YAY!

Last night was my last final. This semester was the most difficult for me so far which is why I haven’t posted in months.

Here are some things that made me laugh which I would have posted if I had time this semester:

1.) I went to prom with (cousin) Bengi! People made comments to him like, “What is your prom date’s name?” or “Wow, you brought your girlfriend!” which made us both wince. Despite the scary comments though, it turned out to be a lot more fun than my High School prom since the kids at Chisolm Lifeskills Center had absolutely no inhibitions. When we first got there, one of the students walked up to me and mumbled something about wanting to dance with me. I said I would, but as soon as we started dancing one of the teachers came up to us and said “James! You’re dancing!” When he heard her, my dance partner’s eyes got all big and he actually ran away. Poor kid

2.) In Spanish class we were practicing how to say, “If I were… I would…” phrases. The professor was calling on us to tell her in Spanish what we would do if we were the president. Most students said typical liberal-college-student statements such as “I would stop the war” or “I would incarcerate Cheney” so I started to tune out. However, I started listening up again when one student said boldly, “If were president I would make sure to feed the poor to everyone.” He meant, of course, that he would make sure the all the poor had food but it still made me laugh for a while afterward.

Fantasy Games in the Real World

I think Joel's adventure game obsession has possibly gone too far. He sent me the following humorous email which shows where his mind is most of the time:

"The other day I was playing Simon the sorcerer when I realized I needed to go feed our chickens. So I went out there and after finishing the job I realized the pole which I use to hold the door shut after I left had fallen over onto the door and I couldn't get out. I yelled for help and tried breaking down the door but this didn't work. So I did what any adventure gamer would do and used my brain. Finding a hook attached to the wall, I used pushed it through the crack in the door and knocked the pole out of the way. I thought this was very amusing because I never thought that could help me in real life."

I can just picture Joel picking up the hook and making a "BRINGGG" sound as he pulled it off the wall. He probably even narrated his movements saying, "Joel lifts the long pole off the wall and places it in his knapsack."

the Fine Art of Manipulation

Today I found out more of how to get kids to do what you want them to. At the end of the day a teacher had me sit at the table of a kindergartener who always works hard not to do what he is supposed to do. Instead of copying the phrase the teacher wrote on the board, he just sat there as I said all sorts of things that didn't get him writing.
So then I thought I would try something different, "Just write the first letter" I said.
He wrote the first letter.
I tried to look as shocked as I could, "Jalen!" I said, "You have beautiful handwriting! Let me see you write another letter!"
He did and I tried to look ecstatic, "Wow! I really must say that you do have very nice writing."
That sentence was on his paper in less than 30 seconds and he was grinning sheepishly for minutes afterward.
Most of the time, kids just want attention. Today I found out the best time to give it to them is when they are doing something good.

Canoes in the Snow

Bengi and Jeremy, the cousins who I am currently living with (have I written about them yet?), ran into my room yesterday and said, "Eden! Lets use the canoe as a sled!"
At this moment I could have said in a responsible and motherly tone, "Now that wouldn't be very safe would it" and "It might ruin the canoe." But instead I said, "Why didn't we think of that before!"
The next thing we knew, we were flying through the air sideways and then hitting our heads on the frozen pond. The "hitting our heads on the frozen pond" part wouldn't have been so bad if the canoe had not responded to gravity as well. Needless to say we did that quite a few more times!

Also, today Dale and I along with many of the people from the college group at our church went to a girl's apartment and played in the snow. We built a snowman taller than all of us, did some sledding, and Dale and I taught them a balloon popping game from camp where the balloons are sort of like your babies but you try to pop each others (except we used snowballs instead of balloons). It was a little more morbid than usual. Especially when people started crushing each other's snowball babies beneath their feet and yelling "ABORTION!"

4 and 20,000 Blackbirds

Today when Dale was running and I was riding my bike beside her we saw the largest and longest flock of blackbirds we ever saw. We were traveling south and they were flying north over the field next to us for 2.5 miles and probably more, but at the end, they trailed off into the horizon and we never did see the end of them. I rarely enjoyed studying biology, but I think I can see now why someone would devote their life to figuring out things about birds, or the stars, or the human body. There is an infinate amount of unexplored territory for scientists. Everything has been created with such complexity, no one, even with one-thousand lifetimes of research, could ever figure everything out.

