1) My uncle once: ate only pizza for a year.
2) Never again in my life: will I change myself to please other people.
3) When I was five: I wanted a broken leg so I could have a wheelchair.
4) High School: besides my friends in cross country and AP classes, it was miserable!
5) I will never forget: my time at Oxford, pub crawls, Sunday roasts, Sainsbury's, and teaching Sunday school at Christ Church College Cathedral.
6) I once met: Michael Phelps.
7) There's this girl I know who: is more fashion forward than I am, and she's only 8 years old!
8) Once, at a bar: I caught 10 peanuts in my mouth in a row. I have an innate, freakish talent.
9) By noon I'm usually: between classes, running around school.
10) Last night I: walked to Kinkos and laminated.
11) If I had only: chosen a more productive major...Education Studies sounds like a cop-out major, doesn't it?
12) Next time I go to church, I will: without family or friends, but surrounded by so many cute, little kids.
14) What worries me most: the future of my students.
15) When I turn my head right, I see: my José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar poster from the Mexican Fine Arts Center in Chicago.
16) When I turn my head left, I see: the armless knit cat that my mom got me for my birthday. It's oh so French arts & crafts-looking and came with the name Lana.
17) You know I'm lying when: I say I know where my career will go.
18) You know what I miss most about the eighties: the Smurfs
19) If I was a character written by Shakespeare, I'd be: Hero/Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing
20) By this time, next year: I'll be doing the same job, but I'll have a Masters.
21) A better name for me would be: I like Natalia better, but at least Nicole's not too common. Just don't call me Nikki ever!
22) I have a hard time understanding: people who still believe that speaking Arabic makes you a terrorist.
23) If I ever go back to school I'll: get a law degree and be a child-immigration lawyer.
24) You know I like you if: I call you on the phone. Just like everyone in my family, I'm not a phone person!
25) If I won an award, the first person I'd thank would be: my lawyer?
26) Darwin, Mozart, Slim Pickens & Geraldine Ferarara....are: not my ideal dinner guests.
27) Take my advice, never: resist taking an opportunity because you'd be alone
28) My ideal breakfast is: a cheese omelet.
29) A song I love, but do not have is: the Hall of the Mountain King
30) If you visit my hometown, I suggest: getting a chocolate milkshake at Louie's Bakery, hike through the golf course, buy granola at the Co-op, and get some egg drop soup at Panda Garden. I miss Hanover, NH!!
31) Tulips, character flaws, microchips & track stars are: signs of Spring.
32) Why won't anyone: stay in touch anymore?
33) If you spend the night at my house: my cat will pounce on you at 4am.
34) I'd stop my wedding for: a good laugh
35) The world could do without: the food they serve at gas stations. It's really not doing anyone any good.
36) I'd rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: ever live in the suburbs again.
37) My favorite blonde is: my cousin Pete.
38) Paperclips are more useful than:staples
39) San Diego means: amazing food.
40) And by the way: I need a new book. Any suggestions?

Shh
I have a job for next year at my school! The principal made me a position. I love my school and its diversity, needs, and struggles that make every student-success even sweeter! I spent one class this afternoon in a lively discussion of who makes immigration laws and why George Bush is not necessarily an "evil man who hates Mexicans" (which some students hear at home) and that he won't send you back to Mexico if you don't protest on Sunday at 2:30 (after one student stated definitively that Mexican-Americans would be deported if they didn't march, all of their ears pricked up).

I am a little worried that I will be replacing someone else in my department. My principal hinted that things in ESL will be shaken up this week... so I'm not allowed to tell anyone at school about my position. I really hope no one's fired!

With my tax refund I'm going to keep paying back my loans, but I'm also trying to figure out how I'm going to improve my Spanish this summer- I can't do subjunctive on the spot to save my life! I found an amazing program caring for orphans in Ecuador, but I'm not sure I could afford to fly there. But I'm excited for my final graduate school classes: a first-year teacher seminar, in which we can discuss successes and failures, and a lecture on teaching cultural diversity at the primary level.

Argh...I actually do better at work when I'm exhausted. It focuses my chi;) When I'm rested, I start worrying about superficial things. I just got into "Angels and Demons" last night at 10pm and so didn't get to sleep until 12:30. I love that book! It's so morbid, but even so, I would love to see the movie. Just as long as Robert Langdon isn't played by Tom Hanks...oh, shoot. Don't they know they ruin the movie when the character's not as handsome as I pictured in my head?

Overwhelming Indecision
Recently, I've been trying to make up my mind about the future of my career. I don't really have to make a choice for a year, but I need to work towards both of my potential jobs simultaneously, which seems counterproductive: I know I will eventually choose one over the other and only the effort I exerted toward that goal will be justified.

I spent all of last week believing, again, that I should go into law. The two fields that I'm interested in are child advocacy and immigration law, or a combination of both, protecting the rights of illegal children. Watching the protests, which were prevalent in Tucson schools, I felt that this career was even more critical.

On the other hand, now I'm thinking that I can find professional challenge and development in teaching. There are many conferences where I can meet the best ESL teachers and researchers in the country. And, at the suggestion of my grandpa:), I might eventually begin researching and publishing. I love my job and I honestly want to do as much as I can to do it better... my students are just like my grandparents, who learned English for the first time in school. Liberal that I am;), I want to make my students' transition into U.S. life much less painful than theirs. Every child who lives in this country deserves to receive the same education, which is only possible with ESL.

My biggest fear (in my profession) is stagnation and the potential for being boxed into a corner. I swear, "Death of a Salesman" ruins any idealism about working! So I never want to be in a position where I have only one option and it's not a satisfying choice. Right now, I'm going to continue studying for the LSATs (which is fun, in a hyper-nerd way... I want to write the terminology on flashcards and stick them on the wall for practice!) and I will continue my professional development as an ESL teacher. Soon, I will have to decide if I want another 1-year substitute position or move to a different school for an "actual" position. At least that's the only choice I need to make right now.

I just redid my white-board calendar and I realized that I have 9 days before testing starts! And the second week is Holy Week, which is my absolutely favorite time of year. Then, for the rest of the month and into May, all I need to do is test. Which is obviously an extreme waste of time for me and for my students, but it does mean no lesson planning for 3 weeks, which means leaving school at 3:30pm everyday! I am soooo going to whip myself into shape;)




















This is where I'll be running everyday...it's gorgeous.

Spring Break
(a photo diary)
































ps- I recommend "New Hampshire" by Matt Pond: I listened to it so many times during my vacation... it's such a beautiful song.

Tucson
I've been in Arizona since Saturday and it's really the nice, warm break that I needed. Although, I'm getting a little bit tired of my grandparents' sleeping habits (wake up at 5am, nap for an hour after lunch, and in bed by 9pm). I love my grandparents so much, but they're suddenly seeming older than they ever used to. And it's natural and I shouldn't let it bother me, but it does...it's making me kind of moody (could we debate the name of the restaurant you ate at 30 years ago for another hour, please?), so I'm going to go explore the city today on my own :)

I miss hugable vegetation down here...I don't think I could ever really bond with a place where you can never venture off the path and the plants are purely decorative. I grew up as a barefoot tree-climber!

I'm still debating what my career path will be. I think I could remain in the teaching field if I also spent more time writing and publishing about teaching- and possibly attending conferences in exotic locales! It seems like everyone my age is asking the same questions and has the same fears of stagnation and missed opportunities. My comfort is that my parents begin new endeavors every year or so- and then abandon them just as quickly- and they are always completely random (mosaic-making? Jujitzu? Hospital ministry?) Their fall-back plan, if they ever feel too routinzed if their city life, is to travel across the U.S.A. on a harley, with my mom driving, just to mix things up :)

I think I want to go to more shows this Spring...suggestions?

