Not the day to start a substitute teaching blog

Hello web world. As the SOPA/PIPA protest day, this isn't the best day to decide to start a blog. I've run into multiple blocks, so I'll just blog about my subbing experiences here. I've re-entered the teaching world as an on-call substitute teacher, and it has been fun for the couple of weeks I've tried it. Today I subbed for a science teacher, and it was my first time teaching with no sub plans. It was to be a "movie day", which I would have thought would be much easier than a typical sub job. Not so. I'm beginning to find that throwing in a movie seems to be a bigger hassle than just teaching a lesson. However, I remember those days when it was much easier for me to come in and teach than to write sub plans. The day was much easier when I pulled out other science things and told science stories. The students were more attentive and respectful of one another. All I want to finish with is that I'm glad that I didn't have to pull up any Wikipedia articles for lesson plans today.

Christmas Caroling for Cans

Several weeks ago, Becky and I started talking about how we could help others this holiday season. We considered several options---ringing a bell for the Salvation Army's Red Kettle campaign, making gingerbread houses with the children in the homeless shelter near our neighborhood.

But we also wanted to go Christmas Caroling.

Our time was extremely limited, though. We had agreed to plan the annual Christmas dinner at our church, which is no small feat since it generally attracts more than 100 people and it has a lot to live up to, because we've had some pretty amazing Christmas parties. Also, we put an offer in on a house and it was accepted. So we had a lot to do.

Suddenly, we devised a plan that would allow us to go Christmas Caroling and help people in need. We decided to go Caroling for Cans.



Armed with the accordion we borrowed a couple of months ago, we went to several homes to sing songs such as "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Silent Night." We advertised our activity on Facebook and by word of mouth, and won several invitations to come sing in exchange for nonperishable food, which we took to the Salvation Army homeless shelter.

Unfortunately, we barely missed most people who invited us to come sing---apparently, the Christmas season keeps lots of families busy! But we did enjoy visiting a few people to bring the Christmas spirit into their homes while collecting food for people who are more needy than we ever have been.

I think the highlight of our event was singing to an elderly woman in a nursing home / rehabilitation facility. She was having a rough go of it and was truly happy to see us. She and her roommate sang along with most of our songs; her roommate requested "White Christmas," which we gladly sang.

This turned out to be a very fun event, and likely will become a Bryan & Becky tradition for many years to come. (Next year, the event will feature much better planning.) We're even willing to franchise out the idea at no cost---if you want to go Caroling for Cans, we won't charge you a license fee. :)

What ways have you found to help others or spread Christmas cheer? Do you go Christmas Caroling? Do you volunteer? Please share in the comments below.

Christmas songs to think twice about

I love Christmas music. I grew up without any rules about not listening to Christmas music outside of archaic boundaries of time. My family watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "Merry Christmas Charlie Brown" throughout the year, and we loved it.

But not all Christmas music was created equal. I wanted to make this list of so-Called Christmas tunes that stand out as odd. Some of them I love. Others, I hate. Let's start with one I hate.

1. Baby, It's Cold Outside

This popular hit is not a Christmas song. "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is not about Christmas---It's about seduction involving alcohol and drugs. ("Hey, what's in this drink?") There's no mention of Baby Jesus, caroling angels, or even Santa Claus and Frosty. It is not a Christmas song---At its very best, it's a winter song, about a season which only the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing on December 25.

I actually like the rhythm and the harmonies, so I hope to someday write a parody so I can enjoy the music without the stupid words. Right now I"m leaning towards "Baby there's mold outside," but I'm sure something better will come along.

In the mean time, I recommend "Let it Snow" as a good, wholesome alternative that carries a romantic theme.

2. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

My feelings for this song are on the border between love and hate. It's a fun jingle about the humorous way a kid sees a situation on Christmas Eve. At least, we hope his mother is kissing his father who is wearing a Santa costume. But I can't help but ponder the psychological implications on a kid. What do you want to bet that he grows up and has relationship troubles rooted in his seeing his mother kiss Santa Claus.

I think what really ruins this song for me is the fact that it gets played on the radio way too often in November and December, when some stations believe they must play nothing but Christmas music, which means looping through the same set of songs seemingly several times per day. I can only handle so many replays of the Jackson 5 singing this song before I start to suspect that many of Michael Jackson's troubles began one Christmas Eve when he crept out of bed and spied his mother tickling Santa Claus underneath his beard so snowy white...

