Looking Forward to Learning

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Part 1 of a 3 part series on why I'm volunteering abroad.

I'm pretty sure in every cover letter, scholarship essay, or application for something, I have included the phrase "lifelong learner." It's  buzz word and somewhat cliche. But, in my case it's totally true! There is nothing more exciting to me than learning something new - a new term, another culture, a new perspective, a fun fact, a tidbit about history, or a better way of doing things.

Learning is what excites me most about this volunteering adventure I am about to embark on. I hope to learn a lot - and hopefully be able to put it into practice in my life and work some how.

Some things I hope to learn...

1. More about my cultural roots. My father is Kenyan and he and my extended family have taught me so much about where I come from. But, there is so much more to learn and so many more lenses to look through.
2. More about careers in global health, international development, and education. I'm working on a Masters' degree in Public Health. Soon I will have to choose a focus. Hopefully this experience will help me learn what path to go down in my studies. 
3. Other approaches to public health. One thing I  know from teaching, is you can't force change and you can't project your thoughts and beliefs on others. Other cultures have different ways of doing things and the community engages in different ways. I am looking forward to seeing what works in Kenya. 
4. Swahili. I know I can't become fluent in a language in 5-6 weeks. But, it would be nice to round out the few phrases I know into full sentences! 
5. Anything and everything. Sometimes the best lessons are the ones you don't realize you are learning until you get back and have sometime to reflect. 

Support my adventure at http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-janet-volunteer-in-kenya/288895

Kenyan Theme Dinner

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In an effort to raise funds for my volunteer adventure, I am hosting a Kenyan Theme Dinner (and asking for donations). My wonderful aunt, Njambi, is coming into town from Chicago to help me prepare authentic Kenyan food. Even though I grew up eating Kenyan food, I have never actually tried my own hand at cooking it so I am extra grateful for my aunt's help!

Here's a link to a food/travel blog that lists many of the staple food items in Kenya! I'd say it's a pretty accurate list. I've experienced most of these at some point in my life and I will be preparing some of dishes seen most often in my family. If you come to my open house, you can expect to experience:

• Ugali
• Chapati (my personal favorite)
• Sukuma wiki
• Irio
• Chicken Stew
• Chai (my aunt makes the best Kenya tea, you're in for a real treat!)

 If you can't make it to my dinner, feel free to donate on my fundraising page!

Volunteering Abroad

Welcome back! As I get ready to adventure volunteering in Kenya this summer, I decided that it is time to resurrect the blog - the mostly travel blog that I started when I studied abroad in London back in 2010. I will do my best to blog about my preparations and of course my time in Kenya. Stay tuned! 

In the mean time, feel free to stop by my fundraising page or if you are local to Indianapolis, come to my "Kenyan Theme Dinner" open house on Sunday, April 26. 

Pinned this...made that! Raspberry-Chocolate Banna Bread

Who doesn't like a little decadence. I made raspberry-chocolate banana bread for my parents while they were visiting over the 4th of July. I had quite a time trying to find non-moldy raspberries at the grocery store. So alas, only one of my mini loaves had chocolate chips and raspberries.

Pinned this (these)...

Source: 8weekstoabetteryourecipes.blogspot.com via Janet on Pinterest

Source: recipeboy.com via Janet on Pinterest

made that!

Nathan's creative styling - including an iced mocha!

Here's my version of these two recipes combined.

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup honey

1/2 cup sugar free applesauce

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)


1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chunks or chips
1 cup halved raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl

3. Mix wet ingredients, minus the banana into a larger bowl

4. Mash banana

5. Combine dry ingredients slowly into the wet

6. Add banana, mix until combined - a few lumps is fine

7. Add chocolate and raspberries, mix lightly

8. Pour into pans

9. Bake 35-40 minutes (I made 4 small loaves)

The raspberry chocolate and the plain chocolate versions were pretty good. The plain version was tasty but, I like my mom's better!

Pinned this...made that! Iced Mocha

I don't actually like coffee. I hate wasting food - even food I don't like, apparently. So after Nathan forgot his morning coffee (how he did that I don't know), and after spending $5ish dollars on a Starbucks Iced Mocha for Nathan in the afternoon (because I'm a good girlfriend), I decided to try making him an Iced Mocha. I searched until I found recipes that only used ingredients that I already had in the house, or could be adapted to only use those ingredients. So I

Pinned this (these)...

Source: copykat.com via Janet on Pinterest

Source: yummly.com via Janet on Pinterest

 and

made that!

I used the hot coco recipe to make the chocolatey part and then added an equal part of coffee to the mix as the cocoa recipe called for milk...does that make sense?

Nathan said it needed more coffee so the next time instead of 3.5 cups milk and 3.5 cups of coffee I used 3.5 cups of milk and 4 cups of coffee. After letting the coffee simmer in with the cocoa for a few minutes (2ish minutes with a little stirring) I let it sit and cool and then transferred it to a pitcher in the fridge. He whisks it again in the morning and pours it over ice in his travel mug. He didn't make any comment about it the second time around, so I figured it tasted good to him.

Pinned this...made that! Cupcakes for 2, well 3

I've been craving dessert for a while now. Not just any dessert but home made dessert. So, today I had the perfect opportunity to bake. Tomorrow is Quincy's birthday so I made her cupcakes for our evening of crafting, which in fact was more like an evening of chatting.


Pinned this...

Source: howsweeteats.com via Janet on Pinterest

made that!

Yum! (Never mind the Christmas wrappers)

These were quite tasty! A few things:

1. Recipe says it makes 2. I got 3. I'd say that's not a bad problem to have!
2. They only took 5 minutes to whip up! Took longer to pre-heat the oven and bake than to make.
3. All the ingredients are things I had on hand in the house!
4. They were a little dense. I generally like cupcakes light and fluffy, but over all, not bad.
5. They took 14 minutes to bake. The recipe says 10-12. But again, oh well.
6. Seems a little silly though to turn on the oven for three little cupcakes. 

I could make these again! I will probably make them on a day when I have the oven on for another reason!

Reflection

Tomorrow is the last day of school in my first year of teaching.

1.     I applied for 21 jobs and had 3 interviews. I got my job 3 weeks before school started, while I was still working 3 part time jobs. I was completely unprepared to start the school year. I faked it for the entire first semester. I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I cried a lot. I spent a lot of brainstorming and redoing lesson plans, classroom management strategies, gradebooks (never mind that we don’t use traditional grading or behavior management strategies at our school). I tried to be productive over fall break, but I was so drained I just slept.

2.     I fake that I know what I’m doing better. I have consistent gradebooks. my lessons align better with my standards and school wide themes.

3.     I was starting to feel confident about entering my second year of teaching, and then I got thrown a curve ball.

4.     I will be teaching K-12 PE and health. I am scared to death about it and don’t know how I will be able to teach anything with so many variations on a theme to teach. How will I assess students to know when to change what I am doing. How can I possibly develop relationships with students when I have so many and only 40 minutes with them a week.

5.     I feel as though I’m going to be a first year teacher all over again.

6.     Why the change? Politics.

7.     I wrote about trying not to take politics personally back in November. But, it is so hard not to, when it’s politics that is making it harder and harder to educate the whole child.  When politics is what cuts their PE time from 165 minutes a week to 40. When I no longer get to teach Health and PE, but an integrated “wellness” class (I know to some this sounds great – but I can tell you why it’s not).

My students have been fantastic guinea pigs. I have to thank them for making my first year rich and colorful. I have to thank my colleagues for being INCREDIBLY supportive and wise. I have to thank Nathan, my family, and Rachel for listening to me rant, cry, brainstorm, and reflect.

I did a lot of changing and growing this year as an educator. Here’s to the next teaching adventure. I am curious to see where it leads.