Uncategorized

Still Alive

Posted on by noemikjames / 3 Comments

The beginning of the school year is always busy and stressful for me, as both a teacher and parent. This year was especially so. This last week I had three Back to School Nights in a row and today I am done. Just done.

I want so badly to come back here and to write, but I struggle to get inspired. There are topics I think it would be interesting to tackle, or posts that I think people might want to read, but ultimately I don’t seem to care enough about writing them. It’s so much easier to consume than to create.

I did take the news app off my phone which has helped me to take back some of the time I’d lost to mindless scrolling. BuzzFeed listscicles definitely were my Instagram or Facebook-equivalent black hole, and they are no longer a part of my life. I haven’t actually missed them at all, which I find surprising. Instead I’ve played more Wordscapes and read more or my book. I also replayed the first The Room, which is a great game.

We gave our tenant ten days to respond to our buy out offer. He was supposed to let us know by today if he was interested. He hasn’t made contact yet, so we’re determining our steps forward. I’m frustrated that he’s just freezing us out, and will likely push us to legally evict him, which will be a protracted and incredibly expensive course of action. At this point I just want it to be over, but it won’t be for a long time and it makes me so frustrated and infuriated. It causes me an incredible amount of stress.

Not much else to write about right now, at least nothing to tack on to this post. I just wanted to say that I’m still here, and I’m still alive, and I’m really thankful that it’s a three day weekend because I’m already exhausted and burnt out and the school year hasn’t even really started.

Uncategorized

My mugs

Posted on by noemikjames / 4 Comments

I have mugs with pictures of both my kids: One of my daughter with various pictures I took in her first year and one with my son’s newborn photo shoot shots. I love using those two mugs, and I look at the pictures every time I drink out of them.

I love them so much, that when I got back from Colombia last year I decided to make a mug with pictures from that trip. Last year I drank out of that mug a ton; every time I remembered a moment from our trip.

I already made a new mug with pictures from La Paz. I dream of one day having a dozen mugs in my cabinet, each one of them with memories of an amazing adventure.

Right now I feel so, so lucky to have these two.

(I have a La Paz post mostly written so I do think I’ll get up one of these days – hopefully soon!)

Uncategorized

First Day

Posted on by noemikjames / 5 Comments

Today is my kids’ first day of school. My daughter is now a 4th grader and my son is in Kindergarten. And for the first time ever, they are AT THE SAME SCHOOL.

Just one drop off. Just one pick up. I am SO EXCITED.

I only get this for two years, if that, so I’m going to try to really appreciate it. (I also plan to let my daughter get herself to and from school starting in 6th grade so hopefully my days of dropping off and picking up in two spots is really and truly over. We shall see.)

Of course, I’ll be doing all the dropping off and all the picking up again, despite SO MANY conversations with my husband about how unfair that is, and how it makes me resentful and angry. We may be able to swing it so that once a week he does pick up, but right now that is the most I can hope for. I really hope that eventually he takes over one drop off too, but I’m not holding my breath.

{For all the people who just need to tell their spouse that they need to take on more and they do it, YAY FOR YOU! But please remember that some of us aren’t married to people like that, and I promise you, we ARE trying to change things. I am trying so, so hard but the progress is so, so slow.}

I will say that I am SO READY for the school year to start. I’ve had a LOT of quality time with my kids this summer, especially my son, and it hasn’t necessarily been pleasant, so I’m ready for us to get some time apart. I also think that a lot of my son’s “attitude issues” this past month are an expression of his unconscious anxiety about starting at a new school, and I’m REALLY hoping that a week in the classroom will help him process some of that, because I’m am SO TIRED of being yelled at and hit and kicked and having stuff thrown at me. I AM SO, SO DONE.

Students are back at my district on Wednesday so I have a couple more work days to get prepared. I’m no longer commuting between the two middle schools in my district, which is AMAZING news. Now I just have to teach one 4th grade class at the upper elementary school that shares a campus with us, so it’s just a walk away. The students will actually be coming back with me to my classroom, so I’m teaching all day in my own space. Woot! (I really do think sometimes that employers make life miserable for their employees so that returning to the status quo feels like a luxury.)

I really am happy with my schedule this year. Things aren’t necessarily in the order I would have preferred, but I like everything I am teaching and I got first period prep so I don’t have to worry about being late to work after drop off four days a week so yeah, I’ll take it happily.

Good luck to everyone that is facing the first day of a new academic year, be it on the parent-of-student(s) side or the educator side, or both! I hope you and yours have a fantastic year!

Photography/Travel

WE SWAM WITH SEA LIONS!

Posted on by noemikjames / 5 Comments

Today was the most amazing day, and I promise I’ll post more photos later but for now, please enjoy some sea lions… that we swam with.

{June, July and August are actually mating season for sea lions and you can’t swim with them in the popular spot, but our guide brought us someone else where they weren’t mating and they came in to play with us which doesn’t always happen and was a real treat – especially when we thought we didn’t get to swim near them at all.}

(I tried to upload the videos I took these photos from but the WordPress app is the worst so this was the best I could do (and it took over an hour to get this post up). Hopefully when I get home I can post the videos.

Photography/Travel

Beaches of Baja

Posted on by noemikjames / 1 Comment

The beaches of Baja are really spectacular, and they are super awesome if you have small kids because the water is warm, smooth and shallow. My kids are loving swimming without life vests. And the water is so clear you can see fish without a snorkel mask.

But we did go snorkeling both days and saw some amazing fish.

I want to write more because I promise there were plenty of bumps, but I’m actually taking a class that is required for my professional development intensive and that is taking the few brain cells that are still working after these long days in the hot sun.

So here are some pictures!

Playa Balandra

Playa Tecolote

Travel

We made it!

Posted on by noemikjames / 1 Comment

Just wanted to let you all know that we made it. We love our AirBnB and are enjoying our classes. The pool is exactly what we need in the afternoons. Tomorrow we’re hitting up what some say is the most beautiful beach in Mexico. I’ll post some pictures so you can see for yourself.

Travel

Baja

Posted on by noemikjames / 1 Comment

I think I may have neglected mentioning that my kids and I are going to Baja, Mexico this summer. We leave today!

My husband first suggested Baja when we realized a bigger international trip was way off the table. Initially we considered driving, but we quickly realized that was a bad plan because (a) we’d have to borrow or rent a car as their aren’t electric car charging stations in Mexico and (b) we didn’t feel safe driving through the northern part of the peninsula. Luckily flights to Cabo are relatively cheap, so flying didn’t make the trip impossible.

I’m not super interested in Cabo San Lucas or any of the super tourist spots in that area, so we’ll be taking a bus up to La Paz, which is about 2.5 hours north of Cabo (on the mainland side). Our bus will take about 3.5 hours to get there and our flight is about 3.5 hours so the travel tomorrow won’t be too bad (so much better than two five hour red eye flights and a five hour layover in Mexico DF!).

We’re spending the entire two weeks in one AirBnB that’s about two miles outside the city center. It has a little pool and a rooftop barbeque and eating area which is shared with the other three condos. During the first week the kids and I will be taking some intensive Spanish classes in the mornings and I’ll be giving them swimming lessons in the pool in the afternoon and later, when my husband comes, we’ll be hitting up the beaches and snorkeling a fair amount.

I deliberately planned this trip to be very low key, because after our whirlwind 2.5 weeks in Colombia I knew I wanted something that required little or no change of scenery. I’m so glad too because after the last four weeks I really need the rest.

It might not be the best idea for us to take a trip like this with all the uncertainty surrounding our tenant situation, but I do think we did a nice job of keeping it low-cost. The flights (and buses to La Paz) were just under $1800 and the AirBnb was $1000. The classes were $400 and we’ll spend very little on food there as our kids don’t like to eat out (at least the first week we’ll eat exclusively at home). I’m not sure how much all the touristy stuff will end up being, probably around $700-$1000 as their are some incredible places to snorkel and we don’t want to miss out. But summer is the low season in Baja (it’s basically a desert so it’s HOT, and the whale sharks aren’t around again until October) so hopefully nothing will cost too much, and I already got some recommendations for local snorkeling trips so we don’t have pay the bigger online tourist site prices. All in all it will probably cost about half of what Colombia cost, which makes me feel better about it, even though it is a lot.

One of the reasons I want to travel to Spanish-speaking countries in the summers with my kids is to see if we find anywhere we’d be interested in living. I must admit I knew next to nothing about the southern half of Baja but I’ve been blown away by how amazing it is. I am really excited to check out La Paz (and some of the coastal spots that are a day trip away), and to see if it’s a place we may want to live some day

I don’t know if I’ll be posting daily updates like last time, at least before my husband comes, but I’ll definitely keep you updated!

Work/Teaching

Summer Intensive

Posted on by noemikjames / 3 Comments

This past week I finished a two week summer intensive that was, well, intense. I had to apply for the opportunity and was very excited to participate. Every day we learned a ton of new stuff and even started applying it to our specific content and grade levels. I left wanting to try everything, and knowing that it would be too much to attempt it all.

I also left feeling disappointed in myself, for the quality of work I presented and my failure to “put myself out there” to create a network of educators who are as passionate about teaching in new ways as I am. There were a lot of reasons why I didn’t feel like I was bringing my A-game, and I don’t believe listing them here would be very effective. Instead I’m just trying to hone in the source of my disappoint so I can explore and learn from it.

I’m sure these professional (and personal) insecurities stem from the deep well of self-doubt that was tapped when I applied for all those high school positions a few years ago. And that well was always there, and was always deep, I was just able to forget about it for a while as family building and parenting babies and toddlers took over my brain space for almost a decade. Now that my children are old enough for me to put more energy into my professional life, I need to figure out where this self-doubt and disappointment comes from, so I can learn from it. If you have any suggestions for articles (or books) about these topics, please send them my way. I promise I’m not getting all down on myself, it’s more recognizing that I feel a certain way about myself wanting to be proactive about learning from that feeling so that this experience can help me change and grow.

What do you do when you feel disappointed in, or doubt yourself? Do you have a reliable method for turning (real or perceived) failure into an effective learning experience?

Uncategorized

Over it

Posted on by noemikjames / 2 Comments

Thanks for attending my pity party yesterday. I was in a pretty bummed out place when I wrote that: my husband had decided to pick a fight with me the night before about how I am over-committing and he is doing too much. This is a discussion we’ve had a lot, and I’m really not sure how to move forward with him on this topic. As I’ve mentioned before, the more I request the space and time to pursue my own interests, the more push back I get from my husband. It just sucked that he chose the night before my birthday, when I KNEW I wasn’t going to be acknowledged in the ways I hoped for, to tell me he feels like he is doing too much. It sucked.

So yeah, I woke up feeling pretty down on my birthday. Luckily my husband apologized and then asked what I wanted that day. Since it was a Wednesday, and we had an appointment at 3pm, I just asked for a card with a handwritten note. (His birthday is Sunday and my parents are taking the kids that night so we’ll have dinner then.) Still, I was feeling like my husband doesn’t recognize or appreciate my contribution and I am so tired of feeling that way. It wasn’t how I wanted to feel on my birthday.

Later in the day my friend told me she was planning a dinner with friends at her house for my birthday that Saturday. That was so sweet and made me feel very loved. I’ve literally never had a friend plan something like that for my birthday. So on Saturday I’ll be seeing some friends and on Sunday I’ll be having dinner with my husband. I’m feeling a LOT better about my birthday. (And maybe by Sunday my husband will have the card with the note – he bought the card but hasn’t written anything in it yet.)

Honestly, I think part of my problem yesterday was I’m just mentally exhausted. I’m in the final leg of an intense two-week professional development. It’s farther south than my work, and since my kids are in two different camps that aren’t very close to each other in the city, it’s taking me 1.5 to 2 hours to get home every day. I’m also getting ready for a belt test on Saturday, which is not great timing but they only have belt tests every two months so it’s now or wait a while. I’ve been a yellow belt for a while now and am ready to move up, so I’m going for it, but it’s definitely adding stress to an already mentally exhausting two weeks.

So yeah. Thanks for indulging me yesterday. I’ve found that I generally feel pretty down on my actual birthday, but I don’t dread it much before hand and quickly get over my pity party afterward so I guess that’s not so bad (all things considered). Next year I turn 40 and because 2020 is a leap year my birthday will fall on a Friday. I definitely want to plan something with my friends. I do believe that ultimately it’s up to me to create a celebration for my birthday, and I’m definitely planning on doing that next year.