My com boxes tell me I recently gained a new reader (a new Blogger blogger whose site is starting strongly), who has asked me to explain myself. My SiteMeter stats tell me I have a lot more readers lately than I thought I did. While I suspect 90% of those are my friends and family, this is none the less impetus enough for me to, finally, explain my current situation.
I decided well before I graduated from college that I wanted to spend the year following doing service work. My reasons for this are many, and more personal than I really want to get into here, but being intelligent adults you can probably guess about an idea. If you want to really boil it down, God said so and I said, "Well, alright."
In March and April, I was filling out applications to service programs like mad (a process I touched on here). While home for Easter, I looked over those applications and suddenly realized I wasn't really excited about any of them. Not that they were not good and worthy programs for one to be involved in, but I myself didn't feel strongly drawn to them -- and I've always been big on gut feelings.
I scoured the internet one more time, and found VIDES. Looking at the web site, I finally felt that little push, that little "Yeah, do that" that told me it was a good thing. This was in April, but it said "or until positions are filled" under the March deadline. I called Sr. Gloria and told her I what I was about, and she said that their school could use a volunteer teacher. That was more or less that.
Fast forward to almost-October, which finds me teaching grammar and writing to 5th-8th graders, who are already telling me not to leave next year, at St. John Bosco School in San Antonio, where people speak Spanish and say y'all in equal parts. I live at the school in the convent with the Salesian sisters, who take very good care of me and always make sure I get enough to eat.
There is, of course, much much more to it than that, but that's part of why I'm keeping a blog. Keep reading, or read backwards, and you'll get the idea.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Gnome Gnamed!
First of all, many thanks to all of you who participated. Your suggestions were a mix of absurdity an brilliance, and that's the way (uh-hu, uh-hu) I like it. Particular thanks go to Beag Og Bramblefoot over at Gnome Bandits, a wee clever little thing I've added to my sidebar, for both contributing and linking to my post*. 'Preciate it!
Now, the unveiling! I had a hard time picking from the names suggested, probably because I have a hard time deciding between Rice Crispies and Cheerios, or between red and green Gatorade. In fact, I kinda copped out (but that was Erin's idea, she told me to), and found a way to mush almost all the names into one. You know how sometimes people have nick names that have nothing to do with their real names? Andie is a natural derivative of Andrea, but Fish, for example, really has nothing to do with Melissa.
So this is what I've come up with: Lazarus Fiachra Hopkins, who goes by Gnorm. Gnorm and I talked about it, and he likes it. Done and done.
My "gnome son", as Erin put it, Gnorm, ne Lazarus Fiachra Hopkins.
Now, the unveiling! I had a hard time picking from the names suggested, probably because I have a hard time deciding between Rice Crispies and Cheerios, or between red and green Gatorade. In fact, I kinda copped out (but that was Erin's idea, she told me to), and found a way to mush almost all the names into one. You know how sometimes people have nick names that have nothing to do with their real names? Andie is a natural derivative of Andrea, but Fish, for example, really has nothing to do with Melissa.
So this is what I've come up with: Lazarus Fiachra Hopkins, who goes by Gnorm. Gnorm and I talked about it, and he likes it. Done and done.
My "gnome son", as Erin put it, Gnorm, ne Lazarus Fiachra Hopkins.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Gname the Gnome Contest!
Last night, Sr. Gloria walked in with two sizable boxes for me. "Merry Christmas!" she said as she plopped them on the table in front of me. I had been expecting my GRE prep book from Amazon. The second box was a mystery, and became a rather unnerving one when I saw who it was from: my dear friend Erin, who has been known to do some crazy stuff.
I needn't have feared. Erin's care package set a new standard for caring-via-package, and for long-distance-best-friendship. The splendid young lady sent me two mix CDs, a finger puppet, a t-shirt from St. Louis, some divine soap from some contemplative nuns (get it?), a quasi-trashy magazine, her copy of her favorite book (on loan), a 101 Dalmatians magic towel, a letter that made me go all watery, and last but not least, this wee little garden gnome!
Upon removing him from his bubble wrap, I was quickly inspired to join in the venerable practice of "roaming gnomes", that is, carrying the dainty chap around with me and taking pictures of him. In my case, since Erin gave him to me, I think they will go to Erin. They will probably also go here, unless all this excitement tapers out into a "I almost did that once" story. Knowing me and my friends, that's unlikely.
