4th grade, Here I Come!

I just got called by the Principal of one of the school's I inteviewed with the week before last. He called last week to kindly tell me they had chosen another candidate, but would call if something else opened up. I was sad, and thought that the promise was a relatively empty one...

Apparently, something did open up, as today he offered me a 4th grade position at the school! I'll be getting my first class of children on August 26th, with orientations before that. This school is a 9 minute drive (3.4 miles) from the Apartment that Ed and I will hopefully be getting (the application is in, we're just waiting for written confirmation- as opposed to verbal confirmation already given- that the tenant is indeed moving out) which means I might be able to bike commute!

Life is finally realy seeming to come together. I feel so grown up getting a job (and students) an apartment, and getting ready to pay for all my own expenses (and my parents are excited about that too)

I've even been running (chiropracter plus some deep tissue massage seems to be helping), and even have a run report to post about an amazing day that Ed and I spent in SF running over the golden gate.

Thanks everyone for being so supportive during my stressful times :)

Glad to be optimistic!

Six Word Memoir

I was tagged by Catherine to play "six word memoir".

Here are the rules:

1) Write your own six word memoir

2) Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want

3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere

4) Tag at least five more blogs with links

5) Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

As I was tagged over a week ago, I've been pondering on these six words for some time (sorry about the lack of posts- I've been in the middle of teaching and job getting craziness). It's honestly been a tough week. I've been interviewing at schools to pick a specific placement in my district, and did not get either position. Things are looking up, though, as I've been asked to interview at a really nice school by the assistant principal there, so I'm hoping that that might pan out. I have also been having to film myself teaching this week for my program, and that has been pretty rough. Things are feeling better on this friday, but it did shake my commitment to my memoir a bit.

However, as I'm back to a more postive viewpoint, my memoir is:

"Always looking optimistically towards to future"



Looking back at my pictures from Dick Collins reminds me of how much I miss running, but also reassures me that I'll be out there again someday.

I'm tagging....Jean, Rick, and Jessica if they want to play :)

Making Progress?

I saw the chiropracter on Friday, and it was a wonderful experience. The woman I saw had a completely different diagnosis than any other person I've seen, and made more sense than anything else.

She thinks that everything stems from a bad ankle sprain I got 3 years ago, before I even started seriously running. From that, I have a weak ankle, which meant that as I stepped up my training, I tended to roll my ankle out, which put strain on my calf. That strain turned into calf pain. From that, I ended up with a chronic tightening of these little ligaments that run down the side of the leg. And when the quad muscle swells up with blood when I'm running, it puts lots of pressure on those tightened ligaments, which causes the burning soreness. Because of all that, I started favoring my left leg, which caused my pelvis to tilt and my spine to become unaligned at the bottom.

So, she is optimistic that with adjustments of the spine and pelvis and some specific stretching, I should get better :) She also said that we'll know if this is working in about 3 weeks. But, this diagnosis actually makes sense for where I hurt (my previous diagnosis, sciatica, is supposed to be down the back of the leg, which isn't what hurts for me). Also, it explains why the steroids didn't have any effect.

So far, I do think it feels a little better, and I'm feeling hopeful :D

Doctor update and great footage

(Doctor update warning..if you just want fun stuff, skip to the end :) )

Well, I tried to have my first chiropractor appointment today. This is the next step after taking a pack of steroids and nothing happening. Seriously....took 21 pills over the span of 7 days and didn't feel so much as an ounce of difference (if you could measure pain in ounces) Apparently I'm immune.

So, I left for the appointment and ran into horrible traffic, making me 20 minutes late. As if this wasn't bad enough, I get there only to be informed that the doctor moved her office from the address I found online to a completely new location. I'm horrible with directions, so it took me another 25 minutes to get to a place less than 10 minutes away. Needless to say, I had no appointment today :(

I do however have an appointment for friday! Yay! Also, my insurance will let me have 30 sessions (as needed) with just a $10 copay. Another yay! So, hopefully this will help. Also, I think I've jumped through enough hoops to get that MRI (btw, the X-ray was, in my Doctor's words, "entirely unimpressive" so at least there's no bone problem).

Slightly weird thing, that might just be psychosomatic, but I swear my left arm has been a little sore and tingly lately. I'm hoping it's just in my mind, but its worrying me a bit. I'm really bad at convincing myself of having things wrong with me that I don't have, so it might not really be there, but in any event, just another reason to get cracking on a cure :)

To leave on a happy note, here's an amazing video I (well, Ed) found:


flying penguins

go there and be happy :)