My Own Worst Enemy

I'm sitting on the floor in my loose white uniform, watching my hands move, playing a little xylophone. It's like I'm watching somebody else - a concert - and the music washes over me in tiny waves. My hands move, and my lungs expand, and that's all. It's nice.

The door opens and closes. I don't have to look up to know that it's me. (The other me.) I'm the only one who ever visits.

I keep playing as she approaches, standing over me. She's quiet for a while before she says, "I hear you didn't go to church today."

"Nope." My hands keep playing. "I couldn't go."

"Why not?"

"I'm sick."

"You've been sick for a long time."

"I'm worse today."

Her silence is skeptical. I know she will ask what's wrong, but I have nothing to tell her. It can't be explained.

Sighing, she sits on the floor beside me. I still don't look at her. "Jessica," she says, wearily, "have you been taking your medicine?"

"Yes!" It comes out defensive, and I hit the wrong key on the xylophone.

"Have you been eating?"

I pause, trying to regain my rhythm. ". . . yes. Some."

The concern in her voice is grating somehow. "Have you been going outside? Getting any exercise? Socializing?"

Silence as I watch my hands bounce the mallets.

She groans. "Jessica, don't you want to get better?" Her voice grows impatient, frustrated as I don't answer. "Are you listening to me? This is serious! You can't just give up!" She grabs my arm to get my attention.

I yelp in pain, wincing away and struggling to pull free. She's much stronger than I. "Jessica, look at me!" she demands, reaching over to turn my face toward her. When our eyes meet, she freezes. I am shaking.

She moves her hand, motioning gently toward my black eye, bruised and swollen. "How did this happen?" she whispers. I look away from her. Cool air touches the skin of my arm as she pulls my sleeves back to see the bruises and cuts there. I can feel her inspecting them, and my teeth clench. "Who did this to you?" she gasps, horrified.

I can't stop shaking. The music has stopped and my hands twitch uselessly in my lap. "Who did this to you?" she asks again, more forcibly.

Closing my eyes, I answer.

"You did."

A quiet moment passes.

"What?" she says.

"You did." I am shaking so I think I'll fall to pieces, but I turn to look at her. She has my face, my body, but without the scars, as if they were conveniently forgotten. "You were here last night," I tell her, "yelling and screeching at me for messing everything up, for being useless and weak and stupid. You told me I'd never be anything more than a disappointment." It feels like I'm crying, but my eyes are dry. Where are my tears when I need them? "And then you started hitting me."

My other face is backing up, half-smiling as if this is a joke. "No," she says, "you're lying. I would never do that." Her worried eyes search mine, identical shades of blue. "I'd never hurt you. I love you. I am you!"

Feeling exhausted, I push my sleeves back down over my sins. "I know," I say, softly. "But then why is there blood under your fingernails?"

Her face transforms with horror, and it is my horror, and my eyes that look down at hands with reddened tips and sore knuckles. I am the one whose memory rips through me, flashing images of violence and abuse. And when I stumble back against the wall I realize there is no one here - that I am alone in a room with a little toy xylophone - and terrified tears finally spill over my swollen eye.

There was never anyone here but me.

A Stupid Story

"Why should we hire you?"

I'm staring at my foot, which is tapping all by itself. I don't think it's stopped tapping for the past six months. After a moment of silence, I look up, realizing I've missed something. "Excuse me?"

The man raises an eyebrow and half-smiles. He's sitting on the other side of a large desk, and I don't think he realizes how enthroned he looks to me. I dressed up for this interview, of course; dragged myself into a pair of slacks and put on some jewelry, so maybe he's deluded into thinking I am not a homeless, starving pauper. "I said," he begins again, "why should we hire you? What's special about Jessica Grosland?"

I feel a fluttering of weak-willed wings as something inside of me tries to get up. I need to say something. What's my answer? I know I rehearsed this in the car . . . .

The thing flops down again. Too tired.

"I don't know," I say.

The two people taking notes on either side of the main interviewer stop writing. After a moment's hesitation, they glance up at me, then look to their leader for guidance. He's scrutinizing me with an odd look on his face. "What?" he asks, politely.

"I don't know," I repeat, emphatically. Being honest makes me feel a little stronger, so I sit up in my chair a bit as I continue. "I mean, the last twenty-two guys didn't, so I can't really think why you should. I'm out of answers for you here."

The man's eyes go wide. All traces of a smile are gone from his face, but I've let the leash on my mouth loose and it's off to the races. "I mean, I've always tried to be a really good employee," I say. "Responsible, dedicated - but in the last few months it seems that I have lost everything I once was and now I have nothing to offer. I'm the girl nobody wants to take to the prom. And I guess it's because my dirty secret's out!" I laugh harshly. "I'm a nutcase! Whatever it is that makes it so people can get through the day, I don't have it. I lost it, and I'm not sure it's ever coming back.

