Alone

Morning sunrise in California

I have been divorced for 10 years, and lived alone since then. I have had some relationships since then, but I am worried that I have done things to hurt the relationship myself. I live alone, and I spend most of my time alone. I go dancing on Friday nights alone. When I go dancing I go to the classes for two and a half hours and then hang around for thirty minutes and see if I can get someone to dance with me. I am not as forceful as other men to find a dancing partner and I eventually quietly leave. Today I went to the movies. I saw two movies, Captain America and Cowboys versus Aliens. I sat alone, I enjoy the experience of being around people and watching the movie in a big theater, rather than sit at home and watch a video or watch it on computer. Work for me is long drives and then work for a short time in a school with many people and then long drive alone home. I grew up in a family with five kids, and then I went away to college and hand lots of roommates. After college I was in the Army where I was always around with people and usually the boss. After the Army I was married and had a child, then two children. I taught English in Korea and lived in a house with two, then three kids and taught 8 - 10 hours a day either large classes or one to one. I came back to the USA and taught school and lived with my family, then taught in a training center where I was always around LOTS of people. Then I left the house and lived alone ever since. I have tried to get hobbies where I was around people. At first I worked a lot, 8 - 5 job then 6-9:30 night job. Then I picked up a gig where I worked Saturdays. I was always working, so home where only a place I slept. Then the day job stopped and then I the night job stopped, and the weekend job. Now I am alone, and comfortable with it. I wish I had someone to share my life with, but I have only found one person that fit into my life. That person is gone now, since I found a way to ruin the relationship, like always! I hope I find a way to quit ruining relationships. I want to be with people all the time, not alone all the time!!

My job!

A High School in Paradise, California (the real name of the town)

If you have been reading my blog very much you know that I have a unique job. There are only two people in California that have my job. Me and Troy down in southern California. I am a liaison, or a bridge, between recruiters for the National Guard and the schools (high schools and colleges) in California. If you don't know what the National Guard is then you can think about it as the California Army that is used for natural disasters in the state or if the governor needs a force to help the police. I will write about that some other time. Back to my job! My area is from the Bakersfield area up to the Oregon boarder. Driving distance is from 7 hours north to 4 hours south to 4 hours east and 30 minutes west. Over 880 schools including normal high schools, alternative high schools, continuation high schools, 4 year colleges, community colleges, junior colleges, and trade schools. I visit a variety of schools each week, sometimes I have an appointment and sometimes I don't. My objective when I go to a school is to make friends. Sometimes I go and help them with something they need help with, sometimes I go to make contacts in their faculty or administrative staff or counseling staff. I am often invited to talk to students about career objectives show them how to investigate different jobs they might be interested in or maybe ones that they don't even know about until they look further. I often go to schools that have had the students take the ASVAB test (which is the test you need to take to join the military) and I go to tell the students how to use the test results to gauge their education versus the rest of the country. I can show them how to prepare for SAT tests and show them strengths they possibly didn't know they had. Sometimes it can give students confidence in non-scholastic area that they have as hobbies or study on their own, like working on cars, studying electronics, or mechanical operations. After reviewing the test results I show the students how to use the website, www.asvabprogram.com, to find out  what their interests are and then show them jobs that fit those interests. I love my job! I feel like I make a difference in lives, whether they want to go into the military or just learn more about themselves. I also help recruiters directly, training them to work with schools and sometimes going to schools with them so they know they are not working alone, but we are all part of a team. I really do think that the key to happiness is knowing that you make a difference in others lives and that you are helping make improvements in people's future.

ESL and Confidence!!

Narges, a woman from Iran that was one of my students.

