Monthly Archives: October 2005

Sick

25 October 2005

I left school early today with a throat that hurt horribly. It hurts like the time I had mono. I proceeded to the dr later and he said I probably have some kind of viral infection. I slept the rest of the evening and am not going to school tomorrow. So today was my first time to get stuff ready for a sub. Hopefully I left enough to do. Now, after taking some advil, I feel better than I did earlier, not so feverish. The kids were kind today. They knew I felt bad and they did a good job. I love my kids. They are so wierd and funny. My team leader told the other teachers at team meeting that I was leaving, they thought she meant quittting. Mrs. Edinburgh said she thought, “quitting?? but she is doing such a good job!” That was encouraging. She said if I really was quitting, she would have to go home and eat some animal crackers :) I always bring those pink and white and sprinkly animal crackers to eat in team meeting. It makes me happy to eat those :) Well I am going to crawl in bed and watch some HGTV and read. I am on book three of the Mitford series, which is about life in a small town. It is really good and I would highly recommend it. My sweet hubby got the series for me and he did a good job :) He is also a very good nurse :) Thank you Cliff!

Sic Em Bears!

11 October 2005

I stole this from another Baylor Bear’s blog, but I don’t think she will mind and she will most likely never know :) I liked it though when I read it in the magazine, so since she took the time to type it up…here it is for your enjoyment.

Courtesy of the BU Line Magazine…see how many of these you’ve done!!
(the ones I have done are in bold)
• Change your major at least once.
Get an internship, preferably one that pays at least minimum wage.
• Climb the magnolia trees in front of Draper.
• Participate in Rush, even if you don’t plan on joining a fraternity or sorority. It’s a great way to meet people.
Play on an intramural team with a cool name like the Thirsty Camels or Game Over.
• Run the Bear Trail in under eighteen minutes.
• Study abroad for a semester or a summer.
Go to IHOP at 2 a.m. to study or just to hang out with a bunch of friends.
Participate in a volunteer opportunity like Steppin’ Out or Habitat for Humanity.
• Go to Cameron Park and play in the water park, visit the zoo, and gaze out at the river from Lover’s Leap.
Go to Sing and Pigskin and compare the two.
• Don’t use Diadeloso as an opportunity to study or sleep. Go have fun–get hypnotized, compete in the tug-o-war contest, or get pulled into a mud puddle tussle.
• Schedule a semester where you get a day off every week. OR 2 days off a week is even more awesome, especially while living in NYC.
Celebrate Christmas at Baylor by going to a Chamber Singers concert at Armstrong Browning Library or watching the traditional Christmas tree lighting during Christmas on Fifth Street.
• Chalk the sidewalk.
• Pick some cotton–see how many T-shirts you can collect from various organizations.
• If any sports team makes it to the Final Four or the NCAA championship, go to the game. Forget about class, papers, or tests–this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Enjoy Waco’s favorite beverage by going to the Dr Pepper Museum, getting a float at Dr Pepper Hour, or driving to Dublin for a taste of the original.
• Climb the rock wall at the Student Life Center.
Get your picture taken while sitting on Judge Baylor’s lap or with a Baylor icon like the bear mascots or the current Baylor president.

Go to a professor’s house for dinner.
• Go to the Church Under the Bridge.
• Learn to sail at the Marina and try not to fall in the river.
• Play hide-and-go-seek in Burleson Quadrangle.
Get covered with food during Freshman Follies.
• Run with the Baylor Line onto the field at a football game. Yell throughout the game, no matter the score. If you can talk the next day, you didn’t yell loud enough. (I am in my freshman year yearbook doing this! :)
• Pull an all-nighter in the library during finals.
Tailgate before a game either in the Ferrell Center parking lot or at Floyd Casey Stadium’s Touchdown Alley.
• Read a poem by Robert or Elizabeth Barrett Browning while sitting in the Armstrong Browning Library’s Foyer of Meditation.
• Learn to two-step at one of Waco’s country dance halls, or travel up I-35 to West for some authentic Czech food and fun.
• Check out some legendary Waco-area sites–the concrete gorilla on Austin Avenue, the “giant mailbox,” the entrance to President Bush’s ranch, the witch’s grave, or the Branch Davidian compound.
• Wander around Oakwood Cemetery and look for the graves of the Baylor presidents and Texas governors who are buried there.
Find out how many times you can drive around the Circle and survive. (Thanks Bryan Partridge!)
• Take a tour of Waco’s historic homes.
Get a caffeine buzz at Common Grounds.
• Have no absences from class for a whole semester. (maybe…i dunno!)
Steal a kiss on the Suspension Bridge.
• Attend a Baylor play, choir concert, or symphony performance.
• Pull pranks on people in the dorms–pour a bucket of cold water on a friend while she’s taking a shower or put Saran Wrap over the toilet seats.
• Play a lively game of Frisbee in your dorm whenever there’s a power failure.
• Write a letter to the editor of the Lariat about the latest campus controversy.
Drive to Independence to visit Baylor’s original campus. (I went there when I was little, who knew I would end up here?)
• Have a picnic at dawn on the field by the Marina. Applaud when the sun comes up and then go to class exhausted but exhilarated.
• Go to one of Waco’s great old restaurants: have a late-night Healthburger and milkshake at Health Camp, enjoy a chicken fried steak and a beverage of your choosing at George’s, eat a gut-pak at Vitek’s, pick up some old-style barbecue at Jasper’s, have a huge early-morning breakfast at Kim’s, grab a double lip locker and some oriental fries at Kitok’s, get a take-out burger from Cupp’s and let the grease soak through the bag. (Thanks John!)
Help freshmen move into Collins Hall and enjoy a father’s appreciative sigh of relief that you are the one carrying all of the stuff up the stairs.
• Go to UnRush and try to figure out which of your friends is a NoZe brother.
Play a round of Frisbee golf or campus golf with a tennis ball and golf club.
• Participate in Jell-O fights on Fountain Mall during finals.
Stop and read the plaques on the memorial lampposts dedicated to Baylor alumni who died serving their country.
• Buy an official class ring and receive it from Baylor’s president at the ring ceremony.
• Watch Chamber members clean the Bear Pit.
• Participate in Homecoming by helping build the bonfire, guarding the flame, stealing the flame, walking in or riding a float in the parade, or going to Freshman Mass Meeting.
• Be a Min-Con leader, big sister or brother, or mentor to a freshman.
• Jump in or run through a campus fountain.
Play in the snow on the one day of the year (maybe) that it snows, and make a snowman with what little flurries accumulate. (Yay for Lydia’s snowman on the trashcan!)

