A Momentous Occasion, Cause for Celebration

Today is a day of Reckoning for two reasons (hmmm, there’s that number again!). The first, being Teacher Assisting in my class of 22 fifth graders. Overall it was a good experience. I didn’t do much besides observe and take copious notes on all the morning’s activities. The difficulty in observation comes from trying to document the events without being clouded by personal judgments of those events. Personal judgments can rob a person of a true perspective of what is really going on. In order to observe as an insider rather than an outsider, I must document only facts and strings of conversation, and return to those raw observations to record my thoughts, feelings, and impressions of what occurred. That is the theory anyway.

I think this will be a good group of kids to work with and learn from as a future teacher. I really do love being in the classroom. I only had one sketchy moment while I attempted to help some poor girl attach her stretchy book cover over a beat up math book. I think it was too small. It really took some elbow grease, and I attracted a small crowd of children each with a brainy idea on how to get it on. I finally realized that I was in danger of destroying school property and gave up. The temptation to be a hero always must be weighed against the loss of dignity. This particular scenario was much too risky.

The second reason for us to Reckon this day is that it is September 5, 2006, the day LOST: Season Two hits stores. Yes, I have it already. After my lunch with the other teachers (to which I was personally invited), I rushed right over to Best Buy and bought it. For all the hardcore fans out there, I will pass along the new knowledge which I have gleaned from the exclusive bonus features.

Two new websites for the LOST fanatic: The ‘Lost’ Notebook is a plethora of collected facts, and The Fuselage is the official website of the Creative Team of the LOST show. You can check them out as you catch up on season 2 (or 1 if you’re that far behind) and gear up for season three.

Hasn’t this been a nice day?!

*edit And Daniel called from Africa!!!

Hop On the Merry-Go-Round

Have you ever sat around thinking and reflecting? Minutes turn into hours, hours into days, days into months. You stir and realize that nothing has really changed or been accomplished except that you are now frustrated and in a bad mood. I’ve never been so glad in my life to pull out of a season of reflection and rest than this one. I welcome the busy schedule, the balancing act of assignments and due dates, the research to conduct, the papers to write, the lessons to plan, the projects to execute. My mind will be busy on things that matter (and that I can actually DO something about) and I will once again be moving in some clear direction.

Most of all I will be distracted from the fact that I am steadily moving ever closer to the edge of the unknown. There has always been a plan, a next step, a clear direction of what I should do and where I should go. All that will disappear for me quite soon. I suppose everyone comes to that day at some point in their lives. You arrive there at the edge, but really every choice has lead there. It is the feeling of a free fall. I hope I will be brave enough to dive headfirst over that edge when the moment comes. Maybe something will be there to catch me.

This week I went to class, a Doctors appt., and a CPR/First Aid training. Next week I will start Teacher Assisting, go back to work, and begin assignments. I am so glad I had a week to get into my class schedule before adding assisting and work. I will be observing for the first few days in my 5th grade class I think. I have to draw a map of the classroom and list demographics for one of my classes. That will be my focus for the first couple days.

I have all my classes except one in town and will carpool with my dear friend Angela for the one in GV. Now that I’m in the College of Education the pool of people is much smaller. I know almost everyone in all my classes. The three classes in town are filled with all the same people because everyone wants to save themselves the commute to GV. I’ve never had three classes with all the same people. It got a little tedious when all three professors asked us to share an interesting fact and we had to think up a new fact for each class so we wouldn’t sound boring!

That does it for the boring life update. Consider yourself in the loop.

One and the Same

The End.

Over, Finished, Done.
Leaving, Good-byeing, Moving on.
Starting, Expecting, Looking ahead.
New, Unseen, Future.

The Beginning.

The end leads to a new beginning, to an end, to a beginning,to an end...

*edit

Living up to her reputation, Mom has once again taken an event, a story, and told her own version of it. I have, once again, fallen prey to this tendency of hers and in turn subjected you, my dear readers, to its fallacy. This gross misinterpretation of the facts surfaced in The Ice Cream Man post made several weeks ago. A reliable source has revealed that it was not acorns that were used by my brothers in an attempt to buy ice cream, but pine cones. May it stand corrected in the Exhale annals.

Before we build the gallows, let me say that my sympathies are with the trespasser, namely mom, in this case. My decision is greatly influenced by the fact that I have subconcsiously acquired this uncanny ability to manipulate events to my own view point. The first step toward recovery is to admit a discrepancy in oneself. We struggle onward toward perfection. I will no doubt pass on to my children the implicit flaws of my human nature. I pray that I will have mercy upon that day.

A Girl Like Me

A Girl Like Me

Thanks to Kelsey I have added the video "A Girl Like Me", which prompted my previous post on The Doll Test, to Exhale for your convenient viewing! As a side note, youtube.com allows you to post videos directly to your blog right from their website. It may be a fun way to spice things up around here anyway.

The Doll Test

In the 1950’s, soon after Brown vs. Board of Education desegregated schools, Dr. Kenneth Clark performed a test on young black children. This test consisted of two dolls, one white and the other black. The children were then asked which doll was pretty and which doll was ugly. The overwhelming answer from these children was that the white doll was the pretty one, while the black doll was the ugly one.

