Dance.

The year ends -- the experiment of writing about my daily doings was decent. Definitely a stabilizing force during my long weeks in South Africa. It grounded me. I didn't think too much about things (the way I'm prone to do). But now twenty-eleven comes to a final, ungraceful bow, and I am at Cowboy Country with my good friends, and we are dancing with white people with soft hands (costume cowboys) and blowing horns and hooting and hollering and saying -- no, pleading -- oh, twenty-twelve, won't you bring us something better?

I only danced once, but it was a good one. I have no evidence for you, so you can imagine it far better than it was (how all things like to be imagined and remembered).

Roast.

My ever-too-busy schedule prevented me from starting to roast the turkey until the late, late hour of 7. No matter how few hours the turkey is predicted to roast, it somehow always seems to take twice that! Also, this year, my conundrum was that I accidentally cooked it upside-down... (this is an almost understandable mistake since it was just the breast and not the whole thing).

It was cooking till past 11, and around 10:30, I started watching the movie, Waiting for Forever which totally sucked me in! I couldn't stop watching it! It wasn't that amazing of a film, but I completely fell in love with the protagonist, and felt very invested in the outcome for him. After the movie ended, I carved the turkey (hacked is a better verb for that, really) and put it away for tomorrow.

Now it's almost 1. I am going to be super-exhaust tomorrow... but a far more exciting Tuesday night than anticipated. It's kind of stupid that an exciting night is one in which I stay up to watch a movie... such is the life of a teacher!

Read.

I have been reading We Make the Way By Walking, a spoken book by Paulo Freire and Myles Horton. After a long and disheartening discussion about education and social change last night, I read Chapter 5 with renewed hope and enthuse.

These are my favorite quotations by Paulo Freire:

"I hope that many of us are learning how difficult it is to make history, and how important it is to learn that we are being made by the history we make in the social process inside of history. Fortunately, I am not naively optimistic, idealistic, but I am critically optimistic...
We are in the sight of a process. I always say that the deepened transformation in society never arrived on a second Monday morning. Never. No, the radical transformation of society is a process, really, and it comes like this."

"If we could change a society like we can change the position of the furniture of this house, it would be fantastic. It would be just a question of muscular power, no? That is, I can take this chair and put it over there> We could change everything here in ten minutes. History is not like this. It takes time in history to make history. You cannot make it today, but the change comes up in all directions and dimensions of the life of society."

"It is a time of confrontation, this transition, the time of transition of the old society to a new one that does not exist yet, but it's being created with the confrontation of ghosts. There are many ghosts in society fighting against the dream of a much more open society. Generally revolutions have this in common. We cannot decide this period cannot exist. We have to understand that it exists historically, culturally, socially. We must fight also."

"One of the fears we have here as educators is the fear of experiencing new things, of exposing ourselves to mistakes. In the last analysis we have real freedom. We are afraid of risking. And it's impossible, just impossible, to create without risking. It's absolutely impossible, but it takes time to begin to risk."

"One of the most important tasks I think for a revolutionary government or a progressive government...is to think seriously about the formation of the educators. But understanding formation not as something that we do in some weekends or some semesters, but formation as a permanent process, and formation as being an exercise, a critical understanding of what we do. This is, getting the practice we have, the experience we have, and then reflecting on the experience and the practice in order to understand theoretically what it means."

"When I talked with [President Nyerere], he used to say to me, 'Paulo, it's not easy to put into practice the things we think about.' Yes, it is not easy, but it's not impossible. This is my conviction."

Bake.

Today I baked banana bread! I am proud of myself cause I didn't let my old bananas go to waste, and also cause I innovated a bake pan (annoyingly, a lot of things went missing in the move), and also cause I innovated an oven light (e.g. Flashlight) so I could take this picture! I am amazing!

Watch.

