The Broken...

Last night I received a phone call from a friend that I have known for 12 years.  Most recently life has been unfair to this person, and I can definitely testify to that as I have watched from the sidelines as people have destroyed his reputation.  Before you ask, yes, I did step up and stand up for him as did his other friends, but to no avail.  This man is broken, and as I spoke to him last night on the phone while he cried and thanked me for standing by him and his family, my heart broke for him and I also cried with him.  Today many of us are meeting up with him to say goodbye to him, and if you are reading this, I just ask that you pray for my friend and his family.  He is a broken man and did not deserve this.  My hope is that God has something much better in store for him.

**********************Update ************************
If you prayed today, thank you.  It was bittersweet saying goodbye.  Tears were shed all around.  His wife and daughter were grateful that we showed up to say goodbye and help him pack.  As we packed, we were able to remember the good times that we shared and found things left by students current and past that brought back good thoughts.  God is good.

The Ragged Edge...

I have reached the ragged edge.  Since Friday, I have crammed a semesters worth of Physics into my brain.  I have taken over 20 pages of notes. Worked numerous physics problems.  Hauled physics books back and forth to my duty and back and forth to work and home.  I have studied a ridiculous amount of time.  I have completed the final exam study guide.  I have gone to two real teachers and said, "explain this so I can understand it" too many times to count.  I am exhausted.  I can barely think at this point.  Tomorrow I will walk into a physics class and begin to review a semesters worth of material that I struggle to understand myself.  I think I now have a decent grasp of it, but my confidence is shaky at best.  I don't even know if anyone reads this, but if you do, send up a prayer for me over the next several days that I can convey the material correctly to these kids.  They deserve that.

I Know Kung Fu...

If you haven't seen the movie, The Matrix, this clip probably doesn't make sense to you (honestly I didn't understand any of the movies in this trilogy, but Ryan LOVES them).  Basically they are downloading all sorts of skills and training into Keanu Reeves' character in the movie.

Right now, I wish this was how I learned.  I had a brain injury just over 10 years ago.  Most people don't notice it now, because I have learned many ways to compensate for it (although crowds of people still make my skin crawl and I get agitated so if you notice me with a book in my hand or my kindle, it's a coping mechanism to keep me from freaking out).

I was reminded of it recently, however.  Over the next 2 weeks, several of my friends at work and I will be teaching Physics for the remainder of the semester during our plan periods (I'm not going to go into the reason why, but if you are curious or want my opinion be prepared).  The majority of us are not familiar with Physics.  I taught Matter & Energy for several years at the start of my teaching career, which I will call physics "lite".  This is way out of my comfort zone, and learning new things does not come easy to me post-brain injury.

I went to my good friend who teaches Physics and asked her for a book that would be understandable for people like me.  She has known me from the beginning so she knew exactly what I was asking for.  I have spent the past stress filled days, frantically taking notes and working problem after problem hoping that somehow this Physics would stick in my brain (because I have short term memory loss, it makes it a bit more complicated to transfer information from my short term memory to my long term memory).  Let's just say, I'm wishing I could just plug the back of my head into a computer and have it all downloaded.  I am sure that is how my other non-Physics friends are also feeling at this moment too, so if you're reading this, send up a prayer for us to get through the next 2 weeks and be able to help these students.