Chocolate Chip Muffins

I volunteered to make chocolate chip muffins to help the Habitat for Humanity club at my school raise funds for next year at our annual garage sale. I found the best chocolate chip muffin recipe here: http://www.mrbreakfast.com/superdisplay.asp?recipeid=239. I tripled the recipe and followed it to the letter except for doubling the vanilla essence (I actually used a combination of vanilla and mixed essences.

These muffins are delicious. The only thing that I can’t figure out is why some of them are lopsided.

One of these muffins is less like the others ...

Takayama Visit

I had a long weekend a few weeks back. I thought of going to Shirawaka-go but figured it would be too cold there. I don’t particularly miss snow. I enjoyed walking around Takayama and seeing the sites. There are lots of cultural/historical sites, something that I miss living in Nagoya.

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Pumpkin Muffins

I’ve been wanting to bake pumpkin muffins since a friend on facebook mentioned making them. I had pumpkin in the fridge, just needed to find a good recipe. I came across this recipe tonight that looked promising, but had to modify it to make it a bit more wholesome. Here are the ingredients and the results:

4 eggs
1.5 cups sugar
2 cups roasted pumpkin puree
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup apple puree
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1.5 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
pinch ginger
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 teaspoon salt

This recipe made 17 muffins. For some reason, the first batch took 20 mins but the second took 15 mins. My oven is a little bit strange so the temperature may have been too low the first batch. They taste delicious. The whole wheat flour makes the taste more wholesome, just the way I like. Next time I make this recipe, I’ll reduce the oil by half. I don’t think there will be any adverse effects because I’ve added lots of apple puree.

Exploring Sakae (Nagoya)

Nagoya castle and environs

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Green spaces with gifts from Nagoya’s sister cites

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Thanks to Charlotte and Tanya for most of the photos since my camera battery died within the first 5 minutes and I forgot my extra set at home.

Luggage update

I got the rest of my luggage today. YAY!! I now realize what I left in the states . All in all, getting my luggage here ended up being relatively painless. Thanks Qatar Airways agents. I’ve only been here two days after all. My dark chocolate truffles have become one solid mass of goodness. I guess I can’t give them away as gifts any more. Um, how long will cheese stay if unrefrigerated? I might be using myself as a guinea pig tomorrow to see whether my cheddar and parmesan cheeses are still OK. I won’t serve them to anyone without warning them …

Karma

You’d think that I’d have learned my lesson by now. Every time I get too full of myself or too self satisfied, something happens to right the balance. I bought a lovely sugar bowl from Amazon and packed it in my checked luggage from Boston to Khartoum. I kept the bowl in the original packaging to make sure that it would not break. As I got my luggage today, I took it out of the box and admired it, congratulating myself on my excellent packing job. As I reached to place the sugar bowl on a kitchen shelf, the lid slid off and shattered. I’m thinking that I can still use the sugar bowl sans lid. The images that I previously had of my beautiful tea parties need to be reworked.

Back home

Khartoum never looked as good to me as when I gazed out the window of the Qatar Airways airplane carrying me home. I was exhausted by the time I finally made it here. Catching naps on planes while traveling for 44 hours is not very resting. I spent today unpacking my home and sleeping. My world will be properly oriented if I can get my apartment organized how I want it and if my luggage comes this week.

Lessons of travel …

1. If there is an offer to take an alternate flight and get paid for it, do it. Otherwise, you’ll want to hit yourself on the head when you end up having to take that flight anyway (without compensation) because your flight has been canceled.
2. Before you get on a line, verify that the person serving the line will actually be able to help you.
3. Do not use more than one airline for a trip, or if you do, pick up your bags yourself and check them back in between airlines (if they’ll let you).
4. Confirm, confirm, re-confirm again and again to make sure that your reservation is not canceled.
5. Do not carry cheese in checked baggage when traveling for more than 8 hours.
6. Europe is ridiculously expensive … I refuse to spend any money here while on transit.

Constructing Modern Knowledge 2008 Impressions

I attended three days of the Constructing Modern Knowledge Conference in Manchester,  NH. This conference provided an opportunity to listen to a number of presenters on the topic of creativity and constructivism in education; and to explore a number of software and hardware technologies for use in the classroom.

Notable presenters included Peter Reynolds (Fablevision), Lindsay (tech4learning), Bob Tinker and Alfie Kohn. There was lots to think about; I have notes somewhere, mostly in my binder in my lost luggage. I will eventually get some of my more eloquent thoughts on here.

The best part of the conference for me was the opportunity to challenge myself. I got to work with some other ladies using PicoCrickets to create a dancing clown. I helped another group with their construction made of lego bricks and I made some flowers for a third group creating a claymation project. I was inspired by seeing the tech4learning software at work to work in Frames and Twist back in my hotel room that evening. I’ve started following Gary Stager’s tutorial to create a virtual pet in Microworlds EX and am looking forward to continuing it once I’m on more solid footing (i.e. home). It’s fabulous to be able to go to a conference and to come out with real experiences as opposed to lots of ideas.

