ah-choo!

I think I'm getting sick, if a stuffed-up nose, lots of sneezing, and general weariness without cause are any indications. This probably means that I've got whatever my dad's had for the last week, so I may have the pleasure of being sick and nonproductive for quite some time, as it seems to stick with you. I certainly hope not.

Fun kid moment of the day: For March is Reading Month, I read We're Going on a Bear Hunt to my mom's preschool class. Stuffed-up as I am, I ended up sneezing, and one little girl said, "You can't do that at my school." Well, then...

Other than that, not much is going on. Today's book of choice is A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar about the mathematician John Nash (no, I haven't seen the movie yet, although we have it). The math is going waaay over my head, but Nash's life itself is interesting. Although I think he's better in a book than he would have been in person.

I've updated my resume and sent it off to a couple of places for summer work, one which already told me that they filled all their openings but I could send it anyway in case someone decided not to accept the position, and the other one, a long shot that isn't sure if they'll have a position or not (but wow, would it be a neat place to work!). So we'll see what happens...I keep looking for jobs.

Barack Obama on Ukraine

I've been on a voracious reading kick lately, primarily non-fiction. The last couple of days I've been reading Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, which contains his views on American politics. It's been a good read, and probably deserves its own post with my reactions to it, but that will have to wait until I've processed my thoughts a bit more.

However, there was a hilarious passage about a trip he took to Ukraine as a senator in 2005 that I want to share with you. At least, hilarious to anyone who's been in Ukraine for any length of time... (I should also mention that a meal he had in Russia consisted of borscht, vodka, potato stew, and a "deeply troubling fish Jell-O mold." I didn't know that kholodets had a fish version...)

And in a quiet, residential neighborhood of Kiev, we received a tour of the Ukraine's version of the Centers for Disease Control, a modest three-story facility that looked like a high school science lab. At one point during our tour, after seeing windows open for lack of air-conditioning and metal strips crudely bolted to door jambs to keep out mice, we were guided to a small freezer secured by nothing more than a seal of string. A middle-aged woman in a lab coat and surgical mask pulled a few test tubes from the freezer, waving them around a foot from my face and saying something in Ukrainian.

"That is anthrax," the translator explained, pointing to the vial in the woman's right hand. "That one," he said, pointing to the one in the left hand, "is the plague."

I looked behind me and noticed Lugar [another senator] standing toward the back of the room.

"You don't want a closer look, Dick?" I asked, taking a few steps back myself.

"Been there, done that," he said with a smile.

theology in the classroom

My best quote from subbing this week is sort of an inverse of last week's "churchy" comment, and comes from one of my Quiz Bowl kids, a freshman who is reminiscent of Oleh Yukhymets in several ways, not least being the ability to know what buttons to push to drive me crazy quickly.

I was subbing for a science class on Wednesday, when I had to get after the student in question for reading when he was supposed to be doing something else (yes, Pot, meet Kettle). I confiscated his book, and was reading my own book, when he complained that it wasn't fair that I got to read when he didn't.

"Your job is to do your review sheet," I said. "My job is to make sure that you do that."

"Our job," he said, "is to praise the Almighty."

*snort*

And how could I argue with that?

Never a dull moment, subbing...

flannery o'connor quote

In honor of Flannery O'Connor's birthday (thank you, Writer's Almanac on NPR), a quote from one of her letters that Professor Dorr read to my Religion in American Literature class during my undergrad days.

Flannery O’Connor to Alfred Corn, May 30, 1962:

"As a freshman in college you are bombarded with new ideas, or rather pieces of ideas, new frames of reference, an activation of the intellectual life which is only beginning, but which is already running ahead of your lived experience. After a year of this, you think you cannot believe. You are just beginning to realize how difficult it is to have faith and the measure of a commitment to it, but you are too young to decide you don’t have faith just because you feel you can’t believe. About the only way we know whether we believe or not is by what we do, and I think from your letter that you will not take the path of least resistance in this matter and simply decide that you have lost your faith and that there is nothing you can do about it. […] If you want your faith, you have to work for it. […] For every book you read that is anti-Christian, make it your business to read one that presents the other side of the picture. […] Don’t think that you have to abandon reason to be a Christian. […] To find out about faith, you have to go to the people who have it and you have to go to the most intelligent ones if you are going to stand up intellectually to agnostics and the general run of pagans that you are going to find in the majority of people around you. […] Even in the life of a Christian, faith rises and falls like the tides of an invisible sea. It’s there, even when he can’t see it or feel it, if he wants it to be there. You realize, I think, that it is more valuable, more mysterious, altogether more immense than anything you can learn or decide upon in college. Learn what you can, but cultivate Christian skepticism. It will keep you free—not free to do anything you please, but free to be formed by something larger than your own intellect or the intellects of those around you."

churchy?

Latest story from Sal's days as a substitute teacher:

Today, I subbed for a high school math teacher. First hour was a class full of students who were all taking Algebra 1. For the second time. So they were rather less than enthused about the subject, and I had to keep getting after them.

Fifteen minutes or so into class, one girl in the front row pipes up, "Do you go to church?"

Me, bewildered: "Yes, why?"

Girl, snottily: "You seem like one of those really churchy people."

Me: ...

Still not sure if it was the cross necklace or the request for polite behavior that did it.

It makes me sad, though, that she associated Christianity with someone telling her to behave. I just finished reading unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons (they're connected to Barna, a group which researches issues connected to Christianity), which talks about some of the assumptions that nonChristians in their teens and twenties think about Christians--that they're judgmental, anti-homosexual, hypocritical, too political and sheltered, among other things. Some of this is because that the Christian message is, in fact, difficult to accept (sin and things like that are never popular), but more of it is because as Christians, we really are acting this way a lot of the time. The book really made me think about how I come across to people, and I would hope that people wouldn't associate those characteristics with me.

So it makes me sad that this girl probably looked at me and thought, "Oh, another one of those Christians" today.

decision made

Well, today was one of those days where I didn't know whether to be encouraged or discouraged at various points, but it ended well.

Quiz Bowl practice was fun...I'm coaching the varsity team this weekend at a tournament at MSU. I think they're not going to do stupendously well, but they're quite excited about going, between getting to play Quiz Bowl, dress up (it's all girls, so we decided to go dressy as opposed to wearing the team shirts), and get ice cream at Coldstone Creamery (I suggested that they actually eat lunch as well, but they haven't sounded as excited about that).

Then I came home and called 41 different school districts about their summer migrant education programs. Two said that they'd send me applications for a paraprofessional position (thanks to No Child Left Behind, I'm not qualified for a teaching position due to lack of certification, even though I have teaching experience). Several more said that they don't know what their funding's going to look like for the summer, but I can call back in April. Quite a few more said that they either wouldn't have openings or didn't have a summer program. And I left a lot of phone messages for people. It was not an encouraging afternoon, except that I was able to cross a lot of options off my "Plans for Summer" list.

But then I checked my email and found out that I've officially been offered a research assistantship for MSU this fall, 10 hours a week for a professor who wants me to transcribe data in Ukrainian and 10 hours a week for another prof as of yet to be determined. It'll cover tuition, plus a stipend. So I finally made up my mind...I'm going to be a Spartan again! I'm excited; the pieces have really fallen into place here.

subbing and shoes

Subbed two days for high school English this week. It was better than science because 1) we watched a movie with a plot (granted, it was Signs, which I was not all that impressed with, but it was at least a plot), and 2) the classes that didn't watch a movie were working in the library, so I could read books. However, I had my first student use profanity while talking to me. Not swearing at me, per se, but using profanity to describe the project she was working on.

Me: Excuse me, but that language isn't necessary.
Student: Well, you don't have to be snotty about it.

I left her teacher a lovely note. Also, I described one student as "goodnaturedly unproductive." He thought that was a good phrase for me to use.

Tonight one of the women from church who's about my age had a bunch of people--family members, friends, and church women--over for a clothes and accessories swap. Unfortunately, most people had brought clothes that weren't my size, but I still did pretty well. I got two summer tops, a pair of earrings, a really pretty cross necklace (blue stones and sterling silver), and three pairs of shoes. The shoes made me pretty thrilled, which amuses me, as I never used to be a shoe person (and I'm still not, for the most part). I have a pair of black clogs, a pair of brown clogs, and a pair of clunky brown leather lace-up shoes that I'm quite pleased with.

Frank McCourt, Jesse Stuart, and Me

I spent three days this week subbing for a science teacher at the high school I graduated from. It was three days of showing videos five class periods a day, often the same videos for each class. I read a lot of books this week. I also found out the difference between light and dark meat.

Random thoughts from the week:

1. I felt a repeated urge to give many of the boys I taught haircuts. I'm sorry, but the long, shaggy look is not one I particularly care for.
2. It really bothers me to hear the kids say, "Oh, I don't have a big vocabulary. I'm from Lakeview," as if being from Lakeview is an excuse for ignorance. I replied, "Well, I'm also from Lakeview," and they mumbled something about being slackers. Aargh. No, we don't have the best economic situation. No, we don't have all the resources that larger, "better" schools have. But that's no excuse. You can't blame your lack of motivation simply on your location or your resources.
3. I didn't realize how much I enjoy coaching my Quiz Bowl kids until I subbed at the high school level. Part of it is yes, that they are more academic in nature. Another part of it is that, unlike subbing for younger grades, teens are more stand-offish with a sub, and therefore it's a lot harder to connect with the kids I was subbing for than it's been with elementary-age kids, who mostly interact with subs pretty well, or with my Quiz Bowlers, who know me.

Two of the (many) books I read this week were Frank McCourt's memoir Teacher Man, which chronicles his teaching career in New York City during the latter part of the 20th century, and Jesse Stuart's The Thread That Runs So True, about his years as a teacher and administrator in rural Kentucky during the '20s and '30s. Both were good reads and gave me hope that it is possible to teach high schoolers effectively, even though that's not necessarily the easiest age group for me to work with. What really stuck out to me in both of them is that to reach high schoolers (or any age group), you have to be creative, rather than hum-drum. That may sound obvious, but I recommend both books as ways of showing how to be creative effectively.

That's the problem with subbing. There is no way to show 15 class periods of videos effectively!

nadiya yea (there is hope)

I'm posting from my house!!! The roads were icy today and I didn't really feel like driving into town to use the library (which may or may not be open) to email in my newspaper article, so after much trial and error, Dad and I managed to hook my laptop up to our dial-up connection. It's not the fastest connection, but it's faster on my computer than my parents', and I can access Blogger and don't have to deal with flash drives.

In other news, I'm tired of winter, have been rearranging my room a bit, don't know what I'm doing or where I'm living this summer (but it's probably not here, as my primary source of income around here ends when school gets out, and I'd relocate sooner if I found something better), and there's a chance that if I go to MSU this fall, I could get a job transcribing data in Ukrainian for a professor in the department I'd be in.