My German choir is learning a rendition of the Charlie Chaplin song "Smile," and I really can't stop smiling at the cute German accents pronouncing the soft "ch" in "aching" when they forget the sound is different in the English word. I really needed the reminder this week to smile - a coworker caught me coming into the office with something probably closer to a grimace and joked, "You dropped something," as I wheeled past. "What?" I asked only to laugh when he replied, "Your smile."[...]

This one snuck up on me.

But I've also seen it coming for a while.[...]

I just had an amazing two hour conversation with one of my best friends across the ocean. Shannon and I were going over the details of the stress and celebrations this last week, and I was reflecting with her the crazy lives we've both lived over the past several years. I'm coming up on the four year traumaversary of breaking my back, and a month before my accident, I wrote a sappy post on my old blog referencing the scary dialogue between Gandalf and Bilbo in the first installment of The Hobbit movies indicating I might stay in Germany significantly longer than my initial two year commitment. [...]

I told my friend I was going to go to bed in half an hour... and that was like fifteen minutes ago. Sometimes I can blast out an update quickly, so let's see if that happens. Otherwise, I might be hitting the snooze button for five more minutes a couple extra times in the morning.[...]

I’m posting this update later than normal, and I’ll ask for your forgiveness, a mercy if you like, as I give all the details of my full and adventurous previous ten days. If you’re not interested in the intricacies of my celebrations and travels, I’ll write a “too long; didn’t read” down at the bottom.[...]

So I accidentally wiped my whole hard drive yesterday when an update on my computer went wrong. Don't worry, the only document I didn't have backed up anywhere was the draft scraps of what I planned to shape into a memoir. It's par for the course in my life, really. I'm notoriously bad with technology, but I have a super gracious coworker who took my computer for the day and managed to reset it to allow me to still use this expensive gift that's barely four years old. In all honesty, I'm praising God that I'm typing this week's update on my laptop instead of my phone because it was quite an exciting week.[...]

I finally made it to Christmas break. It was a bit touch and go at the end, but I took it one day at a time. Actually, to be completely honest, I was taking it about ten minutes at a time. I wrote a post a long time ago ripping of my friend Q's idea about how some days all she can do is take a breath and get through the next ten minutes. [...]

Like all healthy people, I like happy things. I look for them to celebrate, and I create positivity when I can. I have a lot of negative crap in my life, so part of the way I keep myself from drowning in pessimism is to intentionally highlight the happy.[...]

I'm not a fan of homework - what weirdo is? I do assign it, however, and I expect my students to do it. Generally in my class, I assign classwork that becomes homework when the students don't finish before the bell rings. I've had to field a particular question a lot this year as I've passed out papers or instructed students to do something at the end of class.[...]

While it was only a half week of work for most in America, I had school every day, and two big meals to celebrate my international community. I'll be honest, this week went by in a blur because of the business of school colliding with the inherent American need to feast at the end of November. I worked hard to stay on top of all my responsibilities and still have a social life. [...]