Skip to main content

Going Public (again)

New year--new blog. After nearly a year's absence from my blog at laurie-roberts.com, I am ready to enter, yet again, into this strange world of going public with private thoughts.  For now, I have given up on finding the perfect template, the ultimate subtitle, the ideal font.  It's time to stop stalling.  It's time to write.

This photo was taken by my dear friend and honorary brother, Simon, about a year ago. This is Kellogg, Idaho, town of my birth. Even though I left Kellogg nearly a decade ago, it still has a hold on my heart. This is where I learned to sing with passion and to write the songs God poured into my head and my heart. This is where I taught for the first 15 years of my nearly 25-year career. And this is where I ran, and ran, and ran. 

I am starting this new year, this 2012 (30 years after my graduation from Kellogg High School) with renewed passion for singing, teaching, and running. I'll write about those passions, and whatever else strikes my fancy, for the next month.  (I'm sticking with that short-term goal for now.) 

And now for the hard part . . . going to push that "publish post" button.

Comments

  1. TammyJanuary 1, 2012 at 7:34 PM

    I believe I am your first official follower. I'm looking forward to your posts. Those happen to be three things I enjoy too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Laurie RobertsJanuary 1, 2012 at 7:43 PM

    Woohoo! A follower! Thanks, Mac.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nikki MathewsJanuary 1, 2012 at 7:56 PM

    Hey Laurie and Tammy,
    I will be your second follower...maybe it will make me keep writing...you two are inspirational!! =)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Laurie RobertsJanuary 1, 2012 at 8:07 PM

    Thanks, Nikki! It's great to hear from you, my friend!

    ReplyDelete
  5. AndreaJanuary 1, 2012 at 8:28 PM

    Good luck. I will look forward to your posts.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Gathering Around the TableJanuary 1, 2012 at 10:46 PM

    I look forward to reading more of your private thoughts made public.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Simon MillerJanuary 2, 2012 at 12:35 AM

    Love the first post. I would like to try to blog (read and write) more regularly. I'm hoping to spend less time on FB and more time blogging. Amy has kept our blog www.vandalgrads.com updated very well. I hope to continue to contribute there and spin off another blog as well. Here is to a fantastic 2012 Coach R.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nita JoJanuary 2, 2012 at 6:09 AM

    So happy to visit your new blog! I'm looking forward to reading more!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Debra SmithJanuary 2, 2012 at 9:07 AM

    I'll follow! And maybe, one day, I'll even venture into the fray myself.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On This Day

It was a very busy, long morning. I had back-to-back-to-back conferences with kids and parents and my principal that filled every break. Still, classes went mostly well, and I felt like I sort of knew how to teach. Then I went to cnn.com just as lunch was starting--just 5 minutes to spare before I had to meet parents. Wow. Just wow. I struggled to keep myself together. I didn't want to be crying when I met with the parents. But children--little children--shot and killed . . . . The parents were lovely, by the way, asking great questions about their son and telling me how much he likes my class, which really surprised them, because he's a math/science guy. Turns out he thinks I'm funny. I went straight to the church after work to continue working on our Christmas program. It's a huge undertaking, and I don't know how anyone could do it alone. I left feeling grateful for many hands and heads that make light work. And then I went to the Hungry Onion
12 comments
Read more

Believe in Your Seed

Twenty-five years ago, she was a student in my 10th-grade English class in Kellogg, a small mining town in Idaho’s panhandle. Now, she is an educator herself  — an elementary teacher in the same large district where I teach high school English. And today, she stood in front 3000 employees of the Boise School District and delivered a keynote address. Her speech was, to say the least, inspiring. It was expertly crafted — full of story, wit, insight, and charm. Her delivery was seamless, vivid, funny, and, quite frankly, better than any such talk I have heard in 31 years of opening meetings. (I say this as someone who is particularly passionate about public speaking. In fact, public speaking has become one of my greatest passions — both as a teacher who helps students craft presentations, and as someone who dreams of doing exactly what Sonia Galaviz did today.) As she spoke, I experienced her speech on several levels. I was the veteran teacher inspired by a somewhat younger t
5 comments
Read more

I'm Counting

I can picture myself as a preschooler (back when preschool literally meant "before school"), discovering that I could count all the way to 100. What a joyful revelation! Forty-some years later, counting is still an important part of my life. I find comfort and joy in numbers.  I love watching the balance on my mortgage go down--even though it moves very, very slowly. And budgeting night is something I look forward to every month. In fact, I've been known to use it as a reward for myself: grade 20 essays and I get to budget! When I have a pile of essays to grade I make stacks of five or ten (depending on how long the essays are), and I give myself a reward for every stack (10 minutes to eat or watch television, for example).  To manage those really big jobs (like the senior research papers, which take about an hour each) I use a quota system. Once upon a time I thought grading 15 research papers in a week was a reasonable quota, but then my AP numbers grew
9 comments
Read more