"I thought that maybe if I got back into the world, tried doing all the things I used to do, maybe I'd come back to myself and be okay again - but no! The world doesn't want me anymore! Every time I get up off the floor, I'm pushed back down again. So I have to assume that this is where I'm supposed to be. This is where I belong now - at the bottom. Watching people like you do the things that matter. Why -" Now I'm gripping my fists so tightly my nails are gouging my palms. "Why do I have to be filled with these stupid ambitions when I'm trapped in a body that can't handle them?!"

My jaw clenches as I go silent. I'm breathing heavily now, glaring at my clenched fists. The not-crying that replaced crying so long ago feels heavy in my eyes.

After a moment, I hear the man cough. "Alright," he says. "We still have a few more interviews to do today. We hope to have a decision by the end of the week."

I nod, grabbing my purse as I stand up. "I look forward to your call," I say, and I walk out the door.

Sick Day

“You okay?”

I looked up from my half-crouch, sitting on my bed, slumped against the wall. Adrian was standing in the doorway, looking down at me. His eyes met mine, and I felt the usual energy pass between us. There was no point in lying to him. “No,” I said.

He walked over and sat down on the bed, next to my feet. I sniffed. “In fact, I’m pretty miserable,” I added. He just stared at me, waiting, so I let the reins loose on my mouth. “I don’t know why – I don’t really have a good reason; but I’m miserable and I don’t care that there’s no reason. I’m just sad.”

He tilted his head, and something like a smile twitched at his lips. He put his hand on my ankle and rubbed my leg reassuringly. “I know.”

I felt disgusting. I hadn’t been out of bed for more than fifteen minutes today – not to shower, not even to throw away the trash from the food I’d mindlessly devoured. The carpet next to my bed was littered with wrappings and used tissues. My nose was still running sporadically. I sniffed again.

“You want anything?” Adrian asked.

I shook my head, the despair clogging my throat and making speech too much of an effort.

              

He nodded, not taking his hand from my calf. We sat there quietly for a while.

            

“This was such a wasted day.”

             

Adrian looked over at me, but I didn’t meet his gaze “What do you mean?”

            

 I grimaced. “I called in sick. I stayed home from work. And I didn’t do anything all day. I didn’t clean anything; I didn’t ride my new bike; I didn’t talk to anyone or look for a job.” I shook my head. “All I did was watch Netflix.”

             

“Sounds like a pretty good day to me,” Adrian joked.

             

“It wasn’t.”

             

The smile faded from his face. “I know,” he said again.

             

“It’s like this day might as well not have happened,” I lamented. It felt like such a tragedy, throwing away a day like that when life was so short anyway. The guilt was collapsing my chest from the inside. I felt like sobbing.

             

“But it did happen.” I scoffed, but Adrian continued, “no, listen to me! It did happen. You were alive today. You woke up; you walked around; you breathed the air. And you felt sorrow. That’s life.” He shrugged. “Not a very glamorous part of life, maybe, but life just the same.”

             

I didn’t say anything, just listened.

“And you know what?” he said. “Your life has a finite number of unhappy days. This was one of them, which means you have one less in the future. Because you were unhappy today, that means you don’t have to be unhappy tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever.”

“You don’t know that,” I argued. “The rest of my days could be unhappy ones.”

             

He paused. “Yeah, maybe,” he admitted. “But I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I think your life is going to be a happy one, in the end. Not because of any statistics, or philosophy, or logic; just because of who you are." He shifted in his position on my bed. "You are the kind of person who tries to bring good things into the world, for yourself and for other people. You aren't perfect, but you try to be, and I think that sort of thing gets rewarded in the long run. You're the kind of person who makes sunshine. That's why I think there are better days ahead for you. There have to be. You'll make 'em that way.” He smiled. “I have a good feeling about it.”

I thought about that for a while. I turned and looked at him, watching me with those deep, dark eyes, and a bit of his faith touched my heart. My lips turned upward softly, of their own accord. “I have a good feeling about it, too,” I said.

             

He grinned. “Yeah.”

             

“Not today, though.”

“No,” he agreed.

“Today I’m miserable.”

             

“Right.”

"Today I don't even want to be happy."

"I understand."

             

We looked at each other, and it seemed almost unnecessary to speak.  “But maybe tomorrow,” I said.

He nodded. “Maybe tomorrow.”

And that, my friends, is hope.

In Memoriam

Today is Memorial Day. What does that mean? I could go research the origins of the holiday and spout off the facts of how it got started, but I don't feel like that answers my question. A holiday should mean more than just what you can find on Wikipedia. There should be some sort of personal intersection with your own life, your own heart; otherwise, why are you celebrating?

So I've decided today to sit down for a moment and figure out where Memorial Day intersects with me. I have family who have served in the military, but not many who have died in service (not for 100 years or so). But I have lost loved ones in the regular course of mortality, and I think that merits something, too. This is Memorial Day - a day of remembrance. So maybe it's time to look back at some of the people who meant enough to me that they left a piece of themselves behind when they died.

These are some of the people I carry with me.

