Mid-Week Update!

Ahh! I know - crazy. Me. Updating from home. Whhaaat? Well, turns out this is probably not a reliable wireless and I'm 'piquer'-ing (can't remember the English word for it right now) off whatever network this is, so it'll be short. It's their fault for not making it secure...

Anyhoo, I'm home! Yays! It's been great so far - some student teacher-y things, lots of family time, lots of watching the news, reading LOTR , a visit with Jill and an unexpected one with Kristin, lots of tomato juice, and a delicious chocolate cake. Yum. (And I just re-read that and would like to clarify the tomato juice and chocolate cake do not go together.) So far a great break.

The rest should be equally brilliant (hee, I feel so British saying that): turkey day and the dog show tomorrow, Friday Jess is coming to visit and it's going to be a brounching awesome day, Saturday is family Christmas shopping, and Sunday Katie and I drive back to the Grove - hopefully with good weather.

And I just realized - isn't it ironic that turkeys say 'gobble' when that's all we do on Thanksgiving?

How to Create a Coward

During my devos last night, I read an excerpt from The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. It was especially poignant because I've been fretting quite a bit lately about what to do after graduation and such and only recently have really been surrendering it to God - silly, I know, I should have done it so much sooner! These lessons never fail to instill in me just how tiny we really are and how much we need to depend on Him!

The excerpt was titled, "How to Create a Coward," and here's just a bit of it (even though it is quite long) that I found to be powerful and kind of summing up the entire section:

Screwtape explains the techniques of temptation to cowardice:
"The point is that precautions have a tendency to increase fear. The precautions publicly enjoined on your patient, however, soon become a matter of routine and this effect disappears. What you must do is to keep running in his mind (side by side with the conscious intention of doing his duty) the vague idea of all sorts of things he can do or not do, inside the framework of the duty, which seem to make him a little safer. Get his mind off the simple rule ('I've got to stay here and do so-and-so) into a series of imaginary life lines ('If A happened - though I very much hope it won't - I could do B - and if the worst came to worst, I could always do C').... The point is to keep him feeling that he has something, other than the Enemy and courage the Enemy supplies to fall back on, so that what was intended to be a total commitment to duty becomes honeycombed all through with little unconscious reservations..."

I know my mind easily takes off on hypotheticals and it can be so distracting - 'if this happens, then this could happen and I would do this....' Because of this, it's important to give that all up to God and the knowledge and wonderful security (like being wrapped in a warm, fluffy blanket!) that all is under him.

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself." -Matthew 6:33-34

Thursday Joy

Whew! Thursday is effectively over in my book even though it's only 8:15...

Run down of today:
CS Lewis (100% on my quiz!) and working on French paper during class
C&I and turning in my finished unit plan (!!!!)
Lunch with my compy finishing up my French paper
French class - turning in my paper

And in French we watched about an hour of the film, Le Corbeau, which I thought I would fall asleep during due to my um, lack thereof, but it was really creepy and riveting. I want to know who le corbeau is! Guess I have to wait until after break though...

And now tonight is full of fun things like packing for the drive tomorrow, watching Friends, and just putzing in general.

Busy as a Beeeeee

Alas! After a long and really fun stay at the Procrastination Station yesterday, I must buckle down and work today.

A concentrated effort this afternoon of 2 hours yielded 4 more lesson plans, a block plan, and some formatting for my French II unit plan due tomorrow. Then some esclaving for Madame, class, and language tables followed. Now I'm back in my room working on the last two lesson plans, my exam, the intro to the unit, and more fun formatting. Then I get to write a French essay on WWII - my thesis is awesome, but we'll see how the paper turns out. And by we, I mean me.

Hopefully I'll get about 3-4 pages done tonight and then I have an hour between classes tomorrow to dash back to my room, proofread it, and turn it in. Luckily, it's only a rough draft, so I have time to finish up the last few pages and really get the grammar and transitions smoothed out during break or the first few days back. Maybe if I hurry and stop writing here, I'll have time to watch an episode of Friends. (Amanda and I are currently working through season 9.)

And break starts FRIDAY!!! So I have less than 48 hours until the really long but fun (!) road trip home. Ohio is a lot wider than it looks...

