Hope Now

"Everything rides on hope now. Everything rides on faith somehow. When this world has broken me down. Your love sets me free." -from "Hope Now" by Addison Road

If there has been a song that I have sung over and over to myself, or out loud, over the past few months-- it has been this one. I found myself singing it watching the sunset in Africa, walking paths with kids holding my hands and staring, watching the waves from the wind come in on Lake Tanganyika, walking the halls of my school, through my house after a frustrating phone call or conversation, and even on my prep when I'm in my room by myself and no one hears me. All of those moments have boiled down to one thing-- the world. Time and time again, it has broken me and not healed me. It has knocked me down and not picked me up. It has bruised me and not cleaned my wounds. It has said hurtful things and gave nasty looks and never apologized. The world breaks... it falls apart and is, unfortunately, unfair and unjust. What am I to do? Where do I turn in these moments? In those moments, there are so many emotions, laughing, smiling to hide the pain, tears in rims of my eyes, and sometimes I feel that the scars that I have show brighter on my skin than normally. My heart must beat faster and my eyes must look down. My ears stop hearing and definitely stop listening and all I can think about is how messed up I am. How devastated and destroyed I have been. How deep the pit I was found in must have been. How I crawl and lie in it over and over. How I ignore the call of God to my precious heart as He pursues me... as He always hears me... as He always sees me and always heals me and never walks away from me. I find myself with the Prodigal Son eating with the pigs and yet my Daddy picks me up and pulls me away because what He wants for me is better. It's better than the brokenness the world offers, it's better than the lies that they will tell and any apology that could ever be given. He gives me hope and His love sets me free. And today as I felt those emotions and those hurts and heartaches because of a phone call, my heart sang "Everything rides on hope now..."

We cannot count on anything else but His plans and provisions, but His goodness and mercy and grace, but His love and to encounter all that, we must place our trust in Him and become dependent upon Him. He never changes. He never fails. Be encouraged. He is the same and He sees you. You are not alone. Rely on His hope. His love will set you free.
-Melis

My Hobos

Today was weird. All my classes went well, except 7th and it wasn't even my kids until someone else came in and then part of it ended up being that someone else and them. So we had a little talking to about that. Surprisingly, my other classes were good and they were patriotic and wore red, white, and blue and so on. It was fun. They got really into talking about September 11th and what happened and they are so interested in stories so it was good. Mostly everyone was respectful and I was so glad. So at the end of 7th period, I was okay, but still not in a great, great mood but okay. When the day ended, I saw some of the boys I had last year standing down at the end of the hallway knocking on the door so I went to talk to them and then I walked to the front to go talk to them about something that a couple of them are going to do for my kids next month to encourage them to go to magnet school. While I am talking to them, I hear someone say something about a hobo and I turn around to see a face that looks very familiar but not quite sure, and then I realized it was Kevin! Kevin was one of my students my first year of teaching here in Vegas and I loved him to death. He made me laugh all the time, and he would help me do all sorts of things in class. He stayed after school for a while to help me on stuff and so that he would stay out of trouble. He also brought along another student I had, Julio. Julio is so hilarious and I had him my first year as well. They were pretty good friends then too and since I had them both, I knew them pretty well. They were definitely two of my favorite kids. They just always made me laugh. They're my hobos because one day Kevin was running to class up the hall and I yelled, "Hurry up slow pokes!" They thought I called them hobos so I became their hobo teacher and they were my hobo boys so Kevin also made a box for the "Hobo Fund" and it was just an ongoing joke. So needless to say, I had not seen either of them in a year and a half and they've both grown up quite a bit! They are taller than I am and their innocent baby faces are gone but they seem to be doing well in high school and I am so glad! So it has pretty much made my day! Just thought I would share! Oh and I don't think they're getting in as much trouble anymore and I am so glad! -Melis

Genocide

As most of you know, genocide is something that I am extremely passionate about and extremely interested in. I visited the Holocaust Museum this summer with my family in D.C. and got so into it. I was told a few weeks ago while talking about it that it was the most passionate another person has really ever seen me be about something. I am planning on going to a training in October on genocide in relation to the Holocaust so I was looking through their resources. The link below is one of the things I found. It has stories of those who have survived the Holocaust, the genocide in Bosnia, the genocide in Sudan and Rwanda, and then officers and UN workers during those times. If it's something you're interested, read some of their stories and see their faces. It will change the way you think about genocide. As always, be the catalyst for change, not just the person that wishes something were different-- Do something! -Melis

http://www.ushmm.org/genocide/take_action/gallery/portraits
Click on their pictures and it will show short video stories and pictures of the culture.

Lost Generation

My assistant principal posted this last week for the teachers to watch when they thought about it. It's very short and very good! Who said that this generation can't make a change? I love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA

Laughs about Dating... from an 8th grader's perspective

The other day, each of the students in my class gave a presentation. Some lasted 3 minutes, some lasted 3 seconds, the whole point was to make them stand up and feel safe for a short time and so it's something they get used to. Each of the presentations was done with a piece of paper that they created with pictures and words that described them so each was very different and some of them were hilarious. At the end of 1st and 2nd period, they had time so I let them ask me questions. Now keep in mind, my 1st period is EXTREMELY nosey and I mean that. My 2nd period hasn't been to this point but this allowed them to be so they were really excited. My 1st period asked some of the following questions:
1. Are you married yet? (They have ask me this every single day this past week.)
A: No, I haven't been all week, why would I have last night?
2. Do you want a puppy? I can give you my sister's.
A: No, I don't want animals.
3. If you could meet any celebrity, who would it be?
A: On a date? Clearly Jude Law. Just to ask questions, Lil Wayne, his influence is ridiculous.
4. If you could have any car, what kind it would be?
A: Love the new Mustangs, but would prefer just to have a normal car. (The boys were dissappointed.)
5. Who do you like better- Trey Songz or Lil Wayne?
A: I don't know enough of Trey Songz to make a judgement and Lil Wayne is too explicit.
....and so on.

2nd Period
1. What are your favorite things to do?
A: Sleep, eat, read, etc. (I don't even remember what else I said.)
2. Are you single?
A: Yes.
(At some point, one of the boys mentioned that he had a brother that was 25 but it was kind of ignored.)
3. How old are you?
A: How old do you think I am? (Answers have honestly varied from 16 or 18 to 35.) I am 24. (Some got pretty close.) I will be 25 in November.
Student: My brother is 25! I'm telling him about you. (He was very excited. What exactly do you tell your brother in this situation? "Oh, yeah, my teacher is almost the same age as you and you should ask her out."?)
4. What do you look for in a guy?
A: How honest do you want me to be? (Very.) Good looking, makes me feel secure, etc.
Student: I think I need to get in trouble. I need a parent-teacher conference.
(I just laugh.)
Me: Okay... (very hesitant)

I must share that... this made me laugh for the entire day and also, that this student has a lot of good connections to a lot of my previous students or I would be like oh geez. I must also tell you that the next day, he was sitting in class doing his work and I was monitoring and working on something and he made sure to remember to tell me that he told his brother about me. What did he say? That's a good question, I'm almost scared to know! When I find out, I'll post the conversation here! Have a laugh and sorry to be so lengthy!
-Melis