Stereotypical end of the year introspection...

Lately I’ve been thinking about who I’ve been and who I’m going to be. The biggest catalyst for this is the fact that I’m going to have a baby in 2009. I wonder what kind of mother, wife, teacher, friend, Christian, and person I will be. The hormonal changes going on in me have brought out the worst; or in other words, the person I was in college.

Back in middle school, I was terribly, painfully shy. I didn’t know how to interact with people my age. I was lonely. I was miserable. By the time I got to high school, I was over my shyness but the social cliques at my private school were as strict as the Caste system. You were what you were when you got there, so for 7 years of my life I was stuck quietly on the outskirts, with just a couple friends, wishing I could say what I wanted to say. (Just a side note: the friends that I had then were fantastic people. I still keep in touch with some of them.)

When I got to college, the game changed. I got to make up for lost time, or lost words, and I became the person that says what everyone is thinking. People listened to me and genuinely wanted to know what I had to say. I was emboldened by this new found freedom and sometimes took it to the level of jerkdom. I used being honest as an excuse to be derisive. I still have flashes of things I said to people that make me wince.

Then I got to seminary. I had simmered down some, but I was still honest. This took a lot of people by surprise. People didn’t know how to take me, and I felt like I was back in high school. Many of my classmates were good ol’ southern boys who didn’t expect girls to be smart or speak their mind. It was really hard. I wasn’t going to change who I was, but I had gotten used to being friends with guys who weren’t suspicious of me. The underlying assumption of women at seminary while I was there was that they were desperately seeking their MRS degree or that they were crazy raging feminists. While I was neither, I came away with more sympathy for group #2. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, at a place surrounded by likeminded Christians, I was mostly alienated for being an honest person. (Some notable male exceptions: John, Jody, and of course, William)

After graduation, I began teaching. I had to ratchet back my honesty for the sake of not scarring small children and/or getting fired. (There’s a time and a place to speak your mind… when you want to tell the 10th six year old that day who has sneezed all over their classmate/not washed their hands after potty/can’t tie their shoe/wants you to look at their booger/etc. to TAKE THEIR UNTIED SHOE AND…. Well you know. It’s probably not good to speak your mind in that moment.) Then I began teaching 5th grade, and then middle school. I love teaching middle school precisely for the reasons most people think I am crazy for. I love that they are all over the place, and I get to have some small part in shaping the person they are going to be. I have such vivid memories of how miserable that was, that I know I belong in that classroom. But again, I have to be a calm presence. If I get a crappy paper turned in, I have to phrase my comments nicely… firmly point out what’s wrong, and put some encouragement in. When students are being bad, I can’t just scream at them to shut up. (I have never in my life raised my voice to a student.) Calmness works much better. The result of that, though, is that I have become very adept at pushing my emotions away, dealing with them later and rationalizing why I shouldn’t be upset. I do this at home, and as I have recently become aware, I do it to my friends. Who the emotions come out for are total strangers, and it’s not in a good way. For the first time in my life a couple weeks ago, I leaned out the window and yelled at some lady in the Publix parking lot. It’s even worse than something I would have done in college. William was picking me up at Publix and I had a few bag’s worth of groceries, more than I could easily toss in the car waiting at the stop sign. I told him to pull into the pick up-drop off lane so we wouldn’t hold up traffic. Then, I realized there was a van parked RIGHT in the entrance so William couldn’t pull off the main drive. The driver of the van was outside of her van, talking on her cell phone. I know she must have seen us there, me with bags of groceries, William trying to pull up behind her. I got in the car with my bags after some effort, and then William had to back up into Publix traffic to get back out. I leaned out my open window and gave her a piece of my mind as we drove off. Afterwards, I thought, what on earth is wrong with me? I never do things like that. I yell at drivers, I get impatient with people in grocery store lines that are being, in my opinion, purposely obtuse, and I get annoyed with people who walk realllllly realllllly slowly in the middle of the walkways at stores. I was even rude to a salesclerk at Target on Black Friday. I think that in some ways this is because of the crazy pregnancy hormones, but in other ways, I need to learn balance. Not in the new-agey, meditation sense, but in a real live normal person sense. I need to find a way to open up my emotions responsibly to the people around me, who actually care how I feel. It’s just hard to get out of the forced calm I’m in from 9 to 3 every day. It’s easier to keep it together if I’m trying to do it all the time, but then it jumps out in ugly ways when I don’t want it to. But honestly, I’d rather be ugly to strangers than to my friends… I don’t know how to fix it. Help?

I heard the bells....

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

(one of my faves... hope you enjoy. Merry Christmas!)

1. I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

2. I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

3. And in despair I bowed my head
'There is no peace on earth,' I said,
'For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.'

4. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.'

5. Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Christmas concerts

Friday night I got to go see Leeland, Sixpence None the Richer, Sarah Groves, and Jars of Clay in concert, courtesy of a family from school. It was GREAT, but also highlighted to me some of my pet peeves about Christian concerts and about performers in general.

