look in their eyes has a self-conscious glare. They have changed. 

And yes I know we are all, each one of us human beings, changing all the time. Our cells are regenerating (or for some of us not), our understanding and experience is re-shaping the way we think and approach life, and we are therefore becoming a "new" person all the time. But this change from 6th to 7th grade, the change from pre-pubescent to "adult" is a unique kind of change that is irreversible.

There is an innocence and wonder to childhood that I think we all can agree upon and nostalgically reflect on, feeling a sense of loss and pain while also joy at the same time. In our American culture, childhood is valuable and precious, and we protect it (almost for too long) in our youth. But the minute our bodies change, betraying our innocence and lack of "knowing better" we begin to be treated like adults who do "know better" and therefore should act accordingly. Secrets long held back from us are thrown in our faces, and often in our American culture, we are not given any sort of coping strategy or mechanism to deal with our changes (physical, emotional, and social) in a healthy way. We become, for the first time in our lives, aware of how the people around us perceive us, and we painfully experience how it differs from the way we perceive ourselves. We become awkward-looking on the outside, and begin to feel awkward about ourselves on the inside. 

And our innocence is lost. 

We shift from adventure and amazement and wonder to a desperate yet kamikaze-like survival mode - survive the PE class where the "big" kid's gonna pound on me, survive the lunch room where the "pretty" girl is going to undercut my social power and status, survive the classroom where I'm going to be asked to recall all the information and skills I have been drilled on and trained to perform from elementary school.  And every adult stands by and watches, not knowing how to help, offering only the advice of "this, too, shall pass."

I think one reason I find myself with such affection for my 6th graders is because I know there are only so many precious moments left with them as they are right now. Their childhood is coming to an end; they are growing up. And the world will never be the same for them.

So call me sentimental (all of my close friends will vouch that is a realistic characterization of me).  I am cherishing the final moments of my students' childhoods, and I can't imagine what they're going to face in the next few months to a year from now.  I hope I can somewhat prepare them for the slaughter of junior high that acts as our American rite of passage.

Goodbye, Freedom. I'll see you in four months.

Tomorrow I begin my slavery to the Public School System, more specifically to Whittier Middle School here in Norman, and most directly to Billie Carlsen and her 7 classes of sixth graders.

How do I feel? I am anxious and itching to start, primarily because I have been going stir crazy here for the past two weeks, stuck at home with no money, no work, few friends in town, and therefore not a whole lot to do. Mainly I'm really looking forward to being in the classroom every day, getting to know the students, and developing my teaching persona. After these next four months I will be officially certified to have my own classroom, full of my own students, steered by my own lesson plans - and that is the goal I have been working towards for the past two years here at OU. Lord willing, at the end of this internship I will be moving to Austin, acquiring a teaching job, and enjoying my favorite city with great friends (new and old). There are so many things to look forward to, and I see tomorrow as the catalyst that will bring all that I've been working for into the cosmic motion of fulfillment.

I know these four months will fly by, that I will most likely constantly be exhausted, that I will experience disappointing failures and frustrations more often than victorious triumphs and rewards.  I will be counting my pennies, probably using them to buy ramen at the local Homeland (grocery store, the only one in Norman other than Super Target or Super Wal-Mart). I'm sure I will laugh, cry, humiliate myself, somehow get in a fight with a student, and most definitely stick my foot in my mouth on numerous (NUMEROUS) occasions [I already do that on almost a daily basis with adults, why should I expect anything less with twelve year-olds?].

But overall, after all of the frustrations and humiliations I've experienced as both a study skills instructor at the Athletic Department and a substitute teacher at the secondary level, I'm still really looking forward to being a teacher. I really enjoy being around young people, giving them a space to speak their minds, and being alongside them as they experience certain emotions, circumstances, and thoughts for the first time. Most of all, I love seeing them grow - seeing their confidence shift from insecure and soft-spoken to self-assured and a willingness to be vulnerable. I love to see their minds thinking, and love even more seeing their hearts be stretched, pressed, twisted, yet beating with the greatest fragility and intensity humanity can offer.

When people ask me why I choose to work with middle school students, I tell them that I don't think life changes all that much after junior high, it's just that junior high is the first time we encounter the adult world, and therefore we are very shaky in knowing how to handle the situations we find ourselves in with friends, family, lovers, classmates, superiors, and our overall society as a whole. I enjoy working with junior highers because they are so diverse, and often can think much more deeply and genuinely about subjects than people think they can. They have so much potential - for both evil (straight up EVIL,  I will not lightly call it "bad") and good (sweetness, friendliness, fun, and kindness). They keep my hyperly over-active mind (which can often be very annoying to me at times) well-worked by constantly challenging it to new problems and situations. I love being able to come home each evening not having to find some sort of way to dull my mind so I can peacefully sleep at night - after a day at school all my mind can do is enjoy a good run and some inspirational prose or poetry, perhaps a nice conversation.

I'm not sure exactly where this semester will take me. I am pretty confident it will be nothing like anything I could ever possibly imagine at this point in time. My question to end on is, will my experience tomorrow be a foreshadowing of what the entire semester has in store? Time will only tell...

Tiny Fidelity

November has come and gone, 
December's nearly half-way through, 
and still I have not written 
an updated new post for you.
So I will sit in my chair, 
with my warm cup 'o joe
and tell you all 
what I've recently come to know:
Life is so precious, so short, so
beautiful.
Pursue humility, fidelity, and 
simplicity.
Seek not your own glory,
but rather the glory from above.
And most importantly,
surrender your life to a 
work 
   of 
     love.

I choose to always have some sort of devotional book I turn to randomly throughout my day, and the book I have been (re)reading recently is No Greater Love, a collection of Mother Teresa's wise sayings.


I became an admirer of Mother Teresa in high school after seeing a quote of hers on a peer counseling t-shirt at school: "If you judge others, you have no time to love them." 


After looking up more of her famous quotes, I came to believe following Christ is a generous, gentle, and humble enterprise.  Our leadership teams for FCA and First Priority took on another of Mother Teresa's sayings as one of our focuses in serving students: "I pay no attention to numbers; what matters is the people. I rely on one. There is only one: Jesus."


I bought No Greater Love when I was in college and read it prior to my service trip to Ukraine in the summer of 2006.  I loved it then and felt deeply convicted, moved, and challenged by it, but since returning home to the U.S. have simply kept it on my bookshelf.


I pulled it out this past month because I was feeling rather weak and insecure in my faith, and I had gone to a concert where the musician has stated, "God will never call you to something you can do without Him, but He will never call you to something he will not be with you in."  I had remembered from my first read of No Greater Love that Mother Teresa considered herself very small, little, and insignificant - and she believed this is why God used her in such powerful ways, because she was so weak.  It reminds me of the words of Paul: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me...For when I am weak, then I am strong."


Mother Teresa spoke so often of love, and her words are so tender.  Her mission was to show people love, and all she speaks of is loving Christ and loving the poor - the poor in love.  I have been most strikingly hit by her comments on fully giving ourselves to doing little things, giving so much of ourselves that we suffer pain.  She claims that all things are little, yet infinite to God.  I have been meditating on this idea and rereading these words of hers:


"Always be faithful in little things, for in them our strength lies. To God nothing is little. He cannot make anything small; they are infinite. Practice fidelity in the least things, not for their own sake, but for the sake of the great thing that is the will of God, and which I respect greatly.

Do not pursue spectacular deeds. We must deliberately renounce all desires to see the fruit of our labor, doing all we can as best we can, leaving the rest in the hands of God. What matters is the gift of your self, the degree of love that you put into each one of your actions.

Do not allow yourselves to be disheartened by any failure as long as you have done your best. Neither glory in your success, but refer all to God in deep thankfulness.

If you are discouraged, it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own powers. Never bother about people's opinions. Be humble and you will never be disturbed. The Lord has willed me where I am. He will offer a solution.


When we handle the sick and the needy we touch the suffering body of Christ and this touch will make us heroic; it will make us forget the repugnance and the natural tendencies in us. We need the eyes of deep faith to see Christ in the broken body and dirty clothes under which the most beautiful one among the sons of men hides. We shall need the hands of Christ to touch these bodies wounded by pain and suffering. Intense love does not measure -- it just gives" (30-31).


I have been most strongly struck by the words I have bolded.  I see that I have been down on myself lately and feeling frustrated or depressed because I am trying to do work from my own power, and I have been failing.  I have been focusing on the spectacular deeds and my inability to carry them out.  I have been forgetting that the life of a Christian is a life of humility that comes through humiliation.  If I serve Christ with all my heart, then nothing is to be wounded except for my pride, which must be not only wounded, but killed.  I feel convicted to stop measuring, and be generous in what I give, faithfully and humbly loving those in need.  


"In the evening we shall be judged by love" (Saint John of the Cross), and it won't be our spectacular deeds, but rather our dependency on Christ and his love that will save us.


So I am attempting to put this into practice, and give love rather than measure it, and gladly accept humiliation and weakness, and turn to Christ in faith and humility rather than to myself in shame and discouragement.


May we all practice this discipline of giving and experience a fulfilling life of love, which is itself joy: abundant with mercy, praise, and thanksgiving.

Help raise money for Camfed --->

I chose to place this "SocialVibe" ad on my blog to provide a really easy and fun way to raise money for a good cause.  Click on the bottom of the ad (where it says "click here") and write an encouraging note or funny short story (through an interactive game/tool) and raise money for Camfed, an organization that provides education to girls in Africa.  I just did two of them - they are fun!