Monday, August 31, 2009

 If you have no time for the Bible in the morning this motto might help: “No Bible, no breakfast.” It’s not time. It’s taste."
- John Piper

"The testimony of Carson was soooooooooo refreshing and encouraging!"

-excerpt from mom’s email: it’s encouraging / so true. that one disciple makes your ministry so worthwhile. encouraged by my parents’ ministry.

plus, i love the new verb. haha. mom: pioneer of the english language

teacher win.

  • Miss Barker: How about one chapter for the whole year!
  • Students: Yay!
  • Miss Barker: No. Veto.
  • Students: ...

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

meet my boss

After i talked with the superintendent asking if I could just email him my schedule, he suggested if mrs. c. said to bring it in paper to do it in paper but i said oh i’ll just explain that i emailed it to him! (since the purpose of bringing it hard copy was for him anyway)

anyway afterwards my fellow teacher who shares my office told me
“If she said hard copy, you better bring a hard copy.”
“But why, I can just explain.”
“No, you better bring a hard copy.”
“Now I don’t want to bring a hard copy!”
“You’re a rebel aren’t you?”
*Instantly feels ashamed*
“Yeah… :-( I’ll go print it”

Sunday, August 16, 2009

first day of teaching tomorrow

suddenlygotacaseoftheNERVIES!b/cstomorrowisthefurstdayofschoolandifeeltotallyunprepared…wellnottotally,myheadtellsmei’mnottotallyunpreparedbutmyidontknow,anotherpartofmyheadistellingmeiam..wellnotreallyobviously.


in other words:
I love movies like Coach Carter.

Is it sad that the only times I really want to be a teacher is when I watch inspirational teaching movies? -____-




 Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Marianne Williamson (except the lady herself is sorta quack IMHO)

mixed feelings about this quote. part of me really loves it / it’s used to spur the underdogs, but i think humans are so used to thinking we rock / i don’t know if this is good for it!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

my roommate kathy


“What are you doing?”
“Listening to music.”
“that’s it?”
“right now”
“wait, so you’re just listening to music?”
“yeah.”
“JUST music?”
“Right now, yes”
“So nothing else?”
“No”
“I mean, when I listen to music, I DO something else.. .like multitask.. and you’re, you’re just listening to music.”
“I really like music. i like to enjoy it”
“Oh yeah.. so like classical?”
“No.”
“then what?”
“Mm.. Elvis Presley and Carrie Underwood”

"for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion"

- Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing

Friday, August 14, 2009

bible sleuthing

A different way to look at Ecclesiastes 3:11:

“The translation Gault prefers is darkness or ignorance rather than eternity, and he is not alone in his choice. To get this he must change the vowels of the Hebrew word, which is permissible because the original text was written only in consonants with vowels being added centuries after the text was completed.”

ccef.org, Eternity in Our Hearts? …Ecclesiastes 3:11 Revisited | CCEF

You should read the whole article.

shackespere

Beatrice: “Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sun-burnt; I may sit in a corner, and cry heigh-ho for a husband!
Don Pedro: Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
Beatrice: I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your Grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.
Don Pedro: Will you have me lady?
Beatrice: No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But, i beseech your Grace, pardon me: I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
Don Pedro: Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.
Beatrice: No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was i born. Cousins, God give you joy!

Much Ado About Nothing 2.1

Thursday, August 13, 2009

my tears aren't worth anything anymore

came home today feeling uncomfortable; watched the end of Spanglish and teared up. did some stuff.
watched this trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg2rZ_3mgWU (basically inspirational stuff) and teared up again.


agh

it’s so easy to be moved to tears by sappy things. so lame.

“ well, sometimes nothin’ can be real cool hand"

-cool hand luke

Sunday, August 9, 2009

My Proverbs 27:6 Woman speakees klajee Engrish!

  • Bethany: im gonna run jun
  • time for iglesia
  • praying for you
  • love you
  • lavaaaaaa youuuuuuuu
  • jinchas.
  • x100
  • bye

excerpts from Stepping Heavenward

“Poor, heartsick, tired child that cannot see what I can see that its Father’s loving arms are all about it!”
I stopped crying to strain my ears to listen. He went on.
“Katy, all that you say may be true. I dare say it is. But God loves you. He loves you.”
He loves me, I repeated to myself. He loves me. “Oh Dr. Cabot, if I could believe that! If I could believe that after all the promises I have broken, all the foolish, wrong things I have done and shall always be doing, God perhaps still loves me!”
“You may be sure of it,” he said solemnly, “I, His minister, bring the gospel to you today. God home and say over and over to yourself, ‘I am a wayward, foolish child. But He loves me! I have disobeyed and grieved Him ten thousand times. But He loves me! I have lost faith in some of my dearest friends and am very desolate. But He loves me! I do not love Him; i am even angry with Him! But He loves me!”
I came away; and all the way home I fought this battle with myself, saying, “He loves me!” I knelt down to pray, and all my wasted childish wicked life came and stared me in the face. I looked at it and said with tears of joy, “But He loves me!” Never in my life did I feel so rested, so quieted, so sorrowful, and yet so satisfied.
(59 conversation between Dr. Cabot and Katy)

“It has been said “that a fixed, inflexible will is a great assistance in a holy life.”
You can will to choose for your associates those who are most devout and holy.
You can will to read books that will stimulate you in your Christian life rather than those that merely amuse.
You can will to use every means of grace appointed by God.
You can will to spend much time in prayer without regard to your frame at the moment.
You can will to prefer a religion fo principle to one of mere feeling; in other words, to obey the will of God when no comfortable glow of emotion accompanies your obedience.
You cannot will to possess the spirit of Christ; that must come as His gift; but you can choose to study His life and to imitate it. THsi will infallibly elad to such self-denying work as visiting teh poor, nursing the sick, giving of your time and money to the needy, and the like.
If the thought of such self-denial is repugnant to you, remember that it is enough for the disciple to be as his Lord. And let me assure you that as you penetrate the labyrinth of life in pursuit of Christian duty, you will often be surprised and charmed by meeting the Master Himself amid its winding and turnings and receive His soul-inspiring smile. Or, I should rather say, you will always meet Him wherever you go.”
(89 - letter from Dr. Cabot)


“I see how it is,” she said. “You have forgotten that body of yours, of which I reminded you, and have been trying to live as if you were all soul and spirit. You ahve been straining every nerve to acquire perfection, whereas this is god’s gift and one that He is willing to give you, fully and freely.”

“I have done seeking for that or anything else that is good,” I said despondently. “And so I have gone back to my music and everything else.”

“Here is just the rock upon which you split,” she returned. “You speak of going back to your music as if that implied going away from God. you rush from one extreme to another. The only true way to live in this world, constituted just as we are, is to make all our employments subserve the one great end and aim of existence, namely to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. But in order to do this we must be wise taskmasters and not require of ourselves what we cannot possibly perform. Recreation we must have. Otherwise, the string of our soul, wound up to an unnatural tension will break.

“Oh, I do wish, I cried, “that God had given us plain rules about which we could make no mistake.”

“I think his rules are plain,” she replied. “And some liberty of action He must leave us or we should become mere machines. I think that those who love Him and wait upon Him day by day learn His will almost imperceptibly and need not go astray.”

“But, Mother, music and drawing are sharp-edged tools in such hands as mine. I cannot be moderate in my use of them. And the more I delight in them, the less I delight in God.”

“Yes, this is human nature. But God’s divine nature will supplant it if we only consent to let Him work in us of His own good pleasure.”

(95 - conversation between Katy and her mother)


[review here]

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

"A Wayfaring Song"

“A Wayfaring Song”
O who will walk a mile with me
Along life’s merry way?
A comrade blithe and full of glee,
Who dares to laugh out loud and free
And let his frolic fancy play,
Like a happy child, through the flowers gay
That fill the field and fringe with the way
Where he walks a mile with me.

And who will walk a mile with me
Along life’s weary way?
A friend whose heart has eyes to see
The stars shine out o’er the darkening lea,
And the quiet rest at the end o’ the day—
A friend who knows and dares to say,
The brave sweet words that cheer the way
Where he walks a mile with me.

With such a comrade, such a friend
I fain would walk till journey’s end,
Through summer sunshine, winter rain,
And then? —Farewell, we shall meet again!
~Henry van Dyke

Monday, August 3, 2009

so i arrived and met our supervisor, and she was sweet...
but i could tell a little disorganized.
i met a cool couple.
but at night time got pretty short at B because she gave us the wrong key, we were locked out....

today was a great way to start, it was amazing hearing everyone sing old hymns and i love the ... culture of these folks from good ole alabama, virginia, north carolahna...  

and then i found out i'm teaching not simple middle school ESL but ALL the ESL courses.
so whereas other teachers teach 3 classes each, i'm teaching all 6.

and get this: i  teach the regular curriculum at the regular pace, set by the other teachers.

and basically they have these midterm evaluations, and if a student gets below 60% they get bumped to ESL, and if they get above 60%, they get moved back into the old english class.

so i'm just here to make sure they bump back into the old class, teaching material set from another teacher, doing all the work, but the homework won't count for anything just so a student cant leave.


so any nice aspirations i had about teaching in fresh innovative ways,  my notebook filled with scribbles and notes of things i wanted to do / show ... all gone.

because i get to hook up with 2 teachers and do whatever they do.. except with ESL students, but at the same pace...


AND even BETTER is when one teacher goes on maternity leave, I take OVER her class, til she's ready to come back! if she does!
peachy.
sooo if she never does, i'll still be teaching her curriculum, doing her thing, and any suggestion i have is shot down (ever so nicely, because seriously, that teacher is really sweet and really nice, and i think she kept me sane that day. plus her husband is cool.).





the plusses are DEFINITELY my fellow coworkers.
the cons is i really dread this job.