A day in the life...

So I thought that I should share a day in the life of a US teacher before I move overseas. Here's how my day went...

5:15 Alarm (noooooo)
6:00 Start my car, brush the new snow off, leave for work
6:15 At work, check email, solidify plans for the day
7:04 Period 1 Biology 10th grade
7:49 Class done, hall duty, eat breakfast, talk to Rebecca
8:10 Plan for 7th grade class
9:05 Period 3 7th grade science
9:51 hall duty, check email, pee, eat a snack, visit art teacher, ask custodian to check the 60 degree temp of my room
10:45 Period 5 7th grade science
11:31 hall duty, Lunch, chill with students
11:55 Period 6 7th grade science
12:45 hall duty, check email, pee again
1:13 Period 8 Biology 10th grade
2:00 hall duty, chill with students, wait for end of day bell
2:25 meet with students for after school help
3:00 check in with Muller about 7th grade plans
3:10 Leave school
3:25 go to gym
4:50 Home to my quiet house with no kids, eat dinner
5:00 Lay on the couch
6:00 Get up off the couch and check email/blog
6:30 plan for tomorrow's lesson
8:00 TV
9:00 read and head to bed
9:20 fast asleep

Bean Town

So what's up with Boston Baked Beans? Candy covered peanuts, what? Donde esta frijoles? And who thought, hey we should have a national conference in Boston in MARCH??? Yeah, how about Miami, Las Vegas, San Diego... Despite the frigid temps I really liked Boston. I miss water! Moisture, skin plumping, booger loosening humidity. We were able to go on a harbor (haba) ride and the Freedom Walk is a must do. Skip the Museum of Science it hasn't changed one bit in 25 years. Living in Denver we forget that people existed before 1900. Bunker Hill was awesome, mainly because we got hooked up with a NPS (National Parks Service) employee who gave us a personal tour. Remember don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes...
I got to hang out with a college friend and we decided that we are too young to be old... it was awesome to see her and her family, thanks for dinner Kath and Real!

NSTA Boston 2008

The reason for the Boston trip was the national convention for NSTA (National Science Teachers Association). NSTA has 55,000 members and 11,000 of them were present in Boston! Yes a slew of science teachers. Geeks galore. This is my first national convention and to top it off my school colleague and I presented a session at the conference. Our talk covered how our science department uses data gathered through our assessments to make decisions about our instruction. A BIG topic in education and a lot of people talk about it, but rarely do you see examples. So Rebecca and I presented a power point on the topic. We work so well together so it went smoothly and as far as we can tell people really enjoyed the presentation.

Spring Break 2008

I'm headed to the National Science Teachers Association National Conference in Boston! A colleague and I are presenting at the conference so after writing a small grant we got money for the flight and hotel! I'll be sure to keep ya'll updated with pictures from Boston. I haven't been there since I was a kid. In fact I know I was in elementary school and my parents took me to the Science Museum and the Aquarium. As I remember the aquarium was huge and there was a ramp that went around the huge tank until you got to the top and could look down into the open tank. I was and still am absolutely terrified of sharks. Totally unfounded because I've never actually had any contact with a shark. I blame my parents for letting me see Jaws when I was a kid. It is one of those fears that even when I'm in a pool I kind of freak out in the deep end with my legs dangling, eeeeeek. Where do those stupid fears come from? I grew up by the beach and as a kid loved messing around in the water, but now, nope, no thanks, I'll wait here while you go swimming. Now I know you're thinking that sharks aren't interested in eating people, but EVERY summer someone gets attacked on the east coast... it will not be me.

Be Grateful

Since June of 2006 I have been keeping a journal of things I am grateful for each day. Again, I know how cheesy this sounds, but I am still amazed at how at the end of the day I can look back through all the crap of the day and find things to be grateful for. Today, on this day that most of you are celebrating, I challenge you to take the time to write down five things you are grateful for. Here are mine...
I am grateful for:
1. Winnie
2. My open, honest relationship with my family
3. Starting a good book to get "lost" in
4. Relaxing time while I wait for the sun to warm the temps and melt the snow (yes, it snowed last night)
5. A whole day off of both jobs

Happy Spring!

