Boys and bugs

The picture says it all.......

Racing....well, running again

Though I will not be running another marathon till my running partner is able to run with me, I have been running and recently ran two races. One was the Broad Street run in Philly - a great 10 mile race that goes downhill almost the entire length. I didn't run as well as I did last year, about 6 minutes slower. Also, my husband, who isn't really a long distance runner, beat me by 2 minutes!!!!! And, with this race,you have to take the subway to get to the start (it is a point to point course). Of course, we get on a local train that takes almost an hour to get to the start. We didn't get to the starting line until 15 minutes after the race began! Still it was a great run and I will do it again next year (and will not let my husband beat me either!!!).





This past weekend, we ran the Hero Scholarship run for the Philly Fire and Police Departments. It is to provide college scholarships to children's whose parent was killed in the line of duty. We have run this race a number of times before. I redeemed myself with this race, as I won my age division!!!







Okay, so there were only about 20 women and 10 of them walked and 6 of them were under 40.........

Jazzy Trumpet

Randy Jr had his school concert this week. As he gets oder, the concerts get more interesting and entertaining. Having sat through years of squeaking clarinets and off-beat drummers, it is a relief to hear music that actually sound like music!

His school is Pre-k to 12 so the 7th - 12th grades have their concerts together.
both groups sound almost flawless!! Randy is in the concert and Jazz bands, and they sound very good. He has gone to some band competitions this year as well, and I think he actually likes playing. If I can ever figure out how to upload video or audio, I will upload some of his music for your listening pleasure!

Happy Mother's Day - a little late

Happy Belated Mother's Day to all!

Just thought I would share what we were doing on Mother's Day weekend.......

Summer Math Fun

Well, after venting about having to teach writing and having to grade so much writing, I do have some good news. I have put together a summer workshop on math. I am excited about it because I created it from scratch - created the course and brochure, set up a website (well, with some help), done the mailings to school districts , and the best part, I reap all the monetary benefits! I am very excited and have already sign ups after the first week!

Why I never wanted to teach writing

Having a PhD was supposed to mean, at least I thought was supposed to mean, focusing your life's work and career on something vitally important to you. I chose mathematics education - I love teaching math and helping others learn how to teach math more interactively and thoughtfully. However, in my role at Lehigh University, I have yet to be able to do that. Instead, what do I get to teach? Writing and Reading.

When I first left elementary school to move to teach in the middle school, I had to make a choice about what I wanted to teach. My list looked something like this:

1. Math
2. Literature
3. Social Studies
4. Science
.
.
.
.
.
.
100. Writing

I hated grading papers, reading and re-reading students work.....I don't know how you English teachers do it! But here I am, after spending 12 years perfecting mathematics teaching, after getting my PhD in mathematics, up to my eyeballs in papers (and up to my virtual eyeballs in emailed papers as well!!!!!).




This picture only shows two of my classes. I have another 15 papers online, 17 drafts of research projects, and 17 action research projects which haven't even been collected yet!

I think next semester I will teach how to read a math book and how to write math problems!

Running Motivation

I have had some trouble finding the Nike shoes that I have been running in for 14 years. Finally, I found them again online and they didn't cost $120 like normal!

However, with these shoes, I can't run slow in the back of the pack!

Zumba update

We have a new Zumba dancer.......

Easter service

Though Easter has passed a few weeks ago, I wanted to share the work we did for the children of our church and a neighboring church. We have an Easter Egg hunt each year for the children. There are a lot of kids, so we need a lot of eggs. We volunteered to help stuff the eggs with candy. I can't even tell you the shock on my face when I arrived and saw the very large tubs of unfilled Easter eggs waiting to be filled.




(sorry the pictures are blurry)

In the end, though, it was all worth it. The kids were so excited about getting the eggs. Though Champ was too old to participate in the hunt, we did get a bonus: any candy that was too big to fit in an egg we got to keep and eat!

Softball necessities

I just thought it would be interesting to show the necessities of my husband's morning softball league:

Randy is 13!!!

My son has turned 13 - he is officially a teenager! Now, Cari, I know you have your hands full now with your young children, but I think when they become teenagers, well, I can only imagine what your wine bill will be!!!!

He had a pretty good birthday - he ate out with his grandparents and best friends(once for lunch and once for dinner), he got to skip school for the day (and don't get me started on how much I was against that!!!!!!!), and we did a "While you were out" with his bedroom; updating it from child to teen.
The before shot:


He also took his first flight lesson:




They flew to New York City:


Then, flew over our house!


