Excerpt from one of my high school diaries...I was a sophomore...March 18, 2004

"The beauty of God's love fills my days with joy." Although it is hard to admit, it is true. The unconditional love of my Creator and the beauty he produced because of that love are my only joys in life. Everything else falls away. Men fall away. Friends fall away. Family falls away. Everything you think you can rely on...it all falls. No matter what I do to God, He keeps on loving me. With people, all it takes is someone else to come along or some problem to come up that they don't want to deal with an they're gone. Gone Gone Gone. It is a sad thing I know, but I don't feel sad. I feel a nothing that is every something I can't explain. My problem is not that people leave me, it is that I drive them away. Why I do this I don't know. Maybe it is because I want them to be so loyal to me, to know me so well, that they know that I am doing it to test their love. So far in my life only one person has truly stood by me though this all. I have been so angry lately, I just can't contain myself. Some people that I thought were good friends I now have my doubts about. How can a person be so ununderstanding and uncompassionate towards another person. To have someone that you thought cared about you blow off some of your deepest most personal feelings; to have then just say they're typical response of "what can you do?", or in this case, "cute." How completely annoying and crushing. One possible true friend eliminated. Shows how well they know me. Taylor wrote this poem last week that completely or at least completely accurately explains life. I guess life can never be completely explained, but it can be explained completely accurately. This world is shit,. God made it perfect and we fucked it up. What can you do??? The answer is nothing, no, I can do sonething. But how. But what. What is the reason. What is the purpose, the motivation. How do you un-fuck something that is already fucked? How do you turn shit into gold? I'm o alchemist but I'm sure it can be done.

so much life is wasted.
without love there's nothing.
only the world
and the world is fucked
and so am i.

without love life is a waste.
life is nothing without love
an nothing is a waste.

the world is waste
and so am i.
until i choose love
i'm fucked for life.

I think maybe I have been angry lately because someone that I thought a lot of let me down. Maybe that isn't the right way to put it. I know this person has a lot of their own problems...even if they can't or won't admit that. And I love this person. I love because of their humanity, I love because they are people, a person. I love for the sake of loving, I love because everyone deserves to be loved. Therefore, I love them and their friends and their enemies. But I, I was not loved. not as a person, not because I am a person. I must admit though, I am not a person that is easy to love. So I respect them for trying and I forgive them for failing. Maybe they need to love themselves first. Some people need that. I honesty hope this person can learn to love, because love is a choice. And I am looking forward to a continuing friendship and I can't wait to see them learn to love.

Okay, I just read over that and to tell the truth it is a bunch of mushy bull shit. (Only the last part is true, start with "I am not easy to love.") That is how it should be and how it isn't. I am angry because I lost. And I lose too often. And I hate losing. I suck at losing. I am a bad loser.

I feel abandoned and alone and all I want is to be safe. Sometimes I just want someone to cover my eyes and hold my hand and lead me through. i guess that is kind of God's job. Maybe one of these days I'll let him do it. Maybe...

Random Compilation of Thoughts

This is the morning after Thanksgiving break. I earlier I felt sick, so I took a shower and went back to bed. It wasn't the kind of sick where you think you might be coming down with something, it was more like a knot in the pit of my stomach. I would definitely say it crossed the line into nausea. Why am I so opposed to work? I love my job; maybe I am nervous about my performance? That is probably it - classroom management. Anyway, now that I am through the logistics...

This lonnnnng weekend was some good thinking time for me. I got together with my friend Tia, and we smoked hookah together for two hours while discussing the ins-and-outs of what it is that makes relationships last or fail. Relationships - romantic or otherwise - are so multifaceted and dynamic and unique from one another that they are impossible to comprehend entirely. I simplify things in my head and narrow my perspective to things that I have seen fail in my experiences and things that I have seen work in the experiences of those around me (Kaitlin and Bekah). I also like to dissect what I see in movies ("What Dreams May Come").

respect for space when people ask for it
not abusing the request for space
stop learning each other everyday
choosing each other every day
having loaded expectations verses serving another person
self-medicating and passing on pain

i want to be challenged in my faith to search out truth and grow stronger in it and be more edified. i don't want to constantsly have it torn at by my closest friend, the world does that enough. i want my closest friend to build me up in my faith and give me encrouragement and support and give me the hunger to have a deeper relationship with Christ.

i say i hate rules but i allow myself to be in a box, to fit a mold. i may be just contraversial enough to give myself some moving space within that box, but i am still in that box. really, how do you not have a box? everyone has a box, but our boxes are just made out of different materials and have different shapes. no one is box free. that is why we put God in a box and limit Him, because we know nothing else. Maybe if I can take God out of the box I made for Him I can begin to escape my own box. I have a friend who thinks my box is Christianity. Maybe he is right. I tend to think that my box is Christianity, in the sense that I focus more on my behavior than on my RELATIONSHIP with Jesus. Is a relationship a box? No. Is dictated behavior a box? Yes, because it restricts my living. Does a relationship with Jesus restrict my behavior, well yes. He calls me to die to the flesh. I want to escape these built in responses and look for deeper meaning, and then hopefully they will connect back with  what I know to be true. I know I am limiting my thoughts by staying in the bounds of Christianity, but that is what I choose.

Thanksgiving Morning, 11-24-2011

It is funny how we should show respect to members of our family first and foremost, yet we are rude and mean spirited to them more than anyone else. Perhaps because we know that they "will always be there" and, hypothetically, we just have to keep "dealing with" each other. Do we really want anyone, even family, to feel obligated to "deal with" us? Imagine if we as family members spoke to each other with the same respect we wanted to be treated with, and what if we were all genuine in the way we spoke to one another? What if we spent less energy in a frantic "everything must be perfect, I am too busy to think about how what I am doing makes you feel" mode? How would this place look different? I have been letting my disappointment and hurt (over my needs not being met) taint the way I am thinking of others in my head and thus also tainting my words towards them. Lord, I need Your help. Help me see outside my own perspective and understand my interactions and other people's actions more as You see them. You see all angles, Lord, help me to understand.

Harmony in Heartache and Happiness

So I was thinking about what my intention is when I read God's word. Is it to understand myself better, to understand others better, or to understand God better? Truthfully it is probably all of the above, but I don't want to primarily seek to understand the nature of man because I know that we are so fickle and ever changing. I want to know God, and through knowing Him and His character I will better understand myself and my fellow human beings, because we are made in His image. We crave relationship because we were made to need it like God has it, and so it is good. God is always in perfect and full and completely and utterly intimate relationship with Himself, like in the Shack :) Papa, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (whatever, I don't remember what they call it in the book). I also realize that another person can never fully meet my need for an intimate relationship, because they too are looking to get something from the relationship. We never have perfect "communion" with each other as people because we are blocked from each other by our fears and our innate need to have our (emotional) needs met, rather than always seeking to understand and support the other. That being said, I look forward to the day when I meet my Father in heaven and I can feel His presence (love) in every dimension of my being. And I am so thankful for all the ways that He lets me experience Him now. At this moment I am thankful that His promises give me joy that surpasses my circumstances.

i-don't-know-what-to-title-this

I am a very greedy person, and I base much of my self-worth on how much other people want to be around me. And, I try to get people to want to be around me by flirting or making jokes or by being pretty. I am trying to change this by not wearing make-up, by having conversations that focus more on things that matter, and by giving away my excess. Giving away my excess is something that I have done before, but then I always buy it back. Lame. I am making a poor teacher's salary, but I know compared to most of the world I am rich. Why should I be as needy as I am for my "stuff"? I have, like, 30 sweatshirts. Ridiculous. Christ says it is harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Well, I might not be rich by American standards, but by world standards and as measured by how attached I am to my stuff, I am rich. How willing am I to walk away from everything when/if I am called to do so? I have these two pairs of adorable jeans with decked out back pockets, drawing attention to we-all-know-what. They are also tight jeans. GtG. Fo Sho. Ugh! I am so weighed down by giving this stuff away, and I know I should be joyful to give! It is one of those things, where, do I wait to give it away until I am more okay with it, or do I give it away and then feel the release of bondage? This is lots of rambling...too much rambling, but I am going to keep going. I also have about 30 pairs of shoes. Some are high heels I will never wear again. Some are high heels that make me look sexy that I should never wear again. Why keep them? What do they bring to my life? Stats from having so much...attention for sexiness that I shouldn't want, because I so strongly want to be loved for me, chains to possessions...

I am quick to frustration.
I am quick to doubt.
I am quick to offense.
I am quick to join in on downer conversations.
I am quick to wanting what others have.

