So Much To Be Grateful For

…and not enough time to write about it…

Our last day in Baton Rouge is Monday. (AMEN!)

Something worth trying

Run vinegar and water through the coffeemaker.  In the meantime, rinse the bathtub and sprinkle baking soda and scrub.  By the time you finish scrubbing the tub,  the vinegar and water will have run through the coffeemaker.  Pour it into the tub to rinse away the baking soda and clear the pipes.  Green and clean.

A Very Weird Story

I have a weird story.  Before today, nobody has ever walked up to me and offered me crack.   Today I rode the Greyhound bus.

Actually – that sentence is misleading, because what happened did not happen on the bus or even on Greyhound property. However, as a result of having ridden the bus, I was waiting for a friend of mine to pick me up from the bus station and while I was waiting an interesting fellow offered me crack cocaine.   Here’s how it went down:

Him: Hey, you wanna smoke – I’d like to get you high and do things to you.

Me: Ignore him… ignore him… ignore him…

He walked over to me and said, “Hey, let’s smoke some shit and get crazy,” and opened his hand up to show me two vials in his hand.  I’m such a dork that I said, “What is that?”  He said, “That’s rock, baby.  Wanna smoke?”

Yeah, no.  Definitely not.  Nope.  Thanks, but no thanks.  (Crack is whack)

He asked me if I was waiting for someone.  What was his first clue?  The giant suitcase I was standing next to while watching the cars to keep an eye out for Mike.  I told him that I was expecting my friend any second.  He walked away, but said he would be back and when he came back, if I was still there, he was going to get me high.

Now, this has never happened to me before, not even for weed at the Oregon Country Fair (WTF?)  Nobody has ever offered me doses or hits.  I even had a difficult time finding the black market in Chinatown in NYC.  (True story)

The happy ending: Mike picked me up and I never saw Crack-Man again.  I do have a very weird story now, though.

Reason #1 Why I Quit Teaching

What I’ve Been Up To

This week is awesome.  I have my house all taken care of, a job interview lined up, and I’ve enjoyed my friends like never before.  Portland is more perfect than I remembered.  I went for a drive today down I-5, through Downtown on 405, down the sunset highway to 217 and back up I-5 through the Terwilliger curves and back to Vancouver where I am staying with Adam and Carolyn.  It was gorgeous.  So much has changed, but really so much is the same.

Yesterday I took some video of our new house and posted it to Facebook.  Then I hung out in downtown PDX until Carolyn finished work at 4:20 and we came home together.   Adam cooked avocado chicken that was to die for (YUM!).  I was supposed to go out with Lauren, but we kind of mutually flaked on each other and rescheduled for Thursday night.

Tomorrow I want to go back downtown and just walk around for a while aimlessly.  Who knows what I’ll find!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Little had an IEP meeting today that went exceptionally well.  She is almost all caught up and a “normal” kid.  They suspect she’ll end up in a gifted program.  We knew that all along.  Big is excited to go to public high school.  She just needs to finish up her exams and she’s ready to be done with her school in Baton Rouge.  She is going to end up having a month off between semesters because her school ends in December and the second semester here doesn’t begin until February.  Lucky kid!

 

Welcome Home!

So I wrote about this place that I found in Portland that seemed perfect for us a couple of weeks ago.  It was described as being in a nice neighborhood, a good school district, the property owner was just delightful, and it felt *right*.  Well, I made arrangements to see it on Saturday after I had lunch with my family.  My sister went with me as the voice of reason, since I am known to be a little impulsive.  It was every bit as perfect as I had hoped, but better.  As it turns out, I really like my neighbor, Maxine.  She is also a redhead and moved recently from Baton Rouge.  We are going to grow tomatoes together (actually she says Toe-mah-toes because she’s from Australia originally).

The back yard is cute as can be.  The fireplace is warm and cozy.  It’s quiet quiet quiet even though it’s in the city.  You can even hear the train once in a while from down the road.  It’s also private private private.  You can’t even see the street from the house.  I like that a lot.  So YES!  Positive thinking pays off.

In the end, even my sister agreed that I should take it and I did!  We now are official residents of Oregon and now the true work begins – moving across the country in the middle of winter.  You can do it, Otto.

I <3 Portland

Home Sweet Home

I will probably post from Portland, but it may be a couple of days…  until then, here is a picture of my beloved beach.  See how *green* everything is?  See the fog hanging in the trees?  I just can’t wait.

I’m Rich! (in friends)

Ugh, I clicked the wrong button and LinkedIn sent invitations to everybody in my gmail box. That’s ok, except that the invitation was sent to *everybody* I’ve ever sent an email to in the last 5 years. Oh well, I’m trying not to dwell on it. It happens.

I’m leaving in just a couple of days, so I’ve started to pack up things I need take with me – pictures of the kids and gifts are all I’ve really managed to pack yet. I got a copy of my lease ledger from my property manager to take with me. I’ve always paid my rent early here, so that’s got to be in my favor! My sister is picking me up on Saturday from the airport and we are going to (hopefully) look at a couple of houses before having dinner with our Mom in Portland. (Mental note: I need to still find a good place for us to eat and make a reservation)

I’m going to stay with some friends from Charlotte that moved to Portland to begin my trip. They are right in Portland and it will be good to be in Portland on the weekend. I’m super excited to see their (almost brand) new baby. I’d like to babysit for them and let them have an evening out while I’m there. On Monday I’m planning to surf over to Vancouver to stay with Adam and Carolyn. Carolyn is super sweet and is letting me use her car during the day while she is at work so I can drive around Portland. I’m so lucky to have good friends. Then I’m planning to go down to Eugene and visit with friends there and if I still don’t have a house nailed down I’ll look for a house there. I’ll stay one night with my grandma, who is 90 and has serious dementia. That should be interesting. Then I think I’ll go back up to Portland to finish out the trip on Jeremy and Diana’s couch before heading back to the airport on the 14th. Busy 10 days!! I am so lucky to have great friends who are actively pulling for us on that end.

Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home.

I have spent most of my day today looking for houses through Craigslist. I realize that CL has gotten really creepy and spammy, but for housing it still works. There are also some legit jobs there. It really depends on the city. Portland Craigslist is a pretty good one.

I spoke to a woman today who is renting out a uniquely private duplex. I felt instantly like it was fate. Her daughter lives in the other house of the duplex and her daughter moved back to Portland after living in Baton Rouge. Coincidence? I hope not! So we talked for like 20 minutes on the phone and I sent her an email and now it’s a matter of destiny. If it’s meant to happen, the place will still be available next weekend when I land in Portland and I can pay her the deposits and spend the rest of the week looking for a job. That would be ideal.

Job hunting is going pretty well. As it turns out, Portland has a good market for bilingual people – in any field. There are a lot of social service agencies and they prefer to hire bilingual people. The hospitals prefer it. The city and county governments seem to prefer bilingual in their postings. I applied for a job in a law office today even. Despite feeing fairly good about finding a job in Portland, everybody I know is trying to convince me that I will never find a job in Oregon and I might as well give up. (Maybe that’s why they don’t have a job?)

Failure isn’t an option, people. I will be a receptionist for $10.00/hr if necessary. I don’t have to make $41,600/year any longer teaching overindulged kids in private school in Baton Rouge. After paying nearly $8,000/year on (really lousy) health and dental insurance and the $15,000/year it costs us to put both of the girls in private school here, I can make substantially less and our standard of living will not really change. (I will go off on a rant about the health insurance another day) My net income after paying for insurance and tuition ended up being a receptionist wage anyway.

So to sum up:
1) Good thoughts about the house I want to rent. If it doesn’t work out, it wasn’t meant to be.
2) Stop trying to convince me to give up on the job market. I have a unique skill that is in demand.
3) I’ll be in Portland at this time next week!

5-16-92

05-16-1992

In Case You Were Wondering What I Want For My Birthday/Christmas

My 11th Kiva Loan

Flash Mob Mania

I love flash mobs.  The idea behind them is to play and have fun with other people, and that’s ultimately what makes life worth living.   I will be watching for my next opportunity to participate in a flash mob in Portland.  For now, take a look at this one done in Belgium.  Watch people’s faces as they realize what is going on.  If you get a chance, do it.  You’ll never forget it.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Mountains: I don’t think I’ve seen a real mountain since crossing the country to Ohio.  I can’t wait to see mountains again. Mountains with snow.  Mountains with clouds hanging in them.  Mountains with trees as far as you can see.  Yay Mountains!  (These are the 3 Sisters near Bend, OR)

Lazy days at the Beanery with a laptop and a coffee. (This one’s in Eugene)

Going to the Oregon Country Fair again, this time with Manly and Big.

Taking my family to Crater Lake for the weekend.  The water really is that blue.

Portland Waterfront Park.  Green space, trees, and city.  It’s truly a magical place.

Trust me, It Gets Better

For all the gay kids I’ve taught: Trust me, it gets better!

Is Facebook the Root of All Evil?

In general, I am opposed to censorship.  I’ll just throw that out there and expose my bias right from the beginning.  I think that freedom of speech is the single most important right we have as Americans.  I think that is why I am irritated by the policies many companies and high schools have on using Facebook (or any other web site that is deemed inappropriate).  I’m not arguing that people should spend their days aimlessly for hours on end, but I will argue that there are more positive benefits to using social media from work than there are drawbacks.

First of all, let’s all agree that people will always screw around at work.  For example, people have gone outside on cigarette breaks as long as there have been labor unions and cigarettes.  Sure, you can outlaw cigarettes in the office, but then people stand next to the front door and smoke.  In the digital age, this is equal to checking your Facebook or Twitter, but healthier.  Once it’s outlawed at work, people tune out on their mobiles.

Schools try to further limit this kind of access by not allowing phones at school, but students are always one step ahead of administrators.  The number of students with ‘dummy’ phones is astounding.   One day students heard that administrators would be coming by to search their backpacks for phones.  In hoards they came to me, begging me to hold their phone for them in my desk until the end of the day.   …it keeps the honest kids honest… I always wondered why the NRA way of thinking doesn’t apply to these situations? [If you outlaw guns, the only people that will have them are the bad guys]

Since I assert that Facebook is not the root of all evil, I offer the following examples of ways in which Facebook could be used specifically in education:

The Facebook Education Page: has the latest news and opportunities for online dialogue with peers from all over the world.  It’s been said that the best professional development in education is when teachers get together and exchange ideas.  The only way to escape inbred ideas is to collaborate with people from outside your institution.  Why not take advantage of forums like this?

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Any educator who is worth their weight should be reading the Chronicle at least fairly regularly – but it can be difficult to find time, we all know how that goes.  Well, if you “like” their page, the news feeds automatically show up in your feed and you can read the ones that interest you.  It’s a good thing.

25 Facebook Apps for the Classroom: And let’s not forget about learning!  Students know Facebook up and down, left and right.  It doesn’t take 15 minutes of explanation on how to use a program before they can dive in, like with other programs. Why not use it in ways that are beneficial to them?  How about teaching students how to use social media responsibly rather than just shutting the iron curtain?  How about discussing internet privacy and ethics as part of a class?  Why not teach kids how to create appropriate profiles and talk about potential dangers (both personal/physical and online/identity).    Practical education is missing these days.

Communication: I just want to point out that I wrote a blog on this site for quite some time – providing notes and communication to students about the class.  For a time, I also had a special Facebook page with only students and colleagues from school in my friends list.  It was sparkly clean and shiny – designed with kids and parents in mind (translation: 100% pro-school, g-rated content).  When I posted to my blog, I had to point out that it was there and they should read it.  When I posted to my FB page, word spread like wildfire as students ‘shared’, ‘liked’, and ‘commented’.  I think that classroom ‘fan’ pages can be useful to a teacher in the same way that it is to the private sector.

So there are just four ways that social media, Facebook in particular, can be used to benefit education.   Every day the internet changes and expands and as it does there will be similar decisions to make, but also new ways ‘around’ the system.  Soon anon proxies will be a thing of the past and there will be new, better technology.  It’s a battle, like spy vs. spy.  I’ll place my bet on the students.

Bringing the WORLD into the World Wide Web

I’ve heard a lot of reasons why learning Spanish is a waste of time for my students.  Most kids just really have no idea what the world holds for them.  The fact is, knowing Spanish will help in every job field.  Even computer geeks have run out of excuses:

A truly global web must represent the languages of its users. And with growth in usage of the web in foreign languages outstripping English, businesses are playing catch-up with their potential customers. They’re rapidly trying to get as multi-lingual and diverse as their current and prospective client base.

In the last ten years, the use of Arabic online has increased by over 2500%, while Chinese and Spanish rose twelve and seven-fold respectively. And English? It didn’t even triple.

Today, 42% of all Internet users are in Asia, while almost a quarter are in Europe and just over 10% are inLatin America. These stats shouldn’t sway businesses towards targeting one region over another, though — Latin American countries account for over 200 million people on the web.

However, the vast majority of all online searches are in a language other than English. English is losing its online market share rapidly, which is no bad thing for businesses that recognize and embrace the opportunities on the foreign language Internet.

Parents who are not actively pursuing multilingual opportunities for their children are failing to prepare them for the future.  As an American = English only society, we are going to be watching as other countries continue to pass us by.  Without a global world view, without greater importance placed on foreign language and cultural programs in our educational system, we are essentially saying, “Go ahead, we don’t want those jobs anyway… we’ll be happy to be your barista while you work,” to the rest of the world.

You can read the entire article, “Why Your Business Must Embrace the Foreign Language Internet,” on Mashable.com.

Cheaters!

Cheating has gotten easier than I remember it.  Back in the old days we had to actually find a volume of the encyclopedia, look up (by hand!) the entry, read it and somehow paraphrase it so as to not blatantly plagiarize.   Now, with many students armed with laptops and wi-fi, cheating can be as simple as two clicks, copy and paste.

This is no surprise really.  The ways in which my students have cheated over the years have always impressed me.  It’s obvious at times that students spent more time figuring out a way to cheat than it would have taken to learn the information or do the task themselves.

Recently a conversation was sparked in my classroom about using online translators (like Google translate) to do foreign language homework.  I pointed out how this is a clear violation of the school’s policy on academic honesty and what amazed me in the conversation is the number of students who didn’t understand how using an online translator is cheating.

Cheating used to be as simple as copying down the answers off your buddy’s homework before class.  Now, grab your credit card and your school issued Macbook and voila: you can place an order for a custom-written paper for your class.  In the Chronicle today there was an article about a man who makes a living writing academic papers – he gets paid for cheating.  Well, technically he’s not cheating, but he’s only kidding himself if he thinks what he’s doing is legit.  It really exposes the cheating problem to a higher degree.  It’s worth reading – whether you’re trying to stop cheating or you need a paper.

 

Another good reason to learn Spanish

Research shows that being bilingual may delay Alzheimer’s.  This is especially good news for people like me who have a family history of dementia or Alzheimer’s.  …as if you needed another reason to learn a foreign language…

Here’s a link to the article in Spanish and for those monolinguists out there, in English.

Portland, the Magical City of Wonder

Imagine looking out your window and seeing some trees, a pretty city, and a mountain that is covered in snow year-round.  That’s what it’s like to live in Portland (PDX).  It is a magical city of wonder, filled with artists, hippies, yuppies, and hipsters.   It’s home to Voodoo Donut and Powell’s Bookstores.  It is the anti-Walmart.

[To be fair, it's not perfect: traffic sucks, it's overcrowded, and the cost of living is high.  All three of those are true of Baton Rouge and Charlotte and we lived there, too.]

Portland Skyline with Mt. Hood

The first time I lived in Portland, it was for a couple of years in the early 1990′s, after returning from a year’s stint in Phoenix with Buzz.  That’s actually how I ended up in the helicopter crash in 1992…  which is a post for another day.  The second time I lived in Portland, it was with Kepler, and it was practically perfect in every way (except that Big wasn’t with me and Kepler didn’t want her to join us, and that was a deal breaker, ladies.)  We had a decent little apartment, but it was the best place because it had a fantastic view of Mt. Hood.

Eugene is home in 100 ways, but Portland is where I think we have to return.  A lot has changed since we left Eugene.   Eugene isn’t ruled out, but my energy is getting poured into Portland.  I already have several job leads.  Finding a job as an educated English speaker with near native fluency in Spanish has always been easy for me [knock on wood.]  I have to get out of teaching and education, entirely.  My recent history in independent schools has taught me that the educational system is broken and I’m not the person to fix it.  It’s the perfect time to transition to my second career as a midwife and Portland is the perfect place to make it happen.  Everything points to Portland.

Some Buddhist Thinking To Start The Day Today

“I believe that whether a person follows any religion or not is unimportant,
he or she must have a good heart, a warm heart.”

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

(you can follow HH on Twitter @DalaiLama)

Life is for Living (Live 2003)

My favorite Coldplay song is even better with headphones.  Give it a try.

“Cause in the end, there’s only love. “

Interesting Search Terms Today

A screen shot from my stats today

Can’t wait for Café Yumm!

The perfect Yumm! bowl

One of our favorite places to eat in the world is Café Yumm! It’s unique to Oregon.  The rest of the people in the country have no idea what they are missing.  We are excited to have Yumm! Bowls again.  There’s no way to describe it, but if you read their Facebook page, you’ll see that we’re not alone in our longing for Yumm!.   They’re so good, we buy the sauce at the grocery and make our own version of Yumm! bowls in our kitchen:  rice, black beans, cheese, avocados, carrots, cilantro, and Yumm! sauce.  Oh, and it’s ridiculously healthy for you and made by a socially progressive company.  Yay, Yumm!

Home

Well, we planned to move back to Oregon at the beginning of summer, but since my plans have changed unexpectedly, we’ll move sooner.  I think getting fired was probably the best thing that could have happened to me.  I spent the day house-hunting in Portland and Eugene today.  One day soon either Marky or I will have to go and actually nail something down and sign papers.

My sister is very excited that we’re planning to move sooner than later.  I can’t wait to see her again and spend time together as adults.  It’s been a long time coming.

E-textbooks, like them or not?

Are e-textbooks the wave of the future?  I began thinking about this at my last job, where a moratorium on traditional curriculum was declared.   There are a few positive marks for them:  that they are cheaper than traditional textbooks seems to be the one that concerns the administrations of many schools.   You have to ask yourself though, are textbooks really the best place to cut corners in education?

What do you think?  Have you ever used e-textbooks?  Should schools switch to e-books to save money?

Adios

If you are looking for Señora Donahue, try email:

katedonahue

at

gmail.com