Imitate, Assimilate, Innovate

Mike and I were taking a walk this morning around some of the Bellevue neighborhoods. We were talking about teaching and really great teachers, and he happened to mention something like, "You're the kind of person who really downplays your achievements. You give yourself a lot of negative self-talk so you don't end up giving yourself a lot of credit."

What he said stuck with me, so I'm going to try sounding REALLY BRAGGY today: I'm really happy about the kind of art I've been doing, and I want to practice doing it on a more regular basis.

I've heard people talking about the three stages of the creative process:

1. Imitation (where you basically learn a skill by copying what other people are doing)
2. Assimilation (where you take the skills that you have learned through Imitation and try to arrange them in different ways to make something new)
3. Innovation (taking what you have learned through Assimilation and really finding your own style to make something completely new and "you")

Right now, I'm moving between Imitation and Assimilation, which is a place I'm happy to be. Last spring, when I really started getting into art and hand lettering, I made a few different art pieces using quotes from my Exegy class as inspiration. I imitated interesting fonts I saw online.

As you can see, some of my lettering is a bit uneven, especially the "normal" font that most of the quotes are written in. That's okay, because I like seeing how my skills are changing and progressing even over the course of a few months. 

Then this summer, ever since I made the flower drawings to go in my frames, I've been really happy with what seem to be my artistic abilities (Even a year ago, when doing crafts with Julia and Linnea, I was saying, "Oh, I'm better at patterns and doodles, but I can't really draw flowers."). But I imitated pictures that I saw from the Rifle Paper Company and found that I actually have a knack for imitation.

After imitating a lot of these flower shapes and compositions, I was ready to try assimilating these shapes into new arrangements. 

I feel more comfortable assimilating the flower shapes, but I was a little disappointed in how the color came out. I hadn't really thought about color composition and just using certain tones instead of trying to include all of them, but that's something to work on!

I was feeling really bold a few weeks ago and decided to imitate an ink drawing I saw on Pinterest! Here is my version:

 A few months ago, I would NEVER have thought that I could draw something like this, but I am learning to trust my eye and be okay with blatantly plagiarizing someone else's drawing for the sake of honing my skills. 

Today, I practiced some hand lettering. I was watching a tutorial on the website Made By Marzipan, and she said something really cool: It's okay if everything isn't perfect. If hand lettering was about being perfect, then you might as well just print out the quote you want from your computer. But it's about creating a piece of word art that is specifically unique to you, quirks and all. 

She also had this really helpful printable "Beginner's Guide to Hand Lettering:"

So I thought, What better way to practice these skills than to completely imitate this guide? So that's what I'm doing today. 

Assimilation will come later, and then innovation. In the meantime, I'm not really in any rush.

Mountains Beyond Mountains

One of my goals for this move was to adopt a slightly more active lifestyle. I didn't really have a choice, seeing as the Seattle area is almost obnoxiously athletic. But I knew that I liked jogging. And for all you Exegy people out there, I worked really hard on lowering my thresholds so that I would actually get out and jog. I had all the exercise clothes from my aunt; I updated my iPod playlists; Mike even bought me those ear buds that don't slip out when you run. So I've been doing that about three times a week, which got hard once school started.

So when another new teacher to Beaver Lake (I'll call her Lauren) asked me if I wanted to go on a hike after school on Friday, I was like, "Yeah! What a great and sporty way to start the weekend!" I did tell her that I'm not an excellent hiker. I'm not exactly super in shape. And she's a cross country coach, so I was already intimidated.

Side note: Poo-Poo Point, while ridiculously named, is a really popular hike. In the parking lot we were able to see at least a dozen para-sailers gliding off the top launching space. I'm not quite ready for that level athleticism, but it was beautiful to watch.

Lauren assured me that hiking Poo-Poo Point is actually really manageable for beginners. "It'll only take about 45 minutes, and the view at the top is pretty amazing."

The hike took two and a half hours. The trail started by going straight up with rocky terrain, and it didn't stop going straight up. I mean, it was a 1700 foot gain in about two miles. After about half an hour, I said to Lauren, "Please tell me that we're at least halfway there!"

"Yeah, I think so. I don't really recognize this part, but I'm sure we're close!" I'm sure we're close. I stopped believing that after the third time she said it. I had to stop pretty often because my legs would decide to go on strike like a Seattle Public School teacher. I felt like I was slowing everything down.

But I did finally get to the top. It was the big expanse of grass that we sat on an enjoyed the view:

I can't get over how amazing it is to see a mountain in my every day life. I'm a little bit obsessed. I thought my enthusiasm for seeing Mt. Rainier was a typical response to the landscape, but Mike, while appreciative of it, isn't quite the crazy fan girl that I am. 

It's not just Mt. Rainier. Yesterday we visited a friend in Granite Falls, about 45 minutes north of us. As we headed up there, the highway opened up to show a great view of Mt. Baker. 

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with seeing mountains. Seeing them feels expansive and sweeping, like The Lord of the Rings. Hopefully I can work up my endurance for hikes, because I'm not getting over these views any time soon.

7th Grade

I'm in my second week of school. To be honest, I didn't know what to expect. I've never taught middle schoolers before. Were they babies? Were they basically sophomores? The answer to both of these questions is "yes." Mike, who has had experience teaching middle school before, told me, "Seventh grade is really transitional. Half of them still belong in elementary school and half of them belong in 8th grade or high school."

I've decided that I'm just dorky enough for middle school. This opinion might change. Who knows how I will be feeling in March.

Here are some silly/interesting things I've experienced at my middle school so far:

• On my first day, my students were making name tags to help me out. They had to fold the paper into a prism. I told them, "Just fold them in thirds. Like this. Eh, it's good enough. That's my life motto." One of my students said, "That's really your life motto? Will you marry me?" *crickets* Then another boy at his table said, "Dude, tone it down. That came on a little strong."

• As 6th graders, my students were trained to thank the teacher after each class. After my first class on my first day, my students filed out and chanted, "Thank you, Ms. Sundt." I was like, "What's happening?"

• We were reviewing parts of speech and talking about the difference between helping verbs and action verbs. I said, "Shout out some examples of action verbs." I got the typical "run, jump, climb, walk..." I said, "Yeah, that's okay. Can we get a little more creative?" Yeah, it got really dark really fast. They came up with words like "Murder, impale, decapitate, disembowel, fart." What did I expect?

Suffice it to say seventh grade is going to be just as big a gold mine of quotable quotes as tenth grade was. Oh, and middle schoolers bring in treats on their birthdays! Score!

P.S.

Weird Things I've Noticed about Washington (a growing list)

• For the life of me I cannot find wraps or flatbreads at the grocery store. They have tortillas, but none of those fladbread yummy things. Weird. Tortillas just taste different than actual wrap things.

• I ended up talking to my students about the spider situation. I said, "What's going on with the giant spiders in the house? What can we do about this?" They told me, "They're not dangerous at all. Just leave them alone. And, anyway, there's nothing you can do because it's breeding season." Excellent.

• If there's any kind of restaurant/bar/store that you think might exist, just Google it. It probably exists in Seattle. Mike and I had a fun time going to Cafe Mox, which is a cafe/bar that is connected to a game store. I mean any type of game you might think of. People bring their board games and play them while they drink coffee or beer. If you're really legit, you can reserve a room strictly for playing Dungeons and Dragons or Risk or Settlers of Catan. 

The Attempt to Start Trusting Myself

My goodness it's hard to keep up with these things!

I was planning on waiting until school started to write something interesting about teaching and my new school, but then Julia reminded me that it's interesting to focus on the little things about a new place instead of just going updates. So today I am talking about the attempt to start trusting myself.

Being far, far away from family in 2015, on the positive side, means that there are things that exist like Skype and Facebook and texting and no more long-distance fees. But it also means that I wouldn't just call up my dad when I get lost driving around. And, before you ask, no. I can't just use Google Maps on my phone because this is what my phone looks like:

Ok, it's not THIS bad, but it's still pretty ancient.

Believe me, I'm working on it. I've also been working on trusting my instincts more since I really don't have proper technology to rely on when I get lost.

Here's an example: If you look up the way to get from Issaquah High School to Beaver Lake Middle, Google Maps actually directs you to an elementary school near Beaver Lake. This happened to my friend and me. Thankfully, I was following her and she had a smartphone. Later that week, I was by myself and I realized that I had printed off the same incorrect directions. This might seem simple to some people. You go to a place once and then you know how to do it for the rest of your life. But, for me, I need like ten hand-held repetitions of things like that. But I told myself, Self, you can do this. Just focus. If you think you need to go a certain direction, then do that. And I made it all by myself. *self-five!*

But it would be a mistake to say that I'm cured. My navigational skills have not magically been transformed. Take the other day. Only having one car, I've been dropping Mike off at his school up in Redmond and then driving half an hour down to Issaquah for trainings. When my day is done at 3:30, I still have a pretty heavily trafficked commute north to pick up Mike. It's a pretty straight shot except for the fact that I'm me and can basically get lost walking in a straight line.

I was trying to get to Mike's school as fast as possible (without speeding) because we were headed straight to Auburn (south of Seattle) in order to look at a car. It was only supposed to take about 35 minutes to get there, but with 405 S already filling up, we were going to be cutting it pretty close. (Seriously -- side note -- who are all these office workers leaving at 4:00 to get home? Why should it take an hour and a half to get someplace because you are ducking out of your job early? Isn't 9 to 5 still a thing?)

For the sake of this next part, I am providing you with a map of a small section of Redmond that I was driving through. Feel free to follow along.

I was driving NW on Redmond Way and ALL I was supposed to do was turn right onto 202. That's it. Even though east of this area Redmond Way and 202 are the exact same thing can you see where I might start to get confused! At some point on this drive, I start to think to myself, Self, this is not right. I know it's not right because I'm almost home. So I turn around and somehow find myself on Bear Creek Parkway. I know that's not right. So I call Mike.

Mike: Hey are you almost here?
Me: No, actually I missed my turn, I think, and I'm not really sure where I am. The street said Bear Creek.
Mike: Yeah, that's not right. Can you turn around?
Me: I'm gonna turn on this street.
Mike: No wait. What street?
Me: I don't know but now I'm driving through the Redmond Mall. Remember? Here's the Guitar Center from that time. There's a pedestrian. There's a stop sign. There's a DOGGY!
Mike: Yeah, that's not where you want to be. What do the street signs say? Talk loud because I'm looking on a map so you're on speaker.
Me: There's a roundabout. I'm gonna go left. What is it? Um...76th street. Wait, what street do I want to be on?
Mike: Wait...
Me: No! I'm at Cleveland!
Mike: No, Cleveland is the wrong way.
Me: But I think I'm heading north, isn't that the direction I want?
Mike: No, Cleveland is south.
Me: Are you sure? I think I'm going the right way. But never mind, I'm turning around.... BEAR CREEK! NO!
Mike: Ah just turn down it and tell me what you see!
Me: I see...the mall! I'm not driving through that again! I'm just gonna keep going. I'm going around a curve to the left. Redmond Way! I was just there! We're going in circles! I'm just gonna turn around again. I'm gonna turn on...74th....Now I'm gonna turn right on...166th!
Mike: No, you want 164th!
Me: I know but I wanna try it. CLEVELAND WAY AGAIN!
Mike: Ok, wait, turn right on it then left on Redmond Way.
Me: Ok, I did that.
Mike: Stay on Redmond Way. Turn right on 164th. That's 202.
Me: THEN WHY DOESN'T IT SAY 202!!
Mike: It does.
Me: NO IT--oh, yeah it does. See you soon!

Sarah's Life Lesson: I should trust my instincts, but maybe not all of them and maybe I should print out the map instead of just printing text directions. Because, let me tell you, even after that whole mess, I have still missed that Gol-Dang turn every day this week!!!

First Impressions

Living in Bellevue feels a little like I am in Eagleton (the affluent rival city of Pawnee in Parks and Recreation). For one thing, we live three minutes away from a Lotus dealership; downtown Bellevue has a store devoted entirely to privately-owned drones; I've seen at least three Teslas driving around. And everyone's name sounds like it comes from money. For example. there's a city council election featuring hopeful candidates Michelle Hilhorst, Claudia Balducci, and Vandada Slatter.

Downtown Bellevue. Basically a giant, glassy shopping mall.

This is not to say that the people are in any way snooty. Everyone has been extremely nice. I'm surprised that I can't really hear any kind of Washington accent. However (and this is probably just projecting my insecurities), whenever I talk to someone, I'm convinced I see them glance covertly at me as if saying, "Are those really the vowels you are choosing to use to present yourself as a professional member of society?" I was at a technology training this morning, and as I was leaving, the trainer said, "Sarah, you moved here from Michigan, didn't you?" I said, "Yeah, how did you know?" "I could just hear it," was her response. So now I know that my students are going to give me all kinds of grief.

I've noticed a few inconsistencies in terms of what I was expecting the Pacific Northwest to be like. For example, it has been sunny every single day we have been here. I'm talking clear blue skies. One awesome effect this has is that whenever we take the highway (which we do to go almost anywhere), this is one of our views:

I mean, seriously. That's so cool. There have been a handful of occasions when I have asked if something in the distance was a mountain or just a cloud, and I'm not really used to the idea that it might actually be a mountain. 

Another inconsistency is that it has not rained once! Not even a light drizzle! Yes, I know that this month has seen a surprising lack of precipitation, but apparently the it-rains-every-second-of-every-day thing is a bit of an exaggeration. I've brought this up with a few people here, and they all get a little smirk on their face and say, "Yeah, we just let that rumor keep going." 

• Here are a few smaller things that I have noticed about the area:
• There are crows. Everywhere. Why is that?
• Everyone's car is pristine (no snowy/salty winters, I guess)
• One of my favorite quirks is the fact that Seattle has a ton of carpool lanes. But what's funny is that there are signs for a number to call and tattle on someone if they are using the carpool lane without a second person in the car. The number for the tattle hotline is 877-764-HERO.  Come on, guys. Be a hero.
• There are LOTS of spiders and not a ton or mosquitoes (connection?). We have a spider-bro living above our door by the kitchen. He's cool. He can stay. But we have a spider-demon living outside the bedroom window. Mike is convinced this spider is actively trying to kill him (no evidence of this, just a hunch). The spider-demon has to stay too, I guess, but only because we can't kill him and we might even need to surrender our bedroom permanently. 

Ode to a Volvo

Ode to a Volvo

Before we left for Washington, I was talking to Mike's family about my U-haul worries. I said that, since Mike was going to be the driver, I needed to soak up all my worries and stress and not stress him out. I said I felt like one of those towels that soaks up a ton of water (a Sham-Wow, as seen on TV). But what I said was, "I feel like a huge Stress Shamu." Oops.

I realized over the course of these past few days that I didn't really need to be worried about the back of the car/trailer. Something about doing a ton of test and ensuring safety before allowing your U-haul product to be manufactured and hitched to a vehicle. No, I didn't need to be focused on the back of the car; I needed to be focused on the front. That wonderful, awesome Volvo engine. It was having some issues with heating, so we pulled off the highway. This guardian angel man in a camper pulled off too and told us to try driving with the heat blasting out of the vents. Apparently this allows the engine to get rid of some of its excess heat. So we drove for at least six hours with heat being blown around the car and whipped out the open windows. No music either, so Mike could pay attention to the sounds of the car. It wasn't bad.

Without music, I had to fill the time somehow, and what better way than with made-up songs!

Here is my favorite one:

Ode to a Volvo (made up on the spot)

-Sung to the tune of some Lutheran hymn-

Verse:
I love you, Volvo. I hope you will be kind.
I hope you don't poop out on us and make me lose my mind.
I just want you to keep doing the good things that you do
And get us safe and sound to our apartment in Bellevue.

Chorus:
Volvo V 70 XC!
I love you; I hope that you love me!
We want you to succeed and go as far as you can go!
We promise never ever ever again to make you tow!

Nice, huh? That got me through at least half an hour.

The Scavenger Hunt

A week before we left, Julia casually slipped me a Scavenger Hunt to complete on our road trip. It was fun to look out for these various topics. Here are a few (plus my comments):

• Drive past a cornfield in North Dakota. (People who live in/love North Dakota, please step away for two minutes.... North Dakota is BORING! I tried to come up with a song about North Dakota and corn, but it ended up being too boring. The end of North Dakota was almost cool enough to be worth driving through the state. Almost. We drove through Theodore Roosevelt National Park. See?)

• Fill up gas in the middle of nowhere. (This happened a lot. Especially in Montana. Because twelve people live there. We stopped in a small town called Wibaux, MT, and the gas station was so remote-feeling, it was one of those times that when we walked in, the two old tobacco-chewing men in cowboy hats looked at us like we didn't belong in these parts.)

• Speaking of Montana! Drive through Montana and make a comment about how nice it actually is. (Montana was beautiful and exactly what you would imagine (think "Home on the Range.")) Montana was where we checked off a lot of items on our scavenger hunt: 
• See someone with a cowboy hat and boots. 
• See an antelope. 
• See a sign for anything relating to Lewis and Clark. 
• See a sign for a ranch. 
• Sarah, make up a song when you get bored -- bonus points if Mike gets annoyed. 

Montana was never-ending, but every single part of it was interesting to look at. Here, see for yourself!

Tonight, we finally made it to Spokane, Washington! Only four more hours! Oh, and in case you were wondering, this is what I look like after twelve hours of driving (and six hours with the heat blasting and the windows down). Note the wings of hair sticking up off the top of my head.

Peace!

The Art of Chilling Out

I thought a blog would be a good way to keep people up-to-date about our move and transition to Seattle. A blog would also be a good way for me to process all these changes because

New City + Apartment + Job = One million new things to worry about!

Mike and I are moving out of our first apartment (cute, good location, TINY!). Unfortunately, I don't have many great pictures of this first apartment, but here are a few:

Tomorrow, we are beginning the 32-hour trek to the Pacific Northwest. 

Here are a few things I am sad about:

• Leaving awesome family (who have been so helpful these past few weeks!)
• Leaving really good friends and great people I have met throughout my three years in GRPS.
• Leaving Grand Rapids, especially since, in our old apartment, we could basically walk anywhere downtown.

Here are a few things I am excited about:

• Road trip! I love road trips (even though these will be driving days of at least 10 hours). We have tons of music and audio books (Amy Poehler's book, the Maze Runner, a Miles Davis biography).
• I LOVE setting up and decorating new places, so I'm looking forward to getting to our apartment and putting up my cute turquoise mirror and frames.
• Doing a crazy adventure with Mike. He's been really good about getting all the logistics figured out for this trip, and we are ready to get going now that we've figured everything out.

Speaking of Michael, I think this process has been a wonderful test of his patience and loyalty to our marriage, since apparently the concept of moving across the country has turned me into a crazy person. I have the normal worries about the new job and money and all that jazz, but the fears I am focusing on have been completely irrational. 

Sarah's Top 5 (Irrational) Fears that She Really Needs to Get Over

1. Today or tomorrow, I drive somewhere boring like Walgreens and get into a fender-bender and then we will have to shell out a fortune to fix our car before we can leave.
2. I go to my first Professional Development training, and the HR department tells me they made a mistake and they meant to hire someone else, sorry.
3. We arrive at the apartment on Monday and our landlady tells us that she decided she doesn't actually like us and she rented the apartment out to different tenants, sorry.
4. We will be driving up a hill on the highway and the hitch will come undone and the U-Haul trailer will roll down the highway toward the other cars and we will be responsible for approximately 20 deaths.
5. We will be driving on a mountain and the trailer will start to wiggle back and forth and the wiggle will gain momentum and eventually it will flip over and it and the car will spin side-over-side and we'll fall off the cliff and die. ( I shared this fear with Linnea when we picked up the U-Haul, and she couldn't stop laughing for some reason).

I joked with Mike that I need to take a Valium or at least three Dramamine pills before we leave so that I can just be unconscious during the drive. I knew we were perfectly safe when Mike driving the car and trailer back from the the U-Haul place, but he had to deal with an unending stream of Sarah-panic (what-was-that-noise?-is-it-just-a-quirk-of-the-car-or-is-it-something-that-needs-fixing?-do-you-need-to-pull-over?-you-see-the-brake-lights-up-ahead-right?-make-sure-you-give-yourself-extra-room-to-brake-MAKE-SURE-THE-TRAILER-DOESN'T-WIGGLE-BACK-AND-FORTH-AND-FLIP-US-OVER!)

So I need to practice the Art of Chilling Out. Things will go wrong: we'll miss an exit and get lost, and plates will probably brake during transport (although maybe not because Mike's dad is some kind of Tetris-ninja when it comes to packing boxes snugly into trailers!). But this is an adventure, and one that we're going to enjoy.