My Attempt at Living a Life

Hey Guys. It's been a long time. And yeah, I'm pretending that I actually have people who read this. So what? There might be some, some day. Today was amazing: I'd had an amazing day of teaching. My students were great. At the end of classes I looked back on the day and there were some pretty amazing moments. One student was wandering the halls and found a place to stay in my room for a class, while I was on my prep. That student spent the hour writing. It was fantastic. She wanted to be in her English class, writing. After school, Michelle and I decided to go to Saint John for groceries and tires. On our way there, we were driving across the harbour bridge, in construction and a downpour of rain when we heard a huge ka-thunk! The car jarred; we had hit a monster of a pot-hole. All we could do was sit and listen for wheel noise. Then it appeared: a quiet, thump, thump, thump. And at that moment neither Michelle nor I got mad. We didn't get worried, upset, or fru

It's been a long time since my last post so I think I'll try and get people up to date with my current efforts to live a full life. You know, I am happier now than I was a year ago. And at that time I was counting the days until my wedding. It seems as though life can't get better and yet somehow I know it will. I feel like I have become and incurable optimist. And to the point: I was out in a canoe with my friends Brad and Phil. We had paddled to Lake Utopia, through the Magaguadavic River and Canal basically on my orders. I had persuaded the guys that it would be a good idea. Sure there was a strong wind blowing toward the lake and paddling back might be tough but at least we'd get to swim in the lake. The funny thing was that when we got there, the swells were white-capped on the lake because of the high winds and it was impossible to paddle. The canoe was reeling from the waves. One of the guys asked whose bright idea it was to come all the way out to the lake.

Tweet Image by rob.masefield via Flickr For this post I'm using Trebuchet font in honour of the war machine of times gone by. A trebuchet was much like a catapult only it used weight and inertia to move the giant objects it flung. Enough of the History lesson, let's move on to the Stanley Cup finals. I'm a Boston Bruins fan and for me, seeing my team win was one of the best things that could happen this year. Mind you, it doesn't compare to getting married, or getting my first teaching job, scoring my first goal in hockey or many other personal accomplishment, but it is pretty nice. Having said that, I am having a hard time understanding why people would riot in Vancouver after the Canucks lost. Trust me, I'm trying. The act of rioting is serious. People have done it over such large issues as race rights, illegitimate governments, fascist rule, suffrage and the list goes on. I'm not forgetting the history of rioting after sporting events - soccer and hoc

Tweet Writing a lullaby, enjoying the feeling of a smile, and breathing deeply . Those are the things that I've done tonight. I've written about being wealthy, but not in a monetary sense. I truly feel that way tonight.  On May 17th, I was allowed the pleasure of knowing that my best friend had his first child. Not only that, but his little girl came as a present for his birthday. Seeing the pictures of him holding her I could only ask one question: "How does it feel?" He didn't even seem to think about it. He just signed, "It's the best feeling in the world man. I can't wait for you to experience it." I honestly look forward to that moment. But when I sat down on my sofa tonight, watching Tron: Legacy, I didn't think it would end with me writing a lullaby for my as-of-yet not conceived child. But here is the thing: When I was married I wrote a song. It was a soft piece of music with which my wife could walk down the aisle. She liked the

Tweet Image via Wikipedi I am sitting in a professional development session for teachers at my school. Everyone has their computers and we are talking about virtual classrooms . The room is dark to accommodate the projector, which displays the webpage we are supposed to be on. I'm feeling like my students who are supposed to be following along but have been distracted from the main points of the class. I've decided that now is the time to talk about experiences in life, and I've been looking back at my first blog and I realized that I left many questions unanswered. I wrote about wealth. I am not rich, and I don't have a lot of money, but I can say that I am wealthy. I've come to another big realization. The Book of Awesome is worth reading. It reminds us of the small things that make life wonderful. It is the small things. I always want to be able to say that I am working towards achieving big goals (like running a marathon) but the little things make life w

Tweet Well, I've been stagnant for over a month of working out. I've been doing random workouts, and trying to find a niche that works for me. I ran my 10k and it was fun. But I need something that will work for me. So I've started Insanity: The Asylum Vol.1 Sports Performance by www.Beachbody.com The verdict is still out, but I can tell you what I've experienced so far. I've completed two workouts: 1) Speed & Agility, 2) Strength For Speed & Agility: It was tough. I didn't have the equipment so I improvised, as any good athlete would. I needed a speed ladder and jump rope. I used duct tape and created the speed ladder, which worked quite well and I jumped in time with the video, so that I didn't need the rope. Obviously it was easier to jump without the rope but at least I was doing something. The jump rope section was hard and complex. I think it will take me a few times to get the pattern down, but maybe that's what I need. I've h

Tweet I'm assuming that for many people, the first race is a big thing. For me, there were many big moments and important things that I learned as a result of not being prepared. I'd like to share those, to help anyone looking to start running in races of any distance. Head whirling and trying to figure out where the starting line was, we just kept walking. we were lost, late, and unprepared; and then salvation presented itself in the form of a voice over a loud speaker: "Last call for the 10k!" My sister and I looked around, and spotted the start line with a sigh of relief. I guess I should rewind. I woke up Saturday morning in my bed, well rested and ready to get into Fredericton for the race. With a 2pm pick-up for race kit, I wanted to be on-time. More than that, I wanted everything  to be perfect. I ate oatmeal, with maple syrup, an English muffin and orange juice for breakfast and packed my bag: running shirt, shoes, shorts, compression shorts, insulated sl

Tweet So here is the question: Does stretching matter before a run? I've been having shin splints. It hasn't slowed me down. But not much does. When I want to run, I'm going and that's then end of that. Still, I want to be able to run without the pain and I think that if I start stretching, then I'll get rid of the pain. So I started researching. I've known how to stretch for years; by playing hockey, soccer and just keeping fit I've learned so many different warm-up and cool down techniques that I don't really think that I need help. But with the shin-splints, I'm open to suggestions of how to get rid of them. I started to look at some websites and I found a few interesting things: Suffering From Shin Splints? Try This (fitsugar.com) Ways to Prevent Shin Splints (fitsugar.com) I’m getting shin splints. What workouts can I do? (theglobeandmail.com) Then when I started thinking about stretching before running, I looked into a few things. T

Tweet "My attempt at living" has given me a lot of time to be introspective about what I learn through the weeks. This week, my mind has been on a trip that I am planning with students for March Break of 2012. It is set for us to go to Rome and Paris and I want to make sure that I get enough kids. But our minds never stay in one place... or at least mine doesn't. So I've also been thinking about why I started this blogs, shin-splints and online contests. So first things first. I started this blog to talk about how I am trying to live my life the best I can. I want to accomplish things. I want to leave this world a better place than when I found it. I want to make a contribution. And today I judged an Elementary School Drama Festival. Somehow, in the course of my career as a teacher I became the Theatre Arts guy. I teach Theatre Arts. I don't have special training for it. I just used theatre in my classroom as a teaching tool for years and someone gave me a sh

Tweet Image via CrunchBase Here is what I've learned this week: 1) Twitter is a great fitness tool. 2) Fixing a roof in winter can cause some issues. First off, I'd like to say that on my fitness journey, I'm in a lull; a rut if you will. I've run 3 times this week and had one weight workout. That may not seem so bad, but before I started training for a half-marathon I was doing a weight routine and a cardio workout four times a week. So for me to go from 8 wourkouts to 4. I'm not feeling all that accomplished. So why have I slowed? I'm finding that while I'm running good distances: 4,5, or 8 miles, I'm not getting as much of a burn in the time that I run. I don't sweat as much. My joints also hurt more from a long run than say a Beachbody Insanity workout. I could do the "pure cardio" workout after a full chest and back weight routine and then still feel good to go the next day. Not only that, but I was getting sculpted. With runn

Tweet There have been quite a few changes in life this week.  I've been starting to run again, which is something I posted about in my last blog. But, you never can tell when you are going to "start something" and then you find that without realizing it, you've abruptly stopped. I've been learning about Twitter; how to use it mostly. But along with that, I've been revisiting some movies and tv shows that I've already seen. It's been an interesting week so far and it's not done yet. I've had to make a decision about what I want out of fitness. Do I want to have muscle? Or do I want to have cardio? Some people say that you can have a balance, but I'm finding that hard to believe. When I made the switch from P90X to Insanity, I didn't notice it but I lost a lot of muscle mass. I had been doing over 300 push-ups, but after a month of the Insanity program, I'd lost it. So from there came the realization that I'd actually gotten in

Tweet There are so many things that have happened in my life since my last post. I've been married for over half a year, and have put on another successful play. I've seen more movies; most of which were terrible. But I have developed a fondness for a few new things and am re-devoting myself to some others: 1) Running : I have reset my fitness goals and plan to run my first half-marathon in 8 weeks. It's now April 2nd and I'll let you know how it works out. I did 8.5 miles today and it felt good. Related articles How to get Motivated for a Half Marathon?  (myfirst5k.wordpress.com) 2) Reading : I am keeping track of the books I've read on Facebook this year. Emptying my otherwise useless collection of information about the books I've read in my life and filling area of my "info" section may just prove to be useful. I've read 5 books so far this year and I am half-way through 2 more - I am Number 4  and Nocturnes . 3) Snowshoeing : My wife a