Moving, Moving, Moving
No, I’m not actually moving yet. Wouldn’t that be nice? What’s moving is the progress on my house. They have officially kicked it into high gear.
This week they finished our roof. The plumber roughed in our basement bathroom and drilled all the holes for the water lines he’ll put in this week. We meet with the electrician on Tuesday. We picked all of our carpet and tile this weekend. Things are coming along. . .
The progress at the end of the week, minus our poured basement floor, garage floor and front porch.
The family room, complete with all the windows and skylights.
The entranceway. Yippee! We have a front door!
The arched entryway and front porch are done!
The view from the back with the finished roof.
By the end of this week, maybe we’ll have some siding and stone!
In other news, a friend of mine from the dojo has started her own business. If you’re a martial artist, you have to check out Bags of Character. She has set up shop on my site and accepts payments through paypal. I happen to own a beautiful blue nunchaku bag and you should own one or eight too. Just so everyone is clear, I have no financial interest in this endeavor, although clearly I wish I would have thought of it myself (oh, and also that I could sew).
A Great Day to Be a Teacher
When you are a teacher, you live for those days when you really reach your students. There is no feeling more energizing and more satisfying than knowing that they get you, they really get you, and that they are actually learning.
I spent the past two days grading paper and speech outlines. My expectations had been too high. I realized I had to go back and review some basics. I was also disappointed that not a single student in my speech class chose one of the more creative options for their personal speech next week.
I gave them several choices. They could write a general speech of introduction, write an awards acceptance speech (creating the award they "won") where they tell the audience how they got to this point in their lives, write their own eulogy and detail out what they want to be remembered for and the types of things they accomplished in their lives, or write a "Last Lecture" Randy Pausch style.
They all chose a general speech of introduction. I thought everyone would choose one of the more interesting topics. I was so disappointed.
Perhaps it was Sarah Palin’s incredible speech last night that energized me, but I found myself piecing together pictures (some serious and some fun) for my own speech today. When they arrived in class, the mood was solemn. I said nothing. I turned the projector on and began to give my own eulogy. As I gave my speech, I could tell that the students were interested. They were learning about their teacher, and they were also having fun.
I used a picture from the wax museum in NYC and put up a slide saying that I won American Idol. I posted my picture of Sebastian Junger and elaborated and told them that Junger was so impressed with me that we wrote several collaborative pieces together. I showed them a picture of my dream beach house, created a story about one of my girls being President of the United States and the other a famous Karate Master and author. I used the theme of fighter and kept it strong throughout. I even showed them a picture of me when I was only three-years old with a hockey stick in my hand and told them I learned to cross-check at a very young age.
When I was finished delivering my eulogy, I paused for several moments before crying out, "I can’t BELIEVE you all chose the easy way out!!!" I continued to tell them that I was shocked that none of them wanted to think outside the box and use their imaginations.
I next showed them an award acceptance speech that was funny and inspiring. The wheels were turning.
As I made my way around the classroom, giving advice on their speech outlines and checking to see if they had their note cards ready, at least half the class told me that they were completely changing their speech. "You gave me so many ideas today!" one of them said.
I inspired creativity today and effort, which is an amazing thing. One of my students said, "I’m going to work on this all weekend. It’s going to be the best speech you ever heard."
Awesome.
Not a single student in either of my classes received a perfect score on their outlines. Many received scores that they were deeply dissatisfied with, but it showed them that I’m serious about helping them learn. I ended class a little bit early today and told them I was going to stay to answer questions and help them. About half of the class stayed and asked for help.
I think today, that even beyond inspiring them to be creative, I inspired them to work harder. It could just be a fluke, but I think we’re going to have a good semester.
Kata in the Classroom
I collected my first assignments from my students yesterday. I imagined it would take me little more than an hour to get through their outlines. I figured I would finish both classes easily in one evening.
I barely finished my first class.
I don’t know. I guess I assumed that college freshman knew how to write an outline. I assumed that when I gave them a template to follow, they’d follow it. I assumed that a textbook full of examples that I explicitly pointed out to them would be enough to insure they used the correct format.
Wrong.
Tomorrow it’s back to the drawing board. How can one possibly put together an organized piece of writing without proper planning? I am hoping that my speech class follows directions better than my writing class.
In other teaching news, I actually used kata in my speech class yesterday. The lecture topic was controlling nervousness. We talked about different techniques that the students can use to release excess adrenalin before a speech and how to calm themselves down. I told them what my karate teacher always says: "The person who controls their breathing controls the fight." I told them that it’s really no different with public speaking.
We talked about pausing in appropriate places and I even had them do some calming lamaze breathing. After that I told them about breathing kata and we practiced tensing up muscles and then releasing the tension, and how doing this before speaking helps calm nerves. It was a cool way to incorporate my karate training into everyday life. Looking around the classroom, I think the students thought so too.
I may not be back in the classroom (dojo) myself yet, but I am getting the itch to return in a major way. All this stress from going back to work part time (out of the house) could use some release. It’s been almost a year now of pent up stress. I can’t believe that it’s almost been a year since that horrible night that literally changed my life. I know my leg muscle isn’t ready yet, but I’m starting to think that it might never be ready, so why wait? I’m going to put my brace on this weekend and run through some kata at a very slow speed and see how it goes. If all goes well, I’m heading back very soon.
It was good while it lasted. . .
Filed under: Fantasy Football, Mental Strain for Mama
The voting has ended and yours truly will not be gracing a month of the Hot Blogger Calendar. Despite being on the leaderboard all week, it just wasn’t meant to be. I don’t usually win things. It would have blown my whole "I never win anything, wah" whine-fest to pieces. I’m sort of relieved I can still use it. I’ve also been invited to my friend’s beach house the same weekend as the shoot. I’m just supposed to be at the beach I guess.
Avitable sent me a very sweet email and recommended I make my own calendar. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of you who went and voted for me. I had more votes than I could have ever imagined and I truly appreciate your support.
In other news, I had my second fantasy football draft this weekend and ended up with the following team:
QB: Jay Cutler
QB: Jake Delhomme
QB: Jason Campbell
RB: Steven Jackson
RB: Willie Parker
RB: Michael Turner
RB: Matt Forte
RB: Rashard Mendenhall
WR: Braylon Edwards
WR: Santonio Holmes
WR: Roy Williams
WR: Chris Chambers
TE: Heath Miller
TE: Todd Heap
D/ST: Giants
K: Shayne Graham
If you have a big question mark when you see I have three QB’s, yeah, I get you. I have that question mark too. It boiled down to being my last pick and I just had no clue who to take. Playing in a league of 12 teams is a lot different than playing in a league of only eight. Yes, I also realize that I drafted the entire Steelers team with the exception of the QB, defense and kicker. There’s no need to point out how silly my team looks right now or how I’ll suffer during that bye week. I realize I have several "not hot" players. It seems to be the theme for the weekend, and I’m cool with that. Cool, not hot. There you have it.
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