What sucks

There are a few aspects of my career choice that are envied by most. Many folks envy the flexible schedule, the control most teachers have over their day to day activities (profs in particular), and the mythical summers off.

One thing that truly sucks is grading.

I don't mind reading 52 papers. Providing feedback to my students is one of my core job descriptions (if they gave us job descriptions, which they don't). But I HATE trying to take thoughtful, reasoned feedback and turn it into a letter.

Now, those of you who know my academic interest in assessment (or testing) might be surprised by this. After all, what is testing if not scoring someone's ability to do something and turn it into a percentage or a letter grade? (Note that this is a trick question)

I like using rubrics (those grid like forms that teachers often use to check off how well you've done on different aspects). I like conferences, I like students visiting to me to talk about how to change this paper or talk out an idea. But trying to take Susie's*** paper full of great ideas but completely lacking any organization and Jose's well written nonsense and figuring out a letter to assign? Yuck. Do they get D's for not completing all elements of the assignment (assuming the assignment was to include grammar, organization, and content)? Does one do better than the other? They both clearly have problems; but how much do these problems matter to the whole?

Today's office hour is a perfect example. My students received their first major grade on Monday. Let's just say that it didn't go so well for most of them (or for me). The average grade was a C, no As at all, and a fair number of Ds. They were less than thrilled. And, in a paragraph of feedback, it wasn't always easy to both point out the areas they do well, address major issues, and propose something to focus on for next time. That's a lot to cover. A student came to my office hour this afternoon who had one of those "what in the heck do you even do with this paper because it is so confusing it makes your head hurt" situations. And, although it was challenging to write down these things, in discussion, we addressed all and many more. In an office hour, I can pose problems and make students come up with solutions. I can tie the paper they just got a grade in to the writing they will do for next time. I can brainstorm with my students individualized strategies for what THEY can do BEFORE turning in their next paper (e.g. Jose always looks for commonly misspelled words, Fredrick checks all his sentences to make sure they have verbs, Annisa does a reverse outline to see if her sentences belong in her paragraphs and to see if her paragraphs support her paper). I can't do this in class for my students. And, honestly, I can't do this for each and every of my 52 students.

In theory, I have a 20 hour a week job (half time). Now, I teach for 6 hours a week. I'm obligated to have 4 hours of office hours a week. I'm already at 10 hours with my obligated "showing up" time. Then, add in lesson planning, photocopying, responding to student email, reading the darn textbook before the students do, making additional appointments, and oh yeah, GRADING, and there's no possible way that fits into 10 hours a week. (Note that 52 papers times 15 minutes a paper equals 13 hours alone and I have papers to grade every two or three weeks).

So, the result is, honestly, that the students who make appointments and seek help get enough instruction to do well. And the students who don't? Some of them get by, some do not. So, in a way, students are required (but not explicitly) to come see me outside of class to be successful. Granted, some students still haven't learned that they need to see me IN CLASS to be successful. But the students who missed class today are going to be unhappy. I extended the due date for the next paper, and they aren't going to know about it.

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*** Note that I never talk about specific students or classes in this blog. Any student names used are purely my imagination and details used are amalgamations of many real and imagined characteristics.

Superstitions

Did your school have traditions and superstitions? When we were in Milan visiting Peter's cousin, we climbed to the top of the Duomo there. It was just beautiful. We told Peter's cousin about our climb, and she exclaimed that she had never climbed it. Apparently, at the university she attended in Milan, it was bad luck to climb the Duomo before you graduated.

Here, at the student union, there's a large astrological chart in the floor. It has all the signs (Aries, Pisces etc) in gold tone right at the front entrance. I walk past this almost every day, as our mail is delivered to the post office on campus (n.b. we got a PO Box so that we don't have to change our mailing address every year for the next five years. How brilliant are we.) Anyhoo, I walk past this every day and noticed a rather strange behavior by my fellow passers-by. They do NOT step on the floor mosaic. Not at all. Not even a little bit. They very carefully walk around the thing to go inside the building. I found this a bit odd (as a straight line is a bit more efficient and it's not all that pretty anyway). So, I've been walking across it daily. I get some kinda strange looks as I do this. And I've only seen ONE other person walk on top of it since we arrived here.

Turns out, school superstition is that if you walk on the floor, you'll fail your next test. Yup. Fail. That's some hefty superstition. Apparently I've been asking for failure. Now, if you know me, you might guess that I'm not the biggest fan of things like superstition. Doesn't appeal to the way my mind works. So, I've made it my mission to walk across the thing On Purpose now, just to prove a point.

And, I already got 2 As on my first assignments for classes, so it doesn't look like it's doing too much damage. Maybe it only applies to undergrads?

But What Do We Sell?

So I'm looking for a job here in the middle. I had been considering a career change before we left Portland and I figured a move to the middle would be a good opportunity to make a clean break and start something new.

The first thing I did was to post my resume on the major internet job sites. Just throw it against the wall and see what sticks, you know. As I soon find out, you get some interesting responses when do this. Most of them having little resemblance to a respectable job.

I get a lot of emails from emails like recruiting15281@fakecompany.com asking me to send them personal info. That's encouraging and makes me feel better.

I also get a lot of emails for jobs I have qualifications for, like IT Director of Microsoft. I assumed they read my email before sending out potential jobs, but that may be a bad assumption.

