Priorities...

I usually dislike the forwards...but this is a pretty good one:

Mayonnaise Jar & Two Beers...

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.

When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.


They agreed that it was...

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly.


The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.


He then asked the students again if the jar was full.


They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.


Of course, the sand filled up everything else.


He asked once more if the jar was full.


The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two Beers=2 from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.


The students laughed..

'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.


The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else---the small stuff.


'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.


The same goes for life.


If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for= the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.


Spend time with your children.


Spend time with your parents.


Visit with grandparents.


Take time to get medical checkups.


Take your spouse out to dinner.


Play another 18 holes.


There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.


Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter.


Set your priorities.


The rest is just sand.


One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented.


The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked.'

The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

A simple math equation...

bathing suit shopping + graduate school = Special K diet begins on Monday.

I have recruited a teammate and our theory is that if we being our diet with the special K diet any diet we go on after those two weeks will seem abundant with choices. I'll keep you updated :0)

Mmmm...weekends

Woohoo! I love Friday nights because there is so much promise for rest, freedom, and randomness. The week is so busy...and it has been such a rigid schedule for the last year. Weekends are the saving grace that breaks the monotony.

This week was interesting. Student teaching has gotten to be a bit of a chore. Knowing that all of the other student-teachers are done for the year, but that we have six weeks to continue...ugh. Also, it was prom week so the kids were a bit wild and loved to include statements such as "Are you really going to make us work today?" Yes, I am.

They also had some amazing comments this week...the swine flu scare, impending pig dissection project, and the human body lessons have given them ample material.

A few highlights:

1. Doesn't ham come from hams?
2. Wait...girls have two holes?
3. What is a sphincter?
4. Cheese grows on trees.
5. Kidney stones can't hurt girls as much. They have babies.
6. Food must travel through the liver.
7. I'm not dissecting a pig. I can't get swine flu.
8. Large football player "you have to dissect it...I'll puke". Tiny blond girl "wuss."
9. You can get AIDS from lice
10. If you mix two different blood types together wouldn't the HIV cancel out?

Yea...a bit frightening. Now off to enjoy the weekend so I'm ready for another week of destroying crazy urban legends!


9.

Just jump...

I haven't reviewed my former posts so I'm not sure if I have outed myself yet as a Christian. This entry will do that.

There was a sermon a while back at my church relating to listening to what God is calling you to do and having the gusto to go and do it. There were plenty of examples listed and they were quite various...such as the courage to forgive the man in traffic who just tried to end your life with his merging or packing up and moving to a foreign country to serve the poor. Needless to say...it was quite a spread.

I hate sermon's like that. It's because as soon as they start you know something is going to land in your lap that you have to address and more often then not its going to be a challenge. Either something hard to do or just something you plain don't want to do. I'm sure there are a million examples in my life in which it is easy...but I have selective memory and only recall the things that sucked.

For me that was deciding where I was going to be next year. Now I have been aware of this decision since last June. I've had a year to think about it. Have I? Heck yes...every freaking day. This hasn't been an issue of procrastination. This has been an issue of issues.

I have some really big dreams...only I can't rank them...I want all of them. I am going to be a teacher then I will be a principal. Ideally, I'll end up superintendent of a school district, but that rolls onto the other stuff. That comes after I'm married and my 3 kids are securely placed in college and my puppy has become old and lazy.

An old nurse's advice to me was "think of where you want to be in 20, 15, 10 and 5 years and then make your current decisions according to how you're going to get there. However, when you are 22 how do you head towards married with kids and career at the same time? I don't know...you can't know that. Where do I jump then?

So I did that crazy thing that most Christians do and asked God to show me where to go. If you've done that before you probably know that old saying "be careful what you ask for". Understatement.

I got a job in Maryland...exactly where I wanted to be...at the second table I visited at the job fair. Then...I found out it was 10 minutes from where my friend is moving too. Then they were going to pay for me to relocate and give me a computer. Teachers don't get that stuff.

I'm kind of waiting for the blinking road sign to show up on my doorstep at this point.

So now dear readers you are all wondering why this could even be a hard decision to make. Remember the old nurse and the think about your life later thing? Yea...problem.

My ten years involves married, maybe the first kid, dog, and job. In Michigan, with a cute house and big kitchen because I'm obsessed with having people over for any conceivable event I can think of. Not to mention my entire family and the lovely cottage up north that plays host to a good portion of my favorite memories.

That my friend...makes it hard to jump. Because at 22 its all about me and adventures. At 30 I won't feel that way.

Now you can understand the "this was an issue of issues" thing. I struggle with the idea that God wants to take care of me. I know that He has a specific role for me in His kingdom, but I have this view that I am meant to be His worker and that the role I have probably won't include me getting the things I want. Namely, I have never really thought I'd get the whole marriage, family, and dog thing described above.

So...as I make/made this decision the thought process was "here is this great job because I have given you this passion to serve in disadvantage schools, but I need you to lay down your whole marriage/family/dog dream on the altar" So if you are familiar with the Abraham & Isaac story that reference makes sense...if not...go read it...here. Now...if I didn't have issues with thinking God wanted to take care of me...this wouldn't be such a big deal. I may even think God would give me the Abraham route and not take what I put on the alter.

However, such is life and I can't seem to wrap my head around the idea that God is the one who gave me these desires in the first place and that He loves me. That combination should lead one to trust that God knows what I need and that if I followed Him everything would be fine. As if that was an easy thing to do...

So this is the game plan. I'm going to take the job. I'm going to jump. It's terrifying. I made this decision last night. I woke up every hour last night. Ugh.

Here's the thing though. This verse is more true right now then at any other time. Which is pretty sweet. So here I am...about to graduate and I have a job lined up...a sweet job. I should feel secure and accomplished. Instead I feel humbled and so utterly reliant on God taking care of me that the loss of control is completely overwhelming. It's the most beautiful awful thing ever.

werd.

It's going to be an interesting landing...

Born into Brothels

Wow.

I just got done watching this documentary: http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/bornintobrothels/

I'm speechless, maybe dumbstruck, or maybe I'm awestruck.

I'm speechless at the conditions these children exist in. The physical conditions, what they must have been seeing from their earliest ages in those brothels, how they see their mothers being treated, or their fathers acting. To see ten-year olds recount their parents deplorable behavior and end their sentence with...but I know I must love them anyways. To see their hearts on full display is beautiful and heartbreaking in the same instance.

Dumbstruck is my view of the woman in the film. She is devoting herself entirely to these children without any guarantee of success. I can't help but wonder how she got to this point, what motivates her, and what provides her this endurance.

Combine the two together and I'm awestruck. I know that I should never underestiate the resiliance of the human spirit, but these children have odds so frightening I can't believe they can continue to get up each day let alone have the advernturaous bold spirits that they do. At one point in the film they must all be tested for HIV and the feeling of fear that the woman possess for them brings the viewer starkingly close to the reality of these children's existence. They live in a brothel...they've always lived in a brothel...sometimes for generations of their family.

There is something about being ripped from your reality into the reality of our world that is hard to describe. I say ripped because I've been so caught in my own life that I have developed a warped reality. I've been consumed by the anxiety and stress of finding a job and graduating from college. I've failed to see the amazing opportunities that await me and the blessing that education has been. At one point in the film one of the children's mothers is burnt to death by her pimp. The son later states "there is no hope in my future". I don't know which is more frightening...the fact that he actually knows what that statement means or that he feels that way at such a young age.

This was an unbelievably powerful film and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested. I really can't describe it right now.

Whew...

It's mid-winter break where I student teach. My only response is thank goodness. I was dying...seriously.

Alright, so I had settled into a cry every other Friday schedule which I was not ok with. The first time it happened was after I had discovered all of these terrible things about my student's home lives. It literally broke my heart. When I was grading their papers that night at my apartment I came across one of them who has it particularly awful. This student had wrote about how I was awesome on the bottom of their paper...and I just started crying.