Today PY and I went to the zoo, and used our zoo passes for the first time since we purchased them in August. We were looking for coffee, and in the meanwhile, spent lots of time watching monkeys, bears, koalas, and gorillas just do their thang in their little exhibits. I think we watched the gorillas for the longest, because they were being very active. All of the animals were being especially active, as though they knew it was Saturday and everyone wanted to come to their show.

Show.

I rarely show films in class, but as my teaching partner is going to be away for three days this week, I am taking liberties, and also advantage of the fact. In retrospect, The Great Debaters is the perfect hook to our debate project and I am not only rested, I am ingenious. Too far? Maybe. Whatever the case, it was delightful watching this with my classes today. They are wildly empathetic, and got wicked into everything. I love them so much. They are fabulous people.

Remember.

The month of October went by quickly. I do not know if I can remember all of the verbs that this month contained, but I certainly feel that my living-to-reflecting ratio is disproportionately tipped towards living. I could stand some downtime for just reflecting and remembering.

Instruct: This month began with a long Saturday of debate instruction that my little sister and I put together for students in South Bay. We hosted 25 students for our "Saturday debate day," of which 20 came from different schools.

Listen: I managed to finish my Seasons' mix for the craziness of my Winter slash Summer that occurred below the hemisphere in South Africa. It is amazing.

Fly: I flew to Florida -- on a horrible red-eye that meant I basically didn't sleep for two days.

Witness: I had the opportunity to attend the wedding of my dear friend, Caleb Winn. Everything was decorated and arranged beautifully, and felt like a night of fairies dancing, and of course, contained the quirkiness that I have come to expect and accept in Caleb. They walked away from their vows to the ending theme song of Empire Strikes Back.

Kayak: After a fairly involved argument regarding this verb, PY and I did spend the afternoon kayaking in the mangroves in Florida. We saw a manatee! This was exciting, and also, more difficult that I anticipated.

Golf: I went mini-golfing for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long. I beat PY the first time, and the second time, he beat me. We are both pretty terrible at it.

Exchange: There is no better verb for how Lina and I share our lives together than exchange, because every meeting is full of the stuff of accumulated treasures that we have for one another. This time, we both exchanged music and trinkets that we've picked up along the way, as well as so, very, many stories.

Prep: I have learned how to prep my college debaters to face their doom in their parli rounds, and I must say, it's very satisfying. I enjoy counseling them through new argumentation, and also, through difficult emotions. I feel like Deanna Troi a lot.

Learn: I started going to RCIA classes at St. Gregory's parish with the intention of inquiring into the Catholic faith. I have various reasons for doing so. In the process, I have enjoyed getting to know a little bit more about how different people practice their faith.

Receive: At the end of the month, I participated in the Rite of Welcome that occurs as adults enter the process of inquiring into Catholicism. This involved an elaborate ritual of blessing, and I received a crucifix from my sponsor. It was very neat, and made me giggle.

Exhibit: My students put together a massive and amazing haunted house during the month of October. They exhibited it on October 27, 2011 and they were fabulous. I wish I'd gotten better video footage!

Direct: After spending the entire day cleaning with my students, I drove up to Helix High School with my high school debate team for the novice debate tournament. I still don't think it was a good idea to agree to be vice president of SDIVSL, but directing a tournament is also something I did today. Until MIDNIGHT. Eish.

Create: I don't remember which of these past Saturdays it was -- it must have been early in the month -- but the only empty October weekend I had, I spent drawing with charcoal, painting with watercolor, and being generally whimsical with my little easel.

Read: I got into lots of different titles this month, including Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (gift from Lisa), The Mysterious Case of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco (gift from Naomi), We Make the Way By Walking by Paulo Friere & Myles Horton (a delightful stumbled-upon at the Adams Ave Bookstore), books 3-6 in The Spirit Flyer Series by John Bibee (a holla-back to my days of youth). I am feeling a little schizophrenic with my reading these days, but it's all good.