So I got a call from one company: they told me they do the marketing and sales for a large (I mean, LARGE) financial services company. They asked me to attend informational session. Not having much to do, I went.

The info session wasn't great, nor was it terrible. It just was. Most importantly it was short in specifics. They talked in generalities about selling mutual funds and life insurance. Now, I'm not really into sales, but I figured maybe I could get some financial certifications out of the deal. So I made an appointment to meet one of the guys for an 'interview.'

We met at a coffee shop. The first thing that surprised me was that the guy didn't buy me a cup of coffee. A couple things about that: (1) a cup of black coffee, even at Starbucks, costs like $1.50. If you can't cover that, it's not encouraging; and (2) I'm terrible at business ettiquette, but I know enough to at least offer to buy something for the other person: offer to pay for lunch, a cup of coffee, anything,especially if you're looking for something from that person. I don't know, maybe I was supposed to buy him coffee, since I was looking for the job?

Anyways, after BS-ing for a while, my first question was, 'So I'm new to the area and don't really know anyone. How will I get clients?' After telling me it wasn't too hard to go up to people and just start talking to them, he explained that we had access to resumes we could call. Again, I've never done sales, but it seems strange to call people who post their resumes on line to sell financial products.

After some more talking, it became clear that I was to call these people to see if they wanted to be on my 'team' and sell products. So I tried to clarify what it was we were selling, because everything he had said so far was about hiring more people instead of products they sold. The guy was definitely avoiding the answer, making me more suspicious.

After some more questions and some evasive answering, I finally asked how I was to be compensated. When I was told that I got promotions based mostly on the number of people I hired and less on the products I sold, I decided I didn't need this job.

The guy told me that he liked me and that he would feel comfortable having me on his team. He told me he wouldn't want to hire someone who he wasn't comfortable having baby sit his kids. He said he would want to talk to my wife before I decided to join, since he wanted to make sure she was on board; all I could think of was how Kimberly would laugh in this guy's face as he explained our 'products.' He told me I should go home and pray to God on it, as He would tell me what to do.

I need a job, but I don't need to be involved in a job where they sell nothing. Or where I'm expected to baby sit my 'teammates' kids.

Chris Dodd Missed A Great Ending

A couple weeks ago, we were invited to go to the biggest event in Iowa not called the State Fair: the Iowa - Iowa State football game, often referred to as the Iowa Super Bowl. This is a big time rivalry, with the coveted Cy-Hawk Trophy up for grabs (ISU is the Cyclones; Iowa is the Hawkeyes. I suggested it be called the Corn Trophy, the Pork Chop Trophy, or at least Trophy on a Stick(my favorite), but no one seemed to like any of these ideas). Recently, ISU has been winning in the rivalry more than they should be, even though Iowa is a superior football team with a longer tradition of success (Iowa won for like 15 straight years before 1998; Iowa has won like 6 of 8 since). This year, they played at ISU, where wewe live a short trip from the stadium.

The tailgate area, full of custom RVs and buses. People here really
like flags, as you can see.

I was pretty excited, since I went to a school that got rid of its football program over 30 years ago (or as we like to say, 'Undefeated since 1974'). And Kimberly never went to a game as a spectator, even though her football team was pretty good and went to the Rose Bowl. So going to our first football game, and it being a rivalry game, was pretty exciting.

On a perfect crisp fall day (although Kimberly thought it was cold; she'll learn soon enough), we headed out to our pre-game tailgate party, which some friends invited us out to. The game started at 12:30, so that meant we HAD to start drinking at 10; it had been a long time since I drank before noon and I wasn't sure how I would hold up. On top of the early start for drinking, the event turned out to be a party for the Democratic Party of Iowa, which promised to be a happening place, what with the Presidential caucuses coming up and the candidates needing to take advantage of every opportunity to show off their 'everyman' persona.

[One interesting thing that we've touched on a couple times here, but should probably expand on at some point, is that Iowa is the first state in the Presidential whittling-down process, so there's always news of one of the candidates having an event close by. It's very interesting]

The tailgating scene was pretty crazy. Apparently, this is the biggest tailgate of the year for the ISU fans; they aren't so good at football and really get up for their big rivalry game. I think that the tailgate at big football schools like Texas, Oklahoma, the Florida schools, and most Southern universities is probably bigger and crazier than this, but people were definitely living it up.

'Official' ISU tailgate tents. Notice the eye-catching color combo.

We started out with some cheap beer, that stayed nice and cold due to the outside temperatures, masking the lack of taste. And we stuffed our faces with over-cooked hot dogs and hamburgers. There was some potato salad, but I was disappointed there were no casseroles or jello salads (I was informed I need to go to a Lutheran church gathering to fully experience these culinary delights; and I use the term delights loosely).

Our fearless authors, a few beers in. If you'll notice, Kimberly has a winter hat on. In
September. I fear she may turn into a popsicle in February.

Our Iowa friends who invited us to the party; guess who they were rooting for
(hint: The U of Iowa's colors are black and gold)?

I have to tell you, it is pretty strange to be drinking a beer at 10 am while you're talking to Chris Dodd.

'Isn't that guy running for President?'

Yup, Chris Dodd. Senator from Connecticut. Democratic candidate for President. He was there, as were representatives from some of the other candidates' camps.

