Best Of

2016

Books:

1. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar 

2. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary 

3. An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales 

4. Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee 

5. Sarah's Key 

6. The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City 

7. The Snow Child 

8. A Short History of Nearly Everything

9. Fifth Avenue, 5AM: Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's 

10. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Movies:

1. La La Land

2. Room

3. The Light Between Oceans

4. Spotlight

5. The Intern
6. Finding Dory
7. Brooklyn
8. The Revenant

9. Bridge of Spies

10. Jane Got a Gun

Songs:

1. Free by Broods

2. Keeping Your Head Up by Birdy

3. All Together by The Temper Trap

4. Didn't Know You At All by Karmin
5. Hurrican by Javier Dunn

6. Sister by Haux

7. Overcome by Laura Mvula

8. Kerosene Dreams by The X Ambassadors 

9. Still Falling for You by Ellie Goulding

10. Wish That You Were Here by Florence and The Machine

A tough list. This year produced some quality pieces of art, and I had a hard time choosing the best. Other years have been a struggle though so I am more than happy with having to really think about it. I love literature, movies, and music....I feel good just writing this. 

Put All Five Fingers On

To say that I haven't done much this break is an understatement. I have realized (again) just how unsocial I really am. Other than a couple meetings with the family and a dinner with a friend, I've really interacted with few other people in 2 weeks.
I've just succomb to long workouts, books, TV/movies, pictures, organizing, and severe introverting.
Though I've been bored here and there, there has been little motivation to socialize or go do things with other people. And I'm wondering why or if something more is going on or is wrong. I was really looking forward to a friend coming in town, one that I don't get to see that often which is why I was most likely looking forward to it, but that didn't happen. So I've been relatively happy in my cozy little apartment, doing cozy little things and feeling right at home....until I realized that I have 4 days of this party left. I never really want to go back to work after a break of any kind, but I really DON'T want to go back this time. There isn't anyone I'm looking forward to seeing, nothing I'm looking forward to doing. If I said I was happy in this new job, I'd be lying.  It's not that I'm unhappy; I'm simply unsure of my place, if its my fit. I'm not even sure if its feeling whether I'm good at it or not, its feeling if I am meant to take it. So much more goes on and so much more needs to be taken into consideration and unless you're there in it, I don't think I can relay it properly.
Often, as I've spent the past 10 years  teaching and working with kids, I wonder if I could do something else. And do it well. I wonder if I would be motivated more, again, to do well and feel driven and productive. 

Until the Rubber Leaves the Road

I wish I could just make things change by the simple desire to have them do so. Some things are worth the process or the journey, and other things seem like you're just adding to a pile of waste. Meaning, I don't see how I am learning or gaining through this experience really. I want it to be over, and I don't know if it can reach that point unless I just drop it or give in.  I've cried more in the past 2 months than I have in years combined, and I've felt more alone than I have since I moved to the other side of the world all by myself. My paralization is quite honestly a result of being at a loss as to what to do. I have no answer that I can accomplish by myself, and my time and energy is running on empty. Even my grace, I discovered, has been spent. And explaining myself every which way.

But you can't fix something that essentially has nothing to do with you, even if it involves you so frequently. As you hear all the time and as a student said to me this week, "You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped." It just feels like being stuck in this limbo where there's really no where to go because no matter what, you're going to pegged for what happens. Constant friction where marks are always left. To say it will mend itself isn't true either but right now neither one of us are setting out to do it. Maybe time and space are good things, but it also doesn't feel like anything is being resolved or even healed. Wherever this road is leading ......or where it has already led....has me feeling very sad. Weeks and weeks of sadness, conflicted with knowing that I can't just accept what was. So here we are (moreso it seems like here I am)with the holidays and me not seeing my family hardly at all. Again, I'm reaping consequences of his actions. So with the sadness inevitably comes anger, too. And both of these feelings really suck.