BUBBLES!

So, Jodie bought a new toy for Myers today... a bubble blower. So, at 10pm tonight, Myers decided he'd be in melt down mode if he didn't have bubbles NOW. So we opened it up, added bubbles, and gleeful anarchy ensued. I have a feeling he'll be awake till we're out of bubbles!
By the way... the pictures don't capture this, but... it's close enough to bed time that Myers isn't wearing pants!

The Treehouse

The past two days have been designated Lombardo treehouse work days. In preparation for the kiddos birthday party, we've been, for the lack of a better catchphrase, pimpin' out the clubhouse as a mutual birthday present for Bailey and Myers. We've supplied the funding and Jodie's dad has supplied the labor. We've been adding monkey bars, climbing wall, and swingset, topping off the sand, taking care of some demolition (removing the walls and adding railing), and now we're getting ready to add a new metal roof (so I can go sit out in the clubhouse while it's raining.
We spent all day Saturday and Sunday working on the yard and getting the treehouse ready. Almost done!
By the way, Bailey took most of the pictures in the slide show... that accounts for some funky angles and awesome perspectives :)

Cades Cove

We took the beautiful weather on Tuesday as our opportunity to try to get the ball rolling on this year's batch of Get Out More activities. After rushing home from a hectic day of school, we celebrated Bailey's spring break by heading to Cades Cove to picnic at the picnic area. In spite of the beautiful weather, the Cove wasn't very crowded. Hitting the loop around 6 was perfect, as deer are crepuscular animals (most active around dawn and dusk). The grand total of critters seen ended up at 126 deer and a few handfuls of turkeys.

Workin' in the Garden

Whigg Meadow

This weekend we camped out at Indian Boundary in the overflow area. After spending a cold night (toasty in the sleeping bag) we headed up the Cherohala Skyway to Whigg Meadow. We hiked to the meadow from Mud Gap (a part of the Benton McKaye trail) down the road a bit to the site of a 1945ish military plane crash. We were able to see only a few parts since the plane had been bull dozed since it went down during WWII.

Chilhowee Lake Sunday

One of our new favorite family activities is to load up the car and head to Chilhowee Lake on Sunday mornings. Why? To fish? To canoe?
No, so the kids can throw rocks in the lake. Hours of satisfaction!

White Oak Sinks

We took the troop to White Oak Sinks for a day hike. You can never go wrong with White Oak Sinks.

Trip Pictures

In my haste, I think I forgot to post the address for the pictures---

picasaweb.google.com/andylombardo

In the future, more pictures from other teachers will be posted to

Smug Mug

Back to 5 Dec 2008

We left Santa Cruz in the morning and took a water taxi to Baltra, an island very close to Santa Cruz that houses the airport at the site of a WWII US airbase. We spent a large chunk of the day waiting around the small, open-air airport waiting for our flight. We were bumped from our original flight that had a layover in Guayaquil and instead had direct service to Quito.

It's definitely sad to see the islands go. They truly are las islas encantadas. I am very ready to go home, but it's really weird being in a city of 2 million people right now. Add that to a mild case of alititude sickness (we're above 10,000 feet), and you've got the makings of a dizzy, migrained, homesick guy sitting around the hotel. It was nice to have a few minutes to decompress, but as soon as we got to Quito we went straight to the hotel and had a few hours of meetings and then dinner. By the time it was over, I was out. Putzed around online a few minutes, chatted with Jodie online, and went to bed.

I'll be back in town Saturday night! (then home Sunday, bus duty/school/basketball party Monday, school Tuesday, then a Tech conference in Nashville Wed-Fri)

 

1 December 2008

Santa Cruz (1 Dec. 2008)

Today was the busiest and most stressful day of the trip so far. Over the past several days we've been collaborating in small groups by subject matter with four American teachers and one Galapaguenan teacher.

We came up with a solid unit idea to focus on what we termed "The Paradox of Paradise." Whereas most groups were focusing on environmental issues from the perspective of science or biology, we were viewing the glory of the islands through a literary interpretive lens. We saw the unabashed beauty of the islands, but we saw it directly juxtaposed against the dangerous side of nature, the parts of nature that lie in wait prepared to devour anything that isn't equipped or adapted to deal with it.

While it was exhilarating to have literary discussion time, preparing a unit plan and presentation to be delivered at the Colegio Nacional de Galapagos became taxing. After disembarking from the M/V Santa Cruz this morning, we boarded directly onto a bus for a 45 minute ride to the Hotel Red Booby, where we immediately began the last minute preparations for the presentation. Work on the presentations lasted until lunch at the Café Hernan a few blocks away from the hotel. The most unsettling aspect of the walk to lunch was the way that all of us still felt like we were on a ship. The ground seemed to rock and sway with the tide. According to those who have been on cruises before, the sensation supposedly goes away after about 24 hours.

From lunch, we basically went back to the hotel to regroup and walk over to Galapagos National High School. We arrived at the high school at 2pm, with presentations starting at 2:15. There were eight groups presenting, with ours being the last. Each presentation lasted between twenty five and thirty five minutes, so our presentation didn't begin until 5:40ish. Once on stage, everyone performed marvelously. Lena had a great hook for introducing our topic, John had a very witty way of describing a certain poets work ("The tourist with the third eye sees nothing"), Betsy was very enthusiastic, especially considering that the power went out during her portion of the presentation, and Zoila displayed mad translating skills and had a good perspective on our topic.

Finally, the most stressful part of the trip was finished.

Next, the students at the Colegio put on a cultural program of singing, dancing, and music. Once again, I successfully avoided taking part in the "Dancers pulling audience members up to dance" portion of the program. One of my favorite quotes from one of the music teachers at the school was "Most cultures around the world are trying to preserve their culture. In the Galapagos, we are trying to create our culture through music and art." It served as a poignant reminder to me that it would do some good to help reinvent our culture in the United States. The more I see, the more I am reminded of the fact that regional culture is practically dead. Except for pockets of preservation, even areas with rich cultural histories, like the Southeast, in particular, have bought into the idea of a homogenized culture of corporate conformity. As a middle school teacher, I get to see this in play by watching as my students over the past six years have been hooked on the life support of the prepackaged culture that they are downloading daily through television, internet, and video games. Adolescence is an important formative time, and they are the ones being most forcefully wooed. Our lives are basically one big advertisement, where our idea of culture is no longer "How can I express myself, my beliefs, my ideas, and my identity through the arts?" but rather "How can I express myself through the things I own, through the things I watch, through the things I buy?" As a tourist here, I constantly feel the danger of experiencing life through the viewfinder. I have to remind myself to put the camera down and have experiences, to see things in real life, not through my lens. It's helping to remind me that right here isn't the only place where I view the world through a lens. Maybe the greatest danger of our downloaded culture is that it has convinced us that it doesn't exist. We are sweetly serenaded by the sirens' song, enticing us, singing softly in our ears that our consumption is what brings meaning to our lives.

 

Bongo y Panga (1 Dec. 2008)

Short entry. After dinner tonight we saw possibly the rarest species so far. It's most commonly known by its scientific name--bailandus lombardous.  Hopefully, there won't be pictures posted later.