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Rounding Up

3/30/2014

3 Comments

 
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Rounding up…………. What a great concept!



I earned $200 editing lesson plans for Utah Educational Network.    They sent me a check for $300.   When I contacted Karen to correct the mistake, she said, “I just rounded up.”   The comment started me thinking and I decided, for the most part, I really, really like rounding up.



 Some of my most cherished childhood memories involve round ups.   Dad had a knack for finding ranchers who needed help herding cows.   We’d saddle the horses and spend a day moving cows from here to there, often through sagebrush, occasionally along roads, always adventuring.    Lowing cattle, swirling dust, pungent poop……I loved every second of it.    For the most part, the cows moved passively, docilely in the appointed direction but always (and this was the part I really loved), there was a maverick or two—a  wily matron or a rebellious yearling—that had to “test the fences”, literally and figuratively.  They’d hurl themselves through barb wire fences, bolt between trees, and balk at open gateways.    I loved the challenge of taking them on, me and my horse vs. a thousand pounds of bovine bravado, each trying to outmatch, out run, out maneuver the other.    Thinking like the cow, my horse and I worked almost seamlessly together, anticipating her moves, predicting and then preventing her shenanigans.    It is almost amusing now, how proud I was of myself when I outwitted a cow—cows not being known for large degrees of intelligence—but I loved it.   I truly did.   Round ups.  Awesome.

 

Rounding up numbers, rounding up cows, rounding up children, students, friends…… There is a lot to be said about rounding up.   (But not too much—not to worry, the entry will not be that long!)

 

Rounding up children has a double meaning.   This week we rounded up several children as they “tested the fences”, so to speak.    Lance and I work almost seamlessly together, trying to predict and prevent shenanigans.   Rounding up cows was much, MUCH more fun. 

 

I think children (and adults) are also “rounded up” when events validate their efforts.    We had some great validating events this week:


  • Tanah won first place at the Region Drama competition in classical scenes with her presentation of a scene from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (Act III Scene I).    I say that finally I have hard, fast evidence that she is a Drama Queen.   She maintains that she won a medal, not a crown therefore she is a champion, not a queen.   I say that winning first place was a crowning accomplishment therefore she is a drama queen.   The debate continues.  So does the drama……

  • Clinton City Parks and Rec department called and asked Chick to come in for a job interview.  He turned them down….because Roy City Parks and Rec had already offered him a job!!!!   YEA!

  • Chick is charging full speed ahead with his mission preparations.    The dentist said he has 8 cavities that have to be filled and four wisdom teeth that must be removed.  The doctor said that he has an inguinal hernia that must be repaired.   I don’t know that the visits themselves were a rounding up experience for Chick but I suspect their bills will seem rounded up to me and I know the mission will be rounding up for him.

  • Thursday a multi-unit apartment fire in Roy destroyed the home of the person who had been asked to speak in church today so, knowing that Lance is both willing and able, Brother Ropelato asked Lance to step in and give the talk.   Both being asked to speak and speaking are rounding up experiences for Lance.    And for good reasons; he gave a fabulous talk.   “Keeping promises builds the integrity of my integrity.”   It was a powerful message; ask him about it sometime.

  • Sandy borrowed a bunch of dirty, dusty pint jars that I dug from the recesses of my storage room and then returned them sparkling clean.   Not wanting to waste her efforts (and too lazy to have to clean them again myself later), I filled the jars with beans; 16 pints white beans, 40 pints black beans, and 16 pints pinto beans.  Looking at row after row of filled jars is rounds out my food storage and rounds up my self esteem.

  • Last week was more than a bit frenetic and, in the frenzy, I did not show up for the appointment I made to visit teach Koni so……she bought and brought me pizza.   She rounded me up and the pizza rounded me out.      

  • Dark clouds of anger roiling round him, Miles joined me outside yesterday to prune berries and grapes.   A pair of clippers and a few choice snips later, he was earnestly enjoying himself.  “I like working, Mom,” he said.  “The fun lasts.   My friends might be playing video games right now and they think they are having fun but as soon as they are done, their fun is over.   We are having fun right now and when we are done, we will have really done something.”    Work, whether it is cow herding or hedge clipping, rounds up.
  • Listening rounds up.   My darling mother listened to me last night.   No “you should” advice, no “so-and-so has it so much worse” comments,  no “it is going to be okay” platitudes; just simple listening and loving.  There are few things more validating that being truly listened to.   Thanks Mom!