3. Santa Claus is Coming To Town

I really like this song. It brings back lots of warm fuzzy memories.

But I have long thought it's really creepy that Santa "sees you when you're sleeping." Why on earth would he watch children in their sleep? Meanwhile, "he knows when you're awake." When you're awake, actively making choices between naughty and nice, he is just aware of it. But as soon as you doze off, he tunes in. Creepy!

By the way, I also thought it was really creepy that Edward Cullen sneaked into Bella's room to watch her while she was sleeping. The fact that Bella didn't get a restraining order at that moment just proves that the difference between a boyfriend and a stalker is that the girl likes the boyfriend, and the stalker isn't a glittery vampire.

Apparently the difference between a kindly elf and a stalker is that the kindly elf takes notes and brings you gifts. And kisses your mom...

4. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I really enjoy hearing this song. It has a catchy tune. But does anyone understand the line "There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago."

Is there some long lost tradition of telling scary ghost stories at Christmas? That sounds more like a Halloween activity.

The closest I can think of is the visitation of ghosts in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carole, but that's never struck me as a scary ghost story.

"Tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago" could refer to people reminiscing on the huge, gift-filled Christmas days back before the recession, or back when they were kids and only had to worry about getting presents, not paying for them. Or perhaps it refers to "Gawain and the Green Knight," a King Arthur tale set at Christmastime. Come to think of it "Gawain and the Green Knight" could qualify as almost a ghost story, too. Perhaps it should make its way into more Christmas traditions!

Becky recently pointed out that this song also talks about "marshmallows for toasting," and neither of us has any memories of roasting marshmallows at Christmas. I fully and wholeheartedly vote for this to become a more common Christmas experience!

What about you: Do your Christmas traditions include ghost stories and marshmallows?

Also, what Christmas songs do you think are crazy, weird, or odd? Tell us in the comments below.

Why my husband is fabulous

For those of you who don't know Bryan, it's not too late.  He is a marvelous husband for many reasons.  Let me list a few.

• He has a way with words... hence the journalist, but I get the benefit of that more than anyone :-)


• Bryan is a wonderful cook.  The banana bread he makes is better than any I've ever had.


• He has a wonderful love for everyone, and especially me


• He works hard at work, but also when he comes home: I love waking up to the smell of fresh pancakes.


• He comes up with wonderful ideas of things to do:
  - Just this week, when he saw the empty 2 gourd halves of a spaghetti squash I cooked, and decided it would be fun to paint masks and make a birthday video for his sister. It was a bunch of fun, and I wouldn't have ever thought to do it.
  - He knows the best places to hike and go for beautiful walks. I loved going for a walk in the rain with him here in Lynchburg last week when the weather finally started to cool things down.


• He is ticklish!


• When no piano player was available for a week at church in Primary, he told the kids that he would bring his guitar in... and he did!  The kids enjoyed it.


• We went on a jog yesterday morning, and he ran fast, but let me keep up with him.  We ran a little farther than we had planned.


• He makes sure we have FHE and time to strengthen our relationship with each other and our Creator.


• He is great at Scrabble, and is nice about winning.

This list could go on for a very long time, but this will have to do for now.  Suffice it to say, my husband is wonderful.

I made another funny (about OWS)

Today I made this comic to add my own humor to the Occupy Wall Street parodies out there.

(This is not a political statement about OWS or Ninja Turtles. I have no idea how Splinter really feels.)

A super busy October

October was one of the busiest months in my memory. I've been too busy doing things to blog about them! (That's the way it should be.)

But it's been a really good month. So here's a quick description, not in chronological order---

1. Halloween Weekend and Day

We are lucky to live just about an hour away from Becky's sister, brother-in-law, and their kids. The last weekend of the month, they invited a lot of family over for a day of festivities.

The day was pretty cool. It started when Becky hit a growth spurt and became much taller than I:



I've always looked up to her, but this helped.

