the last phoenix post

i'm taking off tomorrow, and my apartment is almost all packed up. tonight i'm going to pf changs with the guys for one last night of teacher fun. (thanks to a student who gave me a gift certificate as a year-end "thank you") it should be a good time. then i'll come back here, finish packing, go to bed, get up in the morning and grab anything that's left, clean everything that hasn't been cleaned, and take off. the end. i'll see all you roseburgers in a few days.

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.

flying to dallas

right now i'm trying to decide if i drop almost four hundred dollars for the combination of flying to dallas for alec's wedding and then flying to seattle the next day for dan's. i have the money, and it's not going to get any cheaper, but it feels like it's so expensive. no, i need to do it. as soon as i call my parents and see if they want to get a fun seattle trip out of it. yep, that's what i'm doing.

i've been sick again for the last few days. it feels like the bronchitis came back, but i can't be too sure. i will say that i've been getting better as today has gone on. but being sick doesn't make school go by any better, rather it makes me yearn even more for the time (less than a month, now!) when i'll be done teaching and back in roseburg doing whatever it is i can find to do. and then only a few short months and i'm back in school. that makes me quite happy. i think that's all.