Ali’s Life

This blog is always the last to hear bg news…

Anyway! I got a new job! Starting August 6th, I will be working at Macalester College in St. Paul as the Academic Information Associate for Languages and Fine Arts! I am really excited. This job should be similar to my job at Gustavus, but with a whole bunch of bonuses, including a great location, diverse student body, more vacation, and the chance to work with other Carleton grads. I am super excited, but also nervous. I have a million things I want to do when I get there, and I only will have about 3 months before I have to take off for maternity leave. What timing.

Due to the job change, Ethan and I are selling out house (if you are interested in a 3br 2ba house in St. Peter, let me know!) and moving into a rental townhouse in Apple Valley. We sign the lease tonight! The townhouse is really cute, and actually quite big for the cost of rent. I can’t wait to get moved in so I can FINALLY start to set up the baby’s room for real. I can’t wait to get curtains ordered and furniture set up and all that jazz.

So this friday is my last day at Gustavus. There are definitely things I am going to miss about this job.  Mostly I’m going to miss my student workers. They were so awesome. I only hope that the students I have working for me at Macalster are awesome too. Otherwise I might have to force a couple transfers. ^_~

Anyway, that’s the big news. I can’t wait to get all settled in the new place and new job. It is really helping keep my mind off how slowly this pregnancy seems to be going (I am 24 weeks now).

Hello. I recently returned from the IALLT (international association for language learning technology) conference at Tufts University in MA. The content of the conference was very good. I just to see what other colleges are doing, and get some new ideas for my own school (as well as a few good ego-strokes when I saw something we were doing better than others). Unfortunately the organization of the conference was terrible. The hotel we were at was supposed to be a mile from campus, but ot was more like 2 1/2 miles, which is a bit much for a pregnant woman to do in late June. And there were a few other things that made me frustrated. But overall it was a good conference. I hope to go to the IALLT conf in 2009 in Georgia.

Anyway, now I’m home and back at work. Ethan and I are getting started on some summer projects. I am now 21 weeks pregnant with my very active little girl. Hmm, I think that’s about it for now, this was a short update. Take care!

I have not been good about updating. Hmm. Well, it is summer now, which means the campus is quiet and big projects can be done. For my center, this means tearing down a wall and expanding the international tv and movie viewing room. It will be pretty awesome once it’s done, and I hope it will encourage students to hang out and watch foreign language tv more. I know that the comfy couches and relaxing space in the Asian Languages Lounge at Carleton got lots of students to sit and watch Japanese and Chinese TV and discuss language, so I guess I’m trying to duplicate that here at Gustavus.

In non-work-land life is going well. We found out a few weeks ago that we are having a GIRL!! There are some more ultra-sound pictures up in the baby part of the page, and the 16 week ultra-sound video is available on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d25WWUneoY

We are thrilled to be having a little girl. We are still doing the room in blues and greens with a dinosaur theme. It will be so cute. We have a name picked out, but you’ll have to ask me in person, because I’m not sharing it with teh internets yet.

At the end of May Ethan and I took a nice, long, and action-packed vacation. First we flew out to L.A. for the Star Wars Celebration IV convention, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars film. It was pretty awesome. There were something like 40,000 - 60,000 people there each day,  but the center was big and there were lots of things to do, so the lines weren’t as bad as at Celebration III. I got to see and meet Carrie Fischer (Princess Leia) and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO). And we bought a 2+ foot tall Yoda doll for Baby.

After 4 days of the convention, we took the 5th day in L.A. to visit with my friend Amy, who had been my roommate first term senior year. We went to Rodeo Drive (spelling??) and then to the beach. It was really fun, despite the sunburn and 3 blisters I got. Her family had us over for dinner and then took us to the airport for our red-eye to Boston.

In Boston we spent 3 days hanging out with another good college friend of mine, Josh (http://www.joshourisman.com) and his girlfriend Jessi. That was fun too. We got lots of good food, although it’s hard to be in a good Irish pub in Boston when you can’t have a beer. We left Boston on Friday to head up to New Hampshire for my cousin’s wedding. (I told you it was a long trip.) The wedding was nice, although my favorite part was going swimming at Connie and Nick’s lake home.

