school – Page 15 – hannah ananas

Tasty Ice and Salt

Do you know what a salt lamp is? Well, I just realized that I have one. And it’s in my room. And I’m quite excited about it all of a sudden. And, naturally, feel a silliness rising, too. You see, with salt lamps, just like with ice sculptures, I have an urge to lick them whenever I see them illuminated. Okay, the illuminated part isn’t exactly the same with ice sculptures, but the licking desire is.

I remember my brothers’ dad’s wedding over a decade ago (I think that was the occasion, anyway), and how there was an ice sculpture there at the reception. My cousin commented how she wanted to lick it – perhaps it was a swan, if I remember correctly? – when we were standing in front of it. ‘So, lick it,’ was approximately my response.

Sure enough, she licked it. We both did, actually, because her desire rubbed off onto me somehow. (It actually started a trend for me, for whenever parties have ice sculptures. I remember shocking a few classmates, when I casually passed by and licked a huge ice sculpture at a school event.) We were still kids, but we knew well enough that it was not a normal behavior, and so were stealthy about it. But we totally licked the ice sculpture.

Now, I have a similar situation with salt lamps. Though, since they aren’t something that will melt away in a matter of hours, and they’ll stick around for quite some time afterward, and have been around for a while, I don’t lick them. Usually, though, I just touch it gently with a finger or two, and then smoothly lick the salt off my fingers.

Of course, now you know about my sneaky – and somewhat weird, really – habits at parties and salt-lamp-containing spaces. Just don’t give me away, okay? If anything, give the ice sculpture thing a go yourself. It’s surprisingly rewarding, the whole affair. ;D

Post-a-day 2018

Pastries

It wasn’t until I had lived in France for a few months that I found out about the secret bags of pastries.

You see, normally, I would have one to three pastries a week. That was all that I could afford reasonably, really. And fresh pastries in France are kind of the bomb dot com. Period. Sometimes, during the morning break in class, my classmates and I would walk to the bakery the next street over, and all have a pastry and coffee together. It was fun and always delicious. And, compared to the US, the prices were fabulous. However, there was still a limit – we couldn’t really do it every day on our college student budgets.

But, my life was somewhat transformed when one of the girls in my program told me how she always got her pastries. D- found a way to try them all on a budget. She said, ‘Yeah, you just look for these bags up on top of the counter, in a basket, and they’re filled with whatever didn’t sell yesterday. So, it’s different every day.’

After several days, if not even a couple weeks, of psyching myself up, I finally went to the bakery she’d mentioned, to find these secret bags. And there they were, crammed full of various pastries, and they were only a few euros. I think it was that very first time that, even though I totally knew what the bag up on top of the pastry case was, I asked casually to the pastry chef what it was. He explained it all to me, and how they didn’t want to waste anything, so they bagged it up and sold it cheap the next morning. I semi-feigned surprise at what he told me, but I was also genuinely surprised that D- had been right and it really was a real thing. For the price of one or two fresh pastries, I could get a whole bag of ones made only yesterday, and of all different types. No, if you grow up on fresh French pastries, they aren’t nearly too delicious. However, we didn’t grow up on fresh French pastries – we delighted in even the day-old pastries like it was some of the best stuff we’d ever eaten. (And it totally was.)

Plus, if someone had given me a bag of pastries anyway, I probably wouldn’t have eaten them all at once. It would have taken me most of the day to get through them comfortably, and I’d probably even save something for breakfast the next day. So, for a huge fraction of the price, we got to do just that.

Usually, I’d share a bag with others, so we all got to try the different pastries. But I got my own a few times, for sure.

So anyway, if you go to France for vacation or whatever, ask the bakeries in the morning if they have bags of yesterday’s leftovers. I think there’s even a specific term for it, but my brain is not producing it right now, if there is one… I totally used it, whatever it was, though, word or phrase or whatever… I loved trying out all the different pastries. However, despite trying so many different pastries, I still almost exclusively get a chocolatine (pain au chocolat everywhere but the southwest), a croissant, and/or a baguette (though those guys aren’t pastries, they are still one of my favorite foods ever). But whatever. I got to test out all the stuff and see that I enjoyed it all, as well as discover that I really just love the simple stuff best. (It’s like a cliché about life or something, but it’s just how I feel about French pastries.)

