A Cursed Blessing

Decisions.  Decisions are one of the many things that I am not very good at.  I hate deciding between more than one thing in life. If I know what I want I have no problem going for it, but if you throw in a few options and the pros and cons of each and peoples opinions, that you value, everything becomes a blur. I can never find the perfect answer to what I am having to make a decision about.

When it comes to this I always call up the few people I know that will ask me the right questions to help me discover the right decision.  Well, lately I have been blessed with a very tough decision, which school I would like to accept a job at?  I know it's a blessing and everyone is saying how awesome it is that I have options, but being that making a decision and making a commitment is hard for me, this is a very difficult thing for me to do.  So being that all of you have been following me along this journey I would like to include you in my decision making and hear what your thoughts and opinions are.

School #1

This is the school I received my first interview at.  Right away I liked the school.  It is a brand new school that just opened last year and the staff I saw right away were very welcoming and friendly.  The principle made me a little nervous though because she has this strong authoritative presence to her.  She showed me around the school and introduced me to some of the staff and the assistant principles.  Everyone seemed really nice.  I was able to see the art room and I absolutely loved it!  It was bright and open, which I love.  Sunshine makes me happy : ).  There is also another art teacher that works there as well.  She is also a new teacher and it is her second year teaching.  The pros about this is that I would have someone else to talk to and collaborate with.  The cons would be if there is a cut one of us would probably be the one to go.  They are adding the position because the electives are overcrowded.  This school also has many great seasoned teachers and some teachers I know here think this school is a great place.  In this school I would be creating my own art classroom and starting from scratch.

School #2

This is the school in which I first heard of an art position opening up.  I went in and observed a few times.  When I first walked into the school I didn't get the same feeling, but I don't know if its because of the building itself or what.  The front desk people weren't as friendly as the ones I had met at Luis, but today when I had my interview there the people I talked to in the interview were soooo nice, helpful and seemed very supportive.  Also the e-mails and the short chat I had with the principal were very good.  She seemed very kind and helpful. The students were great, they were very welcoming and respectful.  The room on the other hand is older and does not have as much space.  It is a bit more gloomier.  The kiln (a hot oven thing that you use to fire clay pieces) is in the actual room with the students instead of being in its own room.  I would have another class down the hall in which the teacher now uses as a clay room.  The teacher would help me transition into this position and leave a lot of his stuff with me, which may be nice to some extent but also it would mean that my classroom is pretty much set up instead of creating my own.  My fear here is that so many people have talked about how great of a teacher he was and how he has built this great program.  He has done a lot of stuff for the school and lead after school classes and I'm afraid of not being able to live up to that.  Also, the guy in charge of all of the art teachers in the Aldine district gave me some advice and told me that many people are going to ask me to borrow supplies and make things for them and I need to learn to say no, because I will overwhelm myself and get taken advantage of.  Well, the teacher now does a lot of that stuff.  He shares supplies with the other teachers and makes a lot of stuff for them.  My fear is being put in the position of getting sucked into this and if I didn't do these things that the other teachers wouldn't understand.  On the other hand though this is the school that the fifth graders I worked with before would be coming to and then my students would be going over to the teacher I am working with now.  So I know the schools and how they work pretty well.  Also most of the students at these schools live in the rougher areas in Houston and I feel that there is a strong need for someone like myself in their lives.  I'm not as sure about the first school, but I do know a lot of them come from a little bit nicer area and there is more parent involvement there than here.  Student teaching with the two other schools in this vertical I have come to love these students and have learned a lot about where they have come from and what many of them are going through and I want to help them and inspire them.


A lot of people have said to go with my gut feeling, when you know you.  Then others have asked which is the more secure job?
To me I am young, if I am not meant to have a job and get cut I can just go find somewhere else or something else to do.  I don't even know yet if this is where I would like to stay long term.  I would like to go somewhere were I am treated well, don't feel the pressure to be something I am not or do something I am not comfortable with and also where I know I could make a difference in my students lives.

So decisions, decisions... What to do?

Getting Akward

       Lately I have been reading a book on relationships.  Since I have been down in Texas I have realized how important it is to take time to develop good relationships with a select few people in my life.  I've never been one to have really close friends.  I may have many friends and know many people, but when I look at how many people I have in my life that I feel I could count on for anything and could talk about anything with, that number decreases immensely.  There are very few people in my life that I consider to be close friends and even then I don't think they are as close enough as they could be if I took a little time to deepen my relationship with them.

