Well, I'm back to the daily grind. I returned home last Thursday, went to work on Friday, then we traveled to Trujillo (an 8 hour bus ride) to celebrate Juan Carlos's birthday, then back in the bus Sunday night to return home at 7 am...and to work an hour later. Can I say that I'm WHUPPED?
I've caught my breath, though, and have a few things to report:
First, my avocado pits have sprouted both roots and stalks! I dismounted them from their toothpick harnesses and transplanted them from their jelly jars of water to regular pots with soil in them. I did that today, just about an hour ago, so there hasn't been time for me to see if they will survive and thrive. I know there will be a period of transition while they make the jump from a liquid diet to the earth diet - I'm hoping they don't go into shock and die. At least not both of them.
And, I augmented my plant population with a little jade tree that I found in the street market. I have my fingers crossed for that one, too. It, at least is already established in its own pot, so at least I can't accidentally ruin it while transplanting it.
While I was home, I picked up a few word games to help get my conversation students talking. One is called "Mad Lib", where one makes sentences using only the words on their cards. The idea is to construct a grammatically correct, but outrageous sentence. An example would be something like "gigantic hairy eyeballs bashfully bulldoze greedy fingernails." This seems to be a problem with my students. They find the combination of words to be difficult. After all, who has ever seen hairy eyeballs? Can fingernails actually be greedy? The answer is NO, so they tried telling me that they could not possibly play this game. I wouldn't accept that, so they resigned themselves to making the sentences, but I could see the distaste on their faces. Hmmm. Maybe next Saturday, I'll try "In a Pickle" or Scrabble and see if that goes over any better.
I also got some books from my sister, Suzzanne, to play with. One is "Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks". Yesterday, we worked with one that talked about changing the world by changing oneself. It's interesting to hear the differences in opinions and viewpoints. My next topic will be how total distruction might make way for something more beautiful than before...think Yellowstone Park! Burnt to the ground and back more lush and vibrant than ever.
4 comments:
Love the ideas for youth talks!
Hi Kathleen,
Is a jade plant the same as what we call a money tree. Very woody stem with almost circular, cushiony leaves?
I must tell you that I hold you entirely responsible for the recent squabbles over the computer at Toady Towers. Since you published that jigsaw puzzle we have become completely hooked on that site, vying with each other as to who can do the most complicated cut. The daft thing is that ordinary jigsaws leave me cold.
Well I suppose you CAN only change yourself, and if everyone did, the world would change wouldnt it. Good luck with the plants. I LOVE the background colour of your blog.
Why not play "Speed Scrabble" someone in the family made it up and we have played it for years much more fun and faster than the normal Scrabble.
Instructions
Four or more players
Give each player 7 tiles
(then make sure the remaining tiles divide equally between the players removing any odd ones)
At the word Go all players turn over their tiles and it is up to them to make a grid up and down or accross using all of the tiles, when a player has used all their tiles they shout "Take Two" and every player has to take two more tiles even if they have not used the ones they started with.
A player can take his grid apart as often as he likes but when "Take Two" is shouted everyone must "Take Two" until all the tiles are gone.
The winner is the person who uses all their tiles and completes a grid which makes words up down and across.He must shout "Finish" and everyone else must stop building his grid when the "Finish " call is shouted.
The grids are then counted as normal Scrabble, but the player with the completed grid gets the score from all the tiles not in the other players grid.
(Hense taking care when you take apart you grid you are able to put it together again before "Finish " is shouted, or you may find yourself giving a large score away)
We play the best of 8 games.
The Winner is the one with the higest overal score.
Blossom
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