Then on Saturday, we had a combination party - an end of the season basketball party for the Lakers and birthday party for Champ and another boy on the team. They ate all the food like they were starving children, screamed like girls(very high pitched) when playing laser tag, and broke all the bowling lanes. I had forgotten what it's like to be with a bunch of middle school boys!






All in all, a very cool birthday!

What a week!

Wow! A lot has happened since I last had a chance to post. I am going to do a summary of the last two weeks through pictures.

Lakers - they lost ----- badly! I had hoped they would call me in Vegas and say they had pulled an upset but they got blown out like 40 - 17 or something.


Vegas - I can see how you can have a great time in Vegas (and spend a whole lot of money!). However, I was not as overwhelmed by the place as I thought I might be. It reminded me of a big Niagara Falls - full of fun and glitz. I would not bring my son there - even with all the rides - just the fact that people are handing out those nude girls cards every 5 feet is enough to stop me. I do want to go back though - for an adult fun-filled trip!

We stayed at Circus Circus - very inexpensive and nice rooms (in the Tower section).




Interesting grass - When I first saw it I was amazed at how perfect it was. But as I looked closer, that's when I realized it was astro turf!


The Strip from the top of the Stratosphere.


Dancing Fountain at the Bellagio. We went in to say we were there - unbelievable in there and drinks were $11!



Our presentation went well - though we didn't talk about our research as much as we talked about what a smartboard was and can do!




Blackout - Saturday we had terrible storms come through our area. The temperature dropped from 65 to 25 in a matter of hours. The wind was fierce and knocked down trees everywhere. A tree knocked out our power for almost two days - Saturday evening till Monday morning. But it also allowed us to play games in front of the fireplace and all sit in the same room without distractions! A nice family bonding time.



Zumba - My sister has taken up a new hobby. She is learning to be a Zumba instructor. Zumba is latin dance exercise. It is pretty fun and you do use a lot of muscles. We have been her dancing guinea pigs!

Playoff Victory!

The Randy's Lakers won their first playoff game! It was very intense; they were down 8 -10 points until the very end of the third quarter. As usual, there was some controversy.

As any of you who have children in township sports know, some parent coaches can be over exuberant and want to win at any cost. I am generally the stat keeper for the games - keeping scores, fouls, etc. for both teams. Saturday as I went to take my regular spot, a father from the opposing team was already there. I asked him if he had all the names of our players and he said that he had the ones that were there. I told him - all of our players will be here, do you need help filling the rest in? He looked at me funny, and said, no we'll wait and see. I thought to myself - It's the payoffs! why wouldn't our players show up? Well, as I sat down, he informed me that three of their players were not coming. Another parent overheard him and said to him, why not? it's the playoffs? what kid would miss that? I was thinking the same thing....

After the game, a spectator came up to my husband and said to him, 90% of the gym was routing for your team to win because many people heard that the other coach intentionally did not tell some of his players about the game. So all that showed up were his best players. Now that might seem somewhat unimportant in real basketball, but in this league, every player must play 2 full quarters and cannot sit out 2 quarters in a row. With 8 players on a team, you will always have weaker players in the game. If you only have 6 players, then you can keep in your best players for the entire game - which is what this team did. But in the end, it wasn't enough.

The next game is on Thursday night and they are playing the number 1 team in the league (because the Lakers were the number 6 seed out of 7!!). I will be flying home from Vegas, and will be thinking about it the whole way!

Tresses for Success

That is the name of my niece Keiko's website, I think. She has a new job working in a salon and is trying to get some clients. Her website isn't finished, yet, but keep checking my links; when it is done, I will post it.

She does great work; she is in charge of my cousin Gayle's hair for her wedding (and mine too though she doesn't know it yet!).

Monster Truck madness

There is little to say in this post - I have to admit that we took Champ and his friends to the Monster Truck show last week. Though the motor-cross riders were exceptionally interesting,the real highlight was the fact that we got to sit in a club suite!

Falling down

Okay, I really think it is time for me to give up running. Again, I was outside running and fell down. Face first, but at least this time I did not try to save myself by using my legs - which always causes some leg problem. I guess I will have to take up walking.

The Lakers

The Randy's basketball team is now 5-6. They are done with the regular season and after a week off with practice, the playoffs will start. If they win their first playoff game, I will miss their second on as I will be in Vegas!

