It Seemed Better on TV...

You know, being a single woman on the lamb in the city seemed a lot more interesting when it was on tv. Granted, maybe it's me. Maybe Zuri Wallace is not cut out for living single. Perhaps if I had three crazy roommates and a zany superintendent this would seem more "wild". As it is, it's actually more tame than living at home.

You know what I did when I got off work yesterday? I took a jog around the neighborhood with Paula (she's convinced me to jog instead of going to the dojo), cooked a microwave dinner, read about half of "Things Fall Apart" (again, time 4), took a bath, and went to sleep. No drama, no zaniness, not even a neighbor looking for flour. In fact, I met my superintendent yesterday, it's a she! Now I'm all for equal treatment in the work force, but a strong confident female superintendent is not as funny as whatever it is I thought I would be getting. I'm just saying, how am I supposed to have zany adventures when everything is so...I don't know...normal and...kinda how I like it.

I think I'm just going through drama queen withdrawal. Even if I didn't do something wild, Paula was always having some kind of issue. I think it was actually vicariously through Paula's love life that I ended up staying single. Clearly, the men Paula met were no good. If Paula couldn't find a good man looking like she does, my chances were meager. I'm starting to think that may not be the case. Maybe there's some ebony Romeo...ewww, not Romeo - what a sleazebag - I could settle for Hamlet or OW! Othello! We know he liked the light skinned honeys, am I right? Anyway, yeah, somebody smart and strong like Othello, just without the jealous murdering tendencies. I'm okay with settling down with a good man. Paula is waiting for someone to whisk her off her feet. I would settle for honest compliments and a pointed but friendly debate.

Nope, I guess I'm not sitcom material. Oh well, gonna go finish "Things Fall Apart" and get eight hours of sleep.

The Clothes make the Woman

So, I’m not generally a conceited or shallow person…but then again, who wouldn’t say that?  Perhaps what I mean to say is that material things, clothes especially have never really had that much importance to me.  That said, I read this great prompt in one of my test books, so I really wanted to use that for my blog entry.  Here goes…

 

What do you wear to feel confident?

 

Now let me preface this by saying that I don’t have an “outfit” per se.  I’ve never really been good at making outfits.  If I have a really important even to go to, I always pull Paula aside a day or two before and make her put something together for me.  However, I have a few things that I always pull out when I want to feel confident or sexy.

 

The first thing I always go for is my favorite skirt.  I picked it up off of the rack at a store I went to with Paula and Edana.  It’s a little shorter than knee length and has a wavy brown pattern throughout the base of the skirt.  It hugs my hips perfectly (what hips I have) and comes down in what I’m told is a pencil shape.  The bottom edge of the skirt is accented with this shining gold fabric, that always seems to catch the light.  When I wear my skirt, I can’t help but pose.  I catch myself doing it without even realizing it.  My turns and spins, which in normal clothes are quick and deft (read clumsy and indecisive) turn into amazing twirls of ecstasy.  My hem plays just above my knees and the wind sweeps up around my thighs.  When I wear my my skirt I am not just Zuri Wallace:  Teacher.  I am Zuri Wallace:  Wind Goddess.  I float lightly on the breeze.  I command gales with a stroke of my hand.  I rise above.

I have my mother’s legs, that is one thing (along with hair) that I got from her.  I have never been as tall as I’d like to be.  I’ll never be an black Amazon like Paula, but I come from a family of women with beautiful long legs.  I feel like a warrior or a biblical character – my mother had long legs as did her mother before her!  But hey, there aren’t a lot of physical features of mine that I’m comfortable with.  It’s like that song says, “You look inside yourself, take the things you like, and try and love the things you took.”

