Louisiana Teacher Tenure

Last week, I was standing outside of George T. Walker Hall with my friend and coworker Meredith, and a man from KEDM approached us and asked if we wanted to give our opinion on Bobby Jindal’s plan to eliminate teacher tenure for teachers at the elementary and secondary levels who failed the new evaluation system. The man from KEDM also wanted to know how we thought that change would affect our children/future children (if we indeed had children or planned on having them). Meredith essentially threw me under the bus and said, “That’s right up Nichole’s alley,” as she pointed at me and ducked her head. Haha! (Love you, Mer.) As soon as the man heard this, he got right in my face and wanted to know all of the ins and outs of my opinion.

Normally, I’m happy to share my opinion, but when I’m put on the spot like that, I choke under pressure. I tried to decline from answering, but the guy would not give me an out. Instead, he put a microphone in my face, refusing to back down.

I had honestly not thought much about the topic before, which is quite unusual for me, considering how obsessive I am over issues concerning education. So the only response I could muster was something about teacher morale–and that was about it. I knew immediately that it wasn’t the greatest answer on earth, but I couldn’t think of anything better to say.

This bothered me.

The man walked away, and I’m pretty sure he did not use my answer on the radio. At least I hope he didn’t. I wouldn’t have even used it myself.

For the rest of the day, the issue weighed heavily on my mind. I then decided that I was going to think about the issue on both sides of the argument. Why would Bobby Jindal want to eliminate teacher tenure? I questioned myself. Assuming that Bobby Jindal’s motives are pure and honorable–which is quite a stretch in itself–the only plausible answer that I could come up with was this: Perhaps Bobby Jindal simply wants to weed out bad teachers in order to promote a healthier educational environment.

Fair enough. This seemed like a good answer to me, an answer that, surprisingly, didn’t bother me too terribly.

But then I became troubled when I began to wonder how on earth Bobby Jindal was going to distinguish bad teachers from good teachers. I finally reached a conclusion. Considering how Bobby Jindal advocates performance-based pay and using standardized test scores to distinguish bad teachers from good teachers, I can only conclude that he would use this same method to determine who deserves to keep their job and who doesn’t.

This may not bother you, but as an educator, this bothers me greatly. In an environment where teachers feel that their job is contingent on the test scores of their students, they will immediately stop teaching students how to think critically, analytically, and independently. Instead, they will teach their students how to take a test, how to “beat” the test, so to speak. And more class time will be spent on students learning to acquire test-taking skills than on the curriculum and plans that the teacher has possibly been building for many years. This is not the learning environment that I want for my children. There’s nothing in me that wants my children to be robots for anyone’s political agenda.

I’m willing to stand corrected on the issue because I’m aware that I’m making a couple of assumptions that are based strictly on my ability to reason. (But I will say that my reasoning skills are pretty strong because, after all, tests like the GEE didn’t even exist when I was in high school.) These were my assumptions:

• Assumption #1: That Bobby Jindal wants to eliminate bad teachers.
• Assumption #2: That he would use standardized test scores to evaluates teachers’ effectiveness.

I raise this simply to generate a conversation, not to represent myself as an authority, so let’s talk!

Happy Eating, Awkward Shopping, Good News, and Reflections

On Friday, November 4, Cody and I were driving down Louisville Avenue and saw that we were behind my brother’s car. I picked up the phone and called him and said, “Hey, is that you in front of us?” It was, in fact, him, and he met up with us at Roly Poly to eat lunch. For those of you who have never been to Roly Poly, you’re truly missing out. I forgot my usual order, but Evangeline, the girl who works there that I know from high school, remembered it well: a heated “Roll Your Own” on wheat with turkey, Swiss cheese, and spicy honey mustard. We sat there for a while, talked about school, talked about football, and watched this group of kids walking beside the window (odd…we didn’t know what they were doing).

After we left, I dropped Cody off at the house and went to Rite Aid. As soon as I walked in, a friendly voice said, “May I help you find something?”

I nervously said, “No, I’m just looking.” I’m just looking? Who says “I’m just looking” in a drugstore? I meandered around the aisles and ducked my head in hopes of not being detected by any of the other employees. When I got to the end of the toothpaste aisle, another employee rounded the corner and said, “Finding everything okay?”

“Yes, ma’am!” I shouted awkwardly. Up and down, up and down the aisles I went, looking for my item while attempting to remain inconspicuous.

