States of Mind

Back, back, back it up.

Russell Simmons spoke up for something he believes in and then backed it up.

This article is worth a read.

I’ve had really great experiences with women and ministry, and some really rotten ones (limiting events for women to tea parties and jewelry-making is sort of lacking, don’t you think?). Anyways, this article (that a girl whose blog I stalk found) conveys the same feelings I have- thank goodness I have awesome female friends who are shakers and movers.

Poison Pizza

There is a reason the only meals I “cook” are Velveeta Shells and pre-made dinners from T-Joes.

I’ve made dinner for Brian on my own three times. Two of those three times I accidentally made poisonous pizza that had my poor, patient husband in physical pain.

Then on one perfect day, I made a pizza that did not have my husband clutching his stomach in turmoil.

I would really love to cook more, but I would also really love to not die by my own hand at the tender age of 22.

This week’s goal- cook twice. That was last week’s goal as well but this time I’m going to, well, you know, actually do it. 

Prepare to barf.

I’ve been meaning to write this out for a while and now seems like the best time to do it.

I just feel like telling someone/everyone. I actually want to shout from a mountain top just how jig-inducingly happy I am but I’m too lazy to climb a mountain top and usually the louder I yell, the higher and more cartoon-like I sound (so it wouldn’t really sound like a joyous proclamation of love, but like a little cartoon mouse squeaking in her little cartoon voice).

What I’m talking about is our story. You know, Brian and mine. If you hate the mushy-gushy stuff stop reading here. I hate it too, but not when it’s our mushy-gushy stuff. If it’s ours, it’s okay since our relationship > yours.

JUST KIDDING. I promise.

Anyway, I’ve been praying for my future husband for a long time. Even when I was a kid, I prayed for the future Mr. Kaitlin Fain (five year old me was not willing to change her name. I’ve been a feminist since a young age). I prayed for a kind, passionate, Godly man- you know, the basics. But as I got older, there were a few random things I found that I really wanted without really knowing why. The sprinkles on the icing on the cake, if you will. I wanted

1. My husband to call me Kaitlin (and for it not to sound strange)
2. To remember the first time I saw him
3. To not guess at his feelings for me, but to absolutely know them.
4. For my husband to love my curly hair (I’ll just explain this one now since it doesn’t really come up later…. Brian loves my curly hair. And the bigger and crazier it is, the more he loves it. Weird. Also, awesome).
5. That we would have a great story together- beginning, middle and end.

 If you ever had doubts about God answering prayers, read on. Sometimes He says no and I’m okay with that. But this time He said YES and I’m okay with that too.

(Sidenote: Brian and I met at a summer camp we both love doing what we both love- working with students. We both went to this camp a month before it started with a small group of people to work on the camp’s recreation staff. Oh and at camp, Brian is known as “Rize” which…is too complicated to explain so just go with it).

I remember the first time I saw Brian. It was cold and I was sick and grumpy at a summer camp that felt more like winter camp (Snow = yuck). Mallory and I were walking to breakfast when we ran into the boys joining us on Rec Staff. I saw the two boys I knew and more importantly the one I didn’t. They were standing around a fire pit talking to our new boss (and unknowing match-maker) Matt. We said hi and I thought, “Oh, that must be Rize.”

No love at first sight, no swoony tingly feelings. Just, “Oh, that must be Rize.”

And then he made me mad.

We fought over whether or not Risk is a man’s game (it’s not) and outside of a Trader Joes he told me just how sick and awful I really looked that day (which was true). Being sensitive and girly, it made me mad and I just wasn’t so sure about this Rize guy.

A few days later, we both volunteered to swim out to the middle of the lake and tow the blob (yes, like the one in Heavyweights) back to the beach. It was freezing and the blob was stuck, so we sat together curled in individual balls on the blob deck while our fellow lifeguards tried to figure out how to inflate the giant beast. I told him about my tattoo and he told me his favorite color was purple and about his German teacher in High School.

He helped me with my homework, but we did not like each other yet. I showed him every picture on my computer, but we did not like each other yet. Mallory, Lauren, Mae, Amy, Wes and Caleb teased me about how much I liked him, but I swore I did not like him yet.

(I will say that the teasing actually got the ball rolling for me a little bit. Especially Caleb’s teasing. One day, he literally just pushed us together. Punk. But thanks, punk).

