Paper Chandelier

Last weekend I found myself in the Neiman Marcus at the Mall at Millenia. This venture into the foreign world of the modern shopping mall lead me to one of the most brilliant things I've seen in quite a while; an idea which I intend to plagiarize in my classroom. It was a chandelier of sorts, although that might stretch the definition thereof, consisting of sheets of paper, wire and binder clips. Visitors from all over the world had written messages in their native tongues, drawn a flag, created a picture from words, whatever came over them at the time. I love this idea. I love how individual it is, and how it is in essence a cloud of thought which is ever changing. I think I will attempt to make something similar for my classroom at school and give the students the opportunity to share their art work or thoughts in a relatively anonymous way. There is, however, the danger of getting a lot of profanity and vulgarity if placed in a high school classroom. I think I'll try it anyway, and trust that they can be mature about it. Yeah, right.

Reader challenge: My own note is up there, see if you can guess which one it is! (No fair if I already showed you...) Post your guesses in the comments.

In Search of Inspiration

I find that in the slow summer months (may they last forever) that I have little about which to write. It's not that I don't want to, but a play by play commentary describing my afternoons sitting around playing Nintendo and carrying on long and intense conversations with my cat isn't particularly interesting.

Then came my trip to Border's this weekend. As Curt and I searched for the hard cover Strunk & White's, I happened upon an intriguingly small cube-shaped book. The Writer's Block emblazoned on it's binding caught my eye, and I soon found myself flipping through its worn three inch pages. This is a book that has seen some hands. Stopping on random pages, I began to see why. Page after page of prompts. Things to write about; fiction, autobiography, a story heard long ago, all of them there on a 3 x 3 page waiting for me. So I bought it (and got a discount because it was a little beat up), and I'm going to use it. Maybe I'll share some of it here. Maybe.

Hi, I'm Laura, and I'm a Pack Rat

One look at my bedroom would tell you that I'm a pack rat. I don't throw things away if they have an iota of sentimental value. So, my room looks like an 8th grade art class or a very large refrigerator door. Pictures from trips, high school memorabilia, and bits and pieces of things from college clutter my bookshelf, floor, desk and walls. There is just too much stuff. It's no wonder that I have been dragging my feet in beginning the daunting task of cleaning and redesigning my room. I don't even know what color to paint it. Some things need to go, I'm sure of that; but I don't want to take the walk down memory lane only to find out how much I've forgotten.

It will eventually have to happen, because I'm going a little bit stir-crazy with all of the clutter.

On Exams

I've finally kicked my butt into gear and looked into the registration process for the Florida General Knowledge Exam which I must complete before the beginning of October if I want to keep my job. The act of looking it up and filling out the registration forms online brings back memories of high school and registration for the SATs, IB and AP exams. There is this distinct feeling I get when I think about exams. I dread them in general, but at the same time look at it with a fairly large ego. I've never done horrible on a general knowledge test. The FCAT was remarkably easy in my memory, and the SATs, while a good deal harder than the FCAT, presented only things I had seen and studied before.

In fact, I don't think I've ever had a horrible experience in an exam. There was the ACT, which I took on the morning after our second performance of "Les Miserables" for which I was only half awake. But even then, my score was better than average; I didn't get the score I wanted, but it was still better than many. Incidentally, I took that exam at the school where I now teach. I recall the first day of IB Chemistry being difficult, but I attribute that to the unfortunate schedule which placed it after IB History, thus my brain was already fried. In hindsight, spending the lunch break at the bowling alley thinking of anything but chemistry was perhaps not the best choice. The AP Calculus AB exam was absolutely atrocious. Since our main focus was the IB Calculus exam, we hadn't really prepared for the AP. Also, I had missed a few important days because of Drama (go figure) and could not for the life of me find the volume of a shape rotated around the x-axis (or the y-axis for that matter). I spent most of that exam doodling and drawing fish in a cylinder.

Yes, my senior year of high school was full of exams, some fairly easy, other decidedly not. My main memory is going in with confidence. Never nervous, always a little unsure, but confident. Hopefully this time around it will be the same.

