Should Be Doing Homework

The end of summer isn’t pretty: my hard-earned tan is fading back to my usual pasty skin tone, I’ve got bags under my eyes from waking up four hours earlier than my body wants to, and beginning of the year activities leave little time for things like hair brushing or make-up doing.

This has probably been the hardest summer-to-school transition I’ve ever had. A lot of my friends went off to college and I’m still stuck here with the ridiculous load that comes at the start of senior year, most notably college applications. At the beginning of the summer I vowed to have my college essays written and Common Application completed before I had school and homework to worry about, but by September I still hadn’t done anything except create a username on the Common App website. The already onset senioritis hasn’t helped much, either.

Just this past week, however, things have started to look up. I’ve finally gotten over the end of summer, and I’m starting to get excited about the beginning of fall. The cold weather has reminded me of how much I love fall clothes. Today in the Journal Sentinel there was a whole section dedicated to fall fashion, and I just got the fall J. Crew catalogue (unfortunately I’m not in a position to spend $235 on a puffer jacket, but I can still dream).

 

This whole summer I’ve stuck to a uniform of running shorts and t-shirts, but there’s so much more variety in cold weather clothes. I’m making a scarf right now in fibers class, and I can finally start wearing those boots I bought two months ago.

Besides the wardrobe, I love how fall brings holiday after holiday. Stores have brought out their Halloween stuff already, and although a lot of people hate it when holidays begin so early, I say the more of them, the merrier. We’re entering the season where from now until January, houses are covered in Halloween/Thanksgiving/Chanuchrismakwanzakah/New Year’s decorations. It also seems like everyone has a birthday around this time (in fact, I like to consider my September 19^th birthday as the beginning of this holiday marathon).

So even though fall means the end of summer, I guess it’s not all downhill from here. I’ve just started most of my college applications, and although I can’t say that I’ve gotten used to school, it’s at least not as painful as it was a few weeks ago, now that I’ve realized the things I have to look forward to. I guess the old cliché about a closed door bringing an open window is true; since we live in Wisconsin, though, opening a heating vent might be a better choice right now.

There are a lot of things about politics that I think are confusing, but this is definitely near the top of the list: I heard a political analyst on TV say that Sarah Palin is attracting women who once supported Hillary Clinton.

This just seems completely wrong to me. There are one-time Hillary Clinton (a pro-choice, liberal) supporters voting for Sarah Palin (a pro-life, conservative NRA member) just because she’s a woman? I’m all for breaking that glass ceiling, but I think that women changing their votes just on the basis of gender are doing just the opposite. A woman in office should be elected because she is the best person for the job, thus proving that women and men are equally capable. If people expect women to vote based on their gender instead of their principles, that’s completely underestimating women’s ability to choose the right candidate based on their beliefs.

I’m not necessarily saying that Sarah Palin is the wrong candidate, but I can’t believe that many women are doing a complete 180 degree turn and voting for her after supporting Clinton. Palin and Clinton may both be women, but they have completely different principles. If someone is voted for just because of her gender, that’s underestimating her ability as a leader. We need to look beyond things like gender, just like we must look beyond things like race or religion, to make a decision that will best suit our country for the next four years.

On Saturday night, Father Dennis Callahan of Christ King Parish passed away after a seven month struggle with ALS, a disease that causes motor neurons, and thus muscle movement, to slowly deteriorate. I was lucky enough to go visit him a couple of weeks ago and learn a lot more about him than I knew before.

Even though he was afflicted with such a sad disease, Father Dennis was surprisingly cheerful. I had expected to have to carry on conversation and was worried about running out of things to say, but he actually wouldn’t stop talking. It was obviously incredibly difficult for him to talk and laugh, but he did so for a couple of hours.

The most amazing thing about him, though, was his attitude toward his disease. Even though he needed assistance in almost everything that he did, he believed that the disease was a blessing. He said that as a priest he had been meeting with people all of his life, but now he had the chance to listen much more deeply to his visitors’ stories as well as to tell his own. Without the disease he would not have met and talked to the many people who came to visit him.

Obviously, Tosa has lost a great man, but at least many of us got to know him on a greater level first. Father Dennis’ disease was definitely not just a blessing for him, because if it weren’t for the disease, I wouldn’t have gone to visit him.

