‎"If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said that it'd be easy, they just promised it would be worth it."

- Andy Bell, Oasis.

Camping with 21 kids...

...Is an adventure. I spent the past four days hiking and camping in the White Desert of Egypt with a group of 8th grade students from Cairo American College. To be honest, I was blessed with a slightly lethargic group---I would have liked to have hiked longer and faster but we kept at a nice pace to observe the scenery and I got to know several of the students really well through long chats. We spent the week with an incredible tour guide, Ziad,

and had two jeep drivers and camel tenders with us to set up camp and cook great food each day. I slept under the stars, we scattered our sleeping bags all over the camp sites and soaked up an amazing night view of more stars than I've ever been able to see in my entire life. The whole desert by day looked like the moon, crazy white rock formations all around... really beautiful.. .

The week without technology, bathrooms, or beds led to a certain amount of complaining by the tweens, but by the end of the week, everyone had come to realize how great it was to be away from the fast paced world we live in. Personally, I loved it. I love getting away, cutting off connections that make life so hectic from day to day... I listened to silence (though often mixed with middle school chatter), sketched and journaled, and really took advantage of the Arabic speaking camp crew to learn more and more Arabic. I was actually understanding a good deal of conversations they had around the campfire the last night.... that's a good feeling. Definitely added kindling to the personal spark to learn the language that already existed within me...

It was nice to get away, but nice to come home last night too... My friends greeted me and welcomed me back home with a night out catching up and eating ice cream :) It's nice to be missed......... that's another sure sign you've made a home for yourself..... Already less than a week away until my next big trip all over Egyptland--Luxor, Aswan, Sinai.... Time to throw the hands in the air for the downhill plunge and laugh and exclaim my way through this month....

slow and steady wins the race

So my body won the battle yet again in my life and I spent the last week sleeping off an exhaustion throat-infection sickness. Guess I really can't run on full speed and expect to finish without a crash. Thank goodness for wonderful Egyptian friends bringing flowers and local antibiotics that actually worked...

I finally visited the Egyptian Museum last week-Incredible. We weren't "allowed" to take cameras inside, but I snuck in Premie and got a few shots and was shocked at how many camera clicks I heard and saw left and right. I really can't describe the feeling of walking into that overwhelmingly HUGE museum of egyptian artifacts... Hello Ramses and King Tut... what's up?


I feel as though I've hit that peak point in a roller coaster ride after you've been climbing and climbing and the nerves and excitement are building because you know any minute you're going to plunge down a breathtaking slope and hold on for dear life until the finish line. The month of November is upon me and I'm pretty sure the next time I sneeze or blink it will be over.

It's a month of traveling, and slowing transitioning out of my classes and spending more time in observation around other classes at CAC. The first trimester ends this week, I had my last classes with my beloved mixed media and exploratory groups yesterday... I know those mixed media kids will forever be in a special place in my heart as my first students... Boy did we have a good -tri-mester.

This month marks the beginning of a busy traveling schedule. I leave for the white desert at 5am on Monday with the 8th grade class for the middle school prime trip. No showers, stunning scenary, and plenty of hiking and bonding for 4 days. Should be an adventure :)

Soon after that follows the week long Eid break in which I'll be traveling to Luxor and Aswan, as well as visiting the beaches of Dahab on the Red Sea. Thanksgiving weekend will sum up some traveling with a trip to upper Egypt with Joan to visit her in laws in Minia and Malawi.

Before you know it, December will be here and I'll be 23. Time sure does fly when you're having fun. Look forward to incredible pictures and memorable stories from the road this month.

Salaam.....

The moments I live for.

"This class is about your own art. We learned to think out of the box. And how to use a different media in one masterpiece of art."
-6th grade mixed media student reflection
(possibly my favorite student if we teachers were allowed to have those)

"Miss Martens, why do you call it a piece of art?..."

...It's a masterpiece.

I have done it. I crossed that bridge, made it over the hump... Training wheels are falling off, wings are ready to fly. It's been a wonderful week as a teacher with classes filled with magical moments. The last few weeks have been such a weight...so busy, stressful, felt like nothing really quite went as planned (see, why plan?? jk). Somehow though, I pulled myself back together, woke my classes up, shifted us into the perfect position to make not just good art, but great art.... As my brilliant student in mixed media put it this week, they aren't "pieces" of art... they are masterpieces.

I really pushed my students this week.. more than I perhaps normally would have been comfortable pushing... and they responded... by turning their pieces of art into masterpieces. I am so proud of the art they produced, the way they worked, and how they allowed my guidance to move them forward. They proved that they have truly absorbed what I have been teaching them these past 6 weeks, and that it has made an impact on how they think not only in art but in so many parts of their lives.

I have always lived by the motto "it's about process, not product"...but this week I pushed my students and myself to not allow a weak product to represent such a rich process... Middle school and high school students alike, we're on a good page now, moving in a very good direction and pace... These kids are thinking like artists. And that my friends, is the ultimate goal.

Middle school art display is up and looking good for parent teacher conferences tomorrow. I think they'll like what they are seeing....

Reaching the top...

after the first two month climb through this student teaching experience. I'm liking the view so far (both in teaching and many views of the Cairo cityscape I've found) I've hit halfway in my teaching placement (actually half way plus one week).. I have two.5 weeks left of full time teaching in my classes to really wrap up some lessons, before the month of November traveling arrives and these last 9 weeks are going to *fly* by with a flash. I'm starting to actually seriously make a "to-do" list of things to visit here in Cairo before I leave and considering actually planning out when to do them to make sure I fit them all in.. though.. we all know how my planning goes...........

I've had a few really wonderful moments outside of the classroom with my students the last few days... Moments where I see them in their day to day activities (volleyball practice, soccer games, MS play, HS Green Team visit to the Garbage City recycling center, even simply buying ice cream at the mall)... It's connecting with students inside and out that really truly makes the link between teacher and student strongest.

This week I have parent teacher conferences to prepare grades and student reports for, projects to finish and display for said conferences, and new projects underway in my high school classes. Plenty to keep me busy, on top of that pesky teacher work sample still plugging along not quite complete.....it will be done November 1 though... that's the personal deadline, 10 week-ish-deadline from UNI, day I leave for the white desert, and day Kristi arrives from UNI (whom I'm hoping can take my lovely little beauty of a paper back with her)...

“Adventure is a path...

...Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

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So. I'm in the full grind of teaching 6 separate courses, in 3 separate classrooms, in addition to my after school art program and parent teacher conferences right around the corner when grades come due. On my toes? I think so. Treading water to stay afloat?... Perhaps...It's just one of those weeks where a few extra inspired words never did anyone harm... Those of you who have traveled may relate to these words as I have... There's more where these came from here... enjoy!

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“All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese