sms archives

"Sentimental geek! Shut up and go to sleep!" --a Ryan Adams song.

(I do not claim that this post is interesting to anyone but myself. Maybe that should be a general disclaimer.)

This is not high on today's priorities list, but my saved text messages at the moment are at 99% capacity because I CAN'T BRING MYSELF TO DELETE the ones I like. It reaches 100% every day so I have to go through them and delete a couple so I can get new ones. I am a sentimental geek! I think I keep my text messages as satellite-delivered tributes to my human relationships. I wish I still had others I've deleted before. I'm going to transfer my received messages from my phone without editing them. And then I'll delete them from my phone. Yes, I will delete them.

(I don't think I'm violating anyone's trust/privacy...?)

7.2.08 ZA, one of my YMCA summer day camp kids: "Haha na its cool lol no u were my favret u were cooler then the other teachers lol."
7.13.08 CK, first Boston roommate, a week after we'd met: "Haha. YOU are the hilarious one. You've got hot moves, girl. And I LOVE YOU!!"
8.13.08 AW: "Savanna you're hilarious! I'm really looking forward to rooming with ya!"
8.25.08 NK, after teaching an FHE lesson on the banks of the Charles River: "Savanna, thank you for the awesome lesson! It was just what we needed! You're a doll!"
9.4.08 GM: "I am here at logan international :-) thank you for everything"
9.11.08 SM, when he mistakenly wandered into the Harvard office at where he didn't know I was working, reflecting on the time we went together to ask about their public policy program: "I cant help but see the irony that only a few months ago you were on the other side of that desk feeling very nervous to talk to the person sitting in the chair where you now sit so confidently."
9.12.08 TO: "I just shook barack obama's hand"
9.13.08 CK, on a consolatory message re: the death of her hamster, which we may or may not have buried near Walden Pond: "Thanks. Rob and i are planning the funeral for tonight."
9.17.08 CR: "You are a brilliant writer! Your election year entry was somewhat sporadic but i enjoyed reading it ;)"
10.4.08 CB: "I thought of you immediately when elder perry started talking of walden pond. That means we're friends. Happy conference weekend!"
10.4.08 LAE: "Elder Perry's talk this morning made me think of my visit to Boston and our exciting dip in Walden. That was pretty memorable!"
10.22.08 SM: "i just happened upon john kerry adjusting his socks"
10.27.08 AN: ":) nice one. We prayed for you last night about your job interview and read scriptures"
11.8.08 TO, two days early: "Happy birthday savannana!" two days later: "Happy birthday for real!"
11.10.08 CLN: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! LOVE YA 24?!? Crazy!"
11.10.08 VF: "Savanna!! Hope u have a great day :)"
11.10.08 JLS: "My gorgeous rose! I hope you having an amazing birthday today! I love you!"
12.8.08 SM, in response to "Iconoclast!": "Subscribe!"
12.11.08 SH, when I had a desk job replacing a lady called Pam and my supervisor, who spent a lot of time with me teaching me stuff, was Jim (this kept me going): "Altho ur croatia gift has always been hangin in my kitchen i just realized it makes a great xmas tree ornament! How r u, pam?"
12.15.08 BC: "You know--it totally made my day to hear from you. Last week, I kept thinking I wanted to email you or something and then there was your lovely text! Thank you."
12.21.08 JLS, reference to The Little Prince: "Well I am sure you can tame him, my little fox."
12.25.08 RC: "Happy Christmas! I love you lots!"
1.5.09 AN: "Bye! Miss you already! I am so happy you came down! Love love love love love love love you"
1.13.09 B, on learning of my TFA interview: "Why wouldn't they love you. You're totally lovable. Good on ya!"
1.13.o9 AN, on learning of my TFA interview: "OF COURSE YOU DID! Yay! :) :) :) kill em"
1.26.09 B, on a significant moment: "There's your fax."
2.24.09 XW, coming to get me after my train journey from Beijing to Shanghai: "I'm almost there. the traffic is bad in shanghai when it rains."
3.31.09 AM: Hey girl! I love you and shall miss you! I wish we were still bashing around beantown writing npr stories together! Thanks for taking such great care of us!"
4.16.09 AS. I won this battle: "Your mom is inappropriate"
5.2.09 LL: "Sorry, i had to cut it short because the people next to me are breaking up and i didn't want to miss all the juicy conversation. :-)"
5.5.09 CMN, in response to "we make a great team": "Yes we do"
5.11.09 CR: "Um, sure. Don't move. Please"
5.15.09 CR: "That flower your supervisor gave you was a delphineum. I just found it and thought of you :) Hope the drive is going well!"
5.15.09 SH, on telling her that my travel companion believes she's one of the nicest people on the planet: "Aw he must not know you very well then cuz id say you'd win that prize."
5.15.09 AN, from the brain of a 13-year-old: "Nicee. Is he a friend.. Or you know... Friendlier? Haha"
5.28.09 AN: "ha ha ha ha ha ha ha i love emergency pancakes!"
6.6.09 TO: "I can see florida becoming a holy place with ur help"
6.11.09 PJC: "You guys are the stars!! Thank you all for being so hard working and dedicated for your students!!"
6.13.09 CR: "I just saw a pigeon use a crosswalk. Walked the whole thing. And even waited for a car to pass. Ha!"
6.20.09 SM: "I was climbing one of utah's tallest mountains. I meant to climb the tallest one but my map was not very accurate so i climbed the one next to it :)"
7.22.09 AG "aww it's totally true :) we all know p loves you :)"
7.25.09 SM, hilarious response to "Can we go to Cuba if it opens while I live in Miami?": "If we can afford it"
8.18.09 SO: "Room 233 = the class of a thousand new beginnings"
9.1.09 SM, in response to "I can see Cuba from my house": "Haha. Sav, you're great! How many friends do i have that can appreciate a quality joke like that? :) "
9.4.09 SM, after leaving staying with my family while I was not there: "Now leaving the most educated town in america. Thanks Sav we had fun"
9.5.09 TO, when I resented that I couldn't find any BYU football fans and was watching the game alone: "I'm watching it with you"
9.17.09 CK: "You're hot and i would love for you to teach my kids. That's all."
10.3.09 CDN, when Pres. Monson announced plans to construct a temple in South Florida: "Ft lauderdale! You got your wish ..."
10.23.09 SM, in response to "I'm eating Cuban food. Viva la revolucion!": "Viva la sav!"
10.31.09 CR, in response to "I might not come back from Boston": "We love u and miss u! And this is your home now, remember?"
10.2.09 JW, I'd just gotten through security at the airport: "I miss you already..."

I'm not deleting this year's birthday messages yet!!!! They're still fresh.

I can do this.

For the first 6 or so weeks of my new job, I found it unavoidable to come home after a 10-hour day of teaching science (if you can call it that) and stare at the wall, or at something else that didn't talk or require anything of me, for a few hours. I'm sure I painted the wall with the question "WHAT just happened?" using the same pigment that children use to compose imaginary friends. (Of course, the question never had an answer.) Then I would fall asleep involuntarily, wake up, panic, prepare for the next day, get a little sleep, wake up with my mind racing, work some more, put my ailing Saab on an autopilot course to the middle school, and come home at 6 or later for a few more hours of wall-staring.

The height of this shocked exhaustion came on Friday nights, when I could stare at the wall for hours without threat of an ensuing panic session and the pressure of inner-city 12-year-olds looming. I knew this was the time most people used to decompress--teachers love a little thing called happy hour, but I had no energy beyond what it takes to push the up button on the elevator, turn the key, and collapse in the living room.

I snapped out of these "WHAT just happened?" sessions about a month ago, and I've spent far fewer hours staring at walls and more doing actual work or having fun with friends. I haven't chosen to spend a Friday night or Saturday night at home since the first weekend in October. I think this is a crucial point in my career, and I'm pretty sure it can only get better from here.

how to save the world

I think one of the most noble and necessary things individuals, families, communities, societies, governments, intergovernmental associations can do is to incorporate others' self-interest with their own.

