Mad Dash

Once upon a time, two young travelers embarked on a journey. Destination: The Midwest. Goal: attend multiple Christmases, stuff themselves with food, and visit family & friends, all without exceeding the amount of carry-on baggage the airlines allow.

Wednesday, Dec. 24: Soup & Pillsbury flaky layers biscuits for dinner. FMC christmas eve service. candle-lighting at home.

Thursday, Dec. 25: We began the day bright and early at 1 am. We encountered no problems getting to the airport, arriving before shuttles or ticket counters opened. Oops. Upon arrival in Chicago, I became incredibly disoriented because there were no mountains to the west. Reunited with my parents and brother.

Friday, Dec. 26: Christmas with my family. Enjoyed a delicious brunch. In the evening, we celebrated Festivus with my Quincy friends. I received a long list of grievances, but also excelled at the feats of strength, and consumed a lot of chocolate fondue.

Saturday, Dec. 27: Christmas with my Nyce family. All but one of our family members were able to attend. I got to see my two favorite cousinlets Caroline and Roman. James learned how to play our family's brand of dominoes (it's really similar to euchre, and was invented by my great-grandpa's brothers because playing cards, as we all know, are sinful.)--he's on his way to being a pro. James and I also received a crash course in driving my brother's stick-shift car that evening.

Sunday, Dec. 28: My attendance at church was overshadowed by 3 engagement announcements. After catching up with many after church, Jonathan, James, and I set off for PA. 1 smashed finger, 7 clementines, and 2 pot roast sandwiches later, we arrived at James' parents house. Naturally, we played Quiddler. 

Monday, Dec. 29: Alana and Travis came to visit us! After hours of chatting, had dinner as a family (Drew and Justine came to visit!) and exchanged Christmas presents. Everyone present got a new game for Christmas, which meant we had to try one out afterwards (Alhambra).

Tuesday, Dec. 30: We all learn a new game, Thurn & Taxis, and Team James and Emily trounce everyone soundly. We take a long walk as a family, have an amazing enormous dinner, and round out the evening with more games.

Wednesday, Dec. 31: We visit Good's Used Appliance and find almost the entire crew there, including Baby Abby, who finds broken copiers a lot more interesting than baby toys. More games, and I finish The Shack, a book I started two days previous. At midnight, you'd have found us in James' bedroom at the top of the house, watching the lighting of the pagoda on the mountain side and fireworks. 

Thursday, Jan. 1: We awake early, at 5 am, in order to drive to the Philly airport. James' dad makes us sprout and peanut butter sandwiches for the trip, which we end up eating at 10 am because we've been awake for so many hours. No one looks strangely at these sandwiches. Uneventful flight back to Denver, and our beloved mountains are back!

So that pretty much sums up our trip. Incredibly short, but impressively filled with visiting friends and family. It's great to be back in Denver!

5 Things

1. I have a new job. I received word on Friday that I'd been hired as the Butterfly Pavilion's spring educator; teaching classes for school groups that visit the BP on field trips. This means that I get to work full-time for one employer doing a job that I love.

2. On Friday I got two Christmas packages in the mail, heard about this job, and had an honestly good time wedding dress shopping.

3. It is oh so cold in Denver. Single digit temperatures aren't something we've experienced yet this winter, but they seem to be here to stay for the week. It's amazing how easily you acclimate to weather patterns. At this time last year I'm sure there had already been more single digit days in Goshen than I wanted to count.

4. I think my awesome Friday happened in order to prepare me for Monday. On the way to an outreach program this morning, I managed to skid on a slick patch of road and drive into a concrete lane divider. I'm fine, and the two spiders, pair of hissing cockroaches, and stick insect who were my passengers are also fine. The car is going to need some body work, and I had to take it to a garage I know nothing about. Sigh.

5. I get to go home and see family in 10 days from today! (I decided I had better end this post on a positive note. :)

Inspiration

I work three days a week in Denver's Golden Triangle neighborhood for an entrepreneur who opened a sandwich/salad/smoothie cafe' a few months ago. Right across the street from us is a coffee shop owned by another entrepreneur. I hadn't really thought about this small pocket of locally owned establishments, but one day last week really solidified to me the whole reason behind supporting local business.

12:45 pm--B, one of our regular customers who owns FashionDenver, another local business nearby, stopped by for a sandwich and discovered a Frenchman was in the store, and began speaking fluently in French with him. After he left, she and I had a conversation about loving language, the desire/need to practice every day, and even spoke a little Spanish together.

1:13 pm--J, another regular customer, shared his current woes with women, saying he still loved all women. He looked right at me and said, I love you (I was representing all women, apparently). Did I mention that he is incredibly attractive?

2:05 pm--M, the baker of our bread came in to chat with my boss. They had a long conversation about the importance of loving the work that you do, and the need for small local businesses such as theirs to stick together and to support each other. Listening to this inspiring conversation, I was filled with an overwhelming love for supporting local businesses, the cozy feeling you get walking into a specific small place, rather than a local chain of a huge company. I loved listening to their strategies for increasing their customer base while staying true to their principles.

2:30 pm--Freezing, I ran across the street for a latte. Metropolis makes the best lattes I've ever had, with the creamiest thickest foam with lovely swirls of chocolate brown espresso in the pearly foam. The barista working refused to let me pay for my latte. In return, I ran a cup of hot vegetable soup back across the street to her a bit later.

All these interweaving relationships, and the desire and ability to do favors for people who work/live nearby are amazing aspects of local businesses. I've met some interesting regular customers and entrepreneurs, and I am going to continue to love and support my local businesses. Here's to unique and comfortable places of business that are owned by locals. Cheers.

Monday Musings

Dear Google Maps,
If you'd like me to turn left at a specific road, please give me the name of that road. And, if it's not too much trouble, could you possibly provide the name on the road sign at the intersection where I'll need to turn? It sure was helpful to know what the street would be called in 300 feet, but, you see, I couldn't see that sign. So thanks.

Yes, one of the biggest frustrations with my Butterfly Pavilion job is the driving. I don't mind actually doing the driving, I just get a little upset when yet again Google sends me off into the world, confidently wielding directions....that don't quite provide enough information to get me where I need to go. Today I drove past my turn twice, solely because it was not labeled Indiana Ave, as it should have been, but rather, Colorado Mills something or other. Sigh. So I was late to my program. Luckily, the secretary was extra patient with my two phone calls for directions and the teacher was not stressed by my lateness. And the kids were awesome, smart and funny and excited.

Dear self, please check to make sure you have all your belongings before leaving a school. If you fail at this step, you'll leave your favorite sweater behind. I promise.

Yes, my favorite cardigan sweater, that Kimberly gave to me, that her parents got at the thrift store they manage...left at the school I almost didn't find. Sigh.

It's clearly Monday. Here's hoping the rest of my short week goes better than this.

6th grade student, after eating a chocolate-covered cricket: "Is it weird for your stomach to be upset?"
Me: "I think it's normal to feel a little weird after eating a bug. I would feel the same way, my brain would tell me that I didn't feel well."
*Oh, they're so cute!

Public service announcement

Read this before you say we shouldn't bail out the auto industry.

He says it much better than me, but really, we had no problem bailing out the financial firms (who also made multiple, enormous mistakes), but not the Big Three auto firms? Yes, they made mistakes that they should be accountable for, but this doesn't just affect the CEOs who made those decisions. It affects the millions of people who work a factory shift each day, building cars to feed their families. Michigan's economy is already destroyed, and allowed the auto industry to fail will not help. Not only MI will be affected. In my part of Ohio, there are numerous Big Three auto factories that hold our local economies together. Many of my high school friends' parents had worked for Chrysler or Ford for life. These people will not have other options for jobs. Let's not punish the auto industry by allowing innocent workers to be laid off.

At Random

• What is happening today? The sun is not shining in Denver. I filled up my gas tank at $1.96 a gallon. I think the apocalypse is coming!
• I love love love my job (at the Butterfly Pavilion)! It's so awesome to be doing fulfilling work that actually uses my undergraduate training. Today I gave a program for a group of K-5th graders in a childcare program run by a local public school. There was no school for students today. They were attentive and smart, knowing words like biodiversity and omnivore, loved playing the jeopardy style game I had, and asked great questions about the insects I'd brought along. All but one of them wanted to hold the tarantula. All my fears about them being hyper when they didn't have school were unnecessary. Their teacher held the tarantula. They all thanked me for coming and I left grinning. I was made for this job, I think.
• Going along with waxing prolific about my adoration for my job, I had a great time at my after school program this past Friday. The kids got to build their own insects out of pipe cleaners, clay, feathers, googly eyes, and more. They loved it! They each wanted to show me their creation, and they were just so cute and enthusiastic! It's also incredible to me (coming from the world of junior high and high schoolers) that I can very easily get a room full of 7 and 8 year olds to sing a silly song with me about the parts of an insect. 
• You should all go read Sweet Juniper's latest post on an abandoned Detroit neighborhood. He writes so well about the problems of this now desolate, once booming urban city.
• This weekend I went to a big horn sheep festival...saw a number of male big horns, but none of them were headbutting. It was still really great to see them in their natural habitat and learn more about them from the volunteers.
• I've really been enjoying my new spicy rooibos tea. While it's not actually that cold here (yet), it still hits the spot on a dark evening.
• That's all from me for now...I'm looking forward to the rest of my very easy, not very full of work week: 3 days at Parsley and just my after school program on Friday.

With liberty and injustice for all...

Today my Butterfly Pavilion work took me to an elementary school on the outskirts of Golden, CO. When I drove up to the school (after accidentally driving into the grounds of their next door neighbor, a country club) I found many other presenters there from the Denver Zoo, the natural history museum, the bug mobile, etc. Turns out that this school hosts an annual science day. This is an awesome idea, don't get me wrong. However, as soon as I entered the building I knew I was in a place of affluence. After going into many different schools for my undergrad work, student teaching, subbing, and now the BP, I am a pretty good judge of the affluence of a school based on its appearance. This one, with large classrooms, carpeted hallways, brick exterior, large playground and string instruments in the hallways, was definitely well off. When our first group of students came into the music room, my judgement was further solidified: every kid was white, well-dressed, and very clean. The student to teacher ratio for the 3 classes I observed today was about 18 kids:1 teacher. These kids knew their stuff, too. They clearly had worked hard on the information of metamorphosis before, and definitely had support at home to help them. These kids had an impressive biological vocabulary. Did I mention that student:teacher ratio? Yeah, 18:1..the classes I student taught in an affluent rural school district in Indiana had a ratio of 30:1, just to give you an idea of why this is so amazing to me.

It is not Blog Action day, but this post is quite pertinent to that. Most urban schools could not have hosted this type of event. Without an enormous grant they would have been unable to pay for all the presenters. On top of that, they would not have the luxury of taking an entire day out from the regular schedule b/c their schools are "failing" according to the national government. These schools have to teach a strict curriculum to ensure their students have even a fighting chance of passing their standardized tests. Why must these students pass the tests? In order to move to the next grade, personally, and to make sure their school can get enough federal/state funding to continue paying everyone and keeping technology up to date. In Wednesday's debate, John McCain said something that made me so upset I yelled at the TV. He stated that some of the "worst" school districts in the country get the most funding. This is an absolute blatant lie. I'm currently doing a BP after school program at a DPS school in an area with a very high Latino population. I am there giving the program b/c they got a grant, and let me tell you, this school has not been updated in quite some time. It looks a little sad on the outside, but these kids are amazing. And yet, their school is marked "failing." A school full of bilingual and soon to be bilingual students where teachers take time to write grants for after school programs is marked failing. Without any data I can tell you this school get significantly less money from the government and tax payers each year than the school I visited in Golden today.

As I wound my way through the hallways of this elementary school today, I happened upon a classroom of students saying the pledge, hearing the line "with liberty and justice for all." After my experiences there and while reflecting on my thoughts on our country's education system, I cannot believe in that line. What I have told you about above is injustice. Each day, the wealthy students at this elementary school get more attention from their teachers and enjoy  more programs and services, while students in many DPS schools use outdated textbooks and learn amongst the 25-30 other students one teacher is working diligently to serve. This makes my heart cry out. Don't fall for the lies the government tries to tell you: schools with more funding do better. Period. More money = more resources = better education. Don't believe that students from lower income families deserve less. They work just as hard and probably harder than those of us privileged enough to call ourselves middle class. Until the day comes when schools are properly funded and the national education budget becomes larger than that for defense, speak out. Learn the truth and tell the truth about education in this country. All children deserve to succeed and they deserve the best.