Lazarus rises

Reports of this blog's death have been greatly exaggerated...

Now that I've turned in term grades (no more paper grading! no more paper grading!) and am nearing the end of finals and AP Review, I have a moment to reflect on the year. It's been a tough one. I essentially gave the director my early resignation in November, at a point when I was not only incredibly frustrated with the direction the school was (is) taking, but also feeling myself stagnate, intellectually and emotionally. I applied to international secondary school teaching positions, and was in the process of narrowing my search--Brazil? India? Switzerland?--when I had a change of heart.

First, I realized that I wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to Misa and my other friends in Tucson, even if I was ready to run out of Tucson itself. Second, a group of students approached me and asked that I stick around to teach them the following year--and Julia asked me to stay. Finally, I had to admit that trying to move this summer would be INSANE. On the last day of school, I'm flying to Austin, Texas for Aurora's wedding, returning just in time to fly to London to start a two-week jaunt through Europe with Mark and fifteen of my high school students, then meeting Barbara in Spain for 10 days, then starting Bread Loaf at Oxford. AND beginning my doctoral program applications. So a delay seemed appropriate.

Pretty much the only thing I remember from the fall besides this job turmoil is the trip that Misa, Susannah, and I took over October Break to New Mexico. We had only three days and an unstable itinerary that included a spur of the moment decision to drive all the way to the south-east of New Mexico in order to see Carlsbad Caverns. I was dubious of this decision until we got there, smelt the bat guano, and spent hours wandering through the underground maze of Carlsbad. The pictures don't do it justice, partly because I hadn't yet figured out how to work "night" photography.

Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico





The previous night we'd gotten a little off track in Silver City, and came to the campground extremely late, only realizing as the road continued to curve sharply upward in the pitch darkness that the campground was near the top of a mountain! And, having become spoiled Arizonans, we had almost no warm clothing with us. We stepped out of the car and promptly pulled on every clothing item we'd brought, then huddled together and watched our breath freeze until we fell asleep.

On the way back, we detoured over to White Sands national park, and rolled around in the sand for a while:


White Sands, New Mexico







The sand is very hot on the surface, but surprisingly cool about three inches below, so much of our time was spent creating cool hollows for our bodies. White Sands is beautiful, but there's only so much you can do with sand when there is no water nearby to splash around in, and so we hit the road again soon after.

The Czechmobile



Our last stop was at a "ghost town," what used to be a small, thriving silver-mining town near the railway. Stein, NM is owned by one family, and they keep up the mercantile shop, now selling tourist paraphenalia:



Just like Ma and Pa's place back in the day. Yar.

And as we headed back across the state line, we paused on the lonely stretch of highway to take one last shot: