The end of February....Already?

Weight Loss Update: Today is week 20 of my weight loss program. I am just about 1/2 there on the amount of weeks I am on the program but I am over 1/2 the weight I want to lose. My goal is 87-90 pounds and I am planning on being there right around August. Today I arrived at the weight loss place with confidence. I had a good week of eating and even managed to work out a couple times. That is more than what I have been able to say for the past couple of weeks. I am more than ready to get back on track after a few stressful weeks and from last week to this week I lost 8.8 pounds! I knew it was going to be good. I didn't think it would be that good!

My weight loss isn't the reason I am writing this blog today though. The title of this blog is "The end of February....Already?" and seriously can you believe it? I swear that yesterday was Christmas and New Years and then I blink and BAM it's about to be March. I think the main reason that I think the time has gone by so fast is because of student teaching. I spend 40 hours or more in the classroom and then another 10-20 outside the classroom building my curriculum or grading papers and various things like that. All of a sudden I am in my last week at Monticello Middle School and next week I will be making the jump over to the high school. I swear that I just started last week and now it is already coming to the end. There is no way that I have taught them more in my 8 weeks than they taught me. The students are smart, witty, and hilarious. They keep me on my toes but always bring a smile to my face after every day. I hope that the High School kids will be able to bring me the same joy that these 7th graders have over the past 8 weeks.

By the way: If you didn't get to check out the videos yet. Here are a couple videos of me doing a dance with the Principal and a couple other teachers to African Tribal Music in front of 300 7th graders.

http://youtu.be/WeJTXa73jZU

http://youtu.be/gItzPjWCQWo

At the bottom of the blog you can also see a picture of the teachers and I that we took afterwards. I hope that you enjoy the updates as they continue to come. In the next couple weeks, March will be upon us and March Madness will be in full force. I honestly can't wait until the brackets come out. I get excited about many sporting events, but this one is by far my favorite of the entire year!

I hope that you have a wonderful Tuesday and a great rest of your week. Stay Warm!

-J-

Megan

I look outside my window and I see the snow falling on my window. I look at the date, February 17th, 2014. Nothing special about that date (Sorry if it's your birthday today) but then I realize that it is President's Day. I see tweets and Facebook posts about schools being cancelled today and how people are going to lay in bed all day and watch Netflix and pig out on junk food. Why wouldn't you? For people at many colleges and Universities around the state, today is a day off and a day to relax. For students at SJU and other private institutions, President's Day is just another day as it was 2 years ago when I was a Sophomore.

Two years ago on Friday February 17th, 2012, I was getting excited for a weekend full of Family and fun up at Giants Ridge skiing like we do every President's Day weekend. I had a couple classes and then I was off for the weekend. I am just about to head up to my dorm room after my last class as I can feel my phone buzzing. It is a text from Megan asking me if we are hanging out this weekend. We had talked about it last weekend and I had talked about hanging out, totally forgetting that I was going skiing. Other people would have gotten mad at me for lying or making plans and turning my back on them but not Megan. I apologized and told her that I was going skiing that weekend and that I wouldn't be in Rogers until the following weekend. "no problem, we will see each other soon! Have fun skiing :)" was the text I received and a text I will remember for the rest of my life. I thanked her and put my phone away, not knowing that it would be the last time I would ever talk to Megan. Three days later on a snowy, windy Monday night, I would get a phone call that would change my life. A phone call that told me that Megan had passed away and was no longer with us.

The next week was the hardest week I ever experienced. I tried going to class but that was pointless. I didn't take a note, I couldn't tell you what my Philosophy class was even about that day. I emailed my teachers and told them that I was taking the weekend off and explained what had happened. I headed back to Rogers with a heavy backpack and a heavy heart.

The rest of the week was filled with saying goodbye to one of my best friends in the world. Someone who I would text when I needed advice. Someone I would call to hang out because I knew how much she loved hanging out with people from Broadway. Most times we would just go to my house and play catch phrase or watch a movie but she was always thrilled when she got to come over. Support from family, friends, and random strangers came and helped along the way, but deep down I knew that a great piece of my life had been taken away from me.

As I look outside and see the snow, all those memories come back. They will never leave me, no matter what happens to me in the future. Megan always told me that Cassidy and I would end up being together for a long time. She saw something in us that she knew in her own life. She knew that silly little fights with significant others usually just made them stronger. Today I can tell you that Cassidy and I have never been closer.

Everyday when I wake up and every night when I go to bed I say my prayers. I pray to God to forgive me for my sins and to keep my family and friends safe through the day. Before my prayers end, I say a special prayer for the Sample family and address it to Megan. I ask Megan to look over me throughout the day and to always keep me motivated to pursue my dreams. It is with her help that I know that losing weight was easier in the beginning because she was looking over me every single day. As I continue to try to become a healthier person I look to Megan for strength and ask her to help push me through the challenges in my life.

This Thursday on the 20th I am going to go to Broadway Pizza in Rogers, eat an Italian Chopped Salad (Megan's favorite) and fill up a balloon. Along with friends and co-workers, we are all going to write letters to Megan and then send them up together. We plan on keeping this tradition going every year. Everyone is welcomed and encouraged to fill up balloons with us. The more the merrier. We usually wait until after Bingo because so it isn't so crowded. Be there around 9:00 if you would like to join us! It is always a fun night to relive memories and remember someone that we loved so very dearly.

Thanks for reading,

I love you all.

-J-

Even with Success comes Failure (That sure sounds negative)

Hi everyone!

Today I stepped on the scale and I was the lightest I have been since starting my weight loss program just 18 short weeks ago. I woke up and did a little fist pump at 6:00 this morning and hopped into the shower. I started thinking about what I should write about today and it quickly entered my running mind. 

I knew I was going to give an update on Student Teaching (See below for some good laughs) but I wanted today to be more about that. I wanted people who are struggling with something to know that it is okay to fail. Yes OKAY to fail. No I am not crazy (at least I don't think so). 

I don't know all the personal stories, but I do know some of yours and I believe that people expecting perfection are absolutely crazy. Maybe you deal with a drug or alcohol or gambling addiction. Maybe you are like me and trying to lose weight, or maybe your struggle is more interpersonal than that. Maybe you don't love your friends enough. Maybe you don't always get your homework in on time. Maybe your biggest struggle is just being able to be happy. I am here to remind you that failure doesn't always mean that you are not succeeding. 

You are an addict and you have been clean for 6 months and today you relapsed. Are we calling that a failure? Before I started my weight loss, I would have considered that person a failure but over the weeks my mind has been opened and I look at it different. What I see is someone is who struggling with an addiction just went 6 months of staying clean and instead of 6 months of failure, they just had one day of failure. That is still a huge accomplishment. They just experienced 180 days of success! 

The thing that changes that person to a failure is if they take their mistake and believe they are going to repeat it and use their mistake as an excuse. Here is my personal example of that. 

Before I started my diet at Medifast I tried diets by myself. Sunday night I would eat my "last meal" and Monday I would wake up, motivated to get healthy. All day I would eat healthy and feel great about myself. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, same thing! Then the weekend came... I would work at Broadway and after my shift I would indulge in a burger or some chicken wings. I loved it, but after the food was gone, the guilt came. My thought process was "I just went 4 days with healthy eating and I just ruined it all." Not only that, I thought that I ruined my whole week and gave up. Saturday and Sunday would bring only more junk food and then the process would start over again. I can't tell you how many "last meals" I had but I can tell you that it was almost a weekly struggle. 

What I have learned about myself after 18 weeks is that if I eat one unhealthy meal, that it is okay. What isn't okay is if I turn that bad meal into a bad day, or turn that bad day into a bad week. That is when you are using your one mistake as an excuse. Too many times I used to think, "Well I already ate a bad lunch, I can eat terrible for dinner as well." I am speaking from recent experience here. I hit a huge success when I hit the 50 pound mark and I was so proud of myself. I decided to use food (of all things) as a reward and went and got some fast food. It was delicious obviously but immediately after I was done I was pissed at myself. I hit 50 pounds but now I have to hit it again because I am obviously gaining weight because of that meal. I stayed around 50 pounds for about two weeks and kept thinking that there was nothing that I could do to change that. Maybe 50 pounds lighter is where I am meant to be?

Wrong. I took the last week and decided to eat super healthy. I worked out twice over the week and really watched my activity. I packed healthy lunches and tried to not eat anything that would be considered cheating. This morning when I stepped on the scale I was 54 pounds lighter than I was 18 weeks ago. That mentality that one meal ruins my whole week is no longer there.

So finally for people who are on a diet or who are dealing with the struggles. Don't focus on the negatives. If you eat a bad meal or reach a point of weakness, make sure that you see how far you have come and be happy with yourself!

If you have made it this far in my blog, well then I love you and have decided to reward you with a variety of quotes that I have heard inside the classroom. Remember that these kids are 7th graders and are about 12 or 13. Here is a list of some of the best things I have heard. Many of them came in the day when I showed them a picture of Cassidy and I after they begged me for a couple days.

1) "When is your girlfriend coming to visit, she is hot!"

2) Student: "Can I have her digits?"
    Me: "I think she is a little too old for you"
    Student: "I am really mature for my age"

3) After explaining Reconstruction and how the North and the South had to become friends after the war was over I gave an example about how if I got into a fight with a friend (using a student as an example) how we would have to work out our differences and become friends. A student next to the student who I was using as an example as my "friend" yelled "What did he do, steal yo girl"

4) "Mr. Hines, do you play Flappy bird?"

5) "Sorry, I didn't take my pills today"

6) "Of course it deleted, ugh I hate technology!"

7) "You are good at teaching but not as good as Ms. (name taken out). She is old though, so I am glad you are teaching us."

8) This is my personal favorite, although it is a little inappropriate.

The students are playing a game called Passcode. In the game two students are facing away from the whiteboard and there is a word for them to guess on the white board. They are alternatively asking classmates for one word clues that will help them figure out the word on the whiteboard. Get it, got it, good?

Okay so the word for this round happens to be Waterfall. The first student calls on his buddy for a clue. The student yells out that his clue is Niagara (as in Niagara Falls if you didn't get it). The student who is guessing then guesses that the word on the whiteboard is pill!

At first no one said anything. No one realized why the student would guess pill. It was only after about two seconds that I realized that the student thought his friend said VIAGRA instead of NIAGARA and that is why he guessed Pill. After the other teacher asked him why he guessed pill he quickly got quiet and didn't say anything so the teacher could move on. I sat in the back of the room trying not to laugh because I couldn't believe what just went through a 12/13 year old mind.


So there you have it. Probably one of my longest blog entries and to be honest, one of my favorites. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you did, share it with your friends. If you didn't, well then shame on you :)

Have a good Tuesday!

-J-

"Sometimes helping others succeed, is the best way to help yourself achieve greatness." 

They are just shoes...right?

This last Friday I walked into Monticello Middle School and thought it was just a normal day. When I arrived in my classroom, I was told that we would be going to the Auditorium for a speaker. I didn't really think anything of it, but what I saw inspired me. When we walked in and all 300 7th graders were seated, we were introduced to a guy who was talking about shoes. If I didn't know better, I would have thought he had like 500 pairs at his house. Suddenly the conversation turned very serious and he told us that he did not receive his first pair of shoes until he was 12. Devastating was the word that crept into my brain when I heard this. No one should have to go without shoes for 4,380 days, let alone 1. I knew that as a school, we had to do something. Last Friday kicked off (get it because shoes are "kicked off" hahahaha hilarious, okay never mind) the Monticello Shoe Drive. All together the Monticello Middle School has approx 900-1000 students with about 50 staff. Their goal is 3000 pairs of shoes, which is about 3 for every person in the building. I explained to the students that although 3 pairs isn't that many, that some kids would not be bringing shoes and so others had to pick up the slack. I showed them that just by asking their family that they could probably come up with 10-20 pairs of shoes. Individually, I set my own goal at 100 pairs of shoes. I posted a status about the shoe drive on Facebook last week and many of you have already started contacting me about having shoes. My aunt Julie already has brought over a box of shoes and in my closet alone I was able to gather 4 pairs of shoes that I don't wear anymore.

The drive lasts until February 14th so if you have some shoes to donate, contact me through Facebook or Call/Text me @ 763-443-6016. If you live close enough, I will gladly come and grab all the shoes that you are never going to wear anymore. Like I said, no one should have to wait 12 years to receive their first pair of shoes. If you are able to, You may drop the shoes off at Broadway Pizza in Rogers and I will pick them up from there, or you can leave them at my doorstep as well!

***As the shoes are going to Uganda, they ask that no boots be donated. The shoes also do not need to be new. They can be shoes that you don't wear anymore or were going to donate to Goodwill or get rid of.

Here are just some other quick facts about Uganda:

Age Expectancy: 53 (78 in the US)

Average age: 15!!!! (33 in the US)

Infant Death Rate (Per 1000): 63 (6 in the US)

Death from AIDS each year: 64,000 (17,000 in the US) and the population there is about 10x smaller than ours.

As always I thank you in advance for your support and a special thanks to those who have already donated. We still have 11 days left of the drive and so make sure you contact me so I don't miss out on collecting your shoes!