The Constitution say WHAT?!

We did a Constitutional Convention in my government class last week. I played George Washington and led the convention. It was nothing short of an adventure.

Each student was given a specific role- a real person who had been at the convention. They were required to adopt that person's perspective and make arguments for certain things.

We used proper parliamentary procedure, the debates were fair, and the voting only happened after everyone had agreed that it was time to vote. There were equal delegates from each perspective, so the point was for each group to come to a compromise, and then the class-made Constitution would turn out similar to the REAL U.S. Constitution.

But this is what happened:

Not only will our country allow slavery for eternity, but we will elect a president who will remain in office HIS ENTIRE LIFE. 

So, let's enslave human beings and elect a dictator. Nice. Did anyone say Nazi Germany?
 
This is what happens when the most talented and forward debaters of the class are assigned similar perspectives. oops. They overpower the weaker, more reasonable delegates.

But seriously, is this how bad government happens? Is this what comes of dominant personalities who all share the same idea? They can easily overpower those who are not willing to speak up. The weak are crushed. Inequality reigns. Imagine if this had been the case at the REAL Constitutional Convention. What would we have ended up with? What if there hadn't been compromise? This is why the Constitution and the organization of our unique federal government is such a miracle-- and further evidence of providential inspiration in its framing.

 But isn't the ease of corruption a scary thought? It is just that easy to get off track.

Anyway.

Other randoms about student teaching and Washington DC in general:
1. The wind is so cold that it eats your face. Well, chews it up and then leaves the exposed flesh as it moves by.
2. When I woke up at 6:15 on Monday morning this week, one word went through my mind repeatedly: WHY?
3. My students think they are liberal because they live in DC and their parents are liberal. However, they are actually quite conservative. This lends credibility to my theory that the human being is conservative in its natural state.
4. We watched "Pleasantville" in one of the other government classes. Two things about that: 1) this movie would never be shown in Utah schools without a permission slip. I felt awkward. 2) The movie-- and the cooperating teacher for that class-- paint conservatism like it is INSANE and inhibits freedom and individual liberties. It made conservative values seem backward and old fashioned. It made me sick a little bit. At least that's the way the discussion went.
5. Quoted by a student in the AP US class that I observed today: "Yeah, flappers were definitely the first hipsters." Said boy is accused of being a hipster at least once a day.
6. I went to the DC temple last night. It's my second time going since I've been here. The ward schedules temple nights, but they are only endowment sessions. But I went with the ward anyway. I needed the feeling of it. The peace and security. So while everyone was in a session, I went down to the baptistry and asked if I could walk in. They let me, and I joined a youth group. It was such a blessing, I can't even say. I finished in about an hour, and had lots of time to kill before the session would be over. So I went to the visitor's center. I think the DC visitor's center might be my favorite of all time. I just sat in front of the Christus and gathered strength. Teaching is hard. Being at that school is hard and stressful, and I needed to just sit there and soak in the Spirit. Unfortunately, by the time I sat down the visitor's center was closing. They let me stay while they cleaned, though. I felt like the whole evening was a series of tender mercies- people at the temple making things work even though I was kind of an inconvenience to everyone. It was such a blessing. I feel so much better about life in general.
7. My US history students are awesome. I really like them. They are funny-- and so polite. They do their homework, and I need to stop being surprised about it. We talked about WW2 propaganda and the Zoot Suit Riots this week. Next week I'm covering the War in the Pacific and the end to the war-- the United Nations and the Atomic Bomb. But I have a really hard time planning for these kids. They are smart and I feel like just telling them what happened in a fun way won't challenge them and then I will be a failure. It's harder than I ever imagined to find ways to bring in higher order thinking and get a good discussion while delivering information at the same time. There is just so much to think about all the time, and it can be very discouraging.

I think that's all I have to say.

I'm really looking forward to the 3 day weekend.

Yep. And after tomorrow I will only have 7 weeks left. And 3 of those weeks are only 4-day weeks. And one of the other ones has an assembly. And another one has an early dismissal. So really only TWO of them are full with no interruptions. Man I'm excited to be done. Monday was the 2-months-left mark. Hip hip hooray!

Heaven in Beach Form

I mentioned in the last post that I had the plague. Well, really, I was just very sick for a few days. I seriously don't ever remember feeling sicker in my whole life. It was really bad. I missed work on Thursday, missed class on Friday, went to the beach on Saturday, missed church on Sunday, and then missed work on Monday. It was a long, horrible drawn out process, with a little dash of paradise in the middle called: THE BEACH.

We rented a car that Saturday morning and left for Ocean City, Maryland at around 8am. It was about a 4 hour drive to the beach, so we arrived around noon. Ocean City is kind of like an island (I'm not actually sure if it is or not), and it has one side of beautiful, white, sandy beach, and a boardwalk with fun shops, food places, arcades, and game areas, and then the rest of is filled with houses and businesses. But it was lovely. It was the perfect day for the beach- it was actually sunny. Rain didn't even threaten. And it was warm, and the waves were good, and the colorful umbrellas were so pretty in the sand! The only hitch was my plague. I actually felt really good that day comparatively. The problem was that somehow I had spread my disease to Cameron, and he was miserable, and I felt really bad because I KNOW what it is like to have that plague! It's really bad!!! He was in the second day of the illness, and I was in the third. It was actually kind of funny throughout our misery, because he followed my symptoms exactly a day behind. So, everyday he would ask me how I felt so that he would know what to expect the next morning! Side note: The next day, his roommate, Adam, got sick too. He didn't follow our pattern exactly, but we turned our horrible plague into a comedic thing and we sort of became lepers of the Barlow Center. The others referred to us as the trio of death. We said we were three musketeers or amigos or something that sounded less morbid, but it was the trio of death that stuck, and we were practically quarantined. It was sad, but funny.

So anyway, BEACH! It was perfect. I laid out in the sun, which is one of my all-time favorite things to do, swam in the waves, at ice cream, buried Adam in the sand, relaxed, recuperated, got rid of my farmer's tan, etc. It was just wonderful to be in the sun. Sure, we have sun in D.C., but it is too often hidden by clouds and rain and nasty humidity that I hate. And I love the sun. That's why I love St. George. Because I love hot and I love sun.

SO PICTURES!!!

Me and Eric on the boardwalk with our ice cream cones. YUMMY!!
Me and Amanda

The master sculptors with their work of art... So, it actually took a little convincing to get Adam to let us bury him in the sand, but I think he was glad he did. We made him look AWESOME!! Well, the awesomeness was Erik's part. He was the artist. He sculpted the fine muscles. Genevieve contributed the power belt, and Amanda, Kate, and I worked on the fin. Mostly Kate and me dug the hole, and that took A LOT of energy. Especially for someone just getting over the plague! But we did it, and it was SO FUNNY!!

Okay, last funny thing, and then I'm done. So, at one point, I went out into the water, but before I left, I pawned my sunglasses off onto Ryan. He put them on and wore them the rest of the day. I didn't want to take them back, because he looked so good in them! Some people said he looked like Tom Cruise in some movie, but I went more in the direction of a young JFK. Tell me what you think. I know it's a teensy bit creepy, but he and I are good friends, so I don't think that he would mind that I zoomed in on him in a picture and posted it on my blog. I just thought it was so funny!!! And even funnier, he went out and bought a pair just like them! Now we are sunglasses twinners, but he looks way better in them.

I was very tired by the end of the day, and I slept the majority of the ride home. So nice. Going to the beach probably extended my illness a bit because I wore myself out, but it was so worth it!! The End!!

Welcome to Audrey's Life as a Private Person.

So... I went private. Why, you ask??? Because the Museum That Must Not Be Named is spying on me.

This is what happened. On Monday, May 18, 2009, I got an email from one Suzanne McLaughlin, Internship Coordinator for You-Know-What-Museum. She wanted to see me in her office before I went home for the day. So, I packed up my stuff a little bit early to drop in and talk to her. I figured that she just wanted to discuss my first week of work, you know, see how I was doing.

I went up the elevator, said hi to Eddy the Elevator Man, then proceeded to her office.

This is how it went:
"Hi, Suzanne! How are you?" I sat down.
"I'm fine. Audrey, I have something that needs to be brought to your attention."
"Okay..." I was very hesitant in my okay. I sat down.
"Here at the [Museum that Must Not Be Named], we like to see what people are saying about us. We have advanced searching technology to find every time the [Museum that Must Not Be Named] is mentioned online. This morning I was notified that your blog was found."
"Oh."
"Now, there was nothing super inappropriate on there, but you probably should not have pictures of your ID badge online, or your email address." Super inappropriate?? That actually is a direct quote, and translated it means, you are in trouble. You have inappropriate things on your blog. Take them off within the next two minutes."
And then my line, "Oh my gosh, I had no idea. Wow, that does seem like a dumb idea to put my ID badge on there. I didn't even think about security. I'm so sorry. I understand completely. I'll take it down right away. Thanks for letting me know. I really appreciate it." Blah Blah Blah.

I walked out of that office feeling many things:
1) Very much in trouble. She did not get mad at me, she was just concerned and needed to let me know. BUT, I don't get even slightly in trouble, EVER, for ANYTHING. I remember the 3 specific times in Elementary School when I got in trouble. It just has not ever happen besides those three random incidences (that were extraordinarily unjust by the way. I still say that I did nothing wrong). People don't get mad at Audrey Sweetheart, because I never do anything wrong. The end.
2) Watched. Monitored. Censored. Spied On. Violated. Seen. Attacked. My first amendment rights had been infringed upon. What the dementor happened to freedom of Speech?
3) Very nervous and worried. I had mentioned some co-workers in that first, unedited post. I didn't say mean things, but they were things that could have been taken as offensive. I was mortified by the fact that someone from the Archives Center may or may have already seen my blog. I was SCARED TO DEATH that my internship would be ruined over a stupid blog issue.

I marched right home, and my blog was edited within a half an hour of talking to Suzanne McLaughlin, Internship Coordinator. And then, before I went to bed that night, I made the difficult decision to go private. I did not want to be censored, and I did not want to deal with this issue in the future. I figured that this was better, anyway, because it creeps me out when random people from China read my blog and leave comments. I want none of that. So, I am private and secure, and You-Know-What-Museum is now relateable to You-Know-Who, Voldemort. Let me explain why:

1) I am scared to use the name on my blog because I don't want to be found again.
2) The Museum That Must Not Be Named is very powerful.
3) The Taboo. With a single mention, You-Know-What-Museum finds the source, just like old Voldy traces those who use his name. (Exhibit A: HP 7 when Fenrir Greyback finds Harry, Ron, and Hermione and takes them to Malfoy Manor. Tragic Consequences.)
4) Voldemort causes fright and pain.

And so, my friends. I have a private blog, and I am very unhappy about it. But I feel secure, and that's worth something.

Finals Week. A quick synopsis.

List of Things regarding finals week:
1) Walking to school in the snow. Kind of fun, but not really.
2) 48 hours being academic. 40 hours in the library, and 8 hours actually in tests.
3) Eating two meals on campus most days.
4) Celebrating a day's work by going to bed at 10pm. (Okay, so that only happened once, but it was GREAT! I got 11 hours of sleep that night!)
5) Finishing "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway (Yes, I still took time to relax with a novel, while at the gym anyway). And let me tell you, it was amazing. But very, very sad. I actually almost started crying on the elliptical machine at 24-hour fitness. And I NEVER cry! But seriously, I love good literature. It's so great when you finish a book and feel a ton of respect for the author because the book is like a work of art. So good job Ernest.
6) Easing tension in the library by purchasing a new song on iTunes: "Love Lockdown" by Kanye West. LOVE IT! Oh, and I also found another Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney duet from the early 80's. So, of course, I had to buy that one too.
7) Going to Wilson Diamonds and Zupas for a break on Thursday night with my girls: Ash, Meg, and Rachelle. I can't describe how happy Zupas tomato basil soup makes me. And what about Diamonds?? Indescribable.
8) Opening secret roommate presents.
9) Memorizing random facts about Ancient Rome for the last time. I loved that class. And my new favorite Roman name is Hadrian. He was an emperor of the High Empire. That means he was one of the really good, cool ones.
10) No more sitting in my Shakespeare class with awkward, creepy Shakespeare boy EVER AGAIN. YAY!!!!
11) The Roman look-a-like. ha aha ha.
12) The Neck, Nog, and Snog Party.
13) Laying with Rachelle in our newly arranged living room with the couches across from each other and lots of Christmas lights. It was just like old times. :)

And to my loyal blog readers and faithful friends: Happy Christmas! Happy New Year! Eat good food, get good presents, and please don't die in the snow. :)