After we were petitioned by several candidates' camps and they started making sense, we decided we had had enough beer and it was time to head into the game.

On the way into the game, we noticed a pretty good split in the rooting interests of the fans. We were at ISU, so there was definitely more Red and Yellow in the area (ISU's colors are Red and Gold, derisively referred to as Ketchup and Mustard by the Iowa fans). But the Iowa fans had a pretty good showing, with at least 25-40% of the crowd sporting the Black and Gold (Iowa's colors).

The ISU Stadium is named after Jack Trice, the first black athlete ever at ISU in the 1920's,
who subsequently died during a game.

We really didn't have any rooting interest in the game, even though Kimberly attends ISU. We decided we would hope for a good game and let the people surrounding us try to convince us who we should root for.

Apparently at Iowa, they let the convicts out to cheer on their team.
Actually, for some reason the striped pants, and especially the striped overalls,
are really popular for both teams.

This ISU fan looked lost. I think he was looking for the 'Food on a Stick' stand. This may
be my new most favoritist picture ever.

Once we got inside, we were pretty evenly surrounded by both Iowa and ISU fans.

These 2 women, who were sitting behind us, were very 'hands on' in their support of Iowa. The one on the left told me 'If i get excited, I might grab you, so be prepared.' Um...

The two of them were ringing cowbells the entire game. Here I am right before I threw it away since it was giving me a killer headache.

My 'Iowa Great State Map' T-shirt got rave reviews from the crowd.

They were less touchy with Kimberly. But they did offer her beads, which she politely declined. I would have taken them; those things are valuable, especially during Mardi Gras.

Chris Dodd also came in to watch the game. He was stuffing his face with hot dogs pretty much all game. Then he left in the third quarter. He missed a pretty good ending.

'No really, I'm running for President. I'm such a regular guy
I don't even bother ironing my pants.'

At first, I was disappointed that he didn't have on jeans and a plaid shirt, so he could be a 'regular' guy. But then I realized it was kind of nice he wasn't posing and went with the 'relaxing day at the yacht club' look of khakis, loafers, and a Member's Only jacket you might expect of a Connecticut-ician. The weird thing is his pants were not ironed and the cuffs were all frayed. You would think a Presidential candidate could afford an iron, no?

So behind us, we had the loud touchy Iowa fans. In front of us, we had the way too nice ISU fans. They were resigned to the fact that their team was pretty terrible, and if they were to win this game, it would be quite the upset.

Everyone's nice in Iowa, even when their team is generally terrible. Check the
overalls on the guy on the left; he's apparently the pediatrician from
some small town of 7,ooo people. He snuck in Vodka in a water bottle.

All the fans were actually really nice. This picture was taken as Iowa was about to lose to a team that isn't very good. As you can see, people are still generally happy.

So, as for the game, ISU was leading 12-0 at half time, with 4 field goals. Iowa came back to take the lead at 13-12 with about 4 minutes left in the game (Chris Dodd was gone by this point). Iowa fans were pretty happy at this point, because they were going to win a game they should win.

But then ISU took control and marched down the field. With 5 seconds left, they lined up to kick the winning field goal.

By this picture you can probably guess how the kick worked out:

I remember when Red Sox games used to make me feel like this.

After the field goal was good, Iowa had one last chance to run back the kickoff. The kick returner brought it back pretty far, but eventually ISU was able to tackle the guy, and the game was over. Resulting in:

The ISU Students rushing the field. Some people were taking chunks of the
turf. I guess it would kind of be cool to have 3 square inches
of turf from a football field. I guess. But really, who am I to talk - I have a paint chip from
the old Boston Garden that I used to carry in my wallet.

As the guy in front of me explained that ISU is an engineering school, so they know
better than to rip down the goalposts like other schools.

The ISU players, surrounded by some students, carrying away
the unfortunately named Cy-Hawk Trophy.

So ISU upset Iowa in the Iowa Super Bowl even though they couldn't score a touchdown. It was a pretty big deal in the sports world, as Iowa was on the verge of being ranked after earlier impressive victories. Now both teams will be forgotten.

The ISU crowd around us was real happy, but weren't jerks about it. The Iowa and ISU fans all talked about what a great game it was and wished each other good luck. Being a child of the Red Sox - Yankees rivalry, this 'good sportsmanship' was a new and novel idea to me.

The students were understandably jubilant walking back to campus. I'm not sure if there was any rioting, but I'm pretty sure the parties were pretty good. I can imagine a lot of headaches and hangovers this morning as a lot of people were partying from early yesterday morning until the wee hours of last night/this morning. 24 hours of drinking can really take its toll on the body.

More pics from the big game here, and in handy slide show presentation here.

[Edit: As I look over this post, post-publishing, I realize that the ISU colors really clash with our blog formatting. That's a big strike against them]

Exciting stories coming soon!

We're eating dinner (and I'm grading papers) but we have exciting stories about the last couple days' events coming soon!!

Stand by!

Some Notes on the Flat (aka Things I'll Miss About Oregon: Volume 11 [Geological Formations])

Mt Hood standing sentry over Portland, protecting it from that dangerous early morning sun.

Before we moved out here, everyone told us that The Middle was flat. 'It will take some time getting used to it,' they said. Based on these statements, I pictured Iowa looking like the other flat places I've been: Kansas and West Texas, which are devoid of trees and where you can see the curvature of the earth on the horizon (if you can see past the oil derricks or world's largest cross (made of vinyl siding) in Texas).

In actuality, our part of the middle is much more 'rolling hills' than 'flat.' When riding my bike, there are definitely times when I need to work a little to get up the hills (most of the time, it's for train overpasses, but not always). And in our small city (I prefer medium-sized town, but people here insist it's a city), there's a good amount of trees and assorted foliage. Still, the region feels flatter, so I know what everyone was talking about.

It just feels much flatter here for some reason.

Then, one Sunday, as I was driving to Des Moines, I had a revelation: 'It is really really flat here! But you know what, this isn't any flatter than the drive from Portland to Salem.'

On that drive you are in the middle of the Willamette Valley, which is about as flat as flat can be. Here, you're on the Great Plains in America's Breadbasket (or something). There are differences, of course. Some small, like the crops being grown (corn/soy/pigs vs grass/hazelnuts/apples/christmas trees), the number of cars (less vs more), and the quality of the drivers (example deleted).

But it wasn't until I was driving home in the evening that I had the 'light bulb moment' and realized the major difference: As I was driving, the sun was setting and shining directly into my eyes.

Now you're probably thinking 'well, it rains every day in Portland so you don't have to worry about the sun there.' I would retort 'hahahahahahahahahahaha' real sarcastically and then explain that you know nothing about the weather in the NW.

In Portland, the sun does in fact come out. More than you think. The reason the sun isn't a problem is that everything is surrounded by mountains. The Cascades and Mount Hood are to the east, blocking the rising sun until it's high enough not to be a nuisance. When you're in Portland, you have the West Hills blocking the sun most of the late afternoon. On the west side (The Tron and Hillsboro), the Coast Range is in the way (apparently, its official name is the Pacific Cordilleria). As you head south in the Valley, you have the Cascades and the Coast Range as your geologic sun visor.

Here in the middle, you have the Appalachians and the Rockies, both of which are like a thousand miles away. They don't block much of the sun.

In fact, there's only one place I can think of in Portland where the sun in your eyes is ever a problem, and it's so unique they gave the road a special name. When you drive west over the Sunset Highway at rush hour, you will be staring directly into the sun. And the only reason this happens is because in order to go over the West Hills, the angle of the road points you directly into the sun. It's like you're marching to war with Helios.

So anyways, this is all a roundabout way of me saying that there's not much in topological variation here in the middle. While it's not as flat as a pancake (like Kansas was scientifically proven to be), there's not much in the way of hills, not to mention mountains. Don't get me wrong, driving through miles and miles, and miles, and then more miles, of rolling corn and soy fields, with the sky open above you, can be very pretty. And some of the sunsets, especially when the thunderstorms are rolling, are amazing. I've also heard some of the river valleys (the Mississippi and the Missouri buffer the state) are beautiful [a friend in Portland once called Iowa City, on the eastern portion of the state in the Mississippi River valley, the 'Paris of the Midwest.' I can't wait to verify/debunk that claim.]

But in the end, I miss my friends St Helens, with its occasional outpouring of smoke and soot, and even occasionally Jefferson, Adams, Rainier, or the Sisters, depending on where you were in Oregon.

But mostly, I miss Mt Hood. That mountain just looks like a mountain . I would see it every day driving to and from work (or at least on days when it wasn't raining, which wasn't often, hahahahahahahaha). And sometimes at night, with the sun setting over the West Hills, Mt Hood turns purple or orange and sits there glowing on the horizon.

Bullets...

A few quick things:

• A few people inquired about or were confused about the black bars over the pics in the baby post. K and I have always tried not to use any names on the blog, except our own, in case someone doesn't want there name on the interwebs. The only exception was when I posted the wikipedia page, because I thought it was pretty cool that my dad had his own wikipedia page, and it was already floating in the ether. And then I was asked not to use the baby's name, for obvious reasons, which we already wouldn't have done anyways. So all the fake names in that post are for real hiding of identity. As for the black bars over the eyes: while it could be argued that maybe I was making a statement about internet privacy, in reality I just thought putting little black bars over the baby's eyes looked absurdly funny. Then I went and did it to everyone, because it kept getting funnier to me. I didn't stop laughing at the picture of all the grandparents with the black over there eyes for at least 20 minutes. I kill myself, obviously.
• When are you going to post more pics from Italy? This is the question I get most often. Well, I'm working on it. Unfortunately, I am having a hard-drive space issue on my computer, and those pictures aren't small. We have an external hard drive for this stuff, but it's acting kind of weird and not letting me access it, which is rough because a lot of my old resume stuff is on there. Anyways, I'll get more stuff up slowly.
• Where are the posts in general? Well, I wasn't feeling inspired last week. So no posts from me. Today: 64 oz of coffee and the new Wilco album have got me going. I'm probably typing at 120 words a minute right now. I won't promise anything, but I'm trying to get more pics uploaded, stories about our new home, job search , etc.
  
• In the meantime, if you have some time to kill, I highly suggest these videos from collegehumor.com. Two of the guys there are having a prank war. It started out pretty light, but quickly escalated; the change of degree of prank between 1 and 2 is pretty steep. There's some foul language in there, but for the most part, it's just putting the other person in very uncomfortable positions. The last one, at the Yankees game, is great.

Hope everyone is well in there little corner. The humidity has broken and the weather is cool here in the middle. Fall is definitely in the air. I'm sure the leaves will be changing soon - if they even do that here?

Where am I again?

Today I participated in the following conversation:

Me: "Yeah, so you know where the power plant is, right?"
Friend: "Uh-huh"
Me: "Well, you go past the power plant and take a right at the greenhouses. Then you take a right past the horses, go under the railroad tracks, and over the creek. And there you are."

Those are in fact the directions to our house. And, seriously, we live on campus.

A day in my life

I'm sure there's at least one of you who wonder what I do all day long. So, here's a glimpse into a typical day (last Friday in fact!).

5:30 cat wakes up. Cat howls, paws at door, continues annoying behavior.
5:50 Peter gives in, feeds cat. We both go back to sleep
7:30 alarm goes off
8:00 I get out of bed
8:20 shower, ponder what to wear, eat breakfast
8:40 find book bag
8:50 ride bus to school! office mate gets on bus too. We spend bus ride discussing lesson plans for the day, papers due, and agonizing over the building workload
9:05 arrive in office. We continue discussing lessons plans, sharing notes on our agendas and handouts.
9:20 proofread paper due today, make changes, print paper
10:00 crap, we don't have a stapler. Office hours just started so I am now stuck in office until noon.
10:30 Office mate finds PhD requirement list on department website. She freaks out.
10:35 I read list. We freak out a bit together. They want what? Ack!
10:50 Still no students. Work on handouts and materials for lesson plan. Read students' textbook.
11:30 Office mate invites me to lunch. I can't go due to office hours. Still no students. Read my own textbooks for next week.
12:00 FREE!! Run downstairs to use stapler in mailroom. Turn in paper. Remember that food is a good thing.
12:20 eat and check our PO Box for mail. All junk. How come no one sends us good mail. Sigh.
12:45 back to office and gather supplies. Go by teaching mentor's office to discuss "problem" student. Brainstorm solutions if problem persists.
1:05 go to class. Almost entire class is there early. They are always there early. Try to make small talk about the weekend.
1:10 teach
2:00 class over! walk to next classroom
2:05 try the small talk thing again
2:10 teach
3:00 thank god it's over. Ponder the miracle of only one absence in 52 students on a beautiful Friday afternoon of a three day weekend. Decide they must not hate me.
3:30 gossip in the hallway with other PhD students
3:45 work on projects due in a few weeks. Almost the entire department has left for the weekend.
5:00 realize that my water bottle is missing. Contemplate where I had it last.
5:10 Realize that I want to go home too. pack up books. Walk past classroom to check on bottle. Hooray! Find bottle!
5:30 arrive home.

So that's my day in a nutshell. Thrilling isn't it?It's only week 3 of 16- and I'm already out of the house for 40+ hours a week. I'm slightly terrified about how much busier it's going to get. I get to grade my students' first papers starting this weekend. Wish me luck.

The Next Generation

Baby #1 of the New Generation

Happy Days! I'm officially an Uncle! Kimberly's officially an Aunt!

The other day, my Brother-the-Oldest and his wife, S.I.L.K., welcomed their first child into the world. Baby-the-First, weighing in at between 5 and 9 pounds and measuring between 17 and 26 inches in length, is quite adorable, as you can see from above.

Mother and daughter are doing well, resting up in the hospital. As you can see, the baby is tiny.

Mother and child

This is the first grandchild for all grandparents involved: obviously everyone is ecstatic.

SILK's father and mother, B-t-O, B-t-F, B-t-O's mother, and a friend who happened to be visiting when the baby was born (L to R)

I'll be going down to visit the baby in the next few weeks. That's when the cheek-pinching will begin: we are, of course, Italian and have an ethnic stereotype to uphold.

(Note: Names and vital information has been changed to protect the innocent: it would be rough to have your identity stolen before you were able to have an identity.)

Our First Italian Market [Pratola Serra]

On our first weekend in Italy, my father took us to the open-air Sunday Market in Pratola Serra.

Here, in the USofA, you can usually find a pretty decent outdoor market; usually these are farmers' markets, with lots of local fruits and veggies, as well as locally made products, like jams, honey, pies, cookies, breads, pastries, etc.

In Italy, every single town, village, and city has a market (even my mother's grandparents mountain village, consisting of maybe 500 year-round residents, has a weekly market). But in Italy, the market isn't a nice place to go on Saturday morning and get a cup of coffee and scone, some fresh veggies for your week of cooking, some purple potatoes, and maybe some ridiculously expensive bacon (really, it's phenomenally tasty. It really is. Trust me). In Italy, you go to the market not only to get your local fruits and veggies, some olives from Sicily, cheese from Umbria, and meat from Parma, but also to buy a new shirt, sandals and snorkeling gear for the beach, a new espresso cup to replace the one your husband broke the other day, a serving spoon, some sexy underwear (yes, you read that right), and maybe a live chicken that you can slaughter later on in the week (Italians really like fresh food).

In other words, the market is where you go to buy your stuff. All your stuff.

There are supermarkets in Italy, but mostly in the big cities. And the smaller towns have alimentari, but those mostly have the staples to supplement the weekly market trip.

The market is where things happen.

