Today, I am grateful for video games and playing with my buddies. We play Call of Duty, mostly Resurgence Quads/Trios/Duos. We have played hunting games. Seasons in Madden. Golf. I am a social gamer. I play with my friends and use the time to talk about our families, sports and many other topics. This is our way to stay in contact with eachother. We Snap our group chat to see if anyone is available and only one other person needs to reply for us to get on. What makes this even more fun is that I went to middle school, high school and college with these guys. We all live in three different timezones. I get messages at 6am to play because on the east coast it is almost 10am and the morning activities are already done. I have to remind myself after playing or when I am feeling that I need to "go out" and be social that there are different forms of being social and playing video games with my buddies is one of them. I am grateful that we find time to stay connected through video games!
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Today, I am grateful to be able to be an active member of our teachers Union.
I believe in the power of collectively coming together with my colleagues to advocate for our working conditions, benefits and compensation. Tonight, I was able to attend a training that was focused around preparing us presenters to do good work for the professional development summit called Unbreakable Solidarity. I was able to meet with other educators from around the Valley and become more knowledgeable about how to create positive learning opportunities in our presentation. Finding colleagues that are like-minded and passionate about advocating for our public schools has allowed me to build relationships and find ways to do work that I am passionate about. What we have in our public schools is not magic. Hundreds and thousands of people are working very hard to provide the best possible environments for students to learn. I am happy and committed to doing my part to make sure public education is advocated for locally, state-wide and nationally! Today, I am grateful for Sunday mornings.
Nothing on the schedule. No meetings. No games for the kids. No work. I pulled out my lawn chairs to sit out in the area in front of my apartment to sit in the sun. What I hear:
Now, Dayterbug is sleeping, coffee has been made and I have taken a couple of drinks, already played my CandyCrush and going to check if I have any new lives, put a sweatshirt on. Next, going to read a chapter from The 1619 Project: The New Origin Story created by Nikole Hannah-Jones and a chapter from Fight Like Hell: The Untold Story of American Labor by Kim Kelly. Listen to Avett Brothers while reading. Later, watch NCAA basketball, play video games, hopefully take a nap, enjoy some food, send messages to my daughters, message with Palacios and Otto, call my parents, talk sports betting with my brother. Sunday mornings are dope! Today, I am grateful for Fridays. Every other Friday I am working from 7:30am-9:30pm going from teaching to working at Four Peaks. This is a long day but the people, students to patrons to my co-workers, make it enjoyable. Other Fridays, I am going to pick up my son from school and hearing his excitement. Having the night and the weekend to do whatever we want to do. Some Fridays, I go to my daughters' sports, either volleyball or soccer. Fridays are different. I look forward to all my Fridays for different reasons. It is wild we only have 8 more Fridays this school year before summer break! Today, I hope you and I have a good Friday! Today, I am grateful for being able to learn and grow in my teaching by having positive relationships with my colleagues especially my co-teacher for two class periods, Mr. Otto.
Mr. Otto cares about doing his best and our best for all students. He cares about relationships and building relationships with all students. I like to think big and futuristic and how we can change things and make things, hopefully, better for what we do in the classroom and the environment and experiences we provide for learning. Mr. Otto will listen to those ideas and then say how do we actually do the steps to make that successful. I believe both of these are needed to do good work in the classroom for all students. Dreaming big is good but being able to know and do the day-to-day steps to be successful is absolutely needed. Getting to know Mr. Otto has allowed me to know that we can talk about what is happening in the classroom and we both want to do what is best for our students and even if we may disagree about how to handle something we will both support each other to do an action that we believe will be better for our students. Joking with Mr. Otto and students throughout this year in the classroom, hallways and when we have hung out outside of school has really made this year a special year one at Tempe High. Thank you Mr. Otto for making my days better. Thank you Mr. Otto for helping me be a better teacher. Thank you Mr. Otto for being who you are! Today, I am grateful for rain. The sound of rain falling from the trees or off the roofs brings relief from all the other noises. The calming the gray and white and blue and black clouds bring to me is relaxing. The fresh air the rain brings me makes me take a deep breath of the rain filled air. The life sustaining nutrients it brings to our environment brings me joy. I am grateful for rain. I am starting on this journey. I am asking my students to do this for this quarter and I wanted to do it with them!
Each day, I am going to blog about something I am grateful for. Each day, I will be intentional about recognizing the things around me and in my life that I am grateful for. Format/Asks (for students) 2-3 sentences Possible sentence starter - What I am grateful for... Possible sentence starter - I am grateful for this (person/place/event/feeling) because... Today, I am grateful for my family. My parents have always been supportive of me and have always done what they can for me when I am needing their love. I am grateful for my siblings and all the joy spending time with them brings my life and I cannot wait for all of us to be together in the same spot again. I am grateful for my children. Seeing my children grow up and develop their personalities and their passions has been so rewarding. I am grateful for my nieces and nephews and cheer and celebrate all of their successes! |
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Header (above) - Black Hills, SD, 2013 Portrait (below) - Me! Compadre High School, 2021 Dylan WinceI am not a writer. Archives
May 2024
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