I thought I was going to help him get through a difficult time, but he ended up showing me that something so difficult could be the complete opposite depending on the way you look at it. He told me that he believed that life should be all about love and be “light and easy.” Anyone could see that he was living his own words, regardless of such a hard situation. It’s amazing that Father Dennis could have this positive mentality towards something so painful; it makes me wonder how much better my own life would be if I could approach my much smaller problems with the same attitude.  

In the Cue section of today’s (August 5^th) Journal Sentinel, there was an article entitled "Words of wisdom" about a Carnegie Mellon professor named Randy Pausch who delivered “The Last Lecture,” a speech he wrote last September after he had been diagnosed with cancer and didn’t have long to live. He just died on July 25^th.

Last fall someone sent my mom the video of the lecture, and in it he said that it was really important for parents to let children be creative. Dr. Pausch said that one way to do that was to allow kids to paint their rooms whatever way they want. This timing couldn’t have been anymore perfect for me, because my mom and I had just been arguing about what color to paint my room. While she liked the light blue that it already was, I saw a picture of a room in a magazine with bright, school bus yellow walls and fell in love with it. As you can see, after hearing the lecture she gave in:

 

So even though it’s not a very big thing, I guess I have Randy Pausch to thank for convincing my mom to let me paint my room such an obnoxious color. If you haven’t thrown out today’s newspaper yet, I would definitely suggest reading the article. It asks different people in the community this question: “What wisdom would you impart to future generations if you knew it was your last chance?” My favorite quote is from Dick Chudnow, the owner of ComedySportz: “If you’re waiting for something to happen, it won’t.”

It’s been all over the news that the Wisconsin Humane Society bought Puppy Haven Kennels, a puppy mill in Markenson, so that the 1,100 plus dogs could be taken out of cages and put in loving homes. When I read about this for the first time in the Journal Sentinel I pleaded with my mom to get one, but that’s pretty standard procedure in my house. My brother and sister and I have been begging for a dog for as long as I can remember, so I definitely found it surprising that we actually ended up getting one of the puppy mill dogs.

On Monday night my sister was so excited because my mom told her that they could go look at the dogs the next day. When she told me about it I just shrugged it off as another fruitless trip they would make to the Humane Society, where my sister would fall in love with a dog that my parents thought was too big, too hyper, or too much of a shedder.

When they came home, though, my sister was holding a tiny girl poodle mix who instantly became the favorite member of the family.

 

We haven’t decided on a name yet, but I like Genevieve and my sister likes Zoey. Any suggestions?

Yup, it was exciting.

When I realized that I could no longer get tickets for the Jonas Brothers concert at Summerfest a couple months ago, I was pretty upset. Then my friend’s sister won tickets and she got to go, and the jealousy got even worse. I went to Summerfest on Sunday and saw thousands of girls in Jonas Brothers apparel excited to go to the concert. That was hard.

But now I’m starting to wonder why Jonas Brothers, or any boy bands, have such huge appeal. Well, there’s the obvious. Look at them:

 

But if it’s just their looks that are so great, why does everyone (correction: every girl) love their music so much? I’m not going to lie, I know the words to more than a few of their songs. I normally listen to more alternative music (The Wombats and Red Hot Chili Peppers are my favorites) that aren’t really anything like Jonas Brothers, but when a JoBros song comes up on my iPod, I’m not going to skip it.

Whether I have reasons to love them or not, though, I don’t think I’ll get over missing their concert anytime soon.

Waking up at 7:00 a.m., digging 30 inch deep holes for 8 hours, sleeping on an air mattress in a room with fifteen people and no air conditioning – doesn’t really sound like the ideal summer day, does it? Well, after a week of days like this, there’s nothing that I would rather do than do it again.

I just got back from the ASP mission trip in Kentucky with over 90 kids from the Tosa Trio (Karen Waldkirch wrote about it last week). We left last Saturday at around 6:00 a.m. and drove ten hours to London, Kentucky. The next day we drove another few hours to our final destination, Harlan County, and started our work. There were several small teams that each got assigned a different house and a different job. My team had to replace a trailer’s foundation by digging holes beneath it (and trust me, there are no good tools to use to dig under a trailer) and then filling the holes with concrete and cinder blocks.

 

(Digging holes under the trailer – this was an easy one because it was on the end. The monkey was our team mascot.)

It was definitely one of the best, if not the best, weeks of my life.

Going on this sort of trip teaches you so much. It’s amazing that there can be such a different culture in the same country. Instead of the neighborhoods around here, there are groups of trailers arranged in “hollers,” in which all of neighbors were family. So while we were helping our family, we met their cousins, nephews, uncles, and other distant family members who were all stopping by. There were many things that I didn’t understand about the people there, yet I could relate to them in a lot of ways, too. It’s weird, but they were both more different than me and like me than I expected. The community was different, but on an individual level everyone seemed like the people at home, if that makes any sense.

Of course, the area was much poorer than here, but as cliché as it sounds, even though the people we were helping didn’t have a lot of material things, they had plenty of other things to make up for it. They lived in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen (which isn’t what I expected when going to Kentucky) and there was an amazing sense of community and family. Many of them live so simply and are so happy, and I’ve finally decided that it’s about time I try to de-clutter my room a bit, because I don’t really need all of the stuff I have jammed in my closet.

 

(My small group in front of a lake in Kentucky)

There was another cliché that I felt on this trip: you get more than you give. Obviously, this is a standard response to a trip like this, but I’ve got to say it. It’s not that I really got a feeling of doing something good on this trip or anything; it’s that I just had an amazingly fun time. The people we were helping were some of the coolest people I’ve ever met, and leaving on Friday was a lot more difficult than I thought it’d be. I expected to have a lot of fun with my friends from Tosa on the trip, but I actually had a great time with the Kentuckians I had just met, too.

You also do get a great sense of accomplishment out of a trip like this, which was much needed for me after I spent the first few weeks of my summer doing nothing productive. Like I said, I learned a lot about a completely different culture, not to mention how to do a lot of construction work. If I could spend my whole summer doing something like this, I absolutely would.

It’s hard to put into words exactly what made this trip so great, and I think you have to experience it yourself to understand the feeling this trip gives you. So if you’re over 21, each small group needs two adult leaders to volunteer. They were scrambling to find leaders this year and everyone ended up having a blast. And if you’re in high school, I have to say that you need to go. Everyone should do some sort of mission trip like this, not necessarily through the Tosa Trio. This sort of thing is a life changing experience, or at least it was for me.

Despite my lack of a car, I’ve finally found a way of getting around other than mooching off of my mobile friends: the bus! And I’ve discovered that it’s actually a lot better than I thought it would be.

There are a lot of reasons why I think I’ll be taking the bus from now on. First of all, it’s obviously good for the environment, and after reading Maureen Connors Badding’s post, I feel like I should be a little more concerned about doing my part for the world. On the same note, with gas prices the way they are, I’ll gladly pay two dollars per ride.

So for father’s day, I thought I’d sort of embarrass my dad by singling him out. If you read Mrs. Waldkirch’s post a while ago, her son is doing an experiment this summer by writing forty songs in forty days. In yesterday’s song, “A Long and Weary Day,” my dad sang as a Southern underwater king (which is confusing if you haven’t been following Dan’s songs, but I just say that because he doesn’t usually have the accent). Happy Father's Day, Dad!

I began writing this a while ago, but, of course, I’ve been too busy with end-of-year homework to sit down and write it all at once. I read an editorial entitled “The 40-year-old high schoolers” that was published in the Journal Sentinel on May 21 and written by a high school teacher from Wauwatosa, Tessie Tennyson. She says that students today have no drive to do any work, and that their parents think that it is alright to do work for them. She also claims that students should be prioritizing their school work above anything else. I guess I hold some bias, seeing as the article was directly attacking a group of which I am a part, but I honestly think that Mrs. Tennyson is completely off the mark.

I suppose that a lot of people have misconceptions about what we teenagers do on a daily basis, but here’s the thing: not all teens strive to get through high school only doing the bare minimum or “pass the class with as little effort as possible.” I’m sure that this article does apply to some students, but in my experience, most teenagers are far from slackers and most parents are far from slacker-enablers.

Ms. Tennyson asserts that in today’s society, learning is not considered important, whereas grades are. I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this, but grades actually are extremely important. Learning, of course, is the whole point of school, but grades are what get a student into college along with extracurricular activities, which Ms. Tennyson later says should be sacrificed for homework.

The thing is, when I’m applying for college, there are some classes in which the material is not crucial for my educational growth. Gym class is the perfect example (no offense to my gym teachers, though - I liked most of gym, but the written tests on pickle-ball were a little much). What will matter is the grade that I got, as that will be factored into my grade point average. I know that learning is more important than grades, I’m not saying that it’s not, but I just want people to understand why students get so worked up about grades: they determine what our college options will be.

Ms. Tennyson continues by saying that we cannot bear being given difficult assignments. Here’s at least my reality: a significant portion of the homework I get is busywork. I admit that there are certain assignments that I dread even though they can teach me a lot, but I would definitely take a challenging yet meaningful assignment over one that’s pure busy work. Lately I’ve noticed that there are certain teachers who treat their class as more of an art class, in which I’m significantly downgraded if my poster isn’t colorful enough or my video isn’t creative enough. I can’t assume that this is the sort of work that Ms. Tennyson is assigning, but I know that this is an epidemic in high school.

I read another article awhile ago that said that students in Finland do the best on international standardized tests, and they generally have about half an hour of homework a night. One student who did a foreign exchange program from Finland to the U.S. said that it seemed like every assignment was spending hours gluing things on poster boards. She had to repeat a year of school when she got back to Finland because the U.S. had prepared her so poorly.

I feel that many adults have the impression that students come home from school and watch T.V. all night. My friends and I stay up until the early hours of the morning doing homework, not watching T.V. I have track practice after school so I can’t start homework until about six or seven, so I usually end up going to bed around midnight, after having done practically nothing but school, track, and homework all day.

You might ask me, then, why I don’t quit track. The thing is, I love track. In her editorial, Ms. Tennyson says that students and parents complain that there’s not enough time to do homework because of sports, plays, jobs, social events, etc. and that school should have priority over everything. This is probably the part of her editorial with which I disagree the most. School is supposed to give us the tools to be happy and successful in the future, but what about now? Shouldn’t we be happy and do what we love now? We are all given different gifts, and if someone’s isn’t academics but is something else, shouldn’t he or she have the chance to shine in another field?

She says that “assignments apparently should be lessened to accommodate basketball, cheerleading, McDonald’s  and the prom.” Does she honestly, seriously think that we should stay home from prom to do homework? Prom? I recently went to prom two days before the A.P. Biology exam, and I saw my friend there with her biology flashcards along with her. This made me feel guilty about not studying too, but then I asked myself if what I wanted to remember from prom night is the definition of a bryophyte.

Ms. Tennyson wondered “how we would get world leaders, new inventions, top-notch mechanics and intelligent conversation from each crop of graduating seniors.” Here’s what I wonder: if teachers don’t respect, appreciate and even enjoy the kids, how are the students going to do well? Doesn’t every story about great teachers begin with the teacher giving the students newfound hope and confidence in themselves? The only way a teacher can push students is by believing that they can handle being pushed, and motivating the kids to believe it about themselves.  Otherwise, what example, hope or inspiration is the teacher giving?  There are already many adults who assume that teenagers can’t have or are unwilling to have a positive effect on the world, and I would hope that if one group of people doesn’t feel this way, it’s teachers.

I feel that Ms. Tennyson's editorial made far too many generalizations. I have often felt classified as apathetic, indolent, and even loud by people who don’t even know me, just because of my age. If you’ve taken the time to read all of this, well thanks, first of all, but please understand that not all teenagers are unconcerned about the state of the world and our place in it.

Well, it’s been almost a month since I’ve written anything, but trust me, I’ve been trying to get to it. The truth is, this part of the year has been getting pretty intense. Some genius decided to schedule AP exams, confirmation, prom, and two track meets all in the same week, preceeded by a few weeks that have been equally crazy. To top it all off, this is the time of my high school career that colleges are the most interested about, because it’s right before I’ll be applying next fall. I just wanted to say that I haven’t disappeared from WauwatosaNow, even though from my social life is a different story.

As a side note to any teachers out there, let me tell you that the teachers whom I appreciate the most are those who are the most flexible. Obviously things have to have due dates sometime, but even an extra weekend can make a world of difference for a student who spends half her night drowning her anxiety in Cocoa Pebbles.

I got home from a track meet tonight and found Miss USA on the TV. I watched some of it, but it was difficult. It’s like watching a movie that makes fun of pageants, and Donnie and Marie Osmond didn’t really help make it any less clichéd (even though my mom says she liked them).

I do feel kind of bad for the girls who do it, though, because they all get the Miss South Carolina image and I'm sure that she was just really nervous. But to me, watching the interviews tonight didn't help shed that stereotype. They seemed to lack any substance.

I just don’t get how the judges decide the winner, either. It can’t have much to do with those interview questions, because each girl only gives one thirty second answer. The swimsuit and evening gown portions seem to be a lot more important, and that doesn’t really seem like the sort of message that’s needed in today’s society. And what does Joey Fatone know about judging beauty pageants?

The whole event seems really dated, too. Don’t you think that by now it’d be less about what a girl looks like? Or that someone would make it seem a bit less objectifying towards women and would make a Mister USA? NBC would have me watching that.

And not to be overly critical, but where do they get those dresses? Is it that hard to find a good one?

Firstly and most importantly, we need to incorporate brioche con gelato into our daily routines. Basically, it’s an ice cream sandwich, but not at all like the ones that we have. It’s an actual roll that’s got gelato piled inside of it. The best part is, Sicilians eat it for breakfast – daily. I’d like to hear someone come up with a better way to start the day.

 

Thirdly, and surprisingly not having to do with food, is our use of English. Even if it is the most widely spoken language in the world, L'italiano è molto più bello. Take the word chocolate, for example. It’s cioccolato, pronounced “chee-oh-coh-la-to.” Isn’t that just more fun to say? 

One more thing is the way we dress. I expected Europeans to dress much better than me, obviously, but it still was kind of shocking. Even on the nine hour flight from Atlanta to Rome, I felt awkward in my sweatpants next to the Italian in her stiletto boots and sweater dress. After that I definitely ditched the sweatpants. What might have surprised me the most was what men wore. I knew that girls would put more effort into their clothes than Americans typically do, but seeing guys with designer coats, bags, sunglasses, etc. was a bit unexpected. 

And then there’s all of the ancient ruins and typical tourist sights that Wauwatosa sort of lacks, but what can you do about that? I guess there’s The Little Red Store.

 

                              *A couple suggestions...

It’s always when you’re the busiest when everything else gets piled on. It’s Murphy’s Law.

During these past two weeks, I’ve gone to many fun and interesting events that I would normally have loved. The problem was that they all happened at once.

On Thursday I went to the Body Worlds exhibit at the museum on a field trip. Even if you’re a squeamish person like me, it’s definitely worth seeing.  The problem was that it was followed by a track meet and the usual load of homework that comes from missing school.

While I was still trying to finish this up, I missed school again Monday and Tuesday to participate in Model United Nations at UWM, in which students simulate a United Nations meeting. I’m interested in international relations and thought that the conference was enlightening, but it was hard to focus when I was worried about finishing my four math assignments and other homework with another track meet on Tuesday.

I got home yesterday and began packing for Italy, even though my plane leaves today and I still had some shopping to do (specifically for comfortable shoes, thanks to the many suggestions on my last post). I’ve finally got it all finished, but my suitcase still has tons of room.  I’m usually the kind of person who over-packs, so I’m a little concerned that in my rush I forgot about half the stuff I’ll actually need.

Anyway, sorry that you’ve read this tired rant, but I’ll finish it off on a positive note.   Once I leave the US I’ll be free of all obligations.  And, of course, it’s Italy!

I’ve just started packing, and I’m already beginning to feel culture shock: I’m not supposed to bring sweatpants.

Over spring break, I’m going to Italy on a school trip. I think it goes without saying that I’m super excited, especially because I’ve never been out of the country before. I’ve been preparing for awhile now, buying things and trying to learn some Italian. I think that “vorrei un gelato al cioccolato, por favore” (“I would like a chocolate gelato, please”) should be enough to get me by.

But then there’s this whole sweatpants problem. My Latin teacher who’s taking us on the trip says that people in Europe don’t wear sweatpants, so we shouldn’t waste space in our suitcase packing them. She also says that in her opinion, wearing sweatpants is like saying “I give up.”

