I am a tree.

I have not posted in a while because my life is in transition as we speak. Summer is coming to a close and the school year is darkening my doorway. Not that I mind, but let's be honest... having free reign over your days and nights is quite the perk to say good-bye to. Tandy's wedding is also fast approaching and that's keeping me busy as well.

However... I did complete this sculpture today at in-service. It's about my personal identity. I felt like a tree growing out of a box is a good representation of me because I am always struggling to live "outside of the box" (i.e.- societies expectations). I am limited in my human thinking, so rather than obliterating the box completely, I believe God is currently allowing me to grow from the box. I painted the tree white to represent purity and the way God views me. It's made of Styrofoam insulation board and acrylic paint.

Current Creations

I stumbled upon the blogs of some artists who were posting "a drawing a day", and I am an advocate of stealing good ideas...

The paintings are for Olivia Rodriguez's nursery and are not finished yet. However it is one of my goals to start documenting works in progress so I can be more aware of my creative process. Enjoy.

Possibilities (for REAL this time).

I attended a introductory meeting for something called Landmark Forum. Bonnie and Frank had attended the previous weekend, and their forum ended last night as well. I invited Katie to go with me because she one of my "yes" friends. I'll explain "yes" friends in a future post.

The woman who presented to our group was wonderful. She had lots of energy and she was very authentic. It seemed she became more authentic as she continued to speak, because honestly at first she struck me as somewhat awkward, as thought she was trying too hard. I'm going to explain the steps of the activity that she lead us through and I encourage you to give this a try:

1. What's working in your life? Make a list of things that seem to be working well in your life (ex. finances, work, relationships, health)
2. What's not working in your life? Again, make a list, duh. (ex. planning for work, relationships family/male)
3. Area you are working on.Choose the item that is most important to you from your list on step 2.
4. Probable almost certain future. This one is tricky. It has three parts. First, write what you already doing in regard to your response on step 3. Second, write what you already have in regard to step 3. Finally, write what your are being in regard to step 3.
5. What is missing? Write what you think it would take you to get to the next level in the area you're working on. For me, it was lesson planning for work. I decided I was missing passion. I am not passionate about writing lessons or planning ANYTHING for that matter. Therefore, many times my teaching is missing passion. Mainly because I'm conforming to a way of teaching that does not suit my personal style or way of thinking.
6. Invent a new possibility. I love this one! This is the freedom part. This is the creative part! Instead of conforming to the standard, I am going to have a classroom where I present information that I am passionate about. I know that will give the students a more authentic learning experience in my classroom because I will no longer be straining to do it another person's way.

I went into more depth in my own responses, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with ALL the scattered thoughts in my head. Try it out and let me know what you think.

I personally think it is a sin to let your creative abilities go by the wayside. Why should we abandon the ability to invent our own future (and even our own present!)?

Possibilities.

Ok, this is random and has absolutely nothing to do with the title of this post, but I can't stop laughing about it!

So, when we were in Africa we hired drivers to take us from here to there. We had some drama maintaining the same driver week to week, and so for each of the 3 weeks we were there we had a different driver. The last week we had a driver named (grrrr, I can't remember her name. It will come to me). Anyhow, she was not actually a driver by trade, but rather her brother Jamada was. He was the person we contacted initially, but he was already driving for someone else. He asked his sister to drive for us as a favor to him. In Kigali it is very uncommon for women to be taxi drivers or to drive at all for that matter, so we enjoyed the experience.

Try to visualize this as I explain the experience. There were 4 of us on the team and so our taxi was completely full. The cars there are generally small, thus three of us were packed into the back seat. Because I was significantly shorter than all of my team members I usually sat sandwiched quite snugly in the middle with the shoulders of my teammates framing my head. It was an interesting perspective to have. This particular day Chuck was sitting in the front seat where there was actually breathing room. Our driver decided to make conversation and and with her Rwandese accent exclaimed, " Jamada sends his greetings." I personally didn't catch what she said at first as the sound waves were blocked by the previously mentioned shoulders. Apparently, Chuck did not understand what she said either, because he immediately responded, "Who's mom?"

I was driving to meet my friend Katie, who was one of my teammates on the trip, and the memory of that exchange popped into my head and I was literally laughing out loud as I drove through rush hour traffic. If you have not experienced foreign travel you must try it for the exciting experience of language barriers.

I'll post about "Possibilities." tomorrow. : )

THINGS TO DO BEFORE I'M 30

1) Read the bible cover to cover

2) Visit Argentina

3) Be accepted to a PhD program

4) Have a solo art exhibit

5) Shop in NYC

6) Speak Spanish Fluently

7) Drive to Canada

8) Take up backpacking

9) Submit a manuscript to a national publication

10) Co-author a book

Naked Noah

In my experience using the book of Luke to teach conversational English I've felt called to read the bible all the way through, which I have never done before. I think it appropriate to add that to the top of my "Things to Do Before I'm Thirty" list. This list doesn't actually exist as of this moment, but I believe it will materialize as a result of this post.

I'm working my way through Genesis which, for me, is a mountain of a beginning. I find myself questioning the creation story because it seems like just that: A STORY. I'm resolved to believe that there is much more to the story that God left out because our brains and so small compared to his. I think he did us a huge favor and boiled the story down to the basics so our tiny little human heads wouldn't explode due to the awesomeness of his creative abilities.

After the creation the world becomes consumed by evil and God sends the flood. God favors Noah and so he spares his family and makes Noah in charge of maintaining life as humans know it on this planet (and I think I have big responsibilities... ha ha...). As many of us know, Noah, his family and the animals make it out in one piece.

I was absolutely dumfounded by the next part of the account of Noah's life. Apparently, the guy who is SOOOO FAVORED by God gets drunk and passes out buck naked-in his tent. There's more to the story, but I will stop there.

My conclusion: God favored Noah and chose him for a really important purpose, but Noah was just as human and messed up as the rest of us. I think God really wanted to drive that point home to me, otherwise he would not have deemed it important enough to publish it in the most popular book of all time.

Back to blogging

I rather enjoyed blogging while in Rwanda, but came to the conclusion that I do not like sharing a blog page with others. Go figure. I can imagine that those of you who know me best are not at all shocked by my conclusion. I started this blog page last year and then never kept up with it. ROUND 2.

I am currently writing this as a means to divert myself from that which I should be accomplishing... the final revisions to a manuscript that has been accepted to be published in the Texas Art Education Journal called TRENDS. I would continue tooting my own horn, but the truth is Dr. Kraft is the editor. I doubt my manuscript would have been accepted by another publication, but then again all things are possible with God. Luke say so.

More musings to come...