geeking out, cookie count

Last week I received more goodies for my classroom! The most exciting item was a wireless weather station. It comes complete with a remote rain gauge, external temperature and pressure sensor, a full LCD display screen, and an alarm clock with snooze function! Just in case I fall asleep at school. Other geekery included a barometer, immersion thermometers, new meter sticks, and a ton of cool posters for my botany and anatomy units. The botany posters came just in time for our study of plants in Life Science.

 

oooh, shiny!

plethora of posters



Last week at Maug I scooped out 161 dough balls, but I only froze 158. Two of the dough balls were baked as test cookies to make sure I added enough extra flour, and another one I simply ate. :) This brings the grand total so far to 192 chocolate chip cookies!

That night Maug had also received its order of natural peanut butter from the Netherlands! It comes in a huge bucket and needs to be stirred up because the oils separate. I can honestly say I've never tasted a more sticky peanut butter in my entire life. I never fully understood people talking about peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of their mouth until I sampled this peanut butter. One little dollop and I found myself needing a crowbar to open my mouth! But of course, what did the boys taste it on? Only the driest possible snack - rice cakes!!

cookie dough ready for the freezer 

peanut butter buckets!

death by dry mouth

teacher retreat [the ride home]

On the way home from retreat I rode with my friends Isaac and Suzanne. Suzanne was my "host" and helped me with a lot of settling in things when I moved to Germany last fall. This July she married Isaac, another teacher at BFA. My backseat buddy was Mike, an RA turned teacher and one of my fellow science teachers (in the high school).

We left the chalet around 11:00 or so Sunday afternoon with sack lunches and lots of energy. Our first stop was an awesome suspension bridge about halfway down the mountain. After crossing the bridge, we hiked down the gorge to eat our lunches by the river's edge. Immediately the guys kicked off their shoes and waded into the water for a round of American Gladiators. I never really get away from my middle schoolers... :)



Swiss suspension bridge

about to cross the bridge

view from the bridge

don't look down!

Suzanne crosses confidently

view of the entire bridge

American Gladiators

boys will be boys

Suzanne admires the river

serenity

Our second stop was in the city of Bern, Switzerland. Apparantly the first animal killed by the city's founder was a bear, so Bern is famous for its bears. The city has a family of two cubs, a mama, and a papa bear in a natural enclosure near the river with information about the life of bears. It was kind of like a mini zoo exhibit. We walked around the city, admired the architecture, and ate ice cream. Mike and I also paid 6 CHF to get into Einstein's house! He lived in Bern for several years and did a lot of work on his theory of special relativity while in that house (forgive me if I'm not telling this quite right... I'm not THAT much of a geek!). I learned a lot of interesting things about Einstein: he had an illegitimate child with his wife-to-be, later divorced said wife to marry his cousin, and was at one point offered the presidency of Israel! What a man.



a main street in Bern

no comment

part of the Muenster

baby Bern bear!

two baby Bern bears!

papa Bern

just a few more minutes of sleep...

Albert Einstein's haus

inside Al's sitting room

I signed the guestbook and touched the lectern touched by Einstein!!

the proper Swiss/German spelling of my name

teacher retreat

Once again, I had the privilege of spending a weekend in Adelboden, Switzerland with my fellow teachers for the BFA Teachers' Retreat. We made our home in the Janz Team Chalet, nestled in the Swiss Alps and surrounded by the most spectacular scenery. I enjoyed rooming with Joy, another middle school teacher, and it was fun getting to spend time with teachers who are in the high school and therefore are not a part of my daily life at BFA. Our principal, Laird, challenged us to be confident with our identity in Christ, and let our teaching flow from that identity.  We are focusing on a more reflective attitude this year as we ask pertinent questions to determine our identities: What do I believe about God? About human life and the purpose of living? About my students? About the role of teachers and parents? Rather than trying to earn ourselves an identity by teaching a certain way, we should be teaching in a way that reflects our identity in Christ and what we believe about these issues. Our students will respect and relate to us better when they know we are being authentic rather than trying to fake it. Luke 6:40 says "everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher." Our goal at BFA is for our students to be able to reflect us because we are reflecting Christ. Pray with me that this year I would reflect Christ onto my students and that they, too, would begin to understand the awesomeness of being made in the image of God and reflect his glory.


