This past weekend was great. My roommates and I celebrated my upcoming birthday. Since we've been in Texas we haven't gone out to a steak house or for BBQ yet, and as a lover of good BBQ, I decided that's what I wanted to do. I found this place online called "The State Line Smokehouse & Grill" that sounded great. About 15 - 20 min from our apartment, with their own smokehouse on the grounds. Good reviews, so it was decided. They also said online that it was near the state line between TX and New Mexico (about 5 minutes or so). So, it sounded fun.
We got there and the food was great! Talk about huge portions. I decided to go all out with a combo plate of brisket, beef rib, pork ribs, peppered chicken, and their house recipe sausage. All that plus potato salad, beans, and coleslaw. I could eat about half of it. (Do you see the size of that beef rib?! It's bigger than my head... and boy, was it delicious!) Add onto that a big scoop of homemade vanilla bean ice cream that they gave me to celebrate the big 22 and I was beyond satisfied.
As we were leaving the restaurant, we walked through their beautiful patio and out to the parking lot. We noticed something interesting on the patio archway, though. "Now leaving New Mexico" What?! I knew we were near the state line, but this restaurant actually straddles it! So, we parked in Texas and ate in New Mexico. It was great. I stood there with one foot on either side of the arch: "Woohoo, 2 places at once!" (Not quite as cool as being in four places at once at Four Corners: New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah... but still.) :) We came home, goofed around for a while, and then decided to play a game. So, amidst laugh attacks involving tears and side aches, we played a raucous game of Phase 10. I won! (It's only my second time ever playing.) It was a great night!
Every day spent teaching is filled with new experiences, but today was an even more extreme case of that. We heard last night on the news that a "wind storm" was blowing in, literally. I didn't think a whole lot of it because, let's face it, I'm coming from Morris - the land of all that is windy. But throughout the day today it definitely did blow in! I'm in the desert, also surrounded by mountains that are really quite beautiful. But the way that the wind picks up that sand can hurt when it hits your face and gets in your eyes! Apparently, it can also be pretty dangerous.
Currently at Scotsdale, my school, they are doing construction. We're adding onto the school to make a bigger & better cafeteria with an improved kitchen. (Then the old spaces will be converted into classrooms.) Lately, they've started working on the roof, which they continued doing today. It seems that this may have not been the wisest choice with the forecast. About an hour after we got back from lunch our principal told us over the PA system that we had to leave our classroom and to bring what we needed for the rest of the day. My kids were just finishing their weekly math test! So, we got everything that we needed for their remaining assignments and moved to the gym.
It was then that we heard what happened (plus what I've heard since then): a crane fell on our school! One of the two cranes located on our site was lifting a large piece of aluminum to be used on the roof. It must not have been cantilevered enough / at all because the wind caught hold of it and started pulling. It pulled with such force that this multi-ton crane actually tipped over and fell on our building (and the construction site)! Thank God that no one was hurt. They evacuated 2 of the hallways near the damage. So, we spent the rest of our afternoon on the stage in the gym with two other 4th grade classes. Whew! It was very interesting to give a spelling test with 120 screaming 3rd graders next door and 40 other 4th graders 5 feet away. Ah, the joy of being flexible! It was mostly just entertaining, I couldn't help but laugh. I also attempted to read out loud to them from Maniac Magee, my pick for our read aloud.
