Why I can't do dinner and a movie

So I had dinner tonight with a friend I haven't seen in a couple of months because we've both been so busy. Now is when I realize, yet again, how talkative I am. We met for dinner at 7:30 (YAY IHOP), and hung out till about 9:30 just talking and catching up. It was a good catch up and I hope we don't wait so long before hanging out again. I think if I go another couple of months before we have a big catch up event, we'll end up needing to have a semi-slumber party for all the talking we'll do. Ah, new friends are wonderful and it's great to find like minded people in a small town.

In the last week...

Oh, shoot, I skipped a week! Why, because I'm lazy and prime time TV shows have started up. Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Bones, Fringe, House, Project Runway, HIMYM, and Big Bang Theory all require a serious amount of time and dedication to watch. I mean, it's not just enough to watch them during the show time (which I miss half the time due to silly things like performances of the Best Little W****House in Texas), but these shows require serious, I mean SERIOUS commitment. I must find an appropriate blog and analysis of every show after I watch them to find the hidden, more deeper meaning behind them. Oh yeah, I also moved... :) I love moving and I have a cute little place with my sister and we have a bit of a yard, so let the cookouts begin. Anyhow... now I'm back to blogging.

Now that my big adventure is done for the season, I'm going to take a small break from acting and give writing a chance. I've been given the chance to write a couple of short chapters in a tutor training handbook and I'm really excited to get started. Hopefully, this will turn out better than some of my grad school and undergrad papers because I actually want to write these chapters. I'm going to start thinking of a timeline for this project and hopefully have an idea by the end of the weekend of when I'm going to get what done.

Also, the book I can't put down (but just happens to be kind of lost cause I haven't unpacked it from the move):

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver- I have no clue why I like this book so much other than the ideas speak to me, it's plainly written so it's a quick read while talking about new concepts, and it's an interesting concept. The book is about the Kingsolver's family moving from the desert to Virginia so they can be localvores who don't tax the land. I like the fact that there's a lot of practical deep wisdom there and it's presented in many different formats and viewpoints. I hope this might be a top contender in our reading selection.

Two for Friday

I found this on my learning professionals listserv and thought it'd be really great for students out there to see to understand the gist of learning styles. Also, I'm attaching a link to the Learning Styles 60-second podcast I did this past spring.



Podcast: Learning Styles Info and Activities

Book Reviews

I'm on this reading committee and we're in charge of selecting a book for our yearly first year reading experience. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, in the world of Higher Ed, the answer is always "it depends". Why, do you ask? Because we've been meeting since LAST September to select a book for 2010-2011, and still haven't found one and we were supposed to be done last spring. We do have a good excuse... the theme we choose is a really hard one, and we're a bunch of hard-headed stubborn folk who won't change our theme. So we're still reading. Here is my year in review recap of the book's we've read:

Theme: Environmental Responsibility

Book: The World Without Us
Awesome book and it really helps you think about what you're actions right now, or the actions of your grandfather, mean and how long it would take for those actions to reverse. Why we didn't choose this book even though a lot of us liked it: The language was a bit difficult and we felt it would be over the heads of most (not all) of our school's freshmen. It would, however, be a good companion to whatever we choose. Definitely a must read if you're interested in your personal environmental impact. I'd highly recommend the chapter on cities, buildings, and houses, and the chapter on plastics.

Book: In Defense of Food
Stretching our theme quite a bit to include human health and nature, we all read this book and really liked it. I personally, did not like it. I felt it was a bit too much whack science, but others in the group disagreed. While we really like the book, it was a bit too much outside of the environmental responsibility theme and would require too much stretching to connect the dots for the freshmen. Our student member of the committee also felt it was too boring.

Book: Unbowed
This book is also great and discusses one woman's effort to try and re-plant vegetation in her native country that's been over developed by humans. It's really good and demonstrates what someone can do even if they come from the lowest of poverty levels. However, we didn't choose the book because it catered a bit more to the female point of view, the narrative takes place in Africa and wouldn't be as relevant to our incoming students. Also, it didn't fit just right with our theme because it focused more on the vegetation aspect of environmental responsibility and on the aspect of social injustice.

