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!