Actually, she wasn't taller than me, but she was on drywall stilts:



 

Her dad brought them up from South Carolina so Travis (Becky's brother-in-law) could use them for his Uncle Sam



Halloween costume. Everyone trying them on. I don't have any pictures of me when I tried them (although I know pictures were taken, I don't have a copy) but you wouldn't want to see those pictures, anyway. Whereas Becky was walking confidently in a jiffy, I was wobbling around the whole time.

Becky's stepbrother, Cameron, put the stilts on at their highest length, three feet. He's tall enough before the stilts. But he did a pretty good job walking around in them.

After playing with the stilts for a while, we went to a corn maze. Unfortunately, it wasn't much of a corn maze. :-( It was basically a corn field with a path through it, but there weren't any side paths where you could get lost.

However, the pumpkin patch games at the end made the experience worth every dollar we spent and all the time we spent.

The pumpkin patch had a steep hill on the far end of it. The hill had these two slides---basically, long sheets of plastic heading down the hill---that were TONS of fun. Lots of us guys were diving onto them, spinning around as we slid down, etc. There was basically a mud pile at the bottom, so my clothes got pretty dirty. It was lots of fun and was great exercise.

Then, Halloween came. Becky, a science teacher, dressed up as Miss Frizzle (from Magic Schoolbus) and I dressed as Bill Nye the Science Guy. (I bet you didn't know that these two science peeps eventually fell in love and got married, did you?



In addition to going to work in our costumes (yes, we're lucky enough to work at the same place, just different offices) we went out to eat at Arby's and then walked around the mall as people enjoyed our costumes. It was a lot of fun!

2. Homecoming and Homecoming

The month opened with homecoming at the college where I work. It was the college's first homecoming. Since I work in the office that planned and organized the event, I worked 15 hours that day. I was dead tired when I got home. (Fortunately for me, my boss bought pizza.)

Two weekends later, Becky and I drove to Buena Vista for homecoming at my alma mater, Southern Virginia University. I LOVE that school, and I always love homecoming.

SVU's choirs and orchestra gave a remarkable concert. I'm always impressed by what those choirs can do. The highlight, for me, was hearing the beautiful song "How Can I Keep From Singing." (You can hear Enya sing it on YouTube.)

Saturday was filled with cornhole, a wonderful faculty lecture, volunteering at the alumni house,  food, and fun. All in all, it was a very wonderful day.

3. Conference and Conference.

October holds a special significance for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints because that is one month when we have General Conference, a worldwide event where we gather around TVs, computers, radios, and other devices to hear a broadcast where prophets and apostles testify of Jesus Christ and teach us how we can live better Christian lives. This was the other big activity the first weekend of the month.

I think my favorite talk in the whole conference was "Providing in the Lord's Way" by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. It was a powerful reminder that the Savior's gospel implores us to alleviate the suffering of other people. Elder Uchtdorf gave a good guide to help us know how we can go about using our own limited resources to help others.

The second weekend of the month, we had Stake Conference, which is like General Conference but on a local level, involving all the church members in a geographical region. This conference was held in Lexington, Virginia. The message that stuck out the most to me was the importance of honesty, which our Stake President touched on with great emphasis. He quoted Billy Joel ("Honesty is a lonely word") which I did not expect.

4. Work and Work

My day job kept me busy throughout the month and had me working a good number of extra hours. But I also had my side job (where I do some freelance writing and web design) take off a little. I went from zero projects to three very quickly. So my evenings have generally consisted of sitting down at my laptop and tap, tap, tapping on my keyboard.

That's just the beginning...

A lot of other things happened in October.

Becky helped prepare a "Family Values Award" dinner in Buena Vista. She seemed to do a really good job and was in charge of the decorations.

Becky started looking into the possibility of making curtains at home (and we'll probably buy a nice sewing machine soon.)

We spent three weeks suffering from a miserable cold.

All in all, October was a really fun month!

Another video about a faculty recital

I recently created another video about a recital... It looks like I'll get to continue making videos like this. Next up, I'll be creating a video to promote the traditional Christmas Vespers concert at the college.

In this video, I experimented a little with the sound recording by not attaching any external microphone to the digital camcorder. I think it turned out well, although there is one point in the video where you can hear a clicking sound as I raise the volume of the recording.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga5EolxTq5E[/youtube]

I love the power of beautiful music.