Kindergarten Fiend

Since I haven’t posted in forever, I thought I’d start with a description of my typical day.

Much like any teacher anywhere, I get up before the sun, after hitting my snooze alarm 47 times.  I like to check my computer for any new e-mails or anything exciting on facebook, then I set the water on my stove to boil while I start getting ready.  When the water is boiling I dump some frozen dumplings in to cook while I finish getting ready, and then go to fish them out and put some Thai sweet chilli sauce on them in the container so I can eat in the van.  I grab my lunch from the fridge, and usually race out the door since I’m usually running late.  Then I catch my elevator to the basement, hoping that the left elevator comes to pick me up, since it’s the one that actually goes to the basement, otherwise, I just have to take the other one down to floor one, and depending on how late I am, I’ll get the other elevator from there, or run down 4 flights of stairs.  Then I hop on our company van with the rest of the teachers at our school (all 4 of them), slide in the back seat, and put my mp3 player in (I’m not a morning person).  If it’s light enough I read my book, otherwise I listen to a sermon or a Covenant chapel talk.

About 40 minutes later, I arrive at school and 20 minutes after that my students come trailing in.  I have 7 students this year, 1 in Kindergarten, 3 in 1st Grade, 2 in 2nd, and 1 in 3rd.  It makes for an interesting day.  I have pretty good kids, and it makes life easy that it’s such a small class.  Planning is insane though, especially for subjects like science and social studies.  Fortunately I have a 2 hour planning time every afternoon while my kids go to Chinese class and PE.  The parents of my students are EXTREMELY involved in their child’s life, which can be both a blessing and a curse.  I love that they care about their kids and they usually know their kids needs pretty well, but at times that can be a little overbearing.  (For any parents reading this, please give your child’s teacher a break and assume that they know what they’re doing–they’re the ones with the degree, and the job.  Be involved, but don’t spend your time worrying about every little thing.)

Anyways, our day ends around 3:50 when we pack the kids on the bus.  The staff loads onto our van 15 or 20 minutes later, and then it takes anywhere from 40 minutes to 2 hours to get home.  So I get home around 5 most days.  Then I’ll go to the store if I need any veggies or any meats for supper.  (My store sells rabbits!  live or dead. . .I accidentally bought half a rabbit once and it was quite tasty!)  I haven’t found a farmer’s market near my house yet, which makes me sad, so I have to buy everything from the supermarket.  Then I’ll go home and cook my supper and watch some tv.  Or I’ll go get some take-out from a hole-in-the-wall place that makes the BEST eggplant dish ever!  Sometimes I just crave that food.  It’s pretty greasy though, so I try not to eat it more than once or twice a week.  Also, my goal every night is to have leftovers because we have to bring our own lunch to school every day.  There’s only 24 students at our school, so we don’t have a hot lunch option or anything, so if I don’t bring a lunch it’s Ramen noodles for me!  I had enough of those in college though, and I’m kind of a food snob, so I have only eaten those once or twice this year so far.

I realized the other day that the reason I don’t really like leftovers is because I don’t like soggy food.  I don’t like it if the sauce has soaked into my noodles, or if my tuna or cashew butter sandwich has been sitting for more than a half hour and the oils have soaked into the bread.  GROSS.  So even if I pack a sandwich for lunch, I have at least 3 containers of food. . .one for the bread, one for tuna, and one for the veggies. . .  I pretty much live out of plastic containers.  I’ve heard this is unhealthy because something leeches out of the plastic in the microwave or something?  I don’t know.  Hopefully doing it for a few years won’t kill me.  :)

Anyways, I live a pretty good life.  I have a lot of time to myself, which is nice, but sometimes can be a little much.  I’m making some friends, and I usually really love my job.  I watch a lot of tv, both old and new.  I have Star Trek:DS9 when I’m feeling nerdy, House when I need something snarky and gross, Friends when I’m cooking in the other room or just want something on in the background that I don’t have to watch to know what’s going on, and of course all the shows that I download from the states every day.  Way too much tv.  But I like to cross-stitch while I watch (and I know, I just admitted too much), and I really like having peace at home after work.

