Oh the Places You'll Go!

Clearly I am not very good at keeping up with this blogging thing, but for those who still read, thank you!  And since you have been so dedicated, you get to see some amazing things coming up!

When we are kids, we often have big dreams and visions.  We imagine going to space, starting our own business, swimming with dolphins, curing cancer, being a rodeo clown, building something from scratch, and so much more.  Somewhere along the "growing up" cycle, we lose a lot of these dreams and visions.  We forget how to imagine the seemingly impossible.  So many fantastic ideas perish at the hand of adulthood, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Obviously one of my biggest projects is starting my own school.  I envision a small school that serves the needs of all its students.  Curriculum slows down or speeds up according to the student's skills and development.  Concepts are taught in a variety of ways to make the information accessible to all.  Life skills are incorporated throughout the skill career so that students learn to teach themselves and develop the skills needed to work through life after the "teacher" is gone.  All of this is wrapped up with real-world incorporation from business professionals who partner with the school to provide knowledge, experience, internships, observations, scenarios, and vision for the future.  Some of the largest strides in society have come from our youngest people.  The goal is to have my school open and accepting students by the summer, and already the interest is high!

As if creating this utopia of a school isn't enough, we have also been fumbling our way through the adoption process.  False starts and changes in course have altered our plans many times, but it feels like we are finally on the right track now.  It has been emotionally and financially taxing, but the experience is and will be worth it.  As we continue with the adoption process though, we have also found another option.  Our insurance covers infertility!  We will be beginning our conception journey at the same time as our adoption journey.  All of this comes together right after my sinus surgery in mid-April.

I know.  It sounds like a lot to accomplish in just a few months.  It also sounds like I am going to overwhelm myself when it is all written out, but here is the amazing part:  For the first time in my life, I feel like everything is exactly how it needs to be for success and I feel very little stress over the whole process.  I have faith in myself and in my spirituality.  I know that faith will carry me through to fulfillment of my dreams.  I know it may not be pretty, but everything will get done exactly as it needs to.  I can see it all so clearly that it already exists.  These dreams, goals, visions, or whatever you want to call them, they are me.  It feels like I found a huge piece of me that I didn't even know was lost.  I feel these are my missing puzzle pieces that I have found.

Now watch  me as I finish the picture...

Straight to the Point or Clarity?

As I am responding to emails, chatting with friends, and perusing through Facebook, a thought crosses my mind that *insertname* types way to much.  Just get to the point.  I don't need all the details.  Then, just a couple minutes later, I stop myself as I am typing a response to someone.  I begin to question myself: Do I type too much?  Should I be more straight to the point?  But I feel this information is important to understand what I am saying.  But what if it isn't?  What if my reader sits on the other side of this screening thinking, "Get to the point!"?

Perhaps, when we are beating around the bush, we are simply trying to buy ourselves time.  We could be buying time for any number of reasons, but either way, we are trying to put off the inevitable.  Staying in that sense of limbo, never having to learn what the response will be to your statement or question. Right now, I sit in that very spot.  I have news that I want to share, but I fear the response.  I obviously fear the response of negativity, but I also fear the positive.  If I am supported, it would be even more humiliating if this project did not go as planned, I stumbled or failed.

For better or worse, I can be extremely sensitive and take comments to heart that shouldn't matter in the scheme of things.  There are soooooooo many things that could go wrong and I have never tried something like this before.  As the people of Oz would say, this is "a horse of a different color."  Quite frankly, I am elated and absolutely terrified at the same time. It has me wanting to bolt forward with confidence and excitement, while also wanting to say "Oh, HELL no!" and running away.  Do I take the risk?  Do I share this new, little seedling with the world, or do I let it grow a bit before bringing it out into the elements?  There is no obvious answer.

So now, I have decided to have confidence in myself.  I will make this work.  If I don't have faith in myself, how can others have faith in me?  Have confidence in my product?  So now I will get to the point.

I am a teacher and a damn fine one. I have found so much joy in my work that I have decided to take this to the next level.  I am creating my own school and tutoring center.  I'm building a freakin' business y'all!!!!!

I Love My Job!!!

Do you love your job?  If you don't, you should find what you love and turn it into a career.  My husband does what he loves - designing games.  I finally get to do what I love - teaching.  Why do I love teaching though?  Because I understand what it is like to learn in a different way than what mainstream school usually uses.  I understand what it is like to try and find different ways of understanding when the spoken word just doesn't work for you.  I understand how some topics just seem so overwhelming, you can't move forward.  This is what I work around every day when I substitute, tutor, or teach a friend something new.  And I absolutely love it!

I love it because I helped keep someone from giving up.  I helped build someone's confidence to try something they didn't think they could do.  I helped make our future inventors and philosophers be a little more creative, think a little differently, and understand the seemingly convoluted concepts a little bit more.  But most of all, I love it for the look on a child's face when everything suddenly makes sense - that lightbulb moment.  I love the excitement in the student's face when they discovered how awesome reading really can be.  I love the feeling of accomplishment when just one or two slight misconceptions are corrected and everything else falls into place.  I love moments like last night and this morning, when I help someone figure an assignment out just by explaining it in different terms...

Original comment and assignment:  I cannot write compare and contrast essays for the life of me oh my ...... I am having the hardest time. So here is what we did. We wrote sentences and my teacher split us into groups based on the same sentences and we had to read ours aloud to our group. So i have to compare theres to mine lol.   How do i introduce 3 different topics and say "im gonna compare and contrast these k".   im gonna be up all night.

My abridge response:  slow down. you will have 3 paragraphs. one for each opposing paper. so you are only comparing your paper to one at a time in structure.  paper 1: this paper was similar to mine because _____; it was different from mine because _____.  paper 2: this paper was similar to mine because _____; it was different from mine because _____.  paper 3: this paper was similar to mine because _____; it was different from mine because _____.  Add examples for each.

Resulting comment: I THINK ID DIE WITHOUT YOU

This morning's text exchange:

Student:  Guess who gets to help  me write another paper?!
Me:  No problem!  Email me the assignment and we will explore what it wants tonight.
Student:  You are a life saver!
Me:  Nope, just a teacher.
Student:  The best f*cking teacher
Me:  LOL.  Thanks.  :)

Talk about a great start to my day!