#23) Thank a teacher

      My sister and I both had an English professor during undergrad that looked like a hot, grown-up version of Harry Potter.  I think it was the Buddy Holly glasses.  You know the type: ironic cute with leather patches on the jacket? Beyond his quirky good looks, * Dr. Potter* was the most inspiring teacher.  He was the standard that all graduates strive to be when they finish student teaching and are bright-eyed and idealistic and fancy themselves to be Hillary Swank from Freedom Writers.  His classes consisted of hilarious lectures on Brit Lit poetry, each poem suddenly transforming from stuffy to scandalous.  I remember half the class blushing after he discussed a poem called "The Flea", which he made sound like the seventeenth century version of 50 Shades of Gray.  Tell me that isn't a class worth waking up for!

      Of course, that wasn't what made him so inspiring.  Instead, he made people feel smart and unique.  I remember him chirping, "Great point!" after anyone's contribution, and his Rate My Professor page was and is filled with comments like:  "Cool dude" and "He got me to change my major to English!"  Bethany took his class three years after I did, and we argued over whose essays he liked better, comparing his encouraging comments that we clipped from the bottom of the final pages.  At one point, she dubbed him a "compliment slut" because he made students feel like they were special, when really he doled out affirmations to everyone that crossed his path.  (At this point, I should mention that he did this to both genders and was not biased to girls, lest you think he had some ulterior motives.)

       Fast forward nine years later, I was at my college taking a summer class the other day when I walked by the building where he held classes.  For a second, I wished I had taken the time to send one of those “thank-you-for-being-an-inspiration” e-mails and wondered if it would be weird to write one now. Then, I eschewed that idea because I realized that the sentiment might be lost a bit with the e-mail being delivered almost a decade too late. What a slacker…

 
    That night, I was at a concert with Dan, pleasantly buzzed and crooning along to the Avett Brothers.  Guess who was standing directly in front of us and turned around to ask, "Your name is Christen, right?" None other than Dr. Potter himself!  I couldn't believe the timing.  We chatted pleasantly for a few minutes, and that was that.  The next day, I wrote him the insanely belated "thank you" e-mail, and he responded with (of course) the most affirming response ever, that included, "For the record, the reason I remembered you is that you were a great student!  Your students are lucky to have you!" 

Then, he wrote a nice comment about Bethany and asked me to tell her hi.  Dammit if he isn't still  a bit "compliment slutty" nine years later!

     I doubt anyone's still reading, but I guess the reason I'm writing this is because I've been thinking a lot about teaching lately.  Wondering whether I inspire my students.  Feeling intimidated, as I do at the start of each new year, that I have the power to encourage or deflate the creativity of these tweens that I teach each day.  Wishing that I could make all my students, at least once, feel special. 

Step by Step

Sing it with me! 

"Oooh, baby!  Gonna get to you girrrrl!"

Fellow children of the early 80's, who was your favorite?  Was it the youngest with his baby blues Joey? Or were you a bad boy fan with the pierced Jordan?

 On the count of three, let's all blurt out which NKOTB boy we had a crush on.   

Ready?

One...

Two...

Three!

Danny!

I kid, I kid! I remember having a lively debate over which boy was hottest with my second grade friends, but we all agreed that the horsey Danny was not our favorite.  Do you concur?

via

This is the wierdest intro I've ever had for a post.  Moving on!

With my summer winding down (this is my last week day off), I decided to jam in another Pinterest inspired project: numbered steps.  This is a trend that I see as being very taste-specific, so it will not surprise me if this is not most people's decor choice.  There is just something about bold numbers on stairs that I find kind of whimsical and crisp.

My inspiration photo:

 via Pottery Barn

First, I showed my stairs some TLC.  They had become rather chipped and scarred, and not in a "look-how-shabby-chic-we-are" way.

 Yeesh... 

I painted all of the stairs in Behr's paint and primer in one in semi-gloss.  It was much more time consuming than I thought it would be, but at least I could watch 500 Days of Summer with Dan through the arm rail slats as I worked.

While I debated whether I should use a stencil to paint the numbers on the stairs, Dan reminded me that when we sell our house the realtor might ask us to remove the numbers since they're taste specific.  I settled on vinyl rub-on numbers since I can blow my hair dryer on them and peel them off easily if we need to.   The numbers come from OZA Vinyl Graphics on Etsy and were pretty simple to use.

I simply measure the stairs, taped them in place, used a pencil to mark where to put them, peeled off the backing, rubbed each one on, and peeled off the top layer.  I know that sounds like too many steps (pun!) but it wasn't nearly as time consuming as painting all of them and went quicker than I had anticipated.

First numbers:

In progress:

I like this landing now.  It could use a bit more black-framed art, but it's so much warmer than before.