view from the chalet



packing lunch on Saturday



free time on Saturday afternoon

reflections

for these guys, "retreat" means more time for books!



visit to downtown Adelboden during free time

happy coffee



a round of 6 nimmt with good friends



Katrina, one of my best BFA friends and fellow middle school teacher

returning from our trip to town

more gorgeous views

tubetella and the first cookie count

Yesterday as I ran through Hieber's grabbing a few quick groceries in between school and Chrysalis, I found myself craving Nutella and pretzels. I scanned the Nutella aisle and picked up a small jar, but nearly dropped it when I spotted this awesomeness.


yum



sweet + salty = happy pretzel

Yes, that's right, nutella (not name brand) in a tube. At first glance it looks like some sort of lotion. And squeezing it out of a tube onto my pretzels is way too much fun. Today a few of my eighth grade girls looked skeptical and when one said, "That has to be from America!" I proudly responded that I'd found it at Hieber's. I think this is a perfect example of good old German efficiency - or maybe this is sheer laziness. I'm reminded yet again of a classic Brian Regan routine. Please watch.



Tonight was my first night back at Maug baking cookies! The evening encompassed everything a night at Maug should entail - a birthday pieing/annointing/ponding, Beyonce/Britney Spears dance parties, and chocolate chip cookies. I'm starting a new thing on my blog this year - I'm going to keep track of every cookie I bake at Maugenhard! Tonight I whipped up a triple batch of my old faithful, the Toll House chocolate chip recipe. Tomorrow is another birthday celebration, so my dough was needed for giant chocolate chip cookies. Instead of using my traditional 1" scoop, I used the largest scoop in the drawer, easily 2 or 2.5 "!! So with a triple batch which usually yields ~150 cookies, I made a total of 31 cookies.

Caleb gets pied

Caleb gets carried to the pond to be "baptized"

Everyone else hides from Caleb to avoid getting a wet hug!

GIANT cookies

chrysalis

Our middle school and high school students have an opportunity to be involved in small group Bible studies on Wednesday evenings. The high school groups are led by adults (teachers, RAs, etc) and the middle school groups are led by high school seniors. In addition to leading small groups, the seniors also plan the evening's events for Chrysalis. They are divided into teams and take turns planning one Wednesday a month - games, music, and the teaching time. Originally I planned to lead a freshman girls small group, but then I realized that I wasn't quite ready for that time committment, and I got a really strong conviction to focus on my current students. Then Brandon, the middle school chaplain, approached me about working with a team of seniors not as a small group leader, but as a "sponsor" of sorts helping them plan the Chrysalis evenings. It would require little to no planning on my part - I just need to meet at 6 for dinner (free - bonus!), spend time with my girls planning their evening and praying, and then Chrysalis would start at 7:30. I wouldn't even be required to stay for Chrysalis if I had things like grading or lesson prep to do. So, after praying about it I told Brandon to count me in.

This week, I met my team of girls. At first I was really intimidated by the seniors, but now that I've spent a little time with them I am super excited to get to know them and serve them this year. I am also glad to have such intelligent, beautiful, Godly young women investing directly into my students this year.

Because it was the first week, I stayed to see how an evening of Chrysalis unfolds. The students played a game like speed pictionary - they ran to the middle of the room, picked up a word, ran back to their team and drew it. After a certain number of words had been drawn, they were done. Then they had to write a story using all their words and draw a picture to go with it. I got to judge the entries and awarded a prize.

Following games, some of the seniors led worship and Brandon gave a brief message to the kids. Overall it was an eventful evening, and I'm so excited for what's going to happen this year in Chrysalis!