Wednesday, May 18, 2005

yearbook signing party

today after school there was a party so that students could sign yearbooks. i attended, and signed lots and lots of yearbooks. it was fun. at the same time, and this was partly because of the music that they were playing, i couldn't help but feel like i was actually in high school again. it was crazy. i'm NOT. sometimes i have to remind myself of that. i didn't say anything worth saying in the yearbooks. i never know what to say, so i write meaningless drivel. "i enjoyed having you in class." "good luck and have fun next year." "(some random inside joke that's too obscure for the person i intend to read it)." stuff like that. i don't know how to fix this. i didn't want to just write trite "christian" phrases, but i also started feeling pretty pathetic, being a teacher at a christian school, and not really saying anything different from what non-christian high schoolers might be writing to each other--without the innuendo. i admire jacob's ability to ask hard questions, and i wish i had that unabashedness, and that level of awareness of my own questions. i don't know if i wish i had the same ones, but i do wish i really knew what i was thinking and wondering about.

i recently finished the count of monte cristo and a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. the first was very good--i mean, it is a classic--and the second was amazing. it's basically a memoir written by a man who's parents died when he was twentythree, leaving him to raise his seven year old brother, with some help from his twentyfour year old sister and twentyseven year old brother. amazing. not for the faint of heart, or for those who will be offended by pure, raw, often profane emotion. amazing book.

i'm almost done with teaching, and i'm really really excited about that. two weeks until i'm in oregon again, and that's exciting.

1 comment:

Krispin Mayfield said...

I had a similar time on a church retreat last weekend, as each senior had a piece of paper you could sign... mostly "we're gonna have a great time this summer"s and "I enjoyed having you in Bible study"s. The favorite that someone wrote of me was "Krispin is good." Except that he accidently wrote it on someone else's paper.

There was one half-worthwhile inside joke I wrote on one girl's paper, (it was made up when our youth pastor made the rule of 'no four letter words'):

"fucking is a seven letter word."