 

May you round up and be rounded up this week!

 

Love,
Teresa
 



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Grace started in all three soccer games she played this week. In the last game she played, she started for the opposing team.
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It is easy to see why the song says "I looked out the window and what did I see? Popcorn popping on the apricot tree."
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Can you see the blackberry vines? Probably not because they are almost gone. Miles and I were prolific pruners.
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Last year's yellow tomato skin. This year's green spinach.
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Look at these earrings!! I planned my entire outfit around them. "Surely," I thought as I scanned my closet, "I can find something that will match this bling......" I bought them at a garage sale in Las Vegas. I am not sure that even Ogden has this kind of bling!
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This photo give a new meaning to the term "pig skin".
3 Comments

Surprise!!!!

3/23/2014

1 Comment

 
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Life is stories you can tell, right?   I love stories and I really love surprises………or at least I mostly really love surprises.   Some of this week’s surprises were better than others.  

Moved by a mixture of motives, Wednesday I filed as a candidate for the State School Board of Education.   Wednesday evening the website showed that there were four of us running for the position.  Thursday, the last filing day, two more candidates filed, one of whom is Amie Campbell, principal of Ogden Preparatory Academy.   Surprise!   How often does one run for office against one’s boss?

 

We put the ram in with the ewes in late August which means, given sheep’s 5 month gestation period, that we could have had lambs in late January.    Two of our three Soay ewes gave birth in mid-February.   Mid-March came and went and the third Soay ewe was still lamb-less.   I feared she was sterile and made plans to cull her.   Friday Miles noticed a tiny, jet black lamb trying valiantly to keep up with the older five lambs as they raced around the pasture.   Surprise!   The third Soay is not barren after all.

 

At Miles’ well child check, the doctor noticed a curvature in his spine and ordered x-rays.   The films show he has an 11% curvature.    Surprise!  We are to make an appointment with a specialist at Primary Children’s Medical Center to learn the rest of the story.

 

Chick had a job interview Friday.  Surprise!   For three years he has submitted multiple applications and this is his first interview.    Again, we are waiting to learn the rest of the story.

 

Grace won first place in the microbiology division, $50 cash, and a $300 WSU scholarship at the state science fair.    Surprise!  Actually it was not too much of a surprise.   Grace’s project was good and her presentation excellent.     It was fun, however, when the awards were read, NOT to hear Grace’s name when they announced honorable mentions, excellence awards, and then third and then second place.    One name left, one place left……  “First place in the Microbiology division, Grace Hislop from Syracuse Arts Academy.”

 

Miles spent most of Saturday watching the NCAA basketball tournament online.  Surprise!   I knew he was a football fanatic and that he is obsessed by soccer as well.    Basketball is a new passion for him.  I fear he is a decathlete-type sports fan; good at being obsessed by 10 (or more) sporting events.

 

Grace played her final indoor soccer game Saturday.  At the end of regulation time, the score was 5-5 so 2 minutes were put on the clock twice, with each team getting a turn to kick-off.   At the end of the additional 4 minutes of play, the score was still tied so they began a shoot-out; one player vs. one goalie, with each person on the field getting a turn to take a shot.    Grace was the third shot-taker on her team.   The whistle blew, Grace approached the ball, tapped it to the left, shot from the right, and scored!!!  While she and her team mates celebrated,  her coach stopped the action.  Surprise!    A buzzer had sounded a few second after Grace began to take her shot and the goalie upon whom she shot paused at the buzzer.   Grace’s coach noticed the goalie’s pause, asked the goalie if the buzzer had thrown her off, and, when the goalie said that it had, called for a re-shot.   Grace missed her second attempt.   The first shoot-out ended in a tie so the teams  went to a sudden death, second shoot-out and Grace’s team ended up losing….kind-of.   They lost the game but they won a moral victory.    Sportsmanship still exists.

 

 

Spring is full of surprises…sort of.    We are surprised by occasional snow storms as well as by unanticipated sunshine.   The first tulip blooms surprise us and the first Box Elder bug may be a bit startling.  Spring’s exact arrival and specific manifestations may surprise us but spring itself is fairly constant.   It comes annually without having to be reminded or nagged.   I love that about spring.  

 

I love that about God too.   He always comes (much more frequently than annually) without having to be reminded or nagged (though an invitation often helps!).     His exact arrival and specific manifestations may surprise us, even startle us, but He is constant.    And that is the rest of the story. 

