Retrospective

Well, yesterday was loads of fun! Hilarious even, looking back on it. A severely sleep deprived brain acts drunk but there's more to it than that. Yesterday's map quest could have been a piece of cake but it was like looking at 2+2=4 for the first time and trying to insist there is more to the problem than meets the eye, but being the devilish drunk brain it was, couldn't produce any further thoughts. The wheels were turning, but no synthesis could take place and thus I was staring at the map insisting that it had more to tell me when it didn't and that the information was incomplete which it wasn't. Such a fun predicament! Luckily, last night I got sleep and this morning I had my first cup of European coffee so it should be smoother today.

First Day

Saying the first day of this trip was eventful is putting it lightly. The very first hiccough occurred when my flight to Iceland changed to a 7 AM flight since the big plane they were going to use broke down & they had to split us up onto 2 smaller planes. Luckily my bag didn't get misplaced. So after two sleepless flights, I have to navigate the train system which seems straight forward on the map, but then the signs/letters & and color coding for the various lines of trains that are on the map aren't actually used in the station. Luckily, I was able to get help twice and asked in French the second time.

When I got to the hostel I broke the one rule of adjusting to a new time zone and passed out. I was dizzy with fatigue and didn't feel safe standing upright so I made the mistake of lying down and fell asleep. There were no dreams but I felt better when I got up a few hours later.

Now, as I am about to go to bed the fire alarm in the hostel is going off and no one is running around trying to get us out of here so we're just lying here waiting for it to stop permanently. It has had brief breaks but mostly it insists there's a fire somewhere.

Take-Off

Today's the day and I'm here at the airport waiting at the gate! Super excited to be in the air. Hoping to get a few hours of z's before landing in Iceland for the brief layover. I will only have an hour between flights! Talk about an early morning adrenaline rush! I can hardly wait to land in Paris! There is still an hour and 10 minutes til boarding. My parents got to see me off together...I haven't flown alone since my trip to Montana to do trail maintenance back in 2011 but that was only 10 days and had a set itinerary. So far, I only reserved the first three nights in a Paris youth hostel after that the plan is wide open! Can't wait to fill these open pages and days with new adventures!

Trail Photos!

Thank you to the person who retrieved the lost photos for free! I got 100% of the photos from my dead phone from a person who will of course remain anonymous and I am so grateful, and euphoric even, to know that they didn't enter the void. When I have everything figured out, I will post them all because they are still not all in the same file on this computer but there will be more to come!
Anyway, I will be leaving for Paris on Monday on a red eye flight and am praying that I will be tired enough to fall asleep for at least a few hours on the plane. I've got a small network started over there and my couchsurfing account is up an running so here goes! The next grand adventure awaits and I plan to keep this blog updated with any and all news. Europe, here I come!

The Little Soul and the Sun

I heard this very unique and thought provoking parable today by Neale Donald Walsch, the title of which is the title of this post.

The story spoke to me on a very profound level because I believe we all contain souls and that each soul is the essence of God. When I hear a preacher proclaim that we are made in the image of God, I do not get the impression that God is a Man in the sky, but that our souls are made in the image of God. As mentioned before, I do not believe that we can be condemned to hell for being unable to comminucate with that aspect of ourselves.

Anyway, the story is about a soul who wants to fully experience being what it knows itself to be, which is light, and God explains that this is difficult because at the moment the soul is surrounded by many other lights (souls). You can't fully understand light without darkness so for you to do this we have to surround you with darkness. The little soul asks if it will be afraid of the dark and God says "Only if you choose to be. There is nothing really to be afraid of unless you decide there is. You see we are making it all up. We are pretending." If you're interested in the story thus far visit this link to read the rest: http://www.sapphyr.net/largegems/littlesoul-thesun.htm

What I love about this story is that it brings up the fact that anything and anyone who comes into our life is there for the purpose of showing us who we truly are. As I've once said a long time ago, I firmly believe that I went through hardships so that I could see proof that I was strong, courageous, loving, and capable of forgiveness.

New Vision

So this past week I got a new idea for what direction to take for the next chapter of my life. I want to go back to school to get a couple masters degrees, one in behavioral science and another in education. As I have mentioned in more than one post I want to use my past to carve out the future and I hope to complete some practical research in how to best facilitate learning when you have a class made up of children with and without special needs.
Back in Montgomery College, I wrote up a paper about teacher centered instruction vs. student centered instruction and wrote an argument for balancing the two. My new, more robust idea is that the whole class will support each other's learning and work together to understand a given problem and it's solution. Encouraging the class to not only treat each other with respect but to provide each other with emotional and academic support. I want to experiment with the idea of peer tutoring and to find a way to create a classroom where no one feels excluded. This is not to say we make the teachers obsolete. Teachers would be facilitating the learning process and the children would get a chance to fully digest each lesson by discussing and practicing the lesson among themselves. Obviously, this would be more beneficial for older children who will have enough of an attention span to stay focused for half an hour or so.
Due to the direction we are going in with social media, part of my goal is to make sure future students will be able to develop social skills which is why I like the idea of a collaborative classroom. Even people in my own generation feel uncomfortable asking for emotional support from friends.  When a child struggles through the school day, they feel alone in their struggle and feel as though they are lacking much needed support. I firmly believe that schools should, once they get enough federal funding that is, start making more of an effort to help those on the fringe to interact positively with their peers and to make and extra effort to notice how students are being treated by their peers when they think there are no adults around to witness their behavior. Hopefully it doesn't require extra funding but teachers are already on strike for being mistreated by the government.

Travel Bug

So in a previous posts months and months ago, I mentioned someone saying I should hold fast to my vision and I have decided to go to France for hopefully 3 months. Before you claim that this sounds careless, let me just say that whenever I entertained this idea, I got the same giddiness I had gotten before going on the trail 2 years ago. It's a very small thing, but to me it is a clear sign that I should follow my heart on this. I plan on using hostels and with any luck couchsurfing if I can figure that out. I've gotten my plane ticket for March 19th and the 1st three nights in Paris. I've done research on foreign health insurance, completed my taxes, started emptying my room  and giving away clothes I rarely use. My hope is that I can immerse myself in the language and culture. For me, the scariest thing about the trip so far is coming home and wondering what to do next. I would like to go back to school to get a masters in education and perhaps behavioral science. Or I could re-apply for Americorps.

Luck has been on my side with my preparations because, just like with the trail, I have again run into someone who has proven to be an immense help. He has family over there in 2 or 3 different parts of France and he's told me what Apps I should have on my phone in regards to maps and metro information. Also, my grandfather surprised me with some financial aid when he heard about this trip. I'm not saying that I'm loaded by any means but I'm almost where I was before I started the trail.