I need God's love. I don't know how to be okay and love myself with out Him. Thank God for God :D. He is my strength, and because of the truth of what this world is and what His kingdom is, I have the strength to live for Him in ways that are pleasing to Him. How do I move to putting God first, ALWAYS? I have been lukewarm drifting towards cold. I want passion. And, I suppose if that is what I really want, then that is what I will seek out. So...maybe I want to want passion? I think maybe my problem is that I am standing at the top of a hill, on one side is the steep slope of passionately serving Christ, and the other side has the gentle slope of the easy road. I need to move myself, start the motion. The steep slope will help me keep going.

reflections after visiting two other math classrooms on rosebud

Today I was out of the classroom for "district growth" purposes. I went to a nearby country school and observed a 6-8 grade math classroom from 8:30 until 11:15, and then observed an 8th grade math classroom from 12:20 until 1:30. It was interesting to see the different dynamics in the rooms. I feel like my classroom is more like the pure 8th grade classroom structure wise, but I learned equally as much about teaching from the multi-grade room.

Multi-grade had lots of little workshop stations and a high energy level. I would classify the teacher as more "excited" about math rather than "serious" about it, which I think is good. I have drifted more towards the serious drill sergeant side, and that is not conducive to students being excited learners. The multi-grade room had a large focus on discovering concepts through activities such as measuring the circumference of different objects around the gym and using that to help them find diameter, cutting apart a piece of paper to see exponential growth, and relating the area of a triangle to the area of a rectangle in order to observe where the 1/2 comes from in the formula for the area of a triangle. I feel that this "discovery learning" is very valuable and leads to a more intuitive understanding of the material, thus increasing retention of knowledge. However, I wonder about the time consuming nature of learning by discovering...It seems to me that students should get lots of practice working with different kinds of problems in order that they might be able to solve problems quickly and efficiently. Not only does discovery learning take a long time to convey the intended concept, but also students don't get very fast at preforming certain tasks at a high level of accuracy. They need to get enough practice so that they don't have to re-discover a concept over and over and over again. Discovery learning is critical thinking at its best; I do LOVE that. Also, students doing discovery learning seemed to be highly invested in their work and were curious learners. They helped one another learn and asked each other math questions.

The pure 8th grade class was one day ahead of the multi-grade. They did the lesson using cutting of paper to discover exponential growth yesterday, which appeared to have been an introduction to a new unit. In this class, the teacher showed a picture and a video of a roller coaster in order to get at the idea of slope.  They then used a table they had made the previous day to plot some points on a graph, which turned out to be an exponential curve. The class related this curve back to the shape of the roller coaster, and then made posters of what they had already graphed in their notebooks (?). After working on the posters(but not completing them-they will get a few minutes at the beginning of class tomorrow to finish), they came back together as a class and the students came up with an equation that represented the tables that they used to make their graphs. The students came up with an idea for the equation that was outside of what the teacher had planned, but he was able to adopt his plan and use the totally valid equation students came up with.

Things that I gleaned from today:

1. It is important for students to have feedback on their work. Having a station in the room where students can go to check their answer is a way for students to practice their work correctly, and not just practice doing a process wrong over and over again because they were not told it was wrong. 
2. Having students observe their own class and give feedback on what is going well and what needs to be improved is a way that they can take ownership for whether classroom behavior contributing to or distracting from student learning. 
3. Writing in math notebooks, expressing how they are feeling about math or school in general, is a constructive and mutually beneficial way for me to get to know my students. 
4. Students need variety during their day. Their minds need to think about different applications of math over our 80 minute blocks in order to stay interested and hard-working for such a long period of time.
5. Students should feel proud of their notebooks and feel that they are a tool that they know how to use. Notebooks can be used as a resource during tests. 
6. Lowering your voice and whispering works better for getting classroom attention than does raising your voice. 
7. When you are asking for students to raise their hands to volunteer information, it seems to encourage them if you raise your own hand. 

Veteran's Day weekend, 2011

Why do we take the time to write our thoughts down? Because we want to clarify things to ourselves? Because we want others to know us? Maybe because we want to preserve ourselves, so that when we are no longer around our thoughts still are...

I want to be beautiful on the inside, full of light-heartedness, empty of judgement towards others, and not shaken by the judgement of others towards myself. I want to work on Lara and transform her into a gentle, kind, and thoughtful woman, who is more concerned about what her actions and her words create (in the long term and in the moment) in the minds and hearts of others than she is about what others think of her. I know that if I put a ton of effort into making myself beautiful on the inside then my level of investment in who I am will make me more susceptible to not receive criticisms of myself well. I must remain vigilant to seek out and receive constructive criticisms, keeping myself humble and minimizing pride, and also encouraging a spirit of continuous improvement of myself.

Self-improvement requires me taking time to investigate myself, and requires the pain of admitting negative things about myself and admitting the shadow it casts on the lives of others. It takes the hard work of fixing parts of me that I use as crutches, of wading through and dealing with the pain that my crutches help me escape. And by dealing with I mean understanding root causes, accepting my mistakes and self-inflicted losses and destruction, fixing by finding new ways to live and experience, moving on by no longer engaging in my coping strategies.


To Come: My Experience with Corporate Worship, New Life Church, CO Springs

Parent Teacher Conferences - Free Cookies and Coffee, for once, just isn't cuttin it.

So I am sitting here at my first ever REAL parent teacher conference...I am on the teacher end, of course :). I say "real" parent teacher conference because the school had one at the beginning of the year, but (for the entire three hours) I only had one parent show up, and it was the mother of a girl whose father is a security guard at the school. I have had six parents show up tonight, and we are only beginning the third hour of our 5 hour conference schedule. A huge improvement from my previous experience. (My enthusiasm must be shining through.) I have so many things I could be doing right now while I am waiting here in my room to confer with parents... Lesson plans for the week are due every Monday at 8 am. So far I have submitted the ones for today (already happened) and tomorrow. I will get right on that...cough. No, I seriously will. After I vent/express myself a little on virtual paper. Please, I have priorities.

You know, you would think that being a teacher is an easy job. Work from 8 till 4, get the summers off, get to hang-out with kids all day. What isn't to love, right? Well it isn't all as peachy as it seems...

...Professional development meetings where you listen to a woman describe to how to teach a student to read the word "man" using phonics, mmmm, mmmmaaaaa, mmmmaaaaaannnnnnnnnn, man.
...Paper work and modified lessons/worksheets for students on I.E.P.s, or "individualized education plans".
...Parent-teacher conferences that span over half of the working day, in fact, increasing your hours at school to 13 hours in one day, for two days in a row.
...After school tutoring till 5:30 for at least two days a week.
...Required CWG "collaborative work group" meetings once a week during your prep period.
...Constant observations (i.e. people/principals walking in and out of your room disrupting the flow of class with their presence and movement)
...And then the feedback, with people telling you what you are doing wrong and what you could do to get better. I want help, but holy stars, information overload. My goodness yo.
...Grade books not working.
...Paper. Paper. EVERYWHERE. Someone organize me.

I could go on, but my whining is boring me.

So, all I'm trying to say is that teachers deserve a little more respect, a little more prestige, and a little more free time. No not really, what I am trying to say is that I am getting lazy, I am having a hard time making myself care about preparing for class or grading after class, I am feeling undervalued and harshly critiqued, and I am feeling like I will never have what it takes to help a kid change their circumstances through getting a good education. And I am also saying I want more respect, prestige, and free time, but I think those are secondary concerns at this point. I just want to feel ok, and not like a miserable little pib-squeek  of a woman who can't manage a classroom of 14 year old teenagers nor teach basic math after she has earned her degree in the subject. Mahhh, I can't even express correctly. Just stop reading this and come read my heart.

Free coffee and cookies will usually make me happy to stay anywhere for any amount of time, so long as the goodies don't run out. Right now, mmm, not so much.

If the coffee runs out and you would like a half-empty glass of negativity, I have plenty here in Room 216.

Relationships

Today is the first morning that I have woken up an literally felt sick to my stomach, maybe because I am unprepared, maybe for other reasons (???). Today is also the first day why I have really remembered why I am here. Funny how things like that work out. I don't believe in coincidences. I have been been experiencing and re-experiencing all different kinds of self-doubts since I have been here, professional and personal. On a personal level, I notice that how other's respond to my presence makes far too big of an impact on my mood and on how I feel about myself. I think this is linked to the fact that I use my appearance as a means for acceptance from others. Too much of my value of myself is set in how others value me, and I try to get others to value me through my looks. Both of these avenues are poor choices, as they are both fickle and bound to change. I need more security than that.

This relates to why I am here. I am here because I wanted to show the girls here, and the women, that our value as people and specifically as women is not grounded in our appearance. Being beautiful or sexy doesn't make us more of a woman or any better of a woman. The way I have been presenting myself is not consistent with what I want to accomplish/communicate with the girls who see me everyday. Clothes that are maybe too fashionable, flirtatious eyes and smiles (even when it is just kidding around). What would be the difference in the impact I make in the lives of these young people if I addressed them and other adults with sincerity rather than surface level happy? What would be the difference in the impact I make in the lives of these young people if I dressed in less money and with less careful planning, and spent less time on my makeup and hair?

The thing about not showing surface level happy is that surface level happy makes people feel good, almost high... But I think showing sincerity would make people feel more content, which lasts longer and it maybe better in the long run... At this point, IDK...