I had dubbed this the year of experiments. I guess part of that has been just saying yes to almost anything (except what I definitely don’t have time for, or would compromise my personal code of ethics.)

Here are the things that I can remember that I’ve said yes to (there are probably other things that I won’t remember until the middle of the night), and how they worked out (in the order I remember them):

• Running a half marathon – I’m still in training for this one. I’m upping my mileage this month (November 2014) to 20+ miles per week. Next month, longer runs then earnest training starts in January. The goal is to finish the Colchester Half, which is February 28. I will run the Middletown Half  in April for time. I may even do others.
• Early Morning running. I have a friend who was training for the NY Marathon who invited me to run with her group at 5:30 in the morning. Now I run with them three or four days a week. Running with someone beats the heck out of running alone.
• Pink nails: I got my nails done at a Manis for the Cure event at my school. My FB post:

Today my yoga instructor (who knows me well enough to) asked me why I had (bright pink) nail polish on my fingers.

Fortunately, she asked near the start of class, so I had enough time to untangle my thoughts on this and articulate an answer after class.

The reasons are listed in the order that I’d use with someone I don’t know (but of course I KNOW you).

I strongly suspect that the other men in the school who joined in (five that I know of) share some of these.

1) To support the fund raising efforts of three amazing students and one amazing colleague.

2) To show my students (and anyone else who notices) that it’s worthwhile to step outside your comfort zone to help others. Students need to see adults model this.

3) To offer a version of masculinity that honors and supports the feminine. Our society needs much more of this.

4) I kind of like nail polish.

I work with and among some of the best people ever.

Next adventure? Getting duct-taped to the wall Thursday.

• Getting duct taped to the wall. This was scary for me, I arranged for an evil hoard (of one) to protect me, and had a back up posse of about 6 teachers to make sure that I stayed healthy and safe. Here’s the FB post:

How I spent my lunch today. This went way better than I imagined it would. Special thanks to my evil horde (there to protect me) and their backup posse. (You know who you are and I love you all.)
The kids were great. The engineering not so much. There’s are reason for the E in STEM. It held for about 30 seconds before I started to slip. The first lunchers got some ‘splainin to do (really? twisted tape in the base layer?).
I feel really bad for one student who is going into engineering, and wasn’t there until second lunch. He looked at me and said, “I could hold you up there with half that amount of tape.” And he could, too. Sadly, it finally took almost twice as much tape as there was then. (Also, sorry if I missed anyone who was there. It was really busy.)

• co-moderated a professional development work shop on Grading reform. That went well. Lots of good discussion.
• Jumped into lake pocotopaug in 34 degree weather with 20 mile an hour winds. Waiting around for it to happen was the hardest part.
• Gong meditation. This was pretty good. I’m going to do this again. It is like being in a safe thunder storm. You don’t know when the gong is going to happen. Time passed very quickly.
• Yoga nidra – this is an hour of relaxation meditation without movement. Of all the things I’ve done, this was the most difficult for me. I ran into pain in my arm after about half an hour. I also kept falling asleep. (Sleep deprived that weekend me thinks. Left the session more stressed than I went in. It took almost 24hrs (and another regular yoga class) to get back right again.