If you ever go to Italy, seek out the local markets - we found one in Rome, so they're pretty much everywhere (I imagine France, Spain, and Portugal are similar, as well as many other Euro countries, and definitely in Asia). You can get yourself supplies for nice picnic, a complete set of coffee cups, and clothes for your next trip to the disco.

The pictures from our trip to the Pratola market are available here and in a handy slide show format here. These are some of my favorite pictures from our whole trip. Enjoy.

[Quick edit: It was here that we first learned about the term etto (pl. etti). An etto is 100 grams, which comes in very handy when ordering meats and cheeses at any market. It is also a very effective word for making people think you know how to speak Italian, as it's kind of a 'locals' thing (and by local, I mean anywhere in Italy).]

Exhibit A as to Why Beauty Pageants Should be Eliminated

I just saw this video on another website (deadspin.com) and it hurt my head so much that I had to pass it on.

I dare you to watch this and to explain to me what point she is trying to make. Actually, all I need you to do is tell me why South Africa is brought into the answer.

I need to go floss my brain now.

Shooting Moose in an Iowan Bar

Last Friday night, I went Moose hunting with a member of the Iowa State Legislature.

Weird huh?

Over a few pitchers of Miller Light (so tasty), I was introduced to Big Buck Hunter. The game is simple: shoot the male rams, deer, antelope, or moose (easily identifiable by their horns) and the critters (scary things like cougars, and really scary things like song birds and squirrels and raccoons and skunks); don't shoot the females. [Interesting Iowa Side Notes: there are so many deer getting fat off the corn growing here that you can get a license to shoot does. Although I'm not 100% sure of this, most other places I know about allow only the shooting of bucks: the more points the better!]

Who knew shooting things could be so much fun?!?!?! All the glory without having to get blood and guts all over me. Or having to field dress them (I don't have a big enough knife anyways).

Unfortunately, I also don't get to take the meat home. Or mount the antlers on the wall. Or use the skins for a rug (oh, so warm to cuddle up on in front of the fire on those long Iowa winter nights).

I spent probably $10 playing this game; $5 more than I spent on a pitcher of that Miller. And boy was it worth it.

The State Legislator guy offered to take me real hunting, but I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. That field dressing thing seems kind of intense. Although I guess if I just killed a giant deer I would be so full of adrenaline that I'd probably rip the thing apart with my bare hands. Now there's an image for your morning.

What's in a Name?

So I'm probably divulging more info here than is safe for a blog, but all this info is already out there floating around the www, so I'm just passing it on.

After my post last night, my brother passed this along from Wikipedia. I don't know if my father knows this is out there, but I imagine it's a pretty weird feeling to have your own Wikipedia page. I know he occassionally reads this, so hopefully he'll comment below.
_______________________________

Our second day in Iowa, we went to Kimberly's department and talked to some of the administrative assistants. One of them asked me if my last name was the same as Kimberly's (which was surprisingly progressive of her), and I told her no, my name was Mauro. She said, "M-o-r-r-o-w?" And I said, "No, M-a-u-r-o."

Her eyes kind of lit up, and she said "Oh, the Italian version" then pronounced it like you do in Italian (with a rolling r and all). While this was odd, what she said next was even weirder: "There are a lot of Italian Mauros in Des Moines, they're a pretty big family."

Of course I figured, "whatever, this woman is crazy" and let it go.

Then, while I was looking up info on registering our car, I came across the web page of the Iowa Secretary of State. Again, pretty weird, but just an interesting coincidence, right.

Yesterday, Kimberly came home with this (the whole thing is important, but the last paragraph the most important):

Now, that's a surprising statement, ain't it. Apparently my name should carry some weight in this area. I always imagined that if my name were to carry any weight, it would be somewhere with some well-known Italian heritage, like Providence, Chicago, or San Francisco, but not Des Moines.

I guess the thing I need to find out now is if the Mauro name is revered like the Kennedys in the northeast or despised like the Kennedys in the south.

Going Back to My Roots [Pratola Serra]

Well, I finally started sorting through our Europe pictures. I'm trying to go through them chronologically, from when we left Boston in mid-May until we got back in mid-July. I'll try to give a little summary of each place as well; maybe Kimberly will come in later on and give her two cents. Here we go...

Kimberly's new friends (Zia Nina is seated all the way to the right)

Our airline tickets to Rome were bought with frequent flier miles. Although that meant that we didn't have to pay for the tickets, it did mean that our flight path was kind of ridiculous: Boston -> Frankfurt -> Munich -> Rome. We were also somewhat fortunate, as we arrived the day after Alitalia was on strike and Lufthansa had to cancel a bunch of flights. Despite the crazy airline schedule, we had no problems with any of our flights and didn't miss any connections.

When we arrived in Rome, my father and his cousin were there, flowers in hand for Kimberly, waiting for us.

My father was born in Italy during WWII then came to the US in the late 60's [Interesting Historical Note that I Just Learned from Wikipedia: Just 10 days before my father was born, the government of Italy, having recently removed Mussolini from power, sided with the Allies and declared war on Nazi Germany]. He moved back to his hometown of Pratola Serra, with his sister, about 2 weeks before Kimberly and I were scheduled to arrive. Initially, we were going to spend some time in Rome, then work our way down to visit him.

After the 14 hours or so of flying, it was nice to have some familiar faces pick us up at the airport.

