Embracing Sleeplessness

Lately, for some reason, I have been thinking a lot about Ellie.  It could be because she was killed just over a year ago.  It could be because I've been spending my evenings alone and feel a sense of longing for physical companionship.  It could be talking about it at school, with my students, has reopened some of these wounds.  Or it could be for no real reason at all, but for the past week I have really been feeling the hole that she left in my life.

This (Thursday) evening was especially hard for me.  After an evening at school I came home and was really unable to focus on anything else, making it really a pretty miserable evening.  As I got ready for bed I could tell that it was really starting to consume me and from that point on I knew I wouldn't be getting any sleep.
Rather than lie in bed, unable to fall asleep, dwelling on Ellie, I decided I'd try a few things to take my mind off of it.  Unfortunately, none of them worked.  What little solace I did find was in hymns and a few old blog posts.
So here I sit at 1:30 in the morning when I need to be at school by 7 for a full day with kids, nowhere near sleep, and, in all honesty, in a worse mood than when I started.  My brain has done a nice job snowballing over the past two hours, taking memories from the past 4 plus years and really using them to amplify my pain.  It has been a common occurrence in the past and I'm hoping that it doesn't become a regular thing again.
In June Jamie had two fantastic blog posts that I reread tonight and I thought I'd touch on them to wrap up this random, sad, relatively incoherent post.
First, the talked about Brokenness and how it has become something that people are ashamed of in their lives.  Since December of 2009 I have been very unashamed of my brokenness, but that does not mean that I always wear it as openly as I would like.  I think that Ellie is one example of how this has happened.  I have kept her picture up in my classroom and she is still the desktop background of my school computer.  I can't really bare thinking about taking down her picture.  Somehow it feels as though it would be betraying her.  I have been very badly broken for the last 370 days and at times it feels irreparable, but I don't talk about it.  I don't share that or wear it as openly as I do some of my other brokenness.  This, for me, is a start of embracing it and, hopefully, finding some sort of healing in this long and painful process.
Secondly, Jamie had some brilliant writing on Vulnerability.  This is something that is difficult for me, most of the time.  Sure there have been exceptions, but really, I avoid it at all costs.  When people ask me how I'm doing, I still say I'm fine or good, even thought that might not be the complete truth.  Let me say that this is very different from other "I'm fine" lies that I've told in the past.  This is not darkness of unfathomable depths, but rather, the convenience of not being vulnerable and saying that it has been a rough day, or that I'm questioning a decision, or that I'm missing a dog who has been dead for a year and I should be over.
This past winter I sent a message to my closest friends asking what about me made them want to be my friend in the first place and what about me frustrated or annoyed them.  At that point in time I was feeling lost and unable to really define who I was or who I wanted to be.  I opened myself up to these trusted people and they, at my request, held nothing back.  I won't lie, it stung, more than a little, but I knew then and now that it came from a place of love and that they loved be in-spite and because of all of my faults.
Throughout my writing process tonight I have been reminded of my own imperfections, faults, flaws, and inconsistencies.  Do I like all of these things about myself?  Not a chance in hell, but they are part of who I am, and even though I am emotional, crazy, slightly messy, sometimes lazy, and all around imperfect, I like who I am, and I do everything I can to improve myself.
Thanks for taking the time to read my late night ramblings.
Love and peace,
Daniel

Farewell Chewie

Friday, another chapter of my life ended.
Since I was little, I have always lived around a dog.  We got Spots before I could even remember, I was instrumental in obtaining Riley in November of 2001 and she's still kicking it on the farm, and when it was time for me to move on, I knew I wanted a dog of my own, so I found Ellie.
She was my best friend for about 18 months until she was hit by a car in one of her escape attempts.
Last June, I took an impromptu trip to Colorado to visit a friend, and came back with Chewie, a black labradoodle.
Now Chewie had, not surprisingly, a completely different personality from Ellie, and every other dog that I had ever been around.  He was very loving and clingy, wanting to be around me at all times and becoming very vocal when he was away.  When Ellie passed away, he became my only dog for a time.  I had Layla for a few months, until she came out to the farm, and Chewie became an only dog, again.  While he was just fine with the added attention, Chewie struggled being alone all day, and most weekends too.  When I was possibly moving to Mexico, I knew I would need to find a new home for him and thought that would be a good thing.  Well, a few weeks ago, I realized that I was not being fair to Chewie by keeping him around so I began to look for a new home.  It took a couple of weeks, but I found a wonderful new home for him in Wichita, with another poodle based dog who could have been his sister.  While it was tough to leave him behind, I knew it was best for him and he would be greatly spoiled by his new family.
So while I say farewell to Chewie, I know that he will be well loved.

