Why is Travel Gear So Expensive!?

I leave in a little over five days for Europe.  The past few months, I have been doing research (and by research I mean going on Pinterest) and poking around on a lot of blogs.  These blogs have a ton of fantastic information, not only about how to pack and what basics to bring but tips about little gadgets and such that will make travel easier.  So many of those blogs and websites say something to the effect of, "I absolutely love this bag.  I use it for all my carry-ons.  It's a God send."  Usually this is provided with a link to check out the bag and buy it for yourself.  Now, the last thing I need is more stuff, but if the bag's cute, there's no harm in looking at it.  Yeah, big mistake.  Most of the time, the bag in question is over $100, in some cases over $300.  That's more than my entire luggage set!  It kills me.  If you can afford a $300 carryon bag, a $75 passport case, $80 foldable ballet flats and so on and so forth, more power to you.  Traveling is expensive enough as is.  You can still have all (or most) of those fancy gadgets and other helpful organization and travel accessories without spending $300 or more on a simple bag

My carry-on bag was a steal.  I got this adorable Thirty-One tote for $25 after I spent $35 getting a gift for a friend of mine.  It's important to note that the bag is usually $80 (for you math buffs, that's about 70% off).  The bag is huge, it fits everything I'll need during my flight to Europe (keep your eyes peeled for a post about what specifically I put in my carry-on).

In terms of travel gadgets and what not, I did invest in a few items that cost a little more than what I would like to admit.  Think about it this way: is this an item you will only use while traveling, or will you use it other times as well?  My logic with buying a $30 foldable duffel bag is that I'll use it for weekend trips, especially ones for school (my school goes camping once a year with the sixth graders, and I don't want to lug a nice suitcase out in the middle of the woods).  Plus, I learned the hard way to bring an empty suitcase when traveling.  When I was in London, I bought WAY too many souvenirs and had to pay a fortune for another suitcase to bring my stuff home in.  It's a cute suitcase but not the best quality, and because it's plastered with sites to see in London and what not, it cost a small fortune.  I'd rather have an extra bag with me and not use it than wander around the city the day before leaving to come home in search of a bag.  So not worth it.

Three Weeks Out

It’s just under three weeks out from my trip to Europe, and it’s definitely starting to sink in now.  I have been planning this trip since early August, at least the Poland leg of my trip.  As for the Ukraine part of my trip, I have been planning that since March.  There has been a lot of time, sweat and effort  put into this trip, much more than my last adventure overseas.

Last time I went overseas, I spent six weeks studying abroad in London.  Looking back, I over packed a lot.  I remember bringing a blazer I wore once, maybe twice, a stack of movies to watch that I never touched and at least five pairs of shoes.  Seriously?  What was I thinking!?  This time around, I know better.  Instead of a blazer I’d only wear once, I’m packing clothes that can be mixed and matched to create a wider variety of outfits.  I’ve put digital copies of as many movies as I can on my iTunes, along with some that are on Flixster.  I’ve whittled it down to three functional pairs of shoes: tennis shoes, flip flops and ballet flats.  I’ll wear the tennis shoes on the plane, put one in my carry on and one in my checked bag.  Already, I’ve saved a lot of space in my suitcase.

When I look at my packing list, I actually think that I’m not packing enough clothes.  I’ve been doing my research (and by research I mean spending hours upon hours on Pinterest), I’ve seen a variety of packing lists and most of them say that you only need four or five bottoms and six or seven tops, that’s it.  I like my clothes, I like my variety, so that doesn’t seem like enough for me.  Right now I have five bottoms (two skirts, three pants) and five tops.  I know I need to add more to my packing list, I’m getting there.  All of the packing websites I’ve seen have instructed to pick a color palette and then add a little splash of color.  As a result, I have almost entirely black and white picked.  I need more color in my wardrobe.  There are  a few scarves tossed into the mix, so I have something.  Scarves are lightweight and so versatile, they’re perfect for upgrading an outfit while on the road.

As for the actual stuff needed to travel I definitely feel like I’ve got a better hold on this as well.  I have a travel power strip, a clothes line and detergent for laundry in the hotel room (yeah, that should be an adventure) and, most importantly, a collapsible duffel bag for the journey home.  This was something huge I didn’t have when I was coming home from London (along with a luggage scale, so I ended up buying one at a ridiculously high price because I was desperate).  Between the extreme over packing and the surplus of souvenirs from London, I desperately needed an extra bag to get all my stuff home.  Rather than planning for this ahead of time like some of my friends did, I was left scrambling a few days before coming home and ended up overpaying for a cute (but cheaply made) weekender bag to fill up with souvenirs.  You’ll start to a notice a pattern here.  Twice while I was in London I was unprepared and had to overpay for something.  Yes, both were necessary, and buying the luggage scale actually saved me money because otherwise my luggage would have been too heavy, resulting in paying more to bring it home, but that’s not the point.  I was more focused on what clothes I was going to bring and not the other “stuff” necessary for a long trip abroad and how to pack.  Will this trip go flawlessly?  Probably not.  Despite my incredibly detailed spreadsheets outlining everything I need that are so organized it borders on obsessive compulsive will I forget something?  Undoubtedly.  Will I end up running around in a foreign city looking for something really stupid right before leaving to come home?  I plan on it.  Is that part of the adventure?  Absolutely.  As long as I don’t have issues with customs, I’m pretty much golden.  

I’m not expecting any issues getting into either Poland or the Ukraine, but that’s always my big fear.  A few days before I left for London, I had a dream that I wasn’t allowed into England because I didn’t have the appropriate paperwork.  This resulted in me running around the afternoon I left collecting a stack of papers to present at customs.  Low and behold, I get to customs, and the guy couldn’t care less.  I’ve already had one dream like that for this trip, and I expect several more to follow over the next 20 days.  I also know that despite my over preparedness for customs, I will most likely not run into any issues getting into the country.  It’s best to be over prepared in this case.

Using QR Codes

This is going to be a short post (and by short, I mean SUPER SHORT).  While writing my course outline for 6th grade for next year, I was trying to think of an easy way to make my contact information available to my students and their parents.  Suddenly, it hit me, put it in a QR code.  After doing a quick Google search, I came across this fabulous website.  I simply plugged in my name, my work email and my school's phone number.  Just like that, a QR code was created.  I saved the image and did a quick trial run, worked like a charm.  When you use a QR scanner, a prompt will pop up on your phone, asking if you want to add the contact to your phone.  All the information, name, phone number and email address, are already there, all you have to do is press "okay".  Perfect.  I simply added that to my course outline with directions explaining what it is.  I also saw a suggestion on Pinterest suggesting that you put the QR code in question outside your classroom on Back to School Night so parents can scan it then too (in case their child "forgot" to give them the course outline the first day of school).