 

The other old staple of my wardrobe are dangly earrings.  I’m not real selective on look or type, I just love earrings that are dangly and metallic.  I know it’s no fashion revelation, but earrings are my thing.  I never really did bracelets or rings or necklaces.  Suffice to say, I’m not a big accessorize.  But get me in a store full of dangly sparkly earrings and I will lose my my shit.  I swear, I’m ten years younger on the spot.  Does anyone else have this issue?  I don’t keep many keepsakes (totally not true) but I have a jewelry box that’s half full of broken earrings that I swear I’m going to get fixed one day.  They all have some sort of special meaning to me because I wore them to some event or another or some relative gave them to me.  Some day, when I’m a rich and well paid teacher, I’m going to find a jewelry repair place and dump the whole box on the counter.

I’m not really sure what it is I like so much about earrings.  Maybe I just like my ears, although I find that hard to believe because I can’t say as I’ve ever spent a significant amount of time admiring or even inspecting my ears.  Maybe it goes well with the afro.  Maybe it’s some left over seventies movie desire to be Pam Grier (I heart Pam Grier!).

 

Just know, when I die I want to be buried in my favorite skirt and an enormous pair of silver hoop earrings.  Unless I’m cremated!  Do I want to be cremated?  That’s creepy, but being buried is so…egotistical.  I don’t know, don’t really want to think about it, plenty of time for that later.  Maybe that could be another blog down the line.

New Ways to Sweat

So, maybe this is just me, but did refrigerators always make such a loud buzzing noise? I swear to God, I think it woke me up this morning. Now I'm pretty fierce about this "I'm a big girl I don't need anyone to protect me" thing, but having an apartment by myself can be a bit creepy. Thank God for teaching because if I didn't have somewhere to go during the day I think I'd lose my marbles hanging around here and discovering what appliances in my house make formerly unheard noises.

For real though, I'm really okay. I'm finally starting to get stuff unpacked. I have a few things hanging on the wall and...well, my tv on an endtable which isn't really big enough for it directly across from my beat up old couch. I had to set it up somewhere and came to realize I don't actually own a "tv table". The whole place really is pretty sad looking, but I had to put the tv up so I could distract myself from the mess.

Right now my biggest concern is that I haven't found the laundry room in this building yet and my house is starting to stink. Seriously, I didn't know I could sweat like this. I mean, I've been doing martial arts for most of my life, but I have never soaked through three t-shirts in one day. I had changed one and thought I was good till Paula came over and said she wanted to take me out to dinner. I said okay, and started to walk out with her. She just stared at me like I was some kind of nut.

"What?" I asked.

"Zuri, I can see your boobies," she said.

"So what, I can see yours too, I replied.

"Yeah but this dress is supposed to look like this AND I'm wearing a bra. I am not going out with you looking or smelling like that."

"Smelling? Do I smell?" I sniffed my armpit, bad move.

Paula said she was going to help me unpack after dinner, but it was really something more like move small objects from one side of the room to the other. Then she started watching something on TV and it was all over. Next thing I knew I was waking her up off my couch. Love you Paulie.

Anyway, life goes on...

Ms. Independent

If you don't know by now, Ms. Zuri Wallace is now officially out on her own in the world. That's right, in my new apartment and lovin it. I just moved in yesterday with some help from the fam (thanks fam) and spent my first night here last night. I thought about having Paula stay the night, but she had her own stuff going on, so I stayed alone.

This is the part where there should be some story about how creepy and weird it is to spend the night in a place all alone, but I only wanna give y'all the truth. I was out like a light the moment they left last night. I was so tired. I had no idea I had so much stuff! I didn't even move it all yet. I still have half of my clothes and all the boxes in my closet back at the house. For the moment, I think those might be staying there. I have no urge to move anything else (plus dad had to take back the truck this morning, so anything else we move will have to be in his little car).

Now, about my new apartment...I haven't really got things set up yet. I just got the Internet working which is why I'm doing this now. Most of my stuff is in boxes. Tomorrow my mission is to unpack the kitchen...and after that I can learn how to cook.

My only complaint so far is that the old lady next door seems to be a bit deaf, so she puts her TV on blaring loud. I can hear it through the wall! I guess that's the cost of living in cool apartments that used to be factories. The floor and ceiling is solid, but the walls are like paper. Thankfully, that wall is the one in my living room and not in my bedroom, so I can sleep just fine.

