Texas our Texas…A Little Taste Of Home

My roommates Rachel and Jess.

   This past week has been a little bit of a blur, but one thing that stands out to me is the food from this week. I’m sure you all know that I love food whether that is making it or eating it! This week started out with Meredith, my roommate, and I making pancakes on Sunday morning for breakfast and enjoying some good Dominican coffee and Jesus time on our front porch That night we invited some of Dominican friends over and made chicken spaghetti for them. Let me just say now, that I didn’t realize how “Texas” or just “Southern” that meal is!! My roommate, Jess from Michigan, and our PE coach, Brock, from Ohio had NEVER heard or tasted chicken spaghetti!! I didn’t believe them for awhile, b/c in Texas I grew up thinking it was a staple on Sunday lunch or for every church potluck dinner. I seriously was shocked to know that Americans were not familiar with this grandiose dish. Needless to say that went over fabulously and Americans and Dominicans both enjoyed their fill that night!

My roommate Meredith cooking chicken spaghetti.

    Throughout the week, lunch consists of Dominican style rice, beans and chicken, but at night I enjoy grilled cheese sandwiches, grilled chicken over pasta, sautéed veggies with chicken, taco salad, quesadillas, etc. The final tip of the week though, ended with a teacher’s birthday party last night where we competed in a Texas chili cook off. Needless to say, we did have to explain what chili was to the Dominican staff, but they actually turned out some pretty good chili I must say. So, we show up to the party and there 12 households that had brought pots of chili and the 3rd place winners for the cook off, were the girls of my house!!! We know how to cook a pretty mean chili…everyone should be proud, we represented Texas well! The 2nd place winners were actually Dominicans and then the 1st place winners were a family from Texas. So, as you can imagine this week, food wise, was top notch.

   School wise this week was good, yet a little crazy. My students were working on a project, which I feel like always turns out to be a little chaotic in the rooms when scissors, markers, butcher paper, and rulers, are involved! I have been grading them today and they have surprised me by their creativity and quality. Their assignment was to make a poster containing facts about themselves written in mathematical expressions. For instance, they could find the average age of their family, create a pie chart of how they spend their day, bar graph of friends shoe sizes, convert their height into cm, etc. It went really well, but some things got messy in the process, but that happens and you work through it. I am ready to start into content material next week and really getting into math…is that weird that I am excited about that? Yes probably it is to you, but I have to say conversions, algebraic equations, and timed multiplication tests make me really happy!I am hoping for a week with a bit more structure and routine in the classroom.