Evernote: A Teacher's New Best Friend

I heard of Evernote in college (one of my professors swore by it), but I never really explored it until recently, and let me tell you, it's the best thing ever.  It's a wonderful way not only to take notes online but also organize your notes and access them whenever you need.  On top of all that, Evernote is free.  You can update your account to premium if you want, but you're perfectly fine if you don't.

So, how does Evernote work?  You can just type up the information you need in the appropriate "note" and have all the notes compiled together in one big group, or you can take it a few steps further and really take advantage of everything Evernote has to offer.

Think of each note as a separate piece of paper you've taken notes on.  Like I said, you can just have all the notes tossed together without organizing them, but that's like having a whole bunch of papers piled on your desk without any organization system.  You can organize all your notes into notebooks.  Think of notebooks as taking a bunch of related papers and putting them into a folder.  Now, your desk is covered with a collection of folders.  You can go one step further and organize your notebooks into stacks.  Stacks are like binders.  You take all the related folders and put them in a binder together.  Now, that original stack of papers you had all over your desk are organized in their own binders.

Above is a picture of one of my stacks on Evernote.  I use it to keep track of the classes I'm taking and the assignments for it.  Each notebook represents one class I'm taking, and the number next to the name tells how many notes are in the notebook.  When you click on the notebook, you get something that looks like this:

In addition to typing text, you can also upload files to your notes.  It's great if you want to add a PDF or PowerPoint to a note so you have that ready as well.

Once you have your note on Evernote, you can share it, just like Google Drive (formerly Google Docs).  All you do is click the wonderful "Share" button and select "Link".  You can also share it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, via email, etc.  I haven't used this feature as much (I mostly use Evernote for homework and notes on books I read), so I can't really comment on it.

So, you might be thinking to yourself, "Well, this sounds a lot like Google Drive".  Well, yes, it is a little similar.  Google Drive has its own merits, which I'll get into in another post.  For some reason, I prefer Evernote, I don't know why.  Does that mean I don't use Google Drive?  Absolutely not, I use it, just not as much, and for other purposes.  For some reason, I find Evernote easier to navigate.  Like Google Drive, you can log on to any computer (or smartphone, tablet, etc) and pull up your account.  Unlike Google Drive, there's not overarching data limit.  Evernote has a limit of 60 MB a month of uploads for free or 1 GB if you have a premium account.  As for storage, you don't have a limit.  Which means, you can upload 60 MB of data a month to your Evernote for free every single month and never will they tell you you're reaching your limit.  Google has a limit of 15 GB storage limit.

Overall, I do have to say I prefer Evernote to Google Drive.  That doesn't mean I'll stop using Google Drive.  Like I said, it does have its uses, which I'll talk about in a later post.

Preparing a Travel Themed Classroom Part 1

So now that I actually have all summer to think and plan for next year, and I know what my classroom is going to look like (for those of you who are confused, I was hired on Thursday and started new teacher training Monday last summer), I can actually do a lot more planning than last year.  Since I teach world studies, I thought a travel themed classroom would be ideal.  I poked around Pinterst and did some work on my own, and came up with some ideas.

First, I bought some letters from Michaels and used de-coupage to decorate them with cheap maps I bought from a second hand bookstores in the area.  Ultimately, the letters spell out my last name, which I'll then hang up in my classroom above my desk.

I also stenciled signs with locations we'll be learning about this year.  Underneath, I used this website to measure how far each location is from my school.  I created smaller signs, which I hung underneath with twine.  At first I was going to hang the signs around the room pointing in the direction of each location, but I decided not to.

Reflecting on My First Year

Okay, so I still technically have one more day left for this school year, but I'm done with the students for this year.  Tomorrow I have to go in to finish packing up my room (I'm moving to the first floor to teach all 6th grade next year) and check out for the year, but other than that I'm done for the year.

It definitely has been a crazy year for me, with plenty of ups and downs.  There were some moments where I had my doubts, but I survived.  Even my toughest class taught me a lot this year.  Yes, students got under my skin.  Yes, there were times I wanted to throw in the towel.  Yes, I did leave school feeling defeated on more than one occasion.  There were moments like the one below that makes it all worthwhile.

Long story short, I was extremely upset about something that had happened at school, I spent lunch on the phone with my mom crying.  Some of my students saw me upset and left me these notes on my chalkboard.  These moments made my first year absolutely worth it.

Looking back, I definitely would have done many things differently, but I've heard that from a lot of first year teachers.  Your first year teaching is, quite literally, baptism by fire.  The second you get in the classroom on your own, you quickly learn that a lot of things you learned in your college classes really aren't applicable (one of my favorite lines when a student does or says something particularly outrageous is, "They didn't teach me how to handle that in college...").  During your internship, you can deflect any difficult situations to your mentor teacher, or at least turn to them for guidance.  Your first year, however, you are that teacher, and you are the soul source of guidance and the law in the classroom.  You don't have someone else to turn to for help, at least not at that exact moment.  Yes, I turned to many teammate and coworkers for help, but it was often after the fact.  It's stressful and terrifying.

It's funny, I was terrified that I would be a nervous wreck on my first day of school.  I'd heard stories of veteran teachers who still got nervous on their first day of school.  Ironically, I slept like a baby the night before and wasn't nervous at all.  

I don't mean to ramble.  I survived the year, and that's all that matters.  I've filled my summer up with a wide variety of classes to prepare myself for next year.  Like I said, even my more difficult students made me a better teacher.  They're the ones who motivated me to take these classes to learn how to handle difficult classroom situations.  School just ended the day before yesterday, and don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled for summer, but I'm also excited for next year.  Everyone says the second year is much easier, and the possibilities are endless.

Summer?

In just 19 short days, my first year as a teacher will come to an end, and what a whirlwind it has been!  The past few weeks I've finally felt like I've sort of had my head on straight.  My mind is till going a million miles per hour in about a billion different directions, but it's an improvement.  I can see the finish line, not that I want this year to end.  Perhaps the most heartbreaking moment I've had recently comes from my 6th graders.  It's been such a pleasure seeing them grow up from timid little elementary school students to confident preteens.  Sure, there have been some moments, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Anyway, after they asked if I would be teaching 7th grade next year (I teach mostly 7th grade this year), I told them that while nothing's set in stone, it looks like I won't be teaching 7th grade.  That set off a tidal wave of "No!"s and "Seriously!?"s, and it broke my heart to know that my 6th graders so desperately wanted to have me again next year.  I'll miss them, but I'll see them around.

Anyway, I digress.  I've never been one to sit still.  Even now, I have about five webpages open, my PowerPoint for tomorrow, and I'm flipping through several television channels (at least I turned off YouTube).  In order to fill up that humongous void that is summer vacation, I have decided to fill it to the brink with all sorts of classes, conferences and workshops.  I am currently registered for a fabulous class at Dominican University of California called Instructional Design where I basically get to log all the hours I put in over the summer as I prepare to completely overhaul my 6th grade lessons and implement interactive notebooks on a full-time basis (I'm using them in my 7th grade classes this last quarter as a trial run).  I'm also signed up for an online class called ESOL in the Mainstream, where I hope to get more ideas to help support my numerous ELL students in the classroom to make them academically successful.  I'm wait listed for a third class through MCPS.  On top of all of that, I signed up for a two day College and Career Readiness conference.  I'm very excited about this conference, it looks like it has a lot of wonderful resources connected to Common Core.  Finally, I applied to an awesome sounding workshop at the Newseum about the First Amendment and social movements.  I haven't heard back from them yet, but I'm hopeful.

Okay, by now you're probably saying that enough is enough.  Yeah, to any logical person that would be enough, but I'm not slowing down yet.  I'm currently in the process of applying to graduate school.  I'm honestly worried about getting in, but people keep assuring me that I'll be fine.  I'm just going to borrow everyone else's optimism and keep you posted.  If I do get in, I'll start in the fall, so I'll be teaching during the day and doing my classes online in the evening.  It'll take some time management, but I'm not worried.

Finally, I'm seriously considering a one credit class on collaborative learning in the classroom.  Structured student discourse (a fancy way of saying having students work together) is HUGE not only in Common Core but is also a part of my school's improvement plan.  I figure a one credit course will give me a little bit of a foundation to work with as I try to implement more structured student discourse in my classroom next year.

Expressing Creativity in the Vaguest Way Possible

So I teach 6th and 7th grade world studies; mostly 7th grade if you want to be specific.  I've barely seen my 6th graders for a variety of reasons that we won't get into, so this post focuses on my 7th graders.  Right now, my 7th graders are learning about Latin America.  We just wrapped up learning about the Mayans.  I wanted them to show me what they learned in a unique way, and I also wanted to give them as much freedom as possible.  In order to meet these needs, I came up with what can probably be called the vaguest processing assignment ever.

I introduced the lesson by explaining my thinking to my students.  I told them that I wanted to give them the chance to express themselves in the way they know they can be the most successful.  The assignment is as follows: students had to make some sort of visual representing the Mayan Empire.  The visual had to include at least four facts about the Mayans.  I reminded students that we had taken plenty of notes about the Mayans that provided them with more than enough information.

I really handed over control to my students.  I put the following list of visuals up on the board and told them to pick one.  If they had another idea, they just had to run it by me, and I ended up adding a few to the list throughout the day.

• Comic Strip
• Picture Book
• Brochure
• Advertisement
• Magazine
• Newsletter
• Poster
• Cartoon
• Postcard
• Board Game
• Instagram Posts
• Facebook Page
• Tumblr Page
• Snapchats
• Movie Poster
• Twitter Page

I put out all my art supplies, told students they could work with one other person if they wanted, but groups couldn't be any larger than two.

Over the two days I gave my students to work on this assignment, I was blown away by the output that they gave me.  I had two girls cut up their fashion magazines at home, compile them together into a Mayan themed magazine, complete with captions (that's where they worked in the required facts).  I had students make Instagrams, a few made brochures, one made a Tumblr.  I was blown away by the quality of the products.  This has shown me that if you give students the freedom to express themselves in the way they feel most comfortable with, the sky is the limit.

The Dangers of Conformity, According to Lois Lowry's The Giver

Dictionary.com defines conformity as “action in accord with prevailing social standards, attitudes, practices, etc.”  In our society, uniqueness and individuality is emphasized and encouraged, as long as it stays within the social norms.  Lois Lowry’s hit young adult novel The Giver gives readers a glimpse of what life can become if we focus too much on fitting in and making everyone the same.

Just a little bit of background for those of you who are unfamiliar with the novel.  The Giver follows Jonas, a 12 year old boy who lives in an unnamed futuristic society.  In this society, everything is decided for you, your job, your spouse, your children, even the day you die.  Memories of the past and the freedom that people used to enjoy are kept solely by an old man simply called “The Receiver”.  The Receiver is getting old though, and he needs someone else to take on his job of holding on to all the memories, both good and bad, from the past.  This is where Jonas comes in.  He is given the prestigious job of becoming the new Receiver and holding on to all the memories of the past.  As this happens, Jonas begins to question the world around him and the life he has.

In Jonas’ world, everything is monitored to ensure conformity.  Sometimes this is done covertly under the guise of daily tasks, other times it is more obvious.  Every morning, families sit together, share their dreams and discuss possible meanings.  It is assumed that these are monitored.  Sharing dreams also allows for “Stirrings” to be caught and quashed.  Stirring are essentially wet dreams.  Once a child reports to his that he has experienced a Stirring, they are given a pill every day to destroy sexual desire and ensure that procreation is only done by the designated women to prevent over population.  While it is never expressly stated what would happen if someone stopped taking “the pill”, it is implied that there is an underlying desire by children to start taking “the pill”, just like the rest of his friends.

Conformity is even stated bluntly by The Director, the woman who is in charge of Jonas’ community.  In a speech, she states how important it is to “curb any impulse that might set you apart from the group.”  Everyone in the Community agrees with this statement.  In their minds, it is better to fit in than stand out and be different.  Even standing out in the slightest way, for a good thing, is seen as awkward, uncomfortable, and unnecessary.  Through his training with the Giver, Jonas witnesses a birthday party.  Birthday parties are a foreign concept to Jonas, they make one person stand out from the crowd.  After seeing one, however, Jonas “understood the joy of being an individual, special and unique and proud.”  This is the beginning of Jonas questioning the world around him.  He begins to understand that being an individual isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if it worked in the past, why can’t it work now?  This is a concept we’ll come back to momentarily.

