Pineapple Express...not really

Catherine and I have started propagating pineapples and our first one is in the garden with two little "pups" coming off the sides. Pups are smaller suckers that can produce fruit so this is exciting. We will soon have pineapples to enjoy (in 2-4 years)! The first step is picking the perfect pineapple. It should have green leaves that are not easily pulled out. I should be a little on the under-ripe side. When you cut it cut right below where the crown meets the fruit. Pull off about 1 inch of leaves until you have a some bare stem. You should be able to see little nodules of roots beginning. The pineapple below is about 2 weeks old.


A closer view of the little roots just forming. When the roots are about 2 inches long you can plan them in a sandy soil and wait (and I literally mean wait) for the magic to happen.


We are currently using this little jar but only because it was in the clean dishes when I was looking for something to use. I have used cups with success. It's important that the stem is in the water but the leaves are above the water as they are prone to rotting. I change the water when it gets cloudy and smells funky.


Best of luck! Here are some more shots of the cute little pineapple plant :)


New growth inside the middle. This is where the stems will come with the flowers and eventually the fruit. YUM!

Kinder Treasures

I have some treasures from kindergarten that my students made. So I thought I would share them. This is me standing on a student...I also have fangs!


In this one my hair is really crazy and apparently I am going on a treasure hunt because X marks the spot.


This may not be of me at all but rather a family at a beach. My favorite part is the sun is saying "Go". Let this be an admonition to indeed GO...to where? no idea but at least go.



I am standing on the right side of the paper...next to a chair? I'm not sure.

Ms. A, is that a rainbow on your head? No, no just my hair.


Again with the crazy hair...it's like there is a pattern over time or something.

This is not me...It's Mario. I thought the kid had a cousin named Mario who was a plumber but then it all started to make sense when he talked about Luigi.

This is my favorite one. I am the circle person and I am holding hands with my friend Uh-uh from the earlier post. The sweetest gesture he made ever. I hung it on my desk and will continue do so to remind me that the kids who are the most difficult need the most love and patience.

Easy Come, Easy Go

My life has been so full of transition that I was waiting until I was absolutely positive to post a new message. I haven't taught kindergarten in a while and to that I can only say, "Thank God Almighty I am free at last". So apparently if you start something with full blown optimism and somewhere deep down you know that the situation is a train wreck waiting to happen then there is quite a bit of relief when it ends abruptly. So that sums up kinder for me ....optimism, screaming, train wreck, relief. I have done a lot of crazy things in my life but kinder is by far the craziest thing that I tried. For the most part, the kids were cute, funny, interesting and endearing. Then there were the kids who make hairs gray, sighs weary and days long. We will call them No and Uh-uh. Literally all they did everyday was say No and Uh-uh...of course that's when they weren't crying, throwing, or trying to escape. It was ridiculous! It seems as though according to the other kinders I won the lucky honor of having "The class". You know the class that starts in kinder and strikes fear into the hearts of the next years teachers. So needless to say I was elated when they had to close a class due to enrollment.

This leads us to what I have been doing for the last two weeks. I gave the WRAP and Express Placement (lame-o assessments) to all the kinders (about 90 kids in all) and then gave it 30 more times in Spanish. Apparently I have mad skills. That pretty much took a whole week. I also had the privileged of doing lunch and recess duty. There is nothing more uplifting then yelling at kids you don't know for a solid hour about rules you think are ridiculous and that suck the fun out of being a kid. Because our school has uniforms, 80 percent hispanic kids, and an excessive amount of hair gel being used it's extremely difficult to yell at kids using descriptors...ie Hey you kid! Stop that! No not you the kid in the white shirt (they are all wearing white shirts), Yeah you with the black hair (they all have black hair) and the faux hawk (most have faux hawks) STOP!

For the past week I have been the lunch monitor/recess lady and teaching computer lab. Let me tell you there is nothing to instill your place as the coolest teacher at school then to be related to the computer lab. On Tuesday, I found out that I will be teaching 5th grade starting on Monday. I am really excited about it. I have been working in the class and they are delightful kids...there are enough "High Fliers" to keep it lively but not so many that is overwhelming. I am excited to take over and get all my stuff in the class. The teacher who is there is transferring to a different school and is working on getting her stuff out so I am kind of in limbo. I will have a lot of work to do this weekend but am really quite excited! I'm not sure if it will be more exciting to teach 5th grade or to not be in kindergarten...only time will tell.

The First Week

As some of you know I began teaching kindergarten this year. I am excited but also a little discouraged that another year will be spent doing primary. I also moved schools so that has been a hard transition. When I left Whitman last June I really thought I would be going back and so closure has been very slow to come. I am now working at a HUGE elementary school in south San Diego. The demographics are a little different but I am enjoying my students and their families. The hardest change is that I really don't know anyone. It's nice that I get a lot done during lunch and can go home before the sunsets but it is awfully lonely.
I have 11 kids in my class right now. I am probability going to get more this week. You would think that 11 is a really small number but I have a slough of behavior problems and 4 year olds should not be in a full day kinder program. It's hard to have so many good ideas for upper grades and then be stuck on the color red FOR A WEEK!!! Needless to say, I am singing a lot of songs and doing everything I can to make letters and numbers interesting. I will keep writing of my adventures...hopefully more amazing than awkward.

Summer 2009

A list for the last day of summer!

