confessions of a blogger

I cannot believe I blog. I think this is one of the most/only completely embarrassing thing I do. but there is just something about it. Supposedly I have an audience of one, at least.... but the numbers are small as I am a private person, and a mess of a person. I even pick at my own name!

So I decided to dedicate this entry to things my little ESL kindergarten [now first grade!] students said when I was their teacher last year. Gosh, some of these things I read and they make me laugh so hard I cry.

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Jasmine: I goin' make you a flower.
Me: You're going to make me a flower?
Jasmine: Yes.
Me: Why?
Jasmine: I like your face.
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Me: You're so smart! Where'd you come from?!
Luis: Mexico.
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[I just asked them things they saw at the zoo or maybe animals they saw in a zoo book-- practicing past tense]
Roberto: I saw an elephant!
Jose: I saw a bear!
Nathan: ... I saw Happy Feet!!!!
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[One of the non-ESL students ran up to me to give me a hug; one of my ESL students looked at the non-ESL student and said the following]
E: You is NOT in ESL!
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[Reading a story about things that make noises we hear]

Me: Does anyone know what this is called in English? [while pointing to a picture in the book of a bell]
Students: No...
Me: It's a bell.
Francisco: Like taco bell?

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that's all I can think of for now. if I think of anymore, I'll add them. I will surely miss teaching those sweet children.

eustace: revisited.

I am a mix of emotions.
It happens a lot like this, lately.
I have always been against the question "How are you?"
[unless you have an understanding with your friends that how are you actually means exactly that: how. are. you. Without that understanding, it's a horribly painful questions to answer. I always feel like a liar]
"Well." or "Fine." is my normal response. [I suppose I'm referring to my health]

But lately, even with the honesty agreement, I probably couldn't answer it.
I am:
happy / to be in a new place & feeling right about being here
nervous / about not finding a job in a timely manner
anticipating sadness / about soon realizing that I am 900 miles away from my family
scared / about the response or possible lack thereof

see?

I am a gallimaufry. sentimientos mezclado. or something like that. I don't even know.

even so. I just reread that post I wrote over a year ago about Eustace and me. he really is still my guy. It is remarkable how deep things go and the manner in which they affect us. And then, the reality that pushing things away, moving away, can never be the source of the healing. The healing comes from a series of events...often beginning with sorting things... admitting cause and effect, and then finally realizing that as a human, without Help, you would just become a bitter shriveled up person.

that's what Eustace was facing. remaining a dragon indefinitely. I've been that same dragon living in a dark cave.

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart."
I thought so too. which reminds me of the relient k song that says,
--you said I know that this will hurt
but if I don't break your heart then things will just get worse
if the burden seems too much to bear
remember, the end will justify the pain it took to get us there--
but when you're at this point, you can hardly see your hand in front of your face within a pitch black cave, let alone thinking of the end. you just feel the pain.

"And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt."
And when you're there, it's as if nothing could ever make it go away.

"The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off."
liberating yet terrifying. something to be felt over and over again, depending on the depth and amount of scabs.

"You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away...It smarted like anything but only for a moment."
which is always the hope. it is fun: to dare to wonder what you'd look like blemish free. asking: does that person really exist within my seemingly irreparably damaged being?

--I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?--

"Keyword" Job Searching

Okay so here is the predicament.

I've been looking for jobs online. There are many search engines, websites, etc.

What keeps kicking me in the butt is this lovely little box called "Keyword" where when you're searching jobs, you type in words that will help narrow down the search.




But what if......



.....you don't KNOW what you want to do? What do you type in? You can certainly eliminate what you don't want to do. But what do you want to do?
It just keeps coming up.

I don't know what to do!

However.
"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compasssions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." - Lamentations 3:22-23