I feel like the numbered stairs kind of go with the black frame on the art (sentimental wedding gift featuring the bridge in Central Park where Dan proposed):

Again, it's probably not everyone's thing, but I'm liking this wierd trend.  It's like eyeliner for my steps, making them pop a bit.   Look at them, all flirty now like, "Here we are!"

Off to enjoy my last day off!

Let's get lost together

I like the recent travel boards people have been doing on Pinterest, so I decided to try it for myself.   I think the picture below spanks mine, though.  What a world traveler!

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It's almost a little smug, you know?  I'm thinking, "Okay, Carmen Sandiego, we get it!  You like to travel!"

 Reminds me of another pinterest thing that popped up lately:

But back to my twenty minute project! I'm not artsy enough to create something from scratch, but I found a gorgeous calendar featuring vintage maps for $20 at a local gift shop.  The cover was a print of Europe that I thought would work well for documenting our travels, and I figured the added bonus is that I can still use the rest of the calendar come 2013.

I bought a sticker book from the dollar bin at Target for summer school this year, and I realized yesterday that I could use a hole punch on the bottom stars to create little dots of color to indicate cities we have visited.

Really, there's no need for the blow by blow of this project, but I will anyway.  I just hole punched the star stickers in five different colors, one for each country that we visited (three together/ two separately).

Then, we just placed the dots on the different countries we've visited:

I created a little key for the bottom corner, cut out the map, and popped it in a frame.  Voila!  Easy, custom art for our office:

I like the idea of framing a map because Dan and I are always getting lost on our vacations together.  Even though he has a solid sense of direction, I inevitably want to visit some obscure  place, like a pastry shop I read about on Trip Advisor, so he has to do tons of map reading.  He's constantly threatening to give me "map lessons" since my sense of direction is so backwards, but I wriggle out of that by feeding his ego, "But, hon, I have you!"

Side note:  While I'm horrible at reading maps, I am the only one of the two of us who can fold them back up into the neat little rectangles.  Anyone else notice that about their significant other??  What is so hard about using the creases to fold it up again??  I do have to admit that I feel oddly smug when he spends ten minutes expertly navigating us through some complex city... and then has to sheepishly hand the map to me to fold. 

I'm happy with my simple map art.  Definitely has some sentimental value!

I'm almost done tweaking my office, so more pictures of that soon!  Anyone else doing anything "pinteresting" lately?

Cure for Summer Boredom

If a book is boring, I end it, which I guess makes me kind of a fickle reader.  I've been known to reach the half way point, roll my eyes at all the filler, and never finish it, feeling like a slacker whenever I see it still lying on my nightstand. I even peek at endings occasionally... and feel guilty. 

** Feel free to judge. **

I don't know if that habit reveals that I can be impatient or what, and I definitely admire others who have the discipline to finish books no matter what.  My friend Mali will trudge through ones that she hates, just to be fair and get to the end.  I guess I feel like it's my right as a reader to bail if I'm too bored.

In the summer, I hate reading stuffy, overly lyrical books.  Maybe it's me rebelling because I'm forced to dole out boring summer reading assignments to my own students, which one professor at my college calls "readicide".   Why shouldn't summer be a time to read what you want? Time to indulge in guilty pleasures and be entertained, much like the cheesy Blockbuster movies that roll through movie theaters. Think: staying-up-until-2am-because-I-can-kind-of-reads.  

For my summer to do list, I wanted to read five new books because I felt the need to jam in as many as I could before September 5th.  Who knows when I'll be able to sit down with one once the essays start rolling in?  And I found a page turner.  Perhaps you've heard of it?

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

From the back of the book:  On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

My Take:  I bought this book after reading the odd range of descriptions in Amazon reviews: 

"Fiendishly clever." 

"The only book I've ever deleted from my Kindle."   

"A total mindf*ck."  

(Excuse the borrowed, salty language)

Luckily there were no spoilers posted, and I came away from Amazon with one impression: readers either love or hate this book.  Which camp was I going to be in?

I finished the book at 3 a.m. yesterday and have no. earthly. idea. how. to. review. it.  You won't find any spoilers here, promise, which means I'm putting duct tape over my mouth right now.  It's times like this that I really wish I had kept up with that book club... If anyone out there has read it and wants me to do a separate post where we can openly discuss the ending in the comments, let me know!

I basically see author Gillian Flynn as a maniacal puppet master, gleefully pulling strings to ratchet up the tension in this psychological thriller.  It's disturbing and twisted. It's nastily readable, and you too might be up until 2 am compulsively turning pages, and then feel the need to shower.   It's dark and slick as oil.  It's told in alternating points of view: husband Nick and wife Amy's past diary entries, and there are so many half-truths and evasions and lies... heartbreak and questions that if I had charted it would look like a convoluted roadmap.  It's well written, with the first page's depiction of Nick creepily musing, "I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts.  What are you thinking, Amy?" 

And what am I thinking?  Read it if you want something new.  You'll have an opinion on it, one way or another.  And you won't be bored.