Hump Day

Well, I feel a lot better about "school" now that I've been to (almost) all my classes. I suspect that just going on campus to do internet stuff a few times a week will be plenty. I find the extra focus on doing online bulletin boards rather silly, especially since there is actual classes, with facetime with peers (excuse me, cohorts) and teachers. But everybody just can wait to show off all the neat things they can do with technology. Not that it will help much in terms of teaching. Most school don't have easy computer access for their students. (Especially the poor school districts). _________________________________________________________ I completed an assignment for my Ecological Dynamics of Landscapes class. Rather silly, overall. I had to find a place where the forest canopy changes dramatically and then determine what might have caused this change based on the "evidence" at hand. Whatever. And I listed out the species for a separate assignment. I don't really get the point, really. Especially since all the plants I'll learn to id are the locally common ones. Well, I guess I am in an Environmental Studies department. _________________________________________________________ So, last night JOn and I shot another episode of Eat Out. The first place we went didn't want us to shot there. Apparently, I owner saw my show once and didn't know why I was critical of that particular restaurant. So, I was glad someone saw the show, but thought it silly that he couldn't handle us having our own opinion. So, we went to a different place, and the owner wasn't there. We talked with her over the phone. She really wanted us to reschedule but we really only have so much time to plan these things. But I did get to have a buffalo burger. It was fine, although the meat didn't really taste any different to me. __________________________________________________________ So, Jon has been informed that he will need to go to the Lebanon, NH plant a few times a week. Which means driving an extra 3 hours when he has to go there. Blah. I guess it is good that his employers think he is a valuble resource that needs to be shared. However, if there is no pay raise, then it's just making life more difficult for JOn without any reward. ___________________________________________________________ Peace!

Tuesday

AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! ________________________________________________ So, the orientation for Antioch went pretty well. I get accepted into the program on a Monday, and when I went to orientation on Tuesday, the registrar's office had gotten me penciled in on all the lists of students. A very nice touch, that I really appreciated. The school has three different computer systems that I have to have accounts with. FirstClass, which is basically a type of e-mail account and bulletin board system that the school uses. (Although they are planning on phasing it out for gmail.) MyAntioch, which is were I'd register for classes, pay tuition and other official business. And Sakai, which is for the classes, which bulletin boards and ways for the teachers to post sylabi and assignments and so forth; plus places where students can place finished assignments (alhtough I think most of the teachers want paper copies turned in). Of course, most of this requires high speed internet to access properly, so I guess I'll be spending a lot of time on campus. Oh well... _________________________________________________________ I am almost registered for my four classes. One is Ecological Dynamics of Landscapes which (i think) is required of all students in the environmental studies department. I'll have to learn to ID the most common trees of the area and do counts of the different types, etc., for specific locales. Weird. But I actually kind of like that kind of thing. I also have a LEadership class, that is suppose to help students be more effective in whatever leadership roles they may take on. I guess I'll get to see how that goes. A problem solving in science education type class, where basically I observe a teacher in action and occassional try to teach a lesson myself. I suppose to learn how to develop lesson plans that are more "heuristic" (?), or open ended and letting the students of more say in what they do. And a class about special education students. Don't really know anything else about it, but that class only meets about 5 times. It might just be a lecture and reading kind of class. So, I am a bit nervous about taking classes again. It has been so long. But I remind myself that everyone wants me to succeed and the program takes in people of all kinds of backgrounds, so I should be able to do just fine. We'll see... ______________________________________________________ So, there are no tests (or very few) tests at Antioch. And the final grades are pass/fail. ALthough the grade is further subdivided with letter grades of O (outstanding), E (excellent) and so forth. Wierd. Plus, only classes I pass will be on the transcript. I guess they're trying to make grad school less intense. But since all I want is the teacher certification, it doesn't really matter to me. _____________________________________________________ Oh, an annoying thing is that since it has been so long since I took classes, I am going to have to either test out fo or take a chemistry class, a math class (algebra) and a physics class. Even more annoying is that there is no test for physics. So, I am hoping to test out of the chemistry and math, but no matter what I'll have to take a physics course at a community college. Blah. _______________________________________________________ Otherwise things are going pretty well. The garden is doing good. Still getting green beans, tons of acorn squash, and the pumpkin plant has about six pumpkins on it. Soon, the tomatoes should turn red. And, with things being so dry this season, there have been no slug sightings. _______________________________________________________ Peace!