Myrna Darleen (Packer) Grosland

My Grandma Grosland. She died of cancer in 2009, just a month or so before my high school graduation. When I think about her, I hear her delighted laughter and see her smile - I can't remember her ever not being happy. She took me fishing, she taught me how to play Skip-Bo and Phase 10, and she always always had good things to snack on at her house (cookies, Twizzlers, Ritz crackers, etc.). But what I remember most is that she loved me - wholeheartedly, without reservations - and that I always felt safe when I was with her. 

Love you, Grandma.

Josephine (Mower) Duncan Conover

I know I had other great-grandparents, but my Great-Grandma Conover is the only one I remember well. She died just before the year 2000, when I was about nine years old. From stories and home videos I know that she was my mother's savior, a safe harbor she could hide in when she wanted to run away from home. For myself, I remember that she was quiet and peaceful, and that love bubbled out of her. She was an angel, so I'm sure the transition to heaven was second-nature to her. 

Thanks, Grandma Conover.

Kevin Holm

He was Brother Holm to me - a man in my home ward, married to one of the coolest women I know. She was loud and vibrant, while he was quiet, so I regret that I did not get to know him better before he passed. But my best friends in the ward, Logan and Eric, knew him very well. He taught them about chivalry, manners, and class. His well-dressed demeanor and stories of "a better time" inspired them to wear suits to high school every day for a year. What he was really known for, though, was the fedora. Through him, a fedora became a symbol for a person of quality, and - one by one - every young man in my ward showed up to church wearing a fedora, until the hat rack by the chapel was full of them. My friends even bought me a suitable lady's hat so that I could be part of the group. 

What we didn't know was that beneath his calm exterior Brother Holm was battling depression. He had been suffering for years, but somehow he never let his pain leak out and stain other people. He used the strength he had to protect other people from his illness; and so eventually he didn't have enough strength left to protect himself. Brother Holm was the first person I knew to kill himself. I was in high school, and didn't know at all how to deal with suicide. I didn't know if it should change the way I thought of him or not.

I went to his funeral, hollow and unsure. As agreed upon in advance, my friends and I all wore our hats. After a deeply heartfelt speech, our bishop asked everyone who'd received a hat via Brother Holm to stand up. Over a dozen of us rose to our feet, and I saw in our witness a monument to his legacy. Brother Holm was truly a good man, and one who inspired others to become truly good men. He died because of a mental illness, not because of a character flaw. I am grateful for his example, both as a man of principles and as a man of suffering, because he taught me better than anyone else that a mental illness is something that happens to you - it is not a part of you.

Rest in peace, Brother Holm.

Jordan Needham

Jordan was a guy in my singles ward. He was cute, so I noticed him, but we weren't best friends or anything. We talked a few times at church, and we goofed around a lot at our ward's volleyball night; that was pretty much all it took. Jordan was friendly, so everyone he talked to became his friend. He was an expert at making people feel important and valued in just five seconds of conversation. He was the kind of guy who lived life at full volume all the time - and so he died young. He was killed while riding the motorcycle that he loved, with no helmet. It's difficult not to be frustrated by that - losing someone you care about because of their own foolish mistake - but Jordan was so generous with himself during his life that I can't seem to hold this one mistake against him.

Happy trails, Jordan.

I still don't know what Memorial Day means. But I know who I remember.

Who do you remember?

Unbelonging

These aren't my shoes.
My feet are just living here
for a while.

I had shoes that I loved -
really loved -
a few years ago.
I'd worn them for so long
the shoes
and my feet
changed shape, fitting together
like perfect partners.
And walking was
dancing,
then.

But it couldn't last.
My feet were still growing,
and one day,
without any warning,
my favorite shoes
didn't fit
anymore.

But I loved them.
I loved them.

So I crammed my feet into them
violently, desperately.
But now walking hurt,
and there was
no more dancing.
And it broke my heart
that I hated
my favorite shoes.
So I let them go.

Now I am barefoot
standing in these empty shells
that are my halfway house.

Because I need shoes,
but these aren't them.
My feet are just
living here.

The Embarrassing Truth about My Current Situation in Life

***WARNING: Uncensored disclosure of feelings ahead. Proceed at your own risk.***

All of my life, I have been focused on moving forward. I pushed the limits, always looking ahead to the next milestone. I studied hard throughout school so that I could get a full-ride scholarship to a university. There, I worked part time (at 4:00 in the morning) so I could have money to buy textbooks and pay rent. I spent a semester in St. Petersburg, Russia, teaching English to kids, so that I could experience the world and practice my intended profession. In April, I graduated from college with a degree in English Teaching. Now, almost six months later, I’m a custodian at a junior high. 

What happened?

When people ask me why I’m not teaching, I usually explain it very matter-of-factly: after student teaching, I realized that where I taught mattered a lot to my happiness. I didn’t want to commit to a school that would be a bad fit for me just because I felt obligated to rush into the workforce. Instead, I’m going to substitute; that way I can get a feel for the different schools in the area so that I can make a more informed decision next year. When I explain it like this, people usually compliment me on my wisdom and bravery in not following the pack. Which is why I always explain it to them this way, even though it’s not entirely the truth.

The truth is that I panicked.

