Calissa in China - Thrillers and Such

Dear Family,

Thank you for your letters! I loved hearing about current events- you asked me questions, but I’m afraid they’re lost in Beijing (on my poor, abandoned jump drive). I do know, however, that I promised you some stories if you wrote me, so here they are!

Thrilled to Death: The Time the Headmaster Crashed Our Thriller Rehearsal.

We were still ironing out the kinks, when she came. John was cheerfully practicing his moonwalk across the floor, Hillary and Laura were trying to brokenly covey their intentions to each other to either lengthen or shorten the production, Kara and William had started going through Tai chi, and I was still figuring out a particularly finicky hip gyration during the first verse, wherein we all together shake our booties then snap out a leg, when we noticed a few extra people in the room. A short woman, a tall man, and a bland person I barely noticed except that she held a clipboard. I thought them to be curious teachers, but evidently this was not so, because John and Hillary were both exceedingly surprised and mildly confused by their presence- we looked to Laura for an explanation, but she was as uniformly uninformed as the rest of us (a common state of affairs). John broke away, and announced that we would be running through Thriller once more, with the headmaster observing our efforts. He emphasized that we ought to exaggerate our expressions and actions, so we promised to be as insane as possible without causing ourselves or each other injury. This pleased him, and he walked swiftly to the computer to begin the music. We scrambled to our places, and snuck discreet peeks at the intruders, wondering who the two women were with the headmaster. The music began! We did our level best to pay homage to the original music video (with mixed success), but the three seemed to be having a grand time watching us spasm across the dance floor. Perhaps most of their amusement was drawn from the fact that the dance floor was a cluster of tables too short, resulting in minor collisions between people and furniture throughout the episode, but our out-and-out silliness won at least a few of those smiles. When it was over, the lady with the clipboard smiled and said something, Hillary said something back, and they left. I wondered aloud how the headmaster liked our performance, and Hillary was almost beaming when she said, “She like it!” (my face -> O.o’)

At the main gates of the school is a guardhouse, wherein can be found at least three guards at a time. Some of them are vaguely creepy to me, like the Chinese-mall-cop-look-alike and the rodent-faced dude, some are middling in the looks department, and two are adorable: a young man, maybe 19, with an earnest face, and a thirty-something guard with glasses, the shyest expression, and the softest voice. I haven’t spoken with the young one, but the older one is always smiling, polite, and unfailingly shy when we walk through the gate. It just so happened that one night after we had returned from a shopping expedition, he bashfully admitted in a soft voice that he wanted to practice his English. After suppressing squees of ‘that was so cute!’ and ‘you’re adorable!’, we enthusiastically agreed to help him practice whenever we saw him. Mom, Dad, don’t go crazy here. I’m not romantically attracted to this guy. I do not wish to do more than let him practice his conversational English in passing, so don’t get any…ideas. Breathe. I am saying, however, that he’s absolutely adorable and as sweet as a puppy. No teasing me! >:(

The Night of Scariness…

Well, Sam and I had just finished our dinners in record time, and we were quite anxious to get to a bus stop from whence to get to the train station, to purchase our tickets for a Nanjing weekend trip. We had only a few hours before been warned that we must never be in groups of fewer than three in the darker hours of the evening, to never go in groups of two farther than could be walked back from in less than half an hour, and above all else, to never be out after nine o’clock pm. The area was experiencing a surge in violent crime (stabbings, and violence against women), and the police had pinpointed the hour as the locus of the attacks. Hillary had mentioned that she herself wouldn’t leave the gates after eight, with the construction workers, motorcycle gangs, and shady characters who typically roam the streets then. The train station was less than an hour away on a good day, the station a few blocks from the final bus stop, and the lines typically were short; maybe a half-hour to purchase them. Round-trip, we expected to leave at five and bee back by seven thirty, eight at the latest. We had asked our third traveler to come as well, but she pled illness, and we had no more time. We left, our twosome, and began to walk briskly to the bus stop. Sam’s stride was confident, but I had a knot in my stomach as I realized that even moving as fast as possible, we would be caught by darkness before we could make it back. Internally I squirmed, but matched her pace and soon we were sitting on a bench, waiting for our bus.

It was twenty minutes late. I was uncomfortable as I watched the sun sinking lower, but we pressed on. Sam and I made light conversation as we bounced along, but even she began to look less self-assured as the traffic thickened and the bus crawled, cars and trucks painted with the colors of sunset, then twilight. We made it to the final stop after an hour and a half, nearly twice as long as we had accounted for, and losing daylight too swiftly for continued safety. We practically burst from the bus, jogging lightly to make it at least to the train station before the light was entirely gone. We made it, and stopped in dismay- the place was packed! It would be at least forty-five minutes before we could get to any counter! Sam and I tried to pick the shortest, fastest line, and settled in to wait. I had a paperback with me, and thus amused myself as tempers around us became increasingly shorter than the lines, and minor acts of frustration broke out. I could distantly hear an angry man slamming the palm of his hand against a register’s window and yelling, and the woman inside furiously shouting back. Men shifted, and there was a current of frustration and anxiety, and I became more sensitive to the fact that Sam and I were very much surrounded by tired, annoyed, impatient people who were not looking very nice…we finally made it. We picked and paid for our tickets as quickly as possible, because the yelling man from earlier was still pounding away at the window next to us, and our ticket seller was starting to add her voice to her colleague’s. We could not get out of there fast enough, and were both deeply disturbed by the air of danger in that packed room. Thankfully, we were only a few blocks from the bus Sam insisted would take us to the school with its barred gates and walls, and we walked as fast as we dared, keeping to the streetlamps and avoiding loitering guys. We hopped on, and stared bleakly at the darkness of the city as it rolled by, knowing without saying it that we were in trouble.

The bus ride back was an hour. It was not as full as it could have been which we were thankful for, and quiet as the minutes ticked past nine. Sam knew when to get off, so I sat and read my book, looking up occasionally as a stop came and went. Finally, Sam announced that we could get off at the next stop and be closer to our school than if we waited until the bus stopped at the market. I didn’t recognize the area, but got off with Sam. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw the market in the distance, and wondered at how far away it seemed….at least a mile or two away. Sam had located the school, and pointed it out for me. It was beyond the market. I stared in disbelief, and then turned to my companion who had also noticed her slight miscalculation. The bus had rumbled away, and we were alone on a dark, quiet, slightly misty road after the Danger Hour had come, and we were far from the school. I mentally gave myself a hefty kick for not insisting upon bringing our third companion, and followed Sam as she led the way back. The sidewalks were broad, edged with heavy vegetation, and only solitary motorists and single trudging people passed us as we kept our pace swift and our eyes straight ahead. I wondered who else might be walking around these roads at this hour, but stopped my speculation before it became panic. Sam was a runner, and I wasn’t afraid to kick a guy’s most vulnerable spot to get away if it came to it. All the same, we kept close to each other. In my imagination, every bush held a figure crouched within and the sparkle of a blade flashed from the shadow of every tree…it was unpleasant.

Finally, finally, we made it back, dodging the groups of rowdy construction workers and practically flinging ourselves through the gate when it opened. We hurried to the dorms, parted ways, and went to bed.

The fishing people! A week or two ago, the district diverted the water from a nearby canal to allow construction on its banks, and the water levels fell and fell until the deepest point had to be only five feet or less. We were walking along the bridge spanning this canal on the way to the market when we noticed people crouched in there, with their pants rolled up and plastic buckets settled into the mud beside them. There were men and women, reaching into the muck and feeling for small, silvery fish to flip into their buckets. I saw a net being dragged through the deepest point by a few people on both banks, and some with heaping buckets already splashing the black silt and goo off of their legs and feet, finished for the day. We stopped and stared for a few minutes, and took pictures. It was so interesting!

Hmmm…I’m learning some simple songs in Chinese! I can sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ and ‘Jumping Tiger’ (which has the ‘Frere Jacque’ tune). Granted, I’m not very good- sometimes I have to mumble a word or make it up- but I’m getting there!

Well! That was a longer letter, and now I have to be off- thank you for your letters! My next will be a description of Beijing!

Love you all! Calissa

Heading to Beijing!

