Contrariwise

Two days into the new semester, I am actually feeling okay. I can’t say I feel more experienced or wiser. The kids are still their rambunctious, impossible selves. I’m still making mistakes all the time. I’m fairly sure I had days like this last quarter. Two things have changed, though. First and most significant is that I don’t have a solid wall of weeks full of days like these (or worse–often worse). It was hard to go so long without a good break.

Second is that I’m doing my best to have a new attitude. I go in knowing that some things will be unbelievably bad, but if I don’t let it get to me, I will be okay. The kids make fun of me, and I let it roll off my back. I make a big mistake, and I just keep on doing what I can. I know I’m not a good teacher yet; I’m still trying to maintain adequacy. I haven’t given up, though, and that is grace.

I also know that I need to record this so that when (not if) the bad days return, I have something to remind me that it genuinely isn’t always so bad.

I leave home tomorrow afternoon. In some ways, I am absolutely ready to go home–to my new home, my ACE home. I needed a break, but I’m ready to go back.

I’ve really appreciated the time to work (which I will resume for a little while after I post this) while not having to go to work. I managed to get my lessons planned for tenth grade for the next two weeks! This is a substantial accomplishment, especially after the semester I had. I set up my grade book for next quarter and my attendance record for next semester. In the process, I accidentally deleted some important files, but that just means I’ll have to cart home some papers to scan. I ran across a couple of PDF-to-text converters that might come in handy. I read almost all the stories I want to teach my ninth-graders for the next month or so, including the ones for my ACE-required unit. I still have plenty to work on (like managing the paper load), but I think I have hope again.

I have had fabulous times with my friends over break. The day after I flew in, I went to Guy and Becca’s Christmas party, where I got to see Scott for the first time since…last year’s Secret Santa! I left there and went straight (and technically late) to Kaitlyn’s graduation party to see all my CSC friends. I told Chris S. about my difficulties, admitting that community became more important than anything else. He, in his new seminary-informed wisdom, suggested that God might have been teaching me the importance of community through those very experiences.

Last Saturday, I went out to see the National Christmas Tree with Guy and Becca (Picasa-patched photos forthcoming). I commented on the Metro ride in that I was finally feeling like a normal person again. It wasn’t just swiping my Metro SmarTrip card that did it. It was chatting with old friends, doing something fun, and not feeling strangled by my teaching life. I didn’t have to be Miss W. anymore. I could be just Lindsay, and that was good enough.

On Monday, I met Jim at the Shrine for daily Mass. I make it a point to go to one daily Mass when I’m home over Christmas break, usually on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, but that was suppressed for the Holy Family this year. So, when he suggested meeting for Mass, it fit quite nicely into my plans. I got there just in time for benediction. I hadn’t expected it at all; I always thought they did exposition after Mass on Friday, but it’s before on Mondays. And I had just been thinking about the Divine Praises that morning. I skipped a line while reciting it during benediction (“Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother”), but I remembered “Tantum Ergo” quite well. Mass was fabulous, as always. We went back to CP for lunch and much-anticipated conversation.

After I left Jim, I picked up Maura and wound up back at the Shrine. I showed her the rosary windows in the apses of the Upper Church, and I got a closer look at some of the shrines on that level. There’s so much majesty to the Shrine that it’s impossible to take it all in at once, and difficult even over time. It’s the Catholic Smithsonian.

New Year’s Eve in College Park was lovely. Jim hosted the party on behalf of his current and former housemates. I got to see even more old friends, meet his new girlfriend, play Catchphrase and Apples to Apples, and ring in 2009 feeling like a real twenty-two-year-old.

Family time has been a little difficult, as it always is. I’ve become such a different person than I was when I lived here full-time, but my family’s the same. Even if that means I should come back more, that’s not possible right now. I know family is essential. I do love them. I think I’m only beginning to understand now that you can never go home again.

My Catholic past is rather checkered. I was baptized Catholic as a baby in the church where my parents were married. My dad’s family is not Christian; my mom’s has been Catholic for generations. I went to a (non-Catholic) Bible preschool, then on to public elementary school. I attended Sunday School until my mom got tired of dragging me out of bed to catch the bus every week. I went to all the CCD classes I needed before my First Communion without ever setting foot in the church until First Penance and the rehearsal.

