Many of us
think of our lives as boringly normal, while others live the high life. Take a
step back, and take a look at your life as an outsider might. Now, tell us at
least six unique, exciting, or just plain odd things about yourself.
Okay, well,
this should be a short entry. Of course, I always say that, don’t I?! J Here’s what I think are the most unique,
exciting, and possibly odd things about myself.
Let me know what you think!
1. Being a Kwaj resident for 17 years. So, being a Kwaj resident may not be that
unusual because every year I meet more and more people who used to live on
Kwaj, but when you start adding up my unique experiences there, I become a
little more odd. For example, working for the College of the Marshall Islands
on Guegeegue, only a few of us can say we did that. Birthing both my children there. Not long
after I had my youngest, the hospital decided to not allow births there anymore. Now, you have to leave base to have your
child. Teaching for UMUC-Asia both
online and face-to-face as well as running the office there for several years.
Writing and having a grant accepted by a Marshallese company out of Majuro to
teach ESL and basic employability skills to Marshallese employees on the base,
and helping a group of 5th grade students at the Ebeye Public School publish
their own Marshallese-English children’s book about the culture of their
islands, now and then. I even working briefly for Job Corps, no longer in
existence on the base along with my jobs at the newspaper as a feature writer
(The Hourglass), and my positions at the local library, elementary school,
child and youth services, and the community activities office. I’m not unique
in being a resident for 17 years there, but I am unique in my many, many varied
experiences over those years. At least I
think I am. J
2. Living and learning the Spanish
language in Spain for 3 months when I was in college. This was one of the
best experiences I ever had, teaching me that there’s so much more to the world
than what I had known growing up in the Southern part of the United
States. I found out what I could do all
on my own (we were not allowed to speak English in the homes where we stayed,
and I had NO Spanish language learning up to the day I stepped foot off the
plane in Madrid). I learned to respect and appreciate the culture of others so
different from me, and I fell in love with traveling the world! CHANGED MY
LIFE!
3. I
owned a Jazzercise franchise and was an instructor of Jazzercise classes in
college (thanks to my dad’s generosity).
I had no major when I first started college, then I briefly majored
in Exercise Science and became an exercise instructor. Jazzercise was one of
the few organized exercise classes I really enjoyed as I grew up taking dance
lessons and dancing in talent and fashion shows as well as being the captain of
my middle school dance team (just another odd ball fact-as shy as I was being
the captain-strange, huh?-guess I was comfortable in my own skin when dancing
at least). I mostly substituted for
teachers when they couldn’t teach a class, but it was an excellent first
experience in running my own business, including the marketing and dedication
it takes to make it work.
4. Publishing 3 children’s books all written
from my children’s experiences as toddlers, including 2 illustrated by my
boys when they were just 5 and 7 years old, and one illustrated in awesome island
batiks by a very talented artist friend and former Kwaj resident. The illustrating of the books my boys worked
on became a very special part of our quality time together because we completed
this task after I was divorced and living in a BQ where the boys could not
visit me (another unusual fact about me-lived there for 3 years before getting
back into a house where I could be with them), so they would come to my
classroom after school (I was teaching at their school that year), and we would
have snacks and work on the book together until their dad got home from
work.
5. I attended a Yoga Retreat in Bali,
Indonesia with my now husband when we were dating. BEST VACATION EVER, even though we had to get
up every morning to do yoga first thing (they had this wonderful warm, lemon
water for us to drink before we got started) and ended every day with yoga as
well. It was the most relaxing and
exciting “working” vacation, and I long one day to go back and do it again! It’s
called “Escape the World” retreats, and I highly recommend them!!
6. My favorite memories from my time living
overseas in the Marshall Islands are working on Ebeye teaching and leading 4-H
clubs and camping at my now husband’s beach shack on Roi-Namur! I never
camped growing up, and I was not one to spend a lot of time outside or
venturing into new places and meeting new people, so maybe that’s why working
with another culture on Ebeye and camping out by the crash of the waves
appealed to me. There are things I never
could have imagined myself doing 20 years ago, but I’m so glad I didn’t “shy”
away from these opportunities when they presented themselves on the atoll.
Do you agree
these things make me unique? What’s unique, exciting, or odd about you?
No comments:
Post a Comment