A strange side effect of this move is that I'm super organized about things which usually don't require any organization. For instance, I've already laid out my clothes for tomorrow morning. I haven't done that since I was five!

Alas, my body is still aching, so I'm going to slip into the bath and take a long soak. Zuri out.

Life

So, I haven’t written in a while, my bad. Honestly, the problem is that every time I go to write now I see the entry about my parents and I think “I don’t have anything as good as that”. So, I end up thinking about what it is that I want to write and then I don’t end up writing at all.

I kinda realized just now that that is beside the point. The idea with this blog was just to write about my life anyway. Not everything in life is as big and important as everything else, but it’s still just as much part of my life. So, it should make it to the blog.

I’ve been packing up for my big move to my new place, so there are a lot of little things I keep finding that I haven’t seen in a while. I found a picture of myself today from just after I came to live with Edana and LaShawn. It was back in the day when I used to have those seriously messy pigtails. I started wearing those when I was a kid because my mom would get so sick of messing with my hair. If there was anything I got from my mom it was her hair. Whenever she grew it out it was wild and kinky and in no time she would give up on it. It would end up in braids, or a weave, or just straightened out again. You know, I love my afro, but I’ve had my hair like this for a long time now. I wonder what it would look like if I changed it. I see old pictures of my relatives with straight hair and I wonder what that would look like on me. I guess I’ll never know. You can’t find those chemicals anywhere any more and even if you could it’s against the law. Well, I think it is anyway. Someone told me once that there wasn’t actually a law against it, it was just that people had the good sense not to try it.

Anyway, Paula would lose her mind if I did anything to my afro. She loves my hair more than her own. Looks wise, there are very few things I have on Paula, but hair is one of them. She can’t get her hair to do anything. She always ends up back at the microbraids. Speaking of Paula, I think she’s starting to warm up to the idea of me moving out. She’s making plans for what she’s going to do to my room once I leave. That girl is a trip.

Oh, I’m reading my favorite collection of Maya Angelou poems again. God, I love those things. My dad bought them for me a long time ago. I lost the first copy I had lord knows where, but I bought a new book right after I started teaching. If I could write like that woman did, I’d never stop.

Well, since that isn’t the case. I guess that’s the end of my entry for tonight. I got work in the morning and those kids ain’t gonna teach themselves.

My Mommy and Daddy

I was feeling antsy tonight, so I was sitting around messing with my computer. I looked up and realized that it was midnight, then I saw the date. Today would be my parents' twenty-something-th anniversary. I'm not sure what I feel. It's kind of a weird throbbing in the pit of my stomach to think of the whole situation that way. To imagine them still alive and happily married...what would they even look like if they were alive today. I wonder if they would recognize me. I hope they would. I'm pretty sure my mom would, she used to just sit and stare at my eyes sometimes, tell me that they looked just like my dad's.

In honor of my parents' anniversary, I'm going to tell a story. You ready?

My parents were both English students at the University at the same time. Both of them were dating different people. But, as my mom tells it, the moment she saw my dad she knew she had to have him. As my dad tells it, he didn't even like her because they guy she was dating was a jerk. Well, time went by and she broke up with the jerk. Eventually he broke up with his girlfriend, so mom decided it was time to make her move. She had tried to say hello to him every time they saw each other, but he hadn't been very talkative. So one day after English class, she walked up and said "Hey, we have a bunch of classes together. You're name is Jonothan and mine is Elana and we're going to be friends. The next time I see you, you'd better say hi!" Then, she walked off.

Well, time passed and he said hi when he saw her. Eventually, they ended up in the same class right before lunch, so they started eating lunch and walking to class together. They would talk about class and life and whatever books they were reading. Finally, he invited her to this play he was in. She was all excited at the chance to see him outside of their normal setting. At this point, she had gone back to dating her old boyfriend, but things weren't going so well, so she had hope! Well, she went to the play and waited for him outside with the families. As soon as he came out this other girl (the one he had broken up with before) came leaping into his arms! Mom was stunned, she was sure they had broken up. She went home broken hearted.

