What is...

What is a tree? How is it defined? Some will judge it by how high its branches reach, others by how much it produces. Perhaps, one may say, it is the width of its trunk. Surely the value, the true worth of a tree must be in these. Yet they are all wrong.

A tree is defined not by height, but by the number of people it shades, not by production rates, but by the sweetness of its fruit. But most of all, it is not the width of the tree, but rather the depths of the roots which matters most. For roots are the source of life, and a tree whose roots grow deep cannot be easily moved.

What is a person but the sum of his parts. He is not his height, but the number of people he helps. He is not equal to how much he creates but what he creates. And he is certainly not to be judged by his strength or his width, for a person's true strength and the honest measure of a man comes from his roots. And a man whose roots go deep cannot be easily moved.
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There are a limited number of people on this earth who can truly say they've known us since birth. Those few who held us in our early moments and guarded us as we grew. Our greatest blessings in life are that we are given such people who delight in watching us grow into something, and that we, in turn, can be witnessess to their final years and the love which they offer.
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"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"
-e.e. cummings

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What is a tree?

Options Options Options

So I had an interview with Teach for America. First of all, my interviewer basically said that I'm a perfect fit and they'd love to have me. However, I need official transcripts before the summer institute in June. Please take a moment of silence in honor of my dreams which just died.

So, to attempt new ways to try and cover this lovely tuition bill, I signed up for sponsormytuition.com which lets students post their stories and people can donate as little as $5.00 to help. Here's my link (no, you do not need to send me money. Your love and support is enough): http://www.sponsormydegree.com/mmclinden

In other news, it seems that every job I apply for requires that dang nabbit transcript. Tell me, AU, how I'm supposed to pay you back getting only 9.00/hr????!!!!! I'd love to know.

*Sigh of frustration*

Life as an Admissions Agent

Well, in case you haven't heard, I now work for Sylvan Learning Center as an SES Tutor/Admissions Agent. I'm SO happy to be back at work, even if that work isn't full-time in the classroom. As an SES tutor, I (obviously) tutor 5 kids- 2 1st grade, 2 2nd grade, and 1 3rd grade. That means 3 different lesson plans all crammed into 1.5 hours, 2 days a week. A lot of numbers, I know.

Mon/Wed/Fri (and some Sat's) I work at the main office as an admissions agent. Basically, I answer inbound calls about Sylvan, help parents get started, and contact people who've emailed us asking for information. It's a good way to build my parent communication skills. My training went well, and I even get to officially start a day early because my boss was very pleased with my scenario run throughs. Whoop!

Otherwise, I am working on some... shall we say, unique ways to get back in the classroom. There are several alternatives to applying through districts, including teaching abroad and Teach for America. Both have accepted my initial application, so now I'm in the interview stage. We'll see how this goes over the course of the next month!

Call me Julia

Julia Child, that is. My "time off" lately has enabled me the opportunity to hone my cooking skills, and I've put it all to good use. My latest articles for good old suite101 are all food-centric, courtesy of my culinary creativity (points for alliteration!).

Chicken Recipes Using Honey
Dorm Room Delicacies: Easy Meals to Make on a Budget

I know, shameless plug for my writing. I suppose that's what a blog's for, though!


In other news, I had my interview yesterday with Sylvan Learning Center for a position in their call center, and today I got a call from the interviewer... who OFFERED ME THE JOB! Whoop! So, basically, I will be calling parents who want more information and explaining what Sylvan is, programs offered, etc and then signing their children up for assessments, tutoring, etc. It's a good job 1) for the money, but also 2) because I have the chance to work with parents, something that will help me with teaching in the future, especially parent teacher conferences.

I will give a full run down of my first day on Monday- hopefully something exciting and adventurous happens!

Hello Job!

Thanks to the assistance and connections of Candy, my teacher buddy from NM, I now have a job at Sylvan Learning Center. I will be tutoring on Tues and Thurs after school. On Monday, I have training, and on Tuesday, I have another interview at a different location for a possible second job at the call center. Basically, I would help parents decide what's best for their kids, take down information, encourage them to sign up their children... a different side of education, but still important. I'm confident that this will build my parent-teacher skills and make me more sellable as an educator.

