It just took me about three years

So about three years ago I had a slight financial moment of weakness whilst hitting up flea market estate sales with Jessica and Wewe.

I found this adorable necklace made of bakelite beads. It cost about $20 which is more than I usually spend, but I just HAD to have it. Bakelite beads are pretty awesome things in my opinion. Here's a brief outline of what bakelite is just in case you don't know:

One of the first plastics made from synthetic components (although phenol can be extracted from biological sources), Bakelite was used for its electrically nonconductiveand heat-resistant properties in radio and telephone casings and electrical insulators, and also in such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, and children's toys. In 1993 Bakelite was designated an ACS National Historical Chemical Landmark in recognition of its significance as the world's first synthetic plastic.^[1]

The "retro" appeal of old Bakelite products and labor intensive manufacturing has made them quite collectible in recent years.

Not long after purchasing this necklace I came back to BYU for my sophomore year. Less than a month into school, wouldn't you know, my necklace  broke all over my bedroom floor while putting it on for church one morning.

I dismally gathered up all the pieces and put them into a baggie, and there they sat up until this past Saturday night. 

On a sudden whim I decided it was high time to dig  out that old necklace and fix it already, and that's just what I did. I was quite a happy girl when I wore it to church on Sunday!

Something that makes me laugh...really hard!

HERE ARE SOME old facebook posts that I really love. A special thank you to J.K. Rowling who has provided the subject matter for a countless number of hilarious arguments, and there is no end in sight! (Remember to read them from the top up.)

Michael Gower i mean, how is that even at legitimate response to what i said?

December 3, 2007 at 7:19pm · Comment · Like

Rachel Finley Are you calling me fat?

December 1, 2007 at 7:23pm · Comment · Like

Michael Gower 

you are pathetic. It really does not phase me that you claim i live in a trailer, because its such a huge fallacy. you and jessica both have to be the biggest and most hated witches in the magical world. i feel sorry for the both of you, me and my...Read More

November 30, 2007 at 5:05pm · Comment · Like
and this one:

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Rachel Finley Just the usual. Being perfect, making everyone jealous, and being a far superior wizard than you.

October 8, 2007 at 10:30pm · Comment · Like

Michael Gower RACHEL! LEANNE! smith. i mean, what the hell are you even duns right now?

October 7, 2007 at 10:32pm · Comment · Like

Remove

and one last one:

Rachel Finley Please...only poors live in Wizarding Heights. Wait, that's where you live isn't it?

Oh, and I got real confussed when you texted me this morning because I thought it was my alarm for some reason and I didn't know what was going on.

November 1, 2007 at 3:08pm · Comment · Like

Michael Gower YOU ARE BY FAR THE WORST WIZARD IN ALL OF WIZARDING HEIGHTS!

October 31, 2007 at 8:17pm · Comment · Like

Rachel Finley Please...I'm the delusional one? Don't make me laugh. I mean which one of us thinks that they are in the richest wizarding family and that they're allowed to breed unicorns?

I'll give you a hint...

It's not me.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2007 at 3:50pm · Comment · Like

Michael Gower Wow. What it must be like to be so delusional...you know, I bet it must be nice to go through life being completely oblivious...is it?

October 31, 2007 at 12:19pm · Comment · Like

Rachel Finley Please, just because no one cares about what you have to say you feel this need to try and take me down with you. I would prefer you didn't do that. Tanks.

October 31, 2007 at 12:19am · Comment · Like

Veggie burgers that don't masquerade as meat

As pretty much anyone who has spoken to me in the last six months knows, I went to London this Spring. One of the best things I ate while there was a veggie burger I bought in Borough Market. It was delicious, and I have been scouring the internet looking for a recipe that seemed close to the one I bought in London. I finally found one! I improvised a little bit, but it turned out delicious!

I was severely disappointed because I was unable to find haloumi cheese. I even ventured to Good Earth for the first time, and they had never even heard of it. I used mozzarella instead and it worked just fine.

I found the recipe I used here.

I had a little bit of trouble keeping the patties together when I flipped them in the frying pan, but I just used my spatula and squished them back together after turning. One of the best things about this burger is the many different ways to eat it. It is delicious all by itself, but you can also eat in on a salad, as a burger, a sandwich, and so on and so forth.

Here's the first way I tried it:

I put it on plain wheat bread with hummus and salsa. BUT my favorite way to eat it is on flatbread with just the hummus!

There was enough from the one recipe for both lunch and dinner, and I still have at least two more meals worth of leftovers in the fridge!

All in all it was a very successful cooking venture.

My Dream Grilled Cheese and Monster Mashing Fox Fairies

I had this dream the other night. Well, at least I think it was a dream. It might have been one of those weird thoughts you have when you are almost but not quite asleep. The circumstances are neither here nor there.

The point is that this thought/dream was about a grilled cheese sandwich. The grilled cheese had colby jack cheese, Italian seasoning, Spinach leaves, and balsamic vinegar. It was quite yummy in my thoughts so I tried it out the next day for lunch. It's good in real life too! I highly recommend picking one up! I also think it would be good with a tomato slice thrown it, but I didn't have any.

We learned about fox fairies this week during enrichment reading. Basically, they are a mythical animal from Chinese tradition that can change into any shape human or animal. The writing prompt was:

Suppose a fox fairy came to your school and took on the shape of a teacher or student. Write a story about what happened.