Happiness is…
Cold milk and warm cookies
Air conditioning
Magic Bulleting stuff
Lazy summer afternoons
Eating produce you grew from a seed
Taking naps while the sun is shining
Cherry sno-cones
Coming home after a long trip
Seeing old friends and making new ones
Winning at Scrabble
Cold sheets
Swimming late at night in the moonlight
New crayons and sharp pencils
Making new school year resolutions
Sleeping in late
Cooking on the grill.
The smell of a rainstorm coming
Finishing a scarf…finally
That chlorine smell that lingers
Hot dogs cooked over a fire
Listening to books on CD
Extra crispy bacon
Fried oats
Cheesy puns
Cheese in general ☺
Gorilla Tiles “Tiles of the Unexpected”
American Gladiators
Little fish babies
Graphjam.com
C.O. Bigelow Lipgloss
Over The Moon 1% Milk
Musicals
Meerkat Manor
Finally having a schedule again
Working hard at something and succeeding
The last first class of my master's program
Having friends and family that care and support me in all of my adventures

The Arts

Every now and then, when you're on stage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It's a sound you can't get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you've hit them where they live. -Winters

I went to Wicked the musical today. If anyone has been to it before they know that the stage, the costumes, the music, the plot is amazing. It is transfixing! Incredible! Amazing! As I was sitting in the dark auditorium and the audience was hushing, I was struck by the thought that the arts have the ability to transform thoughts, ideas, and feelings. It seems that paintings, sculptures, photographs, plays, musicals, songs, and other manifestations of creativity can take people out of their humdrum lives, away from the stresses of the day-to-day, and into a world where the limits are only set by what can be imagined. The beauty of humanity is that people empathize with others through arts.

Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto. –Emerson

I am transfixed by the thought that emotion that can be captured in a photograph, drawing, or song. To be able to touch the heart of others who are unknown to you and come from a different context is a humbling power. The power of the arts is in its ability to make people embrace humanity.

Once the mind has been stretched by a new idea, it will never again return to its original size. -Holmes

One of the most wonderful and terrible things about creative arts is that often the most thought provoking and remembered are the things that make us disquieted, uncomfortable, unsure. By providing cognitive dissonance, art forces us to re-examine beliefs we hold true and ideas we were once sure of. Once we confront these emotions and assimilate the new perceptions and perspectives into our frames of context then our world becomes a little bigger, a little more tolerant, a little more forgiving, a little more passionate. The world could use a little more of all of these things so embrace the arts, the artist in you, the art around you no matter if it is a masterpiece or a crayon drawing taped to the fridge.

Prejudice much?

Well, I usually don’t get annoyed with cars or mechanics but I was really annoyed with the Saturn guy. So let me back up. Yesterday, I went to get some “too good to pass up” sale items from around the city…you know pencils for 10 cents, folders for a penny, scissors for 12 cents…thing that make teaching and shopping a rewarding experience.
So I drove to Wal-mart (I’m not proud but I am cheap ☺) I parked my car, Pacifico, and went to turn off the engine as one does when they are parking a car. I turned and nothing, I jiggled and then turned nothing, I jiggled and then turned and then swore and nothing. So I moved my car to a different spot assuming that Pacifico was having a bad day and tried again. Nothing again. Now I am extremely annoyed at having my day of shopping nirvana interrupted.

I drive to National City to the Mile of Cars in attempt to go to the dealership there. I drive up and down Mile of Cars Way and don’t see a Saturn dealership. I get out my new GPS toy and program in and sure enough there is one in the area and it takes me to where the Saturn dealership used to be…now it is a Subaru dealership. So I then look at the next closest dealership…Kearney Mesa (about 15 miles away).

I drive up there and park in the service area and go inside. Of course there is your usual smattering of semi-annoyed/bored people sitting around looking at magazines that they have no interest in….Muscle Cars Today, Homemaking in the 21st Century, Pop Culture R Us….you know these magazines-the herpes of waiting rooms around the world. There are also the usual cast of mechanics and service people…all named Joe, Mike, Tom, Bob, or some other one-syllable name. Lee (my service guy) asks what the problem is and I look straight at him and say, “My car won’t turn off.” He looked at me like I was quite possibly the dumbest person on earth. I was expecting this so I smugly watched as he went to my car, got in and then tried to turn it off. He shifted gears, tried again. Jiggled the key and tried again. Essentially repeating the same few steps that I went through. He got out and said in a truly astounded voice, “It really won’t turn off” I refrained from using the phrase, “No shit” but was willing him to get the message by my general body language.

We went back inside and he took my information. When looking up my name he asked if it was under my parents name…I know I am young looking but honestly! He then took at deep breath like he was preparing to inform me that I only had 2 weeks to live and said in a very serious manner, “Well it is either a problem with your key or your ignition.” Again I had to refrain from stating aloud the phrase that was bobbing around in my head. He said it would be a few hours and I replied that there was nothing I was planning on doing besides reading Outdoor Fishing and Hunting Weekly and luckily I could do that here. After I had settled among the various secondary characters in the waiting room he came out again and with a grim expression informed me that he was going to have to keep it overnight. I called the Greifes and they rescued me from Kearney Mesa.

Fast Forward to this morning. Lee at the Saturn dealership called and informed me that it would be this afternoon before Pacficio was ready so I happily gave up my to do list in favor of sleeping and watching Netflix. My friend Michael drove me up to Kearny Mesa and on the way I was venting about how irked I was when mechanics treat me like I am to stupid to understand even the most basic concepts about cars and maintenance. Anyway, I picked up my car and it was cheaper than they had quoted which was a delight.

Michael and I went to dinner as we had already driven up north. We went to the Teri Café, which is an amazing Asian place that has great food. I ordered my usual Chicken Teriyaki bowl and Michael got something that was soup like. When we got our food the guy gave Mike (who is Chinese) chopsticks and me a fork. Talk about salt in the open wound of self-concept/esteem.

Pacifico is now back at home, safe and sound. I ate my chicken, veggies, AND rice with chopsticks to prove to that guy that I too know how to use chopsticks…I really showed him! Now if I can find a way to stick it to the mechanics!