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I need to make a choice: go to law school or remain in my job as an elementary ESL teacher.
Reasons I want to be a lawyer:
*In pushing for equality for immigrant children, I can offer even more support to the children that I work with.
*Eventually, I'll be able to realistically provide for my children's college education (thinking ahead, I know, but considering the cost of Wash U, it's definitely time to start!)
*I will have more professional prestige, which is not the most important thing, but at least I won't feel like people usually underestimate my career choice.
*I need a challenge.

Reasons I want to stay as a teacher:
*I have so much fun with my students and take pride in their accomplishments.
*I have a job: it's guaranteed and my salary will rise a little bit after I finish my M. Ed. this summer.
*It's a positive work environment.
*Summer Vacation! (which could be a way to save a ton on childcare eventually, too).
*Paying off loans instead of taking out new ones (yikes).

I don't know which choice is "the road less traveled!" For a Wash U grad, probably being a teacher is less expected, but in terms of difficulty and taking a risk, law school would be the answer. I don't actually need to decide right now, or even this year, but I feel like I want some semblance of a life plan.

What does No Child Left Behind mean for schools?
Every ESL student at my school will be taking 16 hours of tests over a two-week period in April. I won't be teaching any students for those two weeks because I'll be administering the tests to small groups every day, all day long. I think I might set up a zen room, with candles, low lights, and Enya playing softly, where I can go and "center" myself after hours of silent sitting and watching kids fill in little bubbles.

The Fear
There was a brief report on the news tonight that was about a robbery in my neighborhood. Some out of towners were eating at a barbeque restaurant on Saturday night...one which I walk past all the time. On the way back to their car, which was parked on a busy street in front of brand new luxury townhomes, they were assaulted, robbed without struggle, and then, senslessly, a man was shot in the head. This all happened about 6 blocks from where I'm sitting now.
That made me start thinking about my own fears. I have basic fears: spiders, creaky noises, forgetting important meetings. But I also have looming fears, like palls that I turn my back on instead of facing. I don't let myself worry about violence, racism, death, poverty, disease, or war. While I try to do "what I can" to help, it is never really the assistance that I can actually afford, but a easy, safe, and painless effort. I give money to charity, I'm going to try to volunteer this summer, but I cannot bring myself to read articles about the suffering in depth, nor can I throw myself into a cause. "Not at this time in my life" is my mantra (or excuse), but it's really a way of avoiding that pain and the fear that it would consume me if I let it in. This is the typical sugar-coated reality that Americans are guaranteed. We are so lucky.
That isn't to say that our country doesn't have many problems as well...but generally, we have more of everything than most of the rest of the world.
Gun violence is one of our problems. Thousands of people die every year from gunshots. I hope and pray that the innocent man who was 6 blocks away doesn't soon become a victim as well. While I am shocked, I'm not surprised that this happened so close to my home. However, I am afraid that it will let the fear into my life and decision-making. Fear of armed robbery will be added to my mental list of fears-by-association that I keep in my head at nighttime.
Number 1 is rape. Throughout college, I was counciled on the horrors, and it seems even more prevalent to discuss self-defense and self-preservation strategy in mainstream media today. All of that is extremely beneficial, but it has also increased my fear and on-edge state in places that seem obviously risky, like parking garages, closed stairwells, alleys, parking lots, and any place downtown. My heart has started racing now just thinking about it.
My second fear is being hit by a car. One of my mother's colleagues lost his son when he was hit by a car in New York City. The driver ran a red light, hit him, and kept driving. When I attended the funeral with my mother, she looked me straight in the eye and told me that I had to be safe anytime I was walking near any street. Advice that I'd known since I was 4 suddenly became less nagging: it is engrained in my mind because it is now correlated with the possibility of causing horrible pain to my parents.
My third fear is car crashes. I've lost two friends and I remember them always when I'm driving in rain and snow, which makes me drive more cautiously than necessary...because the memory of the sadness caused by their deaths has stayed with me.
These fears are not welcomed companions. I would wish them away in a second if they weren't a part of my reality. I don't know if they've protected me, insulated me from pain, but I know that they control my behavior and inhibit my sense of freedom. In the end, what I fear most is fear itself, like the saying, because it does have the capacity to manipulate me, as it does to people all around the world, in places much less safe than where I live. And because of that, I can brush my fears aside tonight, turn off my computer, and curl up in my down comforter, dreaming about tomorrow's classes at school. I can only sleep well if I make myself believe, like most Americans do, that what I fear most will never happen to me. There is hope in that ideal.

Abject Bad Moods
Two people at school have been driving me crazy all week with bizarre, out-of-character mood swings! It was starting to make me feel self conscious...am I a bad teacher/colleague? Well, as usual, it turns out that both of them are dealing with big (somewhat secret) changes that explain everything. At a parent-teacher conference, I asked a student's mom why his behavior might have changed this week. "Well," she said, after considering it for a bit, "maybe it's because I fought with his father last weekend and moved out the next day." Yeah, maybe that's it.

Then today, a colleague who's just been kind of nasty all week, let me know that her husband lost his job over the weekend. At least now I can try to help her with planning and not just try to stay out of the room when she's there.

I am very very excited for happy hour on Friday. The most hilarious thing in the world to me is listening to how elementary teachers actually talk and thinking about how I revered my teachers when I was little. I'm thinking it will be even more interesting when they've been drinking. Yesterday, one of my friends at work had to eat dinner in the lounge really fast so she could get back to conferences. She said "I gotta scarf this hot dog and haul ass back to my room." I could not stop laughing. But it was the reality of the situation for most of us:) 11 hour days are no fun.

So apparently the weather was like "ha, yeah, right" when I started to hope for Spring!

I woke up really early again today. I walked into Uptown and had breakfast at the Uptown Cafe. It is definitely a greasy spoon. When I was there, a man who looked like Andy Warhol said that he liked my hair and where did I buy the "fall?" Oh my gosh! I don't wear fake hair; I have so much to deal with already. I know I'm not ruining any illusions when I say that I actually have to work really hard not to look like Roseanna Roseanna-danna...and it ends up looking like clip-on? Does my hair look fake?

Two weeks until Spring Break!! I can't wait to have a week relaxing in Arizona. And I'm so excited for my first foray into Mexico...cheesy tourist souvenirs, watch out! I'm coming to get you all.

Springtime?
I went for a sunrise run this morning. It felt like Spring when I started, but by the time I was three miles from my apartment- on Mt. Curve Drive near I-94- clouds covered the sun and there were huge gusts of wind...and I was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts! I tried sprinting to warm myself up, but I was having difficulty controlling my freezing ankles and I was afraid I might trip:) The weather is sneaky. I was so excited for it to be warm enough for running again and it lured me out there! Oh well. I still can't really control my fingers, they're moving in slow-motion like when your foot falls asleep, so I'm going to take a hot bath to regain my circulation. I can't wait for the actual warm breezes and earthy smell of Springtime...the hope and potential of the season is why it's my favorite time of year.

The Other White Meat
We read a story today which contained the line "He shook hands with white men and black men, red and yellow men." I really don't understand why any recent text would say red or yellow that way, so I skipped it and said "and men of other different colors of skin," but it raised questions from some of my students. After class, one sweet little boy came up and asked me "what color am I? Am I black or white?" He is from Mexico, but I wanted to resist saying "Hispanic" and starting a discussion about that term, which I dislike anyway. So I named the color of his skin and then the color of my skin. Then he and a few students talked about how everyone's skin is a little bit different and it's only what inside that counts. But he was not satisfied. So he asked another question:
"Am I pork?"
"Excuse me?"
"Am I 100% pork?"
"Well, pork is pig meat and you are human meat!" :)
"Oh, but I'm the other white meat."

The Oscars
The Academy Awards have always been one of my favorite nights of the year because it was time I always spent with my mom when I was growing up. As a doctor, she seemed to be always working, and didn't have very many interests in common with me. One thing that we always agreed on and always did together, though, was watching the Oscars. We loved the glamour and cinematic romance, the acceptance speeches, and the musical numbers. I miss you, mama-san!

