"Leavin' on a Jet Plane" and Thoughts on Life

Here I sit in the Bob Hope Airport, AKA Burbank Airport. I can't believe I'm sitting in another airport. I've never flown this much in my life. A few months ago I was flying LA to NJ, then NJ to Amsterdam. A week or so after that I was flying to Washington. And again this morning, I'm on my way to Washington to visit my mom. As many of my frequent readers know, she's pretty sick and it was time to go see her again. The rest of my month is pretty busy so I decided (with the help of a close friend) that it was time to go now rather than waiting 3 weeks.

In just over a week, G-d willing, I'll be flying to Ottawa. That's a lot of air miles. After I fly to Ottawa I should have enough miles for another free flight to anywhere in the US or Canada. YIPPEE. I've already used two free flights, that's 50,000 miles, this year. It took me years to get up to that amount.

So I'm off to Washington until an unG-dly hour Tuesday morning. My flight leaves out of Seattle before 7am and my mom is an hour from the airport. I guess that's the price I pay...literally. I payed $296 roundtrip including a mid sized car rental. Usually the flight alone is a minimum of $300.

I'll return to work Wednesday. Finals for my students start on Thursday, ending on Monday. All my classes are doing a pretty simple speech on their values of success. Speaking formally is a standard for all classes and I didn't want to give a killer final. So, they are speaking for 3-4 minutes about their values and how those positive values will lead to success. Saturday morning I'll be driving up near Big Bear for a retreat with other teachers and administrators from my school. I'll be up there (another early) Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon. The retreat is for teachers who will be participating in Professional Learning Communities at school. PLCs are groups of teachers with a common prep period who meet weekly to discuss our "art" and to provide feedback and support. Our literacy coach at school is absolutely amazing and I'm blessed to have her as my mentor this year. She is the one who reached out and invited me to go. Being a new teacher in a school of over 200 teachers plus other staff can lend to a sense of being alone in the crowd. This will be a great way to connect with others.

It's funny how in life business and boredom, stressful and carefree days, work and play; they all ebb and flow. Right now things are flowing. Life for me is so much the same. I wake up, go to work, teach, etc. At the same time my life is so very different than it was 2 months ago. I do thank G-d for the many wonderful things that have occurred in a short time. I also wrestle with G-d through the hard times and try to understand the bigger meaning and whys of life's challenges.