Happy Chanukkah

I've been very frustrated this year about the lack of scrapbooking supplies available for Chanukkah. I searched on Joann's.com and the search yielded 4 items. A cherry on Top yielded a few more and luckily they had some papers. I find this ridiculous and also unfair - there are a lot of scrapbookers that I know that happen to be Jewish. Last year, I had used the Crafting Jewish Style kits and was eager this year for an updated kit...alas, when I emailed them they said they weren't coming out with anything new this season. So I was on my own. This is what I've come up with so far:

I created these cards by cutting the dreidels with the cricut. I used Make the Cut to create the shapes (btw: the new version of the Make the Cut software is NOT compatible with the cricut as a reult of a lawsuit from Provocraft). I pieced the dreidels together and finished off the hay and shin with some blue Stickles.

The sentiment is from the Papertrey Jewish Add-ons set, though again there wasn't a whole lot to choose from. I found out later that Stampin' Up has some nice Jewish themed stamps and I bought a couple.

Lastly, I made this to hang over our fire place:

A Birthday Gift for my Dad

I liked the idea of making mini albums as gifts for people. Making a scrapbook for a guy isn't the easiest, since many of the colors i usually use can be considered girly. However, since I had a theme in mind, it wasn't too hard. I created this album for my dad with a sports theme featuring photos of my family in and around sporting events (note the pic of all of us in Giants' jerseys from like 1995...at 14, my look was still developing ;-)

The chipboard album is from the Little Yellow Bargains site and papers are Karen Foster and Paper House Productions. I made this before I bought my cricut, so I hand cut all of the pages to match the shapes of the chipboard.

My father has kept this photo on his desk for years, so I enlisted the help of my brother to take it, scan it and then put it back.

The most challenging part of the project was cutting out the pages, but once that was finished, it was very simple to finish up. The only issue I ran into was finding a place that sold 3 x 5 pictures, so I wouldn't have to crop them as much. But in the end I found them (www.dotphoto.com) and was happy with the way the project came out. It was a hit with my dad.

Giants Card

My brother and my dad are both obsessed with the New York Giants. So I thought it only fitting to create a card for my brother's 18th birthday that looked like a Giants' jersey. This was my first attempt at making a card in a shape other than a rectangle, and I was pleased with the result:

I made the card on my cricut, using Make the Cut...I found a shirt shape and welded them together to get the desired effect.

I gave it to my brother last night and he was just as happy with it as I was ;-)

World Card Making day...belated

I always really like the Halloween scrapbooking products, but I don't usually buy much of it since my husband and I don't usually do a whole lot for Halloween. This year, I bought a set of stamps from Unity stamps that were so cute I couldn't resist them. I made a set of 4 Halloween cards to send out to my family so I satisifed my Halloween craft craving.

I used the stamp and colored it in with a mixture of Copic and Zip markers. The Halloween paper is from a Die Cuts with a View stack that I've had forever and the background is just plain black cardstock.

This card is made with basically the same items, as are the next two:

I haven't made a lot of card sets, but it was fun to try to coordinate the cards and still make them unique.

10 Years Later...

It's been ten years since I was a junior in college, since my parents moved from Long Island to New Jersey. It's ten years since I got up and stopped in the Newhouse Cafe before Prof. Dubin's class for orange juice and a muffin and saw a group of people huddled around a television that was suspended from the ceiling. It was odd - the cafe was never crowded before a 9:30 AM class. I stopped and saw what they saw: a plane sticking out of the World Trade Center. I went into class, and Professor Dubin said that he was going to put on the news feed on the large screen in the auditorium. He did, and a few minutes later, the second plane hit. It was so unreal it was like watching a movie. I ran out of the auditorium with some others and pulled out the first cell phone I ever owned and tried to call my then-best friend, who went to college in the city. I couldn't get through.

Back in my room, I called my mother. I don't remember if I got through the first time or not, but I found out that my father's office in Philadelphia had been evacuated and he was on his way home. My mother felt alone; they were new in the neighborhood. She told me later that she felt out of place - that she should have been in New York on that day, at home on Long Island, not this new neighborhood where my family were strangers.

Classes weren't officially cancelled at SU, but they were held with varying degrees of attendance. I didn't want to sit in my room and wait for th phone to ring, couldn't sit glued to the tv and watch it over and over. I went to the classes that I had that were held. My Hebrew teacher was sad and listless - she was, after all, Israeli and from a place where attacks were all too common.I finally got a call from my dad when he was on his way home. He was ok and no one we directly knew was hurt. But out city was.

I remember calling my group of friends, my surrogate family and we all ate dinner together and comforted one another. We had a football game that got rescheduled for the next weekend and in band, we worked out a tribute show. I was lucky to have those friends together at that time and to be able to try to heal our shared pain together.

Fun with the Cricut

I recently got a Provocraft Cricut die-cutting machine,and I have to say I definitely a fan. I've had fun making things for layouts and also decorations for my classroom. I wanted to share a few of them with you:

The photo is a bit dark but the cutout I made is of Hello Kitty - this was my first try at paper piecing and I quite like the result.

My husband loves Snoopy, so I made this little guy for him and he now has it on his desk.

Lastly, I made this sign for my classroom. I'm going to hang it on the door with some other things that I'm still working on. I laminated it with the Xyron Creative Station, so hopefully that made it a little more durable to withstand the school year.

Jewish Holiday Layouts

So I bought the kits from Crafting Jewish Style when they were released last year because I was excited that I finally didn't have to sift through the Christmas papers to finally get a "winter" pattern...I could finally have some real life Chanukkah paper and embellishments to work with.

This is from a Chanukah night in our apartment, and I also added a menorah and candles from Jolee's Boutique.

This was my favorite Chanukkah layout - from pictures taken while celebrating at my parents' house...I didn't want to cover up the paper with the candles so instead, I cut it in half and had it meet in the middle like a centerfold.

This layout is from Passover and I liked using my Creative Memories wavy cutter to break up the printed paper.

I am so glad that there is finally kits for Jewish holidays!

Bookmarks

Since I got a Kindle, I haven't read too many physical books, but I still love cute bookmarks. Though a book may say one thing about you, a bookmark can say something completely different. I definitely liked to use my Glinda the good witch bookmark for especially serious books, to give them a lighter edge.

My sister is away for the summer, working a theatre upstate and I forgot to give her back one of her precious Harry Potter books (book 6, for those keeping track) so I decided to make these bookmarks for her to use with HP or whatever strikes her fancy:

I used Die Cuts with a View cardstock, with an Imaginisce stamp. I colored the stamp image with EK Success chalk markers and Copic markers. I did the stitching with the Sew Easy tool.

The second bookmark was basically made with the same tools, except that the stamp is from Basic Grey. Also, both bookmarks were laminated using the Xyron Creative Station.

Happy 4th of July!

Lacy Hat and Skinny Scarf

I'm waiting to start a new knitting project until I can get some advice from the friendly folks at Lion Brand in Union Square, but I worked on these in the winter and was pleased with the result. The hat and scarf weren't originally coordinated, but they seem to go well together.

The hat is a made out of Lion Brand cashmere blend yarn and the pattern is also Lion Brand (no, I'm not being paid to advertise for them. Here is the hat modeled by own of my favorite models:

The scarf is my own pattern - just knit one row, yarn over/knit together for the second (rinse, wash repeat). It's made out of heather pink yarn from Cascade, which I bought in Pittsburgh at a shop called Dyed in Wool.

I also embellished the scarf with a small flower that I made using the rest of the cashmere blend yarn. The flower is the same pattern as this and can be found in Felted Flowers by Nicky Epstein.

Too bad both were finished as winter was ending - will have to wear it next year!

Look What I Made:

I had seen this project first on and it reminded me of my mother - a recipe/scrapbook with all the family favorites and pictures mixed together. This is my interpretation:

This was made using an American Crafts 6x6 plain chipboard album which I covered with Die Cuts with a View Nan's Kitchen paper and American Crafts Flair buttons. I covered it with a layer of Mod Podge.

My favorite page from the album was this, a photo of my mother and I at my 1st birthday circa 1982:

I used a We R Memory Keepers sticker and distressed the background cutout with Tim Holtz Crackle paint, Distress Inks and Tattered Angels Glimmer mist.

This is one of the recipes:

I really enjoyed making this book - it was my first foray into a "mini-book" and I'm happy with the result. I gave the book to my mother for Mother's day.

Book Review: Day After Night by Anita Diamant

This post contains spoilers.

