true confessions.

true confessions of this twenty-one-year-old student teacher.

01. i have become obsessed with panera bread.

no really. it's a problem for my bank account. i remember down on clearwater when a huge group of people would always want to go to panera after church at grace and i always thought they were crazy! "there's nothing there!" "you just want to spend a bunch of money on sandwiches???" but NO! a couple of friends of mine kept tweeting about their myPanera card and free stuff..and i'm ALL about some free stuff. so i decided on a whim to go get some soup on a fabulous fall afternoon, and OH. MY. GOODNESS. i went back again today :)
they have soups. and sandwiches. and salads. and sweet things with sugar all over them. what more does a girl want? oh yeah, and they have sweet tea.

02. i love the tv show friends.

you probably all ready know this. however, i needed to put it in writing. i fall to sleep every night with an episode that i own on dvd. i will get every single reference you ever make. i can probably also tell you who said the reference and the surrounding context of the reference. i normally make little references to myself that no one knows are friends references, but they make me smile.

03. kindness and respect mean the world to me.

these two things seemed to have been misplaced in our society. kids don't say "ma'am" anymore. a kid in the hallway dropped her folder and no one stopped to help her pick anything up. i had a stack of books in my hands and no one opened the door for me.
on the other hand, when i was camped out at panera on sunday for about six hours grading, one of the waitress ladies came over and picked up my glass and said 'more sweet tea honey?' she went over to the pitcher and poured me some and brought it back and said, 'here you go sunshine!' it made my day! if i had any cash, i would have given her a tip. but i did fill out a comment card for her. i hope she gets a raise.

04. my love language is acts of service.

i don't think i've ever really told anyone this. the reason for that is because it's a double edged sword. if someone starts taking care of me, i start to trust them. i start to hope that they continue to do things for me. and then, when it stops, it hurts so bad. this is why i hate when people take care of me. the first act of kindness immediately brings the thought of 'well, it won't happen again.' the second act brings 'it's just a coincidence.' the third act is when all hope breaks through the doors and eventually it gets really cold because the fourth act never comes.
i fell for a guy about a year and a half ago for a single reason: he took care of me. he would call and make sure that i had eaten that day, because i was busy and forgot to on more than one occasion. he would just show up at my apartment so i could hug him. he hung some pictures in my place and once he cleaned my bathroom. he always called or IMed me first. it was one of the best friendships i had ever been in. it was also one of the best relationships i had ever been in. homeboy set the bar. and he set it really, really high.

05. today, i disliked being a teacher.

well, i take that back. today, i disliked everything but my interactions with my kids. i had to develop a few lesson plans at the last minute. i had to send emails to everybody and their brother. i watched a few of my students do nothing during their independent work time, which is going to result in a HUGE zero tomorrow. i graded quizzes today that scored a class average of 18. i had to deal with some psycho parents. it was just a crazy day.

but, there's this one kid that always walks into my 3B class and says, "hey miss sanderson. how was your day?" the day that najee doesn't ask me how my day is, is the day that i will cry in front of my entire class. it means so much to me that he cares. even if he's faking it.

and, there's another kid that walks into my 4th class and has said since Day 2, "whassup, miss sanderson?" it always makes me smile. the kids rag on him for saying "wassup" to an english teacher, and that just makes me smile even wider.

maybe this entire entry was a waste of your life. but i hope that if nothing else, it reminds you to say "wassup?" to someone that you pass on the street tomorrow. who knows? you might make their blog.