New York City

My first stop on the way home this summer is New York City. I LOVE New York City. There's so much to do but that's not why I love it. Central Park is beautiful but that's not it, either. The food is a-maz-ing! But that's still not it. The incredible subway, Harry Cipriani's, Dinosaur Barbeque?  Nope.  It's not about them but they sure are wonderful.

I love New York City because of my friends here: Perien, Marcelle, Devayani, Jin, Sharon, Selen, Delci, Andrew, Renee, Parag, Maurice, Tim, Joel, just to name a few.  It's graduation time at Columbia University's Teachers College so everyone is around because they are either graduating or watching and supporting someone who is graduating with either a Masters or a Doctorate.  It's been absolutely fabulous being here and catching up with everyone more than we do on Facebook.


This is Perien and she is the reason I came to TC.  She graduated with a Doctorate in Educational Technology this week and I am so, so, so proud of her!  It's been a long haul but she persevered and has now the right to be called Doctor.  She is now preparing to head back to her home country of Namibia and work on implementing technology education for the country.

I love you, Perien!

Cool Ways to Procrastinate

My students took their exams this morning and I need to grade them.  But I hate grading.  So I was on Facebook and ran across this piece of cool technology, complements of Google.

Here's what you do.

Copy the following text:
pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk

Go to Google Translate.
Paste the text into the text box on the left and choose the 'From' language to be German.
Make sure your sound and speakers are on.


Now click the listen icon in the same box.

This is just too cool!!

Carrot Allergy? Are you serious??

I looks like I am now allergic to carrots.  UGH!  Let's add that to the list of allergies that is now rather long. 

First was apples in early 2009.  I had an itchy mouth, throat and ears so it wasn't a bad reaction but it was very annoying.  I had an allergy test run by my GI doc that said I wasn't allergic to anything but apples weren't included in that blood test. Yes, this was in Doha where medicine can be hit or miss.  Then came almonds in early 2010 followed a few weeks later by peaches.  A trip to Bangkok and Bumrungrad Hospital for some proper testing proved that I was allergic to tons of fruit.  The testing was tricky because I didn't react to the extracts that are typically used.  When I insisted that I had reactions when I ate items, the doc retested with the actual juice/pieces of fruit and that's when it became clear.  I had allergies.  First time in my life.


Apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries, apricots, mangos (but I don't like them anyway), and almonds.  A few others (strawberries, kiwi) showed a sensitivity to them but I don't react when I eat them so I'm not allergic as it takes both a reaction and a positive skin test to diagnose the allergy.

Last New Year's Eve I discovered I was allergic to snap peas when I ate one.  ONE.  It was the worst reaction I'd had and it was miserable.  Not only did I have the classic itchy mouth/throat/ears, my salivary glands went into overdrive and I felt incredibly nauseous.  I felt my throat close up a bit and it was hard to swallow.  I never want to feel that again!

Now let's add carrots to that list.  The other night I ate about 12 baby carrots as a late night snack shortly before turning in for bed.  I didn't feel any oral symptoms so I didn't notice a problem.  About thirty minutes later, though, I felt miserable.  My stomach was upset and nauseous, I had abdominal cramps, I couldn't concentrate, all I could think about was throwing up but I couldn't.  I was like this for about four hours.  Icky.  At first I thought it was food poisoning but I hadn't really eaten anything in the second half of the day that could have gone bad.  I couldn't figure it out.  Only the next day did I realize it was a mild (intestinal) allergy that was affecting the GI tract. 

So how in the world do you eat healthy when you're allergic to healthy foods?  I really don't know how except that I do take multivitamins twice a day.  And cook my fruit.  And now my carrots, too. 

Whoa, where'd I go???

It is time to resurrect this blog!  I've been absent for far too long.  As summer is approaching and I'll be returning to the states just two weeks from today, I want to get back to blogging about all the cool things happening in my life.

Many of you already know that just over one year ago I had a Roux-N-Y gastric bypass while here in Doha.  It was my hope to eliminate my type-2 diabetes, acid reflux disease and sleep apnea.  The icing on the proverbial cake would be losing tons of excess weight (130 kg or 285 lbs).

Each of these conditions greatly affected my every day life.  I was taking six pills a day (four different classes of medications) for the diabetes and it was still uncontrolled with an A1c of 8.6 even though I was eating well.  I was taking the maximum prescription dose of omeprezole for the acid reflux and one shouldn't be taking that much long-term as I had been doing.  The sleep apnea (technically hypopnea) was also occurring 59 times an hour but was much better with a CPAP machine.

Well, the diabetes has been eliminated, the acid reflux is gone and the sleep apnea is now down to only 6.5 times an hour (5-15 is considered mild).  This has been the most amazing time of my life.  This human body of ours is an amazing creation!  Thank You, God!

So much has happened in the last year or two and I want to start blogging about it even though it is in the past.  I feel a need to actually document what happened, who helped me through each part, and honor God for what He's done.  So the resurrection of Footnotes From Afar begins.  :-)

The first thing I want to mention is two particular blogs that I found that are incredible for offering me recipes that are good for me.  If you're interested in eating healthier, whether for losing weight or for dealing with medical conditions, these two blogs have been my main source of recipe ideas.  And inspiration.

The first blog is www.theworldaccordingtoeggface.com and it is the bomb.  Eggface (Shelly, in real life) has these Bites that are incredible and I make them all the time.  There are so many varieties and everyone I've made has been fab.  She is also running a giveaway right now for the new Click Espresso Protein Drink Decaf.  Check out her blog for a chance to enter and win.  I've entered and I'm hoping I get to win a canister of it.  :-)  I'm drinking Click Mocha as I type.  Oh, and I'm spilling it on the keyboard, too.   Brown liquid on my white Mac keyboard.  :-\

The second blog is bariatricfoodie.blogspot.com and is ah-maze-ing!  I make her Taco Casserole all the time and my friends ask me to make it for them.  It's soooo good.  And healthy.  And delicious.  And did I mention delicious?!


Well, this has turned into a long post, but a much needed post.  It's good to be back!  Stay tuned!

Summer Update 1

Wow, two and a half weeks goes too quickly! I've been in Rochester, NY with family since I got back from Doha. I stayed on my dad's boat on Lake Ontario and prayed daily for sun. That prayer was only answered about 5 of the days. Rain, rain, go away, please!?

I had only been here two days when my 12 year old nephew was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. What a huge surprise! No one in the family has Type 1, only Type 2. For those who don't know, Type 1 means that the pancreas is not working properly and is producing very little or no insulin, which is used to keep the blood sugar down. So there are major changes for him but thankfully he is being very responsible and giving himself insulin shots. Life happens.

Highlights are Father's Day with my Dad, seeing friends from Moscow (Anya and Christine and her mom), sewing projects, learning to embroider (kinda), waking up to the sounds of birds and water lapping the boat, taking my nephew go-karting, driving all over western New York (gorgeous, just gorgeous), eating pork of all kinds (bacon, sausage, ribs, ham, ...), seeing tons of animals and just being in nature.

Here are some pics:

My aunt feeding her dogs using chopsticks

Auggie and his pillow - I LOVE this dog!

Beautiful Nature

Beautiful Friends: Christine, me, Anya (7 months pregnant!), Christine's Mom

My nephew and my Dad, on Father's Day

My nephew at his best: laughing!

Go-Karting!

Whew! Finally complete!

Stress, you must leave now. My thesis is done and handed in (just awaiting corrections). The AP computer science exam was taken by my students yesterday. Botball is over. Standards and Benchmarks AND my courses' indicators are written. Stress is melting away. Time to go get a massage!

It's been beyond busy these past few months but it now looks like I'll survive. The good stuff is coming. What good stuff? Thought you'd never ask! I leave for NYC and graduation a week from tomorrow and I'll get to see my friends and family. I'm presenting a workshop at "Scratch Day at TC". I'm getting myself an iPhone as my graduation gift to myself. I'm teaching my students how to make iPhone applications (as I learn how to make them myself). I'm moving into a villa, shared with a friend, that has outdoor space and I've already bought a pool. I'm bringing a hammock back to Doha with me. I'm seeing (and staying with) Nicole in London on my way back to Doha. Ed and Mike are visiting in June.

How's that for a quick update?

BOTBALL!!

Updated with pictures!

The competition board and our robots in action!

Taylor, Grant and I discussing strategies for reprogramming.

The team watching the competition. The five boys
surrounding me are on our team.

Original Post:

What a fun, fun day! Today was the Botball competition and we loaded up our robots, our toolboxes, our computers, and our students and went over to Carnegie Mellon to showcase our stuff. Lots of lessons later, we didn't place in any of the categories but we did receive a "Judges' Choice Award" for our robot designs. The kids had a great time and, although they are dead tired, are already thinking about next year's competition. I'll post pictures tomorrow when I finally get my hands on some.

You know..

... you live in the middle east when you pull into the grocery store parking lot and realize that the Porsche Cayenne parked next to you has been left running while its owner went inside. I couldn't believe it! The owner possibly felt comfortable enough with middle east justice or was just so filthy rich that he/she didn't mind the car being stolen.

Welcome to Doha.

Recovery

After two naps yesterday, I was finally rid of the migraine. Or so I thought. Nasty bugger decided to return and attacked me all night. Today is much better.

I'm up at school working on writing my major paper, kind of like a thesis just not as big, for my masters degree. It's a gorgeous day and I'm sitting in the senior commons, a place in school with windows two stories tall. Birds are flying around outside the windows and I'm energized to write. Wahoo!

Okay, break time is over now. See ya!

Migraines are for the birds

When I was a kid, I would get a migraines often and have to go in to my mom's bedroom because it was the darkest and quietest room in the house and I would sleep it off. Now that I'm an adult, the don't come around as often but when they do, they are whoppers. I've been fighting a bad headache off and on for three days and so it was no surprise last night that it turned into a full fledged migraine. Yuck. Queasy, dizzy, hungry but nauseous, pounding, pounding, pounding. Thankfully, these days there are better over-the-counter medicines to help. Thank you, Excedrine Migraine! I took two pills and slept through the night. Now that I'm awake, my head feels about 5 feet big/wide and a little light-headed, but that's pretty normal for the after-effects. There is still some lingering pain so I'll wait to see what it does before I decide to take more meds and go back to sleep or not. Or maybe I'll just go back to sleep.

Thank you, Lord, for sick days. It feels so weird to be home when everyone else is at school. I put more birdseed out on the balcony so I could watch the birds come and listen to them sing. It looks like it's going to be a hot day here!

Seniors

All year long, I've had this one particular Senior boy in my AP computer science class who has tried to get me to slow down, to not give so much homework (or any), and to go off on tangents during class. He has annoyed me to death! There were days I actually did not want to see him or hear his voice. Now they have finished all the course materials and are taking practice exams to prepare them for the big one on May 5th. Now he says to me, "Thank you, Miss T. This practice is really helpful." :-D Aaaaahhhhhh. Finally.

Still...

...dealing with writer's block. Ugh!!!

On a different note, here is what my Robotics students have been doing lately.

Kids...

...Just hang around them long enough and you'll get the laugh you need. Today, I heard a robotics student say, "There should be a robot powered by sheer awesomeness. Then I could power it just by being in the room."

Ah, no self-confidence issues for him! :-P

Need a laugh

I need a laugh today. I'm exhausted, have tons of work to do and I can't concentrate one iota. Hope you enjoy this laugh as much as I do. Laughter is medicine for the soul...

This is complements of www.failblog.org and it was posted by Marie-Josée. Thanks for the laughs! One note on failblog, there is a g-rated version link at the top of their page.

Git R Done

A colleague at school ends his emails with "Git R Done." And that's just what I need to do. My paper for my masters degree, I just need to git r done. I absolutely hate writer's block and don't kn ow how to get around it. As well, my sugars are still a bit higher than they should be and that makes me sleepy. I took a 5-hour nap yesterday, then slept 7 hours last night, and I'm yawning as I write this.

Okay, gonna run to the grocery store now. Then I'll write!

20.3 - Yikes!

So the excitement for the day is my blood sugar, 20.3, where normal fasting is between 4.4 and 6.6. These are numbers are the European values used to measure it. To get the US numbers, multiply by 18.

The nurse at my school ordered me to go to the hospital. I ended up in the ER getting saline. By the time they took measurements, the level was going down so they decided not to give me insulin. Wahoo!! It appears that a recent change in my diabetes medications was not doing what it was expected to do so the amounts are being changed again. Oh well...

Now for more FUN excitement, I get to build the Botball competition table this afternoon. Double wahoo for power tools!!!!!!! If you don't know about Botball, it's a robotics competition where student teams build robots to manuver around the table and collect objects to earn points. For more info, visit www.botball.org. Here is a short video from them about this year's tournament:

You can see the table that we will build this afternoon. My team has built two different robots to perform two different functions on the table and their ideas are great. I really hope they do well!

Starting up again!

Wow, I haven't blogged in 4 months! You folks are patient with me. It's been a real rollercoaster with my job here from the end of December to the beginning of March. I was facing an absolute TON of work (about 16 hours a day), most of which had no real effect on the students and I was getting quite depressed. So I stopped blogging. I stopped communicating. I sometimes do that when things are rough because I can't seem to find a way to be positive. As I was taught, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. While that maxim definitely has its place in this world, I'm learning that there are times when you just need to be honest, with yourself and the people around you.

I'm learning this from a woman who is blogging very honestly about her experiences with her very sick son, Stellan. Go to www.mycharmingkids.net and read. And then pray. You see, Stellan wasn't expected to survive until birth because of a heart defect discovered while he was still in the womb. Now he is about 5 months old but back in the hospital with a VERY fast heartbeat. MckMamma, as she refers to herself, has to be the most real blogger I've read in a long time. I hope her tales impact you as much as they have me.

On more mundane matters, school is better now that I'm not teaching a 4th prep (the Algebra II class) and I can focus on trying to really get my head wrapped around the new courses I'm teaching. I'm happier and I'm enjoying what I'm doing now. The AP Comp Sci class had one team enter a programming competition at Carnegie Mellon Qatar last weekend and they took 3rd place. Way cool, especially since I feel I haven't done them justice this year. The robotics team has a competition on the 25th and it's called Botball, if any of you have heard of it before. If not, check it out at botball.org. It's a fun competition.

The biggest thing on my plate right now is finishing my major paper (almost like a thesis) for my master's degree. It is overtaking everything but the work is soooooo interesting so it's okay. Please pray that I don't procrastinate AT ALL IN THE NEXT WEEK as it seriously needs to get done and I'm such a distractable person.

Well, anyway, sorry to be away so long. I'll try to get photos of my trip to Ethiopia up and the few others I've taken since. Love you all!!!

'Wow' Sights in Doha

Today in the grocery store I spotted a can of ready-made chicken salad. Not too unusual, except for where it was located: dead center of the Mexican food area!

Picture one of those huge, blow-up slides that is bigger than a bounce house. Now, picture three college-aged girls climbing up and sliding down. Nothing unusual, right? Picture them wearing abayas. What a sight! I desperately wanted to take a picture but I just couldn't bring myself to do it!

The first rainstorm of the season happened yesterday. Since it doesn't rain often here, it really was a welcome site. Thankfully, I was home and not out driving. Many roads flooded. Friends who happened to be at the mall got to see water cascading down in H&M which ended up closing. Yikes!

The 'Real' Spiderman

So the second day of vacation brings much excitement! The real spiderman, Alain Robert (www.alainrobert.com), is going to be scaling the big hotel that is across from my building. La Cigale is the hotel and I can see it well when standing on my balcony. WooHoo!!

Here's the hotel:


Here are a few pictures of the climb:




Even with a zoom, I couldn't get a really good picture of him. Oh well. At least I had an incredible seat for free!

1st Day of Vacation

The first day of a month-long vacation. How sweet does that sound?!

My church put on a Christmas play unlike any other. I loved it! The play included Herod and his perspective, paranoia, and penchant for putting people to death. Herod's chief adviser, Nicolas, was there when Herod gave the decree to put all Bethlehem children under the age of 2 to death. Then, 40 years later, we see Nicolas, in prison, in deep despair over the loss of his own son because of the decree. But Peter is in prison with him and explains that the real King of the Jews didn't die but instead lived to adulthood. He goes on to show Nicolas that he can be saved because of Jesus' death on the cross. It was a way different Christmas play and it was wonderful!