At the moment, the diamond ring adds are literally screaming at me. They are whispering in my ear, you need a diamond ring to validate that I have found the man of my dreams, my other half, the one who completes me or any of the tag cliché lines. What better sells the promise of a never ending relationship/ partnership then the cliche "A diamond is forever". What they are really trying to tell you is that your relationship is as strong as the strongest gem in the world, symbolizing a relationship that will last forever and the only way to prove it is to propose to your other half with a stunning piece of rock. Instead of letting the media and society dictate how I should feel.. can I not just be thankful for feelings of overwhelming love and happiness for Rob. Can I not just stop and enjoy this moment, relish in this simple moment of en companying bliss? I have found, I have found that someone that is willing to walk by my side with devotion, lend a supporting hand when I stumble and fall, and carrying me on days I can not myself walk ... doing all of this till the end of our days.
Enough on my side trail, let me jump back. Again our agenda included debriefing the Story of Stuff. My mentor conducted the first three periods debriefing and during these she was cultivating/incubating a new version of the debriefing message she wanted to convey to our students. Well a incident came up where she had to leave during lunch and part of 6th period. She left me with the my consent to debrief 6th period on my own. She did leave me prepared with power point slides that contained the intended questions we were going to ask our afternoon classes, along with discussing with me how to go about discussing with the class. After we talked, I have to admit I felt confident in what I was going to try to get across. I have found that over the past couple of months of my internship that I work best when I write out the questions and an outline of my plan on paper. So I did just that. I even came up with a warm-up question that in my mind lead to the conversation of materialism and the participation in purchasing goods.
Well 6th period came around. The students were all riled up having just come from lunch and I suppose that this week being homecoming did not help. I tried talking to them some of them as they walked in to engage them and reel them in. What happened in the end was a lot of mayhem. The students and I were just not jiving on the same wavelength today. They are tough cookies. Not to mention that it does not help when a group of girls in the back are whispering and mocking me right in front of me. How can I engage and pull in all the lunch crazed and gossiping girls? I want to engage them or at least have their quiet attention when I need it?
Upon reflecting directly after 6th period, I did learn something amidst my wonderings/future goals. I need time to incubate over an concept and all the possible ways I can teach it. More time then 30 minutes before the lesson. Otherwise I end up like a stotting gazelle, Jumping up periodically out of fear of losing total control and as a way to grab their attention. The stotting is not very effective and only works for short burst of time.
The take away message is that I need at least a 24 hour incubation time to go over ideas in my head in preparation otherwise I am a very ineffective stotting gazelle. In addition, running allows me thinking time and during this time I come up with my most creative thoughts. In fact the act of running allows my thoughts seem to flow seemingly coherent, even eloquently. Otherwise they are a jumbled mess of fragmented sentences, phrases. Running helps me think, brings out my creativity.