I think the frustration I was feeling was from my inability to do anything. I feel overwhelmed with the amount of time, effort, and energy it is taking to plan lessons, teach them, and keep up with the record keeping. Also, the amount of work I have for my grad classes is piled in there too and keeps growing as the professors find new ways to "help" us learn. Really, that just means more meaningless, monotonous, yet time consuming papers to write or videos to edit/upload. So...once you pile this workload together with my lack of sleep and the fact that my heart is more excited to care for and teach my students then do this stupid work...I'm in tears.

I'm going to be a teacher because education is the great equalizer of our world. In America, if you are smart enough and work hard enough you will achieve success regardless of where you come from. However, someone has to help you and give you the chance to catch up. Also, students spend soooo much time at school. That is an amazing window of opportunity for a teacher to show kids who have been rejected and hurt by their lives that they are loved and worthy of being cared for. That being said the fact that my time is consumed by pointless grad work and sitting through ridiculous classes on education theory frustrates me to no end.

The kind of "i'm cussing on my way out the door so annoyed I don't want to talk to anyone" kind of frustration.

So yea...when I feel like I'm not doing enough and my kids average an F on their next test...that leads to the second time I start crying. I had felt as though I hadn't put enough effort in or done enough and then they failed...it felt entirely on my shoulders. When you feel that...but also feel that you are already maxed out on time and effort...you feel a bit desperate. At least I did. Thank goodness that didn't come till this week.

I've had a four day weekend to recover and an amazing weekend it was. I prefer to tell people who have made it amazing to their faces...so I'll skip doing that here. However, a church retreat in Ohio was exact that...a retreat. I forgot my computer at school (not on purpose, but glad about it nonetheless) and I was in the middle of nowwhere Ohio. The stress and busyness of Ann Arbor was long gone and I got to slow down and re-prioritize my life. I retreated, I ran away, but to the best place ever...the woods and God. If you know me at all you know that if you can't find me or things need to be figured out I'm going to be at a beach watching waves or sitting in the woods...ask my friends...I do it everytime. My Dad has actually told me to go sit at the beach when I've needed to recover from some of the knocks life has thrown me.

So now I'm ready to go at it again. I have half of February and all of March before the next break. It's going to be a long haul, but I hope to remember that its not how much I'm doing but that I'm trying to do something at all. It'll be good...it may feel like failure...but its gonna be good.

Interesting...

With the election of Barack Obama to the Whitehouse many in the education world have lept with curiosity into where the first girls will attend school once they move to DC. The most recent article sprouts up after Michelle Obama toured private schools in the area, but has yet to appear interested in any D.C. public schools. Without question there is a lot of debate about Chancellor Rhee and her strategies. One article today in the Washington Post caught my attention. D.C. School Reform: The Backlash.

The quote that caught my attention states: "But new questions are being asked about whether Rhee's reforms--closing underpopulated schools, fixing up decrepit buildings, sweeping out underperforming principals, and hiring legions of energetic, if inexperienced young teachers--are really making a difference in the classroom."

Seriously?

You're right--closing underpopulated schools could be a risk. The district may stop wasting money on old buildings that are not being used and the could provide more money for things like textbooks and technology advances. What was Rhee thinking?

Fixing decrepit buildings?! The children of DC are expected to behave and pay attention in class. They don't need buildings that have adequate heat, ventilation, or ceilings. I mean...you are most likely are paid to work everyday and you would never expect those things...would you?

Why would she ever consider getting rid of underperforming principals? I mean everyone knows that the success of a school is irrelevant to the leadership there, right?

I guess I just find it interesting that that public demands that schools provide a place for students to be safe, warm, taught social skills, develop as future citizens, and learn a wealth of knowledge, oh...and pass assessment tests. However, when someone tries to provide these things she is attacked for being a "bull in a China closet". Why should this process be slow and gentle? Don't the kids who are in school right now need these reforms? I don't see how any children are at risk or "experimented" on by being place in more adequate buildings and given certified teachers.

Thoughts?