An interesting coaching dilemma came up for big Randy. This past Thursday was the last regular season game. There is a girl on the team, not a particularly athletic girl. She hasn't scored all year and they always have to run special plays just to get her to touch the ball. Randy wanted to give her a chance to score in this final game, as she has played in this league for 2 years without ever scoring. So he decided to play her for the entire game until she scored. Not only that, but he had the whole team talk about it and agree to feed her the ball until she scored. Meaning, they weren't going to score many points in the game and most likely get blown out by the other team.

I was against it - being for equal opportunity and not favoritism - but he did it anyway. The team seemed to be fine with it and rallied around her to try and get her a point. At first, I don't think it was obvious to the other team what was going on. Eventually they found out (how is another story that really pissed me off, but I'll not air that dirty laundry right now (and it wasn't my husband that did it)). She finally scored in the middle of the 3rd quarter and the gym went crazy for her. Though I was still not quite sure it was the best thing to do, but her parents were very happy. And she asked to be on my husband's team again next year.

Once she scored, the rest of the team went back into action. They didn't win, but at least they didn't seem down or depressed by it. I can't wait to see them in the playoffs!

The cost of poverty

This weekend my husband and I spent a few hours helping a friend renovate a house for his new tenants. The house is in good shape, even though it is located in a housing project. As we worked, we talked about the problems in our society about the accumulation of wealth through housing. In poor African American neighborhoods, owning a home has benefits, but the benefit of building wealth is not present. Houses purchased 40 years ago in these neighborhoods may have cost between $10,000 and $15000 and are now only worth $50,000 or $60,000 - and this is only true sometimes - you can purchase these house for $25000 or $35000 now. In downtown areas, similar houses go for $350000 to $1 million.

But on the other hand, we also talked about the problems of having houses in high crime areas. As we worked, we had drug dealers walking through the yard of the house. How much money do you put into these house, knowing that the tenants may or may not keep it up? In the end, we did what we could - putting up new blinds, cleaning rugs, fixing fences.

we even put up curtains -



- okay, these really aren't curtains. They were left over shower curtains that we cut up to cover the edges of the windows because the blinds in the middle (which are the stick on kind) really didn't fit and left a 4 inch gap on the sides. I did the best I could to make them look as nice as I could.

The cost of poverty.....

Vegas - here we come!

I have been involved with a research study about using a SMARTboard with teachers while teaching math. If you don't know, a SMARTboard is a large whiteboard-type computer screen. You can write on it with special pens, use virtual tools like blocks, dice, videos, that can be touched and moved. It is great to use in classrooms because it is easy to see, allows you to use many different tools and things to present information, you can allow students to share their ideas and solutions, and demonstrate actions and ideas with virtual tools.



One of the teachers in the study is working with me to present our research at a Technology conference in Las Vegas. We are excited, but wary. Our presentation is during the poster session; we create a large (4 ft by 6 ft) poster that describes our work and we stand with it and answer questions about the project. We are wary because the poster session will be held during the social wine and cheese time of the conference. So for an hour and a half, we will be explaining all our hard work to tipsy conferencers!

Let's just hope that the wine makes them more cordial and friendly and they think our work is so very interesting!

Basketball Ups and Downs

It has been a while since I have blogged, sorry about that.

Well, the Randy's team is now 4-5. They look like a very good team while they are playing even when they lose. They don't give up - they play hard to the very end.

I don't get to take pictures because I usually keep the stats for both teams during the game. I hope to get some pictures from the game this coming Wednesday.

Check back then!

Uh-Oh!

The Randy's basketball team is now 3-3. They have lost fairly badly in the last three games.
They have off for a week, and had a practice on Monday. Saturday is their next game, so maybe they can turn things around.

One can only hope!

Getting old

You know, all the advice out there to stay healthy and exercise is a crock. I exercise more than anyone I know, I watch what I eat (right down to counting EVERY calorie I put in my body), and what do I get? Sprains, tears, colds, you name it. I pulled or tore my right calf two weeks ago dancing in church. I couldn't walk for three days and then it was sore for 3 more. I am finally going back out today to try and run 2 or 3 very slow miles. Luckily, I am not in training for any races right now.

Now, if I wasn't so active, maybe I wouldn't hurt myself, but I would be more overweight, probably borderline diabetic, and everything else. It seems like I can't win!

Well, out I go - the wind is blowing at about 30-40 mph right now and the temperature has dropped to 35 degrees. The price of health!

