Miles Run = 4.0
Conditions = cold with an errie sort of glow in the sky, conversation about a student…
Live Journal Question for today:
Has anyone ever unfriended you without explanation? Did you ask why? Have you ever deleted someone from your friend list without saying why?
Hmmm…I don’t think so but I haven’t checked to see who my friends are in awhile…Wow that sounds kinda of bad…No but…once I deleted myself, without so much as a goodbye…I was feeling kind of down so I deleted my account…lasted about 3 days…maybe only 2…Hmmm…
Thanks for today:
#1) You know I live in one of the prettiest parts of Ca. There are orchards and open fields and cattle and sheep grazing and view of the mountains and I’m thankful for that…
\#2) Speaking of sheep…everyday for the last two weeks on my drive into work I have encountered sheep, along with their Shepard off the side of the freeway, next to a big ranch and I absolutely love to see them…I’ve wished everyday for the last couple that I had my camera with me and then yesterday I saw a woman doing exactly what I wanted to do…photographing the sheep and their Shepard…Just a really lovely sight…
#3) The “Trail of Tears” …We survived…I actually video taped our survival with my little flip camera….pretty cool…the run itself was awful..really really hard..It was a trail run next to a lake called Eastman and it was extremely hilly. I haven’t been training for hills so we only ran 4 of the 8 miles…We left a note on our friends car to let them know we were headed home…”in tears”…Ha…A ranger came and talked to us before we started our run to tell us about a nesting pair of bald eagles, that’s right, bald eagles right here, less than 40 minutes from my house…apparently this pair has lived here for about 25years and has produced 40 offspring…so most of the lakes, including our local golf course also have nesting pairs of bald eagles…We didn’t get to see them but I still think that’s really cool…Jason and I will definitely go back if they invite us out again….
#4) The heater in my house works again J It’s nice to feel warm J
#5) My neighborhood, even though the dogs bark too much…There are these yip yappy dogs around and when they get going so does our dog but you know I was driving around today looking at possible houses and I realized I didn’t want to leave the part of town we live in…I like this part of town…I like my neighbors and I’m thankful to have a house here…although the hunt continues for a new/old one…
Observations:
My patriotism seems to have failed me tonight. I forgot the president was talking…alas…I expect more of the same but I suppose I will at least look up the speech to see what he has to say…I don’t mean that in a bad way, it was just a long day and I forgot he was speaking tonight. I usually enjoy watching the State of the Union speeches…I read something earlier, a comment on a friends blog about our country being in a mess or a mess. Which got me thinking…so I’m just going to do some outloud thinking here…I think that was it…I can’t decide how I feel about this…As a teacher you get kind of a different view of the populace…I certainly see families struggling. I have had several students this year that can’t study at night because they don’t have electricity…about 10…and can’t afford to get it turned back on…Students have told me they have lost their homes…I have students who need glasses and can’t afford them…and I certainly see some kids who have lost hope, that’s really frustrating because nothing you do can help those kids…but I have to say in 14 years of teaching…the majority of the kids I see are hopeful and always have been…
Does anyone really want the president to fail? Maybe some people…but I think most people are just tired of struggling and when your tired of struggling you look for something/someone to blame…I do think lots of people thought that if President Obama got elected he would solve all their problems and now that he hasn’t they are scared, which turns to anger, which lead to “suffering”…(SW, can you hear Yoda?”)..anyhoo…I know a lot of my students felt he was the answer to everything, their views coming from their parents I’m sure and now they are disillusioned…especially my African American students…I think as a young leader you tend to take on too much at one time, that your ambitions can get ahead of you, that your patience can fail you…(I’m thinking of my principal here) I think the president could have gotten health care passed if he had an actual vision/plan to begin with…A plan that he shared with people, not a vague kind of idea of a plan but an actual plan....Maybe he had one and I missed it somewhere…I think he’s going to have the same trouble with his “Race to the Top” education plans…I’ve heard many many teachers say NCLB was/is better than RTTT and most teachers are overwhelmingly democrat…He seems to be in a hurry to create a legacy, to define himself as something other than the “first black president of the United States”…or the guy that got the Nobel Peace Prize for no good reason….I don’t blame him but he’s making some questionable choices…I’ve heard way too much from President Pelosi…I mean Senator Pelosi lately…every time I turn on the T.V. she’s there…where was/is our President?...Oh, who knows, touring Europe I think, to repair our bad reputation, which I think is a fallacy…I still get foreign exchange students every year who truly believe the United States is the greatest country in the world…I guess in general trying to do something is better than not doing anything but I tend to get into trouble when I try to do too much at once and I don’t think that changes just because you’re President of the United States…I think it only gets worse…
In closing…I think things are getting better but not because of any one person. I think things are getting better because if I sit around all day thinking that things are going to get worse I will contribute to a negative vibe in our country. Things have to get better or else what is there to look forward to…for anyone? Lastly I’ve never really worried too much about who is or isn’t in office…and this will probably sound like the naïve viewpoint of a conservative Christian…but I have always kind of figured that God has in office the person who was meant to be there…even if he or she is a Democrat…
Anyhoo…for my lovely valley, neighborhood, heat, sheep, cattle and tears…I Give Thanks!