Save Our Schools: TSC

Recently, the state of Indiana has had major budget cuts... more specifically, in the Department of Education. This has affected public schools all across the state. So much, in fact, that school districts have had to unexpectedly undergo much larger budget cuts than they were expecting. One of the corporations that has seen the most turmoil is Tippecanoe School Corporation (TSC) in Lafayette. Being from Lafayette, this really hits home to me. Although I went to one of the other corporations in Lafayette, this is affecting many of my friends. Last Friday, the school corporation gave out 167 Reduction in Force (RIF) notices. On top of these, they also sent out many Displacement notices to teachers. This is roughly 20% of their teaching staff. Now, let me lay this out for you:
Because of this, the remaining teachers in this corporation will now:
1. Will have much more students in the classroom, depending on the amount of teachers cut in each building/department.
2. Because of the greater amount of students per class, each teacher will have a larger workload at the same pay.
Of course, students don't get any benefit, either. Students will now:
1: Get less courses offered to them most likely, because of the reduction of teachers.
2: Because of the teacher to student ratio, students will not get the attention that he/she deserves or would normally get.
It has also been reported by many students' most appreciated teachers have been cut due to their "lack of experience" while the teachers with tenure and don't seem to show much interest have stayed.
What is this showing our students? That just because someone has been there longer automatically means they don't have to worry about losing their job and can just give up? I don't think we need to be showing our future this at all. The people that do their job and do it well should be the ones that stay, regardless of how long they've been there. Also, with teachers that don't give a crap, there will be more students that will begin to think, "Well, my teacher doesn't care, so why should I?"
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm certain that there are teachers that have been teaching for a long time and still remain to be great teachers and inspiration to their students. And I'm certain there are some bad newer teachers as well. But think about it. Parents generally want the best for their children. This is definitely not the best option for them, at all.
The corporation could have handled the money situation a lot better than they did. They went to an extreme with this one. They were advised not to cut teachers, and what did they do? Just that. Almost all of the cuts they are implementing are directly effecting the students, with the cutting of teachers, courses, and programs that have a large amount of students participate. This is not the student's fault, so why must we directly punish them? That's right, we shouldn't.
Both of the high schools in this corporation are also in the process of adding a new wing to the building. Unfortunately, the need for new classrooms has now been basically depleted, since there will be less teachers to fill the classrooms. Plus, think of the cost of adding a brand new wing to a school. Yeah, it's no where near cheap. Imagine how many jobs could be saved if the new wing was not built or postponed. The only problem with this solution is where it falls in the funds. The building funds falls in a completely different budget, and as of now, it is not allowed to transfer money from one budget to another. If this was allowed, who knows if they would even consider it...
I really hope this school corporation gets their act together. They have been a great asset to our community and have generally been seen positively in the public eye. I would really hate to see them go down the tubes, so to speak.

I'm not asking for much. All I ask for is for the students in this school system get the education and attention they deserve. After all, these children will be the ones to lead us someday.
If you are interested in learning more about this, please follow these links:
Save Our Schools: TSC facebook group!
Cuts Begin for TSC Sports Programs
Programs pay fee to use TSC facilities
Facebook Page Could Help Schools
Also, here is proof that this is happening in other states as well:
Kansas City, MO, closing nearly half its schools

New Semester or new EVERYTHING?

I know this blog was intentionally for my English class last semester, but I can't seem to really keep away. I keep trying to start writing stories, but I just can't seem to complete it. I really wish I had written earlier, but I didn't, so I apologize. I DO realize that not nearly as many people, if anyone at all, will be reading this anymore, but this is for my own benefit.
Well, it's been about a month since I last wrote, so I think I'll start by writing about winter break.
On the last day of finals, my dad came to pick me up around 2. We arrived home around 4 and I was unpacking my stuff when my mother called my brother and I out into the living room. She informs us that we are going to go to Missouri for about a week to see family. We were to leave on the 26th and come back on the 30th.
Awesome...