The other exciting thing that happened today was that we had a visitor in school: Willie Ca
ger. He is a former basketball star from the first integrated team in NCAA history: El Paso's own Texas Western University (now University of Texas - El Paso: UTEP). This may sound familiar to some people... it should. This is the team that the film "Glory Road" was made about. He is actually one of the players who was more featured in the story of the team. We were walking to lunch and a couple of my boys started freaking out. We saw a tall, older, African-American man coming towards us in the hallway in his wheelchair. "Ah! That's Willie Cager! Oh my gosh! It's Willie Cager! What's he doing here?" I think that some of my students had seen him at UTEP Miner games. (A lot of the players and former coach Don Haskins still attend the games.) When I came home, I did some research and found out that he's been hired by our district to help lead the after-school basketball program for 3rd - 8th grade. Pretty cool! Maybe we'll see more of him. :)
My students (4th graders) had to do reports and presentations on an assigned president. Here's some knowledge that I acquired. Gotta' love it! Did you know that...- "John Adams made a piece of Great Britain with the help of his friend 'Frank' "... I think he meant made peace with the help of Benjamin Franklin. I didn't know that he was ever called Frank. (according to Isaac)
- "Harry S Truman was a slave in World War I." I started laughing out loud when he was conferencing with me about it. "What, Alfonso?!" Then I realized what he meant... "Do you mean that Truman served in World War I?" :) Apparently, not all 4th graders know that "serving" and "slavery" are not the same things, even in terms of serving in a war. We cleared that up right then and there. (Alfonso)
- "Herbert Hoover's the man!" (Ricardo)
- "Theodore Roosevelt died when he was shot at home when he was president." Teddy Roosevelt actually died in his sleep at home (technically from a coronary embolism). (Jonathan)
More reports tomorrow... we'll see if there are any additions to this. (From the looks of it, my 8 girls are more accurate than my 12 boys. haha) Here's something I just found. It's a site listing all of the ways that our presidents have died. No, I'm not just morbid... it's actually pretty interesting. Some of them are kind of funny (especially Zachary Taylor's).
And here's another anecdote from about a month ago: "Martin Luther King was the president and a king. He got married and had 2 children with Rosa Parks." I laughed out loud with that one too and before we cleared that one up as well. Gotta love the life of a teacher!
Life is always difficult when things begin to change, and it always brings with it an amount of uncertainty. I am really bad at good-byes. You never know the permanence of things. I realize that it's a part of life and things are not meant to always stay the same. That's the beauty of it, right? But, that doesn't mean that it's always easy. One of the reasons that friendships and relationships change is because of a shift in what is shared: that common ground, environment, those experiences, storie
s, etc...That is one reason why I love my life within the People of Praise. I still have to say my good-byes and things are constantly shifting. But, we're doing it together. We're following God's will for our lives both individually and as a body, through discernment and prayer. Our good-byes are never forever because we're constantly being present to one another. I remember thinking about a friend in hig
h school. "I don't know where either of us will end up in the future or how our interactions may change. But as long as I have him in my life as a friend, I will be happy." Now I am blessed to call him my brother! I have met so many amazing people in this life and even if I only see them once every couple of years, we are connected. We share that life.
As I think about the next few months of my life I see uncertainty and yet I am peaceful. I know that He will take care me as He always has. I am excited for this new adventure, wherever it takes me. I am ready for anything. Well, maybe not anyth
ing... but with His help I can be! Immediately following graduation from U of M - Morris in May, I am traveling abroad with my choir (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, & Iceland). I look forward to this blessed time of adventure and culmination with these wonderful people the Lord has brought into my life over the past 4 years. Here's a bit of a preview!
Some of my favorite places in the world that I have seen thus far (in no particul
ar order):- The gardens of the Alhambra in Granada, Espana
- Allendale, a section of the city of Shreveport, Louisiana
- The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern MN
- Canadian Rocky Mountains (Banff and Jasper National Parks)
- The rooftop of my piso (apartment) in Toledo, Espana
- Dorothy Sayre's house in Morris, MN
- Columbia River Gorge near Portland, OR
- Anywhere where I can sit and pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament
- Upstate New York, the Hudson River Valley
- Quebec City, Quebec
- Roma & Assisi, Italia
- My uncle's small farm / acreage in NE Washington state
- Cinque Terre, Italia (National Park of 5 tiny cities smashed between the mountains and the Mediterranean)
- Anywhere that I can sing beautiful music with good friends... especially performing with my Concert Choir
- South Minneapolis, near Lake Harriet
- The Humanities and Fine Arts Center in Morris, MN (specifically the Choir Room and Ceramics Studio)
- The branches of People of Praise that I have visited or lived in: Minneapolis & St. Paul, MN; Shreveport, LA; South Bend, IN; Northern Virginia (Washington D.C.); Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada); Colorado Springs, CO; Portland, OR / Vancouver, WA; and New Orleans, LA
- I would love to visit the other 13 plus our new starts as well!
- Vatican City, specifically within St. Peter's Cathedral
I wrote this on Feb 11 while my students were testing... it works. :)
I am in a land of learning and adventure. A place where children come to feel safe from any harm and to learn about the world that they live in. They are protected and yet not isolated. The outside world enters in so that we can examine and discuss it. This outside world comes in through books, lessons, experiences, stories, but mostly through these little people. These small, beautiful, bright people are the world that we live in. They reflect the world now and show us a glimpse as to how the world may end up being in the future. I stop and find myself surrounded by their beautiful faces: their round, warm faces with eyes set like the dark sky sparkling away. Cascades of long, straight, shiny hair brush past my girls' shoulders, sometimes reaching their waists. And my boys, my little men, are unlike any other. They have smiles that show their mischief and their inner workings. They are living in a world where they are gradually developing their little machismos. I would love to be able to instill in them a desire to be little gentlemen, where their charisma and personality may shine as brightly as possible.
My students have ambition, they have spunk, they are alive and bursting with potential. Most of them have already begun to succeed, but the ones falling behind worry me. There seems to be no way to scoop them up and put them ahead of where they should be... if only we could figure out a way to jump their hurdles! They are becoming more sure of themselves, but it is not always easy for them. That is one beautiful thing to see. So often when they are figuring out something new, how it works, and the potential solution to a problem, they are so precise and careful with each action. We must encourage more of this: methodical thinking and problem solving. They should not be afraid to tackle a big task, but learn how to break it into smaller, more manageable ones. When there is so much unknown information that they are faced up against, it must be hard to be confident and keep pushing onward. But we must; they must. That is what this is all about, this teaching.
Teaching is a way in which we are able to propel the minds and leaders of the future forward. Without trying to be overly idealistic, this is just true. They learn how to look at the world, and begin to see the possible role that they can play in this grand scheme. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get them to do this! I am a teacher, and my world is my classroom.
My name is Karen and I am an artist. I am a dancer, a photographer, a painter, a singer (soprano, thank you!), a writer, a poet, a motivator, and my current art form... teaching! For the first three months of 2007 I am teaching 4th grade in El Paso, TX. This is through my university where I am a senior majoring in elementary education. I study at the University of Minnesota - Morris which is a part of the U of MN system, surrounded by the prairie of west-central MN (about 3 hours from the Twin Cities). Being at this university has provided me with amazing experiences and opportunities. I have been tested more than I could have imagined throughout my four years there. But, because of this I have become stronger, smarter, and I have discovered who I am and what is important to me.
I love to travel and see new places. This is something that I grew up with as a born and bred road-tripper. We have taken some amazing family vacations together all over the U.S. and Canada. I hope to cross the border into Mexico while I'm here in El Paso. There is something about going to a new place for the first time. It freshens your perspective on the world and how it operates. I was able to study abroad in Toledo, Spain for the spring of my semester year. It was a full immersion program which meant that I spoke only Spanish for 3.5 months. I learned more about myself than I could have imagined and God showed me that He is ever-faithful. I was able to travel around Spain and also into Portugal, Italy, and have a lay-over in England... haha. I graduate this May and will then go on my next international adventure: touring Scandinavia with my choir for two and a half weeks (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland). What an amazing way to end a college career... among the fjords!
I am a part of the People of Praise, an ecumenical, charismatic Christian community that is my life. With them I am a sister, a city-builder, and a missionary. They are my life support. When asked to imagine and describe my dream job, the answer was clear. I want to live in one of our People of Praise cities, and teach in one of our elementary schools. I can't imagine anything more amazing or rewarding. I would love to be a part of our first elementary school: teach our children, the children of those in our cities. How amazing to be able to have parent-teacher conferences with those who I live my life with and who I am inviting to that life as well. We shall see where He calls me for this upcoming year.