Creature Comforts

The Pet Shop

The Importance of Having Technology

I was sent this link by a professor as the end part of a discussion on the importance (or non-importance) of technology in our lives today, especially pertaining to technology in the classroom.

And the question is posed: What would the Gettysburg Address have looked like with PowerPoint?
Please view this as it is sadly hilarious: http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm

Mary, Mary, not contrary

And drum roll please..... (dundundundudndudndudndudndudn)..... Mary came to visit this weekend! Well, actually only last night into today, but it was great - going to Orchesis, catching up, being with my 'roommate', talking about how amazing the Lord is - yay! It was so great to see her and have our funny times together making funnies. Oh, so fun. ("I've kind of been sinking down into your bed for a while, Abby...burrowing in, like a chigger. Except I don't cause inflammation." - this was said after I'd been telling her about camp.)

In a really fun flashback experience, when I walked into Hicks for dinner tonight, there was a table of people that broke into singing 'Flea', a wonderfully fun (and sometimes annoying) camp song. I miss camp.

This afternoon, once Amanda got back from taking her Praxis tests, we headed down to the Coffee Grove and sat and talked for a while - just reflecting on Mary's year abroad, Amanda's friends and family, our friendship with each other, and it all kept coming back and centering on how incredible God is! Our Lord has everything planned for us - down to the tiniest little occurrences, which is such a blessing!

"For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands." - Psalm 92:4

Happy Thursday!

A pretty darn good Thursday, I warrant it to have been: 3 classes, 1 lunch, 1 dinner, 1 nap, 1 book read, 1 hour of tutoring, 1 hour of logic homework done, 1 paper proofread, and best of all - 1 friend coming to visit tomorrow! I'm so excited to see Mary! We haven't seen each other since Strasbourg last April! This is going to be great. Also, tomorrow night we're going to see Orchesis, which I heard was really good this year.

On the downside, I have a unit plan and a paper due next Thursday - both of which I need to get working on like, now. But the paper is only a rough draft so that takes some pressure off. And I need to get working on the calligraphy for the KDP certificates - that's for Monday evening. I cleaned my pens two days ago and they've been drying since, so hopefully I'll be set to do some of that tomorrow.

Abbatial?

Also, on a very different note (hence the double-post tonight), I've gotten a few questions about the title of my blog. It's supposed to be a pun, but you kind of have to either read the dictionary for fun or just be really, really freakishly knowledgeable to get it.

Here's the official definition of 'abbatial' (including pronunciation guides, Julie):

ab·ba·tial (ə-bā'shəl)
adj. Of or having to do with an abbey, abbot, or abbess.
[Middle English abbacyal, from Late Latin abbātiālis, from abbās, abbāt-, abbot; see abbot.]
(from the American Heritage Dictionary)

And there you have it. Get it? Get it? Having to do with an 'abby?' Oh, I'm so punny.

Weapons of the Spirit

Tonight was a pretty busy evening filled with language tables (sadly empty because Orchesis started this evening), a quick call home, a few episodes of a silly anime show (thank you Summer), and then mostly proctoring a film for National French Week (which ended today). Apparently I can't get enough of parentheses (as evidenced above). Goodness. What is happening to my proofreading sensibilities, you may (or may not) ask? I have no idea. They must already be on vacation.

Anyhoo, the film is called Weapons of the Spirit, and is a documentary about a tiny town in south-central France called Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a town of around 5,000 Huguenot Protestant farmers, who, during WWII, sheltered about 5,000 Jews. Not only was this such an awesome outpouring of compassion and bravery, but also evidence of a strong community with one goal in mind. Le Chambon-sur-Lignon was only 40 miles away from the 'free' French capital of Vichy and Petain's government. Somehow, through God's providence and planning, they managed to escape a lot of scrutiny and trouble, even when Nazi troops set up offices right across the street from the main office of the Resistance. Watching this story and the interviews I couldn't help but keep repeating in my head, how awesome are God's plans for us!

Also, Mom, I finally got your pictures of Door County and they are loverly. Here's one of a road that looks like a postcard!

Heroes

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."- Helen Keller

Quite the statement, and all considerations of Helen Keller aside, we should do the same. It is the dedication proved daily by most of the world that shows us what we can accomplish by working together.

Now that my honest (home)work for the day is done, I'm going to watch DWTS and work on some super-secret spy stuff. Actually, it's not super-secret, it just makes me feel very sneaky and cool to say that. Literally, cool - it's freezing in my room. Time to break out the leg warmers and hot cocoa perhaps?

Francofollies

Francofollies, the yearly talent show for students of French at GCC, is finally over! It's kind of bittersweet for me - every year I've been in the play and this year I got to organize it along with some of the rest of stuff for National French Week (which is still going), so tonight was kind of a culmination of sorts of all the work I've been doing the past couple weeks and all the experiences I've had as a French student the past four years. I'm glad it's over - that means more than 5 hours of sleep a night this week (!) but at the same time, a chapter (albeit a very small chapter) of my life is closed. No more setting out the Boursin, brie, creme puffs, eclairs, cranberry punch, and crackers on a cold Monday night in November. No more listening to bagpipes, songs, piano etudes, and poems. No more being in the play. No more watching the can-can (I missed you terribly this year Erin!). Sigh.

On a brighter note, this was the best Monday I could ask for to start off my week! I knew that tonight I'd be pretty much tied up, so after class and lunch, I came back to the room, grabbed my stuff, and went down to South Rec to hunker down and get those pesky observation reports written while doing laundry. Look at me multitask! Then upon finding yet another spider (this one was quite big and kind of hairy), I vacuumed again.

So my clothes are clean, my room is clean, most of my observations are written, and my John Wayne poster is finally hung back up after a three-week hiatus leaning against the wall while I tried to figure out how to hang up the wooden back without nailing something into the wall. (Command strips were already used in abundance and couldn't do the job.) My solution ended up working out, or has so far... hopefully no late-night crashes will happen again.

The Information Age

Whoa. Long time, no post. Hmmm... that just doesn't work that well...

Anyways, it's been three ironic days since I posted about really liking autumn - November has officially arrived. This means rain and the "Weekend of the Falling Leaf" is upon western PA. Oh well, that means I get to wear my scarves! And woolly sweaters! Perks! Sort of... they're still not as nice as nature's fireworks - kaboosh! bam!

In my reading tonight for Issues dealing with the 'information age' and the 'necessity' of computers in every school (and sometimes classroom), I came upon this quote and thought it interesting to write a bit about:

"The equation of information and power is a corruption of Francis Bacon's comment in 1597: 'Knowledge is power.' Most likely he was referring to Proverbs 24:5: 'A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.'

"Wisdom and knowledge...they're linked to scholarship, ideas, experience, maturity, judgement, perspective, and reflections. But they have little to do with information. Nor do they have much to do with power."

(Clifford Stoll, High-Tech Heretic)

An interesting observation in this 'information-age' we live in. The wealth of information (and opinions, editorials, blogs, etc.) we have at our fingertips is often overwhelming and even more so when we do not possess the critical thinking and discretion to discern what is of importance and worthy of our attention and what is not. (Hopefully my blog is a tiny bit worthy.) But how do we expect the next generation to have skepticism, not criticism, in their box of tools if we do not equip them and simply assume that this information will make it to their brains and order itself through technological osmosis?

"It is said that knowledge is a power... What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantages of our actual ignorance."

(Henry David Thoreau)

Autumn

"When the trees their summer splendor
Change to raiment red and gold,
When the summer moon turns mellow,
And the nights are getting cold;
When the squirrels hide their acorns,
And the woodchucks disappear;
Then we know that it is autumn,
Loveliest season of the year."
-Carol L. Riser, Autumn

Yay for myGCC posting this on the log-in page. I heartily agree. Autumn is the best. All the fun colors, the brisk wind biting at your nose, thick woolen sweaters (and being able to say 'woolen'! what a great sort of word), hot tea, blankets, and the lovely autumn smell. Yay autumn!

And yet, I can't completely agree with the little poem because I have never (to my remembrance) seen a woodchuck. Nor have I seen one chucking wood. Are they particularly autumnal animals? Was there a woodchuck at the first Thanksgiving?

