They love me, they really LOVE me!!

Just thought I'd toot my own horn for a minute.  I was nominated for a Brighton Parents' Choice of Excellence.  I didn't win, but there were only about 15 or so teachers who were chosen as nominees, then about 5 who actually won.  :)

She Turned Me Into a Newt!!

(This isn't my nose, it's a false one.)

This is my Halloween costume for school this year.  It's the witch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in case you didn't know.

I thought this would be a really low-key, easily-crafted costume, but you would not believe how hard it is to find a carrot nose and a black funnel!  I ended up ordering the nose from England (only $7 including shipping!) and painting a blue funnel black.  The rest was pretty easy to find.

Here's the quiz I gave my students today.... Enjoy!  :D

(So far the highest score is 7.)

1.              Halloween originated in which country?

a.     Ireland

b.     Scotland

c.     Romania

d.     Germany

e.     North America

2.              What was Halloween called before it got that name?

a.     All Saints’ Day

b.     The Day of the Dead

c.     All Hallows Eve

d.     All Souls’ Day

3.              The first “Jack-O-Lanterns” were actually carved out of:

a.     Radishes

b.     Turnips

c.     Squash

d.     Apples

4.              The Jack-O-Lantern” got its name from:

a.     Jack the Ripper

b.     Stingy Jack

c.     The Headless Horseman (who was named for a real man whose name was Jack O’Malley)

d.     Wandering Jack

5.              Why is Halloween celebrated on Oct 31^st?

a.     That was the day Jack the Ripper died

b.     That was the Celtic calendar’s New Year’s Eve

c.     That was the day the Catholic church decided to honor the dead

d.     That was the day the Pagan religion celebrated Lord Samhaim, the god of death

6.              How was “trick-or-treating” started?

a.     Village people would go door-to-door asking the rich for food donations for the village celebration.  If people would not donate, they pulled pranks on them.

b.     On a Halloween night long ago a blind man was out begging door-to-door.  Someone gave him bad cheese and moldy bread, so in return he set fire to the house.

c.     In the early 1800s beggars would send their children door-to-door in order to invoke sympathy and thus, get more money from donors.  Because of the religious affiliation with the upcoming Day of the Dead, people tended to be more generous on Halloween.

7.              Why do people dress up in costume on Halloween?

a.     Long ago people would dress like the rich people they were approaching so that they were more likely to give to them.

b.     To blend in with the dark night after pulling pranks.

c.     To blend in with the spirits believed to be wandering the streets.

d.     To disguise their identities and scare the victims of their pranks.

8.              What was the original date of “All Hallows’ Eve?”

a.     October 31^st

b.     November 1^st

c.     December 21^st

d.     May 13^th

9.              If it changed, who changed it?

a.     A Druid Sorcerer

b.     A Catholic Pope

c.     A Jewish Rabbi

d.     A Mormon Prophet

10.           During the famous witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, how many witches were burned at the stake?

a.     0

b.     10

c.     20

d.     30

Answers are in the comments.

Calling all educators... and others...

K.  School starts tomorrow and I'm STILL torn about whether or not to cut the answer pages out of the backs of my students' new books.  The books come with a DVD with activities in it that they have to do.

Here's what I've come up with.  Please read the information, then vote on the poll.  I really want your feedback too, so when you vote, you must leave an explanation as to why you voted that way as well as any other options or suggestions you may have.

Pros: 

1. The students can check their answers right away to see if they got the answers correct and, ideally, learn from what they got wrong and watch the video again.  

2. That means less grading for me.  

Cons:

1. Obviously, they're high schoolers and likely to not even watch the video, but just copy the answers from the back of the book.

2. If they do that, they will not learn the information and since this is a beginning level class, they will not form a good foundation, which is something I as the instructor will have to deal with for the next two or three years.

Side notes:

1. If I don't cut them out, their homework would be worth less than it is currently (HW is 40%, will be 20%) and their tests will be worth more (going from 40% to 50%).  So if they cheat on the homework their grade will suffer because I will probably still use part of the video in their tests.

