It's Beginning to look a lot like Finals

Oh boi. Here we go.

“If you don’t have the nose, be sure to let me know before the tes –“

“Miss?”

“I think I meant to say ‘notes,’ but if you don’t have a nose you should also come talk to me…”

At this point in the conversation I began to laugh hysterically at myself as my students looked on with worried faces.

Yes, it’s that time of year. And yes, we’re all feeling it pretty hard.

Students everywhere are finding themselves hitting the books like coked out squirrels, teachers haven’t slept since July, and we’re all scraping the bottom of the coffee barrel and our wallets too. Making finals, taking finals, grading deadlines, and the entire year’s regret start tallying up like Santa’s naughty and nice list.

It’s enough to make your dreidel spin.

Whether you’re a teacher, a student, a barista, or a student in the teacher program who is also a barista on the weekends, here are some tips and tricks to make it through the coming days:

1. Wear a pair of shoes that is one size too big. It creates an optical illusion that you are taller than you actually are. It’s a known truth that taller people earn more on average than shorter people. According to a study published by the Economic Record: ”Taller people are  perceived to be more intelligent and powerful.” So why not try it out for size and boost your confidence for a day during finals? See what I did there? 

2. Show your students a video of you impersonating the other Social Studies teachers during a meeting. It’s an irrefutable fact that laughter can de-stress and relax you and others around you. If you don’t think impersonating your coworkers will work in your favor, impersonate yourself. That shit’s hilarious.

3. Go to Target and buy the following items: Pop Tarts, Instant Mac and Cheese, Lunch-ables, and some form of cheese puff product.

4. Eat said items and procrastinate/ lament grading for several hours.

5. This. Don’t ask questions. Just trust me.

6. Light a candle, you cave person. They smell like fresh laundry and remind us that we too once had hopes and dreams.

7. When you finally get around to grading, smack your head on the nearest hard surface while reading an essay plagiarized directly from a video you showed in class.

8. Continue to slam head in wall at how many times you warned this student to STOP PLAGIARIZING OH MY FUCKING GOD.

9. Question the likelihood that you will get fired if you fail 99% of your students.

10. Decide you kinda don’t give a fuck.

11. Reconsider that you do kinda give a little fuck and brainstorm ways to get more students to pass your class in the next four days’ time.

12. Realize that this is impossible and go to your nearest liquor store and pick out all the wines.

13. Especially that fruity one that tastes like juice.

14. Think about bringing the fancy fruity juice into work tomorrow.

15. Reconsider again.

16. Eat a Pop Tart.

17. Wise up and try to cook a veggie burger or some other stupid healthy recipe you saw on Pinterest one time.

18. Laugh at yourself.

19. Throw away the piece of cardboard that you just tried to ingest.

20. Open up the freezer and grab the ice cream instead.

21. Regret the fact that you didn’t get more grading done but not the ice cream.

22. Reconsider your regret because it’s not your fault kids don’t care about their grade until THIS VERY FUCKING SECOND.

23. Do that deep breathing thing but give up after 30 seconds because you look ridiculous.

24. Go to bed.

Take courage, dear teachers. Take courage. Oh and students? Yeah, if you could get that essay in to me like last October? That'd be great. And yes, it's all multiple choice.

You're welcome.

How To Not Get Axe Murdered

Every day is a gift.

People have said that your life flashes before your eyes when you are about to die.  This, as it turns out, is a lie.  Hollywood smoke and mirrors; a Christmas fable that we choose to believe in because the world is a cruel, cruel place.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

I’m not dead, by the way.  I mean obviously I’m writing this blog post.  And no, I’m not your friendly neighborhood ghost coming back to haunt you for not subscribing to my blog (although that would be way cooler and by the way you totally should).

Nah, just here to enlighten you on what happens when you leave passive-aggressive notes.  Which, just in case you weren’t aware, don’t actually work on sociopaths.

I have this neighbor, okay.  He’s loud, obnoxiously loud.  And I have high suspicions that he is actually a sociopath. 

Exhibit A) He listens to shitty rap music at every odd hour of the night and morning and I never see him in the daylight which makes him not only a sociopath but also a vampire.  With really awful taste in music.

Exhibit B)  He often yells to himself.  Just for funzies.  Just for shit's and gig’s.  Just loud shouting for no particular reason other than to reassure me that he is indeed a crazy person.

Exhibit C) I once heard him listening to police radio on blast for an entire hour during a manhunt for a suspect to a shooting on Colfax.  So that’s normal.

I could ramble off at least a dozen other instances of his insanity that will surely terrify my mother when she reads this.

Hi, Mom. 

But back to the life flashing before my eyes bullshit.

After a particularly frustrating morning of getting zero sleep as a result of my neighbor’s assholery, I had finally drawn a line in the sand.  I wrote a sticky note.  It read,

“Please resist the urge to scream, moan, or listen to loud music between the hours of 11pm and 8am. Thank you.”

I said please and thank you.

I left for work and hoped that he would get the hint and have some respect for the 20 some-odd other humans that have to put up with his shit on a daily basis.

Fast forward to 8pm that night as I was sitting quietly in my apartment grading papers and preparing for another teaching day when Crazy McCrazy Face arrived to his door to find the note.  He went off the handle; running down the halls yelling to someone else that this couldn’t possibly be the property management company and that it was utter bullshit.

He then began banging down my door.  Because it was obviously me.  I had asked him once before to please keep it to a dull roar the night before my half-marathon.  Because it’s kind of hard to obtain REM cycles when you are blasting the newest rendition of “Big Booty Hoe” over there. 

You motherfucker.

So he’s banging on my door.  Banging, banging away.  So much so that a picture frame falls off my wall and onto the floor.

Oh, let me just open the door.  You sound friendly.

No.  Are you fucking kidding me?  I don’t have a death wish, okay? I just want you to stop being an asshole.

I didn’t make a peep.  Instead I retreated to the corner of my kitchen, grabbed a butcher knife, and contemplated the likelihood that I would survive if presented the unique opportunity to jump out my second story window.

As he kept banging I mustered what little strength I had in my lungs and announced to him that I was calling the police.

“911, what’s your location and emergency?” A friendly and calm operator asked.

I gave him my address and told him I was pretty sure I was about to be axe murdered by my vampire/sociopath neighbor.  All for leaving a passive-aggressive sticky note.

This is how I die.

We had a good run.

And oddly no, it wasn’t my childhood memories that passed through my mind in those moments of panic.  No.  I didn’t think about all the trips to Europe I wouldn’t take or about all the happy thoughts I’ve had in this life.

Nope.

Do you want to know what I was really thinking?

1) I have unpaid parking tickets.

2) Wells Fargo is going to be pissed when I defer on my student loans.

3) But thank GOD I had time to watch that one last Nicholas Sparks film.

My practical mind took over and I pictured how inconvenient it would be for my friends and loved ones to have to go through all my belongings after my hilarious and untimely death.  They just moved me into this place, too. 

Moving all those boxes again would surely throw out my dad’s back.

The most I could hope for would be for someone to make sure that all my sloppy rantings got published into a book someday in my honor.  But I’m no Anne Frank, okay?  Most of my poetry is written on the backs of napkins and receipts and my two “novels” most surely consist of mainly spelling errors and bad grammar. 

As for the Sociopath Vampire, he’s been relatively tame ever since the police talked him down and off the crazy ledge.  He still blasts his horrendous music like all the time, but has at least kept the screaming at 3am to a minimum. 

As for me,  I won’t be leaving any passive-aggressive sticky notes any time soon.

(Posts sticky note on bathroom mirror for self to read, “Please resist the urge to communicate with sociopaths unless you are really that curious about the afterlife.  Thank you.”)

7 Easy Steps to Sucking at Adulthood

"Become an adult," They said.  "It will be fun," They said.

Doing the dishes has always been my favorite.  Call it an odd pastime, but the idea of cleaning a sink full of dirty pots and pans gives me ease just about any day of the week.  During my student teaching semester my favorite thing to do was to clean out the coffee maker and mugs at the end of each day. 

The reason for this is simple: it’s predictable. 

No students to talk back to me or refuse to do an assignment, no meetings to attend, no hustle and bustle of angry cars on the road; just a quiet sink and a sponge. 

It soothes me even on my worst days. 

And not only is this routine predictable, but it’s safe.  I can easily control my life in that tiny bit of space and time.

As I stood at my sink just a moment ago scrapping off burnt plastic from a cookie sheet that nearly set my apartment on fire I couldn’t help but giggle at my altogether failed attempts at adulthood. 

Calm down, Mom.  I'm fine.

Some of this is to be expected.

Newly recovered from a traumatic brain injury?  Yes.

First year teacher?  That’s me.

Trying to live on your own for the first time in a new city with little to no life experience?  Oh, hey.  Me again. 

I knew this day would come.  I even blogged about it one time (see “Fake Adulthood and Other Things I Suck At").

But this time the struggle is, how you say, real. 

Very fucking real.

Because I function best at a shit-show level of 75, I shall break down for you the real life adulty things that have come around to bite me in the 23 year old ass of mine:

1. Student Loans: Long been a thing that I “didn’t have to worry about right now,” student loans payments are right around the corner of “Adulthoodsucksville” and “Whatareresponsibilities” Street. I should be a city planner. Those are great street names. And something I want to point out is that not only have I sucked at finding any affordable education throughout my entire life, but also at filling out nearly every piece of paperwork associated with just about everything.

2. Bills: There was this one time this summer when I forgot to fill out a piece of paperwork for direct deposit (surprise, surprise) and ended up having my entire paycheck given to me on a temporary debit card. Fast forward to just a week ago when I bought a Chipotle burrito with said card and over drafted the account by a whopping $4. Today was going to be the day that I paid off the measly $4 and moved on with my life before they started charging me ungodly amounts of money on a card I don’t use. Three locations and several pieces of paperwork later I finally paid the $4…oh, but the minimum for that payment is actually $10…and there is a $3.95 processing fee. Fine. Whatever.

3. Technology: While driving all around Denver looking for the right bank location to fill out paperwork for a pathetic $4 bill, my GPS decided not to work and I ended up lost in the city for an hour cursing my inability to effectively navigate a town that I have lived in for my entire life.

4. Driving: If you were looking for the curb, I found it. And two blocks from my apartment that I was trying so desperately to get back to before I lost my sanity with the passing wind. My right tire was flat as a pancake and in a truly non-feminist way I called my brother to help me change it. This was also the highlight of my day and cost me an exciting $59 dollars to get two new tires. I say exciting because in actuality I think tires cost a lot more than that these days. And I think the mechanic must have felt really sorry for me and thought I was homeless or something so he gave me a discount. That or he thought I was cute. I’ll take either honestly.

5. Parking: What’s that? A parking ticket you say? Sure, I’ll be responsible and pay that right away. Wait. Where the fuck did I put that parking citation? No, really. It’s fine. I’ll just call the city of Denver and talk to a human who will surely help me. Oh? They don’t employ humans anymore in call centers? Oh, that’s fine. I’ll just describe my brain injury and inability to keep track of tiny slips of paper to a robot. Good plan.

6. Cooking/Not Setting The Apartment on Fire: I got so excited to buy the correct size cookie sheets that would fit in my prehistoric oven that I forgot to take the paper off of one of them that was stored below. Haven’t eaten all day because apparently I have to feed myself because my parents aren't around to do it. Let’s make a pizza! That sounds niiiiiice. Cue mass panic and realization that I don’t yet own a fire extinguisher, however I might clearly need one in a moment if I don’t figure out what’s going on here with this smoking business.

7. Teaching: Yep. Ask me how much I have planned for this week? Go ahead. Ask away. Oh? You want to know how many papers I have graded over Fall Break? Yeah??? YOU WANNA TAKE THIS OUTSIDE, PUNK.

Alright.  That’s enough whining for one blog post.  All things considered I have it pretty good these days despite my hilarious missteps and laughable behavior.  And it gives me solace to know that my exciting life can always put a friend in a good mood when they hear the newest shenanigans that I've gotten myself into these days.  

What’s that one Smashmouth song?

“I get knocked down, but I get up again.  Yuh neva’ gonna get me down?”

Yeah.  Something like that.  

"Excuse me Trump, I'ma Let You Finish..."

Trump: 0, Corncob: 1

Okay.  So I’m not one to rant about my political views.  Like ever. 

When my students ask me who I’m voting for I say Tom Hanks. 

I don’t often find value in spewing my political opinions on others because so many people do that already so who’s even got time to listen to what I have to say on the matter?

However lately things have gone too far and I shan’t hold me tongue any longer.  No I shan’t.

The political platform used to be a place to instigate change; a place to transform the nation and heal the country after wartime woes.  Politics have always been a means to create equality and unity on a national scale.  Now, let’s be clear on one thing:

Political leaders have always been hated.

After Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States he literally had to be shipped secretly in a midnight train to the White House to avoid assassination attempts. 

Rough gig, Abe.

Historically, all presidential leaders and candidates have been criticized for some reason or another.  I’m sure if I ran for president I’d have my own personal team of specialists just to sort through all the hate mail. 

But I’m not running for president you see, because I’m not qualified to do so.

Running a country is kind of a big job to do.  It requires knowledge of international affairs, negotiation techniques, economic wherewithal, public speaking skills, and like a lot of paperwork and signing of serious looking things like Amendments to the Constitution and education bills and whatnot. 

That’s a lot of power for one person.  But as Spiderman’s uncle once said,

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

And I rather liked that guy.

Maybe he should run for president.  Oh wait, that bad guy in the first movie killed him.  Darn it.

The reason I’m writing today is not to go on a gigantic sh-peal about politics and tell you who’s agenda is the worst or why our country is doomed.

Nah.

I simply want to point out that things are getting out of hand and we should all promptly pull our heads out of our you-know-what’s when it comes to politics in America.

Let’s just broach the topic of Donald Trump.  To me he’s a topic of discussion, yes a person (albeit one with a horrific head of hair), but also the butt of every joke I hear these days. 

