My most memorable teacher was my 4th grade teacher.  Her name was Mrs. Leale.  She was very sweet, spoke to us like we were people, and planned fun activities for us.  I remember my friend was in another class and her class did not do this major art project.  My class did. We got to build totem poles as part of our Native American unit.  Mrs. Leale also helped me get organized. I try to pay this forward by helping my students stay/get organized as well.  Mrs. Leale passed away a few years ago of cancer. I see her daughter sometimes around town and always say hello.  When she told me that her mother had passed, I made a point to tell her how much I appreciated her mom and what a great teacher she was.

I am passionate about people.  Everything I enjoy involves being with people.  Teaching is about helping learn and grow. I believe that skills and knowledge are the most valuable gifts you can give someone.  Photography involves people.  Looking at am picture can help someone heal, help someone mourn, inspire someone to create, to think, to rethink, and to see things differently.

I am passionate about experiences. New experiences create new memories, and I love making memories with family and friends.  Connecting with others makes me feel alive.  Materials things are easily discarded, but friends and family are priceless.  My grandmother taught me that. An experience is only as good as the people you are with. I love traveling and meeting new people. I want to learn as much as I can from others so that I may learn more about myself.  Each of my friends and family members adds something to my life.

I am passionate about my marriage.  While my husband and I had a tumultuous relationship for many years (growing pains), he is my biggest cheerleader. He does not stand on the sidelines with pom poms, but cooks, cleans and does laundry while I am out photographing, teaching zumba, and getting a doctorate.

If I wasn’t a teacher, I would be a full-time photographer.  I crave a creative outlet and enjoy being surrounded by beauty and light.  If If I wasn’t teaching, I would be a professional dancer.  I love music and movement, and the emotion it can provoke.  Dancing is like therapy.

If I wasn’t a teacher, I would be publicist.  I am good at organizing and follow through, and can’t handle many tasks on my plate at once. I am interested in the media and critically examining how media swallow up those who have achieved fame.  I think it would be interesting to work along side someone who was a public figure.

If I wasn’t a teacher, I would be a graphic designer, and play on Adobe Photoshop all day! Need I say more??

If I wasn’t a teacher, I would be a travel blogger, and visit new and exotic places while documenting my travels.  I would also focus on food.

If I wasn’t a teacher, I would be a diplomat, taking the international political community by storm. I would want to oversee the mission of ending world hunger and poverty.

But I am a teacher, and I hope that I can inspire my students and community to follow their big dreams!

Hitting the jackpot!!!

That would be like my dream comes true. The first thing I will do is save some money so I can pay my tuition fee in college and my husband can go for his PhD degree. The second thing I will do is open bank account for my two daughters and save some money for their college. Then with the rest of the money, I will pack my bags and hit the road to see the Seven Wonders of the World. I will take as much time as I need to satisfy my thirst of knowledge and enjoy the creation of human being. I will buy a house from where I can see the beach. I want to wake up by the sound of birds chirping and smell of the beach water. I will donate some money to my village so that a hospital can be build. My grandmother died of cancer because of lack of treatment. I will donate some money so that poor people in my village can get treatment.

Hitting the Jcckpot will be: a dream come true, a time for needed vacation and relaxation. I think i work very hard and for me to get this money will give me the time to take a well deseved vacation, enjoying myself with friends and family. I however will not quit my job as you have to think of the unexpected and the money will finish eventually. I will try to invest my money into a business. Particularly a pastry shop, a catering hall or mini healthy food resturaunt and that offers like salads and wraps (simple heathy treats). Of course i get myself out of debth, and secure some money aside for my future and immediate family. I would also donate funds to the poor and programs that encourage females that are trying to uplift thems. At this point I have a crappy van so i buy myself a new car, a house and payoff my mom’s house. What every money is left will just stay in the bank until I see it fit to dispose of it.   🙂

Hitting the Jackpot would be surreal but nice. Of course after Uncle Sam takes his share there would be enough left. First an foremost I would contribute ten percent of  winning to my church. Secondly, I would payoff my students loans and donate a portion to charity. Overall, I would share the wealth amongst my family, and friends. Whatever is left I would travel to different countries with mygirls. As far as having a huge home and fancy car which I’m not into. I perfer a one family  home in a nice neighborhood. I would keep my car and live a normal life as possible.

