Or This is why I loved Hungary so much.
This is a facebook thingi from someone in my Hungarian study abroad program.
Gimme a V! Gimme an O! Gimme an X! What's that spell? VOX!
What better way to tell the world how much you love Vox than to announce it on Facebook? That's right: Vox now has an official Facebook page! Become a fan of Vox.com on Facebook and let your friends know what you really care about: staying connected with friends and family through blog posts, photos, videos and comments.
Once you're a fan, you can also add photos and videos to the page, write on the wall, and connect with other Voxers in ways you may not have previously. Plus, it's a great opportunity to let people know about your Vox blog, or start discussion topics. To become a fan, just visit the official Vox.com Facebook page and click the "Become a Fan" button in the upper right hand corner.
Once you've joined, why not post a response to the current discussion topic? Just post a link (and a brief description, if you'd like) to what you consider one of your all-time best Vox posts.
What are you waiting for? Become a Vox.com fan on Facebook today!
Or A summer camping trip with my dad.
This past weekend, my dad and I went to the North Carolina mountains in the Wilson Creek Wilderness to camp. Here are some pictures of the trail. The middle one is a set of waterfalls and swimming pools. I don't have pictures of them, but we encountered two snakes on our second day. One was at Hunt Fish Falls and one was in the middle of the trail as we were hiking back to base camp. My dad had to take a stick and knock it on the ground near the snake to get it to go somewhere else so we could get by. Neither snakes were rattlers, so that was a plus.
Our campsite is only about 30 minutes in from the car. It sits at the bottom of this huge rock which the middle picture is taken on and is to the right of the far right picture. Above the rock is a great little swimming hole (the first picture) that is one of the reasons why we like the campsite so much. The other is that it is so far off the main trail that our dog, Max, can't hear hikers as they pass by. A constant background noise is the sound of the waterfall.
Hunt Fish Falls is the thing that originally brought us to this area around ten years ago. It is this humongous swimming hole. It is an easy 1.5 hour hike from our campsite to the Falls. There is road access from another side of the wilderness that keeps many hikers off our trail. When we got here we were the only ones. But after a while a family and a camp showed up.
The first night of our stay we were rained on on our drive up, during dinner at the campsite, and as we were sleeping. The result was that 90% of our stuff was wet be the first morning. Good news there was that our second day was beautiful and there wasn't a cloud in the sky until 5pm. We were able to dry out some stuff that morning before we went to Hunt Fish Falls.
[All of these pictures can also be viewed by clicking on this one.]
Although we typically post on Team Vox to let you know about things that are going on with Vox (to, uh, state the obvious), once in a while, we like to let you know about other cool things that are happening around the blogosphere. And we think the idea of four hilarious mommy bloggers traveling across the U.S. on their way to the BlogHer '08 conference - all the while blogging and video blogging the journey - is one trip you will not want to miss.
Four adventurous bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Group were selected to participate in the Summer Road Trip '08 and blog about their travels, hotel stays, media appearances, time away from their families, and life on the road. Six Apart helped them partner up with General Motors, who provided the blogging mommies with a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV to help make their journey comfy, safe, and a little more green.
In case you're not familiar with them, SV Moms is a group of over 200 bloggers who showcase the ups, downs, outrages, struggles, victories, and everyday humor of motherhood. There are currently nine regional and demographically tailored sites that give mothers from D.C., New Jersey, the Deep South, Rocky Mountains, L.A., and Silicon Valley a powerful voice and sense of camaraderie across the country. Whether you're a mother, a child, or just a person who enjoys a good blog, you'll really love reading the words of these amazing women.
The moms buckled into their Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV on July 11th and even got an encouraging message from Katie Couric to kick things off! They are currently somewhere in the middle of America making their way to San Francisco where they'll attend an SV Moms Group Party, as well as BlogHer '08.
You do not want to miss these entertaining and irreverent bloggers -- or their spontaneous contest giveaways! -- as they blog from the road. Experience the journey at MomRoadTrip.com.
And let us know about your summer road trip - or plane/boat/bus trip - in the comments! (I like to live vicariously.)
Or How NC has turned me into a bookworm and I love it.
Some interesting things I have learned this past week and weekend. In this time I have almost read two great books: The World Without Us and The Pixar Touch. The first is a thought experiment about what would happen if we (humans) dramatically and instantly left the Earth. The second is the story of the guys behind Pixar who pretty much made computer animation and computer animation film making.
1. North America used to have 15 species of megafuana (species of large animals that have very few natural predators). Most of these species were killed off within 1,000 years of early humans entering the continent.
Here is a wikipedia article about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_megafauna#North_America
2. Tires are a single molecule. I will say it again, Tires are a single molecule. Here's an exerpt from the book.
Here is a wikipedia article about vulcanization.Goodyear's process, called vulcanization, ties long rubber polymer chains together with short strands of sulfer atoms, actually transforming them into a single giant molecule. Once rubber is vulcanized - meaning it's heated, spiked with sulfer, and poured into a mold, such as one shaped like a truck tire - the resulting huge molecule takes that form and never relinquishes it.
Being a single molecule, a tire can't be melted down and turned into something else.
3. There are seven gyres in the world's oceans. They are depressions in the water created by currents and winds and they house lots and lots of trash. in 2005, the North Pacific Gyre was 10 million square miles of trash floating on the top of the water - almost the size of Africa.
Here is a quick wikipedia article on the oceanic gyres.
4. Here are several of Pixar's first movies. They are shorts. They are all completely computer animated.
Tin Toy (1988)
Gerri's Game (1997)
Red's Dream (1987)
Luxo Jr. (1986)
One Conversation:
1.
-Well, I was in a relationship with a boy, but I think he was gay.
-When did you figure this out?
-During the aftermath.
-The aftermath? After you had sex with him?
-No. We didn't have sex.
-Without sex, there is no aftermath. It's just pre-algebra.
[ASSIGNED: SUCCESS STORY]
Why is it so much harder for me to write the success story blog than the failure story?
I can think of small and large things I was successful with in my first year teaching: I can teach the hell out of vocabulary in a way that makes it constructive; and I can break down an essay so that almost anyone can write one that will pass the state test. I am supremely organized. (To look at my home, you wouldn't think so, but my classroom and its documentation are impeccable.) I can write really good chapter study guides for novels and the quizzes that go with them are the perfect mix of comprehension and critical thinking. I did well with group work, and with letting my students teach. I can make grammar make sense.
But can I point to one student and say, "I made a difference in his/her life," and really mean it? "Make a difference." What does that mean anyway? How do we measure that? I didn't send a kid to Phillips Exeter. But did the letter I wrote for KJ get her into that Tougaloo program? Will that change her? Did the gift certificate I gave RW to make up for the day he missed the class reward hot wings party allow him to feel like I cared? Will he remember it? Who knows what each butterfly's wings will do?
Here's what I remember: The day I returned to the school to resign and tell my students personally I would not be back (I'd been out for 6 weeks on medical leave and would not finish the school year there.) I found RK and pulled him out of his Biology class because he'd skipped second period when I usually saw him. He was terrified, of course, thinking he was in trouble again. He and I had gotten off to a rocky start. He was resistant to the work I assigned and challenged my motives. But by [what would become] the end of the year he would knit his brow and listen to my lessons, and pour himself into the worksheets I gave. If he wasn't finished when they were being collected he'd protest that he didn't want to turn it in until he'd gotten it. He wanted to understand. And the look on his face when he did was pure joy.
In early October I was told my job was to get enough documentation to get him into alternative school. In January I had an incident in the class that resulted in five students being suspended. He was sitting in the group and got lumped in with the crowd. I could see he was hurt and felt betrayed. Did I sleep that night?
The next morning I spoke with the assistant principal, who managed discipline referrals. I appealed for RK, explained that he had been the victim of a "sweep" and that I wanted him back in my class. He never thanked me, but that's when things changed.
So when we were standing face to face outside his Biology class in May, I told him he was one of the reasons my decision to leave had been so difficult. I asked him to remember how good it felt to succeed, and to try to keep doing that. I told him I appreciated how hard he worked in my class, and that I knew he was doing it for me as well as for himself. He kicked his foot and looked down.
He was crying
Before starting school last year, I spoke with a then MTC 2nd year that had taught the previous year in the middle school for my district. During our conversation, he highlighted several “problem” students and retold stories of their middle school antics. It was the summer. I had probably just finished a game of beach volleyball, smoothed out my flawless classroom management plan, and watched three movies online. Clearly I laughed about his words of warning and continued to enjoy my summer.
Fast-forward 1 month. I hate my life.