Today I met with a woman from China that wants help with her English. This woman's English is great! If you met her on the road you would imagine she had been in the USA for a long time and had lived predominantly in English no Chinese. She works in a software company in Silicon Valley and has slowly moved up the hierarchy and is now a project manager and deals with teams around the country and around the world. I have been working with ESL people for 20 years. My own kids have English as their Second Language. Sometimes I teach a lower level class and I get an advanced student wanting to join my class. When I ask them why they tell me they want to learn the basics that they didn't learn before. I think a lot of this boils down to confidence. Why do people think their English isn't great when everyone else thinks so? They see that there is a problem, and don't always know exactly what it is. It is like the most beautiful women don't see their beauty, but see their blemishes. People need confidence in themselves, and their abilities. I always admire people that are good at what they do, and aren't  satisfied with where they are at. I think once people get their language at a certain level the whole thing has to do with confidence. I think if you believe you can speak English, then it improves by itself. Why do children speak better English then people from another country that have been here for over 20 years? I think it is because no one told them they can't speak English! So, if you are seeing problems that you have in your English then try to become more confident and happy about your English. Remember to relax and have fun and don't think about your English. When you think about your English you will find problems with it. Try to remember to speak English from your heart and not your head!!

Week 6 ...

An Army soldier at the motorcycle races

... no change this week. I didn't exercise as much last week and ate too much and it showed. I will be tough next week and force myself to loose weight. I thought I would get it done this week, but I stayed the same! DON'T GIVE UP!! It is so easy to stop right now and give up. I want to see if I can stay this weight, but it wouldn't make me happy unless I loose another 8 pounds!!

UPDATE: Last night there was no change, when I weighed myself last night I hadn't lost any weight, this morning I was down 3 pounds, then tonight I was down 2 pounds from last week!!

Bananas and Water!

Showing the American flag at the Rodeo

I didn't go to the gym for 2 days and I have been eating a little too much. I knew I need to do something drastic today, so I decided not to eat, only drink water. Some people fast, so I decided to do the same thing. Instead of spending the day praying to God, I spent the day praying to loose weight. After I made this decision I realized I had to go food shopping, so I decided not to fast completely, I bought bananas and at 4 bananas today. Now that the day is over I think I should have just gone with the water. I went to the gym in the morning and in the evening today, when I weighed myself this evening I was down to 187, which is one more pound this week. I am hoping my water and banana diet today will bring it down even more for my weekly weigh in tomorrow. I hope I didn't do this all for naught!

Oxford July Class

 Today was the last of the class for this month. I enjoy teaching the San Jose class because they hotel we use it four minutes from my house. That works a lot better than when I teach in San Francisco and have leave my house an hour before class starts. This class was interesting, really a diversity of types of students. There were women from Iran and Korea. There were some people that had just graduated from college, and some that were mid-career and one that was retired and wanted to give back to the society of the world. I admire my students, they quickly learn some skills and then set of for the adventure of a lifetime. I try my best to give them something to start with, and I know that they will end up surpassing me in teaching ability. I keep in touch with some students, a woman that went to France even emails me periodically telling me what works and what doesn't, and she even sends pictures which I am so happy to see. I talk to a couple of old student on FaceBook and they help me see what they go through overseas and it makes me sometimes feel like I'm part of their family. The majority of my students I never hear from again. I really feel like I am affecting lives of my students and their students. I hope that I am appreciated and people remember me. This class was fun during their final class, some people did lessons with candy, some let the students play with Playdoh, and we even got the chance to run an obstacle course. Lots of innovative lessons and I think everyone realizes that they have to have their students play to learn. They all remembered that you can't learn if you can't laugh!!

Wash out the Gray!!

Me on July 22, 2011 ... next day I dyed my hair again

My hair is gray right now, but after I finish writing this I will dye it back to brown. My hair started turning gray about 9 years ago and since then I have been dying it. I have tried a few different colors, even thought about dying it blonde. I have kept it brown since then. I like to look my best, I'm not vain I just like to be happy with my looks. I changed my hair about 2 months ago, I cut my hair off and let it grow back gray. I needed a change and wanted to see if I liked it. My mother finally let her hair go gray and so did my two sisters and I wanted to join them. I have lived with it short and gray for 2 months and have shocked everyone when they have seen me. Most of the people I know have finally gotten used to my gray hair, but I haven't gotten used to it. I feel old when I see my hair gray. I feel like my hair color is taking control of my life, and I don't want that simple of thing to affect me so dramatically. When my hair is colored I look and feel 10 to 15 years younger. I think that is good! Now everyone will wonder why I dye my hair and they will ask how I can dye it when everyone knows my real hair color. I don't change my hair color for my friends, I change it for me. I don't want to hide the fact that I change my hair color.  I guess if I wanted to hide it I wouldn't talk about it now in this public forum!!