A memorable teacher that I had was Mr. Bines. He taught Travel and tourism, and History. I enjoyed going to his class everyday. He taught with so much passions. He always had a smile and was very friendly. He would showed us pictures of his travels.  He was very approachable, and always welcomed us. His teaching inspire many of us. I enjoyed our trips that we took with him. He was very protective of the class. He wanted us to enjoyed ourselve and be safe. He encouraged me to be the best student that I can be. Unfortunately he passed away. I know that he made an impact in my life and I will never forget him.

A Memorable Teacher

The schooling system and the student-teacher relationship in Bangladesh are very different than in New York. We were afraid of the teachers and never asked for help because asking questions was considered rude, but it never stopped me from learning by myself. The school I attended from first through 12^th grade was St. Francis Xavier School. We had separate schools for girls and boys. We had to stand up when the teacher entered the classroom and when participating in the class. We had to memorize poems, and almost the whole textbook for each course. The teacher would call on students. If the student failed to recite the answer word for word from the book, she had to spend the rest of the class standing, or she had to stand outside of the class so that other students and teachers would see her. Sometimes teachers would beat us with a ruler on the knuckle. Sometimes we had to write “I will never come to school unprepared” 100 times, or we had to hold our ear lobes and keep standing for the rest of the class.

When I was in Bangladesh, I never loved math. I hated trigonometry. I hated proving the sides of an Isosceles Triangle, or finding the area of a rhombus or parallelogram, and I especially hated the Pythagorean theorem. I could not get the idea of proving a²+b² = c², especially when I had to memorize the whole proof from the textbook. I was in seventh grade at that time. My math teacher, Mrs. Lokhkhi Rani called on me to come to the board and prove the Pythagorean theorem. Mrs. Rani was in her 40’s. She would enter the classroom like a tornado and start saying, “Children, open page number 50 and start doing problems 1 through 15.” She would walk around and see what the students were doing. If she saw any students stuck with one problem, she would slap the student on the cheek or back.

When I went to the board to prove the Pythagorean theorem, my brain and body froze. I tried to remember the first step of proving the theorem. I could not remember anything because I did not understand the method; I had just memorized it. When Mrs. Rani stood next to me, my whole body started shaking. I was ready for the slap, but she surprised me and ordered me to go back to my seat. I was surprised and could not believe that she did not humiliate me. After that incident, I started going for tutoring and tried to understand the methods of proving trigonometric functions instead of trying to memorize them. Even though I did not receive 90’s, I passed with a good grade. Mrs. Rani taught me to think “outside of the box.” I will never forget Mrs. Lokhkhi Rani and that day.

A memorable teacher that I have immense respect for is Dr. Choi from Queens College.  She was the teacher for the Science of Foods class in the dietetic program.  I met Dr. Choi when it was her first semester at QC; she took her job very seriously.  Exams were challenging and lectures were fun and enlightening.  Dr. Choi is a true professional who dedicates her time and interest towards each individual student.  She has a cheerful disposition, which makes her very approachable, but what impressed me most was her understanding of chemistry and biology in relation to food.  In addition, her achievement at earning a doctorate places her in a category of very intelligent people.  I would like to follow in Dr. Choi’s footsteps and possibly teach nutrition in a university at some time.   I was honored to have my picture taken with Dr. Choi at my graduation…  It is the only picture that was taken that day – and it truly was a meaningful picture to remember a very special event.

Choosing a career path was not easy for me. When I was in high school, I focused on taking more science classes, but I did not know what I want to do in the future. When I started college, I was still confused about declaring my major. I chose computer science as my major because my husband told me so. I was never happy about choosing that major. Then I took a general chemistry class during my second semester. I enjoyed the class so much that I changed my major to biochemistry. I continued my undergrad as biochemistry major for 3 semesters. Then I got pregnant and took a semester off from college because I had a very complicated pregnancy.

This pregnancy changed my vision of life. I started to look at life differently. Because of my complicated pregnancy, I had to follow a very strict and specific diet. I had to see a dietitian on a regular basis during the entire pregnancy. Before I met my dietitian, I was not sure about what a dietitian actually does. I realized how important a dietitian’s role is to help people live a healthy life. I gave birth to a healthy baby girl with the help of my dietitian.

Finally, I knew what I want to do and which profession I want to choose. When I went back to school after giving birth, I decided to chance my major again. I wanted to become a dietitian from the bottom of my heart. I choose dietetic major because I was passionate about becoming a dietitian. I never looked back after that. My dedication helped me to complete my bachelor degree in dietetic and currently I am doing my masters in nutrition. I am glad that I chose this profession because I can build a healthy eating habit for my family and the community that I will work with in future, and live a healthy life.