The Kitten Shot Out of the Garbage

Hi Everyone,

Have you ever heard the poem "The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven" by Jack Prelutsky? Well, as I was getting out of class about 15 minutes ago, I heard a rustling noise in the garbage can. Now in Seattle, that means there's a squirrel in the trash, or possibly a rat or a crow. I approached this Oakland trash can quietly, stealthily. I've seen one squirrel on campus here, but that was it, so I didn't think it was a squirrel. Maybe a raccoon? No. It COULD have been a skunk, we've had a few on campus, but I'm sure I would have smelled it before I heard it. As I got closer, a kitten hurled itself out of the trash can and sprinted off into the bushes. I tried to look for it, but it was gone so quickly that it didn't leave a trace. Bummer. I wanted to pet it! The animals that I see the most around here are birds, the majority are humming birds, which is kinda cool. I also saw one of those teeny tiny lizards today. So cute!

Cheers!
Chelsea

ETA: I thought you'd all like the read the poem. It's pretty awesome.

The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven
By Jack Prelutsky
From It’s Thanksgiving by Jack Prelutsky

The turkey shot out of the oven
and rocketed into the air,
it knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair.
It ricocheted into a corner
and burst with a deafening boom,
then splattered all over the kitchen,
completely obscuring the room.
It stuck to the walls and the windows,
it totally coated the floor,
there was turkey attached to the ceiling,
where there’d never been turkey before.
It blanketed every appliance,
it smeared every saucer and bowl,
there wasn’t a way I could stop it,
that turkey was out of control.
I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure,
and thought with chagrin as I mopped,
that I’d never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn’t been popped.

So Far...

Hi Everyone,
I hadn't realized that it had been so long since I posted last. So, life here is still pretty boring, but I have been a little more adventurous. I've become friends with another student in my classes. Her name is Tammy, she's from Chicago, and she's the only other person in my group who is not from this area. I was getting so bored and antsy last week that I decided to email her and see if she wanted to hang out. She was very excited because, like me, she isn't from the area and didn't know anybody. She is living with a family across the freeway from the school so just going to her house was an adventure from what I had been doing before. I got to meet Angie, the daughter of the family she is living with, as well as their parrot, cat, and dog. Their dog, Nova, is just about the cutest thing ever. I'll try to take a picture of her so that you can all appreciate her awesomeness. Last Saturday, Angie was nice enough to take us on the bus to the Lake Merritt Farmer's Market where I got a delicious gyro. We walked along the shores of Lake Merritt near the bird sanctuary and then hopped a bus for Piedmont, which is one of the rich areas near Oakland. We bought some ice cream at Fenton's, which was amazing, and ate it on the front lawn of the Piedmont School. If you've ever seen the movie Up, the main characters share an ice cream at the end. The place they're at is Fenton's! On Sunday, we had coffee at Cafe Galleria, which is next to the Safeway that I always go to. I've spent the majority of my time since then reading and working on my homework.

Lake Merrit

I'm not particularly pleased with my time here. I've been here for a month and I feel like I've hardly learned  a thing. The school is isolated and not really set up for grad students from out of state. They were not very clear about some of the information that really should have been on their website and their organizational skills are somewhat lacking. While I just had to deal with their extremely sluggish work ethic and their lack of communication, Tammy and some others have had a seriously hellish time getting into the system. I'm excluding Marion and Wendell from my list of people/things who have made this transition stagnate. I just hope they're enough to redeem this experience.

Oakland/San Francisco in the Fog

And on a happier note, the city sometimes looks really cool in fog or at sunset. Here it looks like the shining city of Oz off in the distance...except it's not green. In case you're wondering, that floating bit in the middle is not a UFO or even an airplane. It's the Hangar Vodka blimp that often comes to visit. Yes, it totally makes me want to purchase their alcoholic beverage. Not.

First Day!

Hi Everyone,

On Thursday, I had my first night of classes. When I say night, I mean I went to the Educational Therapy Meet and Greet at 3:30 and my second of two classes ended at 10:30. It was exhausting. I think everyone came to class with tons of energy and left feeling completely drained and overwhelmed. However, the program looks like it is really good and all of the people in my class are friendly and ask great questions.

I have two classes, Education 261, Intro to Mild/Moderate Disabilities and Education 264, Assessment of Learning Disabilities. Normally 261 goes from 4:30 to 7:30 and 264 goes from 7:30 to 10:30, but we had an Educational Therapy Meet and Greet at 3:30 beforehand so the whole evening ended up being 7 hours long. We got to meet Marion Marshall, the educational therapy coordinator, who was very nice and she gave us a tour of the school even though I knew where most of the places on campus were already. Then we met the person in charge of the education department in general, Kim Mayfield, who was very nice. Then, we started class. Most of the first half was spent on introductions, so I don't feel like we've learned a ton yet, but my first instructor, Professor Fields, was really great. She is funny and upbeat, which makes listening to her all the more interesting.