This is what makes families work. This is what can quench the violence that robs young adults of their lives, what can reverse the impoverishment of desperate communities that are made invisible to the consciousness of the comfortable class, what can soothe the conflicts that drain nations of their wealth. This is why charity (in the pure love of Christ sense, not in the tax-deductible contribution sense) is powerful: when I love you, your self-interest actually becomes mine and your happiness becomes my intrinsic motivation.

I know it's not that simple, and I know it's obvious, but this is my important realization for the weekend.

Do you ever smile?

Today, one of my students in one of my new classes that I taught for the second time just today asked me this question, which I ignored: "Do you ever smile? do you ever laugh?"

YESSSSSS!!!!!

If you know me well, you know this is a BIG accomplishment. ;)

I've actually been very serious at work.

(By the way, the reason my blog is called Savanna still smiles is that my parents may have gotten my name from a movie called Savannah Smiles, which is about this little rich girl that gets kidnapped and is so cute and sweet that she melts her captors' hearts--just like me, correct? Savanna smiles, but Ms. Nilsen does not, at least not for a few more successful class periods with this new set of kids.)

(And the still in Savanna still smiles comes from something else, which I may write about when I possess the appropriate amount of gravity.)

it's a fact

This graph, from 0 to probably half an hour before 9, represents actual amounts of sleep I've gotten before a day of teaching. The zero to 4s were HARD weeks. Yes, weeks.

The dependent variable and proposed relationship may/may not be true and/or meaningful. But I had this strange impulse to create a graph using Microsoft Paint--which, by the way, has improved a lot since the last time I used it.

guilt

I have to send my mission president some photos and as I've been looking through them tonight, the foremost thing I've felt is regret for all the things I know very well I could have and should have done better and the people I should have done better at loving. This annoys me because I know most of my work and relationships there were good. Why do I do this to myself? Does anyone know what I mean?

And now to lighten the mood, here's a sequence of photos. Sister Mesake and I had birthdays a week apart (November 10, that's right, mark it in your digital calendar. It's only weeks away.). The elders brought us exactly two cupcakes (I did ask them where the other 10 went). I found this hilarious when we did it; I find it hilarious tonight.

a title is a first impression that i'm hesitant to make right now

Because I want to be emotionally resilient and loyal to my record of boldly doing intimidating things on my own, I have been avoiding using this word
lonely
but I have disliked Miami over the past couple of weeks and it has to stop and I don't think it will until I confront
lonely
as it stands before me.
Plus, I doubt that I had my faithful audience fooled.

:)

Allow me to explain: most of the people in my YSA branch are younger and live with their families about 30-40 minutes away from me and speak mostly Spanish. They generally definitely buy into pop culture more than I do. They often go out together to eat in big, lively, chatting groups after activities. By contrast, I moved out seven years ago. I take life really seriously and need really deep connections with people. There is only one other returned sister missionary. We get along well. She lives with her family like half an hour away. Everyone is really so so friendly. I don't understand, though, how I can form those meaningful relationships without more common ground. And I know that sounds selfish.

Today in Sunday School, one of the guys who attends the same Sunday morning meetings I do was accessing a Koran app on his iPhone. He was also talking about something interesting about the Koran he saw on the Discovery Channel. You know this means my hope regarding the previous paragraph immediately shot up. :) But I can't really tell him he's my numero uno prospect for a great friend. Haha.

I have some especially solid friendships with people in my program, but our ideas of how to use weekends differ greatly to the point where I need to severely limit my time with them. I will leave you to make inferences there. It's really important to me to be in wholesome environments, not just avoid behaviors that take place in more permissive environments. Sigh, in other words, I'm just weird.

