Another Rhyme of Mel

I know I haven't been doing very good at blogging this year. I was working on a project last night and wrote this poem. The first part is actually very similar and in some parts the same as I poem I wrote at least a year ago, but the rest is different. 

There once was a girl named Mel
She liked exploring quite well
One day she decided to stay longer overseas
so she moved to Southeast Asia with ease

The culture was very different from her own
and it was hard to be all alone
She met lots of great people
who she found to be her equal

She learned lots of new things
and to her old way of thinking she no longer clings
She took the opportunity to travel to new places
and all the new is what she embraces

She is glad that she was given this chance
to experience more of the world than just a quick glance
She plans to never go back to her old ways
no matter what happens during the rest of her days

She hopes to continue to explore

As to only stay at home is a bore

Her heart now resides in two places

Because she misses her dear friends’ faces

She has been called an old soul

Who happens to like rock and roll

Letters and old movies tie her to a bygone era

She is even named after a character close to O’Hara

She is strong and independent

But not extremely resplendent

Mature, yet hopelessly silly

But better to be that than chilly

Laughing hard brings tears and hiccups

To a girl who owns no pickups

Smiling is something fun to do

It happens a lot instead of feeling blue

To write about one’s self can be a chore

And can be a struggle not to cause the reader to snore

I hope if nothing else this makes you laugh

If not, I wouldn’t hire me to be on your writing staff

If you do like this poem hardcore

I may be willing to do an encore

Although it is not easy

To always be this cheesy  

11 Questions

1.     Who was your most memorable teacher, and why? My 6th grade teacher was very special to me. I have known since I was in Kindergarten that I was going to be a teacher, but she is probably the first teacher that really encouraged me to actually become a teacher. I also remember giving her a present (even though I don't remember the occasion) and my classmates teased me about it. So, even though she loved it I still also remember being teased about it. 

2.     Who is one of your educational mentors, and what makes them so special? Well, Dr. Carol Hess was one of my college professors and I kept in touch with her for several years, but she retired this year. She inspired to me to be an awesome teacher. She also has lots of life experience. I never thought I would be brave enough to do the things I have done, but I looked up to her and thought if I want to be as awesome as her someday then I can’t stay in my comfort zone and never take risks.

3.     Which song describes how you are feeling today? Add the youtube clip if possible 
      I can't even remember how long (I know it has been at least since elementary school) I have felt like I am living my life upside down and from the outside looking in. I am usually attracted to darker music, but this lighthearted song actually also fits how I feel. 

      Paloma Faith "Upside Down"  

4.     What is your favourite restaurant/place to eat in the city in which you live, and why?
      I actually have two. One would have to be Sakura Sushi because I just started liking sushi my third year overseas and I am so glad that I can continue to eat it back in the US and other Asian food. The other would be Plaza Bonita. I also really love Mexican food, and I even though I really love Asian food I really missed Mexican food while I was overseas. 

5.     Which video is *cracking you up right now? (*making you laugh) Give us the link!

      I can't remember what my favorite one is called and can't find it. So this is my second favorite. 

      I can fit in there. 

      Twitter wasn't working earlier but I have it now. Medieval Help Desk

6.     What is one thing you learned recently, that wouldn’t have been possible without technology? How did you learn it?
      Well, this year has been an adjustment and my first 6 months in my new town I worked seven days a week, which did not give me the opportunity to meet new people. I also spent a lot of time staying connected with people far away, which is great, but those people can't accept invitations to do things in person. So, this spring I have been working on learning things not using technology and meeting people face to face rather than through technology. So, one of the things I have been learning is how to knit and I am taking a knitting class and meeting other people that knit. I am sure I could watch videos and learn how to knit but my goal is to meet new people where I live. How this ties into technology is that I learned through twitter at the beginning of the year about choosing one word for the year instead of resolutions. My word for this year is Balance. Moving to a new place is always a huge adjustment and there are many things I need to balance so that I make it a successful move. My personality is not always one that leads to balance, so I am really working on trying to improve that part of me. 

7.     Can you please snap a picture of one of your everyday views, and share the photo here?

Hualapai Mountains

8.     What is the next place you want to visit and why?

I have lots of countries that I have yet to see and I have a long list. I think my next trip I would like to go back to Switzerland. I loved Switzerland when I was there, but it has been several years and so I want to go back to see if I still love it as much as I do in my memories. There is something about Switzerland that calls to me and it has been too long since I was last there to consciously remember what it is, but hopefully going back I can find it again and be satisfied. 