Not too long later, my mom had a class with daddy's little blond girlfriend. She heard her telling another girl that they had broken up the week before and she was plotting to get back with him. Well, Mommy knew she had no time to waste! That same day she asked him out on a "not date between two people who are just getting out of relationships and aren't ready to date any one else but would like to go see a movie together". He fell for it!

Well, she was sure she had found the right guy, but he really didn't want to get in a relationship. The next semester he was going off to Ireland and couldn't imagine putting someone through that. It's important to note at this point, for anyone who doesn't know anything about my daddy, he was always the knight in shining armor. Well, he fought her off for most of the summer, but by the time he went to Ireland she had him calling her every day just to talk. When he came back, they were inseparable.

And that's the story of my mommy and daddy getting together. I know you're up there looking out for me now and I want you to know that I haven't forgotten you. I hope I'm making you proud!

Kinda weirded out

Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and say beforehand that maybe I'm over reacting. Maybe I have no grounds for being weirded out and I should just be happy for the concern on my behalf.

That having been said, Tamia George (mother of my student Ororo George) is totally creepy. So like I said before, she used to be a student of my mom's back before the the war. In fact, my mom was pregnant with me when Tamia was in her class. Of course that could lead to some form of connection between the two of us, but I haven't seen her for a significant amount of time my entire life, so it seems a tad weird to me that she is so interested in me.

The setup is this: Ororo has serious anger issues, but is one of my best students. Her mom is concerned about her and wants to keep a close eye on her academic progress. Totally understandable. In fact, I wish there were more parents like that. So Tamia set up conferences with me in the mornings once a week. She said she could only do it before school, on account of the fact that she is a nurse and works late most nights. I am totally okay with that. However, when we start having the conference, we talk about Ororo for about five minutes an then the topic turns to me. She wants to know what my life is like. She wants to know what I do in my free time. She wants to know about family life and if I have a boyfriend and if I plan on having kids. I keep trying to turn the conversation back to Ororo, I keep thinking that it's unprofessional to share this much of my private life with a parent of a student, but she's relentless...and really really nice. I found myself telling her things that I didn't even know I was going to say.

Then we started talking about my mother. She was saying how I reminded her of my mom. I was just going to say something about a lesson that I had planned and how I'd gotten the idea from some of my mom's old papers. Nothing came out though. I just started crying. Not crying like a little bit either, like boo-hooing. Why did I have to choose today to wear mascara? Before I know what's happening, Tamia is stroking my hair and I am totally letting her. I felt like I couldn't breath and all I could get out between sobs was "I just miss her so much some times".

I don't know, maybe it's because it's getting close to their anniversary and I always feel kinda like this when that time rolls around. Also, it may have something to do with my period, which is about to start. I always know when it's that time, because I find myself crying over silly things. On my way to work today there was a man about my age in a military uniform on a playground spinning his daughter around. Really, all I thought was, "That's nice" but I was blinking back tears. What's that all about? Really, I could set my clock by it. Well, calender...if you had to set a calendar...seriously though, does this happen to other women? I hear jokes about women becoming like these horrible angry creatures during their periods, but I just feel like curling into a ball and disappearing for a week.

I DID IT!

I did it! Lease signed, apartment will officially be mine in one short (oh so not short) month. I feel so...I don't know what I feel...it's like happy and scared and there's this pressure in my chest and it feels like I'm going to explode. Hold on, gonna stand up and shake this out...