One of the real experiences that I had was an afternoon/evening adventure with some of the gang from the conference. We finished the conference early that day (3ish) and headed to Boston. The Boston visit started off with a visit to the MIT Media Lab and the OLPC offices. We met with Martin Minsky (future post will expand on this) before heading to the North End. Gary claimed that Pizzeria Regina has the best pizza in the US, and possibly in the world. We broke into two dinner groups but I chose Gary’s group, being a fan of excellent pizza. I had shrimp pizza and it was fantastic. It successfully displaced the old image of vinegary, tough shrimp pizza that I had right before leaving Sudan.  We stopped at Bova after the restaurant and Gary got me a black and white cookie which he said is a NY specialty. We then stopped by Mike’s Bakery, which has an extensive selection of baked goods. I would have liked to get an apple dumpling, which I love, but the line was too long. Another long and excellent day.

This conference, along with  my other two conferences this summer has inspired me to rethink conferences. I think that I need to be involved in more hands-on, experiential conferences. I already get lots of good ideas from my listservs and blogs. I don’t need to go to conferences for superficial introductions to new technologies. I need to go to conferences with forward thinkers that will help me challenge my thinking about and implementation of teaching. I need to go to conferences that allow me to explore opportunities that I wouldn’t otherwise have, opportunities to tinker and construct within a community of like-minded learners.

Since I am currently working in Sudan, it is difficult to attend conferences during the school year. This gives me about 10 months to research and identify what conferences/workshops I will participate in next year.

… other horror stories

Lines are fabulous. I’ve lived in India and I’ve lived in Sudan so I have all the more appreciation for lines.  Standing on one and making that slow progress, step by step, gives me a feeling of accomplishment. But what is the line threshold for one 24 hour period??!!??

I had 5 hours layover in Paris. I stopped at the Air France counter as soon as I disembarked and verified my connecting reservation. I was told that I have an eticket so simply go to my boarding gate, where a boarding pass would be given to me. I took a slow and scenic route through the airport, eventually making my way through security to the correct gate 3 hours before boarding. I kept enquiring about seeing a Turkish Airlines ticket agent and was continuously reassured that one would soon appear. Eventually, she did about 1.5 hours before boarding. She got on her computer and couldn’t find a reservation for me. She got a colleague to assist and he told me that Lufthansa had canceled my ticket and I had to go to Lufthansa ticketing to resolve the problem. I found my limit for lines and incompetence!! Apparently, 11 lines is the most that I can handle in 24 hours before turning into a line hating, no patience, distraught alter personality.

I found a security person who told me where to go to LH. I didn’t realize how far this office was. I still expected to make my Turkish Airlines flight. I latched on to another security person so that I wouldn’t have to wait on the long disorderly passport control lines. He was a kind man who got me through passport control within minutes.

Did I mention that I couldn’t handle any more lines? I wasn’t kidding. I’d become a lane-runner, one of those people who I despise while driving. I went straight to an agent and said that I would wait until she was finished with the current passenger but not a second longer as my flight was about to leave without me and it was Lufthansa’s fault for canceling my ticket. Bless this lady’s heart, because she obviously saw that I was close to hysterical and served me in a calm and competent way. She got me rerouted through Qatar Airways on a flight that would leave 4 hours later. I balked at the idea of a 7 hour layover in Doha but she said this was my best chance. She gave me a dinner voucher and I went to a restaurant downstairs and had a three course dinner dinner of poached eggs, grilled tilapia and creme brulee.

I had enough time to calm down that spending one hour on the Qatar Airways line didn’t faze me. I was physically exhausted but looking forward to continuing my trip.  I inquired of Qatar Airways what would happen with my trip. They told me that they could try to find it and I would have to pay over 1800 euros for my 63 lbs excess baggage (2 extra pieces). She gave me a discount of over 50% but there was no way that I was going to pay a penny more for my luggage, especially since noone knew where it was and no one could tell me when I would receive it. All Qatar Airways was promising to do for that price was to look for it and bring it to Khartoum. The way I figured it, I’d already paid for that to be done so I marched back to Lufthansa ticketing.

This time, the manager had to get involved. She spoke to Air France and to Qatar Airways managers. They all confirmed that all this rerouting was a mess and no one knew where my luggage was. Qatar Airways agreed to take the baggage payment coupons that I had paid for Turkish Airlines to bring my luggage if they were endorsed by Air France. Then the manage noticed how many pieces I had and that two were overweight and wouldn’t let me on the flight unless someone paid for the luggage!! By then, the manager of LH had abandoned me, assuming that all was resolved. I marched back to Lufthansa ticketing.

I did not wait on any line. The manager was still at the counter so I went up to her and told her that Lufthansa had to resolve the problem. To make a long passionate story short, she eventually agreed to Lufthansa would be responsible for getting my luggage to me. Thankfully, Qatar Airways accepted the note from her that said that and I made it on the flight.

I am now sitting at Doha airport. I have a few more hours to go. It’s morning here but I want to sleep. My Macbook battery is about to die so unless I find a place to plug it in, my book will be my only companion until I get to Khartoum.  I’m getting closer to ?home?, step by step. It’s 36 hours since I got to Boston airport for my flight. It’ll be close to 48 hours by the time I get to Khartoum. I’m beginning to hate air travel.