Musings of a Migrant Science Teacher

This is going to be a partly philosophical post.

Last weekend I went to Disney World for the very first time. I have to say it was  amazing. I had lunch in China, dinner in France, went to Mars and saw my future, all on Friday. Saturday I visited Cinderella's castle, spun in tea cups, and relived my childhood on Brer Rabbit's splash mountain ride.

I was also a pirate.

At the Magic Kingdom Saturday afternoon we witnessed several parades and one stage show. The characters came out of the castle and began singing and dancing, babbling on about believing that dreams can come true, or something of that nature. Then all the Prince/Princess couples came out and danced, the children on the street danced, the honeymooning/engaged couples danced, and we all defeated Malificent with the power of our dreams. It was truly magical. I know this because there were fireworks.

I was in the company of George and his family, who turned out to be not only nice but highly entertaining people. They have the kind of family relationship that everyone should strive for. Kids respect their parents, kids needle the heck out of each other, parents do some needling too, everyone hugs at the end of the day. I wasn't alone in the "outsider" category though. Katy was there to help increase the estrogen concentration. She and Peter are engaged, date set for next May. They were included in the group swooning by the castle. I had such a good time. My only regret is that I was only there for two days, and that I didn't find a pair of Mini Mouse ears I liked. Had to settle for a tiara instead. Hopefully I'll get to go back again some day.

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Pre-Disney trip I was vacuuming my floors and had an epiphany. (That's when all my good ones happen.) This one was reinforced by the trip to the world where anything can happen, and dreams do come true, Twitter, and the reappearance of my favorite mug.

Let me explain. I receintly began exchanging tweets with this person called @highsteph. After seeing a few posts from her on fund raising and lost luggage, to which I commented and she replied, I thought I'd have a click on one or two of her links. Turns out @highsteph is Steph Davis, a pretty-famous-for-a-climber person from Moab who solos and jumps off stuff. She is the kind of brave I'd like to be some day. I'm ashamed I didn't know already, but hey, I do other things besides climb. Sometimes.

Generally I'm not the kind of person to talk to someone if they are "famous." Either they are much too busy for me or they suck and I don't want to talk to them anyway. Steph it turns out is neither, and it got me to thinking - I would have missed out on meeting this amazing person had I known ahead of time who she was.

The quote on my mug says this: "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" I used this mug my first year of teaching. Often that thought was the only one to carry me through the day. What other limitations have I been putting on myself? I have seen so many people come climbing for the first time (at the gym where I work part time belaying them) and they jump on a 5.9 no problem, not knowing that it's "too hard" for an out of shape beginner. When was the last time I tried to do something I didn't think I could accomplish? Sure I push myself, but I haven't been living my life with those thoughts in the front of my mind.
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I didn't intend on this, out it turns out this topic is the perfect opportunity to launch my next quest. If you tweet you've most likely heard about this already, but this is me officially tossing my hat into the ring:

The wonderful people at Hanes Brand, Climb With Us, who took Sara Lingafelter (@theclimbergirl) to Nepal are sponsoring a contest to fund someone's dreams. While I have about a million in mind, the one I can best verbalize is in the video entry below. Climbing has been my refuge this past year, but teaching is still where my passion is. In my classroom I try to give my students the chance to take ownership of our planet and themselves as independent human beings. These things are hard to accomplish when their only connection to the outdoors is the walk to the bus in the morning. Please give my video a watch, vote, comment, pass it on - But most of all, believe in the impossible!

The above is my unofficial - third party music ridden entry. The official one is here: All you have to do is click, register, and vote. Please leave a few comments too!

Thank you!!