From the Land of Sunshine

I know that the weather is less than desirable right now where most of you live, so I thought I would share some of my warm weather with you. It was actually quite nice today; it rained this morning and that made the humidity less than normal, which really makes my day. So what have I been up to lately. well last week Sunday I went to Winter Jam, which was a Christian Contemporary music concert at the University of Miami. It was quite interesting... the music was good, I really liked the bands Skillet and BarlowGirl, but the alter call and pleading for donations was not my cup of tea, but oh well. Now I know what it is all about, and the ticket was only 10 dollars, so it was well worth the experience.

Other than that yesterday I drove to West Palm Beach with Julie and Lisa, two of the younger teachers like me at school, and we went to a satellite party to watch the Calvin/Hope Men's basketball game. It was a terrific game, really close the whole game. Sadly Calvin lost by 3 points in the last seconds. If only they could have made that final 3 point shot to tie up the game. Lisa (who played basketball at Calvin and loves it) said that Hope is ranked 5th in the nation, and Calvin is unranked, so Hope should have defeated Calvin hands down instead of only by a few points. Watching the game was fun. We saw some other Calvin alumni who live in Florida, most were older (the man who organized it was especially hilarious), but there were some younger people too. Julie even knew some of them. Hope people were there as well, which made the whole thing more exciting as well.

And then today I went to Fairchild Botanical Gardens with Sandy, another teacher from school, and her daughter Kim. It was the Gardens' second annual Chocolate festival, and there was a ton of people there. The really funny thing was that the people were all in the tent where they were selling chocolate and not in the gardens looking at the flowers. We saw a cocoa plant, and learned a little about how the make chocolate from the beans; we also tested plenty of varieties of chocolate with different levels of sweetness. At the gardens they also have sculptures on display by Roy Lichtenstein and Dale Chihuly. Chihuly makes especially beautiful glass sculptures.

This one was very pretty. In the shop they had some of pieces for sale, and a serving bowl size was going for 6,000 dollars. I guess it must be very complicated to make. I also saw an iguana.

So it was a wonderful afternoon. Other than that tomorrow night I am going to see 27 dresses with some teachers from school, kind of like a girls night out, and I have heard it is a very funny movie. This semester is kind of inching along for me. I am frustrated with coming up with new lesson plan ideas, it seems that I have exhausted every good idea that I ever had, and no matter what I do my 6th period will just not stop talking, so if you think about it just pray for me to not get burnt out and to stay excited about teaching. That is probably why I have been so happy to have things to do on the weekend to take my off of school. Hope everything is well with you all too.

~ Lis