    I am the kind of person who loves to meet new people and get to know them on a deeper level.  I will usually always ask the questions to get to know a person on a deeper level, but rarely ever give up my own experiences and life stories unless asked specifically, and only those few close people in my life know that they have to do that.  While reading that book today I had an epiphany.  The reasons why I never really shared anything with anyone is, because it feels akward and I absolutely hate akwardness, which is the reason I do not like to date.  To deepen a relationship though you have to go through those akward stages, it means you are opening up and letting that other person in so that they can get to know you and understand you as well.  The more you can get over your own feelings of akwardness and risk deeper conversations, the closer you will get to the people in your life.  If you are always in a predictable state of comfort there can never be any growth.  This is something that I have known for a very long time and have been working on doing in my own relationships with people.  I am absolutely awful at it and know its one of the reasons my last relationship didn't work out and why I don't have the closest friends.  I always expected other people to open up to me, which for the most part they do, but I never really shared my own deepest failures and experiences in my life.  Today it hit me, why would someone want to open up to me and share their own failures and secrets when I don't even open up to share my own?   I remember as a teenager never telling my parents anything.  I always wished that I could, but they always seemed to have it all together and I never wanted to tell them what was going on in my life for fear of shame, embarrassment, or punishment.  For parents, remember to share your own struggles and life experiences with your kids.  If you don't share yours, why would they ever feel ok to share theirs?  If you act like you are perfect and have it all together it makes them feel like they cannot share their own failures and struggles.  Now that I am older my relationship with my parents is deeper, but I think parents think that maybe we are finally old enough to understand and thats why our relationships get better with age.  Truthfully though we understood the entire time, so imagine if you started sooner what your relationship would be like now?

Another issue I have is making the time.  I am always working or have something planned every day and every second of my life.  Instead of filling it with meaningless work and activities I should be planning dates with those that I love and want to deepen my relationship with.  That also requires me taking the innitiative to do so, which I am also awful at.  I would be one of those people that just waits till somebody asks me to do something instead of going out and asking them.  I am not a planner when it comes to other people.  I hate making decisions when it involves other people, so I just try and avoid it.  I have to say though I have gotten much better at that, but I know I could do even better.
  
I also started thinking about significant others relationships.  After being out of a 4 1/2 year relationship for 8 months now and reading through this book, I now cans see every part of where we went wrong.  Not telling each other when things bothered us right away, instead of dealing with issues and talking them out we let a lot of them slide.  Sometimes things or other people seemed to come before the other person.  Sometimes we might be together but not interacting or giving the other person our undivided attention.  Sometimes it was not learning about the other persons passion and interests.  And for the most part we weren't aligned in our morals and goal in life.
      For the longest time I was scared of any type of commitment, another reason I do not like to date, but then I realized with the right person I won't ever have to be.  See, most people nowadays think that finding that significant other and marrying them means settling down.  It may mean different things to different people, but to me it didn't sound very appealing.  I am a wonderer, an explorer, a traveler, a dreamer, an accomplisher, and a flyer.  To me settling down meant being stuck in one spot, having kids, taking care of them and cleaning and doing housework all of the time, which for some may be appealing but for me that sounded awful.  Then today I realized that when I do find that right person I wont ever have to settle down, because to me that other person will be my best friend.  They will want to explore and travel and dream and fly and accomplish right along side me.  They will let me be me and I will let them be them and together we will aspire to fill our purpose in life as a couple.  I don't think God would really pair me up with someone who would keep me from filling my purpose in life, but with someone I couldn't fulfill my purpose without.  Settling down sounds like you are settling for something that you do not really, truly want.  Settling is not you.  In the same sense not risking akwardness in a relationship does the same thing.  It means you are settling.  Because, a relationship involves two imperfect people there will always be some sort of conflict, and if you do not talk about these things and risk feeling akward your relationship will never grow deeper.  Schedule time to spend your undivided attention with those relationships that are important to you in life, learn their dreams, goals, interests and passions in life and support them, and get akward.  Remember never having an issue with someone means that someone isn't revealing their true feelings and if you don't have those kind of conversations the relationship will never grow deeper.

Im glad God gave me this time to be single and reflect on all of my relationships in my life and give me the chance to figure out where I have gone wrong so, that way I can fix them and deepen them before it becomes too late.

"Be willing to be uncomfortable.  Be comfortable being uncomfortable.  It may get tough, but it's a small price to pay for living a dream."  Peter McWilliams

Why Am I Thankful?