“Hi. How are you doing today, ma’am?” a guy behind a counter asked cheerfully.

“Fine,” I answered quickly as I darted out of his vision down a nearby aisle. Any other day, I wouldn’t be able to find any help, I thought to myself. Where do they keep that stuff?

I found myself at the back of the store, and eureka! There it was. I made a quick decision, grabbed the box, and made my way to the checkout. Of course, the guy in front of me in line wanted to discuss his whole life story with the cashier. After waiting on him to finish, for what seemed like 5 minutes, I placed the box on the counter and attempted to avoid eye-contact with the cashier. I wanted this transaction to occur as quickly as possible. “Do you have a Wellness Rewards card?” the cashier politely inquired.

“No, I don’t,” I said as I pulled out my debit card, eager to pay and get out of that place.

“Would you like to get one today?”

“No, thank you.”

“You’ll get 10% off today’s purchase if you do.”

“Okay, fine,” I said, hoping that would shut her up.

“For best results, take it in the morning.”

“What?” She then pointed at my bag. “Oh, right.” I sprinted to the car and drove home.

When I pulled into the driveway, Cody was outside on the phone, walking up and down the driveway (as he always does when he’s on the phone). I went inside, but Cody stayed outside for  a few minutes.

When he came inside, I was pacing around the living room, looking at my watch every few seconds. When two minutes had passed, I walked to the bathroom, turned around, and looked at Cody. “Oh my gosh. I’m pregnant!” I said loudly.

A grin came across his face. “Really?”

We wallowed in the shock and excitement of it all for a few minutes and then started calling our family. After the dust settled and it was just the two of us and we had no one else left to call, I started thinking about this kid that was now growing inside of me.

Even though it’s now been exactly 4 weeks since I found out that I was pregnant, the reality has still failed to sink in. Yeah, every now and then I’ll have these feelings rush over me like “Yikes…I’m gonna have a baby,” but for the most part, I can’t quite wrap my brain around it. I can’t imagine what the little tike is going to look like. I don’t know whether it’s going to be a boy or a girl. Heck, I don’t even know if it’s going to like me! After all, I’ve never been very good with kids. I’ve always WANTED to be good with kids, but they always look at me like I’m some scary goblin that wants to eat them. It’s like they don’t understand that I’m a real person. I have dreams of having a little girl one day that will ride in the passenger’s seat of my car as we listen to a CD of our favorite musical and sing along to the top of our lungs. So when I’m around kids, I try to get in a little practice, so I start pulling out all the stops from my repertoire of classic musicals. It never fails, though; that poor victim of a kid is simply left dumbfounded in my wake and, as a result, refuses to sing along. What’s with kids these days? Do they not watch musicals?

Another thing that baffles me about kids is that I have to talk to them like they’re  kids. I don’t get this. I see shows like Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader and naturally assume that kids should be smart enough to hold intelligent conversations. But I’m always wrong. Granted, it’s not like I try to discuss Shakespeare with them–well, I did actually try do that once when I was forced to teach a Sunday school class against my will, but that was an exceptional moment in my shameful past. But I try to talk to them about regular stuff–not stuff like “Did you pull Susie Johnson’s pigtail today?” but real stuff.

But the thing that scares me more than anything is diaper changing. I’ve changed a grand total of 3 diapers in my life:

1. When Shay Swillie was working at the church daycare, I went in to visit her one day and said, “I’ve never changed a diaper before. Isn’t that crazy?” She and her mom replied in unison, “Well, you’re gonna change one today.” They MADE me change a diaper!! I was too young for that. I was only 22 years old at the time. Gees.
2. When my dear friend Vonnie Hale had her baby, I said, “Can you believe that I’ve only changed one diaper in my entire life?” She said, “Well, do you want to change Brett’s?” Me an my BIG MOUTH!! So…I changed his diaper. It was not a pretty situation. I was almost 27 years old at the time, and the poopy diaper was a new concept for me.
3. Earlier this year, my friend Justina had me watch her little guy. She instructed, “Now if  you have to change his diaper…” WAIT!! Oh no, I have only changed 2 diapers before in my entire life, and both times I had someone looking over my shoulder, giving me the guided tour of the kid’s toxic wasteland. But this time, I would be completely alone (well, if you don’t count Cody).

I know what you’re thinking: Nichole, it’s all right. Motherhood is a very natural thing, and you’ll just automatically know what to do.

As cute as your little assumption is–and as much as I appreciate your confidence in my matronly ways–I think I disagree with you. There’s nothing natural about changing a diaper. All three times that I’ve done it, I was fearful of wiping too hard. Other people that I’ve watched just wipe away–as though it’s the last wiping that kid will ever receive.

So do I think my maternal instincts will kick in? Probably not immediately like everyone says, but I can say that I feel pretty confident that I will be okay with learning as I go.

Might I be wrong? Of course. I surely hope so. I hope that I’ll win the Mommy of the Year award on the first day I bring the little lass home from the hospital.

Although I have all of these mixed emotions about how prepared I’m going to be for motherhood, I can definitely say that nothing in the world has ever made me want to rise to the occasion any more than the news of our soon-to-arrive little one.

My Thoughts on Occupy Wall Street

As one of the 99%ers, I’m tickled pink about what’s happening on Wall Street. My husband and I try to keep up with it every day, and we’re amazed at how much it’s growing in spite of its lack of live media coverage. But what I find more shocking than its growth rate is how much criticism the movement has received–and from people who claim to be in the 1% who are actually a part of the 99. If you don’t make over $350,000.00 a year, we’re all in this together.

Before people should criticize the movement–or naively listen to others who criticize it–they should educate themselves on the issues first. I’m not here to educate anyone on the issues because the blog would no longer be a blog; it would be an entire book. But what I can do is encourage you to read up on different issues, watch all of the free documentaries available on Netflix about the different issues, and don’t believe everything you see on the news. Remember: They are controlled by corporations who have a specific agenda in mind.

You might be asking yourself, “So what exactly ARE the different issues?”

That’s actually a difficult question to answer since the Occupy Wall Street Movement has no leader with no set list of demands, thus making negotiations quite complex. So that’s why I’ve compiled a list of my own demands. I think it would be safe to say that many of the people that are a part of the movement would subscribe to many of my demands, but I’m not enough of a simpleton to believe that I’m the voice of this generation.

“End Corporate Greed” is what I see on the signs of many of the protestors. But how are we going to accomplish this?

And now (deep breath) my list of demands:

1. Stop bailing out major corporations when they’re going under.
2. Make lobbying a felony. (If it is already, start paying attention to it.)
3. Keep public schools public.
4. Abolish Obama Care and adopt a TRULY universal healthcare system.
5. Allow for free public childcare.
6. Allow for free government-paid nannies.
7. Allow for free public universities.
8. Forgive all student loan debt.
9. Forgive all healthcare debt.
10. Close down all privately owned prisons.

Before you label me a commie or a socialist, read up on the issues first. Then, we’ll talk. The demands that I have outlined here are only foreign ideas in our country, not elsewhere. When things like education, healthcare, and incarceration are placed in the hands of for-profit organizations, greed will inevitably will rule out over our education, health, and justice, respectively, every single time.

Saturday’s Gubernatorial Election: Does Democracy Even Exist?

As a person who not only works in the field of education but has an obsessive preoccupation with topics and discussions related to education, I cringe when I hear the name Bobby Jindal. “Why?” you ask. Well, I’ll tell you: I’m sure he’s a good guy who’s nice to his kids and all, but for some reason he hates higher education.

This has been proven time and time again with his huge educational budget cuts, including but not limited to the eradication of entire departments, the massive layoffs of many excellent professors/instructors, the combining of educational programs of sister schools (which saves the state money but forces students to have to take courses via compressed video instead of face-to-face), the cutting of travel funds for professors, the increase of class sizes, and the overall cutting of other departmental funds. I could go on for days about his belligerent, bloody homicide of education (and his desire to beef up community colleges at the expense of the overall health of our universities), but I won’t because I want to focus on a different issue: the fact that we have no choice.

Maybe I’m a little ignorant to Louisiana’s weird jungle primary system, but shouldn’t there be a more–I don’t know–PRESENT, NOTEWORTHY challenger to the incumbent? And if there is no choice in the matter, do we still have a democracy?

For whatever reason, the incumbent has an off-the-charts approval rating, probably because he’s good at politicking and raising money; therefore, no one has the cajones to run against him–no one except for Tara Hollis and a few other unknown figures. Although Tara Hollis lacks experience and the financial support, I do think that she would make education her top priority, which is exactly where education should be. Also, she’s not afraid to admit that she doesn’t know everything and that she’s willing to let more experienced people help her with those decisions, which–if you ask me–is so much better than kissing babies, campaigning at churches, promoting a bad book, firing a lot of people while smiling, lying in commercials about the number of jobs created, etc.

The last time I checked, “Tara Hollis for Governor” had about 14 “likes” on Facebook, 13 if you don’t include me. It’s going to take a much larger number than 14 to dethrone the guy who wants our state to be stupid, the guy who flies in his helicopter to campaign at churches. (Yes, folks, that’s what he’s doing. I’m sorry, but he isn’t simply wanting you to hear his testimony. He’s wanting your vote. He’s a very smart man who knows how to manipulate a crowd. Some would call that a sociopath.)

I don’t like to turn my blog into a campaign spot, but enough is enough. Make an educated decision when you go to vote on Saturday, despite the crumbling of our democratic society. It doesn’t matter who your family’s voting for. It doesn’t matter if Uncle Marty refuses to pass the bread to you at Thanksgiving because you didn’t vote for Bobby Jindal. If you like your kids, you should do everything possible to help.

Fat No More: Maybe This Week

As most of my diets go, this past week started out on a really strong foot. I woke up on Tuesday morning, the day after my first blog post, and got on my bike and biked around the neighborhood for about 30 minutes, which is a lot shorter than what I normally do; however, I biked a lot harder than normal and never let up on my tempo. I came inside, ate a bowl of healthy cereal, and went on about my day. That night I attended my zumba and yoga classes, came home, and ate a salad. Success! I woke up Wednesday morning and had lost a whole pound. Yes, a whole pound. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but any time I’ve ever dieted successfully, one pound per day has always been the “going” rate.

On Thursday, same routine–another pound. I was down to 140. I went to zumba and yoga and behaved myself all day long.

Friday, same thing–yet another pound. I hit 139, which was a victory for me because it’s so nice for the second number to be a lower digit. But Friday night sent my success into a downward spiral. I went out that night to Chile Verde with some friends and ate and drank enormous amounts of calories.

Saturday, we found out that we sold our house! Yay! After four years of trying to sell it, we finally succeeded. This news further got my diet routine out of whack, and I ate a cheeseburger that night. Did I mention that I didn’t exercise at all on Saturday?

On Sunday, Cody and I ate at Chile Verde for lunch. It’s insane that I would allow Chile Verde to attack my success because I’ve never even really liked the place. I ate flour tortillas with honey and butter and ate a burrito that was loaded down with fajita chicken and soaked in queso. Arriving home that night, I felt terrible about all of the bad food that I had eaten that weekend–so bad that I ate 2 ginger snaps, which had been the last of the remaining junk food in the house.

I got off the love seat of my misery and went for a bike ride, hoping that I had not already returned to my beginning weight of 142. I went to bed without eating, and I woke up this morning at 7:00 a.m., only to find that I had gained 2 pounds over the weekend. I am currently at 141.

Even though I lost 3 pounds, I still gained 2, which–in my book–isn’t a success story at all. So I suppose my weakness is fun-filled weekends with friends. So leave me alone, friends. Haha! I don’t have the discipline or the power to resist you. No more fun weekends!! Just kidding. I suppose I’ll just have to actually find healthy things on menus, which is so hard for me to do. It’s easy at home because I have only healthy groceries right now.

Maybe next week I’ll have more than one measly little pound of success!

Fat No More: An Independence Day Wake-Up Call

A Little Back Story

When I was a kid and teenager, I was painfully thin. I remember being jealous of my slightly pudgy friends because slightly pudgy was normal. I tried so hard to gain weight, so I got my mom to buy those Ensure drinks for me–you know, those drinks that old people drink when they’re on an all-liquid diet. One can contained 250 calories. So naturally, I would drink a couple of these a day, consume a Blue Bell Ice Cream milkshake every single day, and eat everything in sight. I would eat millions of slices of Johnny’s Pizza; I even came close to eating a 14-inch pizza all by myself one time. Unfortunately, though, I had been cursed with freakishly high metabolism; therefore, all of my weight-gaining efforts were in vain.

