What are these kids so captivated by? (Well, one of them appears to be interested in the camera, but I mean the rest.)

A hot oil popcorn maker, operated by a music teacher:

The popping process was “boring” for the first couple minutes (before the popping began), but after the first pop, there were lots of oo’s and ah’s and a few shh’s. They liked eating the popcorn, too. (No surprise there.) Some said it was the “most delicious popcorn” they’d ever had, and a few determined to buy a popcorn maker.

It’s said that air poppers are healthier than oil poppers, but Amy uses Canola, so it’s good fat. Here’s one more photo of the wonder of the popping popcorn:

The other ingredients of Good Times are cookies (we — mostly Amy — made 300 small chocolate chip cookies on Thursday evening), singing, a team competition to put notes in their proper places on a staff (you can see the staff on the floor behind Amy in one of the photos further up), and lots of jumping up and down (little kids like jumping up and down). The cookies were a big hit (“They’re so soft!” “They’re better than … Chips Ahoy!”)

Yesterday evening, Amy and I had over a classmate of mine, Fahad, along with his cousin, Rakan, an MBA student in Oklahoma. They’re from Saudi Arabia. (Fahad is the one on my right.) We had an enjoyably evening and a wonderful roast.

Did you notice that I got a haircut? We had decided to wait till the semester was over. So Amy took care of it Friday evening. (And she did a marvelous job!) If you’ve forgotten how long my hair had gotten, here’s a recent photo (taken after an event that required a tie — something unusual for me these days).

The semester ended well. I had two final papers (due Tuesday and Wednesday), and some final exams to grade (I finished those yesterday). So summer has begun. My plans are to study French, continue my work for Nightlight Christian Adoptions (formerly Carolina Hope), design a couple websites, and conduct research on Jarai for my dissertation — along with some other miscelaneous items.

By the way, Amy’s old computer (very graciously given to her a couple years ago by her brother Jon) is on the way out. If anyone is trying to dispose of a (still reliable) laptop that’s a couple years old (at a reasonable price), please let us know!

Last Saturday night we had my friend Ms.  Carter over for dinner.  I was excited for Josh to meet one of my coworkers.  Ms. Carter is a 4th grade math teacher at school and has made me feel a part of the Cochran faculty.  I’ve enjoyed getting to know her and visiting her classroom this year.

During Spring Break, Josh and I took a “break” from our studying and spent an evening in Forth Worth. We visited the Barnes and Noble, and Josh read Poe’s The Black Cat to me. Afterwards we enjoyed a dinner of Mexican food and walking around downtown Fort Worth.  While walking around, we met the most interesting man. His job was to walk around town and scare all the birds away by either shining a red light into their eyes or by startling them with his large clapper. He told us that if we walked further down the road we would find all the noisy birds. We decided to test his word and just as he said, a couple blocks down the road there were hundreds of birds filling the trees.

Today is our 10 month wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe how quickly our first year is passing. Marriage is wonderful – I am married to the dearest sweetest man in the world.

Last Friday I took the written part of my doctoral comprehensive exam. My questions were:

1. Discuss the role of a Christian teacher in a public school setting. What are some of the issues of concern that a Christian teacher must address in the current public school setting?

2. How can popular music meet the National Standards of Music in a middle school general music curriculum? What pedagogical or curriculum problems can occur from an “overuse” of popular music in this curriculum?

3. How do the learning theories of Vygotsky and Piaget apply to the elementary music classroom? Which theory is more applicable in the elementary music classroom?

I spent over eight hours writing my responses and felt like my brain was fried by the end of the day. Josh made me a delicious spaghetti dinner to celebrate. And I’m currently enjoying not having the pressure of the exam weighing on me.

I took Thursday (the day before the exam) off from school to review for the exam. While I was home studying, the FedEx lady delivered fresh flowers that Dad and Mom Jensen sent to encourage me on my final day of studying.

It will be at least another week before I hear back from my committee concerning my results. After I hear back from them, we will set up a time for the oral half of my exam.

Back on March 15, we had our pastor (John Lutz) and his family (Shawn, Micah) over for dinner. Amy made a wonderful pot roast (maybe she’ll put up some photos?) and some great cookies out of yellow cake mix (the only cookie-making ingredients on hand!). Here’s the cookies:

The Lutzes tried out our Boomwhackers — introduced here — (new church orchestra?). They were pretty good, especially considering that they didn’t get much prep time. (Does “especially considering” turn a compliment into an underhanded aspersion?) Here’s a 20-sec clip:

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Finally, since you can see from the top photo (which we’re all part of) that I obviously have a timer function on my camera, here’s a little something showing … well, you’ll see:

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Today I decided to experiment with making soup using our leftover chicken and chicken broth from Tuesday night’s meal (Tuesday I made a whole chicken in the crockpot). I thought I would document my first soup making experience. Mmmm – mmmmm – good!

This evening, Josh decided to treat us to dinner at Moni’s (a local Italian restaurant) and ice cream at Braums. It was a delightful treat after a long week of school and study. The past two weeks, I’ve been working with the 5th grade reading class, instead of teaching music (my kids tell me they miss music…I do too!). Yesterday and today I taught all 5th grade reading classes  by myself, because the regular teacher was out of town due to a family emergency.  Life is an adventure.

For Saturday night’s salad meal, I tried browning chicken in Italian dressing and was pleased with the results. (Mom, just thought you might like to see how healthy we’re eating!)

We’ve both had a busy week. I have several pictures to post, but they will have to wait until after my comprehensive exam (April 17th).

Happy Birthday to my wonderful wonderful husband!!! I love you so much!

Happy 9 months of marriage to the most wonderful man in the whole wide world! I love you so much, Joshua Jensen – so much! Thank you for being the man who loves me, leads me, and points me to Christ. I love being your wife.

Saturday evening we had Sharleston and her son, Nick, over for dinner. Sharleston used to be the secretary for the linguistics department at UTA and was very helpful to Josh, especially when he first came to UTA.  She is a very sweet lady and considered herself the “den mother” for the linguistics department.

We had a delightful time with our guests. I made bacon wrapped chicken (thanks, Emily for the recipe), along with red potatoes (thanks, Ruth B.), mixed vegetables, and rolls.

Thought you might enjoy a snapshot of our Spring Break activities this week. Josh has a color-coded list of things to get done, and I’m preparing for my comprehensive exam. We’ve had our past few meals on our card table, since cleaning up our regular table and then getting everything out again seemed like too much work.

Last Saturday night (for our weekly Josh and Amy Night), we did some shopping and then went to Mimi’s for dinner. We both enjoyed our meals and then went home to play a game of Othello (you’ll have to ask Josh who won).

Sunday night we babysat the Johnson kids, while their parents went house hunting. The Johnsons have three adorable children and are expecting their fourth in July. We spent the evening playing games, having razor scooter races in an empty parking lot, reading, eating dinner, and watching a movie.

On Thursday and Friday, my department hosted its annual Student Conference in Linguistics & TESOL. The photo above shows me with Jacob, a conference presenter who traveled from Mexico. If you look closely, you’ll perhaps notice that this photo was not taken at school but in our apartment. Jacob’s cash-to-expenses ratio wasn’t looking so good on Friday, so to help that situation from getting worse, Amy and I invited him to stay at our apartment last night. Of all our very appreciative guests (many of whom read our blog — so let me emphasize that all of our previous guests have been very very appreciative), Jacob was probably the most overflowing in his gratitude.

We enjoyed our time talking with him, and we have an open invitation to stay with him and his wife in Hermosillo, Mexico, next time we’re down that way.

Today we celebrate our 8th month wedding anniversary. We thank the Lord for giving us eight wonderful months of marriage. I am truly blessed to have Joshua Jensen as my husband.

A few weeks ago, Josh offered to make our Valentine’s Day dinner. I wasn’t sure what he was planning and was delightfully surprised with our meal last night. Josh made salad, chicken (his own recipe in the crockpot), twice baked potatoes (ht to Sam and Abigail for the cookbook), veggies, and apple crisp (thanks Mom J. for the recipe)! Everything was absolutely delicious!

After supper, we read our cards to each other and then Josh read a P.J. Wodehouse story. It was wonderful to spend our first Valentine’s Day together. Wonderful to be married to the world’s most sweet romantic man.

Valentine’s Day at school was a big celebration. I received several Valentine’s, as well as a single red rose that was so perfect that it looked fake.

I had a good week at school. In my fifth grade class worked on writing and performing their own raps.

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In hopes of instilling a love for music class in my students, I recently purchased two sets of Boomwhackers. (Ok, you’re right . . . I just wanted them for myself!)

It was another busy week in the Jensen household. Josh was busy with his classwork, preparing and teaching his class (Grammar and Morphology), webwork, and meeting one of the syntax faculty candidates at UTA.

I had an interesting teaching week…it was the third week in the 6 week grading period, and I’m convinced that my three worst classes in the school are scheduled during week 3 – back-to-back. I had my first classroom fight between two 4th grade boys, met the school policeman, and had my first parent/teacher/principal conference. I’m learning a lot at Cochran Elementary School, and I know the Lord is using the school to teach me dependence on wisdom from above. The most hilarious episode of the teaching week was the teacher’s assistant sub who kept telling the bilingual Pre-K class to “andale” when they were leaving my classroom.

Wednesday night we had Micah and Anna over for dinner. It was great to fellowship with them. Friday night, Josh and I went to a park, then went grocery shopping, and ended the night by making chocolate chip cookies. Sunday, we had a church fellowship, including pizza and games.

So, there’s a short glimpse into our week. We’re looking forward to this coming week – teaching and studying.

I just watched this presentation while dusting (white glove for our apartment complex this week!). Lomborg is a Danish statistician who argues that even though global warming is a real (man-made) problem, there are better ways to spend our money than cutting carbon emissions. He’s quite humorous.

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