Anyway, the diminutive dude requires an appellation of some sort. I can't think of a good one, so I open it up to you, dear readers. Things to keep in mind when christening my mythical friend:
- This is, in it's tiny every-day way, a Catholic blog. Additionally, I bear an abiding fondness for all things Catholic. A name hearkening to some aspect or person of the church would be delightful. A saint, perhaps, or a Biblical personality.
- I like smart things, too (probably why I like Catholic things ;-) ). "Bob" simply will not do. Be clever!
- He IS, after all, a gnome. Make it gnomish, whatever gnomish turns out to be.
Leave a comment with your suggestions. In a few days, I'll christen the mini man.
Monday, September 24, 2007
An Exception
I'm not big on slogan shirts, but given my current situation, I think this is just so appropriate, I may have to ask Mummy and Daddy for it. Found at Hobo Teacher, a delightful blog I recently discovered and recommend to you all.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
I May Have Fibbed
I know I promised a super-duper swell post about Homecoming. The thing is, I was actually actively busy almost all day, and now have a chance to actually call my family and go to bed before 11. This is, the way things have been going, almost miraculous.
Entertain yourselves for now with the video I posted late last night/early this morning of my kids soulja boying, and the new links I've added to the side bar (including a whole new category of blog: Secular, but Swell!).
Look, I'll even give you a picture of boys spaying blue stuff in each other's hair.
Heck, I'll even go the extra mile and give you another video.
Yup. That's a girl dressed as a paper football dancing to... something. It's a variety of Latin music I confess myself totally unfamiliar with, but which I found rather entrancing, like a train wreck.
And if I don't know who you are, leave me a comment and introduce yourself. Heck, if you're my parents or some other star-crossed person fated to know me, leave me a comment anyway.
Entertain yourselves for now with the video I posted late last night/early this morning of my kids soulja boying, and the new links I've added to the side bar (including a whole new category of blog: Secular, but Swell!).
Look, I'll even give you a picture of boys spaying blue stuff in each other's hair.
Heck, I'll even go the extra mile and give you another video.
Yup. That's a girl dressed as a paper football dancing to... something. It's a variety of Latin music I confess myself totally unfamiliar with, but which I found rather entrancing, like a train wreck.
And if I don't know who you are, leave me a comment and introduce yourself. Heck, if you're my parents or some other star-crossed person fated to know me, leave me a comment anyway.
Your Cool Lesson for the Day
Dance crazes come along every now and again, dating all the way back to when David returned the Ark of the Covenant to its rightful spot and made a spectacle of himself in the process. I would guess most of you are familiar with the Macarena and the Cha Cha Slide. In the hip-hop world, mini-crazes come at a much quicker pace. These are usually more about a move associated with a popular song, but sometimes it's practically a full routine. The latest is the "soulja boy", done to the song "Crank Dat" by the (cough) artist Soulja Boy. It's a bloomin' mania right now, especially among the middle schoolers I work with.
Two of my girls on the dance team actually taught it to me last weekend at the football game, then spent this whole past week telling other students I'd learned how to soulja boy and trying to get me to do it in class. I did not, promising instead to do it at the Homecoming dance. When the moment came, I was attacked on all sides by middle schoolers who insisted I make good on my promise. Which I did.
Thank God, to my knowledge there exists no video evidence of that event, but I do have video of my kids doing it. Enjoy.
Two of my girls on the dance team actually taught it to me last weekend at the football game, then spent this whole past week telling other students I'd learned how to soulja boy and trying to get me to do it in class. I did not, promising instead to do it at the Homecoming dance. When the moment came, I was attacked on all sides by middle schoolers who insisted I make good on my promise. Which I did.
Thank God, to my knowledge there exists no video evidence of that event, but I do have video of my kids doing it. Enjoy.
Peace Through Flooring
Dad sent me this link to what is, as far as I can tell, a legit southern Maryland business. Thank you, Father.
My first reaction was a good hearty chuckle. Then I thought, "Well, hey, he's just doing what we're all supposed to be doing, and he's putting it out there." After all, don't all of our vocations and jobs please God when they're done well, with integrity, with Him in mind? I don't see why carpeting should be excluded.
Rock on, Dave!
My first reaction was a good hearty chuckle. Then I thought, "Well, hey, he's just doing what we're all supposed to be doing, and he's putting it out there." After all, don't all of our vocations and jobs please God when they're done well, with integrity, with Him in mind? I don't see why carpeting should be excluded.
Rock on, Dave!
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Day in the Life
Alright, an actual post about actual life for those of you who read this to have some clue of what my life is like/about. For the rest of you... who are you?? Leave me a comment and introduce yourself.
