Every day should be Teacher Appreciation Day.

{ I really have no idea what the theme or purpose of this blog is. I mean, yes, I created it but even the design is pretty random...I don't live in a forest... and who even reads this? Oh well. I suppose, as always, we start with [word] vomit. }


Today I volunteered at the annual College Essay Boot Camp: a free writing workshop for high school students in Boston who want help with their personal essays. It's run entirely by volunteers, which is awesome but at the same time kind of scary because all I had to do to be a tutor was submit my email address...what if I was a crazy person??? Anywho, I got paired with a junior who wanted to get a head start on the college application process but had no ideas. I spent the first ten minutes trying to pull stories out of him, prompting him with all the brainstorming tools in our tutor cheat sheet packets to which he ultimately said "I'm just an average teenager." It was almost a mindless statement, but for some reason that hit me like a rock. As soon as he said that, I was determined to make him see otherwise. I dropped the tutor packets and started getting creative with my questions. That kind of worked, but eventually I told him to just list five things and three people. Random, right? Well, it worked! Within two hours, he went from having absolutely nothing interesting about himself, to a blob of an outline, to a fully written and typed personal essay.

It makes me sad when people, especially kids who really haven't even begun to figure out who they are yet, don't realize that they are special. I mean, yeah, we're all just dots in the universe and nobody's special but at the same time, everybody's special. If you think that doesn't make sense, it's like the classic glass half full or half empty question. People say there's no right answer but that's wrong-- it's both. For that first half hour when I was struggling to help him find his voice, I found myself thinking about my old teachers and re-appreciating how lucky I've been to have had so many great ones. Good teachers help their students learn their subjects, but great teachers give their students confidence. I've tutored at a number of places around the city in the past few years and I've discovered that most of the students believe that they are nothing special and that their creative ideas are wrong. They are taught to just follow the rules and "create" within rigid structures. I distinctly remember every single English teacher I've had from 7th grade and on telling me to forget about the silly five-paragraph-expository. I guess that doesn't happen everywhere.

I spent most of the tutoring session imparting wisdom that I learned from my old teachers to the kid I was working with. Even though my job was technically to help him write an essay, I decided that my goal was to build his confidence-- make him aware of the qualities that he possesses, and how to find those qualities in the things he does every day. Watching his smile grow as he realized that he did have things to write about was simply the greatest feeling in the world. I signed up to volunteer at the last minute, but I'm so glad that I did because with all that goes on in our busy college lives, I almost forgot how great it feels to help people, and how much I love to write.

This is probably as vomit-y as word vomit gets but I suppose if there was one point that I'm trying to make, it's this: Never underestimate the impact that teachers can have on our lives, and the people that we, in turn, can impact.

Just being a proud Mom

About ten times a day, I think to myself "What am I doing with my life?" It usually leaves me at a loss for words, along with a certain feeling of sinking into impending doom. But right now all I can do is smile. Third place girls' team in the NECTC, fourth place overall-- not gonna take over the world (yet), but looking at how far we've come in the last four years, and how much my NUTTS have grown, I know that I have every reason to be proud.

Mightyman, Montauk- Regional Championships

And here it is, the 2012 Team UkeRunning T-shirt design!!!

Unisex cotton t-shirt

(Ordering CLOSED)

Ready???

BigDog 5k, Saturday 9/22/12
Left to right: Jess, Marissa, Me, Paws, Julie, Kevin, Sarah

I have to admit, I am immensely relieved to know that I can actually sing and play ukulele while running! This past Saturday was the first time I've ever actually put it all together. To be honest though, it turned out to be easier than I thought because it turns out that having to constantly turn around and avoid obstacles while shuffling in my apartment takes much more concentration than just running along a clear path. The sky was overcast and a little misty, the perfect running weather! I was quite nervous as we headed down to the Charles but thanks to my awesome team members, my spirits stayed high. For the UkeRunning Beta Test, we cheered and danced our way through the BigDog 5k and I performed three songs, one per mile. Surprisingly, we finished in just under an 11 minute mile pace!!! It was brought to my attention that I actually speed up when I'm singing. I guess I get too excited...but then speeding up contributes to me getting out of breath which you can definitely catch towards the end of "Brokenhearted" during Mile 2!

