Me Personally

Now we can get real. You probably couldn’t pick a person you met on paper (or in a blog) out of a crowd. My goal is for you to forget you met me in my online portfolio. Your mind should be tricked into thinking we bonded over coffee last week (except I rudely did all the talking). I tend to write in my own voice, so you will likely be able to pick my voice and sarcasm out of the crowd, but you’re going to need more dirt than that to be sure it’s me. After perusing my MAED Portfolio you should be able to hear my laugh, understand my teaching philosophy, and know what I ordered when we had coffee last week.

Although I am approaching 30, I still love to play. Play is not for the immature or the childish. Play sparks creativity. Play keeps our ideas fresh. Play makes us laugh. I simply seek adventure, laughter, and memories that will stick.

Play is not just for after school, it's of utmost importance to teachers. When my students are playing and enjoying themselves they don't feel like they're in school and they often don't even realize that they are learning. More importantly, they are learning in a lasting way. Rote memorization doesn't stick with our students. Memories do.

In the video on the right I am playing a water balloon toss game on a missions trip in Guadalajara, Mexico. I think I was more into the game than some of the kids! While this was a game for the sake of pure, untainted fun, you could create math or physics problems using this sheet launching, water balloon catching, super duper fun teamwork requiring game.

To hear more on my thoughts about "play" as a thinking tool in creative beings check out my website.

As the youngest of four kids (if you can still call us kids when three of the four are over 30) I have spent most of my life playing, half of my childhood was spent playing in the Philippines and Bangladesh, and it made me the person I am today. Eventually I grew up and was married on September 16, 2011 (Mexican Independence Day and ironically the day my Mexican husband lost his independence…I have to throw that in for him, it’s his joke and marriage is about compromise…and that includes laughing with your spouse when no one else will), and I have been living in Mexico City since October 2011. My entire family loves dessert and counterbalances that love with being extremely active- bike, run, swim, surf, hike, black water rafting, spelunking, grab onto a floating device behind a boat while laughing hysterically and trying not to get thrown, if you can do it outside (or in a cave), chances are we have done it.

We moved to the Philippines when I was four-years-old and my first memories are of tropical rain, mango smeared faces, and white sand beaches. I think I was eight by the time I learned that rain could be cold. It was a rude awakening and I could no longer say I always love the rain. I felt at home in the Philippines and actually thought I was Filipina. I couldn’t go a day without rice and/or mangos and I could squat for days, which is probably why they made me catcher when I moved to Texas about five years later. When I was entering sixth grade we moved to Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world. It was there that I learned the meaning of compassion and made a decision to work in poverty alleviation. Circumstances brought us back to California when I was entering my junior year of high school and I experienced reverse culture shock. I came from an International School in Dhaka, Bangladesh where we were a good 10 years behind the “cool” curve and our biggest class was 50 students and entered public school in La Quinta, California where all the girls looked like they had at least five years on me and there were 2,500 students.

Soon enough I was off to UC San Diego with plans to graduate early so I could move on to saving the world by working for the UN or being the youngest female to start her own NGO. I took a slight detour to study abroad in Costa Rica for a semester where I solidified my Spanish and reveled in being outside of the United States, where I oddly feel more comfortable…little did I know how greatly learning Spanish would pay off in the near future.

Graduating from college the same year as the second worst economic crisis in history didn’t exactly work out in my favor, so I turned to AmeriCorps. I worked in City Heights, in the greater San Diego area, running my own after school program for all ages and providing services to low-income families, mostly immigrant families from Latin America. I stayed on at the Community Development Corporation for two more years after AmeriCorps until I got married and followed my husband to Mexico City, which brings me to the now.

I was finally living outside the United States, I had a degree in International Studies- Political Science and I was ready to use it, but two months became ten and I still couldn’t find work. I volunteered at World Vision, but it was a desk job because the afflicted population lives a few crazy-driver-traffic hours outside the city. I was wasting away behind a desk and I missed working with youth.

Luckily, I stumbled upon some teachers at church and one invited me to share about World Vision in her 5th grade classroom. I was hooked. I felt right at home in a classroom interacting with those students. I decided then and there to make a career change and I pursued my Masters in Education at Michigan State University (MSU). Now, two years later I have two years of experience as a teacher and will complete my Masters in about a week. I have no regrets about my detours because every twist and turn has contributed to my present.

I still have a heart for underprivileged children and will continue to do volunteer work like the trip I made to Guadalajara (see the photos). I plan to create or lead clubs with students at school that have a focus on service. I find it of utmost importance to teach privileged students about the joys of serving others as well as the realities of the world we live in and the responsibilities that come with the truth.

In a nutshell, my life, my work, my purpose on this Earth revolves around children finding their way in this world with hopes that they might fulfill a higher purpose and make a positive difference in the lives others. It’s also to live my life to the fullest through loving the unloved, being an awesome wife, putting family first, truly experiencing the world in my travels, and teaching kids in a way that inspires positive, selfless change.