There's about a foot of fresh snow on the ground just now. Saturday morning I went for a jog and couldn't help but drink in the beautiful sunrise against the snowy caps of the mountains and the thick blankets of snow over the leafless branches of the trees. It had all come down on Friday night - I was going with Scott from the Chinese house on a triple date to the museum of people and cultures on the south side of campus. Snow was falling thick and fast when we left, but we didn't have any trouble getting there. We enjoyed a scavenger hunt, a trivia game, and then a competition for who could make the coolest clay object. I knew immediately what I wanted to make, and Scott, although he was slightly incredulous that we would be able to do it, agreed. We made a dancing couple out of clay, and it turned out amazingly well... their dance frame was amazing! We won the most prestigious award of the evening for the Judges' choice, which was a huge almond toffee symphony bar.
Exuberantly victorious, dancing couple in hand, we foraged our way through the heavy snow to the car. All went well until we tried to make it up the slippery incline to the FLSR. The car's tires desperately needed to be changed, and before we knew it we had slipped off the road. Just as I was about to hop out to push, another car pulled over and the young man inside got to the hood before I could even open the door. In seconds we were back on the road, and we slipped and slid ourselves the rest of the way home somehow. Isn't it cool to see how people are so willing to help?
For the last part of the date we settled down to a round of Settlers of Catan, one of my favorite board games. Before the other teams had a clue of what we were up to, Scott and I had amassed ourselves a huge stock of land, resources and development cards that helped us win the game in a landslide :). It felt great... two victories in a night!
I've been doing quite a bit of dancing lately... Tuesday I introduced Brad to the Social Dance club, and taught the poor boy about 6 dances (at least the basics of them) in one night. By the end I'm sure his head hurt, but he make significant progress! He asked if we could practice again this weekend, so we settled on Sat. evening. Later in the week he texted me to ask if he could take me out to dinner afterward, which I had no objection to. 15 min. before the date started he called me to ask if I wanted to dress up a little - so he could get a feel for what the testing conditions would be like lol. I agreed, put on a skirt, and drilled him in cha cha for an hour and a half. When we got tired of that, he took me to the car and said he thought it would be nice to go to the spaghetti factory, which was awesome since I had never been there before. The food was excellent, and we talked for 3-4 hours non-stop... it was great!
Otherwise, it's hard to get up the self-discipline to do all of that school work/teaching prep that isn't due tomorrow, but I am doing really well with keeping on top of what I have...
Dinner's finally ready, so I've got to run.
Love and miss you all!
Margaret
Sonntag, 24. Januar 2010
Sonntag, 17. Januar 2010
A Patisserie, a Chinese/Danish tragedy, some Cheesecake and Curry...
Life is so fun at the moment... I have to admit I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Not working makes everything SOOOO easy! I'm actually on top of, even a bit ahead on some of my hw, a wonderfully stressless, joyful sensation. I'm still working hard to fit German 201 prep. into my schedule, because even though Professor Brewer has the main topics planned, she has left the details to me. I'm hoping to spend some time on that tomorrow (I love holidays!!!). My other plans for tomorrow include an excursion to SL with Eleanor, Christine, and a few other girls from the RS to see a movie about Queen Victoria, and practicing the foxtrot with one of they guys in my ward who goes by the name of Brad.
Now that the future is taken care of, I turn to the past...
Tuesday night I cooked an amazing taco soup for 30 people, accompanied by a beautiful salad and mouth-watering toffee bars. Toffee bars are now officially one of my very favorite desserts - quick, easy, and incredibly scrumptioous.
Wednesday afternoon I went on a date with Jonathan... he made me lunch, then took me to a French bakery (patisserie) for a heavenly raspberry mousse/cake creation. We've know each other since my first semester freshman year, so it was really nice to spend some time talking, laughing and catching up.
Later that day I sent Professor Brewer an email asking her how she taught vocabulary. Her reply was that she assigns them the whole chapter, but only requires passive knowledge of the words. I have to admit that I strongly disagree with this idea... in my opinion, the only reason to learn vocabulary is to know how to use them and be able to use them. I'm not often angry, but this grand injustice of busy work did rile my temper... it was actually more just utter frustration, but it was so strong it felt almost like anger. The German program could so much to improve the lower level German classes and it's not being done.... ahhhhhh!!