You are probably celebrating this first day of spring with a huge sigh that the winter blues are finally over. Well... I'm still in Colorado, so the beginning of spring is just a sign for a soon to come wet, winter storm. Despite the threat of snow, I love spring. Longer, sunny days, ahhh. Oh and of course, spring break :)

I will...

Are you having trouble figuring out what you really want? I understand. After thinking a lot about the power of positive thoughts I sat down to read my new "body + soul" magazine and there it was... an article on making a life list. Hmmm, coincidence? If you are up to it check out their life list checklist. I know, it feels scary having so much power and you are so comfortable with your negative thoughts, but really, dude? What do you need to get started? We are all in this together. If you feel comfortable try posting a comment with one of your dreams. I'll start:
I will write a children's book.

Create Your Own Luck!

Life doesn't just happen. I believe that we co-create our reality. That being said, then what you think becomes what you believe which creates your reality. Your homework assignment is to think about what you want. OK, so you want to be happy, but what does that mean to you? What would make you happy? Be specific. If you could have a dream come true what would it be? To win the lottery, ok, so what would you do if you won the lottery that you can't do now? Make that happen. Wish for that instead of the lottery. Then, every day think of that thought, and keep thinking until it becomes part of your reality. Yes, it will feel super cheesy at first and you won't like the process, but keep going. If it helps take a picture and post it somewhere you will see every day.
My students deal with issues you and I can't even imagine. Homelessness, abuse, abandonment, drug/alcohol abuse, poverty, the list goes on and on. How do you rise above? How do you make your dreams come true when negativity surrounds you? You believe it. Here are three amazing young people that will make it. They will overcome the cheesy-ness of looking at their picture every day and it will become their life line.
"Be the change you want to see in the world"
--Gandhi

O Daddy

I have an insane fear of spiders. I have no idea why they creep me out so much. The multiple legs, weird eyes, venomous bites... no matter, living in Colorado has allowed me to avoid my fear, but my future home in Myanmar may bring not just spiders, but crazy, creepy, crawly, macro-arachnids... So I've decided to embrace my fear and share one of my favorite poems. I cannot tell you how many times I've read this poem to kids. In honor of spiders everywhere I dedicate this post to you.

The Daddy Longlegs by Douglas Florian

O Daddy
Daddy O
How'd you get
Those legs to grow
So very long
And lean in size?
From spiderobic
Exercise?
Did you drink milk?
Or chew on cheese?
And by the way,
Where are your knees?
O Daddy
Daddy O
How'd you get
Those legs to grow?

I am grateful for Winnie

I am grateful that I have a portrait of Winnie. By chance I happened to see a business card of a local artist that does portraits of animals. I checked out her website and my mom paid for a portrait of Winnie. The artist came to my house and took a ton of pictures of Winnie, talked to me and here is what she came up with. She also makes cards... It's amazing what things speak to me... www.lulubellaart.com
Hmmm do you think it's time for a big girl relationship?

I have the BEST job!

There are days I come home and the flat spot on my head (because I'm been banging it against the wall all day) is throbbing, but I would never, ever give up my career in teaching. I love being a teacher. My 8th graders are tough. They are loud, squirrely, and will do anything to get me off task... well, most of them I taught for 7th grade last year, so we despite their annoying behavior they are amazing people that I've bonded with for almost 2 years! So there is this one girl... oui vey. LOUD and squirrely squared. Well, this week was CSAP week (our state tests here) and needless to say our students have struggled with showing how much they know. At one point we were the lowest performing middle school in the entire state! OK, so this one student (the loud one) came running up to me in the hall this week and literally jumped on me and was shouting (in her normal tone) "THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! MISS THAT SCIENCE TEST WAS SO EASY! THANK YOU FOR TEACHING ME SCIENCE!!!" Ok, so I don't need to tell you how amazing that was. I love my job...

New Eyes

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

Marcel Proust

A few summers back I went to Costa Rica to see toucans, turtles, poisonous frogs, venomous snakes, monkeys and the VOLCANO! What I didn't expect to find were amazing, compassionate, loving people. I left home equipped with my checklist and ended up abandoning it after the first night. My three weeks in Costa Rica were filled with engaging spanglish conversation with the Tico's. I returned home from that trip with new eyes.

The Last "Word"...

So I was thinking of some of my favorite things I've seen in my life and this is at the top! A few years back I went to Italy and being a museum geek, I couldn't get enough. Rome was incredible and the Vatican City was so much more than I expected. I ventured on to Florence and well, off the beaten path I found this relic. Here's an excerpt from Rick Steve's book on Florence:

Galileo is, perhaps, best known as a martyr for science. He popularized the belief (conceived by the Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, in the early 1500s) that the Earth orbits around the sun. At the time, the Catholic Church preached an Earth-centered universe, and, at the age of 70, Galileo was hauled before the Inquisition in Rome and forced to kneel and publicly proclaim that the Earth did not move around the sun. As he walked away, legend has it, he whispered to his followers, “But it does move!”
His students preserved this finger bone, displayed on a marble pedestal, as a kind of sacred relic in this shrine to science. Galileo’s beliefs eventually triumphed over the Inquisition, and, appropriately, we have his middle finger raised upward for all those blind to science.

Color or no color?

Somewhere along the way I've adopted a love for tattoos... my first tiny tattoo was, of course, of an Apatosaurus (my favorite dinosaur) and at the time my parents were, well, parents. So if your name is Jane or Larry please log off your computer and go for a walk... For the rest of you I am trying to decide on color or no color for my most recent addition (a little bigger than the tiny dino). So here's the picture so far... No color would include gray shading and color would be well, colored. What do you think?

Out of the fog

There are your fog people & your sun people, he said.
I said I wasn't sure which kind I was. He nodded. Fog'll do that to you, he said.

--Brian Andreas

Springtime in Myanmar

On my computer I have the dashboard icons that allow me to see the weather... I chose to view not only my weather here in Denver, but the weather in Yangon, Myanmar... Well it seems spring has arrived and the temps for the week are as follows: Monday: 99, Tuesday: 102, Wednesday: 103, Thursday: 104, Friday: 103, and the big cool off for Saturday: 101... Most of you know how much I hate the cold, but am I going to melt? Yangon is about 15 degrees North of the Equator, much better than the 40 degrees latitude I live at now. I know one thing for sure... NO MORE SNOW!!! Those of you that are thinking, yeah, but snow is so pretty have never lived in Denver. Ok, so the initial snow fall is pretty, but then guess what, you have to drive in it and the city is terrible at doing anything with the roads so tropics here I come.
One of my favorite poets is Brian Andreas of Storypeople (www.storypeople.com). He does an amazing job writing poetry that you can connect with. Here is one I love:

Winter doesn't seem to have a problem with me, she said, so I think it's right that I should be the one to leave. I think it'll make it easier on everyone.

A 5-legged Zebra?

The safari was amazing... animals you've looked at in books and zoos all your life are standing right there! Oh, my it's a lion, did you see those hippos? Elephants to your left, elephants to your right. Herds and herds and herds of zebras. It is so easy to see that the stripes really do confuse predators. Where does the first zebra start, where does the second zebra end? Which zebra should I chase? Our safari lasted three amazing days, and just in typical human fashion by day three it was, oooh there's another zebra, I don't need to get up for that anymore. It was so strange how fast we become acclimated to our surroundings. It was like I had lived there all my life, looking out into familiar scenery. Weird.

My vet rocks

Yesterday I came home to a card from my vet... In the card every staff member of the office wrote a note in sympathy to my loss of Winnie. The flood gates opened and tears that I didn't think I had left surfaced. I am so grateful that I was able to share so much time with my doggie. Did I tell you that she was found with 56 other dogs at one person's residence? Yeah, disgusting. They picked all the dogs up and brought them to the Dumb Friends League. When I went searching for a dog I knew that I wanted a dog, not a german shepard, golden retriever, just a dog. Well Winnie is just that, dog. In fact she inherited the name JYD because she looked like a Junk Yard Dog.
Not only did my vet send me a card, but they made a donation in Winnie's name to the Morris Animal Foundation. How awesome is that? We focus so much on the yucky-ness in people that we forget that most people are good. My vet's office is filled with good people sharing their energy and time helping people care for their pets.

