Time flies!

*A view of the city streets of Quito....it was like a european city.

*The 5th grade class and their chilli-they won best costume!!

*The restaurant on the mountainside overlooking the Caribbean...ate here during my day on the mountain visiting a student.

*The group of four teachers who traveled to Ecuador together during fall break, at the top of the mountain in Quito-4100 meters up.

Time flies...these past few weeks...

I did a night dive as the first step in my advanced SCUBA certification which I will finish this weekend;

My 6th grade HYPERS created a dance/cheer for spirit day cheer-off to a portion of the song BoomBoomPow, complete with homemade T-shirts with "gotta Gecko" logos;

Student council held a school-wide chili cookoff that had chillis of all flavors from around the world and crazy costumes...and I was a judge;

I visited a student who lives on the mountain near our town that has breathtaking views of the Caribbean, to see his family's organic garden project...an hour drive each way on a switchback road;

Cheerleading started, and I am the coach-10 girls ages 8-11 who cheer American chants with a cute Spanish accent and end every cheer with a salsa style swing of the hips and a smile;

Fall break just ended-I spent 6 days in Quito, Ecuador with three other teachers....it is a quaint European type city with booming tourism and interesting Andean culture;

Spanish learning continues...for the past two weeks, I have been on a daily plan of at least 90 minutes of studying Spanish-I will conquer this language!

TIME FLIES in other ways too....

Two decades ago I was in Africa and...

I remember thinking that there was so much more to life and my "career" than what a village in Africa could offer me....now I see that I was a shallow person until that village humbled me.

I remember thinking that I had the corner on the market of "doing good" (from African villages to inner city kids)....now I realize that everyone needs someone to care, the rich kids I know are often more lonely than the village women and inner city kids I knew.

I remember thinking that I was so much smarter and more "with it" than my older teammates...now I lament the fact that I did not take time to soak up their wisdom.

I remember thinking that what I was doing was just temporary and that my "real life" was just around the corner after the next degree/move/job....now I soak in every minute of my current reality, with the goal of making each new day the best day of my life.

ahhh, yes, time flies....I can only hope that my wings are strong enough to stay high above the clouds in order to keep perspective as I continue on this adventure called my life.