If you watch Project Runway, you could say that Wisconsin fashion isn’t very fierce, but it is comfortable. It's nice to have the option to go nearly anywhere in sweatpants and not look out of place. If you go to Sendik’s, there’s sweatpants; Mayfair, there’s sweatpants; church, there’s sweatpants. It’s going to be interesting to see how differently the Italians dress. I'm guessing that there are no green and gold zuba pants.

Anyway, needing something other than sweatpants to wear is a good excuse to go shopping. And, of course, it’s Italy. I’ve got no reason to complain. It’ll definitely be worth sacrificing a little comfort.

I just heard a news reporter say that many people were getting upset over this picture of Barack Obama visiting Kenya:

 

I disregarded this as yet another petty topic of controversy that actually should have nothing to do with the election, but then the reporter said something that really shocked me and made me think. He said that the picture caused many to wonder if Obama is actually Muslim and then went on to assure the audience not to worry, because he is, in fact, a Christian.

Not only did this make me livid, it made me question the judgment of many voters. The blatant prejudice behind this statement makes me wonder how separate church and state really are. Is it just a coincidence that every single president (and all of those in the current election) has been a Christian?

It’s sad if many immediately associate Islam with the extremists who are constantly seen on the news, especially when this country has 5 million to 8 million Muslim citizens. If we are to be an accepting and just society, we must at least understand that, just as a Christian radical is nothing like the majority of Christians, “Muslim” does not mean radical jihadist by any means. By the way, the two religions are actually pretty similar.

This election proves that our country has matured enough to consider a woman and an African American as the next president, but how long will it take for us to be truly open-minded?

Despite the constant bickering, name calling, and verbal attacks that most people associate with politics, I genuinely enjoy the whole election process. I love being involved in the camaraderie that the candidates try so hard to inject into their campaigns.

Last Friday I went to a Barack Obama rally at the Midwest Express Center with some of my friends. Everyone knows that he’s an amazing speaker and it was incredible to see him in person, but there was a lot more at the rally that made it really fun.

For example, right by the entrance of the building there was a man playing the bongos and another singing a song about Obama. Then there was just the general enthusiasm and excitement in all of the people who applauded and cheered after pretty much every sentence of Obama's speech.

My friends and I found it hard not to get caught up in all of it and found ourselves signing up to volunteer, even though I knew that my schedule was already completely packed every day before Tuesday. We also got buttons which we probably could have made ourselves for less money. My favorite souvenir, however, is this hilarious, yet kind of creepy, Obama mask that I got for free (I plan on being him next Halloween):

So maybe I’m naive or optimistic, but I think that politics are really fun. Some people may believe that the election is blown out of proportion, but at least it’s entertaining.

I know that I should tie Tosa into every post I write, but for this one, it’s difficult. This is about a world so opposite of everything that I have known growing up, and I think that it’s safe to say the same about most Tosans. But I have been inspired by a cause that I think needs, more than anything else, attention.

I saw a documentary featuring what has been described as the “most neglected humanitarian emergency in the world” called Invisible Children: Rough Cut (it inspired the Invisible Children organization). The film is about three college students who went to Africa to help people in Sudan, but instead stumbled upon hundreds of children sleeping huddled together in the streets of a city in Uganda.

These children, with no parents or adult figures of any sort, are fleeing a rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army that has been violently trying to overthrow the Ugandan government for twenty-two years. Despite its brutal guerrilla fighting, the most shocking aspect of the army is who actually is fighting: over 90 percent of their soldiers are children, mostly boys between ages five and twelve.

This does not seem real to me, even though I know it is. I find it mind-blowing that this is such an underground issue. The name Invisible Children came from that fact that not even the creators of the documentary knew anything about this before they accidentally witnessed it themselves.

While there is a need for financial and humanitarian intervention, I believe that for such a hidden atrocity, awareness is an urgent first step. The documentary points out that if people had known about the Holocaust, hopefully they would have done something about it. Even though Uganda seems (and pretty much is) on the other end of the Earth, we can still make a difference just by resisting the easy inclination many Americans have towards apathy.

