Becoming Coco

Today I got to visit the world famous Getty Museum in Los Angeles. I needed to find a place where I could complete my TPA (Teacher Performance Assessment- aka a grueling 40 paged take home exam required to get a teaching credential) without going insane from the work overload.  It's absolutely beautiful here. It's set on top of a gorgeous L.A. Mountain range so we had to ride a super modern subway from the parking garage to the museum.  Right in the middle is this beautiful creek which built on a slope uses very little electricity by relying on gravity to bring the water trickling down the hill. The criss-crossing design is very modern and makes walking through the gardens feel like a maze, but without the frustrating getting lost part. Unless you find yourself lost in its inspiring beauty. My friend Abby and I found a great place to study here in a garden terrace right outside the cafe. It had beautiful views of the mountain. It's the perfect place to study. It's quiet...

If I keep track of all the delicious things I made maybe I'll remember to make them again someday. This tastes really really good. It's  a fried egg and bacon sandwich. It simply goes like this: The Bacon: 2 pieces of thick cut bacon and optional 1 piece turkey bacon  The Egg:                       My trick: After cooking the bacon 1/2 way I dump out the extra grease into a metal can. Then when they are finished I leave the new grease in and throw in an egg. I make the egg over-easy and fried in the bacon fat.  While it's frying I add parsley salt and thyme for flavor. The Toast: Toast two pieces of toast and now you need to coat them with: Mayo Or Butter Or for healthier options Olive oil Or Spreadable cheese (I like laughing cow) The Sandwich: Then add the egg and bacon, breaking up the bacon so it fits and there you have a fried egg bacon s...

I finally got my new bottle of GC in the mail after leaving it at a friends house. So now we are starting over.  My weight right now is :115.4 My BMI: 19.4 (low-normal range) My Body Fat %: 16.6 %  2 % points lower than before.  Maybe my somewhat healthy eating habits, my 4 days of walking 30 min or more and taking daily vitamins is helping. Or maybe the GC in my system from before is helping. Or both?  (All the supplements I take regularly, some are everyday, some are 1-2x a week) Let's wait and see. Also I'm keeping in touch with my friend to see how the supplement works for them.

Lets face it a salad is only as good as it's dressing. Too much and the salad is ruined, but just enough of the right type and the salad's deliciousness is multiplied to yum tastic heights in your mouth. I'm always looking for a good dressing and I finally found a great berry vinegrette. It's so good I want to put it on other things not just salad. I keep being tempted to put it on weird stuff like ice cream and cookies until I remember it's got vinegar in it. Anyway I got this dressing at Wal-Mart grocery and love it. It's "all natural" so it expires sooner than other dressings, but you really can't beat the price and low calorie amount. It uses real juices and fruit purees to get an excellent flavor. I used it on my berry and almond kale salad and it tasted amazing! I'm going to try spinach next. Now here is the only downside:  It uses "High Fructose Corn Syrup." If I knew that originally I...

So I had to take a break from my GC experiment because I accidentally left the bottle at a friends house who lives 2 hours away. They were curious so I just told them "hey why don't you keep them and see if it works for you?" And that's what they're doing.  As for me I've gained two pounds. It's such a small number that it could be natural fluctuation, or it could be that since I stopped taking the GC I'm gaining it back. Who knows? Anyway I've ordered some more bottles and they should be here soon. So we will find out later if it works completely on me. On the plus side now I can tell you if it works for my friend too!

I made it! I'm in Beijing airport at an Internet Cafe alone drinking Cappuccino and listening to C-POP. I think that officially makes me a World Traveler. I even took artsy pictures of my coffee with the background blurred to upgrade me to Eccentric World Traveler with a blog, because everyone knows once you start taking pictures of mundane objects in your travels you naturally start a blog about them. I could have an entire blog full of pictures of Failed English. I think I will include those here. On the plane I really wanted to photograph the in-flight television show "Spongebox Squarepants." Unfortunately you are not permitted to use your phone during the flight and a camera would just be rude to others around me. You will just have to imagine the fit of girlish giggles I had to repress at the sight of the intentional typo made by mis-translation. If you ask me the Chinese translation makes more sense, he is rather box-y. View from my window ...

Me singing for my students on a "fun" day of Business Ethics Is this really as Easy as this Looks? As I get closer and closer to completing my credential program and head into the world of teaching, I can't help but to feel a little scared. I am excited for the future and for finally being able to do the job which I am most passionate about, but the world of public school today, is a little intimidating. Sometimes school feels more like a war zone than the equalizing opportunity play field its supposed to be. Kids, teachers and schools are under the pressures of meeting high expectations in order to compete with the worlds statistics. Schools, districts and states are compared by percentages and data to show whether the U.S. lives up to the education standards of the rest of the world, when we don't new tests are created. New curriculum must be made to fit the new tests. Sometimes the curriculum expectations feel like they are set by warlords who imagine st...