Activity Night

Every other Wednesday I meet with twelve young girls all between the ages of 8to 11 years old. My co-chair and I plan various activities to keep them entertained for a little over an hour. Some of the activities are really engaging and keep the VERY energetic girls occupied, while others seem to send them into this wild frenzy. This evening we had a guest come in to teach the girls a dance routine, (very basic) to the theme song for "Tarzan". Ellie, the dance instructor, was very patient when a few of the girls decided to display their skills performing "The Worm". The older girls did really well and seemed to be really into learning the dance while the younger ones entertained themselves by doing the splits, hitting each other and running aimlessly around the room.

Sue, my co-chair and I have been discussing the unruliness of our group and after repeatedly asking the girls to pay attention to our guest, she'd had enough. The girls were asked to come sit on the carpet where, with our prompting, they came up with a list of rules that they should follow while at activity night.
Most of the rules they came up with were pretty common, ie: Be respectful of others, raise your hand when you want to say something, and think before you speak. Some of the not so helpful suggestions: Don't do the splits, only one person can go potty at a time(don't ask) and don't lay on the floor.

After our chat the girls really seemed to be adhering to the rules. We will see how things go at our next get together. For our part, we are going to attempt to be a little more strict. Time will tell.

Preparing for grad school

As you all know, I have recently applied to grad school at a local University. I submitted the application and transcripts a little over a month ago. I have been waiting ever so patiently for the school to call and schedule a time for me to meet with the senior faculty,(The final step before being considered for a place in my program). One week after another went by without a phone call so I finally broke down and contacted my would be advisor. When Nicole answered the phone, I asked her why I had not heard from the school yet. She kindly asked me to hold on the line while she pulled my portfolio to see what the problem was. I waited anxiously to hear what she had to say. (I was convinced that it was their fault and that they were slacking) When Nicole returned to the phone she informed me that they were still waiting to receive the rest of my portfolio. Oops! In my defense, I was under the impression that I was supposed to bring the "missing" paperwork to the meeting with the advisers. I explained my confusion to Nicole and promised to have it all in her office within the week. I hung the phone and thought,WOW! Way to show how organized and on top of it you are! :)
I had to go babysit my nephews shortly after the phone call ended so I packed up my laptop and headed out. Lets just say that babysitting two young boys and trying to write three essays about how I will be an asset to the University, do not mix. I was able to write all of the essays but they were in desperate need of some tweaking. Jeff was nice enough to read through my papers and edit them for me,( I must admit that I was a little embarrassed by all of the grammatical errors that I had made). Again, I had written them all in the span of three hours, while helping with homework, baths and video games. I know this sounds like a lame excuse and realistically, I probably am just really rusty. After I finished rewriting the essays, I printed out my edited papers.
With my finished portfolio in hand I ran down to the school on my lunch break to turn it in. I was surprised to find myself feeling very anxious. All of a sudden my future was/is sitting in the hands of an advisor who is going to judge my essays and applications and determine my fate. What if I am not accepted? What if I do get in? Holy Crap! If I do get into school, classes begin in two weeks...that is A LOT to do in a really short amount of time. Oh, the joy...

A new law in Seattle

About a month or two ago the city passed a law that requires any establishment that sells food to provide a list of the calories in each item. The theory behind this is that if people know how much fat and calories they are consuming they will make better choices. While there are some that are poo pooing this idea, I am finding this to be working for me. I love Starbuck's hot chocolate and just learned that a grande without whip is 300 calories. I have since switched to non-fat, tall, no whip hot chocolate which is something like 240 cal.

A little over a month ago Jeff and I went to dinner at CPK (California Pizza Kitchen). I went directly to the rest room while Jeff got our table for us. By the time I got to the table Jeff had a sad look on his face. When I asked what was wrong he said that he could never eat there again. (This is one of his favorite places to eat, so this was indeed a sad day for him) I found in his hand a pamphlet that listed all of the calories in the menu. The salad that he usually gets was something like 800 calories. This was shocking! We then went through the menu to find something that would not instantly attach itself to our arteries and found, (after a lot of rationalizing over all of the calories we had burned exercising earlier in the day) that some of their pizzas were relatively low in fat and calories. We made are choices based on that and felt relatively good about them.

There are some who have said that if they are going to a fast food restaurant they aren't worried about the calories and knowing how fattening they are will not dissuade them from eating fries and a burger. I imagine this is probably true for some but I am finding that I am choosing differently because of this new found information. I will admit there are times that I don't care how fattening something is (I bet you can't guess when those times are:))but those are few and far between. For the most part knowing how many calories are in the food I am about to purchase definitely makes me pause and look for another option that would be just as satisfying.

Facebook

For those of you who are still living in the dark ages and have never heard of facebook it is a website (similar to myspace) where you can connect with friends. I have been apart of facebook for about 6 months now and have really enjoyed it. When I first joined (because of Jeff) I was not that enthralled with it. I am not a huge internet person, I don't like to spend hours at a time on line surfing the net. Never have been, probably never will. It's not that I don't find it entertaining, I just can't think of that many sites to visit. (call me boring)

Facebook has been a great way to re-connect with friends from high school, even some from elementary school. I love that my brothers and cousins are now on there. It is fun to read about what they are doing in their daily lives and to interact with them more frequently than I would otherwise.