Life's Highs and Lows!

At Lake Tahoe paragliding

This morning when I woke up I knew it was going to be a bad day. I was already late for a meeting with my new boss, last night I heard some bad news, the cats had started fighting at 5am, and I constantly worry about my job since I have been told that I am not to drive my work car and most of my work is done by driving to different places. I quickly ate breakfast and drove to work. When I got to work I found out that I was early and my boss hadn't arrived yet. As I was waiting I talked to my bosses assistant who is also new. While meeting him I found out that he and I had many things in common and had similar stories. He works in the Pentagon now and I told him the story of the one time I had visited the Pentagon in the 80s there was a famous wedding on a soap opera, Luke and Laura, and every office I walked past they were watching the wedding. He said when he went to the Capitol Building earlier this month every office he passed was watching the Royal Wedding! It was good to talk to him. He then mentioned that he knew about my problem with me not allowed to drive my work car and it would be fixed by the end of the month. He told me he had heard some good things about me and was looking forward to working with me in the future. I felt a little better about the future of my job. The boss came and I sat in the meeting with everyone. He had said he wanted to reduce the pressure on everyone and have them concentrate on a balanced life, not just worrying about their recruiting mission, but also worry about having a balanced life, taking care of their families and their health and their futures. I have been around the military literally all of my life and people always say this when they become the boss. Everyone talks about people keeping their lives balanced, but then when they tell you what they really want they think you should put work first and then hopefully you have time to take care of other things in your life. This man was specific in changes he would make that would reduce the pressure of the recruiting mission and increase the priority of people taking care of the rest of their lives. I like this guy!! After the meeting my new boss met with me privately. I always dread meeting privately with my bosses, that is when I am given bad news if it comes. This man didn't really know what my specific job was so I told him, of course I told him that because of me the area I am in charge of has succeeded like never before in all three years I have had my position. I told him how important the man that does the same job in the south as well as I in the north are to everyone we work with in the organizations we work with. He was impressed when I told him that because of our work we do 75% of all the school visits in California versus the rest of the services, and we are the smallest service. He asked what I needed to improve the support I give to the unit. The man in southern California and I had discussed this before and I told him that we needed our own website. After the meeting my boss left, within 30 minutes of him leaving I received an email saying he wanted me to be on the conference call he has with his staff so I could be an integral part of decisions. Within an hour I received an email from the webmaster asking what I wanted in our new website!! I am happy today. I woke up dreading the day and within a few hours I feel a rejuvenation of my future in my job and I realize that just as life can change for the worse in a blink of an eye, it can improve in the same time frame. Ups and downs ... what will it be next? If you aren't happy with your life, wait a while and it will change...

Life Goals

On Lake Tahoe on a catamaran.

We are always told to have goals in our lives. When we are young our goal is to get into college. After getting in college the goal is to finish college. Many people set their goals wrong, they should set their goal according to the job they eventually want, not just finishing college. Times have changed that going to college means good job and good future. The medical and computer fields have many jobs that don't require a four year college degree and make a good living. College is eventually important to get a management job. Management jobs don't always make the most income and are probably the most volatile, if a company has to downsize they get rid of middle management before they get rid of people with skills other than management. We set goals and reach them and then we have to make more goals. It is a never ending cycle.

