Dear Family,
If you were to ask Luke what the best part of April was, he would probably tell you that it was watching A Minecraft Movie in theaters on five-dollar Tuesday with Savvy and Lilly. Luke considers the plot, the acting, and the humor to be top tier. As for me, I think that the movie itself was enjoyable, though I think my viewing experience was greatly improved by the row of high school boys in front of us who would stand up and applaud any time a particular reference or joke was made.
I’ve since learned that such behavior is quite a popular trend right now, though the videos that get famous contain the kind of behavior and reactions that would get people arrested. I think what we got was perfect, though seeing a live chicken in a movie theater would probably be something worth including in one of these letters.
A couple of things have happened since I watched the Minecraft movie at the beginning of the month, perhaps most notably the semester ending. I’m still trying to decide what I’ll be doing now that my semester is over, but it sounds like I’ve got a few good options. Only one of them will really allow me to spend any time with my husband before 9:30 pm, though, so I’m leaning toward that one.
I have never felt so good about myself after applying for jobs as I have over these last few weeks. Last Saturday marked the first time in my life that any potential employer has called me and said, “After looking at your resume, we think you’d be a good fit for this position.”
How do people just go around saying stuff like that? Don’t they know they just boosted my sense of self-worth by about seven notches?
Little do they know that attending specific classes at BYU doesn’t mean I learned anything from them and completing a practicum at a high school doesn’t mean I did anything particularly well.
The tricky thing is finding a job that wants me to work hours that will both work with my student teaching in the fall and allow me to see Luke sometime before it’s time for me to go to sleep again. And if a job wants me to work now, I tell them, “welllllll I work as a substitute teacher right now, which means starting work at around 3pm would be great.” Then if they look like they don’t like that, I say, “BUT it’s really flexible and I can really work as few days as I want to.”
I’m a big people pleaser.
I am thoroughly enjoying being a full-time substitute teacher since school got out. The oddest thing started to happen just the other week as I worked elementary school job after elementary school job: the students of different classes on different days came up with the same nickname for me.
Students have struggled with my last name ever since I started introducing myself as Ms. Wonnacott. Adults have too, but it’s a little more noticeable with the kids, since they are actually tied to using it. So, usually someone asks, “Can we call you Ms. W?” to which I normally reply, “sure.” Then there are the students who want to call me Ms. Wonna, Ms. Cott, Ms. Wa, really just anything to get out of saying the last name that’s the same number of syllables as the letter “w”. When I try to explain that to them, they just look impressed at my ability to count syllables so quickly (a skill they’re working really hard at in class) and don’t really seem to take in the message.
But during this one week, all three of the elementary school classes I taught decided that they wanted to call me Ms. Moana. You may notice that this name is also three syllables, and it sounds more like my actual last name that Ms. W, so I actually appreciate it. Plus, it makes me sound cooler than I am, since Moana is pretty rad. I’m not sure what was in the water that week, but I guess Moana was in the air, since no class has tried to call me that since.
It was fun while it lasted.
In other teaching related news, I did complete my practicum this semester. My mentor teacher said that her students liked me and the lessons I came up with, which I felt so touched by. And now I have no more practices standing between me and my student teaching in August…I’m frightened, but I know I’m educated and supported, so I’m sure it will be okay.
With the end of practicum, of course, came the end of the BYU semester and the overlapping deadlines of term papers and finals. Perhaps the most frustrating part of this was that finals week was so nicely aligned with Holy Week.
Just kidding, that wasn’t the most frustrating part. That was definitely my capstone paper. That little guy was just a pain that never seemed to go away. Want to hear the title? It’s Homer and Human Nature: Pope’s Judge of Eighteenth-Century Shakespearean Criticism. Don’t worry, it’s even more boring than it sounds. The topic probably could have been interesting (at least, to someone interested in eighteenth century Shakespearean criticism like my professor), but the fact that much of the research was done a few weeks before any of the paper was written, then that most of the paper written between 3 AM and 5 AM on the day before Easter (Easter — also known as the due date of the paper) led to the paper being remarkably unexceptional.
My less important but more enjoyable paper, ”Names and Nature: Identity and Repentance in Robinson’s Gilead,” feels like a much better read to me.
I’m discussing my term papers with you because I find the existence of one encouraging and the other a little nerve-racking. This was my last semester of traditional classes before my student teaching (I’ll technically have a bi-weekly student seminar on Mondays, but I think the real challenge will be the actual student teaching part), and I still write completely mediocre essays. I remember being a freshman and feeling like before I graduated I would have to feel a lot more confident about my ability to write an essay. I suppose I do feel a lot more confident, but I’ve never written anything that I would feel glad to submit to anything or anyone other than the professor demanding it from me.
I’ve never even asked Luke to read one of my essays. There are a few factors in that, one not too small being that the more I invite him into my world of English study, the more he’ll realize that most of the essays I write are basically academic-approved fan fiction head canons about the books I’ve been reading in my academic-approved book club. But he shares his little calculating-leverage spreadsheets with me, so I suppose I could make him read an essay sometime. I just need to write a good one first.
I simultaneously feel ready and not ready at all to move on to my next phase in life, because of things even more important than my ability to write a decent essay. I mean, what do I teach a class full of students on the first day of school? Even worse, what do I teach them on the second day? No clue. The people who hold some answers are currently actual teachers who are actually teaching everyday, which means that they don’t answer my very long emails. A tragedy, but understandable.
All of THAT aside, my month was great. Finals happened and they’re over now. I actually did quite well on all of them, depending on your standards. (Considering the number of times I told myself, “No one’s ever going to look at your GPA ever again. No one’s going to look at your GPA ever again. No one’s going to look at your GPA ever again…” this semester, I think I did a pretty good job.)
On the Sunday before Easter, Luke and I participated in our stake’s Easter musical devotional. The devotional was about an hour and a half of musical numbers—some by our choir, others by individuals or small groups, and all focused on Jesus Christ. There were original arrangements, new hymns, and spirituals from other faiths. Perhaps more importantly, the choir was excellent.
My stake’s music committee is comprised of a professional organist, a professional conductor, and some other random guy who sings well and sends funny and somewhat threatening emails. The three are a mix of extraordinarily competent and ridiculous, and they made every Sunday something to look forward to with the music they chose and the banter they provided.
The choir helped me realize how much I’ve missed being a part of a musical community. I really do love singing, and I miss doing it often.
Then finally Easter came, and it was the highlight of finals week. Luke and I drove down to St. George to spend the holiday with his grandparents, as well as his parents and sister who had flown in for spring break.
I loved seeing Luke’s family and having an excuse to just be with people and celebrate when I otherwise might have just let myself immerse myself in writing and studying. We went on a beautiful (and very sandy) hike, chatted, and ate lots of delicious food.
For some reason, I go into every Easter season assuming that this will be the year that no adult plans an egg hunt for me. Every Easter season, excepting the one I experienced on my mission, I have been mistaken. Last year it was the Porters who included me in the egg hunt for their adult children, and this year, the Wonnacotts. There’s something therapeutic about an egg hunt. It’s just a very simple thing, and it’s nice to have someone every once in a while remind me that there’s still someone taking care of me. Someone has to hide the eggs first, and, though I never cared much about egg hunts in my own home, it’s nice to see someone go through that effort solely to watch me have a good time.
While on the topic of holidays, the other holiday this month demonstrated a similar thing. My birthday took place during the first weekend of the month, which meant that it was also my first birthday of my marriage! It was also the most fruitful birthday I’ve had in a long time. Not only do I have twice the family I had last year, but Luke is very sweet and enjoys coordinating little egg hunts for my enjoyment as much as his parents do. He wrote last month about how he took me to the aviary in Salt Lake the weekend before my birthday, and that was something he refused to tell me about until I saw it for myself. In addition to that, for the weeks leading up to the day itself, he was sending out gift ideas to my family and to certain members of his family.
While the gifts that I got him for his birthday were strictly utilitarian and requested, he imagined and extrapolated for me, and that was the sweetest part of it.
I am such an anxious gift giver. I think this is partially due to my own dislike of clutter and stuff in my living space, and so I fear giving a friend or loved one just another thing to take up space in their life. More than that, I’m severely under-confident in my ability to know what someone already has and what they would appreciate having. Even when the person is Luke.
Perhaps I’m not being fair though. Luke spent the few months before his birthday saying, “Sophie, for my birthday or Christmas could you get me…” And I did. I am a little less explicit, and it is therefore likely a little more necessary to know me and notice things I want or need than it is for Luke.
You might be able to tell that I’m somewhat judging Luke’s birthday performance against mine and finding him the winner. He knows it, I know it. I’ll just have to try a little harder next year.
The rest of my birthday was blessed by the efforts of many. Hannah made me some delicious cupcakes, Savvy made me some yummy dinner and lent me her comfy sofa and company, and Tommy and Lola let me win a game with them and bought me a little cake to eat together. And the apostles gave some wonderful talks that spoke to my heart…when my heart was receptive.
So many little egg hunts, all for me.
Other highlights of my month included going to the Hale Theatre to watch Little Women with Hannah Malpage and Amanda (courtesy of Marianne Wonnacott in honor of my birthday); pet-sitting for Hannah Willis and Emma’s menagerie while they were in Cancun with our family; attending three bridal showers for people I love; and hosting a mini Ukraine, Dnipro mission reunion with Reagan. The turnout may appear small for a mission reunion, but it was at least twice the size of what I anticipated based on initial feedback from my very long group messages. It was a lot of fun to talk to people and have them over to my house.
Me in the menagerie.
Every so often, I think that I must have talked out everything about my mission and that there is nothing more to say. Mission reunions are a great reminder that that is not true. I was only in Ukraine for four months, but I remembered last Saturday just how much happened and how much everything that did happen meant to me. The people I loved, the fears I had, and the experiences that I believe God gave me are so precious. I’m grateful for the chance my friends gave me to reflect on them by coming and spending time with me, and I had fun planning a little egg hunt for people I care about for once.
These days, it’s a little hard to dedicate time to many things besides the most important ones. Singing, learning Spanish, brushing up on my Russian (my future coworkers may include a family of Ukrainians (I’m pretty sure it’s half the reason they want to hire me)), and learning how to be a homeowner are all things I want to spend more time on.
Oh yeah, Luke and I are in the process of buying a house in Provo (where houses are cheap, if inconveniently located). We should close in a few weeks, so I’ll write more about that next month. But our mortgage broker bought us crumbl cookies when our loan got approved, so you could say that it’s been a well-supported and exciting endeavor.
I hope that this summer break will provide me with the motivation to incorporate some of those less important but still valuable things into my routine and goals. If you have any ideas about how to make that happen, I’d love to hear them.
I hope that all of you are finding satisfaction in your lives and that someone plans an egg hunt for you sometime soon.
Love,
Sophie
Senior Contributor to The Famlet Monthly