inspiration and responsibility.

my weekend was so reinvigorating in so many ways.

right now i have $100 in my hands given to me by Great Exchange church in Santa Clara and i need to use it for His kingdom.

I visited the Bay Area this weekend for a middle school teacher's conference. While attending some of the best workshops i've ever been to, I was inspired to continue in my work - that i can be effective and that i have efficacy. I met some of the strongest women in this field who have helped transform disadvantaged schools into achieving schools. helped changed the lives of underpriviledged children into successful students. women i wouldn't mind being in 20 years. wow. I also received concrete tools to help exact those changes in my own personal classroom and school.

in addition, i attended a sermon about a parable in Matt 25- the master who goes away leaving various numbers of talents with 3 servants. Two use the money to make double the amount, and one hides it away because of his fear of the master. I was so motivated to rededicate all of my life to His will and way. I think i've been stuck in a comfort zone of routine. But i want to move into the sphere of conscious decisions and choices about how to spend my time and how to be more loving - not only with my friends but with others too. When the pastor asked people to come to the front, people who felt this call - I went. And then the surprise. He passed out $100 bills to everyone in front and assigned us a Kingdom assignment. "This is not your money," he said and told us to find ways to further God's glory with it in 45 days and return with our report. What an amazing, tangible illustration and lesson of the parable.

I was hit by so much desire to use the knowledge and tools and renewed heart I got this weekend but I am equally hit with the immense responsibility of it. But it's a good responsibility, one that gives me purpose instead of undue burden. I am just so thankful for this past weekend in everyway.

a whole blog about unhealthy things...

obesity is soon going to overtake smoking as the #1 leading cause of preventable deaths.
wow - i feel so sad when i look at my students. so many of them are overweight. i definitely had some baby fat in the late elementary-early junior high years, but it's nothing like my kids. This isn't the type of fat that you can just grow out of... it's obvious to see where it came from since they spend all nutrition and lunch eating Hot Cheetos and sodas. They got rid of the caffinated sodas at school to reduce the hyperactivity, but there's a long way to go in terms of making the food better. On NPR (yes, again) - there was an article about Texans. I think the number was something like 35% of the current kids are in danger of being obese and getting type II diabetes. So the dept of agriculture and food decided to be a LOT more strict on food in schools - they're still selling snacks but only options like fruit, crackers and baked chips. They don't want to stop concessions and vending machines because it brings in money, but they want to convince companies to make healthier alternatives. I think that's such a great idea - especially in Texas. I once read that the average size of women's clothes in Houston is 10. In LA, the average was 6. That's a big difference. Granted, the importance of image in LA isn't good - actually, i hate it - but a little positive peer pressure can be healthy.

But talking about unhealthy - i'm addicted.
hello, my name's michele and i'm addicted to anime. the first step is admitting it. darn it, they're just sooo good! i think that my favorite ones are generally about guys and gals in school. Maybe b/c i love seeing how their schools are run? I envy the way their system is organized and how important school is - and also the fun student-initiated festivals they have. yes, boring premise - there's a whole world of anime that deals with
uber-technology (they LOVE those big robot dudes!) and i like those too, but i enjoy the ones that deal with regular, everyday life and people. I think that they are incredibly
insightful in how folks deal with each other - in both friendships and also in relationships.
The one i'm currently watching is Marmalade Boy - the main characters are juniors in high school and there's all these love triangles going on. Cheesy, very cheesy - but it's such a great combination of cheese, humor, cuteness, and sad, painful stuff - a combination that most American movies and shows can't touch. And there's a lot of merit to having series - there's so much character development that you really get to know and love them. Doesn't sound like i'm ready to give up this addiction yet, huh? Well, I'm on episode 38 of this series. It goes until 78? I haven't been getting much sleep lately...

did you know...
in 2005, there will be 3 sections of the SAT to total 2400 points. Reading comprehension / Vocab (but no analogies), Math, & Essay. Each section will be worth the 800 points. That's such a big change after years and years of the same test - it's in response to the movement for individualized, authentic assessment. I think it's cool but am afraid that underpriviledged kids will only fall farther and farther behind. Writing coherent essays (for a standardized test) is often a learned skill - something that has to be taught to you. And unfortunately, so many of our inner city kids get the worst education - teachers who don't teach what they're supposed to and even worse, teachers who quit mid-year and therefore bring on a string of substitutes who don't know what they're suppposed to teach. no wonder so many of my kids can barely read!

it'd be nice, though, if this new section gives strength /better numbers to those kids who just stink at standardized tests even though they work hard. it'd be nice, too, if it wasn't just the middle-class and rich that could afford test preps for these tests.

Books i've read in the past few months:

Le Divorce by Diane Johnson - just okay. best part was that it was set in france.

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster - liked it. also liked partial setting in italy.

Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - pageturner. weird secret socities - apparently that's his genre

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand - great. did not watch the movie yet but the book definitely kept me awake late into the night b/c i wanted to find out what happened at particular races.

The Once and Future King by T.H. White - (2nd time) very good but long. good character development and interesting humor

The Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card - slightly disappointed. very political but am still a fan of the whole Ender's world

Scarlett by Alexander Ripley - (2nd time) sequel to Gone With the Wind by different author. very cheesy but still enjoyable b/c i was a Gone With the Wind fanatic in jr. high. also like how Scarlett O'Hara grows as a person

The Key by Junichiro Tanizaki - (2nd time) strange yet subtle. first read it for my Romance, Sexuality, and Desire in Japanese Literature class at Stanford. (met some GER - George took it too although he never came to class and probably didn't read this book.) about the separate and yet not-so-secret diaries of a husband and wife.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent by Julia Alvarez - very liberal but descriptive about the process of 4 sisters' immigration from Dominican Republic and how they adjust their social rules and expectations

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb - interesting perspective. about a very, very overweight woman and how she reclaims her life.

The Coldest Winter Eve by Sister Souljah - very very interesting. about an adolescent black girl whose father is a big-time, wealthy drug dealer in the Bronx.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson - probably one of the best new books i've read. about a troubled adolescent girl but her sense of humor is delightful. I also read this book about a year ago: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by stephen chbosky but i highly recommend it - very insightful and tender story of adolescent boy who finds life mixed up but endearing.

would love it if you sent recommendations my way! =)

Randoms:

still having lots of dreams. all so vivid but never sensical.

work-out update: the last time i went to step, was very, very sore 2 hours later. this past week, went to step and wasn't sore until 1.5 days later and much milder. yay!

teaching has got to be one of the worst professions in which to get strong cramps. gosh, nearly died - cannot leave the class by itself so i had to stay around. and while i can barely talk and stand and am nearly bent over clutching my tummy, 15 students all want to ask me questions about their project. this is with ~10 advil. sad.

a lesson never learned comes back to bite me: i don't think i ever really learned to estimate. doesn't seem like a very hard concept, i know, but for some reason, it's not intuitive to look at a crowd and know how many people are present. or to peer into a jar of jelly beans and know how many are inside. I guess i just didn't think it was a skill worth "practicing". well, a few months ago, i had my kids do flower dissections to look at all the reproductive parts of angiosperms. luckily, i got in contact with a florist who not only agreed to donate roses but also deliver them to the school! lo-and-behold, though, the roses were brought in a nice big plastic bag all bunched up together. i had to decide how many kids could be in each group - but to do that, i had to know how many flowers i had. ouch, ouch, ouch. could not estimate so counted one by one. thorns hurt. i should have known better - everything you need to know, you learn in kindergarten.

the sweetest little boy (from a special ed class that i've substituted for a couple of times) looked at me all shocked today when i was walking out of school in the afternoon. he asked me if i was going home. Jokingly, i replied, "Yes, teachers don't live at school, you know." and he frankly responded, "I didn't know that! i thought they did. they really don't?" i think i thought that at one time too.