Plans!

Well, plans are happening! The confusion of yesterday seems to be over and we have some tenative plans in motion. Today J and I taught our first English conversation class. There are 14 students and they're very eager and chatty, so it should prove to be fun. I'm excited to get to know them a bit and also to be back in the classroom. It'll also be interesting to work with J. She's a lot younger and new to teacher, which means that although there's a lot she might not know, she's also very eager and willing to try things out and see what happens. She's close in age to our students, so I'm also expecting that that may provide some interesting topics for conversation. Tomorrow I should know a bit more about them and perhaps a bit more about the schedule of teaching that I can report back on.

As for my classes, I think I've worked out a plan that will get me both what I need and want and also satisfy the rules and regulations. I'll stay in the grammar class (gosh how I need to work on grammar!) and then not attend the conversation class with the other American kids (I say kids because a lot of them are 19 and this is kinda like SPRING BREAK with ALCOHOL for them). My grammar teacher loaned me a review grammar book as well for the summer so I can brush up on verbs and conjugations. Then, there's a girl here from Paraguay who needs to prepare to take classes in English. The Tec is moving to teaching its content courses in English, so all students need to demonstrate proficiency. Thus, we're going to meet and focus on our different needs. I want speaking practice and someone who will correct me when I make mistakes. She wants practice listening and some writing and speaking as well. We'll meet up tomorrow to sketch out a plan! Hooray for plans!!

And, speaking of plans, J and I are headed to Guanajuato this weekend for a little sightseeing. It's a cool, historical town and I should have stories to tell about mummies! Keep tuned to find out!!!

Adventures in Mexico (the first weekend)

Well, when I left you, we had just gotten settled in and were waiting for things to happen. We had a very busy weekend. After visiting San Miguel de Allende on Saturday, we were exhausted. It's almost a mile up here, and I'm really feeling the elevation. So, on Sunday, we hung out and slept a lot. However, Prof C found out that it was the last night of a play that she had wanted to see last summer. Conveniently, the play was held in the Old Train Station which is literally across the street from the house (the tracks are still functioning - unfortunately- but not for passenger trains). We ambled off and what a neat experience it was.

The play told the story of Carlota, wife of Maximilian. Max was put in charge of Mexico by the French, but didn't luck out very well. Eventually, there was a revolution and he was executed here in Queretaro by firing squad. Carlota went crazy and never recovered. The play told a rather interpretive version of the story, but was fantastic. They used the set of the train station and very little else. First, we all stood out on the platform and watched as Carlota missed her train (as an actual train went through the station!). Then, the station master (the only other actor in the play) ushered her and the audience inside to a waiting room. The rest of the play took place here. By turns, the actor who played the station master became Maximilian, Bentito Juarez (the first president of the Republic of Mexico and the one who authorized the assignation of Maximilian), Napolean, and a few other people. He played the accordian, clarinet, and harmonica as well. Carlota cried three times and as we were in the front, we could see her actual tears. She went slowly crazy during the performance and it was quite excellent.

On Monday, we came here to the Tec to try to make plans. Note that I've written try. It's very difficult to plan in advance here and we were pretty unsuccessful. But, all was fine. J and I headed back to the house and after our siesta, we decided to walk to the centro and people watch a bit. We stopped for ice cream (not quite as good as gelato) and parked ourselves in a plaza. After a while, we were approached by four girls. They asked us if we would help them with a class project. Being teachers, we had to say yes of course. So, we became actors in a video! They were making a video as a final project for a communications class. We never quite understood the point of the video, but it was a lot of fun. The girls were clearly persuasive and soon had a group of 15 people standing around them. They instructed us to dance like we were at a concert. After they were satisfied, the group dispersed. Then, they asked us if we'd help some more. They had us fight with each other, slowly savor a bottle of water and some popcorn, and listen to their ipod. We gave them our emails, so hopefully we'll get to see the final product of the video!

