Day 19 - Random fact about you

I am a cougar.  I try to hide from this fact, but my cougar-ness always comes sneaking back.

Just really liked this quote

"Faith is living. If faith does not motivate action, well, then it isn't. I hope my faith drives everything I do; working, playing, delights and quotidian drudgeries alike, to say nothing of worship, both the focused purposeful consciously directed kind (prayer, singing, study, meditating) as well as the incidental, unanticipated surprise kind (being suddenly rescued from danger or mortification, or suddenly being aware of how unspeakably beautiful something or someone is, or suddenly realizing quite independent of my own virtue or intention I am being involved in something that God intends). I think the first sort of worship prepares me to experience and notice the second kind." 


 Quote found HERE

Day 18 - Favorite class/school subject

I have two basic favorites and anyone who knew me in high school or college should be able to guess at least one of the two of these.  Actually, anyone who knows what I'm certified to teach should be able to guess both of these.

Spanish-

I remember Senora George in Jr. High who taught my intro class.  I think I learned the alphabet and a little bit of vocab and that's about it.  It was fun because we always got her off on some tangent, I think she had lived in Peru and she liked to tell us about living there.  Senora McLean was my high school Spanish teacher.  I had her for 1st, 3rd and 4th year.  Good times...she was spunky...she made me feel like I was good at Spanish...I didn't always get A's (I blame all of the school I skipped as a Junior and Senior)...I use a lot of things I remember about her classes and implement those techniques into my own teaching.  In college I loved my Professors of Spanish for the most part.  I'm thinking particularly of Brother Ivers who was always so good about making ties and connections to the culture.  He was actually the first Spanish teacher I ever had at BYU-Idaho (as well as the last).  I remember he called up to my house as a freshman to find out why I wasn't in class and asked me to make sure I was getting to class.  He always said, at the beginning of each course, "Even if you fail every part of this class, I'll still like ya."  I always enjoyed Brother Clark who would have us sing hymns at the beginning of each class and talk about the gauchos of Argentina and all sorts of fun literature and spit when he talked. 

Geography-

Okay, I really started to like Geography after Mr. Arends Global Issues class in 10th grade.  I don't actually remember having a Geography class before that.  Then, to get out of taking a science class/lab I took Geography instead from Brother Madsen.  Holy cow, was he just the coolest professor ever!!!  He loves his subject.  I decided to make Geography my minor after taking one of his classes.  Ok, so the maps and remote sensing/GIS stuff isn't my cup of tea...but I love the cultural geography stuff.  I also took a great class called writing for the social sciences and it was delish, I learned all about semiotics and fun stuff that I wouldn't normally have looked into.

I'm back from the dead.

So, life got a little hectic the past few months as you can see by my lack of blogging.  I still intend to finish my year long goal to answer the 60 blog questions I mentioned back in January.  Since getting out of school last Thursday, I have packed up my classroom (oh, by the way, did I mention I got a new job and will be teaching at a different school next year?) and headed up to Scout Camp.  Not working there this summer, just volunteering this week.
FIRST TANGENT
I love cub scouts.  Eight and Nine year old boys are the cutest.  I seriously want one some day.  I just adore them.  Okay, well some are a little pouty and a little whiny, but some of them are so spunky and fun and others are just so sweet and lovable.  I also want kids someday that are like the youth staff they have this year at camp. Today was our first day with cubs and it was a little crazy, everything we do is outside and it was pouring down rain this morning.  By lunch time it was so crazy that our staff didn't get to meet together and sing and say grace before we ate.  Emma (15) reminded us that we hadn't blessed our food and the 4 of us at our table in a sea of cub scouts and leaders bowed our heads while Emma prayed.  It just made me smile and hope that I have a daughter like her some day.
SECOND TANGENT
Suffering is a topic that has been on my mind.  Reading some things written on some other blogs and just something I've pondered this year as it has been a particularly challenging one for me.  We know that suffering is a part of life.  Some of life's difficulties last seconds or days or weeks while other hard times last months or years.  To try and quantify or categorize someone's suffering is difficult.  The types of pain we experience are varied.  All of these pains and sufferings are understood by the Savior.  Relief from our suffering ultimately comes from Him (it can be via other people).  I would add that relief is rarely immediate and that is when humility is developed.  I have a hard time when someone tells me or another person, "cheer up, snap out it, get over it, don't worry be happy".  People who say these things mean well, and sometimes that's exactly what I need to hear.  Other times, I need to suffer for a little bit (or a long time) to develop humility and to realize that I can experience peace even during times of pain and suffering and trial.  It's hard to watch other people suffer, we want to fix it and somehow find the right things to tell them to make it better but are we robbing them of the opportunity to develop greater humility and experience the peace of the atonement?  Don't ask me how the people of Alma submitted CHEERFULLY and with patience to all the will of the Lord.  Mosiah 24:15 (this is something my mission president once pointed out to me).  I don't know that life is always cheerful and peppy and upbeat.  I don't know if God expects anyone to put on a happy face and pretend to be cheerful when they are suffering.  I do know that God expects to have hope despite our suffering.  I believe that real hope is manifest through optimism, patience and persistence.  So maybe faking a smile and pretending to be optimistic (when we have nothing in our reserves) couldn't hurt?  Sometimes I don't even realize the moment when my forced optimism tranforms into genuine hope.
THIRD TANGENT
When I walk around the beautiful neighborhood where I live, I see these gorgeous homes.  They are charming and lovely and quaint and just seem to emanate goodness.  The thought occurred to me today that just because the house on the outside is beautiful and lovely and charming, doesn't mean the family on the inside is just as quaint.  I realized that even though these homes on the inside might be perfectly decorated and homey doesn't mean that the people living inside feel at home.  I've always said that I want my home to be a place where my family wants to be and I'm realizing that has a lot less to do with the caliber of my decorating skills or how fancy and expensive the furnishings are, and a lot more to do with the person that I am.  We don't enjoy being in homes because of the bells and whistles they might boast, we enjoy being in homes because of the goodness of the people that are there.