Lo Siento..

Lo siento yet again for not posting yesterday. I just completely lacked the energy, which I'm also lacking tonight but I wanted to go ahead and see what I could do. Naseem and I just got back from a church service which I cannot even bring myself to blog about just yet. It was all I could do tonight not to walk out of there, run away from the shaking, quaking people speaking in tongues...but I sort of wanted to stick around to see if they brought out snakes and let them bite them, Billy Jack style (shout-out, Ryan Supak). I was actually shaking and quaking myself, and they probably thought I was being particularly moved by the Holy Spirit when in reality I was actually fervently scratching my bajillion bugbites all over my body. During the faith healing part I was really tempted to go up to the front and let them try to heal my bugbites, but then I figured I might get smote for being such a smartass. Oh well.

So anyway instead of paying attention to all the stories tonight about this prayer team that raises people from the dead, I was trying to formulate my blog and add a little order to the chaos of my thoughts. I just finished The Moviegoer, which I referred to the last time I posted as a tale detailing the existential quest of one Binx Bolling as he seeks authenticity and genuine life, becoming tantalized by the beauty of his surroundings while trying his damnedest to avoid falling into what he calls the "malaise," or the everydayness of life that can suddenly swoop down on one and bring about a dark period of feeling like Anyone Anywhere as opposed to a specific Someone in a certain place. Does that make sense? To become Anyone is to lose the unique essence of one's being; while he wants to avoid falling into this trap, he's slightly jealous of the individual who can allow himself to become Anyone Anywhere because he thinks maybe life is a bit easier for the Anyone. Alright, so in light of this, here's what I've been thinking about: it's certainly no secret that everyone is looking for something, and maybe not something in particular, but life, which, I know, I know, couldn't be any more general. Say we narrow it down a little more...everyone is looking for the secret of, the solution to discovering authentic and meaningful existence, and from a Judeo-Christian standpoint, the answer is that what we are looking for is perhaps not something tangible, but something transcendent. But here's the thing: do we think this makes us feel alive? Again, based on the Christian ultimate reality, people sin, and if we didn't sin, we wouldn't be human, so if we define our humanity by our propensity to err, does this mean we are saying to live is to sin? Surely not but somehow we find ourselves doing things we would classify as "sinning" and then we chalk it up to life experience. It makes us feel alive...or it makes us feel alive according to society's humanist standard. We do these things just to feel something, anything, even if it's suffering. We allow ourselves to feel pain because that's how we know that we are living. When something unbelievable happens, we ask someone to pinch us so that we wake up; that short, dull prick proves we are engaging in life. In The Moviegoer, Binx relates that "Christians talk about the horror of sin, but they have overlooked something. They keep talking as if everyone were a great sinner, when the truth is that nowadays one is hardly up to it. There is very little sin in the depths of the malaise. The highest moment of a malaisian's life can be that moment when he manages to sin like a proper human (Look at us, Binx- my vagabond friends as good as cried out to me- we're sinning! We're succeeding! We're human after all!)." It seems that to live life in its truest form, to experience all that it has to offer, to succeed and beat the malaise means one must sin and sin well. The world that is in the malaise, which, according to Binx is just about everyone, isn't even up to sinning, not because they think certain behaviors are wrong, per se, but because they are just too lazy.

Have you ever seen the movie Crash? It won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2004, the year Brokeback Mountain was expected to win it all. I keep thinking about that first line of the movie: Don Cheadle's voiceover is describing this desire for touch, for life, for a valid encounter:"In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something." I think the reason why this small movie resonated so well with us is because it expresses such a true sentiment. We crash into one another just to feel something; we run ourselves into a brick wall just to prove to the world that we are participating in it's little game. We drink too much, we take too many pills, we jump into bed with people whose last names we don't even know, and what happens? We sober up, the high comes down, our lover rolls out of bed and puts on his shoes and walks out the door. How about that for meaning? This kind of careless, life-is-absurd, Nietzsche-Camus hybrid worldview is destructive but not only do we participate in it, we brag about it the next morning. But, my friends, where is the hope in that?