By the time I am done writing this blog and someone has the chance to read it, it will be thanksgiving day.  What do we all do on thanksgiving, besides stuff our face full of food, watch the Macy's day parade, football and catch up with family?, well think about the things we are thankful for.  So, as you might have already guessed I will be writing about the things that I am grateful for this thanksgiving year.  Instead of listing off a long list I am going to narrate it, because this year I have a new point of view on life and instead of just saying the first things that pop into my head, I actually have a meaning.

I was thinking the other day about where I was at in my life a year ago from that day.  A year ago around this time I would have been thinking about coming down to Aldine to complete my student teaching, I would have been working two different jobs while completing 18 credits worth of classes, and of those classes most of them would have been 3 hrs long.  I would have stayed up late into the night struggling to finish assignments for the next day and would have gotten up a few hours later to go to class and do it all again.  I would have been living with my best friend and two other awesome roommates that I had just gotten to know.  I would have been with my boyfriend of four years.  I would have been thinking about finishing school, getting married and how we would spend the rest of our lives together no matter where we ended up.  I would have been stressed to the max and worrying about every little thing, that I now know doesn't really matter at all.  I would have been following the crowd instead of being my own person.  I would have been trying to balance school, work, homework, sleep, a relationship and a social life.  I would have not been able to say no and would have planned way to many things in my life to keep up with.  I would have been afraid of any type of commitment and would never have gone out to do anything on my own.  I would have been ridden with guilt and shame for the things I have done in my past.  I would have been lost in the busyness of the world and never taking a chance to sit back and give my maker the undivided attention that he and I so much needed.
      
         Well, this year all of that has changed completely.  My life has done a complete 360 and for that I am so grateful.  I believe God sent me down here for a reason.  I didn't know at first if it was going to even work out over this summer, but at the very end it all came together and the situation I was thrown into was even better than I had been planning myself.  Ha go figure God can do it better huh?  While it might have started out as an exciting adventure it soon turned into a struggle.  I had no one here to turn to  I had no one here to show me love, I had no one here I could talk to, no one here I could cry with, no one here that knew me well enough to know exactly what to say, no one here to make my hard day better, and no one here that I could count on.  Well as God knew it would, it drew me closer to him.  This is exactly what I had needed.  My life slowed down.  Even though I was teaching all day and sometimes had to work at night at pier one, the speed of my life had slowed down anyway.  I now have the time to read, think, write and explore.  Something I didn't have a chance to do last year.  I learned that God is all that I really need and that if I rely on him completely he will take care of my every need.  My faith has grown deeper, my heart has become fuller, my mind has become clearer, my life has slowed down and my soul has become complete.
    
      All of my guilt and shame from the past is gone and I now am not afraid of a commitment if I feel it's aligned with God's plan.  I have learned to jump out on a limb and that I can do anything at this moment in time and I do not need to wait for it to fall into my lap or for someone to invite me or tell me to do it. I have learned to stand up for myself and what I believe in and have more courage than I have ever had before.  Im not afraid of who I am anymore and I love being just plain old me. I now know that it is the relationships with people that are the most important thing in life and that helping out anyone every chance I get is where its really at.  A year ago I would have been making more selfish decisions, now I have grown a little more selfless.  I have thought about my clothing, the amount of it and the style of it and have come to the conclusion that I can get rid of quite a bit of it.  I'm feeling a little more simple.  I have way to many shoes and while I used to really love heels, plain tennis shoes or slip ons are completely fine with me.  As for my earrings and accessories I collected and became obsessed with over the summer, it now all seems so pointless and waste full.  If I was in a country working with kids who didn't have a pair of shoes or know when their next meal would be, would I really be worried about what shirt, or shoes or earrings I would be wearing.  The answer I gave myself was no.  So why the hell did I buy this stuff in the first place?!  Well that answer I came up with was that it made me feel good or that I was just trying to keep up with the people around me.  Pretty much embarrassing if you ask me.  I don't even like to stand out in a crowd, that is definitely not me, yet I was working towards that.  My solution is to sell everything I have that I don't really need this summer and put it towards helping those less fortunate than myself.  This experience I have gone through in the last four months has been life changing and that is what I am truly grateful for this thanksgiving.  I am thankful that things have turned out exactly how they have.  I may have gone through a lot of heartbreak and struggle, but I would go through every hurt and pain I have ever gone through to get to where I am at today.

