Celebrating Mom

Celebrating Mom

When I think of celebrating an important person in my life my thoughts immediately go to my mom.  She died a few years ago, I was 30 years old.  You would think at 30 years of age I would be okay to go off into the world knowing that my mom was not close by but I wasn’t.  I still wanted my mom just as much as I had wanted her when I was a child.  For all of her faults and everything we went through together she was still the best mom anyone could ask for. 

When I was a kid, all of the other moms on my block paled in comparison to my mom and I think they knew it.  My mom always had a smile on her face, she never spoke ill of anyone, and she was extremely helpful to anyone in need or not.  I had her high on a pedestal and for good reason.  She was the beacon of patience and compassion, something I am often not with my own children.  She did things just to create special memories for me.  She made sure that I had interesting learning experiences as part of everyday life.  She fueled my curiosity. 

One day after cutting a cantaloupe, I asked my mom if we could grow one in our flower bed.  Without hesitation she said yes and we went outside to plant the seeds.  I checked that flowerbed every day for a month and saw no results.  I was so disappointed that my melon was not growing.  I think my four year old little heart was breaking every day that I saw no progress.  I abandoned the project, but one day about a week later I looked out the window and noticed that there was a great big cantaloupe in our flower bed.  I jumped down from the window and ran through the house looking for my mom to tell her.  “Mom, it grew!” I screamed.  When I found her she had a big grin on her face.  She was so genuinely happy that I was happy.  It took me about 20 years to figure out that the cantaloupe had not grown at all but my mother had gone down to Kroger’s  and purchased it, brought it home and placed it in our flower bed.  When I had that moment where I realized what mom had done I was happier than the day I thought it had grown from nature.  I guess I was so happy because I knew that only someone who truly loved me could do something so special.  I will forever cherish that store bought cantaloupe perfectly placed in our flower bed in my mind and in my heart. 

Everyone deserves to have someone like this in their life; someone that is always on their side and truly believes that they are the very best.  My mom was my biggest fan and I can still feel her encouraging me from heaven.  I hope I can be half the mom that she was and that my children and I create sweet memories like this one.  

6 ways to avoid annoying your professor and pass just about any course.

6 ways to avoid annoying your professor and pass just about any course. 

As a high school teacher of 8 years and an adjunct professor for 3 years I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that the way you treat your professor does affect your grade.  There is no real way to prove this but in my own personal experience and the experiences of many colleagues I have learned that the way students treat their professors indirectly affects how they are graded.  I’ve gained a lot of experience working with students who just don’t get it that there are simple things that anyone can do to pass a class number one being don’t annoy your professor because all of the annoying things that students do sit somewhere in a professor’s subconscious forever.  For those of you that need a boost in your grade here are some helpful and simple tips.    

1.       Don’t tell the professor what is wrong with them personally, their teaching or their course.  Some students do this when they are disgruntled but many students do this innocently without even realizing that they are being disrespectful which is even more annoying.  Students don’t realize that there is a difference between feedback and whining.  Don’t tell your professor that their course really has too much work for three hours of credit.  Don’t tell your professor that they really didn’t explain that concept correctly.  Don’t tell them that the way that they speak or their accent is just too heavy.  When it comes to this area it’s probably best to just not say anything at all.  Save your comments for those end of semester course evaluations that your professor will read AFTER grades are done. 

2.       Do all of the work!  I have been repeating this over and over until I’m blue in the face for years now.  How can you expect to pass a class if you don’t do the work?  How do you expect to improve on the subject if you don’t practice it?  Better yet, do it on time.  Even better, if the class is not your best subject turn your assignments in early.  I’m personally in a much better mood at the beginning of grading a bunch of assignments and much easier on students rather than at the end of reading 100 essays.  There is nothing more annoying than a student who is failing your class (and hasn’t done all of the work) asking you what they can do to improve their grade.  Is there extra credit?  They always ask this.  I always reply, “Well for starters why don’t you complete all of the assignments?” 

3.       Don’t knit pick about one little question on a test.  Sometimes you’ve gotta just let things go.  There is always at least one student every semester that questions every single assignment, test, quiz, etc.  They will argue the wording on questions; sometimes they hinge their argument on a single word.  I’ve even had students say that there is trickery involved in the way that the test questions are written.  I’ve got news for you, not really.  I don’t go to that much trouble to trick my students; some are so easily tricked without any effort on my part.    