Student teaching was really hard on me. The political atmosphere between the faculty and the administration was poisonous; I wanted to spend as little time there as possible. I liked being in my classroom by myself, and I usually did fine when I was actually teaching, but creating lesson plans day after day was hard, and I consistently worried that I wasn’t doing it well enough. Because the faculty and administrators were so visceral about (and towards) each other, I didn't feel like I had anyone to confide in about my feelings of inadequacy. And I wasn’t there long enough to figure out if what I was doing was actually making a difference. I knew that many of my students liked me, but many didn’t; and I knew that measuring my abilities by how many of my students liked me was stupid, but I couldn’t not pay attention to that. I wasn’t confident enough in my own judgment, and the reassurance I got from others was often absent-minded and unconvincing. All I knew was that I was constantly miserable, feeling swamped by the tasks ahead of me and feeling doubtful that I would make it through another day.

So when student teaching finally ended, all I wanted was to escape. I ran from teaching, focusing on my graduation but refusing to look beyond that. I decided not to get a teaching job immediately, concerned about making a year-long commitment after already nearly drowning in just one semester. I’d substitute teach instead, I decided.

It’s now mid-September, and I’ve made no progress on that front. I got a custodial job over the summer, and then when school started in August I just . . . didn’t apply to be a sub. The honest truth is that the prospect scares me out of my wits. My stomach writhes at the thought of putting myself through that pain again – and, above all, I worry that I will be terrible at it. If I can’t do something well, I don’t want to do it at all.

 I’m realizing now that if I want to get a move on with my life, something is going to have to change. I need to buy a car, get an apartment, and start really living a real adult life. To do that, I need to start earning more money. That means putting myself out there, ready or not.

I guess I’ve subconsciously been waiting for things to fall into place; I haven’t wanted to move forward until I felt like I had my life back under control. But maybe moving forward is how I’ll get my life back under control.

Maybe it’s time to do the things I’m afraid of. To jump, and just hope that I don’t break any bones.

I have no idea what I’m doing.

 But I’ve got to start doing something.

Sneak-Sweeping

The worst thing about custodial work is not cleaning toilets. It's not really anything that has to do with cleaning at all. The WORST thing is cleaning with other people around.

Most of the custodial jobs I've had, this hasn't been a problem. I worked early morning shifts, before any of the professors or students got to campus, or I worked after a kitchen crew had left for the day. Now, though, I'm working at a junior high where the teachers tend to linger long into my work hours.
Some of the other custodians don't mind this; they like to chat and make friends. But when I'm working, I like to let my mind wander into other worlds, my imagination galloping off while my body is occupied - so it's pretty awkward to be in the same room with someone else while that's going on.

I learned quickly which teachers I can rely on to race out of the school as soon as the final bell rings, so my strategy is to clean their rooms first, waiting for the lingerers to finish their business. This has been extremely successful, with one blaring exception: a science teacher by the name of Mr. Darcy.

Okay, no. His name isn't really Mr. Darcy. But he's young, and cute. And I am oddly certain that in an alternate dimension we had a torrid (and possibly scandalous) love affair. The tension of our alternate-dimension attraction must be strong enough that it seeps through into our dimension in that one classroom, because I feel it every time I go in there.

Which wouldn't matter so much, except that Mr. Darcy is worse than a lingerer - he's a returner. As I discovered on one particular afternoon . . . .

I had already been in Mr. Darcy's room that day, on my rounds to empty the trash. I'd scrubbed desks and cleaned the windows, and he had been nowhere to be seen; so I'd assumed it was safe to go back with my broom a few hours later. The last thing I do before I leave every day is sweep the science rooms, using the closet-office they all share as a center of operations. I go through each room with a small broom, getting into the corners and dragging everything out into the open. Then I go back with a push-broom and sweep it all up. Easy as pie.

I had finished unearthing the dirt in all of the rooms. I grabbed my push-broom and started to open the door to Mr. Darcy's room when I noticed that all of the lights were on. I glanced inside and - sure enough - there he was, sitting at his computer, his back to me. A jolt of surprise went through me. Why would a teacher - who had already left for the day - come back at six o'clock?

I hesitated, not wanting to bother him while he was working, and then I moved on to one of the other science rooms. I'll just finish up everything I can. That will give him time to grab whatever he forgot, and he'll be gone by the time I'm ready to go in there. My steps were shorter, slower perhaps than was normal, as I swept the other rooms. I took as much time as I thought was excusable, always glancing back toward his room, hoping to see the lights shut off as Mr. Darcy headed home.

No such luck. When I'd finished all of the other rooms, Mr. Darcy was still there. He apparently had no intention of leaving any time soon, either; I could hear music pounding through the closed door, and as I spied through the window, I could see a stack of papers and a grading program pulled up on his computer. He was typing, but it looked like he still had a long way to go.

All at once, the music registered in my mind. It was an 80s love song. A blush coursed through me as I considered other reasons why I wouldn't want to be alone in a room with this young man, my other-dimension-lover. The song, with its beckoning melody, seemed to hint at the possibilities.

