MLK 50+ years later

We were all involved in the death of John Kennedy.  We tolerated hate; we tolerated the sick stimulation of violence in all walks of life; and we tolerated the differential application of law, which said that a man's life was sacred only if we agreed with his views.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait, 1963


Change "death" to "shooting" and "John Kennedy" to Congresswoman Giffords, and MLK Jr is still applicable today, 50 years later.

Sudan

This is so beautiful: "For freedom," she said. "I am very happy to vote, it's my first time, I am old and I can't see much, but I voted for my children." (CNN, Southern Sudan Referendum, thanks Lindsay)

Oh Middle School

Just a quick thought before I head out to school, and yes it is 6:15am.  Ugggg.  I learned yesterday that middle schoolers will give you attitude when they get mad at themselves for doing something stupid.  For example, students were given 15 minutes yesterday to correct mistakes on their exams.  Most used the time wisely, listened to the directions and gained a lot of points back.  One girl in the last class had chosen not to listen to the directions (just write the number and the answer, not the entire question) and had been writing the entire question out.  When I came around to collect the tests and the corrections, she tried to keep writing long after everyone else had turned theirs in.  Being the student teacher in her 3rd day, I wasn't going to grab the paper from her because I expected a backlash from that.  Finally, midway through the next activity my cooperating teacher (CT) came over and took the paper from her.  The girl slumped in her seat, crumpled papers and had a bad attitude the rest of the class.  Lovely.  I love 8th grade.

Happy Belated Holidays

The highlights from the 2010 holiday season:
-Seeing my friend Sean who is posted in Ukraine with the Peace Corps
-Seeing my friend McKenzie and getting to catch up
-Being woken up at 7:30am by my cousin's kids Patrick (4 yrs) and Logan (8 mo) as they climb into bed to watch cartoons
-Snow on Christmas morning
-Sledding every day after Christmas while we were stuck on top of the mountain
-Hot tub in 15º weather
-Finishing a couple books
-Outlet shopping
-Seeing friends in DC for New Years plus making new friends ;o)
-Having the best New Years I could have asked for!
-Deep tissue massages that actually get the knots out

How was your Holiday Season?

Educators

Our work as educators is about giving young people access to the opportunities and choices that can move them beyond the struggles of their parents and into a life of their own making. -Bob Lenz

wow it's been a long time

December has seemed to fly by, between finishing school work, seeing my parents in Charlottesville, surviving finals week, a YAG shindig in Butler, PA, and then home for 2 days.  I can't believe that Christmas is only 4 days away, I feel like it should be more time.  I think having our semester run longer than normal has thrown my schedule off.  Here's a list of what's happened in December:
-wrote a unit plan with 2 classmates on the protestant reformation that ended up being over 100 pages long, complete with 5 lessons, supplementals and anchoring activities.  We spent 7 hours straight in the library on Monday to finish it, and were going crazy by the end.
-Went to Charlottesville with the parents, had a fantastic dinner at Bizous on the downtown mall and then saw Natalie MacMasters in concert at the Paramount Theater.  Fantastic show!  She's a fiddler with lots of celtic influences, 7 months pregnant and was dancing around on stage.  We then got to see my uncle Tad and his new wife Kelly at the farm the next day.
-Shindig was held at Garrett's house in Butler, PA. I forgot that I had a camera so I'll have to steal other's pictures.  We had about 18 of us together and it was great to see everyone, especially those that I haven't seen in 2 years. Plus I got to drive up to Pittsburgh the day before and stay with Amanda and Matt, so it was great to see them.
-New Years plans are finalized and I'm heading to DC!  Can't wait until I actually live there.
-Discovered that a few of my YAG friends are now living in DC, so I can't wait until I move there so I can have everyone over to where ever I live and get all of my random friends to meet each other.  Plus I found out that my cousin Nick is living in DC too!  Even more reason to head that way!
-Got home yesterday and we had a great fancy dinner (Mom got out the china) and then during clean up we had a family towel war, boys v. girls.  Alex was then hungry so at 10:30 we proceeded to make double chocolate peppermint cookies.  So yummy.
-Swam this morning, a total of 600 meters, which compared to what I used to do in an hour (~4,000 meters) is nothing, but it was nice to get back in the water.  However, my suit didn't fit as well as it used to because all of the weight that I've gained has gone straight to my butt, which means that I now have a butt, but suits aren't cut for those that have one.

Off to do some Christmas shopping because I've procrastinated and assumed that I'll have more time before Christmas (like time will stop for me or something...) and we're leaving for NC on Wednesday.

DC visit, future home?

Before heading home for Thanksgiving, I headed to DC to see my friend Sara and learn a little bit more about the city that I'm now pretty sure I want to head to when I'm done here in Harrisonburg.  I headed up Saturday morning, met Sara at her house in Arlington and we metroed into the city.  First stop was lunch at Busboys and Poets, a great restaurant near the Convention Center.  Named after Langston Hughes, the restaurant focuses on sustainable and local products, and the food is fabulous!  I did learn however, that almond milk does not work well for lattes or cappuccinos.  From there we walked down to the Newseum and spent the rest of the afternoon there.  They have parts of the Berlin Wall there, they have artifacts from Katrina, they have the top of the antenna from the world trade center, and a great 4-D movie.

The best part is that they have free admission for teachers with their students.  I fully plan to take advantage of that, no matter where I teach.  We could have spent longer, but Sara wanted to head to mass at 5, so we took the metro back to VA and went to mass at her Church.  We grabbed dinner at a Thai restaurant, recouped at Sara's and then drove to the East Capitol District where some of Sara's friends live.  I love that area!  We ended up going to a bar called Kelly's Pub, which was great.  They had live music, a guy who played almost anything you would request.  Two girls sponsored by Smithwicks (pronounced Smit-icks) were handing out free samples, so that upped the consumption more than I had planned on.  I had a great time meeting new people and hanging out.  Sara and I headed back around 11:30 for bed.  The next morning we had brunch nearby with Natalie and Caitlin, also both Thetas.  It was really great to catch up with them!
       On my way back home, with a stop in a VA grocery store for wine requests of the parents (14 bottles), I did a lot of thinking and I'm pretty sure that I want to move to the DC area.  Plus, my ideas about Raleigh were killed when my Grandma informed me over break that NC's budget means that they won't be doing any hiring any time soon.  So my plan of action currently stands at applying to every Middle and High school in the Arlington, Fairfax, Alexandria and DC area.  When I got home I did some internet searching for schools, but if you live in the area, and know of a school, let me know so I can apply there too!  ;o)  Currently I'm considering public, private, independent and charter schools.  I don't know enough about charter or independent schools, but that's something to look into.  I also don't know about teaching in religious schools because I'm not that religious, (thats a work in progress), but I'm sure it's not the same as it was in the 60s.  Thoughts?

Fiasco the Turkey, also known as Fred

Last Thursday was the Social Studies Thanksgiving dinner and I offered to cook the turkey, along with other things so that I would have something to eat and not make others try to cook dairy-free.  This was my first time actually making the turkey, including shopping for it.  I purchased most of the supplies on Sunday during my regular shopping trip, but figured that I could buy the turkey on Thursday after class, which would still give me the 4-5 hours needed to cook it.  I did know that it takes that long to cook.  So I headed to Martins on Thursday after class ended at 11 and picked up a 15 pound turkey to feed the 10-12 people coming over that night.  Little did I know that I bought a frozen turkey, who's instructions say that it takes 2-3 days to defrost in the fridge**, or 5-9 hours in cold water.  So once I got home, I figured that if I defrosted it in warm running water, in the bathtub so that it was sitting in water too, it would defrost faster than the 5 hours, which I did not have, knowing that the turkey needed to be in the oven at 3:30.  Fred* then took a shower from 12pm-3:30pm, attempting to defrost, and probably raising our water bill next month.  At 3:30, Fred was still nicely frozen.  I called my mom to ask about the possibilities of defrosting a 15 pound turkey in the microwave, or just cooking him still frozen, and was informed that neither of those were possibilities.  My options were to turn back time and buy the turkey on Sunday or head back to Martins to buy a non-frozen turkey breast.  And if there were no non-frozen turkey breasts, then consider having ham.  (I do know how to cook a good spiral ham.) Fred then got placed in the little fridge space that I could create and I headed to Martins for the second time that day.  Once there, I did not trust myself to choose a non-frozen turkey breast because I originally thought I had bought a non-frozen one, so I asked the butcher who chuckled when I explained the situation, and proceeded to hand me what he said was a non-frozen turkey breast.  I got it home and un-wrapped it, only to find that parts of it looked frozen!  But once I had washed it, I discovered that the frozen bits were just the juices that had frozen and the bird was not frozen.  Into the pan and oven the turkey breast went at 4:30pm, to emerge at 8pm.

The cooked turkey breast

I had also spent the day making pumpkin bread, southern style green beans (need some work on those) applesauce and stuffing.  I love homemade applesauce and believe that it should be eaten in mass quantities.  The pumpkin bread was the biggest hit, and was alas from a box.  

Attempt at southern style green beans

Homemade apple sauce

Our table with lots of food :o)

You may be wondering what happened to Fred.  Well, he spent the night in our fridge and on Friday I called a local place by the name of Our Community Place that serves 3 meals a day to anyone in the community who needs it, and asked if they would like a 15 pound thawed turkey.  They said yes and Fred was delivered to OCP that morning to be cooked for their dinner that night.  Annalisa returned home from the library Friday afternoon and inquired as to Fred's whereabouts, and was dismayed when she found out he had left us.  I responded that if she wanted to see Fred again, she could go have dinner at OCP.