In the 50’s racial segregation and discrimination was still very much alive. Think of Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Emmett Till. Nowadays most of us don’t give segregation or discrimination a second thought. We pat ourselves on the back that we have moved past that ugliness, and offer a puzzled expression to the occasional “hate crime” that appears on our college campuses and news headlines. Fifty years isn’t really that long ago. If you were fifty years old, all the major ups and downs on the rollercoaster of race would have happened during your lifetime.

Recently Good Morning America made us aware of a shocking (or maybe not so shocking) truth about the current state of racism in the United States by highlighting Kiri Davis, a young aspiring filmmaker. Kiri made a film called “A Girl Like Me”, which won an award from the Media That Matters Festival. She decided to re-conduct the doll test with young black children. She found a white doll easily, but had an extremely difficult time finding a black doll. Stores simply did not sell them. Once she did find one and performed the test, the results were almost identical to the results 50 years ago. Fifteen out of twenty-one children chose the white doll as the pretty/good doll, while indicating the black doll as ugly/bad. The last little girl shown in the video (which you can download for viewing) was asked which doll looked like her. There was a heart-wrenching pause before she finally pushed the black doll, which she had just indicated as the bad doll, forward.

I was sickened by that image. It shows what our society values as beautiful and good. The black culture is not validated by our media. Just as the media tells a woman that she must be thin and dress a certain way to be beautiful, it says black (unless the features lean toward Caucasian and mainstream English is spoken) is not beautiful. We are concerned about the media effect on gender, so why not color?

I would strongly encourage you to download “A Girl Like Me” and view it, as this post will be much more meaningful if you see it for yourself. If you have dial-up like me it will take some time, but it is well worth it.

Interestingly there is a collection of racial propaganda and memorabilia on the Ferris State campus here in Michigan. It is called The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia and it's purpose is to show how the media has portrayed and still portrays black people. There is a lot there in the link I've offered, but you can see pictures of some of the items in the museum.

My Mom Rocks!

She does. I can tell her anything. She's so proud of me. Sometimes she's so proud that she exagerates about my accomplishments and abilities. Like the time I called home while living in Tx to fill her in on everything going on in my life. I told her about the worship CD I helped with by singing in the choir there, then launched into the big news that I would be touring for two weeks with the Newsboys to promote mission trips to concert goers on their tour. She then went right out and told everyone I was going to be a backup singer for the Newsboys! *sigh* I was so embarrassed. But between her pride in me and obvious confusion about the events I spewed out during a short phone call, I guess I can understand her mistake. I did have a bit of work cut out for me undoing that little misunderstanding once I moved back home though. ("So, wow! you were a backup singer for the Newsboys?!" "No...no. I promoted missions. Missions!)

Still, I couldn't ask for a better mom. She is my friend as well as my mother. That is why I announce with great pride that my mother is a blogger! So for all those times she has exuberantly spread mostly true (it really is her point of view) accounts of my latest accomplishments, I say my mom has the rockinest blog ever and everybody should rush right over there and welcome her to the blogosphere: www.pebblesofsand.blogspot.com

Afterall, everything I know about exaggeration I learned from her.

Return from the Wild

Well, the four of us survived four days of tent camping in (ok near) the woods, but just barely. We had frequent visitations by a very hungry, but polite raccoon. The first night he visited it was right outside the tent flap where we had conveniently left our garbage for him. The second time was at the edge of the woods where we had left old fruit we didn’t want. We only became aware of his presence that time because of a strange echoing, sneeze-like sound he was making. I’m not sure if that’s the sound raccoons make (I’ve never heard one before), or if he was allergic to something. It was quite creepy in the pitch dark hearing that before realizing it was him. We also were made aware of a potential attack by a very scary creature called Ricky (and his menacing bear suit), but thanks to our off-grounds security guard, Chris, we were saved from a fate worse than torture! Thank you Chris, you will be well paid.

This fifth annual camping excursion I am particularly grateful to my dear friends, who I sadly take for granted, that lived with me for four days, know just how imperfect I am, and love me still.

I don’t have any pictures yet, but I will post them as they become available. Speaking of pictures, I would like to take this opportunity to announce that the Exhale picture blog is currently under construction and new pictures will be coming soon. Thank you for your patience and undoubted excitement for their arrival.

Silence

As the members of The Smoking Fire Camping Club prepare to embark upon the 5th annual camping trip, imminent Silence will fall upon the blogs. Be strong, be not faint of heart for we shall return. This will not be a Silence eerie, nor a Silence full of loss, but rather a Silence of Golden Peace. Know that we are communing with nature, lulled by the waves upon the shore and the breeze within the treetops. We shall return as new women who have seen a clearer meaning of Life through the Silence that will envelop us as we leave behind the busyness of everyday life for a quieter, more reflective existence.

I, for one, embrace the Silence.

Extreme Trading

Everybody is happy with a good trade. Kids trade things like lunches, collectors cards, and toys. Adults trade things like kids, services, stocks, and real estate.

This months issue of People magazine highlighted a young man who took trading stuff to the extreme. This man started his trading on the internet with one red paper clip, which he traded with a woman for her fish pen. Over the course of a year he traded for bigger and more valuable things. He is a fellow blogger and you can track his trade course at One Red Paper Clip. He ended up with his ideal trade: A house! He essentially got the house for the price of...well...one red paper clip.

I have got to start thinking outside the box!