Cooking with Amy

Amy made this divine salad from the smittenkitchen blog. Em, you should try it. By the way, you should notice our little scene of domesticity on our Ikea dishes and table. The salad pairs well with the 2009 Starbucks black iced tea, no classic.Amy preferred a full-bodied diet Dr. Pepper. This is formal dining for me! (Although you will notice the trusty highlighter not far away for after dining entertainment - or torture).

We're Back

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This is Beulah helping me with my exams. She was not happy until I pulled a chair as close to me as possible and covered it with a furry throw.

After working on exams from the end of December until the middle of January, I came back to Cambridge with a new philosophy: "Choose the easiest courses I can find, get the lovely degree from Harvard, and go back to the life that I had before this upheaval." Then I started shopping classes and of the eighteen classes that sounded interesting, I have finally narrowed the number down to 5.5 (one class only runs through March). So much for personal philosophies.

The classes I am taking - I think - are the following:
HT100 - Cognitive Neuroscience - the core class for our program continues from last semester
Adult Development and Learning - taught by Dr. Robert Kegan
Universal Design for Learning - Dr. David Rose (he was one of our professors from last semester)
Introduction to Education Neuroscience - Dr. Todd Rose (he was a teaching fellow when Amy was in the program and his wife is in some of my classes - small world)
The Science of Learning, Behavior and Health: Implications for Early Childhood Policy - taught by Dr. Jack Shonkoff (This is the man that many of you have heard me quote. He was a pediatrician for years until he decided that to truly affect the lives of young children living in poverty, one has to know the science and leverage the science in lobbying for money and change. He is the man on the panel when I came to visit last April who, when people continued to whine about all of the many class offerings and lack of time to take them, responded that we were experiencing the "agony of privilege."
Tools for Mind, Brain, Education: Investigating process and outcome in cognition literacy, language, and numeracy - taught by Joanna Christodoulou who works at MIT and who is taking us on a tour of the MRI facilities there tomorrow. I did not have the nerve to volunteer to have my brain scanned - most of you can imagine why!

When I got back to Boston, there were still frozen banks of snow along all of the streets and sidewalks. Today we got new snow and then sleet and then snow - now it is raining, but it is a kind of frozen rain.

This picture is taken in front of one of the ed school buildings facing the common where George Washington organized his troops which is especially interesting as Amy and I have been watching the HBO John Adams series.

This is Longfellow Hall. Isn't it beautiful?
Finally, this is the bench that Amy wants Meredith to make for her - we know you can do it for less than Anthropologie charges and it will be lovely!

I Love This!

Andy sent this to us last week. He says that this is the #1 Viral Video for 2008. I can think of no more appropriate time to enjoy this than now. Peace to all and let's all dance!

Click in the bottom right hand corner to see the video clearly.

A Dream Come True - for a while!

Those of you that know me, know that Lois Lowery's The Giver is one of my favorite chapter books ever..until her book The Willoughbys came out last spring. Actually, they are favorites in different categories. When we received a notice that Lois and Jack Cantos were coming to speak, I bought a couple of copies of their books, ignored all of my plans to get ahead with assignments,and hiked back across campus to hear these people whose writing I admire. My greatest regret is that I did not have my tattered copies of their books to autograph, but who knew?

The panel only had 20 minutes to talk. That was the most frustrating part of the evening - that and I was late so I had to sit in the back. (By the way, you cannot see much, but this is the lecture room for 2 of my classes.) This is Lois Lowery telling us an amazing story about Alan Say that I will try to duplicate, but there is not enough time or space to do justice to the story.

