Sometimes

Sometimes life hits little speed bumps. Things are tooling along just fine and then suddenly it feels like I have hit a wall. The last few weeks have been that way for me. Like I said earlier, life for me works out better when I have steady work.
Good things do happen though even when life doesn't seem to be going the way it should be. I had a birthday that went very nicely. Pami and Cave & Co. were able to make it to spend an evening at BJ's with me over pizza and pizzookies. To enlighten the ignorant, pizzookies are freshly baked deep dish cookies with a bunch of vanilla bean ice cream piled on top. If you go to BJ's for your birthday you get one free minus the wait staff singing. It is awesome! My nephew Caleb thought so too. It turns out the boy really likes ice cream since he kept stealing the ice cream off of the section of cookie I had just worked free with my spoon for me to eat. At times like that I had to remind myself that three year olds pretty much have no clue that the ice cream they just snagged came off of their uncle's birthday pizzookie. To them it is just ice cream that they were quick enough to grab.
We had rain. I'm sorry but rain makes me want to spend the day in bed, so not a whole lot going on this week. I will say though that today was beautiful. Both the dog and I were feeling a little cooped up so I took him for a long walk several times around the park. The sky today was as blue as I have ever seen it with big white puffy clouds. If it hadn't been for the electric wires and roofs all around me I would have taken pictures to remind myself that days like this really exist. The temperature was in the 50's so it was perfect walking weather. After just a couple of laps around the park I was feeling warm and comfy. In the distance I could see the snow covered San Gabriel mountains. To be totally honest I was missing my job at Forest Home pretty badly. It is amazing how much snow can grow on you. I miss driving in snow, walking in snow, watching the dog play in snow, throwing snowballs for the dog to catch, watching snowballs bounce off his head when he decided not to catch them. I miss the beauty of snow all around me. I miss the smell of wood smoke against the crisp cold air. I really miss camp.
I guess life has seasons. As much as I want to run back away to camp I really need to figure out what direction God wants me to go with my life. Does this desire I have to go back to camp mean that I should go back to camp or should I keep following the interest that I have in nursing? Is there something else out there for me?

Magic

It has been really interesting subbing this year. I started out the semester pulling my hair out when a 10 day gig turned into a 20 day gig turned into a 25 day gig turned into a 28 day gig. Because I thought I would only be there for two weeks I didn't lay down the ground rules that I would have otherwise. Suddenly I found myself struggling just to keep my head above the water. I did learn a lot though.
When that ended everything dried up. At most I was getting two calls a week, sometimes none. Sometimes the calls came so late that I turned them down because I had already gone back to bed or because it was so late that I couldn't get there in time. As more and more time went by with fewer and fewer calls it got harder and harder to get up for work. All to often it was to show up to substitute in classrooms where the kids saw me and tried to take advantage of me all day long. Talk about a bum deal!
Today though was one of those days that helps make it easier to get up in the morning. It wasn't an easy day. I still had to put up with my fair share of little punks and future thugs. The thing that made the difference was that I had a few classes where because of the way the class behaved or the way the schedule was laid out I got to do something that I love. I got to tell stories.
I have found that telling stories in the classroom can either work or flop spectacularly. I have had some classes where the kids sit there and mock me while I tell the story and after I tell the story. Sometimes though I get a classroom with the right group of kids in the right environment to make the moment magical.
I think that part of what made this story magical was that it was something that they could relate to their world. When I tell the kids that I used to chase bears for a living they laugh in my face. All they know about bears are that bears are gigantic killer tanks wrapped in a fur coat. There is nothing that can scare off a bear. In their minds bears would probably be America's greatest missile defense shield because they would stand their ground and swat the missile back to the country of origin. No one, and I mean no one, could possibly survive a job scaring off bears. They all thought that I was lying through my teeth and were laughing at me for being stupid enough to think I could pull that over their eyes. Oddly enough I instantly lost all of their respect for being foolish enough to think that I could get away with this. Little did they know that I was telling the truth, and that my dog really is bred to hunt and chase bears.
Today though was something they understood. It fit with their perspective of reality. Today I told them about my nephew's birthday.
This was something they understood. Dropping all of my weekend plans. Rushing to the store to get him a last minute present. My excitement when I found out that the cheerleaders were in the store to wrap presents. The moment when Caleb leaned to far back on the picnic table bench while eating his pizza and fell onto his back. The crying three year old who was suddenly better after he got a kiss from Mommy. His love for the swings. The excitement when he picked my present to open first. The let down when he dropped his new book to go play with the dog. The way I carefully video recorded him opening his present from his grandparents in the Philippines only to have him drop that and make a bee line for the dog again. His love for Bob the Builder and Thomas the Train. This spoke of family. This spoke of celebration. This spoke of things they understood, things they could understand, things that held their attention.
All to often it is so easy to get caught up with telling people about the big and exciting things that have happened in life. It doesn't matter if it is true or not. If it isn't compatible with their perception of reality it just isn't going to work. Their BS alarm goes off. Because they don't want to feel like a sucker they won't buy in and will try to prove that they are not gullible by loudly renouncing the veracity of the story. On the other hand some of the stories that hold people the best are the stories about everyday life, everyday joys, everyday struggles, everyday. Nothing fancy. Nothing unique. Ordinary.
This quite possibly is the true secret of storytelling.

