Aud Lang Syne

It's New Year's Eve!  As it is 1:21 p.m. and I enjoy the luxury of being able to hang out in my pajamas, I felt extremely motivated to write a blog.  I will say that I often do feel the motivation, and at times these great ideas strike me, but by the time I get around to writing them out, I find they have been removed from my memory.  I think I'll start doing a little trick I've heard some people do with their tweets.  That is, in the moment, using the Notes app as soon as an idea for a blog (or other social media influenced post) comes to mind and when it comes time to dedicate time to the blog in front of my computer, bam, there are the ideas, ready for me to remember them.

This year, though not the easiest, has been very good to me.  Even when I think about the times that have stressed me out, I must say that it is only a handful of them that stand out.  The major one was doing the jobs of three people this year.  One major thing I am looking forward to is a new hire we have at the first work day of the year.  I get to just do my job for the rest of the school year, wahoo!  However, much in the spirit of aud lang syne, I will say there are those who I cannot help but note had harder times than I did.  This was the year my friends Nancy & Andres lost their father, Abel.  I so much admire their strength as a family and how they pay tribute to him with every family event they have had since his passing.  Bad news also struck our DH community when news came that one of our schoolmates, Jeffrey, passed away in the last week as well at a very young close.  Though not close with him, he was a very kind-spirited young man who always had a smile on his face.  

With this said, my friend Lizzy recently found her "Life Plan."  What is that you ask?  Well, in high school, if you took the AP Econ/Government course (which I got out of), you were asked to work on a major project called a "Life Plan." This plan consisted of writing everything out that the next ten years of your life would consist of.  However, it wasn't all future based, one also had to write about where one currently was including friends, goals, and ideals held at the moment.  One of the questions asked was "If you had to name the one person you have the most compassion for, who would it be?"  Lizzy's answer was me.  In her response her reasoning was that my grandmother had just passed away and in essence had been pretty bummed out for a while.  In retrospect, I had many reasons to be bummed out during that time in 2002.  Aside from my grandmother having passed away, which was of course it's own load, my parents had just bought the house they currently live in.  When the last of the things that needed to be moved out of the truck, that's when my dad found out his mother had passed away.  The timing was goosebump inducing.  My dad headed over to Mexico with my aunt (his sister) and my mom, brother, and me were left to live in very unideal conditions.  For you see, my parents bought a duplex, and the house we were going to live in, wasn't done being prepared for us to move into, so we already knew were going to live in the other house while our house was being finished.  But without my dad around, it brought the intensity of living out of boxes for a while to a whole new level.  Aside from this, it was my senior year of high school, which is one's teenage pinnacle for stress, happiness, closures, and commencements.  I will say that having Lizzy share her life plan response with me reminded me of why we continue to be friends.  Because despite note being able to see each other as often as we'd like, we genuinely care about each other because we've seen each other grow up since we were kids who knew nothing to adults who take cheese with their wine. It was great seeing Lizzy and Heidi yesterday, a great way to catch up and really delve into pre-2015 reflection.

Osc, Heidi & Lizzy (est. 1998)

Always value those you have, and needless to say, I am grateful for those who have been with me this past year, as I hope I have been there for you. (side stream of consciousness note: That last sentence reminds me, all of "Friends" is coming to Netflix in 2015......jaaaaaaaaa!)

With these amazing friends at our annual holiday gathering, this year, gondola style

Blessed to work with an amazing team

Made my niece screech when she found out she'd see Wicked before Christmas

Christmas Eve brunch

Christmas at my parents' house

So glad to have such a great collection of folks to call family

Pre-NYE impromptu (and fun) Vegas trip

Later tonight I'm off to Pati and Nick's recently bough house for their NYE party.

I can't wait to see what you have in store for me 2015.  Should be interesting.  

Thank You

As a major holiday approaches next week, this November and now (finally) shifting fall weather in LA symbols a few things in my mind.