For the longest time I paid no attention to Trump because I was sure it was a publicity stunt and would blow over in a matter of weeks along with his hair piece.  My mother refers to him as a "flash in the pan;" sure to make a big headline but not something to last over time.  Nope, still hearing about that guy.  So I did some research and found some of his policies.

Immigration Reform: According to Trump’s website, his campaign to “Make America Great Again” contains three pillars of immigration reform:

1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.

2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.

3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

Included in this reform is his campaign to end Birthright Citizenship and deport all illegal aliens from the United States back to Mexico.  Now this is a hot button, so we’re not going to get into it right now. 

But I do think to really understand this issue we have to go back in history and back to our roots.  The true Americans, meaning the first Americans who actually lived on this land since day one, have all been slaughtered and moved onto small reservations. 

There I said it. 

Native Americans.  They are the true Americans.  The rest of us came from elsewhere and “claimed” this country as our own as is the human way for all of history of all time.  So historically speaking we are all immigrants of some kind, but that’s a whole separate conversation and you can now send hate mail to my receptionist Tammy.

Aside from Trump’s immigration reform (which we will not get into right now as I said), there’s not a whole lot I can gather about his political platform from his campaign website.  So I did more research.  What I found was a list of country issues and his stances on them, supported by citations and direct quotes.  You can find the full list here.

I will say that not all of his positions are publicized by the media.  But if you look a bit closer at some of the hot buttons like civil rights, you can see he has changed his mind about them in the past few years and made quite a few headlines as of late.

If you were wondering about his take on women as “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,” you can find his thoughts as well as a video with Fox News here:   

Now as if it weren’t enough that this man is trying to become president, we now have Exhibit B:

Kanye West, future presidential candidate in 2020.

All Hail Yeezy.

For Jimmy Kimmel’s comparison of these two candidate’s here’s this:

I invite you now to join me as I slam my frontal lobe into the nearest hard surface.

Send Brennyn to Britain!

I have a lot of friends. 

Ask my parents.  They often get confused at which friend I’m referring to in conversation and have requested that I make a spreadsheet so that they can keep track of which Mel is the Mel I worked with at the country club and which Mel is the roommate from Boulder who just got married.

I’m popular what can I say.

But long lists of gal pals and teaching buddies aside there is a special friend that I would like to give a shout out to today and every day.

Her name is Brennyn Hoose.

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Back before we had cell phones, Snapchat, and real adult responsibilities she befriended me; a loud-mouthed theater chick who thought she was some cool business back in high school.  Back when lamenting over boys who didn’t know we existed was all we had to worry about.  We were 14 and had no idea what would become of our lives. 

She’s my rock.

When my heart was epically curb-stomped last year she was the first one I called at 4am, snot dripping out of my nose and writhing in pain in the corner of some dark parking lot.

When the shit hit the fan with my health last Fall she was the first one there again.  It took her all of two seconds to drop everything she was doing, drive across town in rush hour traffic, and arrive in my hospital room with a gigantic bag of chocolate and flowers.

Here we are in 2015. 

I am up to my elbows in new teaching stress and Brennyn is by my side every step of the way as she always is.  After my first day of school she dropped by my house to give me a box of chocolate and listen to me ramble on about my inability to work the copy machine and effectively manage my classroom.

She’s my rock.  And you know yuh' girl is all about that chocolate.

So when Brennyn told me that her dream in life was to go to England for a mission trip with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) to change lives, I knew I had to do something about it.  Big time.

So I invited Brennyn over for wine and chatted her up about her journey in front of a cheap front-facing camera on my parent’s couch.  We talked about how she discovered the program, what led her to her faith, and where she will be stationed to work. 

What you don’t see in the video (which is terribly edited by yours truly) is her non-stop hustle. For the past 6 months Brennyn has been working herself to the nubs for this dream.

Standing in line all day to fill out paperwork for her Visa.  Saving up every penny she has.  Talking to complete strangers about the importance of her journey and trying to convince them that she is worthy of this.  Getting denied from one program and applying to another.  Working two full-time jobs and still having time to call me on the phone and hear me dump my own emotional trauma on her.

I actually don’t know another human being who works as hard as she does.

The woman doesn’t quit.

So therefore I won’t quit until she achieves her dream. 

This is where you come in, my devoted readers.  I am asking you to give.  Give back to the woman that has made me who I am today.  Give back to a soul that is so selfless and real that she makes you want to be better than you ever thought you could.

Give her a dollar, a penny, a prayer.  Make her dreams come true.  Because if I know anyone who will make a difference in this world, it’s Brennyn.  So help get her there.

Below I have attached her personal blog and funding page.  I encourage you to read up on her mission and what she plans to do in England and other parts of the world.  I encourage you to donate to her cause and her never-ending dedication to her faith and her number one fan (me).

Join my campaign to send Brennyn to Britain!

Click here to read her blog and here to donate!