Why Books and the Sun Don't Mix (alternatly, How I Came to Be Known as Brenda Burnbutt)

 Most Spring breaks in my life have been spent at the beach. My family (and when I say family I mean nearly 30 people) usually camps together at the beach every Easter break. This year was a particularly lovely one as I felt like I needed a reprieve from everyday life and I sure got it.
  I love camping at the beach with my family because my day generally consist of this:

• wake up
• eat bacon
• read in the sun
• eat candy
• talk with family
• read in the sun
• take a nap
• maybe do some beachy activity 
• eat melty red vines
• read in the sun
• take a shower (for 50 cents)
• read in the sun
• eat dinner
• sing songs around the smokey fire while making s'mores
• sleep

 Which leads me to my next part, famous Brenda burns. I have a tendency to try to read as many books as I can during my break. I sit in the sun (usually with sunscreen well applied) and read. This is good, unless I fall asleep. I sleep through the time I was supposed to reapply and then get the most ridiculous burns. The all-time best are listed below:
1) While wearing a bathing suit and laying on a lounge chair, I fell asleep. The book landed on my stomach, the corner of which landed on my leg giving me a white triangle on my thigh that lasted for months.

2) Another year, I read a book while in my bathing suit on a lounge chair, but this time I was on my stomach. When I fell asleep for over an hour, my butt proceeded to burn to a toasty red (I had not applied any sunscreen there). I had difficulty sitting for the rest of the trip and was forever labeled as Brenda Burnbutt.

3) This year I did not fall asleep in the sun and I did remember to wear sunscreen, but I was so into my books (I read three in one day) that I forgot to reapply or move. So I burned my nose, forehead, tops of my feet and just half of the back of each hand. Why half, you ask? Because I only burned the parts of my hands that were facing the sun while I was holding my books. Yes, that's right, I burned my thumbs because I didn't move my hands from the book holding position for like seven hours.

I had to close my eyes because I had my eyes dilated and I used a flash.

So I now I actually put on makeup each morning to try to cover the red, peeling blob of a nose I have and I try not to imagine all of the skin cancer I have just voluntarily given myself. The makeup is ok from far away, at least in the morning, but by sixth period it gets pretty ugly. A kid asked me what was wrong with my nose.
"I forgot to reapply sunscreen."
"Who wears sunscreen?" He asked
"Umm...white people," I replied. To which every kid responded by laughing in shock and staring at the only white kid in the room and asking if it was true.
Sadly, I can only say that once white people become red people we remember why all white people should.

Pentathlon Students Wander No More

   You know when you can taste fear? When it creeps up slowly from the pit of your stomach, tightening each muscle as it passes until you're sure that it will eventually choke you from the inside out? That was how I felt at the pentathlon awards night. Most of our team was there (including three of our alternates) and we sat in the front row of an intimidating auditorium waiting to be called. We, the teachers, knew that our team had won a team award, but we did not know what place or what award. The students knew nothing about the awards. They have eight categories: Literature, Essay, Math, History, Science, overall individual, Superquiz team, and overall team. They begin by announcing 6th place winners in 7th grade then 8th grade and they move back and forth until they get to 1st place. Students often tie for each place, so there may be 8 or so winners for each place.
     They started with literature and I could feel the panic forming. We got no medals for 6th place...I suddenly panicked that we might not win any medals for literature and the world would know that I failed as a lit teacher! Fifth place was announced and still, no winners. I absently clapped for the other schools as they were called and I felt like I was going to die from nerves. Finally, for 4th place they called a kid from our school. I was relieved for a moment, but one 4th place winner was not good enough for me! I wanted more! The overachiever in me wanted at least four medals. Third place, no one. Second place - three winners!! I was so relieved! That was respectable. I had not failed them.
     The night continued on like this. Our lone eighth grade team was called up several times to the stage, with several students earning 3 or even 4 medals. Other schools had two, three, or even four teams so they were called more often. It was intimidating to hear their names called again and again. Some were from special advanced schools that offer pentathlon as a class during the regular school day. We heard schools' names called over and over again. But each time they called us, we cheered wildly and we teachers filled with pride.
     Some of our kids earned overall medals for doing well in every category. They were so excited and so proud of what they had done. Then came the team awards. For Superquiz (the best part of the competition where the kids compete in a form of group jeopardy! - sort of) we waited for them to call our names: 6th place, nothing, 5th place, nope, 4th place, still not us. We all looked at each other - could we have placed this high? 3rd place - not us, now we were getting really excited. Surely we won second, but 2nd place was not ours. The first place winners were many (I think 7 schools tied for first place) but we were the last school called and we went crazy. We all screamed and cheered and ran to the stage to receive the plaque.
    I love our alternates. They came to the awards ceremony without any expectations of receiving a prize (they did not compete on the competition day although they learned all the material too). They cheered for their classmates eagerly and when the team award was called, they cheered, but stayed in their seats. "Get up there!" I said from behind. "What?" "You are a part of this team and our team just won, get on stage!" They were filled with pride. I was too. What a great example of excellent attitudes these kids had. We had our pictures taken and then sat down as overall team awards were called out.
     It made sense that we would probably get a team award too, but as the places started climbing up, hope rose with it. We started whispering between us, "Could we have made top 3 here?" When we still weren't called at 2nd place, even the kids started giggling and looking toward each other with anticipation. Only 2 teams tied for first - the first one they called was a school in our district, we cheered for them loudly. Then they called us. It was like the ending to some cheesy Disney movie. Our little team from our little school stood, screamed, and ran to the stage. We had won first place overall! We beat out all the private schools, all the magnet schools with special classes, and our kids did it with sportsmanship and the best attitudes I've seen in a long time.
     They even did our cheer: "What team?" "Jaguars!" "What team?" "Jaguars!" "What team?" "Jaguars! Get your brain in the game!" Seriously like living in my own Disney movie.