Lois is sitting down at the front of the room wearing the tan turtleneck. This is the brief version of her story. (Kristine - I have to tell you the whole story when I get home - you will love it!)
When she was little, Lois' Dad was stationed in the South Pacific. She lived with her mother and her siblings in Pennsylvania in her grandfather's house, so she really did not know her dad very well. When he came home on visits, she said that she was actually afraid of him. Once he achieved officer status, he brought his family to Japan where he was stationed. Lois says that she was extremely shy and lonely. Every day she would ride her green bike to the limits of the base where they were stationed and every day there was an equally shy young Japanese boy on the other side of the fence. They never spoke - they just watched each other. This went on for months until her family moved.
Lois was at the Newbury awards to receive hers for The Giver(how many of us can toss that into conversations?) during which they also present the Caldecott Awards. Lois was seated next to Alan Say who was there to receive his Caldecott. They began to chat, sharing personal histories. You can imagine the conversation:
Lois: "I lived in Japan for a while when I was young."
Alan: "I did too! Where did you live?"
Lois: " Name of the place"
Alan: "I lived there too. When were you there?"
Lois: "Dates" (Of course I do not remember the specifics)
You have probably already guessed that Alan was there as well. As they narrowed the location and times of their youth in Japan, Alan stopped and said, "Were you the girl on the green bicycle?"
HOW COOL IS THAT?
Now, Jack Cantos. If you have read the Joey Pigza books, he is Joey Pigza. He had us all in stitches which should not have been a surprise as I laughed so hard when I read about Joey putting his vomiting dog in the glove compartment in his book, Joey Pigza Looses Control. He vows that he based that character on a kid in his class, but, oh my goodness, he had some of the same behaviors.

What a great night....until I had to come back and work until 1:00 on a statistics report.

My First Snow in Boston

When I left Asheville early last Monday morning, it was snowing big, fat flakes. I think that was the third snow of the season for Asheville. Today was the first snow that we have had in Boston. There is something wrong with the weather story, but I think that we are getting ready to pay for the nice weather we have had so far.The goofy weather man (and I thought we only had those in North Carolina) is calling for snow 2 more times this week. This was the biggest pile of snow that I could find...as I was running to church.

This is the dining hall for the freshmen. They seem to think that they own the sidewalk as I just miss several of them as I ride to class on my bicycle. Now that they are wearing ear muffs, I am probably going to have to plow them down.

So when I got to church as the last bell tolled, This is how it is decorated for Advent. This is also how it is decorated for Thanksgiving, autumn, September, and any other event that I have attended. Dr. Peter Gomes announced that he did not care for Advent - this was not news to the congregation, but it was an interesting way to address the holidays. He actually made a very good point, but can you imagine
Guy announcing that in Asheville?!


A final word - I have been to Boston twice to find the King's Chapel. During those visits, I found a house that was empty, slipped on ice and walked literally for 2 hours. Someone needs to come to Boston to help me find this place - OR - I could have a new fancy phone with a GPS like other members of my family enjoy!

Happy Holidays!

Oh, my brain, my brain!

A Word of Thanksgiving

I have much to be thankful for - especially this year. I am grateful that parts of my brain sometimes still work and that I get to live in a place saturated in history that I do not have time to see or research. I am grateful for friends from school who remind me why I came here, for all the people who have emailed to remind me why I will be so glad to be back in Asheville, and Bob, who has done an amazing job of keeping up my spirits, keeping in touch with the kids and keeping everything running smoothly.



This month has been a constant series of reading journal articles and books - and writing papers. Frivolous writing (such as this) and reading (such as a newspaper) have been abandoned for frivolous writing of a different sort. I have written policy memos justifying placements or non-placement in special education, a letter to Barak Obama making policy recommendations for No Child Left Behind, a project proposal to survey neuroscientists and educators about just who is traveling on that bridge between cognitive neuroscience and educational practice - my prediction is that they aren't even on the same highway!

There have been moments of serendipity and they are as follows:

These people spoke to me today at MIT's Learning and the Brain Conference. They allowed the grad students to attend for free if we would do a little slave labor.

John Gabrieli and Maryanne Wolf spoke to our group today. Dr. Gabrieli is a frequent speaker in our program. Both of these people were impressive





M.Wolf's book http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=maryanne+wolf&x=0&y=0

This is the latest Busey accomplishment - - - that we can speak about publicly! Scroll to the bottom of the page.


Em is coming home for Thanksgiving! That is an unexpected surprise. Would anyone be willing to drive out to Seattle to bring her dog to Asheville?

This is what Andy wants for Thanksgiving:

This, according to our son, is a turbaconducken.

Amy is no longer in Thailand. We can say with certainty that she is somewhere in Asia - we think!

A prize goes to the person who can tell me who this is:

Ode to my Laptop

With apologies to anyone who appreciates fine literature...or any kind of literature at all

A friend, you were there through thick and thin
Through four straight papers, when thoughts ran thin.
When talking to Bob - though you kept shutting down,
During office hours, classes and around.
And at the end of the week when I let you lie,
Quietly on the desk...you up and die!