handwritten on April 16, 2019
I woke up today feeling a bit unpleasent, a little sad, discouraged, a bit disgruntled and without the magic feeling I usually feel rising out of my bed and feeling the coming beauty of the day. Perhaps it was the knowledge that today I would be proctoring a test rather than teaching. I hopped in my car and as I crossed the 40th street bridge, I caught glimpse of this sky. Man was it beautiful. It wasn't just the usual changing of color or certain shape of the clouds, it was the movement and the particular lighting. There was almost this visible pink pathway that gradually became threaded with golden light until you could see this small pocket where it looked like a whimsical passageway had...
handwritten on April 15, 2019
Today I awoke to news that The Notre Dame Cathedral in France had caught on fire. Videos of praying hands and singing voices and disbelief bombarded the media. Today the news was full of France. The noise of the Cathedral. The history. Today the world focused on the beautiful church only to forget about the three predominately black Baptist churches to be burned down in Louisiana. Places of worship. Equally important and yet unequally portrayed. The building worth an incredible amount of money. That money unequally distributed.
Both events are tragic. Videos of a fire that looks to be thriving and screaming and yanking down the walls of God. And as I was reading post after post of...
handwritten on April 14, 2019
Well. Today was the day I decided to get "back on the bicycle." so to speak. After five months off due to a knee injury and slowly working up to speed on the treadmill, I'm finally able to run without any pain or strain. Today was the first day running out side in a while. 3.3 miles was hard-I'm not going to lie. With time, though I know I'll fly a little easier. The hills of Pittsburgh certainly kicked me in the butt, but the freedom I felt was unexplainable.
While I was running, I was trying to equate what I was feeling to a children's book (naturally.) And I was brought back to this book my parents read to me when I was a small child. I believe the title was "The Magical Bicycle." This...
handwritten on April 13, 2019
We were lucky today. In the beautiful city of Pittsburgh there existed a blue sky and warm weather. As I pulled the shades today and peaked outside I saw joy. Today was our first day of soccer at Urban Impact and what a beautiful day it was to start!
We met our newest members of our squad ranging from kindergarten to third grade-eager to play amongst the grass and run around with one another. Smiles all around.
During our Bible Study, there happened to be one student who tends to have a difficult time controlling his anger and his behavior. Everyone knows this child by name. But even more beautiful is the fact that, no matter how many times he may be pulled out of the game or asked to sit...
handwritten on April 12, 2019
As a teacher I love analyzing different grades and children and thinking about at what age students begin recognizing this sense of self, this understanding that life is beautiful, this appreciation that they are something special with talents to offer. I could be a bit biased, but I feel like this incredible sense of self takes place in third grade. I think there is a transition where these young people realize that there is something larger than themselves, that we exist to create joy and collaborate with others and that we constantly can improve ourselves to be the person we know we are meant to be.I think it tends to cloud up in the adolscent years but then within adulthood we find this...
