Women Power

So before I begin I would just like to focus your attention on the fact that I didn't use an exclamation point in my title this time! I noticed that I do that often but will now reserve it for only the really exciting post =]

Today in itself was extremely hectic just like the rest of this week has been. I had two very long test (I used up all the class time which is an hour and a half and I actually went over that time in the Government one, curse my slow hand-writing!) in Algebra and Government and was just feeling absolutely drained. I didn't go to fourth block, Chemistry, because I had an assembly today. This wasn't an assembly for just anybody though it was through invitation only and my Government teacher, Mr. Kecar, got us passes in. Apparently the White House called Edison High School and told the administrators that they would be sending some very special guest in honor of Women Rights Month (or something like that). So I left class at 1 (school ends at 2:15 by the way) and went to the library where they were holding the assembly.

Madeleine, Annmarie (both close friends of mine) and I ended waiting an HOUR AND A HALF for these "guest speakers". I remember thinking, "who do these people think they are? I'm missing precious class time and had to sacrifice my EWC picture for this". Well these guest speakers weren't just anybody, they were major SOMEBODY'S. It was a panel of very powerful, influential women. In attendence were: Ambassador Nancy Brinker, founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure (that extremely huge non-profit breast cancer research organization) and former ambassador to Hungary, Louise Erdrich, a Pulitzer Price winning author, Michelle Kwan, a world renowned figure skater and member of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. Also in the panel was Ledisi, a Grammy nominated recording artist and Sherrie Westin, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer for Sesame Workshop (the company behind Sesame Street!). 

Nancy Brinker, right, talking about perserverance. Michelle Kwan is at her left.

They talked a little about themselves and then gave some very motivational speeches. Nancy Brinker's speech was very emotional since she talked about her sister Susan Komen and how she developed breast cancer and made her sister Nancy promise her to put an end to cancer. She didn't break down or anything since I'm sure she has said the story before but she sure knew how to make us emotional! I liked how she said that she persevered even though everyone kept on talling her that her organization would fail. But look at her now! Her organization has donated over 2 billion US dollars for breast cancer research. Sherrie Weston was also a very good speaker and had sage advice on always pursuing something you are passionate about. I remember that Michelle Kwan was pretty funny and cracked several jokes. After they gave little bios on themselves and talked, we students got to ask questions but no one asked anything particularly amazing. 

I could feel the aurora of power and confidence these women felt and I enjoyed that. They knew their niche in the world and worked hard to get there and I think Michelle Obama (even though she didn't appear herself which was a bummer) did a very good job in picking them out for this Mentoring program (that was why they came btw). All the ladies on the panel worked their butts off and now have an immense amount of success and I think that is a great inspiration for me. Even though it had some downsides I am very glad I went to this assembly and got to hear these women speak.

From left to right: Sherrie Westin, Ledisi, Louise Erdrich, Michelle Kwan, Nancy Brinker

UYL,

Andre

 

Tutoring!

So there have been many things that I have been meaning to blog about but have not been able to find the time because it is the last week of the quarter and my teachers have all decided to cram in as many test and other grades as possible! I have been having the most fascinating mood swings and they are so damn interesting because I never knew I could go from bright and peppy to hateful and full of angst in less than two minutes! Typical teenage behavior we all learned about in Sex Ed but I've never really experienced it and its just cool when I step back for a second and think to myself "wow so this is what it is like to be normal!" Well that is not the point of today's blog although it would be a good topic to explore at some other time.

So today I went through my day as normal (and with all the new highs and lows!) and got to third block, Advanced Composition (aka EWC tutoring time) and was really not in the mood to tutor after I went to lunch (especially since this person hadn't signed up for me until after I went to lunch so it caught me off guard.) However, I couldn't just tell one of the senior tutors "no I don't feel like it" for obvious reasons. So I went and got prepared and my tutee came in with absolutely nothing done. She said that she had a draft somewhere but didn't bring it with her. "Great, not only is she not prepared but I'm not sure what to work on her with", I thought. I noticed on her cover sheet though that she had circled "transitions" as one of the things she wanted to work on. I asked her, "what do you want to know about transitions" and she basically said anything and everything.

At first I thought it would be just a quick review of what transitions were but then it turned into a 20 minute discussion! We talked about the purpose of transitions, examples of transitions (my favorite was transitioning from a paragraph about her favorite color, blue, to the cookie monster and NO we didn't say that they were both blue!), transition words, transitions that she could use in her draft (wherever it was) and how people use transitions all the time even when they speak. I drew like 4 different diagrams for her and I really wish we had taken a picture of the sheets of paper we used! I even used math to try and get the point across! I used the transitive property of equality (if a = b and b = c then a = c) where a = example from text, b = theme/what both examples have in common and c = example from text. So if she uses a quote to support her theme in paragraph A and another quote to support her theme in paragraph C then what (besides the theme) do paragraphs A and C have in common that links them through transition B? If you aren't following I'm sure its because it was more of a visual diagram explanation that just sounds weird written out.

The point is that I really enjoyed the conference because we essentially just talked about writing and what makes good writing (good transitions make excellent papers!) Typically the tutee comes in with a draft and we read it out loud and then we just edit what they have and I make suggestions for what they could do (whether they execute these suggestions is a complete mystery to me). I realize that it is sessions like these, where we can discuss actual writing and create random examples, is why I like tutoring so much. I legitimately laughed out loud several times and it was just great to see my tutee's face light up with understanding. It felt great to tutor something so basic yet it is a topic that you can delve deep into. I wish all freshmen came in with such great questions!

UYL
Andre

P.S.
Visit the EWC's blog at edisonwritingcenter.blogspot.com for writing by os tutors or funny posts!

Glee!

WARNING: Be sure you know your Glee characters before reading!

Without a doubt my favorite T.V. show is Glee from Fox. It is the only T.V show that I actually sit down and watch in front of a T.V. everything else I watch is on Hulu or Netflix. It's the one time a week I specifically schedule for relaxation. I don't care if I have a pile of homework waiting, nothing comes between me and Glee time.

The reason that I like Glee so much is because of the music basically paired with the situation they are in. I don't know, there's just something about them having a music soundtrack to their life that amuses me. Sure some songs they seriously butcher (Thong Song anyone? And let's not forget the more recent Animals...) but then for every terrible song they have there's five other great ones so I let them have their bad moments. My top 10 songs (in no particular order) are: Smile (Charlie Chaplin cover), Don't Rain On My Parade, Like A Virgin, One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not A Home, Defying Gravity, , Don't Stop Believing, I'm A Slave 4 U, River Deep - Mountain High, Don't You Want Me and Do You Want To Touch. On top of the Glee Cast having amazing songs there is also the Warblers that give Glee an extra boost with their a capella songs. I seriously don't know how the writers of Glee will cut them out because they will be sorely missed. (They will be cut out and Kurt will return to New Directions I can assure you...which reminds me, where is Karofsky?)

Plot-wise I think Glee is a hot mess. I feel like the writers and producers are Glee are so fickle and indecisive. I mean, sure teenagers are can be fickle when it comes to love but to have all the main characters hook up with all the other cast members is too much. And they're all dating within the Glee Club! It's just ridiculous to me how one week Finn like Rachel , then he's back to Quinn who use to go out with Sam who then went out with Santana who's basically dated every guy (except for Kurt of course) and then it turns out she loves Brittany (who did go out with Kurt) who now dates Artie but only after he broke up with Tina. See what I mean? You can't even play 6 degrees of separation with these people--it's too easy! And let's not even get into Mr. Schuester and his disaster of a life. I honestly can't say for every bad subplot there's two other good ones because there really isn't. That doesn't stop me from going back for more every week though! I especially love how they put a funny twist on problems such as teenage sex and alcohol. And they have the most hilarious lines all the time!

Well to conclude I have compiled a list of all the important cast members with my favorites at the top descending into my least favorite (the last one though should be labeled "DISLIKE INTENSELY!"). I could write a whole entire blog post on each of these characters (with the exception of Tina and Mike) and who knows maybe one day I will.

Favorite to Least Favorite Glee Characters

Sue Sylvester
Santana Lopez
Rachel Berry
Kurt Hummel
Ms. Pillsberry
Brittany S. Pierce
Blaine Anderson
Mercedes Jones
Noah "Puck"erman
Quinn Fabray
Finn Hudson
Sam Evans
Tina Cohen-Chang
Mike Chang
Artie Abrams
William Shuester

UYL
Andre

Congratulations!

Whoever just went on my blog around 4PM on 3.24.11 congratulations you were the 100th visitor!

This WOULD Happen To Me

So yesterday I went to work all happy and excited to be going. Yesterday was ice cream delivery day but (luckily) I arrived basically at the end where my boss and my shift supervisor, Jill, were just organizing things in the back room. So I helped with that and then Bob, my boss, left and told Jill to just let me go early if business is slow. Seeing as it was a Wednesday the day was pretty slow. So Jill told me to just practice my scooping (YES there is a method to it) and I started with the more mainstream flavors like Vanilla and Chocolate when I noticed that the ice cream wasn't as hard as it is normally. So I called Julie over and she ended up calling Bob and very long story short Bob told us to clean the ice cream freezer.

Apparently the last time someone actually cleaned the ice cream fridge was about A YEAR ago and of course it broke down on my second day on the job! We had to take out all the ice cream and take them to the storage fridge, scrape off the ice from the side (which was very difficult!) and then wash the inside (Jill actually climbed in which was hilarious) and wash some other stuff. My hands were destroyed and sore by the end of it all. They were also all wrinkled from washing stuff. If only I hadn't said anything about the soft ice cream.... the point of the story is that work is hard, so always tip people if you have the chance! =]

UYL
Andre