Besides this life changing experience I am truly grateful for my loving family.  Even though they are far from perfect ; ) they have always supported me in everything thing that I aspire to do.  They have given to me generously, comforted me through the tough times in my life, taught me to work hard, be independent, to give freely, be smart with my money, never be wasteful, always be helpful, do your best, never give up, always do things out of love, always forgive, and most importantly taught me about God. I may not have always shown it but I am truly thankful for them this year and every year of my life.

I am also thankful for my friends, old and new.  The ones who have been there for me through it all.  The ones who have laughed with me and cried with me.  The ones who have freely given me their advice.  The ones who have supported me every step of the way throughout my life.  The ones who have given me courage to branch out and be the person I was meant to be.  The ones who have hurt me and made me stronger.  The ones who have given me great memories to remember for a lifetime.  The ones who have helped me when I needed it.  The ones who have seen through my BS and had the guts to say it.  The ones who I could call five years from now and it would feel like we had never been apart. The ones who I have spent forever with and the ones I have spent a few days with.  I am thankful for everything you have ever done for me.  You may be thinking well I never did anything for you, but if you have come into my life and I have spent time with you I am telling you you have.

I could go on and on with a list of the things that I am grateful for in this world, but I think for the most part you probably get the point and could guess what else I am thankful for in this wonderful thing called life.  Oh and I can't forget to say that I am thankful for all of you who read and support my blog!!  Thank you for the feed back you have given me, I really appreciate it all.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving and a blessed day!

Love,
This small town girl

Fear

Fear.  What is fear?
Something that holds you back
Something that causes you to slack
Something that keeps you from speaking
Something that keeps you from reaping
Something that keeps you from sowing
Something that keeps you from knowing what you can do, what you want to do, what you need to do.
Its something that is in our minds
It consumes us from the inside
It steals our hope
It crushes our dreams
It leaves us feeling alone
It is controlling
but it is not all knowing
It causes us to stop
keeps us from reaching the top
 becoming who we ought to be
It's an optical illusion
A mind game intrusion
Something that brings you to your knees
It eats away at your back
It doesn't cut you any slack
It kills the person you are meant to be.

One Shot

"Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or let it slip?" -Marshal Mathers III from "Lose Yourself"

Everyone has a dream or several dreams, but dreams just stay dreams, a figment of our imagination, unless they are acted upon.  Instead of dreaming it, why not do it?  Why not live your dream?  Is it fear?  Is it pride?  Is it procrastination?  What is holding you back from living your dreams?   There have been many dreams in the history of this world few have been completed, some have started, but many were never acted upon, because those who they belonged to never seized the moment.  We have become people that are pros at procrastination and we let life changing opportunities pass us by daily.  We may have good intentions, but intentions are meaningless without action.  

"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted property to them.  To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents and to another one talent, each according to his ability.  Then he went on his journey.  The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more.  So also, the one with the two talents gained two more.  But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.  After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them.  The man who had received the five talents brought the other five.  "Master," he said, "You entrusted me with five talents.  See, I have gained five more."  His master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant!  You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.  Come and share your master's happiness!"  The man with the two talents also came.  "Master," he said, "You entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more."  His master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant!  You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.  Come and share in your masters happiness!"

         Then came the man who had received the one talent came.  "Master," he said, "I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.  So I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground.  See, here is what belongs to you."  His master replied, "You wicked, lazy servant!  So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?  Well then you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.  Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents.  For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance.  Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 

-Matthew 25:14-30

The guy who had the one talent and buried it had good intentions, he wanted to keep the money safe, but he did not make use of his talent and invest it so that it could multiply.  We do this all of the time with our money, our possessions and our talents.  We keep them to ourselves and never use them so that they may grow.  A talent at this time was money, but in this passage it symbolizes our eternal opportunities.  God has given us each a certain number of opportunities here on this earth and once they are gone they are gone.  Only on this earth do we have a chance to make a difference in someone's life and only on this earth do we have a chance to share our faith.  In Heaven everyone will believe, but on earth thats where we have the choice.  The choice to use our talents, our gifts and our abilities for the good of God, our master, or the choice to pass up those opportunities and wait and wait until it becomes too late.  It is what we do with the opportunities that we are given that counts.  Everything we do on this earth determines our eternity.  We only get one shot, don't miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime.  Yes these words came out of famous rapper Eminem's song, but it's true and God said it way before this guy even showed up.

