Birthday Horoscopes

Every year around my birthday (Oct. 15th) I always check my horoscope because I have found them to make me smile and make me feel good about turning older. Anyways...the horoscope that I read during my birthday was totally fabulous, and really made me smile. While I do not read my horoscope daily, weekly or even monthly to be honest, I do find them really interesting and fun when I do spend the time reading them. Anyways my birthday horoscope for this year read:

"Everything is dreamed first," wrote French poet Gilbert Trolliet. French philospher Gaston Bachelard agreed, adding "Creative reverie animates the nerves of the future. Your task in the coming weeks, Libra, is to act on those clue: Conjure up pictures in your mind that foreshadow the life you want to be living next year. Proceed on the assumption that you now have extraordinary power to generate self-fulfilling prophecies.

This horoscope really impacted me because I have been trying to start to decide what I want my life to look like next year. I graduate with my Masters in Art of Teaching in May and this question of where do I want to teach? Where do I want to live? has really been lingering with me. I know I want to be an elementary special education teacher, but other than that I don't really know what my future holds. As I always say "I am going to go where the wind takes me." One thing that I can picture and foreshadow in my life is first getting a teaching job in Salt Lake because that is where I currently live and do have the most connections. I also want to picture myself getting this internship that I want working with the education department of the Baseball Hall of Fame. So I guess since I cannot answer where I will living next year, or even where I want to be living...I can answer that I want to make sure my future year involves being a special education teacher and working and living in Cooperstown, N.Y. next summer.

Cheers to great horoscopes and positive vibes!

CONQUER THAT FRUSTRATION

So I noticed that frustration and stress have taken over my life and have really affected me and my performance in my masters program the last month or so. I am finally going to stop the frustration from continuing to run my life, my emotions and my health. This program has showed me how tough and stressful "real life" may be and therefore I need to be ready to handle it in a professional, calm and problem-solving manner. It is time that I start making some changes and stop the frustration from continuing to run deeper and deeper into me.

The first way I look to conquer the frustration is through telling what I am most grateful for right now. While my list is rather long, I decided to focus on five things that I am grateful for!

1. My brother, his partner, my sister and her boyfriend helping to make my 25th birthday really special, and really fun!

2. Levels of concern people have for me, and the areas they feel that I continue to grow and develop.

3. This lovely fall weather, breezy and chilly in the morning and at night, and sunny and moderately warm temperatures in the afternoon!

4. Nice service people who are willing to communicate with me in a respectful manner.

5. Going on a field trip to Red Butte Gardens with my mentor teacher's 3rd grade class.

Secondly, my goal is not have ANY WASTED ENERGY! Wasted energy is a sure way of frustration occurring in my life. If I do have some wasted energy, then I need to re-focus and figure out what I am trying to accomplish? I need to set goals during those times and make sure I accomplish them.

Thirdly, I am reducing and trying to eliminate all together all my CLUTTER and CRAP that is constantly consuming and taking up breathing room in my life. I am throwing out, donating or recycling items and things that I feel are inhibiting my ability to breath and function as a normal, non-frustrated person.

Lastly...I am going to continue to be positive through motivation and positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement helps me to feel like I accomplished what I was needed!

Frustration you will not CONTROL ME AND MY LIFE!

Children get A for their optimistic attitudes

I love working with children, I really do. For one they are usually very honest. They are not afraid to hold anything back--they are willing to tell things like they are. I also love how children are such optimists when it comes to the future. They are optimists about love, fortune, and success. They do things that truly make them happy and they have no guilt about what they do.

Children look at the world so differently than most adults. Take love for example, so many kids believe in true love! A lot of kids believe that "we" all have true sole mates that we will find and then be totally in love with.

Working with children really helps to instill and optimistic personality and belief about our world, and our future. I have learned so much from watching, talking, learning and teaching children. In the past I gave up on finding true love, I figured it did exist, well at least not for me. But that view has changed as I have worked with children who have enlightened my mind and energized my spirit. I believe that we all do have sole mates, or at least people we are meant to be with. I believe that we could've already met our sole mates, but the timing was off or the calendar was not set on the appropriate date in which true love could actually happen. For others maybe they haven't met there sole mate, but will in the near future. Either way...we all will find that person that creates lighting bolts every time he or she will work by.

Like children I have begun to find myself one OPTIMISTICALLY hopeful person who just tries to continue to put on a smile everyday!

CHEERS TO LOVE, OPTIMISM AND CHILDREN!

To live extreme or not, that is the question?

For the majority, the people that live in Utah, live extreme lives whether it be from an action standpoint, or to a religious standpoint, living extreme is part of the Utah culture. Utah sees the extreme rock climbers, skiers, and mountain bikers. While living extreme is living a life of love, is it necessary? Do we need to be extreme in order to fully satisfy our inner and external selves?

Or can we live a life where we are "less" extreme, meaning we are willing to be lesser quality at certain things in our lives because perhaps we want to have more experiences in other areas of our lives? Do we also want to be "less" extreme to try and avoid dangerous accidents from occurring? The more extreme we take our sports, the more chances of bad accidents to occur.

My personal opinion is I think I would rather take my sports a little less extreme and know that I am safe and feeling confident with my abilities at a lower level. After seeing my sister take a very scary and almost life-ending rock climbing fall, I have really come to question the thought of going all out all the time, where I am constantly pushing my abilities. I think it is good to be pushed...but to what level and when are the questions that I am trying to figure out.

The World Cup!

While I may still be a bit disappointed, and sadden by the fact that I could not afford to go to the World Cup I am totally embracing the WC culture right here in Salt Lake! For yesterday's match between England and the US, I along with my friend Michelle watched the match with three fellow Brits. It was so much fun to watch the game with them because they were able to bring a small dosage of English soccer culture with them. Since I have never been able to fully capture the English soccer culture in person, it was fun to capture a bit of it yesterday. I was able to see bits and pieces of their rowdy vocals, their over the top intelligent-conscious remarks, and a bit of the "typical" apparel one Englishman or woman might wear. I really enjoyed every moment of it especially more so because of the tie and the goal blunder by the England goalie Green.

Days leading up to the WC thought that I would not be able to capture the emotions, the excitement, the disappointments, and the anticaption that other US cities would have as well as all around the world, but I was wrong! Little Salt Lake just like NY, Seattle, Philadelphia, Portland and LA is just as vibrant and embracing the WC culture as those other US cities! It has been absolutely lovely watching Salt Lake emerge as a city that is excited. Now living on the west side of SLC, I see the WC culture even more vibrant! Local businesses all around my neighborhood have soccer ball cut outs decorating the store's windows. I have seen different families put up American flags on their property with signs next to the flag saying "GO USA!" It truly has been a joy seeing SLC find it's soccer excitement, especially because of the Real Salt Lake's own and former Oregon Stater, Robbie Findley is on the US team. It's been wonderful seeing normal people walk around Salt Lake wearing a Real Salt Lake Findley jersey.

I am so happy to be engaging, and embracing the WC culture myself! I bought a USA World Cup t-shirt to show my support as well. I am trying to watch and or listen to as many games as possible, and I am trying to meet as many excited about the WC Utahans as I possibly can meet. So I end this blog post with this insight...you don't have to be in South Africa, or New York, or Mexico, or even Europe for that matter, to have a large group of people really EMBRACE, show excitement and follow USA soccer, or England like my fellow British friends intensely do right here in Salt Lake City. GO USA!