I turned my back on him, pacing in the closet-office. Maybe I should just leave, I thought. But then I remembered that I'd already been through the room with my small broom, dragging all the filth out into the open. It looked terrible; I couldn't leave it like that. My only option was to stride in there, purposeful, and just be professional about it.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and pushed my way inside. I looked not to the right nor left, just marching with my eyes fixed on the dirt. When I turned my first corner, I spared a glance in his direction, to see how he was taking my professionalism.

He hadn't seen me.

He hadn't heard me come in, either. The music was much louder in here, and my push-broom slid almost silently across the floor. I stood there for a moment, watching his completely oblivious form. And then I took off, sweeping as quickly as I could quietly manage.

His room is tight, tables jammed at odd angles to each other. I had to navigate a lot of narrow passages, and all the while I kept myself at a hunch, low to the ground, trying to stay out of his peripheral vision. He shifted in his chair. I froze. He stretched, then returned to his work, and I kept on sweeping.

The further I got through the room, the closer I got to him. I started stretching the broom out in front of me, twisting it as far as it would go so that I wouldn't have to walk into his line of sight. Eventually, I was standing right behind him, practically holding my breath as I tried to ease my broom beneath his chair without him noticing.

He started singing.

The love song was still playing, and now he was singing along. I couldn't take it.

In a rush, I finished sweeping the last corner and drove the broom back to the closet-office as quickly as I could, closing the door gently behind me. As soon as I was inside, I ducked under the window. I skittered around the corner, leaning against the door to one of the other science rooms. I could still hear Mr. Darcy's singing through the closed door.

But I'd gotten away.

I laughed, quietly. I shook my head at the ridiculousness of it. But in reality, I had never had more fun sweeping than when I was trying to dodge my other-dimension-lover, Mr. Darcy.

Who says custodial work has to be boring?

Of Spiders and Men

I am afraid of spiders.

Terrified, actually. I am the person they had in mind when the powers that be created the word "arachnophobia." My fear of spiders is transformative; when I discover a spider on my body, I become an entirely different person. I can't remember my name. I stop caring about the well-being of others. I lose brain function, screaming and flailing uncontrollably until the spider is catapulted to a safe distance.

So I probably shouldn't operate heavy equipment in the presence of arachnids.

Anyway, I think about this phobia of mine fairly regularly. (Though not usually at night. Nighttime is when I try very, very hard not to think of spiders.) And when I think about it, I understand that my fear of spiders is completely irrational. I go through all the arguments that I've heard a thousand times from well-intentioned and entirely clueless friends:

A spider is just a bug, like a fly. You're not scared of flies, so why be scared of spiders?

Yes, some spiders can hurt you; but most are harmless.

Spiders are actually very helpful. The world needs them.

That spider is probably more afraid of you than you are of it.

See, the thing about a phobia is that it doesn't have to make sense. Because it has nothing to do with your brain, and everything to do with your instinct to flee. If your body is convinced that the only way to stay alive is to GET AWAY FROM THAT THING, then you'd better believe that's what you're going to do.

I've lived with this a long time. I'm used to it. It doesn't surprise me anymore.

Until tonight, when I realized that I feel the exact same way about men.

Okay, not exactly the same way. I don't have to cringe away from photos of guys or avoid thinking about the creepy way they move. But when a guy becomes romantically interested in me - or if there's even the suggestion that he might be interested - I lose brain function. I stop caring about the well-being of others. I can't remember my name.

And I can't swear that I've never flailed and screamed.

It is ridiculous. Once I've gathered my senses, I'm always embarrassed about the lunatic performance I've put on. Just as with the spiders, I think often about my humiliating fear and the absolute lack of reasons for it. And the same arguments run through my head, rephrased.

A man is just a person, like a woman. You're not scared of women, so why be scared of men?

Yes, some men will hurt you; but most are harmless.

Men are actually very helpful. The world needs them.

That man is probably more afraid of you than you are of him.

But remember the thing about a phobia? It doesn't have to make sense. Because it has nothing
to do with my brain, and everything to do with my instinct to flee.

. . .
. . . . .
. . .

I think the solution is obvious: I need to face both my fears at once.

Clearly, I need to date Spider-Man.

Not the Post You're Expecting

Well, hello again, blog.

I haven't posted anything on here in a long time. That's because I've been busying finishing up college, student teaching, and all that. Well, I've graduated. So now it's time for me to announce my big plans for the future:

I haven't any.

. . .

Seriously.

I have a lot of ideas and a few tentative inclinations, but no specific plans. And that's strange for me. Since I can remember, I have been future-focused, always looking ahead for the next great adventure. Determination and drive have been defining characteristics in my life. But now . . .

I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't even know what I want to do.

I feel aimless.
And purposeless.
And mortified.

Sorry to let you all down. But that's all I have for you right now.

Goodbye to Twenty Two

I turned twenty-three yesterday. It was nice to have my birthday immediately after Thanksgiving; I didn't have to go to work or school, and the house was full of pie. But as I get older, it's easy for birthdays to become . . . well, unexciting. There are no naturally-recognizable landmarks anymore. So I decided I had to go looking for them myself.

