Dr Seuss' Words of Wisdom

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” -Dr. Seuss

I need to work on this Dr. Seuss. For the people who know me and know me well they know I am easy to express how I feel and don't hold back. I try not to hurt people, especially ones I love, but I am also a blunt person to say the least and I like to be honest with the people I trust and care about. The people that really matter are there no matter what, while the others fall through the cracks. Sometimes what hurts the most is when I am surprised by people that give up caring about me and fall through the cracks. Sometimes it is temporary and they are mad and fickle, but sometimes it is more real and I feel the loss of someone who I though was worth my love. This hurts more than words can describe. When I love and trust someone I do not expect that to fade, especially so easy as it sometimes does. It makes me question if they truly cared to begin with and that is something I usually repress and try not to think about.

I should not get heart broken over the people who don't matter, because at the end of the day I still have people who have my back and should not be worrying about the people who don't. While it hurts and is sad at the time I need to appreciate what I have. I have one of the best families in the world. While we are not all together that much I know no matter what they have my back. They are always in the back of my mind and always helping me grow up even if only leading by example. Erica and Matt would and do anything in there power to make my life easier and I know I am always welcome in there life. And now they have the most adorable baby how lights up my life every time I see her. 

My friends back home are amazing as you know. They always make me laugh when I need it the most and always there to talk and tell me how much I am screwing up my life. Which I need sometimes... My family is good at that too. I have good friends here as well that are open to listen and play ukulele with me... even though they are way better and I try to hide it when I am not home so they can't practice. I have MPHS marching band which I use to relief my stress my tormenting high school kids and laughing at all of Scott's and my inside jokes. I have my ukulele, which is very comforting to have and I love expressing myself through it and learning fun new songs.

I need to stop dwelling and move forward. I need to stop worrying so much. Life will happen and I can't stop it. Because worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair it does not get you anywhere, but it gives you something to do. Hopefully in the end I will be happy, and if I am not I can always live in my sisters basement or my friends garage. I think I will not need to do this because I am motivated to do something great with my life I just need to figure out what that is and start to do it.

ASLAPR

So my job almost picked up... I have actually been pretty busy these last few days. I was up dating the library information for all the state libraries in Arizona on the ASLAPR website, as well as adding the legislative and congressional districts to each library in the system... Don't be jealous... and ASLAPR is Arizona State Library, Achieves, and Public Records, Just in case you cared. It took me 3 solid days and a lot of trail mix to do, but I have finished. Did you know that we have a ton of libraries in this state and most of them are in the weirdest places... The things I do at work man.

Speaking of work. It is so cold here it is not even funny. Apparently our heater does not work and we are in a very old building so it gets so cold in my office. I am literally wearing gloves as I am typing this to make sure my hands do not fall off.  Maybe I should wear shoes... hahaha yeah right. My flip flops are all weather foot wear.

I am done for now. I want to go home. Just another hr and a half

Letter of intent

So I am applying for Teach for America and need help with my letter of intent. Please let me know what you think of it so far or any advice. I am willing to take any help you guys can give me!

Allison Roush

1307 W 15^th St

Tempe, AZ 85281

Allison.Roush@gmail.com

(925)963-5463

October 15, 2010

Dear Selection Committee:

I am writing this letter to express my sincere interest in joining your program. I have had many friends and colleagues go through Teach for America and it has really changed their lives.  I am extremely impressed with your program and what it strives to do for students through out the nation. Having a Bachelor's Degree in Education myself, I know the importance of giving every student the opportunity to learn and the first step in achieving that is providing them with a excellent teacher. I genuinely believe that I could be that teacher for these students.

During my years of education I have been fortunate enough to experience many classrooms and a variety of students. These students made me realize my passion for teaching and helping students gain the knowledge to be successful in life. Being a new teacher I was able to bring new pedagogy to my teaching that the students were more responsive to. I was able to bring in more technology and real world experiences that helped my students value there own learning and take ownership of their education.

Throughout my internships and student teaching I was able to form my own style of classroom and time management. I found that students and teaching can sometimes get away from you and maintaining a strong management style is the way to ensure that the students are learning and retaining the knowledge.

I am very excited for the opportunity to join the Teach for America program and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Allison Roush

Recipe for Disaster

The other night after a long day at work I drove over to New Mexico aka my sister Erica's house in Gilbert AZ. Now if you have not traveled with me to the far reaches of the valley, to the cow paradise that is Gilbear, you would not know the patient it takes to travel there in the depths of rush hours... but this is how much I love my sister and the whole Westphal family.