Hey its me!

Or is it? Dale found a picture of my twin online and its eerie because even I think she looks like me, only more stylish.
Anyway, it has been a nice, sunny Christmas so far. Everyone seemed happy with what they got.
I will probably write more after our family get-togethers. Both sides are pretty weird and there are a ton of interesting things that I forget to write down.

What a day I had at school!

1. A kid threw up because his friends put sand in his mouth. I told him to go wash up and had the kids bury the disqusting evidence. One of the other boys walked away with a sick look on his face, and the next thing I knew, he was throwing up too. Again, I had him cover up the mess and wash up. I am not sure if I followed the correct health procedures – The health manual probably says in such circumstances, one should contain the stuff in an airtight bag, have the bag cremated, and then contain the ashes, carry them with tongs held by gloved hands to the edge of the world, and throw them over.
2. I was sang to by a fifth grader. He closed his eyes, furrowed his eyebrows, and let his deep and sensitive little soul come out in song. He made up the song himself. His teacher said he had been even more passionate during his earlier performance that day when he had included arm movements.
3. The fifth graders had a debate on the war in Iraq. For one side, the strongest argument was something like, “We should bring the soldiers home because families miss them.” For the other, “We shouldn’t stop the war on Germany because it protects us from the terrorists.”

Mr. Man

My elementary job has turned out better than I had hoped it would be. Today I got to run a classroom for the first time (only for about 45 minutes and I pretty much just monitered their activities). It was not too hard though they listen to the teacher better than me. I made a girl pull a card for misbehaving (which means she got a warning) but that was pretty much the worst thing that happened.
In one of the classrooms I work in, it was all girls and the only male intern came in to work and the girls told him that this was, “a girls only classroom.” He stayed however and while they called the teacher “Miss Willer” and me “Miss Eden” they called him “Mr. Man” which I thought was pretty funny.

Ok already! I will post something!

I have Dale and her pressing comments to thank for most of the entries I have put in this blog. She is one of my most dedicated readers though, so I guess she has the right to demand it.

I would have written more, but I was in Mexico (speaking of Mexico, my time there was one of the best experiences I have had and will definitely have a bearing on my decisions for the future including decisions concerning what I will post next...).

Today was my first day of classes and I think I will enjoy the two I have attended so far. This next semester I will be busy:
1. attending classes,
2. painting (I plan on living in the studio so I can really get good!),
3. working at a nice, small elementary school (with some Spanish speaking kids too!),
4. adjusting to living in a new home,
5. and getting involved in a new church when Dale and I find one.
Because of these five things, Dale will be typing up much nastier comments on my blog since I do not think I will post much this semester.

I adore book sales! Or do I...

We went to a book sale today and I bought a set of books for a low cost that is the same as the set on the left.


This book sale was nice because not only were there good selections, but a smaller number of people present. Overcrowdedness changes people, especially in book sales for some reason. I can honestly say that I have witnessed a woman walk very quickly as if there was no crowd, push little children away from the children's book section and snatch up a book that a nice-looking young mother was reaching for. That woman deserved a good spanking.

The words in my blog are like a bad simile...

I took my final final just a few hours ago. I feel like a bird that has been let out of it's cage and is too astonished to fly. I now feel like I should not have written that cheesy simile. I now just forgot what I was going to write on my blog. Oh well. I will write about something else.
On my dresser is a key that fits in the door of a quaint house in San Diego. I accidentally brought it with me after my summer with World Impact last year. That is one thing that I will need to do tomorrow -email a key. I wonder if I should email it to their house? What if someone opened their mail and found the key and address and robbed their house all because of my foolishness? Of course, that key never did work to well. I remember going up to the door while one of the girls was carrying something in and trying to unlock it before she got there, but then she would have to put her stuff down and use her key because mine was so pathetic. I will send it anyway and force the next summer worker to struggle with it!

A Strange Day

Since Dale continues to insist on it, I will post something new.
Today, Dale and I went to get Hepititus A Vaccinations for our trip and I must say that the ordeal was pretty exciting. We drove to the kid's school around 7:40 to drop them off and it was so dark and stormy out that I felt like I was driving at night. Joel said that it felt Gomorrah/Gothom city because of all the darkness and hail.
Next, we hydroplaned our way to the Newton Clinic and got our shots (I did not cry). I dropped off Dale at school, drove home, then went to Spanish Class where I learned how to do the man's part of the Tango very badly (there are only two boys in the class and about 14 girls). We normally don't Tango in Spanish class, but today was sort of a catch up day.
That's all. I hope you are satisfied, Dale.

Casa de Elizabeth

This summer Dale and I are going to spend a month and a half at Casa de Elizabeth, an orphanage in Sonora, MX. We are both excited and it sounds like they will really be able to put us to use there. I am sure paying a lot more attention during my Spanish Conversation class now!
Clicking here and here will take you to some blogs of some girls who went for a week long church trip.
This is my 11th post unlike Dale who is past her 50th-pretty sad I know, though I am keeping up with it more now.

The Phantom of the Charleston Church

Grace has really been trying to live up to her name. As you can see in the picture on the left, she is advertising her newest witnessing program. She guarantees that all those who join her two week program will be saved or their money back.

If you look closely at the picture on the right, you can see Grace yet again, peering eerily out from behind the church door. She was hoping we would leave so that she could stay forever in the church as a cape-and-mask-wearing phantom organ player who will have nothing better to do than terrorize others and decorate the catacombs beneath the church with incredibly bad taste.

Preaching Grace

Here is Grace witnessing to a statue, awwwww.

"Drat, foiled again!"

There were countless times on the trip in which I had an oppurtunity to kill Joel, but fortunately for him, I always failed.

"Ahh, Savannah, if only we could live there..."

This is the first of some pics of our trip to Savannah, GA.

A Sad, Sad Story

This terrible story happened yesterday:
My demanding art education professor told us last week that we might meet at West High School this week. I was totally expecting him tell us last minute that we were going because he is like that, so when I walked into the classroom that day, saw it was empty and then saw a stack of papers on the table giving specific directions to West High I ran out of there, got in my car, and began to try to figure out the directions. Before I left the parking lot, I met another girl in our class and told her what had happened. She knew the way, so I followed her all the way to West High where it took us a while to find the art classroom. Anyway, when we got there, found the classroom, and asked where our Professor was, the art teacher said that it was not until after spring break that we were supposed to meet there!
I had made that poor girl drive with me to West High and class had already started 15 minutes away! She was more forgiving to me than I deserved and we made our way back to class. It turns out, the art education professor only had placed the papers on the table so that he could hand them out to us during class.
To make matters worse, that day we were having one of his spontaneous exams (he often forgets to tell us when we are having a test) and when we were going over the material that would be on it, he kept on bringing up the fact that I had driven out to West High and kept on saying things like "sometimes your students will jump to conclusions like Eden did when she thought the papers meant she needed to go to all the way to West High" or "everone can come up with a variety of ideas as we can see with my idea and Eden's idea when she thought she needed to drive all the way to West High." Well, I suppose I ended up getting what I deserved!

Yoda Bennet?

"­Visited Mr Bingley I did. Escape now the aquaintance we can not."

Click here to see one of my favorite web pages, "Galactic Jane Austen." To understand the jokes you really have to have seen some Jane Austen movies . . . and Star Wars.

About my Schooling

Since Dale insists, I guess I will add another post to my blog. I have trouble finding the time to do it because of school. Speaking of school, I have included a picture of the head of the art education department, Mary Sue Foster (I wish I had time to put my own pictures on my blog, rather that having to steal them off the internet). Anyhow, I always have her as one of my professors and this semester, I have her teaching two of my classes. She is just your typical professor-made high school art teacher (terrible at communication and just a little bit crazy, though I guess that could describe me too).
My other professors include a laid back Spanish teacher with the lispy accent of the Spaniards, an old shy and humble environmental science professor (I disagree with with what he believes and he is a terrible teacher, but like him), a temperamental yet practical statistics professor, an ex-hippi for a design teacher, and a high school art professor that demands two large assignments each week (I wanted to put a picture of him on here because he looks just like the old crank he is, but I couldn't find one).