Lessons from Baking

Today at school my grade level and some other teachers were in charge of putting together a spread of goodies for our once a month "fat friday" brunch in the teacher's lunch room. The routine goes like this: we set up the food and then teachers can come in before school or when they have a break and get a plate of what ends up being mostly carbs (but tasty carbs, to be sure) to take back to their rooms. The array of treats this morning was impressive, but a little more on that later. My main comment is more personally based, and it has more to do with life and emotional lessons than calories.

For my contribution, besides napkins and plastic cups, I decided I would bake a Grapefruit Pound Cake  , for I had been privy to its most excellent, light, fluffy flavor when Katy and Aaron made me this for my birthday. I decided this would be a perfect choice, and it would be a great opportunity to use my oven at my new apartment for the first time.

Last night I came home, I got my ingredients out, juiced and zested some grapefruit, pre-heated the oven, prepared my bundt pan, and things smelled and looked great. The first and only other time I have tried this recipe I made it for the family, but I over baked it and while good, it was dry. I was determined not to make the same mistake twice.

Cooking time on this is an hour and ten minutes, or until the toothpick comes out clean, which was good for me since I was grading papers and used that long baking time well. I checked on it after 58 minutes, and guess what? Toothpick came out clean. Checked again, and it slip out, clean. Sides looked brown. Top was barely golden, but it looked just like what the picture showed. I took it out, cooled for a few, and removed it from the pan. I made the glaze (which I like better just fresh juice and pwd. sugar) and set it in the fridge (no use making the cake soggy overnight with it) and went to bed.

Today I woke up and plated by cake, glazed it, and wrapped it up. I made my little card to say "Grapefruit Pound Cake"and went to school, set it up, then proudly put my contribution on the table. I couldn't wait to come back and get my share of the cake-- it is quite delicious to be sure.

I didn't get a chance to come back until a few hours later, and when I did, I noticed that yes, indeed, the cake had been cut into and one piece was missing, and inside I could see that it was dense and woefully underdone. My heart sank.

It seems so trivial, but I was actually really excited to offer that as a contribution. I knew that amongst the donuts, the casseroles, and the bagels, it would be nice to have a light, citrusy alternative. I think that more people should be exposed to grapefruit in their food-- cookies, cakes, cocktail.... and on a personal pride level, I was hoping that people would be interested enough to try my cake and I wanted to see how much would be gone.

Accordingly, to look inside and see how underdone it was made me feel very embarrassed. I wanted nothing more than to snatch my tray back up, slide the perfectly done apple cake over to fill its spot, and take my wounded pride and deflated cake back to the corner of my classroom. I thought to myself, "Well, this is actually a perfect metaphor for how you're teaching is going this first year at the school. You are putting in some great effort and are enthused about what you have to bring, you want to share it with others, and you do your best, but inside, you are still just raw and inexperienced...just underdone. You are going to have to face the fact that this is how the year is going to be and it will just have to be okay. You'll just sit with those other cakes who have had more baking time and more experience, and you'll make it through. It will be embarrassing sometimes, but it doesn't mean you aren't doing the best you can; you know that you are trying your best."

I was already nodding to myself looking at that sad cake in the empty teacher room between classes-- and then I found myself snapping my head up and thinking, "Stop. THIS IS NOT SOME HUGE SIGNIFICANT EVENT. It's just a cake on a table. Period. It doesn't have anything to do with your teaching, and it is not a perfect metaphor. There are no signs like that, so stop making meanings out of mishaps. So the cake didn't turn out. SO WHAT."

It's hard for me to talk myself into failure-apathy ...so I had to think through that two or three times, but it helped. I looked at that cake, took the knife, and cut myself a slice. For all its denseness, it still tasted great.

                                                 ------------------------

Other treats at the Fat Friday:

Donuts
Bagels with Cream Cheese
Fruit Salad
Egg and Sausage Casserole
Potato and Cheese Casserole
Apple Cinnamon Cake
Peanut Butter Acorns (MY FAVORITE!)
Dried Fruit
Blackberry and Cheese French Toast Casserole
Juice
Chocolate Pretzels
Muffins
Yogurt and Granola
Cinnamon Bread

Call Me "Happy Birthday,"

Ishmael.

