D minus 6 and counting...

Well, as the excitement for the wedding continues to build, this weekend's weather has really made life interesting.

I was going to post about our experiences with planning the liturgy, but got sidetracked by the weather. However, that meeting went very well, and Sarah and I have chosen readings, hymns and songs that will make the day extremely poignant.

And now onto the weather. On Thursday the meteorologists were predicting snow and ice storms. Of course, because Friday was to be our last day before break, the kids were fantasizing about having a snow day. Looking at the weather forecasts all day, I played Mr. Rational and said that I thought we'd have a 2-hour delay, but I doubted we would have a cancellation.

Well, feed me worms and call me stinky (any Perfect Strangers fans out there remember that one?)! We DID have a school cancellation! Apparently the ice was so bad that the roads were unable to be safely navigated by the buses. I'm glad I didn't bet my kids on this one; the last time I did that I had to buy donuts (and no, I'm not talking donut holes...actual donuts) for my first hour class.

I will admit that I enjoyed the early break. With less than a week to the wedding, it was nice to have an extra day to kick back and get some little things done. Heck, I hadn't even begun my Christmas shopping yet!

Things went downhill, though, while I was out running errands Friday morning (yeah, I should have been a mailman--I'll go out in just about any weather!), and Sarah called to tell me that tree branches had fallen on our power lines, bringing them down. Oddly enough, we still had power, but Frieda could not go outside because we didn't know how safe it was.


It was not until Saturday afternoon that NIPSCO came to fix the lines. That may seem like a long time, but I had never seen ice covering branches before, and apparently lines were down all over Northern Indiana. When our repairmen came, we asked how long he had been working. He replied that he had been going non-stop since Thursday, and probably wouldn't be done until Tuesday. My hats off to those people for braving the elements like that!

While we didn't lose power, Sarah's parents did for awhile, and my sister and brother-in-law had some power surges. Luckily, as of this posting, everyone is doing well. Today's high temperature is only going to be about 6 degrees, but it will be warming up over the next few days. The forecast for Saturday is for temperatures in the 30s with a chance of rain/snow. We'll see how it goes though. That's still SIX DAYS AWAY!

Final Countdown

Well, after nearly a year of talking about it and thinking it was so far away, Sarah and I are now ten days away from getting married. Today we went to the county government complex to get our marriage license. That was an interesting trip.

When we got to the Clerk's Office, there was what looked like a line of people waiting. I looked in the office, and a couple was just coming out. The people in the hall that I thought was a line was actually the family of the couple. Apparently they had just gotten married. Now I've heard of people getting married by a Justice of the Peace, but it was strange to see that someone had just done it. In fact, adjoining the dinky, worn-out office was a chapel that was decorated in they typical white netting. Add that to the fact that Sarah and I overheard them talking about going to the Cracker Barrel to celebrate made us smile. Not your typical wedding plans, but when two people are in love, it's hard to keep them down.

The next interesting event was that the one clerk in the office was an amazing multi-tasker. In addition to handling our license, she was getting certified copies for another couple that had just gotten married as well as answered the phone for several other people wanting to know about getting a license.

Finally, though, we had all the paperwork filled out and received our license. The clerk then had us raise our right hands and swear that we were doing this of sound mind and body. One of the questions asked us if we were under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Technically you are supposed to respond "yes" or "no." My response? "Just love." Sarah, the clerk, and another worker who was in the office all cracked up. I figured the workers would have heard that line before. Isn't that why everyone gets married?

Tomorrow is our meeting with Sister Joanne, who will help us set the ceremony. Sarah and I have selected the readings and prayers for the service, and we'll be talking about it with Sister Joanne tomorrow. More on that when we return!

An Exhausting Day

So today was full of workshops. It all started at 8 AM with a workshop on how California has worked to better prepare high school students for college writing. Their methodology and research was strong, but I left when it began to get to be more about the programming that they do and the professional development they employ to prepare teachers for all of it.

The next workshop was on visual learning. I must have misread the description because it ended up being about using pictures to help students learn. I left early, and since there was no other workshop that session that I wanted to attend (a rarity at this convention...each session features some 40-50 workshops, and none are repeated!), I had a little break to take some pictures.

The highlight though, was this afternoon when I went to see my good friends Carla Beard and Nancy Patterson, colleagues through the listserv, presented on using blogs and wikis in the classroom. I had experimented with wikis during the summer, and of course I blog, but I came away really wanting to have students use these tools of technology to collaborate and share their ideas!

During my downtime, as I said, I took a few pictures, but mostly just browsed around the area some more. I discovered a church that is literally trapped on three sides by the shopping mall that is next to my hotel. It's called St. Joseph's Downtown Church, and it is a Catholic Church established in 1868. I visited inside and it was an awe-inspiring 15 minutes of wandering around, admiring the architecture and decoration. If you didn't know it, you wouldn't think that there was a shopping mall 15 feet on the other side of the wall. I'm thinking of attending Mass there tomorrow morning to see what it is like.

For my last night in San Antonio, I think I'm going to stay in. My feet are extremely sore, and I'm very tired after all the walking around. I am looking forward to returning home and to school to try out some of the ideas I have, and to share the wealth of knowledge I have gleaned!

See you all soon!

The Talkie Dinner

The Talkie Dinner gifts: a daybook from Carla and a calculator and pen from Chet.

Some of you reading this know what the Talkie Dinner, while others of you have only heard me talk about it. This meal, a tradition that has been going on for years on the Friday evening of the NCTE conference, is an annual gathering of those on the Engteach-talk listserv. We are educators of all levels, mostly with a focus on English. But for one night, instead of talking online, we meet face to face to talk about life and education.

Those in attendance include the following

• Ogre Art
• Ray Palasz
• Carla Beard (of webenglishteacher.com fame)
• Fran Claggett (author of numerous daybooks as well as other books)
• Sara Pace
• Mary Silva
• Linda Sparkuhl (who held a wonderful technology workshop with NWP today!)
  
• Chet Pryor (our organizer)
• Mary Ann Yedinak
• Jami Carlacio
• Shelley Rodrigo
• Devon (left no last name)
• Ian (left no last name)

Since many of our regulars were unable to attend, Chet invited people from other listservs, and it made the evening even more special. Being able to meet up with people from all parts of the country, from all walks of life, and yet with a common cause only solidifies our purpose in the world!

The menu was spectacular, consisting of cheese, crackers, fruit, and some of the spiciest salsa we had ever tasted! Our meal options ranged from Veggie Napolitano to Blue Corn Enchiladas to Chicken Frances, and our dessert options were pecan creme brule or chocolate confusion.

Though this year's gathering was smaller, the energy was no less so. We raised our glasses to those who were unable to join us, another tradition of the evening. May these pictures (and others that are posted on other blogs or sites) serve as a way for those who were absent to vicariously enjoy the evening.

For a mere $8, the mariachi band came to serenade us! Ay, ay, ay, ay, it's the Frito Bandito! (That's for you, Ogre!)


A mouth-watering enchilada platter.

MMMMMMMMM Enchilada!

Carla toasts those in attendance as well as those who were unable to be there.

Chet and Mary Ann talk. Mary Ann had some interesting stories about malapropisms!

Mary Ann and Jami Carlacio look at some pictures on Jami's phone.

Carla talks with a fellow diner while Art looks on at his gifts.

Chet and Mary talk while Linda fills in the seating chart. Because of the new people to this year's dinner, I needed to know who was who in the pictures!


From left to right, going clockwise: Mary Silva, Linda Sparkuhl, Chet Pryor, Mary Ann Yedinak, Jami Carlacio, Shelley Rodrigo, Devon, Ian, Ogre Art, Ray Palasz, Carla Beard, Fran Clagget, Sara Pace.

See you in Philadelphia!

Down To Work

Ok, so lest those of you who read yesterday's post think that I'm simply taking a four-day weekend, today's blog should prove you wrong!

The first thing you need to know is that last night we had some heavy winds, and today the temperature didn't get out of the mid-50s. Sure, it's still warmer than what we have back home in Northwest Indiana, but it should make you all happy that I'm not going to enjoy summer weather!

Today's events began at 9:30 with the National Writing Project's Annual Meeting. This is when all of the sites of the NWP gather and hear from the President, Board of Directors, and the Inverness research people who study the NWP about what has happened in the past year and where we are going. This is my second year attending, but it feels like a big pep rally. For instance, the Inverness people, whom you would think would be boring and give stat after stat, put it all in economic terms. Turns out educators are capitalists in education because we make investments in our students. So then he had us look at the various kinds of capital we develop. Very interesting.