9.     Complete this sentence: Teaching is a wonderful profession because…
      I get to work with students everyday. I enjoy continuing to learn myself and working with others to teach them new things. I can share my love of different things with them.  I love being able to be around young people because it keeps me feeling young. They have some great stories to share and they love my sense of humor. I also like the fact that I can make a difference to someone and that they know that there is at least one person in the world that cares about them. 

10.  Can you please list 5 of your favourite movies? Feel free to elaborate on why you like them. Or not!

This is tough.

James Bond movies- I don’t have a favorite, as I love them all. I love James Bond. 

"The Princess Bride"- I really like this movie because it was the first non-cartoon love story and it has action and humor too.

"The Shawshank Redemption"- I don't know. I just do. 

"The Red Violin"- I saw this back in college and it has stuck with me ever since. I recently bought it and watched it again. I still love the story of it.

"An American in Paris"- I love old movies and I also love to dance. Even though I wanted to be a teacher since I was little, I also wanted to be a prima ballerina. When I was little I planned to teach during the day and dance at night. So, not only is an old classic, but it also has dancing in it and it is overseas so it more exotic than the US. 

11.  How do you unwind on a Friday after school? That really depends on how the week went and the mood I am in. Sometimes I like to stay in, make dinner and watch a movie with popcorn. Other times I like to go out for dinner and dancing. 

Cowboy boots and Tattoos

I grew up in Wyoming and so there was lots of cowboys and Western wear. I went to the Rodeo once when I was young with a friend of mine. I don’t remember what happened except that I was traumatized and have never been to one since. I did like to go horseback riding and wished that I could have had a horse when I was growing up. I was never interested in wearing any western wear. I also am not a country music fan. I wasn’t crazy about it growing up, but grew to like it even less in college, but that is another story. This summer though I have taken an interest in western wear. I started this summer by buying a western hat, not really a cowboy hat, more like Indiana Jones’ hat. Later I did buy myself a fancy cowboy hat and a cowboy belt buckle. I am saving up to have a belt made to go with the buckle. Or, it is more like I can’t decide what sort of design I want on the belt. It will probably take me awhile to decide. Of the designs so far, they all look so cool, but I also want something that is unique to me.

Anyway, I went into Boot Barn the other day for something that they didn’t have and ended up looking at boots. I have worn boots over the years, mostly plain black or brown, but have also worn Harley Davidson boots. I need some new boots and decided to look at what they had. I bought my first pair of cowboy boots. When I was looking at them I asked the lady why are there so many designs because when you wear them under your pant legs people can’t see them. She said she buys the boots for herself and it is kind of like her secret. She might show them to some people. It made me think of my tattoos. I have tattoos, but most people don’t know it. They are always shocked when they find out. I don’t have them placed where they are visible all the time like many people. I have them so that I can enjoy them, and I can show them to people if they are special enough to me. So, I totally get her thoughts about the cowboy boots. I ended up buying a pair and they are so comfortable that I can’t believe it. I may not want to ever wear anything else again. I have never had shoes or boots that were so comfortable. I went back today to look at another pair that I had seen the first day. They are also super comfortable but they are more money than I have ever spent on shoes in my life. I get that that pair is hand made and so way more work is put into them than some of the other boots I looked at while I was there.  I have never been a shoe person, but I have been looking at the wide variety of boots out there. I can see how they could be addicted having different designs to wear for different occasions. But, in a similar way to tattoos I am not going to be rash in my decision. They may not last forever like a tattoo, but with the cost they are going to be worn a lot, so I have to make sure that I really like them.  I have wanted another tattoo for a few years now but I can’t decide on a design. It takes me years to make that decision, and I might put it off for a little longer because I might get another pair of cowboy boots. They might not represent the story I am looking to tell in the tattoo, but they are definitely not permanent, so I don’t have to be as committed to them like I am my tattoos.

So, I've decided I really like cowboy boots. They may not have fit in my life before but they fit in my life now. I am glad I am always evolving, changing and open to try new things. 

