An all too Brief Hiatus and the Return of my Smile

Well, after a long week of mourning, jury duty, client meetings, a very cool social media conference, and some social media tutoring, I think it’s safe to say that I hit the wall.

For the last two days, I’ve not been able to accomplish anything.  I haven’t slept well. I’ve been feeling “off.” So, contrary to my usually push-through-till-it-gets-done philosophy, I took off yesterday and today.  I have a ceremony to write tomorrow, a house to clean, and emails to catch up on. But nothing I would have done for my clients this week would have been my best effort. So while this probably wasn’t as long of a break as I need, it’s been better than pushing through.

Scattered through my week were street fairs. Wookie was working a booth for his part-time job and I tagged along. (After losing Frankie we felt the need to stick together.)  By yesterday, I had found my smile again.

There’s something about a neighborhood street fair—that sense of community that envelops you, even if you’re not a part of that community.

The first fair was Wednesday night several towns away. It was a more professional affair with carnival games and rides. Eventually, it was called on account of rain, but I had a chance to take a few pictures before we had to pack up.

©Cristina Kollet 2011

©Cristina Kollet 2011

©Cristina Kollet 2011

©Cristina Kollet 2011

Saturday and Sunday we were at a smaller, neighborhood fair. This was a true community event. There were rides for the tiniest kids. Local women were selling delicious Spanish food to benefit the local church. 

©Cristina Kollet 2011

©Cristina Kollet 2011

 The entertainment was a mix of professional salsa bands, lip-syncing women in festive dress, and local teen talent. People cheered the performers—all of them with great enthusiasm. They brought chairs out from their homes to watch. All afternoon I saw hugs exchanged as friends found each other and people stayed and talked even when it rained.

©Cristina Kollet 2011

And there was dancing in the streets.

©Cristina Kollet 2011

I think that after this week—and after losing Frankie after such a long journey with her—this is what brought the smile back to me face. 

Another Facebook Scam??

Normally I don’t blog about the tech stuff, but this seems like the best way to get the word out en mass to my friends and social media students.

This morning I found this email in my SPAM filter. It said someone had posted a link to my Wall on Facebook. It was odd because this was for an account I had made by mistake in my early attempts to create a Fan Page—back when they made the links to starting one less obvious.

Account information and URLs obscured.

My spidey sense was tingling so I checked the Wall in question directly, rather than clicking on any of the links in the email.

Sure enough, no sign of this person’s post. I checked my settings and “Friends can post to my wall” is not enabled.  Also this account has no friends to begin with.

Friends can not post on this wall

This account has no friends

Now I would have deleted this post anyway had it been there. I don’t like SPAM but the fact that the email appears legit is cause for concern.

So my advice—if you get an email claiming to be from Facebook that doesn’t seem right don’t click the links. Go directly to your Facebook account to see what’s there.

Better safe than sorry.

Thank a Teacher Today

This weekend is first since last October when I haven't had a class to prep for or homework to grade. This was my second year of teaching for the Celebrant Foundation and Institute. I teach three courses for the Institute:

• Fundamentals
• Ceremonies for Families and Children
• Weddings and Other Ceremonies for Couples

This year was extra busy. I taught three sections of Fundamentals. Then, in the second half of the class year, I  earned my certificate in Funerals and Other Ceremonies for Healing while teaching a section each of Families and Weddings.  

I thought that was as busy as things could get. Then I was given the opportunity to create and teach a course I had proposed to the Institute, an introduction to social media for Life-Cycle Celebrants®.  Let me tell you, it was one of the most challenging things I've ever done.

The other courses I've taught came with full curricula, all of the class materials prepared and ready.

My course was three, one and half hour sessions and I created the course myself from scratch. I taught three topics, one on each night, in a webinar format. I answered questions, but there was no homework to grade. The amount of time I put in to each course in creating and prep-word was a minimum of 10 hours.

My point?

I've always wanted to teach. And I am thrilled that I get to teach subjects that I love. Growing up, I always pictured myself as a high-school English teacher and I have many friends today who are educators. But when I looked into becoming a teacher a few years ago (I went as far as taking the PRAXIS exam) I realized that I just couldn't afford to make the change.  The pay cut I'd have to take as a teacher would my already struggling family too deep in the red.

From what I see in the news and hear from my friends it's getting harder and harder to be a teacher.  Salary cuts, layoffs, and an education system that makes teachers spend more time training kids to pass standardized test than learn to think critically aren't helping. It boggles my mind that teachers are so under appreciated. When I was a kid I couldn't understand how it was that baseball players made more than teachers. Now that I have a practical understanding of the investment of time and dedication--OUTSIDE the classroom, it absolutely astounds me.

So this is to all my teacher friends--thank you.

And to everyone--vote for people and programs to support education, ask your kids' teachers what you can do to help. It doesn't even matter if you don't have kids. We all benefit when we educate the next generation.

Gifts from my first Celebrant students.   

Every teacher should be so honored.

Updating this post to add a video I stumbled upon today.

Taylor Mali: What teachers make | Video on TED.com