Dear Family,

I am alive, excited, and hopeful this week- I have 1st grade off! We also have our Beijing vacation lined up, meals and transportation provided by SVU for the SVU group! Guess those 800 dollars are starting to work for me now~ We leave the 6th, and will be gone until the 10th, which means I’ll be celebrating my second decade of life in the capitol of China! Yeah!

We are also lined up to participate in the district’s cultural festival on the 15th, which is awesome to the max- you know that we’re learning Tai Chi, right? Well, we and some of the children will be performing a skit with a mixture of Tai Chi and American dance thrown in on a floating stage in front of thousands of people! This is how it goes- the children (all eight year old girls) perform a short, stylized piece about ancient Chinese people, during which the English teachers come onstage and ‘scare’ them. They pretend to fight us off and ‘scare’ us with Kung Fu, and the leader of their group asks if we are demons, and Sam (who speaks Chinese), replies that we are foreigners. They perform some Tai Chi, and then ask what we can do. We then perform Thriller with the children looking on, and then we all perform a short piece of Tai Chi together, after which we each embrace a child and wave as we walk offstage. We’ve almost got it down perfectly, which is lucky because we only started practicing last week…and won’t be practicing very much this week.

It’s May Day vacation time, and we don’t teach until Tuesday, and leave Thursday…and now that I think about it, maybe this week isn’t the best for a week off of 1st grade. Darn. ^_^;

And now a bit about stuff going on- it seems this time of year is a bad one for stress, because our school is cracking down on security when we leave campus. A few weeks ago, eight children were murdered at a school nearby, and just recently, people have walked into preschools with knives and hammers and just started swinging. It’s freaking everyone out, and so we’ve been given careful strictures on when and how we leave. We must be in larger groups than three if we will be out after dark, we now have to sign in and out if we are going to leave campus, we cannot bring Chinese friends in, and we have been warned that 9pm is the ‘Danger Hour’, because that is when the crimes begin (especially to women in small groups) and when the gates are locked. We haven’t been accosted, we haven’t been threatened, nothing dangerous has happened, but we are being careful all the same. Generally, people are very nice, but no one is taking chances.

I’ve discovered that Chinese street food is awesome in so many ways, they can hardly be numerated. The place may smell of excrement, the people are a bit rough, and the booths are made of scrap wood and plastic, but the cooking is heavenly. We’ve even got a sort of friendship with a few vendors we like, like the old woman who sells four dumplings for a yuan, the young man who sells pineapples on a stick, and the surly dude who cooks a zillion different things over an open grill. And when the day closes and the sun goes down, the square is filled with music and everyone dances. I’m trying new things now, like Chinese fruit in jell-o, grilled squid, and Chinese ice cream (which does taste different, no joke).

Yeah, this is a short letter-I’m lazy this week, sorry! Maybe I’ll tell you more (like the time the headmaster crashed our Thriller rehearsal, about the cute guard who wants to practice English, when the whole school went to the Dinosaur Park, about the night Sam and I were outside alone after 9pm and walked miles to get to safety, about the people catching fish bare-handed in the nearby canal, about the songs I’m learning in Chinese, about my stalker roommate) if I get a few letters from my lovely siblings…nudge nudge, wink wink.

I love you all! Calissa

...the EVALUATION...

Dear Family,

Life is becoming so much easier now that the evaluation has passed. We all got up together at six, for once, and waited for Jared to come and inspect. He was supposed to get here at seven am, to have a meeting with us about issues raised in Laura’s personal evaluations, then after an hour or so begin private interviews with us to discuss our concerns, hopes, and things we need to improve on as teachers. Then, Jared was to go through our rooms, our facilities, and have a private meeting with Laura about them. After lunch, we were to teach the special lessons we prepared specifically for him to see, wait for his remarks, teach first grade, then get his feedback on our overall performance (and discover if it was good enough to pass muster, or bad enough to get us deported-or worse, re-trained). As it turned out, he missed his train. We spent hours sitting tensely in our rooms, tensely in the computer lab, tensely in the cafeteria, tensely in the supply room as the day ticked tensely on. We ended up crowded into the supply room for an hour before classes started, with at least six people scrunched against the windows playing lookout while the rest of us chatted nervously, playing silly hand-clapping games and freaking each other out with random exclamations of “It’s Jared!”, or, “They’re here, look busy!” Eventually, with Laura still gone and Jared still absent, we were forced to abandon our hopeful, nervous vigil and get the children gathered for Opening. We had just begun the obligatory weather questions when a lanky, Caucasian, tall guy with dark hair, followed by Laura, ducked in and began watching us.

