St. Baldricks

As I mentioned in my last post, I will be shaving my head in order to raise money for childhood cancer research. For anyone who is interested, you can either go to http://www.stbaldricks.org/ and search for me by name or you can click on this link: http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/shavee_info.php?ParticipantKey=2009-349004.

Other than getting everything together to shave my head in May, I am also getting close to finishing my 9 weeks of teaching in the school and will be going on Spring Break shortly, end of April. I'm looking forward to the break and ready to start doing conservation season work.

This past week was my first full week back teaching after going through WFR. It was pretty tough. The beginning of the week was decently slow and laid back, like it normally is, but the end of the week got pretty crazy. Thursday we had to teach starting at 7:45, so I got up at 5:30, like normal. But we ended up leaving a little later than we planned, and so we were really rushed once we were at school to get everything done we needed to before class. And we didn't totally get everything done, but we made do and changed around what we were going to be doing slightly to make everything work. Afterschool, we forgot that the van schedule had changed, so we went to drop off our van at Beech St school for another group, and then we were going to walk to Salvation Army. But when I looked at my phone, I had a bunch of missed calls from camp. Apparently we weren't scheduled to go to Salvation Army on Thursdays anymore. But since we thought that, we were still in town and could pick up the group that was cooking that night and didn't have a ride home. The reason they didn't have a ride home, was because that morning one of the vans slid into the gate to get out of the park and so was out of commission is didn't come into town that day. It wasn't that bad of an accident. The van was going about 5mph, and was trying to stop on ice, which wasn't happening. Also because of the accident, some of the teaching teams had to make up lessons from Thursday on Friday. So we had to leave early again on Friday, and I had to get up at 5:30 yet again. Normally I get to sleep in until at least 6, if not a little later on Fridays. But everything went well on Friday, and my team came home to cook dinner, which was awesome! Then I went to bed at 10 because I was so tired.

FYI to those who I haven't told yet: I'm participating in a fundraising event for St. Baldricks Foundation, a group that raises money for kids with cancer, and I'm going to shave my head right before conservation season. So anybody who donates money to this will get a picture of me with no hair, and those who don't, won't.

WFR, cooking, and other stuff

I haven't posted in awhile, but that's because I've been really busy going through Wilderness First Responder training. That was an intense class that lasted for 9 days. It was crazy and so much fun! I learned how to do many things, like how to make a splint with some branches, a triangle bandage, and an ACE wrap. It was awesome! It makes me want to take more courses like that. After that was finished we had a day of camp projects, and then my team had to teach on Thurs to make up for a snow day that we had like two weeks ago. It was pretty intense. But then we got a three day weekend, which is what I'm currently enjoying. I was supposed to go camping in the White Mountains for the three day weekend with another girl, but she fell and hurt her butt and can't carry a pack. So of course we couldn't go. But it would have been awesome to get to just hike in and be able to camp wherever we wanted to since everything is basically closed down for the winter. But we're going to go winter/snow camping later on, we've already decided. Other than that, the only thing I've really been doing is learning some new recipes. Today I learned how to cook stewed tomatoes, and then used it as a sauce to make a pizza. It was really yummy, especially for my first attempt at cooking. The stewed tomatoes are really simple to make, they just have to cook for a long time.

Teaching, farm, fun games

This week our lesson had to focus on how we used water everyday, but in an abstract way. So not just looking at drinking water or using for cleaning. My team decided to make a game for our students to play. The game was called the Flow, and it had different types of water uses incorporated into it. The uses ranged from the everyday, like showering, brushing your teeth, going to the bathroom, to more complex ideas, like the amount of water that is used to make the food you eat, the clothing you wear, and different things you can buy. I was totally sure on how the students would like it, but they all really liked it. I was told in my last class that it was wicked awesome. It also got them thinking about how water is used, and how it's being polluted in different ways. I got a lot of good questions, especially when I would tell them that you use 22 gallons of water for every 5 minutes you take a shower. Some of the classes couldn't decide whether you were winning the game if you had the most water or the least. I told them that everybody won with this game, and that nobody lost. Of course, they still gave each other crap if they chose an option that used a lot of water. They also really enjoyed getting to measure the water into their jars as they went around the board. We were also told today that we were the best SCA group that Mrs. Signor had had in her class. They said that the entire time we were in the class we had the attention of all the students, and there were a lot less behavior problems when we were there than at other times. That makes me feel really good, because I feel like our lessons aren't even top notch, and that there's a lot more that we can be doing with the students.

Last weekend, I went to the Nelson farm with a large group of people from Bear Brook. It was really fun, because we're trying to set up a relationship with this farm where we donate our time to helping them with everything they need help with, and they supply us with some fresh vegetables when they can. We already got some cress from the farm from last weekend, which we used to cook with all this week. The owner of the farm, Shawn, needed the bed of cress pulled up, and told us that we could keep any of it that we wanted, and we took two giant bags full home with us. It was really awesome! I can't wait to go back again, but I'm not sure when that'll be. I'm thinking of going back Saturday, but I had a really tough week, and we start Wilderness First Responder Monday morning, and we don't get another break for 2 weeks when we get a 3 day weekend. It's going to be intense, but I'm so excited about it.

Yesterday, nobody went into schools even though the schools were open because we had a Bear Brook State Park snow day. The night before, one of the vans got stuck on a hill in the park, and so no vehicles could get out until the van was moved. After picking up the people from the van, they determined that it was going to be pretty tough to get the van moved, so that night they called a snow day for the next day. That was really nice because it gave my team more time to work on our game/lesson, as well as giving everybody a chance to sleep in and relax in the middle of the week. We had a giant snowball fight in the morning where I got pummeled with snow/ice balls. It was lots of fun, but I'm definitely completely bruised from all of the snowballs hitting me at crazy speeds.

Currently, I'm killing time in the Manchester Public Library between school and teen night tonight, which doesn't start until 6:30. My team and I are going to go get some food before teen night, since we won't be getting home until 11/11:30 tonight. It's going to be a crazy long day. Luckily there was a 90 minute delay today, so we didn't leave camp until 7:30 and not at 6:15, like we originally planned. Although, this did mean that we had shorter classes today at school, but we got to have a hot breakfast and didn't have to rush to get out the door like we would have needed to.

I have posted new pictures to facebook.

First Week Teaching

I have just survived my first week teaching 8th grade science. It wasn't too bad. The students seemed to really like the game that we played and everybody seemed to be able to relate to at least one fact about each of us that we talked about. In fact, there's one student in my class who recently moved to NH from Charleston, which is really crazy. So that everybody knows, I figure that I'll go ahead and post my schedule for the weeks that I'm teaching:
Mon - in camp all day basically, doing camp stuff like cleaning and meetings
Tues - full day of planning, basically a free day
Wed - Salvation Army 3-7 (tutoring and Kids Cafe)
Thurs - Teach 7:45-12:50, then Kids Cafe at Salvation Army every other week from 3-7
Fri - Teach 8:30-2:00, then Teen Night at Salvation Army every other week from 6:30-10:30
The times when I'm in town, but not teaching or working at Salvation Army, I'll have phone reception and will more than likely have my phone on.

This past week, my group went to Teen Night on Friday instead of Kids Cafe on Thurs. It was really fun, because some of my students were there, and I schooled all of them in Guitar Hero (a video game for those of you who don't know). They're all really excited that I won't be coming back for another 2 weeks, because they claim they're going to practice and then beat me when I come back. But we'll just have to see how it goes.

This weekend has been absolutely gorgeous! I went on a hike yesterday with Stephanie and Youn. It was so pretty! We climbed trees, and fell into snow that went up to our hips. But we didn't see any wildlife, though there were a fair number of tracks, especially deer tracks. I can't wait until it's warm enough that I get to see wildlife. One of the guys saw a moose recently while he was driving through the park, and I really want to see one too. In fact, when Youn and I were driving back from doing our laundry yesterday, we drove really slow and looked around for a moose the entire time. But to no avail.

I'm really psyched about my second week of teaching, because we're going to be doing a lot of small group discussions, and we get a short day on Friday, since it's an early release day. Which is really going to help my teaching team out, because we're cooking for the entire camp Friday night, which is also our Friday the 13th party. We're trying to think of different things to cook, but haven't really come up with anything yet, and we need to get cracking on it. Speaking of food, I've been cooking some really good food recently that I thought I'd share. Sweet potato burritos are really good. The way that we cooked them, was to cut up sweet potatoes, peppers, and onions, then cook all of them together in a skillet (of course cook the potatoes first since they take longer). Then put all of them together in a burrito with some cheese, tomatoes, and whatever else you may want on there. I also made this really awesome dish called something like Papas Mohatas. That is just layering Cornbread, then black beans, mashed potatoes, and topping it with shredded cheese. It's really good.

I hope that everybody is having a good time in their various places, beause I know that I am and want everybody to have a good time when I am too.

Frostbite

So, it has been determined that I have superficial frostbite on two of my fingers. I was kinda retarded on Monday when it was really cold, and was helping to back someone up in one of the vans with no gloves on. So my hands got really cold, and then I helped to pick up one of the seats that go in the vans while my hands were still really cold and still wasn't wearing any gloves. So, the two fingers that touched the metal on the seat that had been sitting outside for awhile, have minor frostbite or cold burns. I talked to Mike about it, and he said that cold burns are just minor or superficial frostbite that will heal. So two of my fingers look like they've been burned, which they have, and hurt pretty bad when I try to pick things up with them or any kind of pressure is put on them. Luckily, this is my only injury up here minus some bruises from playing soccer and other fun physical activities.

Tues I went to meet my teachers and go through training at Salvation Army. It was really nice to be able to meet our teachers, even though it was kind of jumbled and there was some miscommunication at some point along the way. So we only got to really talk to one of the teachers, but we did get to sit through both teachers classes. After that, we went over to the Salvation Army to go through our training and then to actually volunteer after the training. Between the training and when tutoring began, we played a big game of soccer with just the SCA people who were there. That was lots of fun, and really nice to actually do some physical activity. Then we went to do tutoring, only to find out that there were about twice as many tutors as students. So, we ended up just messing around and playing more games until set-up for Kids Cafe started. Kids Cafe was awesome! I sat at a table with eight kids and another SCA member. They talked about a lot of different things, and weren't afraid to talk to us about whatever was on their minds, or to ask us questions about ourselves. I'm really excited to go back there next week, or possibly tomorrow for teen night.

Yesterday, we had a snow storm, and classes were cancelled. So everybody spent the day at camp planning and getting ready for teaching next week. My group has managed to finish everything we need to have to teach our first lesson, and to plan our second lesson. I'm really proud of us, and the work that we do. I'm really excited to get to teach next week. I can't wait!

More Pictures

There are now three new albums posted on facebook, so check it out. There are snowboarding and snowshoeing pictures up. It's pretty awesome!