Confused

So, I often get weird spam mail in my email. Luckily it just goes to my spam folder and I don't have to worry about it at all. However, lately I've been getting spam that looks like this:


Can you please explain to me why I'm getting messages in a language that doesn't even use a Latin-based alphabet? Seems a little weird to me, but whatever!

Fall of the Wall - Rise of a Man

Well, today is a momentous day for multiple reasons. First, this man was born:

He taught me everything I know! (If I recall correctly, I beat both my dad and my brothers in this game...the student finally beat the master!) Doesn't he have great form!?

Pretty sure I'll be hearing about posting this one!

I'm pretty sure he's not entirely sure what to do with a crazy daughter like me. But he tries his best to go along with my oddities!

I think the best decision he ever made was to marry this woman and have five wonderful children (cause if they had stopped at four I wouldn't be here!).

I love you Dad! Happy Birthday!


The other reason why today is such a big day is because it marks the 20th anniversary from when the Berlin Wall fell.

This is an actual picture of the Wall as it stands now in the East Side Gallery. It's about a mile stretch of the Wall that stands as a reminder of what Germany went through. I tried to find my other pictures that show more of the Wall and just how tall it is, but they are buried in my mission pics somewhere and I didn't have time today to dig them out.

Anyway, it's a pretty sobering thought that just a wall kept a country and people divided for so long. I am very grateful for the freedoms that we enjoy in this country. I definitely had a greater appreciation for it as I talked with people who had actually lived in East Germany for all of those years. I hope that I never take it for granted.

Well, I have more thoughts about both momentous occasions from today, but I will keep them to myself for now because I'm tired and I'm not sure that they would even make sense. Just know that I feel very deeply both about how much I love my dad, and how grateful I am that the Wall fell!

The next picture doesn't really have anything to do with the Wall. But I found it as I was trying to find my Wall pictures and I realized again just how funny it is that Chemnitz (a city south of Berlin) still has this HUGE head of Karl Marx. And by huge I mean H-U-G-E!

The Love of a 5-Year-Old, The Love of God

I have been woefully bad at this blogging thing the past month or so, and I apologize. But I was just sitting here tonight thinking how blessed I am and how grateful I am for the little moments in life.

Being a teacher is very eye-opening. I get to spend almost 7 hours a day with 5-year-old's...20 of them to be exact! To some of you that may sound absolutely awful! And believe me, there are moments when I have to literally take a deep breath before I can calmly deal with whatever problem happens to be the issue at the moment ("Um, Ms. Gardner this just happened," holding up a tape where the insides have come out. "So, that just happened? It was just sitting on the table and the insides just started magically coming out?" "Yep." "Really?" "Well...um...[very small voice]...no." Deep breath...not that I really cared too much about the tape, but mostly about the lying).

In the last two months I feel like I have started understanding the love of God just a little bit more. I know that it has everything to do with working with children, but I am often amazed at the little daily lessons that I learn. How often have I gotten a little more frustrated than I probably should have in the situation and instead of shying away from me, my students run to me and give me a huge hug? How often have I had to discipline a child and instead of hating me or resenting me they still look at me with love? I am daily humbled by the love and trust that a five-year-old can have. I look around at my students everyday, and I realize that there isn't much that I wouldn't do for them; even my students who try my patience more than I realized it could be tried! Perhaps this is, to a very small degree, what it feels like to be a parent. Perhaps this is why the Plan that God gave to us actually works.

I've often wondered at the Love of God for all of His children. He is God, after all. He doesn't really need us for anything. I mean, why is "His work and His glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man"? We are His creations, and I think we can all agree that when we create something there is a special feeling that results. However, we often do really, really dumb things. We hurt others, we are selfish, we don't think of Him, we aren't grateful or even recognize what He has done for us. In an almost uncanny way, we are just like the five-year-old's in my class. They are selfish. They don't think of others. They can be very mean to each other. And my first reaction when I hear of these human characteristics is to be frustrated with them, and just give up.