I read you when I was eleven. And I understood you when I was fourteen.

One of these days we'll meet again, and not just in the recesses of subconscious dreams where occasionally a whale swims below the surface of my view. 

Now, to just make the time to read....

Lat like Hat, or Lat like Ladder; Long like Rapunzel's LONG hair....

Grading papers, about 6pm on Thursday evening. The janitors and I are the only ones left in my hallway. Maybe that's why this was SO hilarious to me. Maybe it's because I was grading the paper of one of my boys who is the quarterback of his football team, who never really asks any questions during class. I know he's listening though-- at least to some of it, and here's why.... We talked all about Longitude and Latitude, what the weather would be like if you were at 5 degrees S Latitude, or 80 degrees N Latitude. What the names of the "most famous" lines of Long/Lat are, their measurements, etc. Question on the homework:

What is the measurement, in degrees, of the equator?

His answer?

Really hot.

Resounding, echoing laughter--all the way down the hall. I hope the janitors enjoyed that, because I know I did.

The Rise of the School Year: Gr 5. Bwahaha.

It would only be fitting to choose a melodramatic title (as well as using a word from the urban dictionary) to describe the beginning of the school year. I love what I do; I teach 5th grade this year, and I am in charge of Social Studies for my own class, then we switch for our 4 core subjects, so I am the Math teacher for all 100 kids. I love it. The first day of school went in the direction I had planned as I told kids that math is something real and challenging but not a thing to fear or be stressed over. I wrote a story that I put on the Promethean board; it follows two kids on their first day of school who were bogged down by their fears about math. We discussed as a class what could have made them feel worried about math before they even tried it out in 5th grade. Students gave me answers like "Maybe the didn't pass the SOL," or "They might not have been very good at their times tests" or "Maybe they were really good at math, but the people around them made it hard to learn." Wow! Then, in my class that has some of the top kids in it, one of my boys raised his hand and said, "I bet they were really upset and worried about a zombie apocalypse."

 Goodbye happy, inspirational teaching ambiance. The next four comments were all boys trying to one-up each other on zombie end-of-the-world scenarios. I cut them off and said "Listen. I don't mind creativity in my class, but that doesn't make any sense. It has nothing to do with our conversation, and your comment doesn't apply to anyone at your table, or anyone else in this class. You need to think about your comment and change it so it is helpful to other people in our room. Raise your hand when you have done that." The next kid raised his hand immediately and said "They are worried about dying." and I told him that was inappropriate again. Sent him back, had him think. Each of those boys apologized of their own volition; I give them credit for that. Their next comments were very applicable to our discussion. We finished the story and pulled out two themes: a light at the end of the tunnel (hope) and you're never up the creek without a paddle...even if all you see next to you is a piece of driftwood (math has all kinds of tools to use, and not just one way to find the answer). I don't know if that makes sense outside of the context of the story, but the kids did a good job picking that out. 

Fast forward two days. Things went considerably zombie-free. Yesterday we worked on creating math goals for the year, and their homework last night was to write up a math vision statement. My classes did a really amazing job writing them... I was proud of their efforts. I feel very positive about where we're going. Even when I saw one kid...again in that class. His vision? Become a ninja. 

We're working on relating that to math.

Remembering Aurora

Today is a tough day for me, because in the news the recent shootings hit close to the home. I was in Aurora for about 70% of my mission, and that area and the people that live within it will always have my prayers and my love. 

I had three companions in Aurora: Hermana Lopez (companions twice) on the far right

Sister Tupou

 Hermana Flores

My love to all.

Apps Review July 2012

I recently discovered an unused iTunes gift card for $10 that I received from a coworker at Christmas. Since then, I have gotten a few new things, and I am finally getting down to posting about these apps and how they have worked/not worked for me.

