My Life in Numbers

180 days (6 months) - How long the high school debate season has been going on
 32 - Number of hours on a school bus traveling to and from debate tournaments
 1 - Number of days since the end of the high school debate tournament (Cedar High took 5th overall)
 1 - Number of days left of debate practice
 5 - Number of days before the end of 3rd quarter
 139 - Number of essays i need to grade before the end of 3rd quarter
 24 - Number of actual lessons I have to prepare for my regular English classes. Number of actual lessons I need to prepare for my honors class.
 13 - Number of class periods I will see each of my classes before the End of Level test
 27 - Number of school days before the End of Level test begins
 52 - Number of school days left before the end of the year.
 75 - Number of days before I get on a plane to Italy
 3 - Approximate number of seconds between thoughts somehow related to getting on a plane to and/or being in Italy

The Holidays

For the first time in my life, I didn't go home to Wisconsin for Christmas.  I kicked it in Cedar City with my sister Beth, and then spent the New Years with the other sister in Portland.  I have great sisters.  I have enchanting nieces and nephews.

Beth's in-laws were kind enough to let me participate in their Clark Christmas celebration.  On Christmas Eve they did a nativity with the kids - Mikey played Joseph - and then the kids opened presents.  Each individual family then performed a Christmas song, and I helped Beth and her kids with their rendition of Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  After the festivities, I slept over at Beth's house and celebrated Christmas morning with her and the kids.  She made a delicious breakfast of stuffed French toast and sausages.   

A few days later I headed to Portland to see Claudia and her clan and her new house.  Last year she added little Henry to her brood, but I had not yet met him.  We were finally acquainted, and I was happy for the meeting.  We spent a lot of time doing every-day stuff, which is perfect as those are the think I get the most lonely for my family over.  Is that silly?  I enjoy running errands, going to the grocery store, helping to clean (not my own house, mind you), cooking, shopping and reading stories.  We were pretty busy - Claudia threw a surprise birthday party for a friend when I first got there and also had her own wedding anniversary the celebration the night before I left.  In between was a lot of everyday filler, and when we did go out it was usually to eat somewhere really eclectic, either in the city or in the country.  It was delightful.  I wouldn't have had it any other way!

Going Home

The two main things people seem to know about Wisconsin are cheese and football.  Unless a person has lived in the Midwest, Wisconsin is one of those states that people struggle to find on a map, and even fewer have visited.  But to me it's home, and I'm really proud of it.  Like, Texas proud of it.  But just like most teenagers go through a phase where they are embarrassed to be seen with their parents, I went through a phase where I was embarrassed of my home state.  Honestly, I don't know who would blame me - we put cheese on our heads, so... Once I was gone though, I realized how awesome of a place Wisconsin is to live - we put CHEESE.  On our HEADS!  When I think of my hometown of Green Bay and the emotions I associate with it, the colors green and gold display prominently in my mind.  I haven't always been proud of where I am from, but the colors (or at least what they represent) that I thought I detested and which prompted me to move away are the same that brought me back to what I am now proud to call my home.

My family moved to Green Bay from Milwaukee when I was 11 years old.  While I was at first excited about the move, I quickly came to realize that Green Bay was not a big city like Milwaukee was.  There was one mall.  No big-city downtown to speak of.  Very little diversity.  No major museums.  The accent was stronger and sounded more hick-ish than normal.  And there were corn fields less than a mile from my house.  Lots of corn fields.  My parents had essentially chosen to downgrade my life.  It was different, and without any friends besides my sisters, I was bored.

Of course, with school came a place to belong; friends and extra-curricular activities filled in some of the time that had previously been devoted to longing for what I used to have.  But Green Bay has a culture devoted to one pastime, and one pastime only: Packer football.  Streets are named after the greats: Packerland Drive, Holmgren Way, Brett Favre Pass, and Lombardi Avenue.  Buildings and businesses also wear the green and gold, literally in the colors they are painted, but also with names like Titletown Brewery, Lombardi Middle School, Packerland Packaging Company, and The Tundra Lodge.  Green Bay lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps football.  Even into my high school years, it still seemed over the top to me, even pathetic at times.  I just couldn't understand why there wasn't more to life for the residents of Green Bay than football, because even in the off-season, living in Green Bay was like homecoming week all eyar long.  When people talked about the Packers or Lambeau Field, there was a reverence that I thought was ill-placed.  "The Packers are America's team," people would say, or that Lambeau Field was "hallowed ground."  The lengths people would go to, waiting five hours in their cars to buy a piece of the field when the stadium was ripped up for re-sodding, camping out all morning at the practice fields in the summer to watch scrimmages, showing up in the freezing cold the day before a game to volunteer their time to shovel the stadium, and people painting and siding their homes and sometimes even cars in the green and gold were just a few examples of the devotion that was expressed for this team.  When the Packers went to the Super Bowl my senior year of high school, I was excited while I watched the game with friends, but was surprised when school was cancelled early upon the team's arrival home so the town could greet the players as they returned.  While I liked the day off, I was confused that the football team was more important to the city's officials and parents than the education of its students.

