Thursday, March 17, 2011

Gratitude

I'm trying to be grateful these days. It's a good practice. Gratitude  transcends political, religious, and cultural boundaries; pretty much everybody agrees that it's a good idea. And since I'm trying to live a good life, I'm going with it.

A feeling of true gratitude, aside from Thanksgiving Day prayers and award acceptance speeches, can hit you like a brick wall when you least expect it. It's powerful, I tell you.

This morning on my way to teach Spanish, I asked myself, why am I getting up early to go and blabber to kids in Spanish who probably don't care about Spanish that much anyway? Why do these kids need extracurriculars? Do they even care?

I thought about all the people that have busted ass to try and educate me. Besides my family and all of my public school teachers, I had classroom volunteers, helpers, neighbors, family friends, and committees of people that really cared about my education and wanted me to have a good impact on this world. These people didn't even KNOW me and they were sacrificing their time and money so that I could live my live to the fullest.  I'm not sure if I really understood what they were doing for me because I was just a kid, but I sure as hell understand now.  To all those people, thank you. That's all.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Gratitude - Tuesday March 1st

I feel like today is important and auspicious.  So I'm going to write down some things I'm thankful for:

  1. We have replacements for the two teachers that quit Boise Elementary Spanish - and they're both great with kids and speak Spanish perfectly.
  2. My sense of self-determination that made me go to the gym today, in the morning.
  3. I didn't exactly eat the healthiest food today, but I did put some cottage cheese with jam on Wasa crackers and it was delicious.
  4. Annie and Teresa helped me ASKO in finishing my Euskara homework.  I feel great about the paragraph we cranked out together.  I'm learning Euskara, poliki-poliki.
  5. Got to watch Jeopardy.
  6. My black 3/4 length shirt worked its charm to be slimming, despite my best efforts to stuff my belly full of clam chowder.
  7. I have people around me that love me, and enough food to eat and a place to live.
  8. I have a great travel opportunity coming up in a few months.
  9. I have a gym date to work out with Annie tomorrow.
  10. I'm going out to dinner with my mom tomorrow, and part of our bill is going to help elementary spanish.

Nor da?

Nire pertsonaia sekretua artista oso famatua da.  Bere obrak oso koloretsu dira eta Mexikoko jatorrizko kulturaren adibide onak dira.  Jaio zinen Coyoacanan, Mexikon, 1907.  1928en Diego Rivera ezagutu zuen eta urte bat gero, ezkondu zuten.  Kotxe-istripuan egon zen. Istripuan gero, tripan min asko eduki zuen eta umetik ezin zuen (she couldn’t have children).  Horregatik (because of this?), asko min, irrits, eta hiltze bere artean dira (da?).  Nor da?