Little Dragon

Another little chap (3 years old) initiated the following conversation with me the other day. As is typical with the age group, the conversation began in the most random of ways.

Him: "Miss Crystal, did you know I'm turning into a dragon?"
(or as he pronounced it: M' Crisal, di ju' noh i' turnin' indoo a dwaguh?)

Me: "Oh, can you breathe fire yet?"

Him: "Yeah, the dwaguh is comin' out of my mouf [mouth, for those of you who don't speak 3-year-old]."

Him, a few minutes later: "M' Crisal, di ju' know I'm growin' a tail ou' of my butt?"

How do you respond to something like that?

My Valentine and Me

Yes, the title actually is grammatically correct.

Little Car

Today, as I was driving to dance class, my car started making a noise. I didn't like it. It sounded like a cross between crickets and nails being scratched across a blackboard, but quietly. It wasn't terribly loud, so I figured maybe it'd go away. I'd wait and see.

This is my general strategy for dealing with unexpected and odd automotive behavior. Pretend I don't notice it, and maybe it'll stop. It's similar to a popular strategy for dealing with pouting 3-year-olds.

It didn't stop. I began to reason with my car. "Now, little car, you are going to make mommy upset, and that's not nice." It didn't appear to care. "Little car," I pleaded, "I just took you to the mechanic a few months ago and spent hundreds of dollars on you. Besides, if I had to take you in, mommy would get lonely without you [not to mentioned bored, stuck in one place]." The chirping continued.

Then, Kathwump! we hit a bump in the road. The chirping stopped for good. The jolt had somehow "fixed" it. "Little car, you are teaching mommy bad things." The "just kick it and it will work again" theory has been largely acknowledged to be detrimental when applied to such entities as laptops and small children.

The little amusements

This is one of the times I wish I could do drawings for a blog like I can in my journal. Yesterday, as I was walking with the kids up from the playground to the main building, I noticed some paper scraps along the path and remembered with a guilty feeling that I had forgotten to clean up after the project from the week before. (We had cut out heart shapes from paper plates and covered them with peanut butter and birdseed, then hung them on bushes for the wildlife to enjoy.) However, the paper hearts had been left behind by the birds (as I had expected), and were lying crumpled and ripped on the ground - a rather messy sight. As I was noticing this, a squirrel caught my eye. He was doing the pause thing they do, with his paws tucked up against his chest, and in his mouth was a huge paper heart. It was almost as tall as he was, and twice as wide. He stared at me, then went leaping frantically toward a tree and scrambled up it, flicking his tail back and forth angrily at me.

It was quite a sight, though not as hilariously funny as watching Ms. Mack get chased by a squirrel (literally) earlier this winter. Now that was something to behold, especially when the headmaster's dog, Scout, came running out of the main building and chased the squirrel up a tree, rescuing Ms. Mack from her diminutive aggressor. What made it even more amusing was that the headmaster came out of the building right after his dog and saw the whole thing. He told me later that one time as he was standing near the building, a baby squirrel rushed at him and attempted to climb his pant leg (maybe thinking that he was a tree). Actually, who knows what squirrels think, especially the ones around here.

A few conversations I just must document with a certain young fellow (4 years old):

I was sitting at lunch duty with the preschoolers waiting for the other teacher to arrive. I wasn't eating, because there isn't enough time for me to eat right then, and I have my own lunch later.

Him: "Ms. Crystal, why aren't you eating?"
Me: "There isn't enough time."
Him: "You can have some of my time. My mommy owns my time. I don't eat all my time."

The next day, during an art project

Him: "Ms. Crystal, my brain is still asleep."
Me: "If your brain were asleep, you wouldn't be talking or thinking the way you are right now - you would be dreaming."
Him: "I am dreaming about you right now, Ms. Crystal. I like you."

This is the same little fellow who, as I was reading a story to the class, started rubbing his head against my leg and drooling on me. Who does that? Gotta love little kids.

Apologies

I have not been writing faithfully as I promised I would. As I said, it sort of defeats the purpose of a journal to have an online journal. I generally don't feel like I can put my inner thoughts and feelings out onto the web (or that I should). It's the sort of thing that I delight in sharing with friends face to face, or even over the phone, but cannot to the faceless void of the internet.

Anyway, a few general updates - I have a boyfriend now! His name is Frank, and he is absolutely amazing. We met at a dance, got to know eachother through dance classes, became dance partners, then became more. :-) Anyway, he's awesome - sweet, smart, funny, considerate, and a great dancer. It's great to have someone to hang out with who shares my interests and values. Well, I could babble on forever about how great he is, so I'd better stop, but anyway, you get the picture. :-)

Work has been greatly improving for me, largely because I feel like I better know how to cope with the challenges that arise in working with kids, and I also have a clearer sense of the expectations of my employers. As long as I know what is being asked of me, and I feel capable of fulfilling it, I think I would be happy in almost any job. Well, perhaps I should amend that to: any job that serves a good purpose and has me working with people of strong character and good hearts (which this one does).

I'm still not sure what the future will bring, but I'm thinking of staying in the Chicago area for a little while longer, if I can, and then hopefully applying to a graduate program in Philosophy. We'll see what happens. I'm sure God will direct.

