This has been a pretty great week.

Absolutely exhausting, but great. I had no idea working as a photographer's assistant would be as physical as it is. Hauling equipment to and from shoots, setting up, breaking down, running around set... I'm ready to drop the second I get home. But it's good. I'm meeting a lot of new people and making contacts left & right. Several teachers have asked me for my information so they can request me as their primary sub. :) Thank you, God.

With the yearbook sponsor and parent volunteers as Wester MS

I'm loving middle schools and their students more and more every day, and it's definitely where I want to teach. I shot my first elementary school last week, though, and my word, those kids were adorable. Pictures were taken during their P. E. classes, so often the students had fifteen to twenty minutes to kill before it was time to go back to their classrooms. One class had come directly from the library and begged me to read to them. Sitting in that gym, surrounded by second graders, reading aloud Monsters Are Everywhere, I felt as if my heart might burst. The way those kids looked at me...it made me know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm supposed to be a teacher.

Downtime at Liberty HS

I even made a new friend! One of the teachers I met last week is a first-year who went through the same alternative certification program as me. He's around my age and even lives about five miles from my house as it turns out. Matt's been really sweet to encourage me about finding a teaching job. He's giving me pointers, showing me how to make lessons plans, and going to request me as a sub for his class soon when he's absent for jury duty. I'm so excited to have a teacher friend in Grapevine! Sometimes it can be so isolating here, but meeting new people who have been where I am makes me feel like I'm not alone and that there's hope.

With fellow assistant Kimber and photographer Greg at Maus MS

God's plan almost never makes sense to me, but I think I'm finally starting to get it. I know he's placed me in this job so that I can be in schools, meet teachers, and work with kids. This just has to work out, don't you think? :)

mishmash: september

So, I'm currently on my way to yet another fall picture day at yet another middle school. And while I basically enjoy what I do, this morning I am in the grumpiest mood ever and totally dreading it. Once I get there and see all the kids, hopefully I'll perk up...but so far all I want to do is crawl back into bed. Calling in sick doesn't exactly work, though, when you live with AND work for your parents. How would that even work? "Sorry, Dad, I won't be coming downstairs today." Yea. Right.

I realllllly need to begin all my applications to substitute teach, but I'm having a hard time getting motivated (surprise, surprise).

My "new" medicine makes me SICK AS A DOG and I hate whoever created it.

It's becoming rapidly apparent that the last three months of a long distance relationship are the hardest. Now that we're so close to Mitch moving only an hour away, it feels like the days are dragging by. And I'm getting increasingly impatient. I miss him so much. C'mon, December!

Yes, I realize this is just a mishmash of information and complaints, but I started the morning off with nausea, a bad hair day and burnt toast. If this any indication for how the rest of the day is going to go, I'm screwed.

Oh, and my father is possibly the most annoying driver in the world. You served in two wars, Dad. Can't you drive a little faster?

Sometimes I wonder (and worry)...





Will I always be a drifter?

can't stop, won't stop: september [1]

It's September and I'm currently crushing on...

• This playlist:
  1. Elevator Love Letter by Stars
  2. Misery by Maroon 5
  3. Your Love is a Song by Switchfoot
  4. Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap
  5. 3oh!3's entire Streets of Gold CD

(photo credit)

Fabulous weekend in College Station to kick off fightin' Texas Aggie FOOTBALL SEASON (a-whoop!) and now it's time to enjoy a leisurely Labor Day here in Grapevine. Kisses!

elevator love letter

i'm so hard for a rich girl
my heels are high, my eyes cast low
and i don't know how to love
i get too tired after midday lately

i take it out on my good friends
but the worst stays in
oh, where would i begin?

my office glows all night long
it's a nuclear show and the stars are gone
elevator, elevator, take me home

don't go
say you'll stay
spend a lazy sunday in my arms
i won't take anything away




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

the cave

and after the stormi run & run as the rains comeand i look up
i look up, i look upon my knees and out of luck, i look up