Ever since the Newsboys started charging $30 to get into their "Worship" tour, I've been really ticked at the idea of Christian concerts as worship services. Yes, in one sense, all Christian acts should be those of worship, but in another sense, formal worship only takes place on Sunday, in church, led by a pastor, with other believers. Yeah, I'm a Presbyterian. Sue me. Actually don't... I have no money. But the good thing about that is: worship is free. Only one of the acts got on a big kick about how we were there to worship, but it was enough to annoy me. If it were a worship service, they shouldn't have charged admission. And, that guy isn't my pastor, my spiritual leader, or anybody in the position to lead me in worship anyway. Besides the deep-seeded theological problem I have with that, there were other moments that were just funny.

The pastor of the host church was praying to open the show, and I was watching him on the big telescreen. I was totally okay until he prayed, "help us to, as the old song says, love thee more dearly..." and I started laughing so hard I was crying. The song he quoted from was "Day by Day" from Godspell. After the prayer, I promptly burst into song. I know the guy meant it sincerely, but it just tickled me to no end that for his serious, heartfelt prayer, he prayed words from a bad 70's musical about Jesus. Of course, it was one of those things made funnier by the fact that it was a totally inappropriate time for me to bust out laughing.

The guy from Leeland provided some amusement for me with his worship pose. He would squat slightly with his arms akimbo, elbows bent, fists clenched, like he was getting ready to take off on his very own jet pack. Leigh from Sixpence was obviously nervous and couldn't stop swinging her free arm around. The bass player for Sarah Groves, as my friend pointed out to me, looked like Gollum the way he was hunching over his instrument.

All this just added to the fun, though. It was, in all, a fantastic show. My favorite moment was probably Jars of Clay, when they played Little Drummer Boy, and the band members starting rocking out with Dan going to town on the bass drum. I'm all ready for Christmas now.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

Last night, for the first time in the history of being an Eggleston, I ate all my dinner at a restaurant and then finished half of William's. And then ate ice cream. Pregnancy has officially turned my universe upside down and inside out.

Things I am thankful for right now, in no particular order:

*My husband devoting hours of our week off to trying to fix my iPod. 

*Sleeping in, in theory. I've woken up at 5 AM every morning this week, groaned at the clock, and slept for another couple hours. 

*Powerschool not working so I have a reason to keep putting off spending my vacation working. 

*The technological advances that let me see my baby's face yesterday, even though little Egglet is about 2 inches long. 

*My wise, loving, fun friends. 

*My parents, brothers, sister in law, nieces, and nephews. 

*Music in general, old hymns in particular. 

*My goofy dog.

*My students who make me a better teacher by asking great questions. 

*Parents of my students who love and encourage me. Your smiles help me make it through the day. 

*My superiors at work: all fantastic. 

*My co-workers. I work with the best middle school team on the planet. 

*Cheetos.

*The new peppermint shake at Chick Fil A.

*Game time with my family.

*Free gifts with purchase

*Bonding over books.

*Living in the same town as my family.

*My morning sickness seems to be over for good

*I get to eat turkey and ham in a matter of hours, surrounded by family, extended family, and friends. 

Those Cullen kids...

Warning: This post contains massive Twilight movie spoilers as well as plot spoilers from the book series. If your name is Joy Baker, stop reading immediately. 

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Friday night I went to see the movie production of Twilight, the crazily successful first novel in the series centered around the relationship between a vampire boy and a mortal girl. Along with my sister in law and a good friend, I got in the queue to wait for optimum seating. We got there close to an hour early and just in time. There were maybe 30 to 40 people ahead of us, and 5 minutes later, the line was out the door and around the building. I'd had a slight fear of being one of only 3 adults in the whole theater, but there were actually many other grown-ups there unaccompanied by adolescents. I've been looking forward to this movie ever since I read the book series, tearing through each one til the wee hours of the morning, as I read them over the summer. In preparation for the movie, I re-read the book and also scoured the movie reviews I found online. The mostly negative reviews gave me hope for the movie. 

I was afraid the movie makers would totally screw up the plot and sacrifice the intensity and the sweetness of Edward and Bella's relationship in an attempt to sex it up. The reviews I read almost universally criticized one of the elements I like most in the story: the restraint between the 2 characters. One review said something along the lines of "the pre-feminist morality is scarier than anything else in the movie" and another criticized Bella's character for being willing to give up everything to be with Edward. The local newspaper critic wondered if people could take 3 more movies of the self-control between the teenagers. All these reviews overlook many factors. One of them is that not all teenagers have the self control of rabbits. Another is that in the books, Edward is concerned that he will kill Bella if they get too close. He wants her blood as intensely as he wants to be with her, and he's so strong he might accidentally crush her. Also, he wants to protect her from sinning because she still has a soul. Bella and Edward get married before they do the deed, and those scenes are very much "curtain drawn... you know what they're up to." Though that mostly happens later in the series, the movie did a good job of expressing Edward's torment over desiring to kill Bella from the moment he smells her with his desire to keep her safe. 