Too many times we look at what opportunities others have been given and we do not look at what opportunities we have been given.  We think,  "I wish I had that ability, I could really do a lot with that."  Or "I wish I made that much money, I would really give a lot if I had that kind of money", but the truth is is that you won't.  If you don't use and give what you have already been given why would God give you more?  Their have been studies to show that the wealthier you are the harder it is for you to give.  It is shown many times in the bible and working in retail and the restaurant business I see it all of the time for myself.  More than half of the world lives on less than $2 a day and that is considered poverty.  If you live on welfare in the United States you are in the top 10% of the worlds wealth and if you make more than $36,000 a year you are in the top 1%.  Makes us look a little selfish huh when you look at it that way?   

"When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required."  Luke 12:48

Everything that we have been given in this world, let me repeat that... Everything we have been given, yes given.  We came into this world with nothing and we will leave this world with nothing.  Everything we have at this very moment is a gift from God who has so generously let us use it here while we are living on earth.  The sooner that we realize this the happier your life becomes.  Because if you don't, you spend all of your energy and time into hiding it and protecting what you have that you become attached to it and upset when it gets damaged or lost or stolen.  Objects will fade, get scratched, dented broken, stolen, and eventually fail so why spend the time and energy trying to protect what is not even yours in the first place?  I love what Pastor Kerry said this morning during his sermon, "See I love knowing that these possessions aren't mine.  When the car breaks down I just go, God you got car trouble I don't know what you are going to do about that?"  Ha ha this guys got a great sense of humor, love it!  

God entrusts us with opportunities, gifts, and talents and when he returns he will come to settle accounts with us.  "After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them"

He will ask us two questions:

1.)  What did you do with the gift of my son?  Did you receive that gift of sacrifice to live for eternity or did you deny it?

2.)  What did you do with what I gave you?  Did you use your gifts and talents to make a difference in the world for God's kingdom or did you bury them like the servant with one talent?

Remember everything we do on this earth determines how we will live for eternity.

In this story when the master came back and found that two of the servants had multiplied the talents they had been given the master said, "You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things."  And to the one servant who hid his talent he said, "Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents."  Because if we do not use our gifts and talents we will loose them and when we do use them God sees that he can trust us to make use of them and in return trusts us with more.  The dreams that we have been given and that have been placed on our hearts are nothing without action.  If we don't use them we loose them and we let another opportunity pass us by.  

Don't just dream, live out your dream.  Don't sit on the sidelines and watch the everyday busy work and possessions consume you, make the time and effort to use your gifts and talents and live out your dreams. Don't let any opportunity pass you by, seize it.  You will never get another chance to live your life again.  Don't wait, because time will never slow down, life will never be less busy or get easier with time.  So stop dreaming and start living, remember this opportunity comes only once in a lifetime.  

If you would like to watch Pastor Kerry's sermons online you can.  Here is a link to the series 60 seconds of Clarity that he started the beginning of November:

http://www.woodlandschurch.tv/currentseries/60seconds/default.html

 I suggest checking out his series "Weird because normal isn't working" also!  Good stuff.

Take the Time

So working with the high schoolers has definitely been a different experience.  Not better, not worse, just different...  Although they may give me attitude, smart off and continue to be disrespectful I love them all the same.  The little things they say or do make me smile and laugh.  Some even touch my heart and I can feel pieces of it leaving each day.  To get a little taste of what I mean I'll share a few moments and quotes that take place in my classroom.

1.  Being as young as I am in the classroom many of the high schoolers think I'm pretty much the same age as them.  One of my boys calls me by his last name.  Mrs. Canales, yup.  Ha ha I don't know who this lady is but he keeps getting me mixed up with her for some reason.

2.  "If I ever go to jail and get skinnier I'm getting that tattoo."

3.  One day my some of my students were making fun of each others faces since we were working on self portraits in class.  So I just stepped in and said that everyone is different and not one person is absolutely perfect.  Somehow I ended up telling them about my webbed toes and they freaked out and wanted to see them.  Well, being me not having a care in the world what they thought I showed them.  One kid said, "Ahh they look like a frog!"  Then one of my students who has autism goes "Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit."  and the class busts out laughing even harder.  

When the student who calls me by his last name came in the class told him about my webbed toes and his response was, "Wow thats gross, you just went from like a 9 or 10 to like a 4."  My response, "Thank God."

4. So one of my students is very loud and has a difficult time appropriate social behavior when interacting with his peers.  Usually I have to move him, ask him to stop talking and I had to send him down to the office once.  Well one day I sat down next to him and started talking with him and asking him questions about life like I usually do.  I learned quite a bit about him as a person with just the few things I had learned about him, but apparently that made all the difference in the world.  After then he started to work on his self portrait and try to do better.

One day a couple of the kids in my class said something to me that was disrespectful and this boy spoke up and said," Hey you don't talk to Miss Wilson like that!"  and got in between me and the other two students.  Later he had made a joke about me or something and then said, "No I'm just playing Miss Wilson your pretty cool, even though you did send me to the office, but I understand."  It's times like these when you feel a big piece of your heart leave.  

Since then he asked me if I would come watch his basketball game and also another students in my class.  I did, by myself which was tough for me to do, but I could tell it meant something to him.  Coming from a rough and broken home, living with only his grandma and having to go through some much trouble to use a vehicle to get to work and having to work, he needs a little support.

5.  One of my students just came about a week and a half ago.  I learned on the first day of meeting him that he wanted to go to school for art.  Well while my teacher was at a conference we had a representative for the kansas city art institutes come in to my last two classes to talk about it.  I told this student about it and he came and I wish you all could have seen the way his face lit up when the guy was presenting, it was priceless.  While he is apparently disruptive in other classes he is an angel in mine and every time he sees me in the hall he makes point to say something to me and give me knuckles.  Its amazing how the little time you take to learn one thing about a student, goes a long way.

I have learned a lot from my student teaching experiences and in life in general, and if I could say only one thing to anyone in this world, not just teachers, but coaches, employers, colleagues, parents, siblings, etc it would be to take just a few minutes of your time to get to know your student or your employee or whoever it may be.  It makes all the difference in the world.  Everyone wants to be acknowledged and feel important.  Taking a few minutes to give someone your full attention and show an interest in their life shows them that they are important and that they are significant even in this world full of billions of people.  My challenge to you is to take a few minutes out of your day this week to get to know that person you have never really talked to before or the person who maybe gets on your nerves.  I bet you will be surprised at what you find. 

P.S.  If you do decide to be brave and take this challenge I would love to hear your thoughts and comments on how it went and what happened : )

Opportunity Awaits

About four weeks ago I learned about a job position opening up at a school down here in Texas.  I talked to the gentleman right away, who mentioned the position and he e-mailed the principle of the school about me on the spot.  I filled out my application online right away and recieved an e-mail from the principle after a few days.  I was so excited and couldn't wait to get the ball rolling and go in and observe the current art teacher, working at the school.  The AP I had observe me and talked to at Escamilla used to work at this school and gave me information, tips on interviewing and a copy of the interview questions.  This would also be the school my cooperating teachers students would be attending and the students there would go on to the teacher I am with now.  This would be perfect!

With everything happening so quickly and falling right in place I was sure this was a good sign.  Well after a talk with the principle and hearing advice from one of our student teaching meetings, I thought about if this was the school I would really want to work at and not just because it was a job.  I'm not going to lie, when I visited the school I didn't get the warm welcoming feeling that I had at Escamilla.  So I thought about looking for other schools and I put together a portfolio this weekend. I should know from recent experiences that the first thing that pops up isn't always the correct choice. I have been praying about it a few days now, asking God to show me what he wants me to do with my life.  I have been praying that he opens doors wide open to where he wants me to go and close the ones that need to be closed.

Well... today after school I had a new teacher meeting just like every monday.  During the meeting one of the AP's came up to me with a note and she said that the principle at Luis Middle School wanted me to call her.  Shocked and surprised I asked, "Right now?"
"Yes, just go into the teachers lounge and dial this number."

So I went to the lounge called Ms. Cosby and set up an interview for Wednesday!  I couldn't have been more excited, actually I still am!!  The school is recently new and they are looking to start an art program there.  At the other school I would be trying to fill someone elses shoes whereas at this school I would be building up a new program.  I couldn't be more excited!  While I am excited I'm a bit nervous at the same time, but I wont really even have time to think about it with school and work and being that the interview is this Wednesday!  God knows me all to well, if I have too much time to think about things I freak myself out, but if you throw me right in I will swim.

I am amazed at how God continues to work and show himself in my life and others daily. I am thankful for that every day.

One Piece At A Time

I have been at the high school for a few weeks now and I can tell you that it is a different world from the intermediate school.  In intermediate school the kids just love you, because you are somebody to love and who shows them love.  Even if they are difficult and do not feel like listening and are giving you a hard time, you know they still love you.

