Summer Thus Far

Woah, I'm not quite sure what to do with this new blogger format. It feels like Wordpress in an uncomfortable way. =\ Meh, whatever.

SO! Sorry that I haven't posted anything in forever. It's been a hell of a few months. First, I finally graduated with my BA in art, and now I'm taking summer classes to kick off my graduate degree in education. Along with that, I have a summer job as summer school teacher. The kids, while stressful and, well, kids, are amazing and I love my job. We're doing our lessons in an "Around the World" theme, so last week was Kenya and this week is France. Next week, we're headed to Mexico! :D I'm seriously loving this. As I type, I'm reviewing a movie for them to watch on Friday (our "free day" in which they get to watch a movie, eat some French food, and play outside).

 Also, I'm doing the 300x30 challenge, which is where you do 300 crunches a day for 30 days. It's day three, and I've completed my first 100 (I do them in sets to keep from hating everything). So far, so good. I imagine the first week will be the hardest (usually is), and if I can make it past day three, I can do the whole thing. Today should be the day I am most sore, and boy do I believe it. Also promised one friend we'd do weightlifting at the rec this afternoon and another friend that I would go swing dancing with him tonight, so I'm probably going to just collapse into bed as soon as I get home. Today will be long, tiring, and incredibly fun, so here's to coffee, the cool breeze coming in my window, and the promise of sleeping in tomorrow because my boss doesn't need me to take over the class til 11. :D

 In regards to the 300x30, I will post before and after pictures, but bear in mind that I'm also weight lifting and occasionally dancing and always eating a healthy vegan diet during this, so who knows how much my results will vary from the norm. So yay! That's my summer thus far. Tristan will be here on and off (currently off, D:), but otherwise it's just me and the students and the spiders in my house (whom I've sadly grown accustomed to). Ciao!

y0 dawg

Hola, long time no see. Apparently, this is going to be the semester that kills me. Despite the fact that I'm right on schedule for completing my senior show, I feel like I'm behind schedule. I have a solid three-day block with pretty much zero time for homework, meaning I need to complete all homework over the weekend and try to keep it straight for the next week. I'm about to start student teaching on Wednesdays in a room full of gradeschoolers who are probably aware of how much they intimidate me. I'm planning my wedding (btw, we're engaged!). I'm coordinating my singing group's spring festival. I haven't completely given up on my dream of continuing to have at least a meager social life (read as: dancing probably once a month and having the freedom to watch a movie with a friend on occasion or have my roommate kick my ass at Mario Kart). I'm not asking much, life. Just let me stay sane through May and it'll all work out. (Right? Right.)

On an unrelated note, huzzah! I've been vegan a year now and still going strong. Here's a fantastic (and short, 12 minute-ish) video about the social and environmental impact of a vegan lifestyle.

A Life Connected: VEGAN from NonviolenceUnited.org on Vimeo.

Love yo faces (and yes, I watch too much PhillyD).

Today will be good.

I have a really good feeling about today. I woke up on time, had a long lovely breakfast followed by a long lovely shower, and I made my first micro-loan through Kiva.org . Kiva is a site where you can loan money to struggling entrepreneurs around the world (and you can loan as much as you want or as little as $25), and then you're paid back as their business starts to take off. The repayment rate is 98.87%, so there's almost no risk of losing your investment. I'm helping out a farmer in Ecuador named Christian Israel so he can buy seeds and fertilizer. Join me in helping someone start over! http://kiva.org/invitedby/lisa9711

If you aren't familiar with a group called Nerdfighters, I recommend looking them up. They're an internet-based community dedicated to "decreasing world-suck levels and increasing world-awesome." One of the brothers who helped found the group, John Green, made a YouTube video a few days ago about the site (his second video about it in the last three years), and in the last two days, the Nerdfighters team on Kiva has raised over $20,000 for people around the world. That's a group I can love and get behind.

I'm actually going to be doing a folklore project on the group in the coming months, so it'll be interesting to see what I dig up.

I'd keep talking about the wonderful things in life, but I'm about to late for class. That would not make today wonderful. Ciao!