Pratola Serra is located about 3 hours south of Rome, to the east of Naples. It is located in the region of Campania (campania is the Italian word for farm or farmland, so that should tell you a little something about the region) within the province of Avellino. The town was devastated by an earthquake in the early 1980's, from which it is only recently recovering.

Sunset through the Campania mountains

Kimberly and I spent two quiet days in Pratola, acclimating to the time change, trying to learn /understand Italian, and eating. My Zia Rita (actually a cousin) made us a welcome feast that could have fed 3 times as many people as there were present. Then Zia Nina (also my godmother) provided us more than enough sustenance for the rest of our stay.

One night we took the customary after-dinner walk and made our way to pick up Zia Nina, who was gossiping with her brood of old women friends. Of course, all these old, southern Italian women immediately took to Kimberly, the small, blond, white girl. They offered coffee. And cookies. And crotcheted things [The older woman right in the middle of the picture at the top gave us a crotcheted table runner, which is beautiful. She offered us more beautiful crotcheted things if we were to come back with a baby. Now that's how you do it!].

A few days later, Kimberly's mom and sister joined us and we started doing 'touristy things:' we went to Pompeii, saw a local election, visited a local palace, and went to a pre-Christian church and catacombs. [Pictures and stories from these places will come soon]

We finished up our time in Pratola the way we spent most of our time in Italy: eating. Rita, once again, made us a feast where we must have had at least 12 courses. The cake below was one of 3 desserts.

Rita, presenting us with our dessert. Her husband is in the back, startled.

Then for our going away meal, my Zia Nina made us her 'World Famous' chicken cutlets and eggplant parmigiana (Kimberly's mom 'borrowed' the recipe for the eggplant parm while observing Nina, and we've been replicating the parm ever since, with pretty good results. Come visit, we'll make you some). We left with our bellies content, moving on to new adventures in the north.

Pratola was the perfect start to our trip: Kimberly and her family got their introduction to Italy with friends and relatives; we were able to get up to speed on the language and the culture; and we learned that eating would be a large part of our trip. A very large part.

The Pratola Serra pictures are now up on Flickr.

Does it ever stop?

The rain here is most impressive. I'm sure you all are tired of our whining about the weather ("more pics!" I hear you clamoring), but seriously, the weather here is unbelievable. My students were working in a computer lab today and as they were quietly typing (yes, they really are that fantastic) a BOOOM! shook our room. We all stopped, peered out the window, and watched as buckets, nay, barrels of water came down. And now, as I try to work on homework myself, I'm distracted by the flashes of light, the thundering echos, and Peter exclaiming "oh my god" over and over.

The most amusing part about this (for right now) is that everyone here thinks that I'm USED to the rain. It's hard to explain that it does not rain like this where I'm from. Ever. Peter and I spent one memorable evening last spring on our couch with all the lights turned off watching a storm roll in in Portland. Ha. That was a storm? I've seen 10 times that storm in one afternoon here.

And more confusing to attempt to explain is that although we have plenty of rain back in Oregon, we don't have humidity. That one is apparently a mind bender for the folks here. I complain and complain about the humidity and they look at me and say "but you lived in OREGON. It rains all the time there." And I try again to explain that while it's gray for 9 months, and drippy most of that time, it's not actually humid.

There are flash flood warnings again for our neck of the woods. And we're supposed to have a program potluck/bbq on Friday in a park near here. I'm told that if the park turns into a lake, we'll move to someone's house. This park has a tendency I guess.

I gave away my good umbrella before our move, due to some mistaken belief that it doesn't rain in the Middle. Guess I'll need to buy a new one. It's too hot for my raincoat.

So it begins!

I survived the first day!

Actually, it was better than that. I think for the first time in a very long time, my first day anxiety was actually constructive, instead of destructive. I got to classes on time and I didn't even feel like too much of a fraud teaching. Maybe I have a future in this career! Tomorrow will be the second time, so we'll see whether this trend continues (I know that one data point doesn't quite equal a trend... but you know what I mean here.)

I feel like a little kid, getting ready to go to school each morning. I have my breakfast, pack a lunch, and Peter and Miles stand at the door and see me off. Today, just to make me feel even sillier, I rode a big, yellow school bus. Yes, you read that right. It seems that the transportation system in our town was a bit overwhelmed by the school year starting (they actually have a summer and a school year bus schedule, that's how much of an influence all the students have on this town). So, they had to enlist the buses from the local school district. It was great fun to watch all these grownups file onto the bus and squeeze into the green bench seats. (and the people here are big! The young women TOWER over me, and the guys? I don't know what they feed them here in the Middle, must be MiracleGrow or something).

We'll see if tomorrow the yellow bus arrives, or if I get to ride the big girl bus!

They Grow Up So Fast

This morning, with her peanut butter and jelly-jelly sandwich, fresh brownie, and chips (packed by her loving husband), Kimberly went off to start her 23rd year of school.

And this year, she has the added bonus of teaching incoming freshman, who, from my limited time walking around campus, look young. [Here's a fun fact: The Simpsons has been on the air longer than her students have been alive. In fact, Kimberly has been going to school longer than her students have been alive. That's weird.]

[Also, dig the backdrop, provided by my friend Seth. I should have worn that to the Fair, but wasn't sure how it would be received, so I didn't]

Have fun today, wife!