Uhuru Peak

So the wake up call is 11pm... we headed to bed around 6pm. Sure like I'm going to sleep at 6pm... first of all it was still light out, second I was petrified that because of the high altitude my body would "forget" to breathe (you really don't need to tell me how dumb this is). I'm staring at my tent ceiling lying with Nikki and Janet wrapped double up in two sleeping bags, winter hat on. Those next few hours were excruciating as my mind cycled through the events about to happen. A cycle that I in no way could predict.
Ok so 11pm arrives, the porters are coming around to make sure we are all awake, it is pitch dark and COLD. I know, you are thinking, it's Africa. Well, yes, it's Africa at 15,000 feet. So we get up, my nerves like the strings of a piano during a concert. I can do this only if I don't think about it too much. We (21 of us) line up single file after a quick "tea and cookies" and start up the mountain. Oh, so I might have forgotten to mention that as I was gearing up to leave I decided to save money by not buying hiking poles. I'll be fine. I hiked a couple 14ers and poles are kind of a pain except for the really steep parts and even then it's a personal feeling. So I didn't bring poles.
We are heading up the final summit day and I look around to see that everyone, and when I say everyone, I mean even my African guides, have poles. Uh oh. Whatever, I'll be ok. Single file, pitch dark, freezing cold. Pole Pole in Swahili means, slowly, slowly and god knows we were going slow. So slow my blood was freezing in my fingertips and toes. Well we can't move faster because we need to give our body time to acclimate to the altitude as we head up to 19,000 feet. At our 4th stop the group began to split. A group moving ahead and a group slowing up. Why am I doing this? What do I have to prove and to who? After all this is the Summer of Lisa, so if I want to slow down, I'll slow down. I spoke to my guide, Photo, and he told me to shut my mouth and get back in line. At over 16,000 feet your arguing skills are kind of limited so I did what he said. Got back in line and put one foot in front of the other and slithered up to the top of Kilimanjaro! Twelve of us made it to the "roof of Africa", a moment I will never forget. This wasn't about who hiked the most in preparation for the trip, this really was an exercise of the mind.

Hypnotherapy

So many of you know that around this time 2 years ago I hit rock bottom. And I don't mean the kind that "oh look there's Lisa stuck under that little 'ole rock over there..." No, I mean the kind where a meteor traveling 100,000 miles per hour hits you and plummets you deep within the earth's crust (more on that later). So my family (thank god for them!) bugged me about getting "help". I used my work insurance and of course Kaiser's solution was to take a bunch of pills and well, that just didn't seem right for me... so funny story, I fly home for spring break 2 years ago and on a family walk (my mom and dad walk every night, cute I know) my dad says to me "so are you supposed to be on medicine or what?" So I made a pact with them that when I returned home I would go to an herbalist and see where that takes me. My first discovery, which was no surprise, was that I was addicted to sugar. So during our meeting (in which she asked me more questions about myself than any other doctors collectively have asked me in my entire life) the herbalist mentioned Rocky Mountain Hypnotherapy and she gave me a business card and told me how successful hypnotherapy has been for people she has recommended.
Two months later I was able to call and make an appointment for my first hypnotherapy session. During that session he helped guide me into a meditative state to give me an idea of how to access my sub-conscience mind. He also told me that many of his clients usually go for four sessions and there was a discount if I paid for four... well that was almost two years ago and miles from my meteor impact. I joke with my therapist that we need to go on Oprah because he has truly saved my life and not just in the physical sense, but by guiding me to reconnect with the world and to learn to enjoy every moment and to be happy to be alive. I am so grateful for spending the past 2 years learning how to be alive and now I get to head to Burma to meditate in Buddhist temples!

In Memory of Winnie

My very first blog post is dedicated to my doggie soul mate. I spent the past 10 1/2 years with this angel doggie until February 26, 2008 when her cancer won and she passed away. I am currently sitting happily in denial as I figure out how to spend my time without Winnie. The biggest adjustment has been the noises in my house. In the past 10 years I've lived without another human being, but never without Winnie. I didn't expect to miss her noises. I didn't even realize some of the noises she made until they were gone. I've been waking up in the middle of the night because of the lack of her little nails click clacking on the hard wood floor (something that I didn't notice at the time) I miss her terribly and not a moment goes by when I don't think of her. Anyone who knows me knows that she was my angel sent from heaven to live with me here on earth. As you'll find out later I've spent the past 2 years working on ME and have just completed the summer and fall of LISA, so although I feel an empty spot in my heart right now I know that I'll be ok. As my dad emailed me, now my spirit guide has a doggie!