By the way, if you hadn't figured this one out, the picture is of me and Frank dancing at an upscale latin-dancing nightclub.

Crystal

The Future

After much deliberation I have concluded that the frightening thing about the future is not the lack of options, but the superabundance thereof. Now I see why my teachers emphasized decision-making skills. Still, I suppose the really important thing is to take life day by day, recognize the truly wonderful opportunities when they arise, and be alert and active enough to pursue them.

Oh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok

So, I have been horrible about keeping up with this blog, and I can't record everything that happens, and I shouldn't if I could. It doesn't really work to keep an on-line journal. It sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Ah well. I will still try to write sometimes.

Today was great fun. We had "Fen Day" at the school and did some ecological restoration - getting rid of some buckthorn - an invasive species that was brought over from Europe and has been taking over the understory here, shading out native species. So I discovered that I enjoy sawing down trees with a handsaw and dragging them off to the fire. It gives me a rather viking-like feeling of accomplishment. ;-) It was nice to see how clear and clean the woods looked after our work too.
After that, we played the most fun game ever in the gym - you sit on these scooter-type things with 4 wheels and whack around a hockey puck with something resembling the ends of hockey sticks. It is great! With everyone falling off and rolling out of control, it becomes a game of who can have the most fun rather than who has the most skill.

Later this afternoon, I looked out the window and had to suppress the urge to jump out it and start hacking away at the invasive bucktorn growing just outside. :-)

Hehe

In researching birds commonly found in this area during the fall for my unit on birds and migrations, I wandered across a list of bugs that downy woodpeckers eat. Here are a few highlights:

Eastern blood-sucking conenose
Patent-leather beetle
Rabid wolf spider (actually a spider, not an insect)
Fiery searcher

Apparently entomologists (people who study bugs - and presumably named these species) have vivid imaginations. So it turns out that research can be fun - who knew?????

Yet another 180

I'm beginning to feel that my desired direction in life is about to go for yet another 180 degree turn. Those who know me well may recall that I just decided about a month ago that I should pursue a masters degree in education. Now I think I will go with what has always been my truest fascination - philosophy. Philosophy was originally the pursuit of knowledge - including everything for science to art to mathematics. I feel that academia has become too fragmented and no longer focuses on educating the whole person, on finding the questions that really matter and equipping us to search out the answers. So, it's back to philosophy for me - the search for who we are and our place in the world. If educating is truly "leading out" and teaching children to reason and solve problems, then what better way to do it than through teaching philosophy? Now to see if any doctoral programs will take me. :)

ponderings

I intend to include more of my random philosophical musings in the future. If I cannot be a student of philosophy in the conventional sense, I will teach myself. One philosopher who particularly interests me at the moment is Sophocles. I intend to read some of Plato's writings on him soon.

Random song lyrics that intrigued me "The more we know, the less we feel." It seems to express the conflict between reason and emotion, but I wonder if it can be seen differently. What if our feelings influence us the way they do because there is something we don't understand that we need to figure out, and that, once we do, we won't feel the odd, uncomfortable pulling. Yet still, there are some emotions, such as love (in the pure, non-sexual, compassionate, spiritual sense) that I think are not just a means to an end, but are good in themselves. I must admit though, I would be happy to give up the painful longing and obsession associated with romantic love for a sweet, strong, and full understanding of my completeness and union with God. I believe Plato touches on this topic, and I hope to find the places in his writings where he does.

Teaching

The first day of teaching preschoolers and kindergarten environmental ed. was definitely interesting. The preschoolers are adorable, but they're still getting over being too shy to speak and aren't used to paying attention for more than a minute at a time. I re-wrote my lesson plan for them today, and it was much more effective. They really need hand's-on activities.

I was amazed by the intelligence and enthusiasm of the kindergarteners. I decided to engage them in the process of thinking through rules for how they should act outside, which appeared to work very well. I asked them what their indoor rules were, and 10 hands shot into the air. The rules they mentioned were the typical - no pushing, no talking when the teacher is talking, no yelling. I must admit the "no biting" rule took me a bit aback (seemed rather too self-explanatory to need to be a formal rule), but then, they are kindergarten.

Then, I asked them if they could think of any rules for outside. Their hands shot into the air - some even stood up or shouted out rules in their enthusiasm. They thought all of the rules I had planned to mention, and a few more. I decided, just for good measure, to repeat all the rules a few more times, and the kids listened attentively. All was going according to plan (or so I thought).

After we entered the woods, I realized otherwise. Within the first 2 minutes, every rule we had just established had been broken - multiple times. In addition, the kids seemed to have a bit of trouble with the concept of a no-pick scavenger hunt where I was supposed to be the one reading out items to find. They kept on picking up things they found, poking them with sticks, and calling Ms. Crystal, Ms. Crystal, look what I found!!!! And, I soon discovered, it was not very easy to get them to listen to or discuss more complex ideas such as "Now where do you think that moth you found lives? What do you think he eats? Would you like to know the difference between a moth and a butterfly." We ended up dealing more with basics like "now lets not poke Mr. Moth with the stick, and now remember, we're not supposed to put things in our mouths."