And then there's the city. I hope I can figure out how my intellectual self fits in with Miami's urban glam. I think that's going to involve lots of exploring and trying lots of new things, which I can definitely handle. But if I'm to maximize the fun, I have to convince others that what I like to do is actually interesting. ;)

Current ambitions include driving around the design district photographing murals (okay, I can handle urbanity), snorkeling as often as possible, camping in the Everglades, taking dance lessons again (free in Boston; $10-15 a session in Miami), ethnic food, the 2010 opera season, getting a beach cruiser, using the faculty gym after school, moonlight ocean swimming. I must must must must learn Spanish. I think I'm also starting a Master's of Science in Education and Social Change next semester. Being in a university setting will definitely make me feel like I'm in my element. And I have a pretty great calling, which if I pay more attention to it, can be very rewarding.

This concrete gift has arrived despite my feelings of isolation despite being surrounded: I have tremendous clarity regarding what I want out of life and the people that are in it over the next several years.

By the way--while I appreciate that, yes, things will get better, I'm not the defeatist "things will get better eventually" type. I'm the "make things better now" type.

(I'm also mildly terrified, if that is possible, that after all this I'll find I'm not actually interested in education reform, and that international relations is what it always claimed to be, my true passion. I'll address that at an indefinite later.)

I saw France

Tee hee, I'm writing at school, delighted that I found an interesting portal to the internet that somehow has not yet been blocked. I may be terminated from the blogosphere in a few minutes.

Yesterday, in the middle of class, student, A., stood up but his pants fell down, leaving me with a sudden view of his plaid underclothes. He was in the back of the class and he and I were the only two people that noticed. A. looked at me with an urgent, silent plea to not react, and I just said calmly that I saw nothing. No student who watched my face when it happened would have even known that anything had happened, and no one wondered what I was talking about.

I am a wonderful teacher.

it's too quiet

*I guess I was wrong about not being able to finish, because I wrote another few lines. I guess the sentiment lasted longer than a couple of hours.

It's Too Quiet

I wasn't lonely 'til the rain came,
drops on the glass the only sound.
But what I want to hear is my name
while I am driving you around.

I thought that this was what I wanted,
thought I could go out on my own.
Thought I could fly, but I am grounded.
Don't want to do this all alone.

Now there's a palm tree out my window.
Against the moon, I guess it's nice.
But it also casts a shadow,
A doubt that I can do this right.

1. A writer who wants to keep her ideas keeps a notebook on her nightstand or in her purse rather than scribbling on napkins at dinner (guilty) or receipts while waiting in line (and guilty). I've discovered a voice recorder on my phone that fulfills a similar purpose for when I'm driving (or moonlight power walking on the beach...it's therapeutic) and I find a companionship of lyrics and a simple melody on my mind. If I were Missy Higgins or Casey Cotter, someone else would hear what I recorded on my phone. But since I am Savanna and I actually don't know how to compose music, it will endure only as words.

That was song-downgraded-to-unfinished poem. Nope, it's not directed at anyone. The ideas came as a package and I unfolded them. I stepped outside tonight and realized that driving to a stranger's house and buying their desk and bringing it home to assemble it (and many other things in life) is a lot more fun if you're hanging out with someone.

And you know what? It's not great, but I want to keep it. And I might even finish it.

2. Somewhere there is a book that I carried around as my poetry journal for a few years. Most of the things I wrote were unfinished. My closest friend my freshman year used to tease me about this. He said I should create a book of unfinished poetry, finishable by the reader, for my honors project (which project I never did). If I don't finish a poem within the sitting where I wrote it, it probably will never be finished. Inspiration must be in the room with me.

Actually, I think I'll go look for that book.

to purify the heart's bitter ashes

While I'm at it...I wrote this my sophomore year at BYU for Dr. Ludlow's Isaiah class. Writing it led to some important events in my life. It's based on chapter 53. No I will not fix the capitalization and punctuation. :)

