Day 9 - My Firsts

For those of you who don't know, Lindsay and I have created a joint photo album on Facebook where we put all our "first" pictures.  That is, we take pictures of ourselves doing things for the first time.  And this week was a pile of firsts for me.

My First First: Failing students
I did NOT enjoy this first.  Due to the way the curriculum is set up in the English program at UW, I had to fail 5 of my 16 students this week.  I was not pleased.  I expected some of the students to fail but others were completely out of the blue.  I thoroughly un-enjoyed sending those "I'm sorry but you failed my class and will have to take it again" emails.  It's made me think that perhaps teachers want students to pass more than the students themselves do.  

My Second First: Discovery Park
Saturday afternoon, myself and a couple friends went to Discovery Park in Seattle for the first time.  The view was terrible:

My Third First: Fasting
As a student teacher, I belong to a union.  It is very politically minded and the union sends out emails from time to time to alert its members about political goings-on.  This week I received an email about the hunger strike that has been going on in Washington D.C. since November about immigration reform.  The email invited members to sign up and fast for a day.  Usually I dismiss the union emails but this one caught my eye.  I'm not particularly gung ho about immigration reform but I do believe what America does now isn't very effective.  I was also intrigued by the idea of fasting in honor of a cause.  I've never fasted before.  So I signed up.  

It went well.  Not eating for a day isn't that big of a deal.  The very cool thing about fasting is that because the feeling of hunger is so prevalent, it's hard to forget why your fasting; it keeps the reason very central in your mind.  In normal life it is hard to focus on the important things.  Fasting is an interesting technique to focus very intentionally on something.  I may have to use it again in the future.

Firsting:  For those of you who don't make it a habit to try new things every once in a while, I'd encourage you to try something new for the very first time.  Don't get stuck doing what you've always done or you'll stay the same person.  Make yourself new and better.  Go and do a first.

MORAL OF THE STORY:  Don't ever stop firsting.