Remember that one time I wasn’t an actress?

Remember? Oh wait…that’s now. And this past summer too. BUT, that doesn’t mean I didn’t still try (=

This past summer we made a video for our students – the purpose was to help explain the process of obtaining a student visa…something that can seem daunting, yet is necessary to spend time abroad in many countries as a student.

So…we made a video. This is me pretending to be a student about to venture off to Italy and Chelsea as our experienced student. Enjoyyyyyy:

Hanging out at Goodwill

If you were ever curious about what I spend my Sunday afternoons doing…

I usually end up doing fairly random things that probably no one else would enjoy doing…but I find some element of enjoyment, so I suppose that’s all that matters, right? (= The Sunday before yesterday, I spent a good hour at Goodwill, doing some treasure hunting, spending some time in the record section.

This interest started when my friend Chris sent me a record of Rob Base + DJ EZ Rock for my birthday last month. I never spent much time mulling over records, but once I received this one, I realized how neat they actually are. Records / tapes / CDs / mp3 players are of course to house music; however, there is a whole other side we tend to forget, probably because they are mass production is often related to a decrease in authenticity and value (shoutout Gutenberg + the printing press).

ART!! Hello!! There is so much artwork involved in producing a CD; however, with technologies such as iTunes, there’s a decent chance we will not even see the art. I love the authenticity of record artwork…so much character and history. Here are a few favorites from my recent Goodwill adventure:

I liked this one not necessarily for the art, but because Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings is by far one of my favorite works to listen to and perform. I’d love to hear this via record someday (ahem, Michael Bova (; )

Oh my god, check out this workout record!!! And the exercises below. So freaking wonderful.

Ashly, I don’t know why, but this one DEFINITELY reminds me of you (=

One Night of Queen at the Long Center (=

So, last night I saw One Night of Queen at the Long Center. So freaking good. Basically, this show is a two hour set of The Works covering Queen music. How wonderful, yes?

After the show, I was thinking about what I thought made the show so great…aside from the obvious answer of “the music”, one element of the experience I found so appealing was the crowd. Why? Well, because there were people there of all ages…equally enjoying the evening. Queen just seems to be a timeless classic that appeals to people of all ages. I had a row of older people on my right, a handful of middle aged people behind me and high school aged kids in front…all loving it!

I also said this about the Wilco show I saw a few months back, but last night, the performers and their stage presence were pretty darn phenomenal. The lead singer was wonderful and engaging, interacting with and including the audience, which from a branding perspective I think is pretty big. I might even say it’s HUGE.

Anyway, all in all, amazing wonderful night. Enjoy this clip I put together from last nights show (=

One more quick side note. Please look at the lower right corner of this picture and observe which seat number I had. 111!!!!! And no, I did not pick my tickets. The 111 saga ensues…

actually learning in school

In school, I’ve always been in classes with 30+ students…in college many of my classes had 300+ kids. The classes I took for the Spanish major were a little better at having smaller class sizes…until they turned many of our upper-division Spanish classes into lecture courses, aka turning our previous 30 student class into a 90 person class…virtually eliminating the conversational portion and replacing this with a lecture from the professor. (and how does this help us learn Spanish…?)

At this point, I became really good at memorizing answers for the multiple choice tests given to these massive language classes…but I’m pretty sure memorizing answers with completely unrelated mnemonic devices isn’t the proper path to language acquisition.

Oh, and at this point too, I’m pretty sure the native speakers were loving the Spanish major because they have been practicing speaking / hearing Spanish at home since day 1, so…for example…the “listening” portion of tests…well, this was a piece of cake for them because they’ve grown up hearing and speaking Spanish so it’s like second nature. However, for those of us who did not grow up with the language…well, let’s just say, by having such huge class sizes and not having the opportunity to converse and practice speaking…well, let’s just say, it was a challenge.

Oh, and let me also say…I hands down learned 100% more Spanish in the semester I spent studying abroad in Mexico, than in the 8 years of Spanish I took in high school and college. Perhaps this is because I had about an average of 5 students in all of my upper-division courses in Mexico and the structure of the program was very much an experiential one. Instead of being talked at, we conversed and did many hands on projects, took field trips, etc. I’ll also note that I earned 2x as many upper division credits during the time I was gone than I would have earned taking classes at UO (I earned ~28 credits abroad and 12 credits is considered a full-time student at UO). I feel safe to say that if I spent 1 year, maybe 2 in that type of environment, I would have Spanish down, backward and forward. But no, I spent 1 semester learning the way kids should be taught, and the other 7 1/2 years…well…still trying to figure out what I got from that.

Anyway, I am digressing…and quickly…the education system is something I could certainly go off on…so yes, let’s end it there for now.

The point I’m trying to make is this. I’ve been taking a Greek class since September. There are four students in my class. I have learned more Greek in the 4 1/2 months (no class in Dec!) than Spanish I learned in the first four years in high school. Perhaps rather than cramming 3 classes into one (like my Spanish classes), we could take one class, divide it by 3, and have kids go to school for 1/2 the time, but actually learn and benefit from the smaller class sizes.

Anyway, this is what we did last class. It’s probably all Greek to you (ha ha ha I’m so funny) BUT, the stuff in this picture is a little story about a classroom and a teacher. And the teacher is learning all the kids names. And one kid forgot his pencil and the teacher became angry with him. And the kid said: well, it’s not like I forgot EVERYTHING, just a pencil!

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