Anyway, that’s the vacation. I’ve been back at work for about a week now. We’re actually leaving again soon for a conference, but I’ll tell you about that once I’ve gone. In the mean time, take a look around the baby part of the page, as it is the most up-dated at the moment. Bye.

I haven’t mentioned it here yet, so here’s the official announcement post. I am pregnant! I am due November 5th, that means I am currently 12 weeks pregnant. The morning sickness is finally dropping off and my clothes are getting uncomfortable. The whole thing is very exciting. I already had my first ultra-sound, but it was too early to tell the gender. Hopefully we’ll find that out at my 16 week appointment in 4 weeks.

Ethan and I are very happy. We already have lots of plans for the bedroom that will become the baby’s nursery. My family is also excited, which is really fun to see. I can’t wait for my little baby to grow up and pop out. Right now baby is only about 2 1/2 inches long, but is growing rapidly. November feels like forever away, I can’t wait to meet my little baby!

Once the baby does get here I am planning on taking the full 6 weeks of paid maternity leave offered by Gustavus. That will basically take me from the middle of fall term through to the end. I will start work again in January. And I am still planning on accompanying the Gustavus orchestra to China in January. There are lots of other plans that need to be made between now and November, but we’ve got time. ^_^

I will definitely be updating this blog as the pregnancy progresses! So keep coming back! In the mean time here’s the first ultra sound pic!

Well, the state tournament did not go well for my team. We ended up with a record of 0-2-1, which tied us for last place with Synergy (the team we tied). It was unfortunate and sad, but there’s always next year. Hopefully I will get to see my teammates for a golf and bbq party in May. Now that the hockey season is over my weekends seem suddenly very free. This weekend I am going to Matt & Kelly’s for a little party, but that’s all I have planned. It’s kind of relaxing. It’s good that I have free time this weekend, because I haven’t started on my Chinese homework for Monday yet. heh.

Last week Ethan and I went to Chicago. Ethan was doing a poster session at the EduCause conference and I was tagging along. I had never really been to Chicago before. I have driven through it, and I went to the out-skirts of Chicago for an orchestra trip in 9th grade, but this was my first time downtown. It is a pretty nice city. We had wonderful weather and a beautiful hotel, so it was overall very nice and relaxing. I got to see Yi, my good friend and roommate from college, and that was great. I hadn’t seen her since my wedding. We had a nice steak dinner then got drinks at this place with an amazing view of the city. That was definitely the highlight of the trip.

Now I’m back at work. Gustavus is approaching midterms, so things are a little busier than normal this week and next. The first week of April is spring break for students, but i still am working every day but Friday, which I am taking off so I can have an extra day at MiniCon (Minneapolis’s longest-running sci-fi convention). Last year Ethan and I took spring break off to travel to Japan, but this year we’re doing our main “vacation” after school is out, to go to the Star Wars Celebration IV in L.A. and then to Boston to visit friends, and New Hampshire for my cousin’s wedding. It should be a fun trip. I’m hoping to get a costume sewn for the Star Wars convention, but we’ll see if I have the time, what with work and class (I am still taking Chinese).

Well, that’s enough for now. Have a good weekend!

A lot has happened since I last posted, almost 2 moths ago. I don’t even know where to begin! The Chinese class I was teaching went very well and I was quite pleased at the progress the students were able to make in such a short time. I am really looking forward to the opportunity to travel to China next year with the Gustavus Orchestra. The details are still sketchy, but I believe we will be spending most of the time in Beijing, with a short trip to Guilin. It will be cold (we’re going in January!), but I love China and it will be so much fun to help introduce a large group of students to China and Chinese culture. (I am specifically excited about explaining squat-toilets. hehe) There are a few students who I have worked with who might be going, and they are both awesome, so that will be nice too. Also, hopefully Ethan will be able to come. Last time I went to China Ethan stayed home and was jealous of all the good food I was eating. So this time he really wants to tag along.

