Seven for Sunday... Because of God.

I missed posting last weekend because I was in Boston doing volunteer training, and it’s been busy this week. Since it’s Sunday, I’ll do a random Seven for Sunday post.

1. My trip to Boston was totally worth the hit to my weekend. I also had to go on Tuesday for a second session, during which I got to talk to someone who participates in reviews, and I got to sit in on a mock event. I feel a lot more confident now about how I can be a productive part of the process. I expect I’ll have a lot more to say about this later, but I have to wait until I can get to some actual review meetings to talk about what it is really like (that won’t happen until April).

2. Spring has arrived officially, and we can actually see bare ground in the front yard. Of course, there are still large tracts of land that are covered in the telltale sullied white that comes from all manner of debris drifting over and onto it. It will be a while yet before I can extricate my disc golf basket from under the small glacier that secures it, but I feel like I can begin to collect the tools and equipment that come out during the dark season, so they can go into the basement when a path to the bulkhead door becomes navigable.

3. I don’t often remember dreams that I have. I have them, sure, but my ability (interest?) in recalling dreams has, for as long as I can remember, never been a strength. That said, there are times when dreams really stick with me. I can still vividly remember parts of the dream in which my oldest daughter’s name was revealed to me, for example. I bring this up because I had something new about dreams happen to me the other day.

It happens from time to time that I have dreams, or scenes from dreams, repeat themselves. I’ve often discovered that this happens because the universe is trying to tell me something, and the same thing will continue to replay until I’ve received the message. Never, until this week, however, have I had a dream that came in sequence to one that came before. Sometime back in the summer, I had this weird dream involving primitive tribe of people (think medicine man with the bone in his nose and the ornate, feathered hat) and small kid-size containers of yogurt. The “chief” of this tribe offered them as a ceremonial gift of welcome to me and the other people in the hut where we were meeting. That was the essence of the dream and, while I can tell you about it now, it didn’t really resonate with me at the time. Fast forward to last week. I’m back in the hut, the same characters are in the dream, and the yogurt is being presented. Then, the dream moves forward! We’re tentatively eating the yogurt, presenting our own ceremonial gifts, and trying to bridge the gap in language and culture. It was like the second chapter of a mini-series! Has that ever happened to you?

4. I find the simultaneous variety and similarity of human behavior fascinating. I especially love exploring human personality and playing with tools that quantify and organize it. For me, it’s a great way to improve my sense of self, but I also find it valuable as a tool for understanding and predicting how others behave. As a teacher, this information really helps me to relate to my students as both people and learners, and I am far more effective as a guide to them for being able to see patterns in the ways they think and act.

There are lots of paradigms out there that define personality type. Meyers-Briggs, which is based on Carl Jung’s work, is popular. Gardner’s work on Multiple Intelligences has been very helpful to me, too (this link [HERE] allows you to actually contribute to ongoing MI research. I was introduced to one just today that I played with, and intend to explore some more. It’s based on the book, “The Personality Compass: A New Way to Understand People (Turner & Greco, 1998). It’s not terribly complex, but the fact that it draws on socio-cultural patterns is interesting. You can take a basic quiz to find your own place on the Personality Compass [HERE]. For the record, mine points mostly North and West. Where does yours point?

5. Wifeness and I have a joint blog in the works that will help to chronicle our efforts to establish a community and start a school. It’s not quite ready yet (I have some basic stuff to put into it before I share the link), but we both would love to have people check it out. Hopefully, having a forum for this work will keep it full present in our thoughts and routines, and will also help others to know just what’s going. I’ll share the link when I’ve got the first real post prepped.

6. We all went to Target today for the every-so-often-get-stuff-you-can’t-find-cheap-at-the-local-stores shopping excursion, complete with fast food lunch. The girls brought with them money which, as you may imagine, was burning some rather large holes in their tiny little purses. They saw a great deal of merchandise on display today, but what did they decide to spend their hard-earned cash on? That’s right! Electric toothbrushes! NiNi was particularly excited at the discovery of such technology. Her exact words were, “Yay! Now I won’t have to do any work!” No, really. No one can make this stuff up.

7. My classes are watching movies this coming week to avoid the need for homework during MCAS testing. This is not idle work, however. It’s part of a unit on how to use subtitling as a tool for expanding and enriching foreign language vocabulary. My first-year classes are watching Finding Nemo; my second-year students are watching The Incredibles (which relates to their recent work on the essential question “What makes a hero?”) I love these units because they show my students something valuable and useful, and they really seem to appreciate it. I suppose the popcorn helps, too.

I have a scene from The Incredibles running rampant in my head because we reviewed the scene in which it is found, like, a thousand times on Thursday. I can’t find a clip of the particular scene online (“…officers, ma’am. Squeaker.”), so I’ll leave you my favorite from the movie for you [HERE].

Happy Easter!