Sometimes we have goals that are not obtainable for no reason that we can control. Lives change change at the blink of an eye. I once was driving on the freeway and someone coming the opposite direction came off the freeway and into the median and flipped over and over again towards me. It almost hit me and I stopped and helped them. It was in December and there were Christmas gifts strewn over the median. The occupants were not hurt and were able to get out of the car on their own, after they were helped out of their seat belts because they were hanging upside down. I realized that there whole lives would be affected by that accident. One thing happens and your whole life can change. The goals you set can be changed by influences completely out of your control, whether it is an accident, another person changing their mind, or changes that are forced because of forces of nature. Goals change, lives change, people change ... but life continues and when you look back to that change you realize that you were made different from that change and maybe that is good and maybe that is bad, but there will be another change in the future. Resiliency is important and you have to have variety to be able to enjoy things! Someone told me last week that I need a hobby, and maybe that is why hobbies are so important, if you have a change in your life you can always look at your hobby as stability. Family and hobbies ... everyone should have one!!

Week 5 - total 11 pounds

Pigeon Point Lighthouse, near Santa Cruz, California

This week I tried to reduce the number of days I went to the gym. I went once or twice a day every other day. Wednesday I went twice, Thursday I didn't go, Friday I went in the morning, and then dancing in the evening, Saturday I didn't go the the gym, Sunday I didn't go to the gym ... in fact I went to a Korean buffet restaurant and ate as much as I wanted ... Monday I didn't go to the gym and then Tuesday I went to the gym twice. I guess variety is the key, variety in what I do, and variety in how often I do it. I am worried that I can't keep it going, but then again, I thought this would be worse. I think I will step it up this week. Maybe twice a day and then once a day alternate. I find that I can't do as much in the gym as I do when I go twice every day. As far as eating I am trying to eat regularly using small portions. I eat Cheerios for breakfast, have a piece of fruit for brunch, a piece of chicken for lunch, and either chicken or steak for dinner, with a piece of fruit a couple of hours after dinner. If I go out to eat I go to Subway, I get a foot long sandwich and rather than eat the whole foot long for lunch I eat half for lunch and half for dinner. I was thinking of trying to make a sub sandwich at home, but I think what I get at the store is much better than I can do myself. I have an incentive that only I know about, and whenever I want to give up ... I think about it and push harder!!

Ballroom Dancing

Statue on Treasure Island near San Francisco

I really enjoy ballroom dancing, but I am a forever beginner! Ballroom dancing includes Foxtrot, Tango, Waltz, Swing, 2 Step, Salsa, Cha Cha and Rumba, I like Rumba and Cha Cha the best, probably because those are the ones that I have practiced the most and I know the most different steps. I first did ballroom dancing in college. It was a lot of fun then and I was pretty good. I even went on a couple of dates just to go ballroom dancing at the Madonna Inn. It was fun and always stayed with me as something I wanted to pursue, but never got the chance until I got divorced. When I was married my wife didn't want to learn. I don't know why. When I divorced I wanted to find a way to be around people and this made sense. Ballroom dancing crowds don't drink while dancing and most people are from good socio-economic groups.  You have to be able to afford dance classes to improve at all. I originally started at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio which was small and intimate and I took private lessons and group classes and improved to an intermediate level. Then I realized it was really not affordable to me so I changed to Starlite Dance Studio and took some group classes, but mostly just went to their group parties and tried to keep what I already knew. For the past 10 years I have gone periodically. Go for a few weeks and then don't go for a couple of years, then I will miss it and want to go so I will do the same cycle. I give up going when it gets obvious that I am not really good and don't really enjoy the feeling of asking girls to dance all the time. Sometimes I find one girl that wants to dance with me more than once, but that isn't common. In most areas ballroom dancing is fun for men because there are more women there then men, but in this area there are more men than women at dance studios and I end up feeling like I am in line asking the women to dance. I get discouraged sometimes and don't go back for a year or two. I am trying to diet these days so I need the extra exercise and will use ballroom dancing, especially the swing and cha cha, as a workout and will stay longer at the dance parties to get more of a workout.

