Ahh…summer. That every blessed time in a teacher’s life when one can rest, rejuvenate, read, relax, and take care of everything that gets put off from September to June. Umm, yeah, right….

In my ever pressing quest to gain knowledge, read, write, and engage in educational discourse, I decided it would be a good idea to take two grad classes in one summer session. Six weeks of classes-four nights a week-three hours a night-homework every day and one big stinking paper=6 credits and one fried brain.

I am in my second week of this misguided choice and my brain is tired. I thought it would be great, class at night, train and homework during the day. That was before I stepped into School Law. The workload and concepts are not tragically difficult, but the reading, oh the reading. I love to read. I read for pleasure and for knowledge. At one time, I seriously considered going to law school to help build my understanding in order to go into school policy. I have completed reversed any thinking that I ever had in that realm because of three classes of School Law.

Training? Sure, but only if I continue to get up at 5:30am in the summer. Great for the impending heat, but still so early.

It burns the toast of every teacher to hear from non-teacher’s “you have the summer off, nice job”. But I think that I have officially put myself on the “do not even think about saying that to me list”. I have done this by my own free will, but it doesn’t make the first week of summer easier….

It will be relaxing in five weeks.

I finished my first tri today and I am so happy to have it done. There was so much anticipation leading up to the race after 5 months of training, I am happy to say that I am a triathlete!

I completed the Pocomoke Triathlon this morning and it was quite a neat experience. We got there really early so I could watch other people set up their transition spaces and then set up my appropriately. I stuck a few toes into the lukewarm pond water and began a two hour long debate of “wetsuit v. no wetsuit”. The time finally came for the pre race announcements and the next thing I knew I was stuffing myself into my wetsuit (for extra buoyancy) and wading out into the seaweedy pond.

Women 29-under went in wave 2. I sized up the wave, lots of ladies in swimsuits…..several admitted newbies like me. But considering my comfort with water, my discomfort with pack swimming and my extra layer of neoprene and rubber, I stepped up on our sand bar starting point in the front and center. This turned out to be a great strategic move as I had open water (it was really clear) for the first half of the swim. As I looked around me only two other ladies from my wave were up ahead, which was nice. We caught the mens wave (29-under) and I passed several fellas but still not a lot of wake or kicking, which was nice. I think I “over sighted” and could have kept my head down but I just didn’t want to swim to far in the wrong direction. All in all, I swam fairly straight. We hit the sand bar, walked across and I waded/swam until I had to walk again. I came third woman out of the water, which was a good mental boost. (10:01) Took off running and headed for the scary part….the bike.

T1 was funny. I couldn’t get my wetsuit off around my ankle chip and was panicking for a short while that I would not be able to ride because of my darn suit, but finally it acquiesed and I was quickly jersey-ed, socked, shoed, helmeted and off. The bike course was nice and flat as paper. We had some small technical turns, but without hills and with little to no traffic it was smooth sailing. I just kept trying to remember to pedal fast, pedal fast. I kept getting passed by fast men and then came the quick ladies, but I had someone in front (not too close, of course) that was really riding well and so I stayed 50 or so yards from her most of the ride. We passed all sorts of God’s creatures, cows, hogs, bleating goats, a horse and lots and lots of chicken farms. I certainly wasn’t fast on the bike but I did make a little attack (that word sounds so sinister) towards the end of a gal who had passed me in the last two miles (grrrrr). I had not been as fast as I would have hoped on a flat course, but the head wind sucked tremendously. To the point that I was afraid I would be knocked over. But alas, I finished (50:something) which meant I could move to my favorite part….the run.

T2 was superfast (thank you lace locks) but I got so excited I almost feel down forgetting my legs would be anvils. I recovered well and took off for the 3.5 mile flat run in completely direct sunlight (did I mention it was about 90 degrees in Pocomoke this morning?) I passed several people on the run including the lovely gal in the white top I followed the entire way on the bike. My first mile was a 7:20 and I was really hopeful I would maintain, but the sun just kicked my tail. I just wanted to get to the turn around which felt as though it would never come, but slightly past the sickly sweet gaseous chicken farm, there it was water and a turnaround!! So I made the turn and just kept kicking. At this point, my heart was about to jump out of my chest and I am pretty sure my brain turned off, but the pavement called. Finally the turn for the finish, through the grass and I even passed a gal in the last 200 y, not sprinting, just keeping pace (which averaged 7:46). YEA FINISHED!!!!!!

I have never felt so tired after 91 minutes of exertion, but it was so fun. Each portion presented a unique set of challenges, all new to me. I thought I would be best at running, but have decided that the swim is really my best and my favorite. My biking is still pretty slow, but I have two months to keep at it to get ready for IG. And running after the other two will only get easier the more I do it.

