uuuummmmm i want to be a doctor....but can i drop chem 101?

I have not been eaten by freshmen. Though, if one more tells me "i have to drop my math class. i can't understand my professor. shouldn't it be a rule that they speak English?" I may eat THEM.

dude. seriously.

yes. they have driven me to resorting to "dude."

funny moments so far:

"do you define plagiarism as using 5 exact words in a row? I mean, is it okay if I use 3 exact words?" -- seriously over-worried boy

"ummmmmmmmmmmm.....like...........i want to be a doctor." very spacey young woman who came in to drop chem 101 (not the chem she needs for med school as it is the chem for non-science majors) because it was too hard and she doesn't like chemistry in response to my question about what she wanted to be when she graduated.

"can i take all my math and science at a community college where it's easier so i can pass?" another possible doctor.

"i don't understand why I'm in the exploration program, i already have a major."- very confused student
"oh? what major do you think you declared?"-me
"pre-med"-student
"umm....pre med is not an actual major.....you kind of have to major in something before you get to med school."-me.
"oh. crap.guess i'm in the right place then." - student.

"i can't wake up before 10, so i need all my classes to be in the afternoon."
**how the hell are you going to get a job and how did you survive high school????***-my inner monologue.

"i'll do anything to get back into engineering....can't you just back date the paperwork so that it looks like i dropped the class before the deadline?"

"can my mom just talk to you? she explains things much better than me." -phone appointment.


these, my friends, are the children of the future. those upon whom our hopes and dreams hang. our future doctors, engineers and politicians.

i think i may move to Canada.

i still love them. they crack me up.

3 things:

1-my amazing wonderful husband who hugs me in the grocery store
2- Catfish Biffs pizza.
3- Imperfect's post and her question about favorite dinner time memories. What a warm happy feeling to go to bed thinking about :-)

school days school days

Oh the freshmen are SO freaking adorable!!!!! I absolutely adore them. The are all wandering around campus with folded up and dog eared campus maps that they try to hide in the palms of their hands JUST IN CASE any upperclassmen might see them and give them grief. You can see the kids that are 'too cool for school' (my 830 a.m. class is like that) and then you have the kids that are just so very very very excited to be there (my 330 class is like that.) Now granted, the 330 class could just be a little more awake, but it seemed to go much much better. Also, the computer in my classroom for my 330 class did not eat my disk like the CD drive in the 830 class did. I hate technology. I'm pretty sure I lost a little credibility when my students could hear me say "oh crap" from behind the giant multimedia tower.

I digress. Back to the Freshmen.

They come in all shapes and sizes...some of them look like models and movie stars and have more outward sophistication than I could ever hope to have. Some of the girls are coiffed, gelled, teased and blow dried into perfection with designer name short shorts and mile long legs. Some of them are chubby and pierced and picked their clothes very carefully trying to look like they're not trying too hard. Some of the boys look like they're 15 years old with stress pimples, ball caps and shirts that they think are "cool" (have safe lunch...use condiments). Some of the guys make me feel like a dirty old women when I gawk because, dear sweet lord they didn't make'em like that when i was 18!! Clearly they spend more time in the gym than those of my generation. They are SO excited to see someone that they know in their classes or to hear the name of a town that's somewhere close to their hometown.

Some of them are very clearly used to being the smart kid with the tough academic schedule. They think their arts and humanities and literature classes are going to be too easy of a schedule and they think they should only be in organic chem, immunology and microphysicalbioastronautology. Then there are some that are just overwhelmed by the new-ness of it all and are filing into my office panicking afraid they wont succeed.

I love my job :-)

I made them do an ice breaker where they had to stand up and introduce themselves and answer a question from my zobmondo question book.

how would you have answered?

would you rather be clumsy or forgetful?
would you rather lick under the fridge or under the toilet?
would you rather drink a gallon of hot dog water or a shot of foot sweat?
would you rather be abducted by aliens frequently and have no proof or have your best friend be invisible?
would you rather eat a teaspoonful of wasabi or crushed red pepper?