And that’s about it.  I’ll be traveling some in the next few months, hooray!  Hong Kong in early November, Vietnam and Cambodia in December, and then probably an island in Thailand in February.  I’ll try to remember to keep updating.

Fast internet

Public toilets. . .get this. . .WITH TOILET PAPER!! woah. . .you mean I don’t have to bring my own??

Ordering in English at restaurants

Cookie dough ice cream

Biscuits in a can

Buying more groceries than you can put on your bike. . .and not worrying about how to juggle it home, or cart it up to the 5th floor. . .

Chatting with people online and being in the same time zone as them. . .

Naps

Driving in cars

Sunshine

My nieces

Unblocked sites like facebook, blogspot, twitter, etc

Shoes

Clothes that fit

Having a place (not even just one, but OPTIONS)  to worship on Sunday mornings

Libraries

Bookstores

Watching tv shows on the days that they actually air. . .

I started this post last June when I was in America, but saved it as a draft and forgot about it till now.   So I’ve added a few more things that I thought of.  

Guess I should make this public knowledge.  A few weeks ago, I finally sent in my application for QSI that my parents had been bugging me about since Christmas, and I actually had downloaded on my computer back then.  I also completed my DODEA application the same day.  Well, I finished both of these and sent them in, and the next morning, I heard back from Jim Gilson, the founder and director of QSI, and he wanted to know if I could meet him in Shenzhen for an interview the next week.  Well, this was the first interest I’d recieved at all, and seeing as I’d already sent my resume and letter of interest to all the schools I’d heard about or found in the Gulf, and NOBODY had responded to any of them, it was very annoying.  So of course I said yes, not just because I love Shenzhen and I was happy for any excuse to go there, and I’d love to work at either of their schools there.

Well anyways I flew down for my interview on Sunday night (missed my first flight ever that afternoon, and so 3 hours and 250 kuai later I was on the next one that airline flew that day-no big deal, I had the 4th Twilight book to read, so I was on another planet).  Spent the night hanging out with the Dewitts and the Riemens, both of whom were in Yemen oh so many years ago.  The next morning I went in to the school with Yvonne, the art teacher, and she helped me out and introduced me to one of the 5 year old teachers, and I hung out with him most of the day, which was super helpful, because I got to look at the curriculum, read the book that the schools are based on, and just get a general feel for their school environment.  My interview was that afternoon, and I was a little nervous since I’d never really had an interview before, but it was really nice.  We hung out and talked for 2 hours, and it was really great, and very comfortable, and I felt a lot better going into it because I’d actually spent the day in the school, so I had a lot less questions and felt more knowledgable about what they were going to talk about.  Also, he didn’t ask me certain questions, because, let’s be honest, he’s known me and my family since I was born.  Not really necessary, especially since 2 of my references were QSI employees that I practically consider family.  So yeah.  It ended with them telling me they wanted to hire me, but they only had a few openings left, and they’d like me to put them in order of preference.  Well, I told them Chongqing, then Kazakhstan, then Kyrgistan, but then they brought up a little country called Montenegro, and to be honest, I had NO idea where or what it was, but I instantly wanted to go.  I flew home that night, and wrote them right away to make sure they knew that was my first choice, if it opened up, which I’m not sure about the circumstances, but they thought it might or might not be available. I really really really wanted to go there.

Long and short is, by Friday they e-mailed me asking me to take the 5 year old class in Chongqing, which is a little north of Kunming and has about 30 million people in it.  Also, there is lots of spicy food there, which everyone, and I mean everyone here has told me.  I took the job on Monday and now I’m getting ready to move there.  Well not really physically getting ready, just mentally preparing.  It’ll be really nice to be close to Kunming so I can still come back and hang out with the people I’m close to here.  I’m really looking forward to those long weekends. 

If you don’t know anything about Chongqing, you can search for it on Wikipedia where it tells you lots of information, and you may even be able to find it on a map.  Of course, most of you still have no idea where Kunming is, so maybe you don’t care. . . Mostly what I know about Chongqing is that they eat a lot of spicy food, there are lots of hills so not many bikers, and the weather is atrocious.  And that’s my knowledge base.  Oh, apparently women from there are supposed to be super beautiful because all the hills make sure they have fabulous legs. . .

In other news, a bike ran over my foot last Thursday on my way to school and I seem to have a small fracture in a bone on the top of my foot.  I didn’t really think anything was seriously wrong, so for a week I kept my schedule of doing everything I normally do, dance and kickboxing classes at the gym for example, but then I realized the discoloration had spread far beyond normal and it was hurting as much or even more than it did that day.  So I finally showed it to a doctor this Thursday morning, because he happened to drop his kids off at school (I teach his youngest) and he said yeah, probably broken, stay off it as much as possible, no jumping, etc, for at least the next 5 weeks.  Sigh.  There goes my finally healthy fun gym routine.  I can still do weights.  :-P  Anyways, I’m trying to remember to stay off it as much as possible, so hopefully it will heal quickly.

I have almost come to the end of my 2 week vacation.  Since I didn’t go anywhere, I had lots of time to myself to think, sleep, watch tv, do puzzles, cook, and I even went to the gym 4 times(it was closed the first week).  I also of course listened to about a MILLION explosions, since it’s Chinese New Year, and I’m convinced they use more gunpowder in the fireworks that they set off just in my neigborhood this month than they use in all the 4th of July fireworks statewide.  Chinese New Year day was actually 2 weeks ago now, but we still get the occasional fireworks just to remind us that all the kids are still on vacation.

I also enjoyed hanging out with some friends over break.  We watched movies, stayed up till the wee hours of the morning doing such things as playing Nerts, eating crepes, laughing at each other hysterically, playing the Train Game, and other such things.  I got home at 4am the other night, because we were just having too much fun.

Besides the fun though, there were the sobering moments.  I realized one night, while in the shower (I don’t know why, but these things always come to me in the shower), that I was leaving China.  And I know, I know, I made that decision months ago but I suddenly realized I’ve never done this before.  I thought this would be just another move.  But I’ve never left a place and not known if or when I’d be coming back.  I moved away from Yemen–but I’ve been back like 5 times, and I have my family there to send me stuff that I want from there.  I moved away from America–but I’ve been back twice so far, and I know when I am next returning, and I know that that will always be a place I’ll return to in some manner.  And I also have family and friends there to send me stuff I really want.  So it’s not as if as I’ve ever really had to say a permanent goodbye.  Also, I have no clear connection here in my passport.  Yemen is my birth country.  America is where my passport is issued.  China. . .fills up a few pages with visas.  But what does that say?  Yemen fills up pages, and I haven’t lived there in 7 years.  Indonesia even has an entire page, and I was there for like 5 hours.  And I know that my passport isn’t THAT important. . .but at the same time, in 20 years, when I look back through my passports (and you know I will, if I can still find them), what will those China visas mean to me?  How has my 3 years here in China shaped my life?  How am I a different person?  What will I take away with me as I leave?  These are the questions I have to answer in the next 4 months before I leave.  Because once I’m gone. . .it’s over.  I probably won’t be coming back to reanalyze my life here like I’ve been able to do with both Yemen and the US.  Soooo. . .I have to learn how to leave and say goodbye.  And I thought that that was something I already knew.  That kind of sucks.  I’d appreciate anybody’s advice, thoughts, prayers, as I carry on figuring this out.

You ever have those days where you look around and think “Is this really my life?”

I had one of those moments this morning, where I sat at my computer and turned on music for my kids, and moments later realized, that I was listening to Baa Baa Black Sheep.  At my work computer.  During the day.  Because this is my life.  And I suddenly looked around the room.  B is staring at the computer screen, trying to figure out a way to finagle it away from A and not get in trouble.  L is banned from the computer area because he doesn’t know how to obey me.  3 girls are playing library, or bookstore, or something, not sure exactly what.  A bunch of kids are playing with play dough that we made a few months ago and is now all kind of a grayish color.  A few kids are enjoying the stuffed animals in the play corner.