Drive-In Movies

Ever been to the Drive-In? It is a fun experience, the movies without everyone telling you to be quiet! Tonight I am going to go to see the last Harry Potter movie at midnight with my kids. They don't know I have to work early in the morning, but that doesn't matter, I want to spend a couple of hours with my kids. The drive-in is fun because you can bring in any food you want, talk as much as you want, laugh as loud as you want, and even sleep if you want and no one else cares. We will go an hour or so early so we can get munchies and drinks. This is one of those times when my diet takes second seat to having fun. I will be careful what I eat, and only drink diet drinks. We will get ice cream on our way like we always do. When we have gone before I had a convertible and that was fun, but if the night is cold we put the top on any way. Tonight we are going to the midnight showing, the first showing of the movie. I have only done that for one movie before, Star Wars 3. I am looking forward to a fun evening with my kids and I hope they are looking forward to it also!!

Single Dads

I have three wonderful daughters. Lindsey, Jayne, and Sarah are wonderful kids. They are all three unique and similar at the same time. If you look at them they look totally different (unique), but they have the same smile and same nose (similar). They have different types of friends and do very different in school also. I could go on and on about how great my kids are. But, the truth is I don't really know my kids. I haven't lived with them for over 10 years. There were 2 weeks they lived with me as a trio about 8 years ago, and they have stayed here for weekends over the years. Having them live with their mom was a conscience decision. When I was going to court discussing how to do this I had my sister's son staying with me. His parents were divorced and he told me the day he hated the most was Wednesdays because that was the day he switched houses. After talking to me I realized the kids needed A home, not two. I don't regret my decision to have them spend most of their time with their mom. I had them every other weekend and a week in the summer. My kids know which is their house. They also know there Dad is close to them and if they need to go somewhere, or need something, or just need to talk all they have to do is call. My kids are my world, even though I live alone. Am I a single Dad? Sometimes I think a Single Dad is someone that the kids live with, but if that is so, then what am I? I always wonder if I did what I should do. I wonder if I should have spent more time with my kids. I wonder if I should have allowed my kids not to come to my house when they didn't want to or should I have demanded they come. When they hit 13 each one of them stopped staying the night, even though when the other did that they told me they wouldn't. I have to admit something, each time they stayed the weekend I took them home and cried on the way back to my house. It was like having a full life for a few hours and then going back into a vacuum for a couple of weeks until I get them back. I talked to them in the mean time, I saw them at school or gave them rides home or to meet their friends. Was I a great Dad, no. Did I always put my kids first, no. Could I have done something better, yes. I guess I can only tell if I did a good job is how did they turn out. They are all successful in school, they all have good friendships and contribute to organizations they are involved with. I love my kids and I hope they know that!!

Frequency

This morning I couldn't motivate myself to exercise. Usually it isn't a problem, I have a goal to loose 20 pounds and I really want to make this happen!! I have changed my frequency of working out, I have gone from going to  the gym once a day, every day, to going twice a day, every other day, and now I go twice a day every other day. I think the important thing is not getting yourself into a rut and always following the same routine. How often should I weigh myself when I am on a diet? I have heard some people say only do it once a week so you don't get discouraged when you don't loose weight or even if you gain a pound one day. If you follow a routine you know will work, eating reasonably and increasing the amount of calories you burn every day then shoot for how much you will loose per week and don't worry about day by day. I weigh myself every day. I am not sure if it is the best way, but that is what I do. I know if I loose one pound or stay the same weight daily, sometimes twice a day since I sometimes weigh myself in the morning and then also in the evening. Today I decided not to go to the gym any more because yesterday was the third day in a row that I didn't loose any weight, in fact I had gained some. I was ready to give up! I stayed in bed and debated, and decided to GIVE UP! I have been posting in this blog how I have been doing daily to so I can't give up. Not this time, since I have given up on trying to loose weight the past two times I have attempted. So, I drug myself out of bed late in the morning and shuffled over to the bathroom scale, one last time! I stepped on and BEHOLD, I was not only under 190, I was almost at 185. I know the bathroom scale isn't the best way to weigh myself, but I haven't been under 190 on my home scale for a couple of years, and I haven't been to 185 in at least 5 years. I walked into my bedroom and slipped on my exercise clothes, shorts given to me by my kids which always encourage me and my daughter's gift of a UCSD shirt and went and had the best exercise I have had in the past month. So, I go back to the question of how often I should weigh myself. If I didn't weigh myself every day I wouldn't have felt so depressed and ready to give up, but if I didn't weigh myself every day I wouldn't have weighed myself this morning and gotten so excited about my progress and decided NOT to give up! Anyone have any comments or suggestions?

