Nice to meet you

A little bit about me: I am a 24 year old gal (not a girl but can't bring myself to say woman because women are old,) an Orthodox Christian (more on that later,) a teacher (5th grade although it doesn't feel that long ago when I was in 5th grade,) a student (4 weeks left until I have a Master's but I will always be a student of the world,) single (pretty much given up my "life plan" of being married by 26,) and a few of these other things too: athletic (soccer is my sport of choice,) smart, funny, caring, and as you can see, quite humble :o). I also love to read, write, travel, take photographs, and ski. You might be thinking to yourself by now, "Why is she telling me this? I already know her, she gave me the link to this address and I doubt any other random person on the internet would take the time to read Meika's jumbled thoughts!" However there is a point to all this and I hope I come to it by the end of this posting.

I wanted to sit down and really think about some of the ways I define myself as a person. I have been thinking about what kinds of labels I put on myself and wonder if they match the labels that others would use to describe me. This line of thinking came about today in my 5th grade reading class. We are reading the book Maniac Magee which is a modern day tall tale about a boy with some amazing talents and traits that set him apart from everyone in his town. One of Maniac's talents is that he is fast and loves to run all over town before sunrise. I assigned the kids a journal entry in which they were to write down 4 traits that Maniac has that sets him apart. Then they were to think about ways that they are unique from other kids in the class. The fun part of the assignment was to color in a picture of a Nike running shoe and then decorate it with at least 5 words that they use to describe themselves. A handful of kids finished the assignment today and it was interesting to see what they came up with. All of the students wrote "smart," all of the boys wrote "good at sports," and some were covered in lots of words such as "funny, artistic, a violin player, Vietnamese, kind, etc" whereas others had the bare minimum of 5, as if they couldn't think of any more. My favorite was Josh, who wrote "really sexy." I guess I don't have to worry about his self-concept!

When I was making my shoe project as the example, I found it hard to think of things to write because I didn't want to sound haughty by saying "smart" or "funny" so I kept it to such things as "athletic," "kind," and "patient." The funny part was that when I read mine out loud to the kids one boy ,Greg said, "Patient? Are you serious, you consider yourself patient?" I had to keep from laughing at this comment because if you saw me in action with these rowdy kids all day you would think I have the patience of a saint! Instead I jokingly said to him,
"Are you kidding? All teachers have to be patient to deal with kids all day!" Which came back to bite me two minutes later when one kid was goofing off, poking his friend with a pencil (for the umpteenth time) and I said "Jake!" a bit loudly and sternly to get the point across, only to be met with the another comment from Greg,
"See Ms. Perkins! I told you you weren't patient! You better take that one off of your shoe!"

I guess I am suppose to be coming to some kind of point by now. What I have come to realize through my experience today and at the insane teacher job fair ("meat market for teachers") that I went to on Wednesday is that it is truly hard to think of ways in which we are unique. If you look at my list of descriptive words about myself above, in reality those words could be about me or thousands of other single, white, unmarried 24 year old teacher gals, (many of whom I saw wandering around the job fair.) The one and best thing that sets me apart from others is that I am an Orthodox Christian which (as all of you Orthodox readers will know) automatically alters everything about my life, my worldview, my goals, the things that I value, the way I treat others (this is perhaps the hardest one,) and the focus in my life (especially during this Lenten season) on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It is so easy to get caught up in all of those other parts of "me" that consume my daily life such as being a good teacher, a student, a daughter, athletic, funny, etc... That I forget the most important part of my life, my faith.

That's it, that was my point believe it or not. But since it feels silly to end it there with that, I am going to continue. My challenge to each of my readers (yes both of you, the two people I gave my blogger address to) is to try and come up with a list of all the ways that you describe yourself and see how hard it is. Then think about which of those traits consumes most of your time. Let me know what you find out...This is your homework kids due Monday at the end of class! No exceptions! (o: