Science Tests: The fun way

It's been several weeks now, but I'm still pretty proud of this lesson, so I thought I'd share it. We had been learning about cells in science class for a over a month. The students had built cell models in teams, memorized cell parts and their functions, and even looked at different plant cells through a microscope. It was a pretty fun unit. And then I had a brilliant idea to kick it up a notch.

The unit was wrapping up and it was time to assess their knowledge. That's what teachers do, you know. Give 'em tests. But I didn't want your typical pencil/paper, label the diagram, fill in the blank type test. The students don't want to do it. I don't want to grade it. That kind of test just becomes a boring conclusion to such an interesting unit. So I decided to go for something a little out of the box.

I decided that my students were going to show me what they had learned by building cell models. Out of cookies. This was a total surprise to them. I told them their test would require them to place and explain parts of a cell. So when I brought out cookies and various edible cookie decorating cell components, they were stoked. It was so great! They got to decorate their cookies with the goodies, then made a key telling me exactly what represented which part of the cell, and what the function was. Believe it or not, it was actually a good measure of what they knew. 

Some had very accurate models with thorough explanations in their keys. 

And then some had a cell cookie with the "cell wall" in bits and two nuclei.

So close

This project was tons of fun, and I was proud of the ingenuity of my assessment tool. However, I haven't earned the title of Coolest Science Teacher of Acacia. That would have to go to Lee Erin, who was studying the circulatory and respiratory systems. She procured a cow heart and lung, dissected them for the students, and after both organs were thoroughly explored all the students were encouraged to touch them. I thought there would be more gross-out factor, but the kids all thought it was so cool they manhandled the poor organs with much zeal. The best (or maybe worst) bit was when one of the third graders came back from washing his hands and asked, with fingers twitching, "Are we allowed to have seconds?" 

Fort Portal

Well, I just realized that it has been over a month since I went on my Fort Portal adventure, and I never wrote anything about it! Time certainly flies, doesn't it!

In October we had a week long fall break, which was a much appreciated pause from the daily grind. Lee Erin, the head teacher at Acacia, had some connections to a cabin in the woods out in mountains of western Uganda, so Alena (the volunteer from Germany) and Lee Erin and I all went out there for several days. It is such a beautiful place! As you drive out through the villages (and their many many speed bumps on the otherwise decent highway) there are beautiful hillsides covered in the gorgeous, saturated green of tea plantations.

After a long trek down a seemingly impassable road (kudos to Lee Erin for her masterful navigation through the treacherous roads) we arrived at the "cabin" which was actually a very nice, fully equipped house, with only the lack of power making it feel a bit camping-like. The front porch and balcony looked out over grassy marsh, a lack, and mountains in the background. We even had a little posse of crested cranes entertain us for a day.

The guy that manages the property, Eddie, also doubled as our tour guide, and we did several fun hikes. The first was a bit grueling, straight up the mountainside, but the views were incredible. The steep slopes with their little fields of bananas and cassava stretched out like a postcard picture. As for pictures, I only have those taken from my phone, so they don't do it justice.

View from the mountain

Coffee drying

On our hike up the mountain we passed a little nursery school, and on the return trip we just happened to be passing when the kids were all sent home for the day. That meant we picked up a whole slew of miniature tagalongs that held on to our fingers the whole way down the mountain. It was pretty cute.

The next day Alena and I went to see the "caves" nearby. They were more like deep overhangs, but the stalactites and stalagmites were impressive, and the waterfall was beautiful. The best part was hearing the stories though. There's a legend of the above ground king being trapped in the below ground kingdom and earthquakes come when he furiously tries to break out. Another legend, very similar to Oedipus, tells of a son thrown out of the kingdom because of a prophesy that he will kill his father (and his does). Another legend was of Eddie's father, and how he was in the womb for nine years. ("Really, Eddie?! Nine years? I don't think so" "Yes, yes, nine whole years")

One evening we also went to check out a very posh resort near Fort Portal and had tea on the veranda while looking out over the sunset reflected on the lake. Gorgeous!

 So between the hikes, playing cards, and afternoons spend reading an excellent PD James mystery, it was really quite an excellent vacation.

Yearbook

If you had told me a year ago I would be helping to teach photography to elementary school students in Uganda, I would have laughed. But that's what I've been doing every Thursday afternoon for yearbook club. Although it's not always entirely kicks and giggles, mostly due to technology headaches, it has been really fun to see the progression in the kids photos. They have taken some excellent photos. We started taking pictures of flowers around campus, mostly just as an exercise in proper focusing. Then we took some of our best flower pictures and they were turned in to greeting cards and wall hangings. Last weekend we sold our products at a holiday bazaar, and the kids are well on their way to earning a nice yearbook camera for the school. And I discovered that some of our students are very natural little salesmen.

Here are a few of their shots.

*Photo credit to the students of Acacia Yearbook. Eliana Tuggy took the first and the last photos

Made it through a quarter

I've made it through a couple big firsts. We finished up our first quarter at the beginning of November. Not only was this a moment for me as a teacher to think "Has it REALLY been that long already?" but we also got to celebrate what we'd learned with a program for the parents. Although it required hours of work and preparation, the final program went really well. I was so proud of my class! They recited their latest memory verse (a chunk of Romans 12) the best that they had ever done, performed a song with various instruments and voices, and closed the program with their fearsome haka. I had only taught them half of it during history, but of their own volition they learned the whole thing and performed it like true warriors. It was a beautiful thing.

I've also now finished my first round of report card writing. I can tell you for certain, I have never been more grateful for having such a small class. Acacia is still sorting out their system for reports and what it they should look like, so we all invested hours and hours (and days, and weeks...it felt like anyway). But now they are finished and done. Hurrah!

Next big task...our Christmas pageant. In three weeks. Wait, just THREE WEEKS....yikes. Stay tuned for how this next adventure ends.

Adventures in History

   

I've probably mentioned before, but we combine all the students, 1st through 5th grade, for history class. We read through a book called Story of the World that gives a basic chronological overview of the history of the whole world. This year's book covers the fall of Rome through the renaissance. Which means we move fairly quickly through the material. A week on early Britain, a week on the rise of Islam, a week on the Byzantine empire, etc. During the last couple weeks it worked out that we had time on Friday to do some fun extra stuff to supplement what we were learning. If the kids are learning even just half of what I am (and having half as much fun) then I would be confident in saying we have a pretty awesome history class.

The first project we did with them was a cooking adventure. We had just read about the Golden Age of China and how nobles ate 24 different types of dumplings. So of course we had to try some for ourselves, right? After a bit of research and a tolerably successful test run, the other two head teachers and I spent a good chunk of the morning teaching cooking class. The first through fourth grade mixed and rolled out the dough for the outside, while my little chefs of the fifth grade cooked up the filling. I've never seen grating and chopping and stirring done with more gusto. And they created an excellent filling. All the kids stuffed their little pot stickers and during the wait time listened quite contentedly to a Japanese legend about an eight headed snake and a maiden turned into a hair comb. Of course, we finished by enjoying the (delicious) fruits of our labor. Pretty cool history class, right?

A few of the students from yearbook (Sarang and Laelle) club took these photos of the cooking in progress.

This last week, although not as edible, was just as entertaining. We spend the week reading about Australia and New Zealand, and I thought teaching the students more about the Maori culture would be rather memorable. So we learned a Haka.

If you've never seen a Haka, you really should look it up. It's a battle cry chant/dance that may seem strange in theory (sticking your tongue out and slapping your thighs? Really?) but is actually quite effective. Even downright scary. The All Blacks rugby team does them before their matches, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that contributed to their success.

Drawing slightly on what I remembered from my first year of university, and largely from the internet, I came up with a Haka to teach my class. They learned the actual words and got really into the whole thing. And I can tell you from firsthand experience that the Haka is very effective at getting the participants riled up. The next day while I taught the rest of the students about the Haka, my students got their faces painted up like Maori warriors and then ran in to demonstrate their own Haka. The others were pretty impressed. Then my students taught the first through fourth graders while the teachers gave everyone war paint. They made very good leaders/teachers and I was more than a little proud of them. As a culmination of our lesson we all went out to the soccer field and the two groups faced off with each other, and then came together to do a unified Acacia haka. 

Hopefully educational. Definitely memorable.

Thanks Acacia and Lee Erin for the photos!

Collage Montage

I happen to have several intagram photo collages that seem to encapsulate the last week or so fairly well. Which means this entry will be mostly pictures. But that's what everyone wants to see anyway, right? Who reads these days?