PS. the picture is from the presidents convocation in St.John's the old basketball arena.

dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

survey classes start tomorrow.....


*quakes*


i hope they dont eat me alive.

Holland Typology

So for my survey classes, I have to prepare an activity that will help illustrate John Holland's Career Codes.

Basically Holland's theory was that there are 6 main types and any number of combinations of those types. The types are Realistic, Investigative, Artistic,Social, Enterprising and Conventional (RIASEC). Based on how you score yourself on the assessment, you end up being Realistic/Investigative, Artistic/Social, etc. etc. The core of Holland's theory that people of like personalities or career types find themselves in similar careers. Similar to other personality tests, each "TYPE" has lists of characteristics that are common to the type and thus have suggested careers that people with those characteristics may excel in.

So...before I get to my REAL question, let me ask this....What type are you? I'm not going to make you go through the assessment...but take a look at the descriptions and see which fits you best.

REALISTIC people are characterized by competitive/assertive behavior and by interest in activities that require motor coordination, skill, and physical strength. People oriented toward this role prefer situations involving "action solutions" rather than tasks involving verbal or interpersonal skills. They like to take a concrete approach to problem-solving rather than relying on abstract theory. They tend to be interested in scientific or mechanical rather than cultural and aesthetic areas.
INVESTIGATIVE people prefer to think rather than to act, to organize and understand rather than to persuade. They are not apt to be very "people oriented."
ARTISTIC people value self-expression and relationships with others through artistic expression. They dislike structure, prefer tasks involving personal or physical skills, and are more prone to expression of emotion than others. They are similar to investigative people, but are more interested in the cultural-aesthetic than the scientific. SOCIAL people seem to satisfy their needs in teaching or helping situations. In contrast to investigative and realistic people, social types are drawn more to seek close interpersonal relationships and are less apt to engage in intellectual or extensive physical activity.
SOCIAL people have high interest in other people and are sensitive to the needs of others. They perceive themselves as liking to help others, understanding others, and having teaching abilities. Social people value social activities, social problems, and interpersonal relationships. They use their verbal and social skills to change other people’s behavior. They are generally cheerful, scholarly, and verbally oriented.
ENTERPRISING people are verbally skilled and use this skill in persuasion rather than support of others. They also value prestige and status and are more apt to pursue it than conventional people.
CONVENTIONAL people don't mind rules and regulations and emphasize self-control. They prefer structure and order to ambiguity in work and interpersonal situations. They place value on prestige or status.

I tend to be Social/Enterprising which stands to reason given the satisfaction that I've found in the helping profession of student affairs. I do think that the social and enterprising are slightly conflicting and I've found that to be true in my daily interactions with my students. For example, the social side of me wants very much to be able to help someone figure out their life...the enterprising side of me wants to convince the student that i'm right about what they should be doing. Most of the women in my office fall under the same primary category of Social with smatterings of the other 5 types as secondaries.

So here's my REAL question. My idea for an activity to illustrate these types is to use movies and tv show characters and play clips and have the student guess what type that character might be.

So far, I have Dwight Shrute from The Office as Conventional. I could use Tim the Tool Man Taylor from Home Improvement for Realistic....but I'd like to find a more modern character. So, based on the descriptions above...what characters stand out in your minds that would fit the definitions of the Holland Types??

windy week

The remnants of Ike blew over Ohio and knocked out powerlines all across the state. Trees are down everywhere. It looks like a tornado passed through. Good news though! My roses that were in pots in the front yard did not blow away and the tree outside my office window is intact! I can't imagine living in a hurricane or tornado prone area. The wind was bad enough for me! My thoughts really go out to those who have had their lives turned upside down by the storms.

