About 25% of 5-year-olds in the U.S. are Hispanic

According to this article, this year's class of kindergarteners are, as a group, about 53% white, down from 59% five years ago, while Hispanic students are up from 19% in 2000 to 25% this year, outnumbering black students of the same age by almost 2 to 1.

This belongs on my blog for two reasons:

1) The increase in the population of Latinos in the United States is a huge factor in some of the work Notre Dame is doing right now, and especially in what we're doing with the ACE Academies.  Combine the present national high school graduation rate for Latino students (less than 50%, depending on exactly who you ask) with the number of Latino students in the nation, and it doesn't take much specialized knowledge to guess what unfortunate fruits that coupling will eventually bear.

2) The article made me laugh out loud.  I'm quite sure it was unintentional and that the writer bears no malice toward Latinos.  Nonetheless, some of the phrasing made it sound like we're somewhat similar to a hoard of locusts, or we're carefully coordinating a slow invasion.  My favorite example (emphasis mine):

In addition, more Hispanic children are likely because the number of Hispanic girls entering childbearing years is up more than 30% this decade, Kenneth Johnson, demographer at the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute says. "It's only the beginning."

Hide your children!

Hear Me Roar

Last Saturday, my apartment looked like this.  Later that day, through the generosity of my (now former) roommate and the donated labor of his summer roommates, I added a couch to the middle of my then expansive living space.

I carried almost everything else in solo.  Every box from my car and each piece of furniture, basically every scrap of material possession in this place, was carried in by my scrawny little arms.  Before that, I packed the entire contents of my bedroom and classroom in Brownsville in my Corolla with my own two hands and my own Target-sandaled feet.

Not only that, but I built three of the furniture pieces with my black and yellow tools.  I sweat and I slaved and I tasted the fruits of industry - and they were sweet, my friends.

Less than a week after moving in, I had unpacked every last box and placed every last item.  I'm out-pacing Rome by a long shot, and I even gave the Lord a run for his money.  And now, a week and a day later, my apartment looks like this:

And I did all of these things by myself.  And what is more, I did somewhere between 60-75% of these things in a skirt. I defy any man to make the same claim.

And so, I claim the voice of the speaker in this ballad as my own, and I stand on my duck-crap covered patio, stand tall and dehydrated, and proclaim in an unwavering voice, "I am woman!  See me build a table."

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Logophilia Relapse

When I was a kid, nothing on earth or in heaven could keep me from reading.  I was the kid reading under the desk instead of listening in class -- ironically, the kid I now have to correct, though I feel her pain.

College, though, brought upon me the same ill as so many other readers: the high volume of required reading took some of the joy out and simultaneously gave me less time for leisure reading.  The first year of teaching didn't give me space to work on that, and I spent most of last year laboring through One Hundred Years of Solitude, a book I loved but couldn't plow through and yet I refused to read anything else at the same time.

Since August, though, I've started plowing through again.  And it has been wonderful.  It's like being reunited with a dear old friend, except this friend is an addiction.  I've gotten back to the point where I have to be reading, and when I'm doing anything else, I'm thinking about my current volume and when I'll be able to read again.

There's not much point to this, except to note a curious side effect: the impulse to write has also been making a comeback.  Mostly in handwritten notes and ponderings in margins and notebooks, but this might bode well for this neglected old blog.  I know -- I've said it before.  I've left you hanging.  I'm not making any promises just observations.

Now, off to battle this recent bout of insomnia with a cup of tea and a book...

Time's Quotes of the Day Often Amuse Me

I will be in Chicago this week, and I think I will have to find this Felony Franks place.  Be honest.  That's awesome.

Political pundit type: "Hey, SNL, quit picking on Obama!" You can't laud Tina Fey's Sarah Palin and get all pouty when Obama gets his turn.  Chill.

Not that I could have ever afforded it anyway, but this guy is never getting a dime of my shopping business: "No one wants to see a round woman".  To use the quasi vulgar vernacular of my generation, WTF, dude?  Has he seen classical art?  Of course, I don't think he's someone I would have taken seriously or shopped from to begin with -- fingerless leather gloves and a formal jacket over jeans with a tacky wash?  Pass.

If I Were This Guy's Wife, I'd KILL Him

...but since I'm not, it's awesome.

Explanation: At about 100 meters from the cargo bay of the space shuttle Challenger, Bruce McCandless II was farther out than anyone had ever been before. Guided by a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), astronaut McCandless, pictured above, was floating free in space. McCandless and fellow NASA astronaut Robert Stewart were the first to experience such an "untethered space walk" during Space Shuttle mission 41-B in 1984. The MMU works by shooting jets of nitrogen and has since been used to help deploy and retrieve satellites. With a mass over 140 kilograms, an MMU is heavy on Earth, but, like everything, is weightless when drifting in orbit. The MMU was replaced with the SAFER backpack propulsion unit. 

The Computer I've Been Dreaming Of

Apparently, this may or may not be legit.  If it is, it's awesome, and I TOTALLY want one.

God Made Laughter

...and while He was at it, He gave some of us the uncanny ability to point out the absurd and get us to laugh at ourselves.

That's a whole lotta funny right there.  Three of my favorite celebrity men, bear hugging in a mind-bending stew of satire and hilarity.

Let's just take a moment and drink it in.

God love you, Michelle Duggar.

Baby 19 is one the way.

She runs a household of 19 people, homeschools a more kids than I have in my 3rd period class, appears to be the most patient human ever to walk the American continent, found the time to do Weight Watchers after Baby 18, has a grandbaby on the way, and says she is "thrilled".  That, Dear Readers, is divine intervention.

Caspian on Progress

But that would be putting the clock back," gasped the governor. "Have you no idea of progress, of development?"
"I have seen them both in an egg," said Caspian. "We call it 'Going Bad' in Narnia."

-C.S. Lewis in Voyage of the Dawn
Treader

Thank God for August 23rd!

This is Becca. She is my best friend, and today (well, yesterday now, I suppose) was her birthday.


Sometimes God puts people in your life and means them to stay there forever and ever no matter what either of you do. Becca is like that. You want to talk about the Almighty making Himself known in my life? This girl. All. The stinkin'. Time. Although "mighty" isn't the first word I'd use to describe her, unless it was "mighty darlin'". I love her very much.


Even though she's weird.

Okay, maybe because she's weird.

Happy Birthday, Donut!

Peru vs. Bolivia. Grand Prize: The Devil.

I am ethnically and quasi-culturally Peruvian, and vocally proud of that. At the same time, it seems most news stories on the Mother Land I come across make me sort of cock my head and go, "Huh?" At least in this one, Bolivia is weirder than we are (at least I think so; I might be biased).

"The devil has his house and that is in Oruro [Bolivia]," Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, said Wednesday at a regional diplomatic meeting, where the issue came up. "One has to take care not to run into trouble with the devil."

Texas WOULD Be the One to Do This

Texas governor declares sovereignty.

Awkward Fest 2009

Staring Joaquin Phoenix and emceed by David Letterman.



Wow. I've heard a theory floating about that he's faking this whole thing as performance art or some such nonsense. It's either that, or high doses of... something.

Best line: "I'm sorry you couldn't be here tonight."

h/t to List of the Day (Explicit content. You have been warned).

Southern Australia Needs Prayers

I have seen surprisingly little in the blogs about the series of bush fires blazing away in Australia. Certainly, it deserves our attention and our prayers. 181 have lost their lives, and something like 7,000 are now homeless.

In other news, the sky is blue.

Louisiana's Education System Needs Help.

Whaaaaaat? Naaaaaaaaaaahhh.

Seriously: people like my aunts Missy, Tara, and Kathy, who probably have several decades experience teaching between them mostly in Louisiana, and the teachers I met in New Orleans in '07 are a big part of the reason I'm in this gig. They inspire me.

I'm Torn / I Lied

Just a couple days ago, I suggested Christ Be Beside Me was my favorite church song. I think I meant to say Morning Has Broken is my favorite. Of course, a little while ago, I said How Can I Keep from Singing was my favorite. Then yesterday, at mass, the communion song was How Can I Keep from Singing, which I have checked the missal for almost every week even though I know it's not in there. And, of course, I pretty well burst into tears the moment I heard the first strains.

What I'm saying is, I retract any previous statments that any of the above three songs are, apart from the others, my one favorite. I can't decide. I just can't.

Neil Diamond and My Favorite Church Song

My dad is a huge dork. Always has been. He paid over $700 for a VCR when they first came out, and spent a good chunk of his life recording everything of even mild interest he saw on television. I think he once figured out he could watch his recorded VHSs 24 hours a day for more than a month before rewatching anything.

One of these low-fi gems is a Neil Diamond Christmas special (we also own the accompanying CD). That special, watched year after year... until he met and married my step mom, come to think of it... anyway, it included Mr. Diamond singing Morning Has Broken. Before I was quite old enough to listen to and "get" the words, I loved that song. It's melody struck me and stuck with me.

Incidently, I don't care at all for Cat Stevens's version of the song. I'm just not a folky girl.

Then, I got to Notre Dame this past summer, and one day in mass, what to my wondering ears should come wafting through the air but another song with that same tune.

Christ be beside me, Christ be before me
Christ be behind me, King of my heart
Christ be within me, Christ be below me
Christ be above me, never to part.

Christ on my right hand, Christ on my left hand
Christ all around me, shield in strife
Christ in my sleeping, Christ in my sitting
Christ in my rising, light of my life.

I now find myself humming it constantly, thinking half the time of Morning Has Broken and the other half of Christ Beside Me.

If you're thinking, "Hey, didn't you blog about another Notre Dame song you're now, like, totally in love with?" You are correct, sir. There's just a lot of reasons I love Notre Dame.

You Know You're a Big Dorky Teacher When...

...you get a grant to spend someone else's money on whatever you want and gleefully flip through teacher catalogues oohing and ahhing over "A to Z: Reading Activities for Middle Schoolers", "Root Awakenings", and Shakespeare and Poe action ficgures.

Kermit the Frog:Christian Bale::Clark Kent:Superman

I'm just sayin'. So is the person who created this website. Hat tip to The Year in Pictures.

*This is 95% kid friendly, but I'd look before I let my kids see it. If you want your kids to know you're looking at pictures of Kermit Bale, that is.

Zombies!

C'mon. Tell me this isn't kind of amazing.

Hit tip to Fallen Sparrow.