Loss

Loss happens in everyone's life. It is an inevitable part of life and no one is exempt from it. My paternal grandma passed away my first year of teaching. It was hard because even though I was out to see her that Christmas I felt guilty that I was so far away. My paternal grandpa died when I was one, but I have been very close to my other three grandparents. Family has always been more important to me than friends because they have always been there for me and they love me no matter what. My grandparents have never done anything to hurt me. I have never fought with my grandparents. I love my parents and brother and they are also just as important, but I will say that we have fought about things, but we did live together 24/7 for years. I was around my grandparents though a fair amount, so I had plenty of opportunity to fight with them, but I never did. When I went to college I was only a thirty minute drive from my paternal grandma and some weeks I would see her four or five times in that week. Except for two summers I had never lived more than two hours from her and I saw her as much as I wanted, which was often. Anyway, I saw her Christmas 2006 and she was happy to see that I had finally become a teacher. She was hoping to see me get married and have children, but I told her I wasn't ready for that yet. She missed my grandpa a great deal. I told her that it was ok to go and be with him. Her last sibling passed away in February. She did good until May and then it was a quick end. Just over the course of one week. She died on my best friend's birthday, May 5th. I also had to chaperone prom, so it is not something I will forget. I had a feeling when I woke up that morning that my Dad would call me with the news, and just an hour later that is what happened. Even though I was a two day drive away, luckily I was able to get a flight and be back for the whole week. That was very important to me to be there with my family and for my Dad.


Fast forward to 2013. February 10th (Indonesian time) I was with some friends on a quick Chinese New Year trip to Yogjakarta when I got the news that my grandpa hadn't felt well and went to the hospital. He had a heart attack but they were slow in diagnosing it, so by the time they did there was way too much damage. Over the next couple of weeks they found that surgery was not possible and medicine didn't help. I was able to talk to him a few times on the phone. Now that I am in Indonesia it is way too far to go back and too expensive. I looked at flights and it was $7,000 for 36 hours there and 36 hours back with the ability to take five days off. Tuesday March 5th (Indonesian time) I woke up with the feeling that once again I would be receiving the news that the end had come. When I was at school I got an e-mail that I had mail. One being a letter from my grandparents. I love letters and I look forward to them. It was a Valentine's Day card from my grandparents. The last one from the two of them. In it they said they were so excited to see me this coming summer and hear all about my adventures. I had promised to come for a visit last summer but when I took my new job there was only two weeks in between the two jobs and definitely not enough time to go for a visit and move to a new country. So, I had to change my promise to visiting them this coming summer (so it has been 3 years since I last saw them). A few hours after that my grandpa was gone. I know they are proud of me and supported me in my dream of being a teacher and teaching overseas for a few years. It has been hard since then. I know it is hard for everyone when they lose a love one. I do struggle with being away from my family right now and missing out on the funeral and internment. Of being there for my Mom and being surrounded by love. Luckily there is Facebook and so my family created a closed group where they have shared pictures with me of the two services. I am not much of a hugger but would love a hug from my parents. One of the teachers in the primary part of my school did organize a bouquet of flowers, including purple roses (my favorite and she didn't know that). That means a lot to me. I am not sure if it is a cultural thing or just the people that I am around, but here there is very little sharing of personal lives. If the one friend hadn't been with me on the trip when I first got the news about my grandpa and wondered why I looked so sad (the day he died) and asked and then passed it on to others, no one would have known. Very few people know.

I know that life goes on. Just looking at the bouquet of flowers I was given I can see that. While most of the flowers are withering and dying two flowers are just blooming. I am sure the day my grandpa died that others were born into this world. I know the pain will lessen as time goes on. I also think about the fact that one day I will be in my Mom's shoes and she and my Dad will be the ones to pass away, but I hope that is not for years to come. It seems more real the older I get. I will say that I was lucky that I have been so close to my three grandparents and they have all lived to ripe old ages. They have all seen me grow to be an adult. I have lots and lots of memories of them. There is that saying most people know that "it is better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all". I remember at one point when I was younger I disagreed with that statement, but now I realize that it is true because it would make a very lonely life indeed if I never loved anyone.

Career Day 2011

We had career day again today. I like career day, so that students can listen and talk to people from various careers that they might be interested in. This year when had someone from Nursing, Chemical Engineering, Monash Universtiy, Taylor's University, Social Media, Architecture, and Design Media. I was super excited this year because my brother spoke to my students. Not only did he speak, he did his presentation via Skype. This was a huge step for our school. There is resistance to technology being used. I think that it can be a good thing and ever since I went to the Learning 2.011 Teacher's Conference I have been trying to incoporate it more. Last week my 8th grade students skyped with a couple students from a school in Melbourne, Australia. Anyway, getting back to career day, this year has been very crazy, busy, stressful. We didn't get as early of a start on getting people for today. Many of the people we asked were busy today. I kept thinking that I would like to ask my Mom, who is a Graduate Gemologist, or my brother who is a Design Media person to speak. Of course, they are in America and that is not an easy thing to do. Finally I brought it up to the Director of Studies that I thought my brother would be great, and I thought maybe we could do it via Skype. At first, he was worried about technology not working. I assured him that I would have a back up plan if it didn't work. He finally decided that yes, we should give it a try. After that I had to call my brother to ask him if he was available, and to work out a few of the details with the time difference. We then, e-mailed this week about what he wanted on his biodata sheet for his introduction, some websites he wanted to share, and a couple brochures. We did a practice Skype session earlier in the week to make sure that we could project him up on the wall and that we could hear him. It worked pretty well. Today came and I was super excited but also nervous about the technology working. I wanted it to work, so that it was successful and we could do this again, and do other things in the future with technology and skype. I was also picture taker for the yearbook, as the school camera doesn't really work and no one else remembers to bring theirs. The speaker before my brother ran late, since the bus driver had been late so we didn't get things set up as early as I had hoped. We set up two laptops with two projectors. We had one for projecting my brother onto the wall. The other we set up to show the brochures and websites. Luckily we were able to rent another projector as we had only two and that wasn't enough. Also, two of the other speakers at the same time as my brother brought their own laptop and projectors, so that helped. It would not have worked as well with one laptop and projector.  I also brought my laptop and Ipad as the screen for projecting things is kind of in the corner and I wasn't sure how well students could see it and my brother. I placed the laptop and Ipad in front of two different groups so they also had it close in front of them.

