I've bought my plane tickets to various places, I have a dress to wear to 3 out of 4 special occasions, I've paid my rent, cable internet, and power bill, registered for my last standardized test, nearly been accepted to FIU, and have painted my nails red. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I believe I'm ready for May.
It feels a bit like summer around here in Miami, and not just because of the weather. Miraculously, it has stayed around 77 degrees for the past 2 months, confounding my sense of the passage of time, but thoroughly delighting my senses. Without grad school papers and work to do the past week, I've felt a bit like I'm playing hookie. I had a day "off" last week for another Read 180 training, which felt deliciously illicit, and on Tuesday I get to take a day off to go observe classes at a private school in Coral Gables. I feel like a bit of a sham, even though things in English class are sailing along smoothly, and the kids are tearing through the Odyssey.
This past week, what with progress reports and my life just beginning to get back in order, was supposed to be rough. Fortunately, it wasn't.
There has been a good deal of retrospective self-analysis running around Design Place among TFA members of both the '03 and '04 corps. It's so true that you can't even begin to analyze an event/emotion/person/place without some sort of distance, be it spacial, temporal, or emotional space. All of a sudden, life has slowed down to a manageable pace; perhaps it's because some of my responsibilities have loosened their hold on my schedule. As soon as my mind is given a little free rein to do its own thing, I of course start thinking about one of my favorite topics: Myself!
I have decided, along with some other sagacious TFA-ers, that I've been through the same sort of emotional rollercoaster that we experienced during Institute, only on a larger scale. There was the inital trepidation, the abstract knowledge of "it's going to be hard," confronting reality, being pissed of and frightened at reality, and then a sort of scrambling to get things done, ending in a final sense of relative calm/accomplishment. I feel "okay" with my life right now, which is, professionally, quite a goddamn feat.
True, there are nearly 7 weeks of school left, but May is chock-full of activity for my personal and itinerant life. I was so scared of April, with no Dave, no days off, and no hope of school ending. Then, all of a sudden, April ended.
It ended not in grand style, but with a stylish flair. Not bad, all told. Considering the sad Thursday occurrence when the most evilest man on the planet stole the O.C. from the airwaves with his bullshit about "Fixing Social Security!" Whatever. Boo. There were other good things this week (Ashley and I watched 16 Candles instead. I felt very weepy and romantic.) I finished a book for FUN (gasp! shock! scandal!) yesterday, and managed to find time all last week to work out. Not getting exercise just makes me a little batty, so exam week was even more stressful because of that factor. It's nice to be able to sit around on a Friday night and just chat with people to wind down from the work week. It's even nicer to go to Uva and sip pinot noir with flourless chocolate cake after a healthy dinner of eggdrop soup for my under-the-weather roommate. Then, it's even nicer still to get all of my errands (okay, well, most) done early on Saturday morning, lay out by the pool and read, then top off the day with a shopping expedition in the Grove.
As I mentioned to Dave, this weekend I did all the things that make me unwind tangled thoughts, the things that are comfortable, familiar: I read a LOT, I cooked good meals with quality food (yay for finding an Asian market in Miami! Who knew there were Asians in South Florida?), I bought a pair of shoes, I cleaned my room, and I cleaned up the car.
I slept in on Sunday, bought the New York Times and immersed myself in Spring news and style while eating pancakes and drinking my Starbucks Latte, then cleaned house with Mary, got yelled at for washing my car at DPlace (irritating inconvenience number 131a of this month), and then read some more. It's lovely, I did NOTHING this weekend! How liberating.
One of these days I'm actually going to make it to the beach, the Bass Museum, and other cultural sights. For now, I'm okay with taking mental health weekend, recharging my brain on quality (and grade B) literature, and starting to think again. Gotta get my rest in now, 'cause May is going to be nuts.
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