20 Questions with Andrea Ball

Andrea Ball is a fourth grade teacher at Moab Charter School. When she isn’t busy as a teacher or a mother, she can be found trail running

1) What initially brought you to Moab?

I moved to Moab eleven years ago because I love the desert and wanted to raise my daughter in this wonderful community.

2) What do you love most about living in Moab?

Moab is full of creative, community-minded people who moved here intentionally because of all that Moab offers.

3) What do you dislike about living in Moab?

Our remoteness can be both a blessing and a hardship. At times, I wish we had easier access to shopping, the arts and cultural opportunities.

4) What is your occupation?

I am a licensed special education teacher and I am currently teaching in a general education fourth grade classroom.

5) If you could have any job in the world, what would you most like to do?

I love teaching children, I never wish I didn’t have to go to work or that I had another career. However, if I had to pick something else, I would definitely be a travel writer!

6) Describe a typical day in your life.

Wake up at 5:30 a.m., make coffee, check work emails, get my daughter up and ready for the day, get to work, prep the classroom for the day, greet children, and begin the school day. After school: staff meetings, tutoring, daughter’s after-school clubs and/or sports, home for chores, dinner and perhaps even more lesson planning and grading. On the weekends, I try to get out for trail runs, do chores, read, and relax with my family, though as a teacher, you often are in the classroom on the weekends planning for the coming week. The classroom is your second home basically.

7) Some people have bumper stickers on their car that reads: I’d Rather be Sailing. What would your bumper sticker read? I’d Rather Be…

Swimming with sharks. Totally just kidding, that’s the last thing I’d rather be doing.

8) Tell us one thing people don’t usually know about you.

Everyone that knows me knows I have an identical twin sister, but those that don’t (and even sometimes those that do) often think that I am my sister and vice versa. I just usually smile and go along with it. My sister hates that I do that.

9) In high school, you would have been considered the person most likely to…

I shouldn’t say as my students (or their parents) may be reading this.

10) What is your favorite Moab activity?

Trail running.

11) Tell us your favorite non-Moab place to visit.

I love the Oregon Coast. It’s beautiful.

12) What do you consider your greatest achievement in life?

Raising my daughter.

13) If you were President, what’s the first thing you’d do to make life better in America? That is a job I would never want. But I do believe that we all should have equal opportunity and access to affordable healthcare.

14) What superhero power would you most like to have?

Time travel.

15) If you could be an animal, what would it be? Why?

A snail, but in a forest, not someone’s garden. It would be cool to experience life at that slow a pace and leave a glittery moon-lit trail everywhere I traveled.

16) What is your all-time favorite movie?

Too many and some are probably embarrassing.

17) And, your all-time favorite book?

Leonard Cohen’s Stranger Music and Jitterbug Perfume

18) If you were stranded on a desert island, which three CDs would you want to have with you?

That could change at any time, but some old favorites are Essential Leonard Cohen, Be Good Tanyas, Iron and Wine, Eddie Vedder… I don’t know! I feel like all I ever really listen to these days is my daughter’s music i.e. POP. I’ve actually grown to like some of it too…

19) If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

Either a handful of my departed relatives or a table full of comedians and literary geniuses, the former for information and the latter just for the banter.

20) What is your life philosophy?

Treat others the way you would like to be treated. Simple but effective.