Because I value creativity and love movies (and get no satisfaction from critiquing for its own sake), here is a list of my favorite parts of this year's ceremony:
1. Jon Stewart...handsome, intelligent, different than other hosts.
2. Diverse musical nominations. I thought the choreography was more interesting than usual.
3. The Crash surprise. E!: Entertainment Television predicted a come-from-behind victory, since everything was "Crash, crash, crash" this week ;) And as we know, they're always right.
4. The cute presenter speeches: Ben Stiller and the Wilson boys.
5. Reese Witherspoon's speech about her Grandma. I feel that way about mine (she's a tough cookie!) and I can't wait to see her this month.
6. Michelle Williams' dress. It was so different- I wish I had heard who designed it.
7. The music playing during speeches. It was a little distracting at first, but it started to seem like it eased the winners' tension and gave their speeches more drama, and little bit of gravitas.
8. The speech by the directors of Wallace and Gromit. They're so quinticentially British, and the mini bowties were adorable.
9. Wolfgang Puck's menu for the Governor's Ball...the tuna crisps looked amazing!
10. The satiritcal campaign commercials. I liked the one against Dame Judy Dench, with other Dames questioning her true worthiness to be a Dame.

So now I'm 24. Everyone asks if I feel older or if it feels different. It doesn't; I don't really think of it as an "old" or "young" age at this point. I feel like I'm waiting for something in my life to change, though, and teaching keeps me too exhausted to promote anything new myself! My only big change for the future is still a long way away: I'm going to start studying for the LSATs, though I'm not certain if that's the right choice for my career either. For all my efforts to talk to the members of the band I saw last night at my party (which paid off a bit), I'm not sure that I'm still in the stage of my life when being a groupie is appealing:) So I realize, the change I want most is no longer to be just me, just by myself.

I had such a good day! I must be starting to seem quite bipolar, but I really think it depends on the stress level of everyone else in the school...we all build off each other, off the students, until it is buzzing with frustration. That sounds horrible, but we really have to interact with a lot of people and the pressure is to be consistently peppy, and it can be grating after a while.

But today was perfect: my students were well behaved, on task, and enthusiastic; it was fiesta day in the staff lounge and we had flan; and I finally met with the principal (after a cancelation) to evaluate my teaching. After working so hard this year, his comments were very generous and my most desired birthday present...plus, he checked the tiny box that guarantees me a job next year!

Tonight is my farewell to cheese. I'm giving it up for Lent and I realized that their is much more food that contains cheese than I thought in my refrigerator. Aww. I'm going to miss cheese a lot :( I'm a cheese girl...it's going to be painful.

On Sunday, I'm planning on waking up very late and then watching the red carpet commentary. Please come over for the Oscars if you want! If someone else feels like throwing a "party," I'll come, but I'm not good at sitting and just watching tv and talking about it. I usually do lots of other things (wash dishes, reorganize my shoes by color, knit, give myself cornrows, etc.) I just get antsy quickly and it usually drives people crazy. How amazing is it that John Stewart is hosting the Oscars on my birthday though? I'm so excited!

Breakfast at Tiffany's
I was driving in my car this afternoon and I heard "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something, one of my favorite songs. In my intro to psych class senior year, Prof. Trick-testquestions taught us that often people's favorite music is what they listen to during their early twenties, i.e. the "most wild years of their lives." So I always wonder what music I'll be humming in my wheelchair at the nursing home. My grandpa still loves Patsy Cline...no other music has touched him as much since she was current. But I'm wondering if my turbulent high school years and the lingering effects have changed my psychological timeframe. The last time I was carefree-happy, the kind when you forget everything but the present happiness, was when I was a freshman in high school. I had a huge group of friends, first big crushes on the boys lacrosse team, and I was sitting pretty in my stable family and small town. That's when I was listening to "Breakfast at Tiffany's." I almost started crying when I heard the song today, because it reminded me of those times. Everyday, I get closer to myself, the free and easy me that I had then, and a piece of my horrible high school years drops away. And that song will always make me innocently smiley and nostalgic. Visit me when I'm 80 and I'll definitely be playing the instrumental version on the Golden Valley community-room piano:)

:)
Woo-hoo! (little hula dance)
My principal told me today if I'm not rehired by my school, he will personally find me a job in another school in our district! I'm a one-year sub for someone and she has less than two weeks to decide whether or not she's coming back. I would love to stay at this school...everyone is so nice and dedicated to the students, who are amazingly inspirational in themselves, in their drive to learn English. I wish I had more freedom in the content I teach, though. I need to reinforce all of the strategies and stories that they work on in the mainstream rooms, instead of my own choices. So today I put up a poster of Shani Davis, to celebrate new Black history, but none of my students would be able to understand the article, because I couldn't find one for kids. Maybe some random safety patrol kid will read it and buy some ice skates.

I'm going to try to get a job in Puerto Rico this summer with a child advocacy organization. More than teaching, helping children is what I want to do, so this will be practice for other potential careers. And I also desperately need to improve my Spanish. Yesterday, I forgot that acabar means "to finish."

I got home at 6:50 tonight, which may be nothing to you working stiffs, except the fact that I am constantly running from 8:35 to 3pm, with a 20-minute lunch break. There's none of that sitting at my desk and surfing the internet, especially since my desk is in someone else's classroom and I have to sneak in to get my purse!

On Thursday, on dress-like-your-favorite-book-character day, I'm going to whip out my Snow White costume (which is tame in terms of teacher costumes). I was going to go as the Giving Tree, but I thought that might be really unflattering, like all brown clothes and leaves in my hair? No. One last reason I love my job, is that I can do crazy things like wearing a costume to work on a day I'm being observed by the principal and I'll be rewarded for my spirit:)

Anyway, who wants to go see "Thunder in the Valley" on March 4th with me? I think that could be my birthday party, as I'm definitely going to request a song and then do a bar crawl. Then we can all sleep in until 5pm and watch the Academy Awards, which might also involve a drinking game (like, whenever Jon Steward wiggles his tie as a punchline, everybody drinks). I'll send out an email soon, too.

Migraines!
I need this to stop. I had a "light" headache all day and effectively did nothing. I'm so mad about this- I want to be more prepared and do more work for school. My lesson planning is barely started, which means I'm going to be running to catch up all day tomorrow. But I don't know what to do. I finally took a imitrex, my $22 pill, but it hasn't helped yet. All I can do is sit in my moon chair and stare. Or take naps in my bed. I hate feeling like a lazy bum; I need to get things done! This weekend was so much fun before today, though. My brother is so supportive and nice to me! He got me a "Roman Holiday" poster...from Rome! It's in Italian and it will fit in well with the other posters in my apartment.

Busy Weekend
So much has happened already this weekend! On Friday, I left work at 5pm, after cleaning/redecorating the staff lounge and taking a free, circa 1960 microwave, and ate a quick dinner at home. Then Jessica, Amy, and I went to the Hexagon Club to see Thunder in the Valley. The club is a mix of hipsters and men in flannel shirts- maybe because the cowboy look is so "in" right now? We sat at the bar for about three hours and the band still hadn't gone on...at 1:00am! Jessica wanted to leave, so we all walked back to Amy's house. It's unbelieveably cold here at night, so it was horrible. (I was wearing long-underwear under my fancy black pants, which seems like an oxymoron, but at least my legs were toasty). When we got back, Amy and I both wanted to go back...since the point of ladies' night really is to meet guys. So we drove back and got to see the band...they were so good! They sound like a mix of 1920's music and contemporary pop music. We stopped to chat up the handsome keyboardist and it turned out their next gig in on the day before my birthday! So I'm definitely going to go.

I slept in until 11 on Saturday, which is the first time I've slept that late since college. I guess it takes staying up until 3am these days to get me exhausted enough! I felt kind of spacey all afternoon and the only things I got done were a bubble bath and pinning my hair up in curls. At 5, I decided I had to make myself do something fun, albeit outside, so I drove to Nicollet, which is called "Eat Street," and did some grocery shopping at ethnic stores. I found so much interesting noodle soup in a bowl for next week! I also bought hummus in a can, which turned out to taste like something that's come from Lebanon in a can, and a little Vietnamese doll for my collection. I love having dolls from all of the countries of my students; it lets them see themselves in our classroom. My Jordanian student was amazingly excited when I brought my Arabic doll back from Dearborn, because she was wearing a hijab (Muslim headscarf), just like her mother does. It must be strange to spend all day with people who dress so differently from your own family. My new little doll is so cute.

Then, yesterday night, I met Chris, Jess, and Mark at Bryant Lake Bowl, but it was way too crowded. It looks like so much fun though...I hope we go back sometime:) Mark and I were freezing, so we sprinted to Arby's, but it was already closed, so we all decided to go back to my apartment. There, they thought Oliver looked like Puss in Boots from Shrek- which is true- and we played "Scene It!" and watched British "Coupling" with Joe, Bri, and Ben when they arrived. I wish I had a bigger living room sometimes! It's quite small for entertaining.

I already missed church this morning. I think I'll stop doing things on Saturday night, so I can actually get up in time. This morning, I'm going to vacuum, do my dishes finally, and then try to get some lesson planning done. John's visiting at 2:30, and I think we'll probably walk around downtown, watch Happy Gilmore, and then have dinner with relatives.

I love three-day weekends! Although I'm not sure if anyone celebrates it, Happy Presidents' Day! Maybe acting diplomatic should be tradition...I'm not sure if there's a lot of other behavior worth emulating:)

The Two Valentines' Days
Last week, I had developed a theory and plan for Valentines' Day this year. It wasn't that I was afraid of the holiday, but all of the emphasis and hype is placed on it was driving me crazy. My theory was that since I'm not currently in a couple, I really have no right or reason to celebrate a "romantic" holiday. And I the idea of somehow replacing that love with chocolate, whining misery, and happiness over any Valentines I might receive from my kids seemed so needy! I've always been too independent to hate the holiday...once I threw a party, just to drink and hang out with friends, and everyone cancelled because they were too sad to attend a party. So to combat the misinterpretation of the holiday, I thought I just wouldn't celebrate Valentines' Day this year. I wouldn't try to find a way to celebrate Memorial Day, since it doesn't apply to my family, so why should a find a personal way to celebrate today?

I realized, though, that there can be a dichotomy: Valentines' Day can be about friendship, kindness, and silly enthusiasm. I think you might need to be a teacher to understand how much fun it is to see all of the kids at school suddenly drop all of their disagreements and petty rivalries and give everyone a little Shrek valentine. And it was cute to see almost everyone wearing red or pink. It was fun in a silly, childish way, that I appreciated so much! A kindergartner stopped me on my way in, whispered in my ear that she had something for me, and unzipped her backpack so I could dig for a candy:) All of smiles made me kind of giddy...I started tapdancing during one class, as a deversion which some students caught up with the rest of the class. I think I'm going to be the teacher that they always remember...because they probably think I'm high! Oh well, it's fun to experiment with passing on positive attitude, especially to students who do not have easy homelives. Maybe seeing me act out 28 verbs in succession is a spirit-lifter? I hope so.

My conclusion is that,
one, it's perfectly fine to celebrate Valentines' Day in a non-romantic way, as long as it doesn't devolve into "I love me" fest or "why me?" melodrama;
two, I will never be a "I hate Valentines' Day" kind of person, because there's such a sweet element to a holiday all about love.

A few quick responses:
*I know, isn't licorice horrible? I can't stand it! That's why it's up there with cheating. *I think it would be special to drink soda with a red vines straw, but only because those aren't really licorice, so maybe that's not what you mean. Real licorice is like eating sweet dirt, but different... in a bad way! *You would pay to see me in a roller derby league? Could I trade you that for helping me with my taxes? :)

Saturday
I spent all morning, and most of yesterday with the nastiest migraine. Whenever I moved my head, it would bang against my left temple. I had to close my eyes and hold my head every time I stood up at school all day...it scared my students! And it drives me crazy because I wanted to get so much done today!! I spent all morning trying to make it go away (mostly with lots of Red Bull) but it finally took a nap to stop it. Finally! Then I spent all afternoon rearranging my apartment, which is fun and scary at the same time...why do I like moving furniture around so much? I actually made a little scale plan to fit in my new IKEA carpet and wardrobe. It looks quite snug now (pictures below).

I just finished reading "Leap of Faith," by Queen Noor of Jordan. It was so interesting to read about how an American could assimilate to a Middle-Eastern culture and help lead a country to more stability and equality. I told my grandma that one of the Princes of Jordan was handsome (in the photos in the book) and she panicked a bit. Honestly, abuela: I'm Episcopalian and live in Minnesota, so the chances are more than slim. Although my LOVE of hommous and pita might improve the odds a bit. And I know how to say, "did you need to go to the hospital?" in Arabic, since I had fun figuring that out on Thursday- my Jordanian student was confused by my brace:)

Here's my new living room:

My crowded fridge...










I'm running out of room for all my books!

Things that make you go hmm...
My dad is training for his yellow belt in jujitsu.

I have tendonitis- but in my left hand. How did that happen? I hardly type at all. One of my colleagues is going to spread the rumor that I'm in a roller derby league...we'll see if he gets away with that! I'm going with "my back handspring was off by just a little."

A little bit funny...
one of my student was reading the day's directions and instead of reading
"We will talk a little bit about Coretta Scott King," he said
"We will take a little bite of Coretta Scott King."
I laughed a little...oops. But it was so cute.

Things I hate:
(this list is small- I think most things are understandable at some level).
When children are abused, neglected, or made to feel unworthy of love.
When people deliberately or unfeelingly hurt my family or friends. I hate when people cheat, especially with love.
I hate licorice.
That's it.

New things I love:
*Apple Pie Snapple...I can taste the crust flavor!
*Contact paper. I can make beautiful laminated flashcards. I'm actually thinking about visiting the 3M headquarters to stock up on the latest post-it products...obsessed with school supplies much?
*Polish apple tea (Jabluszko!)
*Jon Stewart is hosting the Academy Awards on my birthday:)
*Project Runway. I remember the good ol' days, when I wanted to be a designer. I made a model platform shoe that had the word "fabulous," written in cursive, shrunk down to 10 point font (at Office Max), and repeated in a striped pattern. I got a "C." I was completely not appreciated during my time...just kidding! It was just too ugly.
*Hollywood Video's selling off all of their video tapes! I bought these yesterday:
-The Royal Tenenbaums
-Shrek
-E.T.
-Oliver & Company
-Sword and the Stone
-How the Grinch Stole Christmas
-Dumbo
I have a need to stock up on Disney movies, because they have that screwed-up "vault" policy, where they take old movies out of stores for 10 years, so they can justify having a celebration when it's reissued and then charge you $25. And Oliver & Company is one of my favorite childhood movies...Oliver is Joey Lawrence, the Dodger is Billy Joel, and the poodle is Bette Midler.
*Marmite. It's fermented yeast paste and I love it. It reminds me of Oxford, although apparently me and Adam's middle-aged mother are the only two people in England who do.

The same student that I mentioned before walked by me in the hall today and said "What up, girl?" I told him that he can't call a teacher "girl," which he felt bad about; he honestly doesn't understand what he's saying.

I have an observation tomorrow and one on Thursday. I'm so nervous because I haven't had much time to prepare.

My Classroom
I went a little crazy with my camera on Friday. For everyone who wants to see one of my classrooms- or if you're looking for decorative ideas for a bus-stop entry room:)- here are some pics of my 3rd grade room at school:










We have a word wall with every new word we've discussed from the weekly stories, separated by parts of speech. My Chinese dragon is above our "new word" reading strategies (so the students learn how to figure out a word when they're reading alone). Above the white board are our four Reciprocal Teaching reading strategies, which we just starting practicing last week...the students came up with the replies to each statement or question, for example:
"Will you help me figure this out?"
"Sure. Why not? Let's figure it out together: teamwork!"
On the right side of the board is our theme of the week and new vocabulary that the students requested help understanding.










Our Teamwork mural, inspired by "Detroit Industry" by Diego Rivera. We had to spend a lot of time brainstorming words to use when talking about teamwork, but now they bring it up all the time. We worked on prefixes and suffixes at the beginning of the year, and we brainstormed a list of plural and singular adjectives. Finally, on the bottom is our influential immigrants wall. My students saw an article on the table one day about Elaine Chao (the US Secretary of Labor) that I had ripped out of a magazine. I explained that she moved to the United States from Vietnam and had to learn English, too, and now she has a very important job that helps many people. They got so excited to learn more about other former ESL students. It was so hard to find biographies of successful Guyanan-Americans!

The heat is my room is so mixed up. It's below zero until 8:30, when the doors are finally closed. Then the heat turns on and it goes up to 80 degrees. Layering is a must:)

Two stories and an evaluation
I know that kids stories can get trite, but these were funny:
*One 3rd-grade boy walked by me in the hall, slapped me lightly on the back, and said "Hiya, Teach!" wth:) Where did he pick that up? It was completely something out of a Mickey Rooney movie, when students wore knee socks.
*A second-grade boy, who is in one of my reading groups, has the most amazing ability to make connections from the text to his life. We were reading a story about a horrible dog today. He looked at one of the pictures showing the chaos that the dog had created in the back yard and said "A dog can't turn on the sprinkler...he doesn't have opposable thumbs!" Then he explained that humans and apes have them, but he wasn't quite sure what opposable meant. Apparently, he learned about this on the TV show "Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius."

I was observed and evaluated by my mentor and the head of staff development for our school district. It went amazingly well! They were so nice- it completely made my day; especially when my mentor said, "It's obvious that you do a lot of work." Oh my gosh, thanks, yes, yes I do! Whew. All the work is only worth it if it shows in the students' improvement:)

The New World
I went to see it tonight and I loved it. I read a review that said that you can love it or hate it but nothing in between. And I definitely realize how someone might die of boredom during the millionth silent walk in the woods. What touched me, though, was the romance. Terrence Malick has a way of capturing the subtle glances between two people just as well as he exposes the captivating beauty of unaltered nature. I started to get a leaden weight in my chest at all scenes of silence in the forest: I miss New Hampshire so much. And I was so jealous of the characters running around the pine trees. That something, so primative, has been missing from my life for a while. It almost feels like a spiritual absence. Even before we moved to New England, I was enchanted with having some sort of natural freedom. I made my mom drive me to an overgrown lot in Rochester, New York, so I could pick wildflowers, while wearing a flowing skirt, and put them in a wicker basket (I was quite a precocious 6-year-old). Even 13 years later, I still feel that longing for a quiet forest. I'm such a city girl now, I'm not sure I would make it, even just to visit nature today. I'd probably run into some Minnesota-specific natural danger, like hidden thin ice, or some bizarre indigenous animal. Anyway, The New World was a beautiful movie; it was almost more like a PBS history special than a narrative story. I loved it, though. Anyone who wants to drive to the woods with me sometime and run around:), please let me know.

The traditional romance in the movie was serene, too, but also extremely lustful. Words sometimes ruin everything, don't they? It's much better when you can't understand each other and might as well not talk. (Cynical laughing...) I very much miss romance. I won't actually say how long it's been since I was really romanced, but he had an accent, and that's much too long ago.

So, and my friends agreed, an evening watching Colin Farrell and Christian Bale run around the woods was very nice, but no substitute for being in the woods myself.

My Favorite Music
In honor of the fact that I've learn about so much good music this year (through my friends at Radio K ;), here is my top 20 for 2005 (but without caveats, because I don't mind disagreement):
Original of the Species by U2
Emmanuel by Chris Botti
You're Beautiful by James Blunt
Use It by the New Pornographers
Tired of Being Sorry by Ringside
The Autumn Sweater by Yo La Tengo
The Comeback by Shout Out Louds
Diamonds from Sierra Leone by Kanye West
Brighter Than Sunshine by Aqualung
Gravity by Embrace
Wires by Athlete
Ashes by Embrace
Contigo (With You) by Federico Aubele
Goodnight Goodnight by Hot Hot Heat
Take It Easy (Love Nothing) by Bright Eyes
Lover I Don't Have to Love by Bright Eyes
Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice
Cannonball by Damien Rice
Cathedrals by Jump Little Children

I made the bad choice of going to the Humane Society on Monday, just to visit the animals. I am so sensitive about pretty much everything everything (except people who cut me off) and I saw a cat who was so cute that I couldn't just leave him there. It was an impulse buy! :) His name is Oliver, like Oliver Twist, because he was orphaned when his owner was taken to prison (the police brought him to the shelter. He's so adorable.

A strange thing I heard on the Fox News Channel:
*When interviewing the "Vampire" gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, a reporter said, "Well, you worship Satan, which could be hard to overcome, but your education plan is good."

This is such a diverse state! Just when I think I understand Minnesota life, something bizarre pops up. I think I'll always be a New Hampshire native...although I guess I never completely understood "Live free or die."

My Favorite Things

Days off from working,
and freshly cleaned tables,
Urban Outfitters,
and sesame bagels,
beds from Ikea,
my Tibetan ring,
these are a few of my favorite things.

Fa-la-la lattes,
and fresh, springtime breezes,
a plate of triscuits with sharp cheddar cheeses,
New York Times' Op-eds,
and Dickens' writings,
these are a few of my favorite things.

In staff meetings,
or hot airplanes,
other times I'm mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
and then I don't feel so bad.

My week...

*Five of my students who don't speak any English- and whose parents don't speak any English- did not understand the field trip forms that were sent home only in English. So I spent one morning running around the school, arguing that all forms should be sent home in Spanish as well and desperately trying to get my students permission to go. I worry so much about them: one girl cries everyday because the days are so short! And I can't imagine what they daydream about during the hours of school when they have no idea what's going on. I printed 10 new Spanish books for them last night...but that's not enough at all.

*Kwadwo walked across the 2nd grade room to say "You look nice today, Miss Walters." It was so sweet, after my morning of running around talking to parents liasons and the principal.

*My classroom looks so colorful now! I put up photos of influential immigrants- there are so many more than I thought, including the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, Sen. Mel Martinez from Florida, and Betty Nguyen from CNN. My students were so excited! I should have thought of that before. It must be so hard when there are so few role models of English language learners.

I need a drink tonight...does anyone want to go out?

The Japanese word "chokuegambo" describes the wish that there were more designer-brand shops on a given street.

Reading this on Cecily's blog made me wonder: what words have Americans created that somehow hint at cultural predispositions?

Well, "super-size" (verb) is one...

Since I always need to have the tv on while I'm working at home, I decided to do a double-feature today. I just remembered how much I adore the movie "Babe." There is tendency for me to anthropomorphize all animals anyway, so it just saves me the trouble. Plus, it looks like the little piggy is wearing a toupee...there's nothing cuter than that.

A Psychological Diagnosis
In honor of the new medical diagnosis page in the New York Times magazine, which is so interesting, here is an inconclusive diagnosis of my listening problem.

Symptoms:
An inability to recall oral directions, especially multi-step instructions with no visual modeling. Cannot remember heard comments in passing. Attempts to compensate for the problem include excessive usage of post-its. Acted as secretary of a group in college, but could not type and listen to the dialogue at the same time (which led to some confusion). However, has great difficulty focusing on a task in silence: there must be noise for her to study. Without background noise, she becomes increasingly distracted by tangential thoughts and becomes philosophical. (For example, cooking in silence leads to her standing still, licking a spoon in a trancelike state, contemplating what it would be like to attend Le Corden Bleu in Paris- how much French would I need to know to follow the cooking directions?). She feels that the louder the background noise when she's focusing on a task, the more she has to contintually refocus her attention on that task, which actually increases her capacity for productivity.

Family History:
Grandfather has limited audio recall as well- especially when listening to directions when not accompanied by a visual guide. Maternal aunt was diagnosed with audio dyslexia (which means she has difficulty maintaining the order of words when listening?)

Diagnosis: Hmm...I think I have audio ADD. I need constant audio stimulus or I start to have the most random thoughts! I don't watch a lot of tv, but I almost always have it on at home because the noise keeps me focused. I also need to write down every single instruction or note at work. Which is why I'm addicted to sticky notes (of all sizes) and making lists. I can't just ask myself what I need to do, because I don't trust my memory:)

I'm really sorry if there are times when it seems like I haven't been listening to my friends! I stopped telling people about my listening issue for a while because of the way the teacher in my student-teaching placement treated it. Whenever I made a mistake, like not remembering some random and inconsequential information, she would say "I know you have your problem, Nicole, but you're going to have to get over it if you want to be a teacher..." Her tone was so mean that I'm always afraid that people will think I'm making it up or I can't compensate for it. But I usually can;) Isn't that bizarre?

Our school is so diverse in languages, economic situation, and emotional needs. It makes me question what I know about my students every day and makes me feel so grateful to have had the childhood that I did. Today I had to talk a student out of biting himself- actually cutting the skin on his arm with his teeth- and try to stop him saying that he hates himself and deserves it. And it was just a moment during the day. I didn't have time to process it until now. The little boy has developmental and emotional disabilities and he kept saying "I'm stupid because I can't stop talking and I always have to leave the room." I can't stand that any child feels that way. The problem was soon taken over by his own teacher, and our amazing social work and psychological staff are probably addressing it, but it's such a horrible thing to see...

There are also things that I can't assume about any of my students. I can't ask them to do research for homework, because almost none of them have internet or computers, or encyclopedias. Today, I gave a few students postcards to color (they missed the activity before vacation). But all of them told me that they don't have anything to color with at home. I can't imagine a 8-yr-old who can't color! How can I teach them to be independent and creative thinkers when they can't find the answers to their own questions or express themselves artistically at home? Although I'm sure they all find ways, and I in no way pity them, I still wish I could give them everything my parents gave me, all the things I ignorantly expected that every 8-year-old girl was entitled.

So, I've decided to write to Oprah:) My students represent a new generation of immigrants in American history. All of our ancestors came to American in some capacity and in some way relied on the kindness of strangers (like Blanche Dubois!). Why have we forgotten that? My grandparents spoke Polish and Russian as first languages. Neither went to college, but they fought and struggled, in ways I can't imagine, to support their children to success in this country (although my grandpa didn't receive a warm reception as a Polish man in the army in the 40's). And all of my Dad's siblings went to college, three had PhD's and two have Master's Degrees. Not all of my students have parents who have the time to support them to that extent...but they deserve every opportunity.

If you are ever in a restaurant that has free crayons for kids, please swipe some for my students! I'm going to start a collection:)

1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before?
I got my teaching license, a full-time job, and my own parking space. 

2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I never make them. I usually make changes during Lent.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit?
OMG, I didn't even go to Canada.

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?
A nice big bed, a new car (which I'm getting this Spring!), a lesson-planning schedule for work, and a brilliant and sweet man (Anderson Cooper's been too busy).

7. What date from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Two: March 6, because our extended family changed irrevocably, and it still doesn't make sense to any of us; and August something, when I finally got a job, a week before I had to either start substitute teaching (and live with my aunts) or move home.  

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting a job! It's my first actual job.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Losing touch with my ESL friends, because we're all so busy with our new jobs. We're starting a book group this year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had the worse cold of my life last week. For 4 days, everytime I coughed, I couldn't stop until I started drinking water or ate a cough drop. I had a horrible tickle in my throat that would even wake me up in the middle of the night.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I don't know. I love buying books for my students, especially ones that give them confidence by showing their culture. I finally found an Arabic-English picture dictionary at the Arab-American Museum in Dearborn, MI, which makes me so happy, especially after starting to look for Arabic books in Minnesota through kind of sketchy stores. I love my mini-sharpie too; it's cute and resourceful!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Wow, my family. They are so sweet and supportive. Papageorgio got me a digital camera so I can tape my students' presentations! Hermano, who takes care of me like a big brother, even though he's only one in stature:) And my friends, who always make me laugh.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
All of the people involved with not helping after Hurricane Katrina depressed me. And I was appalled when one of my students was asked to interpret for his family when they received their eviction notice. People who don't have sympathy for immigrants and children's sensitivity make me so mad.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Surprizingly, to food. I love grocery shopping! But almost half of the food I bought went bad before I had time to eat it. I'm going to start making a weekly plan, so my cart isn't bigger than my stomach. 

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going to Chicago for my grandparents' anniversary! It was such a needed break from work.

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?
"Contigo" by Federico Aubele. I really liked Brazilian techno/tango music this summer, which sounds a bit strange, but it reminded me of Barcelona, and I listened to it while I ran.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? I honestly can't remember how I felt last year. I think I was stressed out by my coursework. But Christmas was so much fun.
ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer, which isn't saying much since I was living off loans last year. I'm going to have to start paying back my loans this month :(

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Spent time with friends, volunteered, gone to church (now that I finally found a nice one).

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Obsessed about my job.

20. How did you Christmas?
With all of my mom's family, as usual. It was so crowded though, that next year is going to be different.

22. Did you fall in love in 2005?
No.

23. How many one-night stands?
There's no graceful answer to that question...

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It's so altruistic and sweet, even if it's a bit forced. And I like Grey's Anatomy. I watch so much CNN, though.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I don't really hate anyone. There are some people who have such different interests that I don't want to hang out with them, but that's fine.

26. What was the best book you read?
Paris to the Moon, by Adam Gopnik. I miss Paris and my life would be perfect if they spoke Spanish there, because then maybe I could justify going again.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Ringside, the New Pornographers, and Embrace.

28. What did you want and get?
A job! After the torture of job-searching this summer, I'm so lucky that it all worked out in the end.

29. What did you want and not get?
A classroom to teach in, a guy to have fun with, and a dog.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I can't remember. I almost stopped going to movies because I don't have much time. I liked the new Pride and Prejudice- the acting was so good.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I took two Praxis exams (education tests for licensure) and had dinner at Aunt Ali's.

32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I want to find a fun and fulfilling volunteer position. I'm not going to do Habitat for Humanity again, since I have minimal construction skills:) So I'm still looking. 

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005?
It's all about dressing against type: I don't want to look like a teacher! So I wore a lot of nice button-down shirts and tweed skirts. My favorite work-clothes store is Ann Taylor. But, it was fun on the weekends to wear my inappropriate clothes, which is pretty much all of them.

34. What kept you sane?
My students' enthusiasm kept me dedicated to my job.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Anderson Cooper for brains, but Clive Owen for brawn;)

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The aftermath of Katrina.

37. Who did you miss?
hermano, my grandparents, ECM

38. Who was the best new person you met?
My radio friends are the best, because it's nice to have guy friends that I can count on. Chris even offered to chaperone when my sketchy relative was hitting on me!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005.
Rudeness usually has nothing to do with you and kindness actually works better in fixing it. It's also shown me that hyper-peppiness can sometimes be a manipulative tool (in a positive way) while working at a school.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"Oh, simple thing, where have you gone? I'm getting old and I need something to rely on"- Keane

Happy New Year...especially to you:)

I have the worst cough I've ever had in my life. It starts like a normal cough, but it works itself up ( it has a mind of its own) to the point when strangers on the street are saying "Oh my gosh, are you alright?" It's horrible.

