Controlled Chaos

I do not possess much of a "do it now" attitude. I am a very good procrastinator. I remember the first time I procrastinated on a school project, it was 4th grade. It was a report on Germany, and my dad and I were up late finishing it the night before it was due. I remember the rush of adrenaline and pride I had in the fact that I got it done, and damn, it is actually pretty good. That has been an addicting force in my life since the 4th grade. I think procrastinating is a cop-out strategy I have for life. If the results aren't quite up to par, the excuse is, well, I didn't have enough time to do a good job. I don't like excuses. I have been working hard at not making them. But that has put me in situations of having to swallow some pride, and admit to disappointing people. Yesterday, another teacher was frantically completing a menial task. She asked me if I had done it and I said I would do it next week. She said that she has to do things immediately, that...

I didn't get anything written yesterday. Oops. Thankfully the world continued and I am sure that the Lord will forgive me for not posting for one day of Lent. I have started reading a book that is all about teaching. It is mostly warm fuzzy, inspirational stuff so far, but I think that this book has potential. It said something that has challenged me a bit. If I am to say I believe that all students can and do learn, then I need to cut the negative talk about them. It is as though I speak into existence the behaviors when I bitch about the students. I feel as though that this plays into my no complaining desire for Lent. It is going to be challenging though. I see that I have 2 options: A) Confront the teachers who I converse with that talk negatively about students. Pro: They know that I don't want to be talking negatively about students. Con: They make take it personally. B) Don't talk to the teachers who talk negatively. Pro: I can/need to surround myself with ...

Today I had a moment where I checked out of life as I know it. I was at work (school) and I am not feeling well. I haven't been feeling well all week, but this afternoon it all sort of hit me. The congestion, the pain, the stress, the tiredness, all of it. So, I got up and walked out of my classroom and went to the office and told them that I am going home. They probably wouldn't have let me do that if I hadn't been crying. That is how I am. It all bottles up inside of me until I can't take it no more, and it spills out. I then take a rain-check on life. I stop going through the motions of everyday routines and simply stop moving. I went home and took a nap, went to the doctor and have been playing all of the fun games I can find on facebook. I am going back to work/school tomorrow. Last year there was an advertisement campaign for oatmeal that said, "go, human, go." It always cracked me up whenever I saw it. I say it to myself from time to time when I don...

I am not going to complain. One question though: How long does a person stay in a career where they leave their job with the immense feeling that they have just been run over with a bulldozer? Good can come from this. That is what I tell myself from this first year of teaching. Good can still come from this. I haven't yet identified what this good is, but the goods have to be there.

Sometimes when I am in church, ideas pop into my head. Ideas that have nothing to do with what is going on in the service or what is being preached. These ideas though have a way of sticking with me. This morning at church, I was sitting there in my fog-induced state from my cold, and the word faithful popped into my head. My idea came in the form of a word: faithful . Being intentional is connected to being faithful. I don't really know how to completely articulate how that relationship exactly looks, but that is where I have decided my starting point for figuring out what intentional means. I am going to investigate/fixate on that word for right now. I am going to be faithful in going to work because my students need a good week of practice before this monstrous test they will take next week. I will be faithful to my commitment of not complaining. I will be faithful in prayer, as a means to diminish the complaining. I will be faithful to Tyler, in the small ways of being pres...

I heard something on NPR one time about how multi-taskers actually accomplish less in their lives because they have many unfinished projects and never focus completely on one task and finish it. It takes them longer to get things done because they keep jumping around. I love to multi-task. It makes me feel accomplished that I can juggle many things at once. Perhaps I should just become a juggler in order to enjoy that sensation. I have been trying to multi-task less and less. I tell myself, "Kelli, you are a tortoise. Slow and steady wins the race." I have a hard time focusing as well, so life is multi-tasking on its own. Task 1: The project at hand. Task 2: Keeping myself focused. When I think of Lent as a season of being intentional it makes me think that means slow down. My next thought is always what am I trying to be intentional about? It is very open ended to simply say, "Be intentional." About what? What exactly am I suppose to hone in on when I am goin...

I have a cold. Congestion is sort of making it so that my brain doesn't work. I apologize if this doesn't make sense. A skill that I feel that I lack as a human being is consistency. I lack this in my job (telling all the students the same answer for the same question every single day, no you can't go and drink water) and also in the rest of my life. I don't want to consistently pick up my mail and sort it, I just want to throw it on the bookcase. Praise baby Jesus for online automatic bill pay. This is day 2 of this write daily deal, and I felt myself go, what do I write? I can't really think through the mucus. I have found that consistency is built through practicing it. So each time that I fail at it, pick myself up and attempt it again, I am becoming better at it. The same thing happens with patience, self-control, self-discipline, forgiveness and faith in general. (At least for me.) A wise person once told me not to pray for patience. God will just give y...

I don't  write enough. As in, I don't process my thoughts outside of my body enough. For Lent, I have decided to take on the task of writing something each day. I have decided to also give something up for Lent. I want to give up complaining. I don't really know how I am going to do this. I figure that I should give myself some rules or parameters about what it means to complain. Today on the bus, I saw a woman that I have seen several times before get on the bus. In my opinion, this woman gets on the bus and has this look about her that says, "all of you should feel so privileged to be riding the bus with me, so get up and give me your seat". I realized looking at her that I don't exhibit any sort of influence on how this lady gets on the bus. Why should I let this lady irritate me then? If I were to retell this story to multiple people, that would be complaining. Rule 1: Complaining is bitching about stuff that I have no control over. My decision to ...