Surprise Lesson of the Day.

Something I learned today.

Queries are HARD.

That is all. For now. More tomorrow....or soon, when I'm done being frustrated.

Vacation Writing Rocks...Mostly.

The last time I was on vacation (in the beautiful Bahamas...a place I basically had to be dragged out of) I managed to finish the first draft of my Middle Grade novel.

I was excited. It was the second book I'd ever finished writing and the first book I ever finished and went "Wow, this could actually be a published novel." (Unfortunately my first novel did not give me the same feeling. It is now trunked while I consider a rewrite).

The good news is, I'm on vacation again! (Doesn't being a teacher rock?) It's winter vacation and I have absolutely no plans. For the first time, I'm not traveling or going home (sorry, Mom). It gave me plenty of time to work on the second draft of my novel.

And I'm done! Yay! But I learned something from doing all this revising.

Revising is hard.

No wonder my students always refuse to do it.

All You Need is Love

It's been a hard few days. I think everyone around the world can admit to that. There's a lot I would like to say about Sandy Hookl, but most of it has been covered in much better words than I can ever put together, and I still feel a bit too emotional to talk about it.

Instead, I wanted to talk about something that I'm just as passionate about.

Islam.

I'll start by saying I am not Muslim. And I don't plan on converting. But I am married to a man who is Muslim. Which means my family is Muslim.  My students are also Muslim.

Dubai 7s!

It's been a while!

I have many excuses (I was lazy, I was busy, etc, etc), but I won't force you to listen to them.  Instead, I wanted to tell you about my trip to Dubai 7s at the beginning of December.

In a word: FUN!

I love the Dubai 7s. I've gone every year for the past four years. I'm not one to miss rugby tournaments, but I definitely refuse to miss the Dubai 7s. It is the be all and end all of rugby tournaments in the Middle East.

But let back up and explain it first.

So lets start with what is 7s? 7s rugby is  rugby played with 7 players from each team on the field. It's a big field. It's a game for sprinters (something I am not). It's fast paced, and only lasts 14 minutes.  Like 15s rugby, 7s is played by scoring trys at the goal line of the opposing team, but you have to do it while passing the ball backwards.

Confusing, right? I didn't understand it until I played my first tournament. Now, I feel like a pro (but there's still so many rules I don't know!)

Done!

 

I did it! Woot! The novel isn't done, but I made 50,000 words. I'm excited that I did it. And to celebrate, tomorrow I'm off to Dubai! Can't wait!

Kelly and the Battle of (the half) Marathon

        Today was the big day. No, you don't understand. It was a BIG day. Actually, let me try to use a bigger font to show how much of a big day it was. It was a BIG day. There, that should do it.

 I've spent the last three months training for a half marathon. I followed the Hal Higdon program as closely as I could (there was a minor interruption for sickness, but mostly all went well).

My training often made me look like an idiot (running circles around my 2 km block. People would see me 8 or 9 times, just running in circles) and looking like I didn't know how to pace myself when I would sprint 2 minutes and then walk for a while.

But it all came down to today. Today was the day.

It was time to battle the Half-Marathon.

And what a day for a battle it was. It's 20 degrees (celsius) here. That's about 68F. So a bit hot for a race, but there were tons of water stations.

Day One!

Happy NaNo!

It's November 1st, which means fingers are now busy around the world.


This is what my classroom door looked like as of this morning: