Blowing in the Wind

Perhaps we were crazy to think that the transition to law school and full-time teaching would be less tumultuous than our experience as Peace Corps Volunteers. We had a misguided notion that we would be “settling down” back home in the States. But it turns out that our life in Sacramento is just a continuation of the rollercoaster ride we were on in the Peace Corps. 

Every month/week/day has intense emotional highs and lows. Recently Tim and I have been surprised at how parallel our lives run. At school we can feel elated that we did something right on any given day (by giving a correct recitation in class or getting positive feedback from students) and then a few moments later feel clueless, and ineffective when we either aren’t prepared enough or experienced enough to deal with a certain challenge. One moment we will have to cope with harsh criticism from professors and administrators and the next moment our work will be singled out and praised.

Back in Guyana we relied on our peers and amazingly supportive network of family and friends (both in country and back home) to help us through tough times. We are doing that now but even our support networks sometimes feel like they come with ups and downs. Sometimes law school can feel so isolating because my classmates and I have our heads in our books constantly and when we do get some free moments to interact our exchanges are intense, filled with mixed emotions of guilt at taking time away from studying, the need to vent and process the stress we are under, and the natural drama that arises in the bizarrely intimate community of a classroom filled with 60 strangers. Sometimes it feels like we are all so busy and self-absorbed (and rightly so) that we don’t have the chance to found any meaningful relationships. On the flipside there are moments when I feel like the friendships that Tim and I are forming are like the ones we made in Peace Corps: solid as a rock as a result of necessity and shared circumstances. 

Last week, I was feeling particularly nostalgic for my Peace Corps community and feeling quite alone at school. It made me particularly sad because something we promised ourselves that we would bring back from Guyana was the value of creating and sustaining a close-knit community, even here in the United States of Fendforyourself. But law school is not a collaborative community. People are getting stressed over exams, competitive for the best grades, scholarships and research assistant positions. On the outside people seem like they are getting along but are often (not always) focused playing a competitive game to try to get a step ahead of the rest. Not willing to play that game or participate in cliquey socializing, I felt like I was just a solo little leaf blowing in the wind last week. 

But I can’t help but remember my Peace Corps training. Any new endeavor will follow the readjustment cycle and when we acknowledge that it is totally normal for our initial feelings of excitement to wane into feelings of isolation and disillusion it helps me push through because I know that it is just a natural phase that will get better with time. It also helps to remember if we want a sense of community, we have to be active. So we took matters into our own hands.

On Friday night we had some friends come over for an early afternoon BBQ. It was so nice to be social with a group of my law school friends outside of the classroom setting. We played lawn games in the backyard before it got too cold and dark, grilled up a delicious steak and did our very best to get to know each other and not talk about law school (much). It was lovely. Later that evening, because the world knew I needed a quick fix of Peace Corps community, one of my PC Guyana buddies (who now lives and works in Chico) stopped by for a visit! It was so much fun to play the same old Guyanese card games and catch up! Yay for staying connected! 

Saturday night we went over to another colleague’s house to watch scary movies. Then this morning I got sworn into Phi Delta Phi (a legal honors society). The initiation ceremony was a great reminder that even though we are all busy, there are opportunities to create community, be social and still work hard to hone the skills that will serve us, and our future clients/students in the future. 

Relationship Maintenance (it is not always easy)

Stress is to be expected at this point in our lives. We were warned that the first year of law school is a crazy stressful experience and it is turning out to be true. For Tim, starting as a new teacher in a demanding and challenging new school is full of stresses as well. We expected this. What we weren’t prepared for was how stress would affect our relationship. Frankly these last few months have been some of the hardest months in our marriage and we are approaching the four year anniversary.

People say that if you can survive the Peace Corps as a couple you can survive anything. I believe this is true. We supported each other throughout that crazy experience and I know we will get through this too. It is just so different. In Guyana at least we had down time to be with each other, decompress from the stress of being a stranger in a strange land. Now, we are both so busy, anxious, uptight, tired and just plain stressed most of the time that we get snippy with each other, start fights for no reasons and lose our tempers (or bottle up our emotions) in ways we never have before.

