One year a student hid in my closet for 45 minutes waiting for me to go home. One of the most startling and rewarding parts of a high school teaching career has been all the former students who have kept in touch and still occasionally drop by to visit, even years later. Breaking the engagement with the other girl had nothing to do with meeting my wife (though it would have made a great story if it had!)ġ0. I was engaged to be married to another girl before I met my wife.ĩ. I never dated in high school because I lacked confidence with girls until my college years. (and yes, that’s a glimpse of the actual portrait below). I have a large painting of him hanging in my classroom, painted by a former student who gave it to me a few years ago. Gandhi has been a moral hero of mine since I was about 17 years old. On a teacher’s salary, we couldn’t afford lots of things and great experiences, so we chose to give her experiences. We sent our daughter (on three different trips) to China, Australia, France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland when she was in high school as part of a program called, People to People Student Ambassadors. I lived in Taiwan for two years (unrelated to my wife’s Chinese-ness, but very related to my ability to speak it)ĥ. I speak Mandarin Chinese, but not because my wife does.Ĥ.
(Hey, maybe I’ll write about that someday!)ģ. I’m also what you might call a selective perfectionist, but not the kind that beats himself up for invariably failing to live up to that standard. Give me a good book, a pad of paper (or my laptop) and I’m a happy camper. So to all you who are not in your right mind, here’s a glimpse into the unfamiliar side of the guy called Ken… 50 Things You Don’t Know About Me (and would do just fine in life never knowing)ġ. So to inaugurate that aim and as a playful peek into the guy behind the blog, I give you a bunch of stuff no one in their right mind would care to know about me. A sort of parting of the curtains, if you will. But just as book jackets provide brief biographic sketches of the author, so it’s reasonable that a reader would like to know the nature of the voice mouthing the words here as well.īesides, one of my goals this year is to open me to you more than I have in the past as I write about issues of happiness and the many obstacles we create to it. This is not a personal blog about Ken Wert. And since no one else is in line for that job, it’s me you get behind the words each week here at MeanttobeHappy. “I am me! I am me! Who else would I be? When I look in the mirror, it’s me that I see!” ~ from the unpublished children’s book, I Am Me!