• Study for exams in an unusual place, like a hospital cafeteria
Sit on one of the campus swings with someone and don’t talk–it ruins the moment.
• Take as many random road trips as possible to nowhere in particular.
Fall in Love.
• Learn more than you ever thought possible.
• Find a group of best friends
that you will keep for the rest of your life.

Things alumni have confessed to us that we can’t officially endorse
• Get a tattoo of the interlocking BU symbol.
• See how many people can fit in one small elevator–like the one in the SUB or Draper.
• Climb the stairs and ladders above the carillon to the very top of Pat Neff Hall and leave lasting proof of your presence by adding your name in permanent marker to those of other students who did the same thing as far back as the 1940s. Don’t forget your camera and your cell phone (in case you get locked in up there), and abandon the mission if you encounter authorities
.• Have a picnic on top of the ALICO Building.
• See how many parking tickets you can amass in one semester.
• Jump off the Suspension Bridge into the Brazos River–but first make sure the water level’s up.
• Skip church and then dress up in your Sunday best to eat in a dining hall cafeteria.
• Throw water balloons at people on the Bear Trail.
• Streak during a baseball game.

Hello again

10 October 2005

Since my fans (or fan?) are (is) demanding it…here is another blog from yours truly. It has been a while since I blogged. I get so busy reading other people’s blogs that I never have time to blog my own life. :) I think my hobby is finding out what is going on with other people. Maybe I should be a CIA agent. I love info. I like to know the latest scoop. I remember one time in high school, talking with three of my great friends, Beth, Breck, and Trina. They decided that I was the news person. I always knew what was going on with people. I think Beth was the music/tv/movies person because she always knew the cool shows/songs/movies. Breck always had the latest fashion style. I don’t think we determined what Trina’s expertise was. So on the one hand it is good to be informed, but on the other hand, I don’t want to be a gossip, always telling everyone what is going on. So that is sometimes a struggle for me. Not that I have such a large social circle to inform now … :) Gosh I should get out more.

Well aside from that… I really love my students. They are good kids. I think coming from my student teaching experience, I have the attitude that these kids are just generally great. I mean, 90-95 percent of them turn in homework every day. (Except fifth period, where that drops to like 60%…but that is a whole other blog) The only marks I have given for behavior are like for talking or being off task. No fights, no cursing, no attitude problems, no one refusing to work. Its sweet! But the teachers that have been there for a while get very upset by the small stuff. Which is a good attitude to have too, to expect the best of these kids. It is just interesting to me how places are different. And today I was reading this book called “The Teaching Gap” and it talks about how there is such an achievement gap between American schools and other nations. And how the teaching styles are so different. In some other cultures, they teach conceptually, where as we teach procedures. For those not familiar with this school of education talk, I mean like in Japan they might teach using a problem where kids figure out why you use a certain formula to find the area of something, and here we just practice using the formula, but the kids cant tell you why in the world that formula works or even what the letters mean. They just know they have to practice area=length times width over and over again. And then they have forgotten it the next year. I dont mean to sound like I am bashing our schools, but it seems to me that we need to really look at what we are doing. And this books points out something that I had not thought about, all these politicians who talk about reforming our schools, they attempt to do that with legislation about vouchers and lowering class size and standardized tests and such, but they do not ever address the teaching that is actully going on. I dont think anything will ever change unless our attitude about knowledge and how to best guide students to learning will ever change. This is a frustrating part of being a teacher, I have these grand ideals about how I should be teaching my students, but because of the TAKS test, I can’t do it that way. I have to teach them that when they see this type of problem, this is how they solve it. When who really cares in the first place about that?? Okay I gotta get off this soap box!

We have had two really fun weekends at our household. Last weekend, on a beautiful Saturday, we took Gracie and some Bush’s chicken and my new picnic blanket that is just beautiful to the park. Gracie got to run in the water and just loved it and we had a nice fun afternoon. There was a horseapple tree next to the lake and Cliff pitched me some and I hit them with a stick for a bat and that was really fun! :) Then yesterday we just hung out and I watched a movie on TV and then we babysat for EmmaMerie. She is so big now! Almost one year old. She is such a cutie and such a happy baby. Now today I had lunch with friends at yummy McAlisters. I got my grant writing accomplished this afternoon which really makes me happy and then I did a little grading. Now its only 931 and I am done with school stuff and I think I am going to go read a book from a set of six books that my sweetie got me. And to top it off, we have inservice tomorrow, so no kids, get to wear jeans, get to sleep a little late and take a long lunch, and…Lydia is coming to visit on Wednesday! :) Yay!

Goodnight all.