I'm leaning towards leaving them in for a semester and seeing how it goes.  I hope you guys get this and vote before I leave today!  :)

The apple and tree and all that...

This is just a cute story that I thought I'd share.

So any time when we're walking into a restaurant or on a hike or just anywhere, really, Randy will often stop and pick a flower for me.

As I've mentioned before, Randy's boy, Spencer is here visiting and a couple weeks ago we went on a hike.  

While we were walking along, Spencer kept gathering flowers and giving them to me.  I thought it was cute but wondered if he understood, so one time when he brought me a flower I said, "Ah, thanks but you should give that one to your daddy." 

He looked at me like I'd just grown a second head and said, "He's not a girl!"

Superstitions

So the other day I was driving along and I saw a couple of pigeons in the middle of the road.  I always think it's weird when people swerve to miss birds, I mean, they've got wings!  They can get out of the way if they want to, right??  So yeah... I didn't swerve.  And he didn't fly away.  When I realized he wasn't going to get out of the way I did swerve to try to at least make him go under my car instead of under my tire, but he was a little taller than I had anticipated...

After a soft thump and a tuft of feathers in my rear view mirror, I watched to see how he had come out.  He was still walking on the road, albeit a little quicker than he was before...

I really really felt bad.  Really. 

Then later that day, I was driving along and a couple of little sparrows were flying around pretty low and I thought I heard one of them hit my bumper...  I can't be sure because there were no feathers flying around or anything that time.

Seriously though, two birds in one day?!?

I decided today to see if that's bad luck.  I didn't see anything related to hitting birds on this website, but I did think some of the other stuff was interesting, so I thought I'd share.

Enjoy.

Funny video

I posted this on my facebook page but I've heard that not everyone checks it regularly, so I thought I'd post it here.  I just found this amusing and it reminded me of our family.

Video

One more great time-waster

I actually found this one as a result of surfing Jaron's "99 sites you should've seen by now" list.  So have at it, Gregan and thanks, Jar!

http://failblog.org/

There are some great ones on there!

How I'm procrastinating now...

I went to dinner last night with a friend who told me about this website:

http://funnyexam.com/

I'm already feeling antsy with the end of the year coming up, so it is really a bad time to be introducing new ways to waste time, but I thought I'd pass it along.  There are some pretty funny ones.

Enjoy!  :)

Poll Results

Results are in, and apparently I'm supposed to make a new blog about it.  (Thanks for the info, Kryn, I had no idea!)

Wow, I'm surprised so many people voted for Education! Actually I'm not, but I'm pretty sure you all only voted for that one cuz I'm a teacher and it seems like a logical step.
In reality, one reason I'm thinking of getting my master's is so I have something to do if I decide not to teach for the rest of my life.
I've been contemplating speech language pathology, but really ears interest me more than swallowing and stutters. Being an SLP would be cool, though.
I'm surprised no one chose Math, even as a joke.
I keep going back to linguistics myself, though. I really like the study of language and how language develops. The big question, however, is what do I do with a master's in linguistics?

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

Here's a quiz I made for my class for Tuesday.

I'll post the answers later... Or maybe as a comment...  See how many you know though!

(I already know I'm a geek... I'm ok with it...  Humor me)    :)

