Translate, please

More and more, Foodgawker links to blogs in other languages. Thanks to Google translation services, this works out fine.

Well, mostly fine.

 I was just reading a recipe for potato dumplings. It calls for half a kg of boiled, cooled potatoes and another half kg of raw potatoes.

 The first step? "Wipe the friction." Then you add that to the "crushed" cooked potatoes. So I think "wipe the friction" means grate the raw potatoes. I think. Then you mix them with the cooked ones and from there you get a dumpling wrapper that's soft but not totally mushy.

Or, as Google has it, "Drive the egg, add the flour and potato starch and salt. Production of a smooth dough."

Yeah, that.

[Looks good, though. I bookmarked it for later.]

Report Card Highlights

"Iain is very thoughtful about choosing a good book to bring back to the classroom. Recently he checked out a science book about cockroaches thinking it would be a great story for his teachers to read to the class at rest time.  "

"awkward is actually one of Iain’s favorite words"

"Iain is a child who will hand you a 500 page book on rocket ships and ask “will you read this to me now?’"

"It is fun to see Iain create and illustrate elaborate stories about Ninjas."

I think we have a little boy here, folks.  

Students

Iain, eating a delicious chocolate cookie baked by a student. He liked it.

I like history. But teaching is all about students. Today, a student left me a very special gift.

On my conference table there's a wide range of graffiti. Most is pretty tame: "X is hot!" and "I hate Y." But at one end of the table someone carved a nice anatomical term. It pops right off the table. You can't look away. Think "____ Monologues."

When the table lived upstairs, that particular word sat on the far end - away from the teacher. But when we moved the table downstairs, into my classroom, somehow it flipped. I spent the last 2 years looking down at it.

Today I came back to the room (between meetings) to find that a delightful young person wrote me a good-bye note, placed it over the offending word, and taped it down. Problem solved. Table restored to gentility.

Elegance, gratitude, and creativity, all in a single act.

Last Day: Charleston

Puppies!!

Oh, and...

Things I Saw Today, Part 2

Above, the first national flag of the Confederacy (7 stars for the first 7 states to secede) flying above a house on Sullivan's Island.

At Ft. Moultrie, a poster that I'm pretty sure warns against VD. It says "You've Got What It Takes, Soldier - Now Take Care of What You've Got!"

The T-shirt reads, "Still Standing" which seems kind of...counterfactual.

I am 5 Years Old

Covered in dirt. School must have been fun today.

Things I Saw Today

 I'm in Charleston with a group of students. Today, in the Market, we saw this belt.

And this vintage money.

And these hats, books, and tiny toys. 

Also, this deer has a problem. First, he should not go hunting without more orange. Second, drinking while wearing camo boots is very tacky.

Gross. Really nasty. But tempting to buy, just to offer this as a snack and see how surprised everyone would be.

Congrats are nice. But why is math above history? What's that???

Buffalo Wing soda. For real. We tried it. Tastes like orange candy. With a wicked aftertaste.

Star Trek Pez dispensers. This, I considered buying. You know, for history.