today two of my tutoring sessions canceled on me. at first i was a bit irritated since a) i prepped and drove down there and b) i had no other plans for those 5 hours so had to think of something to do. but luckily today happened to be a beautiful sunny, warm day in Milwaukee and after striking out with a few phone calls i decided just to go to the lake alone and find something to do. i drove to Lake Park and took a windy, short road down to Lake Drive (one of my favorite roads in Milwaukee...too bad it's so short) and noticed some people walking along side it and realized that in all the years of driving down that road, i never noticed a trail. So i found a place to park and took the trail and then walked along the lake and found another short trail that took me back up from lake drive. i walked to the water tower on north and then back down to the lake and back to my car at Lake Park. I'm really glad i did it. There were a lot of people out and about enjoying the sunshine and the warmth. It was nice to see so much life and pleasure along Lake Michigan on one of the first days of spring here. It made me appreciate being back here more, but at the same it really made me miss Okinawa and the indescribable beauty of the water as it sparkles under the sun as you drive along Route 58. So, bitter and sweet today.

I discovered a new site for myself for keeping track of my reading. I decided that I needed a good way of organizing notes about the books I read, especially if they're young adult books and I think they'd be good to use in a class room at some point. I did a brief search and found goodreads.com. After a few minutes of perusal I decided that it's exactly what I needed. It's a nice, clean design and allows for writing reviews, notes to myself, connecting with friends who read, and also being able to categorize my books under numerous "shelves" which will make it easier later to exactly what i'm looking for. so here's a little widget from that site with the first book i added.

i was at schools 4 out of 5 days this week. The highlight was reading a Dr. Seuss book to 20 2nd graders. Made me consider the possibility that I chose the wrong age group to certify in. Hmm...

This weekend was the graduation and my favorite class at Ogimi JHS took their leave and I am sorry I wasn't there to see them off. Hopefully my message was read to them during the ceremony and they were glad to hear from me. Perhaps, I'll visit in 5 years or so and see them all for the 20th ceremony in the village. That'd be nice.