One of my favorite short stories ever is Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-lighted Place." It's sparse, true Hemingway, consisting primarily of a converation between two waiters in a Spanish bodega concerning their only patron, an old man who faithfully comes in to get drunk. One of the waiters understands why the old man comes back night after night; the bodega is a perfect refuge for someone hoping to escape the black fog that envelops the world. Everyone is looking for a clean, well-lighted place in the midst of a moral darkness. It's just that we don't know how to do it properly. We look for all the wrong things. Finally the waiter, in the depths of malaise, concludes that it is all "nada y pues nada y pues nada". He hails "Nada full of nada, for nada is with thee." Nothing is there. All we have is what we can get out of the world; all we have is our search for a clean, well-lighted place in which to pass the time. I think Binx ultimately comes down on this side as well.

So I have been thinking a lot about this and as dismal as this post may seem, I want to leave us on a hopeful note. The world is not nada. Man is not nada. We don't have to crash into each other to feel or live authentically. We don't have to sin grandly to gain validity. We sin because we are human; we are not human because we sin. Life is not absurd. I believe that there is an Unmoved Mover who not only moves but in whom we can live, move and have our being. It's lovely and true. Now if someone can figure out exactly how one might continue avoiding the destructive behaviors, please let me know because while I can label them as unhealthy and enacted in vain, I can't quite shake them. I find myself continuing to get myself into messy situations just so I can have an interesting story to tell later on. I look for a clean, well-lighted place in every dark corner and announce proudly to the world when I sin well. Can someone fix that for me? Thanks. 'Ppreciate it.

Alright, so just when you thought my posts couldn't get any longer, WHAM. Sorry, folks. But I promise the show's over now. I do sincerely hope that someone has tracked with this even in the slightest degree. It may seem a bit like rambling and I apologize. By the way, I got Skype so if anyone wants to talk to me, please do. My name thingy is aliwisdom sooo...talk to me and I promise I won't blather on about my own existential and moral dilemmas. Maybe.

Peace, Alison

Muy Caliente..

Sorry for no blog yesterday, I just didn't have the energy. I'm fully healed from the hellish misery that I was sick with for about 24 hours thanks to some antibiotics and rehydration fluid that tasted like a mix of salt water and warm milk..Delicious, right? Now I'm listening to a medley of the Decemberists, Rilo Kiley, and my girl crush Tifah and pondering what to share with our devoted blog readers...

Yesterday was pretty relaxed. Scottie, Alison, and I attended Church with a sweet cab driver named Roy whom we were introduced to by Scottie. The Church service was all hellfire and brimstones with the message consisting of the pastor shouting repeatedly as if he was angry about the matter that "JESUS WAS COMING BACK!!!" The music was painful to the ears, but the people singing sung with such passion that it made it bearable and left you with a smile on your face. Also, Roy was so excited to have us joining him that it was a pleasant experience that I'm thankful we got the opportunity to participate in. We also got Bojangles for lunch, it's pretty much soul food and is a nice alternative to rice and beans, eh?..and yes I just said eh like I'm from Canada..

Speaking of Canada, Ryan and Taryn, the awesome Canadian couple here that we home school with, got a much needed 1.5 day break so Alison and I had all the classes today! We were both nervous about the whole thing and, to be honest, dreading the entirety of the morning. However, things went over fairly smooth until art came. Those boys just don't like behaving during art and so I have given them the task of being Alison and my art teacher the rest of the week and we will act as their students..should be interesting, if it works out. We'll see..

Tomorrow is our day off and we're both very much looking forward to the break. I definitely feel the need for some time away to refocus. I feel like I only catch my breath enough to lose it again moments later. I'll leave with you with another excerpt from Rob Bell that still has my head spinning. I still have not completley digested all that I read in Velvet Elvis.

"I am not defined by what I am not. And understanding this truth is a huge part of becoming whole. I had to stop living in reaction and start letting a vision for what lies ahead pull me forward."..

I am often times trapped in trying to figure out how to be the things I fall short of being. I feel defined by my flaws, my insecurities, and feel I'm constantly trying to fix those things I'm not, therefore living in reaction, which is a vicious unheatlhy cylce to live in. It focuses on creating someone I'm not rather than focusing on developing the things that I am.

I am constantly observing the now only eleven kids I live amongst. I see them consumed at times by what they don't have rather than thankful for what they do. Struggling to figure out who they are and so lost in the matter of even where to start. Grant it they are children and adolescents and being content let alone knowing themselves is far from expected, especially due the circumstanes in which they have been exposed to growing up in. But what about me? Am I content with life? I'm only 19 and it's not unusual that I don't have "it" figured out, but I'm at times not even sure I know right from left. I offer these kids love that I work at giving agenda free. But, what else do I offer? What will I go home with to offer to myself and to others? Perhaps I'm just rambling and I'm super tired and ridiculously hot...

peace & love,
naseem
p.s. we didn't die from sickness, but heat exhaustion may take us in the night..

