Spring Break! (finally...)

Woo, my spring break is finally here! Now, I need to apologize before I start this post because I know I only talk about school on here, but considering that teaching and taking classes about teaching are pretty much the only things I do nowadays, you'll have to forgive me.

First off, my school has been all over the news, both international and local! That's right, we heard tell of someone seeing this clip, featuring my two principals recruiting in the Iberville Projects next to my school, in Japan:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8604181.stm

The second clip comes from the local news. Last week was state testing in Louisiana, which basically meant that K-2 were kicked out of the building all week so as not to risk disturbing the testing environment. Throughout the week we fed exotic animals, visited two colleges (Tulane and Dillard), and completed 10 hours of service learning. The latter is what we made the news for. We had an anti-litter campaign where we teamed up with a local community center and service organization. We picked up trash around the school, placed trashcans in the neighborhood, and on the last day held an anti-litter parade (you know how New Orleans loves its parades) complete with handmade cardboard signs. Here's the clip from the news segment:

http://www.abc26.com/videobeta/bb75e563-8152-4cf6-aae6-f0474ed36994/News/160-Kindergarten-first-and-second-graders-teamed-up-with-the-Phoenix-of-New-Orleans-to-clean-up-lower-Mid-City

Makes me smile :)

Also making me smile is my long awaited spring break! I'm super excited about my plans - I'm going to New York City baby! My principal and a couple other teachers and I are going on an all-expenses paid trip to observe three of the best charter schools in the city. I love doing this sort of thing because I get such great ideas for my classroom. I observed some schools after The Game and ended up bringing back a behavior management plan that has since been implemented school-wide (not to brag or anything). Also, while in New York, my entire suite has decided to use me coming as an excuse for a reunion, so all of us will be converging there next weekend! I could use me some Yale loving, let me tell you.

Well, that's the update from my front. What's happening in your neck of the woods?

Shameless plug

Hey friends! I've been cooking up a storm in Baltimore, in part inspired by the insane winter.
Anyway, if you're starved for ideas, maybe my cooking blog experiment will help you?
<3
Katie

Snowmageddon

Hi '09!
I guess I'm jumping on the bandwagon here-- three posts in 24 hours! The madness!
As you've all seen on the news, or my twitter or facebook, that the mid-Atlantic has gotten more snow in a single storm than it usually sees all year. We've got more snow right now than Rochester (hi, Rosa!). We're about to break through the record for all-time snowiest winter in Baltimore. And, tomorrow is the third consecutive snow day.
Hitler, of course, is not pleased about this:

(Monica and others sent that to me, and it's pretty great.)
The roads here are essentially impassible. There is a solid foot of ice on most minor roads, and all major (and minor) roads are basically one lane, possibly one lane each direction. That is not at all given, though.... I've already spent many hours digging out my car, but my driving adventure today made me wish I hadn't bothered. It's amazing chaos here.

In other news, grad school is hard, and I keep failing my damn German exam. I'm going to be in Egypt most of May, working on the artifacts from my professor's dig at Karnak temple. This is old, but the same expedition. Yale still functions-- I was up there a few weeks ago, and got to see Elliot and Tasia being super cute and got to celebrate AJ and my first anniversary.

Yale/Harvard Hockey

I was in New Haven last weekend to visit Henry/catch a home hockey weekend that included a Yale/Harvard game. New DM Elliott brought the big guns. And a battle axe. The Whale's got some new accoutrements - video screens near the entrances, new flags, fancy lettering on the bathrooms, and ticket scalpers.


I sat in the student section. Actually, first I tried to stand. Then I got bitched out for standing because then the person behind me couldn't see, and if she stood too, then everyone would have to stand, and then - HORRORS! - everyone would be standing at a hockey game.

To be fair, I was the one not playing by the rules, but her dude friend running off to tell on me to the 60+ year old usher, as I was sitting down (while sputtering, "But it's a hockey game!") - not cool. Also I got weird looks for bellowing at the goalie.


On the plus side, there is a student section! And they joined in on the "It's all your fault!"s. Still, sitting at a hockey game was weird. It was hard to yell while sitting down. We left at the first period break to join the band, and the band section's usher recognized me!

Anywho, Yale pulled off a win with Billy in goal. They even managed to turn a 6 on 3 (two penalties and pulling the goalie, which, as I recently learned, is also a euphemism for going off birth control/having unprotected sex) into an empty net goal.


Final score:

California knows how to partay

Hello folks! This blog has been quiet too long. Look, I know that we're all buried in insane amounts of work that make undergrad look like a vacation in the Bahamas, but it's the month of February for goodness sakes! And you know what that means...FEB CLUB!! Hopefully you all are managing to find your way to these shindigs through Day after Tomorrow-like blizzards and such. Somehow I managed to haul my work-beleaguered butt up to LA (while I had no epic snowstorms to contend with, I did have SoCal drivers, a scary enough prospect in itself) to partay like old times with Monica and Co. And PARTAY we did.

First, a note to those attending Feb Clubs: MAKE SURE PEOPLE DON'T SET THE MORY'S CUPS DOWN ON THE TABLE!! Some alumni (or party-crashers) may in fact not be aware of the most sacred rules and traditions of our alma mater. A few of us more recent graduates had to run guard duty to ensure that this travesty was not repeated.

Anyways...this is how it went down. The event was at a chic Beverly Hills hotel where they apparently thought that educated people such as Yale alumni would be able to have a civilized party without breaking glasses or nearly setting themselves on fire by leaning on lit candles. This was, of course, a slight miscalculation. In other words, it was basically like a Yale party, with a slightly older (and in some cases even sketchier) demographic. You might think that the best part of the night would have been

A) The middle-aged man who leans over us on the couch to remind the gentleman in back of us that, in case he didn't notice, his shirt was almost directly in contact with a lit candle, then mutters at us under his breath "I just saved that motherf***ers life"

B) "Dr. Suzy", the 55-year old Yale alumna wearing a witches' hat who has apparently obtained a Ph.D. in the Erotic Arts and Sciences, and was demonstrating her expertise by indiscreetly groping and being groped by a different guy every time I looked in her direction (including at least one member of the class of '09).

But neither of these was the highlight...for after we left this event, we wound up at a house party in Hollywood. Or rather, we entered through a tiny hobbit-sized gate between ten-foot-tall hedges, and found a little paradise therein where the inhabitants were bathed in a haze of medicinally-useful hemp-leaf aromas and '80s and '90s music. As one of our company remarked, it was just like the Shire, if the hobbits had been smoking weed and dancing freaky...so basically, exactly like the Shire. And all I could think about was the fact that we were in the same neighborhood where the most glamorous celebrations in American pop culture are held--yet maybe these people (whoever they were) are the real Hollywood elite. After all, it was so exclusive the papparazzi couldn't even find the place...

This photo pretty well captures the ambiance of this elite gathering:



and this is of the assembled LA posse:



So it was a good time, all in all, and Monica was a most gracious host. The whole experience may have even been worth being royally screwed by my two midterms today--one given by my crazy math professor who says that we are all "children in need of a spanking". Well, we got spanked today. But that's all for me. Hope to see some posts about your Feb Club experiences as well!


PS--In response to certain inquiries, NO, I do not have a hot surfer girlfriend. Yet. I've had little time in the past few months to entertain anything hot, surfer, or girl in nature. Frankly, I'd settle for one of the three, although I guess with slight preference for the "girl" part. If I do in fact have a hot surfer girlfriend by the time I see y'all next, I owe you all a case's worth of San Diego's finest local brews (little known fact: SD has one of the largest microbrewery industries in the country!).

Yale Recruiting Video

Some of you may have already seen this, but Yale's got a new recruiting video that's totally worth watching:

That's Why I Chose Yale

This is what happened to me today

In one of my third grade classes, one of my kids asked (out of blue) "Ms. Alway! You ever eaten pigs' feet?"

"No," I responded, "I never have." (I have seen them at the grocery store--giant jars of shockingly pink things that look alarmingly like, well, pigs' feet).

They were SHOCKED by this, and this led to a long discussion of other weird things we've (mostly they've) eaten, culminating in this:

"How about raccoon? Ms. Alway, you ever eat grilled raccoon?"

"...no, no I haven't. What does it taste like?"

(look of incredulity, like he can't believe I'm asking such an idiotic question) "You know...like raccoon."

Well, duh.