I Had to Leave for a Few Days

As we go through the mundane of winter and the end of the quarter grind, I had to take a break from blogging daily.  It has been such a busy week, and one night, we decided to have family night and watch Dolphin Tale.  After the movie was over and the kids were put to bed, I didn't have it in me to blog.  None of my experiences of the day were speaking to me.  Sharing a computer is difficult also.  I can blog from the tablet or the iPod touch, but I like the feel of keys under my fingers.  I also like to see what I am writing and feel that I can go back and edit without messing up the whole post.

Although the reading testing is done, the math is not.  Report card weeks find me running here and there.  Do I plan for class and teach or assess and do grades?  I did get some assessment/report card comp time from the principal.  The first day I entered all my grades on the report cards.  Today, I started on the comments and did some planning for next week.  I am on a quest to write better comments on my report cards and was given a hand by a colleague who let me borrow her Timesavers for Teachers Book 2.  I love the examples of comments that it gives, but it is taking me longer as I search for the words that express what I want to say.  I wish that I could have kept on task and finished my math testing also, but there is always next week.  The problem is that the longer I take, the more out of routine my class gets.  I am ready to change some of the routines in my classroom again and need to set higher expectations for my students to get the best work out of them.  At the end of the month I have a student teacher coming.  I enjoyed having a student teacher for the first time in the fall and hope that this experience will be just as enjoyable.

The Grocery Store Took Two Hours!

I used my new app, Grocery Pal, when I went to the grocery store today.  I actually had a grocery list, some coupons downloaded to my loyalty card, and I was armed with my stack of coupons.  I took my youngest with me.  We had to go and look for a special cart.  We didn't find one, and we were at the other end of the store so we started out in Health and Beauty and worked our way backward.  I think that Eat This, Not That! suggests that you do the perimeter of the store first to make sure that you get the things that you really need.  So, we started out in Dairy, then Meats, Bakery, and Produce.  As we were doing the middle of the store, I realized that we forgot the minced garlic so we had to go back to produce.  Then, Reese really liked the imitation crab, so we had to go back for another sample and to pick up a pack for home.  We were almost done with frozen foods when Reese had to go to the restroom.  We ended in cleaning supplies and then had to wait in line because we got the after work shopping crowd!  Whew!  Glad that is over!

For all that hard work, I saved almost $37.00, which is cool because in this day and age, groceries are expensive and packages are getting smaller and smaller!  I think that I just realized that if you download a coupon to your loyalty card, they do not double it, but if you have the paper coupon, it comes up as scanned coupon and bonus coupon, meaning it is doubled!

Three Day Weekend

I am so glad that this is a three day weekend.  We have spent the last two days doing other things.  Tomorrow will give me the opportunity to do the housework and laundry that still needs to be done.  I also had some goals for household organizing that I would like to complete such as labeling the LEGO boxes and finishing up the cleaning up after the holidays (yes, I realize that we are 15 days into the new year) and some things that I need to complete for work.  I have trouble doing things during the week.  Once I go to work, come home, cook dinner, and do homework, I am beat and do not feel like doing any extras.  I know that part of it is my ADHD, but the other is that I like to watch TV and play on the computer also.

Interpreting

Well, I believe that I did a pretty good job today.  It did help that I did some research ahead of time on the Internet.  I did find that the information that I found on the Internet was a great deal more user-friendly than 20 years ago when I was trying to find out more about Buddhism and came away with a bunch of talk about Nirvana, but no real knowledge or understanding of Buddhism.  Some of the website that I found the most useful were: Buddhism in Thailand, Thai Buddhism, and An Interview with "Phra Frarang".

We went to pick up the monk today, and he brought along his assistant.  He has been in the States for 10 years and a monk for 20 years.  He is a Thai monk, but he lives in a temple run by the Laos people.  We ended up being the first speakers after introduction because we needed to leave shortly after 11am so that the monk could eat before noon.

Some of the words that were used by the monk, I was not able to directly translate into English, but I believe that I got the gist of what he was saying across to the audience.  My reading on the 227 tenets and the most important aspects of Buddhism helped me when the audience asked what some of the 227 tenets were.  The monk related the four most important tenets which were no lying, cheating, or stealing, no killing of animals, even insects, no sexual acts, and living your life peacefully with an open mind and heart.

The audience was from the Lifelong Learning Institute and consisted mostly of elderly members of the community, but also included the mayor, the fire chief, and members of city council.  The local newspaper people also attended.

The Buddhist expert members of the panel were a Jew turned Catholic turned Buddhist and a Catholic nun who had experiences in predominantly Buddhist countries in Asia.  I did not get to hear them speak, but would be interested to know if they agreed with me with regard to my translation of the monk's words.

Scrabble with My Hubby

When Scrabble first came out on Facebook, we use to play on the same computer using different browser to play the same game together. For awhile we would get out the real turntable board that we own and use the computer for the dictionary and to keep score. We then graduated to playing a few games on Facebook whenever we are on there which for me is daily. In the past two days we have started playing our three games with him on the laptop and me on the iPod touch. We sit next to each other on the couch and play back and forth. My Scrabble skills have improved immensely since I started playing with other friends on Facebook. There was a time that I would not play with my husband or any of his family. Now, I can hold my own and I sometimes win!

Another Attempt of Interpreting

My Thai language skills are pretty good considering that I have never lived in the country for more that three and a half months at a time.  I can speak the main dialect and understand three different Thai dialects, the main one, the Northern (Phrae) dialect, and the Southern dialect.  I can also understand some Lao and Cambodian people because the languages are similar.

I have been called upon to interpret a few times.  I have done mostly volunteer work for family friends by going to the hospital for a circumcision and speaking to English classes at schools in Thailand.  I had one paid opportunity for a family friend who had clients in Thailand come to visit the US.  For me that was an enjoyable and easy opportunity because it was mostly conversational and just interpreting for the clients landmarks as we passed them.

This weekend, I am the substitute interpreter for a Buddhist monk who is going to be speaking about Buddhism near where a Buddhist temple is going to be built in Central Ohio.  He is going to be speaking to students at a school.  Now, schools and students, I am comfortable and have experience; Buddhism, not so much.  I know enough about it to know that it is a way of life, not particularly a religion.  My parents are Buddhist, and my mother is pretty religious, but she raised me on the basic tenet that if you do good, you will get good.  Her belief is that all religion is good, so when I married a Catholic and have two children that I am raising Catholic, it is not a big deal.

I think that I am going to have to do a crash course of reading up on Buddhism sometime between now and Saturday!