Letterman Sweaters

In the last little while, my Grandma has asked me to clean out a couple of the closets in her house. We found a lot of suits that no longer fit my Grandpa. We also found a lot of nice dresses that no longer fit my Grandma. The suits are all too small, but unfortunately the dresses are all way to big. My grandma insisted on keeping them all because, "I might get fat again when I'm feeling better." We didn't take very much to the DI, but we did reorganize a few things and put some "new" things toward the front so they can be worn.

The coolest things, I think, we found were some old dresses that belonged to my Great Grandma Fern. My grandma has kept them since Great Grandma died in 1964. The dresses were really cool and looked like ones June Cleaver would have worn. I've always thought that Great Grandma Fern was a bigger lady, like me, my mom, sister, aunts, and cousins. These dresses were very small, though. She may have been tall, but was really skinny. I guess everyone was in that era.

The other cool find was my Grandpa's football letterman sweaters. The blue one is from South High School, class of 1947, and the red one is his University of Utah sweater, class of 1951. Originally, I thought maybe the 51 was his football jersey number, but I'm dumb and it's actually the year he graduated. Unfortunately, there's nothing on the red sweater designating football, the U, or anything other than "51." Weird.

The sweaters were in rough shape, so I asked if I could get them cleaned and Grandma said that'd be okay. They cleaned up pretty cool!We also found some brand new navy blue pants for Grandpa (he only wears khaki) and several brand new lightweight jackets that Grandpa has also never worn. There is also a jar of honey and a glass bottle of (probably well-fermented) apple juice that are glued to shelves by some toxic black substance. They've been there quite a while because the "new" contact paper on the shelves (I don't remember Grandma contact papering these shelves in my lifetime, so it's probably been a few years) was actually cut around these two jars and even tacked up the side of the apple juice.

Pandora

I like Pandora. I like the the randomness it brings within my musical specifications. I listen to it at school during my prep. It helps keep me awake and productive (though never productive enough to get ahead, but that's part of the job, I guess). Not only is it random, but totally obscure. Today, the first song that played was this: The Samples "Indiana."




I've never put "the Samples" on any Pandora playlist, but somehow it's in there. This was cool! I love this song! I had one of those reminiscent experiences for a few moments. I was into the Samples at one point. They have literally 20+ albums, though, the only real link between them is Sean Kelly and his naturist, always stoned, weirdness (youtube "Sean Kelly African Ivory" for a taste of the weirdness . . . "for every button that we push, there's an elephant bleeding behind some bush" Rock on!). During the time I followed what the band was doing, I got weekly digest e-mails of their fan page and read as the band constantly lost and added new members. I have probably 4 or 5 albums and like some more than others.

My sister and I saw them open for Sting once at the Canyons (formerly Wolf Mountain and formerly formerly Park West). We saw them one other time at Kingsbury Hall, but I was disappointed because each meaningful 3 minute ballad changed into a 20 minute weirdo jam session.

Once I actually drove through Indiana (with my sister, of course). We had the song queued up on our cd player (hooked into the Golf's tape deck with a long cord - we were so cool!), but the traffic in Chicago was terrible and although we could see the sign that said "Welcome to Indiana" in front of us, it was still minutes away. We kept hearing, "I remember the first . . . I remember the first . . . I remember the first . . . "until we finally passed the sign and could listen to the rest of the song.

I'm sure Annie was driving. She did the day shift (I tended to doze off in the mornings) and I took the night shift (she couldn't see at night and had knee pain or something). I'm pretty sure it was daylight when we crossed the border, because that same day we went to Valparaiso to find a t-shirt (they made it far into the NCAA tourney that year), but unfortunately got there too late and the bookstore was closed. We may have made it to South Bend and Notre Dame that same day.

. . . Weird what I song can do for you!

Halloween . . .

. . . is coming soon!
(from Molly and the Monkey).



One night James was playing with Molly on our bed and I was doing something downstairs (probably laundry or cleaning up dinner, but I don't remember) when all of a sudden Molly started SCREAMING bloody murder. I went upstairs to see what was going on and James was playing some cruel game called "See the monkey . . . Scream! Don't see the monkey . . . Stop! See the monkey . . . Scream! Don't see the monkey . . . Stop!" I don't know what scared her that night, but she was petrified. Since then, however, she has warmed up to the monkey and they have become quite good friends.

This reminded me of one time in Yellowstone. Elliott was little (during his helmet days) and was getting restless while we were eating at the good pizza place in West Yellowstone. I took him to a gift shop next door to stall while everyone finished and I played a similar game with him and a little black bear stuffed animal. It was quite hilarious at the time. I didn't think it was cruel. Sorry Elliott, I guess I see things a little different now I'm the mom. I'm sorry if I traumatized you for life, but I think swinging you around at the football game yesterday made up for it, right?

3.19 Inches

I am a couple of days late in stating my amazement of the Chilean mine rescue, but I just wanted to post briefly after I ripped this page out of a recent Newseek. I think this whole mine thing is just amazing and absolutely inspiring. If human beings are able to find 33 men buried a half mile under ground, send them life saving supplies through a shaft 3 inches wide, keep them alive for more than 2 months, then patiently rescue them one at a time through a 2 foot wide shaft in a metal capsule . . . anything is possible!



3

ESL Reflections

My ESL students are taking a quiz right now. Before that we finished up a jigsaw activity in which each student is an "expert" in one particular area and then teaches the others in their group. What I learned is that students have difficulty understanding each others dialects and accents when trying to speak in English about academic subject matter. Most (not all) of my students speak Spanish, but they don't necessarily understand the Spanish of the other students. This activity proved to be much more difficult than I would have expected. When I teach them something, I write down key words or show pictures to help explain vocabulary words, etc. When they are just speaking to one another about unfamiliar topics, all I hear is, "What? What was that? What did you say? Can you spell that? Oh! That's what you mean!"

I am always surprised by what these kids CAN do (which is much better than I could do if I were in their shoes), but sometimes they really catch me off guard with the things that are difficult for them.

We are also making some progress with Gay Lay. I say "we" because my whole class is helping him out. He is from a refugee camp in Thailand and speaks no English. We've had 2 big accomplishments lately. I required the students to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution. Gay Lay didn't have to memorize it, but had to read it out loud. He did well. Second, today, all on his own, he said "1-A." That is what group he was in for the activity. None of us could remember. That's all he's ever said in our class on his own except for "toilet."

Here is part of the quiz if you want to take it:

U.S. History – Unit 2 Quiz

Name ___________________ Date _______________ Per ____

Fill in the blank. You may use any notes or assignments that you have.

1. The United States became its own country after the end of the Revolution when we separated from which country? ___________________.

2. At first, we did not have a constitution, instead we used a document call the _________ of _________.

3. This document was not strong enough because (list 1 reason). _____

4. ________________________________________ was the first President of the United States.

5. Name 2 other presidents of the United States who served between the first one and Andrew Jackson (7^th). _________ ____________

6. Explain the Great Compromise in 3-4 sentences.

Answer the following questions about the branches of government

7. There are three branches of the United States Government. Each is able to check and balance out the others. The President is in charge of the _____________ branch. The __________ branch is led by Congress. The ____________ branch is led by the Supreme Court.

8. There are two parts to Congress. They are the House of _____________ and the ______________.

9. Each office in government is elected for a specific term. How many years are in each term?

a. President _________

b. Congressman __________

c. Senator ___________

10. List 2 Powers of Congress:

11. List 2 Powers of the President:

12. List 2 Powers of the Supreme Court.

13. Explain 2 things that Andrew Jackson did that made him significant.

14. What is a reform? _____________________________

15. Name 1 reformist that you learned about. Describe what they did and why they were important.

16. BONUS!! Write the Preamble to the Constitution (below or on a separate piece of paper).