Wednesday was the 51st anniversary of Ugandan independence! On Sunday I went to the Independence Day city festival with Becky and Patcee. We watched a parade, ate some street food, and of course got our faces painted. Since all the cool kids were doing it. All the cool kids that were under ten years old anyway. Once we had our faces painted we had so many pictures taken of us (by complete stangers) I felt like I was part of the parade.

Also, no intagram would be complete without food pictures, right? Here, starting with the top left and going clockwise, we have: 

• A fabulous fresh pineapple that made for a fantastic Friday night dinner last week 
• Cookies I made. Yup, those are cookies 
• Tiny bananas! So delicious! And, also, I was really proud of the fact that I managed to walk down the market, buy everything I wanted (including the baby bananas), and walk all the way back up the hill to the house in under 20 minutes. Like a boss. 
• Pot-stickers. And since I'm in Uganda, potsticker - Costco frozen food department = made from scratch. More about why I did that in the next entry.

And last, and probably least, is another food collage depicting my attempt at baking pumpkin-y things. Unfortunately things got less and less photogenic the further I got in the process. Sorry about the ugly mess that is the final product. I'm not a very inspirational foodstagrammer.

We start off here with a beautiful whole pumpkin. No can in sight here, folks. This is the real deal. Then, after scraping out the yucky guts (Becky did the bigger half. Thanks!) the pumpkin is baked in the oven for 30 to however-many-it-takes-for-me-to-remember-it's-in-there minutes. I scraped it out of the shell and pulverized it into submission, until it looked like that colorful baby food in the top right photo. So now, after hours and significant muscle exertion, I'm on the same step I would have been with a couple seconds and a can-opener at home. But it was an experience. Next I mix up the batter, which takes the pretty orange pumpkin and turns it into a concoction that looks like...well, you can see it. Finally it goes into the pan, with the streusel topping I had grand hopes for that actually ended up melting and looking like a burned mess. Overall, a significant decrease in the attractiveness of the photos. BUT, the house smelled magnificent and the pumpkin bread didn't taste half bad.

And that brings us to the end of the photo-collage-montage. Hope you enjoyed it!

Home Makeover: Uganda Edition

This title probably conveys a more dramatic change than what actually took place, but Becky and I were pretty pleased with ourselves with what we accomplished. I'll repost the pictures that I first took from our bare, waiting-room-like living room so you can fully appreciate the change.

On Friday we both felt more than a little dissatisfied with the un-lived-in feel still clinging to our house, so we resolved to spend Saturday changing it. After we met with a lady that will start as our house helper on Monday (which was my first interview to employ someone, and it felt weirdly blue-blooded), Becky and I attempted to find the fabric market. Neither of us had ever been. Apparently the boda drivers hadn't either, or at least didn't understand what we were talking about. We ended up at a very nice, but distinctly tourist focused craft market. Not exactly what we were looking for, but we came out with lovely placemats in any case. Also, I learned that if you really love your coffee, you can not only drink it, but also wear it in the form of jewelry. A coffee bean necklace may be the next addition to my jewelry box.

After calling for some directions from a fellow teacher, we ended up in the right part of town. We then proceeded to circle the block a time or two on foot, discovering an extensive vegetable market and several stalls selling lovely burkas and Korans, if you're into that kind of thing. Finally, after insisting to a random stranger several times that didn't need any pumpkins or papayas, he said he could take us to his sister's fabric shop down the block. This was after Becky had said, just for the heck of it, that we were German, not knowing this guy would ask so many questions about why we were speaking English to each other and why we sounded like we were from the UK. (?) Next time our assumed identities need to include an English speaking home country. 

Anyhow, we came to the shop, and they did have lovely West African wax dyed fabric. But after the shop owners had pulled out a dozen or so examples, only a few of which we had even been interested in, we decided to look in his family's other shop around the corner. While enjoying the drum group performing across the street, we picked this seashell fabric that fit with our emergent color scheme.

We also wanted some fun scraps to make pieced throw pillows for our couch, so we asked our guide if we could get any. He took us up to the tailor section upstairs in the market and showed us a bag full of very shiny, slippery, fancy fabric scraps from the formal dress popular here. When we asked if there were any cotton scraps, he said that was in a "different department" which happened to be just a few sewing tables down the aisle from where we were. After some negotiating, and taking Thomas's number for next time we need "anything at all," Becky and I left with a wall hanging, potential pillows, and intense thirst. It was really hot on Saturday.

Once home, we rearranged furniture and hung things on the walls. It's nothing that drastic, and we do still have the plastic packasport in place of a coffee table, but it feels at least a little more homey.

The Obligatory Before Picture that always comes in makeover shows:

Of course the batik on the left only stayed up for a few hours
 after this picture was taken, since it was held up with sticky-tack.
After that there was nothing on the wall.
 

Bits of News

I’ve made it through my first ever round of Parent-Teacher conferences. And it really wasn’t all that bad! It helps that I only have five sets of parents to talk to, I’ve seen them all before after school, and they’re all really supportive. There was a scare right in the middle of conference afternoon when one of my students gashed her ankle on a rock and turned the hallways into quite a bloodbath, but once she was calmed down and got a few stiches at the hospital everything settled right down.

Becky and I had our first venture into the market to get vegetables. We were bothered for a while by an old lady of very questionable sanity who kept shoving a bunch of wilted greens at us and poking us with a stick. But once she stopped following us around the market was actually fun. We got avocados, cucumbers, onions, bananas, ginger, zucchini, carrots, lemons, tomatoes, and a slight sunburn. I’d call that a successful Saturday morning.

We got a washing machine! I have never been so grateful to be able to just through in a load of laundry and let it go. And only handwashed for a couple of weeks. I guess I’m kind of a wimp with laundry. The only quirky thing is that it’s a German machine. Hopefully “Pfergihietch” means something similar to “Normal Wash” and not something like “Blow up all your clothes” but it’s a gamble. (Disclaimer: I just made up Pfergihietch, but I think there is a word that looks something remotely like that.)

You may have seen the picture of our road from when it was raining so hard. I refer to it just so that you have an idea of the condition of the road. More like a dried river bed in some stretches, and steep, rutted, and definitely unpaved. Which makes it all the more impressive that I saw a man unicycling down this very road. No joke. Although I did laugh.

Here's the picture of the road

I tried my first Rolex this week. Not a watch. A street food treat. It’s a chapatti (delicious unleavened flatbread, fried of course) with a nice hot greasy omelet rolled into a burrito-esque shape and consumed greedily in all its hot, salty, greasy glory. Yum.

More Firsts

Well, a lot has happened since the last post. Let me catch you up…

                I am now a year older. My birthday was last Saturday, and for being the first birthday I’d ever spent outside the states, it was great! On Friday night I went to an Afro-jazz concert and the musicians were excellent. Then I passed Saturday afternoon at a lovely pool with friends from school, and finished off the day with a delicious Indian feast. I discovered it’s not common for Ugandans to like spicy things. When I ordered a dish the hottest level it would come, the restaurant owner came out to see who was crazy enough to try that. I take it that doesn’t happen often. But I survived the “chili hot,” and actually quite enjoyed it! Sunday, after a packed African church service, I planned for the week of school. Overall, a very nice birthday weekend!

                My class has grown by 25 percent! Meaning the four have become five. We’ve added another girl from the states, who was at Acacia last year but has just returned from summer break. Our little class is slowing increasing!

                We also celebrated the first student birthday this week. Ju Hun decided to treat the whole school to a pizza party! So on Thursday during lunch he became the self-proclaimed “god of pizza” and was very diligent in making sure everyone got their fair share. Pizza for lunch usually comes every other Friday, so pizza on Thursday was an unheard of treat.

                Teaching history is a little less daunting. I may not have mentioned this before, but all our students, 1^st through 5^th, gather together for “Story of the World” history, and I get to lead it. It has been really fun! At first it was a little rocky, trying to figure out how best to format it and what needed to be covered. But now we’ve settled into a sort of groove of things, and it’s so exciting to see what they absorb. Last week was all about early British society (Celts and then Anglo-Saxons) and when I was up in my classroom one morning I heard, shouted from the playground, “I’m the warrior Beowulf!” That made my day.

                Our afterschool clubs began this week, and on Thursday we had the first meeting of yearbook club, which Mr. Jason (the principal) and I will be heading up. Once the students understood what it meant to make a yearbook, they were really excited. They had a great time doing a photography criticism course with Mr. Jason, and are very eager to start taking their own photos.

                Our first house guests have also arrived. The team has come from the UK and they will be with us volunteering in school for a week. The two girls on the team are staying out in our boy’s quarters (which is the same as servant’s quarters. Sorry if that term was confusing). It’s been really fun to have new faces helping around the school.

Today, Saturday, was my first real sight-seeing trip. I spent a lovely morning touring different churches in the area, on a sort of recon mission for school field trip. We’re hoping to take the students to see a cathedral and a mosque since in history we’ve just studied “the great schism” and will be studying the rise of Islam. The Hindu temple down town was the first port of call. It was really interesting (and quite sad, really) to see all the offerings and people praying to scary plastic figures. The people there were really nice, though, and even gave us some holy grapes. Next we went to the impressive Anglican Cathedral, perched on top of a huge hill that overlooks all of Kampala. It was a very nice building, but more exciting was the wedding that was about to start. Everyone was decked out in their finest, the church was full of flowers, and there was even a television reporter there. But the crowd inside waiting was eerily silent, and the bride and groom were just sitting in pews across the aisle from each other at the back of the church with their wedding party. Not sure what they were waiting for, but they seemed content just sitting there. Lastly we went to the mosque. After I, being the only female in the group, got my head all swathed up and modest, we went up the huge minaret and had a fantastic view of the city, and also toured through the main floor of the mosque itself. It was really beautiful inside, and seemed so huge!

Some other firsts...

First class pet at our school: A chameleon that has joined Ms. Capenter's class  

First Teacher Apple: I started to eat it, and then realized I wanted
photographic evidence of such a significant piece of fruit.

First time I've ever seen a dog circling a house at the
second story level. Do you see it? Underneath the small window
on the right. It was just taking a stroll out there. 

A few pictures at last

The first week has ended, and I feel like it was pretty successful! No one came to any significant harm, and I think my students even learned a few things.

The week culminated with our dedication ceremony for all the parents. All the classes presented very fun little projects. The 3^rd and 4^th grade class with Miss Carpenter presented poems they wrote about returning to school, the early years (3 and 4 year olds) did a cute little song, kindergarten recited a verse, 1 and 2 did a skit, and my class presented an artwork and prayed for the school in different languages. They all did an awesome job!

This week I am trying to figure out a more finalized schedule to settle in to, so we have a little more stability. Last week was a little strange with all the special things that go along with the first week of school.

As I promised, I have taken a few pictures, mostly of my house. Luckily I got these before our kitchen was painted on Saturday. They did a very thorough revamping of our cupboards: painting the inside and staining the outside. It looks beautiful in the kitchen, but unfortunately it also looks a bit like out kitchen threw up all over the table at the moment. That, and the smell is not quite conducive to maintaining brain cells. We’re still cooking on the stove, but to try and combat the aroma of the fumes I have been throwing cilantro and chili in everything. Becky cooked brownies this afternoon, and the fumes even managed to taint the smell of baking brownies. So we’ve had every possible orifice of the house wide open. Today was the first day that I’ve been here that I was cold!

My room, complete with jerry-rigged mosquito net

The kitchen

Dining room

Front room

The bulk of the decor in the house: a cut apart Monet calendar.

The tree collage my class made.

The wood shavings come from the construction of
the new classrooms, and the leaves have the
names of everyone at school on them. 

First Day of School!

Yesterday I came to the point where I didn’t really know what else to do to prepare for the big FIRST DAY. Which was kind of scary. When there’s nothing left to do, all you can do is wait. The same was true this morning. It felt a little bit like being the new kid in school: not quite sure who to talk to, where to be, what to do with myself. But then the day started, and once things were rolling I settled in.

Today I had four lovely students. All 5^th grade. More are coming at different points during the semester, but today there were just four. Two boys, two girls. Two from Korea, one from Zimbabwe, and one from the states. They are an excellent bunch.

The highlight was definitely the art project at the end of the day. On Friday we are having a school dedication/convocation and each class will present something (a song, bible verse, or poem) and our project is a class art project. The project is a mixed media collage of a tree (that perhaps looks vaguely like an acacia) made from all kinds of things scavenged from the art closet. I even grabbed wood shavings from the new construction in Becky’s classroom, so there will be little bits of the school right in our art! Today everyone was on the floor tracing out the outline and filling in the trunk and branches with newspaper and construction paper. I think it’s going to look pretty awesome when it’s finished. I was honestly a little nervous about teaching art (I don’t even know the last time I did anything that artistic) but the students love it, and it made for a lovely wrap up of the day. I'll post pictures once it's finished. (I keep promising pictures...one of these days.)

The rest of the day went well. It seemed to fly by, really. And I’m definitely learning tons about the pacing of an elementary classroom. I think they got a little bored at some points today. Ooops. But that was mostly the set-up type things…setting class rules and expectations, explaining routine, etc. I’m really emphasizing with them the idea that they are role models for the school, and one thing they got to do to go along with that was make a scavenger hunt for the 3^rd and 4^th grade. They loved thinking of clues and hiding them around school. And best of all it meant Miss Carpenter and I didn’t have to write a scavenger hunt!

Overall it seemed to be a very successful first day school wide. Everyone was all settled into their rooms (which was no small miracle), the 3 and 4 year olds only seemed to cry occasionally, and everyone appeared happy at the end of the day.

Tomorrow, of course, is when my really work begins. The introductions and get-to-know-yous are done, so we are jumping straight into our math curriculum, reading testing, writing workshop, and history lessons. One down, 179 to go. And so it begins…

First Week

So, I have come to the end of my first full week in the country of Uganda. I cannot believe it has only been 11 days since I left Oregon, and only nine days since I landed in Entebbe. My brain feels like it has processed about six months’ worth of information in the last week, and this is only the beginning! I have a lot to learn, and a long way to go, but it feels like things have gotten off to a really good start.

Getting here was a breeze, really. No hang ups, no stress, no problems. It was long, and a bit laborious (mostly trying to hoist my carry-on full of books into the overhead compartment). Generally, though, nothing noteworthy. Other than on the flight to Entebbe, when I’m fairly certain I sat across the aisle from an honest to goodness, Tolkien created, middle-earth dwarf.

Everyone I’ve met here so far has been wonderful. My housemate is a fellow teacher from Acacia who is bravely taking on kindergarten this year. She’s from the states originally, but has lived in Uganda for the last two years. She has given my lots of insight into living here, and we are getting along marvelously. The other teachers and teachers’ assistants (and administration, and support staff, everyone really) at Acacia are fun, welcoming, patient, and helpful people. I am really looking forward to the school year with them. Also, the Tuggys have been such a blessing! With their help I got a phone number, figured out internet access, and learned where to find the best Indian food. All very important things. And of course that’s not an all-inclusive list. It’s so nice to have their help, and also to have some familiar faces from home.

I don’t have pictures yet, but I can try and explain a bit in the meantime. My house sits at the back corner of a compound of four houses, very cute and not as small as I thought it would be. We have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living/dining room, kitchen, garage, and even “boy’s quarters” in the back that currently are unused. I’m feeling pretty well settled in, although some might find my lack of basic groceries a little shocking. Luckily I am quite content with peanut butter and beans and rice. It may be quite a while before I brave the butchers and cook meat. Dad, I know you would find this hard to believe, but I had a delicious dinner tonight made entirely of vegetables!

If you leave the compound (and say hello to Mike, the guard, on the way out), it is just a 10 minute, albeit very much uphill, walk to school. On the way, you will walk past two hotels, a coffee shop, souvenir shop, supermarket, and a dozen or so boda drivers that never seem to remember that no, you don’t need a ride. Boda bodas are the motorcycle taxis, by the way.

Upon arriving at the school, you notice the remarkable progress made in the new buildings since you were last there. The workers were literally there round the clock this last week, and the classrooms are beautiful and (mostly) finished. There are three classes in the newly constructed buildings: kindergarten, 1&2, and 3&4. The main building in the center of the campus has the early years, the kitchen, the computer lab, and my classroom. We are the sole occupants of the upper kingdom on the second floor. Right now the room looks a bit bare, with just a map, calendar, and a few pictures, but I’m hoping once the students come it will look a bit more lived in. The playground in the back is awesome! The play structure weaves into this big beautiful tree and there is sand instead of bark chips, like a giant sandbox. We also have swings, and even a trampoline! It really puts those lawsuit conscious play structures of the states to shame. 

There you have it, folks. My house and my school, which pretty much covers my life this past week. More to come later!