When we moved to Germany and it was time for my sister’s First Communion, my mom discovered that I had to attend 7th grade CCD before I could join the 8th grade Confirmation class. Luckily, I was in the 7th grade at the time. We started to attend Mass again (always the Saturday Vigil, because we’ve never been morning people). On my Confirmation retreat, I went to confession for the second time–ever–and fell in love with God again.

When we moved back to the U.S., we stopped attending Mass. I missed going to church, but not enough to do much about it. In the year before Ryan’s First Communion, I started college. I did a lot of stupid things during that time, including wholly unworthily receiving the Eucharist at the Mass where Ryan (whose name means “little king”) played a king during the Gospel pageant. That same year, my dad joined RCIA.

Being in church again reminded me of the peace I’d felt there before. Jesus started calling me out of my relationship with my boyfriend and back to him. It took months, but on Ash Wednesday during my freshman year of college, I recommitted myself to chastity, received an absolution that was four years overdue, and returned to Holy Mother Church.

When I hear about people who’ve been to Mass every Sunday of their lives except the one where they had chicken pox, dads who left seminary to marry moms, and families who celebrate name days with special dinners, my heart aches. I wish so much that I could have had that kind of spiritual upbringing. I don’t blame my parents, per se. It really was an ordeal to wake me up on Sunday mornings before I started sacrificing that for the Lord. So now, I have to make up for lost time. I have to learn prayers for the first time that my peers have known since grade school. I have to wonder whether my family even bothers going to church when I’m not home to make them feel obligated (which, of course, they are).

There are signs, though, that my catch-up efforts aren’t in vain. I don’t know much about the saints at all, for example. I love St. Cecilia, my Confirmation saint and the first whose story I really got to know. St. Frances of Rome, my first annual patron saint, is buried in the Church of St. Cecilia in Rome. My middle name is Nicole; I used to live in Germany, where St. Nicholas is widely venerated. My birthday is August 30, the old-calendar feast day of St. Rose of Lima, my second annual patron saint. And finally, next year’s annual patron, St. Wolfgang, is another beloved German saint who was a noted teacher. Even after all this time, God’s sense of humor still amazes me.

August 13, 2007, was my fifth blogiversary. I have had this blog on and off for FIVE YEARS. My blog would be old enough to start kindergarten if it were a person. I rarely remember my blogiversary on the actual day, but I’ve never been two weeks late.

Last year, I commemorated the day by posting a retrospective about my previous blogiversaries. I had just switched to WordPress then. Have I really been out of Blog*Spot for a whole year?

This year, I commemorated the day by thinking, “I really should blog.” Two days later, I actually managed it. I started blogging as an extension of my love of journaling into my love of the Internet. I did return to paper for my spiritual journal, but my day-to-day (or semester-to-semester) writings are still online for the world to see. It’s a little scary. I’ll have to have another plan once I start teaching. I don’t want my students Googling me.

On to year six, in which I will graduate from college and move on not to the real world, or even to the real world of teaching. If college is like day care for new adults, grad school is kindergarten.

It figures that right after I had the biggest moment of my blogging life, I got so busy that I couldn’t even post. Now isn’t really an exception. There are so many things I could and should be doing that I have to be quick. I’ll go with one-sentence updates on the past two weeks.

Independence Day: I was productive in the morning, then tried to go see the fireworks on the National Mall with my roommates and friends, but we bailed when the storm warning came in and wound up missing everything.

Last week, my car refused to shift out of park, so I was humbled by taking the bus.

Matt W. and I have started planning our section of HONR 100 for the fall, which makes me very excited about getting to teach again.

Some people think the story behind The Wave is a hoax, which is unsettling because Matt and I are teaching it this fall regardless.

Fr. Bill’s last Masses at the CSC are this weekend, and I’m going to miss him so much!

I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at midnight on Tuesday with Sara, Guy, and Guy’s roommate James, and though it could have been a little better (even considering the chasm between books and film adaptations), I was pleased.

Archbishop O’Brien, formerly of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, who confirmed me, is coming to Baltimore.

I am crazy busy, but I feel right with God again, and I’m keeping things under control.

More extensive posting later, I promise.