Learning to Live

I should have just gone to bed the night before I flew back to Minnesota for Christmas Vacation. Instead, I read through my journal for 2016 and then I spent the whole night digesting every thought I had over the course of the year and got ZERO sleep. Sometimes it feels silly to have a journal. It feels like I'm reverting back to the 6th grade girl who writes about the boy she likes and the fight she had with her dad. But mostly, it's a great way to remind myself of my experiences and my feeling about those experiences. My journal is filled with memories, ideas, quotes from books, tidbits from conversations with the people I love the most, lists, and life plans. Much like running, writing things down helps me try to understand life. (Way cliche, but way true.) As I reflected on this year, I relived my feelings. My heart hurt thinking about my most recent heartbreak, but it also swelled with joy as I read the list of people who helped me through it. I remembered the incred...

There are a few moments in my life that I consider to be game changers. They changed the way I thought about the world and they helped me become who I am today. The first moment I remember was the decision to join choir in high school. I am still so thankful that Mark Potvin cornered me and told me I HAD to join choir. Unfortunately, this isn't a post about how much I love singing. It's a post about how much I love running. When I started running in my freshmen year, I thought it was a phase. A phase driven by the desire to lose weight. SPOILER ALERT: You will not lose weight if you eat and drink everything that you want and then justify it with a run. I'm sure all of my friends and family thought it was a phase too. After all, I despised running in high school and made up any excuse that I could to get out of the mile. So my new adventures left my friends and family surprised and confused, especially when I signed up for a half marathon. The decision to take my runni...

If you know me at all, you know that I have A LOT of feelings. ALL of the time. I'm genuinely a pretty happy person, but sometimes I get sad or mad or frustrate and it overwhelms me. Here's a poem by Rupi Kaur that describes me to a T: When I read this poem it really resonated with me. I don't know what it feels like to live a balanced life. I'm happy and then I'm sad. And it changes SO fast.  I cried every single day last week. Sometimes they were tears of happiness, sometimes they were sad, and sometimes they were just tears of being overwhelmed. A student saw me after a lunchtime meltdown and asked if I was okay. "Yeah, I'm okay!" "Well, your mascara is not okay." And then he gave me a hug and chatted with me and suddenly the moment where I thought I couldn't do it all anymore passed and I was okay. I'm emotional and my students know this. Thankfully they are understand how vulnerable I am and they are kind about it. ...

Lately I have been trying to determine if the word "overwhelmed" has a negative connotation or a positive one. I think it started when my brother told me I have an "overwhelming" personality. I'm not arguing with him, I know I can be overwhelming. I just wonder if that's good or bad. Dictionary.com gives us the following definitions: 1. to   overcome   completely   in   mind   or   feeling: overwhelmed by remorse. 2. to   overpower   or   overcome,   especially   with   superior   forces;   destroy; crush: Roman   troops   were   overwhelmed   by   barbarians. 3.  to   cover   or   bury   beneath   a   mass   of   something,   as   floodwaters,   debris, or   an   avalanche;   submerge: Lava   from   erupting   Vesuvius   overwhelmed   the   city   of   Pompeii. ...

"Miss, sometimes you try too hard." I didn't really have a response for this student because I was trying to decide if it was a compliment or an insult. And what exactly he was trying to say... "Sometimes you try too hard to get us to like you." "Sometimes you try too hard to make us learn." "Sometimes you try too hard to make your class fun." "Sometimes you try too hard to make us think about the world around us." Well, I'm sorry if my students think that any of those are a bad thing. And I'm sorry if at this point in my life I pour my heart and soul into being a good teacher. But my apology is only for one person really- myself. My student was right. Sometimes I do try too hard. I'm trying my best to beat my best every day of my life. And not just with teaching. I'm trying hard to beat my best in every aspect of my life: teaching, running, exercise in general, relationships, writing, reading. I wake up...

I can't believe that 2015 is already over. It seems like just yesterday that I was struggling to remember to write 2015 on my checks in mid-March. I think the more that happens in one year, the faster it goes. Or maybe it always goes fast. Maybe life never slows down. Meh. I could talk about that all day and never get anywhere, so instead I'll just reflect on this crazy beautiful life and hope that it continues to stay that way- even if it does go by too quickly. Here's a list of my 2015 in number format (Thanks Kate Bjelde for this awesome idea!) Countries: 5 I finally got to put my Christmas gift from last year to good use! My passport now has several more stamps in it (and even a Work Visa!) than it did last year at this time. I was fortunate enough to visit Italy, Croatia, Germany, Greece, and Mexico! My travels have taught me that there is so much that this world has to offer us and it's up to us to take advantage of it. Flights: 18 For a girl who was ter...

I've been in Mexico for about a month and a half now and this week I had the chance to celebrate Mexico's Independence Day. It was mostly exciting because we had a day off of school, but it was also pretty cool to see people so excited about their culture. On September 15th the students had a short day so they could have a pep rally of sorts and it was honestly chaos to watch them all scream "VIVA MEXICO" at the top of their lungs while student council threw out candy. Definitely an interesting scene. But for me, the coolest part of the day came later when a few friends and I were out for drinks. The conversation had been all over the place, but somehow we ended up discussing how we all made it to CAT and Torreon. My friend Paola is actually from Mexico, but she had been teaching at a school in Cancun before she came here. She made a really good point that sums up why we are all here I think. Even though it would be easy to live in the same place forever and teach...