State Fair Pics

I put all of our pictures from the State Fair onto Flickr (they're not in their own group, because I need to fix my Flickr account; I may have some time to get that done this week). A lot of them are below on the previous blog post, but there are some new interesting ones for your viewing pleasure.

Not to be too narcissistic, but I really like the picture of me eating the corn dog, even if it is a picture of me eating a corn dog. Me with my stylish sunglasses that I bought for 2 Euros (about $2.50) in Italy.

Speaking of Italy, since I am currently unemployed, I am going to try to start uploading pictures and telling stories from our trip. I figure that will be more fun than looking for a new job.

Every State Should Have One of These

Today, we had a fair-ly amazing day. It certainly was an a-fair to remember. We payed a discount fair.

This morning, we got out of bed fair-ly early, despite the anger of Zeus keeping us up half the night. We hopped onto the interstate and headed south to attend our first ever Iowa State Fair!!!

We had heard from a lot of people that the State Fair here is fantastic, and maybe even the BEST IN THE WORLD (Minnesotans would argue that the Great Minnesota Get Together is better, but I have no opinion as of yet; although, it is only about 3-1/2 hours to St Paul, so maybe I'll head up north later this week to do some comparison shopping). Based on some of the things I have read about the Fair so far - people camping there and going to the fair for all 10 days; the butter cow; corn dogs! - we were very much anticipating the event. And I couldn't wait to see if I could give myself a heart attack by sampling all the deep fried things on a stick.

After riding a shuttle from the parking lot to the fairgrounds, we began wandering through the tractors, combines, and other farm implement displays to make our way to Kimberly's favorite part of the fair: the jams, jellies, and canning section.

But before we could get there, I had something I needed to do:
This is only my second career State Fair, but there's one thing I have already learned: no State Fair is complete if you don't have a corn dog.

After savoring that succulent piece of mixed, macerated pork parts, coated and deep-fried, we finally made it over to the caning area. Kimberly and I have a done a little caning ourselves, and although it's worked out well in terms of flavor and 'lack-of-botulism,' none of our foods come out half as pretty as these. My favorite, which we don't have a picture of, was the pickled green beans, with alternating green and white beans, giving the jar a striped appearance.From there, we started wandering the fairgrounds, just taking in all the atmosphere, the mullets and fashion, the midway, and the food. Especially the food.

Onion rings? Check.

Fried cheese curds? Check.
Deep fried twinkies, oreos, and snickers, all that the same booth? Check.
Pork chop on a stick? Check (the guy in the front there is enjoying one in the photo).Whole turkey legs? Check (this is the one item I wished I had eaten the most; it looked so good).

Cheese on a stick (I have no idea what that is)? Meatballs on a stick? Chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick? Nutbars on a stick? Fry bread? Check. Check. Check. Check. And check.

They even have this (right there in the middle):Having eaten to the point of nausea [We actually stopped eating after the corn dog, onion rings, and cheese curds and a beverage, because, well, we felt sick. Walking by the remainder of the booths, although inspiring, also didn't help. I kind of understand why people go to the Fair everyday, just so they can eat all the fried things without dying. The list of things we didn't eat make me look forward to next year's Fair - I know to have a game plan next time] we wandered over to the John Deere Agriculture Building, to check out the prize winning fruits and veggies.

You know, the Iowa State Fair wouldn't be complete with some(more pics of the veggies, and the Fair in general, will be uploaded to Flickr soon).

One of the more interesting portions was the "weird veggies" area. As I understand it, if you find a mis-shapen veggie growing in your garden, you submit it for this category. This year, a double potato won. Honestly, I have no idea how this didn't win:

(hint: it's a cantaloupe growing inside a car muffler)

On our way outside, we saw this:

That there is the 1st prize -winning pumpkin, weighing in at over 1,100 pounds. But we were in luck, because not only is that the 2007 winning pumpkin, that pumpkin set the State Fair Record - that right there is the largest pumpkin EVER at the Iowa State Fair. Impressive, to say the least.Next on our agenda was the livestock pens, where we took in the quarter horses, the leghorn roosters, the llamas, the un-castrated and 'right-there-in-your-face' bulls (those things look painful), and this:
Now, I'm not sure how they can claim that it's the WORLD'S Largest Boar (maybe they do a worldwide comparison, maybe it's the only fair to have a big boar competition, I don't know), but I do know that the actual 'World's Biggest Boar' didn't fit in my camera's view finder. So thusly, I present the 'WORLD'S SECOND LARGEST BOAR' (in case the first place winner can't fulfill his duties):

After about 5 hours, we were starting to fade. It was time for us to head back home. But we still hadn't seen the main atraction of the Iowa State Fair: the butter cow.

Apparently, every year a local artist carves a cow out of butter. No really, this happens every year. Really. And every year, there's also a 'surprise' carving. I couldn't wait to see it.

And the butter cow did not disappoint:

The picture isn't great: the cow's muscles had texture and his ribs looked oh so tasty. And the surprise: yup, Harry Potter. Unfortunately, Neville wasn't there.

Overall, it's hard to comprehend just how much stuff there is at the State Fair unless you see it. The numbers of livestock and veggies is uncountable. We didn't even go to the midway, the place setting competition, or to any concerts. While going everyday is probably a little overkill, I could see going multiple days in the future.

And to top it off, tomorrow night, to close the Fair, Sanjaya and his band of merry idiots are the closing act.