No, that's not the title of my new porn flick. I've already gone over the year in music, and since this blog is basically centered on music and myself, I thought I'd go over my own year. I don't blame you if you skip over this post, but it'll be nice to look back at in a couple of years. Some of these things I've already written about, others I haven't.
Basically my year started in April, when I started to hit a string of good luck. Katie and I had been hanging out a lot, and on the 24th we went to Milwaukee to see
Company of Thieves. Two days later we were dating. There's no way to describe how happy she's made me since then. Well, I probably could, but it'd be agonizingly long and sappy, and believe me, I have been known to be sappy.
About two weeks later I went in to see my advisor. The previous year I had been denied enrollment in
Education. I wasn't feeling too confident because I had basically done nothing worthwhile in the last year to make myself more appealing. I went in to the meeting asking what I could do to make it the next year. The advisor looked at me and said, "Um, I can't really tell you anything flat out, but I wouldn't be so pessimistic about this year". I walked out of that meeting feeling more angry than anything, because I was convinced that she didn't actually know if I made it. However, when I got home I looked in the mail and I had already gotten my acceptance letter. I was completely unprepared and it was like my whole future had changed drastically in one day. Really, it had changed a lot in the last two weeks. I am very naturally pessimistic and the way things tended to be going right past my expectations was mind-boggling.
In addition, for the last couple months, there was a growing number of people that had been asking me to move up a level in coaching the women's club hockey team. In this, I mean that I was the C team coach, and the B players were asking me to come up. I was quite flattered, as I didn't see it coming. I had coached the C team for three years, but this year I had substituted for the B coaches at a couple tournaments. When a position opened up, they asked me to fill it for this school year. Though I had a great time with the C team, I obliged because I felt I could be of more help at a higher level of play. The C team had a new batch of beginners every year, and as i've been playing hockey since I was in third grade, I had trouble remembering how I learned the basics. Coaching the B team's been a lot of fun, and I think things really have begun to click.
The summer was quite bittersweet. I worked grounds at the
golf course for the fourth year. The golf course is a great deal, as I get paid well and get about 45 hours a week. Every once in a while a meal gets thrown in there. I worked from 5:30 am to 1:30 pm on weekdays and went in on weekends worked about two to two-and-a-half hours. The hours were nice in the sense that it left nights open to do things. However, this was probably my least favorite year at the club. First off, I was 6 hours away from Katie. This led to seeing her twice over the summer. Both of the visits were amazing and I wouldn't trade them for the world, but it was hard being so far away. Lack of sleep made me more prone to being sad and moody. The politics were really getting to me, as there were numerous tensions between people. Some weren't doing their jobs because they thought other people were getting unfair treatment. I think I worked harder this summer as a result of picking up other peoples' slack. I was so ready to go back to school once it came around.
The psychological effects of this summer probably made the transition back pretty difficult. I had some major social anxiety over the summer, and when you start a program right after that where you have all your classes with the same thirty people in the midst of that problem it makes things quite difficult. Luckily I began to relax after a while and ended up making some good friends within the program.
Practicum was another story. I was placed in a classroom on Mondays and Wednesdays for four ninth grade US History classes. I'm an interesting case because I want to be a teacher, but I'm a nervous public speaker. I've noticed there are others like me within the program, however. My cooperating teacher was great in the sense that he would bluntly tell me my flaws and my strengths. When I'd teach lessons, he'd give me specific things to focus on. He didn't hold my hand, and he put me in some really difficult situations. He had to leave often because one of his children would get sick, and he'd leave me in charge. These were scary times, but I became a lot better of a teacher because of them. I developed a voice at some point within it, and I finally began to relax in front of the kids as I got to know them. I still doubt myself every once in a while, but I think it's normal of people in my position.
I've still been playing as much hockey as I can, but it's been limited due to my schedule being out of my hands and the lack of funds I experienced in the last couple months. I owed my parents some money (a large sum) and paid it to them in October. It resulted in me being left with little of my summer earnings. Constant illness kept me from working much (
see Pneumon-YEAH!). I was left with enough to live on for a few weeks when I paid my parents and the instruction that I should take out some money from some investments. In order to due this, I had to take over managing my own accounts, as my family had been doing it since I had never taken any money out. I legitimately thought I'd have my money in a matter of weeks. I got it on Christmas Eve. A month or so of owing people money and having literally no money to spend on food or bills except maybe the $50 I might manage to make over the course of two weeks really put things in perspective. It's been a big relief having that problem solved in the last two weeks, and now I'm able to set straight some debts I owe.
As for 2010, I'm really excited for it. I'll be teaching in a middle school next semester, I'm planning on staying in Madison this summer, and Katie and I have some awesome stuff planned. Hanging out with Katie's awesome all the time, but it's going to be cool going to the
Fun. concert in
Minneapolis and hanging out in her hometown, going to the
Badger hockey team's outdoor games, going to the
Lion King play while it's in Madison, and
watching the Olympics together.
It's gonna be a good year.
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