And then one day, Rize wasn’t at camp. I didn’t see him for a whole day. And not seeing a person for one day at camp is like not seeing the same person for a month anywhere else. I realized I missed him.

That is when I knew I did like him and for some odd reason, I just knew he liked me too.

We went on our first date and  (while talking in the same Trader Joes parking lot that he told me just how horrible I looked) he asked me

Do you want to know me?

 Never has my heart filled with such an undeniable YES. The desire to know him spread throughout my body and I could barely contain my voice from yelling YES (or squeaking it in my cartoon voice) at the top of my lungs in every language I know (English).

He looked at me and told me matter-of-factly that he liked me. And I looked at him and said the same thing like I had always known it.

After I knew I liked him, I knew we were going to date. And after we started dating, I knew I would be his girlfriend. After I was his girlfriend, I knew I loved him. And after he told me he loved me, I knew I would be his wife.

So that leads into the next portion of the story. The proposal. Which I haven’t written yet and depending on how long this post is, the number of people that read it (me and my mom) and how bored I get in the next few weeks there is a good chance I might not write it or might write it and never share it.

But the engagement part is pretty dang good so you never know (Brian= diabolical engagement genius).

STATE OF MIND: blissfully happy.

(I’m lucky he likes me)

Hip-Hip-Hypocrites and Help

I owe today’s sanity to two strangers.

I’m not a huge fan of asking for help. I do it so often that it probably doensn’t seem that way, but its true. Sometimes I think that if I ask for help, it somehow means I’ve failed.

And I’m a teacher.

I practically beg and bribe my students to come to me for help, yet here I am, the big hip-hip-hypocrite, being anti-help. My rationale is that I like working on my own. While that’s true, my sanity over the last few months of student teaching has been dependent on the aid of those around me. And even those around me that I don’t really know.

Which brings me to today’s story. (Which isn’t a good one. You should know this right off the bat. It probably doesn’t sound like it would be that stressful, but it poured an extra shot of umph into my already crazy day).

I started a tutoring job. At a middle school. With 6^th graders. 

I got hired yesterday, was handed materials 5 minutes before the students showed up, and am now responsible for four more young minds three days a week. Yikes. I hate math. I get math to a certain extent, but I don’t like it. Maybe if I’m lucky, my students will start failing English and I can start tutoring them in that. A girl can dream.

There were about 100 other kids and tutors all within a tiny cafeteria that echoed the conversaton of one table around the room and back again. My students faces said “we don’t want to be here.” And I’m sure I looked wide-eyed and scared like Bambi. I tried going through material I had never seen before and math I haven’t done in ten years. I was unprepared.

This is where my two superheroes, capes and all, flew in to save the day. Joyce and Forrest, an elderly couple who have been teaching for years, are phased by nothing. They worked together in a way that only a couple who had been married for that long could. They were seamless. And without missing a beat, they helped the unhinged student teacher become hinged.

They patted me on the back and reassured me that things weren’t always this crazy, that it wasn’t just me. They gave me endless advice on things that worked for them. They gave me endless advice on things that didn’t work for them (Thank goodness, by the way, because those things were the things I thought I might do). AND they gave me their card and told me to call them with whatever questions I might have.

And I’ve already called them for help on a stupid website attendance thingy.

I hate asking for help, but I guess I didn’t ask. Help was given. And it was given in such a loving, honest-intentioned and kind way.

So thank  you Joyce and Forrest, elderly couple and tutor to the stars, for gruntling this disgruntled girl. I appreciate your help, I appreciate your accidental mini-lesson on the way people should help. You’re both better teachers than you realize. 

I couldn’t love (or be intimidated by) this more.

Halfway out the door

Today is my last full day of classes. I’m sitting in my “Women in Literture” class, one of the best courses I have taken here at the U, twenty minutes early just to soak in as much of this day as human sponge-ily possible.

I know I’m not graduating just yet, but I feel like I’m already halfway out the door. And I kind of am. I’m not a student next semester, I’m a student teacher. Scary.

I will honestly miss reading assignments, papers, finals and portfolios (but not quizzes and exams. Yuck). Instead of doing classwork, I’ll be grading it.

Refer to me as “Miss Fain” from now on, please. Or if you are a Tucson native and know what I’m talking about, just call me “Miss.”