Small Sony voice recorder attached to my left arm with pre-wrap and rubber bands

Race Highlights:

-Marissa got a fantastic workout running backwards for about 80% of the time. She managed to capture all three songs and more on film, AND she didn't fall!
-My Husky ID stole the show a couple times when it slowly inched out of my sports bra as I was singing and fell out, both times during a song! Thankfully, Sarah was there and ready to snatch it off the ground as we ran.
-Julie found her true calling as the top kung fu fighter during Mile 3, in addition to making sure that Marissa didn't back into any trees while filming.
-Jess snapped photos left and right while cheering and singing along the whole way. Looking forward to seeing captured images of my terrible running form!
-Somehow, I managed to cut my finger while playing and bled a little bit on my ukulele...oops! Guess I bleed for UkeRunning!!!!
-Kevin's hair stayed fantastic.


All in all, it was a fun time and I hope everyone else on the course enjoyed it too. Either that or I managed to motivate them to run faster anyway just to get away from me! The video footage is pretty shaky and I will definitely have to come up with a better method for Komen, but here it is:

It's about 8 minutes long but if you're short on time, feel free to skip to whichever song you'd like:

Mile 1- Brighter than the Sun (Colbie Caillat)- 0:09
Mile 2- Brokenhearted (Karmin)- 2:07
Mile 3- Kung Fu Fighting (Carl Douglas)- 5:56***

***Definitely watch this one to see what Team UkeRunning is all about!!!***



Oh, and a quick shoutout to the NUTTS for killing it at the race and cheering us in at the finish!!!!

What's better than a dreadfully rainy day to welcome us all to fall semester??

 I just got back from a fantastic(-ally short) break in Taiwan. I can't remember the last time I actually had two full weeks of vacation and while it was definitely a nice and much needed hiatus, two weeks?? That's just cruel. It took about four days just to get used to not having anything to do, plus about three full days worth of traveling and two days of moving...oh and two days for Lake George Triathlon with the team. That left just three days of complete relaxation. Better than nothing I suppose. Vacation kind of feels like that carrot that some jerk is dangling in front of a horse just so he doesn't have to walk. In any case, three days was enough time for me to kickstart my new project: UkeRunning.

UkeRunning began with an idea I had about three years ago when I ran the VA Beach Half Marathon and ended up chasing Pac-Man, Elvis, Pikachu and a number of other interesting characters. It reminded me of the time I choked trying to drink water while running a 10k and was passed buy a guy juggling five balls. I can't juggle, but I CAN sing and play instruments, and while I'm at it, why not raise money for charity? It took until recently for me to finally set everything in motion but here we are, just under 3 weeks since the official launch of UkeRunning and we've raised $510 for breast cancer and 5 team members for the 2012 MA Komen for the Cure 5k!!!

Team UkeRunning is for anyone and everyone who wants to partake in my adventures. I would love for other musicians to join me, but the more the merrier! Our goal is simply to have fun and entertain the rest of the racers/walkers at the race (and the volunteers too!). So if you'll be around Boston on Saturday, October 20th, JOIN TODAY!!! 

As a side note, I have never done this before and I'm not sure if anyone has. I've been getting creative with workouts to try to prepare myself so here's a little sneak peek:

Anyway, that's what I've been up to lately and with the continuing onslaught of PT classes, training for Komen will be my "carrot" rather than the vacation that we never really get!

P.S. A huge thank you to Jocelyn Rubin for helping me get the word out through RyanSeacrest.com! Check out the article here.

Currently being inspired by: The Little Engine that Could

Who invented time? Obviously they didn't actually invent it (or did they?), but imagine how different life would be if there wasn't a way to quantify or explain the passing of each moment. ...


These are the things that keep me from studying.

"Home is me."

I think the problem I have with blogging is that typing gives me the irresistible option of editing and organizing my thoughts...but my thoughts are about as unorganized as they come. There's a reason why I was one of only two people in humanities who chose to write out our essay exams instead of typing them. Coincidentally, the only other "handwriter" came up to Boston last week to visit for a day after we hadn't seen each other in over two years! It's always nice to catch up with an old friend, especially one who contemplates about life as much as I do. More, actually. He's decided that the idea of home  as a place is flawed, and that it's more like a state of being. I'm not sure if I can dismiss the usage of the word "home" to describe where I live, but I do think that I use the term a lot more loosely than some do, simply out of convenience. I suppose if we bring with us pieces of the people and things we grew up with as part of who we are, then home is wherever we go. Anyway, with less than a day to catch up, jam sessions were definitely in order. I'm not sure how much my roommates appreciated our drumming on household items (well, mostly trash cans and trash) but at least we put everything back, right? Here's a few of the more organized numbers:

Where is the Love (Black Eyed Peas)


Stuck Like Glue (Sugarland)


I'm Yours (Jason Mraz)