Conformity isn’t called “conformity” in Jonas’ world, but rather, the term “Sameness” is thrown around and has the same meaning.  The Elders spin Sameness in a way that makes it sound like it is absolutely necessary, and without it, the whole world would fall apart.  For example, hills and weather are done away with, all in the interest of Sameness.  Hills made it difficult to travel long distances, and weather made it difficult to grow crops year round and have enough food for everyone.  While these can be seen as positive results of Sameness, there is also a dark side.  The Giver talks about a time when people’s skin used to be different colors, but when Sameness came around, they got rid of the different races.  Basically, this society when through some sort of racial cleansing , although the Giver doesn’t go into detail.  This Sameness is terrifying and further pushes conformity on Jonas and the people around him.

Once Jonas starts receiving memories from the Giver, he starts to feel alienated from the people around him he used to think were his friends and family.  Jonas outright thinks to himself that “he couldn’t go back to the world of no feelings he had lived in so long.”  Later, Jonas finds that he can’t discuss his feelings at the end of the day with his family, which is a requirement in Jonas’ world, just like sharing dreams every morning.  He “experienced injustice and cruelty, and he had reacted with rage that welled up so passionately inside him that the thought of discussing it calmly at the evening meal was unthinkable.”  Jonas could no longer participate as a member of society.  The Giver attempts to explain it to Jonas, stating “the [everyone else] know nothing.”  Jonas and the Giver are the only ones (aside from the Elders who make these decisions) who are aware of feelings and how they are suppressed.

The Giver is one of my favorite books, I’ve read it at least three times and learned something new every time.  It has several poignant messages about the importance of individuality and warnings about future.  When I first read the book, I was 13.  Now, 10 years later, I can look at it with newfound knowledge and understanding.

Upping the Ante

So, about a week or so ago, my friend Melissa and I were complaining about the infamous "List" (she's the criminal mastermind behind this whole challenge).  We pointed out that there are some books missing from "The List" that should be on it.  This was a conversation we'd had before, so it wasn't anything new.  I honestly have no idea who came up with this idea, we'll call it a draw, but one of us decided it would be absolutely brilliant to add more books to the list.  At first, we thought that 50 books each (making the total to read a paltry 200 books).  That idea was thankfully scrapped, and we agreed that we'd each add 25 books, bringing the final sum to 150 books total.

Let me tell you, coming up with 25 books to read was a nightmare.  I had to think about what books weren't on the list that I wanted, and what books I've been meaning to read for a while but haven't.  I've had to modify the list since then, because one of the books I added literally can't be found.  Okay, that's a lie, it's on Amazon, but who wants to pay over $20 for a paperback, young adult book?  Yeah, thought so.  That's been my latest challenge, trying to figure out what book to replace it with.  It's not easy.  I keep telling myself that just because I don't put a book on "the List" doesn't mean I won't read it.  Knowing my friendship with Melissa, the loser (whoever it will be, but we all know that I'm going to win) will undoubtedly challenge the winner to some sort of rematch.  We've entered a vicious cycle here.  Melissa and I have been friends for 10 10 1/2 years and are both very bookish and very competitive.  It's definitely going to be interesting.

Celebrating My Birthday with King Arthur

Last night, to celebrate my birthday, a friend and I went out to see Monty Python’s Spamalot at a local dinner theater.  This our second time going to this theater in the past few months (we now have season tickets, so we’ll be going more often), and we were not disappointed.  Last time, we saw Les Miserables, so it was fun to see something a bit more cheerful this time around.

Spamalot is a musical based on Monty Python’s movie of the same name.  basically, it’s a parody of the legend of King Arthur, complete with singing, outrageous characters and numerous sexual references.  When on Broadway, Spamalot won a Tony Award in 2005 for Best Musical, and it had a very successful run.  I saw the show about a year ago while in college, but I wasn’t about to pass up on seeing it again.  As much as I didn’t like the movie, I have to admit that the musical is one of my favorites.

It’s funny, just yesterday I was thinking how whenever I’ve gone to Toby’s (the name of the dinner theater), I’ve never had a lead actor as a waiter.  Ironically, when we went to Toby’s last night, our waiter was none other than King Arthur himself.  Not only did our fabulous waiter play King Arthur, but when we saw Les Miserables in November, he played Javert.  We, of course told our waiter this.  I told him that I never really liked Javert until I saw his portrayal, it was that amazing.  Marius from Les Mis was also in the show again, and Fantine.  It was weird, seeing an actor we just saw blow it out of the water in what can probably be called the most serious Broadway musical in the past twenty years switch gears completely and play one of the goofiest roles ever.  It was highly entertaining and just showed the diversity actors need to possess in order to be successful in their field.

Overall, I thought the show was amazing.  It was hilarious, which is expected, the acting was superb, the costumes were amazing, the choreography wonderful.  Toby’s never disappoints when it comes to a show; they never disappoint when it comes to its performances.

Below you can find a clip of one of the songs from Spamalot.  While it’s not from Toby’s, it’s still a great performance nonetheless.

Slaughterhouse-Five: Cramming Too Much Into One Novel

Once again, another book off the list.  This one was one I bought a while ago with every intention of reading, I just never got around to it.  I’ve never read anything by Kurt Vonnegut before, but I did know a girl in high school who was obsessed with him, so I was going into it pretty excited.  I’ve heard this book be described as an anti-war novel, and, to be honest, I just didn’t see it.  That is, of course, unless the whole point is “people who come back from war are so damaged that they imagine they are abducted by aliens and can fall through time.”  If that’s what Vonnegut is trying to get at, then he hit the nail on the head.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it follows Billy Pilgrim, a soldier during World War II.  After the war, Billy is not only abducted by aliens and taken repeatedly to the planet Tralfamadore, but he also has the ability to fall through time (because being abducted by aliens isn’t weird enough).  The storyline bounces between Billy in the present and Billy reliving his past, where you gain a better sense of who he is as a person.  Part of the past Billy explores is his experience in Europe during World War II and the other half is Billy’s horrific marriage (he treats his wife horribly in my opinion) and his experiences on Tralfamadore. 

Now, the book isn’t very long.  My copy is only 215 pages.  With such a complicated storyline, that doesn’t give Vonnegut too much time to properly elaborate on either storyline, which is exactly the problem I discovered.  Neither storyline ended properly.  You had no idea what really happened to Billy on Tralfamadore, and his story of his experience during World War II was only partially explained (although much more than the Tralfamadore story).  In my opinion, this novel had the potential to be absolutely wonderful, had it just been either the World War II plot or the Tralfamadore plot, but both was too much in just 215 pages.

I also saw absolutely no point to Billy’s ability to travel through time.  That is, unless it’s merely symbolic of how fractured and broken his mind is.  I will admit, he seems to fall through time when he becomes stressed, and he always winds up in places related to what was just going on in the present.  It really looks like he has some sort of mental health problems, and he really isn’t falling through time but really retreating into the safety of his mind when life is too much to handle.

I’m not going to spend a lot more time on this book.  I didn’t really like it.  I’m not going to write off Kurt Vonnegut as a whole, though, I have a few other books by him that sound interesting, so I’m going to give them a shot at some point.

A Psychological Analysis of Winston Smith from Orwell's 1984

Let me start out by saying that, just like how I was not a physicist when reading A Brief History of Time, I was not a psychiatrist when I read 1984.  I just took one semester of psychology 101 my freshman year of college (so four years ago), and that was it.  With that being said, I have concluded that Winston Smith, the protagonist of George Orwell’s 1984 has many severe mental problems as is made evident throughout the book.

Before I really get into my rant about Winston, let me give you a little bit of history about the relationship between myself at this particular book.  First of all, yes, this is another book off  “The List” as I have started calling it.  For the record, as of this very moment, I am in the lead and very proud of it.  Okay, enough gloating for now, there will be plenty of time for that when I win.  This is my third attempt to get through this book.  My first attempt was in 11^th grade when I was supposed to read it for an English assignment.  Each student in the class had to pick a different book and, from what I remember, analyze its symbolism or something like that.  I really don’t remember.  I did pull up my paper though, and browsed through it, and it basically talks about how the book is a warning for technology in the future.  I didn’t read the book.  I may have gotten through the first thirty pages or so (which is about 25 pages more than I read when I had to read Oliver Twist in 9^th grade…still got an A+ on the paper, Mr. Travers if you’re reading this, sorry!).  I still managed to get an A on the paper, but it was a pain to write since I had no idea where to even look for information.  I wouldn’t recommend it.  A year later in 12^th grade AP Literature, I was supposed to read 1984.  Yet again, I only got through the first 30 pages or so.  I simply could not read this book.  I found Winston un-relatable as a protagonist no matter how fascinating I found the use of technology and control.  All of this surprised me, because Animal Farm (also written by Orwell) is one of my all time favorite books.  I’ve been known to read it in one sitting on more than one occasion.  Even so, I just couldn’t get through 1984, no matter how hard I tried.  This time around, however, I didn’t have much of a choice.  I had to read this book, it’s on “The List” after all.

As I said at the beginning of my post, I found Winston Smith, the main character, to be a horrifically damaged man with numerous psychological problems.  You honestly don’t need to be a psychologist to figure that out.

First, I want to focus on Winston’s unusual, and very strong, violent tendencies.  There are two instances in the novel where Winston has extreme feelings towards someone he barely knows, or doesn’t even know at all.  In the first case, he exhibits these desires towards Julia, a woman who would later become his lover.  The first time he saw her, he described that he wanted to “flog her to death with a rubber truncheon.”  He continues to describe the terrible acts he would do to Julia, even though he has never actually spoken to her in his life.  Later, Winston describes the desire to smash “a pickaxe right into the middle of” the skull of a gentleman he didn’t even know.  These violent longings seem to focus on people Winston doesn’t know, while people he does know are fine.  it is almost as if Winston doesn’t trust anyone he doesn’t know and wants to destroy them.

In addition to extreme violent tendencies, Winston also displays other unusual symptoms of a possible underlying mental disorder.  He shows an overactive imagination.  While at work, he imagines that his coworker is working on the exact same project he is, although there is no proof of this.  Winston also exhibits signs of being overly paranoid.  After making eye contact, for a brief second, with a coworker and believes that the coworker instantly knows that he has his doubts about Big Brother and the government.  At the beginning of the novel and throughout the text, Winston starts doubting the government and very foundation of his world.  Orwell provides no reason for this, which leaves us to believe that it has come from nowhere.  He questions everything and even asks “Was life better before the Revolution than it is now?”  there is no way to know this answer, unfortunately, because the government has manipulated the past so much that it is unreliable.  Perhaps what is most disturbing is Winston’s lack of remorse.  He outright tells his lover that he wanted to “rape you and then murder you.  Two weeks ago I thought seriously of smashing your head in with a cobblestone.”  What makes this so disturbing is that his lover, Julia, doesn’t take any offense to this but rather stays by his side.  Later, Winston is talking to Julia about his long-lost wife, who may or may not be alive, and says that he wishes he had pushed his wife off a cliff when he had a chance, even though she hadn’t done anything to him.  Even as a child, Winston showed a startling lack of remorse.  Even though his young sister and mother were close to dying of starvation, he hoarded food for himself without a care in the world.

Overall, I found Winston to be incredibly disturbing.  He displayed a combination of extreme, unnecessary violence towards innocent victims, an overactive imagination and a lack of remorse.  While he was difficult to identify with as a character, he was interesting, albeit, confusing.

Reading Stephen Hawking (Cause I'm Totally Smart Like That)

About two weeks ago, Amazon.com released a list title "100 Books to Read in a Lifetime".  A close friend of mine (we've been friends for about ten years now) sent me the list with a proposed challenge: let's see who can read all 100 books first.  Seemed easy enough, I mean, it's only 100 books.  We agreed on a few simple rules to keep everything fair.

1. Any books we've already read we have to reread (that's 18 books in all for me)
2. We have to tell each other when we finish a book on the list so we can keep track of each other
3. We only have to read the first Lord of the Rings book (on the list it's listed as The Lord of the Rings and the trilogy was supposed to be published as one gigantic book at first, but that was too much for us to do)

I love to give commentaries on books and movies and television shows (I've been known to have a commentary while watching the TV Guide scroll by), so I thought it would be a good way to get back into blogging by blogging about the books I'm reading.  Some books I might not really have a lot to say about, but others I know I'll have lots to say.  We'll see how it goes.

I started off by identifying what books I already owned (quite a few).  I knocked a few short ones out of the way (I read The Great Gatsby and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone over a long weekend and found a copy of Goodnight Moon to get out of the way also).  My first really challenging book was Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.  I never took physics in high school or college, and for a very good reason.  I am horrible at math, and my science skills are just a tiny bit better.  Even so, I felt like reading this book would make me a little smarter about the world around me.  And, if all else fails, we did agree on reading the books, we never said we had to comprehend the books.

