Blog Assignment #1

My Life In A Nutshell
The story of my life is an interesting one which begins with my birth in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. My parents were Southern Baptist missionaries for 25 years in Ethiopia and I spent my first 18 years there. I went to a private elementary school for grades 1 through 8 and then went to boarding school for high school. Rift Valley Academy is the oldest boarding school in Africa if not the world and I attended grades 9 through 12 there graduating in 1990. From there I traveled to the US to attend collage at the University of North Alabama which I did for a year then transferred to Auburn University. I did not end up graduating from Auburn due to unforseen circumstances but was finally able to get a BA in elementary education from the University of South Alabama in 2002. In 2005 I was hired as a missionary teacher to teach at Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi Kenya which I have done for the last 7 years. I am currently on a one year sabbatical during which I plan to get my Alabama teaching certificate reinstated hence my being in EDM310.
I have a multitude of things I enjoy doing and am passionate about but if asked to narrow it down I think sports and animals would come out on top. I enjoy watching and playing all kinds of sports but soccer and volleyball are my favorites. I played both in high school and a bit in college and I have been coaching teams in both at Rosslyn the last 7 years. Teaching Science is a great outlet for my second love and that is animals and most specifically reptiles. I don't know what it is but I find them fascinating. I paid for my last few years of college by raising and selling all kinds of reptiles.
R. Pausch And Time Management
Randy Pausch's clip on time management is full of wonderful kernels of wisdom. As I was watching I kept thinking back to my Dad telling me many of the same things growing up. His statement that time and money are both commodities and we are usually good at managing money but not time really got me thinking. I have not thought about managing time like that before. I am old enough now to appreciate many of the other tips he was able to share such as setting goals, having a plan for the day, week and year etc... I just wish that I had learned them at a much earlier age. I am also very appreciative of his statement that there is no substitute for experience and that experience is often made from BAD choices and decisions. We so often only focus on the positive that we forget that we also learn from the negative. I have often told my students that a mistake is only a mistake if they fail to learn from it otherwise it is a learning experience.