When I was in elementary school, a girl on the bus wrapped her fingers around my ankle and said, “You look like an Ethiopian.” And in junior high school, people told me I looked like a mockingbird running across the basketball court. I hated being skinny. I would often complain about my weight to friends and family, and they would say insensitive things like “You’ll be grateful for your high metabolism one day” or “One day your metabolism will slow down and you won’t be that skinny anymore.”

I longed for the day for my metabolism to slow down. I daydreamed about having a curvacious, full figure. Instead, though, I had to settle for looking like Olive Oil in a wedding dress at my senior prom, weighing in at a hundred pounds.

I started college at what was then known as Northeast Louisiana University the following fall and perused through all of the pamphlets in my PREP packet. One of the sheets inside was called “Tips for College Success.” It contained warnings such as arriving to class on time, studying 2 hours a day for every 1 hour in class, calling teachers profs instead of teachers (which turned out to be false), sitting near the front, etc. But one of the tips stood out among the others: Beware of the Freshman 15. I had never heard of this amazing Freshman 15. Could it be possible for me to put on 15 pounds now and finally look normal? I thought to myself. This was fantastic news! Simply being a college student was going to help me gain weight.

Of course, I continued to eat everything in sight and avoided vegetables like The Plague. My aversion to vegetables had nothing to do with my wanting to gain weight, though. I honestly hated them, and I never ever wanted to eat them for as long as I lived.

To my dismay, I did not gain 15 pounds my freshman year. In fact, I think I lost some weight. But I finally quit obsessing over it and quit thinking about it. By the time I graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree and my Master’s Degree, I weighed-in at a comfortable 120 or so. I was for the first time in my life happy with my weight. But I didn’t do anything to maintain it, and I was still eating about as healthy as Fat Albert.

I honestly quit thinking about my weight at all; it was fabulous. But eventually, my weight started getting out of control. I went to the doctor and received some very bad news: The doctor diagnosed me with hypothyroidism (under-active thyroid disorder, which is hereditary and had nothing to do with my eating habits) and said that I had high cholesterol (which has EVERYTHING to do with my eating habits). I cried for a solid day when she told me this. I felt like I was dying. I felt panicky. She put me on medication for my thyroid, which I have to take every day for the rest of my life, and told me that I need to start watching what I eat in order to lower my cholesterol. What? Me? Olive Oil Bride? Ethiopian Girl? IIIIIIII have to start watching what I eat? No way!! No one in my life had every called me fat before.

I was then 140 pounds and knew I needed to get things under control. I lost about 15 pounds in just a couple of months, but I never really changed my eating habits; I was simply biking. A LOT!! Weighing a comfortable 125, I got lazy again.

It’s been 2 years since that visit to the doctor, and the pounds have continued to pack on. I stepped on the scales this morning and weighed a whopping 142 pounds.

Enough is enough!

Why I’m Freaking out over 142 Pounds

Okay, I know that 142 pounds isn’t that much. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know that there are many people who weigh a lot more than that and are probably rolling their eyes at me right now, but that is exactly 15-28 pounds overweight for a person of my height and frame size. Yes, overweight. I’m 5’4″ tall, and I have a small frame:

Height in Feet&Inches	Small Frame	Medium Frame	Large Frame
4’10″	102-111	109-121	118-131
4’11″	103-113	111-123	120-134
5’0″	104-115	113-126	122-137
5’1″	106-118	115-129	125-140
5’2″	108-121	118-132	128-143
5’3″	111-124	121-135	131-147
5’4″	114-127	124-138	134-151
5’5″	117-130	127-141	137-155
5’6″	120-133	130-144	140-159
5’7″	123-136	133-147	143-163
5’8″	126-139	136-150	146-167
5’9″	129-142	139-153	149-170
5’10″	132-145	142-156	152-173
5’11″	135-148	145-159	155-176
6’0″	138-151	148-162	158-179

My Goal

I will be blogging about my weight once a week until I reach my goal of 115 pounds. I will be walking you through my journey of cultivating a taste for vegetables (I do at least eat SOME vegetables now, but not all), and I will be briefing you of my daily eating habits. I might even post some pictures of my fat rolls if I’m feeling brave. “Why am I blogging about my weight?” you ask. Because I want to keep myself accountable to someone, to a lot of someones. If I fail publicly, it will be much more humiliating than failing privately, which is why I think this just might work. 