My second class is going to be way more difficult. Professor Kosmos is very nice and a great speaker, but she also goes over everything very quickly and speaks in acronyms, some that I know and some that I don't, so it's harder to follow her. It's also super late in the evening and everyone's brains were totally fried. She told us the story of her own struggles with learning disabilities and how she went on to get her masters at Harvard and her doctorate at some other school, so she's pretty hardcore. One of the things that I'm really excited about it learning about different kinds of learning disabilities and then being able to apply that knowledge to students that I've already worked with. I keep expecting to have "ah ha" moments (thanks Oprah), where I can say, "So, THAT'S why he was so needy/clingy/spacey/insert-appropriate-adjective-here". I got my first "ah ha" moment in class already, when she was describing types of Autism. It was pretty exciting!

I only have classes on Thursdays, every other week. I was worried that I'd have a lot of time on my hands, but there is actually a ton of work to be done and once the semester gets going, I don't think I'll have much free time at all! One of my upcoming assignment will be to do some case studies on famous people, past or present, with learning disabilities. I've already started looking up the information for that assignment So, wish me luck as I embark on a very exciting new adventure and I'll post more about what I learn as I go!

Cheers,
Chelsea

A Few Fun Things

Hi Everyone,

I'm still waiting for school to start, but I've done a few interesting things since I last posted. On Sunday evening Rachel's friend Hillary, who lives in Pacifica (just south of San Francisco), her husband Johannes, and their daughter Melanie picked me up and took me out to dinner, which was a lot of fun. We went to a really good German restaurant in Alameda. Johannes is from Germany, so he said that they are always looking for German restaurants to try out. It was really great to get out off campus and see the area, but it was also nice to spend some time with people that I know. Hillary and Johannes are so nice and we had a really great time. In fact, everyone else at the restaurant had a great time being entertained by Melanie, who is 19 months old and super cute.

Everyone had labor day off, of course. Not like I needed a day off, but whatever. The only downside to that was that the sports teams and GA's also had the day off and they were up really late on Sunday night being extremely loud. I bought some wine at the Safeway a few days ago and was going to have some, but the bottle broke. I have a hard tile floor in my dorm room, and even though I didn't drop it, I have learned not to set anything on the floor because it just tipped over and shattered! I mopped up the wine and swept the glass, and even though I have left my window open, my room still reeks of sour grapes. Awesome.

Today, I went down to the bookstore to see if one of my other textbooks has come in yet, and I discovered that they were holding a blood drive. I haven't given blood in awhile so I decided, what the heck, I'll do it. Now I have an awesome red bandage to prove it. I've never had a problem with needles or blood, so I'm usually a little surprised when other people get light-headed or feel sick after donating just because it's never happened to me. One of the people who works on campus was donating blood in the bed thingy across from me and started feeling dizzy so he had to lie back and put a cool rag on his forehead. He told me that I was a champ and asked if I donated blood a lot. I told him that this was only my second time, and he was very surprised. It was quite funny. I ate lunch out in St. Francis courtyard, which was really beautiful. I think I'm going to do that more often!

Hope everyone had a fabulous Labor Day Weekend!

Chelsea

It's Been About a Week

Hi Everybody!

Happy Blue Moon! Tonight is the second full moon of the month; how cool is that?! So, it's been about a week. Today is the first day that it's cloudy and cool. It's been sunny with clear blue skies and very hot and humid the rest of the time. I've gotten some of my textbooks, walked to Safeway, etc. I feel that I will really need my car if I'm going to make it anywhere around here. I went to a brief bbq for Founder's Hall and met a few more people, but it wasn't the most productive or social thing I've done. I did meet a few more people, Carolina and Chelsie are very nice. Even if Chelsie spells her name offensively (ha ha!) I can't wait for classes to start! Sooo, enjoy to the full moon tonight! After all, once in a blue moon there is a blue moon!

Love,
Chelsea

Some Pictures

Hi Everyone,

So...still not a whole lot going on. Although I did get some of my textbooks, which look pretty interesting. Here are some pictures to spruce the page up a bit. The first two are taken at Anthony Chabot Park and the third one is a view from the campus near where my dorm is.

 Cheers,
Chelsea

Welcome to the Cloister

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my new blog. I am starting a new chapter in my life and I've decided that it's high time I start another blog, not only because I sort of gave up on the other one, but because I really want to keep in touch with all of my family since they are the most important people in the world to me.

I decided that I'd better offer up an oath of sorts to help keep me focused on my goals. So: Even though I'm not the best at communicating my feelings (because I think through issues so quickly that I don't usually take the time voice things aloud), I'm going to enjoy writing down my experiences and thoughts here as I adjust to my new digs in California.

Just to catch everyone up, I finished up my last quarter of working at the UW on Friday the 17th. It was kind of a bittersweet goodbye. Not only did I love my job working with the student athletes, but I also love the people that I worked with. They were sad to see me go and I was sad to leave them. On my last official day of tutoring, they gave me a nice card and some UW athletic paraphernalia. The last week of work was absolutely crazy. My students had this absurd teacher who wanted them to read thousands of pages worth of material, watch the assigned films, give a 30-minute presentation, take two midterms, and write a 6-7 page paper within the span of 4 weeks. Not doable. At least, if she expects correct answers and quality work out of her students, then she needs to give a manageable workload. She also talked so much that she was 2 weeks behind and decided to extend class hours by 30 minutes for the last week of class. As you can probably imagine, I had a ton of work to do preparing my students for their final test, but I was also preparing for some tests of my own. On Friday and Saturday, the 17th and 18th, I had to take the remaining 2 portions of the CSET test, Childhood Development/PE and Math/Science. I studied hard, and luckily the tests were really easy, but between work and CSETting, I didn't have much time to do anything else.

