What matters, really....

Sometimes I have to stop for a moment and think to myself: Does this really matter? In the big scheme of things, how important is this? Tomorrow or the next day, or next week, or next month, or next year, what does it matter?

I also need to stop sometimes and ask myself: Was I kind today? Did I make others smile? Was I helpful? Did I do all I could for someone, anyone, everyone? Could I have handled something better?

Many years ago I began to make it a point to do 2 goods deeds a day. At the end of every day when I'm driving home from school, I ask myself whether or not I did my 2 good deeds...if I did not, why not?

Each night, before I go to bed, I make sure I evaluate my day. If for some reason my day could have been better, I ponder upon how I could have made it a better day. Each morning, on my way to school, I make sure I am thankful for my family, friends, and all of my students.

I try very hard to make sure that I live each and every day with an attitude of gratitude.

The Perfect Storm

The "perfect storm"...I think that title comes quite close to being an oxymoron. After watching all of the devastating effects this storm caused on so many people, it's anything but "perfect". However, as far as the storm was concerned, it came onto the east coast with a fury most of us have never experienced. In that sense, the storm could be, and was, considered "perfect" in meteorological terms. Over the course of just about a week, I had the opportunity to become absorbed in a new book. Without electricity, a good book is a great way to spend the time while sitting next to a warm fireplace with a cup of tea. Board games, card games, any game for that matter, get old after a few hours of competitive play. The next best thing, in my opinion, is a good good. I have to say I prefer reading to the game playing. In my family, when playing Monopoly, no one ever gets the really expensive real estate like Park Place and the Boardwalk except for my dad. I'm lucky if I can get the cheap real estate, not go broke, and get a "get out of jail free card." The game of Life, Mouse Trap, and Candy Land are more my speed. As far as playing cards, I'm a Crazy Eights expert, I'm ok at Black Jack, and I’d say I’m a skilled Rummy player. I recently tried to learn Snapszer, but it was quite involved. As far as Poker goes, I don't like to gamble, especially if it's with real money. Using Halloween candy, peanuts or Bingo chips is more my style. Although, placing a quarter into a slot machine and then pulling the lever can be a lot of fun, especially the anticipation of waiting for the jackpot pictures lining up with all of the bells and whistles. Unfortunately, Atlantic City suffered some severe damage from Sandy. I have to say that once again, I am counting my blessings because my family and friends are safe, and didn't suffer too much damage from Sandy. I was lucky to be able to spend time reading a great book...The Silver Lining Playbook. I spent the hurricane days with my family and I also had my pets with me, so I really didn't have too much to worry about, for which I am thankful. As always, I am able to count my blessings and I am aware of how fortunate I am in so many ways. 

Expectations

I seem to be thinking a lot about expectations these days. What happens with me is that a lot of the time I do a little too much thinking and I end up over thinking something when I could be thinking about something else. Just something to think about...

When I think of expectations, I first like to think about what others expect of me. Interestingly, the list of people who have expectations of me is quite long. Off the top of my head, here's a list of all the people in my life who have certain expectations of me: immediate family (my parents, my brother), extended family (aunts uncles, cousins, friends who are so close that we consider each other family), friends (best friends, close friends, Hungarian friends, American friends, school friends, outside of school friends), students in school (students I have in class, students I don't have in class but still come to me for help or just to chat), parents of the students I teach, my principal, faculty members, and I need to include my pets (a dog, two cats, 2 parakeets). Everyone I mentioned in my list has expectations. I could easily list what their expectations are of me. I would have no trouble doing so because, and I hate to say it, well, because of my age. When it comes to expectations, parents, family, friends...when you have people who have been in your life for over 40 years, you just know what they expect. We don't tend to think about it though because it's just something we do with automaticity. As far as expectations surrounding school, I know what others expect of me because it's my 25th year of teaching and experience and life tend to be very excellent teachers. I also think that there are constants in expectations. Treating everyone with respect, dignity, consideration, thought, and civility are basic and go without saying in my book of opinions. Of course, I expect the same in return. It's funny how I was thinking about those closest to me and those with whom I have a closer relationship as opposed to strangers. When, in fact, everyone deserves those basic expectations, don't they? And we, too, deserve the same in return, don't we? Would there ever be a time when someone wouldn't deserve to be treated with respect, dignity, consideration, thought, and civility? I'm sure there are times when we don't treat those with whom we are close to in a way that is expected. That's were disappointment comes in to play. All of us make mistakes. There are those times when we unintentionally and without thinking, we do something or say something that is anything but what the other person would expect. We all make mistakes. I truly believe that we learn more from our mistakes that our successes. Mistakes somehow hit us harder that when we succeed at something.

