I am...

...suggesting you may not want to read my little list...could be quite boring!

...needing to catch up on EVERYTHING! Reading my little, special-to-me blog friends, taking photos and uploading them here, being focused enough to write something sensible here.

...finally reading The Alchemist

...hoping I will enjoy it as much as 11 Minutes; this is a bit of a guilty love, as it's explores the spirituality of sexuality. I believe it is the outlier among his books.

...wondering if Paulo Coelho would accept a date with me

...am getting divorced. Yes, you read that right. No dramas. No scandals. Will expound later. Hard to explain, but it is a move forward for us both, and neither of us see our relationship as a mistake. We remain good friends. We have been, believe it or not, more or less separated for about a year- it is still hard, of course, because it is the human condition to feel dissonance over the ambiguity which is woven into life's big changes; it is also exciting and hopeful, if that makes sense. On my Cuba trip, this wonderful, full of light woman from San Francisco, had my favorite reaction so far. No "sorry.: No "I feel so bad." No "how unfortunate." She just said, "Peace to you in your lovely transition." And that is all it is; because isn't that all anything is? Lovely? It happened exactly as it was supposed to. How do I know? Because that is what happened. It was lovely. And now it is something else. And that is lovely, too.

...questioning the practicality of marriage; have you seen Ira + Abby?

...reading like a zillion books at once...personal finance, global economy, freelance writing, etc.

...Doing the Body For Life program. I've been rocking out the gym in general for awhile now. Things keep getting smaller, but I'd like to have more choice in the engineering of the shapes on my body! So, BFL, in a nut shell, = less, more intense cardio + lots more weight training.

...I'm working tons extra so that I can afford some fabulousness, of which I will speak once it has happened (remember, I have become superstitious about mentioning).

...Was all set to move to Shanghai. Really. Did not turn out to make sense for this year, as the job I REALLY want turned out to be in Hong Kong, and I am not qualified until I have had some Montessori training. So, seems best to stay here a year or two at the job I already know I love rather than take a 2 year interim job. Also, it will be difficult to be Montessori trained in China, as you have to pay the entire fee up front, and it is very expensive. I've come to believe Montessori was a genius; constructivism is the pedagogy of awakening the senses, engaging the intellect...which can save the world, I truly believe.

...still continuing my little obsession with China. I very much feel a deep drive to experience living there, and to lean into my nomadic side in general- to feed what has become a passion for two way dual language programs, which I believe are a pedagogy of world peace. I knew I'd get hired at this job in Shanghai, but something I've realized about myself is that I will not be happy without nature all around me. Shanghai will not have that. HK is polluted, yes, but beautiful. I do not know if I can explain my need for this move; it is almost an intuition, a pull, more than anything. I can tell you it has something to do with the environment, with communism, the concept of oppression in cultures, globalization. When I came to understand the seriousness of the pollution in some Asian cities, I cannot explain how this hit me. I thought of the children living there, how spiritually oppressive that must be, living in such degradation; I felt (feel) this drive to see it, to go to the source to define my convictions, to be intimate with it. This is part of why I went to Cuba- to go to the source to define my convictions- and on the last day, I was overcome with emotion because I realized that I could no better define my conviction the final day than I could when I booked the trip. In a way, I did, though, because I made the Howard Thurman quote from the previous post into my religion, and I have been living it ever sense.

...honestly reveling in another year or two with my lovely little house, my happy little prius (who taught me to like to drive!), the best job in the world, and the best neighborhood in the world!

...speaking of my job, I'm getting my first student teacher! I'm such a nerd about the responsibilities of teachers to engage in critical pedagogy rather than bitch of how difficult we have it bc of testing dramas, that I am thrilled to share my room. I would love to teach teachers someday; I am so passionate about turning on little minds, to think I could help connect someone with what makes them come alive...more so than ever after teaching in the state that led the country in the push for oppressive, low level overtesting. It feels systematic to me...a systematic dulling of the intellect, a systematic training of "in the box" thinking. It feels like Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron.