Crazy Bell Schedules

This morning I made the 15 mile trek to the high school I work with as part of my liaison responsibilities through the university. I was supposed to meet with the principal and a couple of teachers 4th period. When I arrived, I learned that because of unexpected testing, the schedule had been altered and students were just finishing 1st period (at 10:05 AM). Classes were only 30 minutes long, so I borrowed a teacher's laptop to do some writing while I waited until lunchtime and our rescheduled meeting.

Note: trigonometry is a foreign language-- just thought I'd throw that out there

During 3rd period, the principal came on the intercom:

"Students, please remember to go to your 5th period class after 3rd period. Or go to lunch, whichever normally comes first. Then go to your 4th period class, followed by your 6th period class. And because you've been so cooperative during the testing scheduling, we will extend lunch by 15 minutes."

During the lunch meeting, the principal's walkie talkie kept getting messages: "Which period are we in now? Should I be ringing the bell? What about the boy who took both lunches?"

Time for a spoof! Here's my new and improved version of the principal's original announcement:

"Students, thank you for coming to school fourteen minutes and twenty two seconds earlier than normal today. We'll be sure to use that extra instructional time wisely. Today is backwards schedule day, combined with mix up the content areas day. Please report to your fourth period class first. That makes it first period subprime a. Twenty minutes into first period subprime a, please report to period seven, which will become first period subprime b. The last five minutes of first period subprime b, report back to your original first period. Next will be lunch, interrupted after fifteen minutes by a bell signaling your report to third period (second period subprime a). Another bell will signal that your food is sufficiently digested to report to physical education. We're kicking off our new Exercise Across the Curriculum (EAC) program. Please report to the gym for our EAC 'thuse (formerly known as a pep rally), led by the science department. They used the second half of lunch (second period subprime b) to create a "Physics and physical activity can be phun" cheer which they will share with the student body. After the 'thuse, report to the last remnants of your regular second period class. We're not sure what time it will be at that point, so the rest of the day will be divided into equal time blocks and you will go to seventh period, then third period, then sixth period, and finally fifth period (isn't that alliteration nice?). Thank you, and have a great day."

Hmm- makes about as much sense as the bell schedules I've seen . . .

Tea for Shelley

See this pretty table? Yesterday I got to sit at it for a real live tea party. Okay, I drank lemonade rather than tea-- and yes, I was the only person present who didn't drink tea. But I drank that lemonade in a pretty Depression-era glass teacup, thank you very much.

So why was I at a tea party? Not usually what I do on a Saturday afternoon (half an hour before the party I was hurrying to mow my lawn before it started raining). This one was special. It was a "Tea for Shelley" fundraising tea party. The tea parties were started in the memory of a woman named Shelley Marshall who died in the September 11th attacks. Her husband wanted to do something to help his very young children remember their mother, something that would also benefit the community. Apparently Shelley loved tea parties, as well as art and music and poetry. The tea parties raise money for community arts events, especially poetry readings. I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Pretty hats, cute little quiches and cucumber sandwiches, and an hour of calm, happy conversation, plus a very cute little decorated cookie as a party favor. Now why don't I live in England where I could do this more often? Hmm. . .

Hey, Buckwheat!

It wouldn't be the end of September in West Virginia without the Preston County Buckwheat Festival. Queen Ceres didn't want to cooperate and look at the camera, but there she is (I didn't get a picture of King Buckwheat-- he had a separate float). This festival lasts four days, with each day having a different theme. Today was children's day, and all the kids in Preston County schools got a day off. That meant lots of marching bands, lots of trucks loaded with soccer teams and football players, lots of little gymnasts doing handsprings down the street (which had to hurt the skin). The WVU Mountaineer made an appearance (see photo), but not the WVU marching band. Rats- they have a great drum line.

This is a pretty fun small town event. Lots of carnival midway rides, funnel cakes, corn dogs, kettle corn, and farm animals. Too bad they haven't got the whole Iowa State Fair food on a stick thing going on. Corn dogs were all I could find on a stick. A couple of sheep tried to eat the tie on my sweater, and I saw a really big Texas longhorn in the cattle barn, so while it wasn't the Iowa State Fair, I at least got the fair vibe.

My one regret: no buckwheat honey this year. The honey vendor said the bees didn't do very well. Stupid colony decline disease! Buckwheat honey is really good stuff. I also didn't get a buckwheat pancake and sausage dinner this year. They're yummy, but I didn't want to wait in line for an hour. I'll just make my own buckwheat pancakes at home. So there.

Cooking time with Sheila

Last night I tried a new recipe and my first thought (after Yum!) was, "Hey, I know at least two of my blog readers who would like this." I could have e-mailed you individually, but I thought other members of the blogosphere (isn't that a great word?) might like it, too. Jen: I'm not sure if you can do the milk, but based on your Swiss cheese binge a few weeks ago, I'm thinking you probably can.

Chard and feta pie
from Simply Organic by Jesse Ziff Cool

2 cups shredded potatoes (don't peel them, just shred them after washing)
2 green onions, sliced
3/4 tsp. salt
6 eggs
1/4 c. flour
1/4 tsp. black pepper
2 T olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 bunches green or red chard or spinach, coarsely chopped-- eyeball this-- it's the bulk of your filling, so you'll want a lot
1 1/2 c. crumbled feta cheese, about 8 ounces-- I almost ran out with one package, so splurge and buy two so you can eat the extra on salads later
1 c. milk
2 T oregano (fresh) or 2 tsp dried
1/2 c. bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-inch deep dish pie plate-- let me emphasize DEEP here.

Put the potatoes and green onions in a colander and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp. of salt. Drain for five minutes, gently squeezing out excess liquid.

Transfer to a medium bowl and add one of the eggs, the flour, and the pepper. Stir until blended. Press into the pie plate to form a crust. Brush with 1 T of the oil. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the crust is browned.

Heat the remaining oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the red onion and cook for four minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and chard/spinach and cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes or until the chard/spinach has wilted. Remove from heat, drain off excess liquid, and cool slightly.

In a large bowl, combine the remaining five eggs, one cup of the feta, the milk, oregano, the rest of the salt, and the chard mixture. Pour into the baked crust. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs and the remaining 1/2 c. of cheese.

Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting. This could spill over, so put the pie on a cookie sheet before putting it in the oven.

I really like this-- it's kind of a quiche with a hashbrown crust. Very yummy! Serves 8.

Storm's a'comin

Today when I was driving home from stake conference (a 45 minute drive), the sky was blue and it was hot and humid outside. It's now 7:41 PM. The sky is covered in dark clouds and the wind is starting to whip through trees. I heard the windows shake a few minutes ago from the wind. I wonder if I'll have power by the time I go to bed.

I think Ike's remnants are headed east. Better turn off the computer.

this year's bad poetry contest

A little background: Several years ago, when I was teaching creative writing at Carbon High School, I had a bad poetry reading with my students. It's become sort of a fixture in my teaching now because a) it's fun and b) it takes a lot of the fear and mystique out of poetry so people can just enjoy it. So last night in my methods course we wrote bad poems. I thought mine needed its own blog entry.

Just before we all settled in to write, someone quoted a line from "Ten Things I Hate about You." Then someone else made a Heath Ledger comment, which got me thinking Batman. So here's the poem, which is a bad jumprope song:

Jumping Rope on a Stormy Evening

Batman, Superman, Spiderman, the Blob
Which of these heroes broke the doorknob?
I don't know exactly but I just might have a clue,
How many crackers can you chew?
One, three, ten, twelve
Into the garden I will delve.
Five, nine, eight, two
Twenty more jumps and I'll be through.
Unless I trip. Which I just did. Ouch.

Now it's YOUR turn! Write a bad poem and stick it in the comment field!

Hurricane? What Hurricane?

This is the Washington DC temple. I went to this temple yesterday-- well, technically Friday afternoon. Yesterday was stake temple day, and it's been planned for, oh, four or five months. The temple presidency is being changed soon, so the temple president arranged a special meeting on the seventh floor of the temple in the priesthood assembly room. Three stakes were invited to the meeting, and one of those stakes was in Reading, Pennsylvania, where my friends the Purdys live. So, in late July the Purdys and I decided to use this weekend as temple day/play time.

Note that the picture above is in springtime with clear skies and beautiful dogwoods in bloom. That was in May.

The temple didn't look like this yesterday (well, the building's the same, just not the scenery). Yesterday Tropical Storm Hanna was blowing through, so it was really, really rainy. Did that stop people from coming? Nope. The parking lot was full, so we parked at the stake center next door and forged little rivers of water that extended into the street.

So here's my favorite story of the day, courtesy of the temple president. He used to be a mission president in Bolivia. When he was there, the Lima, Peru temple was built. It took three days and three nights for members to drive there, and they sold everything they had to get there. On the way, they were stopped by a tree that had blocked the road. Armed men climbed onto the bus and took everything they could, including the babies' milk. The members kept going anyhow. They prayed in gratitude when they got to the temple. President Hinckley came out and met them and promised them they would never go hungry again or lack housing due to their faithfulness.

So as I heard this story, I thought, "Hmm. I dealt with some rain. So maybe I might hydroplane a bit on the way home. Have I sacrificed like these people in Bolivia did?"

Hurricane or no hurricane, the temple is a refuge against storms. I'm so grateful I went!

How do YOU define "professional"?

Yesterday I got an e-mail with the meeting minutes from the College of Education's leadership team. One of the items dealt with staff being sure they didn't eat lunch at their desks and didn't surf the web or play computer games like Solitaire. Okay, makes sense.

So then this afternoon, I was in a meeting where a new colleague said something about NOBODY should be eating lunch at their desks. Not sure why, but probably something to do with looking professional and business-like. What-- me slurping juice from a dripping peach as it runs down my arm onto the article I'm writing doesn't look professional? What are people THINKING?!?

Here's the bigger question: Does anything in my office actually look professional? Not academics professional, but business professional. Sounds like a little ethnography opportunity. Let's do a brief survey:

My desk: A computer, yeah, that looks professional. Stacks of random papers and books for course preparation. Not exactly neat and tidy, but still related to my profession, and if my desk is chaotic enough that means I'm being uber-productive, right? Piece of partly melted glass in rock matrix that I found while on a morning run. Maybe not so productive, but part of West Virginia context. Lump of coal. Go West Virginia. Little yellow foam star from University of Iowa that I got for sitting in an advising booth one afternoon. Okay, so it got torn by a teething toddler.

The desk passes the professionalism test. Moving on.

Walls: Dick and Jane calendar, complete with stickers marking "Happy Day" (tomorrow, because I'm going to the Washington, DC temple) and "Out for a walk." Hey, I deal with reading issues, right? Four framed book covers from old teenage etiquette books, with titles like "Teenage Guide for Living" and "He-Manners." Um . . . teenage identity issues are part of my research. At least I haven't framed the cover for "This is a leaf" yet.

Walls? Borderline.

What else is in my office? Boring blue office furniture-variety chairs. Definitely business professional. Big blue rolly chair behind my desk. Okay, the CHAIR is professional, but I spend lots of time playing to see how far back I can roll it before I hit the wall or the filing cabinet. Maybe not so professional.

Space heater sitting on an overturned plastic garbage bucket. Yes, I tripped the breaker for not only my office but also the two main office printers and the fax machine the last time I had it turned on. Is it so wrong to want to be warm when the air conditioning is set too high?

Pile of student projects and posters that I might possibly, maybe, use as examples sometime in the future. I have them sort of pushed behind the filing cabinet. They're not a fire hazard.

Bookshelves: I would say the books themselves look pretty academic professional. Little random items (like a Hotwheels car) on the shelves? Maybe not so much.

Lack of a window: Does that mean I really have a glorified office cubicle? No, because I have a door.

Fortune cookie fortunes stuck to shelving above computer with vintage French advertising magnets: one fortune says I will "soon get new clothing." Ooh, do I get a suit?

Artwork from nephews and from Laura Fletcher: How can an office be professional without "Squirrels in the Night"? C'mon people, we're a college of education here!

I'm hungry. Time to eat a sandwich. At my desk, while reading a book. Hey, I have a busy schedule.

Note: No college of ed. office equipment was involved in the creation of this blog entry. I did it at home- so there.