Something I call God

Naseem and I are probably dying, so if you're going to leave comments on any blog entry, this is the one because tomorrow we'll probably be dead. Sorry, everyone. It was nice knowing you all.

Ok, obviously I'm kidding. Sort of. We actually are both sick and at least feel like dying, but odds are we'll probably stick around a while longer. We'll just need pretty ready access to a bathroom, that's all. We really did spend most of the day feeling fairly miserable, which, if you're going to spend a day feeling fairly miserable, I suppose this would be a good one. The kids were preoccupied with the freedom of the weekend; they all got invited to a pool party thrown by this prototypical family of towheaded Dallas people, so we crammed seventeen hot, sweaty, smelly bodies into a decrepit eight passenger van (legal? I think not) and chugged along the streets of Roatan until we reached a swanky resort with an equally swanky pool filled with well-groomed, Scandinavian looking kids with abnormally thick blonde shocks of hair framing their wholesomely all-American faces. Even I felt out of place. The kids, however, loved every minute of it, and Naseem and I sat in the shade, focusing on not running to the bathroom every few minutes.

I'm not going to pretend that I've had a good attitude about things today because, let's be honest, I haven't really been a bright little ray of sunshine. I haven't been a complete downer to be around either but that's only because I adopted the smile-and-nod method of communication: it was kind of like pretending that I didn't know English, so I could just sit there, not excactly participating, and observe and absorb...and, incidentally, get bit all over my body by sand fleas.

But instead of focusing on the negative (my therapist would be elated), I'm going to find beauty in today. I've been reading The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, and there was a passage that I loved. If something I read is beautiful or bittersweet, I have a tendency to think that it is directly applicable to my current situation in life, that it resonates with me in a unique way, that, in a way, the passage found me, and I become extraordinarily affected by it. Anyway, so in this book, the main character and narrator Binx Bolling, who is on an existential quest of sorts, tells about one summer he and his friend tried to do research on some science-y thing, but instead found himself oddly moved and affected by the summer afternoons in the lab, the way "the August sunlight came streaming in the great dusty fanlights and lay in yellow bars across the room." He was "bewitched" by it, but his friend was completely oblivious to the magic, entirely absorbed in his research, which in the end proved successful; although Binx is in somewhat of a precarious position in life, he says he would never change places with his friend "for he is no more aware of the mystery which surrounds him than a fish is aware of the water it swims in." Binx at least sees the beauty, and although he can't necessarily pinpoint it, he recognizes that it is magic, that it is a mystery.

So I'm going to tell about a time today I saw beauty, that I felt the magic of what I'm doing here: there is a boy in the home named Gabriel, and he's about six years old. Today he spent about an hour playing with me and intermittently falling asleep on my lap. It's always wonderful and rejuvenating to spend peaceful time with the kids, with no one hitting, crying, or screaming, and I was thankful for that time with him. As we rode along on our way to the pool, Gabriel was curled up on my lap the entire time, and although I was already so hot and his body was lithe but heavy, his weight was a pleasant, comforting warmth. His hand was wrapped tightly around my thumb and his head was pressed against my chest, gently rising and falling each time I breathed. The road leading up to West Bay was a little bumpy and I tried my best to hold him tightly and cushion his little body so he wouldn't bounce around too much. I had my cheek pressed against his head, I could practically feel his scars, the sun was golden as it flooded the van and colored everyone in its light--outside the window the jungle was green, flecked with yellow, and the trees rose like a canopy enveloping us as we sped along, seventeen separate people all in one place, bound together by a specific time and a certain space--and perhaps a beauty, a magic, a mystery. Jean Toomer wrote about a girl he knew once and how everything flowed into her eyes, "the countryside and something that I call God." That was how I felt this afternoon: sometimes all these discordant elements, these seventeen people, the heat, a child curled up in your lap, the sunlight, everything comes together and creates something lovely and true, something in which I see the beauty and mystery of the Divine reflected. I looked around me and saw something that I call God, a reflection of the transcendence of the Liberating King. And I felt happy.

Sorry once again for rambling on and on. Hopefully you found something worthwhile hidden amongst the wreckage of my language. Continue praying for Naseem and me, and for the kids.