I was going over there for dinner. Being a rarity at this residence I had no idea what to expect, but I knew it would be better than anything else that I had planned for dinner which usually includes whatever I can find in the house. When I got there I was please to find that my sister was cooking an herb rubbed chicken with a side of rice, salad and rolls. This being an almost balanced dinner was shocking to say the least. My sister is not what you would call a cook. While she does have the Roush gene in her and most of the time when she does cook it is very good, the activity does not happen very often. I jokingly say that I have cooked there more time then my sister has because when I stay at her house I cook myself almost every meal. Her kitchen is amazing. It has anything you can possibly think of to cook with and plenty of space to cook it in. Thanks to my family, she has an abundance of great pans and pots with all the required accessories to do fabulous things with food, but they are barely used.

Speaking of barely used. After dinner Erica and I decided to make some funfetti cupcakes and cookies. This being a standard tradition in our get togethers I thought nothing of it. We got out the mixer and started to combine ingredients. After adding in the eggs, water, and cake mix, I went to add in the oil. After dumping it into the mixer I though something did not smell quite right. I went back to the oil bottle and realized it expired Jan of 2006. While disturbing that Erica not only had a bottle of oil that she must have bought when I was in high school; the most disturbing is how many times we have used said oil in our cooking and baking since my freshman year of college. I am glad the we have not died and managed to survive the 4 plus years of salmonella infested cookies and cupcakes. Matt then ran to the store to grab another bottle of oil as well as a new box of Funfetti to ensure that we were to have non bacteria ridden cookies and cupcakes for the evening. Thanks Matt.

Now I know how my sister feels. The last thing I want to do at the end of a hard day at work is sit over a stove for an hour or two and cook a meal for myself. Why would I want to spend the few precious moments I have at my home doing a chore in order to feed myself. I am one for the quick reward. When I get off work I am already hungry for dinner and do not want to take the time to go the store and fight with the other business workers to grab there dinner so they can go home and spend time to cook it. I know I know I could go on the weekend and grab meals for the whole week, but I share a house with 6 other people and we just do not have the space in our kitchen to keep that much food. At most I can squeeze some frozen lunches in the freezer for the week, but not much in the way of dinner.

Surprisingly I like cooking and I am not too bad at it either. The Roush cooking gene is strong with me and usually when I cook/grill it comes out pretty well and I do enjoy it. The problem is I have no time. Most days after I finish my 8-5 job I got to run to Mountain Pointe High School and teach the colorguard. Don't get me wrong I love it over there. They have a great band program with a good staff and the students are not that annoying. All in all I love being with the band, but it does drain on me. I usually have to be there by 6 and don't get home till around 8:30. If you did your math that means I leave the house at 7:30 am and 13 hours later I return, and this is my short day. On Fridays I have to go to various schools around the valley or MPHS and be there for our football game, which are again fun, but I do not get home until after 10. It is just a lot of long days during band season, but in the end I feel it is worth it.

I currently only have 3ish jobs which is a huge down grad when I was working 4 and 2 of them being full time. (Don't ask me how I pulled off 95 hours of work a week, but somehow i did. Oh yeah I remember. I would have to choose between taking a shower, or eating every night. It was a bad time)  With only having 2 real jobs I have been able to find a bit of a pattern in life and I am liking the predictability of it all. No more running around Phoenix with the stressful Census, or running around with kids in Mad Science summer camps. Now I have a simple desk job, where I don't do much and a band full of well behaved Awatukee kids. Life is simple and while I like it this way I have times of boredom where I miss the stressful census and always being busy with a task of some sort. Hopefully this job will pick up or I dunno I actually get a teaching job. Cross your finger that Teach for America application goes well...

Sharing Different Heartbeats

<3

Leaning on my past

hoping for the future

wanting to want to wait

Leaning on you

Wishing for the best

not to end in hate

not wanting to hurt

Wishing for you

Heartbeats miles away

not always being in sync

dreaming of same thing

Heartbeats in one desire

Distance makes us wise

hopefully not to break

need to let you go

Distance from me

Worrying about the future

not knowing what will come

others may interfear

Worrying about us

Wanting to stay in this moment

not to change how I feel

time will only tell

Wanting to be with you

<3

Woe at work and the super Jordan

So I am currently working for the Secretary of State for the Arizona State Library and Achieves agency... The title is the most exciting part of this job considering that every blog I have done has been from my computer sitting here at work. The tasks that my "job" requires me to do are so mindless and boring it is hard to stay awake let alone mess them up... Well that if they give me anything to do at all. Lately, when I say lately that means the whole time I have been here, I literally have not done any work type assignment from the hours of 8 to 5. This makes the work day drag like you would not believe. I have though learned the words and chords for many songs that I want to learn on my ukulele, stalked everyone I know on Facebook, done countless crosswords, made 3 calenders, and made an extremely good still life of an empty Snapple bottle. These "accomplishments" while epic are the only that keeps me sane at work. I am like a sad puppy looking for it's new owner in the pet shop, but it is even sadder than that I am looking for work to do to make myself feel needed.

I know that people have done these mindless boring jobs since the beginning of business, but I am quite unsure how people survived without the Internet. My computer with Internet explorer keeps me at least mildly entrained and lets me communicate with friends with out having to get out my phone. Thank you G chat, and G voice for making this possible. You have touched my soul and have saved me from the depths of my brain by distracting me by letting me text with friends. Seriously thank you!

So the person I work with... well the man sitting next to me because I actually don't work... is named lets call him Jordan. He is a 44 year old operations assistant aka secretary, and has been working here for 10 years. He saddens me. Not only has he been working here for way longer then he should his life is special too. From what I have found out: he lives with at least 2 roommates, one being about 70, he does not own a car and relies on sharing a car with his 70 year old roommate and rides the bus to work, his favorite drink is an Irish car bomb in which he gets at a variety of sports bar, he owns one pair of shoes, his "nice" attire is a polo which he wears everyday in a variety of colors, he love essential oils and keeps them in a spray bottle under the desk and sprays them every once in awhile, I think he is in love with the museum office assistant who is married and has at least one kid, his best friend is our grant writer who always sits around and tells dirty jokes to each other, he is uber religious and goes to pray meetings every Wednesday at lunch, he does not know how to use his i pad or favorites button on Internet explorer, his Facebook picture is him sitting at the front desk answering the phone...

 There are so many more I just don't want to overload you. Oh Jordan... you really do need some help. I do not like to judge people and I try not to let this interfere with my opinion of them, but sigh sometimes it is hard to ignore. I have to sit next to him everyday not working and try to see the best in him. He is a nice enough guy I guess, but he bothers me to the core and never lets me work. Either he does not trust me enough to not make mistakes on the paperwork, or he wants to hog all of the work for himself. Maybe he is even smarter than that and wants to ensure that he has a job so he does not want anyone to see how much faster I can do the same amount of work... touché Jordan touché .

Mentally Going Home...

Sometimes you need to go home. Maybe not physically home as in back to the house you consider your home, but back to the person you are at home. I know it sounds weird to go back to a person, but it is more about revisiting a person you once were. I am similar to the person I was in my home town of Pleasnton, but by no means the same. My values have shifted, my friends have altered and my outlook on life is a little hazy. In Pleasanton I am Allie in my truest form. I am spontaneous, happy, wild, free spirited, outgoing, and full of Pleasntoness... Pleasanton just brings it out of me. Being surrounded by the people I love and the place where I grew up just helps me feel comfortable to be me. I think of course this has a lot to do with that I am home and am able to relax and not care about what others think. My family is not going to disown me anytime soon and my friends would love me even if I became a serial killer, well maybe not, but it is more than that. Pleasanton is huge part of who I am. Growing up in this city full of the nicest people you will find helped me see who I am and what I want to become.

My Pleasnton friends are interesting to say the least. Will do anything to have a good time including some very illegal things. This comes with the territory. Pleasanton does not have night clubs or places for young adults to hang out and live boring lives. We have to become very creative in our nightly activities to ensure that we have a good time and I would not change this for the world. While I am kinda a hooligan and juvenile in Pleasanton, I am also way more creative. We "get" people by creatively vandalizing there cars, houses, rooms, etc., but the key is creatively. We do not just take some toilet paper and go to town on our friends front yard... No no no that is way to boring. We find piles and piles of bread in the back of a Safeway dumpster and "bread" our friends car. Or find a crap load of boxes and create a fort in someones room when the go on vacation, but even that's not enough, lets take those boxes and fill them up with random things we find around her room. These are just a few examples of the creativity that Pleasanton inspires their youth to employ. It is where I grew up and realized who I am as a person and that runs through my blood, but sometimes it can be forgotten.

Sometimes I forget the Pleasanton Allie when I am away for too long. I forget about being carefree and running wild through the streets of Pleasanton. I forget who my friends are and who is going to stand with me through out the years. But mostly I forget how to be me. Through out relationships, friends or lovers, sometimes a bit of yourself and being gets lost in the mix. You pretend to be someone you are not to fit into there lives and go on living your life for them and not for yourself. You forget what makes you, and the person that you were before they came into your life.

 In a recent talk with my friend he thanked me for bring a bit of Pleasanton to him to help him see his life clearly. At first I laughed it off and did not really understand, but after some thought I knew exactly what he meant. I brought him home. Sometimes to go home and realize something you don't like about your life you don't actually have to physically go home. You just need to be around people who remind you of who you are at home and the person you use to be. The person you use to be is the greatest link you and the person you want to become, at least to me it is. I like the Pleasanton Allie and wish that I could be her all the time, but I feel that she is a bit immature and not really work force approprite. I will keep her in Pleasanton where she belongs with all the Pleasanton versons of her friends, but visit her frequently to gain perspective on life and the way to live it.

Btw this does not mean I do not cherish my Arizona friends... Just an observations. Please don't take this that way. Looooooovvvvveeee

Moments Before the Final Fall

I am falling... Leaving the world I known and the past year of my life. I am heading down this rollercoaster. Going up and down the track and waiting for the moment before the final fall. I am not sure where this fall will take me, but I know I can not stop the train from moving forward. It could end happy with a safe return to the place I was before with the person I love sitting in the seat right next to me; or it could crash  and we would end up decomposing forever

.

 I hate this part. The moments of shear unknowing and fear. The moments before the final fall, till death or happiness; maybe both. What is worse is people are watching go through this epic adventure waiting for me to die or live, without being able to stop it. I wish I could gain control of the ride, be able to decide the end result, but it is no longer up to me. I wasted that chance a long time ago.  I love you always and forever. Come what may...

Salty Eyes

Sometimes I feel I don't belong in my own life... I love my friends and family, but I feel they deserve more from me then I can give them sometimes. I am constantly being pulled in 100 different directions that I feel I can not give any one thing my full attention. I wish I could. I wish I could spend as much time and effort on the things I care about and not worry about jobs. my career, or future. That is not reality though. The reality is you have to go to work. You have to move forward in your career. The future is coming everyday. People come and go, and the only thing you can do about it is hope that you made the most of them in your life. It is sad to think that the life that you have now will not always be constant. I like constant things. I hate change and I wish that I could control how my life plays out better. The truth is that none of us have control over where are life is heading and we all need to just go with the flow and enjoy the ride. I feel like music understands me. It drives me and helps me feel emotions I am not ready to divulge to myself. Music and I have a special relationship. Songs and music is my constant in my life. No matter what happens music is always there to comfort me and help me break down my walls and have the emotions flood my world. Songs help you remember people and events in your life that are and were important to you for one reason or another. Helps you look back and reminisce of the time gone by and the current life you have.

Do you belong to a song?
Does it drag you along by the tongue at the top of your lungs?
Are you drunk?
Have you been drinking?
Do you below the overpass go with a fifth in your fist
reminiscing the kiss of a love that just didn't love as much as you did?

Songs and music is what holds me together. They help me breath when my world is crashing down and help me know who I am when I forget. I am strong. Music helps me realize my strength and picks me up when I fall. When I hear a song I am transformed to a place or a person that reminds me of the song I am listening to. Or even an ideal of what my life should be. My emotions are expressed by people who do not even know me or even know that I am listening. This is the great part of music or art as a whole. The artist expresses things that important to them through their work, but the views or listener use there own life and experiences to find themselves in their work. What the artist intends is not always what is felt and I love it. every person that hears a song sees different things and feels different emotions no matter what the artist was originally try to convey. Music is unique to everyone that listens to it. Music is personal and makes deep connections to your life that you did not intend to make. It makes you think that other people understand you and can relate to the experiences you are going through. You belong.

But please don't give up dear walls.
Don't let the ceiling fall.
When you belong to a song, salty eyes.
You belong.

Music itself evicts emotions out of my body. The sheer way the notes are played and well and the tone itself can make me feel happy, sad, or whatever. This is my favorite trick in music. While a song might have a happy beat and melody the lyrics are not so joyful. To me while I love the notes and music behind the lyrics it is the words that really speak to me. Maybe it is the little English major in me, but words hold so many emotions and when they are connected in music they fill rooms with their message. The clever connections of words to mean things that you would not know how to express is why I keep listening to songs and why I keep coming back for more. It is like poetry on steroids. Songs can express more then poetry can at times because artists are able to manipulate the beats and melody to show emphasis on certain words or even say them differently to express how they feel about what they are saying.

Shrill notes begin the grim violin.
Then from the silence, a violence of sirens orchestrate the score.
To which one more corpse is left quiet.
How we become the hollows of drums.
The rest between notes and the hollers that never reach throats.
Friends in quotes, they're not calling.

There is hope. There is a light shinning through that window of my room telling me that everything is going to be alright. No matter how much today sucks. No matter how much I just want to stay in bed. That light will never fade. It slides into me when it knows I need it, without me even asking or looking for it. My I pod knows how I am feeling and shuffles to the right song at the right moment. Now I know that me and my I pod do not really have an intimate connection, but music and I do. It is there when I give up. When I shut out the world and need to be alone with my thoughts. It helps me through things I don't want to face and comforts me when no one else can. Music is what I believe in. It is my constant and will never give up on me.

But please don't give up dear you.
I'll bet the sliver moon's sliding through
When you belong to a song, salty eyes.
You belong.

I am not naive to the fact that music was not created for me or about me. This however does not change how it makes me feel. Music protects me from the world I don't want to live in and them slowly soothes me to acepting the world as it is. The world is not perfect and I am not either, but music helps me understand that this is okay and it should not ruin my day, my life, or my relationships because I belong.

Do please believe however naive.
They may drag you along by the tongue at the top of your lungs.
And belong salty eyes.

When you belong to a song, salty eyes.
You belong.

Required Maintenance

Sometimes things just don't work out the way you want them to... This is not a bold statement or even a new concept, but that does not mean it is untrue. This kills me to write about this because I hate cliche and people that write off of them, but I guess I got to deal.

I tend to fall for friends. It makes my life complicated and usually sad, but being close to people you trust is universal. My problem is that I might not have a line between friendship and lovers. I tend to want to be close to the people I love, which in turn, usually leads to lovers. This is not always a bad road to follow. The path leads to intimate connections, passionate love making, and a collection of other good things to follow, but the end result may be devastating. It is not that you fall out of love, it might just be that you were not in love at all. Not that you did not care deeply about them or love them as a friend, but did not love them they way you are suppose to love a mate.

Where is the line though? How are you suppose to know if falling for your best friend is a bad thing?  Most people dream about spending their life with their best friend. Being able to be intimate as well as make you laugh through out the day. Someone who you can't wait to see when you get home as well as curl your toes with pleasure. This is the ideal that everyone is looking for. Someone who you can trust and want to be there in your times of need, but also be passionate. That is the problems with ideals though they are always just out of reach.

For the reachers out there, like myself, I am sorry. We always think that there is something better just around the corner and while we maybe deeply in love with someone we are not willing to settle or make the final commitment needed to make the relationship progress they way it "should." We worry about the decisions we make and how they will effect the lives we are living. We want to fast foreword to see how are lives will end up so we can make the decisions now to make us happy later. This itself is very depressing. Impatience and the need to know effects the relationships we have and the future that is unclear. I hate this about myself because I can never be happy for I can never see what if right in front of me. I am completely scared of commitment and when I get to the point on where I have to leap... I break down and need to go get a emotional tune up. I need time to myself and myself alone to realize what I want. The problem with this maintenance request is that I usually figure this all out after it is to late to retrieve the relationship that was.

I have been in love, and am still in love with multiple people from my past. Some have completely faded from my life, by their choice, while others stick around because our love is so strong that it is worth the hurt of being near. I do like this about my life. I hate losing people that I love and I also like the trill and opportunity of being able to see how there lives turn out or if I was meant to be apart of them. Usually when I try to rekindle relationships and loves that I have had it proves to me that I made the right choice and being friends that are in love is better then being fully committed to them. The problem is, is that it does not always work out this way. Sometimes being with that person makes me realize how much I miss what we had and how perfectly imperfect it was when we were together. I still love them and do not know how to deal with them not wanting to still be with me. The hurt is unbearable to feel unwanted. This is my punishment though, for never knowing what I want. I want my best friend, but even when I fall for them, I flee for fear that I will hurt them if it goes on longer, because of my traditional run away from commitment dance.

Maybe I should just grin and bare it. Let go of the fear of hurting the one I love the most or even me. Let myself be vulnerable and give my heart to someone I trust and hope the trust will last. The problem is I have done that before and got recked. I have installed airbags now with a protective coating on heart to make sure that this does not happen again. The person who loves me needs to break that seal of protection and be able to be patient while I recover from the shock of breathing deep and being in love again. It is not that I am not in love before, but once my walls come down and my door opens I am committed to the fullest extent.

In theory, it will happen that I will find the person that it is worth letting in. I just hope they will wait in the waiting room while my required maintenance is fulfilled.