Yesterday I had my after-school Chinese class in my classroom, and when my teacher came in, she thought my classroom was so cool!  And I was just looking at it going, everything in here is so small.  I don’t have any normal sized tables except my desk and the computer desk.  None of the other tables even come up to my thighs.  And yet, after being in here for a while, I go to other classrooms and I’m like, everything is so BIG–desks, students, books, etc. . .

I don’t know why this is such a big deal.  It’s just. . .weird.  I’m grown up and yet. . .I listen to Baa Baa Black Sheep, and help children write stories about guinea pigs,  and tell children to be nice to each other.  I get paid to do this.  Not much, mind you, but I do.  And it’s strange. But. . .I like it.  It’s kind of cool.

Started the trip by forgetting somet stuff and school, so I had the taxi take me by there before going to the airport.  Had a really long conversation with the taxi driver in Chinese, made me feel super good about my Chinese.  Left Kunming at around 11:30 pm Thursday night, had the airplane row to myself.  Was texting after they told us to stop using electronic devices, and the lady across the aisle TATTLED ON ME!!! I was like, what the crap!  She seriously called the flight attendant over and told her I was still using my cell.  So I never got to finish that text message.  Annoying tattling b****.  I was pretty displeased.  Anyways, when we took off, I fell asleep, and stayed asleep until we landed.  Then I wandered around the bangkok airport in a fog, trying to find someplace to stretch out.  I’ve never noticed before just how uncomfortable that airport is.  It looks nice and clean, and stuff, but it’s SO tiley and hard and uncomfortable.  Anyways, I finally found a row of seats that was empty, and actually got comfortable with my sleeping bag and pillow.  I was REALLY tired.  I slept there till about 6 or 7 am, then woke up, found an empty bathroom and changed into Thailand-appropriate clothes (kind of opposite of Yemen-appropriate).  Then I headed out through immigration and went into town to PARTAY!!

Ok, so all I did was go to Dunkin Donuts, for a Bavarian cream donut, mmmmm, then to Starbucks for a Toffee Nut Latte, which was good, but shouldn’t have had all that milk, def felt it later.  Then I sat in the sun and drank it in, which was the highlight!  Then I went to the pharmacy, bought a new inhaler, some cough drops, etc.  Then I wandered the various malls for a little while until I was hungry, so I went to Outback and had a steak, with Aussie Cheese Fries, and then cheesecake for dessert.  Then went to the theatre, watched Transporter 3 which was totally incredible!!!  Then it was time to go back to the airport. I fell asleep in the taxi, but got into the airport in plenty of time, picked up my carry-on from the storage locker where I’d left it all day, and checked in.  I wandered about the airport for a bit and got a BK barbeque burger, which was good.  Then I got on the plane, was sitting in a row to myself, pretty sure everyone had boarded, when these 3 arab guys got on and sat next to me.  I’m pretty sure the one next to me has never heard the word “deodorant” because OH MY GOSH.  I was ready to throw up.  Anyways, the row in front of me was empty, so I waited until I was almost certain that there were no more people getting on, and grabbed that row.  Which was great, because after watching Swing Vote, and most of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day I fell sound asleep, and was stretched out over the seats in my sleeping bag.

The flight attendant woke me up as we were landing in Doha, and I found the “quiet room” and an empty chair, and fell asleep again.  I told myself I was going to stay in there sleeping/resting till at least 5 am, since I wanted to get past jet lag before I got to Yemen.  I got a free breakfast, since my layover was more than 5 hours long, there’s a nice thing about this airport. . .the breakfast wasn’t amazing, but I met this guy in line and we ended up eating together and hanging out for an hour or so until he had to go board his plane.  It was nice talking to someone besides myself.  :)  When he was gone, I went down to duty free and bought a Universal Adaptor so I could plug my computer in, and bought a bottle of Kahlua, mostly just because I could!  That way I can drink hot chocolate in Yemen. . .  Anyways, so now I’m on free wi-fi, using my universal adaptor and about to go get some lunch from A&W, since I’m hungry.

