Tornado!

So, most of us have been through public school and are well-acquainted with the whole fire drill and tornado drill protocols. I have to say that in all my years of schooling, that's all it ever was...a drill. On Tuesday, I experienced my first ever 'for real' duck-and-cover with a school full of kindergarten through second-graders. Can I say I'll be perfectly okay if that never happens again?

First of all, a sure fire way to create panic is to make a schoolwide announcement that begins with, "I need everyone to remain calm, but..." Yikes. Talk about immediate chills. Anyway, the first 5-10 minutes were a little scary, given that a tornado had been spotted not too far from the school. The remaining HOUR AND A HALF was just crazy. The kids were allowed to sit up after several minutes, but no one was allowed to move about the school. So imagine nine classes of kindergarteners in one library for almost two hours....doing nothing. Right. So, while the drama of it was a little fun, the reality of it was a whole lot less fun. Poor kids...or poor teachers. Depends on how you look at it.

How true this is...

"Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue." -Edith Wharton


I am a huge fan of quotes, and this one really spoke a lot to me. For one reason, part of my job is to work with children- and this is a prevalent issue. If I can't build on the experiences of the child (which is the basis of their reality), I stand little chance of actually being heard. Second, it is something my own mind is having a hard time working through right now. People offer wisdom and advice about every situation, everywhere you go. My difficulty is learning how to graciously sift through all of it and walk away with the parts worth keeping. If you have ever been offered advice about a situation that the advice-giver has NEVER experienced, you know how painful it can be. If everyone spoke solely from the basis of their own experiences, wouldn't we carry a lot more influence in those areas, and avoid inflicting wounds on others? Interesting that when we grow up, people expect us to hear them regardless of their experience or ours. 'Experts' on subjects often have head knowledge and no 'heart' knowledge or experience to speak from. Just my thoughts, from my experience of reconciling it in my own life. Now you get to choose whether to take it or leave it, because you always have that choice!

I miss these guys...I just wanna SQUEEZE them both!

Life Lessons 101

So I just learned a VERY valuable lesson. Well, two actually. One- always check behind yourself to make sure you have collected ALL of your belongings when you are leaving somewhere. Two- when using a USB memory stick, ALWAYS back up the information somewhere else. Twenty minutes of panic ended in a very fortunate finding of said memory stick, but it could have been a LOT worse...

Entrance into this world

So...I'm venturing into the world of blogging. Interesting at the least, perhaps even insightful on the best of days. This is a whole new world for me, but hopefully one that will work out nicely. I've begun the intense process of thinking about what I'm thinking about. Try that one on for size. Sometimes these thoughts are loaded and complicated, other times it's as if...a "man is simply tap dancing inside my head" (to steal a great quote from a friend). Who knows where this will go, or even how often- but if you care to read, it'll be here!