I am finally employed - what a welcome relief. It has been a whirlwind week. I found a post on Craigslist Monday afternoon and had a formal job offer this morning. I will be teaching 1st grade at Medina Academy - a private Islamic elementary school. I get a classroom of my very own with 16 1st graders. The first day of school is Tuesday. The next few days will be spent setting up a classroom - figuring out some basic things about how I want things to run, and planning the first week of school. It will be a grand adventure - though there is also a nice level of nervousness too.

"I would prefer these minions come from my loins"

In discussion the concept of having children with my new housemate Ginger

In trying to rewrite my philosophy of education statement for job applications I have been reading many that I have written over the years. It is interesting to realize that the core of my educational beliefs has remained mostly the same since college. It has been expanded and refined a bit, but the core is still the same. I also realized how horribly I wrote in college. I had no idea.

I just bought a laptop to replace my very old and dying desktop. I am very excited, wish it were here now, but am also slightly frightened by the amount of money I just spent. *bounce, bounce*

I has the internet. It is the first time that I have had the internet on my personal computer in 4 years. This is going to make my life an awful lot more convenient. *smile*

Today is my official last day in environmental education and the jumping off point for my next adventure. It is a swirl of emotion.

I have spent the last 6 years playing outside and teaching kids science. It is strange to think of that being done. To know that I am not going to live in the woods soon and to know that I am leaving the huge trees. It has been what I did for so long it is weird to think of that not being part of my life. I have spent the last couple weeks walking in the sunshine (it does exist here sometimes)in some of the most amazing places with trees almost 1000 years old. It brings up many sad and melancholy feelings.

At the same time, I know that I am done with working in this field. I become less and less willing to put up with the way that staff are treated and the silly politics and slave labor. Especially I am done with where I am. I still love the forest, but the organization drives me crazy.

And on to new adventures I go. Most of my stuff is already moved to an apartment in Seattle. I will be living with one of my good friends from here as well as my wonderful babes. The last load of stuff is packed in my car currently and my cabin is all cleaned out. All that is left are two crates of plants and a bit of food.

And the next adventure starts. I am super excited to be starting a residency at a school in Seattle as of the 11th. It is an amazing school that applies everything I learned in College and lets kids be very creative and included in their education. I will be working with 2 classrooms of 2-3 graders. It starts the great transition back into a classroom (one of my own being the next step).

Overall, I know the transition is good, and will be a far better place for me than where I am, but it is still harder than I expected to let go and move on.

I have finally figured out where next year will be taking me.

When I moved to Washington, there was a school that comes to the center where I work that I fell in love with. It is a pre-K through 5th grade school. It is amazingly student centered and experiential and basically takes all the education theory I learned in college and applies it. I was even more excited when I found out that they have a teaching residency program.

I decided that next school year was the year and so started a longish and stressful interview (and teaching demo) process. I was very excited to receive one of 10 positions for next year. Especially because I found out almost a month before I expected to hear. I still have to wait until July to find out what age I get to work with though. But I am very excited. Copious amounts of work, but great fun and tons of learning too.

So now I am on my first step to being "a real adult". This will be the beginning of the end of my gypsy lifestyle. I spend a school year in Seattle, and by the end of it, I should have figured out where I want to find a school to teach in for the next couple of years.

It is definitely nice to have a few questions answered - especially to have things work out how I want them to. Anyone showing up in Seattle between August and June (09) should let me know. I enjoy showing people around the city now that I know it a bit.

Seems like an interesting bandwagon

http://kevan.org/johari?name=cerafaery

Do you have an address so I can find your house tomorrow. If not, I will give you a call when I get back in the country. Also any dinner ideas. I was hoping to do a dinner out about 7ish on Saturday.

The wonderful world of Summer Camp is almost done for me (friday, *bounce, bounce, bounce*) and thus, I am about to begin my lovely long drive home to Washington.

Since I will be driving through some of the lovely areas that people live, here are my travel plans. If you would like to catch up while I am in your neck of the woods (or live in Boston and will let me crash on your floor), let me know. That is half the plan of the trip.

Aug
11-12 Boston
12-16 NE CT
16 North Hampton
17-19 VT
20-22 Rochester NY
24-26 Driving to MT
27-30 Glacier Nat. Park
30-3 OR
Sept 4 - Back to OPI

Also, if any of you end up in the Seattle area, let me know. I would love to see anyone in my neck of the woods.

And eventually when I figure out how to post pictures, I will post pictures from my summer.

If anyone is looking for a weekend adventure and feels the need to travel across the country, I have a 4 day weekend and an old growth forest and would love to share it with people. If not (which is more likely) enjoy whatever adventure life takes you on.