Of course, our kids went nuts. x_x
The minute this familiar (2nd graders = Jared had been here before) guy popped in, the kids started slapping each other, scooting out of line, yelling, and rolling around on the floor. We the evaluated were of course shocked and intimidated, and so Opening devolved into a mess of sporadic songs and frantic pleas for quiet. Thankfully, it only lasted for ten minutes, so we gratefully gathered our classes and scrambled off, aware of the scrutiny aimed at our retreating backs. I was supposed to be evaluated during an Arts and Crafts class, and so I had everything ready and polished for Jared- unfortunately, he declined to come in and we were suddenly subjected to a left-field schedule change after only two classes! I had just finished helping my second class with their finger puppets when a harried-looking Laura craned her head in, announced that the 2nd graders were leaving and that the 1st graders were coming in eight minutes, and that the supply room was closed due to meetings.
I stared at the door in shock (I only have eight minutes to get ready?!), grabbed my things (I left the 1st grade stuff in the supply room!), and rushed down to the third floor with a stampede of gleeful eight year olds (I need help!) I managed to grab Laura as she passed me on the stairs and asked, “How can we get our lesson stuff if it’s in the supply room?” She growled that we can go into the supply room and fled, leaving me flummoxed and flustered, and five minutes shy of a first grade class. I pelted into the supply room, passing Jared on his way out (d’oh!), and snatched up my supplies. I dumped the rest on the shelves, and barely made it to the gym area on 4th floor to help control Opening. The kids cooperated for the most part, and we did the best we could despite the MESSED UP schedule our neat-and-tidy planning had brokered. I myself was trying to convey the concept of Impending Occurrences (“The cat is going to eat the mouse! What is it going to do? It’s going to eat the mouse!”) when Jared appeared and loomed at the back of the class. I sweated it out with many an exaggerated chomp-chomp-chomp to illustrate ‘eat’, and then he was gone. I wiped the perspiration from my brow, relaxed, and finished teaching the two classes.

Once the children were gone, two hours early, we sat together outside of the supply room and wondered how badly we were going to receive the smack-down for not being organized. Some theorized that we would need re-training, a fate worse than death, others said that the schedule had been demolished and anything bad that had happened was not our fault. I personally figured that we were going to be told in very disappointed tones that our jobs were poorly done, etc, etc, this is ruining their lives, etc, etc. Imagine our surprise when Jared invited us to sit in a circle, settled into a ridiculously tiny purple chair at the head of it, and beamed at us with a declaration that he was impressed with us. Impressed?! Was he even watching those disorganized classes? He must have noticed our collective shock, because he smoothly interjected that most schools had children running down the halls screaming (okay…we do control the kids better than that), that rotations between classes take over ten minutes (well, ours were only two today! WOO!), that the students even defecate on one another to express their displeasure (yeah, no children do that here). He was happy because we demonstrated that we could discipline the children (we give ‘strikes’, like baseball, three strikes you’re out!), that the children listened when we said ‘English Only!’, and that we could get them to calm down and listen. He was pleased by our enthusiastic teaching, and overall was tickled pink by our control of the situation. He mentioned that we were in the best shape out of all the schools he had seen so far in his inspection. I sat there in a daze, and was fuzzily glad that he had not asked for us to comment yet, as I was sure I’d start babbling or some other embarrassing act. While he praised us I thought of all the calmer, more organized days we have, and I think that we are definitely in great shape if our worst day was good enough to pass. YEAH!
There wasn’t enough time to do individual interviews, as he had to catch a train in an hour, but he was able to get in two group sessions wherein we begged for more water, and he promised to do something about it. He did! We now get eight drums of purified water a week for the thirteen of us instead of three, and life is already looking much less administrative (no more training meetings!). I can hardly believe it was so simple and easy to get a good grade- ah, no more stress.
As for today, we get to watch General Conference! We got the DVD from some church members in Nanjing.
Fun stuff I’ve learned about Changzhou!
The night market at V-Mart has dumplings, turtles, pearls, beans on a stick, pineapple on a stick, and roasted meats of every kind for under a yuan.
There are a zillion pirated DVDs floating around, and a zillion legitimate DVDs. It’s really, really hard to tell them apart!
The babies here are so cute, and their Moms think it’s the coolest thing when we coo and wave at them, making silly faces and laughing when the toddlers only gape in confusion.
I have eaten pig’s feet, chicken blood soup, chicken feet, raw dough dumplings, hot rice goo, bamboo, and red bean bread. I’ve developed a great liking for all of the above, besides the raw dough dumplings and the chicken feet.
And lastly, I’m leaving for Beijing soon- so guys! What would you like from China? Stuff here is inexpensive to the extreme, so if you want it and I can find it, I’ll get it for you (even sketchy DVDs, lol). I’ve seen some interesting stuff, so if you can’t think of anything, I’ll have to get creative. <3 *coughchickenfeet/pigintestines/mummytoescough*
I love you all! Calissa

PS- Could you write down the story of that kingdom with an evil wizard who tries to get the people to wear red and eat chocolate cake, and any other cool stories like that and sent them? The children and teachers like them a lot, and I’d love to make a few little books for them. I would also love more pictures of the family doing stuff together, like baseball, lacrosse, eating dinner, playing games, reading, doing homework, singing, making paper airplanes, folding clothes, cooking…the kids love seeing pictures of my family, and I love sharing! Also- Mom, if you need your pearls re-strung, I need them before we leave for Beijing on May 6th! ;)

Oh Goodness - The "Full Moon" and other adventures

We did not hear from Calissa for a couple of weeks and got a little concerned when there was an earthquake and we STILL did not hear from her. She is fine...just busy!

This is her latest chapter in the great China adventure.

Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I’m alive- that earthquake wasn’t very close, and we weren’t there that day. We are all alive, reasonably healthy, and getting enough food (water, on the other hand…). Okay. Now, for some awesome updates on my life and a reply to your letter, Mom!
I’m okay, and I am most certainly relishing those chocolate treats you sent- in fact, they are in part responsible for my presently optimistic attitude! Mm, mm, good… Those allergy tablets got here, and they did indeed help my running nose and glassy eyes.

How are the kids? Well, we have a few of every kind: some shy ones who don’t talk very much or loudly, the goofy ones who want attention, the kids who are smarter than we are, the kids who delight in causing trouble, the enthusiastic ones who aren’t as skilled but still try. And then there are the apathetic ones, who make us giggle because they are just so cute with their moody faces while everyone else is hopping around with excitement. Are they learning? Yes. Faster than we are learning Chinese, at any rate. I’m very much enjoying teaching now, especially now that I’ve gotten the hang of it somewhat. As for the inspection…ILP decided to put it off for a week, which is absolutely mean considering the fiendishly busy days we’ve had trying to get it all ready! Everyone is slightly peeved that we have to do a few things over again, but we’re relieved that most of the training and paperwork got mauled through before they come. The new date for inspection is this Wednesday, and we’ve been given very special instructions by Laura- be enthusiastic, be on time, and don’t complain!