LA, LV, LA

This leg of the California adventure took us to the Los Angeles area where most of my cousins live. Last Saturday was my cousin's debut (pronounced dey-boo by Filipinos), so we all got dolled up for the big night. It is basically a cotillion ball for only one debutant. Anyway, I'd never been to one before, so it was all new to me. Good times.

My family takes opportunities such as this one to have huge family reunions, so good times are had by all. This year everyone decided to take a vacation to Las Vegas, where we could eat copious amounts of food (methinks Las Vegas is the capital of all-you-can-eat buffets), feed money into slot machines and enjoy each other's company. This was my second time in Las Vegas, but my first since I've turned 21, and thus been able to actually stand in the casino area, rather than being watching from the child friendly aisles. Having seen it from up close, I'm not quite sure what the big fuss is about. It seems to me like a city created for the sole purpose of taking your money. Keith and I saw Spamalot our first night there which was pretty much amazing. I got a bobblehead "Knight of Ni".

My family and a couple of my uncles took a break from the city Wednesday morning and drove out to Hoover Dam which was pretty awesome, to say the least. Not only is it a marvel of engineering, but it also boasts some lovely art deco architecture. Here are some pictures.

The turbines that harness the power of the Colorado River.

The view from half way up the dam.

View from the top looking down.

Looking across the face of dam.

That art deco architecture I was talking about applied to the water intakes on the upstream side of the dam. This also reminded me of Starwars. Just saying.

An angel in the art deco style. Again, pretty awesome.

We're now back in the LA area. Tonight: Wicked. Tomorrow: Disneyland.

En La Isla De Los Alcatraces

Today Keith and I took the ferry boat over to Alcatraz Island which proved to be one of the highlights of the day, since I walked within 3 feet of one of the best soccer players in the world, David Beckham, and his family. Incidentally, I had seen Victoria Beckham earlier in the day and thought, "Wow, with that haircut and those sunglasses, that lady looks exactly like Victoria Beckham!"

Celebrity spotting aside, the visit to the island was quite good as well. It holds such legendary status in Americana that actually being there, seeing the cells and feeling the cold Pacific winds coming off the bay is almost unreal. I caught myself thinking on more than one occasion that it being there wouldn't be too bad. Of course, I would remind myself that no matter how beautiful the weather, Alcatraz is Alcatraz, and it has that reputation for a reason. The audio tour has become a jumping off point, whetting my appetite for stories from Alcatraz. I spent several hours reading about its history on Wikipedia after returning to Paul's apartment. The story of the three escapees that may or may not have made it is absolutely fascinating. I almost hope that they did, because that would make an already amazing story even more so. Keith was also observant enough to notice that he and one of the escapees use the same hair product. It is also interesting to note that the can for Murrey's Superior Hair Dressing Pomade hasn't changed in seven decades. There was a sign there that said the things in the cell were props from a movie, but I choose to ignore that.

It seemed cruel to put the toughest prison in the country in such a beautiful location, with the city and the Golden Gate Bridge just across the bay; so close that they could hear the sounds of life floating across the water when the wind blew in the right direction. I can imagine that knowledge of the outside only made the long hours a little longer. The families of prison guards who lived on the island spoke of it as they would any other small town.

Notes from San Francisco

We made it safely to San Francisco, and I feel like it's October. It's in the 70s, the wind is blowing and the sun is hot. Basically, it's gorgeous. The roof of Paul's apartment has a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge and whatever lies across it. I've been here once before, when we visited Mom's uncle in Vallejo, but I remember very little from that trip other than the fact that seals, although cute, make a lot of noise and smell pretty bad.

I look forward to seeing what the city has to offer. It's different than I imagined it. You say San Francisco, and I think of flower children, maximum security prisoners, and gay people. I think of huge earthquakes and turn of the century Asian immigrants. There is more color than I imagined. The houses across the street are this sun-bleached brown, green and pink. Although it is one of those iconic cities, I don't think I've seen many pictures of it, at least not the residential areas. Anyway, I'll post some pictures somewhere in the near future, once I've taken them.