It was wonderful to wake up this morning to realize that it wasn't actually raining, but that it was snow melting and dripping off my cabin. It gave me a bit of nice reflection time to realize what a wonderful week I have had. In the last week I have taken a 10 mile downhill snowshoe/hike, planted garlic and shallots at the local organic farm, had the most amazing dairy/gluten free meal I could imagine, hung out with female friends and just sang, went to African drumming practice, had an evening of themed iron chef and board games with my coworkers, and a potluck with stories. And that is all in addition to training at work which involved playing in the woods and other such fun things as learning how to work fire extinguishers and fire hoses. Life is good

It snowed here yesterday. Actual snow that fell in big giant wet flakes and actually stuck to the ground (at least for a few minutes). It made my day. That and being allowed to play with fire extinguishers.

So, my travels and pseudo-vacation has ended.
I have finished my very lovely 2ish month vacation of living back in the northeast, packing pallets for staples and spending my free time visiting everyone I can connect with. If I have to have a couple of months off, not a bad way to spend it. Especially because I got to attend things like Christmas caroling for the Tone Deaf, New Years as well as the big family holidays which I don't always make.

Then there was the trip back. I left Connecticut on the 8th and arrived last night (officially to my cabin this morning). The trip was worth it and I had a ton of fun visiting with people, but it is nice to know that I don't have to spend more than half an hour in the car in the next few days - or even weeks. I took the long route from Connecticut to Washington via New Jersey, Virginia, Ohio, Arkansas, Kansas, Colorado, and Utah (and those are just the states I stopped in). Highlights of my drive(in mostly chronological order) are:
Seeing friends I haven't seen in over 4 years
Doing puzzles and watching movies (and not feeling the need to leave the house)
Hanging out with my little cousins - getting them on the bus, reading stories, etc.
Eating Korean food for the first time - and realizing that I really like red bean foods.
Learning different ways to drink absinthe.
Getting to play the Wii and trying to be careful not to hit the other players, or the ceiling
Going to watch lesbian burlesque, belly dancing, and drag kings
Helping buy out the cat section at Petco - and going looking for a kitty
Staying up way past my bed time hanging out with friends, watching movies, and playing games.
Getting to be utterly girly and go to ballet class - shiny pink tights, leg warmers, and translucent pink skirt and all (and boy was I sore the next day).
Realizing that when the cat is hissing, growling, and clawing at the air mattress at 5 am, you might just want to pay attention instead of getting annoyed - there might just be a flying squirrel under the air mattress.
Seeing the absolutely adorable, quaint little tourist town in Arkansas I have spent years hearing about.
Getting to have good family meals with other peoples families.
The most miserable drive from Kansas to Colorado in wind and slick roads arriving just before the high way closes.
Getting to know my cousin Josh's wife Chue and daughter Bella
Learning how to make stuffed chicken wings and egg rolls.
The final day of driving - 15 hours - but then being done.
And I got to drive through three states I had never been to before - Missouri, Arkansas, and Kansas.

So now I am back. My cabin is mostly put away, and it is working better than I worried. We have a day of putting campus back together tomorrow (hopefully they will have found and repaired the water leak by then), and we have new staff arriving this weekend as well as 6th graders on Sunday.
Back to the world of playing in the rain with kids.

Happy birthday to randomphoenix
Happy birthday to randomphoenix
Happy birhtday to my babes
Happy birthday to randomphoenix

It is my bestest friend in the whole wide world - randomphoenix's birthday. We have gotten to spend all day together bouncing. (and running errands)

Dinner plans for Wednesday are:
The Green Briar in Brighton on Washington Street next to St. Elizabeth's Hospital.
I figure about 7 o'clock (just in case I get stuck in rush hour traffic comming up)
I can't wait to see people.

I will be in Boston this Wednesday night. I am planning on heading out to dinner somewhere and would love to see people. I don't know where exactly (it has been a long time since I hung out in Boston) so suggestions are appreciated. Let me know if you are interested and I will let you know when and where is decided. Hope to see you. *grin*

I figured out pictures. I will add a profile of the entire hike when that set of pictures gets downloaded.







p.s. altitude sickness and too much sun = a bad combo

I summited my first 14er today. My friends Lisa, Sarah, and I hiked Quandry peak, for a grand total of 14,265 feet. The trail was 3 miles long (one way) covering an elevation change of 3,145 feet. Round trip it took us 6 1/2 hours. There were amazing views at the top, and a huge sense of accomplishment. But now back to water and sleep, both are needed in larger quantities. (slight case of altitude sickness) I unfortunatly can't post pictures.