Realizations and Resolutions

I can't believe it! I've been blogging since 2004? Granted, some of those times have been on life support and others on adrenaline as far as posting frequency goes. But the blog still evolves and serves as a record of my travels, thoughts, fears, and dreams.

For the record, this is what I resolve to do in 2009:

-Learn to play the guitar well enough to lead songs and teach others
-Maintain appointments that I make
-Collect, then read, all Newbery Award books from 1922-2009

Those seem like smart enough goals to me. Let's see by December how I've done with them!

Oh Where Oh Where Have I Gone?

I have almost been gone from the blog for a month. That's indicative of my work schedule and weekend obligations which have kept me from the blog. To justice to an entry, I feel like I need to upload pictures, set up hyperlinks, and have someplace interesting to write about.

Since my trip to Seattle, I've gone to LA for my brother's birthday. That's about it. The soccer season ended at the middle school, so now I have 90 minutes back to my planning time after school. I still end up leaving school around 7 pm each night. I am slowly getting out of the habit of just preparing enough for the next day and onto week-at-a-time planning.

And it seems like I can't write anything without talking about school. I've made an effort to keep up a weekly posting at my teaching blog. That was mostly for the sake of my proposal to present at the TESOL conference in NYC. But, alas, our proposal wasn't accepted. A little bit of a let down, but there still is hope. An identical proposal was submitted to the UK's TEFL organization and accepted.

Life's duties and chores haven't been put into little boxes lately, either. My living arrangements still feel temporary. The apartment's furnishings bare. Somehow, my lack of roots has translated into a scant blog for the past month. Given some grounding, I'll be back to blogging on a regular basis. Until then, brief notes will have to do.

Greek EFL Teacher beaten by police

Another blogger that I link to, Teacher Dude BBQ in Greece, just published some pictures of the election campaigns there. He moonlights as a photographer, too. Got quite a talent, so its hard to pin him down as one or the other. Allegedly, he was bruised and scraped by riot police while taking some of his pictures. Please visit him to show your ESL/free press/photography solidarity.

His post about the blog response to his published evidence of the beatings have brought a lot of people to his site and an interview with local media. I think it goes to show that our published entries can go anywhere once we hit the "publish" button!

Meet some of my friends

I haven't posted for a while because I've taken a few trips (Bay Area, Monterey, Santa Cruz) that have pictures waiting to post, but they all require stories that I have to sit down for a while to tell. With my new teaching job, those moments are preciously few. So I'm spending my Friday evening to sit down and tell you about some of my blog friends. This is a "shout out" and "big up" to all those people's blogs that I like to read and an attempt to share them with you, too.

This first one is Geoffrey Philp. We met in cyberspace while I was blogging in Japan. I'd subscribed to a feed of caribbean blogs to keep up with news on the ground over there. Geoffrey had recently written about a soccer match he'd played with Bob Marley. I wrote a post about it, he found it, and we began a dialogue which has continued on and off to this day. Geoffrey is an author who lives, writes, and teaches in Miami, Florida.

Pickeled Eel is another interesting story. I don't know how I found his blog, but he writes about his travels, like me, but on a bigger scale of audiences. I was surprised to find out that he's currently on location in Iraq now. Check out his blog for some interesting footage and narration.

Red Squirrel is a linguistics student at Moscow State University. I think we met through the mybloglog feature that puts the pictures of registered users in a panel when they've visited my blog. Its a great way to make blogging correspondences a little more personal. Maria writes about her studies, interactions with Russian language, culture, and people. All of these things I miss since I studied at St. Petersburg State University ten years ago.

A recent blog friend I've made is Ulla. We actually met face to face via my friends Travis and Joy Long, who also happen to run their own blog about home improvement after 9-5 jobs in Pacific Grove. It was actually the first live conversation I'd had in a room where everyone else kept a blog. We got to talk shop for a few minutes, and its from Ulla that I got the idea to link to more blogs and make more comments on others blogs. An interesint thing about Ulla is that she's an Icelandic-American who runs a design company with her sister and blogs about cooking.

