Still Puzzled...

Garnered a part-time subbing gig today, math at my former middle school. Talk about nostalgia... there was none. As all things are prone to do, given the span of seven or eight years, the place has just flatout changed. There's a revolving door of teachers, principals, and other faces. But some of those faces are so fresh. Just a half-day of 7th and 8th grade math classes today lent itself to some great sophomoric [err, make that middle schoolish] humor. Herein are nuggets of that humor, for my personal record and enjoyment and for whoever else might saunter upon this:

girl: Do you have a girlfriend?
me: I did, until Sunday.
class: Awww.
boy: Did she break up with you?
me: No, it was mutual... [pause]... do you know what that means?
girl: Oh yes, it was a vocab word.


boy 1: [to me] Hey, you shouldn't laugh at students!
boy 2: [to boy 1] But he has to! If not, he'll want to hit us!

boy: Are you in a frat?
me: Yes, I am.
girl: Ahh. Have you been on "Fraternity Life" on MTV?


One kid I will not forget and hope to see again is Phillip, one of very few names I actually remember from mere 45min classes. Here is Phil's montage of unknowing shoutouts:


Phil: [after I threatened a disciplinary write-up at the end of class] Hey, sorry for being bad, dude. It's, you know, Wednesday... the middle of the week... Oh, and I don't have ADHD really. I was just, ya know, being hyper.


Phil: [to me] Are you part of the founding family of Scott toiletries? [yesss, a 7th grader said this!]


My Favorite:

Phil: What college do you go to?
Me: Ball State.
Phil: Really? My mom went to Ball State. But then she and my dad got in too much love, and she dropped out. She's a housemom now.

Kids... rule! They can be annoying and yet innocuous at the same time. They are HILARious. I can't wait for a 6am wakeup call tomorrow, and I'm already psyched about my 6th grade elementary class set for Friday. Uhoh, never "taught" elementary school before... ohh SNAP.

It's only been 24 hours here at home, and already the differences are staggering both in the actual physical structure that is Casa de Scott and in interacting with the Scott familia. What a bunch. Onward.

I think I'm going to miss my 106 and Dill coordinates at school more than I realized. Externally, that house was a veritable eyesore, but I called it home for nine months. Though outwardly it was indeed wasting away, I'd like to believe that inwardly it was being renewed daily, in more ways than one. I miss my room. Things happened there. No, not what some might be led to think. People danced, people talked, people confronted, people hugged, people argued, and people sang in there. Of the five rooms inhabited at the Dill house, mine was the smallest, affectionately dubbed "The Shanty" [thanks, SB]. Funny that in all actuality, my room at home is more of a box and even smaller than that room. But The Shanty in Muncie had that knot-infested wood paneling on the built-in closet and on the ceiling. There were also those two false columns slightly jutting out on the white-washed wall juxtaposed with the garage. I hung my ATO paddles from the bolts that protruded from those columns. The Shanty actually resembled a ship's cabin, and I loved it. My room at home is so structurally uninteresting.

I find it quite funny that at home I've already twice walked into the kitchen here and then stopped short, expecting the ghettofied motion light to blink on to note my entrance. Not so. I miss that light. I miss the weird comfort it provided when it clicked on as I scurried across the living room to or from the bathroom at 2 or 3am during the school year, as my room was on the other side of and detached from the actual house [again, The Shanty... a breezeway to the garage]. I also miss noting out loud to whoever was within hearing distance that "I feel so insignificant when this motion light turns off as I'm standing in the kitchen." I voiced that half-jokingly every time it happened. And every time, Jeremy would duly note that I had said it yet again. I miss him saying that.

Family-wise, after being home just this short time, I can already see all the trappings for another ho-hum month setting in. The trick is going to be not letting that happen, and not letting that be me. I am too reactive all too often. The doldrums of Warsaw and home life already seem to be presenting themselves. Some things never seem to change about this place, or about the people contained within it whom I love. This pains me to no end. Again, I've been gone for nine months. I feel I've grown, been stretched, lived a lot, struggled, overcome, learned a lot [15 percent of it from textbooks], won and lost, laughed and cried a lot. All these things have happened to me, and I feel hardly anything's changed on the homefront. Why, oh why do I always enter the next stage of existence, in this case the month of May spent at home, with such lofty expectations? They can never measure up, and my family can never seem to measure up. So many things seem to be on a pedestal in my life, and I just set them up for disappointment, chop the legs out from under them. Nothing ever seems to be good enough for me. I don't even know the untold joys and blessings I have forfeited or taken for granted in life and in the last week. Obviously, this needs to change in how I approach everything and everyone. It's okay to be skeptical, as all journalism professors will, well, profess, but being hypercritical sometimes is what throws me overboard.

I didn't get a 6am wakeup call this morning with the offer of a sub teaching job at Warsaw High, so I then awoke at 11am [no sorries there]. But I'm not sure where the next six hours went, and then they were gone. Solid gone. I am not good with managing time and resources. I used to think myself quite frugal. Not so much. I splurge. I get distracted. I'll do next to anything to not do the task at hand, easy as it might seem to be. I waste precious time and monetary resources. Someone once joked about wasting time, "Man, it's like going over to rearrange or fix the window blind, I'd almost do that instead." Well, I have been that guy. This needs to change. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might..." [Ecclesiastes 9:10].

Maybe tomorrow morning I'll get that 6am wakeup call with the offer of a subbing gig, and maybe I won't. In any event, I think I'll make tomorrow the first day.

Yes, I do hope to actually have an original thought soon. It's just hard to process thoughts and feelings coherently the last few days.


Jaded // LaRue


Something's different between you and me
And I'm not sure if it's good or bad
And all I know is that from what I've seen
Maybe it's I who has changed
The feelings I'd had rearranged
A space that's between us becoming a whole
As I'm growing older

It's almost faded
Passions jaded
Passions jaded
By my heart

Something's changing between you and me
A bond that's melting so painlessly
A weight has been lifted from you and me
Maybe it's better this way
I can't help but feeling okay
This sweetly is forming and molding my soul
As I'm growing older

If this is true
God set us free
Perhaps you and I are not meant to be
And if in the end
We drift apart
I want you to know God used you right from the start

Flutter Girl // Chris Cornell


I'm drinking dust
With eyes of rust
Tonight my tears might stain your wings
So flutter home
'Cause you're better off alone than with me
So hide your face
And tie your lace
And butterflies across your cheek
Forget how soon you become a fool for words when I speak


I got nothin'.