First, I had to look back at twenty-two. Did anything exciting happen in the last year? Well, let's look:

• I had my first 4.0 semester
• I shaved my head to support my sister
• I left my job at the MTC
• I was given the opportunity to serve in the Relief Society presidency in my ward.
• I got a new job with BYU catering
• I took (and passed) the Praxis - certifying me as a qualified teacher
• I received my student teaching license
• I finally saw "Ender's Game" - which book I have loved for at least a decade.
• I was approved for graduation in April
• I learned how to cook!

That's quite a lot to be getting on with, don't you think? Who could have predicted that five years ago, when I was just getting ready to graduate from high school? There are still quite a few landmarks I would have expected to have passed by now, but there's time for them yet. I can't worry about the past; I have to keep moving forward. Which brings us to what I can expect in my 24th year:

• I will student-teach for twelve weeks
• I will graduate from college with my BA
• And then . . . .

Oh my goodness. I have no idea what's coming.

Teething Pains

The worst place in the world for a cameraman is a dentist's office.

Why? I wondered, standing awkwardly against the wall - my lips aching from their imprisonment in one of those spreader-devices - as the young dentist leaned closer and pushed the camera lens into my face. Why can't I ever have a dentist appointment that isn't completely awkward?

I have a long, blistering history with oral physicians. Dentists, orthodontists, oral surgeons, you name it. My experience with puberty was inexorably woven with these types of people; from the age of thirteen to adulthood, I had no idea what it was like to eat without wire fences in the way. (However, I was all too familiar with getting my sliding metal tubes stuck and being frozen with a roaring mouth.) After years of associating that ultra-sophisticated office with pain and disappointment, I concluded as a seventeen-year-old that "Orthodontists are soul-eaters."

Now that I am a few healthy strides into maturity, I have decided to forgive all the orthodontists, dentists, hygienists, surgeons, and nurses who have ever stabbed me in the mouth. In retrospect, I realize that they were all trying to help me, and that without them my teeth would still be rows of rubble. So I went to my dentist appointment yesterday with the intent to be cheery and helpful, to show my thanks for all that their kind has done for me.

And as a reward, I was attacked by the paparazzi, scrutinized and critiqued and "Don't you think you should Whiten those?"-ed until I thought even my teeth would begin blushing in embarrassment.

Some things never change.

The Cookie Was Right

There is a special place in my superstitious heart for fortune cookies. An unopened fortune cookie in the hand is like a grenade, and always begs the question, Is it a dud? Or will this one explode? Whether the explosion is delightful or debilitating, I always hope that the cookie isn't a dud. I like a bit of supernatural excitement in my life.

Understanding the strange power of fortune cookies, I am careful to open them. So when I came upon a fortune cookie in early April, I was too frightened to open it at first. It was almost finals week, and if the cookie said anything about struggles or failures I knew it would affect my testing experience. So I waited. I waited until grades were final, until the tests were over, so it would be safe. The day before Spring Term started, I decided to open the fortune cookie. Beginnings are so hopeful, I was optimistic that the fortune would set me off right for the new term. (Also, I'd been staring at that packet of deliciousness on my desk for way too long - it was time to eat the thing already!)

I opened the package. Delicately, tentatively, I cracked open the cookie. I grabbed my fortune. What does this new term hold for me? I asked silently, almost praying. I took a deep breath, opened the little slip of paper, and I read:

"A fascinating project is in your future."

And immediately, I let out a horrified shriek. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

(True story.)

Because, really, the last thing I wanted to hear was that my Spring Term was going to involve a "fascinating project." And that blasted cookie didn't lie: each and every one of my classes this term is centered around projects. Lots and lots of projects. (That, my friends, is why I've been so busy that I haven't even thought about my blog in weeks.)

Living Prophets

For instance, I am taking a class on the living prophets of the LDS church (the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles). My professor is an old Tahitian man who has met every single member of the upper fifteen, and is going to begin his calling as president of the Tahiti temple in August. He's very funny in a ridiculously happy sort of way - he once made everyone in class turn to their neighbor, shake their hand, and tell them we loved them. (I was sitting by a guy, so it was particularly awkward saying, "I love you," to each other.) My professor has structured his class in such a way that we teach most of the lessons; we are all in groups assigned to present a 40 minute presentation on one of the prophets, seers, and revelators. I was made group leader, so my project for this class involved coordinating with everyone, giving out assignments, and researching all the conference talks given by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Fortunately, we gave our presentation a couple of weeks ago, so I don't have to worry about this class anymore.

History of Creativity

This is one of the last General Ed classes I have to take, and there's a reason I've been postponing it. It's a world history class, and I struggle with history. However, this class has a particular slant; it focuses on the creativity of ancient peoples - the creation of new inventions, societies, philosophies, religions, strategies, etc. It's alright, I suppose. But the project for this class is HUGE, and it hangs over my head menacingly all the while. It's not due until the end of the term, and it's worth around 30% of my final grade. (So, you know, no big deal.) It's a "personal creativity project," and I think I'll go into details at a later date because it's a rather long story. Needless to say, it's a beast.