4.       Don’t try to bully anyone into getting a good grade.  I once had a student that emailed me, called me, emailed my boss, called my boss so many times that I think it was a contributing factor to raising his grade to what he wanted it to be.  This hasn’t happened much in my career but it left a sour taste in my mouth and has affected every student that has come after him.  Sometimes you need to take a B- like a man and shut up about it. 

5.       Communicate well and often.  Be nice.  Be friendly with your professor.  Show an interest in what they are teaching.  Keep your professor informed of what is going on with your progress in the class, especially if it is not going well for you.  Don’t wait until the night before grades are due to ask, “Is there extra credit?”  You want to keep a constant flow of communication going; a friendly one.  When communicating don’t use cryptic Twitter like language, no hashtags please.  Use professional language:  “Hello” “Thank you for your time.”  Say nice things to your professor like, “I like your class.”  “I’m learning so much.”  Don’t suck up but say just enough to let them know that you don’t think this class is a complete drag.  Remember the subject they are teaching you is probably one they have dedicated their life to. 

6.       Do your best and your best will get better.  I always tell my students this and I firmly believe it.  As cranky as I can be at times, especially at the end of a long semester; if I see a student doing their best I will cut them some slack.  If you truly do your best at all times (and this is really hard to do) you will improve no matter what.  Your best may not be very good at the moment and your improvements may be slow going but you will get better at the task at hand.  This will go a long way in your education and in life. 

Students, please remember these tips next time you walk into a classroom.  Remember that education is a great privilege that many in this world are not allowed.  You will learn so much more if you don’t spend all of your time pestering and spend more time listening.  

European Vacation...with two small children.

My family and I just returned from spending two weeks in Europe.  With two small children it was definitely an adventure and not for the faint of heart but we had a good time despite all of the hiccups.  Our trip spanned three countries:  Switzerland, Italy and France. 

When we arrived in Geneva, Switzerland and discovered that the airline had lost our double stroller we got a loaner umbrella stroller from the lost baggage department and moved on to our hotel in Bern; the capital of Switzerland.  The first day in Bern the kids and I headed out to find some breakfast and we found a quaint little bakery just off the tram line.  I was so excited to try the baked goodies and the minute we walked in my two year old daughter barfed all over the floor.  So we cleaned it up and promptly turned around and walked out and returned back to hotel where we went into hibernation mode until my little one was feeling better.  By that evening she was running around the hotel room destroying things so I knew she was feeling much better.  We met up with my husband for dinner at an Italian restaurant.  The restaurant was run by immigrants from all over Europe:  Croatia, Portugal, Italy, etc.  My daughter fell in love with an Italian speaking Croatian woman who spoiled her and caressed her little head and told her “mangia, mangia”.  We had to get a waiter from Portugal to translate the menu to his best Spanish because since everything was in German that was the closest we would get to understanding what we were about to eat. 

That night after the kids went to bed I went downstairs to use the internet and around midnight a disheveled Frenchman walked in dragging our gigantic double stroller behind him.  He said, “How many kids do you have? Two? Three? Four?”  

The next day was our last day in Bern so the kids and I went out exploring.  We first went to a toy fair that was going on outside of our hotel.  It consisted of mostly arts and crafts and handmade toys.  My spoiled American children were not impressed.  They kept looking at me like, “Where are the plastic toys?  This is lame mom.”  So moved on and explored the city of Bern which is beautiful.  It is worth visiting just to see the architecture alone.  We walked all over the city just enjoying the view. 

Overall, Switzerland is beautiful and perfectly clean everywhere you go (also perfectly expensive) and the people nothing short of delightful.  Almost everyone we encountered there spoke excellent English; the exception being the Italian restaurant of course.  Our next stop was Rome. 