Sorry if you were bored, but like I said, I have no one to talk to. . .so I type.

It’s really weird being back in the Arab world.  It’s strange hearing a foreign language that I understand. . .but it’s not Chinese.  It’s all very familiar and very disconcerting at the same time.

“I have had an apostrophe! Lightning struck my brain!”  I love Hong Kong because it’s a Third Culture City.  It’s like, not Britain, and not China. . .it’s sort of finding it’s own way between the two.  It’s wild, absurd, AWESOME.  It’s anything you want it to be.  It’s why I love it.  It’s the city culture.  :)  While I was there, I ate steak, a cheeseburger, a carne asada burrito, a really good lamb shwarma, dim sum, thanksgiving dinner, and that was mostly dinners (except for dim sum which we learned was a brunch thing).  Yes, I go to places just to eat food.  I would have more on my list, but since we were actually there for a conference, and the conference provided breakfast and lunch, we were stuck eating that stuff.  It wasn’t bad for conference food for 1000 people.  But it wasn’t QUITE what I would’ve chosen.  I will hopefully post more about my awesome time in Hong Kong tomorrow.  I should go to bed now.  I did have a long day today, and not good sleep ever this week, and I do have school this week.  I guess that covers past present and future.

Children’s Books You’ll Never See

This is from a contest in the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago…

• “Strangers Have the Best Candy” (Stephen Dudzik, Silver Spring)
• “The Little Sissy Who Snitched” (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)
• “Some Kittens Can Fly!” (David Genser, Arlington)
• “The Protocols of the Grandpas of Zion” (David Genser, Arlington) (Erin inserting himself into the list here: you might want to look up the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” if you want to know why this particular title suggested itself.)
• “Where Would You Like to Be Buried?” (Barry Blyveis, Columbia)
• “Katy Was So Bad Her Mom Stopped Loving Her” (David Genser, Arlington)
• “The Kids’ Guide to Hitchhiking” (Joseph Romm, Washington)
• “What Is That Dog Doing to That Other Dog?” (Kenneth Krattenmaker,
  Landover Hills)
• “Why Can’t Mr. Fork and Ms. Electrical Outlet Be Friends?”(Martin
  Keutel, Alexandria)
• “Bi-Curious George” (Art Grinath, Takoma Park)
• “Daddy Drinks Because You Cry” (Stephen Dudzik, Silver Spring)
• “You Are Different and That’s Bad” (Christopher Richard, Springfield)
• “You Were an Accident”
• “How To Dress Sexy for Grownups”
• “Getting More Chocolate on Your Face”
• “All Dogs Go to Hell”
• “Mr. Policeman Eats His Service Revolver”
• “You Are Different and That’s Bad”
• “Fun with Pointy Things”
• “Keep Picking At It”
• “It’s Your Fault They Got a Divorce”
• “If it’s in a Bottle Drink It”
• “Eating Glue is Good For You”
• “You Can Fly Too If You Wear a Cape”
• “Sharing is For the Weak”
• “Foreigners are Bad People”
• “Plastic Bag Space Helmet and Other Fun Activities”
• “Razor, Razor, Who’s Got the Razor?”
• “Is the Stove Hot Yet?”
• “Dead Pets Are Fun Too”
• “The New Baby is Better Than You”

http://www.humorbin.com/showitem.asp?item=29

I stumbled across this when I was searching for Cover Letter examples online . . . I kid you not!  It’s all the truth. 

That was the thought I was left with sitting in my head after listening to Matt Chandler’s sermon this morning.

I think it struck a chord with me because of my overwhelming selfishness.  I know that I am a selfish woman.  And I don’t do this.  I think “If I don’t do this, someone else will, so it’s not really a big deal.”  WRONG attitude.

Anyways, if you haven’t listened to any of Matt Chandler’s sermons from the Village Church, I HIGHLY recommend them.  I download the podcast from iTunes.

Yes, honey, I can see you.  I see you being good.  I see that you are doing what I want you to do.  I see that you have reasons for doing what you do that have nothing to do with actually desiring good. I see that you have a reason for behaving well, and it’s for the reward that you wish to recieve.

But this is me, SO often.  I do good things and want to say “SEE GOD!! I’m being a good girl today.  Reward me, love me!”  But that’s not what God’s looking for.  I should be doing things BECAUSE I love God, not SO that he’ll love me.  He already does.  Even when I’m running far from him, he still loves and he still cares.  And I don’t have to earn my way back into his heart.  There’s no way I could, but it’s still hard sometimes to accept that free grace.  Grace is a hard thing to accept, no matter who is giving it.

Sometimes being human is just SO frustrating!!

Nope, not a children’s story.  My life.  After church today I took my pretty brown leather Prada purse and went to the market.  I needed to buy a chicken.  And potatoes.  So I ride my bike into the market and find the chicken stall, where the man looks as if he is sleeping.  So I went down to the live chicken stall, and they had one half of an already dead, plucked chicken.  So I bought it, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be enough for 6 of us.  I could have bought a duck, but they were still alive, and I didn’t really want to go through that process. . .I could have bought a live chicken, but same problem.  So I started trying to think of things to add to the chicken, but fortunately by the time I got back to the dead chicken stall the guy was awake and helping someone else.  I asked him for a chicken, and he pulled one out from under the counter and asked if it was the right size, and I said sure, why not!  Then after he weighed it, I made him chop off the head and neck and feet.  I have no need for those particular body parts.  He cut off the butt too.  That was nice of him.  Anyways, then I needed potatoes, so I went and bought too many potatoes, because I always buy too many potatoes, whether I mean to or not.  By this time of course, my basket was full, because my poncho, umbrella, slippers, etc had already been in there, and now there were 1and a half chickens, and a bunch of potatoes.  But I still needed some rice and a little bit of beef.  So I added those to my basket and determined that I was done.  So then I’m riding out of the market, prada purse under my arm, chickens in my basket, and then I ride by a manhole that water is coming out of.  EW.  It’s been raining all week, so I understand water coming DOWN, but this water was coming back up.  It was nasty.  I tried to go far around it, and continued on my ride home.  Then of course, as I’m right around the corner from my house, it started raining.  I’m too close to home to waste time putting my poncho on, and too far to not get wet, so I just tried to ride faster.

I made it home and wasn’t too horribly drenched, and managed to cook the chicken in the crockpot, made Yemeni potatoes, and had people over to help me eat it.  It was lovely.  I also made pumpkin cookies, but they didn’t turn out very well.  Not really sure why.

In other absurdities, I went grass-sledding yesterday. . .It was entertaining, pictures will come soon!  I would’ve gone grass-skiing, but it was too wet and rainy to go for a whole hour, quick trips down the hillside on a sled was as much as I wanted to be out.  It was fun.

I really did want to post about my trip to Lijiang, but that was a whole month ago now, so I don’t know if it will actually happen.  We’ll see.
Anyways, I just wanted to share with you all the absurdity of my life here.  Going to the open air market to buy chickens with my Prada purse just seems odd.  But normal. . .

Miss you!

I just got home from a bellydancing class at my gym, and now I ache.  It was such a workout.  I always forget how much of an arm workout it is!!  You don’t think about that with bellydancing, but it’s true.  Not only was it a workout though, it was FUN!

Although, I have to admit, I went to it thinking that at least I wouldn’t know anybody there, so I could look as dumb and uncoordinated as well. . .I probably did!  But as I walk in, I run into one of the coaches that works at the gym who speaks amazing American English and rooms with one of the teachers at our school!  And he was standing right outside my dance room, and so I said hi, and went in.  Yeah.  And the room. . .very thin curtains around it, so you could totally see inside, so everyone at the gym could see our class.  THEN, during the class, I turned around once and apparently one of the parents of one of my previous students came in later than I did.  That’s not awkward. . .

It was so much fun though, after a few minutes I got over being self-conscious and accepted that I wasn’t perfect at it, and I was going to stick out whether I was good at it or not, and I just had a wonderful time!  I’m totally going back, a minimum of once a week.  Maybe more.  I wish it wasn’t on the same days as yoga. . .I’d rather alternate those.  Then I wouldn’t have to do those stupid-er-wonderful elliptical machines.  We’ll see.  Apparently the schedule changes at least every month, so I can only hope. 

In other news, I decided this morning that I needed a crockpot, so on my way home from school I stopped at an electronics store and bought one, tied it on the back of my bike, and brought it home to start baked beans for tomorrow night (if they work!).

Life is good, and now I’m so tired I can’t see straight.  Good night all!!

I joined a gym on Tuesday.  So Thursday I went to a yoga class.  We’d met the yoga teacher and she spoke a little English, so we thought we’d go to her class.  I have to be honest, I worried that it would be totally impossible.  The Chinese yoga dvd’s I’ve tried are so far out of my stretchable range it’s insane.
But I could do a lot of it.  I mean, not the touching my toes part, or much of the balancing, but it wasn’t impossible!  She has the class 3 times a week, I think, and I’d like to go at least twice a week. Then I can learn all the chinese yoga vocabulary.  :)  I’m also hoping to try the belly dancing class tomorrow. 

Today I’ll probably just do the elliptical machine.

In other news, the school had an earthquake drill today, and since my kids are amazing and wonderful, and I taught them what to do on Monday, they did great.  So we might possibly survive an earthquake.  I won’t, since I don’t fit under any of the tables in my classroom, and I am too busy making sure that my kids don’t die to go under my desk which is too far away to be sure of their safety.  And yes, I do put the kids first.  I seriously doubt we’ll ever have a serious enough earthquake to worry about it though.  :)  Which is why I’m not worried.

Egg Bread

4.75-5.25 cups of flour

1 package active dry yeast

1.33333 cups milk

3 TBS sugar

3 TBS butter

0.5 tsp salt

2 eggs

Combine 2 cups of the flour and the yeast.  In a saucepan heat and stir milk, sugar, butter, and salt till warm (120-130 degrees) and the butter almost melts.  Add to flour mixture along with eggs.  Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 sec, scraping bowl constantly.  Beat on high speed for 3 minutes.  Using a spoon, stir in as much remaining flour as you can.
Turn out onto a lightly floured surface.  Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6-8 minutes).  Shape into a ball.  Place in a lightly greased bowl; turn once to grease surface.  Cover and let rise in a warm place till double (about 60 minutes).

Punch dough down.  Turn out onto a lightly floured surface.  Divide in half.  Let rest 10 minutes.

Now, you can either shape them into loaves, put them into loaf pans and let them rise 30 minutes.

OR. . .you can roll them out into a 12×7 rectangle.  I put garlic oil and garlic salt spread out on one, and cinnamon sugar on the other.   Then you roll them up.  Seal the edge and the ends.  Put them seam down in the baking pan.  Then let them rise for 30 minutes.  Bake them for 25-30 minutes in a 375 degree oven.

When you get them out, they will be lovely and wonderful.  The garlic one is garlicky, and the cinnamon one is cinnamon rolly.  MMMM tasty.

Anyways, it’s from Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. . .I think.  I photocopied it from something in the school kitchen the other day.  I’m totally in love with it now.

Yes, my room shook again today.  Twice.  Once almost exactly 24 hours after yesterdays, and once a while later.  But the first one was longer.  I was beginning to think I should go outside.

Soooo, now I’m a little shaken up.  Wondering what would happen if my building did fall down.  I live on the 5th floor.  I’d die.  But what amount of life am I missing out on?  Maybe my priorities are all screwed up.  Maybe I’m just overreacting.  I don’t think earthquakes are cool right now.  I think they’re a little scary.