Sleep Pillow Sounds: $1.99

1. My schedule and workload have recently resulted in my sleep schedule being completely out of wack, and so when I saw this early one morning, I thought why not? I tried the free version, which has 9 different sounds and all their ads, and quickly upgraded to this version. About 50 different sounds, a sound timer, volume control, and favorite shortcut. Easy, nice variety, and pleasant sounds. And yes, the crackling fire is my favorite right now. I also like all five of their rain sounds (rain into water, rain on leaf, rain on tent, rain on car windshield, rain and thunderstorm, etc.... although after these current events, I don't know how restful the thunderstorm one is to anyone else).

Virtuoso3 FREE

2. Next app: this one I discovered today at church during choir practice. We were doing some sectionals, but we're restricted to one piano. I was waiting for our turn to get the notes for the alto section, when one of my altos gave me her phone and I presently plucked that E flat and we went on without a pause. Since then, yes, I have tried playing with multiple fingers at once on the keys. Pretty entertaining. For those with iPads, I can see this being even more effective. 

Book Retriever $0.99

3. Book Retriever was a referral off of Pinterest. It looked promising; scan the bar code of a book and create your digital library. Make student accounts so when they borrow your book, you scan it and log it, knowing who had what and when they should return it. It seemed like a great idea, especially because I am working on my classroom library and leveling my books, and this has an automatic book leveler. My issue? It's' still a new app. I saw that on the comments before buying it, a few people saying they wished the digital inventory were more extensive. But I thought I would try it. 

I have mixed feelings. When I scan Amelia Bedelia, it works like a charm (see below). But The Witch of Blackbird Pond? Busy Tree? Enchantress from the Stars? My Corner of the Universe? The Big Snow? Some of my alphabet books? Not on their database yet. You can enter it in manually, but I don't have too much time for that. This will be good once they hire an intern or two to go through a few library catalogues and Scholastic publishing lists. 

Path FREE

4. Path. Love it. Don't use it as much as some in the family, but it's a nice interface for sharing videos, pictures, and quick checkins with family that can be kept completely private and thus more open to family variety. Nieces and nephews at the beach? Dan videoing our water catastrophe at Disney World? Dad's new iPhone accessory? Check. It's also fun to see where Adam and Dan go on their jogs. Makes me want to cheer them on! 

Sound Hound FREE

5. My best friend Carrie and I were on our way to NYC. We stopped for lunch, and in our fast food restaurant, we heard possibly the best dance song ever. Lyrics were about as profound as, "I am the coolest dancer, I am the best dancer, I am your favorite dancer" followed by some base bouncing. Within seconds, Carrie had captured the title, artist, and even where she could acquire said song... all by tapping a button. I've been waiting for this app since I was taping songs from the radio back pre-high school. Nice.

LDS Media OnDemand $1.99

6. Don't get me wrong; I love my Gospel Library App, especially because it's free, but I have enjoyed this  addition because it provides an audio database for CES Firesides, LDS Gems, the Ensign, Church News, etc. It allows me to listen while driving, getting ready, brushing teeth, etc. I've enjoyed this one, and think it to be worth the 2 dollars. 

Temple Quiz FREE

7. This one is just fun. Great collection of pictures, and it is neat to see the architecture and the locations of these temples. There are some where I find myself asking, "Wait, do they have a temple in that country yet?" Yes, they do.  

June in Review

Heather, R and M: Family Barbecue 

My best friend from college, Carrie, came to visit! We started our visit in NYC: This is outside of Juliard, as we made our way to the Temple.

 Me and Rexy at the Natural History Museum

The absolute highlight of the trip; NEWSIES!

 Successfully negotiating the Subway

While we went to NYC, we got to stay for three days with Jenny and Nathan; their first visitors to have slept over at their new apartment. It was incredibly fun to be with those kiddos!

At the end of this month, I am turning over a new leaf and de-cluttering my possessions. I decided to get rid of the trophies and instead photograph them. Here is the award I got for my nomination as Substitute of the Year. It's a lovely picture, right?

And in case you didn't see my Facebook page, here's a video of what you miss if you don't make it to NY before the end of August: