November 25: Writing Prompt #329-Simply Irresistible

Tell us about the favorite dish or food that you simply cannot turn down.

That’s easy, curry!  Yellow, red, green, doesn’t matter! I don’t remember the first time I ever had it, but I can be fairly certain it was somewhere between Hawaii and Kwajalein where Asian Pacific foods are prevalent. I remember going on a work trip to Tokyo, Japan several years ago, and at the first Tokyo restaurant we went to off-base, I ordered curry. All that wonderful Japanese food, and I simply couldn’t resist the curry.  Today, I get cravings for it at times, and we end up going to the local Thai restaurant, and although we love to try all the different types of food there, the curry is still my favorite!!

November 24: Writing Prompt #328-Close Call

Tell us about a bullet you’re glad you dodged — when something awful almost happened, but didn’t.

What comes to mind for this prompt happened to a little girl I had just met at the pool down the street from where I grew up.  When I was a pre-teen, I was offered a job to teach swimming at the pool where I learned to swim myself. Ms. Soroti lived across the busiest street from my neighborhood, California St.  I rode my bike over there early each week day morning in the summers to introduce water to the preschoolers who were bussed to the pool in her backyard for swim lessons.  Even though the pool had heating, she would never run it in the summer when we taught, and it was ALWAYS super cold in the early hours of the day.  We dreaded hopping in, but we did, and we spent the morning picking up one preschooler at a time off the side of the pool while encouraging them to blow bubbles and kick their legs in the water as we pulled them around the shallow end.  This particular day one of my closest friends had brought a family friend’s daughter to the pool, and we were the last ones left after the preschool swim sessions ended. The two of us were visiting with Ms. Soroti when all of a sudden I turned away from them and saw my friend’s toddler charge in the pool. She could not yet swim. She was struggling, arms flailing. I moved quickly to pull her out of the water and keep her from drowning. It’s amazing how quiet danger in the water can be.  None of us even saw or heard her climb in, and before we knew it she got too far away from the side and almost drowned, without making a sound. Once Ms. Soroti and my friend saw what happened, they were surprised and glad too that I had seen her in the water just in time.  It was most scary for the little girl I pulled out of the water, but she was okay and learned that day how dangerous it can be to get in the water without a “big person” and especially when you don’t know how to swim. 

November 23: Writing Prompt #327-I Have Confidence in Me

Are you good at what you do? What would you like to be better at?

I am good at certain aspects of what I do. There’s always room for improvement.  I am fairly natural with children. Most of them take to me quickly and easily. This makes me better at my job because I am able to step into a classroom and help a teacher who is having trouble with a student by sitting with them one on one and giving them the attention they need, and I can usually do this without having to know them closely before entering the room. 

I have also been told that people feel comfortable sharing or “venting” to me.  I think building relationships with those we work with is very important. I think of my co-workers as my “work family,” so I spend time getting to know them and looking after them in whatever ways I can as their supervisor or co-worker.  That said, I could be better at separating that personal connection from what needs to be done. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in taking care of the person that I am easily “duped,” so to speak, into allowing them to take advantage of the system or me and my kindness to them.  I am also not always as direct as I could be, and I will tend to just take care of it myself (even if that means more work and stress for me) than cause a “conflict,” however small, by telling them what I need them to do from a “boss” perspective. 

I sometimes do wonder, as many of us do, if I am in the ideal profession for me, but the bottom line is that I do enjoy it (most of the time), and I am still concerned enough about my performance to want to do better and to learn from others. I figure as long as I am still growing and wanting to grow, then I will get better and better at what I do and eventually, I may stop wondering and starting knowing that this is the place God has me for now, and He is working through though the good things that I can do for others in my workplace and in my life! 

November 22: Writing Prompt #326-Playtime

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

Playtime to me is:

1. Going to the movies and having popcorn and slushies!

2. Taking a drive to an AWESOME hiking spot. 

3. Driving ON the beach at the NW coast. 

4. Laying in bed all day and reading books or watching movies.

5. Attending a Yoga Retreat or just a class!

6. Scuba diving.

7. Cooking out at the beach and hunting for treasures on the shore.

8. Camping in an RV or a tent.  

9. Road tripping…

10. Visiting with family and friends from out of state or out of the country.

The great thing is that I’ve been lucky enough to say these are things I am able to do right here in the NW on a regular basis if I want to as well as things I was lucky enough to be able to experience regularly when I lived on the islands as well. 

What’s your playtime consist of??

November 21: Writing Prompt #325 A Bird, A Plane, You!

You get to choose one superpower. Pick one of these, and explain your choice: the ability to speak and understand any language, the ability to travel through time, or the ability to make any two people agree with each other.

I would definitely choose the superpower ability to speak and understand any language.  Why?  As a former English as a Second Language instructor, I would often wish I could explain a difficult concept to my students in their own language to help them understand.  There’s also a connection automatically made when you can even attempt to speak the native language of those you are communicating with. When I first arrived in Madrid, Spain for my college studies, we were told that as much as possible, we were to use Spanish for everything. Even our host families were not allowed to use English with us.  We only spoke English to each other (our classmates and roommates; otherwise, it was Spanish).  I went to Spain knowing absolutely no Spanish, so it was a total immersion experience for me. Within the first week, I walked into a store to buy something, and when I did, I spoke to the cashier in Spanish (pretty limited, broken Spanish, but Spanish nonetheless), and even though the cashier spoke English too, he truly appreciated the fact that I was trying to speak to him in his native language and not just expecting him to speak mine. I know this because he told me so. 

Effective communication is so crucial in our everyday lives, and so many misunderstandings are made far too often when we all speak the same language. Speaking totally different languages just complicates the communication process.  I think so many problems can be prevented and solved through proper communication.  We can just as easily cause problems by not communicating well, so how awesome would it be to have the gift of speaking multiple languages!