Today I got to one of my favorite things, exploring an ethnic neighborhood in a city. It's always like a treasure hunt. It was really special today, though, because I went to Hamtramck, MI, which is the largest Polish community in the United States... my own ethnicity. Being in Detroit, it's pretty rundown, but the Polish Arts Center was amazing. I found absolutely delicious tea, a Russian-Jewish-immigrant children's book, a recipe book, soup mix, marshamallow candy, a "If you're Polish, smile" pin, and a frame painting of Christmas in Krakow. I'm lethal with a credit card in any store like that- as if I didn't already go crazy at the Arab-American museum:) But I'd never seen a doll with a turban before! It was an impulse buy, regardless of the fact that all children should see toys that represent their culture.

I wish I was more closely connected to a distinct culture; American society is so diverse that customs seemed more diluted, and less sacred. I was friends with such a diverse group during high school, and I loved learning about the foods and traditions they had to pass down, but I really didn't have much to share (except maybe to explain Episcopalianism, which most people don't know that they already understand). I think that was the reason that I wanted to study languages; I can't imagine living in close proximity with a population of people and not being able to communicate with them. And I wanted to escape this American bubble, which, even though it's huge and diverse within itself, can feel claustrophobic and possessing unfair limitations.

Whew.
The past three days went by so quickly!

Friday: We arrived in Marshall and moved into my grandparents' house. There were 17 of us, which is smaller than usual. John and I worked all evening on our big present for our parents. He taught me so much about imovie- I am in love with it! Fading out the sound, freezing the picture, and the double fades are sweet:) That evening, in the typical independent style of my family, we stayed home while everyone went to the early church service...when I was little, we always went to midnight church. I just did my best to stay awake. There was something mystical and kind of medieval about being up that late to celebrate Christmas, and everyone in my immediate family agreed, so we went later. My sequenced, midnight blue top was a little too nightclub for a small-town church, though. Everyone was in jeans and festive sweaters! We all had fun, though, especially my mom, who likes to sing Bass, alto, soprano, and the descant, and she alternates between those at any given time during the hymns. It's really hard to stay on key standing next to her!

All of the kids got to open one present on Christmas Eve, which is something brand new, but which I suggested, Minnesota wisdom apparently, to dissipate the melee that usually is Christmas Day with 17 people. I got pink fleece gloves, but none of the bedlam was averted. So much for that sage advice.

Saturday: I woke up at 6am, after about four hours of sleep, to open my stocking with everyone else. My brother got the best, um, loot: Che Guevara lip balm, sock-monkey bandaids, and Napoleon Dynamite chapstick. We opened presents for another 6 hours, with two breaks, until the end of my cousin Eli's presents, when he started screaming and we had to stop. My parents, who are way too generous, got me a digital camera that I can use at school. I can record their presentations now, and show them at conferences! Later in the afternoon, everyone cooked or watched the Pistons. I made a list of Spanish verbs I can use at school. My favorite is subrayar, because I must sound so gringo-ish saying "draw a line under the word, like this" over and over. In the evening, everyone tried to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" over the twins yelling. My attention span has gotten so small after working with 8-year-olds, so I made Hootycreek cookies.

Sunday: All of us got dressed up to have our family portrait taken, which was my grandma's anniversary present. Somehow it only took 30 minutes to finish. After lunch, we drove to my great aunt and uncle's house, which is an amazing, half-finished house in the woods near Kalamazoo, Michigan. They delighted us with stories of their travels to Rome and Ecuador, and my uncle thought it was so funny that I thought that the pictures of them eating guinea pig were disgusting, and so we got to see those a lot. My cousin, who's 29, lives in Rome, and is an incredibly bad influence, promised to show my brother around when he gets there. Oh well. He can't get in much more trouble than a party when he needs to take someone to the ER with a stab wound, and that already happened. Whew.

ps-listen to Emmanuel played by Chris Botti. It's the most beautiful trumpet playing I've ever heard. I'll probably never do anything that well in my life!

I missed the holiday fun.
I missed my favorite part of Christmas, which isn't actually the day or the presents, but the anticipation and corresponding activities. Those include: cookie-frosting, snowman-building, movie-watching, fire-building, sledding, and gingerbread-house-decorating. Since we didn't arrive at my grandparents' house until yesterday, all of those things were already done.

John and I still need to finish editing our parents' present, which is a kind of "This is your life" movie, with clips of us talking about them all over Ann Arbor (where we lived when we both were born and where they live now). With all of the takes we did, the blooper reel will probably be the best part.

Happy Hannukkah Eve, Merry Christmas Eve, Kickin' two days until Kwanzaa, um...or just have a good weekend!

This clip, The Chronic of Narnia, from SNL, is funny...those cupcakes look delicious!

Highlights from my grandparents' anniversary party in Chicago:

*Going to the Mexican Fine Arts Center again. It's one of my favorite museums. I found color-your-own Diego Rivera murals postcards! Including one portrait of Edsel Ford, which might be the most random thing ever. I'm going to give them to my students so that they can write me letters over vacation.

*Our amazing head waiter, Seymour, who took care of my cousin Weezer after she spilled a huge bowl of ravioli all over her white shirt. She even got to meet the chef. It was really sweet.

*Millenium Park. The cloud sculpture is beautiful.

ps- I love this cold! I sound like a cabaret singer. Does anyone remember the episode of Friends when Phoebe tries to keep her nasal voice by catching more colds? With the bugs passing around my students, I could probably keep this up for the rest of winter...if I started shaking each of their hands at the end of the day.

I have a bad day once every other month, when I feel like the amalgamation of disappointments, stresses, and seeming failures of the previous weeks compound into a helplessness that almost clouds my vision of reality. Depression runs in my family, and by now I've learned how to cope with it, usually by thinking of how blessed I am in light of the struggles going on every day throughout the world. Some small hope always wakes me up from the horrible, downtrodden feelings, and my outlook is immediately shaken back into a pleasant reality.

Tonight I turned on "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and I was filled again with childlike enthusiasm and anticipation for Christmas. It's amazing how something like Linus's retelling of the the Christmas story can restore that hope...

While I was cramming to finish reading an article about the correlations between reading comprehension and reading speed and accuracy (for our grant seminar), I realized that I am still using the exact same strategies that I reiterate to my students every day: rereading, context clues, predictions, self-questioning. They are all strategies that we do unconsciously, so it's interesting to see my students struggle with them for the first time. I hope someday, when one of my students is reading Shakespeare, he or she will remember (fondly?) the days when Miss Walters made them reread Lon Po Po (the Chinese version of Little Red Riding Hood) multiple times to make sure that every word was understood through the text.

I loved reading such a hard article for our seminar! I actually miss the hours and hours of reading that I did for education classes; it's so abstract that you sometimes want to rip it up, but I long for the subtle thrill of mastering a difficult article (like L1-L2 acquisition based on phonemic awareness and interlanguage). Those days seem so manageable compared to trying to teach a student who only speaks Arabic how to read English. Today, she got really mad at me and wrote "no no no no" on her entire paper before I realized she was upset.

This week seems hazy. I am in such a coasting slide towards vacation, and yet so many different things happened this week that time feels like it's standing still. Today I told my students a general outline for how we would be applying the vocabulary for the rest of the week, like "tomorrow, we will share our new words, the paragraphs that they are in in our story, and the context clues we used to understand their meaning. Then, the next day we will compare and contrast the story with our own lives, using the vocabulary to write meaningful sentences that show that we understand the story. Then, on Friday, we will produce a class summary of the story, using the vocabulary and text-to-self stories, which will demonstrate our understanding as a class and show to everyone that teamwork helps us all to learn." They all looked at me for a stunned few seconds and then one persnickity boy called out, "Haha! Tomorrow's Friday!" Oops. I was feeling enthusiastic about those plans, too ;)

As I was leaving school, one of my second-grade students, who I work with in his regular classroom, yelled my name in the hall. He wanted to give me one of his birthday pencils that he had brought to share with his class. I asked him if he was sure -fancy pencils are a luxury for many of my students- but he said "Oh, Miss Walters, I have too many anyway," in his cute, Spanish-accented voice. So he gave me a "Student of the Week" pencil and eraser. That kind of kindness makes up for parts of my job like 90-minute meetings about entering assessment data when I don't even give standarized reading assessments. And listening to my principal sing "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" as a morale booster.

