Latest in Dating

I hesitate a little bit in writing this, but I've already shared the story with many of you (not that I have a huge blog following...). So I met a guy a while ago and I enjoyed our initial conversation a lot. He is good looking and seemed pretty normal.

Fast forward to the first date where I learned from him that I'm going to hell. OK in fairness he didn't say, "you are going to hell", but he did say that people like me wouldn't be saved. He also said that you were either saved or, well ... would be in hell.
Again fast forward to several phone conversations where the message was repeated. I kept trying to ask why he persisted in contacting me since, well ... you know. He said that I had a great spirit which is rare these days. I tried to point out that perhaps it was because, well ... perhaps I wasn't really going to hell, but just maybe my beliefs had something to do with it. Nope, that couldn't be it.

Work-Life Balance

I have often heard of the importance of the work-life balance. By that I understand that I am supposed to ensure that I don't become a workaholic and that I do indeed have a personal life that consists of more than just watching tv. In other words, I'm supposed to be good at both career and personal parts of my life. Also, I think that in part it means that I have some sort of separation between the two.

I'm not sure that I am great at this. I work at it and most of the time I am successful at not taking work home. I also enjoy a great working relationship with most of my colleagues. I work in a place that emphasizes the use of technology. My boss is a blogger and a tweeter. I do both, but not as actively as I probably should. The other day we were discussing his blog Mobile Home on Mainstreet (which I recommend) and I mentioned that I too am blogging. He asked for the url and I declined to give it to him. I'm not embarassed or terribly private about it- as you can observe by the public nature of my blog, but I didn't give it to him.

Should work life truly be separated from personal life? I've always had friends from work with whom I've socialized so I don't think that the lines must be stringently drawn. However, it is kind of nice to have some separation. So, Darah if you do get curious enough and find my blog you don't have to mention it to me.

Going Casual

In the past few years I've heard about, read about, and even discussed the growing trend in our culture of people becoming more casual. I've observed this in the way we interact with each other. As examples: first names are used intergenerationally and texting is about as informal as it gets. Fashion trends also demonstrate this. Who would have thought that seeing other people's underwear would become commonplace? Additionally, many are comfortable wearing "beach" clothing to church, school graduations, and even funerals (which I consider to be the epitome of somber and formal). I could go on with many more examples, but you get my point.

Anyway, tonight I was at a council meeting wherein I was representing an organization and I realized that I have grown casual in things that are very important. I wasn't very prepared for this meeting. I showed up early, but I didn't have my input on paper nor well organized in my thoughts. The result was that I wasted other people's time because instead of taking just one turn during the roundtable, I took three. I kept remembering other things that needed to be discussed after it had already been my turn. Of course, I recognize that my actions tonight were far from criminal, but it hit me pretty deeply. So, as a result I'm recommitting myself to be prepared instead of being casual in my approach.

My goal is to apply this not only to meetings I attend, but to life in general. I want to be purposeful. Since I live alone it is easy to 'drift'. I can easily go through a week without planning my meals or my evenings, but when this happens I also generally waste a fair amount of time. I'm going to take time to plan out my weeks instead of sort of letting them happen to me. Most importantly, I will be more purposeful about my spirituality. Just like meetings and time management, I need to stop being so casual about my relationship with my Lord. Scripture study, meditation, and prayers will be done while I'm alert and aware instead of waiting until my eyes are drooping. Any one want to join in??

Kids Teaching

Yesterday I watched a brother (3rd grader) and sister (1st grader) drawing robots. The sister drew hers first and it was fairly impressive work for a 1st grader. The brother quickly started to draw his which was very similar to his sister's, except that his had what I think is called "dimension". The head of the boy's robot looked something like this.


As soon as the girl saw it she got excited. It was fantastic to see the admiration and joy on her face when she realized that she could learn something new. It looked like she literally saw the robot popping off of the page because of the dimensional aspect. She said, with a bit of urgency, "show me how to do that!" He drew another "head" and showed her each step of the way. It was amazing to see not only the focus both of these children had, but also the excitement shown by both the teacher and the learner. This kind of excitement was the reason that I initially went into education.

I love to see this type of excitement any time, but especially between young people. As a teacher I didn't get to see it as often as I would like, but it was one of the motivators that kept me going. Unfortunately I don't get to experience it as often now that I'm out of the classroom. This leads me to wonder why. Perhaps it is simply because I'm not in the classroom as often so I miss these great moments. A more important question is, "How can we make them happen more often?"

There are several elements that I think are important. The "teacher" should be excited to teach. This 3rd grader loved explaining to his sister how to make a dimensional robot. I think it is safe to say that they also had a developed relationship. They were comfortable with each other. I don't think that "learners" should always be comfortable, but I do believe that learners should feel safe within our public schools. We want students to feel free to take risks and even to fail on occasion. One very important element that should receive more focus is to get students to produce things that are authentic and relevant.

I'll work to help foster more dimensional robot moments because even though I'm not in classrooms as often as I used to be, these moments are still one of my greatest motivators.