The Gift that Keeps on Giving

 
I've decided that the best gifts are the gifts that keep on giving. Last week, I received a package in the mail from Colleen. Before I'd even begun to open the thing, I knew it was a re-gift, something I'd seen before, something that I'm sure Gina and Carrie had both received. I racked my brain for all the items we'd passed around over the years; I knew Carrie and Colleen had a birthday card they never signed but passed back and forth, during our freshmen year, we'd come across a ball of something that resembled a booger and passed it back and forth for months, perhaps Colleen had come across another booger, or had been saving the booger for the past 10 or so years (yes, Colleen, I can imagine you doing this). As I ripped open the package, out came the Tonight/Not Tonight pillow. Of course, I'd forgotten all about it as I'd not yet been the recpient of the pillow but had seen it re-gifted. Upon Colleen's request and my love for re-gifts, I decided to tell the story of the Tonight pillow. I also ask that if anyone has a great re-gift story (Meghan, you need to tell the story of the baby leg-it's the best I've seen so far) to pass it along and I will post it.

The Tonight Pillow

The Tonight pillow first entered Colleen's life two Christmas's ago. Her father-in-law gave it to her. Colleen will have to explain their relationship...I'm not quite sure why she received a sex pillow from her father-in-law (unless it was a hint that Colleen and Matt needed to have more babies???), but never-the-less, there it was. Being prime re-gift material, Colleen conveniently left it on Gina's bed one day. Gina's husband, Demian found it, commented on its tackiness and off it went to Carrie's house, as a present for Carrie's new baby...Gina, you're twisted. Carrie tried to get it back to Colleen, but Colleen, having much experience with re-gifts, quickly got it back to Gina just before Gina had Atticus. While at Colleen's white elephant gift exchange this year Gina and Carrie hid it in Colleen's bed, where it stayed until I recieved it. I did think it odd that Jarred was totally excited about the pillow and sad to find out that one day it would have to be re-gifted.

So while the Tonight pillow has made it's rounds, I'm sure many of you have great re-gift stories...bring 'em on!

An Adventure of a Different Kind

Since I committed myself to titling my blog "101 Adventures with Sarah and Jarred," I've come to realize that I really do need to document the big adventures in our lives. I originally thought that perhaps Jarred would offer up a post every now and then, but since he refuses to use blog as a verb (as in "I can't listen to you update me on UPS Alumni right now because I'm blogging.") he's proven to be a weak blog partner. So, I must tell his story for him. The perk of doing this is I get to tell it from my point of view!

This past weekend I celebrated my 32nd birthday. My friends Meghan, Kieley and I decided last year after visiting a most impressive spa in Seattle, Umelina's, that we would make the spa visit an annual one. Umelina's is quite the spa "experience." I've not been to many spas, but at Umelina's they don't usher you in, give you the treatment and then kick you out, they usher you in, give you tea, a foot massage and then escort you back for whatever experience you paid the big bucks for. I opted for a facial this time. Once you are done, you have the opportunity to experience the best shower ever, not only does water come from all corners of the shower room, but the selection of fancy shampoos and bodywashes is extensive. Upon leaving the shower, you are invited to sit down with your friends in the tea room and drink more tea while a warm neckie type thing is wrapped around your neck. Finally, when ready, you can leave. This event took up the majority of our Sunday morning.

Because Meghan and I (and Kieley even though she may not want to admit it) are not REALLY girly girls, we thought it would be wise to balance out our girly spa experience with something a little rougher. Dylan, Meghan's brother and Kieley's fiance', called us two weeks ago to see if we wanted to go to Monster Truck Madness at the Tacoma Dome. Secretly, Kieley was hoping we would say no, but who could turn down rednecks and big loud trucks? To Dylan's delight I drove my big truck up to Seattle so we could drive to the Monster Truck Madness in style. If you've never been to a monster truck show, I highly recommend it. Not only is the people watching fabulous (lots of smoking, badly died blonde hair, wild children and beer bellies) but no matter who you are, by the end of the show, you too will want to drive a monster truck. I found myself rooting for the one girl driver and realizing that Gravedigger really is the best truck out there...plus Gravedigger is really a monster truck hearse! The best part is when all the locals come in for the demolition derby. I think demolition derbies are for people too poor to build a monster truck. Needless to say, my love for big trucks is rekindled.

While I was enjoying the traditional American Redneck pass time, Jarred had opted to stay home to climb Mt. Hood and kayak with some friends. From here on out, I will now write as if I'm Jarred (oh, Jarred, the bane of not blogging yourself).

Although the monster truck show was tempting, I was looking forward to a nice weekend alone. A weekend where I could kayak until my hands were numb and solo Leuthold's Couloir on Mt. Hood, a feat I'd previously tackled, but not alone. I believe soloing is not only a macho experience but also a true test of mental "game." I looked forward to a weekend of non-stop action, which is what my life is all about.

I rose at 3 am to a clear cold sky. As I rocked out to AC/DC on the way up to Hood, I thought of the summit of Hood and kicking steps up the small couloir. I did not think of the danger of climbing alone or the fact that Mt. Hood is constantly changing. I practically ran up the lower part of the mountain, while still rocking out to AC/DC on my I-Pod. I was so impressed with my ability to be so active although I'd not trained for my climb, climbed at all in the past year, OR exercised one bit this past week. If I'd taken the time, I'd have thrown off my shirt and beat my fists against my chest while yelling,"I am an infallible man! Being a man is what life is all about, we men, have goals that we men achieve!" But I was too busy running and singing "I want a mistress for Christmas."

As I traversed across to Leuthold's Coulior, I took note of the sheer ice under my crampons. A fleeting thought crept into my mind that the start of the route seemed icier than normal, but I pushed this thought out of my mind because I was a man and had a goal. I soon found myself on a fairly steep slope but simply flexed my calves and dug my crampons into the ice while engaging the loins of strength from within as I swung my axe and tool into the blue glacial ice. Suddenly I let out a whelp, similar to the one a man excretes when being hit in the balls. Off I went down the slope.

While my speed increased I didn't have time to wonder whether ice climbing alone was a good idea for me. I was too busy trying to stop myself before reaching the bottom of the glacier thousands of feet below. Despite using my axe and tools, I wasn't slowing down. Finally the ice became a hard snow and I managed to stop myself. I quickly checked to see if all appendages worked. Finding that they did, I limped my bruised ankle, loose fingernails, chipped ring finger and ego back down the mountain to the comfort of my truck and the emergency room where the nurse recognized me after asking, "Didn't you break your clavicle in a bike accident this fall?" Grumpy, I drove home to nurse my sore body and ego and to ponder whether I needed to change my decision making processes.

The Perks of Grading English Papers

via videosift.com

I think Taylor Mali puts the experience of being an English teacher best. Spell check was a great invention, but, as seen here, there are downfalls, especially when it comes to ignorance and being hurried.
One of the downfalls of teaching English is the great number of papers I have to grade. While I want my students to write as much as possible, I need to be careful about how much writing I assign that I actually want to grade. Grading writing takes time and patience. Over the past couple of years, I've been developing my own personal list of the most humorous and commonly seen mistakes. I think every English teacher should do this. It would make a great book! Following are some of my favorites. I know some may seem only funny to me, in the midst of grading 90 or so papers, one does start to nerd-out!

1. "We R positive that the invasion of Iraq was prompted by false information provided by the Bush Administration." Like spell check, texting is a cool invention, but the texting language has crossed over into academic writing and I'm just not ready to accept it yet. Are will always be spelled are.

2. "sarah widdop" I often wonder if this is a carry-over from texting (I don't text). Since when were proper nouns not capitalized? You'd think that they'd be able to capitalize their own names!

3. "So like you know when Stalin killed like thousands of people only to create a like industrialized country?" There are words that just don't belong in our writing, let alone our speaking! I'm not even sure what part of speech like would be as used in this sentence, it used to be a verb. Like is often replaced with "you know, kinda, sorta, well, of course."

4. "The book (or chapter or even worse 'it') says 'We don't want to go on the boat." Since when did books talk?

5. "I am doing the history of the Secret Police." Now I have to point out that doing is synonymous having sex and I'm sure that nobody is having sex with history.

6. "When you read the book, you feel as if the author really knew the characters. You wonder where they were when they wrote the book." This can get tricky. Students just don't understand that I didn't read the book, nor are they writing a report about how I felt about the book or author. They're suppose to be writing about how they felt! I often get a double-whammy when the "you" they speak of becomes "u."

7. Thesis statement: "Did you know that rain forests are diminishing every second?" Since when did statements end with question marks?

8. At one point in elementary school, some well-meaning teacher taught his/her students about transitions between sentences. The only ones that ever seem to stick are first, second, third (and somewhere in that process, they became adverbs and ly was added to the end of each...firstly, secondly, thirdly, fourthly). I have many a student that despite the fact that their essay is not written in chronological order, and firstly, secondly or fifthly don't fit into the natural flow, of their essay, still manage to insert them at the beginning of each paragraph. I have one freshmen this year who has handed in a first, second, third essay EVERY time I've assigned a formal piece of writing.

9. And of course there is the ever present spell check excuse, "Spell check said it was spelled right." Again, my spell check does not talk to me and a conversion is not a conversation, nor is definitely, definatly. Prosthetic is not prostate (this is my favorite) and like and lick do not mean the same thing nor do they belong in a sentence unless like is used as a verb.

10. " I knew Right away that equality in the book anthem was not going to Stay in his House." Random capitalization. When I want them to capitalize important words (their names), they don't but they sure can capitalize random words.

At least there's never a dull moment in the world of education! To be continued....

Fun With Facial Hair

I don't know if it's the onset of winter or the fact that puberty had hit and some kids can now grow bits of facial hair, but I've recently noticed many odd facial hair trends lately. My little freshmen can't even focus on facial hair yet, they're just excited they can wear deodorant and seem to slather themselves with Axe hourly. But as I walk through the halls, I have the pleasure of seeing various phases of facial hair growth. Last week's sighting topped all of them. I wish I could take photos of students to post on my blog but alas, you must depend on my description. This kid clearly had not yet developed the ability to grow any hair on his face, but his upper neck appeared to be much ahead in the adolescent development department. I've noticed in observing facial hair lately that some people grow tight curly beards (as Jarred's above) while other's tend to grow long straight hairs, as this kid had. They were just dangling from his lower chin and neck. As I observed his manliness I wondered whether this kid was taking himself seriously. I knew if I was his teacher, I'd have a hard time taking him seriously. I do think facial hair is a very serious aspect of a teenagers life. Once the novelty of growing pubic hair on one's face wears off, the fun begins. This seems to be the point at which many spend a week or two brandishing a full beard only to sculpt a mean mustache or some serious chops. At times I am a bit jealous of the instant and fun hair growth and begin to think that women take their hair way too seriously.