10k, 1 yr, 90s!

This was a very busy and exciting anniversary weekend indeed!

Fri, we had Becky and friend Julie over for a going away dinner. Julie left today (Tuesday) for Guatemala for 2 months! She plans to take daily Spanish lessons and relax through Salsa and Yaga classes as well. Best wishes to her.

Sat, June 24th Becky, Chris, and I completed our first 10k race! It was a trail run and we all finished without needing medical help phew! I have been running off and on since I started teaching but not in races until this year. This is the first time I have felt a true desire to run.

Sun, June 25th was our first anniversary! Can't believe how fast the year went. Normally, Chris and I love dining out. One thing about Seattle is the dining scene isn't all that. Not to mention we are trying to pinch every penny we can and unfortunately seem to have the most expensive tastes. Instead of dealing with either guilt from spending too much $ or disappointment from going to a so-so place we hung out at home and made grilled Copper River Salmon. Did you know there are different types of salmon? News to me but it makes a big difference and this is the season. It was really yummy!

Sprinkled in during the days we took Abbey to the dog park on our continued quest to get her to learn and like to swim. We have the learn part accomplished and who knows if the liking part
will ever happen. Not up to us. We were definitely having way more fun than Abbey.

My dear friend Carolyn and her husband Steve recently bought the most gorgeous log cabin! We went to visit and took a tour. It is unbelievable! The story is pretty unusual... On the property is a double wide that the previous owners (retired couple) were living in since the 1980s. In about 2000 they started construction of the log home on their land and continued to live in the double wide. The wife passed away due to cancer and then the husband died of a heart attack within the year. The home was very close to completion but sadly isn't finished and the couple never were able to live in it. Carolyn and Steve will definitely have their work cuz out for them. It'll be totally worth it though. You should see the place! WOW! We offered our services to help them out. I think they'll do the previous owners proud.

Anyway, the weather. What's up with Chicago and Seattle switching weather patterns for a few days? We have had low 90s the past few days and I'm dying here! Today was only the mid 80s. Hopefully it won't be a prolonged heat wave. eeeeck.

see ya

Confessions from a TV junkie

The good news: When I break down and seek therapy for my life-long addiction I won't mind the couch.

The bad news: This might be the next hot topic used by self-help book gurus to freak people out.

Chris and I both love TV. Friends and fam asked us how we accomplished planning a wedding and moving to Seattle within the same year. Simple. We stopped watching TV. It wasn't completely cold turkey though. We weaned ourselves off cable first to just network.

Back in college my roommates actually locked me out of Comedy Channel as a cruel joke. No Comedy Channel = funny. hmmm Englishy people what is this? Irony? Luckily there were 99 other channels to entertain me. One roommate told me a couple years later. I still have scars but I'm managing.

Necessary footnote - these are the some of the same roommates that love, yes love, the Weather Channel. Watched it night and day. Am I missing something? The Weather Channel is alright in a do your own make-up, Wayne's World gone informative kind of way. The thing is it's like CNN for weather, the forecast repeats every half hour. Oh the agony! The weather is predicted again and again uh for parts of the world you are NOWHERE near. Explain the appeal cuz I don't get it.

Anyway, I can top myself in college with the humility I experience reminiscing about grade school through well college when Dad would tease me about sitting rediculously close to the TV. Gee why do I need glasses? Why did I need to be right on top of the glass? This is all part of the therapy.

So fast-forward to now. Life is a little more laid back. Done with the wedding and moving. We can relax and chill in front of the boob tube again. Still no cable just network crap. Which brings me to the lowest of the low TV confessions. Chris is asleep so he can't stop me from admitting this to all that happen to actually read this. I have to confess, now that "The Deadliest Catch" season is over, lately the channel-surfing rests more and more on two reality shows that are not too surprisingly quite far from reality. The first one, not a big shock for me, "Hell's Kitchen." This a--hole chef ridicules wanna-be chefs for attempting to cook with the oven not turned on and asking him to gasp repeat an order! It's a train wreck. The second show you probably didn't even know was on the air, "So you think you can dance!" Uh huh that's right. Brought to us by the people that brought us American Idol! I can't help it. Probably some side of me that "Wishes I could dance."

Pretty sad but true.

Ok I heard that! I know I could shut the tv off. Yes it's true. I do have two perfectly good books that I am quite close to approaching being in the middle of. Why am I drawn to cheesy, down right lame shows? Noone will ever know. Nor do I care for that matter. What I do know is someday you may read this blog and learn that Chris and I are the next contestants on "The Amazing Race!" This is Chris' dream and my fear. It might be the final straw that leads me to prayer or more likely the couch.

now what?

The last grade has been entered. I turned in my laptop and tearfully said goodbye to my friends in the math dept. One thing I know about Newport Math teachers is they are real people. They say what's on their mind making no apologies.

When I first started the dept chair told me "you have to be a bitch to fit into this dept." oh no missquote... "you have to an anal bitch to fit into this dept." I believe it was within appr 5 minutes of meeting her. I said, "well I'd like to think I'm not a bitch and I know for a fact I'm sure as hell not anal." I thought great what did I sign on for? Turned out I was more anal and bitchy than I thought (not sure how I feel about that but oh well what can I do?)

So as I make my goodbyes through my tears and wonder what on Earth I am doing it is reassuring to know I can always go back and they will hug me coming back in as they hugged me leaving. Bitches? Hardly.

Happy Dad's Day!

