As the semester ends

I personally regret not writing more in my blog.  I wonder what I can do in future semesters to keep everyone and myself more accountable to this easy, weekly practice, which I think is very valuable.  Are pen-and-paper journals better?  I prefer typing, but I need it to be more immediate and in my attention when so many other things are going on. 

I should thank Nijla for inspiring me to write today (I got an update in my e-mail that she had posted about the hardest job in the world).  Young also inspired me the other day when she told me about her plan to blog about the horrible tragedy in South Korea two weeks ago, when a ship sank with many high school students and other innocent victims. 

These sorts of topics are perfect for writing in a journal.  They are in our consciousness and they affect us personally.  Writing can be a really productive way to process them. 

One issue of blogging is that it makes us vulnerable.  It puts our stories out in the world.  I've been reading a lot about the power of vulnerability in a book called The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown, a researcher who is also a really great storyteller.  I just found a YouTube video that Brené Brown did, and I think you may like it a lot!

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability

I want to write more.  I am going to re-commit to writing more!  I hope you will too.  I'm writing this on my blog, think I'll send this in an e-mail as well.

A controversial topic in my field



  I may have shared this on Canvas, but here it is on my blog!  It's just an introduction and summary of an article on a controversial topic in my field.

  For my field (language education), a very controversial topic deals with what the best way to educate young immigrant students.  Some purport that English-only is the best strategy, so that students are immersed in their new language and learn it almost as native speakers.  Others cite evidence that many of these students feel stigmatized, frustrated, and end out less academically successful than ones who learned academic skills in their native language.  However, bilingual education also comes in many forms.  Transitional bilingual education, maintenance bilingual education, dual language immersion... and I believe there are others as well.  
An article on this controversial topic is by Stephen Krashen, entitled "What Works: Reviewing the latest evidence on bilingual education" deals with this topic. If you can't click on that link, check out this URL: http://users.rcn.com/crawj/langpol/Krashen-McField.pdf
 

          Krashen cites multiple meta-analyses of the research on different bilingual models, and shares the conclusion that bilingual education students succeed at greater rates than students in English-only programs.  Krashen notes that the different investigations found limited evidence for one superior program among the different varieties of bilingual programs, but mentioned that one analysis suggested that late-exit bilingual programs proved more effective than other programs that send students out earlier.
 
This article and the author are interesting to me, but I think for a speech I may choose a different article that provides a little more evidence and nuance in the analysis.





                  



Back to blogging

I have written several things that I haven't posted yet.  I guess I wanted them to be cleaner and more coherent, but according to me, that's not what this space is for.  This is for these random, quick, unpolished brainstorms.  These quick-writes.  I will post my grocery experience as soon as I find it.  I think I saved it on my other computer.  I do think that just sitting down and letting ideas flow out through your fingers is very valuable, and can be a pleasure rather than a chore.

I went to a conference today, and I talked with a children's book author.  I want to publish children's books that will be relevant to the East Austin Mexican-American population that I worked with during the past five years.  I have written two short stories that I think could be illustrated as children's books.  The author recommended that I submit them to publishers as manuscripts, that I not worry about finding an illustrator... but I feel that I could create something cheaper and more accessible if I don't go through the traditional publishers.  I saw presentations on books that students and teachers publish electronically on the Kindle and on paper through a software that Walmart provides (although that option was very expensive! Beautiful, though). 

I would love for y'all's (Writing 7's) Austin Food guides to be published for real.  I really do think that a lot of people are going to enjoy them!

You all are working on persuasive pieces, and I want to write one too.  I would like to publish something in the Austin American Statesman, or at least in the Daily Texan.  Hopefully some of your work will be published in a newspaper!  You all are really amazing writers, and I have confidence that if you submit some of your writing, you can get it published!

OK, I'm going to wrap up for now and write a recommendation letter for a former student. Still writing, but it has to be confidential; it can't be on the blog.  I celebrate you all's dedication to this project of strengthening your writing!  I am inspired by you and joining with you!

Habesha Restaurant - Ethiopian Cuisine -- Warm, inviting, and offering delicious meals to share with friends and family!

Hola!  OK, I’m committed to writing 20 minutes every day this Spring Break.  I would also like to play my cello for 30 minutes every day.  Good goals, right? 

I was thinking I’d like to do a restaurant review as our writing 7 class did last week.  I learned about so many different restaurants that I had previously not heard of, and I’d like to share one that I discovered yesterday.

The restaurant was called Habesha.  To get there, drive north from UT on I-35, exit Airport and stay on the access road until you pass Texas Cattle Company.  Right past its bright red sign, you’ll see Habesha tucked behind it. 

The day my friends and I went there was gray and dreary, but as soon as we entered, we were struck by the delicious smells of spices and incense; warmth exuded from the people, the food, and the ambiance.  Deep red and orange-yellow table clothes and paintings complemented this feeling.

We sat at a large table; we saw others were sharing large (2 ft X 2 ft) platters of spongy ingera bread, on which they dipped spicy lentils, chick peas, salad, and other amazing sauces.   We ordered a six-dish vegetarian combination and an injera, cottage-cheese appetizer.  If you’ve never had Ethiopian food, you’ve got to try it!  The spices are completely unique; tangy, spicy but not too spicy, rich.  I love the tangy, fermented injera bread.  Yum!

