Parallels

Ask anyone I know--I recently got super into rock climbing. 

A month ago, I got back up on a rock wall for the first time since my fall, and I've craved to return ever since.

On a whim, I invested in a pair of shoes, a chalk bag, a bouldering gym membership, and a roll of tape. It's pretty rare for me to jump head-on into something so quickly, but I'm so glad I've invested in this hobby because it's starting to pay off.

When I hit the rock gym, my mind is instantly cleared. I'm no longer focused on student essays, lesson plans for the next week, or how my lesson may have crashed and burned that day. Instead, I'm faced by different issues--how to climb a particular route, how to best bandage a blister, how to catapult myself over a ledge--the list goes on. Rock climbing gives me a physical activity that embodies problem solving, and helps me process along the way.

Granted, not all problems are solved in a quick and clean fashion. Some problems take a few falls or a few fails before being solved, and I've learned to grow comfortable in those times.

I'm learning to grow comfortable when I fail at teaching as well.

Don't get me wrong--I hold myself to a very high standard, but teaching is a try-and-fail setup. If you try an activity and you fail, you try again or you move on to something that may work. If you fail at getting a point across, you stand up, brush yourself off, and come back the next day to try again.

I'm so thankful I found rock climbing in my first year of teaching so I could learn to fall, learn to fail, and practice getting back up time and time again.

Homeward Bound

My sweet time in Tulsa is coming to an end. I'm ready to go home, but I've met a lot of lovely people here and made new friends.

The students I have--my first group of students, aside from the incoming freshmen I taught at ASU's Early Start program two years ago--are amazing. They're humorous, curious, and all doing relatively well in class. My Tulsa kiddos have taught me how to interact and teach many different types of students, and I'm excited to meet my 150 Phoenix kiddos with these 4 weeks of teaching experience under my belt.

My co-teacher (or "collab" in Teach for America terms) is a blessing. His name is Elliott, he has teaching experience, and he's such a calm and loving person. He spent the last 3 years living in Iceland (I know, right?) and has classroom experience as a teacher.

In the past 4 weeks, we've experienced actual tornado warnings where we had to go down to the basement and stay "calm" while our students had to stay "calm" while we were all late for lunch and hungry. We've shared deodorant (I forgot mine one day and our classroom is at least 80 degrees and humid every day), shared life stories, and grown to know each other well.

There's nobody else I would rather share a classroom with, and knowing that Elliott is going to Miami when I go back to Phoenix is rough--but I'm stoked because it means I have someone to go and stay with in Miami!

In addition to my students and Elliott, I was privileged to work with an entire group of fabulous humanities teachers (pictured at the top of this post.)

This was my CTE group, and we're all English, history or geography teachers. We bonded over our tough work and stuck through many hours of lesson planning, classes, and preparation for returning to our corps cities. I feel well equipped thanks to these awesome humans, and led by our fearless Sasha.

I've enjoyed Tulsa, for what it's been, and I'm ready to jump in to teaching in Phoenix.

Unapologetically Me

Sunday morning journaling at 918 Coffee in Tulsa

I've never been homesick before in my life, so naturally it took a while for me to recognize the emotion I'm feeling as homesickness.

The first week of Teach for America training flew by, and it left me spinning in circles Friday night.

Seriously.

I miss my friends and my cat, and the coffee shops and restaurants I'm so used to going to in Phoenix. These emotions, when compounded with all the teaching techniques and social justice information I learned in the past week, have been lot to process--so I've been focusing one thing this weekend:

Being unapologetically myself.

I'm pretty good at this when I'm with people I already know, but whenever I'm thrown in with a group of new people, I have a hard time owning my unique likes and dislikes.

For example, I dislike going out and I really dislike most pop music--but it's hard to make friends and bond with people who are SUPER into these things.

I'd rather sit around and play Cards Against Humanity while drinking wine and listen to Sufjan Stevens or Iron and Wine than go bar hopping.

So I'm working on owning that part of myself and hopefully will find some friends who like the same things as I do.

Where have I been? So many places.

A photo posted by Amanda (@mandalyn93) on Jun 13, 2016 at 4:25pm PDT

As I sit writing this, I'm in Dallas sipping a hot cup of coffee and listening to David Ramirez. I've been a lot of places in the past month and a half. Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake City, Louisville, Phoenix, Ecuador, Prescott...and soon I'll be trading Dallas, Texas for Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It's been a whirlwind of a summer thus far, and everyone has been asking me "how do you travel so much?" or "wow! Why so much traveling?"

Sky Harbor feels like home.

Only one of these trips was in my plans before April 25th, and that plan was Ecuador. Even then, I only ended up on the Ecuador mission trip I just returned from because I was unable to go last August. All of these trips have otherwise been planned in the past month and a half.

When I found out I was accepted to Teach for America, I made plans to go to Chicago to help Jackie move home from Phoenix before moving to NYC. I had money saved up to go to Iceland in the fall, but as a teacher, I won't have the ability to take two weeks off of work to go and do that.

So I chose to help a friend move, and then I took advantage of the fact that I was on the opposite side of the country (Illinois) and decided to use that trip to spend some time on a train and some time visiting a few other friends who had offered to host me.

To Denver

I had plans to return to Phoenix after Denver and Salt Lake City, but I found out my great uncle had metastasized cancer while in Denver. My parents made plans to drive to Kentucky to say their goodbyes, and I changed my end-of-trip flight from Phoenix to Louisville.

I stayed in Louisville for about a week with my parents, and we spent most of it with my great aunt and great uncle, sitting, talking, and watching tv game shows.

While I was road-weary and just wanted to be home, I'm glad I took the time to go to Kentucky and visit him because he passed away while I was in Ecuador.

I'm sad that he passed away--he was like a grandfather to me--but I know his death was painless and clouded in elderly dementia. He had forgotten he had cancer, and often times would forget within the same day that we had visited him earlier in the day. He lived a long life, passed away peacefully in his sleep, and I'm grateful I was able to see him one last time.

Soon after returning from Kentucky, I turned around and went to Ecuador on a mission trip (I'm talking more about that in a travel blog post). After Ecuador, I was in Phoenix for a whopping four days and then I boarded a plane to Dallas, where I currently am.

Dallas is my last chance to experience a bit of peace and rest before I start an intense five week training program with Teach for America in Tulsa, so I'm reveling in this last bit of real vacation. If you need me, you can find me by the pool or eating tacos with Hannah.

And there you have it--I've traveled some 15,000 miles in the past five weeks or so. While I love traveling and visiting my friends, I'm eagerly awaiting July 23 when I return to Phoenix (for good) so I can spend more than four days with my cat, cousin, parents, friends and favorite coffee shops. For now, I've got five weeks of living in a brand new city up ahead of me.

Goodbyes

I'm not particularly a fan of the whole goodbye thing. I've helped three friends move across state lines in the past two years, and I usually end up in blubbering tears, boarding a train/plane/sitting shotgun with an upset stomach because I hate leaving and knowing my friends won't be within two hours of me. Granted, I'm ultimately comforted by the fact that my friends are growing and experiencing amazing things in their new lives--but that doesn't make it easier.

Jackie just graduated and moved to New York to pursue her dream job of public relations for Broadway and theater-related places. After graduation and before going to New York, she had to go home to Chicago, and I accompanied her.

We spent time in her suburban home town as well as the big city, and took ample time scoping out the picturesque train station where I eventually boarded an Amtrak to cross the country. We cried big ugly alligator tears as we hugged goodbye, and she cried in the taxi to her podiatrist and I cried in the station waiting to board my train. 

We've only been friends for three years, but in those three years of tight knit friendship, we've never lived far apart for a long span of time. Our friendship blossomed in the craziest way--we were randomly matched together to be roommates at ASU after I signed up to live in the dorms a few days after the cutoff, and after a few of her previous roommate plans had fallen through. We knew nothing of each other, but we bonded over an intricately made music video that piqued our interests.

Hannah, who I helped move to Dallas in January, is my closest friend. We've known each other for 20 years (give or take a few months). She moved away for a lucrative job offer, and now she's enjoying eating at Velvet Taco all the time.

We were blubbering messes when she dropped me off at the airport to fly back to Phoenix. I cried all the way through the TSA lines, and the TSA employee was surprisingly sympathetic for someone who is so often associated with long lines and terse interactions.

I finally stopped crying about her being gone once I landed in Phoenix (no joke--in all the years of our friendship, she and I have never lived in a different state. I cried off and on the whole way home). Occasionally she comes back to Phoenix (but not while I'm in town) and I also plan to go visit her on my way to Tulsa soon (more on that later).

Brenna, the first friend I helped move across state lines, is also one of my oldest friends (but, long story short, we weren't close until about 2011.) Two years ago, I drove up to Portland with her, her brother Ben, and our best friend Raquel. There was one moment in the car ride when I realized that I'd be leaving her there, and I was overwhelmed with sadness.

We made the most of the day and a half we had in Portland, and then left to return to Phoenix. The ride back was sad and filled with stomach aches because I missed her so much already. Now, two years later, she is doing swell and my upset stomach finally subsided. She's got a good job at a local Portland, Oregon shoe store and she's almost done with her Bachelor's degree.

While it hurts to see three of my four best friends scattered across the country, I'm encouraged by them. They all moved away to pursue what they thought was best for themselves--Brenna left to experience something new and begin an adventure; Hannah left to start her "adult" life at her first "big girl job" in a city with an amazing food scene; and Jackie went to New York to pursue a life long dream of working in theater (and there is no better place to do that than Broadway.)

Now, these ladies' dreams may change someday. Their priorities may shift and they may find themselves back in Phoenix (or, you know, Chicago for Jackie.) But if they do end up back here, I have no doubt it would not be because they gave up, but rather because they wanted to pursue a new dream.

For now, even though I miss them and hated leaving them in their different new cities, I'm so incredibly proud of them for chasing their dreams, turning them into plans, and making those plans reality.

Amy Tangerine