I probably shouldn't be blogging. I have 1 hour to finish a speech, and though it's almost finished, I have to turn in a written copy (and my notes! When did we rewind to middle school?!), so I like it to be just so.
However.
The fire alarm is being tested in my building.
The gents upstairs are rock-banding their hearts out.
And I am tired.
So instead of working on my paper, for just a moment I will indulge myself (and hopefully you will indulge me too) in some random thoughts. :)
Random thought 1: I love fuschia leaves. All of the leaves out here are beautiful, but I always catch my breath running down the boulevard where there's one bush that definitely has its fuschia game on. One day I will take my camera with me and show you what I mean. Yesterday was a particularly lovely day to be appreciating the colors since it was sunny and in the 60s!
Random thought 2: I didn't think it was possible, but I'm actually booked every weekend until the end of November. Why? Don't worry, much of it is fun, but still...
Random thought 3: If anyone has recommendations of things to see in Philadelphia, I'm going there for the American Public Health Association conference next week. I'm really excited to check out the city and the ward (since Philly is on my list of possible places to move next year)... and, of course, talk about public health and whatnot. :)
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Not as planned
I know people think I complain about Rhode Island drivers a lot. So, here's a fun story.
There I was... sitting at a traffic light waiting to go straight. I was in the left of the two lanes, and a giant SUV was sitting in the right lane. While we were waiting for the light to turn, said SUV honked at me, and I looked over to see some guy with a lot of bling and a sideways hat staring at me intently. Hmm...
The light turned green and I took my foot off the break... and then quickly slammed it back onto the break as my SUV friend did a U-turn in front of me! Or around me, or however you want to describe his fun little trick. In his defense, it was kind of him to try to warn me. This is obviously an extreme example, but I'm just saying that I'm not always just being grumpy when I say Rhode Island drivers are bad. :P
But stuff like that isn't really very important in the grand scheme of things. One thing that I thought was "important" today was that one of the Sunbeams (the 3-4 year old kids at church) actually addressed me directly today. I know that seems really small, but most of the time, you wonder if any of the kids actually know your name. And I was nervous today anyway because there were twice as many kids as usual, and we were having a hard time with the being-quiet part of reverence. It also didn't help that, as an object lesson, I had passed out stickers. I think they got the point, but those stickers quickly found their way to faces, fingers, ears, etc. Note to self: stickers are not as clever as I thought they were. A good substitute for candy maybe, but kind of hard to put in the "Not Now" box.* So when this adorable little girl said, "Sister Voss?" with her cute almost-lisp, it made me smile-- maybe if they can remember my name, they can remember something from the lesson after all! I love these kids.
*The "Not Now" box is where we have the kids put their bracelets, purses, papers, mittens, and anything else that small children are likely to find distracting (i.e., anything not firmly attached or sewed down). We get to teach in relative peace and they get to come collect everything at the end. I'm not sure whose idea this was originally, but I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Twice. :)
There I was... sitting at a traffic light waiting to go straight. I was in the left of the two lanes, and a giant SUV was sitting in the right lane. While we were waiting for the light to turn, said SUV honked at me, and I looked over to see some guy with a lot of bling and a sideways hat staring at me intently. Hmm...
The light turned green and I took my foot off the break... and then quickly slammed it back onto the break as my SUV friend did a U-turn in front of me! Or around me, or however you want to describe his fun little trick. In his defense, it was kind of him to try to warn me. This is obviously an extreme example, but I'm just saying that I'm not always just being grumpy when I say Rhode Island drivers are bad. :P
But stuff like that isn't really very important in the grand scheme of things. One thing that I thought was "important" today was that one of the Sunbeams (the 3-4 year old kids at church) actually addressed me directly today. I know that seems really small, but most of the time, you wonder if any of the kids actually know your name. And I was nervous today anyway because there were twice as many kids as usual, and we were having a hard time with the being-quiet part of reverence. It also didn't help that, as an object lesson, I had passed out stickers. I think they got the point, but those stickers quickly found their way to faces, fingers, ears, etc. Note to self: stickers are not as clever as I thought they were. A good substitute for candy maybe, but kind of hard to put in the "Not Now" box.* So when this adorable little girl said, "Sister Voss?" with her cute almost-lisp, it made me smile-- maybe if they can remember my name, they can remember something from the lesson after all! I love these kids.
*The "Not Now" box is where we have the kids put their bracelets, purses, papers, mittens, and anything else that small children are likely to find distracting (i.e., anything not firmly attached or sewed down). We get to teach in relative peace and they get to come collect everything at the end. I'm not sure whose idea this was originally, but I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Twice. :)
Monday, October 12, 2009
Oops
Oops, it's October. And I haven't posted for awhile. A brief overview:
1- School is fine. I have a lot of papers to write, including my thesis. (Which is finally pinned down-- how having enough food on a regular basis affects people's ability to change dietary behaviors.)
2- If you feel like doing a good deed, I am looking for images (like advertisements, etc.) that show "health," especially images or slogans that might have questionable validity. I'm doing a paper on how mass media affects how we think about health, so send me a link if you find something! :)
3- It's starting to cool down around here. This means snuggling with a big quilt at night (love!) and sweaters (love love!) and jeans (love love LOVE!). And of course, it means apples and butternut squash and trees that look like they're flaming. Excellent.
4- I found a new favorite recipe (pesto alla trapanese) and I made it with basil that I grew myself! (It's pretty much the only thing that survived this summer, thanks to the brutal rainstorm at the beginning that trounced all of my tender shoots). I also discovered that roasting nuts in a skillet is really easy and makes nuts taste so good. :) I might even like this better than the usual basil/pine nut pesto. Yum.
1- School is fine. I have a lot of papers to write, including my thesis. (Which is finally pinned down-- how having enough food on a regular basis affects people's ability to change dietary behaviors.)
2- If you feel like doing a good deed, I am looking for images (like advertisements, etc.) that show "health," especially images or slogans that might have questionable validity. I'm doing a paper on how mass media affects how we think about health, so send me a link if you find something! :)
3- It's starting to cool down around here. This means snuggling with a big quilt at night (love!) and sweaters (love love!) and jeans (love love LOVE!). And of course, it means apples and butternut squash and trees that look like they're flaming. Excellent.
4- I found a new favorite recipe (pesto alla trapanese) and I made it with basil that I grew myself! (It's pretty much the only thing that survived this summer, thanks to the brutal rainstorm at the beginning that trounced all of my tender shoots). I also discovered that roasting nuts in a skillet is really easy and makes nuts taste so good. :) I might even like this better than the usual basil/pine nut pesto. Yum.
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