Life has been a struggle lately. I'm not sure I've stated it explicitly on this blog, but two years ago I was diagnosed with clinical depression. It was situationally-triggered during a particularly difficult period in my life, and unfortunately it has been something I've had to manage ever since. I've been on and off a variety of medications, which I hate, but have yet to find exactly what works for me. I know that may seem small, trivial even, but it's a constant source of frustration and, yes, despair.

night has always pushed up day
you must know life to see decay
but i won't rot, i won't rot
not this mind & not this heart
i won't rot

i took you by the hand
and we stood tall
and remembered our own land, what we lived for

I realize "despair" must seem like such an overly dramatic word to use in this instance. And I sincerely wish I was exaggerating for effect, but I'm not. Clinical depression isn't just feeling down or sad, or the product of one bad day. Clinical depression is a serious medical condition which affects every aspect of my day to day life. God, I hate that. It's overwhelming to face stressful situations and feel positively daunted by them, to feel like I'll never be able to rise above or find a solution for my depression. To feel like life will always, always be this way... Suddenly being down on your luck becomes a death sentence, a dark cloud looming over everything I see, do, touch.

there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears

and love will not break your heart but dismiss your fears

get over your hill

and see what you find there

with grace in your heart & flowers in your hair

Since graduating in December, I've searched for employment in education. As August has come and almost gone, I've watched people all over become hired at this school or that school. It's been tough to take because it makes me wonder...what is so wrong with me? Anyway, I'm able to do contract work for a company that does school photography in the DFW area, a bittersweet gig. It's such a blessing to be in schools four days a week, meeting teachers and interacting with students. But as I stand behind the camera, focusing staff pictures, all I can think of is how on the fringe I feel. I'm in schools, but I'm not a part of them. I suppose it makes me feel as if I'm not good enough, that no one could ever think I am.

now i cling to what i knewi saw exactly what was true, but oh no morethat's why i holdoh, that's why i hold with all i have
i will die alone and be left therewell, i guess i'll just go home (oh, God knows where)because death is just so fulland man so small

well, i'm scared of what's behind and what's before

I'm so grateful to have work, to have a reason to get up in the morning, to have places to go. And, of course, I'm grateful for the money. But at night I lay in bed and my mind races. I wonder, what will become of me? What will I do when the school photography season ends in November? What will I do if I don't get hired by next August? It's enough to drive even a sane person insane. And trust me, there's nothing worse than feeling crazy.

but there will come a time, you'll see
with no more tears
and love will not break your heart but dismiss your fears
get over your hill and see what you find there
with grace in your heart
and flowers in your hair

Mitchell told me something last summer that I don't think I'll ever forget. After a particularly hard day full of tears and extreme lows, I sobbed how sorry I was for him having to deal with me and my mess. He halfway laughed and said, "Andrea, your depression isn't you; it's something separate that we work at together because I love you." He's probably the only person in the world who makes me feel pretty when I'm ugly, happy when I'm sad, peaceful when I'm panicked. And because of that one little comment, I try to remind myself that my depression doesn't define me. My faults, my worst moments don't define me, and I'm able to recognize a flash of hope when I remember to take that to heart.

I apologize for the melancholia of this post, but my heart has been heavy and troubled these past several weeks. I feel lost, you know? Completely unsure of how to be well and successful, unsure of where to go from here.

...

but i will hold on hope

and i won't let you choke on the noose around your neck

and i'll find strength in pain

and i will change my ways

and i'll know my name when it's called again

- "the cave", mumford & sons

...

*first lyrics were mumford & son's "after the storm"

love is a temple

...You say, one love
One life...

We're one
But we're not the same
We get to carry each other, carry each other

You say, love is a temple
Love is a higher law
Love is a temple
Love is the higher law

One love
One blood
One life
You've got to do what you should
One life with each other, my sisters [and my brothers]

One life, but we're not the same
We get to carry each other