In the Teens.

No, not the temperature. No, not age. Yep, the countdown! We are in the teens, and I can hardly believe it. Different than we had planned, I won't be at the Homecoming Ceremony for his chalk, which kind of stinks, but because we are sacrificing that special time together, we will get an additional seven days together, thanks to my Spring Break as a teacher. So we both know it's worth it. My schedule is absolutely nuts for the next three months. It looks something like this:

March 31st - April 14: Hawaii

April 15 - April 28: Virginia

April 28 - May 10: Hawaii

May 11 - June 1: Virginia

June 1: Back to Hawaii until Christmas

Yes, insanity. I'm never going to catch up to a time zone until like...July. When I was in Hawaii last winter and came back to Virginia, it took me a good two weeks to feel normal again. I had some serious jet lag, but I'm hoping now that I've experienced that 16 hour (sometimes a little more or less) flight, it won't hit me as hard. I've been doing all kinds of preparation for his homecoming. Have to get his phone service reinstated, electricity and internet turned on in our place, different things ordered, car keys and paperwork shipped, and so on.

This is essentially my last week teaching in my first placement. I have to finish this week, and then I have one last week. However, my final week at MMS will be SOL review and testing Monday through Wednesday and movie days on Thursday and Friday as a break for the brain-fried kids. So that will be an easy, effortless week. Then, I'm off to my next placement, which I'm quite honestly dreading. It's 12th grade, which I've done before. They are nightmares of students, especially in the Spring when they're burned out and the work they do has no purpose because they've already passed final exams and SOL's and everything else they need to do to graduate. And I can't exactly tell them that what they're doing at the end of their senior year is important--because nine times out of ten, it isn't. Especially this school--an urban one with one of the highest drop-out rates in the state. They're higher education rate is next to none, which means research papers are pointless, which about all seniors could do. The only thing that would be useful to them is career preparation: resumes, interviewing, career reflections, formal versus informal speech, writing, and dress, and so forth. So I'm thinking in the five weeks I am there, I'm going to do a unit on just that: "Real World Readiness." We'll see how it goes!

My graduation gown, hood, and medals are hanging up on my closet door, just waiting for May 12th to roll around. David and I were talking this morning, and we decided we aren't going to know what to do with ourselves when there's no more deployment and no more schooling. But then we realized the answer was pretty simple: HAVE FUN!

New Year

Well, considering I have a blog, and blogs are about reflection and sharing thoughts and ideas, I'm somewhat required to write a post about 2011 and 2012 this New Years.

My husband playing with fireworks last New Years in Hawaii

2011

This past year has been the craziest year of my life, by a long shot. I spent New Years 2011 in Hawaii with my husband (then, fiance) and two friends. In Hawaii, everyone shoots off fireworks at midnight--and I mean everyone. At 12:00, the entire island was in a haze of colored smoke as I kissed my husband with our first New Years kiss of many. Then I watched my husband light off firecrackers and run from them as they exploded. He has some sick obsession with fireworks. I guess it's a man thing. In just one week of 2011, I married the most amazing guy on Earth, and sent him off to Afghanistan, and life has never been quite the same since then. Like with any deployment, life has been full of ups and downs. Our first few months were rough as we fought to get used to the new lifestyle: one phone call a week (at first), the phone saying "You have 60 seconds" and having to rush to say our goodbyes, having to show affection with simply words on a phone line, having to get through disagreements on just a phone line (it's much easier to say things you don't mean, people), not understanding what one another are going through. After the first month or two, we figured things out, and we've been growing and pushing through ever since. I learned how to be stronger than I ever knew possible. When he couldn't be there to talk me through a rough day, I had to get through it on my own. When we bought our first car and did financial paperwork, I had to learn how to do it on my own. Although I've gotten a few wrinkles (hopefully just figuratively), I've grown so much over the last year. Even though I've been past 18, I actually turned into an adult. We had our R&R in August and September, and it was nice to be married and together and normal, without all the wedding craziness of his previous leave. Now, with only a few months left in the deployment, we're starting to get those exciting jitters that come with the realization that it's almost over. This new year is the year that we've been waiting for since May of 2010, and we're so excited to see what it has in store.

2012

Well now that 2012 has begun, it's really sinking in that in a few short months, my husband will be home and we will be starting our new life together. We've never been able to just be a normal couple. We started our relationship during basic training, and have been pushed and pulled by the Army ever since. We've spent 3 months in each other's presence in the last two years, and those months were spent bouncing back and forth between all different family members and places on two week leave periods. We have yet to walk into our own home and plop down on the couch and just relax and talk about our day, without anywhere to go, or anyone to see. It will be so nice to just experience a normal day as a normal, married couple. We're excited to also be not so normal in that we'll be leaving on a vacation island with so many adventurous things to do. I can't wait to go hiking, run on the beach, go to Sea Life Park, and do all of the awesome things in Hawaii together. This also means that I can back to being the athlete that I used to be. While I probably won't find any soccer teams to play on, I'll be able to run and work out every day without limits, and I cannot wait for that! I also graduate with my Bachelor's of Arts in English this year, a degree I've been working on since I graduated high school. If all goes as planned, I'll be graduating with Honors, too. College was always part of my plan, and I always knew I'd graduate and do fine, but back then, I never expected to be dealing with a deployment while trying to finish my degree. College was a peace of cake...until he left. Now, what seemed like no big deal feels like a huge accomplishment. There were many days when I though I wasn't going to make it to graduation because it was too hard to handle everything. In just the first few months of 2012, there will be my birthday, our one-year wedding anniversary, his homecoming, my graduation, and moving to Hawaii. I couldn't be more excited for what is going to be the best year of our lives--at least until 2013 :)