What I Want from You

• What I don’t want from you is a bunch of “Oh my gosh, Nichole, you don’t need to lose weight.” (I may even be at the point where people have stopped saying that; I don’t really know. I sort of lack self-awareness. When I look in the mirror now, I actually still see a skinny girl, so I don’t need you to tell me that I look good. That’s just going to make me think that I really don’t need to lose weight, which is not what I need right now. I would believe you.)
• I want you to encourage me and leave comments about how amazed you are at my progress.  
• Don’t get offended if you weigh more than 142. Hopefully, if you’re overweight, too, you will find a little bit of encouragement here.

Will the Cravings Ever Stop?

This past Christmas, my mom got me the complete, 3-part DVD collection of The Wilderness Family. For those of you who have never heard of this epic trilogy, The Wilderness Family depicts a real life family who decided to leave the conveniences of modern-day society in order to embrace the rawness and purity of the Utopian great outdoors that we like to refer to as the American Rockies.

When I was a kid, my brother and I LOVED these movies, and if you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you have read about some of our own wilderness adventures, such as fort building and clearing trails with a machete. I always felt at home in the woods, for they’ve offered me some of my highest moments of serenity that I can recall. I never grew out of it. This wasn’t a childhood phase; it was a part of who I was. So you can imagine how happy I was on Christmas Day to be opening up this splendid DVD collection that I would one day be able to share with my own currently-non-existent children.

Any time I go camping or do something as simple as walking on the trails at Kiroli or Restoration Park, that childhood giddiness that I associate with my love affair with nature comes back to me. And on those days, I often spend the rest of the night sitting on my couch and dreaming about how amazing it would be to live in a tent for the rest of my life or get an RV and hit the road and see all that the U.S. has to offer. The woods make me want to write poetry and sit around all day and just breathe a lot.

When I was a kid, the daydreams were just that: dreams. They were never anything that I put a whole lot of stock in. But in recent years, the “call of the wild” (sorry, I couldn’t resist the Jack London allusion) has manifest itself in a completely different way. It started out a couple of years ago when I bought a big red bicycle. I was off work for the summer. Well, I was actually considered to be unemployed since I had no promise of a contract renewal in the fall. But among all that uncertainty that I felt that summer, I’ve never felt so alive. As I rode around my neighborhood and allowed the sun to scorch my face and shoulders, none of my financial problems seemed to matter. There’s just something about nature that helps put things into perspective. When looking at a little blade of grass alongside the bike trail, I become strangely conscious of my small role in the world and for the first time in my life understand that my money matters don’t matter and that my job (or the lack thereof) was just a hamster cage.

There’s something very scary about having that much clarity. When you arrive at a place like that in your thinking, it’s very easy to convince yourself that you want to sell your house, buy an RV, and just hit the road and head to the farthest KOA that you can find.

When this happened, I put my house on the market and was ready to do it. I attempted to sell my house 3 different times without one single bite. This scenario depressingly became my reality, so I was forced to take a job at West Monroe High School when the fall semester arrived, even though I knew that it wasn’t going to be the job for me. And, as you know, I was right. It wasn’t the job for me, mainly because it was a job: a clock-in/clock-out job that sucked away every drop of passion that I had left in my spirit. Fortunately, after quitting, I was able to regain that passion. But then the next summer would place me back into the doldrums of my career where I would return to that scary place called clarity. My husband and I took a road trip to upstate New York. I would once again became convinced that I was better off without a job because being on the road, breathing in the mountain air, and having a dangerous amount of freedom just made sense.

But at the end of my summer, reality reared its ugly head once again and reminded me that I have bills to pay and that if I ever wanted to have well-adjusted kids, I was going to have to have a steadier career and stabler life. I accepted an adjunct teaching position at ULM and had a fantastic year, something that I was LONG overdue for. But my spirit grew increasingly restless. Even though things are great at ULM, I can’t help but imaging myself hiking that Appalachian Trail or camping out at the foot of a mountain.

I know that more than likely I will not be able to live a life like this because I’ll have to keep a regular job. But will the craving ever go away? You might be thinking, Well, at least you get to do things like that in the summertime, Nichole. But the summertime is never enough. The summertime only makes my cravings worse. It makes me realize how blissfully happy I am without a job, and it makes me realize how simple and beautiful life can be. It makes me wonder why we spend so much time and energy chasing things and status and wealth.