 

Love,
Teresa



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1 Comment

Quoting.....

3/16/2014

1 Comment

 
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Quotes……...  Gotta love them!   Often powerful, frequently funny, occasionally baffling……….  Following are a few quotes that caught my attention this week.  

“Mrs. Hislop, are you single?”   [Asked me by an 8th grade student]

 

“I was on the court demonstrating how to move in a proper defensive stance when—BOOM—I felt like I’d run into a brick wall.”   [Coach Hood telling how Grace set a screen on him during basketball practice.   Grace has been called many things before but, at 5’5” and just over 100 lbs, a brick wall is not one of them.]

 

“I don’t think she’d ever played on an organized team before.  When she tried out last year she had entry level skills.”  [More from Coach Hood, about Grace—who had never really even touched a basketball before last year’s team tryouts—as he gave her the “Most Improved Player” award.]

 

“I have to feed the fish.”  [Miles said when he returned to the table.   The family was gathering  for dinner.   Everyone had finally arrived and Lance had asked Chick to say the prayer when Miles hurriedly and inexplicably dashed off.    ????   Since when is feeding fish more important than feeding me?]

 

“I like you but I do not like science.”  [Statement by 8th grade science student.]

 

“I’ll take the shot.”  [Miles choosing a ache-producing injection in the thigh over swallowing tablets because the shot would cure his strep throat in 24 hours (instead of 48) and enable him to play in the next day’s soccer tournament.]

 

“If tragedy drops you to your knees then it becomes a victory.”  [Patti Todaro Roehrie, maybe]

 

“I am never going to eat that; it is TOO gross ………May I have more?”   [Statement of 8th grade science student before and after tasting the butter we made in class.]

 

“The rock cycle is happening under your feed right now!”   [Miles said, referring to the heat and pressure that metamorphoses rock deep within the Earth, as we took a Sunday stroll along the walking trail.]

 

“What is a Ram truck’s favorite maneuver?........A ewe turn!”   [Chick quoting Grace who was quoting one of her friends.]

 

“Opportunity never arrives.  It is here.”   [Anthony de Mello.  I think I am going to file to run for the State Board of Education.]

 

“Life is under no obligation to give us what we expect.”    [Margaret Mitchell.   This could be my life story…in significantly less than 100 words.]

 

“I like your hair poufy in front.  You should get lots of compliments today.”  [Miles to me as I was getting ready to go to work.]

 

“Do NOT write about this in the blog.”   [Tanah]

 

“I love you” [Chick said through his actions when he cleaned all the dead leaves from the back porch and patio, pruned the June-bearing raspberries, spread sheep manure over the garden, and drove to the vet to get an anti-inflammatory for the lame ewe.]

 

“Chick, did you go to school like that?”  [Asked by Tanah when she noticed during dinner that Chick’s shirt was on inside-out.]

 

“Life is the stories you can tell.”  [Phil Davis and Tess Noel as they meandered along a Pioneer Trek path somewhere in the Uintah National Forest several decades ago.]

 

“That’s one way to take care of the problem.”  [Said by a passer-by in the parking lot as he witnessed me using a Leatherman tool to cut off the section of the bumper that had been flapping in the wind as I drove down the freeway.]

 

“Pooh”  [Responded Miles in Church when asked “What rhymes with shoe?”]

 

“Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling…..It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in.  It is what God gave you time for.”  [Rachel  Jankovic, in Neil L. Andersen, “Children”, Ensign, Nov. 2011, 28]

 

“Yes” [Said by me when Miles asked her to play a board game with him, even though her task list was longer than the line to the women’s bathroom during intermission at Hale Centre Theatre, because she had recently read the above quote.]

 

“Fascinating.” [Said by me to Lance at the Fly Fishing Film Festival where I  noticed that the line for the men’s bathroom stretched across the entire Peery Egyptian Theater lobby  whereas there was no line for the women’s restroom.]

 

“You’re my fav.”  [Spoken by Tanah when her iPod battery died and I offered to loan her a cell phone.]

 

“Everything can have drama if it’s done right.”  [Said by Julia Child and practiced by most teenage girls.]

 

“I love you.”  [Said by me to all you.   And you can quote me on that!!!!!]

 

Teresa


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The garden is tilled. Spring--Bring it on!!!
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And the first planting is done; spinach, carrots, onions, peas, beets, and lettuce. Radishes, cabbage, and broccoli could go in too, if you were so inclined. (I am not.)
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It's not a pansy....but its not poop either!
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Soay who share a father and whose mothers are mother and daughter. What would you call their relationship?
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This is the van, post-bumper amputation.
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Suffolk twins
1 Comment

100 Words

3/10/2014

2 Comments

 
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Reader's Digest challenged subscribers to tell their life stories in 100 words or less.     Here is mine.   

Scholarship recipient and three-time state champion, I graduated with a plan.    I would marry an academic, athletic man, which I did.  We would have brilliant, talented children and bask in glory.   A career change catalyzed major depression; my husband stayed in bed for years.    Goals of grandeur dissolved into struggles for survival; commitment tested, money limited, hope dim.  Today.   No scholarships earned, no championships won.  My husband treasures me; our generous-hearted children hug us and laugh together; the family kneels in prayer, thanking God for our blessings.  I planned for success.   God gave me joy.  His plan is better.

What is yours?





2 Comments

Lambs......again?!?!

3/9/2014

1 Comment

 
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Have I exhausted the lamb theme yet? 

 

I love my lambs—all of them.   

 

Last spring, as I stood next to a predictably obnoxious student, I was almost overwhelmed by a desire to rip his face off.   I curbed the impulse (lucky for me and for the student) and contemplated it.   Why the feeling?   Why hadn’t I had similarly intense negative feelings before?  Why that student and not any one of a dozen other students who were also predictably obnoxious?

 

The experience was revolting and revelatory; revolting because I could NOT imagine trying to teach while harboring feelings such as the one I’d had and revelatory because I realized that I do not typically have to battle those feelings because God has given me love.    In that moment, I recognized that I love my students AND that the love I have for my students is a gift from God.   Realizing that love is such a key ingredient to teaching—teaching teens would be hell without it—and that it is a gift from God—rather than a personal characteristic that I own and control—was a very, VERY humbling experience for me.    I don’t love those kids because I am good; I love those kids because God is good.    He has given me an intense love for them and the responsibility to use that love to change their lives and teach them science.    I knew then that I must do everything possible to keep the love gift God has given me; with it, my job is joy; without it, my job would be purgatory.

 

So far, so good!   I still love my students and my job, which is great because I have spent a LOT of time with both recently.

 

Science Fair came and is now successfully gone.    The students entered the gym (where their science fair boards were set up and where the science fair judges awaited them) on figurative pins and needles.   “Is it too late to back out?”    “I think I am going to die!”  “Do we have to do this?”  [Yes. Not today.  Yes.]    

 

Not unlike a ewe (or a mother hen if we switch analogies), I watched my “little lambs” as they stood nervously in front of their boards.    There is something about the 8th grade heart that I find very compelling.   Eighth grade hearts are growing up but they are not yet covered in the protective shell that adults develop; one can still glimpse their vulnerability.    I witnessed students alternating between fear, excitement, hope, pride, nervousness, and confidence.   As a vicarious participant in their experience, I felt the same emotions.

 

I gave them a little yellow card with presentation tips on it; things like “Show the judge your face cheeks, not your butt cheeks” and “Tell the judge why the project interests you”.     Many of the students cupped the card in their hands and covertly glanced at it during their presentation.  This too, touched my heart.   I badgered them into the experience and they trusted the tool I’d given them to help them out of it.

 

And, in the end, they got out.  No one died and most of them had a good time.   On a post science fair survey, 58% agreed with the statement “I am glad I did science fair”; only 13% disagreed with the statement.   Seventy-six percent agreed with the statement “Presenting my project to the judges was a good experience”.

 

Comments on the survey included:

  • “I was nervous but it [science fair] was a fun thing to do.

  • “Science fair was spectacular because it was fun to show people what really interests me.

  • “Everyone should do science fair because when you grow up you will be doing a lot like that at work.”

  • “Pee before science fair.”

  • “Science fair was great because I did it by myself.”

  • “I was nervous for the first judge but I’m glad I did it because it made me less nervous to talk in front of people.

  • “I had a lot to say.”

  • “Science is fun.”   (from the student who did the study on hot tubs and blood pressure)

  • “Science fair was chill because at first I was nervous but then I felt confident.”

 

Though the science fair was almost half of their third term grade, many students did science fair only because I told them the next day’s field trip was an option ONLY for those who participated in science fair; non-participants would NOT be welcome.   Failing science did not bother them.  Being left behind at school while their peers rode the train to SLC and back did bother them.   Whatever works!!!

