Hello friends and family! What a month! School began one month ago, and I began teaching three calculus quiz sections and working on projects and courses of my own. Everything is right on schedule with work and school. I've been teaching the PREP class at the Tulsa Technology Center on Monday nights and it is going wonderfully! We have a great group of students who are eager to learn and improve their relationship skills.
On a personal note, Bobby had extensive dental surgery a week ago, and he has had some complications as well. The pain of dental work is some of the worst in the world, and he will have more procedures taken care of tomorrow morning. Please keep my husband and his healing in your prayers!
I've been on the phone a lot lately, speaking with other divorce support advocates from across the country about partnerships to take our missions to the national level. I've been talking to many people about grant money, although I'm not sure that is necessary, given the low cost of program implementation. My goal is that we would reach as many people with these support services. On the local level, I've been talking to guidance counselors at area schools to iron out the details of making a divorce support program a reality. On October 10, I'll talk with Mayor Kathy Taylor of Tulsa about my goals of establishing divorce support programs at every school in the state. It is a lot of work, and it is tough to do all of this as a full-time graduate student, TA, and with my family and social obligations, but it has been worth it. I'm looking forward to doing more!
On a lighter note, I sang the national anthem at a TU football game on Saturday night! It was a lot of fun and I think it went well. I took pictures with several students (I recognized them from Kep Hall, where I teach, but they didn't recognize me at first). Then all of a sudden, it clicked! I bet that I looked different to them with my hair curled, wearing make-up, my crown and my sash, as opposed to the no make-up, baseball cap look that I wear on a typical day at school. It's fun to get dressed up and feel like a queen, but it's also nice to show young women that while I love to feel beautiful, there is some substance there too. I'm also a volunteer and an advocate, and a future math professor and I'm proud of that. I love math and the elegance of logic. I also love challenging the stereotypes that beautiful women are dumb, or that in order to be successful, women must abandon their femininity.
My friend Janitha has a quote on her myspace page, which I copied and pasted into mine. It says, "Beauty gets attention but personality captures the heart." I think that not only does personality capture the heart, but substance captures the heart. I feel that as women, we can and should take pride in ourselves, including our appearance, femininity, intellect and character. You can be drop-dead gorgeous, but to be Miss or Mrs. Oklahoma, once you've captured someone's attention you must have something to say. We can be intelligent, driven, compassionate and beautiful. These qualities are not mutually exclusive. And we can also be successful in what is typically a man's field. Being a woman is an asset; it is not a hurdle to overcome.
I better go! I have a lot to do today - a meeting at 1:30, office hours, and class at 3:30, and then a marriage workshop in Broken Arrow. I've been busy but I love it.
I'll write again soon!
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