Tag: behavior

  • Listening and Observing (I Promise This Matters)

    Listening and observing—similar, but not the same. I don’t know why this has been living rent-free in my head, but it’s been there long enough that I should probably offer it coffee.  Which I have. Repeatedly. Ironically, this mental detour has forced me to listen to myself and observe the outcomes. So far, the results…

  • The Algorithm Knows I’m Hungry

    As much as I hate to admit it, I—like countless others of my kind—spend more time scrolling the socials than I care to say out loud. But I’m admitting it here today. The time spent scrolling is considerable. It’s not an addiction (and I know some self-anointed social media experts will roll their eyes at…

  • Before the Day Notices Me

    I’ve written about the morning quiet a few times, and usually that quiet is accompanied by coffee. And so here I am, writing about that morning quiet while enjoying said quiet…and coffee. There’s a particular kind of peace that comes from alone time and coffee just for coffee’s sake. Not a meeting. Not a reward.…

  • Standards, Grades, and Other Things We Pretend We All Agree On

    I sat through an administrator’s “clinic” the other day—one of those gatherings where the coffee is strong, the chairs are unforgiving, and the words learning standards are spoken with near-religious reverence. The agenda was precise. The slides were aligned. Everything, apparently, was measurable. My mind, however, was not. This is usually the part where one…

  • Coffee First. Then People.

    Coffee first. Then people. This isn’t a lifestyle choice. It’s a safety protocol.  Somewhere between waking up, getting ready for work, unlocking the classroom door, and logging into email, caffeine must be introduced into the system. Without it, words come out wrong, patience becomes theoretical, and facial expressions betray thoughts better left unspoken. Teachers aren’t…

  • Caffeinated, Distracted, and Somehow Not Famous

    I was pondering the life of an influencer over the holiday break—because why think about taxes, family, or existential dread when you can overanalyze people yelling at a tiny lens? And it hit me: these people, these camera-talking wizards, have an insane cocktail of confidence, courage, and apparently a complete disregard for the crushing humiliation…

  • I’m in No Hurry

    The day has come.We all knew it was coming.Nothing we could do to stop it. It was… inevitable. No amount of coffee was going to make a difference. Returning to work after a long break is a lot like waking up in a foreign country where you technically speak the language, but everything feels aggressive…

  • Shelved Dreams

    Shelved Dreams

    Writing a book was a long-held dream of mine—one I carried quietly for years. Not the kind of dream I announced out loud or chased with urgency, but one that lived in the background, tucked away between lesson plans, staff meetings, and stacks of papers waiting to be graded. It was always there, patient and…

  • Experimental Build: Human Edition

    A self-reflective observation made under the supervision of that Guy in the Mirror. There are days when the world goes sideways—days when it feels like the gods themselves are pacing around upstairs, knocking over furniture, arguing about whose turn it is to touch the big red button. Days when everything teeters on the edge of…

  • Me, My Thoughts, and That Morning Cup of Joe

    As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate the morning quite a whole lot more. Not the dramatic, cinematic kind—the kind you see in a travel magazine with the sunlight spilling over mountains—but the ordinary, quiet of a house that hasn’t fully woken up yet. The kind of quiet where the world hasn’t started asking…

  • Home Alone (Yeah, not that one…)

    Every now and then—usually when I’m sitting around minding my own business, sipping something cold, letting the world drift by—I’ll get hit with one of those memories from way back. No warning. No reason.Just… poof. A moment from my past rolls in like a lazy tumbleweed, makes itself comfortable, and says, “Remember this, dummy?” And…

  • The Hierarchy of Everyday Life (According to an Overcaffeinated Educator)

    Or: A Day in the Life of Someone Who Wakes Up Already Tired Let’s be honest: adulthood is basically a group project where nobody knows what’s going on, and the teacher—ironically—is you. And before any of that noble, inspiring educator stuff starts, there’s coffee. Always coffee. The alarm rings. You open one eye. The world…

  • Epic Quests Require Fries: A Charro’s Story

    After our performance at the closing of the Cattle Call Rodeo in Brawley, I rolled up to In-N-Out thinking I’d grab a quick bite. The place looked packed to the gills. Maybe not the best decision I’ve made, but hope is a dangerous thing.  I was still in my green traje de charro—embroidered jacket, gold…

  • Cooking: the world’s most delicious dehydration project

    Did y’all know that cooking is basically just strategically drying your food to a preferred edible status? That’s it. That’s the whole operation. We’ve spent centuries building cuisines, writing cookbooks, and inventing culinary arts, but at the end of the day, we’re just negotiating with moisture. Ever notice how we describe our food like it…

  • The Curiosity of Curiosity

    Curiosity is one of the first languages children learn. Long before they master full sentences, they’re pointing, tugging, and asking questions in a hundred different ways—“What’s that?” “Why?” “How come?” A child doesn’t just accept the world as it is; they poke at it, twist it, and try to make sense of it through their…