Well hello there,

It's been a long long time

How you doin, How I'm doin

I guess I'm doin' fine,



It's been so long,

but it seems it was only yesterday,

Ain't in funny how time slips away...



it's funny..and happy and sad. you hardly notice things are changing,

then suddenly everything's different.



i went to dinner with my first 'real' boyfriend (i was 14) and his wife.

good times...but so different to be talking to someone who's known

me since i was 14. there isn't anyone, aside from family, that i talk

to anymore that i knew at that age. he's suprised at how much i've changed...



but, i realize, in talking to him, how HAPPY i am with whom i've become.



it's not the destination, but the journey that makes all the difference.

merry day after christmas! :)

in sunny southern california...after being in the snow, it just doesn't seem like christmas (aside from the mobs of people at the mall buying oodles of stuff)...palm trees with lights on them just don't do it for me.

on wednesday, i'm flying out of LAX and back to buffalo. then driving to waterloo...dad asked me to look on the computer to find out how early we have to be at the airport. my flight is at 8:15am...so, how many hours before that do i need to arrive?

simple question, eh? one hour? two? twelve?

so, i looked it up on LAX's website.

here's what i found, in the FAQ section:

How early should I be at the airport before a flight?

Enhanced federally mandated security measures are in place at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The new measures require travelers to be aware of changes in baggage check-in and security screening. They also require extra travel time. Please call your airline to confirm your flight before going to the airport and to receive its recommendation on when you should arrive at the airport. Flight schedules vary throughout the day and, in general, flights scheduled during LAX's daily peak travel periods when more flights are scheduled (6:30 am to 9:00 am for domestic flights, 11:00 am to 2:00 pm and 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm for domestic and international flights) will require passengers to allot more time for ticketing, baggage check-in and security screening. An entire paragraph of text, and they DON'T TELL YOU HOW EARLY YOU SHOULD BE AT THE AIRPORT BEFORE THE FLIGHT. wasn't that the question? hello??!! a person may take all this effort into looking up the website and they won't even find what they are looking for. useless. pfft.

teaching is great. love it. dig the kids.

am having a tough time with the office politics....driving me crazy! ugh. it's funny, in some ways a consider myself a people person, but in others i feel like i have no ability to deal with people who i don't see eye to eye with...it seems as if people really like me...or really don't. if that makes any sense....

why?

simple....

if we don't inspire young people with the things that matter, the things that matter will be lost.

-sylvia earle

good education is preventative action. if students at a young age had been encouraged to purse their hearts' desires, would there be as much low self esteem, as much midlife crisis, as much need for anti-social cheap thrills to fill the voids in people's lives? in other words, would be all be happier and healthier had education taught us to follow our bliss?

i am enjoying being an educator. however, the contsant stuggle over time and resources tied with the expectation of the only way the job can be done right is to be overworked and overextended has left me drained and uninpired. i want to teach exciting lessons. i want my students to love learning. already, though, the realities of the public education system have hit home for me.

not enough time. not enough money. too much to teach.

with all the lessons we are teaching though, i feel as if the most important one often falls to the wayside.

how to be a good human. how to be compassionate, strong, brave and face all the changes and challenges that life will present us with.

i'm not sure where this teaching road is leading...i'm finding the path to be less direct than i had originally planned it to be. i do know it is heading in the right direction (or the left one...) - the road i should be taking....

more props to relix.

this month's magazine is headlined by umphrey's mcgee. my music-loving-earth-mama friend julie sent me a cd of theirs a year or two ago...fun groovin band. check 'em out.

AND! the other headline article is about gomez, a brittish kind of anti-jamband (they call it 'offroading') whom i've been raving about for years...a friend turned me on to them a few years back (to make myself feel special: 11.5.2001), and i've been trying to get people hooked on them since.

busy. i can tell you all about how to write a paragraph, make patterns in your fruit loop neckalces and the steps in the decision making process, but not much else. teaching good. me tired.