Deep in the Heart...(clap clap clap) of Texas

Thankful?

2009-12-11T17:42:00.000-08:00

Today I had a conference out in Flushing Queens so I had to ride the train there for over and hour. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection on the window and it hit me like an MTA bus…I have become a New Yorker!!! There I stood with my black shoes, black pants, black wool coat, black scarf, white iphone headphones playing the podcast of This American Life, holding a thermos cup with tea (Tazo Cinnamon Spice EXCELLENT) standing in the moving train, close to but not touching the pole and staring expressionless ahead, oblivious to the 100 people all around me. After almost hyperventilating at the prospect of being a New Yorker, I realized that my relationship with New York City has been pretty good lately, what with it being Christmas and all and the city has put on her sparkly Christmas dress while the freezing temperatures mask the smell.

A friend of mine, actually Cristi’s brother in law, has been in charge of the Organ at Radio City Music Hall since his dad retired from the position.

So he got me and a friend of mine tickets to the opening night of the Rockette’s Christmas Spectacular. I had never seen the Rockettes perform and was mesmerized from beginning to end. The coolest part though was at the very end they do a live nativity complete with Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. It was so strange to see something religious on a stage in NYC. I was thrilled that they do that. Then Rich and Ronnie, took us on a backstage tour where I was able to do the can can on the stage of Radio City Music Hall! Hooray! Then we went to the cast party and mingled with the Rockette’s who are all very proud of their legs and decided to wear the smallest cocktail dresses possible.

Thanksgiving was lots of fun. My roommate Holly and I headed down to Time Square to see the balloons in the parade. It was pretty warm out and fun to be with thousands of people cheering for cartoon characters.

I have done it a few times and I liked the location in Times Square because it looks like the balloons are coming straight for you with a menacing fist in the air.

We went back home and I gave moral support while my roommates cooked TONS of food.

Then I ran up to Broadway, hailed a cab and brought it down to our house so that we could transport our Thanksgiving Feast (turkey, gravy, sweet potato casserole, 3 pies etc ) up to our friends house where she had 20 people invited for the night.

It was a blast, good food and great people. As has become my tradition, we took a walk between feast and pies. This year we walked up to the Cloisters (a museum affiliated with the Met). Gorgeous warm night! I am thankful for good friends, family, and to live in a city that keeps life interesting.

Bakersfield, CA: tourist attraction?

2009-11-11T16:06:00.001-08:00

So it has come to my attention that I am a less than faithful blogger. I can’t say that I am all that moved, but after all the adorable Halloween posts of the nieces and nephews I thought I should slap some pictures of my own up.

First I can’t possibly overlook the one week in its entire history when Bakersfield became a tourist attraction. It boasted one tourist…Cristi Johnson. She came all the way from NYC to walk “the streets of Bakersfield.”

And walk them we did. The highlight reel of the week included sleeping under the (glow in the dark plastic) stars (on the ceiling) in the cowboy room with the awesome bed, being schooled in swimming by the Skinner fish, visiting the center of Bakersfield culture at the Crystal Palace where we were able to pay homage to the statue of Buck himself, visiting Dad’s power plant. (this was actually fascinating, I had no idea what a beast of an operation it is, it was also fun to see all the people over there treat Dad like a very big deal. I am sure he is grateful to those who saved him from getting a big head by providing a bit of a balancing environment at home.

We went to the Kern County Museum and had a blast exploring Bakersfield's old houses and oil industry.

Bryce took us rock climbing up in the canyon

we visited Edwards Cinema (because when we looked at all the guidebooks it was mentioned as one of the top three attractions).

we went to see the famous Bakersfield High School

Being the New Yorkers and world travelers that we are, Cristi and I know that in every great tourist town you can find a great walking tour of the Homes of the Noteworthy and Influential, I am glad to say, Bakersfield was no exception. This walking tour was guided by none other than Dad and his trusty rat on a leash. Fitting guides for Bakersfield I would say. He made sure that we got a long look at all the hot spots in Bakersfield. Cristi was noteably excited throughout. Here we passed the Stake President’s house who reportedly has NINE daughters and one son.

On this block there was a time when three mormon families shared the same Culdesac! (Parkers, Thomas and Mandelaires)

Here is the Eastdumfries house which was the scene of an evening of babysitting by two teenage boys. (David Morgan and Derrick Hayes)

The current Relief Society President’s House. Don't be fooled by our guide's expression, he was doubtful of the sincerity of our excitement but his spirits were soon roused at the prospect of passing the famous Dennis Hayes' house.

Laurelglen Elementary. Nine Allred children graced its halls.

Dad’s new ankle socks were noticed and appreciated by the tourist.

And now without further ado....the famous Dennis Hayes' house. According to our guide this is pretty much the Mecca of the Bakersfield walking tour.

Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we passed the Starkeys! Need I say more.

This is the home of the Fordhams who had the honor of being Home Taught by Roger Allred for 20 years (hence the 2 and 0 hand signs)

and this is the home of the current hometeaching family

and here is the former home of the Ross McClintock who had the honor of attending the walking tour back when it was a running tour several times a week for 15 years.
The Selkirk house. The Allred family lived here in the early 1980's and it was here where Jessica received a Glow Worm on Christmas morning when all her 3 older sisters received Cabbage Patch dolls. The fit she threw earned her a cabbage patch doll and led to her mother giving the glow worm to her cousin Melody at which point Jessica thought "Sucka!!!"

The famous Becca Petersen's house. She is nothing short of legendary.
Score!!! He found a half-used roll of electric tape!

This car passed through the hands of three Allred children before being sold to the neighbor and is occasionaly mistakenly referred to as the "Mistake" instead of the Mystique.
After all the excitement of the walking tour, a fully clothed dip in the pool seemed only fitting.
The evidence is here, you decide, is Bakersfield a tourist attraction or not? I submit that it very well could be.

Some Pictures on my Camera

2009-06-14T19:44:00.000-07:00

So I realized that I had some pictures of things that I have done that I never posted on my blog. I thought you might be interested to see some of the things happening. Now please realize that I NEVER take pictures of many of the things that I do because I don't have any people to take pictures of and I hate the self portraits when you hold the camera yourself. So you get pictures of scenery, strangers or nothing.

This is the view from my front porch on the first snow day for NYC public schools in 10 years!! Cristi and I were so thrilled you would think we won the lottery, but one free day with no kids is JUST as good!

The day after my birthday, three friends and I went on a 50 mile bike ride through the Pennsylvania Dutch country. It was exactly what I wanted for my birthday, beautiful sunny weather, three of my favorite people and being just about as far from NYC as possible (culturally speaking)
The wide open spaces are probably not a big deal to you but to a New Yorker who is not meant to be a New Yorker, it is enough to make you cry and giggle simultaneously. Which I did until I came to a big hill which kicked the giggle right out of me. This Amish man is plowing the field with horses. NUTS (but secretly I want to run away from NYC and find a bearded Amish man and lose myself in the simple life)

My ESL class has been studying different countries around the world this whole year and to end our unit on Egypt we went to the Metropolitan Museum to see the mummies. They loved it!
Then they had to split into groups and do a project and a presentation about a country of their choice. Mom and Dad got to come and see several presentations.
I went with some young women to a trapeze school downtown. They strap you in and then you soared through the air with the greatest of ease, those daring young women on the flying trapeze. It was really cool.
I took my students to Central Park for a class on orienteering in the Ramble. They had compasses and a "treasure" map of Central park, so they had to find the treasures. For the first 30 minutes they were just so thrilled to be out of a building (there are no playgrounds in schools in NYC) that they went running around with no real aim or direction, they caught on eventually.
Then we had a great afternoon playing in the park...until one little girl became a woman for the first time (if you know what I mean) and I had to deal with a hysterical 6th grader. MOTHERS, please talk to your daughters about what is going to happen to them so they don't flip out on a field trip!!
FYI. Spring is here. This is the park across from the church, we went on a walk on a gorgeous Sunday. These are my three current roommates and a friend of ours. (Aja, Cristi, Cy and Danielle). That is the Hudson behind them and the New Jersey beyond the water.
I have some pictures of Mom, Dad, Evan, and Landon's visit. As you can see in this picture, Evan LOVED it!!

The First of Many...

2009-05-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

Mom and Dad have begun their East Coast Tour 2009 so my total readership has been cut in half but I will post about my birthday because I know Dad will LOVE my birthday present.

So the weird thing about turning 29 is that when you tell people that you are turning 29 they think you are being coy and lying about your age, so to clarify I told them that today was my 29th birthday, the first of many!

I went to work on my birthday, only because I needed to get some papers out of my classroom and couldn’t figure out how to sneak in and get them…darn cameras. So my student Fatime came up and gave me a big, tight hug, the kind that knocks the wind out of you.
I have been trying to break her of this hugging thing but it is hard to tell a sixth grader who has been taken away from her mother and everyone and everything she knows to come to NYC that she can’t hug you. Fatime wished me a happy birthday and then produced a gift she had wrapped. Based on past gifts from students I expected it to be a half eaten bag of chips or some dancing cat figurine that she had swiped from her mother‘s bathroom counter collection. Instead I found this…

That’s right, folks, a real live Barack Obama wallet, complete with Michelle and one of the kids. She had saved up her bus money to buy it by walking home. I was, of course, ecstatic and have quickly adopted using it.

When I got home my roommate Cristi had turned my house into a birthday wonderland and gave me some awesome cake and an AMAZING birthday present. I have a brand new 10 megapixel Cannon Digital Camera. She had researched, with a bunch of professional photographers in the ward and found that this was an amazing camera. She said that she was investing some of the money that she owed me but in reality she is just an awesome friend that gives great gifts!This card sums up our friendship pretty accurately.

Some Shout Outs

2009-04-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

Mom: Shout out to you for sending hand warmers. They saved us! We put like 3 in our sleeping bag at night and a few in our pockets in the morning.

Bryce: Thank you for selling me the camel back. It was awesome!

Bakersfield: Thank you for giving me the lungs of a 75 year old with emphysema. That was really great when I was gasping for breath.

My Own Odyssey

2009-04-21T18:53:00.000-07:00

The last time I was in Peru was with Mom, Dad, and Alicia on my way home from my mission. I was suffering from a pretty serious case of mission weird and although I remember being impressed by Machu Picchu, didn't really remember it. I did remember wanting to hike the trail to Machu Picchu instead of taking the train, so this spring break I decided to do that.

With 5 Manhattan friends I headed to Peru. I had a very cool feeling as we touched down in Peru of being "home." I have never felt that way about NYC, perhaps it is because I am really not classy enough to live here. We stayed in Cuzco and visited a bunch of the Inca ruins around the city and got our lungs acclimated to the altitude. There really is a noticeable difference in your ability to breath, especially when climbing stairs. We ate papas a la huancaina and big choclo with goat cheese and drank chi cha.

On Easter we went to Mormon church, which I loved and then to Ancient Inca church at Moray. Bascially we went there to lay down at the bottom of these bowl shaped farming terraces to "get the energy from the Pacha Mama" which is apparently what the locals do when they need guidance or help in their life. That night we went to Easter mass at the Catholic church, a long held tradition of mine.

We met with our guide on Monday morning for last minute instructions and he took one look at us and with a disapproving head shake said, "I don't know why you decided to do this hike in THREE days." The hike is a rigorous 4-day hike, but since there were no permits left for the dates that we wanted, we signed up to do it in 3 days. He said it would be really hard and we left feeling a little frightened.

The next morning we left at 4 am to drive through the streets before all the protestoring farmers from the country took to the streets again and got violent.

After making some last minute alterations to my clothes we started down the trail. We hiked past some amazing ruins and through breathtaking rainforests. The trail was beautiful and had a very special spirit about it. Toward the end of the day we started to climb and endless path of stairs. We were headed to Dead Woman's pass at almost 14,ooo feet.

We stopped about halfway up the mountain and camped for the night. This was the view from my tent. When we arrived at camp the 12 porters who accompanied our guide and the 6 of us on our hike had our tents set up, along with a dining tent and a cooking tent. They proceeded to serve us a 5 course meal complete with a full set of silverware and a table with table cloth and folded napkins. I felt like a rich person on an African Safari.

The next morning we woke up and hiked the rest of the way up Dead Woman's Pass, stopping to breathe every few steps. That altitude really gets ya!! We summited at 7 am then started the descent. Turns out the descent is really hard on your knees. Once we got to the bottom we started to climb up the stairs again to the next pass. The hike would have been really hard, had the views not been so breathtaking. On the passes it was always either raining or misting because you are quite literally in a cloud. We met up with the porters and our chef for a three course lunch and then continued hiking up and down stairs until we got to the final camp that night. We slept there and in the middle of the night the parasites took their vengeance on Cristi. She had a really rough night and then the porters ran her the 3 hours to Machu Picchu the next morning. She spent her time at Machu Picchu on a bunk bed in a back room and then was rushed by ambulance to a hospital in Cuzco.
For me, Machu Picchu was a totally different experience this time. It was originally built for the Inca, the ruler of the Quechuan people, as a spiritual retreat or temple. He would go there a few times a year when he was seeking spiritual guidance or clarity. It was a holy place for him. What I found so different this time is that the Inca had to make that long trek to be able to make it to the temple. He had to really want that spiritual guidance, he had to plan for it and he had a long hard road to prepare to recieve that guidance. Coming to this holy mountain after having made that trek made it seem so much more special. I really loved the spirit that is present in Machu Picchu and it doesn't hurt that it is nestled in one of the most picturesque vistas I have ever had the good fortune to behold.

I promise I will do 3 in April

2009-03-31T19:37:00.001-07:00

So this month has been so busy that I feel like I can't get a hold of it. My calling has been keeping me very busy as has the rest of my life. I will write more later about what is keeping me so busy but for now I will just tell you that my kids are all very disturbed by my eye color (My eyes are blue). Today one of them asked if I had surgery to get my eyes to look like they do. This prompted a few more questions including, "What is wrong with them?" and "do they hurt you?" I told them it is just like some people having different color hair or different shades of skin. They didn't buy that because they said that they had never seen someone with blue eyes before. Can you believe that? Here are kids who live in the United States who have never seen a blue eyed person. I find it all shocking.

Peace out

...and the good times continued.

2009-02-28T20:48:00.000-08:00

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This is a little frog that made a really cool noise who lives in the caves.

After the caves we went and watched the windsurfers on Cabarete, said by some to be the windsurfing capital of the world.
I ate a sweet mango and some Haitian women came up and haggled me into getting my hair braided.

We stayed the night on Cabarete at this awesome hotel right on the beach. The guy at the counter said that you can hear the music from the bar at night but we still couldn't understand why it was so cheap.

The view was awesome, the location perfect, the room was clean...and then the music started. It was the most raucous party I have ever heard! We, fortunately, were able fall asleep anyways thanks to some training on the loud streets of Harlem.

The next day we had virgin pina coladas for breakfast from the bar downstairs and then took off on a gua gua tour of the north coast. We were on 5 different beaches in one day. We stayed in a hotel on Malecon with another ocean view.