I finished this book yesterday on the train, but it remains on my mind - it is one that I regret not reading in Book Club, because I feel myself longing to discuss it.. "Day After Night" is an historical fiction novel about a group of women who survived the Holocaust and who are interned at Atlit, a camp for illegal immigrants near Haifa in what was then known as Palestine. These women have traveled from Europe under harsh conditions to begin a new life, but that life is once again put off. The summary on the back of the book said the book was about four women: Leonie, Shayndel, Tedi and Zorah. However, there were many more interesting characters in the story, but those were the women whose points of view we saw the story.

All of the women survived the Holocaust, but only Zorah had been in a concentration camp. I guess I knew that there were other experiences of WWII for a Jewish European, but the concentration camp has always stood out as the most disgusting, dehumanizing experience imaginable. Not a whole lot is said about Zorah's time in the camp (I don't believe which camp was specified) but we knew it was awful. However, Leonie's story was actually the one that had the most visceral impact on me when I found out what it was. Leonie was taken as a prostitute in France to service the Nazi soldiers. The madame made it so her girls couldn't run away. There was a scene where Leonie was thinking about her past and felt compelled to stab herself with a pin so she would feel the pain.

Shayndel was a partisan, a part of the Jewish resistance during the war and had grown up with Zionist leanings. She managed to survive and make it to Palestine and the kibbutz life she dreamed of after she helped lead the breakout from Atlit. Tedi was a blonde who spent most of the war in hiding. The concentration camps are the best know scenario from the time, but Diamant made it clear that they were not the only horrors.

The novel opens and the women are not yet friends - over the course of the story, they warm to each other and eventually become the friends that you see in the picture on the cover of the book. The title, which I see as a play on Eli Weisel's Night, which was about the Holocaust is talking about the dawn of life after.

The first time in a while...

When giving advice to other people, I usually tell them that they should write when they feel upset or stressed...without, of course, taking my own advice. I had two days today - one absolutely pleasant one with one class and one absolutely miserable one with the other.

Tuesdays always feel like torture because those are the days that I have the more difficult class for 3 periods. I have to keep them quiet, in their seats and working for all that time. Before lunch wasn't terrible but after lunch was ridiculous. As soon as one quieted down, another one started. I couldn't get anything done. By the end, I didn't know what to do with myself...I mean, how much nonsense can one person actually be expected to take in exchange for a paycheck?

I was also partly embarrassed because there was someone visiting my class who I respect and I did not want her to see the class behaving like this. However, she had some insight about the behavior of at least two of the students. Also, she made a couple of suggestions which I will look into.

I feel like I am banging my head against the wall with this class so much so that I am procrastinating in planning for tomorrow because I'm so sick of them. Wednesdays are always better, since I actually only have that class for 2 periods instead of 3 but I have them for 2 periods in a row.

A Metaphor

Today I had an experience that I felt was a metaphor for my whole experience as a first year teacher at my school: The lock on my classroom had been broken for a long time and I finally complained to the AP and the custodian came to fix it...only he changed the lock to one that wasn't completely functional, but it worked well enough yesterday to serve the purpose.

However, today...I stepped out to return chart paper to my fellow teacher and I got locked out. I could not open the door. I went downstairs and both the AP AND the principal were there and I told them I couldn't get in and they said that the custodians were at lunch, and didn't seem to care.

So I went back upstairs and kicked my door until the lock broke.

Now, this metaphor can be seen in a couple of ways. Trying to teach my kids is sometimes like banging on a door that won't open...and then all of a sudden it does. The lack of support in my school is sometimes like banging against a closed door...I could go on.

Of course, now my door is broken again. But one kid asked what happened and I said I broke it and he said, "Damn Ms. Salisch, you strong."

Just a Kid

After some drama at school this Friday, involving one of my most challenging students (oh who am I kidding? They're all challenging), I kept thinking about no matter what these kids do, they still really just kids and I feel like in our quest to get them to behave and learn, we forget that.

Two of my students were having a fight on Friday and one of them came back in my room very upset. I sat at my desk quietly watching him, not sure what he was going to do because he's been known to turn over desks and such when he's upset. I was eating grapes and I offered him some and he just cracked. He just started crying. I must admit, I was taken aback...I mean, this student is kind of a bully and to see this tough, older kid break down definitely got under my skin.