First off, my dad's birthday is tomorrow, hoorah!  My dad is a great hardworking man who is many things from my oil change guru to my cocktail instigator.  He is a dedicated guy who has come a long way in his life.

However, this day last year had a different tone to it.  It is also the anniversary of when I lost a car, and was in my first accident.  Yes, this accident happened on my way to my dad's birthday dinner.  Need a reminder? Read about it here: http://theoscblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/bus-pants.html

Finally, Thanksgiving is next week.  I'm running a 5K called the Turkey Trot in DTLA in the morning with my friends and then joining my family for dinner after.  So it looks like I'm doing the whole eating/exercise pattern backwards next Thursday.  I've been working out leading up to it and feeling great.  Should be a fun experience.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving family and friends and I hope you all have plenty to be thankful for and appreciate it.

November Rennaisance

Amidst the excuses one can have for not posting a blog online, mine has been postponed due to the October I've had.  I figured the start on November would be a good time for a new post.  This October was really trying, as stressful as ever trying.  But now that it has ended, and I attest it to what I found out this weekend was Mercury being out of order or just things in general being out of order.

At the same time and I look back and see that the bad seeds of the last month or so are focused.  But it is that they were so extremely focused that they felt stressful beyond measurable scales.

However, since the last blog post, I've had some highlights that I plan to remember as events that will overshadow the shadows of the last 30-ish days.

First off, I had a milestone birthday, and enjoyed it in Temecula with close family and friends.

One of the awesome gifts I got was visiting the WB Studios and yes, that's me in Central Perk for Friends

The start of fall also included seeing friends from my travels, I always enjoy getting together with them.

My twin nephews are now also a year old!!!! That's insane to me.  I feel like they just got home from the hospital last week.

Dressing up is fun too, including our Star Wars night, Halloween and Dia de los Muertos:

With the note of Dia de Los Muertos is something I am observing this weekend, alongside others.  This day signifies remembering what is gone on a positive note and celebrating your life.  I'll keep that in mind.

Happy November.

Transition Mission

One of the most common terms I heard this summer is transition.  This time it's taken on a whole new meaning.  It's Labor Day weekend, which means it is the end of summer.  School at my workplace began about two weeks ago, and that's been its own transition as it always is.  I have one coworker who is ready to give birth any minute, so it'll be a huge transition for her, as well as how we in the English department interact with her soon-to-be absence for a brief period of time.  Work-wise, I also have my own transition, this one came with a position.  As stated before, the news of my transition was news that was heard the wrong way and ultimately lost in translation.  However, now that the hustle of work has taken place and systems have come into play, things have certainly simmered down when it has come to that topic.  It is better.

My sister texted me the other day and was hashing out what she plans to do for my twin nephews' first birthday celebration.  Those texted hit me like a truck.  First birthday?  They've been alive for a year?  When did that happen?  Time flew with a quickness.

On that note, I also hit a transitional birthday this year.  Planning with my friends has been quite the planning committee-style meeting situation, but I think we will be satisfied with our end result.  Should be an interesting end of year as I hit this milestone, stay tuned.

The end of summer is now calendared and I must say, that even though I wasn't able to get away as much as I had initially hoped, I still got to do some interesting and fun things:

Catalina Island, included some unsuccessful paddle-boarding, but resulted in successful kayaking

Long Beach Red Bus Tour

Finally made it to the Grand Canyon (I have some common American staples I have yet to see, but was able to cross this one off the list)

I'm ready to have fall bring whatever it needs to bring.  My mission, to keep enjoying the things that keep on coming.

Speaking of transitions, I feel for the transition a family at my workplace will now have to face.  Rest in peace Danny, you're in a better place.

Lost in Translation

While this month brought with it a new transition, I was ready to disown it.  I learned in the first week of a new position that when people talk, which you cannot avoid because we all do it, things get majorly misconstrued in the chain of communication. The days of playing Telephone after a heated game of Duck-Duck-Goose when you're five still happens but on a different level.  In this case, the level of career orientation.