*Annalisa named Fred when she arrived home to find a very large frozen turkey sitting in the fridge.  I decided that Fred should be the anglicized version of Fiasco, because that's what he was.

**Note: when telling the story to my parents they kindly informed me that they have never had a turkey defrost in the fridge in the 2-3 days suggested on the package.  It always takes 4-5 days.  Good to know for the future!

Dairy free and smiling

Previously I was avoiding large amounts of dairy, but would still eat things with butter and whey in them, mainly processed foods and I was still feeling somewhat crummy.  I cut out all dairy (including butter) about 2 months ago and have to admit that I am feeling so much better!  I still get some occasional stomach/GI issues, but I think that's related to me eating too fast.  I also started taking calcium on a regular basis, Vitamin D and flinestones, and that combination plus not eating dairy has really helped.  I have more energy than I used to and am not so grumpy from feeling like crap.  The one issue with being completely dairy-free is that (well, besides having to inform others that I can't eat anything you make...) is that I don't get any of the good bacteria found in dairy (lactobacillus) which helps regulate your digestive system and prevents yeast infections in females.  So I have to take pro-biotics every couple days to make sure that I have enough to prevent yeast infections, which I used to get about once a month.

So if you go out to eat with me, or I eat at your house, I'm sorry if my dietary restrictions cause problems, but I think you'll prefer my company if I'm dairy-free.

Kurdistan and Contacts

Our practicum class switched so I moved from Broadway HS to the Career Development Academy (CDA) back at JMU where we work with adult English Language Learners to help their English and teach them some American History.  When I taught, my topic was the California Gold Rush, so we saw how to pan gold, talked a little about natural resources, related to natural resources from their home countries, talked about the Mexican American war and how California went from being Mexican territory to American territory (stupid Texas), and then looked at pictures of miners.  I had each group get a picture and talk in their group about the picture with some guiding questions and then each group presented.  That gives them speaking practice in their group, writing practice on their question sheet and speaking practice in front of the whole group.  It worked out a lot better than I thought it would.  Wednesday MaryAlyse taught about immigrants who came to California because of the Gold Rush and I got to work with a gentleman that I will call K.  K told me that he is from Kurdistan, which is in Northern Iraq, but he is not Iraqi.  He is Kurdish, and was very adamant about that. When we were talking about culture and how immigrants bring their home cultures with them to their new country, K wanted to talk about the things he does here in the US, not things that he did at home and still does here.  He is one of the lower English skilled students in the class so I was working with him one-on-one rather than in a group like the rest of the students, which helped, but it was still hard to get things across.  However, I did learn that he had worked for the US Government in Iraq which is why he and his family had to leave and come to the US.  His wife and kids live in Fairfax and he lives here for the job.  One interesting thing that I learned is that he speaks Kurdish and Arabic, but only uses Arabic for translations purposes.  He won't start conversations in Arabic, but will respond to if spoken in Arabic.  That's fascinating to me.  I'd love to learn more about his background and what his kids are like.

Today I went back to the eye doctor for another follow up appointment about contacts.  I've been having trouble wearing them because they aren't that comfortable and I've noticed when wearing them that my vision isn't perfect like it is with glasses, my eyes get tired faster, are really dry and when trying to move from near vision to far vision, it takes a lot longer.  I love this eye doc because he does a great job of taking the time to explain to me what exactly is going on to cause those problems.  I learned that because of my astigmatism, the contacts shift 4-5º on axis when I blink and that sometimes blinking can make it better but sometimes it makes my vision worse.  My prescription is about 165º but because contacts only come in ranges of 10º it's hard to find a lens that will fit perfectly.  So that's challenge #1.  Challenge #2 is that all of the meds that I'm on for asthma, allergies and anxiety affect the ability of my eye muscles to change focus, which means that it takes longer to move from near distance to far distance and back.  So my meds are making my eyes act like a 45 year old's eyes would. That explains why a previous eye doc put me in progressives.  It's not because my eyes are actually that old, it's because my meds are making my eyes act that old.  We're going to try a little bit stronger lens next time to see if that helps at all, but I got reading glasses at Target after the appointment to see things close up and they are actually helping.  I can shift from the computer screen with readers to looking far away taking the readers off much faster than I could before.  Plus I was told to use drops for the dryness (challenge #3: caused by meds, allergies and the weather) which are helping too.  I've been wearing contacts for 3 hours today which is a record! Time to take them out so that my eyes don't get pissed off, but I'm going to have to make sure to wear them a bit each day to see if I can increase the amount of time.  This may actually work. ;o)  But I'm still considering Lasik.