I've been in San Antonio for almost five weeks now (a fact that I can't wrap my brain around. I'm still working on accepting having been here a month), and tomorrow is the end of our first month of school. Plenty of time to settle into a routine. Those who know me know that I'm really not so good with getting into routines, although routines are invariably good for me. Fortunately for me, here at the convent life is pretty prescripted (at least more so than it is in the outside world).
Here's a typical weekday.
5:30 - My first alarm goes off.
5:42 - I start thinking about getting out of bed when the second alarm goes off.
5:58 - I usually actually get out of bed and throw on whatever teacher monkey suit I've put together for myself.
6:24 - Enter the chapel (next to the living room, under the sisters' rooms, and across from the cafeteria) for mass. Some weeks (like this one), the whole process moves up twenty minutes and I join the sisters for morning prayer. Otherwise, I say it on my own after mass before I go over for...
7:05 - Breakfast, where the sisters remind me why it's good to be alive. Not that I'd forgotten, but it's always nice to be reminded.
7:20 - Pick up various items of paper work from the office, silently thinking it must have been nice when kids just wandered in off the corn field and wandered back out. On to my class room to check e-mails, get settled, start acting like I know what I'm doing.
7:30 - Faculty prayer followed by faculty asking and telling each other things. This sometimes involves thinly-veiled-but-maturely-and-Christianly-handled hostility. These are the exciting days.
7:45 - The entire school assembles in the gym for prayer, announcements, and the president of the student council dressed as a bee handing out ribbons to children with birthdays. During this time, the kinder and first graders give their teachers a hard time, the second through fourth graders clap and sing and respond to rhetorical questions, and the fifth through eighth graders make every effort to hide even the faintest signs of interest.
8:00 - Home room. I attempt to talk over 7th graders who think I'm their friend.
8:15 - My free period, usually spent trying to make various computer programs essential to my ability to teach work, and failing in the attempt.
9:03 - Classes. Math, math lab, and 7th grade English.
11:20 - Lunch, praise be to God. Glory in the highest.
12:07 - More classes. Two sixth grade classes, one eighth grade class, and one fifth grade class. I consistently forget that I cannot make jokes of any variety with these kids, as I could with my high schoolers, because they loose their blessed little minds every time anything remotely amusing happens, and all the more so if it comes from me. I also wonder if I lapse into another language when I utter the phrase, "Be quiet", because they never seem to understand me.
3:15 - Dismissal. Picture the exodus in Texas with punchy teachers and junior high schoolers instead of oxen.
3:30 - Tutoring, or a faculty meeting.
4:00 - 6:20 - Heck, I don't even know. I usually think, "I'm going to do X, Y, and Z between tutoring and dinner," and usually end up getting a call from the sisters at 6:15 informing me it's time to come eat. I've developed a theory in which I am abducted by aliens daily during this time frame, and they have me run in circles just so I feel like I did something, but give me nothing to show for it.
6:20 - Dinner. The sisters remind me that not only is it good to be alive, I am indeed still alive, despite all evidence to the contrary.
7:00 - Chores, during which Sr. Thuy invents "la, la, la" songs that always, always, always make me laugh and delight me. Who knew scrubbing the pots from a meal for eleven every night could be relaxing?
7:30 - Back to my class room, usually. I think the aliens draw me back and re-abduct me, because I usually leave with exactly the same amount of work as I entered with.
9:00 - Sit in the VIDES office, check e-mail, read, blog, and other wise waste time. See -- I haven't changed a bit.
10:00 - In my room. Clean things, make sure I don't smell, write letters, call people... possibly get abducted by aliens yet again because next thing I know it's...
11:00 - Bed time, believe it or not.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Tomorrow is Homecoming (yes, middle schools have homecoming). Expect massive post on that sometime Saturday!
I've been in San Antonio for almost five weeks now (a fact that I can't wrap my brain around. I'm still working on accepting having been here a month), and tomorrow is the end of our first month of school. Plenty of time to settle into a routine. Those who know me know that I'm really not so good with getting into routines, although routines are invariably good for me. Fortunately for me, here at the convent life is pretty prescripted (at least more so than it is in the outside world).
Here's a typical weekday.
5:30 - My first alarm goes off.
5:42 - I start thinking about getting out of bed when the second alarm goes off.
5:58 - I usually actually get out of bed and throw on whatever teacher monkey suit I've put together for myself.
