Pumpkin Carving at the Platos

A fun night! Max was so excited. Each of us carved his/her own jack-o-lantern. Pretty cool.

Some photo teasers

More of these photos are uploaded to Facebook, but I thought I would put out some "Blog teasers."

I am puzzled...

In the 20 years of my teaching career, I have seen a trend in student motivation. Students definitely seem to believe that they should be rewarded, regardless of the work they put in. If they lose at a game, they believe they, too, should earn a prize. They believe there should be prizes for getting homework done. Without extrinsic motivators, we have a generation of students who have, quite frankly, little to no motivation. I have tried to believe that they will not be ready for the "real world" with this attitude. Today, I was proven wrong.

The Nobel Foundation awarded its "peace prize" to President Barack Obama. The nominations were filed last September, before he was elected President. The awards were determined in February, two weeks after his inauguration. The foundation awarded him the prize based on "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." When did this occur? What countries did they ask? On what is this based?

From what I can find, the committee is awarding the prize to encourage Obama, and it is not based on what he has done, but for what he wants to do. This boggles my mind. The people who were also up for the award this year included people who were risking their lives for human rights. They HAD walked the walk, not just talked the talk.

There are many things with which the President and I agree. I would love to live in a world free of the threat of nuclear war. I would love if we all just "got along." But we don't. Iran is not going to listen to him. Neither are the Middle Eastern extremists. These are people who are out to cause some serious bloodshed. Being told what to do will only make them more hell bent on pissing people off.

I wish the President luck, but I wish he would have done the right thing and declined this award. It diminishes the meaning of it. Elie Wiesel. Desmond Tutu. MLK. Our President does not (yet) deserve to be in their ranks. He said that, but it's hard to believe that he means it if he didn't let someone more deserving have the award.

Hmmmm

Well, I was hemming and hawing this morning about going to church. I wasn't feeling my best, but I have felt worse. So, I decided to go. Here is my series of unfortunate events:

-I decide to sit in a pew where the sun is beaming through the large stained glass window right into my face. The glare didn't bother me, but the additional reason to sweat (besides my usual hormonal reasons) was unwelcome.
-Parents in front of me with two small children. One child, less than a year old, has snot pouring out of his nose. He throws things about the pew, like his Thomas train and dad's cell phone. At no one time do these parents think about taking this child to our rather large vestibule or to the staffed nursery.
-Speaking of cell phones, person next to me has a cell phone that goes off not once, but twice, during Mass.
-Father starts talking about "the Catholic" perspective on health care, all should have health care, which makes me think, a. When did Catholic hospitals start being free? Who knew? and b. Are you going to pull this in to today's readings at all? (Answer: not really)

So, I kind of, sort of, physically attended Mass today.

Coming Around Again

It's time for the Autism Walk again! If you wish to sponsor us through prayer... thanks! If you wish to sponsor us through a donation, even better!

Click here for our site.

Click here to see last year's walk.

Ignatius Starts Seventh Grade

Today, Ignatius hesitantly entered his second year of junior high. He is growing like a weed, currently in size 16 shorts and 18 shirt. He had a great day overall, loves his teacher, and is exhausted.

Perpetual Vows

Here are pics from my sister's Perpetual Vows. More to follow when I am not quite so sleepy.