On another note, the Chinese teachers (perhaps possessing the ancient art of telepathy, or maybe just possessing excellent observational skills) decided that we worked too hard and were spending too much time with each other- so they took us out to a coffee house and dinner, their treat. We left at 12 and didn’t get back until 8:45, which felt absurdly long upon reaching the dorms, but felt heavenly in light of our recent…exertions. We took a bus to downtown Changzhou, and were escorted by three peppy teachers and King (not peppy: we get stressed, we stress him, we stress out about stressing him…vicious cycle) to this huge, luxurious, beautiful building with a receptionist and elevators. We went to the fourth floor, where we had our reservations for the day, and were immediately sent to a lovely open booth with deep couches and teak tables. A waitress came over with a large tray, and began setting down tiny plates with various treats and snacks- some familiar, like those trumpet-shaped cracker things, and others, like the wheel-looking things that tasted like frosting and peanut butter, unfamiliar. We snacked politely, and made vague conversation while we took in the only relaxed atmosphere in over a week. A few minutes later, she came back with frothy milk drinks that tasted, and probably were, like melted ice cream and water. It was so good to have dairy again! We sucked down those milk drinks within minutes, and to our surprise and delight, our best friend the waitress returned with more! Those too disappeared in a trice, and we relaxed, beginning to disarm our multitudinous personal explosive tempers, and simply enjoy the company and sights. With snacks coming every fifteen minutes, and those ice cream drinks, we were more than satisfied with sitting back and doing absolutely nothing but munch and dazedly loll, but our hosts had other plans. They wanted us to play cards with them, so we corralled a random child’s Harry Potter Uno and had a few rounds, during which actual ice cream was served in tiny bowls. I had the red bean and taro, and both made me very happy. Let’s get ice cream when I get back, okay? ;) After the Uno fest, we checked the time (3 pm) and chatted. Some slept, possibly for the first time in a while. Others, like myself, learned and experienced the joy that is tapioca milk tea and Golf (the card game) in a nice atmosphere. The milk tea was pink boiled milk with blue tapioca balls at the bottom that you sucked up through a huge straw, and was delicious. I am also a terrible Golfer, and won the title of worst player with a score of 139 points after four rounds (the winner had 13). Well, I have no poker face, so that’s alright. We stayed and snacked until five. Most of us by that time had relaxed to such an extent that we were once more on polite speaking terms with each other and the world in general, and were ready to go back to the dorms to finish the experience with good, cleansing sleep. Our Chinese teacher friends, however, were not finished with the day- they took us to a small, Western-ish buffet where we were able to consume with difficulty a little more food of the dairy and familiar variety, during which we talked and joked and looked discreetly at our watches. After an hour or two, we began making light noise about sleeping off the tremendous perpetual meal we had consumed, and the teachers genially let us return. That was a good day…

Saturday, they took us to a mountain to climb it. We had ratcheted up our stress levels again, and many of us were eager to get in some excellent cardio and relief by roughing it through the wilderness for a few hours, but as it turns out, Chinese mountain climbing is a very different thing from American mountain climbing. The mountain was a hill with a colossal philosopher’s statue on it, and the path was nor precisely hiking grade, more like random-jaunt-with-an-elderly-person-through-the-bamboo grade. It was nice, but ultimately more interesting as a post card. I did enjoy the cave, though! It was really cool to go through a cave and explore a bit, and the exit was a boat ride, so that made my day. Afterwards, we had a nice traditional Chinese lunch (duck tastes awesome), and went to a cute amusement park. I got to ride a giant Ferris wheel that took a full fifteen minutes to make a revolution, and got my picture taken by four different groups of teenagers. LOL. I was a tourist attraction! It’s true, you don’t get many foreigners in this part of China.

Oh! I just remembered a funny thing that happened this week- remember how you asked about the kids, and if they were learning? Um, I know a few who are having a bit too much fun in our classes. Plato, one of the bigger boys (9, not 8), is a bit of a troublemaker, and bullies some of the smaller boys around. Well, one day when we were relaxing after gym (my favorite class to teach), I noticed that Plato was off by himself and not participating in our post-game discussion. I asked him, “Plato? Would you come sit down, please? What did you learn?” Plato proceeded to do something shocking. He plopped down beside me, rattled something off in Chinese, and then displayed a full, brown moon to the entire class, not two feet from my face. I looked at that bottom, felt my control of the class slip, and wondered, How am I supposed to save this? I then got a flash of inspiration. I turned to the class and said emphatically and enthusiastically, “Plato mooned me! What did Plato do? Plato mooned me! Everyone say, ‘Plato mooned you!’ Who did he moon?” “Plato moon Teacher Calissa!” “Good!” I then taught the class that mooning is not polite, and the lesson continued. I’m glad he didn’t go full Monty, I don’t know how I’d have salvaged that…“Everyone say, ‘Plato is a nudist-’”

