To kick off the holiday season, my Mom and I rode Amtrak up to New York City on Saturday and saw the Radio City Christmas Spectacular show. Despite the rain, we had a fabulous time seeing the show, munching on cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery, window shopping in Saks 5th Avenue’s Shoe Department,  waiting in line at the Nintendo Store so I could get some fabulous goodies for Peter, and having dinner at the Tavern On The Green restaurant in Central Park (it’s closing – how sad!). While I was there I took a lot of pictures with my little point and shoot and camera phone, and took a few videos with my phone as well. I loved being able to back everything up with Microsoft’s new MyPhone service. Because of it I’m able to share this photo since I could download it from the site (I left my hard drive at work – oops).

Our $5 umbrella from the NYC street vendor yelling “UMBRELLA, UM – BRELL – A!” reminded me of trips to New York with my parents as a kid. It kept us nice and dry!

Goals

I just found out that I was selected to be the Department Chair for a group of departments known as the Information Technology Academy at my school. I am so excited about this! This means that I have to update my goals list for the next 5 years – you can read about my goal plan here.

Interviewing a Leader

I had the opportunity to interview my school district’s Director of Business today with another colleague who is participating in the Aspiring Leaders Program. It was really cool to have the chance to sit down with him and hear his thoughts about leadership. This was the first time I tried recording a interview (with permission, of course), as I thought I had to transcribe our conversation. That requirement has changed so now I just have to write a summary but I think having it to listen to will be helpful.

If you didn’t read my post that had the video about “The 5 Book” here then do that first before reading this post – it will make a lot more sense that way. You could also go to the publisher’s website here to learn more about it as well.

After doing some thinking, and reading this book, I have decided that I would like to create a list of personal and professional goals/accomplishments/wishes that I would like to focus on for the next five years. I will definitely add to this list. I don’t plan to delete anything but if I decide I might like to accomplish a goal in a different way I will just edit it with italics after the original goal. I’ll keep linking back to this list as I add on to it and accomplish my goals. Once I’ve met the goal I will change the font color to red and an accomplished date. 

1. Participate in a Leadership Program in my school district – October 2009
2. Join a state level committee
3. Give at least 25 training workshops on topics related to Educational Technology (Workshop Dates, Places, and Topics: Nov.09-My School District-Blackboard for Beginners 
4. Learn to speak conversational Czech
5. Become a Google Certified Teacher
6. Attend at least 4 regional/national educational conferences
7. Improve my health by working out at the gym regularly
8. Visit Hawaii
9. Post to this blog regularly during the entire 5 years
10. Finish reading Anna Karenina
11. Get articles published at least twice into different education-related magazines
12. Become a department or cluster chairperson – November 2009 (Information Technology Academy Chair)
13. Run a marathon
14. Become comfortable taking pictures with the Manual setting on my cameras
15. Star in a photo shoot!
16. Learn more about running a business