Today's blog is dedicated to my dad. For many years when my sister and I were little Dad would lead the Unitarian Church on Father's Day. I remember him talking about our Grandpa, his own experience being a dad, singing, and most importantly telling us that he loved us. Truthfully I couldn't tell you exactly what else he said or sang, just that he said, "I love you." It felt like our day as much as his.

One thing he says is, "Never give advice to someone, only options. In the end a person will always do what they want."
Now, is that giving advice to not give advice? :) Little did he know that he was giving advice indirectly all along.

Indirect advice from Dad (aka El Padre or the Dude):

1) Never give advice, in the end people do what they want.
2) For every goofy, outlandish sounding rule there is always an even goofier story to explain the need for the rule.
3) Smart people, even with PhD's in math, can be short attention span readers... and that's ok
4) Finding humor in completely screwed up situations helps get over it more than anything else. (quite handy as a teacher)
5) The class "Picture Lady" doesn't have to be a lady nor does he/she have to talk the whole time about the picture.
6) Why have 1 piece of cake when you can have 5 slivers?
7) The kiddie table is more fun than the adult table.
8) The trickiest part to starting a new job is figuring out where the bathrooms are.
9) Often finding the solution to a problem is knowing the answer and working backwards. Math reference, determining delta (or was it epsilon?).
10) Never refer to senior faculty as "dinosaurs."
11) Following an itinerary isn't as much fun nor as memorable as just hanging out together.
12) Avoid making more than one major life change per year; e.g. marry, move, change jobs (see indirect piece of advice number 1)

Thanks for all you've taught me, Dad. You have been a wonderfully loving and supportive parent. I miss you and can't wait to see you in July! Living in Seattle is awesome but I miss the days in Chicago when I could just hang out with Dad.

I love you,
Lisa

the last...

I just worked through my last problem on the overhead for the foreseeable future. The schedule Wed and today is a little strange but essentially I saw half of my classes for class one last time yesterday and the other half today. Then the last 2 hours of the school day are for the first final. From now until Monday afternoon are finals.

I haven't told any of my students yet and plan to when they finish their final. Hopefully, they won't take up the whole time. As I watch them take the final and as I type I am trying to decide what to say exactly and how to say it. We'll see how it goes. Last year when I left Hinsdale to move to Seattle I told all my students at the end. It felt really good to share such a big part of my life with them. (Not to mention it helped explain the many days I may have been cranky)

Anyhow, in my last class I said, "Hey, this is the last 'class' of the year before finals!" They cheered! We had to go over a test. When I got to the last problem of the test someone asked met to work out the problem on the board. I was about to start writing when a student shouted, "Hey, this is the last problem Mrs. Mirecki will work out this year!" hmmmm guess so. It was a weird bittersweet feeling. I was sad for obvious reasons. It felt good because it was the third time I had worked it and much of the rest of the test out today!

With this year complete I continue on the path of my life without much of a map.
L

A ______ without a teacher

There's a movie called "A Day without a Mexican" making the statement that the nation would come to a near halt if one day all Mexicans were gone. http://www.adaywithoutamexican.com/

In a parallel thought, I am curious to know how long you think it would legitimately take our society to notice the absence of teachers. A day? A week? A year? Longer? Never? This has been on my mind for three days and I've yet to decide.

Lights out!

Almost daily the students beg, " Can we turn the lights out? It's so soothing and relaxing." I say, "so relaxing you fall asleep."
They assure me, "No we work BETTER with the lights off."

Guess what happened today? Power outage!! No lights. Now, what are they saying? Yep, "Awe there's NO WAY we can work with the lights off." Yeah right.

iHeartMath.com

Being soon-to-be unemployed motivates me to look for avenues for side jobs. The most flexible, stressfree, high-paying thing to do? Tutor! Evonne, friend and soon-to-be former colleague, and I are cooking up ways to publicize in order to drum up steady tutoring hours.

Realistically, 4-5 hours per week would be perfect during school. Anything beyond that is gravy. So today we are brainstorming website names:

iHeartMath.com
mathChicks.com
whenWillWeEverUseThis.com
mathGoddesses.com
calculateThis.com sadly is already taken.
Maybe yourMomLikesMath.com is available?

the list goes on and on... also part of the plan are cheap yet chic business cards for teachers to give kids or parents.

got any ideas?
btw- 75 degrees and sunny today!! Just lovely.

L'Chaim!

Last night was our second to last soccer game of the season. The league we joined is supposed to be Division 9. There weren't enough shitty teams so the league merged all Friday Division 6 through 9 teams. I think we were the only Div 9. I believe there are 5 other teams and we play each twice. Hands down my favorite team to play is L'Chaim! They are competitive but slower paced. Playing them I don't feel completely useless on the field. The best part is at the end they do a cheer for our team at the end. Very cool. Both times I happily said to all of them, "Mozal tov!"

B and I are meeting later this morning to run. We are entering a 10k that is the end of the month. yikes.
L

Catch a Rising Star!

Chris' college friend, and former coworker from Pizza Hut, is now writing for Southern Screen Report in Atlanta. The periodical just launched in Sept 2005.

What I believe to be her first published article can be seen if you follow the link. She describes her audition to become a stuntwomen. Cool story.

http://www.screenreport.com/news/stuntwoman.html

L

Link

Side Bar?

Question - Can you see the side bar on the left when you open this blog?

On my desktop I can and on my laptop I cannot. What gives?

Thanks, L