The next morning we left on our way to the waterfalls. This was the thing I was looking forward to the most. We took a few Gua Guas out into the country and I hired a few guides, Amilka and Gabby to take me up the falls. They grew up around the falls and they think of them like their own backyard. They were amazing guides!!

We started hiking up a river and then we got to the first waterfall.

We climbed up 8 waterfalls using ladders and ropes and sometimes just climbing up the rocks.
When we got to number 8 I needed I decided to start heading back so they showed me how to get back. To get down #8 you jump 25 - 30 feet into the pool at the base of the falls. This is me ready to jump.
The rest of the seven were a series of natural waterslides and jumping off the rocks. It was beautiful and SO much fun.

After getting back from the falls we jumped in another series of gua guas and headed to the airport. We missed our flight by a few minutes so we hung out in the airport for a while enjoying the warmth and then headed back to New York. It was murder getting myself on that plane and getting myself off of it into the cold NYC weather was even worse, but I made it back, for better or for worse.

A series of good decisions

2009-02-28T15:19:00.001-08:00

Blogging is hard. But I am doing it anyways just because I promised mom and dad.

So I had a week off and after a year and a half of my students pestering me, I decided to head down to the Caribbean to a lovely little Island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. About 97% of my students are from the DR and so I am already fairly familiar with the food, the culture and their variation on Spanish. I headed down Tuesday morning with my friend Amy and some clothes shoved into my backpack.

Leaving the freezing cold of New York was the first good decision. Going to a tropical island that is sunny and 80 degrees in February was another.

Good Decision #3 - Tubagua Plantation
We arrived and were picked up at the airport by the owner of our first “hostel”, Tim. He drove way up into the mountains outside of Puerto Plata to a beautiful, green compound of thatched roofs. There was running water and toilets and comfy mattresses with a common area under a large thatched roof.

Where we slept...
The common area...

The view from the sinks where we brushed our teeth..
The kitchen where we spend most of our time hanging out with the locals...

It was gorgeous and we spent most of our time in the kitchen chatting it up with Tim and his wife and his kitchen staff. They were real Dominicans, completely untainted by the tourism machine of the coastal cities. His neighbor fed me fresh avocados and yucca from his property. Tim gave us great advice on where to go, made a call to a friend to secure our next night stay, and then drove us down the mountain. He stopped at a local school so I could take a peek inside and chat with some of the students.

Good Decision #4 Gaining insight into my student’s views on Education upon arrival to the U.S.
The students were packed into small dark rooms with no lights.

There was very little structure and they were allowed to get up and wander around as much as they wanted. They were walking in and out of class and there was very little instruction going on. They go to school there for 3 hours a day. I walked into one of the classes for 14 year olds and there was no teacher. I asked where their teacher was and they told me she had been in a meeting for the past hour. The kids were left on their own. I saw a teacher in the 1st grade class break up a fight using a metal stick to hit both kids’ arms.

As I walked around I just kept thinking…NO WONDER!!! No wonder they can’t sit down for an entire class period, they have never been asked to do that. No wonder they are illiterate and are not used to focusing in class, they had sparse instruction throughout their entire education. No wonder they get up and wander around in the middle of instruction. It was a HUGE eye opener.

Good Decision #5 Spending a whole day doing nothing but loving the sun.
We caught a “Gua Gua” (a mini van into which they jam as many as 28 people into that serves as kind of a public bus) to a beach a few miles east called Sosua. We ordered some lunch and ate on a plastic table in the sand looking out onto a beautiful beach. I had fish and Mangu (mashed plantains with onions).
As we sat there for the next 3 hours people kept coming up and offering tasty treats like mandarin oranges, peanut brittle, and coconut vanilla bars. Then we moved to some chaise lounges and fell asleep listening to the waves and went swimming in the beautiful clear water when it got hot, and that is when it happened; I fell in love with the DR!

We went to Cabarete on a gua gua that night and wandered around this party city.

Good Decision #6 Searching for the fountain of youth
Outside of Cabarete there were some caves and after following a long tour of the flora of the DR
led by a college student who seemed bound and determined to make us understand the corruption in the Dominican government, we were lead down a long, dark slippery staircase into a darkness.

At the bottom of the cave there was a pool of fresh water, said to make you ten years younger. I jumped in and it felt great, although kind of creepy to swim in a pool of water at the bottom of a cave where you can see NOTHING!!!
More to come...

The Inauguration

2009-01-31T13:12:00.000-08:00

I was fascinated by this year’s inauguration, more so than any other year. Politics aside, and I realize that is difficult because we are talking about politics and also because certain readers have what I consider a fanatical extremist allegiance to a political party (you know who you are), I have enjoyed the after effects thus far of Obama being elected. I live in Harlem so on election night as the winner became obvious the cheering and noisemaking began. There was an electric feeling all over the streets and in school the next day. I live and work among minority groups who have seen this election and inauguration as an empowering and ennobling process. I have front row seats to the change as I watch the people who have so often felt like victims feel empowered to be something else. I thought it was important for my students to watch the inauguration even though I don’t ever remember watching any inauguration in my life.
I set up the computer in my classroom and asked the school to set up the big screen in the auditorium where they live streamed it.
The kids were not interested in what he had to say and were bored with the process but I think it was important for them to see someone who looked like them getting sworn in as President. They did however enjoy enthusiastically applauding every chance they got to make noise.

Had I been invited to the Inauguration, what would I have worn you ask? Probably this...

Nowhere is Obamania as intense as it is in Harlem where many people are from Kenya and claim him as their own. He is worshipped and his face smiles on me from everywhere I walk. There are posters of him in every window and on shirts and hats and pins etc. This African dress store has taken it to an even higher level.

There are signs everywhere that say:

Rosa SAT so Martin could WALK,
Martin WALKED so Obama could RUN,
Obama RAN so our children can FLY.

So no matter what your political opinions are, I think there is a lot of good that has come out of Obama being elected. He has the ability to mobilize a a huge number of people who have, until now, felt somewhat disconnected and uninterested.

Disclaimer, this post may have been influenced by some pretty blatant NYC propaganda:

That being said, all of the Obama posters and paraphernalia reminds me of Chairman Mao in China. He is everywhere! Families in the poorer part of the country have his picture hanging up in their homes just like some of my fellow Harlemites. With great power, comes great responsibility. I pray that Obama uses it wisely.

And now for a moment from my "kids"
I was walking out one of the doors of school to go to lunch and saw one of my students standing right by the exit in a stairwell that is off limits to students when he should have been in class on the fourth floor. I looked at him with a mean teacher glare and said "what are you doing?" HE immediately grabbed his stomach and said, "Miss, I got cramps." Middle school is that fun time when they are just learning about boys and girls and the boys start figuring out that the girls get out of most anything by saying they have cramps but they haven't quite figured out that ONLY the girls can use that excuse. I was laughing so hard I couldn't get him in trouble.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

2009-01-04T19:10:00.000-08:00

As promised, here is a glimpse into my life.

A friend of mine works for PRSA and called me one day and asked if my school could use 1,000 binders that they were going to throw out. Given the pathetic funding of public schools I told her yes and we delightedly absorbed and distributed them. That went so well that about a week before Christmas she told me that they got a box of about 40 Mickey Mouse dolls and asked if I wanted them. Again, I said yes. My students don’t have much and receive a lot of what they have for free, free housing, free transportation, free meals, free healthcare etc. I wanted them to realize the joy of giving and given that it is Christmas I decided that instead of just giving these dolls to my students (and they wanted them badly) I would have my students take them and give them to the kids at the elementary school down the street. So I went to Barnes and Noble and found a book that incorporated Christmas and a mouse called “Santa Mouse.” I gave each student a part to memorize, we figured out costumes and staging and worked on their pronunciation for a few days during lunch. The day before Christmas break we went to the elementary school and my students performed their play for two different classrooms.

They were very nervous but did a good job and I was so proud of them.
Then they gave the dolls to the little kids.
When we were leaving a little boy went up and hugged one of the students that has a VERY tough exterior, it was so fun to watch his reaction to this outpouring of affection.

I went home to California for Christmas to watch the family circus that is Christmas. The nativitiy scene that we do every year became so much more entertaining as a Sheep (Ava) stripped the tree of the low hanging ornaments, Mary/ the star/ Angel #2 (Brielle) wandered in and out of the scene as she pleased assuming whatever roll tickled her regardless of whether it was already filled, a wise man (Blake) went from wiseman, to angel, to sheep thrower, the angel (Kea) stood with her arms up the whole time in my Mom’s wedding dress and Joseph (Davin) showed his true appreciation for music as he beaned blake in the head with stuffed animals throughout the singing of “O Holy Night.”
And all I kept thinking is, the kids causing all the chaos are not my responsibility for once, thank goodness.

We had a great Christmas morning and by great I mean we had LOTS of fantastic food that seemed to flow freely from the bottomless source of goodness that is Mom’s kitchen.
This was Blake's attempt at a smile.
The day before I flew out we went to Santa Monica and enjoyed the beautiful weather at the beach.Above: Davin, Brielle and Alicia watching for sea lions. Below: Kea watching the sunset.
I got on the plane the next morning and after sitting on the runway waiting for the fog to clear up we went to New York where we circled above JFK for an hour so that they could clear the ice and snow off the runway. It was COLD in NYC!!

That night my roommate Cristi and I put on like six layers and our running shoes, went to a friend’s party for an hour and then went to Central Park for the annual midnight run.
Cristi and I waiting for the subway to take us to Central Park.

It was 17 degrees but with wind chill and humidity it was below zero. At midnight the fireworks started and the 5,000 runners in a variety of costumes and at different levels of drunkenness began the 4 mile run. It was really cold but a lot of fun. When they handed us the water cups the water was frozen solid, ( a funny joke) but the cups filled with Martinellis were kind of like an apple slushy, YUM!

I hadn’t been downtown this whole Christmas season so New Years Day Cristi and I went down to see our lovely city in her Christmas dress. Here are some of her trees.Rockefeller Center
The Met Opera and Lincoln Center (smaller than years past because of the construction)
Washington Square Park

The next day I hopped on a bus down to DC for my good friend Nikki’s wedding. It was great to see her and her family again. They are just awesome people and the sealing was beautiful. The DC temple is so huge!Nikki and Zach Milne and I in front of the DC temple.

I came back home from DC today and start my crazy daily life again tomorrow bright and early. Thank goodness for vacations!

Blog Tag

2008-10-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

I took the bait because I have a thousand other things I need to be doing and I am stalling.

Here are my responses to this tag:

I am always supposed to be doing something (i.e. lesson plans, correcting student work, my own homework, research for my thesis, stuff for my calling etc) but I am very easily distracted so I end up reading blogs and doing tags that help me accomplish nothing.

I miss summer vacation. It is already cold here. In the summer it was warm and sunny and I had no responsibilities and now…well, that changed.

I think there is hope in the next generation.

I know the church is true, Jesus Christ is my Savior and that my Heavenly Father knows and loves me.

I want to visit all 7 continents before I die, including Antarctica and I want to ride from Beijng to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

I have great friends and family.

I search for plane tickets to cool places at least twice a week, even though I don’t have any real vacation time until Christmas and no money. FYI -plane tickets are expensive right now.

I wish all parents would take care of their kids and that no child would have to grow up in an environment of drugs, prostitution, violence or apathy.

I hate the smell of New York City when it rains. I love the smell of rain everywhere else, but here it smells like a wet dog.

I am scared of cows and being shot into outer space.

I fear the wrath of my neighbors if McCain is elected president. Harlem is known for getting a bit violent and well, I am white.

I always turn the water off when I am brushing my teeth even though I live on an island and nobody around here thinks at all about water conservation, I have been trained by the California droughts.

I love the sound of dry autumn leaves crackling under my bike tires as I ride by.

I feel responsible to volunteer for anything and everything. I feel that because I was born to such privilege in a country with so many opportunities, I am bound to reach out and help others.

I hear noise ALL day so when I get home I like silence, not even music playing for at least 2 hours.

I don't remember most of my past roommates’ names. I have had 87 roommates since I turned 18 and I just can’t remember them all.

I wonder what my life will be like in 10 years. I honestly have no idea. I doubt I will be living in the same place, have the same friends or be working in the same industry.

I care about the social customs of hygiene enough to shower every day even though I don’t like shower. Oh, how I miss my dear China where showering more than once a week was considered excessive.

I regret never learning to play the piano and standing outside the Louvre in Paris and never going in.

I am not good at organizing…anything, my time, my papers, my room. I am an organizational nightmare.

I believe everyone should follow social courtesies like standing to the right side on the escalator if you are standing and letting the walkers, walk by on the left and waiting until those getting off the train exit before pushing your way in.

I dance in gay bars because the guys there don’t put their hands all over you and you are never worried about them following you home.

I sing only the hymns I know and only the melody and I rarely use a hymnbook. I can’t read music so I find the hymnbook useless.

I write positive notes to my students on post-it notes and stick them on their desk. The best thing I have learned as a teacher or a youth leader is that positive reinforcement is the best motivator. One day I wrote a positive note to one of the worst kids in the school and he stapled it to his shirt and wore it around all day.

I win card games because I cheat. I have no problem cheating at card games or trivial pursuit or any other board game. I think it is all part of the game.

I dream in Spanish sometimes because I am around Spanish so much these days. When I was in China I dreamed in Chinese, everyone in my dream was speaking Chinese but I still couldn’t understand them.

I lose at least 20 pens or pencils a day. I need a fanny pack to wear to school so that I have somewhere to keep them.

I never saw any of “The Lord of the Rings” movies and I don’t feel that my testimony has suffered for it because I was schooled in all the parallels to the gospel over the pulpit.

I listen to silence or people talking. I have no interest in listening to music despite repeated attempts to figure out what all the fuss is about.

I read on the bus and the train every day on my way anywhere I am going; and that is the beauty of public transportation. Right now I am reading the Anne of Green Gables series. I am on book six and I HATE Anne. I think she is so annoying, but I keep reading. I love reading books and I love that my students, who also ride the bus to school in the morning, see me reading.

I am happy, period.

What ever happened to an Apple for the teacher?

2008-09-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

So we all remember my student from the Ivory Coast. She is this beautiful little black girl who speaks French and follows me around. Today she shows up to school and hands me a little box and says, "pour toi" (for you). As a sixth grade teacher to kids from a latin culture I have seen this before and quickly refuse before they get too set on giving it to me. I don't accept gifts for many reasons:

my kids are poor
I am a government employee and I am sure it is illegal
speaking of illegal I don't want them to give me any stolen goods
most importantly I don't want the crap that they tend to give me, i.e. old hair baubles and bows, gum, used pencil top erasers, junk they find in the park, small ceramic kittens in Santa Claus hats etc

This little girl thinks that I am not understanding her so she keeps pushing the little box on me, so finally I relent realizing that it won't kill me to put a used Sponge Bob eraser on my pencil and appear to cherish it so as to make nice and bridge the cultural gap. I take the box and give Fatime a hug and say thank you. Then I open it.....inside there is a ring and what appears to be a diamond perched on top!
I try to give it back, Fatime puts it on my finger and looks quite intent on keeping it there. I ask her if her dad knows she gave it to me. She says yes. I decide we have to start class and this has gone on long enough and that I will talk to her later. So I teach my class then when Fatime leaves I put the ring in the box and lock it up. I go and consult my Assistant Principal and my dean, they say "COOL, Keep it!" they are obviously really classy. Fatime sees me later and asks if I have lost the ring, she is very concerned so I take her back to my class where I have it locked up, she pulls it out and puts it back on my hand and tells me not to take it off or I will lose it. So I teach the rest of the day with this ring on my hand and four other teachers ask me if I am engaged.

