Drive your tractor to school day –Teays Valley High –Columbus Ohio

In all the years that I have been visiting schools this was a first – Drive Your Tractor to School Day that I have experienced. In central Ohio one doesn’t have to drive very far away from Columbus to end up in farmland and Teays Valley High in Ashville Ohio – (20 minutes south of Columbus) certainly qualifies as a Farmville. The real deal that is – not that annoying Facebook game.

 

So how does Future Farmers of America and creative writing mix? Surprisingly well. Of course the whole student body didn’t show up to school in coveralls knit caps and work boots on Friday via the cabin of a giant enclosed combine-like farm implement. The place had a healthy mix of your alternative kids, athletes and scholars along with some pretty dedicated teachers. (What doesn’t show dedication more than staying after school for a professional development session?)

 

Thanks to school librarian Lisa Campbell I was invited down for two days – heck I was so excited to work with these guys I came down a day early much to my and Lisa’s surprise. That was another first in my school visit career – I had never mixed up dates and shown up day early before – luckily I had the time to spare and cooled my heels catching up on correspondence and other work back at my hotel.

 

When I came back on my scheduled days the kids and I worked on memoir, vocabulary, figurative language, and public speaking skills. This visit type was one of my favorites where we did different stuff with almost each session. I like this type of day. It gives the teachers a variety of ideas and it keeps me on my toes switching gears. Kinda like those tractors I saw leaving the parking lot after school on Friday – puffs of black diesel popping from their smokestacks as their drivers headed home for the weekend.

Thanks to all who helped make my visit possible and to the students who worked so hard.

 

 

 

Bali Video

Motor Biking around Bali with Michael, Sara, Rai and Larry.

Hawken Middle School

Spent two fantastic days at Hawken Middle School where we worked on writing about change and revolution. Here’s a short vid.

Hawken Middle School–Cleveland Ohio

Don’t mention it…

One of our thank you notes from the kids in Aiken SC. I especially like the part about writing a poem with her mom.

I also like the fact that she kept everything to the left of the red margin – even if it did mean truncating my name.

Keystone Middle School–LaGrange Ohio

Spent two days at Keystone Middle School in LaGrange Ohio. It’s a little rural town near Oberlin and the kids couldn’t have been better. We wrote about getting the wind knocked out of us, X-Box game controllers catching fire, miracle horse births and the importance of wearing tight underwear along with a whole lot of other ideas.

We spent our first day getting our ideas all sorted out and organized during a pre write and then the second forty minute class was spent writing and sharing our memoirs. Well, the visit was memorable to say the least and I look forward to working with the students and staff again sometime.

Meanwhile here’s a few pics I took with my new android phone (I left my good camera on the dining room table again.)

Gecko, Gecko – who's got the Gecko?

Upon arriving at our Bungalow at the Alam Sari resort in Bali Sara informed me that the bathroom was already occupied. By a twelve inch long Tokay Gecko who was clinging upside to the ceiling. I ran and grabbed the camera but then he was gone. The rest of the week I stalked our reptilian friend trying to capture him for posterity.

Here is our guy after dropping off the ceiling onto my head, floor then rushing up the wall to disappear outside through a crack where the ceiling meets the wall.





This is the ceiling beam that our gecko hung out on – I have a whole lot of pictures of this ceiling beam with no gecko clinging to it. Now there was gecko on it when I first entered the bathroom but by the time I got back with my camera he had flown the coop.





Here’s out guy clutching to to the top of the beam as if it were a rolling log. By the time I could squeeze off another shot he was gone again. I obviously had to come up with another plan. I took our camera and set the focus for the beam then I set the flash and I began creeping into the bathroom at night, in the dark hoping to catch him unaware.





This almost worked but he obviously heard me coming so my next attempt would be even stealthier. I refocused the camera for the general area where he was hanging out and took a couple dozen practice shots.





Almost got him! Next time I will aim a little further to the right and I should get the shot.





The little bastard tricked me – the whole time we’ve been here he has been hanging close to his escape hole and this time he is further into the room. maybe he is getting used to me and the camera.


Well now he disappears for a couple days and I am afraid that my chance to get his portrait may have been squandered. Then one afternoon when we come in early to sit out the daily thunderstorm he is there. Sitting like he is posing. I calmly and quietly walk into the bathroom and click the shutter button a couple time.





Then later that afternoon he posed again – this time for a close up.

Nice getting to know you Mr. Gecko.

Jakarta International School

Not even a microbiologic sneak attack could keep me from my visit to the Jakarta International School. The day before our slated visit both Sara and I ended up flat on our backs with separate instances of some sort of food poisoning.  Sara first then I followed about six hours later. She believes her assailant was a salad we had outside of that final temple we visited where the lettuce could have been washed in untreated water and my guess is that I got mine at the airport via ice cubes in an iced tea. I spent the evening shivering cold with my intestines cramping afraid that I would have to miss my first day of school at one of my international favorites.

Lucky for me the next morning I felt just good enough to crawl out of bed and make the trip to Jakarta International School.  We couldn’t have been made more welcome. Kate and Matt the Middle and High School  Librarians made sure that we felt like rock stars the moment we stepped (Mm my head still spinning a bit) onto campus.

We started our three day stay with an assembly for several hundred seventh graders beginning with some great introductions by a couple students and a number from the middle school string quartet. I told ya this place is a class act. The assembly ended with the Middle School Principal Mr. Henry giving us a very gracious and eloquent impromptu welcome.

One thing JIS does is keep us busy. Each morning Sara and I would say goodbye to each other and then head into the middle and high schools respectively. I worked with 9, 10 and 11th graders and Sara with 6, 7, and 8th. Occasionally we would catch a glimpse of each other as one was walking across the schools lush campus. But, other than that we were full steam ahead.

Unfortunately I could not say the same for my stomach. The first day I had to duck out of class at least once during the eighty minute sessions as we worked on personal narrative and definition poems. The second day I made it through  whole periods as we practiced figurative language writing and by the third day, when we were working on public speaking, I was finally pretty much in control of my digestive system

Throughout the students and staff were hard working and engaged. I especially liked the extended class time allowing us to think more deeply about the work we were doing and the opportunity to work in the same teacher’s classroom a couple times really helped me to connect with a couple really great English teachers. I even met and AP English teacher who is also the schools champion rugby team coach.

This was not surprising though, see Sara and I have been here before and we had high expectations for our visit and they were met and then exceeded during a morning farewell assembly where we were given some lovely parting gifts and  Mr. Henry ended the shebang with a poem he wrote about Sara and me.

Thanks for the warm welcome – the great three days – and the fond farewell JIS. Seeya next time!

What’s the buzz?

The wasps here in Bali are approximately the size of a ballpark frank. After visiting the volcano Batur we got hopelessly lost for a few hours but finally managed to find our way back to Ubud and then to our bungalow in Keliki village – just before the daily rainstorm hit. Sara went to sit out on the porch to wait for the rain and left the sliding doors open inviting the cooler air from the approaching rainclouds in.

Along with the cooler air came the aforementioned wasp buzzing like one of those Cox model airplanes. He zoomed around the room a bit and then bounced a few times up against a glass pane next to the open doors. After hitting the glass a few times though he settled in and began walking on it. The totality of his reality had shifted and he was going with it. Most likely for this insect’s entire existence if he could see through it – he could fly through it, but all of a sudden boom – this portion of the air was solid. So he adjusted, instead of continuing to literally beat his head against it he stopped trying and began walking on it until we walked his way to the other side of the door and then flew away.

That’s how it is travelling to these far flung destinations that Sara and I find ourselves in. When we hit an obstacle seen or unseen we could pound our heads against it or we could just calm down and go with the flow. Here in Bali it has been pretty easy to go with the flow, whether we are motor biking up to the crest of a volcano, following behind Larry and Rai through city traffic on one of their professional shopping excursions, popping that deep fried bit of pork stomach in my mouth at a roadside Babi Guling joint or simply waiting out a thunderstorm in a mountainside wood shed - all is an adventure.

We wrap this stay in Bali up today and get ready to pack up and head to Jakarta in the morning. We fly out of here like a wasp through an open door – but something tells me we’ll be back.

To the Bat Cave!

Now – starting the day by finding a scorpion in your shoe may not usually be an auspicious start but I think it may have forebode the excellent adventure that was in store for us. The alternative to not finding the scorpion before putting on my shoe would have been much more disastrous. Okay, the scorpion wasn’t really IN my shoe – seeing as my shoes are flip flops here – but it was underneath them when I moved them to put them on – and it was a real live scorpion – so that should count for something.

We continued our motor scooter assault of the Island of Bali today under the adept tutelage of our friends Larry and Rai Collins (pronounced rye – like the bread.) We buzzed through the rice fields of Keliki Village and met up with the dynamic duo  in Ubud at 7:30am and headed for the coast. Kids in school uniforms, two and three to a motorbike whizzed by and a steady stream of folks were headed into the city while we headed out.

Along our way we made several stops – some because there was something especially interesting other times merely to combat motorbike butt during our ten hour odyssey. One of our stops was Gua Lawa – a Hindu shrine that comes with the extra special complement of a cave which serves home to several thousand long nosed fruit bats all chattering and basically just hanging out. What we didn’t notice, but I discovered through a bit more research is that the guano slick floors of this bat cave are populated by pythons all fat and lazy, their bellies full of unfortunate bats.

After walking around the temple grounds in our rented sarongs we headed back out on our scooters stopping by a roadside Babi Guling joint. Babi Guling is BBQ pork with the whole thing roasted on a pit after being rubbed in spices and filled with various goodies – here’s a recipe if you decide to try and cook it yourself.

After our snack we headed a couple hours further down the coast  during which we weathered a thunderstorm in a woodshed followed by a rather fancy lunch in a seaside restaurant. On our way back to Ubud we made a side trip to talk with Larry and Rai’s incense supplier – remember these two are the proprietors of City Buddha back home and it has been the serendipitous meeting up with them that has made this trip to Bali a complete success for us.

Anyway – the whole process of incense production was pretty cool. The stuff City Buddha sells is 100% organic and made from natural ingredients, flowers, spices, natural oils and the perfumey concoctions are trade secrets to the woman who manufactures them by hand. Sara and I received some free samples and got a first smell of a cinnamon scent that was pretty darn good.

How Larry finds these folks is a mystery to me we were so far from the beaten path that the local kids came out in throngs to see us, testing their few phrases of English and squealing like Babi Guling candidates when we responded. Sara taught the throng her shortest poem by first rubbing her hair and saying “Shampoo” then rubbing her eyes and saying “Boo Hoo”. The kids chorused it back and we all laughed and laughed.

In fact, pretty much, the whole time here we’ve had a smile on our faces. Tomorrow we ride up to the volcano.

Follow the Leader

So we drove our rented motorbike home to our Bali Bungalow in the dark for the first time tonight. The place we’re staying – the Alam Sari is about 10km outside of Ubud – which by Balinese terms is the boonies via unlit twisting and turning roads, hills, bridges, expanses of rice fields and choruses of chirpy things calling from the jungle that reaches toward the roadway.

Hence, even though my belly was full of a great Japanese meal suggested by and enjoyed with Larry and Rai – I approached the adventure with a bit of trepidation. The early part of the ride was no trouble through the well lit streets and with the traffic of Ubud. But, as we got further from the city the darkness became a canopy and the sporadic oncoming traffic blinded me with bouncing beams of light. Then, just as we made the turn near the temple that prefaced the most daunting portion of our ride another magical Balinese event.

A duck whisperer leads his weed and bug eating flock through a rice paddy.

It seems there was a festival going on at this particular temple and a procession of several dozen folks on foot attired in traditional dress were headed there. In order for the folks to safely make the journey a team of sarong attired men with torches was keeping traffic at bay. So we cued up behind the parade, first one, then three then a dozen or two motorbikes all waiting until the procession turned into the temple courtyard them we were flagged on to continue our journeys. Here’s the magic part. As we took off, the string of motorbikes stretched forward like a strand of Christmas lights extending before us. I could see every twist in the road before me as if candles floating down a river. Then one after another a bike would pull off until one lone rider was before us, and he carried on as we safely arrived home.

Coming home from school.

Today we motor biked south to a village known for its silversmiths where Sara picked up a few things and then to a batik co-op where I scored a couple shirts. We navigated via map by finding our intended destinations and then discerning the general direction, putting the map away and using a compass to keep us on track as we wended our way. We are so enjoying the freedom of traveling the side roads and alleyways.

Women doing batik at the co-op

While walking around the silver village we both accidently stepped in some dog poop. I don’t know why folks say they accidently step in dog poop – I doubt anyone steps in dog poop on purpose. But anyway, after doing so we headed down an alley to look for some water to wash off our flip flops. There are aqueducts all over the place that feed the water from the mountains into the rice fields. As we wandered down this alley we came across a tiny little silver shop that we would have never found otherwise and Sara got some great prices on some earrings and a ring – plus the proprietor fed us some of her home made rice flour bread.

Sara and the Jewelry maker.

Tomorrow we meet up with Larry and Rai again – this time to motor to a black sand beach. I’m sure something or other will happen and by the way things have been going it’ll most likely turn out good.