Also, since I last posted the regular hockey season has come to an end. We ended in 4th place (out of 12) with a record of 14-4-4. (good thing I’m not a superstitious Chinese person, or that would look really bad…) The state tournament starts in a week. We will play three games, against Synergy, Mystics and Blast, and our record in those 3 games will determine if we make it to the championship or consolation games. I hope we do well, although I’m nervous that we have forgotten how to play with 10 skaters and will get tripped up by that. We have a practice this weekend, hopefully we’ll get some good practicing done, practices are a bit hot-or-miss with us…

Other things that have happened since January… well, we had a great Lunar New Year celebration at my parent’s house, with lots of fun decorations and good food. I tried making steamed dumplings for the first time from scratch, and although I learned some lessons about not over-rising or over-steaming them, they were tasty. We also had Ethan’s home-made jiaozi (pork dumplings), mapo dofu, Chinese broccoli with garlic and oyster sauce, rice, and egg tomato soup. I will post pictures in the picture section soon!

Also, Ethan and I went to MarsCon last weekend. It was fun. The media guest of honor was Don S. Davis who played General Hammond on Stargate SG-1. It was cool to meet him (I spoke to him while waiting for an elevator) but he was a little weird. The story of how he just sort of fell into acting was pretty funny. Basically he got his first part because he was the only guy strong enough to lift the female lead (she was very tall), and he hadn’t wanted to be in a play at all, he just worked on the set. Anyway, it was interesting to hear him talk. And it was fun to see friends and meet new people at the con parties (we hosted a MiniCon party room, which was a nice laid-back party). I was really tired though, so it wasn’t the most exciting con ever.

The spring term is in full swing, both at Gustavus where I work, and at The U of MN, where I take an evening Chinese course. At work I’ve been helping/co-teaching/guest-lecturing in Mark’s Intro to East Asian history course. It has been fun, even if the class isn’t organized the way I would have chosen. Today we had a fun activity where the students debated the importance of the influence of China, Korean and indigenous culture on Early Japan. I think the Korean group won the debate, but they did have a debater on the team after all. In the class that I am taking at the U, we just had our mid-term on Wednesday, which was half oral (a 2-3 min presentation) and half written (listening, writing, and reading comprehension). It was not too bad, I am hoping for a good solid A. ^_^

Now I should get back to work. Hopefully I will get back into the habit of updating this website. I will be adding New Years pictures soon, and look for a new section coming towards the end of April.

It’s been a while since I last posted. The holidays have come and gone, and while they were generaly very nice, I was a bit stressed and am somewhat relieved that they are over. I got some very nice presents from my family, including a video iPod from Ethan that I loooove. (Although I’m far away from filling up and I keep forgetting to rip the videos I want and re-sync it.)

Now that it’s January, my J-term Chinese course has started. It is going really well. I am having a lot of fun teaching it and the students are learning really fast and seem to be having fun. We’re 2 chapters in right now with no problems, so it looks like we will be able to keep to my schedule without any problem. Actually, I almost feel like we could be going faster! I sort of wish I had kept that 6th chapter on the schedule. But 5 chapters in 3 1/2 weeks is still pretty good.

Tomorrow my class has a guest speaker, Zhao-laoshi! He was the prof who lead my seminar trip to China in 2002. The trip was really amazing (see “Tianjin Seminar” on my webpage for more). I really am looking forward to seeing what he does with my class. And I’m excited to havea day where I don’t have to really do any prep. heh.