The circle seating around one plate, and eating with our hands also gave a feeling of togetherness that really promoted good conversation.  We ended our meal after an hour and a half, and we were completely filled.  Be careful not to fill up too much, because the injera bread seems to expand inside of you!  Our meal was completed with dark, rich Ethiopian coffee in tiny cups.  We had ours black without sugar; it has a different flavor than any other that I’ve tasted.

I highly recommend visiting Habesha, or if you want to stay closer to campus.  Check out Asther’s, which is also wonderful, and is just at Dean Keaton and I-35.

Food memories

This is a free writing exercise.  I am not organizing my thoughts, just letting them flow from memory to memory.

My grandmother’s house in San Marcos, we ate Mexican food.  My grandfather made a carrot salad with raisins and mayonnaise, and pecans.  I loved it even though I found it a little bit gross.  My grandmother and her fruit.  Always, every breakfast, my grandmother believed that we should eat some fruit.  She would have prunes, sliced oranges, grapes, grapefruit… it always felt like a chore the way she insisted on fruit with breakfast, but the English muffins with butter were delicious. 

My other grandmother made amazing meatloaf.  I still remember it, even now after 15 years as a pescatarian and her dead now two years, not having lived in that house for 17 perhaps… since my grandfather died.  My grandfather loved pecan pie and ice cream.   He loved other foods that we didn’t realize until he had passed away.  We had no idea about the pickled pigs’ feet until we found tens of bottles of them in the pantry after his death.  Their house smelled of cigarette smoke and cloves in oranges.  Burnt countertops from cigarettes forgotten created a sporadic semi-pattern throughout the kitchen and dining room.  The foreign, fascinating sculptures and wood carved masks and figures cluttered the cabinets and shelves by the dining room table.  Dark wood, low orange light. 

Later at my aunt’s house, my grandmother could no longer taste much, but still loved to eat.  She delighted in a grapefruit and avocado salad that was simple but tangy and fatty and delicious.

I remember my mom’s quiche, her corn-cheese soup, her paella that we eat on Thanksgiving instead of the traditional turkey.  I remember the delicious meals that we would make together, or she would make.  My dad’s shrimp and raw oysters.  My brother’s picky eating.  Bread and cheese.  One year it was burnt toast and mozzarella.  Another year cheddar, and the bread didn’t need to be burnt.  The sodas.  I find sodas revolting now, but as a child I reveled in the sweet syrup that came out of the machines or tingled my nose in orange tangy flavors at the lake with my aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

Sahara Lounge Description - Saturday night 2/15/14

Sahara Lounge

On a small white hill by a broken down bridge that the city has been promising to finish for the past nine months squats a ramshackle old one-story structure with a brightly illuminated sign proclaiming “Sahara Lounge.”  Once known as far-east Austin’s most authentic blues joint under different ownership and the name TC’s, Sahara Lounge continues to serve the surrounding African American community with beats, eats, and drinks, but now the music tends towards tropical and African rhythms, and the audience has grown to include a diverse mix of people of all races from all over Austin. 

Tonight I am here to see my friends’ group, a collective of four men and seven women tonight that goes by the name “Origens.”  The front man is Brazilian, and the style is taken from northeastern Afro-Brazilian roots with deep, large, heavy drums and tinkling triangles and chiming cowbells.  The vocalists are female, from a range of nationalities and ages; they lead the percussion in Portuguese, harmonizing, meandering between different tunes and tones, rhythms and keys.  All the band members wear white, turquoise, or red tops with a variety of floral skirts, red pants. The audience claps and sways, shoulders circling, hips bouncing, feet stomping, shaking the ply-wood dance floor. 

At one point three of the musicians come down from the stage and create a circle, two-steps, clap, stomp in the middle; they grab the hands of audience members on the dance floor.  The vocalist sings a sad, minor-key melody, and the drums are simple, melancholy; however, our circle dance lifts the spirit – a paradox of emotions. 

The ceiling is draped with a chaos of cables, bulbs, strings of Christmas lights; pipes and wires snake above leading to spinning disco balls, one reflecting with tiny mirrors, the other shining seven colors in shapes of stars, squares, and circles.  Garish, bright beer ads in neon tube-bulbs advertise Budweiser, Negro Modelo, and a cluster of red roses are stapled onto a beam that marks the exit from the stage up to the seating area and the pool tables.  Above this step, a long then gourd has painted “Music Joy Amusement” then “Emotion Peace Soul Celebration.”

The show moves the audience.  We all applaud.

Glitter letters behind the musicians remind us where we are: “Sahara Lounge, ATX.”

Descriptive Writing - McKinney Falls

Walking across the white, gray stone, smooth but uneven; tripping, worn down, cautious, I crouch to keep my balance. Debris floats and catches in the waterfall, trying to pass over to stagnant pools at the edges.  Dead trees lie and lean on either side of the water, waiting to be cut and hauled away or to be pushed and pulled further into the river and down.

I remember verdant leaves on a small tree and a slender green snake dangling, balancing between fragile branches, escaping the attention and probes of visitors.

Losing our shoes, stepping through puddles and cold streams, the feeling in my toes escapes.  We sit on top of a concrete picnic table, speculating on dreams and questions.