And email us, for the love of God.

Peace, Alison

Excuse me, Excuse me...

Today started out disastrous..I woke up at 6 am to help out with breakfast detail and while most mornings I'm happy to get up and help Ludie, our wonderful kitchen help, today was not one of those mornings. All I wanted to do was lay in bed and that thought continued well into nap time this afternoon. Nolan and Kerry were atrocious in class today and what little patience I had was worn thin after an exhausting art class. By the time it was "quiet" time I was ready to call it quits for the day or longer. I felt physically and emotionally drained without patience or energy to deal with the kids. During quiet time I tried taking a nap to rid a migraine, but after a restless attempt decided to journal and finish the last 20 pages I had in Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis . I was about to put the book down and prepare for beach time when I read this paragraph..

"Oftentimes the Christian community has sent the message that we love people and build relationships in order to convert them to the Christian faith. So there is an agenda. And when there is an agenda, it isn't really love, is it? It's something else. We have to rediscover love, period. Love that loves because it is what Jesus teaches us to do. We have to surrender our agenda."...

His words hit me really hard. They are simple, but their is so much to wrap our minds around in what he says. An agenda. What agenda did I come here with for these kids? What agenda do I carry with me daily? Maybe I'm misreading Bell, but I took in what he said and put it in perspective of today and these kids.

My patience wears thin when I expect to achieve something with the kids, when I get tired of trying due to the presence of an acknowledged or unacknowledged agenda. But I'm not here or I shouldn't be anyhow with the agenda to see this change in front of my eyes. I'm simply here to love these children. For me in my role here that means teaching them, setting boundaries and disciplining in a non-violent way, and continually surrendering control to God day to day, but even hour to hour in days that are trying. In a day that I felt worthless and helpless to these kids and to myself I felt uplifted by this reminder.

After putting our books down Alison and I went to gather our laundry that we had like domestic house wives hung on clothing lines in the backyard. Before we headed to beach time we went to grab a delicious slice of fresh baked banana bread for snack. Hungry from day two of sadwiches (intentionally misspelled the way Ludie spells it, as they are definitely sad sandwiches) we decided to sneak back in and split another slice. Thinking we were sneaky and no one saw us we smiled as we quickly consumed them, when I heard a small voice I turned to see Brandon sitting in the corner of the room mouthing something to me. Apparently in a fit of rage he had snuck to the laundry room and poured bleach all over the kids clothes and was now being punished with an hour long timeout in the corner of the dining room. I walked over to the child who had been apparently watching us like hawks and in Brandon style this is how the conversation went..
Brandon: You had one and a half slices, you were only allowed one.
Naseem: Yes Brandon, but Alison and I are very hungry because we didn't eat much for lunch
Brandon: glares
Naseem: walks away in shock and shame that she was just caught by a 9 year old sneaking an extra half of banana bread..

Appalled Alison and I slipped away to load up for beach time, which today including a special treat of getting to swim in Ms. Ann's pool. It ended up being a very relaxing, fun afternoon with the kids. We didn't get back till late and dinner was rather uneventful tonight. The kids are watching Baby Genius right now, but due to an iffy stomach I had to sneak out early, sadly..maybe, I can borrow the movie and watch it later?..if I'm lucky..

Peace & Love,
Naseem

The Moneymaker..

First of all, ten more bonus points to whomever is currently watching "The Perfect Storm." Ten points to my poor kindred spirit who is also being subjected to this film. And then minus ten points for watching it in the first place: Mark Wahlberg should duck his head in shame over his cinematic choices (until The Departed, obviously) and George Clooney should probably stick to movies written by the Coen brothers or ones in which he's ridiculing the government. Also this movie has big waves, which I don't like...thus i blog.

So my friend Ryan Supak, the infamous instigator (I say this only with love, sir), asked Naseem and me an interesting question, one that I think he and I have actually discussed while I was working at Taft:

"Do you feel like this excursion will be a worthwhile use of resources?In other words, is it doing "the most good" to send educated, well-heeled people from a first-world country to the place, or would the money/energy have been better spent hiring some natives to run the orphanage?What can you (and we, in general, as USians) bring to the table that natives can't? Do we really know what's best for poor people?"

Scotty Peckler, a fellow Ecclesian and volunteer here in Roatan, has actually beat me to the punch and posted, in my opinion, a really great answer to this question; even so, I'd like to make a few brief comments. This is a completely legitimate question and a tricky one to address but I believe that this must be a worthwhile use of resources: the resources I have to offer are availability, flexibility, a genuine desire to seek purposefully a wholehearted commitment to serving the Liberating King, and, as trite and sappy as this may sound, love. To believe that these resources are not being utilized in a worthwhile way is to suggest that God is only half-heartedly using us. Do I think that I have anything to offer that Hondurans cannot? Absolutely not. I would never say that Americans know what's best for poor people; I wouldn't even say the Church knows what's best for poor people, but the fact of the matter is Jesus has called us, as Christians, as American Christians, as Honduran Christians, to, as Scotty has said, live missionally and holistically, thus we serve overseas where we are called. We love poor people, and while there may not seem to be any clear and easy answers of how this looks in a practical way, we must trust that God is using for His Glory and for the Kingdom the paltry offerings we put forth. What is at the heart of this is obediance to a King.

Anyway, I hope this is a satisfactory answer to a great question. I've struggled a lot with trying to set myself at ease about ideas revolving around "missions." How much of it is legitimate, how much comes from an authentic desire to serve and not a selfish desire to earn the proverbial jewels in one's celestial crown? Or impress our church friends at the Sunday potluck? And how much good does short term mission work do? It's a difficult thing to wrestle with. Like I said, I don't think that wealthy, well-educated Americans and WASPs will be solving any of the world's major issues anytime soon or that the aforementioned people group can bring anything to the table that impoverished, third-world citizens cannot (except maybe time and money, eh?), but I have to believe that God redeems any authentic, loving service performed in His name.

So, meanwhile back at the ranch, today was pretty hellacious as far as schooling goes. Both Naseem and I had difficulty with our boys and about every ten minutes, there was a crying toddler or a ten year old on the verge of a meltdown. Everyday Nolan gets irate with me because I make him do English work, but as soon as the twenty minutes are over, we get to be buddy-buddy again. Today, however, I got so fed up with him being disrespectful, I ended lessons early, which I'm pretty sure shamed him and he tried to shower me with cuteness:
Nolan: Wait, Alison, can we do the vowel cards again?
Me: No, Nolan, you were not very nice or cooperative so I don't really feel like working with you anymore.
Nolan: But-but-'ice' has a long i sound and 'fish' has a short i sound! Will you come to geography with me?
Me: No, Nolan, I need a break from children.

Later, though, we did arts and crafts together and I made him a sweet wizard hat to show him that I forgave him, and all was well.

So school was a nightmare of epic proportions, but in the second half of the day, things picked up a little: we baked the world's ugliest cake for Debra, whose 19th birthday is tomorrow, ate a lot of icing, went to the beach, laughed at just about everything, enjoyed a lovely golden sunset, reached the pinnacle of our sugar high and now have subsequently crashed in front of The Perfect Storm.

A lot of other hilarious things happened today (including Naseem and I being given nicknames by one of the kids: she was White Monkey and Gollum before cajoling David into settling with Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and I was Pocahontas) and maybe I'll get energy to write about them at another point, but as for now I'm sick and tired and have somehow been sucked into watching the stellar on-screen chemistry between Wahlberg and Clooney. Signing off for now. Peace.

Alison

Me llamo oreos..

First, before I write I would just like to say I know I'm not as gifted as Alison with this whole writing thing, but everyone can stop shafting me on getting comments on my days to blog..sharing is caring kids!

Today was back to school with the ninos..aside from Kerry hitting me in the lip with a wooden box everything went over fairly well. I seem to be in the aim of fire lately. Last night a large book was flung at my knee and the same kid found it humurous to yell at the top of his lungs in my right ear, very cute..I walked away without battle wounds so I'll consider myself lucky this time. Today in journal time we wrote sentences about masks..they went something like this..Nolan likes masks because they're cool. Kerry wants to make a superman cape. Sarah wants to make a tiara.

Alison and I, not wanting to break our new tradition of acting out reality tv shows here on the island, had a little "what not to wear" in the children's closests today. We were technically supposed to just be taking inventory of the clothes & getting rid of things that didn't fit them anymore, but took it upon ourselves to get rid of the fashion faux pas..our attempts failed. Shenice seemed to not want to part with the cats in hawaiian shirts and actually ended up wearing it this afternoon(see photograph above).

After lunch and nap time for the kids (and for Alison and I) we went on our daily beach trip with a few of the kids. I would like to report this was a flawless outting, but while my head was turned a young child slipped in the water and decided to go underwater..thankfully, I pulled him out in time..no drowned child..just a scared volunteer.

And now after two meals of rice and beans portioned for Kate Moss we are eating oreos, which we paid way too much for. I think Alison and I may actually be at a fat camp and not realize...

Peace & Love,
Naseem

p.s. I meant for the title to say I love oreos, but it actually says my name is oreos-same idea..

dia de descanso

Well, the unthinkable has finally happened: I'm sunburned. Today was our day off from the orphanage and so Naseem and I celebrated by basking in the golden rays of the sun, free of children hanging off the various appendages of our bodies and begging us to play Monopoly Junior with them. Unfortunately I may have basked a little too long because my Native American skin has a wee tinge of red lurking beneath my otherwise golden brown tan. (By the way, did I mention I'm going to be super tan and hot and skinny by the time I get back? Just you wait and see...watch out, ANTM). Before you get too carried away imagining me as a lobster, I should say that I'm prone to exaggeration and maybe I'm not THAT sunburned. Just a little. Just enough to have a really terrible tanline. I'm crossing my fingers that the populace will perceive me as ridiculously tan...and skinny and hot. Just kidding.

Anyway, so yes, Naseem and I spent our day among the tourists of Roatan, meandering through the streets of West Bay, rubbing shoulders with the sun-ravaged Americans, the surgically enhanced older women, the scantily clad peroxide blondes, and the puka shell-adorned, shirtless playboys, while deftly manuevering the speeding taxis and trying our hardest to ignore catcalls and whistles. We relished the rarity of eating non-orphanage food (for those of you following along at home, I ate an omelette and a turkey sandwich, while Naseem had pancakes and a ham sandwich...no beans or rice anywhere) and even went to a little grocery store and bought overpriced ice cream and Oreos. We layed out and read books, real grown-up books, not "Potty Training Is So Fun" books, but actual legitimate literature, and in true Alison form, we had our very own America's Next Top Model photo shoot right there on the beach. I'm pretty sure the other tourists thought we were crazy but we were enjoying ourselves too much to care. I'm going to post a few of those pictures and probably immediately regret it, so I hope you, loyal readers, will enjoy my public self-deprecation and humiliation.

When we came back to the orphanage, where incidentally we did have beans and rice for dinner, we had a major breakthrough: remember the scary girls? The oldest, Debora, actually struck up a conversation with Naseem; I know I'm famous for my sparkling wit and above-average conversational skills, but this really caught me off guard and I sat in stunned silence. Later though, I had my chance. Naseem, Debora, along with her two sisters Theresa and Gardenia, and I sat around after dinner and discussed TV shows. Apparently they are big Lost fans, and while I doubt they share my ardorous passion for Desmond and probably couldn't care less about my various theories revolving around the mysteries of the island, I feel this is a very good start. And, this is more embarrassing, but hey-I've already shared my extensive knowledge of the teeny-bopper world and confessed to the world that I love having fake photo shoots, we all bonded over a love (but I swear mine is one stained by feelings of guilt) of America's Next Top Model. See, you all thought I was just being pathetic when I watched those marathons, but I'm 98% sure God was calling me to watch all those episodes so I could have something to talk about with a snobby, scary Honduran girl. Right? Right??

Alright, I know I tend to go on and on, but I wanted to share something else. Remember Sarah, one of the girls I'm helping with English? Well, she had a spelling test today over the days of the week and if she didn't pass it, her other teacher at the school was not going to continue her lessons with her, so last night Sarah and I spelled Monday through Sunday over and over and over again. Then this morning we spelled again like the world was ending, although now that I think about it, that would be a terrible way to spend your last few moments. We tried all kinds of tricks to help her learn it, but most of them were pretty futile. For example, one dialogue went a little like this:

Me: Sarah, spell 'Saturday.'
Sarah: S-A-...wait, where did they even get that word?
Me: Oh I'm glad you asked that! Maybe this will help you remember...a long time ago there were some people called the Romans and they were polytheistic and they had a god named Saturn and he was the god of agriculture, and that's where we get it!
Sarah: What? Can I go play?

Ok, so despite my paltry attempts to make spelling cool and fun, Sarah was still really worried...but then she made 81%! I was so excited and proud. And she got Saturday right.

I just reread this and realized how dorky this particular post is. Please don't judge me and please still be my friend. Peace.

Alison