I knew that he had had some trouble with the law already and he was afraid he was going to be suspended and that his mother was going to beat him up. That's a lot for a young teenager to have on their shoulders. Plus he's in Special Ed, can barely read or multiply...but somehow that seems irrelevant when he doesn't feel comfortable in his own house.

Another kid told me how all his little cousins were visiting and that he was in charge of taking care of the boys and they were all staying at his apartment. What kind of world does this kid live in that he has to watch kids on his weekend when he himself is only a kid?

I again feel how lucky I was to grow up the way I did and how I can't imagine going through what these kids go through on a daily basis. No wonder they can't behave.

An Eventful Year

I'm not really one to get reflective around the holidays...I usually do that on the High Holy Days. But what I can tell you, with 7 more school days until our much-needed winter break, is that this year has been one of the most eventful in my life. It started out with me trying to make things work at Vh1, with little success (no thanks to the nasty, vindictive women I worked with...that, by an ironic twist of fate, led them both to quit before me)...and I didn't know what I wanted to do next month, let alone in five years.

I didn't apply for the Fellows on a whim. It was something I'd thought about a few times and always said, "Later." Somehow "later" became "why not now?" One weekend my mother came over to my apt and we revised my essay and I handed it in. I got selected for an interview in March. Two days before the interview, I lost my grandmother. I rescheduled, sure I was dooming myself to losing out on the program if I did so. I walked to a school in Union Square early on a Saturday morning in a black pants suit, wearing black shoes and barely keeping from slipping on the ice. I gave a good performance. That's what it was, a performance. I had no idea how a teacher prepared or taught a lesson. So I did what I thought a teacher would do.

My parents were in London when I got the acceptance email in April. I was excited, scared and everything in between. It took me awhile to accept because I had to figure out how I would survive the summer on just a stipend. It also happened that I inherited money from my Grandmother. It's weird to think that she would be proud of me if she was here, but I wouldn't have been able to do this without the money she left me.

I quit my job. My new boss tried to make me stay. I cried after I quit. I was scared that I had made the wrong decision and scared that I'd made the right one, scared that I had just wasted 3 years of my life doing something I had never cared about. Scared that now I knew what I wanted to do. I went to the welcoming event at Lincoln Center. I love Lincoln Center and I get excited to go there for any reason. So I went there that Monday and watched the show that was prepared for us. I remembered my earlier school visits and thinking, "Can I really do this?"

LIU, training, heated discussions about race, disability, you name it. Everyone in the program is so smart and has so many opinions that we're all anxious to have them heard. Summer school was a dose of reality but I felt lucky to be working with another fellow, Johanna, that I ended up getting along with. Training was like camp, we all got close in a really short period of time...and now we don't see half those people anymore.

The fear of not getting a job was overwhelming as training ended. People have told me that they had many offers...I didn't. I had one offer. That was all I needed. I am now working in my 12:1:1 class with unruly 6th and 7th graders and trying to make them stop trying to kill each other long enough to teach them something. I've come a long way, but I've only just started. I feel a direction that I didn't before. I know that when I finish LIU that I want to finish my history major and take arts education classes. Even if I'm not in front of a class all the time, I know this is where I belong.

A Stuff Person

So my book club and I read this book called the Mole People by Jennifer Toth which details the author's experiences talking with and getting stories from the homeless that live in the tunnels under New York City.

Whenever I read something like that or watch something, like Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days episode where he and his fiance lived on minimum wage for a month, I stop and look around myself, at all the things I have. These people are just trying to survive one way or the other. They take what they can get. I expect, in fact, feel entitled to the apt I live in, in a good neighborhood. I have collections, like my books and movies which I take for granted. I take guitar lessons and belong to the gym and have cable. These people have nothing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on giving these things up. Those are the things I spend my money on just as the people who live in tunnels spend their money on what they choose when they have it. But I wonder how certain things happen to certain people. I do think the author was naive in her research. She ended up finishing because of a couple different incidents that happened in the tunnels.

The people who live in the tunnels are a different from, say, starving artists...starving artists choose that life....in a lot of cases it seemed like homelessness chose them. I couldn't imagine living that kind of life, what it does to you, how it makes you feel and behave. I would never want to.

Without you, the ground thaws...

You know, Jonathan's words can be just so profound sometimes.

Yesterday I had to do something really hard. I had to say Yizkor for my Grandmother for the first time. On Yom Kippur, we have a memorial service where we say prayers or meditate on our lost loved ones.