In other news, I'm contemplating teaching abroad. I'd thought about it before, only via the Peace Corps, and while that is still on the table (actually, it's more on the chair next to the table), I am also looking at programs that will let me teach abroad for just one year. There's a great one called Teach Away, and they have a program in South Korea that I'm applying for. The provisions are good, and it will give me more experience. I wanted to try teaching in Abu Dhabi, but I would need a full-year of teaching experience. So maybe I'll just end up there after Korea... (if my dad is reading this, I'm sure he's freaking out right now. HI DAD! Thank GOD my mom doesn't know how to work the internet.)

In other news, the writing gig for suite101 is going well. Here are some links to my latest article adventures!

Dorm Room Delicacies: Easy Meals to Make on a Budget 
Walking Off Weight in Water: Pool Exercises 
TLC's Say Yes to the Dress

As you can see, a whole wide range of topics. Also... I have over 800 page/article views in under a week! Gadzooks! It's all because of the Beatles article- hot buzz in the internet world. In fact (tooting my own horn here), if you type in "beatles masters degree" on google, my article is the SECOND to pop up. Win! I'm also on the first page of Bing and Yahoo (same search). Yay!

Beatles Mania

So I must preface my story with another story:

A few days ago, my brother (who came for a visit) and younger sister were sitting in the leaving room, shooting the breeze. Now, in my family, I am known as the bank of information. If I ever get a random call from my brother (and they are all random) at an odd hour, I know he has some trivia question he needs answered. Who was the elf who fixed teeth in Rudolph? What does serendipity mean? If someone runs ___ft/second, how many miles/min does he run? Check. Check. And, check. So it was no surprise when he suddenly turned and shouted "what was that computer game we used to play? The educational one. The one with a monster. Oh, and the plants that are supposed to be the Beatles." I know, so specific. And I, being the knowledge nut that I am, would not rest until I figured it out. (The answer, by the way, is The Mystery of Mathra.) 

Fast forward to today, when I received said vg in the mail (I immediately ordered it when I found it for a dollar on Amazon). I rushed to the computer, put it in, and began playing. This game, I must add, used to take HOURS for us to finish. It was a complex mix of math and word puzzles, blended in with poor graphics and a weak story line. We ate it up like candy. 

I finished it in 30 minutes. Disappointed? Not really. It was still just as fun, if infinitely easier. 

Now where is the point in all of this? None really. Next story.

The game features four plants in the Goo Lagoon, and my poor 5th grade brain did not know at the time that they were supposed to be the Beatles (or that there were several allusions in the game, all of which I laughed at now). These plants even sing in annoyingly fake British accents as well (I skipped that part). 

After finishing it, I popped on line and one of the first stories on my homepage just happened to be about a woman graduating from a university in Liverpool with a Masters in Beatles Studies (shortened name). WOW! Talk about coincidence. However, I read the article and was sorely let down. It only covered who the woman was and the name of the university. Nothing about the program, nothing about the content. Only the tid-bit about the program being the first and only of its kind. So, I decided to one-up them, did myself a little research, checked out the university's website, and voila! We have an article. So I present to you my latest excursion into online writing, Beatles Master's Degree Offered by a Liverpool University. Enjoy!!! 

New Year, New Start, New Life

Ok, so the last post was a bit... desperate. I should let you know that I am not, in fact, bathing in a pool of my tears throwing a pity party for myself. NO! I am attempting to re-establish myself up here in good ol' Ohio. So, what have I done?

I am now a writer for Suite101, an online research site which has articles on just about every subject. If you are interested, check out some of my latest articles:

The Mythology of Harry Potter: Character Names- an article which focuses on the Greek and Roman mythological connections to HP (or the allusions in HP to mythology. Same difference.)

Tackling a College Thesis- a brief overview of how to go about writing your thesis from someone who spent entirely too much time on hers.

There are others out/on the way, and I look forward to hearing your opinions on them all. :0)

Otherwise, I am on the prowl for a job, desperately trying to avoid working at Wal*Mart or McDonald's. We'll see how that goes!