Here is what Tawni thought would happen:

She would be an At student that Always goes to Resses and Pe. Then She got in BIG trouble. And then she got mad and gave every body bad luck. She got in trouble cuz She punched a kid in the face. She tor the school apart the school became abounolin then ghost came every were then they did the monster mash. [insert pic of monster face here] munste mash

I have no idea what an At student is or what she meant by the word abounolin, maybe it was aboundin, but the story had a happy ending. That's what really counts!

And for your reading entertainment here is an original book of the dead written and illustrated by 6th grader Monica (you have to click on it to read it):

And the ending (it's on the back of the paper) goes:

The guy made it to the main got. he complete his journey.

"Here you go," said the man.

"Thank you, I've been waiting for this," said the main got.

Milestone of the day: I had my first kid in tears, and there's a good chance it won't be the last.

Also, if you are interested bounce on over to my class blog and read my post about Christian screamo music.

The truth about Elvis

According to Gerardo that is!

Yesterday Ms. Smith gave the students a creative writing assignment that involved an abstract shape. They had to take this unusual shape, make it into a picture, and then tell a story about it. They are all very entertaining, but Gerardo's definitely made me laugh the hardest. Hopefully others will find it amusing as well. Here it is (in Gerardo's own words):

"This is a endless whole to the bottom of the earth. This whole has a lot of adventures tha could kill you. There is one Adventure that it is endless. Another one is between life or death. No one has ever dared to go down there. Except for Elvis the King of rock. He is no longer alive because of his decition."

As Dan Rather would say, "And now you know...the rest of the story."

And just a little plug for the BYU library...

It is amazing and it has saved my life. I highly recommend using its resources frequently if you can. Not only did I find a great book to read to the kids but I found TWO books called How Things Work that are pretty much basic layouts for lessons to last me the rest of the year!  More about the outcome of our Egyptian lesson later.

WOOT!

Just Shoot Me

So despite my newfound conviction to update my blog daily, I obviously have failed to do so. Unfortunately, between school, work, homework, and the miniscule amount of a social life I have, blogging has proven to be difficult. Not to mention the fact my camera randomly decided to quit working. In my opinion a blog is seriously boring without any pictures. Therefore, I made an executive decision not to attempt to bore the pants of people with my text-heavy, pictureless blog. However, I have reverted to using my old camera (ugh) and have some pictures now ready to upload. Here are some products of our cave painting lesson:

At the moment I am contemplating the perfect read aloud book that will appeal to a large group of 6th graders with vastly different personalities and tastes. Any suggestions would be greatly, greatly appreciated! I'm trying to think of something kind of old school that they might not have read. Some of my ideas are The Little Prince, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and that's about all I have right now.

Also, I am almost at freak out point for this weeks technology science class. It is less than 48 hours away, and I have yet to come up with a lesson plan. YIKES!

Tomorrow is art day again and we're moving on the the ancient Egyptians. I'm pretty excited to see the kids try their hand at hieroglyphics.

Back to School Back to School

Up until now my blogging has simply chronicled my trip in London, but now I am back to school in Provo and no longer seeing famous sights on a daily basis. Therefore, my blogging material has somewhat dried up. I have decided to refocus my blogging on my job as an after school teacher, and I might occasionally throw in a few of my cooking/baking exploits. I will discuss and share my projects, and when I get desperate possibly beg for ideas on more things to do. So here's the basic description of what I do:

Occupation: Sentinel Academy Instructor, part-time wannabe chef
Classes: Enrichment Reading, Arts & Crafts, Technology Science, Sports, Learning for Life
Grades: 6th (En. Read.), 3rd-6th(Arts, Tech. Science, Sports), 2nd (LFL)

Each post will include a brief description of my lessons of the day, pictures, and a discussion on upcoming lessons (particularly difficult ones). I will also include my favorite moment of the day...watch for this one at the end.

Tuesday (today) is arts & crafts day, and was also my first lesson of the year. I have pretty much a full syllabus for this class from the awesome website I found: http://www.kinderart.com/arthistory/

Since it was our first day I started at the beginning--with cave painting! There is a lesson on the site I use about cave painting, but rather than using dirt and lard as described in the plan I simply used crayons.

We watched a short clip showing pictures in Lascaux caves in France. We then briefly discussed purposes of cave paintings:

• Worship
• Bountiful crops
• Successful hunt
• Etc.

Each child received a piece of construction paper in either brown or grey. Then I explained, "This paper is the right color, but it certainly does not look the right texture of a cave wall." I think the kids were a little confused at first, and then slightly shocked as I quickly crumbled my blank, flat piece of construction paper into a tight ball. The shock didn't last long and soon the whole room was crumbling away, with little Arnold going as far as stamping up and down on his paper with his foot.

Then we simply flattened our papers out, and drew our cave paintings for the next half hour. I was surprised by how good some of them were.

The first day was a success, but the hard club is coming tomorrow. TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE. I know nothing about it yet am expected to teach it for the next year. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

Moment of the Day:

I was told by possibly my most misbehaving student that I was, and I quote, "The best teacher he had ever had." Of course, I strongly suspect this has more to do with my knowledge that fcuk is not a misspelled cuss word and the fact that I have Paper Planes on my iTunes, but I'll take it as a compliment none the less. I have found the difficult students become less difficult when they see you as a friend and not just an authority figure.