I said something one way, someone heard it in their ear another way, and it stung the wrong person with another ear in an even more wrong way who heard it secondhand.  This caused a chain reaction of events that affected my whole week, and frankly had me on pins and needles on how my dynamic with some individuals would be for the next year.

After many (and I mean many) discussions and meetings, everything has been smoothed over, so my position and I are now okay.  However anxious I was about the messages that got delivered, I will say that I learned much from it.  One thing I learned was that people need a lot of coaching in order to shift their thinking. When things change, and there are many transitions happening, we get blocked by old, and maybe even antiquated, ways of thinking.  It takes a lot of clarity and drawing the big picture in detail in order for the purpose of the transition and what it means to get across.  Next, I learned to mind my p's and q's. Something that I thought was harmless to say got seen in a light I didn't imagine.  Not that I said anything wrong, it's just that, again, it hit someone's ear the wrong way.  I guess you just never know that even something simple will hit someone like a ton of bricks.  Lastly, I learned news travels fast. Well that's not news, but a good and cold  reality reminder.  

Should be an interesting year, the first week was a blast...not.

When U Seek Amy

Today was a long day, only part of a long week.  This time of year always causes high-strung attitudes, off handed comments, and a range of emotions.  How one person operates can definitely affect a whole lexicon and create a domino ripple effect.

However, it's always darkest before the dawn.  In a winning teaching moment, I think the redeeming process had begun.

My sixth grade class had finished reading Little Women over a week ago, and as a reward we watched the Winona Ryder-Christian Bale version of the movie.  During this time, one of our school aides would walk in and out of our room to do her work, but would get so sucked into the movie during her time there.  She said she hadn't read the book but has now showed interest.

Cut to today when she comes up to me in a marching fashion, and you know there's a statement waiting for you on the tip of her tongue.  "Oscar!" she exclaimed, "I saw the whole movie last night and I'm angry."  I knew it was from Amy having married Laurie and Jo marrying a random older professor.  She was humorously livid, and as she shared her feelings about Amy's interference, my previous class, now seventh graders, overheard.  So moved was one of my students, that she went up to the aide and hugged in sharing her sentiment on Laurie's decision.  Note: This student cried when we read the Jo-Laurie break up scene in class.

That moment reminded of why I do what I do, to allow literature to affect the lives of people and create memorable experiences.  Thanks Amy!

Understanding by Design

Last week was teacher appreciation week, hopefully you told your inspiring educators how you feel.  I did.  Ms. Pilon was a great inspiration in me wanting to become a teacher.  She was, and still is, such a committed educator who genuinely cared about the content and her students that I aspired to be like that when I made my decision to be a teacher.  At sixteen, I told myself I wanted to become a teacher, and since then every career-oriented decision has been driven by that.

It was as if at that age that I realized what I was designed to do.  It made sense.  I've always enjoyed people, I like speaking in front of people and showing what I know so that they would know those things as well.  Once that moment clicked it never unclicked.  However, because it came to me at an age where choosing a college major and making other decisions came soon after, I felt I had some things figured out before many peers.  This causes me at times to be not relatable.  For example, I have young relatives whom are "lost," but the age at which they feel lost in what they're supposed to do, I had finished college and was well on my way to my own classroom.  Not trying to toot my own horn, and one would think they would turn to me to ask me about their direction, but quite the opposite.  I've been seen as the anomaly who was exempt from some treacherous soul-searching mountain climb. What's funny is that I've know people who have it way more figured out than I do, and I feel the same way about them.  I suppose we all feel that way about someone.

As I reach the halfway point of aptly reading Little Women with my sixth graders, I think about their directions. I'm positive that among them are those who already have a plan in place and those whose plan will unfold with life experiences.  Either way, my belief that everything happens for a reason stays true.