6:24 - Enter the chapel (next to the living room, under the sisters' rooms, and across from the cafeteria) for mass. Some weeks (like this one), the whole process moves up twenty minutes and I join the sisters for morning prayer. Otherwise, I say it on my own after mass before I go over for...
7:05 - Breakfast, where the sisters remind me why it's good to be alive. Not that I'd forgotten, but it's always nice to be reminded.
7:20 - Pick up various items of paper work from the office, silently thinking it must have been nice when kids just wandered in off the corn field and wandered back out. On to my class room to check e-mails, get settled, start acting like I know what I'm doing.
7:30 - Faculty prayer followed by faculty asking and telling each other things. This sometimes involves thinly-veiled-but-maturely-and-Christianly-handled hostility. These are the exciting days.
7:45 - The entire school assembles in the gym for prayer, announcements, and the president of the student council dressed as a bee handing out ribbons to children with birthdays. During this time, the kinder and first graders give their teachers a hard time, the second through fourth graders clap and sing and respond to rhetorical questions, and the fifth through eighth graders make every effort to hide even the faintest signs of interest.
8:00 - Home room. I attempt to talk over 7th graders who think I'm their friend.
8:15 - My free period, usually spent trying to make various computer programs essential to my ability to teach work, and failing in the attempt.
9:03 - Classes. Math, math lab, and 7th grade English.
11:20 - Lunch, praise be to God. Glory in the highest.
12:07 - More classes. Two sixth grade classes, one eighth grade class, and one fifth grade class. I consistently forget that I cannot make jokes of any variety with these kids, as I could with my high schoolers, because they loose their blessed little minds every time anything remotely amusing happens, and all the more so if it comes from me. I also wonder if I lapse into another language when I utter the phrase, "Be quiet", because they never seem to understand me.
3:15 - Dismissal. Picture the exodus in Texas with punchy teachers and junior high schoolers instead of oxen.
3:30 - Tutoring, or a faculty meeting.
4:00 - 6:20 - Heck, I don't even know. I usually think, "I'm going to do X, Y, and Z between tutoring and dinner," and usually end up getting a call from the sisters at 6:15 informing me it's time to come eat. I've developed a theory in which I am abducted by aliens daily during this time frame, and they have me run in circles just so I feel like I did something, but give me nothing to show for it.
6:20 - Dinner. The sisters remind me that not only is it good to be alive, I am indeed still alive, despite all evidence to the contrary.
7:00 - Chores, during which Sr. Thuy invents "la, la, la" songs that always, always, always make me laugh and delight me. Who knew scrubbing the pots from a meal for eleven every night could be relaxing?
7:30 - Back to my class room, usually. I think the aliens draw me back and re-abduct me, because I usually leave with exactly the same amount of work as I entered with.
9:00 - Sit in the VIDES office, check e-mail, read, blog, and other wise waste time. See -- I haven't changed a bit.
10:00 - In my room. Clean things, make sure I don't smell, write letters, call people... possibly get abducted by aliens yet again because next thing I know it's...
11:00 - Bed time, believe it or not.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Tomorrow is Homecoming (yes, middle schools have homecoming). Expect massive post on that sometime Saturday!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
:-) is Older Than I Am
Happy 25th, Emoticon! From Mashable:
You might be thinking, "Andie's got a lot of time on her hands, blogging daily about this sort of thing."
If you are thinking that, you probably don't know me very well. The amount of time I spend on fruitless activities bears no correlation to the amount of time I should be spending on productive labors. The convent hasn't changed me that much. I actually have a 4-inch stack of papers to grade... in the next two hours... I guess I should go do that...
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the first usage of an emoticon, a simple smiley face first used by a Carnegie Mellon professor on an old school bulletin board system. It turns out that the emoticon was not just an afterthought, but a much discussed idea addressing a problem early users of the system were having in separating sarcastic comments from serious ones. Professor Scott Fahlman proposed a smiley face to indicate joking and an upside down one to indicate unhappiness in a thread (captured below).The original message with the first smiley had been lost for years, but a rather intensive research effort lead to its recovery. Fahlman details the invention and the “dig” to find the original message on his page.
You might be thinking, "Andie's got a lot of time on her hands, blogging daily about this sort of thing."
If you are thinking that, you probably don't know me very well. The amount of time I spend on fruitless activities bears no correlation to the amount of time I should be spending on productive labors. The convent hasn't changed me that much. I actually have a 4-inch stack of papers to grade... in the next two hours... I guess I should go do that...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)