The only downside to Facebook is just that, you don't really need to interact with anybody face to face. You can see what they've written and choose to comment or not and they can, in turn, respond to you. As our technology grows our abiliy to interact on a one on one basis decreases. I am not saying that it is a bad thing, I am on it just as much as the next person, but I think that after a while it gets easier to "communicate" on line as opposed to in person or on the phone.
I guess I got a bad taste in my mouth when I had a roommate who would spend hours on end on the internet. She formed friendships with strangers and lived her life through websites and chat rooms. She gradually stopped doing things with other friends and lived to be on line. I know that this is an extreme case, but it was enough to keep me from even coming close to doing the same thing.

I must admit that the Internet is really entertaining and I do see the value in it. As they say...all things in moderation.

The Lion King

Last Saturday I went to see The Lion King musical with one of my best friends. She got us the tickets for my birthday last July and we have been looking forward to going ever since. The days proceeding were filled with expectation and excitement. We had both heard that it was a great musical and judging by the ticket sales and sold out shows we went expecting A LOT.
The play started with a bang. The opening act was everything that we thought that it would be and more. The "animals" entered at the back of the theater and sauntered down the aisles to greet the new baby lion, Simba. The music was really beautiful and the sets pretty amazing. I understad why people are so enthrawled with this play.
Now, with that being said, I must say that I found myself nodding off during some of the scenes. While the costumes and music were incredibly well done, the story was...kind of boring. Things picked up a bit when Timone and Pumba entered the stage. They supplied a much needed laugh and put a little more life into the play. The story follows the movie fairly closely and if memory serves me correctly, I liked it.
Overall the play was kind of a dissapointment. Perhaps if we had gone into it with lower expectations we would have felt differently about it. I know that I am probably in the minority on this one but when you're watching a play and counting down the scenes in your mind before it is over, that is never a good sign. Again, the sets and costumes were hands down, some of the best that I have seen, but I left feeling underwhelmed by the story.

An evening with Marc Broussard

Last night I went to see Marc Broussard play at the Show Box with some friends. We started the evening by having dinner across the street at The Pike. (They have the best food!) We finally made our way over to the concert at about 7:30pm. We quickly found our place on the floor and eagerly waited for the first act to come on. The last time I was here was probably three years ago, seeing the same performer. At that time I had never even heard of Marc Broussard. By the end of that evening I became a fan and was looking forward to seeing him again.

The first performer J. Hoge went on at 8pm and wasn't....bad. He was constantly plugging his cd (that we could purchase in the back) and promoting his upcoming tour. He also repeated his name several times and unfortunatly I can't remember it. He struggled to hit the higher notes and was a little flat at times but he had a really fun personality which made his set more enjoyable.

The next performer was Jessie Bayler. I really liked her voice however, most of her music is mellow and as a girl who is not used to being out much past 11pm I needed all the help I could get just to stay awake.

As the evening progressed we encountered some of the strangest people who all seemed to gravitate towards us. One guy we nicknamed elbows because he kept elbowing everyone around him including a VERY patient Lucy. He was killing me. He would close his eyes and just start dancing like he was the only one in the room. Oh, and he had no rhythm which made it even funnier. The other guy who decided that we would be a fun group to hang with we nicknamed Bollywood. He would yell out yeah at the most inappropriate times and sang louder than the performers and was flaaaat! At one point I had to ask him to be quiet so that we could hear Marc sing. I thought that Rachelle (sorry if I am spelling that wrong) was going to throttle him. At one point she was yelling at him to get off of Lucy because he kept dancing really close to her. Lucy, by the way was totally oblivious to him. There were a few other interesting "folk" there but they were quickly forgotten when Marc Broussard entered the room.

After waiting patiently for the roadies to break down the set and prepare for the next set Marc Broussard came on with energy, excitement and that amazing voice. I can honestly say that he brought the house down. He played for over an hour and could have gone on for more. We all remarked afterwards that he thoroughly enjoys what he is doing. He was smiling almost the whole time, he interacted with the crowd and performed with so much energy that it would have been difficult not to be affected by it. When he came out for his encore he sang the two songs that he wrote for his son and daughter which were really sweet. The final song was a new one all about funk. It had that "We want the funk" vibe which was a great song to end a great show with.

We all walked away entertained and maybe a little tired but it was well worth it.

Liquid Satan

In an effort to live a more healthy lifestyle I have decided to give up my favorite drink, Diet Pepsi. This is not going to be easy for me because I really like my liquid satan. (as Jeff so affectionately calls it) My rationalization for drinking it has always been, "I have no other vices, so why not"?
In an attempt to talk my self into following through with this I have listed a few valid reasons of why I need to stop drinking DP. 1. Believe it or not, I tend to lose weight when I am not drinking soda. The last time I stopped drinking it I lost 10lbs. 2. The cost alone would be worth it, a 20oz bottle of soda costs about $1.65,(I wont say how much I drink in a week but I have done the math, and I will be saving quite a bit of money) 3.The most important reason to quit, I drink A LOT more water when soda is omitted which is much healthier.

So there you have it, I am announcing it to the world, no more liquid satan for me! Bring on the headaches!