I have officially reached the point after a race where “it hurts and I’m tired”, but I am still really pleased with the day. (1:31)

The race was very well run and the whole experience was positive and friendly. Woo Hoo!

My first triathlon is tomorrow. I have been doing races (running) for almost six years now and am not particularly nervous at the start. This is a whole ‘nother deal. I have double checked and packed my race day stuff twice. I have hassled my dear husband several times about making sure we have the air pump and asked him to remind me about my wetsuit several times too.

To think that five months of training will come down to about 2 hours tomorrow morning…whew. Scared, Excited, Relieved….

Report to come.

I love my CSA! A friend/colleague and I have purchased a share of Community Supported Agriculture from a local farm for the summer. She and her husband and I and my beloved will share a family size serving of farm-fresh produce every week for 15 weeks.

We picked up the first share of veggies last night and were blessed with a bountiful harvest of lettuce (two kinds), radishes (still dirty!), arugula, chard, beets, and something called a garlic snape! The first few bites of the lettuces were incredible last night. I refused to douse it with ranch and went out of the way to make fresh lemon vinegarette to lightly moisten and bring the flavors together. It was the best salad I had ever eaten.

I spend a ginormous amount of our budget purchasing organic fresh and sometimes local produce. The amount we spent to receive our first harvet was pittance in comparison. Plus, we know we are supporting a local farm and the family who owns it.

A double blessing or a good karmic act if you ask me. Plus, it’s delicious!

CSA’s, you simply must try it.

This year has been a very difficult struggle with my chorus. It is a tough situation for all of us, half the group wants to sing, half doesn’t want to be in band so they choose chorus. We rehearse 26 kids in a room built for about 10, after recess, needless to say it is generally physically uncomfortable and mentally taxing.

With the concerts for the year almost officially over, we have had three classes to make a 180 departure from our singing. The students are researching music from a variety of era’s from the 1940’s-1980’s and creating power points to present the information to their peers.

I have seen these children completely change. For the most part, they are motivated and focused. They are realizing how much work they have to do before our last class on Thursday, when they present.

They used the tech lab (thanks ABD!) and today my puny room became a tech lab with laptops and wireless for them to work on their projects. I was able to monitor their progress by watching the documents saved to the shared folder. They all had the chance to request music from my itunes library and if I didn’t have it, I bought it for them (the best three bucks spent all week).

The last two months have created a world of possibilities for how I can improve my teaching and use technology to help kids learn and experience music. I have become almost possessed with the desire to use “it all right now”. Given the reality that school ends in 5 days, I think that I will just have to get all the ideas down and look forward to a great year next year.

I am taking Orff this summer. It is a standard and time tested pedagogy for teaching music. I am really looking forward to it as I think it will help me understand the process for musical knowledge acquisition on a deeper level. I hope, however, that I will still find a way to integrate my new love for using web 2.0 tools in the context of classical pedagogy.

I have never left a school year so exhausted yet at the same time very excited to return and start anew!

Driving home past 10pm last night from a concert, I passed a church on a very busy street. As many churches do, it has posted a witty “proverb” to stimulate the thoughts of rushing commuters. “If you’re too busy to pray, you’re too busy”.

This is definitely me, this month. I feel like I am currently at mile 18 of a marathon and I am running out of steam. No amount of GU or gatorade is going to help me at this point, it is all fight or flight.

I know that exercise and eating right will help fight illness and fatigue, but where does sleep and low stress play into it? Where is the happy balance of those four things in the midst of complete chaos? Perhaps it IS in prayer. Perhaps the fatigue and illness are God’s way of intervening in a life of busy nothingness, pushing us to idle everything. So why is it that I (we?) ignore sickness, stress, restless sleep, eating habits and forsake exercise and press on in our busy life of activity? Is it because when we truly have the time that we feel overwhelmed by the void of inactivity?

How can we change the world if we are so busy that we let it overwhelm us?

In the vast expanse of internet, the google search “busy prayer” gets over a million hits, but this link was just the answer, for right now.

Prayer for a Busy Day
In the midst of this most busy day,
I want to offer to you, most patient Spirit of God,
the poverty of my time. I always feel so rushed
and pressured, and it sometimes seems as if I think
that only the hours of this one day are limited.
Yet I forget that the hours of a lifetime are limited too.
So please slow me down, you patient God,
and help me to be aware that every moment is precious,
and that the sum total of my moments
on this earth are limited and so to treasure them
each and every one.

— from the sermon ” In Praise of Poverty”
by The Rev. Margaret B. Gunness.

Our incredible, amazing, and talented tech teacher at school has just given me a new reason to be off-task, but in an thoughtful and forward thinking way. Ninging I have now found yet another way to connect to the global community through technology, but this way just happens to be purposeful and meaningful (unlike, I feel, the social/teen focused MySpace).

In the last 18 hours, I have joined three ning communities: Global Education, WeAreTeachers, and NextGen Teachers. Each with its own purpose, but a common theme of reaching across the digital divide and making connections to improve teaching and learning in a global way. Woo Hoo. That sounds good to me.

I often feel isolated in my little sweet cubbie of a classroom, but I realize now that if I reach out through this global community that perhaps I will find others out there who wish to use technology, new methods, or just make human connection as best possible through fiberoptic cable.

I’m thinking I need to start my own ning…music teachers unite perhaps?

Beware, ning connections might cause global advancement of teaching and encourage you to become a better teacher and a more open minded individual….Use with caution.

Peace.

This weekend was all planned out Friday night with husband, Saturday race with kids, Saturday night with sister, Sunday morning ride/run and then church. I made it through to Saturday night and then illness took hold. To the point where I slept like a teenager in a growth spurt, until 10:30. No bike ride/run and definitely no church.

It has been a long time since I have been to church on a regular basis. Of course, I went for Palm Sunday and Easter to my Mom’s church, but it is not my favorite place because of years of baggage. We spent some of the winter month’s attending the Catholic church, but I cannot get over some basic tenets of Catholicism that I think are plain wrong. Plus, husband did not really want to go there, it was just what felt comfortable as the worship of his youth.

I love God. I know that when I seek out God through prayer and worship…through study and song that I am a stronger, more focused individual. So why is it that church has such negative feelings or lack of initiative for me right now? Our experiences as a pre-married/married couple at our parish ended up being so negative that dear husband may never return to the Episcopal church. I was so hurt by his hurt by so-called Christians, that I certainly do not want to return to that parish. But starting a new is such a tedious process. You simply must want to do it in order for it to be accomplished. Church is not going to come out and get you. You have to go out and knock. Jesus said “Seek and ye shall find” He meant you have to seek. It won’t just drop on your doorstep. A relationship with a church community doesn’t just go poof.

And once again, the burden lies upon us. We must take time, effort, and courage to walk into the doors of a new place. We will be self protecting, of course, to not be drawn into a community only to see its horns of racism, elitism or fundamentalism. But, at the same time, we must open our minds to worshipping in a community that will not be uptopian. To find a community in which we can rejoice in God’s goodness, fellowship with others, and serve for the greater good while at the same time acknowledging and accepting its flaws.

The journey of faith is not finite. The love of God does not cease because one does not walk into a house of worship. This particular stop on the road, or hover, is not an end point, but merely a new beginning. I will go back to church and I will take the first step on the new road.

I’m just not there yet. And it is ok.

Peace.

So the bloodshed at VT is all we have collectively been hearing about on the news since Monday. Rightfully so, a horrific and tragic event that has sent families into mourning, and students/educators/parents into an odd mixture of fear, guilt, and sadness. I have watched the images, the interviews. I have read the timelines, the eye-witness accounts and the commentary. However, I wonder why the need for the public “Monday morning quarterbacking” of all of our nation’s media. I find it abhorrent that before the deceased were even publically named, television hosts were insinuating that the school had made the wrong choice by not going to lock down, by keeping campus open. Hindsight is 20/20 and during the initial period of grief and fear, it is completely inappropriate. I was so pleased with the articulate and thoughtful VT students who, when speaking to Matt Lauer, Anderson Cooper and the like, were quick to refrain from judgements against the schools decision-making process and quick to return the conversation to the positive aspects of the VT community. These students are the reason that VT will recover from this tragedy and once again thrive as a close-knit intellectual community.

My other thought in the midst of all of this is our response, particularly as educators and parents, to the warning signs exhibited by those who become school murderers. The media is clearly articulating that this particular murderer fit the tell-tale profile. A former professor of the shooter is now coming out to say that she had alerted officials and law enforcement to no avail. Again, doing some hindsight analysis, but how DO we as educators identify elements in our students that are beyond a “little odd”. Is it within our understanding or training to recognize when a student is beyond “different” and in the realm of “psychopath”. In an age where we are quick to label children for all sorts of disorders with all sorts of names (ADD, ADHD, ED, LD, BD, MR = IEP, LRE, 504 etc….)Are we reticent to admit to ourselves or our educational community that behavior that is anti-social can lead itself to that of violent? Are we fearful of labeling kids who demonstrate such behaviors for fear that we will further alienate their sensitive souls?

I do not have the answers, just merely the questions. At the end of this time to question, I shall continue to pray. For healing for the VT family, for patience and acceptance for those who which to judge the actions of the leadership, and for peace to the minds of troubled young men and women out there who see no other escape from their pain than to hurt others.

Peace of the Lord be always with you.

I wore my wetsuit for the first time today in water. It was an amazing floaty feeling! However, dry land in my wetsuit truly helps me understand what it must feel like to be a sausage or a hot dog. I think I may never be able to look at them the same way again!