*shakes*

Alright, better. That's much better. I'm thrilled. Did I already write about the apartment on here? I'm sure I must have...did I mention WOOD FLOORS! Squee! Yeah, so I went by and did it this morning. The landlady gave me kind of a sideways glance when I mentioned finally being out on my own. She said something like "There are lots of families and older people in the building". I think it was her way of saying, "Don't you be havin any crazy parties up in here young missy!" No problem there. No parties in my apartment, not any time soon. Paula was not happy to here that, but I've got to lay it down right off the bat. Really, I can do like social gatherings over coffee or somethin (not that I really do) but parties of the noise complaint type are not really my style. You know what I could have though? A BOYFRIEND! Squee!

Okay, not really so squee on the boyfriend, I mean I'm very much of the "if it happens it happens" variety. I think it's something my dad wrote in a book of his once: "If you spent a lot of time looking for love, you're going to find the wrong person every time. If you just be you and do the things you like to do, the right person will be naturally attracted to you." Amen Dad! Cause I ain't gonna change for no man no how...not that they've really asked. To be honest, and you all know this, in this day and age no one is looking for a light skinned little mixed girl. Everyone is pushing darker and darker women since the war and all. The only thing I've really got going for me is my hair. I love my hair. I should do a whole blog entry on my hair care regimen some day. Hmmm, not today though.

Alright, bedtime for Zuri. Sleep well, little blog.

Models have feelings too

So, I guess it's entirely possible that I'm a bad person. I mean, I never tried to be a bad person per se, but i really did hurt my sister's feelings and I am really sorry.

After work today I had this long voice mail from LaShawn (my uncle/dad) about how upset Paula was. Apparently, she had stormed off to bed the night before after reading my blog and then had called out sick to work this morning. I did my best to get out of the house early so I wouldn't have to deal with her.

I have to pause to say this, LaShawn is a very patient man. Both of us were furious at one another to the point of avoiding each other and he had the care, though not really the time, to step in and find out what was bothering us and force us to make up.

Now when I say "make up" that doesn't mean it went smoothly. Paula and I got into a screaming match about who has things tougher and who cares more about who, but he waited it out. It very nearly came to blows, which it honestly wouldn't be the first time that Paula and I have gotten into a fist fight outside of the dojo. In the end, it became clear to me that Paula was angry because she felt like I was leaving her behind when she had felt like we were so close. I guess I should have been grateful for those feelings instead of being mad at her.

I just...okay, I'm going to go on a personal tangent here. My parents were killed during the war when I was ten years old. They were trying to help my uncle cross the border because he had gotten into some trouble with the militia. When they were trying to cross their car was hit by a rocket from the north and everyone died on impact. While they had been on the road, they took me to my Aunt Edana's house where I could stay until they got back. Of course, they never got back. Edana and her husband LaShawn have been like parents to me ever since then. They officially adopted me a month later. I couldn't have asked for any better than this family has given me.

The thing is this though, I don't feel like I've ever had anything of my own. Not a house, not a toy, not a thing. It all feels like it's on loan. I was excited about having this apartment because it meant that I would finally have a place that was just mine and that I was paying for with my own money from my own job. I think Paula gets that now.

I don't want to leave these people, especially not my sister. We may be cousins by birth, but I can't imagine being any closer to a person than I am to my sister now. Okay, before I start crying again, I'm going to wrap this up.

Love you Paulie!
Your sister, Zuri

Grow up

Oh great, this is how I find out my sister is mad at me. She hasn't talked to me in two days, no matter how much I talk to her. I ask her what's wrong and she says "nothin" so I leave it alone. Now I get home and sign on to find her little passive aggressive rant about apartment hunting with me.

Paula's not happy I'm looking at apartments? Tough shit. Paula has had everything she wanted for the past eighteen years and not had to work for a bit of it. Everything just comes naturally to Paula. She's pretty, yes, I've been told. You know what she did to get pretty? Not a thing! She works out less than I do, all but quit the dojo, eats like a pig and I'M the one developing the little pot belly. Not fair!

See that? Me shopping for apartments so I can actually have something that is really my own and that I paid for: fair. Being naturally pretty to the point of nausea: not fair.