Moving On

Last week I made a big change in my life.
For the past nine years I have had at least one vehicle registered in Harvey County.
Tuesday I changed that and reregistered both of my vehicles in Barton County.  I will be making my home here in Great Bend for the foreseeable future so it was necessary.  I took a picture to commiserate the occasion.

Christmas in July!!!

Today I had received a product for which I have been waiting for a month.
My new MacBook Pro with Retina Display.
This is a brand new model, just released on June 12.
I thought about ordering right away because I was planning on a new computer sometime this year, but for some reason I held off.  If I would have ordered right away that day I could have had it less than a week later but instead I waited for a few days and the production delay was 3-4 weeks, so I ordered in the middle of June and just got it today.
I know that most of you don't care, but, if you can't tell I'm very excited.
It has the highest resolution display ever placed in a notebook.  It is all flash which means that there are no moving parts.  It is so fast that it makes my old laptop look like a turtle!
The first thing I did when I got home to the computer was take pictures, so enjoy!
Incidentally, I am currently reading the biography of Steve Jobs, one of the cofounders of Apple, which seems to be timed correctly, reading about all the inovation he started.

New Projects!

Holy cow it has been a long time!  A lot has happened in my life since I last posted and I won't even think about trying to catch all of that up.
However, I have started my Masters in Instructional Technology through Fort Hays State University.  If you would like to read about the program you can go to the Instructional Technology page and see just what I will be working on.  My first course in this amazing program is Hypertext/Hypermedia Applications.  For those of you who don't know, your reading this is a result of a hypertext application, your web browser.  I chose that for this class I would be working hard on learning the basics of XHTML, eXtensible HyperText Markup Language, which has been quite the process.  It is a markup language, which means that it is a set of codes for structuring and styling text and graphics for web display.  If you go in your browser to the view tab, you should be able to find the XHTML code for this site.  Mine is much less complicated as you will be able to see if you check the code on my site.  
The thing about XHTML or any other markup or programming language is that for it to work the way you want it to you have to be 100% correct.  If you know me very well you know that I am not a person who does things 100% correctly.  Most of the time this is unnecessary so it was and is a major challenge for me to work with this code.
I am currently working on creating a professional blog that will chronicle my teaching, especially and new things that I try and any major projects in my classroom.  I invite all of you to check this periodically.  I will make an effort this school year to do a better job updating both this personal and that professional blog as well as my classroom site and a fourth grade site for our school.  I'll be doing a lot of different work on the internet so if I don't update one thing for a while, check the others!
The address for my new blog is creativemrk.com.  I know some of you could have probably done better but it was the best I could come up with.  I'm hosting it through a site called greengeeks.com which I think many of you would be very interested in so check it out.
That's all for now.
Peace and love,
Daniel

Boy Moves to a New Town with Optimistic Outlook

Many if not all of you wonderful readers know that I accepted a job teaching 4th grade in Great Bend last spring and now I have finally moved and started with school things as well.

Last Friday Brad, my dad, Grandpa Melvin, and I moved all of my stuff out here to a duplex about two miles from my school.
So far I have had four days of Kagan (cooperative learning) training which has been fantastic.  I was able to go into my classroom yesterday to see everything that I have and it was like Christmas morning!  There were so many awesome things that I thought I was going to have to order but now I can save my money for things later on in the year.  I talked to my team teacher Laurie and it looks like we'll each have about 22 students in our classes and from their performance last year, they are a low group, especially when it comes to reading.  We both agree that this is not a problem at all but rather an opportunity for even greater growth!
I've spent a fair amount of time talking to the one other new teacher in my building and we have really hit it off.  It's nice to have someone in the same position who knows the things that I am feeling.
Throughout all of this wonderful time of transition my wonderful dog Ellie has been providing wonderful entertainment and a slight bit of annoyance.  She wasn't ever very affectionate when we lived on the farm but now she can't be close enough to me.  See the picture below for example.

I hope that your lives and transitions are all as exciting, or at least fulfilling, as mine has been.

Love and Peace,
Daniel

Summertime and the Living is......HOT

Well, it's been almost a year since my last post and I have so much to write about but all that can wait because it's my favorite time of your, wheat harvest!
Only in June can you walk outside at nine to feel the oppressive heat that accompanies harvest and only in Kansas can the temperature be cooler at three in the afternoon than any time in the morning.  Having truly missed out on harvest the last three years this is a very special time for me.  I am taking this opportunity to soak up every breath of the dust filled air, even if it brings on night time coughing fits, right Chuck?  I love walking outside and smelling wheat, which, if you don't already know, is one of the best smells in the world.
Next fall I will be teaching a six-week unit on agriculture so I am taking the opportunity now to take as many pictures of the farm as I can to share with my students.  Rather than talking about these wonderful sights, I'll just show you.

As always,
Love and Peace,
Daniel