More learn'n

Do you know who the Iron-Jawed Angels were?
How about the first east coast state to allow women to vote?
Do you know all the Beatles names and albums? (High school students don't.)
Ever heard of the Oregon newspaper The New Northwest? It was edited by a woman named Abigail Scott Dunniway who was a suffragist. Her brother started the Oregonian...he was opposed to women suffrage and made it known in his paper.
By the way, why the term suffrage? Anyone???

What's the difference

What's a pandemic verses an epidemic? Easy maybe for those of you who remember your prefixes. Pan relating to "world" and epi relating to "cover"...but what does that mean regarding these two words? All important now that the swine flu, according to the media, is called a pandemic and is going to kill us all. Apparently an epidemic is relating to a specific region whereas a pandemic is worldwide. So, in my book, that means people should stop calling AIDS an epidemic. Right?

Mark Twain on Women Voting

From a letter to the St. Louis Missouri Democrat, March 1867

"I think I could write a pretty strong arguement in favor of female sufrage, but I do not want to do it. I never want to see the women voting, and gabbling about politics, and electioneering. There is something revolting about the thought. It would shock me inexpressibly for an angel to come down from above and ask me to take a drink with him (though I should doubtless consent); but it would shock me still more to see one of our blessed earthly angels peddling election tickets among a mob of shabby scoundrels she never saw before."

I wonder what his thoughts would be now...

Back to High School

At some point after finishing high school I realized that even though I enjoyed high school I never wanted to go back. The further away high school days become the more thankful I am that I'm not there anymore. Except, the deal is, I am there. For the past three years my employment has been as an instructional assistant which has afforded the flexibility I need while going to grad school. I work all over the district but mainly enjoy the middle schools and high school positions. This spring I took a long term job the requires accompanying a student to his classes. I sit through music history, women's history, and senior health. So far this experience has been amazing. First, it has reconfirmed that I am so glad not to be in high school! The emotional drama radiates through the halls. Second, I want to take high school classes again. Sound like a contradiction? Maybe, but I don't think so. I didn't value what I was learning while in hs. Now I think the teachers are fantastic and are filled with great information. For example, the music history teacher talks without notes. He rattles off names and dates and songs of rock, blues, folk, jazz...with passion without looking at anything to remind him. Students just sit there. I'm jumping up and down inside with how fantastic the info is. For example, did you know that the Beatles in 1964 had all five of the top billboard songs? That has never been repeated. Or that between 1/3 and 1/2 of TV's in America were tuned into Ed Sullivan to watch them play during the same time period?
Or take women's history. For some reason it finally hit me how amazing my lifetime is for women. Less than 100 years ago women didn't vote and couldn't own property. I hadn't noted how women's rights movements have followed civil rights. Maybe for some of you this is obvious but for me, it's little tidbits of info that I haven't really pondered.
Then there is senior health. I remember it was so boring. It hasn't changed...still rather boring and easy. But I have been learning. We studied first aid...always good to review. Now we are finishing STD's. Do you know the two main (may be more that we didn't look at) STD's that can be transmitted without sexual contact? Yea...look that up. Makes me more grossed out to stay in hotels, that's for sure!
Overall, I think this is the best way to go to high school. Being 30 with life experience to actually have a meaningful context to put the information in has been so much better. I only wish I could ask questions...but that would be too weird. I can't look like I'm interested right?! What would the students think of me? =)

Going to market to buy a fat pig...

We have been trying to eat fewer store-bought, refined foods with lots of chemicals in them. Not to any great extreme however. I refuse to give up Umpqua ice cream or diet coke so I know I will never be one of those who grows everything myself. I just want to think about what goes in my mouth first. So, if I decide that yes, I really do feel like I'll should take some Yellow #5 into my system today because it comes in the ice cream I'm craving, so be it. At least I know. I HAVE moved over to making all my own bread. It tastes far better anyway. I stick to store flour, not organic and I don't think we will ever grind our own. If we have 10 or so kids then maybe. Anyway, the point here is that we have a friend that raises pigs. We bought a half and are going to the butcher today to determine how we want it cut. We've never done this before with a pig. It seems to be a good thing to get closer to our food than a package on the shelf, to recognize the sacrifice of an animal life to feed us. Hopefully it will help us be more aware of what and how we eat.
I should probably get it tested for MRSA too, eh? Which reminds me of another story about Mad Cow and giving blood. I'll have to put that one up sometime.

old pictures

I've been going through pictures on my moms computer of the last five years. It's amazing how many more pictures people take with digital than with film. My mom takes thousands of pictures. Other than being very overwhelming to sort through it is a great thing to go back and remember all these events I had forgotten. I'll put up a few good ones.

So, after getting really busy last year and not posting anything for months, I managed to delete our internet program. Well, not exactly but it stopped working. Long story. The impact was to no longer have access to saved bookmarks and passwords which, in relation to this blog, meant an even greater excuse not to write (because it would take SO much more time to figure them out). Lame, yes. But it doesn't really fit with our lifestyle anyway. We were attempting to find a way to communicate with family and friends all that is going on in our lives. The problem is that we don't have that many amazing things going on and little time to come up with witty or deep things to say. We discovered an amazingly great thing...FACEBOOK fits perfectly! Short, to the point, wide variety of people to reconnect with, and you can say a lot or nothing. Not much self expression. Perfect for us. That means I have more time for other creative activities, like gardening, and writing papers, and remodeling a home. Since the last post we gutted our bathroom (yes, our only one. We made frequent trips to my parents!) I finished my second year in the counseling program. This fall we decided that instead of finishing the program by doing an internship that we would wait until next fall (09) and move to portland. Joe will finish his masters and I will finish mine. Then, who knows where we will go. It's been a bit stressful to think of moving, getting internships and school set up and applying for scholarships along with the usual daily activities.
So there's an update for the last year. Join us on facebook or check every few months and you might find something. Maybe a random surprise note!

Do you want some ketchup or mustard with that?

We had some interesting visitors tonight. One was a 2 and a half foot tall monkey holding a pumpkin. We had an few angels, a butterfly, pirates, some nondescript gargoyle-ish creatures, and a member of the star wars groupies with a really cool light saber that made crashing noises when it hit things. About 9pm, way too late for little kids to be out, we got a knock at our door. Opening it up we found ketchup, mustard, and a pregnant nun (escorted by two others...apparently not well enough, considering the nun). Puma wasn't too sure what to think of them either!
Don't you all have a calculus test tomorrow????

New Arbor

It's difficult to find time to finish projects when the list is really long of items demanding attention but we finally finished putting in an arbor in our front yard. It's holding a Jasmine plant. Originally the plant was under the window but I had misread the growth rate (20 feet not 20 inches...oops!) so we needed to move it. People who know things about plants roll their eyes and smile when they here I thought the Jasmine was going to be small but the picture did make it look that way and I don't know much about plants. Learning by trial and error I guess. Anyway, now it's found a new home and can grow as big as it wants.

Toketee Falls