Rome was an experience very different from Switzerland and France.  It was crowded, hectic, and busy.  It felt like I was at home in Bogota.  The people are hiliarious.  They really do use their whole body to talk, that’s not a Hollywood cliché.  The Italian culture also seems to be a fairly duplicitous one; they lie little about everything at least to the tourists anyway.  Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my time there.  The food was amazing, it was much cheaper, the people were very nice and helpful, and there was so much history around every corner.  The city is beautiful and the culture of the Romans is quite kooky which made it all the more enjoyable.  Our hotel was not in Rome.  It was in a suburb called Ostia.  The description when I booked the hotel said it was 15 minutes from the city center which was a big fat lie unless maybe you have a helicopter.  It was a good 45 minutes to an hour to arrive in Rome.  However, the hotel faced the ocean and the room was much more spacious and luxurious than your typical budget European hotel.  The staff were helpful and so sweet with our children.  Our first night in Ostia we went to a seaside pizzeria near our hotel where we ate delicious pizza and pasta carbonara.  The waiter was adorable and a lifelong Ostian.  His family was eating at the table next to us and we met mom, dad, and sister.  We took a city tour and saw all of the major landmarks.  We paid for a tour guide in the coliseum whose English was terrible and had so many people on the tour it was impossible to hear her or understand her.  We also paid for a tour guide at the Vatican who arrived 30 minutes late causing us to have to skip out on the end of the tour to catch our next flight to Paris.  The Vatican tour was worth it though just to skip the mile long line outside and see the Sisteen Chapel.  This was an amazing sight to see.  While waiting for our tour guide to show up we ate at café across the street from the Vatican which we were warned against.  I don’t know how you can screw up lasagna in Italy but this place managed to do it and the bill was outrageous. 

Next we moved on to Paris.  I booked the cheapest flight I could find from Rome to Paris and guess why it was so cheap, the airport we flew into was 2 hours from Paris!  You can imagine our surprise when we arrived and I asked how much a taxi to our hotel would be.  The woman smugly answered, “About 200 Euro.”  I know taxis in Europe are expensive but I knew they weren’t that expensive.  She then proceeded to tell me that we were in a completely different region of France about two hours from Paris.  She this happens all the time.  Americans get off the plane and ask where the metro is and she says,”Oh about two hours from here.”  So we took a bus to Paris which wasn’t all that bad.  It was only about 15 Euros and it was clean and comfortable.  We arrived at a desolate bus station in Paris around midnight with our two small children and all of our luggage.  We were lucky to find a taxi right away which took us to our hotel.  We were happy to find that the hotel was actually inside of the city limits this time and did not take long to get to.  We actually rented a hotel/apartment room and when we arrived no one was there to check us in.  We were hungry, tired and cranky.  We called the hotline number posted in the lobby to try and get our keys out of the lockbox and no one answered.  We called over and over to no avail.  A kind man working in a bar next door passed by and began trying to call for us.  Someone finally answered and apparently they were no help.  The man only spoke French so all I could decipher was that the guy on the other end of the phone was an asshole.  The bartender left and we sat in lobby trying to figure out what to do.  We called another hotel where they told us that every hotel room in Paris was booked unless we wanted to pay 1000 Euros a night.  Finally a middle aged Frenchman staying in the hotel came through the door and began trying to help us.  He had the code to lockbox and got our keys out!  We were so relieved but there was no room number on the keys so we didn’t know which room was ours!  He called over and over as well.  Once again all I could decipher was that the guy on the other end of the phone was an asshole and didn’t want to help anyone at 1am.  My husband finally started trying the key in every door until he found one that opened.  We entered the dingy room that was about 30 square meters, basically a closet.  But it had a beautiful view and we were optimistic. 

We slept in until noon the next day, we were so exhausted.  We purchased a metro card and headed for the Eiffel Tower.  We had the most delicious hot chocolate at a beautiful little café facing the Eiffel Tower.  My daughter rode the carrousels next to the Eiffel Tower to her little hearts content.  We bought an Eiffel Tower from a guy from the Ivory Coast.  He ran off to get change and told me to man his station.  I sold 5 mini Eiffel Towers.  We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower.  It was amazing.  We spent one day at Disneyland Paris, yes we went all the way to Paris and ended up at Disneyland.  It was fun but not quite as magical as the American version.  The last day in Paris we walked the Champs Elysees.  I loved it.  It was beautiful and of course I really enjoyed the shopping.  I bought a purse from a guy on the street and 5 minutes later the cops had him pinned up against a wall.  My thinking is I got a really great purse for 30 Euros and that’s why the hassle with the police? 

We arrived back at our crappy hotel/apartment to find that the elevator was broken.  The night watchman (apparently he wasn’t working the night we arrived) helped us carry our enormous stroller up the stairs.  He said it wasn’t really his job but he would be helpful.  He also told us he had another job during the week and works every day because he has three children from three different mamas which makes things very complicated and him very broke, his words not mine. 

We took a high speed train back to Geneva to catch our flight back to Bogota via Paris, don’t even ask.  It was fun to ride the train.  However, people kept telling our daughter to be quiet like we were in church or something.  She’s not even quiet when we go to church.  We arrived in Geneva exhausted and went to get some lunch and then crashed in our hotel until the next morning of our flight.  

Away we go.

I knew it would be difficult traveling to Europe alone with two children so I prepared myself mentally for about a month leading up to the trip.  On Tuesday evening my two small children (ages 2 and 10 months) and I headed for the airport to journey to Bern, Switzerland via Paris and Geneva.  For the first time in my life I packed very light for the trip; we only brought one suitcase, a backpack, and a stroller.  Check in went smoother than ever and we made to our gate without any shenanigans from my toddler.  Everything was going great until we were about to board the plane and the gate agent told me that I would be picking my stroller up in Geneva, not during the connection in Paris!  If you are a mom you will understand the fear that struck me at that moment.  I said, “How do you expect me to drag two small children through the Paris airport to make our connection to Geneva?  Can someone from the airline help me?  Can you please just bring up my stroller in Paris?  It’s right down there! Please? Pretty please?”  The French flight attendant I was addressing stood stern faced and simply said, “No.” (insert snooty French accent here).  She said no to all of my pleas, nothing moved her.  I asked other flight attendants and they all simply said, “No.”.  I began to think that maybe French people don’t have children.  Maybe they just incubate their young until adulthood and don’t have to deal with screaming, squirming toddlers and babies.  Worst of all they kept speaking to me in French, and I kept reminding them that I do not speak French.  I mean who do they think they are?  Do they really expect me to speak French on an Air France flight to Paris?  Can’t they tell that I am not refined enough to be speaker of French?  And most Americans speak French so badly anyway, why would they want to listen to a terrible American accent?  I say this all in gest, well about 50% in gest. 

I took my seat and figured I would have 11 hours to figure out the stroller issue and how I would get my little stinkers through the airport without the stroller.  11 hours later we arrived in Paris and I still did not have a solution.  A flight attendant told me that the airport would have loaner strollers just past the gate, lies all lies!  When we landed the Paris police were waiting at the gate looking for someone on our flight so it took forever to get off of the plane.  We had to wait in a long line while they checked every single passport, all while holding my 20lb 10 month old and trying to get my two year to stay in line and not have a major meltdown.  We had only an hour between flights so I knew we would have to book it if we were going to make the flight to Geneva.  Very funny, right?  Moving quickly is not possible with two small children.  Of course my two year old moved at a snails pace and at one point just sat down in the middle of the airport and started crying, refusing to move any further.  We still had to go through security and passport control.  When we got to passport control my two year old was just absolutely done.  She started crying and throwing her body on the floor.  I tried to put my infant in one of those luggage carts because I was willing to do anything at this point.  An airport security guard saw me and came over and told me I could not do this and she also asked why my daughter was crying.  She kept asking her, “Why you are crying?  Stop crying.  Can you stop crying?”  Proof again that the French obviously don’t have children.  My daughter screamed so much that she finally let us cut to the front of the line just to get us out of there.  My daughter sat down again after we passed immigration and I finally had to grab her by the arm and drag her to our gate.  We just barely made it to our gate and I asked the agent, “Can someone please help us down the ramp?  My daughter won’t walk and I can’t carry them both.”  She simply said, “No.”  I almost started to cry right there and I heard an American accent say, “Ma’am I can help you.  What do you need?”  An American woman, another mom, took my baby and carried him to the plane while I carried my daughter.  My daughter cried until she passed out on the plane to Geneva.  We got off the plane and went to the luggage carousel to wait for our suitcase and stroller and we waited, and waited, and we waited.  The stroller, which they emphatically told me would come out on the carousel in Geneva, did not come out.  They lost it!  Maybe the French don’t have strollers either?  Maybe they think I’m just a big weenie for needing a stroller to survive with two small children.  The lost baggage office told me they would deliver it to my hotel that night because they would surely find it.  So we went to the train station in Geneva and caught a train to our final destination, Bern. 

We’ve been here for two days and still no stroller.  I think I may have pissed off one of the French flight attendants on the flight and they are holding my stroller hostage in Paris.  The moral of this story is, when travelling with children to France only one child because they are apparently offended by the size of our gigantic double strollers.