Today the Spanish classes began. We still aren't quite sure what, when, where, and who we'll be teaching, but we do know where to go for Spanish. However, my class is full of some pretty reticent students and since I'm only auditing, I don't want to dominate them. C and I talked about whether I'd drop the class, but for now I'm going to go to the grammar portion and try to arrange an English-Spanish language exchange with a student here for the rest. I feel like I'm a bit more motivated than my classmates, and I certainly don't want to spend 20 hours a week sitting on my hands (4 hours a day for 5 weeks... it's very intensive). We'll see if we can get this deal agreed upon by the people in change... well, it's definitely going to be an adventure!

The Day After

On Friday, I informed you all of the small scale flood we had here in our middle-American town. We were supposed to keep getting rain and thunderstorms, adding to the water level, for the rest of the weekend; fortunately, the weather was more or less dry.

So on Sunday morning, I walked down to the field where our plot is to assess the damage. I have to say, I was expecting the worse. In reality, it wasn't as bad I thought it would be.

Here's a view from the embankment, the same place I took some of the earlier pics:
As you can see, the soccer field has become a water polo field. But, as you can see in the back, there's our fence, and it looks like it isn't in too bad of shape:
I walked down the path on the east side of the field to see if I could walk to the plot, but there was still a significant amount of water on the low ground, including on our plot. While I was down the path, I did get this better shot of our still standing fence:
Since I couldn't tell if the plants had survived from that distance, I tired to use the digital zoom on the camera to get a better look. Unfortunately, with the digital zoom and my shaky hands, I wasn't able to get a good look at ground, although it does look like it was still underwater:

Unfortunately, we're supposed to get more storms over the next 3 days or so. If somehow it stays dry here, I'll try to walk down to the plot to see if anything made it through.

Life in Mexico

So not much has happened yet, we're still spending our time going from office to office to get id cards, classrooms, placements test, and figure out when. where, what, and who we're teaching. Not much to report on that front, so I thought I would give you an overview of a typical day here thus far.

We get up in the morning andgo upstairs for breakfast (desayuno). The father of the house (Alfredo*) prepares breakfast. We always have fresh squeezed juice (orange, guyaba, etc), fruit (platanos, papaya, pina etc) and then eggs or quesadillas or toast and jam. Alfredo also roasts his own coffee. He sits with us and we talk about various things. Often he'll tell us historical stories or legends or teach us something. All of this is in Spanish, although Alfredo speaks English and will translate a word if we just don't get it.

After breakfast, we'll typically go to the Tec (our university). It's a short bus ride away which is always an adventure. J and I will take spanish classes from 9-1 M-F (I placed into Intermediate 2). We'll teach English and lead a language exchange after that (exact times and days to be determined... hopefully soon!). Then we can either head home for comida, the big meal of the day, or eat out. Much like in Italy, Mexicans eat a big lunch with several courses. A siesta is also typical after that (lunch break is typically from 2-4). Dinner, if any, is a light snack around 8. J and I are still adjusting to the sun and the altitude. It's about 5400 feet here, and any amount of walking is surprisingly tiring.

Cristinana* is the mother of the house and she prepares comida and dinner and sits and talks with us. She speaks less English, but is an animated storyteller. She adds lots of sound effects a gestures to help clarify her stories. She tells us about the history of the house, the town, and her family. Thus far, it's a great place to stay and really feel involved. I doubt it'd be possible to feel isolated here.

I'm looking forward to sharing more stories with you. Today wil be busy again, trying to figure things out. But tomorrow our real schedule begins. I'm not sure I've ever audited a class before, and though I need to do the homework, I'm looking forward to being motivated solely for learning, rather than for a grade or transcript. The American kids seem pretty young, so it'll be interesting to see if I'm the 'old' lady. Most are around 20... which is more than a decade difference.

My love to you all. Let me know if there's something particular you're interested in learning about.

(*Note that as always, all names have been changed)

Devastation

First of all, thank you all for the wonderful comments in the original garden post. I appreciate them.

Second, remember how mentioned I would keep you updated on said garden? Well, this may be the last post in that thread.

So, I mentioned that it was raining and we were having thunderstorms, right? Well, I awoke this morning to a co-worker who also has a plot near us: 'The rain gods are fickle.' I know he's trying to plant his plot, so I thought there was too much water still and he was sad.

I was so wrong.

When I walked down to the garden plot, I noticed an unusually large number of cars coming through the complex. Then, as I got close to the plot, I saw this:

You're looking at a soccer field. And that's water. A lot of water. More water than there should be. Like, say, a flood.

And this is where our garden plot is/was/should be:
There is a river that runs a couple hundred feet to the south of our plot, and apparently it crested overnight (I heard someone say it crested 5 feet, which sounds really bad):
Now the river is like 10 times as wide as it was before. And flowing really fast.

And if it looks deep, it is. See these basketball hoops, they're 10 feet tall. Keep in mind that the original height of the river was at least 5 feet BELOW our garden plot.
There's also a golf course across the street, which is along the river. Guess what happened to that:
I think that hole now has a water hazard.

It's supposed to thunderstorm pretty much non-stop until next Wednesday, so I think the water might continue to rise. We're fairly high up, so I think we'll be ok, but I think the units down near the filed are in trouble.

I don't know what happened to the fence and plantings at our plot, but I'm going to go ahead and assume they're all gone, based on how fast the water was flowing.

Here's the schematic of our plot now:

I'm not sure what it will look like once the water falls, so I'm not sure if I'll replant. right now, I'm a little shocked.

Goodbye dear garden, we barely knew ye.

[More pictures of the devastation on Flickr]

¡Hola de Mexico!

Hi all! We arrived in Mexico last night after a long flight (with transfers) and then a 3 hr bus trip (unfortunately we arrived during rush hour). We got settled in and slept like the dead.

I'm here in Queretaro, Mexico with a classmate J and professor C. We're working at the Tech, one of the 15 universities in this city. J and I will be teaching a conversational English class for the Mexican Tech students, and also hosting a language exchange between them and the American exchange students.

Eleven years ago, I did my own study abroad in ths town, but at a different uni. A lot has changed. The city is even bigger (1.2 million now) and there's more traffic. But the centro is stll historic and the churches are amazing.

I'll ce keeping you all updated and hopefully will have pictures of exciting travels and local scenes. Mom is going to be joining me after school lets out and then Peter's coming after that. I'm sure that means that lots of adventures are in store!

I have regular access to emails, so send them along like normal. Thus far the weather is fine, warm but not hot and a slight amount of humidity. Apparently, there was a heat wave before we got here. Sounds like I'm bringing the cool weather with me wherever I go. It sounds like we might be headed to San Miguel de Allende this weekend for a little trip.

More news to follow....

I Will Soon Be Very Sick of Eating Tomatoes

Here at our housing complex run by Farm U, you can sign up to get a community garden plot. Since our existing outdoor space consists of (1) a concrete, fenced-in patio almost completely screened of sunlight; (2) a concrete patio that is regularly terrorized by the neighboring dogs (so much so, in fact, that we can't really use it at all - dog poo smells terrible); and (3) a small patch of land that I commandeered from our former neighbor that doesn't really belong to us, and which I already planted with sunflowers [Quick sunflower note: most of the sunflowers I planted in that spot died, since I waited too long to put them in the ground and they were all weak and falling over. I started some new sunflowers inside and planted those earlier. They are now flourishing], we jumped at the chance for a community spot.


After the-longest-winter-in-the-history-of-the-middle*, the weather finally calmed down right after Mother's day enough for us to go investigate our plot. We had asked for half a plot (about 8' x 16'), so were surprised when we were given a full plot (16' x 24'). We weren't sure what we were going to plant, but now we could plant even more of it.


Our first task was to put up a fence, since the rabbits around here are fruitful (and cotton-tailed cute) and deer live right next to our plot. After a trip to the local chain hardware store for supplies, we constructed a pretty sweet fence, using plastic stakes, wooden stakes, wood lathe, and 3-foot chicken wire. We're pretty confident that the fence will keep out rabbits, since we staked it down to the ground, but we're pretty sure the deer could just walk through it or jump it. We have some home remedy type ideas to keep them out, but we haven't done anything just yet - please let us know if you know of anything that might work.


After constructing the fence and raking out all the hay, we drove over to our local, actually local, plant nursery, which was super cool. We ended up buying a bunch of starts and seeds, most for about $1.50 each, some $1.50 for 3. That seemed cheap to me.


A couple days later, we got down to the plot, fence still standing, and put everything in the ground. We have lots of good stuff, too much of which to list, so here's the schematic we drew up after we planted:

(click on the picture to actually be able to read it)

And corresponding photo of the actual planted garden (looking southwest towards the big pumpkin):


Anyways, within 2 days of planting everything, we left town for a week to go to a wedding in Arizona. We were worried that everything would die from lack of water, but the opposite happened. It rained almost everyday we were gone, and now things are looking good. We already have some cayenne peppers that are maturing. The beans and peas are all coming up. The tomatoes look happy and we've had to pinch a few flowers already (although one of the Romas is dead, I think). The sunflowers are already ridiculously large. And that 'Big Pumpkin' - it's supposed to grow to 100-lbs. Only the watermelon doesn't look so happy right now. It's pretty exciting.

The only thing is that Kimberly left for Mexico today. She'll be there for 2 months, leaving me in charge of all garden matters, including pruning, weeding, eating, and (potentially) canning if the Romas decide to mature really fast. And as if to taunt me, we are having insane thunder storms right now, with the same predicted over the next few days. I'm a little worried that everything is going to drown now, rather than get killed by drought. This gardening thing is nerve wracking.

Anyways, I posted some pictures on Flickr and I will try to keep the blog updated as things progress. I also just got a call from a friend that he's been given permission to plant some stuff on a vacant lot near work, so I might put some more stuff in there, like more 100-lb pumpkins or huge watermelons. Because if there's anything I'll need, it's more produce.

*verified by real Midwesterner

Current Events

Sorry for the lack of posting recently, it's been a bit hectic in our household these last few weeks. At the moment, we're hanging out in lovely Tucson. Some dear friends are getting married and we're happy to help them celebrate. Lots of posts are brewing (including photos from our new garden, my thoughts on education, saguaro cacti in bloom, Peter's latest adventures, and Miles' hard life). Also in the latest news, I'm heading to Mexico next week for a 7 week stay. Posting will be unpredictable, as although the university has wi-fi, computer access is unreliable.

We'll keep you updated the best we can...

Outside Our Backdoor

When we moved to the middle from Portland, somehow our bird feeder didn't make it on to the truck. While we got a fair amount of birds at our house in Portland, we were excited to have the feeder here, as the middle is pretty well known for its bird varieties. From some minor research, it appears that the Rockies are a dividing line for bird species. There are a bunch of birds here that are unknown to Kimberly, as she had spent her whole life on the west side of the mountains.

A few weeks ago, Kimberly decided she wanted to get a bird feeder for out here, and I was all for it. We put it up in the back of our house, which I was a little skeptical of. There's a lot of dogs back there (from our neighbors) and all the A/C units, which are loud. But Kimberly insisted it be placed in the back, which afforded the best views for her and Miles.

At first, we didn't get many birds, just some small guys who look like little finches or chickadees. But then more species started arriving, with lots of cool new colors.

First a couple red-breast robins. Then, what we assumed are some gold finches (small-yellow birds). Then something that looked like a kingfisher or woodpecker, and would hang upside down while eating from the feeder.

Then this morning, I went down stairs, and saw this guy eating:
Now that's not a very good picture, but you can clearly see we have a cardinal eating in our backyard. This is particularly exciting, since Kimberly had never seen a cardinal before living in Iowa. She has seen some around campus, but hopefully he'll come back to the feeder so she can get a good look at this one.

A Visual History of Dead Animals...and A Possible Cause of Species Extinction

'Smile, you're at a weird museum!'

[This is the latest installment of our travel log from our summer trip to Italy. We will add new stories sporadically (like once every six months) until we have no stories left. Today's installment: the Natural History Museum at the University in Bologna. This one is a bit long, as I need to introduce us to Northern Italy and provide some back story.]

Italy is very much two very disparate regions connected only by inclusion in the same country borders, much like Civil War-era America. The south (commonly referred to as The Mezzogiorno, and generally considered the area south of Rome) is mainly agrarian; the north (north of Rome, oddly) is mainly industrial, with internationally famous brands such as Fiat and Ferrari headquartered there, and generally has the higher concentration of wealth. Due to the extreme heat in the south during the summer (and our desire to limit the amount of chaos in our lives; for an example of chaos, see this old story), we headed north for most of our trip.

We honestly didn't know much about most northern Italian cities, except Milan, where I have a cousin. I knew that Milan is a world-class city, with a famous Opera, as well as a center of world fashion and finance. I knew that the highest Italian soccer league (Serie A) is generally dominated by northern Italian teams, since these cities have a higher concentration of wealth and can therefore afford better players. And I knew there were major tourist cities, such as Venice and Florence, that brought more wealth to the region.

Other than that, most of the cities I knew of were for food or sports reasons reasons: Genoa, for its various salami; Parma for its hams (prosciutto) and cheeses (parmigiana); Bologna, for bologna (maybe?) and bolognese-style pasta sauce; Modena, for its balsamic vinegar; Turin, for Juventus, their soccer team, and home of Fiat.

Early in our trip, we made a quick list of cities we'd like to visit and did a quick read through in our travel guide to help us refine the list. One city that made the list was Bologna, which is home to the oldest continually-operating University in the world. We figured that a college town has to be pretty cool right? Well, when we would tell native Italians that our next stop was going to be Bologna, they would inevitably ask, 'Why?' (this happened at least 3 times I can distinctly remember, and probably closer to 10).

I'm not sure if it was lingering side-effects from my sickness in Lucca (where we had just come from) or the doubts planted by all the 'Why would you go to Bologna?" statements, but our first impression was not good. We had heard/read that the north is industrial, but we weren't really prepared for a capital C City. In Italy, all the tourist cities you visit are kind of quaint and quiet: Florence, Venice, Lucca, Assisi; even Rome doesn't feel like a City to some extent. But Bologna is a City: wide streets with lots of traffic, densely laid out, tall buildings, sketchy characters, alleys, trash on the streets, etc. When we walked out of the train station, I think we were shell-shocked.

After we settled in to our really-nice-but-run-by-some-kind-of-sketchy-people hotel, we started to wander around the city and found that it wasn't actually so unlike the rest of Italy as we initially feared. (Tangent: supposedly, Bruno Magli, the shoes guy, lived in the same building as our hotel and he paid some old woman to stand in the lobby and visually inspect, and yell at, everyone who came and went. If you know anything about old Italian women, you'll realize this may be the greatest form of security available). Of course, we found some excellent food, wine, and ice cream in the city, as well as the best falafel/gyro place we ate at in Italy. We were able to walk all over without any problems. We also found a cool photo exhibit on Gypsies (or Roma), watched a movie in Italian in the main square, saw some monuments to the Italian resistance during WWII, and found a phallic statue of Neptune (all of which I will hope to expand on at some other time - this intro is already too long and I haven't even gotten to the main point yet).

But the main attraction of Bologna was the University and its museums. You have to figure if an institution has been around for almost 1000 years, it has had to have seen some cool stuff, including the 'discovery' of the 'New World' and colonialism.

As we wandered around the University, we came across this place, which in retrospect, is one of my favorite places in all of Italy that we went to:

I believe this says something like:
The University of Studying
Museum of Zoology, Comparative Anatomy,
and Anthropology.
But you probably already figured that out.

The museum wasn't in our guide book, and we really had no idea what to expect. But Kimberly likes animals and nature, and I'm always up for an adventure, so we went in. Possibly the best decision we made all trip.

This place was both a museum and a department building for the University. But, it was empty - the offices, the museum, everywhere - and unlocked. I could have walked out of that place with a jar full of dead snakes,

I think that one in the front is trying to make a break for it.

a rhinoceros head (honestly, I have no idea what that is the skull of. A saber-tooth tiger? A Woolly Mammoth? Any help?),

and an elephant leg waste basket (in retrospect, I wish I had taken this, but it probably would have caused quite the stir at customs).

Loosely translated this sign reads 'Don't put trash in the Elephant leg.'
Apparently they don't teach reading at the University of Bologna, as the leg was full of trash.

When we first walked in, we just noticed some stuffed heads on the wall, kind of like a hunting lodge. Then we saw a whole wall of heads of various African game animals.

So well ordered and presented. But could someone dust them, please?

Then we started wandering, turned a corner, and found this:

This picture does no justice to how many cases of animals there actually were at this place.

Rows and rows and rows of animals, stuffed or preserved. And it looked like it hadn't been well-maintained.

Some animals looked like they were still decomposing.

Usually, the shell is attached to the turtle.

Some were actually decomposing, because their preserving fluids had evaporated.

This possum (opossum?) has definitely seen better days.
Someone might want to top off that embalming fluid.

There were extinct animals.

I originally thought this was a dodo, but looking at it again, it looks like a big eagle. I don't know.

Animals on the verge of extinction.

Kiwis,and most other small, flightless birds, are rare in the wild in New Zealand because of the introduction of possums and cats to the islands. And the Zoological Museum of Bologna.

Imaginary half-and-half animals.

I think they were trying to make a point about evolution with these guys, but still, kind of strange.

Re-enactments of the circle of life.

I wonder if they were found this way in the wild. That would be cool.

Weird interpretations of life in the wild.

I'm not a biologist, but I'm pretty sure boars and seals don't kiss/snuggle in the wild.
Nor, do I believe, they share the same habitat.

An ostrich egg.

That's big.

What appears to be a Unicorn corn.

A scientist may say narwhal horn, but I say Unicorn horn.
And some assorted stuffed heads.

Animals we ate on our travels.

Wild boar (or cinghale, in Italian, I think) is very tasty in sauces and in salami.

Bambi and his family.

The Lion King and his family.

These lions have no back halves. They end at that wall.

Hedwig.

Stupid Death Eaters

And this cabinet full of weird, random horns, stuffed heads, and other stuff.

In all, I think we took over 100 pictures in about an hour and a half (I've put most of them on Flickr, but tried to get rid of the ones that were really out of focus or otherwise not good). We were totally infatuated with this place and started referring to it as the Extinction Museum. In fact, we went back the next day because we didn't believe it really existed.And the really crazy thing: this wasn't even the weirdest place we found in Bologna (looking back, its actually not as weird as it was when we were there). But that's another story for another day.

[Photos here on Flickr, and here in slideshow format]

Overheard Conversation

The other day, I was weeding our front yard, when two of the neighborhood kids walked by. One was on a bike, the other had his shirt off. They must have been 10-12 years old.

Bike Kid: (deadpan) Nice Abs.

No-Shirt Kid: (sincere) Thanks.

B.K.: Have you ever heard of sarcasm?

That made me laugh.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Dad.

We'll be thinking about you today.

Love always-

Yay!!!

Welcome to the world Howie!!!

The C word

It strikes again. A classmate of mine just found out that her cancer has metastasized. She's been in remission for the last few years but hasn't been feeling well for a month now. It's never a good time to find out, but it's been particularly harsh for her to not be able to finish out the semester. Chemo starts in a few weeks. We don't know the prognosis yet, but it's not looking good. This is a very rare cancer, and the fact that it has metastasized is very bad.

We're working on a plan to help - groceries, company, dinner.... but we can't help with the bills. The rough part about being a grad student (or really just a person in the US) is that health insurance is dependent on employment. We get fairly inexpensive insurance here. But what happens if she can't take classes and TA in the fall? Her insurance will expire in August. If she can't comeback, it will be because she's too sick. This means she'll need the insurance (chemo and cancer not being a particularly inexpensive disease). So she's also facing a terrible catch22. We talked about this a lot after Dad died. Illness is most expensive for those who can least afford it. Why we can as a nation afford billion (trillion? I don't even know) war and weapons but not health care?

Farm U is reminding me a bit of CityU right now. People have banded together and are acting like family, rather than the "system". We have quickly shifted into discussions about who will do what, and are trying to help and support each other. And interesting wrinkle is the cross-cultural nature of our department. I spent a while today talking with my officemate (from China) about the appropriate responses to finding out that she has cancer. Officemate was surprised that she knew- telling me that people with cancer in China never know, because their families don't tell them. This way, everyone is "happy". We talked for awhile about what it meant for the diagnosis and prognosis to be known. We talked about what types of support and comfort could be given. Although I A NOT GRATEFUL for me previous experiences with cancer (and PLEASE do NOT tell me anything like that), I know that I can rely a little bit on them, and be a better friend because of them. I know that I can avoid saying the unhelpful things- and instead offer a hug, a tissue, and a shoulder to cry on. I won't tell her it's going to be better. I won't tell her that it's part of the "plan". I don't know if she believes this or not. But I can offer her friendship right now.

So, tonight I'm sitting here, ostensibly writing a paper, and thinking about her. She's not writing her papers, as she can't focus with the dose of oxycodone she's on. We'll be babysitting her pet for a while, and doing what we can to make sure she's not alone.

And, for now, I'm feeling very sad. Very scared. And, honestly, pretty pissed off. Damn cancer. She's my age.

Done... sort of

I just finished teaching my last class of the year (literally, 2 minutes ago). Although I'm far from done (2 papers to write, one take home exam, 23 portfolios to grade, 50 final exams to grade, and 30 term papers to grade), the end is in sight.

Phew. I'm really looking forward to being done with my first year.

An Open Call to our Former Plants

I was going to put my sunflowers in the ground this morning. Then I saw that the temp was 45 degrees at noon and that there was a chance of a frost and snow overnight, so I didn't. It's almost May.

In light of this delay, I started thinking of all the plants we had in Portland, but which we gave away right before we left: the hot-pepper plant, the strawberry pot full of succulents, all the spider plants and mother-in-law tongues, the aloe, the fig trees, the jades, etc.

I was wondering how all these plants are doing. I know some of the people that read this have some of them, so I'm looking for updates. I know one of the fig trees was planted in the ground, but is it still alive? Maybe bearing fruit? Did the succulents grow and multiply as fast as they did 2 winters ago? Is the pepper plant still alive, providing wonderful little hot peppers?

So let me know in the comments if you know how our plants are doing. The memories will get me past the snow tonight.

Blue Screen of Death

Well, old Sunshine may have bit the bullet. She's had three blue screens of death (you know the one- you're in the midst of something - always something important- and the screen goes blue with the terrible words describing some indecipherable fatal error) in a row. Given that she's 5 years old, it's probably not too unusual for her time to be up, but this is a terrible way to go.

I'll take her in to the resident geeks and see if there's any saving her...

Thanks Dad, for teaching me to back up.

Students today....

If you have four minutes- you need to watch this video. I promise it will make you think.

Blogging the un-bloggable

There have been a few conversations recently (in person, online, on the phone, on this very blog) about what to post and what to not post and where does the line between public and private fall. I thought I take up this conversation and turn it into a post of its very own. Perhaps the other semi-anonymous and completely public authors we know could chime in and relate their decisions about what to post and what name or identifiable statements to include...

For me, one of the most important elements is that my identity here remain un-google-able. As a student and teacher, I don't want this blog and the things I say here to come up in the first 10 hits of my name. I don't post things here that I'm not willing to say in public, but I don't think my random musings about life in Iowa, world travel, or the cat should be what my students, colleagues, or potential employers should see first. This means that I obfuscate details (school names, my own last name, my program of study etc) so that people typing in those key words don't find the blog. Other folks have created much more public blogs, and have good reasons for this. Blogging is an emerging field of communication, and as it evolves, there will be a lot of flux and change until a standard (or standards) emerge.

It's also very important to me (and PEter) not to identify people who haven't chosen to be public. This means that Sissy remains Sissy, CultureProf remains CultureProf (unless she herself uses her name in a comment) etc. The people in our lives haven't chosen to be public, and it's important for us not to "out" them without their permission.

Finally, there's the issue of internet safety. Some things, while not identifiable, are facts that could be important to online banking and other online identification (hometown, high school, first grade teacher's names, maiden names etc). We leave these things off for that reason. As a rule of thumb, it's never a good idea to add identifiable information to the comments of someone's blog that they themselves haven't used before. Obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate!!!!

So, these are my reasons for semi-anonymity. Why do you chose what you chose? What consequences do you see for your choice? If you don't blog, did you know about these issues?

We'll Always Have Sunflowers

When I was a young lad, I attended catholic school. I was never rapped on the knuckles by any of the nuns. In fact, I never had the honor of being taught by a nun, like my brother (although I did have one teacher named Ms Love, who in retrospect, was definitely a 'christian hippie' who lived on an island commune in Vermont when she was younger).