 

The day after science fair I took two teacher’s aide, eleven parents, and 92 eighth graders to the Utah Museum of Natural History.    Thinking that riding on public transportation would be an educational experience at least as valuable (perhaps more) than what they would see in the museum, I decided to take the train …and the light rail…..and a shuttle.     Imagining all the things that could go wrong kept me on edge for weeks.     Ninety-two thirteen and fourteen year olds….walk 1.5 mile to the train station….catch the 9:07 a.m. FrontRunner (train)……get off at North Temple and catch the TRAX (light rail) green line…..ride the green line to the Courthouse and switch to the TRAX red line……ride to the Medical Center and board a shuttle to the museum.    What could possibly go wrong?

 

Thankfully, I will never know what could go wrong because nothing did.   God is good. 

 

Friday night Ogden Prep received an award at the Fly Fishing Film Festival for the work we have done on the Ogden River.    Standing in the wings on the stage of the Peery Egyptian Theater I felt a little like my students felt as they anticipated interacting with the science fair judges.   My heart rate was 10-15 beats per minute faster than usual.  

 

My heart raced Friday evening.    It sunk Saturday morning.   Earlier in the week, when I read the letter asking us to show up Friday, March 7th to receive an award, I also read an announcement for a river clean up, sponsored by the city, on Saturday, March 8th.   Thinking it would be good form for us to show up at a river clean-up, after having been given an award for cleaning up the river, I sent an email in ALL Ogden Prep parents, faculty, and staff (K-12) inviting them to participate in the city clean up on Saturday.  

 

There was no one from the city on the river Saturday morning.   What I read was March 8th but what was printed on the announcement was May 8th.  WHOOPS!    No one from the city was there but 22 OPA people were.    Love those OPA lambs!!

 

Teresa 


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1 Comment

For the Love of Lambs.........MORE!

3/2/2014

0 Comments

 
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Lambs come in all shapes and sizes and this week I have stories about three types of lambs that I love:  lamb lambs, student lambs, and lambs that call me Mom.  

Lambs are chick magnets.    Miles took a Soay lamb to school Wednesday and was mobbed as he stood on the playground, waiting for school to start.    The circle surrounding him was four girls deep in all directions.    Cell phone cameras flashing, hands reaching to touch the baby, and mouths chattering at full speed, the girls were enchanted.  Miles was thoroughly encompassed, completely the center of attention, and absolutely loving it.

 

We’re sending a lamb to school with Chick on Wednesday. 

 

Lambs are innocent.   Grace is not.   In fact, she calls herself evil.

 

A friend told her that a boy in her social studies class was cheating off her.  She told the boy of the accusation and then warned him.  “If you cheat off me, I will write down the wrong answers.”  She also told her teacher about the situation.   Friendly as a wolf in lamb’s clothing Grace invited the boy to study with her.     She memorized the answers he knew and the ones that he did not.   Later, when they took the test, she put down correct answers for the ones that she knew that he knew and recorded incorrect answers for the ones that she knew he did not know.    When she was finished, she got up and sharpened her pencil, leaving her intentionally compromised test in open view.    After school, with the teacher’s permission, she re-took the test, this time recording the correct answers for all of the questions.    Maybe not evil but certainly cunning……  

 

Zorro is NOT cunning but he is showing signs of intelligent life.   There may be hope for our “dumb dog, dumber than they come dog” (Annie the Musical) after all.    His radius of confidence has gradually extended to the point where he will go running with me and his degree of obedience has increased to the point that I can take him running without a leash.     We run along the walking trail (no dog catchers on the walking trail!); he explores ahead while I run behind.   When I see someone approaching with a leashed dog (other people obey the rules), I call Zorro to me, tell him “heel”, and continue running while he trots obediently behind me.   When we pass the potential fight mate, I release him with a “break” command and he bounds off.    On our last run, three people said, “What a smart dog!”    If only they knew…….  He still eats socks and underwear though the last time he puked up underwear he did it on the kitchen floor instead of the living room carpet.     That is something to be grateful for!

 

I am also grateful for Sister Biddle, an 80+ year old widow in our neighborhood.   And here is why….