But then there are the redeeming moments which cause me to reevaluate what I am doing and why. A student sees another child crying and puts her arm around him. A child (who probably isn't getting the attention and love he needs at home) runs up to me, wraps his little arms around my neck and whispers in my ear, "I love you Ms. Gardner." In these moments I realize that my five-year-old's are doing the best that they know how. They are trying so hard to be good and, in all honesty, they are trying the best they can to please me. Do they have setbacks? Absolutely. Do they make a hundred mistakes every single day? Of course. But with all of that they are sincerely trying to be just a little better in every moment. When I think of the Love that God has for me despite, and almost because of, all my faults, I am filled with more love for this small class that I have the opportunity to be a part of. And I am very humbled by it all.

Helping is What Friends Do...

*Names have been changed*

I was sitting with one of my small groups today doing a literacy lesson. The students were supposed to be "writing" their favorite farm animal after they drew and colored a picture of it. I wanted them to simply write the sounds that they could hear, and wasn't too concerned about the correctness of the spelling. Emily had correctly written "pig" and I had moved on to Sarah. She was also trying to spell "pig" but was having a bit harder time of it. Emily started to tell Sarah how to spell it and I quickly stopped her. Emily was, after all, defeating the whole point of trying to listen to each sound and write out the letters. At that point my attention was turned to another student, and by the time I came back to Sarah I noticed that she had correctly spelled her word. I asked Emily if she had helped Sarah, and Emily lied at first. When I asked again she admitted to helping Sarah spell the word. I said, "Didn't I just barley ask you not to help her?" She looked at me with big, big eyes and nodded slowly. I then asked, "So why did you do it?" She kept those huge eyes on me and said quietly, "Because helping is what friends do." How would you have gotten out of that one!? I told her that she was right, helping is exactly what friends do, but that students also need to listen to the teacher when the teacher asks them to do something.

All in all, I think that I learned the greater lesson today. Helping is what friends do. It seems so fitting that a five year old summed up pretty much everything that was said at Conference on Saturday and Sunday. We need to love and serve others. I love working with Kindergartners. They are so profound (without even meaning to be!).

Memories...

When I was little my family was playing a game of Pictionary. Because I was so young, they would let me choose anything I wanted to draw and they would try to guess. On this particular turn I was sitting in my dad's lap. I looked around and finally drew something like this:



Can you guess what it is? If you said "ghost" you would be just as wrong as my family. They guessed and guessed in vain. Nothing they said was correct. Finally, completely out of ideas, they asked me what it was. I said simply, "Daddy's nose!"

Now, you may ask yourself why this memory has even surfaced after all these years. Just last week we were learning about the 5 senses in Kindergarten. During writing time my students were making a book about all of the senses. They would draw pictures, and we would write the words together. When we got to the sense of smell I told the kids to draw something that they could smell. Without any prior picture, or me telling them anything else, a good majority of the students drew a picture uncannily similar to the one I had drawn years ago! Maybe all 5 year old's draw noses like that. Maybe it's just fate that I'm teaching children who are so like me. In any case, that day I remembered myself as a child, and that always helps me understand my students!

Do you have any funny stories of yourself at this age? Do you remember any funny stories of me at this age? I would love to hear them all! It may help me understand why my little 5 year old's are doing the many puzzling and often exasperating things that they do!

Picture Day...

Yesterday was picture day. They forced the faculty and staff to take pictures for the staff directory. Maybe I should have just given them my Kindergarten picture...

You Know You're In D.C. When...

One of my roommates works on the Hill for a Congressman. A little while ago their office received this email:

Dear Congressman Garrett,

Let me get this straight . . . Obama's health care plan will be written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it and whose members will be exempt from it, signed by a president who is a closet smoker, funded by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that is nearly broke. Great role models! What could possibly go wrong?

Best,

I hope you all get a great laugh out of it as well. Whoever this person is, they bring up some great points to think about...