Hockey-wise, there hasn’t been much going on since the last post. I played in my high school’s alumni game, which was fun. It was neat to see some of the people from high school, although it was too bad that there weren’t more people from the first few years. I was the only one from the first team there, and Trickey and I were the oldest ones there. I would love to see what some of the older alumni are doing now a days… Anyway, I also had an Arrows game this weekend, against ATvantage. We had beat them solidly before, so we were a little over-confident. We won 6-5, which was waaaaay to close for comfort. I played the first 2 periods as a forward (and got 2 assists) and the last period as a D. Tiring game, but I’m really glad we pulled it off. We’re tied for 3rd now with the Blast. MCM and the Mystics are ahead of us (Mystics are still undefeated. grrrr) We really can not aford to loose any more games if we want to be placed in the top 2. I would LOVE to get ahead of MCM this year.

Anyway, I should get back to work. Hopefully I will get back to posting a little more often, so stay tuned. ^_^

This weekend I had two nice dinners with my parents, brother, husband, cousin and cousin’s fiance. The first was yummy Jewish food, for which I made pinapple kugel. The whole thing was wonderful, and I really want to try making latkes now (my mom made them this time, and they were really good). For the other dinner Ethan and I made some simple Chinese food, including garlic Chinese broccoli (芥蓝/芥兰). Yummy. I am really excited about the Chinese broccoli because I had never made it before and it was both easy and yummy. It would be even better with a little oyster sauce though. Mmmmm…

I also had 2 hockey games this weekend. The first was on Friday against Synergy. We tied 1-1, it was a really close game, and although I felt a little all over the place, it was a fun one. I look forward to a re-match! The second game was against the Rebels, and we won 3-2. I got to play center, which was fun, but also a bit strange feeling since I haven’t played center for like 3 years. I got an assist that game on Steph’s second goal, and ended the game +1 overall. That was agreat victory, because the Rebels had been undefeated this season so far. Woo! Go Arrows!

Only one more day of finals for Gustavus students. I am looking forward to the later half of the week, when the campus is quiet and I can spend all day prepping for J-term without interruption. I am also looking forward to getting my Chinese final over with tonight. I think I have the vocab down pretty good, now as long as I don’t trip over grammar I should be ok. Wish me luck!

I came down with a cold at the end of last week, but I can’t let that slow me down! This time of year is just too busy for that! Because I work at a college, finals time is a busy time for me too. There are a bunch of Spanish classes doing projects that use the programs in my lab, so my days can get crazy when a bunch of them all decide they need help at the same time.

I also have my own Chinese finals to worry about. I had the oral final last week, which went well, I think. I have a written final on Monday too. Wish me luck! Right now I’m getting something like a B, but I would really like an A in this class. We’ll see how it goes. I’m definately gonna get an A next semester though, if I keep working as hard as I am now.

This weekend I had 2 hockey games. The first one was tense, but good. We beat MCM 1 - 0, which was a great victory for us, as we have lost to them in past seasons. On sunday we were 2 players short and tired as hell, and subsequently lost to the Mystics 2 - 4. No goals for me this weekend, but I did have a positive plus/minus in both games, which is always a good sign. Next weekend we play Synergy and the Rebels. Synergy is new, and we get to play them at Ridder, so I’m excited about that game. The Rebels *should* be a clean “W” for us, but let’s not count our chickens before they hatch.

Other events on the horizon include my cousin visiting from out of state, the Hopkins Girls alumni hockey game, and, of course, the holidays. I’m tired just thinking about it! ^_^ It should be a good December, and an AMAZING January. Definately no time to let a little head cold get me down!

This past weekend I had two hockey games, one on Saturday against the U of M, and another on Sunday against the Ravens. We won the Saturday game 9-0 and I scored one goal. We lost the Sunday game 2-5. It was a chaotic game and we made some sloppy mistakes, but mostly I think we were ust tired from the day before.

Today I spent a fair amount of time updating both my personal site and my other site, which is a bit more professional. I like knowing that if somebody looks me up online they will find something that I took the time to carefully create and put out there, not just something random.

As we get near the Thanksgiving break I am thinking more and more about my January Term course. I am really looking forward to teaching at the college level. It should be a very different experiance from teaching Chinese at Senlinhu. I am having a blast going over my materials and making lesson plans. I still need have much to do, but I think I have a good pace going.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!!