*Congratulations to my Dad! He now has 10 people working under him at Pfizer (6 more than before). Some of those people actually report to other people, who report to him: so he's a third-tier research fellow. And his birthday is tomorrow... *

The War on Christmas...
is pretty much the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! If you really need to get your spiritual fulfillment from a stranger at the mall, a clerk at city hall, or a card from the President, maybe you have other faith or diversity issues to work through. You can always go to church and knock yourself out saying "Merry Christmas." I feel kind of uncomfortable when sales clerks say it to me...and I celebrate Christmas! I prefer separation of church and commercialism.

This is a interesting article from the New York Times. Some of the people working for Fox News are crazy...especially Bill O'Reilly.

Three things:
1. I've christened my bathroom the "fiesta" room. Not because I plan to throw parties in there, which actually now sounds like a potentially fun idea:) but because I put up my Mexican holiday flags, my sun mask from San Antonio, and my lava lamp. It's so much more fun now to brush my teeth. I just hope everything doesn't fall down from the steam when I take a shower. That's a risk I have to take when adding a little spice to any room.

2. I completely disagree with the PG rating of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." In terms of how much it could scare a child, I think it should have been rated R...I was scared, and granted that I scare very easily, it was still something I could have imagined making me cry and have nightmares when I was little. The symbolic sacrifice scene (I won't say of whom) was brutal and almost maniacal, with many soldiers looking like something from a horror movie. And I felt, when I was little, that seeing an animal die in a movie was ten times worse than a human (which is still true and why I walked out of March of the Penguins). There were even more deaths in the movie as well, probably hundreds in the battle scene, as well as multiple wolf maulings. Otherwise, I thought it was a really sweet movie. Just not at all for children, who don't have the developmental skills to separate fantasy from reality.

Oh, and I remember being so mad the first time I ate Turkish Delight, after reading about it in "The Chronicles of Narnia." It's just gelatin covered in powdered sugar! I had pictured them at least made of chocolate, because why would Edmund betray his siblings for gumdrops?

3. Please call or email me if you're not busy anytime this week or next (and you live in Minnesota). I want to see everyone before I leave for 10 days on the 21st. I'll be in Chicago for my grandparents 50th Anniversary party all next weekend, which I'm overly excited about! I love that all the silly family traditions sneak out when we're all together.

December 8th, La vie en froit
Have you ever gone into the Gap, just looking for a cute pair of mittens, and they're all over $40? Sometimes, a small part of me wants to do this...

I was listening to "La Vie en Rose" by Edith Piaf at school today and it made me miss Paris. I know that it's a cliche to love Paris, but what I love about Paris is the dissonance of French culture...there is little cookie-cutter suburban culture, dismal, mass-produced, boring and bland Americaness there. McDonalds has fruit-filled brioche breakfast muffins and shrimp in the salads. The ice tea is bitter, the waiters are often unapologetically arrogant, and they don't even sell prom dresses in their department stores (it was that time of high school and I checked). And then when I did buy a dress, I tried it on behind a curtain in the corner of a small store, with a tiny bichon-frise in the dressing room with me:) Old men in berets hit on you and it doesn't seem creepy...it's whimsical.

Here is a my favorite quote from Adam Gopnik, in Paris to the Moon:
The hardest thing to convey is how lovely it all is and how that loveliness seems all you need. The ghosts that haunted you in New York and Pittsburgh will haunt you anywhere you go, because they're your ghosts and the house they haunt is you. But they become disconcerted, shaken, confused for half a minute, and in that moment on a December at four o'clock when you're walking from the bus stop to the rue Saint-Dominique and the lights are twinkling across the river- only twinkling in the bateaux-mouches, luring the tourists, but still...you feel as if you've escaped your ghosts if only because, being you, they're transfixed looking at the lights in the trees on the other bank, too, which they haven't see before, either.
It's true that you can't run away from yourself. But we were right: You can run away. (270).

After feeling suffocated in suburbia all through high school, I'm afraid of the tedium and sterilization of a routine and slowly stiffling life. While I'm too busy to feel that way now, I see glimpses of it at school and it scares me. Part of me wants to abandon this next year and run away. I almost want to try something new...if only to avoid being in a rut, which I know is a horrible reason to do anything. Part of me wants to go to law school, though or get an architecture degree. Maybe then I wouldn't be working in the math supply room and bus entry room, which is either freeeeezing cold or like a sauna, so I'm always either stripping (which always involves a still-teacheresque bottom layer) or piling on the layers so I look like a marshmellow. I know it's the whole paying-your-dues thing. Grr. I kind of hoped that the five years of higher education were somewhat factored into my dues. I feel like I paid quite a pretty penny during my 100's of hours at Starbucks on Forsyth and Handley.

Life in the Frozen Tundra
So I've been talking to people in other states about the level of cold there, and I've heard them complain...well, there is really no reason to complain about anything until you've lived here ;) When I walked to my car this morning, I was reminded of my issues with Minnesota last year: why would people choose to settle somewhere and establish a city in a place where they couldn't even go outside for three months of the year? It's actually inhabitable! My fingers were shocked by the temperature (about 3 degrees) and didn't stop throbbing for five minutes in my car. Grr. I think Minnesotans have some amount of necessary amnesia that sets in in June, when it is absolutely beautiful and perfect in this state: "Oh, I can last the winter...it's not that bad." But then you risk frostbite running (really fast) to a post box and then you remember that this is what actual cold feels like and it won't end until March.

My weekend was so busy! I went to the staff holiday party with my dad, which was actually so much fun. It was at Benchwarmer Bob's, which made me laugh all night. We played fun, steal-other-people's-prizes kinds of games and my dad had the nerve (as an outsider) to steal from the principal! Some of my co-workers seemed annoyed to realize that they were old enough to be my parent, but oh well.

Then I ran in the reindeer run on Saturday morning. It was freezing, but so beautiful with the snow on the lake. So many people make costumes to run in...my favorites were the Pac-Man (with about 10 characters), Mary and Joseph runners, and the cowbell chorus ("...the only prescription is more cowbell!") My aunt and I tried to jog and sing carols, but it didn't really work...until we found someone running with a karaoke machine who let us sing along. My dad froze in the coffee tent, and my calves are still quite tight, but I got a cute t-shirt, so I'll write it off as fine holiday fun.

Then we drove down to St. Olaf's so see my brother, meet his girlfriend's extended family, and watch their holiday choir concert. It was fun...my brother is the funniest singer of the whole 300-something member choir, which is saying a lot.

Yesterday I watched a lot of movies, decorated my Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, and finally bought more huge post-its. I love them so much! They're really useful in all situations:)

Other updates, summarized:
*my computer died. I feel completely cut off from the world! I won't get in back for 9 days:( But that gives me a lot more to do at work:)
*I've been feeling the need to recapture my youth...eat multiple candy canes, drink Kool-aid, and play old school games. I wonder if there's someone who wants to play video games with me.
*I'm going to buy a big new bed this weekend and finally move back into my bedroom. Apparently all the huge bugs have died, or maybe just realized it's too dangerous to come out of the radiator since the vacuum cleaner is always right there.
*Blogulator (I thought you might like a shout-out;)- "Murder by Death" is showing at the Uptown in a few weeks...do you want to go with?
Have a good week! And try not to freeze.