Post-a-day 2018

Cultural Pants with Mom

Have you ever gotten creative with your clothing? I certainly have. Tonight was just an average ‘work with what you’ve got’ kind of night with clothes. For tomorrow, I’d chosen to wear an Indian tunic – I think the actual name might be kurta, but I’m not sure. However, I don’t have any pants or leggings that really go with the colors of it, and black is totally not an option, because its bright colors are just too happy for black.

So, I asked my mom if she had any leggings or pants I could wear with the top. At first, she brought me Vietnamese yellow pants, which almost look Indian, but the color combined with the style was just not passable. The tunic is a sort of reddish pink, with orange and green embroidery and stitching. Bright yellow, baggy pants just weren’t the look I was going for. I wanted the focus to be the top, not the bottoms. I will wear said pants, however, on a different occasion, you can be sure.

After checking greens and purples, all to no avail, my mom brings in a skirt that is the exact color of the green embroidery and stitching of the tunic. The fabric is different, but the color is darn near exact. “But it’s a skirt,” I declared and repeated, somewhat laughing. I tried it on. My mom said it looked all right, but it totally was not the look I’d wanted. ‘This is what we call “cultural confusion”… I was going for “cultural fusion.”‘

We both laughed and stared at the perfect match of color and utter clash of styles.

And then I saw it. “Aha!” I bent over and grabbed the center of the skirt, both the front and back of it, through my legs. As I stood up, my mom knew exactly what I was doing.

Five minutes later, we had it. I eventually had to take it off and turn it inside out to make it all balance properly, but we knew it would work after the second knot I made while still wearing it. We tied the skirt in a few places in the center to give the illusion of one type of traditional Indian pants (think Indian yoga pants), and it worked marvelously. No, they don’t look exactly like the real thing, but they do look like what I’d wanted: cultural fusion and fabulous.

I wonder how it will go off tomorrow, in a world of latino heritage. I look forward to the opportunity to respond to something like, ‘Cool pants!’ with a, ‘Oh, thanks. I’m not wearing any.’ Or something silly like that. We’ll see. Whatever the case, though, I’ll be in an outfit that I love and that has been created with love from me and my mom. I think that’s the best part, as usual, of course.

P.S. I’ll see if I can get a photo of it all tomorrow at some point.

P.P.S. Okay, so it turned out that I wore the yellow pants to bed, because it was so cold, and they were soft and comfortable. Not what I’d had in mind when I considered wearing them soon, but oh, well… 😛

Post-a-day 2017

A foreigner at home?

Have you ever felt out of place within your own culture? As time passes, it happens to me more and more often. Last night, I attended an event with coworkers. The noise volume took me by slight surprise when I first arrived. How can people be this loud? I thought. And then I remembered almost before I finished asking the question: They’re americans (from the USA).

But I’m american from the US, too. Wouldn’t I be used to this, then?

I quickly compared it to a drinking party at an izakaya (like a bar) with nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) in Japan. Yes, the Japanese can get quite loud there. It was never to the point of wanting to cover my ears, though, I hear myself thinking. So, I am very much accustomed to a much quieter environment for parties, then. I’m not just being a bit dramatic and overly sensitive to normal behavior and a normal situation.

Even still… I felt so oddly out of place, I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with myself. I ended up semi-hiding in the coatroom (it wasn’t a closet, but an actual room, I promise) to take a breather from all the people and the noise from time to time. I also took extra-long any time I went to the bathroom, because it was cozy and quiet in there on my own. Yes, I could have just gone home. However, I rarely spend time even around people who aren’t high schoolers right now, so I felt it was somewhat necessary – even if just for social practice – to spend time around adults, especially happy ones in a good, safe environment.

I definitely adjusted after a bit, but I still felt quite out of place for most of the event. I guess I’m just not so USA american anymore… which doesn’t surprise me, really. It’s just odd, not belonging in a place everyone calls my “home”.

Post-a-day 2017

Snow in Houston, Texas (and t-rex Christmas cards)

Last night, it snowed here. In Houston, Texas. It happened yet again. What miracles lie before us? It began after I went to sleep, and didn’t begin to stick until after I woke up for a bathroom break in the middle of the night. So, I woke up to snow covering everything that wasn’t concrete this morning. Which, when you think about it, is kind of the best kind of snow – you don’t have to shovel or worry about tire chains or anything, but you get to have beautiful snow everywhere around you.

The hit of the morning was arriving to school. My mom drove me in, because we were going to a Christkindlmarkt (German Christmas market) together after school, and the market was too far away for me to drive home first and then go, and it didn’t make sense for us to drive two cars out there. She was staying for a bit, because we had Mass at school for the Immaculate Conception, and this was a chance for her to see the school a little bit. Pulling into the parking lot (vacant of teachers, because we were so early), we discovered a sort of snowball fight happening in the picnic table area next to the lot. We didn’t have much snow on the ground, but the kids were making some snowballs out of it, and throwing them around at one another. It was adorable.

Naturally, my mom declared that I had to make a snowball, as we were leaving the car. I grabbed an already-made snowball from the ground, which had lost only a bit after originally falling there, and showed it to her. As she eyed me up while she finished off her own snowball, I realized that she intended to throw hers at me.

And so the fight began.

My mom and I, shuffling around a parking lot and a small grassy area with snow about it, picking up and throwing odd snowballs at one another, practically screeching with delight. When I was turned away, a snowball hit her square in the back of the head. No one was too near us, though, so it had come a long way. And these were a little tough for regular snowballs, so it definitely hurt her a bit in the moment (stung, perhaps, is the appropriate word here). It didn’t ruin out fun, of course, but merely added to the silliness of the whole affair – one of my students had attacked my mother with a snowball*. No part of that declaration makes sense for living here, in Houston, Texas. 😛

In class, before Mass, kids lined up at the windows to stare at the snow in the courtyard below and on the roofs within view. This was only the second time in their lives that it has snowed here, so their fascination with it was completely understandable, and utterly adorable.

Today had some magic, that’s for sure.

*I found out later that the student who hit my mom actually was a student of mine. He asked me ‘who that teacher was, walking with me earlier,’ and, when I asked for clarification, he described the morning snowball affair. “That was my mom.” In shock, he declared that he thought it was a teacher and asked me to tell my mom that he was sorry for what he did to her. (My mom and I laughed at the thought that he apologized for having hit my mom, but that is seems to be the case that he willingly would hit a teacher in the head with a hard snowball, without question.)

P.S. My task today was to “[d]raw a Christmas card”. So, I drew one on the roof of my mom’s car tonight as we were leaving the Christkindlmarkt. Frost had begun to reappear all over the place.

Post-a-day 2017

Writing, math in life…

I’ve been on the phone with my college flatmate tonight, talking about writing. Apparently, I actually do have some fun and crazy ideas that would be really interesting for people to read – she didn’t even understand how I got to the sorts of ideas that regularly come to mind, simply as the normal order of thinking in my head. So, I guess that’s not so normal as I’d thought it to be, having such ideas so casually and regularly.

The thing is, I haven’t set up sitting down to do it. Not yet, anyway, and not for long enough. I’ve noticed that writing at night is not the way to go for me. For other things, sure – I can do loads of physical movement at night. For writing, however, I’m next to hopeless, it feels. I don’t feel much like writing anything in the first place at night, and so I struggle to find something to write, and then I make loads of errors in what I do finally write. It just isn’t a good combination.

Speaking of combinations, I was talking with students in my geometry class today about how math can be useful in life in cool ways. One example was from a show my stepdad watches about the TV show “The Walking Dead”. It’s sort of a behind-the-scenes sort of show, and this particular bit that I saw was talking about everything they had to do in order to set up a car crash. It was really cool, seeing everything broken down, all of the things they had to organize to make it work. The best part, perhaps, was seeing how it was pure geometry and physics that made the crash work flawlessly.

The other example was in a little photo shoot I was witnessing (and had to abandon for distress), in which the photographer said that they were supposed to be sitting in a Christmas tree formation. But she didn’t do anything to make this happen. She didn’t even seem to know what needed to be done for this shape to happen. (The people in charge definitely seemed to be lacking in general crowd control and effective instructions arenas, too.) It occurred to me that she never considered just getting the number of people – I’d have done it ahead of time, but on the sport would have worked just finely, too – expected in the photo, and dividing them up into the necessary number of people per row, based on the exact shape desired and the number of rows available. I was about to begin the calculations as I watched, but then realized that no one was going to listen to me anyway, so it was better if I just left the stressful situation, since that was the only thing I actually could do in the situation. So, I left. But it proved to be a good example to the kids in class at how math is present in life in ways that people don’t even consider. Had the photographer thought about math, – and it is likely that she didn’t, because she wasn’t very confident in or in love with math while in school – the whole photo shoot could have gone loads better than it did. And they could have had the Christmas tree, and even decorated with “lights” or an outline, using the different shirt and jacket colors present and available. But she didn’t, so none of that happened.

Post-a-day 2017

Free/Me Time…?

My cousin wants me to start work on this work-out plan, with a very unique tie into a specialty of mine. The idea itself sounds like something totally awesome not only to create, but also to use once it is created. The task, though, feels almost daunting right now, in the midst of my minimal free/me time. I hardly get enough sleep to function decently right now, I have so little time to accomplish anything that has me feel accomplished, satisfied with my day, I have to do it all late at night before I pass out. I hardly have the time to exercise the way I want (Actually, I don’t have the time and energy to do it the way I actually want to do it, but I am finally getting in some exercise (at last!), though it has me getting to bed even later, which doesn’t help on the muscle restore front after the exercise).

I love the work I am doing right now, and I am dearly grateful for it – it is a blessing in and of itself. I am very much looking forward to what comes next, when this current job is finished. I will miss this, and I will be grateful to have moved to the next thing. It will be time. (I think that is really the main thought behind all of this right now.)

Anyway, goodnight…

Post-a-day 2017

Bring your parents to work?

Do you remember showing your parent(s) around your classroom when you were little? Perhaps this is a little too American white bread, but I certainly remember it.

I was all too excited to show them my sleeping mat and cubby hole when I was in kindergarten, and then my desk and the hook for my backpack as I got older in elementary school. In middle school, it became my locker, where I sat for lunch, and my favorite classrooms and teachers, but with just a little less enthusiasm each year. By high school, I was not so animated as I had been as a little girl, but I still loved getting to show my parents or family members around my school. Grandparents Day was one of the coolest things, because I got to do just that with my grandparents. College was a little different, because it’s college. However, I still totally loved showing my parents around my campus and dorms, and introducing them to all of my friends and acquaintances and teachers that I could find. Even when I studied abroad, I reveled in showing them my stomping grounds.

And it was normal at each stage to be showing my parents around the areas. But it is not normal now. Why does that suddenly stop when we become “adults” and being “real jobs”? I don’t know of anyone who shows his or her parents or family members around his/her office.

But now that I am an adult and I have a job (I’ve had many already, actually), my desire to show around my parents and family members hasn’t changed. When my brother was visiting from Japan, I desperately wanted him to come see my classroom, see my apartment. I giddily showed my mom around my first school (for my first full-time teaching job), when I convinced her to come to a dance performance there one evening. My desire to have my parents be able to relate to my everyday has not lessened, not at all. I still want them to see my everyday stomping grounds. And, for the most part, I’ve been able to get them to see a decent amount of it these past few years. Even in Japan, where guests aren’t typically allowed on campus, I got to bring my mom to both of my schools, and she helped teach a cooking class for the English Club at one school, and helped out with English classes at the other.

So, I guess my concern isn’t all too valid after all… I somehow manage to make it happen for me, anyway. However, I do still wish that it were more of a cultural standard to bring one’s parents and/or family members to work, at least for a coffee or tea hour, or something like that, just so they can have a real glimpse of what it all is. I just think it would be way awesome. Kind of like how Open House used to be, where I’d go meet my teachers with my parent/s, and show my parent/s around my school. Man… this would be neat. It also would be very helpful in cross-(whatever the word is for work areas – I’m tired, okay?) interaction and understanding. My dad works in computers and oil & gas. He would be amazed to see my work, and I to see his. They are just such different worlds that we have much to be learned from interacting with one another’s worlds.

I imagine loads of people would be utterly uninterested in this idea, but I hope that loads also would be in full support of it.

Post-a-day 2017

ukulele, poke, and cray-zay

(Those all rhyme, in case you were wondering.)

Tonight, again, I spent some time with friends after school. I napped briefly in the car, while I waited for them to arrive at our early dinner location. We had a silly time figuring out how to order our Poke (think of a short “okay” with a p in the front), and chatted and ate and chatted some more, before heading outside to chat and dance and do acrobatic bits (because, why would we not do such things?). We were all a bit tired, but only ended our time together, because the two of them had to go pack (one is moving apartments tomorrow, and the other is leaving to visit Australia for vacation).

At lunchtime, I had a Spanish-speaking lunch with some students, while I played ukulele alongside one of them. I dragged kids through knowledge, forcing them to think and do well on their tests – I actually handed some tests back immediately, telling them, “No,” go fix this stuff. After school, I played a birthday song for a different student, and gave her a guitar string ring I made in Japan (not because she’s my favorite or anything, but because she always steals my jewelry during class, and hopes I won’t make her give it back. So, I figured I’d give her something of her own that was sort of mine. It was fun playing the song and singing for her. I had forgotten how fulfilling it was, when I’d sung for my dad’s 64th birthday (“When I’m 64” by the Beatles, of course).

Yes, I feel satisfied in my day today. It was good and fulfilling, an oddly uncommon combination for me in recent years. I am delighted with this having happened twice this week. I look forward to the next one and many to come. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

Satisfaction… at last

Tonight, going to bed, I feel fulfilled. Typically, I have this feeling of needing to go do something before I can end my day. I am angsty and somewhat agitated by the late afternoon, and I feel this pull from somewhere inside of me, but I can’t ever quite figure out how to follow it, how to satisfy the desire within. I notice right now that I almost didn’t even feel a pull to write anything tonight – that’s how satisfied I am with my day. It was fabulous, and so I can sleep easily, without anything else happening first. And I love writing, so that’s saying something.

Kids were unintentional rude in classes today, ignoring my pleas for quite voices, so that I could be heard with my pained, achy throat barely able to choke out words. I let them spend the time with an activity for their own benefit, and most of them ignored it or didn’t care enough about their own education to attempt the activity, which was disappointing. A few really took it on, and some decided it was time to talk with me about anything and everything in my life, while I showed them how to do some of the work. It was an odd balance of awesome and disappointing, combined with my throat being slightly consumed by a low-grade fire.

After school, I chatted with a few teachers from my own high school, plus a friend who now teaches there. That was amazing in and of itself. Add to it that I met up with a friend for tapioca tea afterward, and my day continues to improve. We ended up having dinner with the teas, and then she invited me to join a hip-hop class with her. Neither of us has ever been very good or experienced with hip-hop, but we love dancing, and we both have strong partner dance backgrounds. I have wanted to do hip-hop classes ever since my best friend and her husband started doing some over in England a few years back, because she is just plain awesome, and it is always a good idea to strive for her level of awesome. So I got to be cool like my bestie tonight, and turned out to be actually kind of good at the routine, too. The teacher even came specifically to my friend (not my best friend, but the friend with whom I had gone to the class) and me, and told us that she wanted us to join her team. (Note: Seeing as we were just discussing before the class how we hadn’t been involved in anything dance since moving back to the US (we both just returned from living in Asia), we are genuinely considering this hip-hop team idea.)

Now, I am home. I snacked on some leftovers from dinner, chatted briefly with my mom, and have just showered. I am tired, but in a really good way right now – I am satisfied. I don’t know how else to word it. I am just satisfied, which is something, I now see, that I usually am not at the end of the day. As I said to my teacher friend earlier this afternoon, I need interaction with non-teenagers. I get so much teenager interaction, and very little of anything else… and I need more than just interaction with teenagers, no matter how wonderful they are or how much we may love one another. And, tonight, I got that other interaction, plus involvement in something (the hip-hop class) and exercise. That is a really, really good combination. Now to see how to keep this up, happening much more often than once every three months.

Post-a-day 2017