The Hopi Indians & The Inca

Interesting to me that while the Incas in Peru were doing this:

Machu Picchu, Peru

The Hopi in the Southwestern United States were doing this:

Mesa Verde, Colorado, USA

Apparently Mesa Verde and Macchu Picchu were contemporary structures and the Hopi/Ancestral Puebolans and Inca were contemporary native tribes! Fascinatingly enough - the oral tradition of the Hopi is that their people migrated up from Peru, through central America, up to Colorado area, led by the spirit of God. They stopped in Colorado because they felt that it was a sacred place. Interesting to see how the cultures connect.

Hopi, or Ancestral Puebloan dwellings at Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde

And interesting to see how the different tribes adapted to their climates. In Peru they were in the mountain tops, and at the same time the Puebloans were building their structures underneath cliffs.



Long House, Mesa Verde



Machu Picchu, Peru

So, would you rather be Incan, or Hopi?

The Annular Solar Eclipse 2012, Utah

I thought solar ecplises were overrated until I saw one, Sunday. It was fascinating! We drove all the way down to Kannarraville, Utah to be within the "red-lines" where you could see the complete eclipse, or ring of fire. We made a picnic out of it - which meant driving all the way down, 3 + hours, and then watching for 3+ hours, and then driving back for 3 + hours home.

picnic time!

People parked in the middle of no-where to watch the eclipse!

So this is just after the "ring of fire" taken with a camera through my little viewing glasses.

This photo makes me laugh because it made me imagine we were in the 1960's out watching a space shuttle land or something!

It was worth it. It was just a fun community type experience with the hundreds, literally, of people parked on the sides of the road out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-Utah on picnic blankets and with telescopes and cameras, and holding up little solar glasses and x-ray papers to see the eclipse which you could not see with the naked eye. We chatted with people around us and ate potato salad and chips and bbq sandwhiches, and because we are funny single people we listened to Total Eclipse of the Heart and Ring of Fire while the eclipse was happening. A little girl stuck her head out of her SUV window and said, "You guys' singing really sucks." Nice.

Literature for a Different Generation of Readers

As a high school teacher I'm seeing a trend in what students will and won't read. They pretty much won't read ANYTHING. But this. My students, male and female, Caucasian and Hispanic, loved this book.

Burned Alive by Souad.

Teachers were talking about it. The librarian was talking about it. Everyone was talking about it. Kids were discussing this book around the school and in other classrooms, other teachers were having to tell the students to put down that book they were reading for my class and pay attention to biology, psychology, math.

My co-worker found this book browsing amazon.com and we both read it and loved it. Our librarian, writing lab-lady, and another older lady in my department thought it was scandalous and so we worried about teaching it.  I sent parent permission slips home to moms before we began the book, and gave a few other non-fiction selection options, but the kids READ.

They read! They discussed! They reacted! They shared it with friends and family members! THEY READ A BOOK. I could let them sit and read for an hour straight and they did! All I had to say is discuss - and they would discuss! Classroom magic.

One of the things they loved about this book is that it is real. I'm finding that this younger generation of readers is pulling toward non-fiction + a little edgy. They want to know what is happening in the real world. What happens to people their  own age around the world.

I only wish they were as excited to be reading To Kill a Mockingbird, which they are NOT reading. It's like pulling teeth to get them to read that book.

Brushfire Volume 64



The photo on the right of the Reno sign is mine, taken in Reno last July.

So The University of Nevada, Reno published these two photos of mine in Brushfire, Spring 2012, Vol. 64, the literary arts joural of UNR.

The photo on the left is mine, taken at the Forbidden City in Beijing last April.



I haven't picked up a paper copy of the journal yet, but the .pdfs are online at:  http://www.unrbrushfire.com/http://www.unrbrushfire.com/











Disappointed but not Discouraged

I have been reading Daughters in My Kingdom, and have rejoiced over and over again these last few weeks this quote from sister Julie B. Beck, fifteenth Relief Society General President of  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life....It requires a conscious effort to diminish distractions, but having the spirit of revelation makes it possible to prevail over opposition and persist in faith through difficult days and essential routine tasks....When we have done our very best, we may still experience disappointments, but we will not be disappointed in ourselves. We can feel certain that the Lord is pleased when we feel the Spirit working through us. -Julie B. Beck

 I love this quote - it expresses exactly how I have been feeling lately. I have experienced a lot of disappointment in my life, particularly the sting of unfulfilled righteous desires and dreams. I have trudged through the daily routines of life, but have felt very blessed to feel the peace and joy and daily happiness of understanding that setbacks are not reasons I need to feel disappointed in myself. I rejoice in the assurance that the Lord is looking out for, watching over, and daily blessing me. I have felt guided in my life's path; knowing that what I am doing is the Lord's current plan for me. Knowing this reminds me to look up and look forward, and to be grateful for all that I have received.

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is one of the most amazing, if not the most amazing sight I have ever seen. If it were just the Inca ruins it would be enough, but they are perched up on top of the high, jungle ridden Andes mountains. You would never know a city was up above the cloud cover in the mountains and because of that the Spanish didn't find Machu Picchu when they conquered Peru.



This picure is attempting to show the steepness of the city and the height of the mountains surrounding the ruins.



I love this shot. I'm pretty proud of it! The mountain peak behind the ruins is Waynu Picchu.

This is a view of the terrace farming.

We spent the whole day from 5:30 in the morning until 5:00 at night hiking around the ruins and then up to Waynu Picchu the peak behind the city and then up to the Sungate, a peak up around the otherside. Luckily none of us got altitude sickness, but I am slightly scared of heights, so the top of Waynu Picchu scared me to death.

This is the view down into Machu Picchu from the top of Waynu Picchu.

Just happy to be there!

Our whole group at Machu Picchu.



There is no way to really capture these mountains, but part of what makes them so beautiful are the deep gorges or valleys between the mountains.



Definitly a place to see before you die if you have the opportunity!

My New Most-Embarassing Moment of All Time!

So there I was in the Amazon Jungle hiking through the mud with this attractive man that I had been flirting shamlessly with all week and then I get heat stroke. We had been hiking through the Amazonian mud for hours and I was doing okay, but then we canoed out onto Lake Sandoval, and were out in the hot, reflective sun for an hour or so, and when we stopped for lunch I got heat stroke. Now imagine me bawling my eyes out in the arms of this man - who is dousing my arms and legs in water bottles full of Amazonian water and fanning me dry with his hat. He coaxed off my boots and jacket and put his arms around me, and I was totally crying my eyes out while he was making me drink water and soothing me. I am still mortified.... So I'm suffering terribly, but we can't just turn around because we are 5 hours out into the jungle so the whole way back he is watching over me and keeping me from falling over and talking to me non-stop about anything to distract me from my sickness. Oh, goodness. So so so so so humiliating! I think I'm all cute and flirty and then I'm helpless and bawling. Great move, me.

Look in the mirror...

Look in the mirror and remind yourself you are in your 30's.

I have maybe been accused of looking and acting younger than I am, and I appreciate that, and admit it.

The problem is, the men I am dating are in their 30's...some of them act like they are in their 30's and some of them look like they are in their 40's...and that is okay, right?

I am looking for a responsible man and it's okay if he looks older, right? Men have less options for staying younger looking, and that's just the way it is. I am looking really hard for a nice man to fall in love with. Dating for this long, stinketh. But really, in the spirit of notes to self and rambling, I really am looking for just a nice man who is smart and righteous and relatively attractive, right? Right.

The argument we ladies in our 30's have is what is still important? What is absolutely essential and what isn't? None of us want to age ourselves out of getting married period. But no one wants to settle, either.

OP/Ed and the TRIB

To my public educators out there: I know what we teach in the classroom is much, much more important than just reading and writing and math. This article is for you, and me, and everyone who works hard to raise the next generation of Americans.

If you would like to read the article check out The Salt Lake Tribune, today's page A11, or www.sltrib.com, opinion section. P.S. Public education vs. private/charter schools is kind of a hot topic where I live - it's okay if you don't agree with anything I say. I was just really excited that the SL Trib picked up my article! You'll notice the article running right above mine is lifted from a New York Times writer, awesome. I'm close to something big. haha

There are a lot of comments on my article, some good some bad, but the beauty of writing is that it starts a dialogue. My favorite comment is from someone who says he was going to keep this perspective in mind as he goes to the cacususes. Yay for participating in the Democratic process.

1000 Photographs Later

This is what I wore today while being photographed by a BYU photographer.

The BYU Today magazine is publishing a short piece I wrote for their Spring 2012 edition. Part of what I wrote had to do with being a teacher, so they wanted to get a photograph of me in the classroom.

My students were really good about having a photographer lurking around the room. They even volunteered to run and get blow dryers so my hair would be flowing like in a hair commericial. I asked them to please act natural, and they were really suprisngly good. I guess we'll see next time how much they learned about writing research outlines while I was being photographed teaching them.

Two class periods and a 1000 pictures later, I hope at least one of the photos looks decent so I don't die of embarrassment when the magazine comes out. I guess I should be more worried about my writing than what I look like, but sometimes I make funny faces when I teach.

The UP Award

We don't pat ourselves on the back enough, and we can't wait for others to do so either, or we may be waiting a very long time. So, I'm just going to nominate and award myself the UP Award for having the remarkable, and it is, ability to keep my spirits up when life does its darndest to get me down. Yay me. Way to show life it can't get you. Way to set your sights always UP above the mess and seek for happy horizons on which to settle.

My Poor Future Children

Look what I found! How could I not buy it! It is a baby Shakespeare book of Romeo & Juliet that teaches numbers! My poor poor future children. If they don't end up with literary-inspired names, they will be learning how to count with Shakespearean tradgedy.

I kind of want to name future daughter Giulietta after Juliet, or Natalia after the protagonist in The Tiger's Wife, or Paloma after the girl in The Elegance of a Hedgehog. I have also always liked the name Guenevere after the King Aurthur stories, or Gwendolyn after Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

It's probably going to be a good idea that at some point in my life before I have a child there will be a man in my life who will have a say in the matter! In the meantime, I'm learning to count.

Two Photos

The Kolob Canyon Review, literary arts journal at Southern Utah University is going to publish two of my photographs! I'm so excited. They are publishing a photo I took in Morocco and one I took in a casino in Reno this summer. The photographs will appear in the Spring 2012 edition! Yay!

Own it Helena – You’re the New It Girl

Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) is one of my all-time favorite characters in Shakespeare; often over-looked, at least in her mind.

The not-quite-as-classically-attractive Helena is best friends with the All-American (in this case All-Grecian) beauty, Hermia. She has a paramour, Demetrius, who is interested in her beauty until he meets her best friend Hermia, and crushing, decides to transfer his affection to her. Problem: Hermia has her own true-love Lysander, who consequently, might be a better catch.

How does Helena respond? Whine, whine, whine.

Oh, Hermia! Why am I not as pretty as you? Why aren’t myne eyne as beautiful as thyne sphyrey eyne?

Oh, Demetrius! Pay attention to me! Treat me poorly while I chase you, just don’t leave me please! Treat me as you treat your dog, just treat me!

Hermia to Helena: PITY.

Demetrius to Helena: DISDAIN.

A couple of love-potions and fairy tricks later: Demetrius and Lysander are both in love with Helena --praising her beauty and virtues. And she is beautiful and virtuous; she just doesn’t recognize it comparing herself to Hermia.

How does Helena react to this new found love and attention from two “worthy” bachelors? She swears. “Oh Spite, Oh Hell!”

Helena is not used to the attention, she can’t handle the attention, she doesn’t want the attention; the lime-light isn’t comfortable resting on her or her on it.

My conclusion: Helena is so typically female. I can laugh with Helena, but I find I can’t chide her. What I really want to say to her is OWN IT. Own who you are. You tell us yourself in the play: “Throughout Athens I am thought as beautiful as she [Hermia],” but add the caveat: “but what of this if Demetrius thinks not so?” Don’t lose your confidence because one man doesn’t think you are as beautiful as you truly are.

My suspicion is if you had acted as confident as you have every right to be, and not whined in jealousy and begged attention from a man who may not deserve you anyway, you would happily be enjoying your best-friend-ship with Hermia, had Demetrius still tailing after you in amour, or better still, found a man much more worthy of you, by virtue of the fact he sees you for what you truly are: wonderful.

But this is a Shakespearean comedy, right? So you whine, complain, beg, become the “IT” woman you have always wanted to be, have no idea how to act when you receive the attention you have always wanted, and then end up marrying that man you think you want, (Demetrius) who only marries you because he still under the influence of the love potion.

Greatest good for greatest number, right? I disagree. While I love Shakespeare’s comedy, I would have re-written the ending; Helena, beautiful and confident, moving on past Demetrius, who would have been given the anti-love potion, so she could have been provided the opportunity to realize she deserved real love, ultimately from someone else.

Sounds like I want to turn this comedy into a feminist drama, right? Well, I’m looking out for Demetrius too. He shouldn’t love forever against his will with the love potion, he should get the opportunity to wake up too, and find a woman he truly loves, and for the right reasons as well, provided he can find them.

I. Got. These.

beautiful flowers from a boy on my birthday. Mmmmhmmm.

And That's What Comes From Men and Women Dancing

I'm not typically one to string a bunch of events together and call it cause-and-effect. And I always laugh hysterically when I think of one of my favorite scenes from Fiddler on the Roof where a whole slew of events go array simple "because" men and women were dancing together. But I do enjoy good turning of events.

I love going up to the Sundance Film Festival every year: stalking stars, seeing films, bundling up cute, and eating out. It's something to brighten up the often bleak January landscape. Every year we wait-list tickets or last-minute purchase tickets to hopefully-okay-movies. This year I did the early "locals-only" registration which would assign me a time slot to purchase as many tickets as I wanted, first.



When I received notification of my ticket-purchasing-time-slot I realized it was on Sunday. Drat. Of course. After talking to myself for a minute I realized I'd better not. We'd just chance it again this year and hope to get tickets to something interesting.

So...we got tickets to a good, clean film with less than usual trouble, we drove up there and instantly found a free parking spot one street over from Main Street, right next to the shuttle bus pickup stop, right across from the $20 a day parking. Then we actually saw a celebrity without even looking - three feet away on the bus: the very cute, Anthony Mackie from The Adjustment Bureau, among other films.


And that's what seems to come from not shopping for tickets on Sunday: easily getting last minute tickets without having to wait in line, finding a free parking spot where it would normally cost $20, seeing a good, clean film, and then inadvertently spotting a celebrity, without hours of hopefull stalking! haha

Correlation? Probably. But I was delighted.

I'll Never Never Never...

Wear colored tights like my quirky high school English teacher. Hmmmm....now I'm a high school English teacher wearing colored tights. Yikes! So - there are many, many things I said I would never do like be in a beauty pageant, listen to country music, kiss on a first date, wear skinny jeans, try online dating, become a teacher...Maybe I should say I will never get married, and I will in fact, get right on to doing just that.

The Life Unexpected: Lessons from My Grandmother

My grandmother recently died. The funeral was held on New Year's Eve. Next to my own mother, she was one of the most influential women in my life. This is the legacy she has left for me:

Love everyone. Everyone was her favorite. I always thought I was one of her favorite grandchildren, but I have no doubt every single one of us have felt the same way.

Always have something kind to say. Grandma could find something positive to say about everyone and every situation. Like my own mother, rarely did anything cross about anyone come out of her mouth.

Always look and act like a lady. Even at the age of 90+ grandma always did her hair and makeup, even if she wasn't leaving the house.

Always have a cookie or a bowl of ice-cream on hand. Everything feels like it will be okay after a spoonfull of sugar. And it will taste better if it comes out of a large, strawberry-shaped cookie jar.

Love the Lord and He will help you rise from the ashes. My grandmother isn't my real grandmother. My dad's mom died when my mother was pregnant with me, and my grandpa married my Grandma Charlene when I was a small child. She had a hard first marriage and hard life, but then she found my grandfather and together they loved her six children, his six children, and all of us grandchildren; went on four missions together, and never passed an opporutnity to share their testimonies.

FOR me, my grandmother was an example of faith - and much blessing after much tribulation. TO me, she was a powerful example of how to gracefully live the unexpected life.

11 of 2011: Good Life

It’s gonna be a good life, good life, good life, oh, it’s gonna be a good life, good life, good life: Oh, please tell me what is there to complain about. – One Republic

Looking back over a year of blessings.

1. I finished my master’s project; I will graduate in a year.

2. I mentored my first student teacher.

3. I received recognition for, and attended, a national journalism teaching conference in Reno, NV.

4. I climbed the Great Wall of China outside of Beijing.

5. My little sister went on a mission to Australia; I am so proud of her!

6. I was in four places at once: Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

7. 10 years ago November I went through the Seattle, WA temple; what a blessing that has continually been in my life.

8. I floated the Great Salt Lake (it smells).

9. I travelled through the Baltic countries including Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Finland, Estonia, and Russia.

10. I was chosen to do district level training of the new 2010 Common Core State Standards.

11. The Lion’s Roar student newspaper, for the first time ever, is being printed with two pages of color!

As I look back over the year 2011 I realize it has in many ways been like many others, with ups and downs,tears and laughter, but when I look back on the year as a whole, I ask myself: what is there to complain about? I have good friends, a wonderful family, faith, a good job, and a belief in the goodness of others. I have challenges, but also opportunities. I have grown in faith, experience, and knowledge. It’s been a good year; it's been a good life. And I thank my Heavenly Father for that.

Cognitive Dissonance

I think the universe is trying to tell me something. While trying to work towards becoming this:

I did this to myself,
(see below) on accident:

I have been working on my future-wife skills, not that there is a future-husband yet, but if you build it, they will come, right?

I am cooking something new and exciting once a week, taking pre-natal vitamins, eyeing cute baking-ware in the grocery store; I even substituted in the nursery last week at church and didn't have a panic attack at the onslaught of germs. And I am going out regularly.

At the same time I am working towards nesting, I am also planning trips (in my mind) to Peru, Egypt, India, Spain, anywhere; imagining possibly earning my PhD in education from some university back East, and browsing the latest sweaters and skirts from Anthropologie and wanting to own half of them, the expensive half. I'm holding on dearly to the idea of the single life because that is all I've known.

I am experiencing cognitive dissonance: the flow of two incompatible ideas at once. I have a strange desire to start a nesting phase, and at the same time keep a healthy escape hatch. The result? Butternut Squash and thumb-sliced soup.

Ironically, I was texting a cute boy while chopping up the squash, and thus sliced my thumb.