You know what else isn't fair? I love music, I always have. I've been trying to learn how to sing since I was tiny. My mom used to sing so beautifully and I really want to be able to do that. In fact, it runs in our family. Aunt Edana is also a great singer. But no matter how hard I try, no luck. Paula decided she was going to be a singer halfway through her junior year and by the time she graduated she was getting crazy honors from the chorus society. Not fair.

I want dark skin, and long legs, and a perfect stomach, and a perfect voice, and men just falling all over me, but I don't get any of those things that Paula has.

You know what else I want? I f***ing apartment and that I can actually get. So you know what? If Paula can't be happy for me and if Paula can't get over herself for five minutes then too bad for Paula. I'm going down there first thing in the morning to sign that lease. Then, I'm getting out from under.

Elated!

I think I found it! I think I found just the right apartment for me! It's going to be so great! It hasn't come open yet but it will be very shortly and the price is right and the location is right and it's oh so pretty!

Let me tell you about it. So it's right down close to the school and to downtown. I didn't even know there were apartments there. I just happened to be jogging with Paula after school (jogging, yuck!) and we were passing by what looks like an old warehouse down on the edge of downtown. There was a sign on the door that said "apartments for rent". I wasn't sure if apartments in an old warehouse would be something I would like, so I ducked in just to pick up a brochure. I asked the lady at the front desk about it and she was soooo nice. We had been running for like twenty minutes and I smelled terrible and was sweating like a pig (Paula never smells bad, no matter how much she sweats. I don't know how she does it.) anyway, she insisted on giving us a tour of the place and took us up to see the apartment they would be renting out. It's nice and homey and (I know it won't stay this way but...) the old lady who had been living there had it all decorated in this beautiful old fashioned cottage theme. The family was moving her stuff out over the next few weeks, so not open yet, but the lady said that we could sign a lease as soon as I was ready.

Am I ready? I feel so ready! I've lived with Edana, and LaShawn, and Paula for almost ten years now, ever since mom and dad died. I'm so ready to have my own place.

But this is like the first time in...ever that Paula and I have gotten along. For the first time in our lives we're actually like sisters. This oughta tell you something about how close we are: I was talking about going out on my twentieth birthday and not only did she say she was going to force me to go out with her, she offered to lend me some clothes. Paula does not let her clothes out of her sight for anything. When she takes a bus to a show, she refuses to leave her clothes suitcase under the bus. She takes it as a carry on! Granted, most of her clothes aren't going to fit me. Paula has a lot more hip and chest than I do (by the way, totally not fair, she's eighteen for Christ's sake!). You better believe I'm going to take her up on the shoes though. I'm not looking forward to being dragged around clubs by the prettiest girl in town, but if I'm going to do it I'm going to do it in some awesome shoes!

So, I think for sure I have to get out of this house, but I have to find a way to keep Paula as close to me as she is now. I can't lose that. It's nice to have a REAL sister, even if she doesn't come to the dojo anymore.

P.S. She doesn't come to the dojo anymore because I keep kicking her butt!

Bad Day

So, there's this kid in my class (I thought after I graduated high school I'd never start a sentence like that again)... anyway...there's this girl in one of the classes I teach, her name is Ororo. Beautiful name, it means soft and silky. Suffice to say, this girl is nothing if not inaccurately named.

Ororo is a junior taking English Literature and she is brilliant. I mean, when we do papers I always put hers aside to read right after a particularly bad one (and girl there are plenty of those). Usually the smart kids are either the quiet ones or well...how should I say this...calm? Smart kids generally find a way not to get into fights. Ororo has never been one to let anything stop her from doing what she wants to do though. I was in the hallway, waiting for class to begin, and I can just hear snippets of this conversation that's going on. Two of the little ebony princesses that run the school are gossiping about something. Well, Ororo was walking by and must have heard something she didn't like, because she decided to tell them off. Well, one of them was smart enough to keep their mouth shut, seeing as she was half Ororo's size, but the other one just couldn't let it go. She gets all up in Ororo's face and says, "Mind your own business, bitch!"