 

During my high school years at Sugar-Salem I started an unhealthy relationship with dances.    Dance after dance, year after year, I sat on the bleachers in the school gym and watched others enter and exit the dance floor.   Rarely—only about 3-4 times an evening—was I asked to dance.    My feeling of self-worth drained away as my confidence evaporated; it was definitely a drought situation.   Dad told me that things would be different in college.   They weren’t.     They did not change after I graduated from college either.  The story remained the same; dancing was not something I did at dances, not because I did not want to but because no one wanted to dance with me.  

 

One of the many unforeseen blessings of marrying Lance was that I now had someone who wanted to dance with me.   We had been married a couple years when, armed with this knowledge, I suggested to Lance that we attend a Valentine’s dance sponsored by our church.   Safe enough, right?   Sadly, no.   I walked into the dance and all the insecurities, self-doubts, and feelings of inadequacy that plagued me when I was single returned to haunt me.   My reaction was not reasonable but it was very real.   We turned and exited the building.

 

Fast forward a decade.    I learned during a wedding reception last fall that I had outlived my fears (there are benefits to getting old…) and that I really enjoyed dancing with my husband so I invited him to attend the 2014 Valentine’s dance sponsored by our church.     Both of us eagerly anticipated the evening.

 

In the meantime Tanah was NOT looking forward to Valentine’s evening.   No one had given her a Valentine, much less asked her to dance, and she did not relish the thought of spending the evening alone, thinking about all the clueless jerks who left her Valentine-less.     Taking her life into her own hands, she organized a party and invited female friends who also found themselves Valentine-less.    I thoroughly applauded her proactivity but could not endorse a party for teens, any kind of party, in my home without an adult present.     And I could not be present; I would be spending the evening in my husband’s arms, cutting a quick step and conquering fears.

 

What to do?

 

“Sister Biddle, do you have plans tonight?........ Would you mind reading at my house?”   It has been at least a decade since Sister Biddle was asked to babysit and a decade since Tanah needed a babysitter but on Valentine’s evening both happened.    Sister Biddle read in the office, Tanah and teens partied in the basement, and Lance and I danced in the gym.    It was all good.

 

Teaching is all good lately too……….great even.

 

I did a chemical and physical changes lab where the students rotated through 19 difference stations.  At each station they were to follow instructions and then identify the outcome as either a chemical or physical change.    In the initial instructions, I told them they could eat at four of the stations, identified the four edible stations, and warned them NOT to eat anything at any of the other stations.

 

At one of the NOT edible stations, I posted the instructions:   “Smash the sugar crystal”.   Knowing 8th graders as I do and being someone evil (or was that cunning?), I put a hammer, a thick wooden cutting board, and 200 g of salt crystals at the station.     Eighth graders who eat salt expecting sugar make some really funny faces.

 

Eighth graders cross country skiing for the first time also make some really funny faces.   I took all my classes to the North Fork Environmental Center for a day where we snow shoed, investigated an avalanche, surveyed lichen populations, and cross country skied.     The students’ comments were as diverse as they are.

 

  • “I learned a plethora of scientific facts.” 

  • “Gravitey worck varey, vaerey good.”

  • “I had fun learning how to ski and how to NOT hit people going down.”

  • “Cross country skiing is not as easy as the Olympics make it look.”

  • “Ice hurts when it is everywhere.”

  • “Gravity never rests.”

  • “It was such a great experience.  I learned how to ski and what pain really is.  Thank you.”

  • “Even though you learn a lot you can sometimes fall and you have to get up….literally.”

  • “You rock!”

 

This week I took the train to SLC and back twice to receive training for my summer job, took the train to SLC and back once with 97 eighth graders, took the lamb to school once with one excited 4th grader, took a 7 mile jog with one semi-obedient dog, took eight loads of laundry out of the dryer, and took credit (some of it undeserved) for administrating a largely successful science fair.    Now I am tired—too tired to tell about it.     Come back next week!

 

Love,
Teresa



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Miles and the lamb are in the middle of this glob of girls.
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Lambs are a great way to make girls smile....
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Miles heard lots of bleating in the barn. When he investigated, he found this new lamb.
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.....girls of all ages! (This may give new meaning to the term "teacher's pet.)
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A mother's work is never done. Bummer (the mother) licks all crevices clean.
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Grace and I watched this little lady lamb be born.
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The new family (minus t he dad whose is in solitary confinement until September).
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"Ice hurts when it is everywhere."
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The safest place to be in avalanche country is on top of a recent avalanche. Can you see the avalanche path?
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    Teresa Hislop
    thislop@msn.com

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