Autumn comes with the traditional

There are certain events that indicate Fall in Indiana for our family, and it seems they all came and passed this month.  We had Grammie visiting for the welcoming festivities of fall: apple picking.  Our friend's tree that we pillaged for fee last year was on an off year so we had to go to a 'commercial' local apple orchard to pick.  The name of this orchard gave us many laughs: "Tree Technology."  Yep, that's new technology - getting small kids with baskets on a stick to pick apples.Josh, the kids, Grammie and Aunt Jill picked 5 bushels of apples that we processed within that week to have plenty of applesauce and apple pie slices all through the winter.  The kids are always involved with smooshing the apples through the Victorio Strainer or twisting the peeler/corer/slicer, which makes the process move swiftly.

When the apples are on, we also know it is time to honor the man who gave us all this lovely harvest: Johnny Appleseed.  Fort Wayne claims the burial of Johnny.  We have a gravesite, although I am not certain, with many other claimants on to Johnny's burial, if the site is not just a relic containing maybe teeth or other random bones.  Ether way, all the community gathers for the fantastic festival in his park and celebrate the handiwork of many who still create without technology (ha, tree technology orchard).  Each year we heard the kids past the vendors to the settler's area and learn some new skills.  This year's skills were:  clay wheel pottery, woodworking (mostly for Josh who still dreams that he will have a wood shop some day), wood carving, copper smithing, and tinkering. 

This fella gave the kids a bit of a science lesson by carving back the stick and then pulling out the worms that were the cause of the great maple to fall.  Josh admired the lacquering.

Because it was the very end of the day the tinkers let the kids play with all sorts of machines and gave them lots of tin trinkets to play with.  They gave the kids a math lesson as to why you need to know geomotrey. 

 Another fall time favorite - the annual Fort4Fit race.  This year we worked with the kids through the end of the summer to run 25 miles, all building up to the Kids Marathon for Fort4Fit.  The kids had gotten the racing bug when we did the Spartan Race in the spring and were mostly willing to do the training.  We were amazed by how well they did on the actual race night!  With Jill, we had one adult per child to run with the kids during the mile long course.  Viv ran hard with Jill, Faith stayed consistent and long strided with her dad, and I ran with Danny.  I was most impressed with Danny.  Throughout the summer he was the least enthused about continuous running; often stopping with side aches.  However, for the race, Danny kept a steady jog the whole time.  We talked about Captain America, of course, to pass the second half mile and he made it the whole way without walking!  All three were so happy to have their medals!  It is so nice to have this family friendly race so close to our home, it is really too easy to do I would be ashamed if we had not involved the kids in their own race.

Start time was 7:30am this year instead of 8am.

The next morning I woke up and walked up to the race start for the 10K race.  Some friends joined me for the start.  To my happy surprise, Jill rode her bike up and became my support through the whole race.  I certainly wasn't in my favored shape for the race, but I made some goals and kept them, only missing my goal finish by one minute (should have followed Jill's advice and had faster turnover the last half mile rather than trying to lengthen my stride, lesson learned).

Josh and the kids made it up for the finish so they could steal my post-race snacks and then go to the library.  It is a fun race because it ends in the Parkview baseball stadium and they have the racers on the jumbo-tron and announce their names so the family can be more participatory in the end.

A new fall tradition for us, thanks to Jill, will be going to a college football game.  We are still learning to enjoy the event, so it was super nice to head over to a small university in town, St. Francis, and watch our good friend and old babysitter Jason "Big Guy" Gardner play as defensive center.  Danny was intent not he game.  Faith brought a book, which suits her personality after watching some of the game she was happy to read.  Viv spent most of her time watching the cheerleaders evidently to figure outs why they had blue and black pom-poms (which she finally figured out about the 3rd quarter and announced to the rest of of that it was to match the team colors on the football uniforms).  It was a very good thing to broaden the horizons of the kids to some of the best parts of fall sporting events.  Jill and I also took them to watch IPFW men and women's soccer.

I've been laughing a lot this week, because I have kids

The kids are in the wonderful linquistic state of applying very very new skills.  A few examples of assimilated language this past week:

Danny has been very invovled in playing soccer at recess with all the boys.  He was trying to explain how the boys clear the goal by needing to "cherry vomit."  Cherry vomit?  "Yeah, you drop the ball and kick it as far as you can."  That is a drop kick, oh, do you mean cherry bomb it? Like dropping a bomb? "No mom, it's cherry vomit."  Okay.

We had miso tofu soup for dinner last night.  My children were all being so complimentary of the cook, which I very much appreciated.  "I really like the liquidy part," said Danny enthusiastically.  His sentiments were joined by a hardy nod and slurp from Faith.  Viv looked very proffessional as she corrected her brother; "The liquidy stuff is called barf."  It's broth, dear, but barf sounds the same.  Certainly doesn't taste the same.

Faith was excited to use the notepad paper I had recieved from the junk mail.  It had our address on the bottom, very personalized.  As we rode to school I reminded her that she needed to change into her leotard and tights before I picked her up so we could get to ballet quickly.  "Oh great!  I will write myself a note so I don't forget. I can put it in my cubby as school."  Good idea.

She did indeed have her note in a noticeable place in the cubby area to remind her.  Her phonetic spelling made me laugh out loud:

 The precious little one does not know what 'tits' are yet, and it is best left for those to come first before we talk about their terminology.

And finally (for this week so far), Josh brought the kids up to the university to bring me a chocolate milkshake.  As they were leaving the building Faith needed to go to the restroom.  Josh sent the girls into the women's restroom and he followed Danny into the men's.  Danny walked up to the urinal, sized up the proportions that he had not expected as a 4 foot nothing six year old boy in a university men's bathroom and exlaimed "You have got to be kidding me!" 

 Looking nose to drain, it seemed impossible to get his meager stream in the intended target.  Josh told him he could just use the toliet in the stall.  When I asked him about the incident the next day, he looked at me with all seriousness and said "Mom, there is no way I could (indicating an upward shooting pistol)...you know....when the urinals at my school are (tipping his pointing hand downward).  Seriously.  It would be impossible."  

Introducing Professor Button.....Instructor, rather

Fall Semester of IPFW started on Monday August 25th, 2014.  I began the semester as a student with 7 credits moving closer to my master's degree.  I also started a new dimension of my higher education as well, that of being a graduate assistant.  I am being paid to practice being a university professor.  More thought went into that first week of teaching than did my first week of student-ing.

Truthfully, the first week of the semester blew by faster than a whirlwind.  Indefinitely, I had thought and dreamt about that first day and the jovial and personable teacher I would be, thus leading into the Most Influential Teacher of their Semester/college career.  I will not empty my optimistic glass quite yet to say that there is still not a possibility I could be the Most Influential Teacher of their Semester, but I will say the glasses are becoming clearer, less on the pink side.

I am a girl and thus did think about my outfit on the first day of school.  I have been dreaming of the day that I would become a professor for a long time.  Being an "instructor" or "graduate assistant" did not graduate my outfit yet to the professional frumpiness of over-sized sweaters and messy buns, but I did get to consider myself a professional.  I looked a my wardrobe as a way to visually show my students that I meant business, but still had a personality.  I mashed up the traditional work-place pencil skirt with one of my light weight (knowing I would sweat no matter the temperature in the classroom) colorful blouses.  I tied the whole thing together with beige pumps, the color of my hemline although regrettably without a nude pair of "stockings" to reinforce a completely well-bred woman.  I am from Idaho after all.

I can accept at this age of my life that I am a bit of a last minute person.  I certainly have all the mandatory framework pounded into place, ah! but let's leave the interior design to fall together organically!  I had determined that the course syllabus for this first teaching semester would contain my philosophy and major due dates, but the weekly calendar I could just not settle on.  I have taught often enough to know that I do not feel comfortable telling my class what they do or do not need to learn without getting to know them.  I struck a compromise with my guilty conscience which insisted that every student appreciates knowing what is coming ahead with a calendar and determined I would release the calendar online one week in advance thus giving me room to switch assigned readings, build content the class, and adapt to the students.

After the first day of class, I was glad I had allowed myself such flexibility in the calendar.  I asked how many of my students where in their first semester ever of college.  All but one of my 23 students raised their hand. Oi! Babies, all of them (to the university experience, I do have one non-traditional student that established early on his persona of being older and more experience in life - we did clear up on day two of class that he was not older than me, by a couple of months, not that I told him that).  Although, not babies to writing.  After a few journal entries and discussing our class goals and their personal goals, I realized I had played into the negative stigma of the un-learned W131 students.  I realize I am blessed to have a class of early risers - setting up classes before noon as a college freshman must be given credit - but will still not undermine how well prepared the are, and eager, to become proficient writers.

I stood at the head of the classroom tied to the computer the first day set apart from them by my access to blackboard as an instructor.  I was also setting the precedent that I am the instructor; a person with a bit more experience in this realm of composition that I can induct them adequately into academic writing.  I know where my strengths are as a writer and a person.  I recognize that my students have strengths in areas that I may not.  As it reads in my syllabus, I take my role as an instructor seriously.  If I don't give them adequate tools and strategies to succeed in this academic world, I have not done what I am being paid for - more importantly, what I am passionate about.

The second day of class I was among them.  We 'circled the wagons' in our tight little room and got to know one another.  I took pictures on my iPad for roll call.  The pictures was a fine tool to have for reference when reading their initial entries.  I wanted to make sure I was attributing their words to the right face.  They are each individual writers for sure!  I was surprised, from an instructors perspective, how quickly the mood changed when the chairs were all turned to the center.  I wish my room were larger, or my class size smaller, to make it more comfortable to circle-up more frequently.  We will certainly do it more, for that configuration changed things a great deal.

On Friday the fine glow of the first week was waning.  Students were more sleepy.  School and all its realities had set in.  Thankfully, I had relaxed my own dress a bit and could comiserate a bit with them.  My optimism had not faded.  I am still impressed and enthusiastic about my students and their potential.  College is still exciting for me.  I recognize that my "distance over time" affects how I feel about being an instructor to freshmen.  I am nostalgic about those first few years of discovery.  I remember the good that a university education did for me before embarking in the "real world" for decade before returning.  Certainly I am not old and frumpy, but I am well set to be an 'instructor' in this realm.  Having left the title up to the students, I am a bit gratified that some students open their emails with a 'Professor Button' greeting despite my obvious lack of a doctorate, for now ;).