Christmas morning, I got up around 10...okay, my brother woke me up around 10. Getting up this late for Christmas was really odd for us. Normally, our dog would wake us all up around 7 because he wanted what was in his stocking (yes, our dog knew what Christmas was. I think he was normally the most excited out of all of us.) But since he passed away this May, many things around the house had changed, including Christmas traditions. But, the story of my dog is for a different time, a different blog. Anyway, we got to open our presents. I ended up getting a TON of Vera Bradley stuff, some clothes, a bunch of fuzzy socks (I'm obsessed with them,) and a few new things for my dorm, like a microwave and a toaster.
A little bit later, I headed over to my boyfriend's house so we could exchange gifts. I gave his grandmother and his parents their yearly treat baskets that I made them, and Cale and I sat down in front of the tree to exchange gifts. I got Cale some DVDs and a movie gift card. Afterwards, he brought over my gift. He got me a Nintendo 64!!!! I love the N64. Cale had one at his house and I would want to play it all the time. He also got me the first three Mario Party games, and we spent the rest of the day eating, watching movies, and playing the games.
...Then it was time to go to Missouri...

The car ride to my grandparent's house is about 7 hours long. It was boring, to say the least. I spent the majority of the ride watching movies on my laptop. I would love to say exciting things happened when we went, but they really didn't. My cousin, aunt and I went to go play bingo. I also had this nasty cold almost the whole time we were there. Missouri is a really boring place when you used to live there. It's still boring when you "go on vacation" there at least once a year.
Finally, it's the 30th. Time to go home. When I got home, Cale came over. And when he left, my dad told me I couldn't see him tomorrow. Tomorrow? But tomorrow was New Years Eve. Everyone knows that you're supposed to kiss on New Years Eve. Cale and I didn't get to do this last year either because I was in Florida getting my sun on. The only time we got to was our first New Years Eve. But oh well, hopefully there will be more to come.
Nothing really exciting happened until school started again. I slept a lot, since everyone else was at school or work. Cale and I saw each other when we could, and I was enjoying the relaxed life.

It finally came though. January 10th - The day to move back to campus. I was dreading this day. I was also very curious; my roommate moved out at the end of the semester and they weren't sure if I was going to get a new one. I reluctantly checked my email that morning, and sure enough... the name of my new roommate had been emailed to me. Her name? Jordan Crouch.
When I got to my room, the door was already opened. She was sitting at her desk watching bull riding. My parents and I introduced ourselves and made the usual small talk as we unpacked my belongings. It turns out she is majoring in elementary education like I am. I thought she would be someone I would be able to tolerate living with... but I may have been wrong.
The problem? She's a partier. I'm not. Therefore, she's out late a lot of the time, sometimes coming back around 3 am, when I'm asleep. I also don't think she has much respect for me as a person. She talks loud on the phone and on skype, she turns on the television when I'm studying, she turns the light on when I'm sleeping, and she allows her guests to basically trash the room.

But of course, the residence hall life isn't the only part about college. I am taking 17 credit hours this semester, which calls for a lot of work. My classes this semester are pretty much ones I have to take but don't generally enjoy. I am taking BIO 102, GEOG 101, HIST 150, PSYSC 100, EDPSY 260, EDHI 200, and EDTEC 120.
Well, that's all for now! Hopefully I'll write when I have the chance.
<3 Emily

English 103 Final

As this semester comes to a close, I have learned to incorporate many new persuasive and multimodal elements into my writings. Allow me to show you through a couple of the course goals:

Course Goal 1: Understand that persuasion—both visual and verbal—is integral to reading and composing.

This goal is probably one of the most important out of all of them. Without persuasion, how would we make up our minds? How would we get more people to believe what we have to say? When I would write papers for this class, I would compose them in a way that made sure I was saying it exactly how I wanted to say it. When I would read a paper for peer or intensive review, I would try to find his or her own voice in the paper. What would be the point in reading it if I didn't know their personal opinion on it? Sure, facts are good to back up your opinion, but when you are trying to persuade someone to do or believe something, you have to pour your heart out. Before this class, I had a little bit of trouble with that. With the help of this class, I feel that I do much better in that aspect now. When I compose my texts, I now make sure I state my own opinion, facts to back it up, my opinion towards those facts, and how I feel those facts are helping out what I want to persuade.

Course Goal 3: Develop effective strategies of invention, drafting, and revision for different rhetorical situations and individual composing styles.

Writing papers and thinking of good topics to write about can be difficult. For example, when it was time to do our multimodal assignment, I had a very hard time thinking of a good topic for it. During the first conference, Professor McArdle told me to brainstorm things I like to do and topics that interest me. It was then that I decided I could do my topic on No Child Left Behind. Once I had figured out what I wanted to do, I then had to figure out just how I wanted to put it on the webpage. I made several drafts by trying out different page layouts and topics to cover until I finally decided on my current layout and points.


Course Goal 4: Compose texts in various media using solid logic, claims, evidence, creativity, and audience awareness.

The multimodal project is a perfect example of this goal. Not only was it a very persuasive piece, but the general public was able to see it. It allowed us to use logic, claims, and evidence through our words. We were able to let the creative juices flow when we were able to make our own video or website.
More importantly, I feel like my blog website did a better job of this. Through this blog, I was able to let my thoughts come out on any topic I wanted. It could be something personal or something I had heard about earlier. I was also able to put pictures and youtube videos on this site to enhance what I wanted to say. I still feel that there were many more topics I wanted to cover in my blog that I never got the chance to do. I wanted to write about some of my favorite websites, such as MLIA. But I need to remember that just because this class is coming to an end, it doesn't mean that I have to stop writing on this website.
It's amazing what the power of the internet can do. I learned that through the power of our Thanksgiving post about listening to a conversation then analyzing it. I never would have guessed in a million years that someone not from this class would even read this site...well, my boyfriend reads it as well, but he doesn't count. It made me more aware of who was reading my site, and that Professor McArdle was right about these really being out there for the whole world to see. This person, Shane Dawson, also knows what it feels like to have the power of the internet change his life. He just hit one million subscribers on youtube, one of those subscribers being myself. Here is his thank you video:




Well, my fellow ENG 103-23 classmates, I will miss you. This was definitely one of my favorite classes this semester and I could not have asked for a better introduction to writing course. :] I hope to see all of you around.
-Emily

One more time.

This is the last blog I will ever have to do for English.
This is the last week of my first semester of college.
Friday was the last day I ever had to think about COMM 210.
Thursday was my last day or aerobics.
I applied for summer school at Ivy Tech in Lafayette last week.
Last Wednesday was the last day I had to work at the Retreat!
This week may be the last week with my roommate. (Some of the overflow honors students living in Stu East are getting to move to DeHority...we don't know if she gets to or not.)

...where has the time gone?

Tales of a college munchkin.

I have always been a small person. I will probably always be small the rest of my life. Being small has gotten me some places in life, where sometimes the moments are just too funny or weird to forget.

Tale One: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
It was my first and only year at Edgelea Elementary School. We were getting ready for the school Christmas show. We were going to sing, dance. Most importantly, we were going to have a mini-parade, and one lucky 5th grader got to be Rudolph. Rudolph got to wear a reindeer costume, have a red nose, and jingle a bell and dance around the audience. The rules to audition for Rudolph were simple. Besides being willing to wear a rubber red nose, you also had to be the shortest 5th grader who wanted the part. My friend Celenia and I decided to audition, since we were both short. I was shorter than her, so she knew she wouldn't get the part, but she tried anyway. Celenia got the boot and I stayed up there all the way up to the final two. It was down to a girl named Abbie Seidle and myself. When it came time to go back-to-back (quite literally!), our music teacher thought we were both the same height. She had to get other teachers for reinforcement. We had students cheering our names. The teachers all gathered around us, checked our height, and decided that Abbie was slightly shorter than I. I was declared understudy and went back to eating my lunch. A few moments later, I looked down at my feet. It was then I noticed I was wearing my favorite brown boots with the heel-wedge thing on them! I felt cheated out of an opportunity. After this day, I started talking to Abbie more and more and we becaome best friends about two years later. What did I learn from this? Sometimes, your biggest competition and your best friend are the same thing.



Tale Two: New Child Labor Laws?
During my senior year and the summer before college, I worked as an administrative assistant at a title company in Lafayette called Advantage Title, Inc. I have had a couple clients ask their closing agent how old I was, but never before had one asked my to my face before.
A few weeks before the story I am about to tell you, my parents took me to Ball State for my overnight orientation. On the way to turn in my tax forms to the career center, my dad was joking around with me that people on campus were going to think that I was some sort of ten-year-old genius (Yes, this is relevant to the story!)
Okay, back to the story. I had a woman in her 40s come up to me to check in for her appointment. As I was getting her checked in, she asked me a question.
Client: How old are you?
Me: *unsure if I heard correctly* ...excuse me?
Client: How..olllld... are yooooou?
Me: Eighteen...
Client: Are you serious?
Me: ...yes...
Client: Oh, I thought you were ten!
Me: Nah, I'm definitely eighteen.
Client: Oh, okay. *Goes to sit down in the lobby*
I then go to inform her agent, Pam, that her client was here and what she had just said about me.
Me: Your client is here.
Pam: Oh good!
Me: She thought I was ten.
Pam: *cocks head to the side* really?
Me: Yes, really.
Pam: Does she have some sort of vision issue?
Me: No clue.
Pam: I wonder if she knows that we can't legally hire a ten year-old.
Me: Probably not.



Tale Three: You Must Be This Tall to Get an Adult Orange Juice.
My parents were taking me back to school after Thanksgiving break, and we decided to stop at the IHOP in Muncie. Upon getting seated, my dad sees booster seats for little kids.
Dad: Hey Emily, do you need a booster seat?
Me: No... *glares*
Our waitress, who looks about my age, seats us and asks us what we want to drink. We give her our orders, and we begin to discuss. A few minutes later, she comes back with no drinks in her hands. We get really confused...until she begins speaking.
Waitress: Would you like her to have a kids size or an adult size? *referring to me*
Mom: Oh, she can have an adult size.
Waitress: Okay, I just wanted to make sure.
Mom: That's fine.
Waitress: Some parents get mad when I bring their child the wrong size drink when they're at that age where they are transitioning from the kids menu to the adult menu.
Me: *has a half disgusted, half I-can't-believe-you-think-I'm-twelve look*
Dad: She's a freshman at Ball State...
Waitress: OH MY GOD! I AM SO SO SO SORRY!
Dad: It's alright, she's a pretty small person.
Waitress: You know, I get confused for a kid sometimes too. I'll be right out with your drinks then.
Afterwards, my dad kept asking me if I was going to get the pancake off the kids menu where you can make a face with fruit and yogurt. Thanks, Dad...

Two and a half years later...

Two and a half years ago today marks the day Cale asked me to be his girlfriend. To celebrate, he came to Muncie for the weekend. We did a lot of Christmas shopping and he also took me to Red Lobster for a late lunch.
I'm really glad to have such a great boyfriend. He makes me really happy and is the only person I really feel completely comfortable with. I'm thankful to have had him for such a long time.

So, Cale, I know you're going to read this, so I'd like to tell you thank you for 2 1/2 of the best years of my life. :]

The Retreat Chronicles

Today marked a great day for me. Today, I made it official that I will not be returning to work at the Retreat next semester. In order to celebrate, I would like to share with you a few of the...erm... interesting moments I've had there.

Chronicle 1: I'm Feeling Rather Clammy...
Scene: I was working in the back Wednesday during Retreat lunch (which, as some of you may or may not know, is for faculty and staff and their guests only, and we serve food nicer than the food students get in the dining halls) and one of the menu items was Clams. Yes, clams. Not like the kind you get at Long John Silvers...I mean the ones with the shells and everything. I was boiling these clams until they opened, because that is how they are cooked or whatever. My cook was getting some stuff ready and the waitress goes, "You know those are alive when you're first putting them in the water, right?"
Me: ...what?
Cook: You're bluffing.
Waitress: No, I'm not. They open their mouth in the water when they're dead.
Me: *freaks out in mind*
Cook: I don't believe you, I'm asking Chef White.
*She goes to get Chef White and asks*
Chef: Yeah... did you really not know that?
Cook: No.
Me: Awesome, I totally just killed about 80 clams....



Chronicle 2: That's not my name.
Scene: I'm working at the Retreat on a Tuesday night. I had been working there for about 3 months at the time. My co-worker named Mary, whom I work with twice a week, is trying to get my attention.
Mary: Anna!
Me: *does usual work-like stuff...most likely cleaning some mess up.*
Mary: Anna!
Me: *continues working*
Mary: ANNA!
Me: *turning around, looking confused as to whom she's talking to.*
Mary: Anna, could you change out the *insert food item here*
Me: My name isn't Anna...
Mary: Oh...then what is it?
Me: ...Emily *points to name tag*
Mary: Oh, well I was close!



Chronicle 3: Those Dishes Don't Clean Themselves!
Scene: I am working the retreat lunch shift, and I was washing the dishes for two cooks, Tami and Shawn. A third cook named Cindy starts working at the station next to me and sees all the dishes I have been doing. Tami then comes up to talk to me.
Tami: Thank you very much for doing all those. We really do appreciate what you students do for us!
Me: *Feels accomplished*
Cindy: Yeah, who else would do your dishes for you? *sarcastic tone*
Tami: *doesn't reply*
Me: *making this face --> O.o*
Cindy: Note that she didn't respond back. She knows its true. The only reason most of these cooks appreciate you students is because they just make you do all their dishes so they don't have to do them and they can do less.
Me: Yeah, I kind of gathered that.
Cindy: I think that is so wrong of them to do. They don't even help you! When I have a helper, I don't make them do my dishes. They didn't make them messy, so why should they have to clean them? *walks away and does whatever she normally does*

I would like to note that I actually ended up getting off work about 15 minutes late this day because Tami and Shawn once again bombarded me with all of their dishes and spent the rest of their shift in the break room. This was the same week as my most recent conference with Professor McArdle. As I was going to his office, I saw Shawn driving in his car. As he was passing by, I shot him a dirty look and continued on my merry way.



Chronicle 4: Pickles!
Scene: I was working the Retreat lunch with Tami and Shawn, and they asked me to get pickles. We have many types of pickles, so I asked which kind. They told me the kind that goes on a burger. So naturally, I go for the kind that looks like they come off of a McDonald's burger.
Me: *arrives with pickles*
Tami: These aren't right! These don't go on burgers!
Me: Actually, there are many burgers that get these particular kind of pickle...like, every burger I've had.
Tami: No. You're wrong. I want the long, slender pickle slices.
Me: *huffs and walks back to where we keep all the pickles*
The pickles she wanted had not been open yet. So I was supposed to open them. Me, being really weak and freezing since the pickles are in the giant refrigerator, was unable to open them after trying for fifteen minutes. I eventually got someone else to open them for me.
Tami: Thank you! Now THESE are burger pickles!
*a few minutes later...*
Chef: Tami, why are you using these pickles? These aren't the right type of pickles!
Tami: Uh, okay, then what type do I need?
Chef: The ones that are small and round. They look like they come off of... uh...shoot...
Me: Like they come off a McDonald's burger?
Chef: Yes! Now please, go get some of those and use them.
Me: *satisfied with knowing the right type of pickle and goes to get the original pickles I started out with*



Chronicle 5: Is Chicken of the Sea Tuna or Fish?
Scene: I was working Retreat lunch and needed something to do. The chef comes and gives me a "mission." He leads me into the giant refrigerator.
Chef: What I want you to do is transfer all this tuna I made into these containers.
Me: *looks at all the tuna, and then the environment* In here?
Chef: Well, yeah, of course! Well, have fun! *leaves*

The refrigerator was at a below-freezing temperature. I had no protection for my arms and my work shirt only went about to my elbows. I came out about forty minutes later when I finished. My glasses fogged up from the drastic temperature change and my arms, hands, and fingers were a beautifully red-purple color for about a half hour.



There's more where that came from, trust me...