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.

Please don't get sick

There's nothing like working at a school to kind of make you a germaphobe. So with the new season of germs, once again shoring up my theory of students bringing germs back to school with them, here are some guidelines to help you keep healthy (and me too!):

1. Wash your hands and use hand sanitizer with 60% or more alcohol in it. Don't just wash your hands once a day and think that's going to work... no, wash it after you pee (you've just touched the same door everyone else did... and who knows what else!), a lot when you're sick, after you've been shaking hands with tons of people, after you've gone to and fro classes (once again, you're touching the same door everyone else has), etc, etc, etc.

2. Avoid sick people and encourage them to go to the doctor. If you live with them, make them take care of themselves. I know it’s not nice, but if you want to get sick, sure take care of your roommate who brought strep home with them from thanksgiving. It'll totally help you pass your finals that first week in December. (This totally happened to me junior year of college, thanks Amy!)

3. Eat lots of veggies, fruits, drink lots of water, and take your vitamins. You'll be happy that you had that salad instead of that cookie when your roommate comes down sick with a cold/flu.

4. If you do get sick, stay home, take care of yourself, yada yada yada. Don't bring your germs to class, if you can help it. On the other hand, if you're deathly ill from partying the night before, you still need to come to class. Hangovers are NOT contagious... just gross.