Almost there..

There is it! The tickets, the passengers, the lights, the person you see and wonder what their story is, the superbly talented busker playing a cigar box ukelele, the lonely waiting for love, the wayward wanderer looking for the next thrill, the next adventure. I suppose I am somewhere in that mix with with some applying more than others and some not at all. But either way that's where (how) I'm leaving the East and how I'm getting back to CA. If you don't know what this is it's Penn Station in New York New York. I will be here with Jess doing Thanksgiving with her mom and brother (he and his bf have a photography blog--- Damien and Yuta). I'm really excited for another NYC adventure. Hopefully there will be some nights riding the subway at 4am and wandering the crowded streets late at night. I wonder what the exhibit will be at MOMA. Hrrrmmm.......

So I'm getting all stoked to go back to the coast where I feel most comfortable. Being here makes me appreciate my "there" even more. Though if I hadn't been here and lived here I would have nothing to compare there to, so as it turns out I needed here to know there. It's all clear now, right?

Went for a really great scanoe (swamp canoe) trip this weekend on my off time. We take kids out there and it's so damn beautiful, but the kids are loud and make the swamp not that peaceful. I always think "hey I should come out here on the weekend", but then the weekend rolls by and I didn't make it out. Well, last week end i finally did and it was amazing, peaceful, and beautiful. All of the red maples that populate the swamp are turning deep DEEP fall colors and it's like a dream.

That whole fall colors thing and season change was really affecting me last week. This picture (on left) is literally what most roads look like around here when you're going to someone's house. Stunning! I have never felt a seasonal switch over as drastic as the one that happened/is happening now. I got very emotional and was having some difficulties/sadness. But I'm pretty sure it was just me adapting to a season which is so very romanticized. I'm getting into writing poetry and I used to not be very good at it, but I'm finding inspiration lately, it's really nice. Finally, I can do poetry.



As my stay at Echo Hill comes to a close I have many reflections. I have learned so much about myself and about children. It's amazing how you can learn so much by just doing. Probably more than in textbooks. What I'm referring to is the fact that I have never ever taken a psychology/child psychology or development class and I feel that in the 1.8 moths I've been here I've been able to learn the mental and cognitive differences between 5th-8th grade kids. That is nuts and so awesome. I have many more reflections, but will wait until I am fully done to commit them to the blog-sphere.

Hope your life is happy, healthy, and warm. Love.

Sprout Out!

 The circle cannot exist without the space in between.........

Alan Watts, enjoy:

Finally....

The week that just passed was a very important week in many aspects.

This week I finally feel like I am "getting it" with teaching kids and doing this whole improv thing. For the previous weeks I was scared and nervous every time I got a schedule and saw what I was teaching. I wasn't confident in my skills on 1)how to get kids to focus, 2)what to teach them without a solid idea of where the class would go, and 3)how to use different "tools" to teach them effectively. It clicked this week and I felt confident while teaching ALL of my classes. I also got "observed" to be a solo teacher on our adventure course. The adventure course is all about fostering teamwork through completing physical and mental group challenges. After every challenge "element" we talk about what went wrong, what went right?, why?, and relate the situations to life in the larger picture. It's pretty cool and kids are smart. I enjoy 5th and 6th grade kids. I also "adopted" a tent all last week. That means I didn't sleep there, but I came in every night at 9:30 tucked them in and read them a bed time story (tent of 10 girls). Also, it is stink bug season and the population exploded last week. That was trouble on tent side, because alla these kids are from the city or suburbia and have strong entomophobia (fear of bugs). I had to help a girl who refused to get into her bed [with a bug net] because she was so afraid of stinkbugs. She was crying and we stayed up until 11:30 trying to deal with it. It was hard and tiring. Stink bugs are the drunken idiots of the bug world, they are just so clumsy and bobbly that they'll land anywhere and walk everywhere. I think they only exist to feed other animals (just like June bugs). They don't sting they just have a defense mechanism that makes them smell bad. I actually think they are pretty cute and cartoony.


So now on to something I've been trying to figure out ever since I've been here. Why does the East Coast feel so different from the West Coast? I didn't want to believe there was a difference, because we're all just people, but in living here for 1.5 months it's obvious that things are different. I think I've figured out at least partially what makes the East Coast the way it is. There is a deep connection to the colonial history inherent in the East. The makes people rely upon prestige on lineage and "old" and "new" money and such. Speaking of prestige, all of the "ivy league" colleges are over here and this creates what I see as a constant struggle for status. Bragging rights if you will. It's created a culture of the "holier than thou" types. There's huge yachts, dockers, polos, Sperry boat shoes, khaki shorts, and a severe attachment to the traditional roles of women and men that you just can't shake. This is what I have noticed about the East, but I'm basing very little of these observations on the people I work with. The people who i work with and who are my friends are great and most deviate from this East Coast that I've just described.

Okay great, so another really really exciting this that happened this week............I enrolled for Spring 2013 semester at College of the Redwoods. I'm going to get an Associates of Science degree in Construction Technology. After I am done with this degree I will have all of the knowledge and skillz to take the exam to get my general contractors license (GCL). From wikipedia; "A general contractor is responsible for providing all of the material, labor, equipment (such as engineering vehicles and tools) and services necessary for the construction of the project. The general contractor hires specialized subcontractors to perform all or portions of the construction work. Responsibilities may include applying for building permits, securing the property, providing temporary utilities on site, managing personnel on site, providing site surveying and engineering, disposing of or recycling construction waste, monitoring schedules and cash flows, and maintaining accurate records.
Basically I will be a legal carpenter and can run my own business. I also want to take fine wood working classes at CR if I can work it in. Their construction tech program has a good reputation, so I'm really excited for this new degree. I never thought I'd be getting a second degree. I kinda like how I went backwards with degrees; I got my BS and now I'm getting my AS...hah! I called the adviser for the program who is a woman :) (thats cool) and she told me there are lost of scholarships out there for Women in Non-Traditional Occupations (WINTO). So I need to do some major scholarship searching very soon, hopefully today. Just for a little WTF activity (if you have time): do a google image search on female carpenter. This makes me cringe and then after I'm done cringing if makes me determined to be the best carpenter/woodworker out there and show all of these menfolk what a real carpenter can do (did I just get sassy?---yes--KMA) haha. I crack myself up! 

Note: No offense to my menfolk friends. I guess I'm just talking about menfolk who ascribe to the notion that women can't do this type of work.

This weekend is Hardly Strictly Festival in SanFran and Claire, Katie, and Hannah (all from Lopez) are going tomorrow and I wish so much that I could be there with them. Boo Hoo! This job is amazing and rocks, but I miss CA (and WA). I miss my friends.

Hope you all are doing SO well and are having  wonderful fall season so far.

Sprout Out!

Video: Blast from the past. What a beautiful song. It makes me emotional.