Speaking of, it was Thanksgiving tonight in the cafeterias on campus. The title was "Ethnic Adventures: 1621, The First Thanksgiving Meal". Hahahaha! Why, oh, why does Bon Appetit feel like it needs to hype it up? I think that may be my very favorite meal title thus far this year. There was another really good one in September, but I can't remember it exactly right now and I don't want to ruin the punniness. It was very punny.

National French Week

It started today! That means even more running around than normal because there was a banner crisis in the SAC - a few visits to Student Life & Learning office and the Office of International Education and lots of stairs later and we figured out what happened. Then I accidentally stabbed myself with a safety pin (hah! not very safe, are you?) putting up the new banner.

Language tables tonight was disappointing as well, although I did come up with an excellent pasta-salad hybrid thing to eat, there was no good French food. Well, there was some kind of chicken with Roquefort on it but, ew. No thank you. I guess I should have stopped expecting the cafeteria to make good food for National French Week by now; it has been four years... On the other hand, tomorrow is a celebration of Louis Pasteur by eating ice cream! I so hope they have pumpkin.

A very strange day it was - one of those days that feel like 3 or 4 days all squashed into one. And now it's time for bed. It's early, I know, but I'm exhausted.

Election Day

Woohoo! The first presidential election in which I have been able to vote. (Boo that I didn't get a fun sticker.)

Tonight was first spent watching the Disney version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - such a good movie, such an amazing soundtrack. It was really nice to just escape real life for a bit and also take advantage of the great sound system and large screen in Sticht and bask in the wonderful imagination that is Narnia.

Then I came back to real life and attempted to do some reading whilst watching the election coverage from around 9pm-12:45am down the hall. Pretty crowded, but not nearly as crowded as the SAC, and it came with good food too. We also had US maps which we could color as the different states' polls closed and were declared. Then listening to McCain's speech and finally Obama's speech (with a ridiculous amount of close-ups on Jesse Jackson and Oprah crying; excuse me, but can we look at the president elect please?), and now I'm going to attempt to call it a night. We'll see if my brain cooperates on shutting down for a bit.

Good news: did well on my quiz for CSL this morning and got my French midterm back. Dr. Leon said my French has become much more sophisticated in the past few months. Yay!

La Marseillaise

National French Week is almost upon us! That means lots of running around campus delivering things, e-mailing people, and putting together official invitations, posters, flyers, table tents, scripts, and such. I have a blister on my pinky toe on my foot. It's all worth it though and so much fun! Hopefully next year, assuming I'm teaching somewhere, I'll be able to utilise these organizational skills and culture ideas to celebrate National French Week at my school!

I also have come to the realization that my room is suffering a thin-legged, green spider invasion. The first was Friday, then Saturday, and this morning there was one on the ceiling of my closet. So I did some major vacuuming and moved most of my furniture around to get under my desk and bed. Hopefully I got some of the little stinkers that way. Mwahaha.

It's always very strange when the time first changes and it's so dark out so early. I don't like it, especially when it's 68 degrees out like it was today. If it's all snowy and cold, alright, but not when the weather is good please.

Quality Entertainment

First of all, last night's Halloween party was a good time - lots of good, sugary food. Sadly, I woke up this afternoon with a splitting headache - perhaps because I was up absurdly late (or early?) Skyping or perhaps because I was having a major sugar high crash. Probably both.

On the other hand, today was fun. Went to play badminton with Jim and Ram, but got to the IM room and there was an IM league soccer game happening. Also, only Jim was there because Ram had some kind of something. So we watched the game for a while and avoided racquetball because of last year's um, tragedy (mostly on my part). Sadly, I missed a huge nantaise reunion Skype chat because of that, which I just realized about 5 minutes ago because I had thought it was tonight. Boo.

Then went to see HSM3 with Caleb. I thought it was going to be greatly cheese-filled (which it was) but it was also surprisingly angsty for a Disney movie. Oh well, we had a lovely time full of mocking the film and laughing at the row of middle school girls in front of us.

And the best part of the day (besides 'falling back' later) was seeing As You Like It. The Bard was a brilliant comic. Oh, and the actors were good too. In fact, they were extremely good. I'm so glad I got HSM out of the way to make way for quality entertainment.