Hippie Gypsy runs an interesting blog musing about whatever comes to mind. She always has something kind to say.

And one last blog that I enjoy peeking in on from time to time is "Back to Living in Paradise". Lee is an expat American living in Belize. She's just dodged her second hurricane in as many week. She's got a great sense of humor and writes about the Caribbean life that I miss from my years in Jamaica.

Looks and Maps

Enjoy the new look on my blog. All of the previous elements are still here, but with better formatting and looks.

Also, the world map project that I completed as a Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica has been featured on a website. Please check it out when you get a chance. A permanent link to it is in the "links" section on the sidebar. --->

Celebrating 100 Posts!

For some bloggers, 100 posts happens in about 3 weeks of 5 posts a day. For me - thoughtful, reflective, and innovating new features on my blog from cool ideas seen on other blogs - it takes about two years. Do you remember my first post? It seems like such a short time, but the way technologies are accelerating these days on the Internet, 2 years can be the life and demise of many dot coms.

My 100th post comes at a difficult time in my life. I left a high-paying job in Japan to teach in the urban school district of Long Beach as a part-time substitute. Shortly after I returned to the States, my sister passed on. I have been overwhelmed with support from family members and friends who knew and loved my sister. At times like these, I find myself the receiver of comfort and not much of a giver of prose. It is almost as if writing out my feelings make them more real; it probably does. When I just want my sister back, that's the last thing that I want to do. But I've also been encouraged to feel my feelings so I can let them go, otherwise they'll come up again in less than recognizable ways that may be harder to deal with. So I write. Painfully. Slowly. But I write.

I have always been conscious that I have an audience for this blog, albeit a very small one. I don't want to bore you or burden you with my thoughts at this difficult time. If you want an exploration of death or grief, pick up Tuesdays with Morrie or something. But that doesn't mean that what I DO write here won't be genuine. Just that it is what I am comfortable sharing.

During this time I have had to break the news of my sister's passing to many people who were very surprised at the news. When I have to tell strangers or those whom I don't know very well, I really appreciate it whenever they responds with, "what was her name?" instead of, "what did she die from?" To me, it puts the emphasis on my sister as a person instead of the death or tragedy. Emphasizing life, not death. William Wallace in Braveheart said, "every man dies, but not every man truly lives". We all have a choice of what we're going to focus on.

I think what is going to help me at this time is to write down stories of my sister that I remember. We're two years apart. My brother is 3 years younger. So there was 3 years when it was just Jen and I. But, child development being what it is, I don't remember any of those years as "just the two of us". So my first memory that I can think of was when Jen jumped off the top bunk at the apartment in Caracas. For some reason we were cooped up in the bedroom and Jen decided to jump from the top bunk, not onto the floor, but onto the wood table. Crunch! went part of the table and I think part of Jen. She's such a daredevil. She got quite a scolding from Mom about that one.

I think that sense of daring carried over to sports too. Title IX gave women more opportunity in school and community sports. But in the early 80s, there were only boys teams. My sister wanted to play, so she had to join the boys' team. And she hustled with the best of them. By fourth grade, there were enough girls to make a soccer team league. And dad was her coach. I think Jen told me one time that Dad was her best coach. Gentle with the girls while pushing them to do their best. Jen made the basketball team in 7th grade. They were ranked 8th in the city tournament but sank a buzzer beating three-point shot to make it into the finals. They won the city championship. Jen was always so proud to tell visitors to Jefferson Junior High School in Naperville, IL that her picture was still on the wall to the gym.

Well, there's a few memories for now. Plenty more to come. I'd like to thank Mary, Danielle, Geoffrey Philp, and Nicole for their encouragement to write. They didn't say anything directly about doing it, but it is the caring of people whom I have met via blogging that gave me the courage to start writing again. Thanks.