So, if I think about what I expect of others, I can easily say that I, too, would like to be treated with respect, dignity, consideration, thought, and civility. If we all did just that, then a lot of our troubles wouldn't be so troublesome, now would they? It is because we don't live in a perfect world with a perfect family, with perfect friends, with perfect students and parents, with perfect faculty and administrators, and even our pets aren't perfect, that we need to take time to just think about our expectations and the expectations of others. As my mother always tells me: "make sure you take a good long look at yourself before you begin to criticize someone else for a fault or a mistake because you may find out that you're not as mistake-free or fault-free as you think you are" and trust me on this one, my mom is almost always 99.9% right.

If anyone expected more from this blog, I apologize for not meeting your expectations. Hopefully, the next time I decide to write a blog, I'll meet your expectation. However, you can always comment on what's been written and I'll take that into consideration the next time I write my blog entry.

The red light on my phone had been blinking Wednesday night. By the time I decided to check my voicemail it was around 10, right before my bedtime. Early Thursday morning I checked my voicemail and I was surprised to hear who left me the message. It was an elderly Hungarian lady who I've known for pretty much all my life. She was one of my Hungarian teachers, one my Hungarian girl scout troop leaders, and a close family friend. She asked me to give her a call. It was a simple message, but she doesn't call me often and I know my mom had spoken to her just the other day. I was both curious and a bit worried. I was able to call her and speak to her later Thursday morning. 5 am was a bit early...my rule is call after 9 am just to be safe and don't call after 10 pm. The reason for her call was to ask me for an address. She had something she wanted to send and she misplaced the address. After talking to her a bit I decided that I could easily go over to her house after school because I had the time and it's been a while since I've seen her. When I told her I'd be happy to stop over after school, she was so happy...I could hear in her voice that she was looking forward to seeing me. I have to add that she said to bring Zserbo too. She likes Zserbo as does her grandson. When we pulled into the driveway, Zserbo was already excited , barking in the car, and Magdi néni was at the door smiling, laughing at Zserbo. We spent about two hours talking, catching up, just enjoying each other's company. So, what's my point? There's always a point...it just takes some time for me to get to it. Something so simple, something a bit spontaneous, something that you do for someone else that didn't take much effort nor much time out of the day was something that I am so glad I did. I'm glad I took the time because it made such a difference for Magdi néni, but it made a difference for me too. The time I took to spend with someone who was a part of my life for many years...someone who I know loves me dearly...someone who I don't see regularly but ought to...it meant so much to me on so many different levels. What levels? I'll let you think about that.

I have to say that I do enjoy learning new things. However, what I enjoy even more is watching my students learn new things and being excited about jumping right in to try whatever it is that we're learning. This week we continued to expand our knowledge with Google Docs by learning how to make a presentation. Actually, we're making a presentation as a class, all 26 students working on one project. What's the project? PSSA Vocabulary. Sounds a bit mundane, but trust me, it's anything but. There are 108 words. We are 26.  We each decided to choose 4 words and create one slide with those words and their meanings. Each student needs to keep track of who is posting which words in order to prevent duplicates. This is how we'll be familiarizing ourselves with these words. If everyone pulls their weight and does their 4 words by next Friday, then we get to partake in an activity with Ms. Mangano. I left school at 4:00. By 5:00 there were already words on slides! I was excited and pleased. Oh, I too will participate in our activity...I hope it's kickball. I'm quite the pitcher!