So, it was no surprise when he harnessed me down the other night and made me watch the trailer for the new George Nolfi film, “The Adjustment Bureau”

Watch the trailer, because really, you will fall in love, and then go crazy over how unfair it is that there isn’t an “in theaters” date in the trailer, and feel totally jilted by the ambiguous “Coming Soon” that serves as the capstone for the preview.

Regardless of how pissed off I was when I was left without a tangible date so I could begin my countdown to when this comes out, the movie looks really awesome. It’s obvious that it’s going to be a total mindf*ck, and it’s already got me thinking about how each move we make, no matter how trivial or unintentional will lead us to some ultimate result. I mean I’m really hoping that there aren’t men on a roof somewhere watching every move I make ( I would feel way less comfortable about showering) and manipulating my life story, but things have definitely happened in the last year that make me believe that each path does lead to some major road.

Today is June 15th, and for the past 3 years June 15th has turned out to be a day that would change my life. 3 years ago, confirming my attendance at Rutgers, 2 years ago, the first day of my legal internship, which by the end of the 1st hour made me realize practicing law was absolutely not for me. 1 year ago, having a wonderful dinner with a wonderful guy, which lead to a wonderfully drawn-out conversation about what we were planning on doing as far as our relationship goes, which lead us to where we are now, almost alarmingly, exhaustingly happy, one year later… and today… I start my first grown up writing job, which could lead to a major shift in career paths, and an opportunity to spend my life doing something I never dreamed I could do.

So, you try and tell me that there isn’t someone out there pulling the strings on our marionettes. Tell me that every diminutive move we make doesn’t lead to something much more significant… Even if you do, I’m a totally irrational bitch, so I probably won’t believe you.

Maybe next June 15th I’ll finally get the mind reading ability, or the X-Ray vision I’ve been waiting my whole life for, or maybe Prince William will finally come along and tell me he’s been waiting his whole life to find me, except I doubt that because I think People magazine said he was getting married or something… Stay tuned.

There is one student in the class who is incredibly gifted, she’s inimitably advanced, especially when it comes to reading. So, during reading lessons, while the rest of the class works on their assigned enrichment work, whoever is teaching will sit with her separately. She will read a few pages from an advanced level reader to them and then do a comprehension quiz. She pulled up the seat next to her desk for me today, and when I sat down next to her, my whole world transformed. Suddenly, I was 12 years old again, sitting in the back of my 7th grade classroom, in the very same school that I’m teaching in now. I’m wearing my blackwatch plaid skirt, oxford and uniform vest, with my uniform knee socks, and my dress-code required shoes that gave me a srtiking resemblance to the mail man. In my day-dream I left out my awkward plastic rim glasses and my braces, but there’s nothing wrong with selective memory, right?

I forgot what it looked like from back there, it made me start to think about how I must look to them. My new view made me consider the way I speak to them, look at them, how wide the room looks from their angle, how big the possibilities are for them. All at once I wanted to speak softer, hold on to my patience for a little bit longer, and smile a little bit more often. It’s an intimidating view from back there. From the angle of our students, we’re big and they’re small– as a teacher, I’ve learned that in most cases, kids are much “bigger” people than adults are, with bigger hearts and bigger imaginations. Unfortunately, as 9 year olds, they are unable to cherish their innocence. From the back of the room, we have all the answers and they have none, but really, they’ve taught me more than I could ever teach them. So, even though I’m not positive about where or what type of job I’ll be taking after graduation next year, for today, I’ll try a little harder, and remember how scary being a student could be, and if one ounce of gentleness on my part can make a difference in their world today, then, I’ve done something right.

I spent last night planning an alternate route for my summer, convinced they had found someone better.

I woke up this morning and checked my email and there it was! The offer letter. I have never been so excited in my life. Primarily, I’ve been given an opportunity to try out my rock-star job. When other kids wanted to be athletes or actresses, my answer to “what do you want to be when you grow up” was always a writer, I wanted to compose novels upon novels, create people with my pages, go on book tours, and make a living by doing something that I loved… While my peers dreamed of seeing their name in lights, I dreamed of seeing mine in Borders.

So this is it, this could change everything. I’ve loved teaching for years, but I mean, if you got the chance to finally play shortstop for the Yankees, would you pass it up? Not a chance. So, here I go, a real corporate job, with my own desk and phone, and all of the potential in the world. Stay tuned.

So, you can imagine my disappointment three years ago when my freshmen placement test results reveal that I belong in Elementary Algebra, you know, the same class you took in 7th grade, and then again your freshman year of HIGH SCHOOL. As a result of this oh-so-shocking revelation, I dipped into a deep denial, well actually I just got really delusional, hoping that if I pushed taking the remedial class off until my senior year, the university would feel bad for me and tell me I didn’t really have to go through that… well, the university didn’t care very much, and now I am two months away from starting the first semester of my senior year, finishing a double major, and a double minor, with honors, and I am sitting in the same math class I took when I was 12. Excellent.

I understand it all just fine, it just doesn’t hold my attention, when I see X, I don’t imagine it equals 35, rather, I start a list in my head of all the words that start with X- xylophone, x-ray,xanadu, xenolith, xenophobic, xylem. I remember that once one of my teachers told us it was the 3rd least common letter in the alphabet, and I try to think of female character names that begin with X, and realize that I would never name a character any of those names because X names have something edgy and hi-tech about them and most of my characters aren’t very edgy or techy. When I see Y- it isn’t equal to 817, rather, it’s sometimes a vowel, and I start to wonder why all the inconsistency? Who decided Y didn’t deserve to be a vowel all of the time, or that it deserved to be a vowel at all?

I think words have much more power than numbers. Granted, we live in a world powered by numeric function, the stock market, money, statistics… that’s inevitable in a capitalist society, but the things we remember, they aren’t marked with dollar signs and numbers, they’re flagged by what people said, how they said it, the look on their face.

Our words are the most powerful thing we have. Whenever I’m analyzing literature, I find it so fascinating that authors will make a deliberate choice to go with one word, one tone, one form of punctuation over another- decisions like these create the context of our world, the context of our character, and narrative of our lives… it’s awesome how much power we yield in speech or writing- maybe it’s this passion- this crazy obsession with words and the way they work, that’s causing me to suffer through adding and subtracting integers again this summer. If I could become more well rounded I would, but there’s some things we just can’t control.

The people of the great state of New Jersey, commonly known for their welcoming nature, class A manners, and hospitable nature (uhm, right.) mutate into a whole different degree of nasty when the thermometer rises above 80 degrees. Now, where I come from, an 80 degree weekend qualified as a cold front, but not for these eskimos.

I’m driving around today, sunroof open, aviators on, country playlist blasting, and everywhere I go, my “how are you today” or “have a good one” was met with a snarl or a snarky comment, as if daring to be content in this “unbearable” heat wave was the equivalent of asking if it would possibly be alright if I stole their first born, totaled their car, and proceeded to gauge their eyes out with a spoon. Every smile I gave away today was like an open invitation to be tarred and feathered by the people of the Garden State.

Just a word of advice, if you want people to stop making TV series and sarcastic remarks about “The dirty jerz” – You may want to remedy the situation by cleaning up your act, and you can all start to salvage the reputation of your lovely state by trying out a brand spankin’ new set of manners. See also, smiling, saying thank you, and not spitting or urinating in public places.

My paper is about how technology is changing the world of education. All this talk about change and evolution makes me realize how green I am. I’m still one of those teachers with a B.A. in English who wants to change the world of my students, because, I mean really- that’s what having a B.A. in English is actually all about. And, when I say change the world of my students, I don’t mean that I hope to teach them that using hanging prepositions or starting a sentence with the word “But” will make them sound stupid. I mean, I want to change their lives, in a really big-earth shattering, help-them-find-their-purpose-in-this-world kind of way. I don’t want to speak from the “don’t-make-the-same-mistakes-that-I-did” place either, even though I secretly know I won’t be able to help myself. I want to be able to help them speak to themselves by listening to what’s inside of them. I sound like a hallmark card.

I want to do all these things, then I realize, I have to bite my tongue to ensure that I don’t say the F word in class.
I’ve never done it though, I’ve never cursed in class. That’s an accomplishment.
You’d probably be shocked to know that I go to mass every Sunday.

There was no way in hell I would ever become one of those once a day, manic, type just hear myself talk bloggers, at least that’s what I’d figured.

I caved.

However, not traditionally. I still don’t find myself to be some angst-ridden indie kid who drinks her coffee black and snubs her elitist nose at the way of the world “these days”. I still don’t type to hear myself talk, and I most definitely do not listen to underground music, I haven’t changed my major to Environmental Science and I’ve yet to develop an appreciation for neo-classical films.

Rather, I’ve found an outlet, a way to remember the things that happen, and if that source of recall for me, becomes a source of recreational reading for you, then so be it, and I am glad that we both find this therapeutic.

I’ll give you a little bit of source information. As an English major, I am of the school that believes that the best way to close read a text is to analyze it’s author.

With that- I am a southern ex-sorority girl, making my way in a northeastern town that could easily be transplanted south of the Mason Dixon. In the last year, I’ve found myself, found my calling, fallen in love, fallen apart, figured out what it means to be passionate and fixed some bad decisions. Life is a fantastic gift, and I’m more than content with living it. I commute 2 days a week and take 18 credits at a major state university, and I am two semesters away from graduation- on my off days I student teach the 2nd grade at a wonderful private grammar school. The feeling of being pulled in two directions is one I’ve grown accustomed to. The paradoxical life dichotomy that makes me one part teacher and the other part student, well, that’s another story.

PS- You can catch up a bit by reading my blog from class @ outofthecastle.wordpress.com

We started talking about the plans for tomorrow night, the botanical gardens, followed by dinner, and then of course, viewing of the tree, and from there began discussing how we were going to split the time between our two families this Christmas. My family is spending Christmas eve at his house, he’ll stop here Christmas day afternoon, we’ll make our way to his grandmother’s eventually.  Through this conversation I found myself so excited just to spend time with him, and our families, and see the two blended together seamlessly, which makes us miraculously lucky given the fact that so many couples are not lucky enough to have their families be even remotely interested in each other, let alone, enjoy spending time together.  This made me realize that my recent stress over Christmas gifts or throwing the perfect party for my class and that damned traffic on the way home from the mall the other night are completely worthless and I found that they tied in perfectly to this new campaign , “The Advent Conspiracy” that my dad turned me on to. The campaign, started three years ago by three young pastors attempts to revitalize Christmas and the season by putting religion back into the holiday and challenging people to “Recapture the beauty of christmas” or “worship the way they (the shepherds and wise men) did, more fully” to spend less on gifts and more time with each other, or being altruistic. I find it deeply moving, so I’ve included a few of their promos for your viewing