When it was time to plan for life after high school, getting out of Green Bay and even Wisconsin was a top priority.  If Packer football wasn't enough for me, being done with the dramas of my teenage years was.  While I had a great group of friends, I never felt like I truly fit in.  I was one of the few Mormon kids at Preble High School.  My religious culture didn't always mesh with the rites of passage many high schoolers go through in Wisconsin.  I felt like I had to explain why I couldn't do certain things all the time, that I was missing out somehow, and that if I moved away (to Utah to be specific), my life would be so much easier.  People would understand me and I would finally belong.  I would get away from the bowling, beer culture, bratwurst, fishing, hunting, humidity, frigid winters, mosquitoes the size of your hand, polka, and mullets that I felt were so corny but were so part of my home state's culture.  When I put on the green graduation cap and gown with the gold tassels representing Preble High, I felt an excitement and hope that my life would somehow be better, that I would finally start living.  When I pulled out of the driveway in the gold-colored car my parents had bought me and my sister, all of our belongings packed in the trunk and back seat, we headed to Utah.  I couldn't contain my excitement for this new adventure.

What I didn't anticipate was how much I would miss home.  While there was still the adventure of living away in a new city in Utah, there was also no home to go back to very easily.  While there were people who believed and lived like I did, there were new challenges that I hadn't anticipated with living in a new place.  In the place where I though "everyone" was like me, I soon realized that everyone wasn't like me.  There were new pastimes and customs I didn't participate in.  There was a new set of vocabulary and a new accent.  New holidays that  I didn't buy in to.  And I missed my mom and dad.  I missed my friends and the simplicity of high school.  I missed the thunderstorms that made the grass and trees and corn fields so green.  And I even missed the quirks of Wisconsin culture that I had before resented - the accent I got teased for, the taste of grilled bratwurst in the summer time, reasons to go to the lake shore to escape the heat, the camping, the diversity of people and belief systems, the summer festivals, and even the camaraderie that Wisconsinites have over the shared love of football and the shared endurance of harsh winters and relentless mosquitoes.  The things that I thought I had disliked so much actually had given me a rich background of experiences with people and the outdoors.  Utah wasn't bad, but it was different.  When I finally graduated from college and could afford to go home for the summer after a seven year absence, I stepped off of the airplane and noticed one thing in particular: how green everything was.  I was finally home, and I was glad.

Scared

At the beginning of September, I handed my classroom over to a student teacher.  By his third official day of being in charge, I felt that he had a pretty good handle on things, considering that he didn't know the students  and, well, that it was only his third day and he seemed to have no problem jumping right in.  I had spent the first few days hovering; I had had two student teachers before and they needed a little bit (hrm) of help transitioning over.  This guy seemed like he had been around the schoolyard a few times before.  So I didn't feel too out of line for taking a bathroom break in the middle of class. I mean, I wasn't the one teaching and they were left with a competent adult who was, so why not.  Right?

I had literally sat down on the porcelain throne when the dreaded words were announced over the intercom:  "Teachers, may we please have your attention.  At this time, we are going in to lock-down   Please follow all procedures."  My heart sank for many reasons:
1) I had walked away from my classroom and had never talked with my student teacher about lock-down procedures - it's not on the list of priorities in Cedar City, Utah, especially within the first few days.  Would he know to close the door?  I usually keep my door handle locked for just this sort of occasion, but was there a chance that I hadn't done it this morning?
2)  My office door was open.  There is direct access from my office to my classroom.  I'm SURE that my student teacher didn't know that that door was open, and it can't be seen even if he did step into the hallway because the door is recessed and he probably wouldn't see it.  Even if he did everything right, my students were still vulnerable, as were the other three classrooms that share the quad area that my office links to.
3)  If he did close the door and it was indeed locked, I would be stuck in the hallway.  We are instructed to not open the door under ANY circumstances - even for a student - once we have gone into lock-down mode to ensure the safety of all those in the classroom in case there is someone else trying to get in that we on the inside are not aware of.  Whether or not my student teacher knew this, I knew that I could be stuck on the outside if someone else closed my office door.  There is also an outside-access door not 50 feet from my classroom.  I am an open target in more than one way.

These were my thoughts as I ran - literally - from the faculty bathroom to my class, trying to zip my pants and buckle my belt as I went.  My office door was open as I had left it, so I was able to get into my classroom - which was luckily closed and locked - and check on the kids and visiting teacher.  All students were accounted for and no one had entered my office for any subversive activity.  Eventually, we were informed that there was a suspicious package in the parking lot, the bomb squad had been called out and it turned out to be nothing.  Cedar High faculty and administration learned a lot that day, and has since made adjustments to the current policy, which I am grateful for.  While many in the community, and I guess even within our own walls, poked fun at the bomb squad having to detonate a...wait for it!...homemade duct-taped maraca, and all of the hullabaloo that surrounded the day, in hindsight it is so much better to learn from an embarrassingly false alarm than from a real crisis.

The event had all but faded into a funny memory - c'mon, I was running down the hall and trying to do my pants at my place of employment on my student teachers third day of his assignment - until last week.  I found out at lunch from another teacher about the school shooting in Connecticut.   I read the first of many news articles about it while my third period (just after lunch) class was taking a quiz.  I balled as I informed them about what happened and then told them what to do in case there was ever a shooter at our school;  I felt that I had to because we had never talked about it before and you just never know...it's my job to protect...

The thing is, until I knew that that lock-down incident months before had been over nothing, I was really really scared.  That was real.  Those thoughts as I made my way to my kids were real.  Those worried faces looking to me for answers that I didn't have were real.  My heart about ready to burst as I had to open the door and stick my hand in the hallway to check if the door was really locked, not knowing who might be out there and if I was risking the lives of myself and my students to do so was real.  The collective holding of breath in momentary fear when a custodian unlocked the door and walked in before we had been given the all-clear was real (he was checking on us, but still...).
The fear is still always in the back there though, nagging.  The school has started locking all but two doors into the building as a result of the Connecticut tragedy, THANK GOODNESS, but until that started a day or two ago, it has been...interesting.  Whenever someone knocks on my classroom door, I wonder who is on the other side for more than one reason.  And today when I had a confrontation with a student about a plagiarized essay, a student who was escorted out of class by the vice principal and our school police officer three weeks ago for a visit to DT no less, I started to wonder if his criminal activity included violence or revenge. And what about the kid who won't make eye contact?  Or the one I saw tormenting a dog across the street from school during lunchtime one day?  Or one that I've passed every day in the hallway and didn't know and didn't know to be worried about?  When I tearfully talked with my classes about where to hide in the event of an armed intruder, was there a chance that I told the armed intruder where to find us?  When I read back over this, my paranoia seems, well, paranoid.  But this is the reality of the society I live in, at least for now, and for some reason, this time it isn't someone else who experiences these things.  It's me too - the locations of recent shootings are all to personal for me: I work in a school, my sister lives outside of Portland, I know someone with emotional struggles who owns a gun, I was sitting in a movie theater watching The Dark Knight Rises this summer, I grew up in Wisconsin...



It is hard to escape the worry and the dread.  Luckily, tomorrow is the last day of school for a few more weeks as we prepare for the sacred and special celebration of the birth of the Savior.  I will have a few blessed weeks to rest.  I will hug the little children I am lucky to have in my life a lot tighter, kiss them even more than normal, and pray that the goodness of and in mankind can find a way to make us feel safe, wherever it is that we work, learn, play, and pray.    

Thanksgiving Pies

It's hard to believe Thanksgiving was two weeks ago now and that December is here.  When the weather, which has still been in the 50's and 60's here in southern Utah, stays unseasonably warm, my sense of time and the seasons becomes warped, as it does for many others I'm sure.  But it is officially the Holiday Season,  the best time of year, and I started mine with a pie-bake.

My sister's in-laws invited me to celebrate with them, and the Wednesday night before turkey day is an evening of crust, lard, flour, sugar, fruit and crimping.  Grandma Clark promised to teach Beth's kids how to make homemade pie crust, so the kids got their hands dirty right along with the rest of us.

Beth sure loves her cherry pie!

Rori mastered the art of the crimp.

You can never have too much flour!

Mikey's turn to help with the apple pie.

Grandpa Mike getting the apple filling ready.

Checking to see how the pears are coming along.

Leftover crust makes a delicious cinnamon & sugar treat.

Sarah discovered the sugar bowl.  And it was good.

We had a cherry, apple, raspberry-pear, and a pumpkin pie.  The Thanksgiving feast itself was abundant.  The company was hospitable and generous.  There is much to be thankful for.  I hope yours was full of gratitude and joy too.

WELCOME TO THE HOLIDAYS!!!

No Painted Desert, No Sedona...but Flagstaff and Bearizona

When I was in college, the song "No Arizona" frequented the radio waves, and I belted along as the music blared through the radio. The lyrics trace a path through some of AZ's most famous and picturesque destinations, and when my friends invited me to travel with them to some of those destinations for a weekend of football and roadtripping, I was anxious to attend and cross some of those spots off the list of must-see Western destinations, of which I have seen an unfortunately low number of considering how long I've lived in the West.  I also had full intentions to sing Jamie O'Neal's song.

My friend Camaree works at SUU, and though she is not an alumnus, she is one of the biggest die-hard Thunderbird fans out there (and one of the only ones I know), much to the shame of Kyle and I who are alumni.  SUU was playing their final football game of the season against Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff on November 11th.  The plan, as I understood it, was to watch the game on Saturday and then drive back to Utah through Sedona.  I've never been to Arizona - the little strip I need to pass through on I-15 on the way to Las Vegas doesn't count - and Sedona played such a prominent part in the song lyrics that it must be worthy of a view.  OK, that was mostly a joke as I had heard of it before outside of some song lyrics, but it certainly would make singing the song a lot more interesting.

The four-hour, rainy drive went quickly.  We drove through Colorado City (the two photos above were taken just outside of it) and Page, AZ.  The morning after we arrived in Flagstaff started with a walk around its historic downtown shopping district.  It was absolutely charming!  They have great little boutiques and gift shops and outdoor sports stores, and I would love to go back and explore even more of what this city, a gateway to the Grand Canyon, has to offer.

You can't fake a sky like that -  what clean air and sky look like.

Following the shopping was SUU's tailgate lunch, actually held indoors at the NAU commons and cafeteria.  It was quite chilly outside as it had rained and snowed the night before, so I appreciated the warmth.  The game was great, and SUU won in triple overtime!  I am such a sports pessimist that when games get close I am so prepared for disappointment that I have come to expect it.  I was glad to be wrong.

Our trip home did not include Sedona as I had expected.  I was a little disappointed.  I wanted to see quintessential Arizona.  AND I never got to sing my song!  Instead we drove back through Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam.  Before we got that far though, we detoured at Bearizona (because if you can't go to Sedona, Bearizona is the next best thing, right?), a wildlife park where the animals are wandering free and you are driving past in your vehicle, and bears are the featured residents.  It was actually pretty interesting to get so close and personal to the bears and wolves.  There is a traditional zoo-like part with a lot of baby and adolescent bears and other animals native to the West.  And if you know me and my love of wildlife photography...er, captive animal photography, you know that I was clicking away.

This is dedicated to my niece Claire-bear, who from an early age learned from her
nick-namesake the best way to scratch your own back. 

Baby bears are extremely active an exceptionally entertaining.

I LOVE foxes!

The Hoover Dam is a great architectural and technological feat, especially considering it was constructed during the Great Depression.  I kept waiting for my friends to start the "dam" jokes like my family did almost 10 years ago, but they didn't, and I'm kind of glad so I can keep that as one of the funniest afternoons I had with my family.  A few years ago, a new bridge was built across the canyon so people didn't have to drive over the dam to cross, and it was my first time seeing it from the dam itself (saw it from a plane).  The dam was packed with dam tourists (sorry, I couldn't help myself), but we had a relaxing afternoon considering the drive, and a fun weekend exploring some interesting places.