Thursdays are my favorite day of the week - I don't have class 'till 2pm, so I can get enough sleep, get a lot of school work done, and go to the temple after the morning rush is over. At dinner that evening Phil asked me what my plans were for the weekend. I told him I had none aside from homework. As if that was the magic phrase, I got asked out once for Friday and once for Saturday within the next 3 hours...
Friday I went with Jeffry from the German house to see Living Legends - a Native/South American/Polynesian dance performance that was absolutely fabulous. My favorite pieces included a native American dance where the dancers used wooden hoops to create intricate shapes, the mystical circle symbolizing eternity. I also loved the fire of most of the Polynesian dances - the cat-calling, hand slapping, feet-pounding energy and vigor of it all. I feel like we could use some more of that in our straight-laced straight-faced culture... :).
At 11:00 Zach came by dropping Hillary off, just as I was assembling the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. He suggested we make some cheesecake, because I had mentioned I had been wanting to make some. Our tiny brave group of three invaded Macy's to obtain some elusive cream cheese and graham crackers, then stayed up till 1am concocting a cheesy delight. Our only mishap occurred when I attempted to blend the cream cheese mixture and shaved of a good chunk of the wooden spoon I was using to stir with. Naturally the wood splinters ended up nicely distributed in the creamy delight... with pained concentration I was able to fish the worst of them out, and assumed the rest of them would just add to the flavor.
Saturday morning I added the layer of sour cream to the cheesecake and spent most of the day reading Tartuffe by Moliere for my English class. Andy, another guy from my ward, took me to the international cinema to see a tragic but excellent Danish film, then to participate in a curry night with the French house.
Alack, it grows late, and my tales are running short... but never fear! Next week promises to be just as good... so stay tuned!
Love you all!
Margaret
Now that the future is taken care of, I turn to the past...
Tuesday night I cooked an amazing taco soup for 30 people, accompanied by a beautiful salad and mouth-watering toffee bars. Toffee bars are now officially one of my very favorite desserts - quick, easy, and incredibly scrumptioous.
Wednesday afternoon I went on a date with Jonathan... he made me lunch, then took me to a French bakery (patisserie) for a heavenly raspberry mousse/cake creation. We've know each other since my first semester freshman year, so it was really nice to spend some time talking, laughing and catching up.
Later that day I sent Professor Brewer an email asking her how she taught vocabulary. Her reply was that she assigns them the whole chapter, but only requires passive knowledge of the words. I have to admit that I strongly disagree with this idea... in my opinion, the only reason to learn vocabulary is to know how to use them and be able to use them. I'm not often angry, but this grand injustice of busy work did rile my temper... it was actually more just utter frustration, but it was so strong it felt almost like anger. The German program could so much to improve the lower level German classes and it's not being done.... ahhhhhh!!
Thursdays are my favorite day of the week - I don't have class 'till 2pm, so I can get enough sleep, get a lot of school work done, and go to the temple after the morning rush is over. At dinner that evening Phil asked me what my plans were for the weekend. I told him I had none aside from homework. As if that was the magic phrase, I got asked out once for Friday and once for Saturday within the next 3 hours...
Friday I went with Jeffry from the German house to see Living Legends - a Native/South American/Polynesian dance performance that was absolutely fabulous. My favorite pieces included a native American dance where the dancers used wooden hoops to create intricate shapes, the mystical circle symbolizing eternity. I also loved the fire of most of the Polynesian dances - the cat-calling, hand slapping, feet-pounding energy and vigor of it all. I feel like we could use some more of that in our straight-laced straight-faced culture... :).
At 11:00 Zach came by dropping Hillary off, just as I was assembling the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. He suggested we make some cheesecake, because I had mentioned I had been wanting to make some. Our tiny brave group of three invaded Macy's to obtain some elusive cream cheese and graham crackers, then stayed up till 1am concocting a cheesy delight. Our only mishap occurred when I attempted to blend the cream cheese mixture and shaved of a good chunk of the wooden spoon I was using to stir with. Naturally the wood splinters ended up nicely distributed in the creamy delight... with pained concentration I was able to fish the worst of them out, and assumed the rest of them would just add to the flavor.
Saturday morning I added the layer of sour cream to the cheesecake and spent most of the day reading Tartuffe by Moliere for my English class. Andy, another guy from my ward, took me to the international cinema to see a tragic but excellent Danish film, then to participate in a curry night with the French house.
Alack, it grows late, and my tales are running short... but never fear! Next week promises to be just as good... so stay tuned!
Love you all!
Margaret
Sonntag, 10. Januar 2010
A New Adventure... Again!
Wow - school has officially hit once again. It has been a challenge, as always, but classes seem to be going quite well. My German writing class is intensive, I absolutely love my French class this semester, and my masterpieces of world lit class has been an interesting experience in democracy. All of my alternative pedagogic experiences are coming into play, as the professor had us create our own syllabus with assignments of our choice. It promises to be an interesting sweep through world literary history...
It's nice not to be teaching at the moment, but I can't shake off the quiet dread of what will happen when I start teaching two classes at once next block. In every spare minute I've tried to do some more class prep to make my life easier... sadly it's not going to pay off quite as much as I hoped. I got a call from Professor Brewer the other day, who said she had put the syllabus up online for my review. To my surprise, she had the entire syllabus, including my half, all planned out. As I scanned through it, my heart nearly stopped when I saw that she was planning to teach 3 chapters of grammar before I started teaching. The implications hit me hard - it meant that I had half the material to cover in the same amount of time, and that I therefore had to somehow double my classroom material to have enough meaningful activities for my students. In quiet desperation I wrote Professor Brewer an email, explaining my situation and suggesting a few things that I thought would be meaningful so that I could flesh out my class time. I received her response yesterday, which basically said that I shouldn't be so worried because she had everything planned out for me. I'll be going to her office on Monday to discuss it further with her... so we'll see how that turns out.
Friday I went to Nikki's aunt's house to help her celebrate her 20th b-day. It was great - lots of pizza, a pool, a moive, a game, lots of cake and ice cream... didn't get home till 2am, but it was worth it :). Saturday I went with Nathan, one of the other teachers in the German department, to see an art museum and have dinner, after I went shopping for the German house in the morning. My roommates are heroes for going shopping with me on such short notice! I've been really blessed when it comes to that.
I think that covers the basics, and the CES fireside is starting, so I bid you all adieu,
Love and miss you!
Margaret
It's nice not to be teaching at the moment, but I can't shake off the quiet dread of what will happen when I start teaching two classes at once next block. In every spare minute I've tried to do some more class prep to make my life easier... sadly it's not going to pay off quite as much as I hoped. I got a call from Professor Brewer the other day, who said she had put the syllabus up online for my review. To my surprise, she had the entire syllabus, including my half, all planned out. As I scanned through it, my heart nearly stopped when I saw that she was planning to teach 3 chapters of grammar before I started teaching. The implications hit me hard - it meant that I had half the material to cover in the same amount of time, and that I therefore had to somehow double my classroom material to have enough meaningful activities for my students. In quiet desperation I wrote Professor Brewer an email, explaining my situation and suggesting a few things that I thought would be meaningful so that I could flesh out my class time. I received her response yesterday, which basically said that I shouldn't be so worried because she had everything planned out for me. I'll be going to her office on Monday to discuss it further with her... so we'll see how that turns out.
Friday I went to Nikki's aunt's house to help her celebrate her 20th b-day. It was great - lots of pizza, a pool, a moive, a game, lots of cake and ice cream... didn't get home till 2am, but it was worth it :). Saturday I went with Nathan, one of the other teachers in the German department, to see an art museum and have dinner, after I went shopping for the German house in the morning. My roommates are heroes for going shopping with me on such short notice! I've been really blessed when it comes to that.
I think that covers the basics, and the CES fireside is starting, so I bid you all adieu,
Love and miss you!
Margaret
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