Teach Yourself!

First let me talk about my weight loss. I went from exercising every day to exercising twice a day. Now I'm at exercising twice a day every other day. So, one day I go to gym in morning and night, morning is on the elliptical for 30 minutes, and that is being increased by 5 minutes every week, and then at night I warm up on the elliptical for 15 minutes and then lift weights for 15 minutes and then 15 more minutes on the elliptical. I'm not sure I am doing the right things on the weights, but I am doing something. I started at 199 pounds and as of this morning I am at 191. What makes me really happy is when I get up in the morning and weigh myself without anything on using my bathroom scale it is down to 187. I haven't been that low in a long time. I know it isn't accurate, but feels good! I think it is important to get the day off. Today I exercised in the morning and in the evening then tonight I went dancing and danced for 3 hours. I had a great day. Tomorrow I won't exercise and then I will again on Sunday. Let's see what happens.

For my job this summer I have taken the initiative to make a power point presentation for everyone in California to use to make presentations in high schools. I have never been taught how to make a power point presentation. I have done simple ones before, just put pages that changed when I pushed the space bar. When I had originally started to work on this power point I thought I would do it the same way. Then someone sent me a power point that used a lot of animation. I didn't even know what animation was until I saw their presentation. Then I learned, I did a lot of trial and error and eventually I came up with a presentation I am proud about. I finished that a week ago, and then I found out how to add a narrative, and this week I found out how to have one set of slides projected and another set of slides on the computer monitor so the person can give the presentation and read what they are supposed to say. I am happy about all the things I learned by making this presentation. I think that we all need to keep teaching ourselves things because stagnation is never a good thing.

Living alone!

I didn't go to the gym today, I am trying every other day. I feel guilty, so I will be sure to do 3 workouts tomorrow, including ballroom dancing at night. To make things even worse, I went to a buffet tonight. I didn't think about the diet, so I hate to weigh myself tomorrow!

I live alone, I am almost always alone ... even at work. I sometimes don't like that about summers, there are no schools to visit and since I don't have use of my work car this summer I can't even go visit recruiters. I often spend my days sitting in my living room watching tv and on my computer. Sometimes watching a movie and sometimes playing Settlers of Catan on the computer. I like having my two cats at home, they are a good distraction, but usually in the back sleeping on my bed or, believe it or not, in the bathroom sink! Sometimes I go shopping and sometimes just go for a walk. Today I decided I needed to get out of the house. I wanted to go someplace to cool off since it has been really hot the last couple of days and in the afternoon my house gets hotter than outside. So, I thought I would go to Great America, the local amusement park which has a wave pool. I went to the amusement park alone, without any kids. I always get lost in Great America when I am without my kids. They know that place like they live there, but I went the wrong way and had to walk all the way around the park before I got to the wave pool. I stayed there for about an hour, hoping to start a tan and to cool off. It was nice to be around people, even though I was alone. I think I will go again!

Water!!

I didn't exercise today. I think, at least I hope, that I need to make changes in my routine. I will do double sessions one day, then not exercise the next. I am not sure if that will work, but something has to shake these doldrums up! I will make this change for one week, my fourth week.

This morning when I took my shower I noticed the hot water wasn't really hot. After my shower I went out to the water heater and noticed it was leaking. It is probably 30 years old and is designed to last 5 years. One thing I don't like about me is I procrastinate too much. I have known this was a problem for about a year, but I kept putting it off until tomorrow morning I will be taking a cold shower. I was thinking the best thing to do is exercise first so the cold water cools off my hot body. One of life's biggest ironies is how you try to save money, or pay off debts and then things like this happen and don't allow you to follow your plans. I guess plans need to be to flexible! At least tomorrow night I can write about how good a HOT shower feels!!