I sent Ms. Pilon a message saying that she was that influence.


P.S. My friend Yaya wrote an amazing blog that just got published, congrats: http://www.childrensrights.org/news-events/cr-blog/building-the-strength-to-speak-up/

Theron and the Millennials

I was watching Charlize Theron host SNL last night and she mentioned that the last time she hosted the show was in 2000, fourteen years ago.  This led me to the thought process of how I think of my students and the fact that they are millennials leaves less and less common ground.  In other words, I'm getting older and the gap is getting bigger.  This wasn't just prompted by last night SNL's episode, but it was also prompter back in the last day of April.  The typical joke is that Justin Timberlake meme mentioned that "It's Gonna be May," a spin off of the NSync song, "It's Gonna Be Me" poking fun at Timberlake's pronunciation.  I digress, when I showed the meme to my coworker, she led me to a Buzzfeed list that mentioned this that the graduating class of 2018 high schooler will not know.  The list can be found here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/extremely-upsetting-facts-about-the-class-of-2018
It mentions how they don't know that Destiny's Child is a trio, or at all.  It came full circle as Charlize Theron mentioned how she was in a skit where she played a member of Gemini's Twins in 2000, an SNL group made to parody Destiny's Child.


Funny how those things go, but some things stay universal among the generations.  For example, my niece's favorite franchise, which is all things Oz, came to life as we saw the theater production of "The Wizard of Oz." We got to meet the cast as well, it was great fun.

With my brother and niece and Glinda

My niece meeting the cast

Scarecrow, takes one to know one

These great years that have passed have also brought with it great events, some which occured in the past couple of weeks.  From Britney to brunches.

Vegas!

The Britney: Piece of Me Show

I got my seafood (oysters & crab) fix at the Wynn

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo with these awesome people a la Mexicana

Brunch at Terra Nia

Cruising through Long Beach

Blessed to have awesome people in my life. To all the moms out there, Happy Mother's Day! 

Brain, Over Easy

My brain is fried.  I feel like I'm getting into the groove of things here and there, but my brain is on overwork, overflow, and it is overcooked.  I just got back from a technology conference, CUE, in Palm Springs.  I look forward to this conference, especially after my first experience last year.  Aside from it keeping me away from LA for a couple of days, I get some really amazing ideas from the conference.  However, it takes some time to process all of the information that has been presented, so there is where some of the overflow comes from. I did, however, have some teacher rockstar moments.  Scroll below:

Second row hearing keynote speaker Lavar Burton

(If unfamiliar, from Reading Rainbow, Star Trek, and Roots)

Being front and center hearing keynote speaker Sal Khan (founder of Khan Academy)

An icon in education technology

Fellow teacher Laura and I were stoked to meet Sal Khan before his amazing speech

Other things contributing to the frying pan?  I just recently turned in my clear credential portfolio.  Two years worth of work are out of my hands and we shall see how it goes after the review.  That was a major hot oil fryer.

Aside from recent news, news that always leaves things in the air, it's a bit frying as well.  There are also other endeavors I'd like to partake in, which I'm sure will leave me well done.  Well enough cooking, my fried brain has a lot of sleep to catch up on.

Snow Melts

I just returned from the memorial service of Mr. Abel, my friends' father whom I had just written about.  As I heard my friend Nancy give the eulogy, I was overcome with pride for her, her articulation, her storytelling abilities, and her talent for getting people to ponder, rejoice, celebrate, honor, and respect the life of her father.  It is also a difficult time to see friends I have had for over 10 years be in the state that they were in tonight.

But from what I spoke before, Abel reminded me to celebrate moments, moments that make one's life here worthwhile.