I will say one thing about this book before I get started: I was a little worried.  I was worried that Hawking was going to completely bash religion and say how there is no possible way a higher being could possibly exist.  I was completely and utterly shocked to find out that I was wrong.  Don't get me wrong, I only understood about 5% of the book (I did feel very smart walking around with it in my hands).  My friend put it best by saying, "Of course you don't understand it, it's Hawking.  Compared to him, everyone's dumb."  It did make me feel better about everything.

I've digressed.  I'm no math or science person.  I can tell you that I understood only about 5% of that book.  That 5%, however, I found to be very interesting.

First, I was surprised at Hawking’s ability to connect physics to religion.  I really thought that he would use this book to completely destroy religion and disprove any notion of a higher being.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Hawking implies that we should not attempt to understand some mysteries of the universe.  In fact he closes his book by saying, “Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist.  If we find the answer to that…then we would know the mind of God.”  Hawking also acknowledges that God may have created some of the laws of the universe and stepped back, allowing things to on a life of their own, which is why we don’t understand everything going on in the world around us.

Mixed in amongst the highly technical analyses of black holes, string theory and the like, Hawkings made sure to incorporate humor into his book.  It wasn’t very often, but it was sprinkled in there occasionally.  In one instance, Hawking talks about a long-running bet he has with a colleague about the existence of black holes.  Should Hawking win, he would get a four year subscription of a magazine (courtesy of his colleague), should his colleague win, he’ll get a year subscription of a different magazine (courtesy of Hawking).  Hawking also told a story about an article published in 1948 by a man named George Gamow and his student, Ralph Alpher.  Gamow convinced a colleague named Hans Bethe to add his name to the paper so the authors’ names would read Alpher, Bethe, Gamow, similar to the first three letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha, Beta, Gamma.  The humor in the book was minimal, as it is meant to be a serious book, but what humor that was there was very amusing.

Like I’ve said a million times throughout this post, I actually understood very little of the book.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t understand any of it though.  There were some excellent points made.  First, Hawking pointed out that if the universe goes on infinitely in every direction, then every single point in the universe can be considered the center of the universe.  I tried that line on my mom, telling her that technically the universe does revolve around me…she didn’t buy it.

One thing Hawking also elaborated on was the size of the universe.  This is something that I’ve thought about a little bit in the past.  In the grand scheme of things, you and I and everything else around you isn’t even a microscopic speck compared to the universe.  As Hawking points out, “We now know that our galaxy is only one of some hundred thousand million that can be seen using modern telescopes, each galaxy itself containing some hundred thousand million stars.”  I’m not going to go into an “aliens are real” rant, because I really don’t know what I believe about that.  what I am going to do is point out that there is just so much out there, how can we be 100% certain that we are in fact alone in this massive universe?  Like I said, I’m not going to get into if aliens are real or not, because I don’t have a strong enough opinion either way to make an argument.

Overall, I’m sure I would have enjoyed Stephen Hawking’s book a lot more if I had some sort of understanding for physics.  Unfortunately, I don’t.  My only understanding of physics comes from the very basics taught to me in 9^th grade science.  Unfortunately, that was about 8½ years ago, so it’s been a while.  I do believe that Hawking does a fairly good job of explaining theoretical physics, I was just not the intended audience for the book.  If you do understand theoretical physics or aren’t completely clueless about stuff like that like I am, then the book would definitely be worth your time.

Bringing the 1920s To Life, a 1920s Newspaper

While in my internship, I had an opportunity to teach in a very different type of classroom.  NewTech classrooms are project based classes.  The class I was in, American Studies, is a combination of American history and American literature.  To get the "full" NewTech experience, I created my own project about the Roaring 20s.

While trying to think of what kind of project I wanted, I finally came up with the idea to have the students write a newspaper from the 1920s.  This allowed them to highlight the key events from the decade and understand what life was like then.  This would segway into their next project, which involved them reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

To give students background information about each event during the 1920s they would cover in the newspaper, I created a brief PowerPoint for each of the main themes.  While sitting through the PowerPoint, students had to complete some sort of exit activity.  It varied based on the PowerPoint and highlighted what I wanted the students to take away from the PowerPoint and apply to their newspaper.

The PowerPoints covered:
1. World War I
2. Women's Suffrage/Women in the 1920s
3. Prohibition
4. Harlem Renaissance
5. Consumerism

After each PowerPoint and exit ticket, students (in their assigned groups) were told to create one aspect of their newspaper.  For World War I they had to write a regular article.  The article had to include: causes, major players, military tactics, key battles, outcome, along with at least two visuals.  For women's suffrage, students had to create a miniature protest poster (on a regular computer sheet of paper) in favor of women's suffrage.  They could either draw it by hand or make it on the computer.  I was worried about the Prohibition activity where students had to write letters to the editor for and against Prohibition.  My mentor teacher was fully supportive of me though, and the students really got into it.  One group wrote the "for" letter as a battered wife and the "against" letter as her drunk husband.  This was the first aspect of teh newspaper where students could really step into the shoes of someone from the 1920s.  The Harlem Renaissance aspect of the project was realy what impressed me from my students.  We analyze a few poems from the Harlem Renaissance and talked about the themes for the poems and novels from the movement.  Each student had to write a poem as if they lived in the Harlem Renaissance.  I was expecting a lot of mediocre poems and protesting, and while not every poem was perfect, a lot of them blew me away.  I had no idea my students were so profound and able to express themselves so eloquently.  I even hung up some of the poems in the hall for the rest of the school to read.  Another aspect of the Harlem Renaissance portion was a biography about a famous person from the Harlem Renaissance.  Groups got to pick who they thought was interesting and write a biography about them.  They couldn't talk about anything that happened after 1929, however, since they "live" in the 1920s.  To go along with the last PowerPoint, students learned about the rise in consumerism in America and the switch from "needs" to "wants".  We analyzed advertisements, and they had to pick popular products from the 1920s.  Each student had to create one advertisement for a product they thought was interesting.  They could NOT create an advertisement for alcohol, not because it was not appropriate, but because Prohibition was going on and alcohol was illegal.

Students did not create parts of their newspaper limited to what we covered in the PowerPoints.  Students also had to pick a popular jazz song from the 1920s and write a review of it and write two articles of choice from a list of events.  One had to be a first person account and one a regular article.  If they wanted to add more to the newspaper, and they had time to do so, then that was fine with me.

Everything was eventually put together in Publisher (or PowerPoint if they wanted), and each group made a newspaper.  They included by lines, photos, captions, etc., everything necessary to make the newspapers look authentic (authenticity is emphasized in NewTech).

Along with the newspaper, students had to write a three paragraph essay individually, answering the following question:  How did America change in the 1920s, making it a "modern" nation? 

Overall, the newspaper came out wonderfully.  Students really jumped into their rolls and got into it.  You could tell they were learning a lot more than they usually learned in a traditional classroom.  This is definitely a project I can modify and use in a "traditional" classroom in the future.

Immigration Political Cartoon Lesson Plan

I realize I haven't posted a lot recently, which only means I've saved up some pretty awesome lesson ideas for me to share.  Out of sheer boredom and the fact that I am completely caught up with my grading (for once), I've decided to start posting once again and try to get in the habit of posting more often now.

At first, when I started student teaching (or "interning" as they like to call it now), I had trouble thinking outside the box.  I couldn't think of "fun" and "interesting" lessons to capture my students' attention, and without their attention, I have nothing really.  I know for a fact that my early lessons really weren't that interesting, I'm not going to deny it.  With time and practice, however, I learned that there are ways to make learning interesting.  I have also learned that no matter how old the students are, if you hand them crayons and tell them to draw something every once in a while, they go absolutely crazy and love it!  That's for another lesson though.

In my earlier stages of thinking outside the box, I did struggle, and I wasn't entirely sure what would and would not work.  While teaching my students about immigration to America, I came up with the idea to have them analyze political cartoons.  I personally love political cartoons, so I thought this would be a fantastic idea.  We went through a few political cartoons as a class while they were taking notes during the PowerPoint, and this gave them a chance to practice looking carefully at political cartoons and understanding what they should be looking for. 

After the notes session, I had the students count off into six groups.  I have a fairly large class, so this formed groups of five or six, which was just big enough for their task.  I previously selected four political cartoons that showed the views and stereotypes of immigrants during the time and printed them out in packets for the groups.  Students were given directions to look over the political cartoons and think about what they just learned about during the lecture while taking notes.  During the notes, we covered various different "types" of political cartoons and why Americans viewed them like they did.  To guide them while analyzing the cartoons, I provided students with a packet with five questions per cartoon.  Some of the questions are the same for each cartoon, while others are different.  This allowed students to look at the cartoons as a whole and analyze careful details and meanings, both aspects are important when looking at political cartoons.

Overall, this lesson was a success.  My students definitely are getting better at looking at political cartoons, something that is important for AP students like mine while preparing for their exam.

Immigration Poster Lesson Plan

To prepare my students to learn about Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, I did an introductory lesson on immigration.  The points of the lesson was to teach students how various "types" of immigrants had vastly different, and yet, very similar experiences.  I started with a short Prezi presentation.  If you're unfamiliar with Prezi, it's similar to a PowerPoint presentation, only a little more animated.  This gave them a very basic background on the information before moving on to the project where they would learn more.

Since this was just a short, two day lesson, I let students pick their own groups.  There needed to be no more than five groups.  They were then given one of five pamphlets: Chinese, Eastern European Jews, Irish, Italian and Polish.  Each pamphlet has a short little story about the immigrant pictured on the front.  These are made up stories based on real-life experiences of immigrants.  Every student was also given a graphic organizer.  This has the six questions students have to answer about their immigrant group: why did they come to America, what was life like in America, what sort of prejudice and stereotypes did they face, how many immigrants came between 1840 and 1920, what types of jobs did they usually take and what were working conditions like, and were there any famous people descended from this type of immigrant?  As they research their type of immigrant, students should fill out the row for their immigrant.  For example, if they are the Chinese group, they should fill out the six boxes for the questions for the Chinese immigrants.  They then took these six answers and made a poster, complete with pictures.  I encouraged them to find political cartoons, especially the Chinese and Irish groups, and photos of immigrants from that time to really drive that point home. 

After the posters were completed, they were hung up around the room.  Students then went from poster to poster filling out the rest of the graphic organizer.  This allowed them to compare the experiences of the different groups and learn about each immigrant group without having to sit through a lesson.  Overall, the posters came out wonderful, and the students got a good look at the immigrant experience.

If you try out this lesson, leave a comment and let me know how it turns out.

Book Review- Life in a Jar: the Irena Sendler Project

I first heard about Irena Sendler about a year ago when I went to an education conference in Indianapolis, Indiana.  The Life in a Jar organization was one of the sponsors, and I got a bookmark talking about the book.  Intrigued, I did a little bit of research online and eventually bought the book.  I started reading the book in January, but I have this awful habit of starting books and not finishing them right away (it's terrible, I know).  As a way to take a mental break from school, I've started reading for pleasure again, and I found this book on my bookshelf while home for Thanksgiving and decided to bring it back to school in the hope of finishing it.  I finished it in about two days.

Irena Sendler was a Polish Catholic who lived in Warsaw on the outbreak of World War II.  She worked as a social worker.  When she saw the atrocities happening to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, she decided to step up and do something about it.  With the help of a secret organization called ZEGOTA, she and other Poles fought back and smuggled children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and brought them to safety.  The estimated numbers are:
-500 placed in monasteries
-200 placed with a certain priest who took care of them
-500 placed with the Polish Council for Care
-100 teens sent into the forest to join the partisan movement
-1,200 placed with foster families

These are all estimated numbers, there's no way to be sure just how many Irena and her friends saved.  This book chronicles not only Irena Sendler but how her story came to light.  In a small, poor high school in Kansas, three girls came across a brief blurb about Irena while researching a prospective project for the National History Day competition.  They decided to write a short play about Irena, and the project snow balled from there.  The girls have since performed the play all across the nation, and others have performed the play all across the world.  Irena's story is known becoming more well known.

This book was incredibly moving and amazing to read.  As I read, I marked so many things I wanted to remember to share.  As the three girls traveled around, they met a lot of Holocaust survivors.  Many of these survivors said, "Perhaps you won't tell my story, but you must tell Irena's story.  The world must never forget."  This reminds me a lot of when I read Searching for Schindler.  This book was written after Schindler's List and talked about how Thomas Keneally, the author, first heard about Oskar Schindler and went about researching the book.  Those survivors, like Irena's wanted to make sure the world knew about the story so it would be preserved in the years to come.  You see, Poles, like other European nations ravaged by the Nazis in World War II, do not want to remember what happened during World War II.  They haven't forgotten what happened, but they ignore the past.  This was something I had the opportunity to talk to my neighbors about.  They grew up in Germany and moved to America about twenty years ago.  They said that growing up, the textbooks didn't talk about the Holocaust or anything.  I can understand that the wounds were still raw, but it broke my heart to hear that.  Those who lost someone in the Holocaust certainly didn't forget.  While on their first of three trips to Poland, the girls went to Treblinka, the extermination camp all the Jews in Warsaw Ghetto went to.  It wasn't a concentration camp, its only purpose was to kill people.  The girls went to Treblinka with the descendants of some inhabitants of Warsaw Ghetto.  When they went to the camp, it was a moving moment, "their family's ashes were here, somewhere" as the author put it.  It's a startling realization that there, somewhere, were the remains of someone in your family, and you'll never know where, and they'll never have a proper grave.

