Musings on Life and Living

[Note: This is a post originally made on my substituting blog; I wanted to share it here, as well, for those who don't visit Adventures.] For the first time in a very long time, I find myself struggling with words. How do I start this? What do I say? How do I say it? I usually write in a kind of extemporaneous way, with a general idea fixed in my but nothing specifically planned. But all of my words seem to come out too cliche and unoriginal. Many of you who come to read my blog are also friends on Facebook and/or followers on Twitter, or you may be one of my family members who actually reads this. So most of you know already. But I have a hunch that I have a few lurkers who are none of the above. I guess I can take my advice from  The Sound of Music  and just start at the very beginning. Well, okay, not the  very  beginning, but close enough to the beginning for my purposes. The past couple of weeks have been quite busy ones for me. I had several job interviews,...

As much as I would enjoy writing a post about The Hobbit , this is actually my annual post on my experiences at the Illinois Teen Institute just a couple of weeks ago. While many who read this blog are surely familiar with it, I am going to assume that there are at least a few visitors who may not know. So before I get into ITI 2011, let me give a brief recap: The Illinois Teen Institute is a week-long leadership camp during the summer, sponsored by the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association (it has taken me many years, but I think I've finally gotten the name down pat). ITI was started in 1974 and has been going strong ever since, making it the longest-running Teen Institute in the nation. As a Teen Institute, it is aimed at, well, teens. Students are able to attend as participants from the summer before their freshmen year of high school until the summer after they graduate. As a participant, teens are placed into two groups: First is a small discussion group of ...

The other day I was talking on Facebook about my hilarious adventures in looking for part-time summer work, most notably the fake job interview I went to in the morning. I guess it would be more accurate to describe it as a non-existent interview for a most-likely fake job, but whatever. In the course of the discussion, a dear family friend suggested I go into business for myself doing cleaning. I apparently never told her or her husband about the cleaning business that Gretch and I had owned for a year, run for about six months longer than that, and worked for for the course of three years total. I explained that, having been there and done that, I was never going to do it again. My father-in-law was surprised by my determination to never again own a cleaning business, particularly since I had seemingly enjoyed it when I did. Here's the thing: I did enjoy being a small business owner. I did enjoy having a cleaning business. Despite the headaches, the heartaches, the stress, ...

Last night (Friday), Gretch and I went to one of our local County Market grocery stores with two other couples with whom we are good friends to attend a seminar on couponing. Now, to some of the older readers of our blog, this probably sounds like a silly thing to do on a Friday night. After all, what is there to learn about coupons? I remember a time in my life when my sister and I would sit with our mum on the living room floor, each armed with a pair of scissors, and spent an hour or so clipping coupons. This was a labour-intensive task because, with several paper carriers in the family, we had access to many newspapers every day, including the coupon-laden Sunday edition. So clipping coupons was a big deal. And yet, I really don't have many recollections of seeing Mum use the coupons when we went shopping (and we did go shopping with her quite often). It may have been because we seemed to do a large bulk of our grocery shopping at either Sam's Club or Aldi, neither of whi...

I posted this on my substituting blog today, but I wanted to share it with my family and friends who do not regularly visit Adventures in Substituting : Today is Memorial Day here in the United States of America, and so it is that all government buildings are shut down, including the schools. It is a day to reflect upon the great sacrifices made by men and women throughout history in the defense of our nation. I tend to avoid any overt religious commentary on this blog, for the simple fact that I wish to focus on my work as an educator, more specifically so as a substitute teacher, but I thought I'd make an exception today. I figure that if we truly believe that we are "one nation under God" then it is totally okay for me to bring up my own faith every now and then. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--a church commonly known to many as "the Mormon Church" because of our belief in the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon as an addi...

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and our ward had a Sacrament meeting devoted to music and messages about the events leading up to and following the Saviour's death and resurrection. Gretch and I are in the ward choir, so we were a part of the music. And last week I was asked to be one of the speakers. I know that we use the word "talk" in the LDS church to describe sermons, but I like to think of my talk as my Easter sermon. The topic I was given was... actually, no; I'm not going to say what my topic was. It annoys me when people do it in their talks, so it would be silly to do it now. For those who continue reading, I'll let you decide what my message was. I gave no formal title to my sermon. When I am given the opportunity to speak in Sacrament meeting, I spend all of the time between the invitation and the day of the meeting contemplating the topic. I read what the Scriptures have to say about the topic, I read relevant passages from books I have acquired, and ...

As I am pretty certain everyone reading this blog knows, I am an active participant on several different blogs, many of them related to religion, politics, education, and social issues. In a recent blog post at By Common Consent, a Mormon blog, about immigration, a nugget was posted by a (to the best of my knowledge) drive-by commenter, ranting and raving about "illegals" ruining our nation. Here is the verbatim post: Do illegals pay social security? Millions of dollars are sent back to Mexico to their families. And their are jobs besides farm jobs that that citizens haven’t done because wages have been depressed by importing them at a cheaper rate. A condition of higher unemployment means that any race, Irish etal takes opportunities from those who first deserve them. Eventually, the citizen would take any job to survive if they hadn’t already been taken by then. If no citizen needed that job, then I wouldn’t care about that aspect of it. But their is a coverup of statistic...

It is a few days past the middle of April. We had some wonderfully warm and sunny days, then the weather turned north and it got cold, rainy, and grey. Last night we had severe thunderstorms that knocked out power in some communities (although, fortunately, not ours). We are among the many of North America who really wish spring would just get here and stay for a couple of months and then turn into summer before it cools off again and we prepare for another winter that will, inevitably, be cold and miserable. Back when I was in high school (over ten years ago--that's right: this May is the 10th anniversary of my high school graduation), I was actively involved in the school plays and musicals as the Chief Spotlight Operator. I had tried out for a play my freshman year and, upon not making it, was encouraged to sign up to do lights with my friend Jacob. The current spot light operators were both Seniors, so the drama/art/woodworking/who-knows-what-else teacher, Mr. Hershberger, af...

A thought has been running through my mind this morning and it doesn't seem to be planning on leaving any time soon. I have things I need to get done (such as applying for more jobs for the coming school year), so I am hoping that this may help me at least share the thought well enough that I can worry about other things. The thought is really more of a question. Who am I? Who are you? How do I define myself? How do you define yourself? So often in our lives, we have opportunities to introduce ourselves to new people. I've mentioned before how I have this habit of introducing myself as Alex Valencic but, if I am writing my name, it is always Alex T. Valencic. After sharing my name, it is inevitable that someone will want to know more about me, and the first thing they ask is what I do. How we respond to this question says a lot about what we think of ourselves, I think. When someone asks me what I do, I respond by either saying I am a teacher or I am a professional educat...

It has been nearly two months since a real update on the blog here. If all of your knowledge about our comings and goings comes from our blog, I'm sorry I've been so lax in keeping things updated. Gretch and I have both been really busy in the most wonderful of ways. Gretch has continued to love her work with AmPride Communications, using her skills at graphic design in awesome ways. AmPride recently published two of their magazines, American Concierge and Community Concierge , which has marked the first time her name has appeared in a professional piece as a designer. One of the coolest parts of her job has been being able to use her skills as a typographer. Someone else in the company wrote all of the copy for the magazines, but Gretch was the one who placed all of the copy (referred to as typesetting, even if she isn't actually setting type the way folks did way-back-when). She also designed several of the ads in the magazines. With both magazines printed, she's now...

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