50 visits!

I have received 50 visits to this blog. Umm okay good start! Especially because I did not post a whole lot during October. This is what happens when you are coaching, in graduate school, doing a student teaching internship, swimming, and trying to recover from a broken wrist!
We talked about service learning in my methods course yesterday. This project (which I will NOT give up on!) is a compilation of several indirect service projects. It is almost service learning too, because it is linked to my curriculum right now!
I need to find some more open water swimmers...where is everyone?

One more week!!

One more week until I can SWIM swim, not kick swim. I am very excited! My kick has improved a lot. I've noticed that during breaststroke, which is my worst stroke and about 75% powered by kick, I feel nearly the same speed now as before when I was actually swimming. It will be exciting to put the pieces together now that my arm is (almost) all better!

Swim #1

I completed swim number 1 last weekend!
While the grand total has not been counted yet, I raised $40 and kicked 4725 yards.

Yes, kicked.

Yes, $40.

Last August, I was in a car accident and broke my left wrist (scaphoid fracture). It is almost better, but I had surgery on it and am not supposed to swim until mid-N0vember. I kicked the whole time. Our team member came by and she seemed touched that I was still there.

I would have liked to have raised more than $40, but my resources are still tapped from this June, when I asked everyone to sponsor me in the Chesapeake Bay Swim.

I need to come up with some fundraising ideas for future swims. Any ideas??

It was appropriate that the first swim started close to home, at the pool where I was a little Y swimmer.

90 minutes of kicking was fun...good way to get started on this endevour. If anyone has any ideas for more swims (and maybe hopefully someone out there is reading this?) please comment! Especially for swims during the winter. Open water swimming is tough in Maryland in the winter time!!

Plans for swim number one!

Looks like swim number one may up already! It will be a swim-a-thon, not an open water swim, for my friend Nancy. Nancy has ALS (Lou Gerig's Disease). She was a great friend to my mom when I was away at college, and she was upset because I was dealing with some of my own health issues, or just becuse I was away from home. Nancy would always ask how swimming was going when I came home on breaks, and couldn't wait for me to come and be a real Delmarva Dogfish.

The swim is two 90 min swims...who says I should do both?

Fundraising ideas are welcome too.

The swim is Sunday, Oct 26.

100 Swims Across the World

Well I must be certifiably insane. But then again, aren't most swimmers? 100 swims? The world? Huh?

On Tuesday night, Will Richardson came to Salisbury University for the E. Pauline Riall Lecture Series to deliver his lecture: Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts. He said that one of the best things for future educators (like me!) to do was to blog about something we were passionate about, something that you wouldn't just run into someone else onto the street doing the same thing. Own the skill of blogging, then it won't be fake in the classroom (once you can have the tech to do it).

I have some pretty good examples set ahead of me. I've been following cfhusband.blogspot.com for about a year now, and this will serve like a charity blog like 25 days to make a difference.

So back to the real purpose. 100 swims!!! I love open water swimming. I love how it takes you around the world, to lakes, oceans, rivers, and how you can go from one city to the next using only your body, a suit, cap and goggles.

Open water swims tend to raise money for charities. Last June I raised over $1500 for the March of Dimes in the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim.

A few of these 100 swims may be swim a thons in a pool, because they will raise money for a good cause.

So here we go...100 swims for 100 charities, all around the world!!!