Because of her work in the resistance movement, Irena was one of the most wanted people by the Gestapo.  She was arrested, but the resistance movement bribed a guard to release her, and she barely escaped with her life.  Unfortunately, that guard was later executed.  Because she was wanted so badly, Irena couldn't even attend her own mother's funeral (she died during the war) since she knew the Gestapo would be there, and they were.

Years later, the three Kansas girls had the opportunity to meet Irena and to discover what a wonderful and kind woman she was.  She bought each girl a necklace with a heart on it, saying, "I give to each of you a piece of my heart."  In her old age, Irena was more concerned with "her Kansas girls" than anything else.  When the mother of one of the girls was diagnosed with cancer, her main concern was the other, the girl and how the family was holding up. She saw the girls, their families and their teacher, Norman, as a part of her family.  Irena's son died on the same day the girls first read about her back in Kansas (talk about fate), and she said to Norman, "You've taken the place of my son."  Any money the girls sent to help Irena pay for postage to write to them, or just to pay for general living expenses, Irena automatically donated to a charity, she didn't want any of their money and thought it could go to much better use.

After her story got out, Irena was showered with all sorts of awards.  She was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, the highest award in Poland.  Even Pope John Paul II wrote her a letter commending her for her work during the war.

Sadly, Irena passed away in 2008, she was 98 years old.  Just three weeks before, her Kansas girls had visited her.  The last thing she said to them was, "You have changed my country, you have changed your country, and you are changing the world."  This book was amazing and so moving.  I highly recommend it.  It is a very easy read, and you'll find yourself unable to put it down.

If you want to know more about Irena Sendler, click here.  To learn more about the Life in a Jar Project, click here.

You Know Those Days Where Chaos Reigns in the Classroom?

I feel like the title of this post is pretty self-explanatory.  When I walked into my internship yesterday, I was expecting a normal day.  The classroom was empty, but I figured my mentor teacher ran down to the office or something and would be right back.  My mentor, Gary, didn't come up, but his co-teacher, Andie did.  She immediately told me that there was a problem, but we'd overcome it.  Apparently a series of unfortunate events have prevented Gary from coming in to school.  Andie said to me, "I hope you don't mind teaching AP U.S. history."  I'll admit, I panicked for a few seconds, but I knew I could overcome this.

Now, on any ordinary day at my internship, this would have been a mildly stressful situation, but yesterday was no ordinary day.  The NewTech students, 51 students in a technology and research based program, had a HUGE presentation that night at the Seaford Historical Society.  This involved working models, food, PowerPoints on laptops, the works, and despite the fact that two days earlier they insisted they had everything together for their projects, it appeared as if nothing was done.  At least during second period, Andie and I knew we would have help from the inclusive teacher, Kenny.  Unfortunately, Kenny was playing a dead body for the 10th grade BioLit class, so he wouldn't be there either.  It was crazy in the classroom.  Students were attempting to build models they didn't think they'd need, putting finishing touches on just about everything and trying to figure out just how everything was going to be transported to the museum.  Needless to say, they overtook my car.  You know you're an education major when your car is full of presentation materials and you still have bulletin board paper in the backseat of your car (a precaution in case a group didn't have a table cloth last night).  On top of all of that, I had to photocopy everything needed for AP U.S. history and everything for the lesson I'm teaching Monday and Tuesday of next week.  For the first time, I really felt like a teacher, running around like crazy all during planning period and all day really.  Andie and I managed though.  It was definitely a stressful day, but it was all worth it.

That night, my roommate and I went to the Seaford Historical Society  to see the students present, and I couldn't be prouder of them.  Everything miraculously came together in the end, and everyone who came was incredibly impressed with the work the students produced.  Everything was amazing, and my roommate left saying, "Wow, I wish I did that kind of stuff in high school."  Yes, yesterday was stressful.  It taught me that with the proper help and support, you can overcome anything that happens in the classroom.  Last night presented me with a few very pleasant surprises as well, and no matter how stressed I was all day, I would go through everything again to have the evening I had.

Writing is a Process, Not a Product Part II

Perhaps the hardest part of writing is actually getting started.  Once you get started, it's usually fairly easy to keep going, but you can spend forever agonizing over that perfect opening.  You get so wrapped up in that one or two sentences meant to draw in the reader that the rest of the writing and the whole purpose of what you're writing can fall by the wayside.  When it comes to a paper you have been looking forward to for two years, you agonize even more over ever little detail even more than usual.

Over the years, I've written my fair share of papers, and I've found the best process, at least for me, is just to write.  Yes, I've written roughly thirty pages in a week, but is it thirty pages of quality writing?  Probably not.  As long as I have the general ideas down on papers, that's all that matters to me.  It's fairly easy to revise a paper, at least for me.  Once everything is out on paper, I can move it around, add more, cut parts out, completely change the paper if I want.  I still have a ways to go, the paper needs some major revisions, but I've gotten it started, and that's better than nothing.

Keep posted, in the next few days I'll theoretically have a completed draft to start revising.  That's another thing of mine, I don't like incomplete drafts.  When I write, I like to write until I'm done, then I go back and revise and edit.  I don't like to write a few pages, then revise those few pages, then move on to write a few more pages and repeat the process.  How can I successfully revise a section if I have no idea if it will flow properly with the rest of the paper?  I like to look at the paper as a whole, not as a collection of paragraphs and sections meant to support a thesis statement.

Already, I can see some major revisions in store.  Today, about 23 pages into my paper, I discovered that the thesis statement I had was not sufficient for all the research I did.  In fact, I modified my thesis statement about halfway through my paper.  I didn't completely change it, but I definitely made some changes to it.  These changes are undoubtedly for the best, and I think it'll make my paper better.  Writing involves being flexible, just going with the flow and seeing where the creativity takes you, even if that's in a completely new direction.