After he spoke, the President of the National Writing Project's President, Sharon Washington, spoke about how writing and learning are connected. Her memorable anecdote involved her being the only black person at a small dinner gathering, and one of the other adults' child asked her if she was as colored all over as she was on her face! She used it as an example of how we sometimes stifle inquiry as we get older, and writing should be a way to change that trend.

The final speaker was Delores Perez, who spoke about living near the Texas-Mexico border all of her life and realizing in her first year that her ability to communicate in two languages was hampered by the status quo at the time. What has stuck with (and I'm paraphrasing here, so Ms. Perez, forgive me if I'm wrong--leave a comment if you read this!) is that students should learn English, but never at the expense of their home language, their first language, or their culture.

I felt very uplifted as an educator after that meeting. Though I only teach a couple of courses where writing is a core component, it made me realize that what I do in all of my classes is based on the premise that writing is thinking on paper, and therefore, I naturally incorporate writing.

After the meeting, I had about an hour and a half before going to a workshop. I spent that time taking some pictures of the Alamo and the local area. I will post some pictures later on tonight. The Alamo is an interesting artifact, especially since it lies in the middle of the city!

This afternoon I attended a workshop on making a writing project site's presence on the web be a tool for recruitment. Not only was it very informative, but as always, it spurred several ideas for future work with the Northwest Indiana Writing Project.

I then spent the next hour and a half browsing the exhibitor's stations in the main convention hall. About 100 publishers and other educational companies come and showcase their wares. I picked up some free items (nothing too spectacular, but things that might help down the line), and talked with some people who truly care about education (as well as making a dollar).

This post is being written in the little bit of down time that I have before going to the annual Talkie Dinner. I'll be dining with several people on a listserv for English teachers, and the NCTE conference is a way for us to all meet up face to face for a meal. The crowd will be smaller this year due to the economy, but the spirit will surely be alive. I will have pictures of that later on tonight or tomorrow.

Tomorrow is another full day, starting at 8 AM. Hopefully, though, I'll be done by 5 PM, and then I can spend a little bit of time relaxing before the trek home on Sunday. I'm thinking of attending Mass at this old Catholic church around the corner.

Pictures to come tonight!

Hey, Shift Happens

That's the theme for this year's National Council of Teachers of English Conference. Pretty funny, huh? So the kids aren't the only ones getting away with nearly cursing! Actually the theme is based on the fact that the role of education has shifted so much in the past century, and we are exploring the ways that we as educators can adapt. I'm hoping to sit and blog at least once a day about what's going on here.

So let me tell you about my hotel. So I tried to find the least expensive conference hotel, and I reserved a room there. It's called the Menger Hotel. On Sunday, when I went to look at the amenities (I never even thought about that when I placed the reservation!), their website said that the hotel was built in 1959, and it is right next to the Alamo! I was thrilled to be so close to a piece of American history.

After I checked in (and called tech support to help me get connected to the Internet), I looked out my window, and what do you think I saw?

THE ALAMO!

I've already gone over to register at the convention, so now I'll have to spend some time planning what workshops to attend. The great thing about this conference is that there are soooo many great workshops. The worst thing is that there are soooo many great workshops!

I'm off to plan (and enjoy the 70 degree weather!)

It's a Girl!

Weighing in at 6 pounds, 10 ounces and 20.5 inches, my sister and her husband gave birth to a girl tonight! Sarah and I met my mom and Jay's parents at the hospital at about 6:30. About 7:10, as we were starting to wonder why no one had come to give an update, Jay came out and said "It's a girl!" She entered the world at 6:56 PM

All are doing well, and I'm thrilled to be an uncle! Here are some of the first pictures of her!

Grabbing Grandma Barb's finger!

"Ahh, what shall I do first?"

While we were holding her, these guys were texting their friends!


Introducing GRANDMA KATHY,

AND GRANDPA JAY!

Here is UNCLE RAY with his favorite niece!

Smile, AUNT SARAH!

My mom, now a proud GRANDMOTHER!

The proud papa!

The first family portrait!

Cassidy, welcome to this crazy, crazy family. I'll let you make the discoveries on your own, but know that despite our idiosyncrasies (not too soon to start developing your vocabulary!), we are full of love. God has truly blessed us tonight!