Teach: A typical verb, but this month not-so-typical subject matter. Many days were devoted to teaching students to scream, growl, and laugh maniacally. I laughed happily driving home, because my job is sometimes really weird and fun.

There were other verbs. So many other verbs. This verb project is only a failure in form, but not in practice. In practice, I am living so many verbs that Write seems something I always have not-enough-time to do.

Judge

I spent today with the Point Loma debate squad. When I took this photo with my Retro Cam app, it made an unexpectedly loud noise, which was pretty embarrassing.

Prep.

Debate is officially taking over my life! I got home from work, and then spent the past three hours prepping for our Saturday workshop tomorrow morning. Looking up old lectures, modifying them, creating a schedule for two levels of debaters... eish. I'm grateful for all of my people that are stepping up to help with everything.

One day, maybe debate will release me from its clutches. Until then, enjoy the student handouts for the intermediate track of debate.

Mail.

After a long, long time since I visited South Africa (and which shockingly went by in a heartbeat), I made the trek to the post office and dropped off all the letters that my students wrote for the students I worked with all summer/(winter). When my two worlds collide in this fashion, I feel slightly more myself and like I'm not bipolar, or two different people. All together, the letters weighed 11.5 ounces and they are officially "documents" as stamped by customs.

This is my favorite form of International Relationships.

Remember.

Tab.

On my way to the dentist back in June, I got a phone call from the SDIVSL president. Gregg asked me if I would be interested in being the VP for the SDIVSL this year. I was driving, and might have said, "I'll think about it," because this is definitely not something I really need for my life. However, I thought, sure. Someone needs to do it. And that someone can be me! So I said "sure" out loud and promptly forgot about it.

Now here I am on a beautiful Saturday day sitting inside classroom 74 at San Dieguito Academy in Encinitas. I have been here for the past 8 hours and have 3 or 4 more to go. Today I have been tabulating the results of the tournament for the Policy and LD kiddos, and have simultaneously been training and encouraging two teachers to take my place.

The good news is that I will not have to do this Saturday thing gain. The other good news is that the tab looks good for HTHCV!

Coach.

Shake (hands)

We are really back to school! Tonight we had our Family Orientation with the new and returning Team Vista parents and guardians. I was very overstimulated after 12 hours of being at school, and two specifically spent meeting people, talking about students, and shaking hands.

This is our Google Presentation!

Catch (up)

Live.

I am dissatisfied with all of my verbs for today. None of them, in themselves, are very good stories. I could talk about walking in the morning light to get coffee while I waited for my carpool. I could talk about walking in the moonlight so that Cheddar could sniff around and mark his territory up and down the street. I could talk about grocery shopping and how I picked up yogurt and pears. I could talk about doing the dishes, broiling a hot dog, picking up the last bit of mess from my room, and brushing my teeth.

But these are not verbs that make a good story. They just make for a decently productive Monday that I lived nonchalantly, as some days ask to be lived.

Hike.

Critique.

Decorate.

I went to bed early last night, and slept for a long time, and woke up early enough to check to see if school really was cancelled. It was. I don't think a power outage could have come at a better time for me, personally. I know that it was a big deal or whatever, but honestly, it seemed like everyone was blowing it way out of proportion. This happens in South Africa constantly.

I am not complaining, though. I spent the day watching TV and putting my room together. I took down the closet doors, selected fabric to serve as a curtain, sent 100 new photographs to Walgreens to be printed, framed new photos, hung them carefully, installed a curtain wire, hung up my curtain, hung up a mirror over my "vanity" table, hung up my little painted bird canvases around the mirror, and unpacked the last of the boxes. It makes me feel really productive, and happy. My wall is now covered with the places I've been.

At last, after all this, I have brought my computer to Le Stats and am attempting the long process of remembering. I had to laugh about the Saturday before last, when I could think of a dozen verbs to describe the day. Lina was right: I looked back on it all and didn't feel so bad for all the times I fell apart.

Embrace.