Thursday

Wow, it has been three weeks since my last post. I've been procrastinating on it partly cause I don't want to make completely real my current course of action. Which sounds way more ominous than things are. I'm just in the last leg of applying to a local UNiversity to enter a program that will lead to me getting my teaching certification. Pretty blah overall, but I've been dithering over this issue for years because I am not excited about going back to school to get another pretty piece of paper that will say I'm smart. What I want is meaningful employment, but there aren't any options in the local area, and applying for meaningful work that would require a move really requires me to be certified. It's just a bit depressing because it makes my time as a grad student seem like a complete waste of time. Plus the last four years here in New Hampshire. SO, I've pretty much wasted almost a third of my life. Joy. _____________________________________________________________ Anyway, I applied to Antioch University after the deadline for admission. I assumed they would just cash my check and say sorry but you missed the deadline. However, instead they asked for me to complete the application package, so I got three (not at all relevant) letters of recommendations and my transcripts sent to the office. Strangely enough, one letter got lost in the mail, so I got Mark to print out a second one and I hand delivered it. Now, I'm waiting on a specific faculty member to get back from vacation so that I can be interviewed. The orientation day in Aug. 24th, so I'll probably miss that, and have to somehow make up the information presented then. And Classes start Sept. 2nd. Apparently the classes only meet thursdays and fridays. Oh, the program is in the Environmental STudies department so the education classes should be geared more toward approaches that work better for life science-type teaching. _____________________________________________________________ Other then that, things are fine. The chorus quartet isn't really coming along. I think it will probably disbann soon. Oh well. The garden is doing pretty good. The pumpkin plant and acorn squash plants have been going crazy. Spreading out everywhere and producing lots of fruit. I'm going to need to find more pumpkin recipes cause we're only going to be able to eat so many pumpkin pies. Tomatoes have yet to turn red. We have lots on the vine, but they're all green. The tomato plants I planted inside are probably about 10 feet tall, but super skinny and not produing fruit. I tried pollinating with a qu-tip, but it doesn't seemed to have worked. And, the deer have figured out how to get into the garden. They ate a bunch of the corn, so I went ahead and harvested the corn ahead of time. SOme of the cobs were not completely developed, but most are fine. Not we just need to eat lots of corn for the next week or so. ______________________________________________________________ Peace! ______________________________________________________________

Tuesday

The house looks lots nicer now that it is all painted. I'm still putting a second coat on the places a can reach. Jon thinks I crazy but it is obvious that the house needs a second coat. I figure the high areas wont matter, cause you can't get close enough to see them. But the lower areas definitely need the second coat. Luckily, we have plenty of left over paint, so I won't need to buy any fresh supplies. ___________________________________________________ The garden is doing pretty good. Much better then last year, partly because we haven't had an overly wet summer. The pumpkin plant I planted out in the field is going crazy. It is huge and taking over all of that plot. I already see three pumpkins forming. The acorn squash plants are now spreading everywhere too. However, since they are in my main planting area, I'm going to need to cull their growth more. Don't want them burying the peas or brussel sprouts. Plus the green plants are producing lots of green beans. The little plants seem overwhelmed with the beans. Just goes to show that reproduction is the key to life. _____________________________________________________ So, I've been running a camera for the "Keene Karaoke Idol" contest. It is a fund raiser for monadnock aids services and has people singing to karoake songs, although they seldom use the monitor with the worlds. Some really good singers are in this years contest. This coming friday is the finals, and will probably end late at night. _____________________________________________________ CheshireTV had a funding scare recently. The town of Swanzey decided not to turn over to the station the money time warner gives the town to support the public access station. Since that is 25% of the stations budget, the station announced it would go off air until the funding was restored. I guess enough people complained to the Swanzey selectmen, cause the funding came in pretty quick after that announcement. The selectmen's argument was that the station doesn't "do" enough for the citizens of swanzey, but they didn't say what they'd like the station to do. (CheshireTV has already offered to run the selectmen meetings on air, but they didn't want that). Craziness. ______________________________________________________ Live free!

Tuesday

The house is finally been repainted. Dark green with a light brown trim, seems to go well with the brown roof. It was lots of work, though. First, I went around the house last monday, scrubbing areas that looked particularly dirty with bleach water. Blah. Then spraying those areas down with water. A bunch of paint chips were freed during this process. Then Jon's parents came up on Wednesday night and we all went out to eat. (Italian, pretty good.) Thursday Jon's parents and I started scraping paint chips off the house, and Jon's dad also did some painting on parts of the house that didn't need much scraping. Jon was at work. He had some training thingy for work that he had to attend. It was a pretty long day, and I slept quite well that night. Friday was much the same, except Al T. showed up and helped out by painting the really high parts of the house that no one else felt comfortable doing. (Al is president of the Cheshiremen CHorus.) Jon's dad is an extremely fast painter. However, it did rain that evening. Next morning the house looked fine, so not too much paint had benn washed off. Saturday much the same, except Jon had no excuse to miss the fun. At the end, most of the house was painted. So Sunday we finished it up (no Al) and still had time to go to Keene and eat out! So, the house has one coat of paint and looks pretty good. However, I feel that it needs another coat, so I'll probably paint all the areas I can reach with the extra paint. And I'll try to get some pictures up on my facebook page. ____________________________________________________________ Jon's parents are nice and all, but after four days of them, I was getting a bit tired of them. They have a habit of getting an idea in thier head on what someone should do, and then harping on it for a long time. We got a goos ear full about how we should section hike the Appalachian Trail (lots of day hikes or over nights) and just replace the glass in a few of the sliding glass doors (even though the doors are rusty and don't work so well). Jon's dad even got out the yellow pages and marked where the glass replacement section is. Oh well, I guess they stayed just long enough. ______________________________________________________________ Starting to try to plan holiday time. I want to see my new nephew, out in Indiana and Jon wants to see his sister in South Dakota. So, we'll have to see how that works out. Me, I gotta call Shawn, Misty, etc. __________________________________________________________ Watched "New Moon" in the twilight saga. Blah. Anytime the vampire Edward was on the screen, eveything seemed to slow down. And so boring. The werewolves were much more interesting. Especially since they were all ripped Native American boys who seemed to only wear jean shorts and tennis shoes. Yummy! _________________________________________________________ Live fre!

