Stephany Writes

Categories: Life

Fast

When I was in 7th grade, my entire church went on a fast. I was only thirteen, but I decided to take on the challenge. I’m going to be totally honest, I didn’t go into the fast in the right frame of mind. I didn’t go into it to grow closer to God and become a stronger Christian. I was a chubby middle schooler! I went into it to lose some weight.

By 5 p.m., with only a carton of orange juice in my belly, I crashed. I was not the type to nap but that’s what I was doing when my mom got home from work. I was weak, shaky, and just totally out of it. My mom talked to me about it and mentioned giving something else up. I ended up giving up on the fast but it’s never been very far from my mind.

Media fasting is an idea that I heard about probably a year or so ago. I don’t remember where I first heard about it but it really appealed to me. I am so attached to technology. I check Twitter multiple times an hour. I love the blogging community so much that I feel an expressed need to catch up on blogs daily. And writing blogs is something that brings me so much joy and happiness. I love TV. While I don’t watch too many hours of TV a day, I still have a lot of shows I do watch. (And love.) And, honestly, who could deny loving Facebook drama? My attention is pulled in so many different directions. My focus shifts constantly. It cuts into my quiet time with God, my prayer life, and quality time with my family.

I’ve been feeling so stagnant and dull in my life lately. While I’m taking on challenges, achieving some great things, and being totally honest with my feelings, I still feel like I’m not doing enough with my life. I feel like I could do so much more, but I’m so scared to take a leap of faith and do it.

So I took a week off from the media world. It wasn’t a true media fast since I still did watch TV (although no more than I usually did) and did spend some time on the computer. I stayed away from all social media and blogging. When I was on the computer, it was mostly for school.

At first, it was weird. When I woke up on Monday morning, I immediately reached for my phone to check what happened on Twitter while I was sleeping. And then I remembered. Media fast, media fast, media fast. And honestly, being off Twitter/Facebook/blogs/etc. wasn’t as awful as I first thought. I missed it at certain times but not as much as I thought it would. I felt so much more focused. There was a certain peace that came from being away from it all. I didn’t feel a need to check Twitter just in case I missed something important. I didn’t care what drama was going down on Facebook. And while I began to severely miss my blogging friends and reading about your lives, it felt good not to have a need to read every single word you wrote and analyze whatever lame comment I happened to leave.

During my fast, I finally established some quiet time with God. I sat down and wrote out a five-year plan, as well as smaller yearly goals to accomplish. I figured out our finances and why we still seem to be struggling, even after downsizing. I worked out a lot. I napped a lot. I was calm, peaceful, and happy. (But not so happy that I didn’t miss YOU guys!)

I loved doing this. I loved it so much that I want to start doing monthly weekend fasts. And I want these to be true fasts where I completely step away from the Internet and TV. I want to use the time to be engrossed in the Word, pray, and strengthen my relationship with God.

Even if you don’t have the same goals as me, I still encourage taking a break from the Internet, even if it’s just for a few hours or a day. Just to get away from it all and refocus your attention. It doesn’t have to be about faith. In the end, this fast was good for me as an individual. I really feel like it brought me from stagnation to hope. I have goals for the future. I have plans on how to achieve those goals.

Categories: Life

REPOST: Bittersweet Relief

Recently, I found my first blog (where I was actually serious about blogging, and not just writing lame updates once a month) and I’ve been reading through my posts. I wrote for no audience and sporadically. I’ve been reading through the days I was in my final internship and I’ve been struck at how awful that time truly was.

So I decided to repost a post from October 30, 2008. It was exactly one day after I was told I wouldn’t pass my internship. It holds emotions ranging from bitterness to sadness to confusion. It’s heart-wrenching and real. I really don’t hold back with this blog posting and thought I would share it with you.

On Sunday, I promised a super-long blog about how my internship is going. And I can tell you today that it is over. When I first met my teachers and started my internship, I was deliriously happy. I wrote blog entries on how this internship would be so much better. Well, not really. Everything seemed to go downhill after my first evaluation in late September. My teachers had a tendency to wait until they saw my university supervisor to tell me everything I was doing wrong. She even said something to me a week ago where she feels she has to be there in order for my teachers to communicate anything to me! They never once told me that they had serious concerns about me. They told my UP and she set up a meeting between us where my P.M. teacher didn’t say much of anything (Oh, except for telling me I should’ve done more at their PLC that morning – like him? Watching ESPN and looking up stats for baseball?!) and my A.M. teacher expressed her concerns. OK. I was a little distraught (fine, fine. I was a blubbering idiot!) but I resolved to take their suggestions and do better.

My P.M. teacher gave me the reins of teaching in Week 4 or 5. It was up to me to find out where he keeps his pacing guide (and he never showed me one for science or social studies). He never asked me for lesson plans. Except for 1 or 2 times, he never told me what I was doing wrong. Obviously, when you get no feedback, you think you’re doing an A-OK job! I had given and graded 2 separate math tests before he told me how he graded them. His communication skills sucked. And I knew he didn’t like me. I could just tell. And he said something to the effect that people know when he doesn’t like them. Yeah, I knew.

As for my A.M. teacher, she came to me about three Mondays ago and asked to see all my lesson plans for the week. So, OK. I give her a sheet where I had written out in shorthand what I would be doing that week. “No,” she says to me. “I need the lesson plans that tell me exactly what you’re doing.” Oh, OK. I had seen her make 2 different types of lesson plans. The first was a shorthand, teaching points for the week and the second was more of a format of “Teaching Point/Modeled/Active Engagement/Link”. So I worked on that that night and showed it to her the next day. Do you think that’s what she wanted? Nooo. Her communication skills are JUST AS BAD as my P.M. teacher! So I wrote out 4 lesson plans of EXACTLY WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY, a script. She never told me, nor did she show me hers. She assumed I should know it. Um, does she also assume that all of her students know when to put an exclamation point or question mark at the end of a sentence? I didn’t think so.

Every single time I went in for my internship, I cringed as I thought about what thing she could criticize me on today. She never gave positive feedback. It was always negative. I started calling her Ms. Negativity. She totally was.

When I told her I was feeling very overwhelmed with the writing, she told me that concerns her a lot. Wow. Thanks! Way to boost my confidence in teaching, Ms. Negativity! How about, “Well, then let’s do something to help you feel more confident. What can I do to help?”

It was such a bad situation that I feel a sense of relief. I felt so alone there, my teachers weren’t there to support or help me. They were there to get a few hours of peace from teaching. They didn’t help me out and expected me to do things they had been doing for the past 10 years. My teachers had a conference with my UP during the kids’ PE time where they told her they wouldn’t be able to pass me and were not “impressed” with me. Well, honeys, I wasn’t very “impressed” with either of you! (And, on a side note, my UP agreed with me on this one) I keep debating whether I should send them an e-mail. They were so sneaky about everything. Except for once (which was the week she kept wanting the long lesson plans), they never sat me down and told me what I was doing right or wrong. They never conferenced with me alone. It always had to include my UP. I felt like they were tattling on me! Every time we sat down with her, it was as if I had been hit by a Mack truck because they were telling her things they never told me. They had a meeting about me during the kids’ PE time yesterday and that was when they told her they wouldn’t be able to pass me. Again, being sneaky and underhanded. They never told me this. They never said, “We’re getting concerned that we won’t be able to pass you.” They talked to my UP and then she came with me to the classroom where I got my stuff and left. They said absolutely nothing to me. I had left some things in my P.M. teacher’s room and he had the kids give them to me.

Luckily, my UP was able to get me a spring internship where I am already formulating a list of everything I want to say to my new cooperating teacher. I’m really thinking I’d like to try out 2nd grade. I definitely don’t want 3rd or 4th. Maybe 5th. Because of Florida Writes and FCAT, 3rd and 4th grade will be so busy with that for the first 2 months of my internship. I don’t think it’ll be SUCH a big deal with 5th. I always said I wanted to teach intermediate but I did just fine in my primary internship. Maybe that’s where I’m supposed to be. I don’t know. I don’t even know if teaching is what God wants for my life. Scratch that. I know teaching isn’t the Big Plan God has for me. I know it’s writing. I know God wants me to use my ability to write for His good. So maybe I should just take some writing classes next semester? Maybe I should change majors? I. AM. SO. CONFUSED! I honestly don’t know what to do.

I really need to pray about it and see what God wants. I always said, “God, close doors in the places you don’t want me to be and open doors where you do want me to be.” Is this a closed door? Have I been fooling myself for the past 2 years? I just don’t know.

Categories: Life

A State of Flux

Ever since the semester ended, I’ve been in a weird place. As crazy, time-consuming, and hectic as last semester was, I enjoyed it. I was challenged beyond belief, exhausted by 10 AM, and busier than I have ever been. But there was freedom in that. I was stretching and growing as a person and as a student. I was given tasks to complete and I did them, some greater than my biggest expectation.

And now I’m back to an easy, go-with-the-flow life. I wake up at 5:30 AM, go to work, come home, watch a little TV, take a nap, read some blogs, rinse and repeat. There’s no challenge, no focus, no excitement. It’s back to the same blah existence that I had before. Sure, I felt better rested and less crazy but there’s something magical about being busy and crazy. Something that makes you stand up and enjoy life.

I want that back. I want to be busy again. I want a new challenge.

I’ve been thinking a lot about goals. Where do I want to be this time next year? Who do I want to be? How can I stretch myself as a person? What’s my five-year plan?

I made three New Year’s resolutions which are pretty straight to the point. I like those resolutions and have kept them at the forefront of my mind this year as I seek to achieve them by December 31. I have a “101 in 1001” goals list that keeps me motivated to take on new tasks and challenges.

But I want something bigger than that. I want to set some big goals and figure out how I am going to achieve them. I want to sit down and come up with a list of where/who I want to be in five years. I want to start living my life with intention every single day.

I never aimed to live the life of a normal college-aged girl. But I also never aimed to live the life of an eighty-year-old. I want to experience more of life, get a taste of the nightlife, and travel. I want to go to bed exhausted but thrilled about my life. I want excitement, growth, change.

Next week, I’m going to start a week-long media fast. I’ll disable Twitter and Facebook from my phone. I’m not going to read any blogs (so, um, don’t post anything exciting. ‘Kay?) or even go on the Internet. I’m allowing myself one hour of TV a night. I just want to take a step back from this fast-paced, high-tech digital world and find peace within myself. I want to take time to pray with God, read my Bible, and do my Bible study. I want to journal on paper and talk about things I’m too scared to bring to life on my blog. I want to experience life and not worry about sending a tweet about it the minute it happens. I want to figure out what I want out of life and how to get that.

I’m drifting right now. I’m not exactly sure where I want life to take me. I’m not exactly sure who I want along for the ride. But I’m just not happy with life right now. I want to take the negativity out and bring in the positive. I want to remember what it’s like to be head over heels for Christ. And I want to reconnect with myself. I want to find myself again, away from Stephany Writes.

Categories: Life

Friday Odds and Ends

  • I ended up dropping two of my courses. I received an e-mail on Wednesday saying that if my tuition wasn’t paid in full, I would be dropped. I called the cashier’s office and was told I may or may not be dropped if I didn’t pay the whole thing. All in all, it came down to money. My books for the semester were going to cost close to $200. And on top of that, tuition was going to be $1,600. To be quite honest, I don’t have that kind of money. My mom is not rolling in dough and I need to help her out with bills as much as I can. So I’m back to square one: learning Spanish myself. Any tips?
  • My hours were cut slightly at work. Our numbers are usually low in the summer and they’ve really been dropping like flies in the past week. We lost three toddlers in one week. The classroom I was in now only has five toddlers on roll, so I’m not needed in there. My boss has found things for me to do, though, and I’ve actually gotten a lot of hours this week due to people calling in. Yay for that?
  • Honestly, the comments on my last post were the best ever. I was worried I would get a lot, “BUT YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL!” and people would think I was being self-pitying and looking for comments. I wasn’t. I think it’s something every girl struggles, or has struggled, with. Also, as a side note, I did not mean to take a boob pic. It was supposed to show my non-collarbones and I really didn’t think as I posted that picture. But thanks for the sweet comments.
  • Today, I start Level 3 of The 30-Day Shred challenge. I am proud to admit that I’ve done this challenge for 20 days straight. I’m surprised at this fact and that I’ve stuck with it. Honestly, the video is only 28 minutes long and I cannot understand how Biggest Loser contestants deal with her for hours and hours for four straight months! (Well, I do. And believe me, Jillian is good at pushing people to accomplish things they never thought they could.) I plan on giving a full report on the workouts, pounds/inches lost, and how I liked this when May is up. I will say that now every time I see Jillian outside of this video, I want to punch her in the face.
  • Lately, I’ve been struggling with lunch. Luckily, my schedule permits so I can go home for lunch but I have such a tough time thinking of what to eat. I did the sandwich thing for a while (tuna, PB&J, turkey with lettuce) but it got old. Then I did the salad thing for a while but honestly, I can only have so much salad before it makes me want to vomit. I’m at a loss. Blog friends, or real life friends if you’re reading this, what do you eat for lunch? It doesn’t have to be quick and easy but I need some ideas!
  • This post title and idea was stolen from Ashley. That is all.
Categories: Life

Grateful

I’ve been in a very blah kind of mood lately. I don’t really know why this is, other than some changes happening in my life and all the bad eating I did this week. I remember listening to the radio one day and a guest they had on talking about negativity and how we need to discover what is good in our lives, instead of focusing on all the bad.

And there is a lot of good in my life…

  • I have a job. Albeit, I’m no longer working with a good friend who I had so much in common with and enjoyed working with, nor am I working with the best 2- and 3-year-olds who will ever live, but I do have a job. My hours have not been drastically cut, even though our numbers are low. And I do get to work with adorable toddlers, ages 13-16 months. Cuteness personified.
  • I have the ability to attend a pretty awesome university with an accredited journalism program. I’ve talked about what my summer is going to look like and it’s not going to be an easy, breezy summer like I had hoped. But this summer gets me one step closer to graduation and offers me the challenge of growing and stretching myself. I’m lucky enough to have a mother who can support me and who does so in every facet of my life.
  • I’m starting to understand this health thing. Granted, I had a bad week last week as I was in a mini-vacation mode. But I’m committed to living a healthier lifestyle and I understand what this entails now. It’s not so much about choosing foods that give me less points, but choosing foods that may be higher in points but as higher in fullness levels and with less bad stuff in them.
  • My 19-month-old nephew, who is an absolute joy. He is at an age where he’s talking more, being silly, and just so much fun to be around. When I take pictures with him, he wraps his arm around my neck and gives the silliest, goofiest grin. He gets angry when we reprimand him and it’s probably the funniest thing you will ever see! I love this little boy with all of my heart and you really cannot ever be in a bad mood around him. He’s too funny!
  • This blog community. I’ve been blogging for years before I started this blog and I never knew about this amazing community of bloggers. I’ve become friends with some amazing people who just make me smile with their supportive comments. I just love reading about your lives and all of you seriously inspire me.

Your turn! What are you grateful for today?