Great Day!!

Today I had a great day!!  It will be one of my most memorable 4th of July's!! I did my gym this morning, then when I got home Sarah asked if she could come over. SURE! So when I picked her and Jayne up we went to Sizzler for lunch. Jayne and I ate the all you can eat salad bar and Sarah had endless shrimp and steak, but she was full before she could order more shrimp! As we left ... Jayne said, "this place smells like old people", as the door was closing, it was so funny! Then we went to the Alameda County Fair. I love the Fair because of the animals and stuff to see. It was HOT, over 100, and the girls were miserable, so we didn't stay too long. We got to see the pigs and the rabbits were cute. After the Fair we went home and rested. Then Sarah and I went out to find fireworks. We searched online and found some place that was supposed to have fireworks. We ended up at a small park in the middle of some apartments. There were some guys there that had a pickup full of fireworks. We watched for 40 minutes and sometimes the fireworks went into the apartments, sometime into the crowd, it was fun and I was glad no one got hurt. At one time a firework ended up near us, and some guy picked it up. It seemed to be a dud, but I was worried, because he picked it up. I told him he should make sure there wasn't a spark in it, he put it to his eye and looked inside and BANG, a firework they had just fired of BOOMED. We all laughed because we were all scared. it was fun and dangerous and exiting. A great day!!

Horseback riding!

I feel guilty today, I didn't go to the gym at all! I kept putting it off until I was doing something else, then didn't have time. Yesterday I only went once, and tomorrow I will only go once. And I ate a lot today ... let's see what happens. Today I went horseback riding near the beach. It was fun, and I guess it was some exercise. After the horses I drove down the coast highway and saw an airplane do skywriting! That was a lot of fun to watch. I hope I can find something fun to do tomorrow on 4th of July!

Presentation Skills

First let me tell you about the weight loss ... Down 7 pounds in 2 weeks and 2 days. Today I got to the gym in the morning and then didn't go this evening. I was tired so took a nap before ballroom dancing. I figured doing the cha cha for 2 hours was at least as equivalent as being in the gym for 30 minutes!

This afternoon I went to Treasure Island which is a small island half way between San Francisco and Oakland, in the San Francisco Bay. I had often passed it when I took the Bay Bridge, but never had gotten off the bridge to look at what was there. I was impressed with the simple buildings on Treasure Island and the fantastic views of The City. I had to make a presentation to about 25 teachers and counselors and administrators with the Job Corps. The equipment they said would be there wasn't, so I was glad to bring my computer and projector to keep everything smooth. I do a lot of presentations to different groups, high school students, school administrators, and students in my TESL classes. This one I have been working on for 2 weeks. I wanted to design it so it can be used in a variety of different settings and for different purposes. I figured out what I wanted to say, then found a way to make the presentation look interesting. I find that when I get in front of a class/group I become a different person completely. I really like that person. That person is confident, funny and very knowledgeable. That person remembers vocabulary I usually don't think of and he makes and makes the experience memorable to the class/group. It is like I got into a "zone" like runners often talk about, where I feel like I am watching myself rather than it being me doing the presentation. I was happy with the results of the meeting. I had everyone convinced how great the program was and had even the skeptics talking about how they NEEDED the program and they decided to expand the program. Right now they don't make it a requirement to for their students to participate in our program, and we were hoping they would require their 300 students participate. They decided not only to require each student participate, but have them participate once when they enter the Job Corps but also require them to participate when they leave. We were hoping to go from the participation level they are now, which is about 15 students a month, to triple to about 45 a month. Now they are talking about 200 a month to participate! Everyone is excited and they want this to happen if I am the one making the presentations to their students!! I am excited and so is everyone involved with the program! (can you hear my screaming!!!)