More book reviews to come (maybe next week?).

Whoops, It's Thursday!

I didn't mean to go so long without posting, and I'm sorry. So here goes what I've been doing this week instead of posting...

Tuesday Night-
I went to a very cool event that was called Let Your Children Tell. It was a documentary play about 4 children's lives during the Holocaust. I really enjoyed it, though I felt the acting could have been more sincere. I would say the best (or really, in this case, the worst) part of the play, the part that really got across the message that the holocaust was a really crummy and awful part of human history was when the actors were telling the story of arriving at a concentration camp and the families being separated. The crying and screaming of the children being ripped from their mothers' arms was just terrible. I really have no words to discribe how it gave such a horrifying and sad voice to those who were oppressed and murdered during the holocaust. Overall, it really was a good play, it was based on survivors of the holocaust stories, and it did achieve the feelings it was supposed to achieve. I left wanting to cry my eyes out for all the people who were senselessly, brutally murdered during the holocaust. And I was glad I wanted to cry because I know there's still humanity left in us if we all want to cry over our tragedies and failings as a human race.

Wednesday Night-
I had a really nasty headache all day long that was mostly just a dull ache and worsened after I got off of work. and really, I had nothing to write about that wouldn't be whining, and I feel stupid whining online.

Tonight-
I'm back on for rehearsal at the playhouse! woot! 6 more shows and we will be done. I'm sad I'm missing the season premeires of some really good shows and hope that they will still be online for veiwing or that someone is kind and they DVR it for me.  

Have a great rest of your week.

Project Runway

Ok, I only have a tinny tiny itsy bitsy obsession with Project Runway... NOT! It's back on, I've missed it during the year long (feels like 10 years, which in the model world, is like dog years! -thanks heidi!) hiatus. I'm so glad lifetime has picked it up because now when I've missed an episode because of BLWIT rehearsal or performances, I can still catch it online a few days or weeks later. YAY Lifetime! (I never thought I'd say that). and with that, I leave you with the link to the latest episode. Cheers!

Project Runway, Episode 4, Season 6

Too much time...

Whenever I think I may have too much time on my hands (which is hardly ever), I just have to go to YouTube and I can quickly find videos similar to this:

Appreciation

Hey Katie,
I'm sure it's eleven o'clock at night or something wicked late like that and you've just gotten off of work. But guess what? You're an awesome sister and I know you needed to hear that. I know I don't say it often enough, and I'm pretty sure I fight with you more than I tell you that you're super cool. Thank for being a great sister. This week you've made sure I had food (I'm too much like a stereotypical bachelorette), that we have someplace to live at the end of the month, started the ball rolling on the little move things, and reminded me of the stupid mundane things I have to do between 10am and 4pm like calling the apartment management and asking them to come unclog my toilet. You've even let me use your toilet (not that there's a choice there) and locked the cat in your bathroom so he doesn't wake me in the middle of the night with his howling and pawing. Without you this week, I'm pretty sure I would have had a few crying fits over being tired from crazy long days of work and rehearsal. I'm sure I would have screamed a few times to just get my frustration out and weirded out our neighbors. So, thank you, for saving me from myself. YOU ROCK!
Love,
Me

The power of education

Today I took a minute. I paused. I read Barack Obama's speech. You know, the one that he wouldn't release ahead of time. The one that has caused all sorts of controvesy. The one meant to inspire today's youth to become successful Americans. Yeah, that one. That speech is awesome. Even though I didn't get a chance to veiw it on television, I still read it online. From my perspective, as an educator, I feel it isn't a political message, it's a motivational message. And I think even college students, young adults, retirees, etc. should all read it and reflect on the inspiration it tries to convey. Move past the politicking for a minute and realize, education is a great thing, and it's the one thing that CANNOT be taken from you. So please, today, take a minute and read the President's speech. This is why I do what I do. I want to help student's become successful. This speech gave me inspiration to go back into the classroom on Thursday and continue to motivate my students to work hard and be successful in college so they can be the next great generation.