It was hard because it's still weird to think of her as not here with us. I wear her diamond ring, the ring that she always wore and she held my hand with thousands of times. I remember when we lost my aunt, I went in to see the casket and Grandma came with me and she was quite upset. Things like that always took her back to losing my grandfather.

It's so ironic too because she would have been totally behind my joining the Teaching Fellowship, but without the money she left me, I would not have been able to do it. So I like to think she helped me through it, somehow.

She used to drive us nuts, but in the end we knew it was because she loved us and we loved her. The world seems smaller now that I have one less person around that loves me.

But as always, life goes on. We change careers, me fall in love, we get puppies and have babies...and wonder what the reactions would be of the people who aren't here with us.

1 Week Down...

"The first year is the hardest."

"A lot of teachers drink."

"You feel like a failure."

"I used to go home and cry everyday."

"You have good days and bad days."

Well, there you have it. One week down, many more to go. The first three days were ok. Today, not so much. I could not get my students to do anything. I felt completely helpless and I didn't know what to do. I was having a "what am I doing here" sort of morning.

It started out ok enough, I got them to do a couple things but by the time we got to Math class, they were out of control and nothing I did or said could change that. I felt ineffectual and in experienced...both of which I was right at that moment. I wa snot sure how to combat it. The boys could tell and of course took advantage.

I gave a couple of different assignments and asked them to hand them in. On both accounts, I received only three. During lunch, I kinda lost it, at least while I was on my own but then I looked for a fellow teacher to ask him something and he saw me upset (mostly because he asked if I was upset and then I lost again and I felt like a moron. I don't like being upset in front of people, least of all, people I don't know well.)

At least toward the end of the day I had a debriefing session with two other teachers and I found they were in the same boat, frustration-wise as myself. But the question still remains, what to do about it? I don't remember anyone behaving in my schools the way these kids behave in class. Maybe because I was in a suburban school. Maybe because I was in some of the honors classes. Who knows?

I wouldn't go back to sitting behind a desk. But can I become the person these kids need me to become in order for all of us to succeed? We'll see.

"Everyone Knows Who Those Kids Are"

I finally found a position at a school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn - one of the few places you'll probably see Chasidim and African Americans in the same neighborhood...I will be teaching a self-contained 7th grade class...I saw my classroom a couple days ago and reality began to sink in. At least I haven't started to panic - not yet. Not when I looked on my list and saw most of my students are boys...or when another teacher mused "everyone knows who those kids are" - something I'm not a terribly big fan of; I'd rather not go into class the first day with the preconception that all these kids are bad.

I feel like I'm in a stolen season of a couple weeks, where anything is possible, before we all show up the first day of school and I may or may not still believe that. It's like the time between getting asked out and actually going on the date - you play out all scenarios in your head of what could happen and hope for the best. I may sounds idealistic, but I don't think you could become a Fellow without some idealism.

Now that I'm part of a bona fide staff and know where I'm going to be, I can enjoy my stolen season and see where this path takes me.

Almost There

Four more days. In four days, the first phase of journey that I have embarked upon will close and the next will open, leaving me as terrified as ever. And as exhilerated. I am working harder now than I ever worked at Fox or MTVN, and I'm fine with it. I want to do it. I have a job to do.

I have this paper to write about my personal perspective on disability and I am delaying writing it. I am delaying it because all the knowledge I've gained in the past 7 weeks is difficult to sum up, but also because...there's just so much more to know.

And I know this sounds like I'm making it about me when it's about the students. The students I've already met, and the ones that I will meet in September and the September after that. I have to square my shoulders for the burden of being a leader to these students, some of which might not know how to read and write.

We spoke about our hopes early in the program, and I can honestly say that one hope i Have for my students is that they learn to love reading and writing as much as I do, even if I have to read every book to them. I hope that they learn why the Constitution is important, how to add decimals and what a virus is. I hope that my efforts will not be in vain.

I was inspired when we went around the circle our first day in class, relating our previous lives and telling why we joined the program. We are all so different, but alike. I would not have crossed paths with these people had I not become a Fellow. I am thankful to be in a group of such passionate and incredibly smart individuals who have come together for a common purpose.


I haven't gotten to write much during training, about the experience or otherwise. But I feel as though the dam will break soon and i['m looking forward to it.