Recently we have been talking about ways to make things better. I am proud of us for communicating and being willing to work for our relationship and this is ultimately what I think will get us through these, and all the hard times in life to come. We know we need to take more time for each other, even if we have to schedule it in and stick to it like we do our other responsibilities.  Our plan of stressful school relationship survival thus far has 5 steps: 

1.     Regular date nights out of the house (not necessarily spending money, but at least always getting out of the house), no canceling for school or work allowed.

2.     Making the most of the down time we have by decompressing by talking, listening and snuggling with each other, not just vegging out in front of the T.V.

3.     Patience and understanding. Openly communicating and informing each other of how we are feeling (tired, stressed, overwhelmed, hungry etc.) so we understand where negativity is coming from and not take it personally.

4.     Oma’s tip: taking turns talking (the talking stick). When in conflict, bust out the talking stick and take turns giving each other 15 minutes to express everything without being interrupted or questioned.

5.     Take care of ourselves. Make time for the things that keep up healthy and happy: continue to strive to eat healthy, work out regularly and take alone time for meditation.

The plan goes into effect when Tim gets back from So. Cal. (where he is visiting family and friends right now) next week. I think it will be a good time to start the plan because Tim will be on vacation until mid-October and then we will have the habits fully in place when he goes back to work.

As I constantly remind myself, successful relationships take constant work. We are more than willing to put in the work. After almost 4 years of marriage (and 7 years of living together) we are still madly in love with each other. We still consider the other to be our best friend, teammate, confidante and deepest love. That is the stuff that comes easy but it is also that stuff that is worth working for.

Where did July go?

Tim and I went on a date to the California State Fair! Riding the ferris wheel brought back such tender memories of when he proposed to me on the ferris wheel at the San Diego county fair four years ago! 

 I truly can’t believe it is almost August! Exciting things are happening in August like my 27^th birthday and the start of my law school career. August also means that summer (what semblance of a summer we had) is over and it is time to, as my dear friend Ed Pogue says, hunker down. Gone are the relaxing summer days of unpacking boxes. Gone are the evenings refurbishing furniture in the 100 degree central valley heat. Gone are the afternoons spent reading insurance policies, calling banks, changing addresses and finagling other first world necessities. Ahh, how I will miss those summer days…..Okay, yeah, so our summer wasn’t exactly traditionally relaxing. But we did get a lot done in a little amount of time!

We are moved in, almost completely, to our new house. Tim has completed two weeks of teacher orientation and professional development at his new school. Today was the first day that the students arrived! His school starts very early for high school (that’s part of their no nonsense, inner city charter) and so he was thrown right into teaching again! I am so amazed by all the work he has done in the last month. In the span of four weeks, he applied to over 15 jobs, got interviewed at one, was hired, went through orientation, taught himself the California standards for teaching 10^th grade English (which had changed over the last two years), planned for his first few weeks of school, cleaned and set up his classroom, and started teaching! He is resilient, strong, courageous and wonderful! I am SO proud of him!

I think it is good to a certain extent that he will be so busy at this demanding school since I will have my hands full learning how to be a law student! We will both be working hard in our parallel lives and I think that together we will help each other find balance and stay strong without burning out.

I start my school orientation next week and I am excited and nervous. But mostly glad that I will be dusting off my academic brain and relearning how to be a student. I have homework already and today I read and briefed my first case. It took me 3.5 hours for two pages of reading and note-taking. The assignment is just to practice reading and briefing cases and it certainly takes more time and effort than reading silly novels, like Harry Potter, which I was all the reading I did in the last two years! I know that with practice I will get faster at this but I am starting to see that I will have my work cut out for me, especially at first!

In the meantime, I am enjoying the last week of freedom by visiting and reconnecting with my dad’s side of the family; specifically my cousins (well second cousins) who are conveniently close by in Modesto and San Francisco! I never had the chance to spend much time with them growing up so we aren’t very close but we do stay in touch over the interweb. In Guyana I learned to place a higher value on family and connectedness and so I am making it a priority and am truly looking forward to getting to know them better, meeting their children, and being more involved in each other’s lives! I can’t state enough how happy I am to be closer to my family! 

Here’s to the last days of summer! 

My desk (where I will be spending a lot of time in the future!). The office is finally set up and feels very good!  

The built-in is one of my favorite things in the house.  I am enjoying decorating it with art, bowls and pretty things I like.