Caleb's Birthday!

Today was my nephew Caleb's birthday. It was a whole lot of fun for everyone even though Caleb did lean back a little to far while eating his pizza and fell off the bench. Ok, so after we figured out he was ok it was actually pretty funny.
Here he is opening his Grammy and Grandaddy's present.






I guess my dog (Oso) should have been left at home. Oh well, Caleb will probably enjoy the present all the same now that Oso is back home with me.

Conversation

Today I had a gig! Seriously, do you know how much easier it is to get up in the morning and stay up when you know you have something to do that day? All week long it has been next to impossible to get up at 5:00 am. Give me a day though where I know I have work and it is easy!
The teacher I was subbing for today is a history teacher. I get so few calls to sub for history teachers. When it does happen it usually doesn't matter how bad the class is, it is just amazing to be working in a subject matter that I actually know. Today's assignment for the 8th graders was to write to either the city counsel or to the state assemblyman about issues that the kids were concerned with. It is always interesting for me when this happens because I see all kinds of letters. Some letters are well written and well thought out. Some are well thought out but poorly written. Some are well written but poorly thought out and some are just poor letters no matter how you look at them. The important thing though is that the kids are learning to get involved in government.
As I have opportunities to help kids with their letters I often have opportunities to explain things to kids in ways that they hadn't seen or understood before. An example would be the state budget. Is the state picking on schools or is everyone hurting? Who else is hurting from budget cuts. If the schools received full funding who would feel the pinch? How does the budget actually work? Often by presenting different aspect of these issues the kids have an opportunity to see that the issues are actually pretty big and not at all simple. It might even change the way that they see things.
A great example happened today. One of the boys asked me to look at his letter to the state assemblyman. As I looked it over I saw that it had to do with immigration issues. Understand that the vast majority of the students at this school are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Most of them want wide open boarders and forgiveness for illegal aliens. For all I knew this guy and his friend next to him were the sons of illegal immigrants or had relatives that were illegal. So I asked him what exactly he wanted. Well they wanted open boarders. Let everyone come to the United States so that they can find jobs and have a better life. I asked them if they were aware that over 5% of the people in this country are unemployed. Suddenly they weren't so sure about the whole open boarders thing. I asked them what would happen if we let everyone in. Well, unemployment would be really high. The next question was whether the people would be better off for coming here or worse off. Worse off they said. So how can we keep this from happening? They said by setting quotas. Great, these guys were getting it!
Next they asked about the illegal aliens living here. Can't we do something to just make them all legal? Ok, remember that I don't know what their status is or that of their families. I decided to play it safe. I knew that the family of the Indian kid next to them had their papers straight. Let's say that your parents waited for two years to get their visas. During that time they went to the consulate, paid the fees and did everything that they needed to do to make sure that they got here legally. His parent's snuck into the country over a two month period. Remembering what it cost for your parents to get here how do you feel about his parents? Both boys said that it wasn't right that the parents of the Indian kid be given all the same opportunity as their parents who had worked so hard to get here legally. It wouldn't be fair. His parents needed to be sent home. Amazing. These kids had just been writing the assemblyman to push for open boarders and forgiveness for illegal aliens and they were starting sing a completely different tune!
What about people who's visas expire? When I told them that I knew people from Australia and England what had to leave the country when their visas expired these guys were blown away. White people had been kicked out because their visas expired? Wait, this is something that everyone experiences? Yeah, in fact when I grew up in another country we had to get our visas renewed every other year. You are responsible for getting it renewed. Suddenly realizing that the policy is not racially biased against Hispanics they were more inclined to hold people accountable for keeping their visas current.
The last dilemma was what about illegals who have American born children. Did I think it was fair that the government kept their children here in the United States but deported the parents. When they understood that the parents could take their families with they were shocked. They were under the impression that the government didn't allow them to take their American born kids with them to the home country, that the government had a policy of splitting the families based on their legal status.
Over all it was an amazing conversation. It was cool to watch them and see how their views were affected when they were presented with the facts on immigration. It was interesting for me to see some of the rumors and misinformation that swirls around this particular neighborhood. Hopefully these guys continue to think about what they learned today and help others think more about some of the things that they are hearing as well as the things they believe.