A bonfire to burn my running clothes!

A New Wave Monster Movie

I don't post much, partly because I don't take many pictures during the week (even with my iphone with me all the time). But I get around to it on the weekends.

Last weekend we went to see the movie, "Cloverfield". If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil its great moments. But it is an innovative movie that actually allows you to be a part of the action. The movie is shot from a handheld video camera and you get to see what regular people might do if a monster was attacking their city/town. For the most part, I would have reacted just the way the actor in the movie did - running, screaming, totally nuts! If the Godzilla movies had been told from the eyewitness point of view, they might have been completely terrifying and still on the video market.

Having been a life long fan of the Japanese Godzilla movies, I hate to say it but move over Godzilla, there's a new monster in town!

Stumble!

Well, the Randy's basketball team finally lost a game. They are now 3 - 1. We think they lost because it is hard for middle school boys to get up so early on Saturday!

A Blessing

I have written before about the Dance Ministry in my church - we are called the Tribe of Judah. Our church had a Praise Bowl this week - a Praise Bowl as we define it is thanking God for all He has done in 2007 and claiming the things He will do for us in 2008. Our dance ministry danced along with 4 choirs, a puppet show and 2 other dance ministries. The highlight of the evening was another praise group called the Circle of Love. They are a dance ministry with the youngest member being 54 years old! The ages range from 54 (and she is the director of the group) to 96!!!!!! Whenever our dance ministry has practice and a member complains about not being able to do a move or something being too hard, we say to them, "96!"

You are never too old to praise the Lord!

A New Semester

Being a teacher educator has its pros and cons. I love the freedom to pick and create the course I teach and seeing new teachers begin their journey toward becoming professionals. I love the freedom to make my own schedule and choose what I want to do and when. I also like meetings - funny, huh? Some days that is the work of the day - attend meetings and make plans for future.

What I don't like about it is you are always responsible for everything - even if you don't know or feel that you are responsible! I am finally learning not to leave anything to chance and make sure I find out all the info I need (such as making sure all my students have all their paperwork in order and turned in). And though I lie having the freedom to make my own choices, sometimes that is a burden particularly when it comes to being aggressive in getting additional consulting work or extra funding. Which brings me to my final dislike - the money. I do understand that as a professor you are not working a 9-5 job, and that is great. But, come on! Having a PhD should count for something!!

I am pretty loaded with work this semester - I am working with 5 intern teachers (all math interns which is great!), I have 20 students in a new introduction to education class, 12 students in Children's Literature (which believe it or not I like teaching), and the seminar for student intern teachers to prepare them to complete an action research project before the end of the semester. So it should be very interesting - I hope to make it through unscathed and learn the names of all my students!

Rolling along!

Well, the LS Lakers won their second basketball game on Saturday. It was a nail biter right down to the last few seconds! The team was dong fairly well, with both teams almost even at the end of the half. But in the 3rd quarter, well, let's just say the team had some scoring issues - like being down 11 points by the end of the 3rd quarter!! Since these games rarely go over 40 points, we thought we were done. But those kids wanted to win, and win they did!! They came back and won by 3: 35 - 32!

This just goes to show you that kids can overcome many obstacles if we only tell them they can and let them try!!!!

Basketball 2008

Basketball season has begun. Last night the Randy's team won their first game 21-20. What a close one! They have another game on Saturday - we can only hope that their defensive play keeps them in the game! Champ is #8 - getting ready to defend!

The Eiffel Tower Saga

We finally started working in the Eiffel Tower. And of course nothing is going smoothly. I originally tried to count how many steps there were. The book lists about 150. then we realized that each group of steps is repeated! So there are 300 steps to complete for this thing!
(sorry the pictures aren't so clear. don't know what happened with the camera)

We had gotten to step 30 the second time and put the work away for the night. the next day while I was getting ready to take the dog out for a walk, I knocked our camera bag over onto the Tower. The entire thing collasped! I had to rebuild it all over!


This is the Tower with the first 60 steps - the second time!!


More trouble - if you look carefully at the picture, you may notice that one of the sections is not complete. that is because there were missing pieces from the box! and the missing piece are not your standard everyday LEGO pieces, no that would be too easy. They are specially shaped ones in particular colors. We were able to find a few of the missing pieces from some other LEGO projects. But the pieces here we don't have. I have to get up to the LEGO store in NJ to see if I can find them. We can't continue building until we get the missing piece. Cari, can you help???