Not so many countries…


I’ve been to 10 countries – which really isn’t so shabby I guess!
Enough playing.  Time to sleep.  I’ve made it through another
week!

Posted in just for fun, travel | 1 Comment

Lots of states! :)


I’ve visited 33 states.  Not too bad!  Here’s the link if you want to make your own…

EDIT:  I guess I haven’t been to
so many states compared to my well-traveled sis-in-laws!  I guess
that’s what comes from being stuck in a geographically isolated state
my whole life! 

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16 more school days to teach!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(But who’s counting?!)

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Asparagus and Typing

For dinner tonight, I had locally grown skinny asparagus that I bought
at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday.  I sauteed it in some olive
oil with lots of coarse kosher salt and LOTS of black pepper and it was
about the best thing you’ve ever tasted.  I have more in the
fridge and even though I’m full, I’m tempted to go cook more for
dessert!

Yesterday, I took my low beginners to the computer lab to type the
paragraphs that we had been working on for two days.  They each
wrote a “how to” paragraph that used the formula “My name is
____.  I like to _____ (play soccer, dance, cook, etc.).
Here is how you ________.”  Then they used sequence words like
“first, second, next, then” to give how-to instructions.  Their
paragraphs were maybe 7-10 sentences long but it took us the better
part of 40 minutes to get them typed.  With any extra time, they
had fun inserting pictures, changing the font, changing the color and
all the fun things that I had forbidden them to do until they finished
typing.

To hurry the process along, I went around and typed in a sentence here
or there for the slower kids, to make sure they would finish by the end
of the period.  One boy decided to do something entirely different
from what he’d written in class without asking me – not cool.  So
I told him that I would type the first half of his real paragraph to
get him caught up.  I proceeded to look at his paper (not my
fingers or the screen) and type as fast as I could to get it
done.  Now, I will admit that I am an extremely fast typer –
fairly impressive if I do say so myself.  The funny thing was that
out of the corner of my eye, I saw Daniel’s head come around, look at
my eyes, look at the screen, look back at me again, and then say,
“Woooooooooow!”  He was so shocked and impressed that I was able
to do what I was doing.  “Wow Ms. Judge!  How did you do
that?”

In my other period, another girl has laboriously typed her four
sentences and about 5 minutes before class ended managed to delete it
all.  So I just sat down and typed it out in about a minute for
her.  I looked up and she and another student were grinning with
this incredulous look on their faces – yet again, “Wow!  Ms. Judge
is FAST!”

It’s pretty fun to be AMAZING in the sight of some!

Posted in cooking, school | 1 Comment

To all the mothers in my life (especially MY MOTHER)

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!

Posted in family | 3 Comments

Graduation

You are invited to attend:


Laura’s graduation from the TESOL Master’s program at the College of Notre Dame



Friday, May 26, 2006 at 10:00 am



Commencement Speaker:
Bob Schieffer, anchor of the CBS Evening News

I realized that I haven’t even really told anybody that I was attending
graduation so I thought I’d better do it before it happens.  It
feels a bit anti-climatic because I really graduated last August, got
my diploma from the Registrar’s office, and have been teaching for
almost a year.  But I decided that I’ll probably only ever get one
master’s degree so I should at least get to wear a hood once.  So
I’m going.

To be honest, I’m not completely excited about it.  I think I’ll
be going by myself.  It’s at a hard time for anyone else to
come.  So it will probably be a little bit lonely.  I will
have some classmates from last year who will be graduating so I will at
least know some friendly faces once I get there.  Then perhaps, I
will treat myself to lunch!

Posted in school | 1 Comment

My Saturday

I had an, if not eventful, then expensive Saturday.  I’m not
feeling very well at all so I mostly laid low.  But I did venture
out and go to the Farmer’s Market
and the Book Thing.   Then I went up to Notre Dame to buy my
master’s hood, cap, and gown (this is where the expensive part begins)
– $113.   My hood is blue and white, the gown has weird extra
parts hanging off the sleeves, and the cap is a little bigger and
padded.  So I think that I will feel sufficiently “masterful” at
my graduation.   I don’t have a picture of what I’ll look
like so here’s a picture of who my degree is enabling me to teach:

EDIT:  I decided that I
probably shouldn’t have a picture of my students on here without their
permission.  So I deleted it.  I’ll have more to share later
via other ways!

