I Am Thankful For...

In honor of Thanksgiving, I am writing a list of what I am thankful for. Partly because I want to write, but not necessarily in complete sentences, and partly because I have a lot to be thankful for and a list is most effective. Here are the top 10 (in no particular order) -

Awesome friends

Classic Hill Family Photo

1) Crazy family. My family is ridiculous and I love it. For example, my sister and I taught our dad how to Bernie tonight. Awesome, right?
2) Great friends. I do not know what I would do without my friends. They make sure I keep my sense of humor and stay focused on what really matters in my life.
3) A warm bed. I'm currently sitting in one of the most comfortable beds of all time. I'm thankful.
4) Wonderful boyfriend. I won't elaborate because I've talked to much about him recently.
5) FOOD. Today has been filled with awesome food and tomorrow will be too. Sophomore 30 here I come.
6) Christmas movies! Love Actually is one of my favorite movies of all time and it always restores my faith in humanity. Dramatic? I think not. Elf, Christmas Family Vacation, and Charlie Brown are also good ones.
7) No school. It is so nice to have some time to relax and do stuff that I actually want to do.
8) My health and the health of my loved ones. While not all of those around me are completely healthy, the majority are and those who aren't are recovering.
9) The opportunity to go to Spain! I leave in less than 2 months and it does not seem real yet!

10) God and my faith. He takes care of me, even when I do not deserve it.

Cheers to the Weekend

The week is finally over. I could not be happier about it. Not that this week was particularly difficult comparatively, it's just nice to finally be able to breathe this weekend because there are no major projects or tests or papers due next week. Oh the life of a liberal arts student...

One of the precious boys!

Not only is it the weekend, it's a BIG weekend. Tonight, I get to see the new Twilight movie. Say what you will about Twilight, but the hopeless angsty teen romantic inside of me can't help but love these movies. I like to think that I do a decent job of hiding it, but who really knows how well I do. Tomorrow, my sorority is hosting a silent auction and dinner for our philanthropy, Make A Wish. This is actually one of my favorite events that we do because everyone's family comes in and we all dress up and sell off donations that we have worked our butts off to get from local businesses. I am particularly excited because my step mom and brothers are coming three whole hours just to go to the auction and I cannot wait to see them. It's been too long and those boys are just too precious for me to not be excited to see all of them.

Formal time!

THEN, after the auction, my boyfriend's fraternity is having their winter formal! I'm not usually one to get dressed up, but since I already will be from the auction, it's not much more of a hassle. Plus it is always fun to dance and see all of your friends out of jeans and sweat pants and in cocktail dresses and sport coats. Now, I am a very bad dancer. There is little to no rhythm within my body and yet at formals I really do not care. I let loose and I have an absolute blast, even if I do accidentally head butt someone (sorry, Alex).

On Sunday it is our church's annual Thanksgiving dinner. Almost the entire church turns out for this because the food is SO good. It is like a preliminary Thanksgiving celebration, but it also helps to remind me what exactly I have to be thankful for. God, friends, family, and the fact that I am completely taken care of. That is the main reason I like this dinner. Not for the awesome food, or for seeing people that I haven't seen in a while, but because it is a good way to refocus right before all of the holidays so that I remember why we celebrate all of them.


So here is to one awesome weekend, hopefully. The school year is winding down and now it is time to start thinking about what is really important in life, which if you read my last post, is what I have been trying to do lately. Also, for those few of you who are reading on a regular basis, I got a 73 on that Islam test, which is an average C. And I intend to celebrate this weekend, for everything I have. I am even going to celebrate for that test, because who says you can't celebrate mediocrity?

Let's Get Real

So I'm sitting in a group study session right now, trying to avoid studying the religion of Islam by any means possible. What better way than to blog, right?

But seriously, I have spent the entire last week and a half stressing about this test. It is a class in which I have no background or experience with the subject and the amount of information is so vast that it is incredibly overwhelming. I start to look at the material and I just freeze because I do not know where to start. Tears have been shed over this test already. Obviously that is a ridiculous thing to do, so once I stopped crying, I thought to myself, why is this test so important. I do need to keep my GPA up, but if I do badly on one test is it going to screw me for the rest of my life? Is getting an A in Islamic Religious Traditions really going to make my life complete?

Aren't we precious?

This coming Sunday is my one year anniversary with an awesome boyfriend. A year is a big deal for me. I haven't ever been with anyone for more than a few months and I always did the leaving. But he makes me want to stay, which is an incredible thing. He makes me laugh and supports me in everything I do and I don't know what I would do without him at this point. I was even invited to his family's Thanksgiving celebration, so you know it's serious now.

There is also a lot of really big holidays coming up that I cannot wait for! Thanksgiving is honestly one of my favorite holidays because there is good food and really good company. I stay with my dad and my family in Knoxville who I do not see very often and it makes me so happy. We always have a feast and have a five hour family get together where everyone laughs and catches up. I love my family so much because we are the kind of family who never misses a beat when we haven't seen each other for a while. We make each other laugh until we cry and make fun of each other the majority of the time. Some of my best memories come from family gatherings and I hope they are a tradition we continue long into the future.

Casual family photo

Now back to the questions from the beginning, does my Islamic test really matter in the long run? Yes, it would be nice to pass this exam and not have the shame of an F put on me, but that's not what is important. I have an entire future ahead of me where this class will be completely irrelevant. I have friends and family who I will be spending the rest of my life with whether I get an A+ or a D- on this test. I have a boyfriend who loves me and doesn't care if I know who the caliph was in 745 or which sect of Shi'a still has an Imam, and that's what really matters in life. Funny how it takes a minor breakdown to start to think about that. And it will probably take many more breakdowns throughout my life to continue to remind me of what is important.

p.s. happy one year, sweet boy.