Tuesday

Wow. We just survived temperatures in the upper 90's and lower 100's here on the east coast. Even way up here in New Hampshire we were melting. I'd open windows for the breeze and all I'd succeed in doing is letting in the hot air. Had to water my garden at dusk to try and keep my veggies from wilting away. And my clothes would become drenched in sweat even when I was just sitting around trying not to burst into flames. I am so glad we're back down to the 80's. __________________________________________________________ Overall, though, my garden is doing pretty good. I've already harveested some pea pods and arugula for a salad and my turnips are doing just fine. (I have to sneak the turnips into various things so Jon doesn't notice he is eating them.) Most everything seems to be doing fine. The pumpkin plants I planted in my nearby garden didn't grow, but I have a huge pumpkin plant growing out in my meadow garden. I'm trying to see what plants deer don't automatically devour. Pumpkin doesn't look like it has been chomped on, and the potato plants have only been nibbled on. (I hate deer.) I grew some tomato plants from seed. The ones I planted outside look like what I'd expect, but the ones I kept indoors have become extremely spindly and elongated, like they want to become climber vines. Weird. ______________________________________________________________ I guess times are getting tough for those internet spammers. I got a "spam" letter in the regular mail. Some "attorney" saying that I might have a rich dead relative, and could possibly make some money. Right. The most amusing part was the letter said I had the same last name as the deceased, "Adam". Apparently, my first name is Majewski. I have also gotten a fe e-mail scams where they make it look like I e-mailed myself. Which is odd, cause I'd certainly hope I wouldn't have to communicate with me via e-mail. ______________________________________________________________ So, I taped three episodes of my tv show "Eat Out" in the past week and a half. Wanted to get ahead so I wouldn't have to worry about it while my in-laws are here helping us paint the house. Not that they wouldn't mind being a part of an episode, but I can only get two cordless mikes, and they are a must for shoots in restaurants (too much background noise otherwise). One of the episodes is another "Eat In" where I make some food. This time I made lasagna. ______________________________________________________________ I learned something new recently. Apparently, most aged cheeses (usually the hard ones) are lactose free. Pretty cool, huh? If you're buying a cheese, check to see if the packing says there's any calories from sugars in it. If not, it is lactose-free. (Lactose is a 2 unit sugar (disaccharide) and people who are lactose intolerant lack the enzyme to break the lactose into the two smaller units). I'm guessing whatever microbe is used to make the hard cheeses uses up the sugars during the cheese making process. _______________________________________________________________ Live free!

July 4th!!!

Happy 4th of July!! Or something. Don't have any big plans, probably will just veg out at home. When I was little, fire work shows were exciting, but now I am no longer impressed by them. Maybe cause there are fireworks displays for just about everything. Or maybe cause I'm just old. ____________________________________________________________ Turns out deer will eat potato plants. A real bummer, I was hoping I'd be able to grow something edible besides garlic and onions outside of my little "fenced" off area. I check the internet, and found that the only other edible plant that deer don't eat is rhubarb. What do you do with rhubarb? I've seen pies, but that is about it. ____________________________________________________________ Spent this past wednesday in Connecticut. Jon has applied for a job down there, and so he went to some "event" as a way to see and be seen. Comes home Tuesday to let me know we're going. I could have used a little heads up, but oh well. About a two hour drive there, early Wednesday morning. Then I got to hang out at the area mall for about 10 hours. Luckily, they had a BArnes and Noble, so I spent a good deal of the time reading. Then I picked up Jon and we went out to eat. Hotel room with cable. Cable tv is evil, we spent too much time watching dumb stuff like "Bounty Hunters" and family guy reruns. I forgot my meds, but decided I'd be alright. Early thursday, back home. Exciting, huh? Jon doesn't think he is properly qualified for the position. Oh well.... ___________________________________________________________ Thursday evening I ran a camera for CheshireTV, doing the all important city council meeting. A long presentation about the Cheshire 2020 initiative. Apparently, the idea is to make Cheshire COunty the healthiest county in the US by 2020. Mostly, it seemed like they're going to try to convince people to eat better and exercise more. Somehow, I don't think it will be successful. ____________________________________________________________ Garden is doing alright. Some of the plants are definitely getting et up by some insects, but enough are surviving that we should see some produce from them. The green bean plants have started flowering, so we'll be getting some of them soon. And the tomato plants I grew from seed are growing nicely. I just hope they start producing fruit before it gets too cold. __________________________________________________________ Live free!