Instructional Technology in Teaching

This class has absolutely nothing but projects. I'm learning all the different technologies that I may need in a classroom someday, and so each time I learn a new program I have to demonstrate my mastery of it by completing a project. Each of these projects gets uploaded to my portfolio - a fake class website that I can show potential employers to demonstrate my awesomeness. (The website is, I suppose, the biggest project, as it's a compilation of all my other projects.) It takes a lot of time, but I'm really grateful that I was required to take this class: it's opened up my eyes to the possibilities of technology in the classroom - even an English classroom.

Classroom Management

I enjoy this class. We only meet for two hours, once a week, and we have a fun time talking about how on earth we plan to control 30+ teenagers at a time, as we will all be doing in the near future. We have all sorts of education majors in there, and I have fun talking to Physics, Drama, and History teachers-to-be. The big project for this class is to create our own Classroom Management Plan booklet (another resource for squeezing our way into a job). It will have at least four chapters, and include graphics, properly cited quotes, and our own interpretations. The final product will be around fifteen pages long, but I've only written the first chapter so far. (Mine's gorgeous, though. I accidentally did an excellent job and I'm rather pleased with myself.)

So that's school. I'm also keeping busy outside of campus - I'm still managing missionaries at the MTC; I'm attending bridal showers and wedding receptions left and right; I'm serving as a Home Evening Group Leader and Ward Music Director in my newly reorganized singles ward; and I still haven't finished The Death Cure (my waiting-to-be-read booklist is soooo long...). Oh, and I have some dental surgery coming up, so there's that to look forward to as well.

But you know what? Life is good. My best friend gets home from his mission in July, my cousin is having a baby any day now, and the new Spider-Man movie comes out in just a couple of months. So evil fortune cookie aside, things are going pretty great for me.

Thanks for your well-wishes.

Geez, Louise!

So, remember how last year I had a prediction that twelve of my friends would get engaged before the end of the year? I had a little widget on the side of my blog to keep track, and by December - sure enough! - I had thirteen friends on that list. I considered myself a successful prophetess, took the widget off my blog, and moved on with my life.

But today, I'm thinking I should have kept the widget. I just got another text from a friend saying, "Guess what? I'm engaged!" and I'm starting to feel like I'm living in the movie The Single's Ward.

In the last four months, I have celebrated the engagements of:

Leslie Whipple (now Riddle)
Jaynann Matthews
Damon Hadfield
Kim Lifferth
Abby Taylor
Amanda Gay
and Aubrey Devereaux.

And it hasn't been too spread out. It tends to happen in clusters, with two or three people getting engaged in the same week. Frankly, I'm a little exhausted from all the excitement.

Congratulations to one and all of you happy lovebirds. But if you don't mind, could you slow it down a bit? My hands are sore from constant applauding.

Surprise! I'm still here!

So it turns out that the more of a life you have, the less time you spend on the internet. Weird, huh?

Not that having a life is a very good excuse for not blogging. I posted far more frequently when I was living and teaching in RUSSIA than I have been as of late, and my life here is definitely not that exciting. I think most of the reason I haven't been blogging is that I've been letting myself get caught up in the sprinting lifestyle - I just run from place to place to place, all the while trying not to think too hard about what I'm doing.

Just so you know, that's NOT a good life strategy.

So let me get you caught up on my life as of right now. The first thing you should know is that I am in the MTC.

That's right - I have a job now! I am doing custodial work at the Missionary Training Center in Provo. I really love working custodial, odd as that may sound. (It's just so gratifying, so instantly!) However, a huge part of my job lies not in doing the actually cleaning, but in managing the missionaries as they do the cleaning.

Missionaries at the MTC are required to do service every week, as part of their training. Some of them are assigned to clean the buildings with the custodial staff, so every morning (I work from 6:00am to 10:00am) we get around four or five companionships of missionaries who report to us for service. We assign them to their tasks, teach them how to do it, and supervise their efforts. Depending on how many missionaries we get that day, we may or may not do any actual cleaning ourselves.

Sweet job, eh?

I'm still going to classes, however, and that part of my life has not been sweet this past few weeks. Since coming back from Russia I have been struggling with my approach to my schoolwork. Before, it was the most important thing I was doing. After spending a semester away, though, it's really easy for me to look at school and think, "You know what? There is a lot more to life than just school." So now when I still have homework by bedtime, I don't stay up until three in the morning to finish it (usually). I just go to bed, knowing that the work will still be there in the morning.

I'm not sure how I feel about this shift in perspective. It's causing me problems, for sure. I have fallen behind in homework more than is acceptable - sometimes I think there is no way I'll be able to catch up. But there's also a certain freedom that has come with it. I feel like I'm not chained to my desk anymore - like, I shouldn't fail all of my classes, but if I do, I know I can still have family and a future and faith. School isn't the center of the universe; God is. If I can focus on Him, then everything will turn out all right.

So even though I'm pretty stressed out about how on earth I'm going to get all of my homework done, I think maybe there's something healthy about me letting school fall by the wayside just a bit. I have been a prisoner to my report card for too long. This may be an over-correction, but hopefully next semester I'll be able to work it out to where I can dedicate to school the time and effort it deserves - and no more.