[Here's a fun tangent: the school and church parish I attended, and also where I was baptized (I think) and first communion-ed, was one of the parishes closed and sold by the Massachusetts Catholic Diocese as part of the settlement in all those child abuse scandals a few years back. They sold the complex to the local Greek Orthodox church, who needed to move out of their beautiful 'National Register of Historic Places' church into a larger space. A guy I hung out with and his family was big into the Greek church and they were enlisted to help renovate the new church to make it more Greek Orthodox-like. As part of the renovation, they removed the catholic alter, which was made of solid marble. They were just going to throw it away, so my buddy took it home. It now resides in his home as a beautiful bar. I don't know if this is awesome or sacrilegious, but at the least, it is a fine example of re-using old materials.]

Before the school closed and I was forced to enter the hell that is the public education system (joking, where else could I have learned to swear like a pirate?), my brother and I used to walk to school everyday. I remember this one house always had sunflowers along the sidewalk. And not little sunflowers, but the gigantic ones that get like 10 feet tall with heads bigger than human torso. I always thought they were cool, thinking it must have been a huge undertaking to grow such massive cool things.

When I moved to Portland permanently, Kimberly and I found a nice little bungalow with a very supportive (read: easily convinced) landlord who let us do whatever we wanted with the yards. We decided we would grow some veggies, including tomatoes, tomatillos, and various types of peppers (one of which we were able to successfully keep alive over 3 winters and we subsequently gave away when we left: if you are the person who we gave the plant to (and I honestly don't remember who has it) and you happen to read this, let us know how it's doing. I miss those little hot peppers).

We also decided to grow sunflowers.

Now, at this point, let me explain: I'm a city boy. I had a grandfather who had a great garden, and a long line of family that were farmers in Italy and my mother, grandmother and uncle have amazing green thumbs (green hands really), but I grew up in a suburb. I was never involved in the planting of anything, nor was I particularly interested. So when we bought the sunflower seeds, I was convinced that there was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that giant sunflowers were going to grow out of these little sunflowers seeds, which looked like the ones I used to chew and spit when I was in Little League. Boy, was I wrong.

That year, we had sunflowers that got to about 8-9 feet. The heads had to be at least 18 inches across. They were gigantic. We salted and roasted the seeds and had enough for the whole winter (actually, my friend/workmate Eugene ate them all while sitting in a cold room doing filing, but that's another story for another day). People walking with their kids would stop and walk up next to the plants, admiring them. It was like a mini-community center, where people would gather to talk about their day.

It was fun. So I decided we needed to do it again.

We bought seeds a few weeks back at our super-great local nursery. And again, I was not sure that these were the right seeds. How could a 8-10 foot plant grow out of these tiny things. Impossible.

Despite the terrible weather we are still having (apparently, we moved to the Middle just in time for the worst winter in memory) I decided that if there was any chance of getting 10 foot sunflowers, I needed to start the seeds. But not outside. Not until July, apparently.

About a week ago, I planted about 13 seeds in pots, and placed them in front of the window with the rest of our young plants. Then I sat down, sad that I needed to wait 5-15 days for them to sprout.

But the package was wrong. Only a couple days later, the sprouts, well, sprouted. And they won't stop growing. A couple have to be 2-3 inches already. I worry they will fall over, since they grow towards the light and are sometimes almost horizontal. When I rotate them, they straighten up and lean the other way within hours. It's amazing. If they keep growing at this rate, they'll be 10 feet tall by June.

But now I'm worried that the plants are going to get too big for their pots before the weather takes a permanent turn for the better. What do I do then? The root structure was pretty large before, so I don't think larger pots is the answer, unless I only want to do one or two.

Please, please, please weather, get better. Please. I mean really, it's almost Tax Day, we shouldn't be having snow storm warnings anymore. Please get nice.

Having a gigantic plant grow out of a seed that is about 1/4 inch big in only a few short months has to be one of the most satisfying things you can possibly do as a garden/plant activity. If/when we ever have kids, I am growing them every year, just to reinforce to them how cool plants are. I will grow them with my niece 1900 some time.

Anyways, here's a couple pictures of the sprouts in various states of growth.

Come on weather, help us out.