I am busy at work prepping for the 5 survey courses that I have to teach, making sure that I have all my supplies and syllabi updated and prepared. I got everything into a binder and made some lists yesterday so I feel a little more organized. I can't wait to get the first week over with. P's about going nuts with his job. It's the first time he's ever really worked in a student affairs type job and it's hard for him to get accustomed to the fact that you have to really sit down and think through each step of each event in a logical order rather than just doing it all at once. He is so anxious to do a good job that he's having a hard time understanding that it's okay to block out some office time on the calendar to sit down and make a list of things to do or something for yourself. He feels like any time the phone rings, he HAS to answer it...even though he has a perfectly good voicemail system. So essentially what's happening is, he sits down to work on a project, the phone rings, someone walks in and he gets 10 emails. I told him he needs to start laying some ground rules for his staff and trying to get people onto his schedule a little bit more rather than him running around on 20 different people's schedules. He is, afterall, the director. I think it's funny that the things that now come naturally to me, after working in the haphazard student affairs environment for so long are not second nature to him because usually he is FAR more organized and logical than I am. His prior jobs have really been positions where he had so much autonomy and so little contact with others that he was able to just blast through projects and work on them with little to no interruption. It's quite the culture shock for him I think. I helped him organize his thoughts a little bit last night by taking each event that he has coming up and making a to-do list for them. Then we sat down and looked at what his two student assistants could have delegated to them. That's another area that P is having difficulty with....delegating. Ohhhh my love, it WILL get easier...I promise, I promise!!!
I'm kind of bummed because next week is going to stink. We're hardly going to see eachother because he has an event each night of the week and I'm going to be going to bed early so i can get up and be fresh for survey class and the craziness that is apparently our Autumn Quarter Start.

I bought bright green pants at Old Navy to wear with a navy blue shirt...and while I really liked it in the store, I'm not so much thinking I like it in my office. I'm feeling more self concious! They are REALLY green.

Ah well, time to go to staff meeting....be well all!

Hello, my name is Ann and I'm a buckeye-holic.

It's now 5 minutes into the 3rd quarter....and it's getting worse. How depressing.

This is the extent of my obsession...and the reason for the frantic posting from 10 minutes ago. My husband and I are "that" couple. You know, the cheesy ones that incorporate their favorite football team into their wedding? The ones that everyone shakes their heads over and goes "oh my.....well, they ARE unique." Yep. That's us. Check it out.







In no particular order....


my aunt made our cakes.



We changed into jerseys for the reception.
Please note, he did not actually smash the cake into my face. :-) good boy.







Our colors were indeed scarlet and grey.





The grooms cake was the stadium.

We had pictures taken at the stadium after the wedding. The handsome and studly boys.

and the girls... weren't my bridesmaids gorgeous? The one on the left is P's sister. Then there's Chuck, the one who married the guy in the LA national guard, then Llama...she's the amazing one who just had her heart broken, and then my sister, The Pig. You can see why I call her Pig. She's such a fatty ;-)

That nickname actually came about because on occasion she snorts.

pa-freakin-thetic

it's half time...this is what my QB looks like.

i mean...he's just standing there! waiting for the giant pulverizing semi truck of a d-line to flatten him into road kill! what the HELL Sweatervest!?! you're killing me!!!!!!!! i THOUGHT we'd lose. I did NOT THINK that at HALF TIME i'd need PROZAC!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh freaking freaking bad.

unless the 2nd half is better.....tomorrow's gonna be rough.

OH and why does Brent Musberger have to sound so damn condescending????? At least kirk herbstreit's looking good today.

in response to Blue's question

I was in my senior year of college. I was a resident advisor and we'd had to come back to campus 2 weeks early for our intense training that would prepare us for dealing with our freshmen students' life crises. We had one whole day devoted to "Crisis Intervention" with the counseling staff at the University's Counseling center. There were probably 500 of us and they broke us all up into different training sessions like "eating disorders" "suicide" "grief" etc. I was at "eating disorders" with my friend and we were listening to a counselor drone on and on about how to recognize signs of anorexia when my supervisor came into the room. He was always impassive...hard to read, but I could tell he was trying to subtly interrupt the counselor and I wondered why. I heard someone out in the hall say 'it's really bad,' and I thought that perhaps someone had died...someone on campus. My supervisor finally got the counselors attention and said that the training had been cancelled and that we all needed to report back to the main auditorium.

We sat down and the Director of Residence Life...one of the most eloquent men that I've had the honor to meet, stood in front of us and told us that there had been a national tragedy. He said that New York City had come under attack. At such a large college, we have many out of state students, many from NYC and immediately people in the room burst into tears and cries of disbelief. At first, we thought that a bomb had been dropped...then he explained what had happened and that we were to go back to our buildings and be with eachother and call our families and friends. He said that if we needed to...the counselors were staying in the building to talk with anyone who needed extra grief or anxiety counseling. We all looked at the cluster of counselors, there were maybe 10 to our 500 and they were all embracing and in tears. I wondered who would help them. We walked back and watched the replays of what had happened, the replays of the towers falling...together. It was unreal, sitting in our little lobby on tables since the chairs hadn't been re-installed from the summer break.

I remember patting my friend Luke on the back, he was in Army ROTC and his ex-girfriend went to school in NYC. He couldn't get ahold of her for quite some time. I remember thinking...this is going to change things, but not really understanding the depth to which things would be changed. Not imagining that 7 years later the political, international consequences would be ongoing. I think I was more naive then.
I think that shared experience changed my life greatly. I saw the college staff and how they banded together for the students that were in desperate need of a safe place to cry. I saw my college, where football falls above all else, cancel a game and hold an incredibly touching memorial instead. I saw a crowd of 110,000 people, the next week start chanting U-S-A U-S-A when instead of script Ohio, the band formed the initials of our wounded country.
I was angry that journalists put their lives and the lives of EMS workers on the line trying to get a story...I cared so much more about the people in the story than about the story itself. I started to think that perhaps journalism wasn't for me.
I learned that across the nation college students started staying closer to home, started worrying more about their security, saw colleges trying to catch up...and wanted to help because college should be a safe place.

alot of people were by themselves, i happened to be with 500 other students. maybe 10 of whose names i remember, even if i knew them back then.

I didn't know it then, but two of my closest guy friends would end up in Iraq several years later. I hadn't met him yet, but my husband and his closest friends would be deployed to Europe to provide auxillary support. I didn't know that the girl sitting next to me who I hardly knew and thought was a little odd would end up being my best friend and that she would one day marry a man who has been to Iraq and Afghanistan twice and may go again. I didn't know that my other best friend who I'd also met that same week and hardly knew on 9/11/01 would be affected so greatly because immigration laws would become so much more stringent and she would eventually fall in love with someone from another country...and have her heart broken when her fiance said he couldn't move here.

That one day still changes my life.

things:

1: bret whitaker National Guard

2: matt marfongelli US Army Infantry

3: luke anderson UH-60L Black Hawk Pilot

4: drew prud'homme National Guard

this is so col!

ode to pharmaceuticals and honoring marriage

allegra! oh blessed pharmaceutical breakthrough!

i broke down yesterday and called the dr. and begged him to prescribe anything that would turn the faucet that was my nose into a decidedly off position. he called in the nice generic version of allegra and for $5 i now feel back to my normal human, non-drippy self.

i hate drugs....HATE drugs. however, i am beginning to thank my lucky stars that i live somewhere that has the technology to make me feel like myself even if it's through chemicals.

*breathes in* hear that readers???? that is the sound of free and clear sinuses!

another good thing is that if YOU breathe in, i can hear YOU because for the first time in 2 weeks, my ears are not plugged up too! yaaaaaaaaaay!

Today feels like fall. I love it. I had pumpkin spice creamer in my coffee and I think I may make some kind of creamy soup for dinner. If I could get P to stop at Great Harvest Bread Co. before the gym, we might have a nice hearty soup with a crusty french bred. Mmmmm fall weather rocks my socks off.

Soon it'll be time to pick pumpkins and decorate for halloween. I cannot wait! I hope that P and I get to take advantage of some of the fun fall festivals that are around us this year. Last year we were too busy with having just moved into a new house etc. We missed the Circleville Pumpkin show and a few others that we love.

P and I have been having some good discussions lately. We've talked about what it really means to "honor thy marriage" and how do we "honor eachother." I think that overwhelmingly it's something that my married friends take lightly and that P and I too haven't really given enough in depth thought to what it means. As we complete year 2 of marriage (11/11/06) we've been contemplating it more. I google searched "honoring your marriage" and found this article by Jerome Daly at a website called "you're not alone." Now, I'll put a disclaimer here... I haven't got the foggiest idea of what this website is and neither support nor deny any of its claims... I just liked what Mr. Daily wrote here

"Now, fifteen years later, we are very different people than the ones who squeaked out those celestial vows. Did we have even a clue then? Yeah, a clue... but not much more. How do you begin such an uncharted life? Getting married is at the same time the most natural and the most foreign step most of us ever take. What do you honestly have to go on? Besides the premarital workbook that you may have scribbled in incoherently in your love-drug buzz, where do you find guidance for the specific shape of your relationship? Even within a Christian context, how are you supposed to understand this mysterious creation called marriage? And once you're past the initial giddy awkwardness of it all, the question is still a valid one: what shape should your marriage take? What is the connection between the marriage you observed growing up and your unique shape as a couple? Should you follow your parents' example, or should you work hard at doing things differently? When you find that things aren't working, is it possible that you're stuck in structures and mind-sets that God never intended for you and your spouse to adopt? What are God's specific intentions for your marriage?
Marriage is the quest that takes you beyond the forms of your parents' relationship-no matter how good or bad-and into your own destiny, held in the heart of God and waiting to be unwrapped by you. "

That's exactly what P and I have been talking about...the SHAPE of our marriage and what we want it to be like. Do we want to follow our parents examples or how do we want to change those structures and mind sets. What is the specific intention that He (or She) has for our marriage.

We've also talked alot about how we make decisions as a married couple. We make a lot of decisions together...but then there are decisions that we simply have to make apart from eachother and are we following the same value constructs and guidelines. I'm not talking about the silly stuff like "what do I eat for lunch today," I mean like when my parents or Ps dad weighs in on a subject in our lives and gives the 'parental advice.' How do we respond? Do I talk about being frustrated with P with my parents? Is that disrespectful if I haven't talked about it with him and told him about my frustration? When P's dad (while shopping for garden stuff) says 'oh this is the way it has to be done and there's no other way you know that that's how we did it in our house while you were growing up blah blah' does P think to himself 'but that might not be how WE want to do it in our house?' and is he able to explain that to his insistent father?

I guess we started talking about this because as more and more of our friends are getting engaged and married, we're seeing that on the surface many of them don't appear to have changed their relationships much since when they first met. I don't at all mean to sound judgemental because I love my friends and their partners and think that overwhelmingly they are happy and secure in the marriages. However, I want ours to evolve...I want ours to continually strengthen and grow. I want P and I to be able to look at eachother and know that the other cares deeply about being a Family of our own. Whether it's always just the two of us, or if some day we add children to the mix...I want to be able to say that I honor my marriage through constant learning and growth. I want us to be strong enough to create our own marriage and not just model after our parents, great qualities though they may have.

So, readers...if you're married (or about to be Wolfy ;-) ) How do you/will you honor your partner? What are your thoughts on what that really means? It's not just words in the vows... how do you all follow through? I'm curious...and I love love and stories about people in love.

Do tell?

snot.

i hate allergies.
i hate ragweed.
i hate ohio in september.


my left ear keeps cracking, my nose wont stop running, my throat wont stop itching, claritin d is not doing anything other than make me a space cadet.


grarrrrrrrrrrrr.

yuck.

i am a cranky crabpot.

my beloved jake delhomme had an awesome touchdown sunday. my college team.....i'm about to disown them. next week is going to stink.

will post more tomorrow....to snotty to post now.

*achoo*

3 things:

1: garden is dug and no longer looks like the sahara desert
2: lots of football
3: kleenex.

green thumbs, brown toes

This weekend was a lot of fun, but hard work! P's dad and stepmom came down so I spent all evening Friday at the grocery and then all morning Saturday cooking so there would be tasty treats in the house for them to eat. We went to the farmer's market Saturday morning and picked our own fresh tomatoes. We got some sweet corn and fresh peaches as well. The peaches are amazing. They actually taste like a peach is supposed to! Far better than the Giant Eagle mushy things that try to pass for a peach. I made P's parents tailgate food for the game on Saturday (the usual, salsa, chips, cheese and crackers) and then a nice quiche and some blueberry muffins for breakfast on Sunday. I think they were all a hit. I think the cheese and crackers went over particularly well because I had some Brie and some of my favorite Stripey Jack. Expensive cheese...but OH so GOOD!

Sunday morning P's dad and step mom helped us plan out our flower beds so that they look like actual landscaping and not just what the builder just randomly threw together when the house was built. We cut out the flowerbed by hand and now just have to till it, add the various different top soils and peat mosses, and then plant. I think I'm going to put in a dogwood tree and an assortment of knock out roses and boxwood plants. They are my favorites out of the 'easy to grow, hard to kill' varieties.

I do not really have a green thumb and I am a messy messy gardener. Gardening is a contact sport in my opinion. You should be at one with the dirt, get your toes dirty and come out with some scrapes and bruises. It's far more fun that way. I mean, people pay hundreds of dollars to get mud baths and sea salt wraps...I can get the mud and sweat for free in my own back yard!

Monday we went to the parents new house and swam in the pool for an hour. Mom cooked tilapia sandwiches with pasta salad and sent me home with left overs. MMMM... Mom and dad are apparently miffed with P because he shot his mouth off about helping them move and they over heard (like I told him they would) but I expect it will blow over if he apologizes.

Ahhh the joys of marriage and pleasing the respective in-laws. Loverly.

It's a quiet day in the office. All but two of us are out on vacation. It's odd to not hear any chatter as I sit here.

I was reading Woflylover's post about changing her name and it made me think about why I chose to change mine... For one, I'm not real into the whole feminist school of thought either...there's nothing wrong with it...it's just not me. I also feel like...though I loved my old name, and I loved who I was (am) as that name...Taking the new name was symbolic of starting our new life together. It became our shared name.... not just taking his name. In my heart I'll always be an Anderson because that's who my history is. But, I wanted to make that leap to being in a new stage in my life. When you get married...YOUR life, becomes OUR life. Or at least it's supposed to I think. When you're united in name, it makes it easier to put that theory into practice. I may one day try to give a child the middle name Anderson....who knows. I might also just get the Anderson crest tatooed on my foot sometime :-) There's also that family tree bit...I really enjoy looking back at my family tree and seeing how the Roscommons became Bloomfields and the Bloomfields became Andersons. It's a lineage that I enjoy thinking about and thinking hmmm...I'm adding to that and contributing to that story. It's kind of a familial evolution, if that makes any sense at all? I don't mean that we're evolving into a better era by taking someoene else's last name, but it shows change...hopefully positive change, as each person in our history grows our family to expand to include other families and other people. We bring in new talents and new unique special features and traditions as we add a new name to the branches of our tree.

I dont know...babblings I guess. I'll stop :-)

3 things:

1: it was really nice to see my uncle and see him and my dad together, those times are few and far between because of the whole atlantic ocean thing
2: i'm excited to see our house growing and becoming more of a 'home' that has our personal touches all over it
3: my quiche turned out great :-) way to go cooks.com!