"Book of Morning"

Lillian has discovered the "Book of Morning"- that's her way of saying "Book of Mormon." I've been trying to read a little bit every morning at breakfast time because our Relief Society has challenged us to read the whole thing by the end of summer (that means 5 pages a day- whew!). Now, whenever Lillian sees a copy she picks it up and says "Book of Morning!" Then she opens it up to a random page and pretends to read it by saying "book of morning, book of morning, book of morning . . . . " and so on. She's so proud of herself when she finishes "reading" a passage and she closes the book with a big smile on her face. I'm not sure if she calls it the Book of Morning because I've been reading it in the morning, or because she can't pronounce "Mormon" and "morning" is the next closest word she knows (and it's just a coincidence that that's when she sees me reading it). Either way, it's pretty funny.

Shooting at Holocaust Museum in D.C.

Yesterday afternoon an 88 year-old white supremacist walked into the United States Holocaust Museum and started shooting a rifle. He killed a security guard and was shot himself (he's now in critical condition at GW Hospital).

Apparently this guy has an extensive track record of racism, hate crimes, burglaries, weapons charges, attempted kidnapping, run-ins with the federal government, and a long history of associations with neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers. His history is so bad that "officials and others who track conspiracy theorists have long been familiar with Mr. von Brunn [the gunman]."

So my question is this: Why are we spending so much money to wage a war against terrorism abroad when anti-Semitism, bigotry, and hatred is strong enough in this country to compel a man to shoot innocent people within the walls of a somber memorial that reminds us of how far hatred can go in claiming the lives of millions?

Ignorance, lack of education, poverty, indifference, apathy, misunderstanding (I could go on) are the real threats of terrorism in the United States. The scariest part is that they're in our backyards, not thousands of miles away.

Just my thoughts. What do you think?

The full NY Times article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/us/11shoot.html?th&emc=th

A Day in the Life of a Med Student

Bobby is now a third year med student- wahoo! Classes are over and rotations have begun (I like to call it "playing doctor"). :) For the next 4 weeks he will be at Chestnut Hill Hospital on a General Surgery rotation. Yesterday was only Day 2 on the "job", but it was anything but uneventful. Let me fill you in on some highlights of his day:

During a colonoscopy with a patient who had a highly infectious disease (I'm not sure how much detail I'm allowed to put here for patient privacy?? Let's just say this patient had something that you definitely don't want to get)- anyways, while the attending surgeon was injecting medication into the patient the needle broke and sprayed the medication everywhere. Of course my husband was standing right next to him and got sprayed all over. The likelihood of contracting anything is about one in a bajillion, but just to be safe and to follow procedure the nurses and doctors sent Bobby down to the ER to have his eyes flushed out (some got on his glasses) and to have some blood tests done. Everything looks fine and we're not worried about anything. Of course when he called me to tell me what happened I almost burst into tears, but I blame that more on my preggie hormones than anything else. I feel fine now. :)

Later in the day the chief resident was giving assignments to the students to do with the other residents. Someone needed a surgical consult (for something, I can't remember what), so Bobby volunteered for that one (because the chief resident said it would be "quick and easy"). He started to follow the resident, assuming he was going to the consult as well, but it turns out that he wanted Bobby to do it by himself!! He gave Bobby a quick list of specific questions to ask and sent him on his way. Bobby spent 20 minutes going over the patient's chart, then went into the room to start the consult (sweating bullets, no doubt). Immediately after he introduced himself and told the patient why he was there, the patient's daughter said, "This is the first time we've heard of this procedure. Are you sure you have the right room?" Sure enough, he was in the wrong room. He found the correct patient and the correct room and proceeded with the consult as scheduled. Good thing they give students lots of training and practice before they ship them off to be real doctors. But maybe that's why they call it "practicing medicine"- because you're always practicing and getting better. It's not a definite science, that's for sure!

Despite these events, Bobby is having a good time and he feels like he's learning a lot. He stayed at the hospital until about 8 pm to help one of the residents with a patient in the ER. I'm very proud of how far he's come in school and how well he's dong! The day that we can call him "Dr. D" isn't that far away!

English as a Second Language

A few weeks ago my church asked me to help teach a beginner/low intermediate ESL (English as a Second Language) class. The first class will be this morning in a couple of hours! I'm teaching a really simple (hopefully not too boring) lesson on how to introduce yourself and others.

We don't know exactly who our students will be, or how many we'll have yet. I know of 2 that are coming from my local ward- one is an older gentleman who's native language is Italian. He lives with his daughter and her 4 teenage children. The other is an older lady from Germany who is visiting her daughter and family for a few months. There's a significant African population in the area, so I assume that the majority of students will be from that area. We'll just have to wait and see!

I'm a little nervous about teaching, since it's been 2 years since I graduated with my Master's in Teaching ESL and I haven't taught it in a long time. But it's been exciting to get all my old books out and to plan a lesson! Teaching methods and learning strategies have been slowly coming back to me....hopefully they keep coming!

Teaching English is such a rewarding experience and I'm really looking forward to being involved with this class. English can seem so boring, but it's actually quite entertaining. I would recommend it to anyone. To prove my point, here's a funny commercial for ESL software. It circulated around my Master's program for a while:



Here's another funny one from Steve Martin's Pink Panther. Sooo funny, I can't help myself!! :)

Happy Memorial Day!

Here's our little American, wishing a Happy Memorial Day to her Uncle Paul and to all of the government officials and military personnel who are serving our country (as well as those who have served in the past). We are grateful for your service! And especially to Uncle Paul- we love you and we miss you!