Retiring. 

A good blog should always be fresh, and this one has been quite stale.  I will announce the bad news first: I'm retiring my xanga.  It's been a good 4+ year run. 

The good news?  I am spurred on by people who actually confess they read this thing.  I've been less than enthused about xanga, but not less enthused about writing.  Starting Feb '09 I will be moving Life as He Reveals to a new site.  Stay tuned!

I Don't Know English.

My grandma is a riot.  I don't know how she does it, but she's able to scoot by without English just by being cute.  I even have people coming up to me at Safeway telling me that my grandma is cute.  Is this what it's like to tote your baby around and bask in all the compliments?

So I like a proud granddaughter am posting this video as evidence of the alleged cuteness. 

Grandma: (Downplaying her abilities) Don't tape!

[Mom and sister coaching in the background]

Grandma: When the phone rings..."Sorry, I don't know English."

Hope is Attractive.

"The world is changing," I overheard one co-worker say today with a tinge of glee.  I've never witnessed an election attached with as many emotions as this one.  It's made me realize how much people want to hope in something, or somebody in this case.  Hope is attractive.

There must be certainty in hope, otherwise hope is in vain.  Hope in anything less than certain is misplaced. 

I long for the day when my hope is complete.  That day when injustice is finally overturned and ultimate authority belongs to One who is faithful and true. 

That day is not yet here.  But I eagerly await its coming, when things are finally the way they are supposed to be.

Election 08.

Today I filled out my absentee ballot.  If I were more on top of things I would have actually filled it out with enough time to mail it instead of having to go to the polls to drop it off.  But oh well. 

Besides voting for President of the United States, I also voted for whether chickens and other livestock should have adequate space to "fully extend their limbs and turn around freely" in their confinements.  I'm not sure what my former overseas host country would say to that!  But not to be topped by what was on our city ballot.  San Franciscans are voting on a measure to rename a sewage plant to "George W. Bush Sewage Plant." Despite what you think of Bush, this is just a bit ridiculous I think. 

SF alone had Propositions A through V for the voter to consider.  A through V! 

Teaching, Again.



I used to always get notes like the above from my first graders.  Every time I walked into the classroom I could always expect students to come scurrying up to me, offering me little "gifts" - sometimes nothing more than blank scraps of paper.  Now when I walk in the classroom I have to hope that my students have something to give me, namely their homework (!).

When people learn that both my sister and I are teachers, I joke that she has the little kids and I take the big kids.  But big or little, the whole teaching endeavor is hard.  I both love and hate teaching.  I don't think this is a contradiction at all.  Sometimes what comes hardest for us may be the very thing we are called to do.  Teaching is mine.

Lunch Critic.

I pulled myself away from my desk long enough today to go out and get lunch.  I've been slowly revisiting my old haunts from three years ago, and today I went back to Mondo Cafe, which actually was introduced to me seven, maybe even eight years ago when I first started working downtown.  I can't believe it's been that long.

On any given day I could walk into Mondo and be greeted by an attractive Italian man who would address me as "bella." I would always blush, then give my order.  Never mind that he called the woman in line after me the same - it always made my day brighter.  So I was disappointed today when I walked in without any greeting, but happy in the least that they had my corned beef panini.  And the price hardly went up, if at all!  I struck up a conversation with the (new) owner, a late 30-ish looking Italian man with curly, graying hair.  He gave me a free cookie just because.  I think I'll be back. 

3 out of 4 happy faces from the roving downtown lunch critic.  Add the bella, and it will go back up to 4.

Going the Distance.


(L to R) AW, the SL's, CC, WW, BL

San Francisco is supposedly the most fit city in the nation.  I tend to believe it because most people think a 1/2 marathon is no big deal.  But I'd like to make a big deal about it, so I'm posting the above pic to say that I am proud for all of us who finished the race last Sunday!  Don't we resemble Olympians?  (Never mind that all our medals don't even add up to Michael Phelps!)

Extra props to CC and BL for finishing their longest distance ever!  And particularly to BL for enduring my continual barking to keep on running :)

Don't Count the Hermit Crab Out.

My sister has an odd history with small pets.  The feeder fish she won at a carnival ended up living 13 years.  I call him the miracle fish.  Once she collected snails from the backyard and put them in a jar with plastic wrap on top.  Somehow, they escaped - and contrary to their reputation, those suckers can move!  It took us a week to recover them, and I'm not even sure we found them all.  Another time my sister had the brilliant idea to keep the mouse that we caught in our house.  Yes, he escaped too.

We now have a hermit crab.  She got him for her classroom a couple years ago, but he lives here at home.  The other day after a spell of warm weather I made a horrible discovery.  Hermie was dead!  Or so I thought.  He didn't move for days and I was sure the heat killed him.  I lectured my sister on taking better care of her pets. Then I joked about eating soft shell crab.  But lo and behold, Hermie resurrected!  He was really molting, and not dead! 

Too late for the other hermit crab that my sister believed was 'dead.'  He was thrown away.  I tried not to guilt her too much on that one.

Forklifts and High Heels.

I had high hopes heading into New Hire Orientation today.  I mean, technically I'm not a new hire.  I'm an old hire.  I know how the Academy rolls, so I wanted them to tell me something new.  Like about how we're going to be a Division II sports school with Jamie Williams, former 49er at the helm?  Or how we managed to get Jan Yanehiro to be the Director of our new Media and Communications department.  Or purchased all that property in San Francisco and stuck our red logos all over?

But I got the human resources safety video on forklifts and high heels instead.  And the sexual harassment one.  Both still on VHS tape, produced sometime I'm guessing in the 80's.  Pure cheese.  But somehow the cheese still cracks me up.  I managed to maintain my professionalism, however.

Sometime in between those videos our Benefits manager walked in.  I recognized him from high school.  Good thing it wasn't like an old prom date or something.

Went down to A/V yesterday and the guy remembered my name.  "Yeah, I'm still here" is what he said to me.  Glad to see some things don't change.

I have my old job back, yes!

A Californian Once More.

That I officially am!