I Learned Everything I Need to Know in Kindergarten

Today was a really great day. While we waited for the rally to start, we decided to go to the Holocaust Museum. It was a truly moving and emotional sight as we passed by thousands of shoes that were taken from Jews before they went to camps and photographs of everyday life before Jews were sent away to hell.
After a few tears shed there, we proceeded on to the Ellipse, where over a dozen different activists, artists, and everyday teachers spoke about what it meant to be in Washington today. Matt Damon even made a guest appearance, minus a lot of hair on his head. There were sentiments that teachers were under appreciated and under paid and that corporate America had no business being involved in education. One speaker called for merit pay of legislators based on their performance in Congress, which received many laughs and cheers from the audience. Signs peppered the crowd and read "Arnie DunCAN'T" and "Our Kids Are Not Test Scores". There were even small children who were holding up signs protesting high stakes testing and "teaching to the test". After the rally, we all began to march around the Ellipse, all the way past the White House, in case Barack and anyone else in there was looking outside.
What amazed me about this rally and march was the sense of community shared by all of these educators and supporters of education. There were delegations from almost every state in the union and no matter who you saw, they were willing to share a conversation, an encouragement, or simply just a smile with you. Wisconsin had the largest delegation by far and everyone looked to them as a rallying point, as an example of how poorly teachers can be treated and the lack of respect many of them receive. These professionals are not in it for the glory, the money, the fame. They simply want the best for future generations and because of that, they deserve the upmost respect. Yes, there were specific demands made at this rally, such as funding public schools and not charter schools and allowing educators to educate children as opposed to teaching for high test scores. But I also think that this was about respect, to show that this group of people would not stand idly by as people who have never been involved in education try to dictate to them the best way to foster success in schools.
Another fascinating point was that this was almost completely non-partisan. Yes, teachers are typically known as liberals or leaning more to the left. But the people there today were just as upset with democrats as they were with republicans. They don't care who proposes what law or which party supports what testing system. They only want change to come around and it doesn't matter to them which side it comes from. Maybe Congress and the White House should go back to school and learn how to cooperate with each other again from their kindergarten grade teachers in this time of national crisis, and then maybe they should learn to appreciate those teachers and listen to them also.

For the Viewers at Home!

Ok I thought it would be a good idea to post the demands that the Save Our Schools organization are making at the White House. This is credit to saveourschoolsmarch.org and if you have the time, you should definitely go check it out!
For the future of our children, we demand:

Equitable funding for all public school communities

• Equitable funding across all public schools and school systems
• Full public funding of family and community support services
• Full funding for 21^st century school and neighborhood libraries
• An end to economically and racially re-segregated schools

An end to high stakes testing used for the purpose of student, teacher, and school evaluation

• The use of multiple and varied assessments to evaluate students, teachers, and schools
• An end to pay per test performance for teachers and administrators
• An end to public school closures based upon test performance

Teacher, family and community leadership in forming public education policies

• Educator and civic community leadership in drafting new ESEA legislation
• Federal support for local school programs free of punitive and competitive funding
• An end to political and corporate control of curriculum, instruction and assessment decisions for teachers and administrators

Curriculum developed for and by local school communities

• Support for teacher and student access to a wide-range of instructional programs and technologies
• Well-rounded education that develops every student’s intellectual, creative, and physical potential
• Opportunities for multicultural/multilingual curriculum for all students
• Small class sizes that foster caring, democratic learning communities

The Tie That Binds

Hello from D.C. Everyone!
We are back in the hotel room for the night and we have had a very eventful day. After arriving in Washington, we decided to go see some of the sites. Naturally, we went to the National Mall and the Smithsonian Museum. The monuments were just as monumental as always, but the museum was what intrigued me the most, particularly the Civil Rights exhibit. There was a direct reenactment of the sit-ins at Greensboro and photographs of the famous march on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. All of these images caused me to think about the American peoples' history of civil disobedience and the reasons behind disobedience. At first, it was to win freedom from an oppressive country, then we were disobedient to one another when sides could not agree during the Civil War. Women were disobedient so that they could finally gain suffrage and African Americans were disobedient so that they could gain political equality. In more recent years, we have been disobedient in order to show disapproval of wars, political philosophies, and bad economic policies. But what has been the common theme behind all of these disobediences? It is the hope that through our demonstrations and protests, some good will come from it and that the future will be better than the present. Now of course all of these instances do not carry the same weight as the others, but the goal behind them is a better life. And I strongly believe that this idea, the idea of a better future, the idea of hope is something that Americans will carry with them for generations to come. That is why we, the Save Our Schools participants, are here this weekend. We want more for our children, our grandchildren, and all future Americans and we want everyone to know it.

FIRST POST EVER!

Ok here is my explanation for blogging. Usually, I make fun of people who think themselves important enough to put all of their thoughts online and expect people to read them. HOWEVER, all this changed a few months ago when I mentioned to a professor that I was going to a march in Washington, D.C. and she said I should blog about it. I said "Sure!" and then said something to my grandmother (Sheryl) about possibly doing a blog, and then she proceeded to tell friends who claimed they wanted to follow the blog about D.C. Not wanting to disappoint adoring fans, I decided to start. This blog will not just be about the march alone. In January, I hope I will be leaving for Seville, Spain to study abroad for a few months. Through blogging, I will keep track of day to day activities and I can let multiple people know how I am doing at one time (namely my mother). So, now that you know what the dealio is, enjoy! I hope you find this blog informative and hopefully slightly entertaining!