Walk Like an Egyptian

(Article first published as Week 13--Walk like an Egyptian on Technorati. This is Week 13 chronicling my training for the 3-day for the Cure.)

Training went fairly well this past week considering I spent a few days visiting my sister in the beautiful town of Castle Rock, Colorado.

My sister, who is a nurse, was a tad bit worried about me continuing my training for the 3-day for the Cure, especially after last week's stupidity that left me and my walking buddies near heat exhaustion. But after assuring my sister that (1) it was much cooler here than in Texas (2) I would bring water and a cell phone (3) I had my emergency money and (4) I was familiar with some tips on how to avoid high altitude sickness, I marched on my merry way.

I am happy to report that so far my training here has been uneventful. I had planned to design one of my training walks into town with a little side trip to Dream Pastries until a friend pointed out that the benefits of any training walk would quickly be negated by all that sugary goodness. I swear some people are just killjoys.

One highlight of my trip was going to the King Tut exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. The exhibit was not only stunning, but I learned a few things, too, while listening to Harrison Ford's soothing voice on the $5 audio tape relaying interesting tidbits of information about the exhibit.

One such miscellaneous tidbit said how the Egyptians had a pretty good knowledge of the body and its organs--all except the brain. Yep, apparently they didn't think much of Mr. Grey Matter and tossed Mr. Brain aside instead of storing it in one of those nifty canopic coffinettes--miniature coffins that housed internal organs.

Instead, the Egyptians viewed the heart as the most important organ. It was the heart that was weighed against the Feather of Truth to determine if a person's entrance was granted into the afterlife or sent to the Devourer of the Dead.

I guess I have to agree with the Egyptians about the importance of the heart. When people ask me why I'm willing to participate in this 60-mile walk to fight breast cancer, I can spout off statistics and tell you that more than 1.3 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer globally each year, more than 465,000 die from the disease each year and that a woman dies from breast cancer every 68 seconds.

But for me, it still remains a matter of the heart.

Crazy Stupid, St. Bernard & Jack

My life hovers somewhere between crazy and stupid, and quite frankly, I’m not sure which wins in the worse category–the crazy or the stupid. Perhaps for T.S.Eliot, April may have been the cruellest month, but for me, let’s just call it crazy stupid. (Less poetic I know, but true.)

I had written a bunch--OK, so maybe not a bunch…perhaps one or two–very clever posts in my head, but promptly forgot them. You see, I was unable to access my blog and not because of the Information Superhighway Gatekeepers Bess and her sidekick St. Bernard. Nope. It was German Shepherd Jack (notice the lack of “saint” in front of his name).



You see, Jack, my 90-plus pound, 1-year-old shepherd apparently decided he could provide a better filter for our Internet connection by just eliminating it.


Now, I’m sure you’re pondering what, if anything, this has to do with education. Well, I had a lot of time to think since I was unable to access the internet (not necessarily a good thing--the thinking that is). Any way, Jack’s appalling behavior provided an interesting comparison between his lapse in training and my students. Now, pah-leese before you sick the PETA people on me for comparing animals to humans, just bear with me.

A few weeks ago, Jack decided he didn’t want to come in when called. Instead, he decided he preferred to stand just out of reach by the door. He also decided that he preferred to mock his humans by peering around the corner in hopes of a rousing game of chase. When we didn’t succumb and left him outside unattended, Jack decided to disconnect the internet connection.

I spent quite a bit of time talking to my dog training instructor and my dog expert sister, Maggie Bonham. My dog trainer–not unlike our student’s parents–asked me, “What did you do to him?”

After much analysis, we decided that Jack trained us to respond to his behavior instead of him responding to us. So now we have to unlearn this dance we’ve created.

Of course, all this got me thinking about my classroom and the classrooms of my peers, and I thought that perhaps sometimes when things aren’t working–maybe, just maybe–we should re-examine who has trained whom.

Just a thought.

Meanwhile, my husband thinks next time I should just buy a shock collar. I’m not sure if he meant for Jack or the kids.