That gave me one week to pack up all of my stuff and move out of my apartment. Did I get right on it? Not exaaaactly...I wanted to make sure that I got to see some of my friends first, so I hung out with Deshawn on Saturday and went shopping with David on Sunday. On Monday, I got to work, knowing I'd have to work non-stop until I got done. I did just that, and I'm still amazed at the amount of stuff any one person (or two) can accumulate over such a short span on time and in such a small space. I had a dinner with Chukkie, Al,  and Nate on Monday night, which was a lot of fun, and then my supervisors from work took me out to lunch on Wednesday to say goodbye.

I drove home to Port Angeles with as much stuff as my car could carry, and then turned around and drove back to Seattle with my dad on Thursday night. I still had a bunch of stuff left over (even though I'd taken 3 card loads to my parents' house over the last couple of months) and we were going to store it in my dad's truck and then he'd take it home so that it can be stored in PA until I need it again. Now, when I say a bunch of stuff, I mean a BUNCH. My dad's truck was crammed so full that he couldn't see out the back, so I had to stick my head out of the window while he was driving in order to know if he was able to change lanes safely or not. We made it to the hotel somewhere between 11:00 and midnight, and then were shuttled to the airport at 6:40 the next morning so that we could catch our "8:40 am" flight to Oakland. And this is where the adventure begins:

So, I had to pack everything that I need to live, go to school and eventually work here in California into 4 suitcases and a carry-on. It was difficult to do and it made the suitcases extremely heavy. My dad and I each took 2 suitcases to wheel around, but it was a lot of work and we enlisted the help of a baggage cart guy who was very helpful. He suggested we weigh each bag and then shift some of the items around so that only one of the bags would be overweight. That wasn't too difficult. Then, we went to check in electronically and we realized that the tickets were for 8:40 PM not AM. We'd either have to chill at the airport for 11 1/2 hours, or try to get another flight. Luckily, the extremely kind and helpful lady at the counter was able to get us a 10:10 flight. She also weighed my bags and deemed one of them a fraction of a pound too heavy, so we had to do some more shifting. Then, we went over to security. As we were going through the line, the security people kept moving my dad's stuff back and looked confused. Then one of the security ladies took his shoes to a special area and investigated them, then she came back and told my dad they had to be run through the system again. We waited until she finally returned them and she said that she had to check them because they were from different pairs! My dad apparently has 2 pairs of shoes that are similar but not the same and he mixed them up without realizing it. They were probably concerned that he was a shoe bomber or something. Anyways, we didn't have to wait too long before we flew to Oakland, got the rental car, and checked in at our hotel. Then we got some lunch at an Italian restaurant called Francesco's that looked like some place Perry Mason would have taken Paul and Della to in the 50's and headed up into the hills to check out Holy Names. We were going to go shopping and maybe drive over to San Francisco, but were too tired so we went back to the hotel to waste copious hours pass some time on our smart phones.

Yesterday morning I checked into my dorm room and we went shopping for the supplies that I needed. The school provided us with directions to Target and Wal-Mart, but their instructions were wrong. Luckily we've gotten so adept at using our smart phones that we were able to find the real directions to Target without much difficulty. We got lunch and decided to take a detour back to the dorms through Anthony Chabot Regional Park on Redwood Road. The park was very cool. It's right in the middle of the city, but it's pretty much been left to be a wilderness area, with some trails and a rifle range. We ended up doing a pretty decent spur-of-the-moment hike. There weren't a lot of animals around, aside from people and their dogs, but we did see some vultures, some smaller birds, and some teeny tiny lizards. After that we stopped at Safeway and then I was on my own.

My room is relatively nice, especially for a dorm. It's in a building designated for graduate students (and maybe a few athletes), and I have my own sink and was provided with a fridge and microwave. The school is so different from the UW. It's feels very isolated. It's pretty much just a tiny school on its own hill. I have a great view of downtown Oakland, the bay, and the hills behind San Francisco when it's clear. I don't really know anybody yet. The people in my dorm seem to know each other already or something, so I've been kind of bored all day. It also feels extremely quiet and as if nothing is going on. I know there is because the freshmen all had to move in yesterday, but it's really quiet so far. It's also a Sunday, so I figure there's churchy things going on, but I haven't seen or heard anything of the sort. School starts on Wednesday for the Freshmen, but I have to wait until the 6th so I am anticipating some slow days ahead. Oh well, once it picks up I'm sure I'll be busier. Anyways, I guess that's about it. I'll try to provide some pictures for you all soon!

Lots of Catholic School Love,
Chelsea