Happy Birthday Ms. Apryl!

I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to April!!

Ben & Jerry's Trip January 2005
Ben & Jerry's trip January 2005

La Vida Peliroja

Hello Peace Children,

From what it sounds like, we are all working on one path or other that is very much in line with our 14 and 15-year-old missions. I am not sure what everyone is doing but I had a great conversation with Ms. Sage last nite and I have to say, 14 years has given us quite a road. Here's my brief (and I'm horrible at brief) update:

December 2000-Ms. Sage visited for a New Years Eve party while on her way to her new job in Michigan.
March 2001- left my job of 4 years at International Truck and Engine Corp/formerly Navistar/formerly International Harvester to work in downtown Chicago at Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago so I could get my Masters somewhere in the city...didn't work out.
August 2001-found School for Int'l Training(SIT) TESOL certification class in Chicago 2 blocks from my job...decided to do it and take it to Ecuador. (www.sit.edu)
9/11-evacuated from my 5th floor office, was constantly questioned if I really wanted to leave the country...
Jan. 2002-left for Ecuador to teach English but decided to go somewhere where the pay was higher until I could afford to live and work in Ecuador.
August 2002-left to teach English in Korea-LOVED IT...MET AMAZING PEOPLE. After the year was up, I found out that I had been working illegally (work of my recruiter) and was unable to get a new work visa to work at the 2 universities that wanted me to teach for them.
August 2003-visited with the California Amys on my way back to Seoul, Korea from a visit to Chicago and in time for a heated discussion about the Governator...
October 2003-returned to Illinois...only my parents no longer lived near the city...so I worked at Harvard Junior High School in Harvard, IL as a Bilingual Teacher's Assistant for the Mexican American students. Very difficult situation for ESL students there.
May 2004-accepted into the Masters in Teaching(MAT) Program at SIT.
June 2004-August 2004-I worked at Pahaska Tepee Resort 2 miles East of the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. I'm so glad I did that once! It was so incredibly gorgeous!
August 2004-May 2005-worked hared in the intensive MAT program at SIT to get my public school certification in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).
March 2005-TESOL Conference was in Ms. Garcia's hometown so I was able to see her beautiful babies again...
June 2005-took part in CONTACT (Conflict Transformation Across Cultures) Peacebuilding seminars I & II over 3 weeks with 72 participants from over 30 countries and only 10 or so were American. (www.sit.edu/contact) The last week was preparation for the online course I'm taking in order to get my Graduate Certificate in Conflict Transformation.
June-August 2005-took coursework necessary for a separate teaching concentration in Spanish. When I graduate next year, I'll have an MA in Teaching ESOL with public school certifcation and Spanish, and there will be a separate certificate in Conflict Transformation (1/2 of an MA).
August-November 2005-I've been fulfilling the student teaching requirement at Brookline High School in Brookline, MA and I have been enjoying every minute of it (no free time yet, though, weekends are reading for my online course.)
November Thanksgiving-going home to Chicago because I haven't seen my family enough in the past year...
December 2005-I will take some time to rest...then I'll visit my uncle in Fort Meyers, FL from the 16th-25th. On the 26th, I embark on a journey--First I go to London for 1 nite and meet my friend there. On the 28th, I leave fore Johannesburg for 1 nite. On the 29th, I leave for Entebbe, Uganda. On the 7th of January, I'll start a 3 week program of peace education with my friend at this NGO:
http://uganda.ded.de/cipp/ded/custom/pub/content,lang,2/oid,2520/ticket,g_u_e_s_t
He and I will travel to Kigali, Rwanda for our Conflict Transformation required seminar from January 24th to February 1st. From there, I couldn't just come right back. I'll visit my friend in Arusha, Tanzania (near Kilamanjaro) and, hopefully, my friend Kakuta who is the guy on the right on this webpage: http://www.maasai-infoline.org in Kenya. I will return by way of circumventing the globe. I will go to Hong Kong for 1 nite and hope to set up interviews with International Schools there. I will then go to Seoul, Korea to visit friends for 2 nites before returning to the states by way of 1 nite in San Francisco. The next day I'll go to Vancouver, Canada for the International School Service--ISS (www.iss.edu) / Council of International Schools--COIS (www.cois.org) recruitment fair in the hopes that I will find a job for September 2006 when I will have my degree...
whew!
That's all for now...peace to you all!