Then, they started picking up acorns. They seemed to find this to be an infinitely fascinating pursuit, and they all seemed to feel the need to show me every acorn they found. "Ms. Crystal, Ms. Crystal, look what I found!!!!!" "Yes, Bobby, it's an acorn, just like the one you showed me 10 seconds ago, and the ones Timmy, Sally, Jeffy, Anny, and Tommy are showing me right now." You've gotta love little kids.

[note, all of the names, besides mine, in the account, have been changed, to protect reputations of the 3-7 year olds. heh]

Most recent artwork - finished right before trip to Chicago. Can you tell I love horses?

5 questions

To spread the good idea from heidi and kindli - if you read this, please ask me 5 questions you would like to know my response to. (Ask anything at all!) I value honesty very highly in myself and others.

Camp ended well, I feel. I really enjoyed family camp (it was much more relaxed, parents tend to be more appreciative than campers, and I had some free time to myself). I even had time to go on two trail rides, which strengthened my conviction that horses are God's gift to woman. I would give almost anything to have a horse some day. If I am not married by the time I am around 50, I will calculate the amount of money I would have wasted on a family, and use it for purchasing and paying upkeep for a horse. It would in many ways be a more rewarding use of funds, I feel. Yay for horses!

artwork

Now that I have discovered how to post photos on this, you may be seeing more of them. This is a colored pencil drawing of a horse that I did for my mother. I figure I have to start putting my artwork on here at some point. Hopefully in the future I will have better pictures of it to put up, though. :)

Since the computer is determined to be stupid and uncooperative, I have had to resort to the option of posting this photo as a regular blog instead of in my profile, as I had meant to. My apologies.

Flitzy stupidity gains new heights

Yesterday I raised the bar for how dippy I can be. Always a good thing to do, I figure - you can never have enough humiliation. Sorry, the sarcastic angst got a bit out of control there.

Anyway, so I was going on a shopping trip for supplies for the banquet at camp with a guy I feel sort of awkward around (due to the fact that I have not yet managed to talk myself out of liking him, though yesterday definitely helped in that department), and I was hungry, so I purchased an ice cream bar as we were going through Sams Club. This was foolish on many levels. Firstly I knew I wouldn't really have time to eat it, as we were in a bit of a rush. Secondly, I knew I would have to eat it while walking (very dangerous proposition). And thirdly, I Know from repeated experience that it is physically impossible for me to eat one of those darn things without getting it all over myself.

Yet still, I decided to purchase one. I guess part of the problem was that it was already half-melted before I started eating it. It got everywhere, and I only had one already-used napkin. I was absolutely useless when it came to getting things into the car, and once I was in the car, I started dripping ice cream everywhere. When we arrived at the next store, I decided in frustration to stay at the car and finish off the stupid ice cream bar before it finished me.

Once I finally finished the darn thing, I was covered in stickiness, and the guy hadn't come out from the store yet (0r so I thought), so I decided to go in and see if I could be any use in finding the hula hoops he needed to buy for the little olympics at camp the next day. I looked all over the store, going down practically every isle (while parents and store workers watched me warily-It was ToysRUs, and I was frazzled, covered in ice cream, and still wearing paint tattoos on my leg from painting day in arts and crafts) then came to the realization that he must have left the store as I was entering. He had. He was waiting with the car in front of the store. It was not one of my finer moments. My level of airheadedness seems to rise exponentially whenever I am anywhere near a guy I find even in the slightest bit attractive, which is dratted inconvenient. Clearly the only acceptable solution is to avoid all of them from now on. :)
If only it were that simple

arts and crafts director

I'm really enjoying being in charge of arts and crafts, though it can be a bit challenging to teach complicated crafts to large groups of kids. On tie dye day last week, I was exhausted by the end of 5th period. To illustrate - I made a shirt of my own, and when I went to write my name on the ziplock bag, I started it "Jra." To this day I have no idea where I got those letters from or what was going on in my head that made me think that was the way to spell my name. However, I do recall it seeming logical at the time, which is a bit scary.

This morning, the girls staff went up to ambush the boys staff with water balloons at their morning meeting. Most of them escaped, which was a shame. The only retaliatory action they have taken so far is to be unusually affectionate (ie. giving us hugs every time they see us). I certainly can't complain about that. However, I have the feeling something more is in the works. I'll wear clothing I don't mind getting wet tomorrow morning just in case the boys decide to attack then.

Yay for camp!

Camp is great. Where else can you:
start a one match fire and be worshiped by a group of eternally grateful kids because you fed them
eat wild blueberries while coming up with appropriate tribal designations
paint tribal markings on a cabin full of girls
sing an original song at the top of your lungs with 9 girls in front of at least 30 people and not feel in the least self-conscious
lurk in the woods to ambush unsuspecting campers and take fake gold from them in a game of gold rush
march up and pelt them with water ballons in a british costume on the fourth of July
paint your entire face as the Russian flag and play soccer all day
wage water wars on fellow staff members while the campers (and camp director) aren't watching
go to bed utterly exhausted and supremely satisfied