Baile Folklorico

I had a strange dream last night...I dreamt I walked into the living room and my dad is sitting on the couch telling me to open the curtains. I draw them back only to find nuns tending to our garden. They have a couple of little boys with them who are helping them and occassionally holding up different plants for the nuns to name. I go back to my room wondering where the nuns came from. When I return to the living room, Bill Cosby is there with my third graders in a circle around him. They are playing a board game. I think the wierdest part of all was that my third graders were sitting so quietly! So yeah...no more hotwings with my brother before I go to bed.

My mom had a dance performance last night. She did such a beautiful job! The ended the performance how they always end: with the knife dance of Nayarit. Skirts were twirling, feet were stomping, and machetes were flying! Pretty amazing. Here are some pics from the event:

Enjoy

Here are a couple of the projects the kids and I have been working on in the Art class:

Ocean Animals (more on the crafty side)


Some murals we did for the Santa Cruz County Fair. The first is a puzzle, the second and third deal with creating an illusion of space using a horizon, background, middle ground, and foreground. (The third is my favorite.) They judge according to a Dutch system, I think it's called, so there were multiple blue ribbons awarded. We got one! Ya for Mintie White Elementary!

Apparently there are vampires in my hometown.

Once a month, I make a trip to the DeAnza flea market with my mom, aunties, and cousins. Last weekend was the last for the summer and I made it count. I scored a VHS copy of Lost Boys for a buck. Oh my...how had the decade of my childhood been deprived of this cinematic wonder! It has all the neccessary ingredients for an instant 80's classic, complete with Corey Frickin' Feldman...helllooo childhood crush. Plus, it was filmed right here in beautiful Santa Carla. Amazing. Haha.

Anyhoo, I think I landed the perfect placement for my teaching internship (student teaching). It's in third grade with many of the forementioned eight year olds who melt my heart. I'll let you know how it goes.

recent update+future plans for Japan=Very Long Post

It's September, and another school year has begun for me, for my Dad, and for the precious little souls whose education is entrusted to us. I am on the last leg of an accelerated teacher credentialing program and have made the decision to persue a masters. For only 6 more units, why not? So from now until Christmas break, my daily schedule consists of student teaching followed by the After School Program where I teach art to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. Expect future posts concerning messy painting mishaps, long nights of writing lesson plans, and the crazy shennanigans of eight year old boys. Not too much else will be going on in my world!

About Japan...I don't know. I don't mind not knowing, because I'm at complete peace with where I am now. I don't regret turning down the job last June. I regret accepting it in haste and the disappointment it had caused others when I did decline. I often think of how different my life would be if I was living in Osaka right now...and I question the will of God. Not His sovereignty, but my understanding of His will. Whether I choose to serve Him in Japan or in Santa Cruz, am I not carrying out His will? How do I know I made the right choice...maybe they were both right.

I've come to the conclusion that they ARE both right. It's not a question of what it is that God has laid on my heart. That has been clear for a while. In this case, the question lies not in the what but the when.

So why did I turn down the opportunity of a lifetime? Is God's will to be determined solely by the "fortune" of opportunities as they present themselves?

This is how I justified my final decision:
I felt weird about it.
The opportunity was presented to me on a golden platter...it seemed too good to be true. Only a complete moron would say no. Would I ever recieve an offer like this again? But I felt weird.
Furthermore, I wasn't even originally planning to be in Japan at the time, but I was asked by my leadership to return...was this teaching job the real reason? In the past, doors to Japan have been slammed shut in my face. Now that I was on the porchstep of gaping opportunity, why did I feel so wierd about it?

As hard as it was to go back on my word, I was immediately filled with peace after I made that phone call to Japan. Maybe I shouldn't question how God speaks to me. He obviously does, just as He wants to speak to all of us. We use a variety of methods to confirm the things that God tells us. For example, the presence of peace, "signs", the wise counsel of others, His written Word (by the way--always a part of the equation). I think He speaks to us in different ways because he knows how we are all so different and need different "wake-up calls". Moses needed to see a flaming bush that wasn't being consumed. I feel wierd about things, and bring them to prayer for more guidance. And I know that His will would be that we not stress out about His will...yet at the same time, He loves when we are striving to please Him.