I took a walk downtown on Sunday while Tim was getting a haircut and look where I ended up! The Governor's Mansion! It is hard to believe that this is where I live now!

On the same walk, basically just around the corner I found myself at the Capitol building! Sacramento is hot in the summer, but it sure is the center of things in California. I forget that sometimes!

Sacramento Bound

Two weeks ago I took a short (but super fun and busy) trip up to Nor Cal to decide on which law school I will be attending this fall. As many of you know I was torn between a school in San Francisco and one in Sacramento and, for many reasons I decided that the Sacramento school was the best fit for me. I easily saw that the school was smaller, more personal and offered many more focused programs in my area of interest. Then once Tim and I weighed out the financial benefits of both the scholarship I was offered and the lower cost of living in the central valley it seemed obvious that Sacramento was the right choice for us. We are excited to have decided upon a location and so eager to find a place to live next month and settle into a home of our own and a routine. The hardest part about making the decision to move to Sacramento was giving up the idea of living in the Bay Area near family and many amazing friends. We would have loved being near our peeps in the Bay but we know that we made a decision that will allow us to be less preoccupied with money worries and distractions while I am in school. Also, SF is only 1.5 hour drive away so you can bet that we will be around visiting often and law school only lasts three years so it is not like we are committing to Sac forever.

After I made the tough decision about which school was right for me, I got to pass the buck of responsibility on to Tim. The minute we knew where we were headed he started applying for high school teaching jobs. He has two credentials so he can teach English and History and also has prior experience teaching Government, Economics and Drama so he has lots of options. There are many jobs listed in Sacramento county and I am confident that he will find something soon. I may be biased, but I think he is quite a catch. However, the job application process is stressful for us both and I am praying for the day that he will get that happy phone call with a job offer.

In the meantime, we are still in Oxnard at the Tibbs house, where we had decided to stay for a month to help my father in-law clean out the garage and do some spring/summer cleaning and organizing and reconnect with the Tibbs clan. Now that month is winding to a close and we are looking ahead to the next move. Our plan is to head up to Oregon to see my Dad next week then travel with my cousins and auntie to our family reunion in Ashland at the end of the month. After the family gathering, Tim and my time of reconnecting and casually socializing will be officially over! We will have to immediately find a place to live in Sacramento and buy a car before heading back down to Oxnard for a wedding and to get our stuff out of storage and then hustle back up north to get settled into our new place before school starts for me on August 7th! Yikes!

Like everything else we have been up to these last few months, July will be a crazy whirlwind of change and adjustments. Even as I type this, I have to remind myself to take deep breaths because everything will work out fine. The light at the end of this mad tunnel is that very soon we can start putting down roots again and the feeling of constant exhaustion and stress of being displaced, disoriented, homeless and routineless with dissipate. I look forward to that day very, very much!

In SF during my trip up north

Mom and Oma in downtown SF where I toured school then we went to the Asian Art Museum and had lunch

Back in Santa Cruz, Mom and I made art plates out of plain old glass plates from the thrift store

More spray painted glass art plates we made. Yay!

A Note On Adjustments

It’s June. Time is flying by way quicker than the landscapes beside me. I am taking a Train down to San Diego for a quick visit to our old stomping grounds. I am hoping for a little fencing (after 2.5 years) and making some good brews with my amazing friends at the Beat Attack Brew Shack ™.

It is a little bit of a trip to be on a train and online, but it’s a wonderful way to travel; I don’t know why more people don’t do it.  Anyway, some good news Chelsea decided on a school to attend this fall. I would love to tell you but I’ll leave that for her.

Right now I am feeling the pressure of readjustment. I have spent the last two days looking for teaching jobs in the area we’re going to be living and I am a little anxious. It’s been so long since I’ve applied to a job so it’s been a bit of a challenge to get my mindset back into the classroom rather than administration. I’ve been thinking of cover letters, classroom management strategies, updating resumes, contacting references and so on. I’m missing the “Just Now” attitude of Guyana and struggling to get my head around the industrial military complex mentality of the United States; the societal pressure to do things now, rather than just now. It’s good and it is expected. But I am missing Guyana time, my hammock, and the leisure to just sit back a read a book. This too shall pass, I know. But until then I have to get back to work.

PS. I love public transportation! For reals!