One of the themes in the series is sacrificing everything for family. In the first book, the Cullen family puts aside their disagreements on whether Bella should know about them because of their love for Edward. The rest of them have soul mates, and now that Edward has found his, they will do what they can to protect Edward and Bella. This all leads up to a climactic battle in which the family members, usually peaceful, dismember and burn an evil vampire who tried to kill Bella. In the second book, Edward sacrifices himself by leaving Bella when he thinks that he can't keep her safe from his own family (one of the characters loses control when she gives herself a paper cut.) He breaks her heart, and his, to save her life, and near the end of the book, she ends up saving his life. I'll stop with the plot summaries there, but I just wanted to point out that self-sacrificial love is a much better focal point than rabid teenage hormones. There's definitely an "ohhh when is he going to kiss her!" factor to the stories, but it's not the POINT of the story. 

Now back to the movie. From a practical standpoint, the movie suffered from a low budget and lack of effects. They also messed up some pivotal scenes, in my opinion. The meadow scene, which is the turning point in their relationship, got short shrift. None of the characters growled menacingly like they are described in the book (I was really looking forward to hearing how Edward would growl when Bella is threatened during their baseball game...) I also thought that the other high school students were not at all how I pictured them in the book. They were all a little too stereotypical. However, the rest of the casting was brilliant and definitely threw a bone to the fans of the books. The actor who played Jasper was absolutely the best. The look on his face when he walks through the cafeteria at the school totally reflects what only readers would know, that he is the newest to the Cullen's lifestyle of not eating humans, and therefore it is a constant temptation for him. His slightly dazed, slightly sick expression was perfect. Alice, one of the best-written characters in the story, was also spot-on. The books always hint at how dangerously strong she is when fighting but we never see it. In the movie, while Jasper and Emmett are holding James, the evil vampire, Alice lightly runs over, alights on James, and snaps his neck. The juxtaposition between her graceful movements and the violence she is capable of was one of the best visual elements in the movie (which lacked many of those, to be honest. This movie was all about the acting.) It reinforced the constant danger Bella is in, even with vampires who honestly love her and don't want to hurt her. The guy playing Edward did an excellent job too, in his physical mannerisms and the way he spoke. The random rudeness he exhibits, to Bella's bewilderment, was well-portrayed in how he would deliver his lines and walk off, sometimes mid thought, or just after giving a cryptic insult. He was perfectly creepy when he makes Bella say what he really is, and he's perfectly goofy and silly when they show up at school as a couple. He may be over 100 years old, but he's still only 17. 

I always feel a little silly for loving these books so much because they are targeted toward teenage girls, but all the other adults I've recommended them to became equally addicted. It's a strange phenomenon that I'm still not sure I can explain. I've always loved vampire stories... I own many seasons of Buffy and Angel... but it's not just that. The story is so compelling and gripping. I'm totally buying the movie when it comes out, even if I have to elbow adolescents out of the way to do so... 

Vent.

It's been almost a whole month since I last blogged... and now I'm reappearing, but not to say anything terribly important. Just needed to get off some steam.

Here is how my day started: I woke up and began the search for my E-Zone shirt. William kindly emptied the clean-laundry pile AND dirty-laundry pile in the laundry room, but couldn't find it. It wasn't in my drawers, not in the clean laundry basket that's been sitting in my room for a couple weeks now while I ignore it, it's not anywhere. I decided to look on the floor by the bookshelf on which I keep my shoes. I looked down and see my Puma bag, one of my cute pairs of shoes, and my favorite sweater covered in some kind of brown substance. A little afraid of the answer, I summoned William and asked for confirmation of what it was. My dog, Sirius, sweet pet that he is, had gone DIARRHEA all over it. It was dried, which I guess is good... it didn't smell, which I guess is why we didn't notice it before... My gallant husband threw away my shoes for me, cleaned my bag, and put my sweater (which just had a few splatters on it... the bag and shoes got most of it) in the wash. Now I know my poor dog couldn't help it; he must have had to go while we were at work, but did he have to do it on my PUMA BAG? 

Then, most of this morning at school I couldn't talk. My voice came back for the classes I had my students doing a worksheet in. After arriving home, I fiddled around checking my email and whatnot, then decided to take a nap. I'm exhausted, and we have a family dinner tonight that it would be nice if I was semi-coherent for. So, I went to lie down, and no sooner do I curl up under the covers than the ICE CREAM TRUCK comes down my street, blasting stupid "Do Your Ears Hang Low" for several minutes. The truck went away, and I started to relax, thinking I could get at least a few minutes of shut-eye... and lo and behold, some kid decided to walk around outside blowing a flippin' boatswain whistle or something. It sounded like the ones in Sound of Music. Apparently I am destined to be tired, irritable, and annoyed. Either that or there is some divine lesson I am supposed to be learning but I AM TOO TIRED TO COMPREHEND IT! 

I wanted to blog today on something I've been mulling over, that's actually quite serious, about how Christians have given up their most vital weapons in the spiritual war we are in, but that will have to wait until my brain comes back. That could be awhile.