On a different note, I feel like I should ask after my cough. You remember when I got H1N1 and had to stay in the country longer? Well, I got better in almost every way, and feel excellent, but I never completely lost the cough. I thought it was another allergy symptom, but those have gone away, and this hasn’t. I hear and feel something rattling around in there still, and it bugs me because I can’t understand why I’ve still got that. I can breathe very well since it seems to be at the bottom of my lungs rather than the top, and I only notice occasionally or when I’m horizontal, but it’s still weird. On the other hand, I haven’t caught anything like the flu (which wiped out half our number for a week), or a severe cold (which took out four for two weeks), or strep (which afflicts two of us right now). I feel so bad for the kids because we get sick so frequently, but it’s probably the kids who are giving us the illnesses, so I’m not remorseful for long.
Some fun stuff I’ve noticed about China this week is table manners. It’s socially acceptable, and even the norm, to spit out food and put it beside your plate, on the table. This means that at a large meal, everyone will have a little pile of bones, gristle, and whatever else glommed together on the tablecloth. Yuck. I still haven’t gotten the hang of this yet, and persist in hiding such tidbits in a napkin which I then secrete in the shadow of my cup. It earns me some interested looks, but I’m okay with that. Another thing is slurping. Everyone, from the teachers to the students, does this. And the snorting, then spitting? Yep, that too! 
And lastly, what I’d like in that final package…hm. I’d like pictures of you guys, and whatever else you’d like to send is fine. <3
I love you! Calissa
PS- Good luck with the worm composting!

There, Their, They're

EUREKA! I figured it out.
It is so confusing, even for adults to know when to use there, their and they're.
When driving with Jeff and Bryce the other day, I came up with a great memory trick for them to use:

There: directional word (put it there, over there, went there etc)

Trick: the word "where" is spelled like "there" and can be used together. Put it there. Put it where? Over there!

So, if one can ask the question: Where? it is used with the word "There".

Their: ownership, possession (means that someone owns or possesses something)

Trick: the word "heir" means to inherit something, a belonging of someone else's. When talking about "their home, their dog, their car, their vacation etc it means something they own or something they can lay claim to. An "heir" can lay claim to something once the owner passes away or it is given to them - thus the ownership tie. look for the word "heir" in "their" to indicate ownership.

They're: conjunction for they are (apostrophe means a letter or letters have been left out)

Trick: substitute they are in the word and see if it still works and if it does not, you are using the wrong word!

So, that is my EUREKA moment for the week...I will share only the best of them with you.

Bryce's SuperFly Pinewood Derby car

It's that time of year...

Bryce and his pack all vowed not to let their dads touch the cars...no moms for that matter either. We have some pretty crafty moms (no not crafty in the bad way) and we know our way around the garage. I tease my sweet husband that most of the tools in the garage are mine : )

I digress...



Bryce wanted a trident shaped car and cut it so small that we were forced to go foraging through the garage for anything that would be the right size and weight to add 4 more ounces to the car. This is what evolved as we found things to glue to the foundation and it looked so much like a dragonfly that it got wings!



I can honestly say the only thing I did was give him permission to use my glass stones and used the drill press to create an indentation for the steel "eyeball" at the front. The wings do flap as it goes...not sure if that will help the speed or not, but it sure looks cool!

Great Job Bryce!!! Weighing in at 4.9 ounces....SUPERFLY!

Parking in a "no parking" zone

We had some great lacrosse games last week and had gorgeous weather and beautiful flowering trees as well. The kids won their games, we had a great day and I captured some fun pictures while we enjoyed the day together.



I caught Shanan with both of our iphones as she was surfing the web on mine (or on facebook) and listening to a message on dad's phone. She has wanted a phone for so long that once she gets her hands on one, there is no getting it back!



The trees were too beautiful not to take pictures of! I also could not help myself when combining kids with blooms - so here is my version of two beautiful images in one! He does smile most of the time, this was his serious pose - a rare moment!



These are truly a little boy's foundation: skinned knees, bruised shins, dirty scuffed converse - what a great life a little boy has!