Here is the thing...
She is from the Ivory Coast, known for a brutal diamond trade.
(As I am writing this I am afraid the UN is going to come and arrest me)
I am fairly certain the diamond is real based on some things she has told me.
I am morally opposed to owning or wearing a diamond because of the atrocities committed on children in the diamond trade in Africa. How ironic is it that the first diamond that I ever receive is from the exact population I am trying to protect with my stand against them?
Given that there was a huge miscommunication problem with the diamond ring, this could mean that I am engaged to some random African man.

So, what do I do? Anyone ever had to give back a diamond ring?

The First Two Weeks

2008-09-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

Teachers are told not to smile until Christmas so that the students don't rip you to shreds by June. Turns out, I can't make it even through an entire day. To counter my smiles I am perfecting a disapproving teacher glare that can strike fear into the heart of even the most thuggish of thugs.

I am much more prepared this year, than last so...things are going a lot more smoothly.

The first day of school, a sixth grade teacher came up and said, "Ms. Allred there is a girl in my class from the Ivory Coast who speaks not a word of English and she looks like she is going to burst into tears at any moment." She had recently been sent to live with her father whom she had never met and was separated from her Mother for the first time. Then she comes to our crazy school and is in a classroom where she can't understand a word and all the students are staring ar her and she has a bunch of teachers who never smile and glare angrily. I went into grab her immediately and broke out my rusty French. She started crying and hugged me, then she followed me around for a week. She never wanted to leave my side. She is doing better now and even trying out some English.

Some interesting things...
1- On September 11th I wrote on the board, "What happened 7 years ago today in New York City?" Nobody knew the answer. These kids were 3 or 4, seven years ago so that event seems like ancient history to them. After a few hints, (I drew the twin towers on the board and an airplane) one boy raised his hand and said, "George W. Bush ordered that someone blow up the twin towers." This is what happens when parents let Micheal Moore educate their children. We had a discussion about theory and fact.

2- Today I was discussing the issue of race with another class and one of the boys raised his hand and said, "Ms. Allred, you white like milk."

3- Another boy in another class came up really close to my face and after staring into my eyes curiously asked, "Did you buy those at a Halloween store?" He wants a pair of eyes "just like" mine to freak out his friends and family.

The Narrows in Zion

2008-08-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

I hiked the Narrows with my young women’s group when I was 16 and my mom and sister said they wanted to do the hike this summer so I thought I would tag along. They both backed out and my little brother Bryce said he wanted to so we went.

We started at the trailhead 17 miles above the park. About ½ of the hike is walking in the river between two huge rock walls. As a 16 year old I was much more focused on just getting through the hike. As an adult I was able to appreciate how beautiful it is. It is truly unique and beautiful.

Little known fact about me: I am very scared of cows.
Toward the beginning of the hike, before we got into the canyon I was walking along looking down and when I looked up I was about 10 feet from the face of a giant bull. It scared me so bad. I think this fear comes from Young Women’s camp at big meadow. At that moment all I could hear in my head was Sister Fralick’s shaky voice warning about ferocious cows. She said “I would rather be up against 10 grizzly bears and a puma than up against one of those ferocious cows!” Amen sister Fralick!

If you plan on doing this hike, start early the first day so you can go swimming at your campsite before it gets cold and…BEWARE OF COWS.

I forgot to mention...

2008-08-11T21:26:00.001-07:00

I LOVE JON BON JOVI!!!

So Bon Jovi was supposed to play in Central Park on the great lawn. He is one of only about 6 other people who have played there. So it was kind of a big deal.

My roommate Soo is a journalist for the Korean daily newspaper so she snuck me in as a "freelance photographer" with a press pass

This meant that we were able to go all the way to the front to the press box and we were escorted up to the front to snap pictures. We borrowed a camera from a friend that looked a little more professional than my point and shoot. The problem is, I didn't know how to use it and now most of the AWESOME pictures I got are trapped in that camera.

Bon Jovi is a GREAT performer and I fell absolutely in love with him. We sang and danced with the rest of the of the Bon Jovi freaks for hours. It was simply magical!

Some Things I Learned in Guatemala

2008-07-25T11:16:00.000-07:00

My roommate Cristi and I found roundtrip last minute tickets to Guatemala for $357. So we bought them and a week later we were on a plane bound for one of the most homicidal countries in the western hemisphere. We packed a backpack a piece and were ready for adventure.

Here are some things I learned....

Lava is hot

Guatemala is covered with volcanoes.
There is one that is still active right outside Guatemala City. We climbed it on Tuesday and learned that Guatemala is not at all interested in ensuring your safety. You are kind of responsible for that yourself. And as it turns out, most people who travel to Guatemala these days with the crime rates being what they are, are not really “safety” type people. We payed for some maniac to drive us on a huge bus up a rather questionable mountain hill and then hike straight up a volcano to roast hot dogs over flowing lava.
Lava rocks are sharp when they are cool and lava when they are hot, so neither option is really welcoming you to take a spill. As you walk on the rocks you look down and can see hot lava under the cooler lava on top and you can feel the heat pulsing through the cracks in the rocks. If you stay still for very long it feels like your legs are going to melt off along with the rubber on your tennis shoes, but it is MOLTEN LAVA, so how can you possibly NOT hike it.

Guatemalan buses are scarier than skydiving

After going to six flags last month I thought skydiving had ruined my ability to feel scared by risky situations. The crazy Guatemalan bus drivers took that challenge and managed to scare the pants off of me (that is just a figure of speech, rest assured I stayed fully clothed). The buses were all school buses from the united states that look like they got in a fight with the guys from MTV’s Pimp My Ride and lost. Comforting to know that the buses that had been rejected by the strapped for cash public school system for being unfit to drive over well paved flat roads were now being used to scale steep unpaved mountains slopes. There are a few types of buses in Guatemala. The shuttles are run by tourist agencies and cost like $20 - $30 and are Toyota minivans. Then there are the chicken buses. Appropriately named for the chance that you might be sharing your seat with a chicken. These buses are packed with locals. On one such occasion a kind person offered to let us sit on a bucket between the rows of seats rather than standing for the 2 hours on the bumpy road.
A holy place is wherever you can feel the spirit

We went to Lake Atitlan, which is rumored by several mormon scholars to be The Waters of Mormon talked about in Mosiah. It was absolutely breathtaking. We decided to set logic and healthy skepticism aside and believe that we were actually on the waters of Mormon. We took a boat out to a little pueblo called San Marcos. It was very quiet and small and there was no electricity the first night. We bought flashlights and went and sat on the pier and watched the moon over the silent lake. Then the next morning we decided to do our scripture study on the pier and watch the sunrise. We read from the verses in Mosiah that talk about the waters of mormon and tried to feel what they must have felt. In Mosiah 18: 30 it says,

; yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer

It is amazing to think that the already gorgeous backdrop for their conversion, was improved upon by an intimate communion with the spirit. I think I will always think of Ricks college as beautiful for that reason.A mormon with a Book of Mormon, on the waters of mormon at the edge of the forest of mormon. Overall a very mormon morning.

I just need to get caught up...

2008-07-09T21:52:00.001-07:00

So I have fallen way behind in this blogging business and as you may have guessed lots has happened, but you only will hear about the things that have photos attached. I am now enjoying that great summer vacation that makes teaching so tempting before you know better. I find that I am a horrible manager of free time and for this purpose I keep myself nauseatingly busy whenever possible. For example, going in to this week my ONLY solid plan was one dental appointment. Yikes.

Anyhow, I took my students (about 80 of them) to see the Statue of Liberty. I thought it was a fitting field trip, since they are all immigrants and New Yorkers and had never been that far down in Manhattan (keep in mind the Statue is only about 11 miles from the school). All the other teachers thought I was crazy and there were many moments that day that I agreed with them. Going to the statue involved marching 80 kids to the Subway, getting them all on the same train car, constantly reminding them to stop shouting and swinging from the handrails as we passed through midtown and the financial district and all the business people were heading to work and giving me dirty looks in the process. Then we had to take all the students through security (based on several essays I read afterwards, this was their favorite part! KIDS!) then get them on a ferry and over to liberty island at which point we got in another line to wait to go up to the pedestal. At this point all the kids smashed together in line and since they're middle schoolers this soon turned into a chorus of shrieks and shouting "Ms. Allred, someone keeps grabbing my $#@" or "Ms. Allred, tell her to stop touching me there." For the last five minutes I made them all stand with their hands in the air. They loved that!

We went up the pedestal after another round of security then came down, had lunch and then did the whole commuting nightmare in reverse. I was exhausted. The essays that I made them write afterwards included observations like “that statue was very small and ugly” and lots of notes about the security procedures so over all it was a raging success.

For memorial day a few friends and I went up to Lake Placid and went river rafting all day the first day. We were on the river for 6 and a half hours with a really funny guide. Toward the end of the trip the guide told me that I have authority issues and handed me the guide paddle and told me to take over. I happily obliged but all my friends then refused to listen and took naps in the raft. It was a lot of fun. Then we went to Montreal on Sunday so I could practice my French. We had poutine; which is a Montreal treat, French fries and gravy. A heart attack with a smile.
Lake Placid is beautiful.

The end of the school year was a wild experience. It got really hot and we have no AC and I work on the fourth floor of a brick building which means the kids went NUTS! Lots of fights and other niceties. I was enlisted to be a Chaperone when the graduating 8th graders went to Six Flags great adventure. I rode the Kingda Ka and every other ride and found out that sky diving kind of ruins you as far as thrills like that go. Over the course of the day my students kept coming up to me and claiming that they had contracted the flu. When I asked when the symptoms started they would invariably tell me that it happened at just about the same time as they rode some crazy ride. They were so confused. I hung out with some great teachers from my school.

The last day of school a bunch of the teachers went to a local restaurant and drank large amounts of alcohol at noon. It was really funny. The math teachers were taking shots like college frat boys.

After hanging out with my drunk colleagues I headed down to the Stake Center for youth conference. We had a three-day scavenger hunt for 70 youth in which they ran all over downtown Manhattan in teams of 10 youth and 2 leaders and they stayed at the apartments of different members of the stake. We went to the today show and saw Coldplay, we went on a cruise around the island, we went to see Stomp, we went and did baptisms for the dead, we taught them how to index (step 2 of extraction). We ran those kids so ragged that they all fell
asleep on the harbor cruise and at Stomp, which is basically a bunch of guys banging on trashcans as loud as they can. The youth conference ended in true youth conference fashion with a testimony meeting that certainly gave a good play by play of the weekend and was full of inside jokes and shout outs, but lacked some of that testimoniness that you often look for at those meetings.

Vegas Adventure

2008-05-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

The great thing about working in public school in New York City is all the vacation time I get. My spring break this year was connected to the Greek Orthodox Easter instead of the Roman Catholic Easter so it was the last week in April. I flew to Las Vegas to see my friend Adam and Ashley Hawkins and meet her fiance. We decided that I would meet him in April instead of attending their wedding in June because weddings are so crazy that I would only be able to see her for like 23 seconds while I passed through her line and the rest of the time she would be so busy with her family and lost in the haze that creates Bridezillas that it would be pointless.

I flew in Sunday night after Stake Conference. It is noteworthy that I was called as the 2nd counselor in the Stake Young Women's presidency. I was very overwhelmed by it at first, especially given the 3 other callings I had but I have been learning to manage it and I really do love the girls. It is interesting though that through my job and my callings I spend all my time with teenagers. They can be a challenge and I didn't even have the benefit of knowing them when they were cute and young.

I went to school with Ashley on Monday to see what she calls her "ghetto school." I think I gasped out loud at least 10 times. One was when I saw the campus, gorgeous no rats, nice, new huge, open courtyards, a football field. You know, the stuff my kids only see in movies. Anyhoo, the kids filed in, I gasped again when I saw real live white kids. Another gasp when one of the kids said (direct quote) "get your "A" up here!" You see, he actually said "A" and not the full word! WHAT!??! Since when do kids do that? Another gasp when Ashley stood up and said "Okay" and all the kids went silent!!! Gasp #5 was when she said get out your pencils and not only did they HAVE pencils they actually got them out!!! #6 She gave them some ridiculous assignment and they DID IT with not much prompting. #7 We went a whole class period with not ONE fight!!! Nobody even hit each other!! #8 when the TV on the wall came on for the morning student broadcast(we have 1 TV for the whole school, she also has her own computer, we have 4 computers for the whole school and those belong to the Deans and APs) #9 the kids all went up and did presentations with no inappropriate language, gestures or drawings on the board#10 When during the broadcast a senior girl was asked to prom by her GIRLFRIEND! Apparently being a lesbian is all the rage at her school.

Tuesday I drove to Disneyland to meet up with the family. It had been 10 years since I had been there. I love that place, but it seemed so small as an adult. The castle looked like a miniature.

This is me with my niece Ava. This was only the second time we had ever met which might explain the baffled look on her face.
We all rode Peter Pan together. It is still one of my favorites. This is my mom, my sister and her daughter Kea.
The last ride of the evening, as a pack of caged wild animals. We had been going all day but as you can see from Kea's face we were still having fun!
Dad found his favorite eatery the next day at the Baker's Field Bakery. It is hard to be a champion for Bakersfield but Dad sure gives it his all.
I drove back to my G-ma's house in St. George that afternoon and arrived at about 1 am on my birthday. For my birthday, Grandma took Bryce and his friend and I to see Zion National Park. It was beautiful. We hiked around and had a lot of fun.
It was a perfect birthday. Then Grandma planned a birthday BBQ with Aunt Ada. It was way yummy. Then we all went back to G-ma's house and watched "Enchanted."

The next day we went and saw the St. George temple, the new Joseph Smith film (I had never seen it) and Brigham Youngs house before I headed back to Vegas. The sister missionaries had G-ma in tears and me practicing my control over my eye roll reflex.

I went and met Ashley's fiance (GREAT GUY) and we went and hung out with my friend Adam. Adam took me out to see Le Reve on Saturday night as a birthday celebration. It was an amazing experience. I left feeling drained, emotionally, mentally and physically. I am always in awe of what people can dream up in their mind and how they can make it happen so that I can share in that creative genius. A shout out to the creativity that abounds in the human race!!

A little update

2008-05-12T17:28:00.000-07:00

Hello Again from New York City. Dad is really giving me run for my money now that he is blogging twice a month, although the blogs are fairly lame. Here is a view of the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset with the financial district behind it. I went to a park underneath it with my friend Adam. I had been across the bridge a gazillion times but never knew about the park. Three cheers for living in a city that you get to discover in layers.

A friend from the ward, who I actually knew from a ward in Provo performed at Amateur night at the Apollo. This is noteworthy for several reasons. First he is white! The Apollo is widely accepted as the heart of African American talent. It boasts making stars like Stevie Wonder, Micheal Jackson (although I don't know that they actually still claim him), Billie Holiday, Lauryn Hill, James Brown and our own Gladys Knight. Second he is Mormon and did a stand up comedy routine in front of a typically pretty rough crowd. He got booed off the stage within the first 3 minutes, much to the chagrin of the more than 50 people from our ward who came to cheer.

This era of my life at school is marked by many field trips. I feel a need to expose my students to interesting things and to give them the opportunity to be around adults who will support them. The problem with them is, they never want to go home. They are usually a lot of fun but VERY exhausting after working all day then traipsing all over the city with a group of pre-teens. Here are some of our field trips.

We went to the Little Red Lighthouse that is under the George Washington Bridge and ended up playing ultimate frisbee in the park next to it for like an hour. It was a blast. In this picture a few of the students were "posing" and Mr. Avedissian (my co-teacher) and I were making fun of the way they try to be all seductive at the age of 13.
This is a group of them that we took to Chinatown. I wouldn't let the waiter give them forks until they tried the chopsticks. They were pretty good sports about my China obsession and humored me by telling me that everything was cool. This was great for me becuase they typically try to convince me that I am not cool. Especially when they make fun of my cell phone. How do 13 year olds from the projects become such technology snobs?

I went with my friend Adam to the Chelsea piers to hit golf balls at the Hudson. None of mine actually made it but a few of his did.
This is a field trip up to Inwood Hill Park where the kids were able to climb around on rocks and talk to a ranger about all the animals finding girlfriends for spring.
I went to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart with my friend Aja and Jeff. I haven't laughed that hard in a LONG time. I thought I was going to die and I am pretty sure all the people around me kind of wished that I would.

The Easter Hangover

2008-03-30T19:43:00.001-07:00

I got Good Friday off but our spring break is not until April. The NYC Department of Ed has chosen to solve the great Catholic Dilemma for us and they have chosen to honor the Eastern Orthodox Easter instead of the Roman Catholic.

My day off was filled with meetings, for girls camp and for school but I did get to stay up until 4am over at a friends house. I have not been able to stay up that late in FOREVER. By about 11:00 I was totally out of it.

Saturday night, some friends and I stayed up all night watching Pride and Prejudice. The only reason this is noteworthy is because the all-night Pride and Prejudice party was suggested and carried out by a guy and he is Straight. On top of that there was no hope of him or any of the other guys attending that night to hook up with any of the girls in the room. Throughout the night, straight guys always outnumbered girls in the room and we watched all 5 hours. Apparently these guys wanted some insight into the female heart. Just add this night to the long list of examples of how NYC guys are their own breed. At midnight I made myself sick on Easter candy as a way to commemorate another Lent over.

On Easter we had a group of friends over for an Easter ham. We have a very sensitive fire alarm and when there was smoke coming out of the oven it went off. The problem is that we have very high ceilings so there is little we can do to get it to stop. Two of our friends decided to help and get the smoke away from the alarm. Quick thinking.

On Friday, my field trip was canceled due to rain. The kids were LIVID with me for not being able to control the weather. I find their logic refreshing and mysterious. So in their anger they planned their own little sixth grader mutiny. It was a fabulous day!

I am taking my after-school group to Chinatown on Monday and I am very excited. Hopefully all will go well.

Spring comes MARCHing in...

2008-03-22T09:57:00.000-07:00

I will strike a deal with you Mom and Dad. I will update my blog every time you do. You are not allowed to harass until yours is more recent than mine. So here is some of what I have been up to. Warning: my life is pretty busy with a lot of the same stuff so if I run out of events to talk about then I will start sharing my opinions and we all know that my opinions tend to make Dad's face turn red and that vein in his forehead to pop out and then his speech becomes unintelligible other than an occasional "stupid liberal." You have been warned.

Here is a new picture to look at. This is mom at a restaurant that she really liked called Chocolate by the Bald Guy. They have good food and great Chocolatey desserts and the whole place smells like chocolate.

My life is very busy and very much the same. I am still teaching at MS 326 and struggling with/ liking it. We were just reviewed by the state a couple of weeks ago because we are on the state list and the city list of schools that are in danger of being closed down. It was pretty intense.

This is one of the classrooms I work in. Many people use it as a closet. There were 20 state reviewers wandering around and going in to all the classrooms, talking to some of the students, and interviewing the teachers. They decided not to close us down this year but to keep a close eye on us and require the implementation of all sorts of programs, none of which are going to change the fact that our school is made up of 98% first generation immigrants, who don’t speak English well and can’t understand the standardized tests. I started an after school program for the well behaved kids who really want to learn and progress. My co-teacher, Mr. Avedissian and I teach them about the cool places in New York and then we take them there on a field trip. Most of these kids have not left the 5 block radius around their house since they arrived here from the Dominican Republic. They don’t know about Times Square, Midtown, the Upper West Side, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty. They think of New York City and America as a very dirty grid of old apartment complexes with rats everywhere. It is fun to watch their eyes open up to this great city. On Saturday we took them to the house that George Washington lived in during the Revolutionary war right before the British took Manhattan and (attempted to) fly kites in the backyard.

I am still taking classes for my Masters degree at night. It is exhausting, but I like my professors a lot this semester. I am taking a linguistics class that I find fascinating. Both classes are a lot of work as I guess they should be at the graduate level, but it is exhausting nonetheless.

I was just called as the assistant stake camp director, which if you read my blog entry about girls camp last year, you will know that girls camp for the Manhattan girls is an adventure all its own. I am excited but can’t get really busy with it until this school year is over.

I still work as the assistant shift coordinator and the Spanish trainer at the temple and I absolutely love my Saturday mornings there. I always said that I wanted to live in a place where the church was still growing and needed more willing hands. I always thought I would find that place in some foreign third world country, but New York has church service opportunities by the truckload and we are constantly recruiting. I have a ward calling, a stake calling and a temple calling and they are always needing more. I love that I can be of service.

My attempts to maintain a semi-normal social life are often thwarted but in the past few months, we threw a party in our tiny New York apartment, to which 100 people came…

On Chinese New Year’s Eve, which was also conveniently Ash Wednesday, a couple of my friends and I went down to Chinatown and had some real Chinese food. Then I took the next day off of school for….cultural reasons. Then another friend of mine had a Chinese New Year Party. It was a lot of fun. Hooray for China!!!

This is the wall of my friends house. They painted it with chalkboard paint and they change the scene depending on what is going on in their lives. This is their Chinese new year scene.

We celebrated Pi Day (3.14 or March 14) over at a friend’s house with pizza pie and real pie (of which I could not partake because lent doesn’t end until Easter).

I still live in Harlem, which means I occasionally get heckled, I occasionally see people get their luggage stolen as they get off the airport bus and attempt to enter the subway and I occasionally hear amazing gospel choirs as I walk down the street. All in all it is a pretty good trade off.

As promised...

2008-01-22T16:45:00.000-08:00

So I am trying to become more responsible in 2008. I would say it is high time since I am now entrusted with the education of tender young minds.

First...a painful reminder that no matter how much I will it to happen the subway will never take me where I truly want to go.

Now, BERLIN!!!
So when I went backpacking through Europe a few years ago, I never made it up to Berlin and I really wanted to go. Teresa (my sister) wanted to go as well so we decided to set out complete with all four of her little boys, 6, 4, 3, and 4 months. That in and of itself is an adventure. I have traveled a fair amount and it was amazing the difference between traveling with adults and traveling with kids. They were not at all impressed with the historical significance of the Berlin wall!!! I had a lot of fun and I am so glad that Teresa and the boys allowed me to drag them all over Berlin. I love the city, it is a great mix of old and new and has such a charming feel to it despite its rather shady history.

The drive up took about 7 hours, with one stop at a McDonalds to play on the toys. We checked into an apartment that we rented for a couple of nights. I took the boys on a walk to get rid of some of their 7 hours of couped up energy scaring Teresa half to death, (I am not used to telling people where I am going or when I will be back, I answer to no one in my life) sorry Teresa.

My travel companions.
Batman
and the stroller boys.

The next day we went to see pieces of the Berlin wall and my favorite monument that I have ever seen. It is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews. The explanation on Wikipedia is surprisingly concise "It consists of a 19,000 square meter (4.7 acre) site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The stelae are 2.38m (7.8') long, 0.95m (3' 1.5") wide and vary in height from 8 inches to 15 feet 9 inches. According to Eisenman's project text, the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason."

The paths that lead through the concrete towers go up and down for no particular reason. It does give you an oddly chaotic feeling but then they are all perfectly arranged.

The boys thought of it as a maze and went running through all over the place. I would highly recommend this place.
I then ate a real live Berliner, right there in Berlin. It was fabulous, but I would submit that most German food is fabulous. I like it better than French or Spanish.
We went to see Checkpoint Charlie and had some dinner in a restaurant there. When Steven and I went to the bathroom there was a woman there and we were trying to figure out which bathroom was women's and which was men's, Steven asked in German and the lady responded in Spanish that she didn't know what he was saying. That language is so useful!! I use Spanish all the time.
Here is the famous sign that you would read as you passed through the wall to the soviet side.

Here is Nathan posing with a "guard" with Checkpoint Charlie in the background.
The next day we went and saw a piece of the wall that is still in place. History: At the end of WWII the allies (The US and the Soviet Union were allies) split up the occupation of Germany but they both wanted a piece of the capital city, Berlin, even though it was in the middle of the Soviet side. So they split it up but it was still one city and people worked on one side of the line and lived on the other, they shopped on the different sides and could pass easily no questions asked. The tension between the Soviets and the US increased and one night without warning the Soviets put up barbed wire, followed by a wall on the border, closing off the western half of the city to all the surrounding area, separating families, friends etc.

This is how it looked. The shabby white wall closest to the camera is the border wall with us on the Western side, behind it there is the death strip, sand and land mines and electric fences and barbed wire, followed by the inner eastern wall.
This is to show how tall it was.

We watched some videos in the museum and it was just so crazy and sad for the people, especially those in Eastern Berlin who were going to be occupied by a starving country. The US and the USSR used their position in Berlin to show each other that they were better and that the other did not have any power over them. I loved Berlin and all the history there.
Thank you Teresa and the boys for a great trip.

Winter

2008-01-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

This Jacob growling like a lamb.

Hello there. So it has been over two months since I updated my blog and I feel that my only loyal reader (Mom) is getting hostile.

So as to keep things organized and accessible for my other loyal reader (Dad) I will write in a list.

1) I went to Utah for Thanksgiving and absolutely loved seeing the family. I was also able to hang out with a friend that I met in China, who convinced me to go skydiving in Ogden. For those of you who did not know, I am deathly afraid of heights and continue my life long quest to conquer that fear. So we drove up and they dressed me up like a road cone and then we got into this tiny plane with about 15 other divers who were all kind of nutty. When we got to 13,000 feet they all started jumping and the guy I was strapped to started pushing me toward the open door. I was SO scared but once I got to the door and the guy threw us both out of the plane it was a lot of fun. I had a blast and I can cross one more thing off of my list of 100 things I have to do before I die. Since I crossed that one off I have been looking into how to get to Antarctica and where the Dalai Lama is touring this year. New Years resolutions can be pricey.
2) I have seen many shows since I have been here in NYC but I had never seen Les Miserables. I went and saw it at the beginning of December and it was fabulous! It is definitely one of my favorite shows. I just find the story and the characters so compelling.
3) I went to Germany for Christmas and spent some great time with Teresa and her five guys. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner of KFC and then a fun live nativity made more fun by Steven, Nathan and Jacob and their boundless energy. I was fortunate enough to play the part of the star again, only this time the star was merely perched on my finger instead of around my face.
As you can see in this picture the "wise men" were told to follow the star to baby Jesus. Jacob jumps right in and gets cozy with the baby, Stephen is merely enduring the play, and Nathan can't get his eyes off the star.
4) I got to play santa on Christmas Eve, and these are the fruits of my labors.

5) One of my students guessed that I am 50 years old. (WRONG!!!)
6) Another of my students used the F word as an adjective in his essay response to the standardized test they took today. The answer looked at little like this, “cuz he was F#@%ing pissed off” the correct answer (the one they will get from the students in the suburbs) is “He was upset”
7) After the test today my kids asked me what a calf was. They have no idea what most of the things in this test are talking about. A huge problem for them is vocabulary acquisition. I read through the test today and thought “could I have passed this as a sixth grader?” The answer, of course, but I had two educated parents who spoke in and educated English my whole life. I was surrounded by educated and articulate English speakers, everywhere that I went. From the time I was born I was constantly acquiring vocabulary. Only about 3% of the whole school population has parents who speak English and far less than that have parents with more than 7 years of formal education. In short, I am voting for Obama.
8) My roommate Cristi got the five hour version of Pride and Prejudice from Amazon and I have determined that there is no better escape from the drudgery of inner-city middle school stress than a nightly visit to Jane Austen's little dream word where people are polite even when they are cross.
9) I bought a space heater and my Mom got me an electric blanket and some very warm pajamas. These have revolutionized my life and have made me a bit of a recluse.
10) I will write about my visit to Berlin within the week. Just FYI I find the place charming and would love to live there, I think I have a strange pull towards all things, people and places with traces of communism.

My life lately...

2007-11-09T13:12:00.000-08:00

Since when is not posting on a blog for a while grounds for death threats? ….Ashley.

My life right now consists of me trying desperately all week long to figure out how to be a teacher to wild and crazy inner-city middle schoolers and trying desperately all weekend long to forget about the fact that I am a teacher.

It is funny because I refer to my students as my kids when I talk about them, so people who overhear must think I am going crazy as a mother. Among "my kids" I have: 5 who are totally illiterate, 3 who got arrested on Halloween for throwing eggs at a cop car, 1 who is deaf and mute, 10 who have had less than three years of formal education, 1 who was a street kid in the Dominican Republic from age 7 to age 12 running drugs between dealers and users for food money, 1 with unmedicated ADHD, 1 who got expelled from his last school for beating up his teacher, none who are above a third grade reading level (it goes downhill from there), about twenty who apparently cannot hear my voice (especially when my voice is saying things like "sit down, be quiet or do your work"), 15 who get in fights regularly, less than 10 who are living with the person who raised them and over 100 who go to ridiculous lengths to get attention.

So that is what occupies my time and thoughts during the week. Below are some photos I got off my friends camera that show you how I try to fill up my weekends with non-school related stuff.

Every year there is a huge New York City Area singles dance on Roosevelt Island at the lighthouse. You take the tram over from Manhattan and it is absolutely beautiful. There is an awesome view of the city from there. This is me and my roommate Soo.

Mormon night at the Mets. Me, my roommate Cristi and Brittany. The missionaries sing the national anthem and we all sit in the same section and socialize while the Mets lose. Good times had by all.
Cristi bought an antique table off of Craig's list so we started making dinner every Sunday night and inviting people over for a real live dinner around a real live table. Dinner tables are something of a novelty in New York so people go nuts over them. I decided I wanted to start learning how to cook so it is a lot of fun to have people over to test it out on. As it turns out though, our family was not very formal growing up. Cristi is horrified that I put the bottle of salad dressing on the table.
All I have to say about dinner parties is, thank goodness for Laura. I have called her at least 20 times since I got back from China to get recipes or dinner ideas and they are always a big hit. One time I called and said, I have people coming in 30 minutes give me something fast and easy and she totally pulled through. THANK YOU LAURA!!!

The Saturday before Halloween we went to Sleepy Hollow to the Old Dutch Church to attend the reading of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." They have an actor read it at the church and they serve hot apple cider. During intermission we went wandering around the creepy old cemetery that is right next to the church. It was dark and creepy, a perfect Halloween activity.

Sometimes when you live in a city that has nothing but tall concrete buildings and people living on top of one another it is therapeutic to get out. The leaves are changing and the northeast is beautiful so we went to Connecticut to a regional singles activity on this guy's property. It was magnificent and a much needed break from crazy NYC.
Every year since I moved to NYC I have LOVED Marathon Sunday. I always watch it in Harlem which is at mile 21 and people are just dying. This year I watched and cheered for 4 hours because I had three friends running. We went to church and then walked straight over so that is why I am dressed all Church-like.
Cristi and I got home from school on Tuesday and Cristi got a call from a friend who builds sets on Broadway offering two tickets to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," so we jumped on the train and made it just in time. During my time in NYC I have seen tons of Broadway shows but I still love them to pieces. This one had an audience full of kids and the Grinch was fantastic. A definite perk to the city.

I'm Alive, I'm just a new teacher

2007-10-07T07:49:00.001-07:00

So I get the picture, I have been negligent and have not been updating my blog nor keeping people informed about what I am up to. The truth is, your first month plus of teaching in an inner-city school with virtually no training and involving students, who, through a few of lifes cruel tricks have been left incredibly needy and lacking in all forms of discipline feels a little like drowning while a big mean lady named “The no child left behind act” is beating you about the head with a broom. Fortunately I survived, although not totally unscathed. I see many huge blaring problems with the New York City Department of Ed that I believe are holding the students of this great city back more than they already do.

First I will give you an overview of my life since Girls Camp. Becky Jorgenson came out and visited. We had fun running around and seeing all of New York. We even did a few things that I had never done before including going to the top of the Empire State Building and watching the sunrise from the Brooklyn Bridge. Becky and I haven’t hung out much since we were little kids so it was really interesting. I think she is awesome and it she is just incredibly easy to be around. I don’t know whether to attribute that to the fact that she is a Californian or the product of Proctor genes.

I have been doing a lot and keeping really busy but all the other activities seem secondary to the rather monumental entrance into the wild and weird world of New York City Public education. I teach at a middle school in a neighborhood called Washington Heights. The neighborhood is quite sketchy despite the fact that it lies in the shadows of the world famous Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and Research Center. My school is on the third and fourth floors of an old four-story building with no air conditioning; the first and second floors are used by another middle school. I teach ESL so I work mainly with immigrant kids but there are a few kids in there who were born into Spanish speaking homes in the US and for one reason or another, have not learned English during their 7 plus years of American public school education. Often that reason is that they need special education but their parents are unwilling to accept that label. About 98% of my students are from the Dominican Republic and then I have one from El Salvador and about three from Mexico. I teach a 6th grade, a 7th grade and an 8th grade class. These are called the bilingual classes, which means they get math, science and social studies in Spanish, they have a Spanish literature class and they get an ESL class. This is the class that all new students get sent to and left there until they learn sufficient English to move on. Problem: they have NO motivation to learn English. They come from a Spanish speaking home in a Spanish speaking community and go to a classroom full of Spanish speaking students with a Spanish speaking teacher. Their exposure to English is….me, three times a week. The result, they see English as a foreign language and have very little interest in learning it. That said, there are a few AWESOME students who really put in a lot of effort and if they try, they can move to a proficient enough level in a year or a little more.

Behavior: So most of my summer training was focused on classroom management because inner-city schools are notorious for being unruly and in an unruly classroom, it doesn’t matter how great the material is, the students learn nothing. One of my professors told us in his thick Long Island Jewish accent, “Neva let the lunatics have time to organize, if ya do, you are two minutes away from bein fired out the winda.” He also advised us to make the students believe that we were always on the brink of killing one of them. That element of fear might keep them in their seat long enough to learn something. Armed with that advice I tried to take control of a classroom. The problem is this, in the DR school is voluntary and is only about 4 hours a day. So, many of these kids have very limited formal schooling. They only attended school when and if they wanted. They are not used to having to sit still for this long and they certainly resent the fact that they are forced to go to school. If they acted up in their old schools they got kicked out of school. So we have lots of kids who are not only behavior problems, but also lack several years of schooling so they are illiterate in Spanish. I find that for the first few months the students are fairly respectful, and quiet. Then they start to realize that they will not be kicked out or beaten if they act up. They start to realize the powerlessness of their teachers. The ultimate punishment for any crazy thing they choose to do is one hour of detention. Where they sit in a classroom with all the other hooligans and talk and make fun of each other and the teacher. When they realize that nobody can do anything to them and nobody can force them to do anything they go nuts. They test all their limits. You give them detention and they just walk out because they realize you can’t physically restrain them. Their parents are not educated and don’t really care about their kid’s education. They see school as a holding cell. You call a parent and say, “Your child is out of control” and they usually say, “Yeah I know, I can’t control them either, they are just bad. You can keep them for detention as long as you want.”

That being said, I do believe that I can make a difference by giving those kids who want something more than welfare and projects in their futures the opportunity to make that decision for themselves and it is this thought and hope that makes me enjoy my job, that makes me get up and get to work with a smile on my face. Despite the difficulties (and I have only told you a very small fraction of them) I like being a teacher still, although I reserve the right to change my mind.

Girls Camp

2007-09-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

I got home from DC and immediately left to go to girls camp with the Manhattan stake. I had so much fun! Girls camp was certainly an eye-opening experience and unlike any girls camp I have ever been to. Like almost everything in this stake it was run mostly by young single adults with a few married women sprinkled here and there. We go to a BEAUTIFUL place called Camp Liahona that the church owns about two hours north of the city by train. The teenagers in the Manhattan stake are, for the most part, typical “inner-city youth.” Raised in the projects, have never left New York City and don’t have most of the experiences that I had growing up. Of the 45 girls at girls camp, 3 knew how to swim (and not very well), 2 were white, they were all petrified of bugs and would SCREAM!!!! I kept telling them, “girls, there are rats and cockroaches ALL over the city including in your classrooms, how can you be scared of that tiny bug?” They told me that they prefer large city rats any day over a spider or bug.

We had a huge beautiful lake with green trees all around it and a lifeguard who was an LDS 16-year old boy whom ALL the girls inevitably fell in love with and flirted with and wrote letters to. The sad part about the lake is that only 3 girls knew how to swim. Most of the girls just stayed waded in and layed around in the area that was about two feet deep. Another leader and I were trying to teach them how to swim, but I realized that just because you know how to do something, doesn’t mean you know how to teach it.

The Canoes: The church owns about 16 canoes for the lake but the rule was that if anyone wanted to go in the canoes they had to pass a swimming test. The girls begged the lifeguard until he finally said that anyone could go as long as they had a life jacket. So a few of the leaders started taking the girls out for VERY short rides that totally freaked them out. The were scared out of their minds to be out in the middle of “deep” water. I imagine it is the same scared feeling that people get the first time they ride a roller coaster. I took a bunch of girls out, having very limited canoe experience but plenty of raft experience to guide and row. The last pair of girls were both non-swimmers and one was VERY freaked out and a big girl. She sat on the floor in the middle of the canoe because she was scared so we were riding pretty low. One time when the canoe rocked a little (as canoes are apt to do) she grabbed the sides and over-corrected. Water came rushing in and the canoe flipped. Both girls flipped out and clung to the canoe, screaming for their life. Keep in mind, we all had very good lifejackets on, we were within the sight of the lifeguard, there was another canoe from camp out in the water and I was there, nevertheless these girls were certain that they would die. I had to pry their hands of the canoe that kept pushing them under giving them an opportunity to swallow water and have that drowning sensation so they started clinging to me. I kept repeating, “your life vest is holding you up. You are going to be fine, just relax.” Instead they were dead set on drowning and swallowing water and panicking. So I grabbed them both around the waist and had all three of us lay on our backs with a girl on either side of me and I kicked us to the shore behind us with the girls breaking every bone in my hand and making promises for “If I ever get out of this alive….” the whole way to the shore. We reached the shore I loaded the two girls onto the other canoe and sent them back to the dock and then the lifeguard came out to help me tip the canoe a bring it back in. I arrived back and all the girls flocked around me wanting to know if the lifeguard “had said anything about (them),” and wanting to know every detail of all that we had discussed.

We had testimony meeting and it was just amazing to hear a little about the lives of these girls. They struggle with such serious problems. I kept thinking, these girls are so scared of water and bugs and most of the girls from my home town and Utah would think it is crazy to be scared of water but if any of those girls even had to spend one night in the life of most of these girls they would die of fright. These are the girls who see a constant stream of sex, violence, drugs and crime and think it is normal. I loved getting to know them better and seeing how the principles of the gospel give them hope is what is truly a hopeless world.

Us waiting for the train on the platform.

We got on the train to come home and the girls were exhausted but were so comforted to see big buildings again.

Conclusion: Teenage girls are crazy.

DC with Nikki

2007-08-28T20:46:00.001-07:00

So a couple of weekends ago I finally made it down to DC. It is only 4 hours away from here but I had never made it. I went mainly to see Nikki Madsen, who lives there now and to attend my friends reception but ended up falling in love with that amazing, sparkling clean city.

I got there on Thursday night and Nikki proved yet again to be the most phenomenal hostess. She had an entire itinerary planned and printed for me, complete with all the information that I would need. So with Nikki's detailed plan in hand I went out to discover DC.
This is me in front of the capital building. I took the tour and was impressed, then I went to the supreme court and then on to the Library of Congress where I went on a guided tour and again developed a bit of a crush on my tour guide. I have discovered a bit of a weakness in myself for quirky tour guides. I find their knowledge of the most random things fascinating and love following them around.

I learned several things in DC.
1) With all the photographing incompetents roaming around major tourist sights, it is best to become a master of the "self-photograph" if you intend to travel solo.
2) DC is so clean and bright it reminded me of Disneyland. I kept expecting Goofy to come sauntering around the corner, broom in hand to keep the area shiny clean. There was certainly no peeing on the sides of buildings and no chicken bones on the streets. Perhaps only someone who lives in New York can appreciate the phenomenon that it is that a city the size of DC can be clean.
3) DC has a totally different feel than New York. I decided that the purposes of DC and New York are different. DC is designed to inspire awe and admiration to the visitor. It is set up to show everything that is good about being American. New York's purpose is to inspire fear and intimidation in the visitor as it attempts to dominate you financially, either through legal albeit somewhat unethical means or through the more direct way of although still somewhat unethical method of street muggings.
4)Life is cheaper, cleaner, prettier and overall easier in DC, but for some reason I belong in NYC.
Nikki met me on her lunch break and took me to the White House to take a peak. Then I went and saw the theater where Lincoln was shot and the house where he died. Then I went to the archives and saw all the stuff there including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Then I went over to the Air and Space Museum because Nikki told me I should check out the temporary American History exhibit there and look what I found....
The Nauvoo temple stone!

Saturday Nikki and I and a couple of her friends got in her car (oh what a luxury to have a car) and went up into the gorgeous hills to see the trees.
We went to these caves that were amazing and since it was their anniversary they were being lit up by candles which made them even more beautiful.
That night my roommate Cristi came and Nikki lent us her car (she is truly a saint) so that we could go to our friend's reception in Annapolis, Maryland. That town is charming and so pretty. I was in awe the whole weekend and what a beautiful life some people lead. Sunday we went to church in Nikki's huge singles ward that was full of well educated, refined, globally minded people. I was stunned. Then that night we went on a tour of the monuments. I loved them all.
This is me and my roommate Cristi on the steps of the Lincoln monument looking out over the Washington monument and the WWII monument. My favorite though, was the Korean War Monument. We saw it at night when it was dark and quiet and it is a bunch of larger than life sized statues of soldiers with all their gear on walking through the plants. This caused a much more emotional reaction in me because all I could think about were these poor guys wandering through a strange country far away from family in bad weather, at night and in reality they were just waiting for the enemy to come out and attack them. What a scary way to live, as a target. I am so grateful for the soldiers, for all the amazing leaders this country has had and for the opportunity to live in a country that, I believe, has the best interests of its citizens at heart.

I'm Still Alive

2007-08-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

So I got back to NYC on June 16th after going to dinner and Karaoke with my friends in Beijing. At Karaoke I sang the New York song that says "I want to wake up in the city that doesn't sleep" and I actually got on a plane and woke up in NYC. It was cool.

I went back to my ward and it felt like coming home. Many of my friends were still here and it has been a lot of fun to see them all again. I went immediately back to my temple shift, Saturday mornings at 5:00 am and I was called as the Spanish trainer for the session. Within the first two weeks at church I was asked to come up and give an impromptu testimony, asked to speak and given a calling as Relief Society Teacher. Looks like I didn't miss a beat.

I started training on June 18 to be an ESL teacher. The schedule was grueling. I taught middle school ESL for 4 hours in the morning every day, then went to school for a four hour class for my Masters degree, then I went to a special training program. The summer school that I taught at offered me a job for the fall so I will be teaching Beginning level ESL students at MS 326 starting Sept. 3rd. It has been fascinating and I will definitely tell you more about what it is like to teach students who have such limited life experience in NYC's inner-city public schools.

So now for some pictures....

My friend Seth asked my friend Amy to make this shirt for him to surprise me. It was hilarious!

I went with a group of friends up to Niagara Falls again.

This time we went to the base of the falls and danced under the spray. We got soaked but it was AWESOME!!!

We went to palmyra and saw the temple and the Sacred Grove. I love those places.

Then we say the Hill Cumorah Pageant. This pageant is really rather amazing. Nothing like the Manti temple pageant. This one is a BIG deal and very well done. Check out the sets and how huge the cast is.

My training ended and in August all I had to do was find a new apartment. I scoured the city and saw some of the most frightening excuses for an apartment that I have ever seen being rented for thousands of dollars a month. Luckily we found this one just one block down on our same street. It is a NYC historic landmark called Astor Row and it is the only place in NYC with a porch and front and back gardens. We move in August 18th.

I am heading to DC to visit Nikki Madsen tomorrow and then I will be goint to girls camp with the stake next week.

Wrap-up

2007-06-13T06:19:00.000-07:00

So I have been avoiding posting because I didn't have any time to write, but then I realized that in the Allred Blogging world everyone is more interested in the pictures than anything else anyways.
So here is my recent life in pictures...

About a month ago I went on a field trip to the zoo with all 250 of my students. I stood in front of each animal and said its name and asked questions like, "What color is it? How many legs does it have? What is it doing? etc. " Apparently it was a rare event to have a foreign teacher at the zoo because we got quite the following. People would just follow me around and repeat my English. This is me and some of them in front of the panda.

The last weekend in May, five girls from the branch and I got on a train and headed to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. The train ride was like a slumber party and after some clever flirting with the cook we were invited to the dining car for free soup for breakfast.

The Terra Cotta Warriors were discovered by a Chinese peasant in the early 1970's while he was digging a well. An emporer in ancient China had them made to protect his tomb. It was like China's answer to the pyramids and quite impressive. They are still unearthing them. They have barely scratched the surface and the sight has been called the 8th wonder of the world.

At 4:30am (sunrise) they raise the Chinese flag over Tiananmen Square. It is a very significant experience for a Chinese person to attend. So I, in an effort to be Chinese, left my house at 3:30 in a taxi to have the experience. It was the quintessential Chinese moment, complete with crowds, bad smells, spitting and unexplanable patriotism. Other than that, the flag raising was pretty normal and uneventful but I do feel in some way, so much more Chinese.

That night 44 LDS Young Single Adults from around China climbed in a bunch of mini vans and headed for the Great Wall. We hiked for about an hour to the wall and up to one of the guard towers where we built a fire and had roast duck and chicken and spent the night. It was awesome!! Although there were parts of the wall that were so steep they made you want to die a little bit.

Me on the wall on the way back home. It was very misty and gave the wall a mysterious feeling but ruined the photo opps.

After getting back from the great wall a couple of friends and I went to Wanfujing (like Bejing's Time Square) for a culinary adventure...Chinese Style. This is me with a giant scorpion in my mouth. It was fried and not all that bad, not nearly as bad as the grasshopper, which I also ate but worse than the seahorse.
Last weekend I went to see the Forbidden City since I had not been there yet and it was cool but a lot of it was covered for reconstruction. I also got to go see the spot where China was dedicated for the preaching of the gospel.

That night I met up with some friends and went to a famous teahouse We are all Mormon so we had hot water instead of tea. I have actually become a big fan of a nice cup of hot water. This teahouse had all of the traditional Chinese entertainment including Chinese Opera, singing, a kung fu demonstration, shadow puppets, Chinese acrobats, and presentation of Bian Lian or Changing Faces. A man (pictured below) is a kind of magician and changes masks very fast without using his hands. I can't figure out how and he even let me look at his cape and hat.

I am wrapping up the last week of school and am spending all of my free time rehearsing for the big English Show on June 14th. It is my worst nightmare come true. It includes me on a stage in front of 1,000 people, dressed up like Fraeulein Maria singing Do Re Mi accapella solo and dancing around the stage with 15 little Chinese girls. It is what nightmares are made of.

I leave for the states on Saturday June 16th and I will miss China so much!! I love it here and could live here forever if I ever had the chance.

Great Mongolian Romance 2007

2007-05-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

On our way home from our afternoon horseback ride, our guides wanted to stop off at the base of turtle rock and play some pool. There are a few pool tables set up and it is apparently their only form of entertainment. So we stopped and I met a Mongolian cowboy named Suuk Bot. He spoke no English but we had a lovely little chat, aided by Burma, who also served as our translator. We went back to our Ger and hung out at the billiards table in our little Ger town and a little later Suuk Bot showed up and wanted to hang out. It was a very funny conversation that we had through Burma, our translator. He asked me how old I was and not long after that he suggested that we get married. I thought maybe that was a little fast for me to jump into an engagement so I decided to point out some potential difficulties we might have as a couple, he gave some rather compelling arguments. I asked him how we were supposed to communicate if we couldn’t speak the same language. He told me that he would teach me Mongolian and that we really wouldn’t need to talk much. I can vouch for the fact that he really was a man of very few words, unfortunately I am most definitely NOT a woman of few words. I asked if he had ever been to the US or would want to live there he said we could go on our honeymoon there but then we would live in Mongolia. He told me he was the best looking Mongolian around and he was very rich and would be a very good husband. He invited my friends and I to his ger (which he shares with his parents) for breakfast the next morning. He said he would come over to our Ger on his horse to take us back. The next morning he knocked on our ger door and then led us over to his Ger past his herd of horses. His mother made us fried empanadas for breakfast and we hung out in their Ger. Suuk bot showed me all of their baby cows and after breakfast this dad took us to show us where they get their drinking water. They attach a plastic bottle to a tap in a tree and take the water from the tree. We had it for breakfast. It was cool and really good. Suuk Bot invited me to stay there at his Ger with him while the rest of my friends headed back to reality. I considered my options carefully, and while I do want to learn new languages and live abroad for the rest of my life, and as cool as it would sound to say I lived in a Ger with my Mongolian cowboy and drank water from a tree…I hate the cold, and Mongolia gets cold. So I said farewell to my Mongolian boyfriend and I am very happy that we ended things amicably.

We went back to Ulaanbaatar and went to a real Mongolian dance club. The live band was from the Philippines and all of their songs were in English. We had a great time dancing and then went home and crashed. The next day we bought some souvenirs and visited the square. Odd, fun fact: Most large cities in the world have a main square and it is typically my favorite place to visit. Then we got on the train to head back. The ride was much less crowded and therefore, much more pleasant…at first. I tried to sleep but the windows are not sealed very well so half of the Gobi desert flew into the train car and I inhaled it. My face and mouth were coated in a layer of dust and I couldn’t breathe so I sat up with my covered by my shirt all night.

We found a dirty little minivan with only one backseat to take us across the border. Unfortunately the border was closed so we ended up waiting for 8 hours for it to open. There were two alleged causes for the closure. One, we were told that the border couldn’t find the stamps for the passports and the second report said there was no electricity. We finally got through, and got on our bus back to Beijing. We slept on the bus and arrived in Beijing at 5 am. I went home, showered and then headed up to church. It was a fabulous trip. I got everything out of it that I wanted and would do it again all the same in a heartbeat.

Ah the Mongolian Country Life

2007-05-15T07:11:00.000-07:00

We were greeted in Ulaanbaatar by our three friends; Eric, Devon and Mike and Burma, a girl from Mongolia who served her mission with Eric in Oklahoma. We went back to the hotel, took a much needed shower, went to the store to buy snacks and a much needed pair of sunglasses to shield my eyes from the intense desert sun and the crazy sand wind. There was not much of selection so I ended up getting some hideous things with an atrocious gold design on the side. and then jumped in cars that Burma had arranged for us and headed about forty minutes outside of the city to a place called turtle rock to experience the TRUE Mongolian lifestyle.

On the way to our campsite we saw a couple of Mongolian men with a HUGE eagle stopped the side of the road. We stopped to look at the eagle and he let us pet it and let whoever wanted to hold it, put on this big glove and hold him. The eagles feathers were so thick and hard that it almost felt like a reptile. A little further along the road we saw aOn the way to our campsite we saw a couple of Mongolian men with a HUGE eagle stopped on man with camels. We stopped and he let us ride them for 1,000 tigirig (about a dollar) a piece. It is a fairly bumpy ride but it was fun.

At turtle rock there were lots of camps full of Gers. A ger is the Mongolian version of a tee pee. It is wider and shorter and made of lambskins and everyone in Mongolia used to live in them and LOTS of people still do. Right in the middle of the city there are a bunch of little neighborhoods that are divided up by fences just like a normal neighborhood but instead of a little house in the middle of each, there is a ger. Inside the Ger there is a stove that is right in the middle with a pipe through the middle of the roof. The beds are placed along the outside walls. The front door is really short and it is pretty warm inside. Especially when someone keeps the stove going all night. We had stew for dinner and then went wandering around in the hills.

You will notice huge fake dinosaurs in front of these Gers. Come to find out, Mongolia is somewhat of a dinosaur graveyard. They dig up all sorts of bones in the deserts.

We woke up the next day and had arranged for a lamb to be slaughtered. We watched and I was expecting to be horrified but it was so quick and clean. Nothing like what I expected. The Mongolian guides made a small incision in the lamb’s chest and then he stuck his arm in all the way and snapped the lamb’s spinal chord. The lamb didn’t even move. There was no blood during the whole slaughter because they kept all the organs in the lambs natural membrane. They put the pieces of meat into a large milk can with rocks that had been heating up in the fire and then put the can on the stove in the middle of their ger.

We left on a horseback ride with our two Mongolian guides. Mongolian horses are much smaller than what you are used to in America but ther are really strong and strong willed I might add. Mine had a real attitude problem so I cussed at it in Mongolian and hit it with the reins…she didn’t care.

We visited a Buddhist temple that was up on a hill and then went riding around all over the place before coming back to a delicious Lamb lunch in our ger.

Many of you unadventurous travelers have said my vacation didn’t sound all that great. It was in fact AMAZING!! How many of you have pet an eagle, ridden a camel, eaten fresh lamb or learned how to curse at a horse in Mongolian?

Stay tuned for part three, entitled, my Great Mongolian Romance 2007....

Great Mongolian Adventure 2007 Part 1

2007-05-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

On Sunday after church I rushed home and threw a few items of warm clothing in a backpack and headed to a bus station about 15 minutes from my apartment to start my Great Mongolian Adventure 2007. To commemorate the one-week May holiday 4 friends and I decided to brave the deserts of Outer Mongolia. I met up with my friend Faye and we climbed onto a tall red bus. Inside there were three rows of bunk beds that stretched from the front of the bus to the end. The bus started heading north out of Beijing at 5 pm and we rode, talked and slept in our bunk beds until 5 am when we reached the border town between Inner Mongolia (part of China) and Outer Mongolia (not part of China). We took our time getting off the bus (it was 5 am and cold) so by the time we got out we were the only bus passengers who hadn’t been swooped away by the over eager cab drivers. The 20 cab drivers who were left without passengers attacked and were trying to physically drag us into their cars using rather unconvincing coaxing in a mixture of Chinese, Mongolian and English. According to Faye one guy even grabbed her bum! Since when will that convince a girl to get in your car? There was one HUGE Mongolian man with long dirty hair and wild eyes. He looked to me like what I imagine Ghenghis Khan looked like. We decided that the Genghis look alike was a good omen for our trek into Mongolia so we jumped in his car and he took us to a little hotel where we could nap until the border opened at 9. We slept and then after haggling for a price for the ride that would take us through the border we got in a dirty old van and the driver drove us around town for three hours looking for more passengers.
We left China and got Mongolian stamps in our passports and were dropped off at the train station in Outer Mongolia. On the wall at the entrance someone had spray painted in English “Death is comino” we assumed they meant Death is coming but were undeterred. We got to the train station at 1 pm only to find that all the train tickets had been sold out for the day. Our friends were waiting for us in UlaanBataar and that 17-hour train ride was the only way to get there. We tried everything to get on that train. Even all the scalper’s tickets were sold out. We had asked and begged everyone but were finding no solutions.
This is the lovely border town that we almost got stuck in.

Then Baikel found us (she is the one in gray). She spoke some English and is the kindest warmest person I think I have ever met. She made us her project for the day and dragged us around town trying to use every connection she could find to get us on that train. Finally she hooked us up with a train smuggler who spoke no English, we paid the woman 20,000 Togrot (about 20 dollars). At 4:30 as all the ticketed passengers were charging the guards at the doors to the train cars our smuggler took me and yelled at the guards to lay off as she pushed me on board. Baikel yelled, “you will have to find Faye in one of the other cars when the train starts moving!” Once on board I was alone in a crowded sweaty train car with lots of boxes and tons of people who spoke no English and looked at me as though I were definitely lost. I sat down near a family and prayed that Faye had made it on board, I had no way of knowing since our phones didn’t work and I couldn’t go looking for her until the train started moving…when it would be to late to do anything about it if she hadn’t.

The train started moving and after about twenty minutes I started to walk through the crowded cars looking for Faye. I found her 6 cars up sitting in a sweaty heap with a large group of Mongolians.
This begins the portion of the trip that we loving call Tangled and Sweaty Mongolian Adventure 2007. We were so excited that we both made it. I joined the sweaty heap and we made a bunch of friends although nobody spoke any English. Fortunately, through my experience living alone in a country where I can’t communicate and teaching children who don’t understand me, I have become quite proficient at communicating without words and well, Faye is a phenomenal artist. Her drawing of a toilet wowed them all. Mongolian culture is unlike any other I have seen. Everything is communal and everyone is family right from the start. There are no formalities, (well other than if you step on someone’s foot you have to shake their hand). I figure this culture must come from the fact that Mongolians are traditionally people who live a very hard nomadic desert life in tents. They MUST help each other to survive so their charity is not so much a gift like it is with Latin Americans as much as it is a way of life. It seemed to me that the way they look at life is, if you are in their presence you are family. No questions asked, you are treated like family and they expect to be treated like your family. They get close very fast and they don’t expect gratitude for the kind things they do for you, they do them because that is who they are, not because they are looking for a reaction from you. We hung out all night until our smuggler, who found us later and brought us back to her car, and her people got off. Then we slept until about 9:30 am when we pulled into Ulaanbaatar after a 17 hour train ride across the Gobi Desert.

Here is a picture of a traditionally dressed Mongolian man who cuddled with our sweaty heap for a few hours.

My wordiness should come as no surprise to anyone reading this, but if you would like the condensed version for the next few days of the trek, let me know.

My Chinese Easter Part One

2007-04-09T06:30:00.000-07:00

For those of you who were frequent visitors to my blog you might have noticed a prolonged absence. My excuse: I live in China and Blogspot was and still is blocked, don’t ask questions. Here is a long one to make up for it….

My Easter celebration began during my Wednesday night adult English class while I was trying to explain Easter without talking about Christ, virtually impossible. Then my students asked me why we use eggs and why we color them. The research I have done on the subject since then has been rather inconclusive. It is just a bunch of guesses. So I decided against the Easter egg tradition in exchange for something a little more Chinese and therefore a little more exciting.

On Friday night another teacher at my school named Belinda asked if I wanted to come over to her house for dinner with her mother and father and grandmother. We made Easter Jaozi. For those of you who read my Chinese New Year blog, Jaozi are very traditional Chinese dumplings. They are like potstickers, they are made with really thin dough and a variety of meat and vegetable fillings like beef and green pepper or chicken and carrot and then steamed. Belinda’s parents are a bunch of geniuses and used carrot juice, purple cabbage juice and some little green herb (not marijuana) juice to dye the dough orange, purple and green. So we folded the jaozi and they looked like Easter Chinese style. It was far less messy than all of the egg dying I remember and SO tasty. A fabulous Chinese treat. I did NOT however hide the jaozi about the house as I was a guest in the home and could not really imagine making her 96-year-old grandmother scamper around the apartment looking for them.

Saturday morning I went to watch conference at the church. There were about 50 people there despite the fact that it was a rerun. I enjoyed it so much. That evening I tried to go for my yearly Easter mass at the Catholic church here but it was so crowded I couldn’t even get in. I stayed and listened to the priest sing the Mass in Chinese for a while but then I had to go to meet Aunt Ada.

Ada (Grandma Allred’s sister) and Dex (her son, Dad’s cousin) were staying at a very nice hotel right in the middle of Beijing so I went and had dinner with them. They had been to see Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City and had gone pearl shopping at the pearl market. It was so fun to see family all the way here in China and on Easter no less.

That night we went out bowling and I broke one hundred. I know that claim is rather pathetic to most of you bowlers but…I bowled a 43 a couple of weeks ago. My secret, I just let the ball do the work.

I spent the night at my friend Faye’s house and was able to get to church in 15 MINUTES instead of the standard 2 hour commute to church that I have grown to love and hate. That was my first Easter miracle, then I got two bags of Easter chocolately goodness from a couple of the amazing members of the branch here. Side note: If a person gains nothing else from living abroad other than the chance to see how wards were, in my opinion, meant to function like a close knit loving family then it is all worth it. I have been blown away by how amazing the members of the church are here and how kind and loving they are toward me. So, bags of chocolatey goodness was Easter miracle #2. Conference, as always, was amazing but I was really sad to see Sister Parkin be released. I am sure the next General RSP will be wonderful, but for some reason I really loved Sister Parkin. She just seemed so humble and real to me, like someone whom you could just sit down with at her kitchen table and talk about life and she would be wonderful and understanding and loving and down to earth. More on that later. After church a family from the ward invited the YSA over to Easter Dinner; Easter miracle #3. There was hanging out and general Easter appropriate merriment to be had all day. All in all it was a fabulous Easter weekend and what with three miracles, someone should be sainted.

Fall Carefully

2007-03-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

I haven’t posted much from Beijing but I am having a blast and my internet is a nightmare. I am paying for unlimited access BUT I have had the internet guy out here twice already and it works well for like the day that he comes and then it starts to get spotty and unreliable again.

So, class is going well. I am learning how to be a first grade teacher and as it turns out it is kind of tough and really exhausting. I tell everyone that I teach a swarm of first graders because I think that is the best way to describe them. They are like a swarm of bees, cute, in constant motion and ALWAYS making noise. It is especially interesting because the kids don’t understand me. To them I sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher and so they find it very easy to tune me out so that is exactly what they do. They have been given English names to emphasize the “English environment”; problem being I only know their English names and most, if not all, of them can’t recognize their name. So I can say their name a bazillion times and they will never turn around and stop hitting the kid behind them. I have however learned some great techniques let a teacher or a speaker know that you’re bored. One of my favorite includes acting like you died all of a sudden and you just slink out of your chair and fall motionless to the ground and remain there until the pace of the lesson changes to something more exciting. The other one that I think works well is getting out of your chair and going to the back of the room and acting like a frog leaping across the room. This one will usually draw the attention of all the other people in the room that are bored and cause them to join you.

Every day at 10:00 am all the students have to go to one of the courtyards and they do “exercises.” There are a bunch of dances that the PE teachers have taught the kids. They blast music through the loud speakers and the kids are all supposed to do the dance in unison. These are my first graders. They don’t do it as well as the 7th graders but they are getting it.

I teach about 50 of the teachers at the school every Wednesday night and that class is REALLY easy in comparison and actually a lot of fun.

A guy from the branch who speaks really good Mandarin taught me his method for learning new vocabulary and correct sentence structures. It consists of carrying a small notebook and a pen with you wherever you go and writing down new words and the way that people use them. A teacher from my school invited me to go with her to a huge botanical garden in Southern Beijing. It is March and still freezing so this garden was all housed within these huge greenhouses. Having never been much of a flower person, I went more to get more Chinese vocab for my notebook than for the flowers but I was amazed with how beautiful the gardens were. We were there all day and I had a blast with my friend Belinda, her parents, her grandparents, her friend and her friend’s daughter. These were my favorite ones. In Chinese they are called beautiful Butterflies.

This last one is just because well, as China becomes more and more foreigner friendly they are trying to translate a lot of their signs into English. Some times the most entertaining part of a tourist attraction are the translations. This one is one that I liked from the gardens. It says "fall carefully" and is placed over a pool of sludge. What, may I ask, does it mean to "fall carefully?"

Miss Desk

2007-03-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

So I made it to Beijing despite the crazy bus driver’s best efforts to kill us all. I did get to see how the people of rural China deal with a car crash from my seat in the bus I could see the big crane lifting the car and aided by about sixty onlookers. No police tape, no concerns about safety and really no supervision. What will become of China when people learn how to sue?

So I got to Beijing and was promptly taken to my apartment. I live alone in a “nice” two-bedroom apartment south of Beijing in a little suburb called Yi Hai. The school that I work at is like a five-minute walk from my apartment and I get all my meals for free there. They are actually pretty good meals. The school is a HUGE private school with about 2,500 students. Many of the students live at the school and they all wear these great brown uniforms. I was hired to participate in a new program that gives the first grade students three classes with a foreign teacher each week. I have nine classes with about 30 students in each class. The students are, for the most part, well-behaved. They have a ton of energy, which, comes as no surprise because they are first graders. The other thing that makes teaching a bit difficult is something the Chinese call the “little emperor syndrome” which affects many of the little kids in China. Since China’s one child policy is still in place (although not as strictly enforced) it means that all the children in China are only children and not only are they only children, for this generation they are also only grandchildren which means they are used to being doted upon and cherished and well, spoiled so they get a little cranky when they have to share the attention of a teacher between 30 students. So far it is not too bad but every teacher that I have met in China says that this situation is a particularly difficult challenge, especially among the wealthier families. I teach 29 classes a week including two classes to the teachers.

On the first day of class they asked me to do a review of some of the vocabulary they learned last week. So I had the kids running around touching all their vocab words. Like the door, something blue something red, the blackboard etc. When I told them to touch a desk a bunch of them ran up and started touching me. I was really confused at first but it turns out that Jessica sounds very much like “desk” to a first grade Chinese student with a limited vocabulary. So now the students call me Miss Desk and I am sure they are very confused as to why my parents would name me desk. Mom, Dad and explanation? I will try to take some pictures this week but I don’t’ feel very touristy in Beijing.

In the meantime...here is a picture of one of Cui Guo Hua's nephews. I took it to show you all the famous Chinese split pants. This is the East's answer to diapers. Basically little kids wear pants that are split in the middle until they are potty trained. When they are little they just pee on the floor or on the sidewalk or wherever. They are potty trained a lot earlier here (I have been told) because they never learn to pee in their pants. The result, all the little kids saunter around with their bare bums sticking out and it makes me a little uncomfortable to hold the babies.

New Years Day!

2007-02-22T21:28:00.000-08:00

On New Years Day I was startled awake by the blasting in of the New Year with all sorts of explosives. For breakfast we had Jaozi as is the custom and my Chinese little sister Mimi put on her new clothes which she was thrilled about.

Then I went with Cui Guo Hua to perform another very important New Years custom, that is to go around to all of your friends and relatives and wish them a happy New Year. At each of the homes they offer you fruit, candy and nuts from a platter and beg you to sit and stay awhile. At each of the houses you refuse and leave within five minutes.
We visited Cui Guo Hua’s uncle’s home and I took this picture to show you a typical Chinese farmer’s home. It consists of three rooms, the one that you enter is the kitchen and then there is a bedroom on either side, the bedrooms typically also serve as sitting rooms to entertain guests. The bed is a huge brick block that takes up on whole side of the room and is connected to the stove in the kitchen by tubes underneath to keep it warm. The front is ALL windows and typically faces East so as to let in the light and the warmth and there is a huge pile of corn in front of every home in this area of the country they are all corn farmers.

We also visited Cui Guo Hua’s grandfather. He was so sweet and nice and I thought he looked like cute old Chinese man.

For lunch and dinner we had jaozi again and I had hid a quarter in one of them, Cui Guo Hua’s mother found it, Lucky her!

That night when I got home, Mimi wanted to go and light fireworks in patio by her apartment complex, so her father took us downstairs to light some. Mr Hui works in the forest service and regularly gets calls in the middle of the night to go fight fires and Mrs. Hui is a nurse so you can imagine how mild the fireworks they let Mimi light are. It was a completely different experience than the night before.

The next day Cui Guo Hua’s friend wanted me to go with his parents, his wife and he to visit the village where he was born that was up in the mountains and has only had a paved road between it and Ping Quan for a few years so you can imagine how isolated they have been. In Ping Quan the people stare at me as they walk past. In the small villages they actually stop in their tracks and act as though they have seen a ghost. His friend's father was born into what was a wealthy family before the revolution and so, because of his last name, was ordered by the communist party to go with his wife to a tiny, poor village up in the mountains to be a doctor for what the Party called "reeducation." This picture was taken in front of the home of the lady who babysat Cui Guo Hua's friend.

This is the hospital that his father worked at and is still being used as a hospital. Inside it was freezing and very dirty and there were tons of broken empty glass medicine bottles.

Happy New Year!!

2007-02-21T04:34:00.000-08:00

Chinese New Year was on Sunday, February 18th and it was a celebration unlike anything I have ever seen. It was like Christmas on crack.

Wednesday was the last day of class for the pupils at the study center so that everyone could have time to prepare.

I don’t think that any description of the New Year will quite do it justice because you can’t HEAR it. In rural China, firecrackers are a very important element to any New Year celebration so ringing in the New Year sounds more like World War III. People are lighting firecrackers all day and all night without stopping for five days. So Friday, Cui Guo Hua and I went to buy some. He spent over 600 Yuan, which is almost two months salary for most people in this town and he spent far less than many other people. We took a taxi out to his parents house who live in a small village a few miles from Ping Quan to drop them all off.

Friday night there were so many firecrackers that I didn’t sleep at all. Saturday morning I lay awake in my bed listening to what sounded like gunshots and bombs, mixed with laughter. It was a very odd mixture of sound. I got up and had breakfast and then met Cui Guo Hua to go to buy some last minute vegetables at the market. The market was packed with people. They were selling candy, vegetables and lanterns and these red paper signs to paste around the door for the New Year.

We took a taxi out to his parent’s house and helped paste the red paper signs around the front door. These red paper signs basically say the wishes of the family for fortune or happiness or whatever. EVERY home and business has them hanging outside. The little boy in the picture is Cui Guo Hua's five year old nephew. He and I get along wonderfully, he talks incessantly to me and leads me around the village. I don't think he notices or cares that I don't speak Chinese, he is just thrilled that I follow him. He has lived with his grandparents since he was born. His parents come every six months to see him but now that he is old enough to go to school they are going to take him home with them. I feel so bad for Cui Guo Hua's mother, she adores him.

Then we went in to the house and everyone was helping to prepare the big meal. At 2:00 p.m. on New Years Eve they have a huge feast. Cui Guo Hua taught me how to make ba si Hong Shu (candied sweet potatoes). We had a big meal with his parents, his younger sister, her husband and their son. Most of it was very good. There were a few dishes that I opted out of but I loved the sweet and sour pork.

After the meal, we cleaned up and then the tradition is to make joazi to be eaten at midnight and all the next day. Jaozi are Chinese dumplings; they have a meat and cabbage or chives filling wrapped in dough. They are called potstickers at Costco and are like wontons only steamed not fried. Cui Guo Hua’s mother and younger sister taught me how to make them and we sat around and folded jaozi for a few hours and then we ate them at about 11:30. They are really good and fun to make.

At about five minutes to midnight we went out and started lighting firecrackers. It was so loud and crazy. I think I may have lost some of my hearing. These firecrackers are no American fireworks, they are blow your head off type firecrackers, so loud and powerful you can feel them more than see them. Cui Guo Hua, as I said before is slightly crazy and he put a string of firecrackers in an old dry tree, I don’t know why, but there was not mishap there. However the huge firecracker he put on top of the main gate to his home had about 20 of the kind of firecrackers that professionals set off in the US and one of them malfunctioned and blew out of the side. It started a small fire in his parents shed. I thought his mother was going to have a panic attack but it all worked out. It was after one in the morning by the time we were ready to head back into town. There were no taxis, it was very dark and FREEZING. We rode bikes back into town. Riding a bike in rural China is an adventure in and of itself. I will tell you about New Years Day in the next post. Stay tuned…

Adventures in food..

2007-02-11T20:55:00.000-08:00

So I consider myself a fairly adventurous person and not a wimp about most things. Rural China has challenged that perception in so many ways. One of those ways is the food. Cui Guo Hua likes to have me try new things, which works out really well sometimes and really not well at all sometimes.

The other day we ate these big black worms. Well they were black because they had been roasted but they had a crunchy outer shell and were white and soft inside. The insides were the consistency of tofu with very little flavor. I ate two of them and was not totally disgusted but would probably not order them again.

One of the favorite dishes here is chicken soup. Basically, you put a large bowl of chicken meat and chicken broth over a flame in the middle of a table and then order all the things you want to put in the soup separately. The waitress brings out little plates of raw potatoes, tofu, cabbage, carrots, radish, onion, noodles, etc and you throw them in the broth and fish them out when they are cooked to your liking. The chicken that they put in it is prepared by taking the feathers off of a chicken, but leaving the skin on and then marinating it and then taking a cleaver and chopping it into pieces and throwing it in a bowl. So the pieces of meat contain, fat, bone fragments, cartilage and pieces of lots of different organs. One of the great treats is the chicken head. When you look down into the soup the only parts of the chicken that are really identifiable are the head and the feet. I have not worked up the courage to eat the head yet, but I will.

I guess it is a very western thing to not want to look into the eyes of the food you are eating because I am always surprised when the fish comes out still intact with the eyes looking at me. This place is a barbeque place where they bring out different types of meat on skewers and you roast them over coals that are in a hole in the middle of your table.

So breakfast is one of the few things in my life that are currently completely out of my control. I live with the Hui family and either Mr. or Mrs. Hui prepares my breakfast and they call me in at about 7:40 every morning to eat “zaofan.” I trudge with dread to the kitchen to see what awaits me. Sometimes it is great. There is ”porridge” that is the consistency of oatmeal and I think is more like cracked wheat or something. It has no taste but is hot and great for breakfast. They choose to flavor it with salt and vinegar. I usually eat it plain. Other mornings we will eat sautéed onions and bell peppers and meat. They are all dripping in oil. We also eat a lot of seafood, the type that are little sea creature (you can tell by the taste) that still have their feet and eyes on them and you just watch them swim around in your soup. Breakfast is usually very salty and very oily. It is definitely an adventure. Sometimes we just have steamed bread. They are balls of bread the size of a baseball that you put in a steamer until they cook. Nobody has ovens around here so that is how they cook the bread.

Warming up...

2007-02-08T03:11:00.000-08:00

So it started to get a little warmer here this week so Cui Guo Hua decided we would take the students into the hills that surround their town and go “mountain climbing.” I was so excited to get outside and march around in the hills even though they were basically big dirt mounds. So 34 of our students showed up at 8:30 Wednesday morning and Cui Guo Hua had them get into four lines and we marched through the middle of town out towards the mountains. We climbed up steep trails and explored all over the mountains. Cui Guo Hua, being a philosopher, a tad crazy and the proud owner of a rather severe superiority complex wanted to make this little outing difficult for the kids so that they would “know what it is to be tired, hungry and in pain” I was not really buying into this idea so I told him I would lead and he should stay behind. He agreed after I pretended not to understand him long enough that he got frustrated and said okay. We gave the kids lots of rests but he still managed to make them scale some pretty steep hills and go down some pretty steep and uneven drops. He managed to make a few girls cry and I remembered hiking with the family and being scared of heights and Dad making me walk up morro rock anyways, so I decided that if I survived it they could and let him teach his little lessons while I disagreed in my head. The kids were exhausted by the time we got off the mountain and headed back into town. I made them sing “If you are happy and you know it” as we walked through a little farming village and all the people came out and watched us walk by like we were a parade. When we walked through Ping Quan lots of people just started following us to listen to me talk to the kids. It was pretty funny. I loved being outside and hiking around but am amazed that we made it back to the study center at 1:30 pm with all 34 students still alive.

This is me walking down one of the streets in Ping Quan with the students.

This is the students walking along the trail with Ping Quan in the background.

This one is Cui Guo Hua (He is the one with both of his arms up standing at the highest part of the rock) and the students.

I was loving the warmer weather right up until about two hours after we got back and it started snowing. For those of you who live in Bakersfield, in a place as cold as Ping Quan it has to warm up in order to snow. It snowed for several hours last night, which made the air a little cleaner and made the town seem a little cleaner temporarily.

Lessons learned...the hard way

2007-01-31T04:25:00.000-08:00

So I am still here in Ping Quan and I have learned a few more things about Chinese culture. China is in every way completely opposite from South America, and because South America is the only thing I can compare my international experience to, it gets me into a lot of trouble.

Showing Affection
Latin Americans are very loving and physically affectionate. They kiss and hug EVERY person they meet, and as their love for you increases so does their physical manifestation of it. I had been in Ping Quan for a week and one of the students’ mothers took me to go find a bag for my laptop. We ran all over the whole city and she was so kind to me, she bought me good treats and always made sure that I didn’t get hit by a car. We found the perfect bag and then she brought me back to Cui Guo Hua’s learning center. I wanted to show that I appreciated her and that I considered her my friend so I did what any good Latin American would do; I hugged her. That was a HUGE mistake. I thought she was going to die and I am sure she felt the same way. I made her so uncomfortable. She had no idea how to respond to that. I asked Cui Guo Hua about it later and he said that he wouldn’t even hug his mother. Nobody touches each other here. When I am playing games with the children and I need to whisper in their ear, they won’t get close to me. Their personal space is huge.

Always Refuse
There is a practice in China of always refusing when anything is offered to you. I went with Cui Guo Hua to his friend’s house during the first week that I was in Ping Quan and they brought plates of nuts and fruit into the room. Using my South American savvy got me in to trouble again in this situation. In South America, if you are offered something you accept it gratefully to show respect to your guest. It is rude to refuse something offered to you, most especially food. Cui Guo Hua’s friend offered us oranges. I did not want one as I was not hungry; so I pretended I did not understand the offer (which was in Chinese, but was accompanied by a very obvious gesture). Cui Guo Hua had peeled his orange and then translated and said, do you want this orange, not wanting to seem rude to his friends, yet still not really wanting to eat a whole orange I said I would take some of the one he was eating. This was a trick I used all the time on my mission. It saved me from having to accept huge portions of food but also allowed me to remain in the good graces of my host. I tool part of his orange and the friend said something to Cui Guo Hua, and they laughed and said “American”; one of the few words I could recognize in Chinese. I asked Cui Guo Hua what he said and he told me that his friend commented on how “free” I was. Meaning, it was very odd to them, and a little rude that I accepted the offer of an orange on the first offering. You see, people in China always refuse even if they would really like to accept. They will finally give in when pressed, but will not accept the first offer. Even the little children are taught this. A little girl brought a bag of candy to class and offered it to her classmates; they all said no! These are nine year olds refusing candy!! She pressed and pressed and they finally all said yes. I took a picture with a little three year old in a restaurant and then had it developed and gave it to her. She was so delighted she jumped up and down squealing and showing every one in the restaurant. After she had circulated around the restaurant she brought the picture back and gave it to me. I told her in Chinese that it was hers and gave it back to her. She looked at it again and handed it back to me. Again, I gave it to her and asked Cui Guo Hua to tell her that it was for her. She handed it back and told him, “ I am a good girl, I don’t take it.” I asked Cui Guo Hua what I could say so that she would take it. He told her mother that if the child did not take it, I would think it was rude. Her mother told her to take the photo and she took it and bounced away.

I will include more cultural differences later...For now I wanted to tell you that I got to name a whole room full of new students. So far my class includes Susan, Alicia, Teresa, Laura, Steven, Nathan, Jacob and Blake from the family and a Heather and Ashley. I can only name them names that other foreign teachers can easily recognize even with awful pronunciation and that the students can say and remember.

This is Alicia

This is Laura

These are a bunch of kids from one of my classes. The little girl with the scarf on that is sitting in front is named Megan and is a true tomboy. She came to my room on Saturday and invited me to "play." Once we got outside she showed me that she had a bunch of firecrackers that she proceeded to light. Through a mixture of peer pressure and a total inability to communicate I found myself, led by Megan of course, racing unsupervised through the streets of Ping Quan, her on roller skates, me on foot, throwing lit firecrackers at people. I gave her the rest of mine and she climbed on top of a roof and threw them at unsuspecting pedestrians. Oh the life of an 11 year old rural Chinese girl.

The Flower at my heart

2007-01-26T04:35:00.000-08:00

So my internet connection here in Ping Quan is dial up and takes FOREVER to load anything so pictures are hard. But this first picture is of Mimi. She is the little girl whom I am staying with. She is eleven years old and speaks with a serious lisp. This was taken fairly early in the morning before most people were up and about, but this is one of the main streets. Ping Quan is "small" by Chinese standard. It has probably 100,000 people in it but when compared to all of the FIFTY plus cities in China that have over one million people it is one of the smallest. There is still a haze in the morning from all the coal smoke at night. Most of the people ride bikes or walk and they walk in the streets. There are no traffic laws, or so it would seem. Cars are so new that nobody has really learned the importance of sticking to traffic laws. Even in Beijing stop lights, lines on the road and medians are not even suggestions but obstacles to be overcome. Some of my taxi drivers would jump medians and drive on the wrong side of the road to bypass slower traffic.

This next picture is of the family who owns a restaurant that I ate in. They all wanted to sit with us and then take their picture with me. The owner of the restaurant pasted my picture on the wall of his restaurant like I was someone famous.

The trip back to Ping Quan from Beijing was a nightmare!! There are very few things that I will say that I honestly hate and the bus from Beijing to Cheng De just became part of that very exclusive list. So the bus is a tin cylindrical mini van with no heating or air circulation of any sort. We were driving through a DARK negative 20 degree night with so many people crammed into the bus that half of the people are sitting on top of each other and a bunch are standing in the stairwell. The trip to Cheng De takes five hours and as the drivers in China have no real respect for rules of the road we were barreling into oncoming traffic and then swerving at the last moment as both drivers honk at each other. Keep in mind that Chinese people only shower and wash their clothes once a week, AND they only BRUSH THEIR TEETH once a week AND they smoke constantly but nobody wants to open a window because it is so cold outside. The Chinese diet consists of LARGE amounts of garlic and onion so you can imagine the air in that bus. So we are trapped in with this stagnant air for five hours. YUCK!

After the bus dropped me off in Cheng De I had to find a taxi to take me to Ping Quan. The driver knew a few questions in English and tried them out on me. We had an interesting Chinglish conversation aided heavily by my dictionary. As we got closer to Ping Quan he asked if I had any children, if I was married etc and kept looking back at me. Then he said, "You are the flower at my heart." I had no idea what he was talking about so I said thank you and got out. He didn't want me to pay. I told Cui Guo Hua that he said I was the flower at his heart and asked what that meant. He laughed so hard and told me that those are the words of a song and he was confessing a "very serious" love for me. Cui Guo Hua now teases me constantly about "my boyfriend, the taxi driver."

The Other Side of the Great Wall

2007-01-23T02:11:00.000-08:00

So my second Saturday in Beijing a girl from the ward called me and asked if I wanted to accept a temporary job teaching English in a little town North East of Beijing called Ping Quan. I did! I met the person I would be working with at a train station in northern Beijing and we jumped on a bus and headed Northeast. I work with a Chinese man named Cui Guo Hua who is a bit of an idealist. He is getting his second degree from Beijing University in philosophy. Now you know what type of person gets a degree in Philosophy in the states, so multiply that by 100 and youbegin to understand the type of people who study that in China. Let’s just say, the Chinese don’t love philosophy or independent thinking at all really.
As we left Beijing I saw the Great Wall. It is magnificent, just like I always imagined it. It was snaking its way along the peaks of the HUGE mountains. As we passed onto the other side I got the “we’re not in Kansas anymore” sensation.
The other side of the Great Wall…
We were on the bus for almost six hours before reaching Cheng De and then we climbed in a taxi that took us the last hour and a half leg of our trip. When we got to Ping Quan the whole city was in a cloud as thick as Bakersfield smog but black and it smelled like smoke. Here in the countryside people heat their homes by burning coal, so everything smells like smoke.
I am living with an eleven-year old student and her parents. All of the children have their Chinese names and an English name that one of their English teachers gave them. The girl I live with is named Mimi. Most of the children have English names already but I have named four of the new ones, Susan, Steven, Nathan and Jacob.
My host family serves me breakfast every morning and that in itself is an adventure. My first morning my breakfast had eyes and legs, I said to myself, “this is part of the adventure” and ate it anyways. It was some sort of seafood soup. This morning we went to a restaurant for what they told me was lamb soup. I recognized the strips of lamb stomach in my soup from eating cow stomach in Chile. I also found pieces of lamb brain, lamb intestine and lamb cartilage mixed in. Now THAT is adventure! They are wonderful and kind people and even though we have a totally silent relationship, I am so grateful for how well they care for me.
Ping Quan is the greatest town! I honestly love it here and would stay for a long time if I were able to get to church on Sunday more easily. But who wouldn’t love a town where they treat you like such a special person. Everyone stares at me and they tell me I am beautiful. We have had several dinners (we always eat lunch and dinner at different Chinese restaurants) give to us for free. A few times the owner has sat with us at our table. The owner at one restaurant asked to take a picture with his family and I, which he says that he is going to paste on the wall. This morning as I was walking to work I saw a man on a motorcycle with a huge dead pig draped across the back cruising down the street.
I teach five one-hour classes per day to students ranging in age from 7 to 13. In, what Cui Guo Hua calls, a “center” for supplementary education. I teach them English and he teaches them ideas from outside of regular Chinese thinking such as economic theory and philosophy. He has rented two rooms over a store and the children come for two hours every day. They love to learn songs and play games so I am eager to hear any ideas that you might have.
At this point I plan on staying in Ping Quan until after Chinese New Year and then heading back to Beijing to accept an English teaching position.

Ni Hao

2007-01-14T06:58:00.000-08:00

After some intense pressure from certain parties who will remain unnamed, I decided to give an update to my great Chinese Adventure.
After a wretched run in with the people of Fed Ex which ended in me going to the Fed Ex facility to pick up my Visa just hours before I left for the airport, I boarded a plane bound for China. It was a really easy 13 hour flight and I felt very calm about the whole moving to China thing throughout all of my preparations and during the whole flight until we started our decent into Beijing. Then this horrific feeling of "What have I done?" came over me and lasted until we landed and I started busying myself with finding my luggage, exchanging money and and figuring out how to find a taxi. The taxi cab driver told me that he knew the address when we were in the airport but as we got onto the highway he admitted that he didn't know where he was going. He asked several people on the road for help and finally delivered me to Steve and Chelsea's apartment and the very far north end of Beijing.
Steve and Chelsea, being true Canadians and all, are the kindest and most awesome hosts in the world. They took me to go see the kids at their school and then after work on Friday they took me to the markets. The markets are huge building filled with little stalls were English speaking Chinese girls sell cheap knock offs of purses, wallets, shoes, clothes, watches etc. They also sell jewelry very cheap but you have to bargain with them for everything and let's just say that blue eyes add another 50 yuan to every price.
I love Beijing! It is a lot like New York City; lots of people, lots of pollution, tall buildings, congestion, lights, constant motion etc. I feel very comfortable here.
I went to church on Sunday and there were about 200 members in the Beijing branch. All of them are Expats from the US with just a couple of exceptions. Most families are either very young like one or two babies, or very old, like retired and all their kids are gone. The branch feels EXACTLY like any ward you would go to in Utah or California or wherever. Great leaders, great lessons, sound doctrine, and great music.
I spent all week last week looking for a job on the internet and interviewing at like six different places. I was offered a job everywhere that I interviewed but none of them actually offered what they advertised. There is a lot of false advertising here. So I continued the search. During that week I learned several new Chinese expressions, became familiar with subway and taxi systems here and ate some GREAT Chinese food.
The pictures below were taken on Saturday. Chelsea and I went to the market in search of some jewelry and we bought a sweet potato on the way. Nobody has ovens here but there are guys that ride their bikes down the street with oil cans strapped to the back filled with cooking sweet potatoes and hot rocks and coal. They are so good and sweet. So one is me eating a sweet potato by a street musician. The other one is at an outdoor market where lots of Chinese people from the countryside come in to sell their junk claiming that they are valuable Chinese antiques.
I am leaving Monday morning to go to a small town about 5 hours Northeast of Beijing to teach English during the Spring Festival. It is freezing there and it is real rural China so I will write more from there.

My Christmas

2006-12-30T14:04:00.000-08:00

Hello All,

Well I purchased my ticket to China and will be leaving in the middle of the night on Wednesday.

I had a wonderful Christmas with my family. Eight of my siblings were together with their spouses and children. We were just missing my little brother Evan who is battling the storms in Seattle during his first couple of months of his mission.

The day after Christmas we headed to Pismo beach to hang out and play on the pier. It was beautifuland my nephews had a blast playing wave tag and getting worked by the waves. Fortunately my brother Bryce was crazy enough to get in the water to help run them in from the waves.

The Beginning of the Descent

2006-12-22T20:18:00.000-08:00

I finally quit my job to follow my dream and head to China to try out the Communist lifestyle.

The descent has been marred with difficulty including a rather painful goodbye to New York City and the fabulous people there. I tried to get my Chinese Visa from the consulate in NYC and paid a lot of extra money in order to get it processed the same day only to arrive at the consulate 30 minutes too late to pick up my Visa and my passport. So my important documents are being held hostage by the Chinese. I wonder if this is forshadowing fro the future.

Right now I am sitting in my parents house in Bakersfield deathly ill with the flu. I hope that communism turns out to be all that it promises to be and that these setbacks are not indicative of my future as a communist. 0