The first group was the high school. It worked pretty well. There were a few times he cut out on the audio, so I had to ask him to repeat himself. They had a couple questions for him. We also ran over since we started late, so he had to cut his presentation short. The second group was the middle school. That presentation was great. There were no glitches or cut outs at all. We could hear him really well. They were really excited. My brother also did better on his presentation since he had run through it once already. It was smoother in transitions, but both were excellent. One student couldn't believe that my brother was actually live and talking to them. They wanted to know what time it was there. One of my students want to ask him about some of the things I had told them about from when we were younger to see if they were true. My brother told them that yes, those things were true. At the end one of the students presented my brother with his Thank you gift/token of appreciation. That is my favorite picture that I took of my student holding the gift up to the computer screen and my brother reaching his hands out like he is grabbing it. The students were like how is he going to get it. I told them that when I saw our Dad over Christmas since our Mom and my brother can't come that I will send it back with our Dad. Some of the younger boys were jealous at some of the perks that my brother told them about for his job. Most of the students were excited that he likes their football (soccer) teams. I can tell this is something they are going to talk about for a long time. They were talking about how exciting it was and that the students who didn't go had missed out. This is probably something that will end up in the yearbook too. I am going to have the students blog about it next week, hopefully.

At the end of the day the Director of Studies thought that it went really well and he is glad that we tried it. He would like to know why it cut out a few times the first session but maybe it was because of the rush of setting up and trying to open the websites on the other computer. The second time they were already open so there was no need for them to load. We don't have a super great connection if more than one person is on the internet at the same time. He thinks that this is something that can be done next year and perhaps we can do skype for other things. I told him that I would like to see if I could set up skype sessions with authors to help get our students more excited about reading. He thought that would be a good idea. I am very glad that most of our people were in person, but I think that if there is a career where there isn't really a representation in our town that doing Skype can be a good thing. I hope that we do continue to incorporate things like this into what we do, as it is a great world out there with lots of resources and people. In today's society we have the ability to connect with people from all over that can help expand our knowledge, so we should take advantage of it.

Skype

I am so excited. I have been connecting with other teachers through twitter and trying to connect to other schools through blogs. We are add skype to that. Last week on Friday, November 25th my 8th grade English class skyped with a couple students from a Jewish school in Melbourne, Australia. We did it with my Ipad as I ended up not bringing my laptop to school that day and it was kind of a mix up trying to get it coordinated, but it worked. We weren't quite prepared because I had thought that my 6/7th grade English class was going to skype, but they had to change the time. Anyway my 8th graders were excited. We talked about football (soccer), what it was like to live in Malaysia for those who are not from Malaysia since we are an International School and many of our students come from other countries. We talked about the weather. They asked us about our major religions and cultures and some celebrations that we participate in. We asked them some questions about Australia. We talked for about 20 minutes. Skype glitched a few times and sometimes they were hard to hear even though I had the volume all the way up. I would like to do it again and think I would bring my laptop next time.

This coming week on Friday (December 2nd) we are doing a career day. One of our guest speakers this year actually lives in the United States. He lives in Oklahoma City and works for the company Funnel Designs group. He works in advertising, marketing, and social media. I am very excited to have him speak to our students. Tomorrow we are going to do a run through to make sure things work. We are going to use the Director of Studies computer and we are going to see if we need to rig up a camera facing the audience. We will do a run through and see if there is anything else that we need to do before Friday. I am so excited to be doing skype. I hope that in the future maybe we can skype with authors to help students continue to get interested in reading.