I'm not a dot. Are you a dot?

"A blog is merely a tool that lets you do anything from change the world to share your shopping list."

I like the above quote and thought I'd share with you. I feel like this blog is as much to document my life for my own sake as it is to share/connect with anybody who may be interested. If you're reading out there, leave me a comment. Even if it's just a simple hello. :)

In my AP US history class we are studying the cold war. We played something called 'the dot game.' This is how it works: My teacher had a bunch of note cards folded in half. She passed them out- one per person. Each card had either a little dot or was blank. We had to look at the dot and put the card in our pocket without anybody looking. Then we had to stand up and start saying to each other, "I'm not a dot. Are you a dot?" Even if you had a dot, you didn't want anybody to know, so you had to lie. There was literally no way to tell who had a dot and who didn't. But we had to form groups with other people whom we thought didn't have dots. I had a blank card twice and didn't have trouble finding a group. The third game however I did have a dot and being a terrible liar I was kicked out of a few groups until a group felt sorry enough to let me in. Only to their demise of course, haha. At the end we talked about how the people with dots were communists (and talked about McCarthyism in general). What was so funny about the exercise was that it was a great example of how people were being accused of being communists. Many of people who actually were 'dots' were the most aggressive in accusing others. Many people were kicked out of groups with no evidence because others felt like they were dots. And also other people who had been dots in the first and second game were not trusted a third time, although the drawing of the cards was pure chance. These all paralleled how people were being accused of being communists with no evidence, how communists accused others of being communist, and how the general idea at the time was 'once a communist, always a communist'. The game was really fun and loud- nothing like a usual class period, but it also taught us a lot. I like history in reference to culture and people, but I have a hard time staying attentive when it comes to politics and government...

Monday night my ear started hurting me. At first I didn't think much about it but the pain kept getting worse and worse. I finally had to go to sleep for a few hours in order to stop thinking about the pain. And when I woke up, I couldn't hear out of it completely but the pain was gone. Tuesday I tried to go to the doctor at school but she was out of the office. After school I went to the learning center to volunteer. Every Tuesday I volunteer with a program called "Project March." It's an after school program for elementary school kids in low-income areas. I have been volunteering once or twice a week for about a month now and I absolutely love it. It feels really great to be able to help these kids with their homework and to give them the supportive/friendly environment they may not have at home. They had a field trip planned for Wednesday so we had their St. Patrick's day party Tuesday afternoon. When they got in from school we usually had a snack for them. This day we had green mashed potatoes, cucumbers, and green ranch dressing. They turned their noses up and said, "Ewww Miss Rhonda, what is that?" The other adults and I told them it was snot and boogers. When they finally tried it and realized the truth they thought it was so much fun. After their homework time we had them paint with two colors of green paint on green construction paper and use only green materials. Other than that there were no rules. The kid's ages range from about 6-10. Since I had had so much fun playing with green with the kids I went to Walmart that night and bought food coloring, a cookie cutter in the shape of a flower (I searched vainly for a shamrock :( ), green sprinkles, and green frosting. I made adorable green colored sugar cookies and decorated them.

Wednesday I brought the cookies and was able to split them in half with my AP English/ AP US History class and my Spanish 2. I'm pretty sure that everybody liked them. :) I was able to find the doctor and she told me that I had ruptured my ear drum and that it wasn't as serious as it sounded- it would heal itself. I went with the kids on their field trip to the Health Center. They had an exhibit about Clifford. The kids ran wild everywhere. There was a giant statue of Clifford (he's a dog from a kids tv show if you didn't know), an area that modeled a restaurant where the kids could serve 'fake food,' and mailboxes with laminated letters they could pick up and deliver. They had a lot of fun and I had fun watching them. I got two really awesome letters from an organization called AFS. I traveled abroad on a scholarship from NSLI (Department of State) and AFS last summer. I spent six weeks with a host family learning Arabic in Cairo, Egypt. I'll post a longer blog about that sometime. I've had a lot of opportunities with AFS. About a month ago I have a speech at a national exchange programs conference about my experience and how it effected me. One of the emails asked me if I would be interviewed over the phone about my experience. They would use the 'testimony' for a letter that gets sent to 14,000 people asking for donations to AFS. The other email asked me to volunteer about an hour a week for the next 6-8 weeks helping out new applicants and teaching them about AFS. I accepted both. I was online Wednesday night on this website called formspring. On it people can ask you anonymous questions and you can answer back or delete them. I received one that said, "Can you hook me up with your brother." I'm not at all surprised, my brother is quite the lady killer. ;) My English homework was to read Jonathon Swift's "A Modest Proposal." It's a pamphlet written in the 1700's, a satire piece. In it it suggests that in order to solve the crises in Ireland that year old babies should be killed for food for the rich and their skin could be used for clothing. It was horrible but obviously a piece of satire. It made fun of Irish politicians and criticized England. We have to write our own modest proposals solving a problem in school.

Last night I kept waking up over and over this time because my OTHER ear was hurting. This was twice as bad as when the first was hurting. When I got up I decided to still go to school but go to the doctor first. At my school there is a school nurse but also a nurse practitioner that acts like a regular doctor. Of course she wasn't there so I decided to just leave and go home. The pain didn't let up all day, I couldn't sleep and couldn't concentrate on anything. I ended up making an appointment with an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor at one. When it was finally my turn to speak to the doctor the pain hadn't let up at all. The doctor ended up having to numb my ear (which didn't really numb it) and put TWO holes in my right ear drum. It was so painful and I was so dizzy afterward. He prescribed me like five different medicines and I got them filled. I took them and went to sleep for a couple hours. I now feel so so so much better. My ear still hurts but nothing like before and I'll be able to go to school tomorrow. An hour or so ago I got a phone call from AFS setting up the phone interview for Monday at 4 pm. I'm so excited, I love to talk about my experience. If we're friends you probably know I never shut up about it.

To end this ridiculously long blog post I just want to express how excited I am at seeing my friend Winnie tomorrow. She is coming to a city close to me for a Habitat for Humanity project. I haven't seen her in seven months- when I had to say goodbye to her in the airport after leaving Egypt. She's from Chicago, but goes to Harvard. I miss her so much! I commend you if you have read through this entire summation of the past four days. :)

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