Of course there is no way that we can know everything that is happening in the world, even in this digital age where communication and information have almost no boundaries. Currently, Uganda is closer to peace that it has been in twenty years, but if and when the country does end the war, there will still be the children who lost family and homes in the fighting and the boys struggling with the psychological effects of being abducted into the army. I guess the tie-in to Wauwatosa is that, as Americans, we are some of the luckiest people on Earth.

Sorry I haven't written in a while, but I've been busy, among other things, creating this:

I'm pretty sure that making a stuffed three-headed dog (that's what it is, in case you can't tell) is a bit out of the ordinary, so I'll explain.

Last weekend, a bunch of my friends and I went to Madison for three days to meet up with 500 other people from fourteen different schools in what might be my favorite school-affiliated event all year: Latin convention.

By now, I'd be surprised if you haven't pegged me as just about the biggest loser alive, but the truth is, Latin convention is a party. Sure convention includes taking tests about derivatives, state mottoes, and what ancient Romans ate and wore as well as memorizing poetry and writing essays, but everyone who attends convention loves it. There is a lot more to convention than just knowing Latin. The real highlight is the spirit competition.

Schools are judged by how spirited they are, and, not to brag, but our school has won spirit for the past four years in a row. We really get into it. The most important spirit contest is the pre-assembly spirit, in which all 500 delegates are cheering, singing and screaming in unison with their school while dressed accordingly to the day's theme, such as "L is for..." (my school was litterae, or letters, so we each wrote a letter on a shirt and spelled out words) and "Greece-ers" (a 50's theme because it was the 50^th annual convention with a pun on the Greek aspect, as the convention focuses on both of the classical languages).

It would take far too long to describe everything that makes Latin convention my favorite weekend of the year, and it's hard to understand the atmosphere without actually being there. I mean, "Latin convention" doesn't sound that thrilling; most of my non-Latin friends ask if all we do at convention is speak and translate a dead language.

And as for that matter, as a true Latin student, it's now my responsibility to argue that Latin is not dead. There are numerous words and phrases in the English language that come from Latin. For example, the word language itself comes from lingua, which means the same thing. "Spirit" also comes from the Latin word spiro ("I breathe"), which, in my opinion, proves that the spirit of convention keeps Latin alive and "breathing."

And, because you still might not get the dog, there's an art competition, too. In Latin and Greek mythology there is a three-headed dog named Cerberus who guards the underworld and looks like Fluffy in Harry Potter, even though mine looks more like Scooby-Doo.

The Convention is run by the Wisconsin Junior Classical League (WJCL). There is also a National Junior Classical League that will be holding its week-long national convention in Ohio this summer. High schools around Tosa that attended convention include DSHA, Brookfield Academy, Brookfield East, Brookfield Central, Catholic Memorial, Marquette, Homestead and Rufus King.

*Hooray! The language lives!

I never expected to see such stylish high heels paired with religious vestments.

Yesterday, Wauwatosa’s Christ King Catholic Church and Calvary United Church of Christ participated in a pulpit exchange, switching the pastors of both parishes as part of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. As a young Catholic woman, this was especially interesting to me because the gospel reading and the sermon at Christ King were given by a woman, Pastor Lorrie Wenzel.

Although a Catholic priest presided over most of the Mass, I thought it was great that our church was open enough to have a woman lead such an important part of the liturgy. Honestly, this was surprising to me because the Catholic Mass doesn’t seem to deviate much from its status quo.

It wasn’t just the fact that a woman had such a key role in the mass that made it interesting, or even her shoes, but also that Pastor Wenzel gave a fantastic sermon. I bet that everyone at the mass would say that preaching is her gift, and her vocational choice couldn’t be better for her.

Pastor Wenzel was Catholic, but she left the Church to pursue ordained ministry. This makes me wonder how many other women might be out there who could do a great job in the Catholic priesthood. A priest at my Confirmation class said that women could not be priests because we play a different role in the Church, but shouldn’t a person have a role that best takes advantage of her God-given gifts? Catholic literally does mean broad-minded and all accepting. I don’t know. Those are just some thoughts.

Regardless of this issue, though, I think that the pulpit exchange is a great way to bring different Christian denominations and even Wauwatosa neighbors closer together. Congratulations to the churches that participated.