Proud to call them friends

It is with that spirit that I ventured off to a trip to Vail to visit Brooke and Mark.  I had a blast hanging out with them.  Thanks to the both of them for taking me anywhere and everywhere.  I am looking back at what we did, and it involved visiting breweries, seeing Vail, Lionshead, hitting up Nicky's Quickie for Greek food, yoga (über hot yoga), ice skating in Beaver Creek, hitting up Buena Vista's hot springs (so amazing), and of course skiing.  They asked me to list what I enjoyed the most and I was stumped.  I had such an amazing time doing things with them that I couldn't pick a favorite, even still.

Thanks Brooke and Mark for an amazing experience!

Winter Olympic Training (yeah right) in Beaver Creek, Vail

Ski Time

With celebrating those around me, I have also been fortunate enough to share Valentine's Day with some amazing friends, thanks Pat for your organization.

V Day

I also got to share a special moment with my sister, Celia.  Right after my return from Vail, and mean right after, like an hour after, we bolted to Hollywood and watched "The Book of Mormon." It was a great show that shared our humor and musical taste. Again, we don't frequently see each other, but when we do, we have an amazing time, just like when we were kids.

Broadway in LA

I just came from snow, and I just came from a memorial service to celebrate a family man's life.  Although snow melts, you remember it.  You had your fun, you were a child in it, and were delighted in it.  When it leaves, you don't want to remember your time without it, you wish it were still here. But snow melts, but just because it is gone, you do not allow yourself to forget the great times you had in it.  My friends and I will not forget the good times you shared with us Mr. Abel.  Like Nancy said in her eulogy, people are only forgotten if you allow it.  Those memories will not melt.


PS
When I think of moments like these, I am taken to this song's video:

Still in Disbelief

A family that is really close to me just went through a very difficult loss as of this morning.  I recently had a colleague with a similar loss happen as well.

After I heard some news last night, I turned off the TV, went back and forth in my thoughts of condolence and not believing what had happened.  I eventually found my way of dealing with these types of truths in a way I'm used to dealing with them, by losing myself in work.  I came across my TED app and browsed through their Technology section as I normally do.  I have a fascination with TED Talks, and my students love watching their talks, so I try to include them in lessons when I find them fitting.  After evaluating some of the talks for my class, I wandered and browsed through their featured section.

One of the talks highlighted was about death, a talk given by Stephen Cave.  I clicked on it and proceeded to watch it.  I noted from the talk that our behaviors change when we remind ourselves that our own deaths are imminent.  It becomes a point of obsession for children who first realize that they are to face the same fate someday.  This point Cave made about being a child himself and thinking of death just prompted a reminder that I just watched My Girl with Yaya, an ongoing theme in the film.  I have my beliefs of what happens to us when we depart, but the physical me has unknowns that the faithful me does its best to reassure.  After the talk, I found out the next morning of my friends' loss.

While looking at this time as I time when my friends both need to be surrounded by loved ones and need to be left alone, I lay here thinking about the good times we had.  The good times I've had with them, their family, and the father they just lost bring me joy.  He was a man who enjoyed being surrounded by family and friends, and liked to see people enjoy themselves, too.

It led me to think about some of the celebrations in my life, and how it is those celebrations that make our inevitable fate worth it.  Just this past weekend I got to have dinner with my siblings, which doesn't happen too often because of our commitments, but when it does I do enjoy it to the fullest.  That is where my train of thought has led too, making sure I treasure the moments here as much as I can with those who are by my side.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Alanis Morissette, whom I just saw speak at the Arclight, and I find the quote fitting for the circumstances.  It says that "as we grow older, things become less and less precious and more and more sacred."

Though I know the realities of me facing this time are unavoidable, I cannot imagine what my friends are going through. Like I told them, I just want them to know that I'm reachable and there without hesitation.

Rest in peace Mr. Abel, thank you for taking care of us every time you had us over.

Web Finds

I always support fellow bloggers (especially those who do a much better job than I do).  This is a good one that pretty much explains why I teach what I teach.

http://www.the21stcenturyteacher.com/article/175-negatively-charged?utm_content=buffer4bd71&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer