January To-Do list...

(Yes, I posted this on 1/1 retroactively so it wouldn't interfere with the January Story post.)

Switch:  How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by the brothers Heath

1. Switch on the bigger-reach mojo:  Must extend influence from teaching locally into additional roles as expert reader-for-change and enthusiast-coach-mentor in the wider the world.

2.  Clean up my act. No movement if no space to move so, in a word:  Declutter.  My gergillion books and papers and seemingly self-propagating piles of assorted consumer goods must be purged.  Triple bottom line says: Offer useful items back to the world first, recycle or reuse others.  I AM Flylady.com.

3.  SO must return to extreme fitness (also, paradoxically, a Pacific Northwest requirement), replete with energy, strength, flexibility, canniness, and reserves of wise compassion so that my plentiful super-actions arise from consideration for the benefit of all beings.

The Radleys by Matt Haig

1.       Contact the Titanic. 

2.       Abstain for one month.

My Freshman Year by Rebekah Nathan

1.       Visit WWU to see if students there are socially disengaged as Nathan thought her fellow freshmen were.

2.       Get working on a high school course to get students into the habit of social/civic engagement.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

1.       I'll craft 2-3 versions of my new Reading for Change website homepage AND sketch out a few potential images of me, then show them to some informal focus-folks to see which screams, "Own your one wild and precious life, and rock your world, woman!"  (Look for a launch next month: Don't worry - I'll let you know!)

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

    1.  Just continue on in pursuit of my "Personal Legend".  Watch for omens, then do whatever they signal.  Listen to my heart.  Don't be afraid to lose everything: it'll all go in the end anyway.  Notice that humans still crave stories to help them negotiate their lives. 

What is the What  by Dave Eggers

1.       Post link to Women for Women International on my blog (my only ‘advertisement’)

2.       Visit Valentino Achak Deng’s website to see what I can do.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow

1.       Recommend book to 10 people I wouldn’t have, including becoming an Amazon & Betterworld Books reviewer.

Citizen You by Jonathan Tisch

1. From this book, I've collected at least 10 websites to contact that I plan to link to my Reading for Change site (launching 3/11).  The groups associated with those sites will be able to link w/me directlly and we should be able to provide each other with mutual support.

2. In addition, I'm going back to the stickies and taking notes to use as I move forward with my Reading for Change process.

3. Also, I'm going to thoroughly peruse the CitizenYou.org website and take whatever additional actions seem relevant.

Leaving Gee’s Bend

1.  Offer it to my fellow English teachers to read for themselves.

2.  Spend one day going barefoot in my house, and try some of it with one eye patched. (channeling Lu)

3.  Clean out my quilting stuff and give it to someone who will use it.  (I admire quilters and their useful-artful creations but have tried to get interested in actually constructing them many times, to no avail.  It's tediously precise work, at least the way I've been taught, and I simply haven't the sustained interest. Crafters who live near me:  Call it!)

The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok

1. I am moved to find out what happens now to a child whose mother is mentally ill and whose father is absent.  And what happens to the person struggling with mental illness.  Time for inquiry, in keeping with Mira's questing spirit.

2.  I will draw a while today:  this habit of practice, of noticing saves Mira, who eventually becomes a professional artist, and I will see if it can buoy me too.

3.  I will plan to visit at least three art museums on my upcoming trips.  Mira shares not only a love of music - and a talent for piano - with her mother, but also a deep passion for the visual arts.

4.  I simply must spend some time on Bartok's blog and website: intricately inviting, just as the book is.

Esperanza Rising by Pamela Munoz Ryan

1.  Renew my membership in Southern Poverty Law Center, a wonderful organization that not only prosecutes hate crimes - often risking their lives to do so - but defends the rights of migrant and not-so-migrant farm workers.  They also publish a Teach Tolerance magazine resource for teachers.

2.  Use the Coalition of Immolakee Workers site to email Fred Meyer's (a local grocery/general merchandise chain) about supporting farm workers by allowing produce prices to rise slightly in order to offer humane wages.  I'll also print out a letter to bring to the TJ's store manager about it as well.  Materials for other stores and a map of what's in your area are available here too.  (Thanks, Mom, for forwarding me info. from this site a couple of weeks ago:  I did email TJ's, but recently found out that Fred Meyer offers Kroger's products...)

Fires in the Mind by Karen Cushman

1.       Take part in online discussion at Education Weekly.

2.       Incorporate Ms. Cushman’s work into my curriculum.