Utah Bound

I am on my way to Utah and Idaho for 4 weeks. I can't wait to see what adventures lie ahead of me.  This is the one time of year that I love my job because I can leave town for weeks at a time!!

Yes, I'm alive!

Hey fellow bloggers. It's amazing how much time you lose when you go to school and work full-time. I'm loving my PhD program, but it takes up so much time. I'm not complaining, but just wanted to mention it because that's why I don't blog much anymore. This evening starts my spring break for my teaching job...unfortunately my univerisity spring break did not match up so I will be missing a couple classes as I head down to Jamaica!

I fly out tonight and have an over night lay over in Dallas and then I arrive in Montego Bay, Jamaica tomorrow afternoon. I know the layover thing is weird, but the way the flights worked I would've had to pay more to leave tomorrow and wouldn't have arrived until tomorrow night so this worked out. I can't wait to get there and lay out by the beach. One of my classmates is getting married at Hotel Riu and a few of my classmates will be there. We're a tight knit group now that we see each other so much!

I will be bringing my computer so hopefully on my down time (by the pool) I can post a blog or two. I have a lot of entries to catch up on. I didn't ever really post on my awesome summer travels from 2009 and I need to do that before I have new adventures this summer. I hope you are all well. To end on a good note, my first submission to present at a conference was accepted. I'll be presenting a paper I wrote on education policy initiatives in the Polynesian Islands :) Have a great spring break!

Goodbye 2009!!

(The picture to the right is my 2009 yearbook picture for the school that I teach at...I look like an 8th grader)

Where have I been? Wow, I haven't posted on my blog in ages. It's been a busy few months. I have returned to school and am working on a PhD in Education Policy with a secondary specialization in International Education. I decided to take 4 classes this semester, which is a full load for students who usually don't have a job, but I also work full-time job as an 8th grade Civics teacher. I also coach a middle school step team and dance with a Polynesian dance group, so with all of those things going on, blogging just fell to the wayside. One of my new year's resolutions is to blog a couple times a month. I still need to post the photo highlights of all my summer travels.

By far, one of my favorite parts of 2009 was my summer travels. I went to Myrtle Beach with some friends for a week and then trotted off to Europe for 3 weeks to tour some of the Mediterranean countries with one of my best friends. It was a blast, and I promise to post a photo journal of the places we visited. I also went on a humanitarian trip to Polochic, Guatemala. It was an incredible experience. Here is one of my favorite pictures from it:This picture encompasses how the trip was for me, utterly peaceful. My friend took this picture of me in the middle of our hike up the Pacaya Volcano (a very difficult hike for me) and I love it. This was taken a couple days before we actually went to the Polochic Valley, but it's a pretty cool picture. The trip overall was just what the doctor ordered. I was able to forget about all my worries I have here and just focus on serving the people of Guatemala. It was a delightful experience.

While in Polchic, there were 87 young single adults from my church who served in various capacities. We had a few building projects going on and we worked to lay foundations for a health clinic in one of the villages, a secondary school in another village, a water storage facility in another village and kitchen near the secondary school. The medical and dental volunteers had a traveling clinic and they went to 6 villages and took care of a lot of the needs of the people. We had a business development group that visited different villages and helped teach the villagers about budgeting and other strategies that could improve their lifestyle and economic status. Lastly, we also had a teacher development group that worked with the local school teachers. I helped in the clinic, with teacher development and on the secondary school project. Guatemala was an awesome experience and if all goes well, I'll be going to Bolivia this summer to do a similar expedition. Here is a picture of a local Guatemalan woman with her baby sack hooked to her head band...that's how they all carried their babies.


Here is a picture of the local kids...they were adorable :)



My summer travels were great. School has been challenging and time consuming, but I'm learning a lot. I'm so happy to be embarking on this long journey to get a PhD. I know I made the right decision to go back to school. I know it's going to get much harder, but I look forward to the road ahead. Work has been a challenge for me this year, but we are almost halfway there. I like teaching, but 8th grade is a hard age and I think I'm reaching a point where it's time to move to a different age. Who knows what lies in the future for me with teaching...

The title of this post is "goodbye 2009" and I am more than thrilled to see it end. It's been a long, hard year with many personal challenges and I look forward to this fresh start. Tonight is New Year's Eve and instead of going out, I've chosen to stay in and spend some quality time with me, myself and I. I know that might sound a little lame, but I feel like I need the time to myself to reflect and focus on how I can make 2010 a much better year than 2009 was. I will post some of my resolutions tomorrow, but I wish you all a happy and safe new year.

Love,
Amy

I'm going to the Mediterranean!!

That's right, you read that correctly! In July, my friend and I are flying to Barcelona for a few days and then embarking on the Princess Ruby for a 12 day cruise of the Mediterranean. We can't wait. I was planning to either do South America this summer or Europe and as I learned by experience last summer, I'd much rather travel with a buddy then solo. Although cruising is not my travel mode of choice, it works when you're on a time crunch and want to see a lot of fun places. My summer is pretty open, but my friend is bound by a work schedule and could only manage 2 and a half weeks off so we decided on a cruise to best fit our food and lodging needs.

I'm sure we could go to Europe on our own and possibly see more places in that time, but we really wanted to do the Mediterrenean and neither of us are into the hostel thing...ick! I will stay in them if I have to but I prefer clean places and privacy. I'm sure all of you budget travelers and backpackers are cringing by now but we worked around what we wanted this summer. Perhaps one day I will venture into the hostel world, but with the experiences I've had so far with them, I'm not quite ready. But, we did get a very good deal on everything :)

We leave in mid-July and will be there until the end of July. It actually works out nice for me to not be gone the whole summer so I can spend some time on local day trips. I've lived in Northern Virginia most of my life and there is still so many things I've never done so I'm working on a staycation agenda. Here is my line up for our cruise:
Barcelona, Spain
Monte Carlo, Monaco
Florence/Pisa, Italy
Naples, Italy
Rome, Italy
Venice, Italy
Mykonos, Greece
Athens, Greece
Istanbul, Turkey
Ephesus, Turkey

If anyone has been to any of these places and can offer advice on must sees (as we will only be spending a dew days, or day at each place) please comment and let me know your recommendations.

Charlotte, NC

I've been a long lost blogger lately but thought I would take a little time today to do a quick post. This past week was our school's spring break. I had every intention of writing a bunch of posts but you know how time flies and before I knew it the week was over. I mostly did some cleaning and organizing and running errands but I went down to Charlotte, NC with my special someone for a couple days and had a nice mini-vacay. We went down on Wednesday afternoon and unfortunately had to come back Friday evening but it was still fun and worth the drive. We stayed with my sister and her husband.

On Thursday we played frisbee golf or disc golf...whatever way you want to call it. It's actually a lot harder than I thought it was going to be and I really sucked at it. I think I might try it again and make a hobby of it. We went out to dinner that night and I met up with my old roommate from Florida. Afterwards we all went to Dean and Deluca () for a little dessert. That place is awesome but fine dining has an expensive price tag. On the way home we stopped and got a few treats. If you have one near you, I highly recommend stopping in and trying a few of the delicious treats. Some of the items are ridiculously overpriced but there are some unique foods there that make it worth the trip. Here are some photos of our trip.

You start off about 400-500 yards away, then you launch your disc...sometimes it's straight and clear, other times the hole is through trees and turns like a regular golf course.


Then once you do a couple of tosses you have to throw it in that contraption...as you can see, I was not at the best spot to try to make it.

Denied!

I totally did not want to have to go in there and get dirty. I'm sort of an indoor girl so luckily my brother in law went and got it for me but there was still a lot of mud on it...ick!

Take two :)

Finally! It's actually pretty hard but fun.

Where to start...

I just returned from two cruises this week and I saw a lot, it's hard not to when you visit 11 countries in 16 days! I'm not quite sure where to start. I guess what I'll do is write about and put pictures from each country and tell my favorite story from each place. I do have to say that I did get a real look at all the countries because it's a little hard to really take in the culture of a country when you're only there for a day. I did however get an idea of where I would want to go back and spend some serious time and I will be giving my recommendations :)

Costa Rica...Here I Come!!

I have been talking about spending the summer in Costa Rica for a while with my friends and I don't think they believed I would actually go but I just booked my ticket and registered at a Spanish Academy. I'll be taking 5/hrs of spanish classes a day from Monday-Thursday at CRLA.I looked at a few language schools and decided I felt the best with this school. After a few emails back and forth to address some of my concerns I worked it all out and I'm going...YAY!! I will be spending at least 8 weeks there from May 24th-July 19th. My best friend is getting married July 26th and being the good friend I am (I'm a bridesmaid) I am coming home for her wedding. Depending on how well my spanish is going at that point, I might go back to Costa Rica for 2 more weeks to get a little more practice in. I've been trying to learn spanish for the last 2 years (not always so diligently) and have taken 3 classes at the university level but I still suck at it. Hopefully after this summer I will be able to get over the hump I'm stuck on. Yay...I can't wait. If you've been there and can recommend any cool places I have to see let me know. I have the weekends to do my own thing and plan to visit all the hot spots, as well as try to go to Guatemala, Panama and maybe Nicaragua. Oh yeah, the best part is the school has a free gym so I can continue to work on my fitness and not lose any progress I've made...which, I've lost 3 inches to date :)

Photos from Past Travels