'Click to veiw the President's speech'

Watching Movies in Class

Ok, so Thursday I had one of my classes watch a movie called paperclips (find it at: Paper Clips) about a middle school which started a program to help themselves raise intercultural awareness. So I found out in August that I was taking on another class that would be linked (have some kind of common course content or assignment or something) with an english class. The person who had been playing the class before me had already worked with their english class partner and come up with their common course content. So when I inherited the class, I kept the content the same.

And then I started watching the movie on Thursday with the class... now, don't go thinking it's some kind of racy movie, it's not. Anyhow, so here I am, watching this movie and it's boring the stuffing out of my students. I can tell. I think the idea is pretty neat and a great way to really learn, had you been taking part of the project with the middle school. But parts of the movie were kinda dull and repetitive and water down the message the documentary was trying to convey. Maybe the end of the movie will bring more information and enlightenment on intercultural issues. Here's to hoping on Tuesday!

2 things 2 find on the internet

1. There's a lot of people with my name. I mean, it's kinda unique. Try googling yourself sometime, to find yourself or facebook yourself. The results could be interesting. (hint, you might want to try "insert name" to narrow your search)

2. There's a lot of internet articles out there that are interesting with what seems to be useful advice, but is it?
Example: http://howlifeworks.com/Finance/debt_relief_now/?cid=8088jx_finance_rm

Anti Climatic Endings.

Ok, so I’m not promising a great end to this story, but here goes…

So today was the deadline for students to turn in writing portfolios as a graduation requirement. Talk about making lots and lots of students crazy and frantic. Thankfully it seems every year more and more students get it turned in the day before or earlier than the deadline day. Here’s how it went today for some students:

Student: Oh, I should turn that portfolio thing in today. Ok, let’s see what I need for that… 3 papers, and an essay reflecting on those three papers. Ok, when’s it due… 5pm and the time right now is… 3:00pm… hmm, can I get an appointment in the Writing Room.

Phone call from student to me asking for an appointment: Can I get an appointment for 3:30:

ME: Nope. We’re booked until 4:30.

Student: aw man, no way to get in sooner?

ME: Nope, Absolutely not. Unless you want to come here now and work on it and see if someone doesn’t show for an appointment or someone has a very short appointment. I can’t promise anything.

Student shows up to the writing room and sets themselves up at a computer and starts frantically typing away. Student does end up getting some consultation time in, by the grace of god another student didn’t use their entire 30 minutes. 4:30 rolls around and I announce there’s 30 minutes left. Student frantically prints their papers, and brings them to me

ME: you need the grey writing portfolio they sell in the bookstore.

Student goes running off and comes back 10 minutes later. I look over their contents to make sure they have everything together, make sure they’ve filled out all the necessary information on the folder, ask the student a few questions to make sure they pulled the folder together right, annnnnd THWACK! Down the receiving stamp, smile at them and tell them they’re done. They look at me like… that kinda sucks all that worrying and the ending just kinda falls off there.

One student did ask me for a hug, it was so anticlimactic to him. :)  life’s great. There’s a lot of build up for things and then it just fizzles off with no pops or anything. Welcome

Annoyances (sorry for yet another rant)

The older I get, the easier I get irritated! Sometimes I just want to mouth off to someone, but instead I just bite my tongue since it’s the more pleasant thing to do. Quite often I find people to be quite ridiculous and not very thoughtful in their actions which affect others. It seems to be more and more often that it happens. So the big philosophical question I have is, have people become more and more thoughtless, or is my world view changing as I get older?


I think about this quote my professor from youth and society read to us the first day of class in college. It was something like “the youth are running amuck in the streets, have less respect for their elders, and they will be the downfall of our society in the next generation”. She had the class think about who said it and when they said it. It was an awesome exercise that opened my eyes to some of the issues of age (youth vs. elder). It turned out the person who said it was Plato, Aristotle, or Socrates (I always get the three mixed up, thus I was not a philosophy major. Clearly, youth have been seen as a scourge of society and likely to be the cause of it collapsing, which is obviously not the case.

So back to my conundrum- I’d like to think it’s my world view changing, not people being more thoughtless. And I’m pretty sure I can be accused of the same thoughtlessness.