While I'm not sure how many total students I was warned about, I do know that in my 4th period class of 16, I had 5 of the said troublemakers. The rules of school say that the first few days are a “testing” period in which students feel you out as a teacher. However, every rule has exceptions. From the first day, my 4th period class of hell children stepped into my classroom with the intention of doing exactly what they wanted.
I could write several blogs about my 4th period class as a whole (in fact I have), but the real failure for me was DB. If I were asked to name my biggest behavior problems throughout the year I would most likely ramble off a list of the worst female students in the school. However, one of the behavior problems that continues to stick out to me as a failure involves a male student (Is that irony Scotty?).
DB was a punk from the start. He walked in the first day with his petulant little face poking out from a white towel he had hung over his head. When I asked him to take it off, he said simply “whatever man” and continued to pout his lips out at me. This was the first, but certainly not the last time I felt like snapping a student’s tibia in half. Unfortunately, instead of heeling his shin, I went through the same routine that had been drilled into us in the summer.
Warning…”for what?!...Writing assignment…”hahaha”...doubled writing assignment…and it goes on and on and on.
Of course he didn’t do the writing assignments. I had meetings with him and the counselor, I called his mom, and I gave him alternative assignments tailored to his learning style (puke). I thought I attacked it from all angles.
For roughly two weeks, DB single handedly ruined 4th period. On his best days, he would mouth off and write two or three lines in his notebook. On his worst days, he would incite a near riot in class. Keep in mind that this class was filled with several deranged females. On any given day, DB could call someone ugly or fat and chaos would ensue.
After an incident in which DB called another student a slut and they had to be separated, I spoke with the counselor and the other science teacher (who had few problems with DB) about relocation. Because the schedules matched up, we were able relocate DB to another science class.
Afterwards, class still did not go smoothly but it wasn’t chaos everyday. 4th period remained a stain on my day but I was (and still am) grateful that I was able to shift DB out. However, despite my gratefulness in respect to his absence, DB was my failure. I hate quitting and I quit on DB. As with most failed obstacles I have experienced in the last year, I could make plenty of excuses and they would all be legitimate. But when it comes down to it, I failed.
Who knows what would have happened if I had stuck with him and plugged on. Perhaps there would have been a turning point. Perhaps not. I’ll never know.
[ASSIGNED: FAILURE STORY]
Are there individual students whom I feel I've failed? Ha-ell yeah! Isn't that what the "one child at a time" jingoism pretty much guarantees? GIve me 120-something students and then let help me feel good about "making a difference" for one. Do the math.
But I have to admit confess that my biggest sense of failure has come from not being able to make a difference stick it out at SDHS. I made a commitment. At this point in my life, commitments are not made lightly. And I said I wanted a small Delta town, knowing these are the toughest assignments. Did I not fully imagine what that meant? Well, yes, be we never do. I didn't fully imagine what being a parent would be like, either, but I stuck with it for whatever it would be. How can I even begin to compare another 3 years in Mississippi to my commitment of the past 25?
I've said before and i'll say again (but now I'm changing the tense): All the reasons I left are the very reasons I should have stayed.
That pretty much says it all.
White Whine: The lack of leadership made my efforts there futile. Teacher Corps is not sending a new group of teachers there this year and I'd be alone further isolated. I can ultimately help more students by being in a school with some degree of leadership and organization. The school I'm going to is still classified as critical needs. There are still students in millions thousands hundreds plenty of students whom I'm not teaching no matter where I end up.
But then I see NW's curious eyes tracking me. Or I hear DT's soft voice as he asks my approval of every sentence he writes. I see DC's little stack of books she stores on my supply shelf. I reread SB's metaphor poem about her dead mother and compare it to the weight of her armor she wears every day.
And I know Dr. Mullins is right: It's not really about me. But I made it about me when I decided to leave.
White Whine: There will be students I love at G-W. I'll probably succeed in educating some of them. But I will not succeed in educating 120-some others to whom I made an implicit and explicit commitment. I told them all that they were not the reason I was leaving. It smacked of the "divorce speech" whereby parents veil the fact that it's the other parent they can't stand. But the kids are still left parentless. Do we I continue to soothe our my conscious by saying they'll feel better because of that fact?
I dunno. But now I know why I'll be sticking with gin.
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Mississippi Teacher Corps Updated: May 15, 2007
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