Skip to main content

Confession Time

I have a confession.

I am not a English teacher.

I had this epiphany last week during a training I attended to prepare for the courses I will be teaching next year. The workshop was filled with real English teachers. The ones you remember from high school, with their favorite books and deep insights into the writer's meaning of punctuation marks and interpretations of sentence structures. They all love a good story--as long as it's filled with the appropriate rising action, climax, and resolution.

That's not me. I know that many writers just like punctuation marks because they can separate ideas. I've also learned that sometimes the best stories on the planet would show a flat line on a rising action graph. The better ones often have no resolution. Just a vast empty space waiting to be filled with a dream.

Teaching English is one of those things that I can do well because...well...I can just do a lot of things sufficiently. It's one of my gifts.

But it doesn't fill me with a sense of being alive, and that is the question I'm exploring lately. What moments of my existence make me feel alive?

It's not teaching English.

It is, so far, swapping life stories with friends and strangers, wandering the streets of Barcelona, road trips, writing, resting in the arms of a lover, laughing with good friends, taking in the sights of the beach and the mountains, listening to music that grips my heart, dancing, and listening to the stillness of the dead of night.

That...and a few other experiences...equal life for me. I have no choice for now but to continue teaching English, but I hope to begin working toward finding a way to incorporate more of these moments into my livelihood.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
11:55 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tough As Nails

I found "The Chub" last night. This is a small, thick spiral notebook that I had carried around with me for several weeks last winter and spring. Its sole purpose was to be an immediate reservoir for any brilliant ideas I had during the day. The only thing I ever wrote in there (besides grocery lists and bill schedules) was during my family's reunion-birthday-anniversary cruise last January. My words were interesting, and I clearly remembered writing them on the little boat that took my aunt, sister, and cousin to go snorkeling in the Bahamas. The funny part was that I wrote about how the breeze was making the weariness "seep from my bones". I read it yesterday while I was home from work. That is, after I was sent home for nearly fainting during a class. Apparently, the look of my skin was so bad that my students thought I was pulling a Halloween prank. While driving myself home, I was thinking about the recent events that led me to the afternoon and how embarra
1 comment
Read more

The Transformation Begins

Do you ever feel like your life is a movie? I hope so because I certainly do, complete with an occasional out-of-body experience and a soundtrack. Right now, I hear Journey in the background and see myself out running each morning, conquering the evil vacuum cleaner, and throwing away my old flannel shirt. The last few days were interesting. My husband and I had few good fights...and lots of laughs. I can't help but think they were related. I know they are. The fights were about establishing boundaries. We finished our budget for June and updated our to do list. At the end of the day, he was completed something he had to have done, and I was working on final edits for my book. I'm really proud of us. We looked at our situation together, set some goals, and we reached them. I'm really proud of him, too. He's the kind of man who doesn't stop until he's completed what he had in mind. I love that tenacity. I guess that's what makes us a good match. I see the big
4 comments
Read more

Frustrated Readers Make Great Fans

I haven’t felt this betrayed by a story line since Neo learned that not only was he not the first person to challenge the Matrix, but he was part of the plan all along. Even though I was sorely disappointed in what appeared to be a cop-out story line, I can understand the logic in that disappointing plot twist. I can’t say the same for Stephenie Meyer’s conclusion to her wildly popular “Twilight” series. Look, I’ve read each of the first three books at least twice, and my grad school entrance paper was a character analysis of Edward Cullen. I loved these books. I read “New Moon” and “Eclipse” in a single day. I’ve been discussing the plot lines and characters with my students for the last two years. It was a long wait for this final book. And a huge part of me wishes I was still waiting. It was that much of a letdown. I’m still debating just how to tiptoe through my inevitable conversations with students about this part of the “Twilight” saga. My students were embarrassed enough by th
5 comments
Read more