His birth? Not a surprise
His coming not a mystery
For they
They the prophets
have uttered
The promise
Of a Savior.
It may as well
Have been a whisper,
For those who should receive
Would not believe.
He came,
The promised Savior,
Who grew up in the desert,
Who was cultivated
by the word
And nurtured by the example
Of his perfect Father;
Cherished raised taught
by his lovely mother
in the land
barren of truth -
The truth he'd learn,
The truth necessary
to teach the world
And to show the Father's way.
His smile wasn't dazzling.
He didn't command respect.
The people didn't notice
When he shopped at market
Or sold Joseph's works
Or walked the streets of Nazareth.
But he noticed us,
the people all around.
He recognized
Lamenting eyes
He healed
The Sightless
Comforted
The Friendless
Sheltered
The Cold
With a soothing touch
And an affirmation
Of the soul's completion.
We were writhing
Without effect
In the clutches of the
Irreprehensible
law of justice
and condemned
to the cause of death,
the keys to our safety
long melted,
fused unusable,
Hope dripping,
Escaping through the pores
Of the concrete
prison
walls
which
ensured
our
captivity.
Walls which could never be broken
Except by a God
Who is broken bruised torn
Laid to rest
By the grievances
Toward his Father
Which He did not perform.
Compelled not by any force,
He submitted himself
As the necessary
unblemished gift.
A decision
Dictated
By love
For the creation-children
Of His Father.
Descended below all
That he may lift above
Experienced perfect deficiency
That we may become whole
Loved every sinner
That each may become clean
Adopted every insult
Against eternity
That its aching
Might be consoled.
The griefs we bear
The sorrows we carry
Disappointment
That
Hurts more than a burn,
Burns more than a torch.
The torch makes wounds aware;
Exposing
Emptiness,
Opening
aged scars.
Healing is ours
Rich sweet beautiful
Melting running flowing
To enclose
Each pain;
To swathe
Each craving
For fullness;
To purify
The heart's bitter ashes.
Healing is ours
pacifying, replacing every pain.
And so
As He outstretched his hand,
His healing hand,
To renovate
A shattered
Tabernacle of clay,
He offers his hand
Now
An immediate offering
To steal away
The tears
That corrupt our mortal eyes.
An offering motivated
Only by the possibility
That he
May hold me
May hold you
May hold every being
In his arms
Past the regulatory bar
And the threshold of the throne.
Forever united
As mutual victors
Over the enemies
That once had threatened
To scream against
The peaceful silence
Of forever love
And Eternal repose.

November 20, 2003

some highlights from school

I've been the instructional leader of room 233 for two whole weeks. Wouldn't you like to know what's been going on? A comprehensive report will never happen, but here are some of my favorite moments. In chronological order.

1. I was NOT expecting this! My first note from my program director. I carried it around with me for a few minutes after I read it. He left it on his way out of his observation of my class Thursday during first week of school. I was expecting "hey Savanna, your lesson was actually boring, and you should have responded to those two students this way." He visited during my first period class. If Tom would have attended my 5th or 6th period class, his song would have been different. By the way Tom, I love my kids too!



2. My executive director came to observe my class this week. The note she left said this was the funniest thing she'd ever seen:

Ms N: Everyone point at the new poster in the room. Can I have a silent volunteer read the new poster?
Some student: "'No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands, and don't you forget that.' --President Barack Obama
Ms N: What does this quote mean?
Students: You are in charge of your life. You control your future. And so on.
Ms N: Everyone point at the person in this room who controls your life
Most students: [point at themselves]
Contingent of students in the corner of the room: [point at the ceiling]
Ms N: [what are they doing?] No! Point at the person in this room who controls your life.
Students in the corner: [continue to point at the ceiling]
Ms N: No! Who has control over your life?
Students in the corner: God!
Ms N: [pause...] I hadn't factored that in.

3. G, 6th grader, who smiles so big when she understands something. Walking by me as I guide the line to lunch: Ms Nilsen, you look pretty today. I like the color of your eyes.
Ms N on the inside: [moved to tears] G, that is so sweet! Thank you so much! Little people are mean to me all day and then you say something like that and it makes everything better and it means so much to me.
Ms N on the outside: [very professionally, composed, with a coating of distance] Why thank you, G. THat's very kind of you.

4. Next. We're filling out a guided notes page on comparing hurricanes and tornadoes.
One of my students, very urgently: How do you know all this?

:)