And thenceforth, it was on. Not that it lasted very long. Ororo gave the girl a solid jab right to the bridge of her nose. It was like a popping sound *pop* and the girl's nose was two pieces. Unfortunately, the girl was not smart enough to leave it at that. She decided to catfight Ororo. By the time I finally broke it up (which I'm very proud of, I put Ororo in a full nelson! How often do you get to use your martial arts skills as a teacher!) Ororo had one nasty scratch on her cheek and the other girls was upside down in a trash can.

Really though, you have to stop here and imagine it. Think of the elitist little princess you know, now picture her pretty little legs in a pair of my aunt's (Edana's) designer high heels, kicking from the inside of a trash can. Honestly, I wanted to high five Ororo, but high-fiving in a FULL NELSON doesn't work.

Now here's the thing that gets me. I have this weird attachment to Ororo, It's not just because she's smart, but because her mom was in my mom's English class all the way back when she was pregnant with me. Weird, right? We're out the twenties where people grew up and lived in the same town their whole life. Except, you know, with a war and natural disaster in between.

Natural disaster...that reminds me, I haven't heard from my Aunt Danae in a long time...I need to call her when I get a chance. I want to go visit her in Florida when I get a chance, but when would I have a chance? C'est la vie!

Anyway, long story short, Ororo is on her last warning before she gets booted from general education to military school. Ororo would not do well in the military, big problem with authority. So her mom and I are having regular meetings from this point on to update her on Ororo's progress. I don't mind, it's actually going to be strangely nice to devote time to a kid I like (usually the kids that need the extra attention are butt holes!)

Okay, so I finally hear Paula getting out of the bathroom, so I am going to sink into a long hot bath.

Oh, by the way, I've been looking at apartments! It'll be great not to share a bathroom with my little sister any more.

This is Silly

Okay, here I am, doing this blog thing. It's a silly idea, I really don't have anything to say. I was just reminded recently of my dad and how he told me that the secret to being a writer is to do it. So here I am, Zuri Wallace, being a writer. I can't imagine who would want to read my blog.

Hmmm...What do I write about on here anyway? Isn't it weird that an English teacher can't make up a prompt for herself? It's ridiculous is what it is. Anyway, I'll just go with the old standby of writing about something that's important to me.

Teaching. As long as I can remember I've wanted to be a teacher. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to do a lot of other things in the process, but that has been a constant for me. I can remember chasing Paula around the house with a copy of one of my dad's books and forcing her to listen to me read. She used to hate it, but I felt like that was the only way to get better (and I wanted her to hear my favorite stories (not to mention, I was in a lot of them)). When I was five, my mom brought me home some supplies from an old classroom that they were throwing out. There was a tiny whiteboard that she mounted on my wall as well as a school desk and some old markers. I used to sit my doll Halliberry up in the desk and make her listen to me teach about "The Twilight Princess" or the old books I used to read with mom and dad like "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."

I always loved to read. I think that was my parents' doing. I remember thinking that if everyone had parents like mine, they would all love to read. Maybe that's part of my goal as a teacher, to make kids as excited by a story like Othello as I am. To be honest, as much as I want to understand people's apathy toward great literature, I just can't.

After my two years of service as a Service Teacher, I knew that I wanted to become a career teacher. My mentor was the greatest. Teena Julian was her name, she still teaches in Atlanta, but we haven't talked in awhile. She had had my mom as a teacher years before and the first thing she said to me was that she would be shamed if she couldn't make me at least as good a teacher as my mom made her. Just thinking about it almost makes me cry. I really miss my mommy sometimes!

Oh God, way off topic. So, yeah, I guess that's going to conclude my first blog entry. It ain't exactly five paragraph form, but it's close enough for jazz. Wow, I have never used that term before and it just came out. I guess it's true though, blogging is sort of the jazz of writing. You just say what you say as it comes to you. I just hope none of my students ever find this blog, then I can't say anything bad about them on it. Mwa ha ha.