In high school though it's all about being strong, hiding your feelings, and acting cool.  They will give you attitude, talk back, if they don't feel like doing work that day they wont, lay down on their desks if they are tired, laugh at you when you try to be serious, and try to argue and be smart with you when they can.  As you might think, they are a tough crowd, difficult to teach, and even harder to reach.  You see the younger ones haven't lived long enough to build up their wall, for the high schoolers though, that's how they learned to survive.

Jesus said to love your enemies.  Mathew 5:43-48  It's easy for anyone to love someone who loves them back, but it's harder to do so when they don't.  Obviously I don't consider these kids my enemies, but it is definitely hard to love them sometimes and this verse has a whole new meaning to me.

My encouragement has been  1 Corinthians 15:58  "So my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable.  Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the lord is ever useless."

Over these few weeks I have had the privilege of getting to know about the lives of some of these kids.  Some of them have children as old as 3-4 years.  A few of them plan to go to school for criminal justice or art.  One of my students is a rapper and is trying to record a CD.  One of my students is really good at making flip books while another has the kindest heart.  Another of my students would love to go to college, but is worried about the money and feels he needs to take over his dads landscaping company.  His real dream is to go to culinary school or be a medical assistant.  Another one of my students lives with his grandma and has to borrow his sisters car, who lives elsewhere, to get to his job every night.  He doesn't get off of work until 11 and then has to pick up his niece and bring her to his grandmas so that he can drop her off at daycare before he has school the next morning.  Then he has to drop the car off at his sisters place so she can then drop him off at school and go to work.  Another one of my students just lives with his two sisters and their kids.  His mother is gone, father in Mexico and brother is in jail for selling meth.  Another one of my students plays percussion in band and piano.  Some of my other students play soccer, football and baseball.  Another one wants to be a mechanic and another a forensic scientist.  A few of my students are tattoo artists and some are vegetarians.  Some of them are born leaders and some of them followers.  Some of them are bullies while others are the victims.  One of my students is a recovering addict and now lives life to the fullest.  Many have a significant other, more than I remember our high school having (that must have been the reason my younger kids thought it was so weird that I was single).  Another one of my students uncle died the other day and another one just came back after running away.  Many are failing, repeating grade levels, and struggling to even graduate.  Many of them have been mugged, beat, raped and abused.  Some students are in gangs, some take care of their siblings, most don't have a father figure and many come from low income families.  

Each of these kids are unique in their very own way, but all of these kids are dealing with a lot.  They have so many problems and pressures to deal with that many of us have never had to worry about.  Or maybe we did, but not all of them at once and maybe we even had some support to help us through.  My heart reaches out to them.  Everyday I try to do my best to show them God's love.  It mostly feels pointless, but I have to hope.  They have learned to build up a wall trying to keep out the hurt, the pain and the struggles.  And you know that they don't want anyone to see the real them.  I am trying to slowly chip away at that wall, little by little, day by day.  I may not reach a single student, but maybe just maybe I can make a chip.  Then hopefully they meet others along the way that make another chip and another and they can realize their potential and purpose in life. Everything has to start somewhere right?

I am only one, but I am one.  I cannot do everything, but I can do something.  And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.  ~Edward Everett Hale

Just one Life

I'm sure most of you know what the Nobel Peace Prize is and some of you may know that the guy it was started by was Alfred Nobel, but not many of you probably know that Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and  had a huge business in producing dynamite.  It's kind of ironic don't you think?  A man who the Nobel Peace Prize is named after created dynamite, a destructive weapon used and designed to kill millions of people.

Well one day Alfred Nobel woke up to find his own obituary in the paper.  His brother had died and they had mistaken his brothers death for his death.  At first he was shocked and didn't know what was going on, heck I would be too if I woke up to find that I had apparently died.  After getting over the shock he decided to read what people had said about him.  The heading was titled "Dynamite King Dies" and talked about his inventions of dynamite, he was "the merchant of death."

After reading about what the world thought of him and his life, "Merchant of Death" he asked himself the question is this what I want to be remembered for when I am gone, that I was the "Merchant of Death."  From then on Alfred Nobel worked towards peace and when he died all of his money went to the funding of the Nobel Peace Prize, to recognize those in the world who work towards peace and make a difference in the world.  That is why many people do not know that Alfred Nobel invented dynamite.

Alfred Nobel was a lucky man.  The majority of us will never have the chance to see our own obituaries in the newspaper and read about what kind of life we lived in the eyes of the world.  Think about it.  If you died today, what would the world have to say about you?  Would you be a "Merchant of Death" or one of peace and love.  Will the world see you as someone who lived without fear, gave your very best, loved with all your heart, and gave everything you had or as someone who took away freedom, lived in hate, never had time for the ones you loved, took away instead of giving, was self seeking instead of focusing on others.

Today pastor Kerry Shook talked about clarity in our lives.  In the last 60 seconds of our lives everything we thought was important won't mean a thing, and everything we thought was valuable to us will be worth nothing.  Everything we see in the world is temporary.  Your large home, your fancy car, your clothes, your boat, bike, TV, jewelery, money, etc.  When you are dead, what use will all of those things be then? The things that we cannot see are eternal, these are the things that are worth our time and effort and where we should concentrate our energy on.  Things like faith, hope, peace, and love.

Jesus said "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves and do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  Matthew 6:19-21

Think about what you spend most of your time doing and where the majority of your money is spent.  Those are the areas and things that show what is most important to you in your life.  You may say that God is the most important, or your family, or that you believe in giving to charities, but does where you spend the majority of your time and money say that?  Are you building up your treasure on earth or in heaven?

"Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to loose."  Steve Jobs

Every day you are building your life.  You are given one life to live.  Knowing that you have only one life to live, what are you going to do with it?  I just finished a book called One.Life by Scott McKnight which talked about these very things, and about living your life for all its worth.

My solution is give it to God and see what he can do through you.  You may be thinking what could God do with me.  I am a huge screw up and have messed up so badly that there is no one God could use me for good.  Don't put God in a box.  He used a man who had murdered thousands of His believers, to eventually spread the word and bring believers to Christ.  There is nothing you could do that would make God love you less and not be able to use you in amazing ways.  All you have to do is accept him and trust him with your life.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life."  John 3:16

Store up your treasures in heaven and you will have lived a life worth living.
They world may think we are crazy, but we already know that we are.  Being different is the only way you can make a difference.

Believe that you can change the world.

 "The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do."

-Steve Jobs

My New Journey

I know it has been a few weeks since I have last posted, and I have so many things to share with you!  Since I have a little bit of time to spare this morning, I thought I would share a little about my new experience at the high school to catch you up a little with the bigger happenings in my life.

Monday October 24th was my very first day at the high school.  Not one of my experiences has been in a high school up to this point, so as you can imagine I was pretty nervous about it.  Also if you remember from my second posting, many people from the area had told me some weapons might be something I should invest in before coming here.

I woke up at 5:15 that morning got ready and headed out the door.  As you all know it is exceptionally dark out at this time in the morning and I am driving to a school I have never been to and have no idea where to park.  Of course I park in the student part, because I can never get anything right the first time.  Trial and error is my forte.

I walk into the building filled with students that hover over me.  I was like a baby fish in a big pond trying to push my way through so I could find the office.  I filled out some paperwork, got a parking sticker for my car and an Id to wear.  On of the assistant principles showed me around the building, introduced me to a few people and told me information about the school. The school is two stories and is the biggest school I had ever been to.  Remember I'm a small town girl and my school contained grades 6-12th and our graduating class was 130 people.  This High school contains grades 10-12 and has around 3,000 students.  Talk about a huge difference!

She then showed me to my room where I would be spending the rest of my 8 weeks here.  My teacher is very nice, energetic and sarcastic.  She has so many great ideas and I love to pick her brain.  I wasn't quite sure how she would be at first, but she is very encouraging to me when I talk to her about my struggles or fears.  This I am very appreciative of.  "It won't always be this way.  Right now you have to concentrate on content, lessons etc. because you are still learning the basics.  Over time as those areas become more natural to you the rest will fall into place."  Thats very encouraging to someone who struggles with wondering if they are ever doing anything right and works really hard to do the best that they can.

I also met all of the kids which went pretty well besides the boys thinking that Im around their age and think that its ok to hit on me.  I met the other art teachers at the school and a few more teachers.  At the end of the day I had to attend a meeting for new teachers in which we talked about teaching strategies and procedures at the school.  Then at 4:30 my first day at the High school was finally complete.  The first day had gone better than I thought and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would and I didn't even need to use any weapons!

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for me and being supportive in your messages, texts, or calls!!!  I appreciate it bunches!