Days Like This Make Teaching Worthwhile

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.
- James M. Barrie

I am so proud of my class that I just had to share this with everyone! Today we held a fundraiser to raise money for the family of a sixth grade student. The boy has leukemia and although it is in remission, problems with medications and side effects are requiring the family to make many trips back and forth to Riley Children's Hospital. Although the young man is only able to come to school a day or so each week, his classmates have rallied around him and wanted to do something to help. Our class took their turn today with a baked potato bar for Throop staff members. My kids chose to call our event Taters -n- Toppings. We took reservations ahead of time (just so we would have an idea how many to fix) and today we served about 70 adults and 25 students. We made it a give-as-you-can type of donation, and guess how much we raised? You won't believe it! With 50 lbs. of potatoes donated by Wal-Mart, all the toppings donated by the kids, work provided by the students, and very generous donations by our staff, we raised $572.00! As always, the good people in our small community really pull together when someone needs help. It's times like these that warm the heart and make us realize why we chose to teach in the first place!

The (Last?) First Day of School!

So Monday was my last first day of school. Unless I can't find a job and am forced to go back for a phD. I'm pretty excited about all of my classes, but they are going to be a lot of work. My "fun" class is political economy of urban development, wherein we delve into the various theories of political economy and how those have played out in practice over the course of the 20th Century in urban areas -- Fordism, suburbanization, renewal, etc.

Then I have international trade theory and policy which I'm taking mostly for the macroeconomic perspective. Sadly, my first choice for this, macroeconomics at the Graduate School of Business, filled up before non-MBA students had a chance to register. I think it will be good, though (lots of graphs!), and towards the end we get to focus on the "human elements" like immigration and labor practices which should be really interesting, and tie into PE of urban policy.

Lastly, I'm taking microeconomic analysis. Basically, it is a three course sequence to write an in-depth, publishable statistical analysis on a topic of our choosing. The first two quarters are "to get us ready" for the last, taught by James Heckman. It's a bit scary and probably way over my head mathematically, but I'll have a really good understanding of rigorous analysis (and a class with a Nobel Laureate!) by the time I graduate. Which at least in theory is why I came to the University of Chicago in the first place.

All ready, the weekend seems very far away. Several friends and I went out to Starved Rock for a bit of hiking Sunday to celebrate our last day without homework (I would have pictures, but Meredith hasn't sent them yet). It was incredibly muddy from the summer flooding and I came away with at least a million mosquito bites despite repeated application of Off!. But, it was fun. And nice to get out of the city for a few hours.

No big plans for this weekend, except to try to stay on top of reading. And also to avoid the riotous baseball fans across the city.

The Finished Product

The Riley's beautiful new carpet. All that hard work has paid off. This turned out to be a great time to sort through their stuff and organize things
(and it only took 8 years).

Football Weekend

PHS Football Homecoming - Senior Spirit

Ram Fans - Paoli is now 6-0 after a 49-7 win over Crawford County

Megan and IU freshman Allison Springer at Saturday's game

Happy Tailgaters!

Tutu's first tailgate...she quickly became "keeper of the cooler"

Riley's Carpet Adventure

Joe has become an expert at packing stuff into bathrooms. This one is even usable.


Unfortunately, the kids cannot get into theirs.

This is the cleanest you will ever see these rooms.

Obviously, these are pre new carpet. Later today, I'll post the finished product.

Senior Pictures & Cleveland Clinic News

The Glidden House

Megan received an "all clear" from Dr. Lorber on our recent trip to Cleveland. She can resume all activities without limitations, including driving, swimming, hot tubbing, and dancing.

On each trip we try to explore some new area of the city and this time we discovered a unique hotel on the Case Western campus - an old mansion that has about 50 guest rooms. We also visited a street near the hotel known Little Italy. Picture a quaint neighborhood filled with authentic little bakeries (we thought of you, Lisa and Laura), cafes, and restaurants. We enjoyed dinner Sunday evening at a spot called Trattoria on the Hill. It turns out that Megan's doctor and his family were dining in the same area that night. That seems to be something we have in common and on each visit, the talk always turns to food and Cleveland dining! We'll definitely have to head back to this area when we visit again in December (her next appointment).

This afternoon we picked up Megan's senior pictures and posted a few of our favorites.

Hope everyone is planning to come to the tailgate this Saturday. We've already started cooking, baking, and freezing!

The Welch-Chopra wedding in Indy

I've never seen a wedding quite like this one -

500 of us feast on filet mignon and mahi mahi-

and dance the night away at Union Station

(& doesn't Bret look smashing in Popsie's tux?)