1.  St. Patrick was born in

a. Ireland

b. Britain

c. Germany

d. France

2.  St. Patrick was born in the year

a. 718

b. 683

c. 412

d. 387

3.  St. Patrick's birth name was

a. Pateritius MacDell

b. Artagon Sweeny

c. Maewyn Succat

d. Patrick O'Harra

4.  The tradition of wearing green on St. Patrick's day originated

a. Because St. Patrick's "saint color" was green

b. Because Ireland itself is very green

c. To remind people of the shamrock and thus, remind them of God

d. B & C

e. All of the above

5.  Why is the shamrock affiliated with St. Patrick?

a. He used them to make what is now a traditional St. Patrick's Day stew

b. He planted them all over Ireland as he proselyted 

c. He always wore one on the sleeve of his shirt

d. He used them to explain religious doctrine

6.  Why is St. Patrick's Day celebrated on March 17th?

a. That is the Catholic church's first day of lent

b. That is the Catholic church's last day of lent

c. That is the day St. Patrick was born

d. That is the day St. Patrick died

7.  T/F Aside from zoos and pets, Ireland has no snakes.

8.  T/F St. Patrick was deaf.

9.   T/F St. Patrick's Day was originally in December.

10. T/F The first St. Patrick's Day parade was in Ireland.

"You are everything I hope to become someday"

Today I got the sweetest note from one of my students.  She seems like more than a student though.  She's had somewhat of a rough young life and had to mature more quickly than normal because of it.  I've kind of taken her under my wing and let her vent to me and I to her more so than a typical teacher/student relationship would allow.  I think she needs it though, and I'm sure I do too.  At any rate, she spends a lot of time in my classroom and we see each other at Deaf Community events.  We've even gone bouldering together. 

Today she gave me a Christmas present and this note was with it.  The title of this blog is a line from that note.  I can't help but to feel like she doesn't have her sights set high enough.  

Isn't it interesting how other people perceive us?

To her, I'm a successful, independent, active woman who has everything together.  To me... well, that line just makes me laugh.  I mean, I definitely enjoy my life and I'll admit I'm not a complete screw-up, but I am far from the end product I hope to become.

It makes me think, though, about the people I admired growing up and those I look up to now.  It's so interesting that they're just people.  Now it makes sense why, any time I said something like that to a neighbor or friend's parent or anyone really, they would roll their eyes, blush and say thanks and usually refer back to their messy house or undone hair.  

Happy Kwanzaa!

(I really am not going to be adding a new blog everyday, but I don't know how long I'll be keeping this up, so I figure I will add stuff when I can)

So it turns out that today is the 3rd day of Kwanzaa.  

In order to enhance my skills at interpreting, I volunteer when I can.  Most of the situations which require interpreters also (by law) require the company to hire certified interpreters, which doesn't leave me a ton of opportunities to practice.  One situation where it's not required to hire a certified interpreter is in a church setting, so I have two different churches that I usually alternate interpreting for.

Today the church I went to interpret for (my client didn't show up, but I stayed for most of the service anyway) talked about Kwanzaa.  

I don't remember what the native words for each principle and piece are, but I learned that at the Kwanzaa table there are certain items and each item represents a principle of Kwanzaa. 

Let's see how I do.

First, there's a 7-candle candle holder (don't even remember what that's called...).  There are 7 candles.  Three red, three green, and a black one in the middle.  Those represent the 7 principles of Kwanzaa. 

Each child in the family also gets an ear of corn.  The significance of the corn is that each ear of corn grows individually but is attached to the stalk, representing unity, which are two principles of Kwanzaa (individuality and unity).  The reason only the children get one is that it represents their future and what they will become.

Around the candle holder is fruit to represent working together, as in a harvest.

Then there are place mats made out of dried corn husks to represent the family ancestors.  Each member of the family, plus the candle holder, gets a place mat to tie the generations together, calling to mind the fifth principle of purpose.

Another item on the table is a wooden cup, from which every member of the family drinks to further signify unity and the sixth principle of faith.

The last principle is that of creativity in giving.  They give gifts, often home-made to signify creativity and thoughtfulness.  

I may have messed some of it up, but I thought it was interesting since I'd never known  anything about Kwanzaa.  I really wish I could have been there for their other "Celebration of Light" sermons throughout December.  They talked about Hanukkah and Christmas as well as Denali and some others I'd never heard of before.  I was interpreting at the other church the other weeks though.  I've been thinking of somehow incorporating the December holidays into my ASL class so my students can learn about all the different celebrations... Not sure how to do that yet though.  

Well, now I'm off to my own church.  Hope you enjoyed this little schpeal (however you spell that...).