Encouraged by...Haggai?

So I've been in this slump with God lately. I am not mad at Him, I am just discontented. I know He is teaching me lessons, but I don't really want to learn them right now. So I've done the stupid and common thing; I've decided to slowly let myself separate from Him. We're not talking renouncing my faith or committing flagrant sins in defiance. We're talking giving God leftovers and not really engaging my heart in worshiping Him. I'm still walking the walk, but my heart is grumbling.
   And for those of you who have done this dance, you can guess how things have been going for me. I've been full of stress and anxiety. I am frustrated with the world and all who live there. I've been feeling helpless and hopeless and generally disgruntled. I have some great friends who are helpful advisers and they encouraged me to take time to be with God.
    God and I had a date today. One hour spent outside with my blanket, my Bible, and a journal. I read in some of my favorite books (Romans!!) and journaled some thoughts. I have recently been studying about the true gospel message and Romans is a good place to go. I learned from today's reading that I do righteous deeds because I am a slave to righteousness and no longer a slave to sin. All good and pretty encouraging stuff. But I was still feeling that grumble in my insides.
    I started to pray that God would move me away from this fear I have inside me. Fear that I am unable to solve all the world's problems and fear that I will not be able to fix my own problems and fear that I will not get to live my life exactly the way I planned (All things that I actually am unable to do). I prayed again and again that God would cause me to trust Him and seek Him. I wrote down all the reasons why I shouldn't worry and why God is able to protect and care for me (He is loving and promised to care for me, He is powerful and is able to care for me).
   Then I looked up "trust" in my concordance. It brought me to Zephaniah and that was a good read. It encouraged me that God does love and care for me. I then looked at the next book, Haggai.
  Hmm...when's the last time I read Haggai? So I decided to conquer all 2 chapters of it. It starts out with God telling his people that they need to rebuild the temple. They have returned to Israel and are concerned about rebuilding their own lives, but God's house is in ruins. He then explains why things haven't been going so well for them lately - they haven't invested in the worship of God! God reminds them that they had struggles building the first temple and that it was so beautiful and so difficult to create. But then he promises that His Spirit is still with them and they have nothing to fear. He said that this temple will be more beautiful than the first and they would be even more blessed after it was completed.
   So here I am trying to rebuild my house and worried about all the things I have no control over while I'm letting God's temple lie in ruins. And then, when I realize that I've kind of let things go, I worry over how I'm going to rebuild it, how I'm going to find the time and energy to make it right. My brain goes right into 'fix it now!' mode and I start to fret. And God says to me, "My Spirit is still with you, do not fear." God can fix the temple in my heart, even though I've let it fall apart. He's got me and He's promised to bless me. Praise God for Haggai!