Well, that's my life right now. Maybe soon I'll get back into the habit of blogging, so that I can tell you more interesting, individual stories; but for now, I hope this brief overview of things is satisfactory.

Good day/night/bye!

- Jessica Grosland

High Maintenance - Low Yield

You know those days when you have the flu, you're swamped with homework, and your basement floods with toilet water?

Yeah, January got me very well acquainted with those days.

After our basement flooded (the first time) we were unable to use any of the water in our house: no showers, no drinking, and absolutely no flushing. We spent a miserable weekend running to neighbors' and relatives' houses, begging to use their toilets. Many plumbers came to our house and tried to fix the problem, but the basement flooded three times in a single weekend before we finally found the clog. (My brother apparently flushed a ball-point pen a few weeks back.)

Thus, I arrived home one day to find my entire yard upended.

So much for having grass next year.

 It was a rather apt metaphor for the entire month of January for me.

But let us not linger on the misery. There were many good things that happened during January. For instance, my English Education field experience.  I spent every morning for three weeks at Maple Mountain High School, acting sort of like a new apprentice. I observed classrooms, made copies of assignments, created decorations, designed lesson plans, and even got to teach on a few occasions. It was a lot of fun, honestly.

Maple Mountain doesn't like my old high school very much. This is a poster from their school, in which they seem to think a Golden Eagle could eat a Red Devil. It was very difficult for me to keep my mouth shut when things like this happened.

The only downside was that after a morning of feeling like a professional teacher, I had to go back to BYU and play the student again. It was jarring and uncomfortable, especially because I kept falling behind in my other classes because I was so preoccupied with teaching high school. I am normally a very good student, so realizing that I've slipped into being a terrible student has been a bit of an identity crisis for me.

It's odd, really. I've been depriving myself of sleep, starving myself, and driving myself nearly to a psychotic breakdown trying to get all of my homework done. Yet I still feel like I have made no progress. This is the part of college that I hate.

I found this magical box in the Joseph Smith Building. Perhaps there is hope yet.

And so, I bid January farewell with a swift kick. If it had a grave, I would spit on it.

February, let's try to be friends, alright?

School Comes Back

You would think that after a semester spent teaching, going back to being a student would be a relief. I get to sit behind a desk; I only occasionally have to speak in front of others; and I am allowed to be completely self-centered again. So why did I spend the whole walk to school feeling like I was going to throw up, my hands slick with sweat?

Every first day is hard. It's a readjustment; by nature it is purely uncomfortable. Really, it's like decapitation: the best you can hope for is that it's quick and clean. On the bright side, though, you're usually in a better place once the messy bit is over with.
   
Late British Literary History
This is another one of those basic English major courses I've taken for years. We're studying the relationship between text and context - basically, how did the history of Great Britain in the last couple of centuries affect the literature produced in that time, and vice-versa? The class requires a ton of reading; my textbook is almost 3,000 pages long. However, my professor is hilarious and practical - "Sometimes, you just have better things to do than come to class," he admitted last week. "I appreciate that. Get the notes from someone else, and know that we'll miss your brilliance."

Doctrine and Covenants
I have loved all of my religion classes at BYU. The professor I have for this class is definitely up there on my favorites already - and I've only been in her class for one day! She is really fun and blunt - she'll frequently just say, "I need two volunteers to testify of Jesus Christ right now." - and I really like her class. The funnest thing we've done so far was this: we sang a hymn at the beginning of the class, but every two lines she would call out "Men only!" or "People from the East Coast!" and just those people would sing. (I got to practically sing a solo when she called on "People from Utah!" and she enjoyed it so much she had me sing four lines instead of two.)

Español 205
This is my third, and probably last, semester of Spanish at BYU. Once I've completed this class, my GE for Foreign Language will be complete. That's what kept me going on the first day of class, when I felt like a total idiot because I couldn't remember any Spanish. (That's an exaggeration; I remembered a lot. It just felt insignificant compared with how much I'd forgotten.) The Spanish is coming back to me rather quickly, thank goodness, but I still have a tendency to say "da" instead of "sí" or "spiciba" instead of "gracias." (Blurting out Russian in Spanish class is quite embarrassing, by the way.)

Church History Part Three
BYU offers three different courses on the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I took the first two courses last year; this semester I'm finishing it off. It's been really interesting to me to learn the history of the church. I'm looking forward to this class - I might be doing a research paper on the history of the church in Russia!

Exploration of English Teaching
...yeah, this one deserves its own post. It is sufficient to say that this class takes up the majority of my time, energy, thoughts, and emotions. It is the course that will determine whether I continue in the English Teaching major, and it is all about getting my feet wet. That's right: field experience. Starting Wednesday, I will be spending my mornings in a public high school, finding out what it's really like to be an English teacher.

Quite enough to be getting on with, eh? In the midst of all that, where did I ever find time to write this blog post?

Oh yeah. I'm supposed to be doing homework right now. Lo siento, Profesor Parachoques.