annual TAKS test hiatus

what up peeps. {long exhale} i. am. swamped. will return after TAKS (texas' state reading assessment) on march 5th.

real quickly though...i'm super excited-tay and i are going home (hawaii) in august for 2 weeks. {beaming} meeting up with stac in oakland and crossin' the pacific together. thanks ann, for organizing that! we can't wait!!!

du-OOOODE!!!

am practically hyperventilating right now. the personal and professional to-dos are swirling around my brain like a tornado and i'm stressin' big time. (breathe in, breathe out grasshopper) lookin' for some inspiration to calm down...ahh, and i know just the thing.

while growing up, my dad was a huge, no, MAJOR fan of the show, kung fu with david carradine, aka "grasshopper". we would watch it religiously, as a family, eating hot peach turnovers and ice cream (not very kung fu-ish, but it was dad's favorite dessert). yes, it was not the kind of show a female adolescent would yearn to watch, but surprisingly i enjoyed it. funny thing-sometimes when things are stressful or hectic and i'm looking for a way to make light of the situation and bring my heart rate down, i think back to the show and try to remember some of the masters' words of wisdom. their homilies are so freakin' deep that it helps me downplay the current situation for a minute to "center" & motivate myself to do what needs to be done. that, and i love that it references my chinese heritage, notorious for the tranquil way of living {jules, i don't know where that goes when i'm disciplining @ school!}. :)

here's a snippet (that references how grasshopper got his name) so you can see what i'm talking 'bout:


{tightly closing my eyes, desperately trying to listen for my heartbeat. hmmm, all i hear is my dvr's quirky noises-like it's recording something} some day, master po, just not today!