I also travelled “way out” to the White Marsh Mall – it’s only
about 15
miles but it’s way out in the suburbs and feels like a major journey to
get there.  But I went on a mission to buy a new pair of
Birkenstocks.  My other ones lasted me 7 1/2 years and have
completely worn out.   (This picture is from last fall, after
I wore them in the rain for 24 hours on the ill-fated Young Adults
camping trip – where it rained INCHES the first night.  I had to
take a picture of them before I pitched them, for memories’ sake.)

So here’s what I got (to the tune of another
$105).

I ended up buying the narrow pair – I’ve never had a pair of narrow
shoes before but they fit the best.  So now I just need to break
them in before summer is fully upon us.  They feel so stiff and
uncomfortable compared to my good old friends!

And in other news, my tomato plant has a tomato, still very green
but a tomato none-the-less!  And I bought a yellow squash plant.

And in other, other news, tonight I watched Because of Winn Dixie.
It’s a wonderful movie.  I would highly recommend it to
all.   I cried a lot at the end.  That may partially
have to do with the fact that my throat feels miserable and my body is
tired but also because it’s just a wonderfully acted and expressed
movie.

So that’s that.  It’s really easy to spend $250 in a day if you just try!  Blessing to you all.

Posted in health and beauty, school | 2 Comments

Baby Name Wizard

Check out this very cool baby name wizard
that I found.  (It can take a bit to load so be patient.) You can
type in any name and it will tell you what rank it was in US baby names
in any decade.  Adella goes off the charts in the 40s.  Laura on the other hand was 20th in the 70s.  Selah has never ranked at all.  Megan (no Meggan) went from nothing to 89th in the 70s to 14th in the 80s.  Rachel was 16th in the 80s.  Zona was 509th in the 1880s but goes down off the charts by the 1940s.  Priscilla was 218th in the 50s.  Leah was 81st and Katie was 41st in the 80s (Katherine was 32nd).  Lorene was 181st in the 1910s.  Elisabeth (with an S) is 440, with a “Z“,
12th (in the 70s) – good thing we’re with an S!.  I could go on
and on and I apologize if I left off a female member of my family – I
have to be at school in 18 minutes to chaperone the Grade 7 spring
concert and go to covenant group after that so I’d better go. Have fun
playing!

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Books, Books, Books

I know this is going to ruin the surprise but I just have to do a
little bit of bragging – and a little bit of rejoicing.  This
weekend I decided that I wanted to give all of my students a book on
the last day of school.  I wouldn’t have considered this idea
without knowing that The Book Thing existed, knowing that I certainly can’t afford to buy 85 books.

The Book Thing is this amazing place about three blocks from me, where
you can take all the free books you would ever want.  (The books come from donations from everywhere.)  I have
personally taken hundreds (and that is no exaggeration).  In my
opinion, it is one of the jewels of Baltimore.

This Sunday (yesterday), I brought home over 50 books.  About half of
them were for my classroom, for my kids.  But I found an amazing
wealth of board books for Chris and Katie – over 15 of them.
(This is what I wanted to brag about!)  I found Goodnight Moon,
Dr. Seuss’s ABC, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Guess How Much I Love
You, The Going To Bed Book and Barnyard Dance (both by Sandra Boynton –
Caleb, Lisa’s little boy really likes the dance one) and others too –
at least $75 worth of board books.  (I just added it up from the
prices on the back of the book – out of curiosity)  Isn’t that
cool?  So get ready Chris and Katie – I’m sending them book rate
so they won’t be there for awhile.

I’ve stopped collecting books for Noah, Selah, and Jonas – I think I
overwhelmed Meggan.  But I can start again if you want me to!




I LOVE THE BOOK THING!

Posted in books, school | 2 Comments

07

That is what the little green tag says on my back license plate.
And now I’m legal again.  Let’s hope it doesn’t get stolen.

Posted in just for fun | 1 Comment