English Blunders

So here are a few examples of the stellar writing work that I often come across in grading papers- Enjoy!

"I will acknowledge that a child has church, youth, friends and the such like that they interact with."

"The American flag hang should show that America still to hang thought tough time and provide what their citizens need to survivor."

"When homeless included children sitting on their mother legs watch what is going on around them. People watching their belonging and keep them close to them. Most homeless people have little or no belonging of their own. Homeless people sitting on the sidewalk as dead people lying on the street. Homeless people watch as dead people lies right in front as the couple with what had happen to make them homeless."

"Is the prove of grade inflation in schools and college today compare to the old days."

"Some people do not think that the student who grade is higher does mean inlfation. Some students do turn in better papers than before because they have the use of computers that help with spelling and grammar."

"Some people see students putting little effect to receive a higher grade then they think that student deserves. Other people have different items to way student grades are higher today then they were in the 60’s and 70’s."

"Nowadays, in many cases households have both parents with have full time jobs and when their kids came home from school, the television was always there as people grew up even when their parents weren’t."

Sometimes this makes my job exciting and/or laughable, other times it's just plain frustrating :)

Friends, Parades, and Parks

We've had a couple weeks of little things going on here and there, so I thought I'd briefly update via some pictures. Some friends that used to live here in the city came back for a visit and brought along their new addition, Will, who is 7 months old.

We made an attempt to take a pictures of the boys sitting with each other. Will cooperates, James- not so much.

But eventually we got one before James took off to get into something much more important.
We went out to dinner, using another one of our dinner cards (see previous post) and James and Will had their own table.
Along with the heat, the summer brings parades and street fairs. Both can be fun and exciting, but they can also be annoying, distracting, and loud. We live on 3rd Ave. and we got to watch a small parade go by. It was the Children's Evangelical Parade or something like that, singing and street preaching was mostly in Spanish and didn't draw a big crowd- at least in our area it didn't. All I know is that it was loud, it was a Saturday and it was nap time!
James liked watching it though.
Just about every day, or at least the days we haven't had rain, James and I visit the 96th street park. Because he's still little, he can't really climb up all the big play equipment, so he wanders around a lot, picks up sticks, climbs on little things and seems to be envious of some of the older kids. This was James watching some older kids in the school playground next door to the park. He looked so cute standing there!
That's all for now. Maybe I'll have something more exciting to share next time! :)

Max the Grad- a name he gave himself

I feel like I have so much to blog about right now and I debated over lumping it all into one, but worried it would be way too long so I'll just post a couple different ones! 

I have to go back to my nephews graduation first. Many of you will think, it's just a high school graduation, what's the big deal? Well I guess the difference is, you have to know Max (I'll try to make this concise). Max will be 20 in July! 20- I can hardly believe it. He was adopted from the Liberty Godparent Home in VA and we got him 24 days after he was born. Around 4 or 5 we noticed something different about Max and he began to be evaluated for ADD, ADHD, autism etc. etc. Long story short he has never fit into any one category. The closest diagnosis is Aspergers syndrome. 

(below is Max with cousin Lauren and sister Gabby) 

Max has never been withdrawn or unsocial. He is very sensitive and loving. He's mentally much younger than he appears and is immature. The thing that saddens me the most is that Max is fully aware of his differences, fully aware of how he "should" be, aware of the things he "should" be interested in, aware of the things he likes but knows he "shouldn't" like. He sometimes asks his parents why God made him different than other kids his age, why God chose him to be "special." This breaks my heart. When he was younger he would get obsessed with certain things and for weeks, months or years that's all his mind would focus on. One time it was train tracks and the light, once it was the goose plane from the movie Fly Away Home, for a while it was the spinning wheel in a Disney movie, and for the longest time it was mermaids. I'll admit this got pretty annoying. He was constantly drawing them or pretending or something that had to do with mermaids. It's like he has a hard time differing between fantasy and reality. 

As he's gotten older and he's learned the things he "should" do he's begun to act as he know he should. He watches other boys his age and imitates what he sees. It must be frustrating for him to watch them and not understand everything. 

Anyway, there is so much more I could say about him. At his high school he's the first to play a mainstream sport. He couldn't play football so he helped as manager, then he ran cross country and played lacrosse (a club sport) this year. He didn't used to be very coordinated, but he's really come a long way! And twice he was nominated for homecoming! He doesn't drive and will most likely always live at home (now he's got his own little apartment) but I'm so proud of him. It's tough for him and there is so much he doesn't understand, so much that frustrates him for not understanding, but he's doing well. When he walked across the stage, you could tell by the look on his face that he felt he'd done something completely amazing!! And I loved seeing that!

(I HATE that these are blurry but oh well!)  

(Max with his mom and dad -my brother and sister-in-law)

It's a long one

We've been out of the city for a while, at least James and I have, and we finally returned yesterday (Sunday). I had a great time visiting family and friends and thought I'd share some moments with pictures :) 

First we surprised Jay's dad in WV for his 60th birthday party! James even wore glasses to celebrate the occasion! 

This is Jay's uncle, Danny, James and Grandpa

On the porch at Jay's parents house... I think he is practicing his Babe Ruth shot, or he's pointing at a bird. 

This is when Jay went back to NY and James and I went to VA. We said bye-bye to daddy :( 

And spent time with Nanny and Papa in VA. 

Played in little rain puddles

And I tried to make it to all my nieces and nephews multiple ball games. Lauren plays ASA softball so we went to Salem to watch her play. 

James enjoyed it. He looks like some kind of manager making a deal of some kind. 

Here, James thought it would be a great idea to play in the dogs water bowl- and by play I mean pour. He was soaking wet. 

My sweet nephews Alex and Jude. They are cousins and great friends! 

Here we are at Hunter's baseball game- this is my brother Bruce and James keeping an eye on the field. 

Here's Hunter up to bat! 

And my beautiful niece Gabby who helped me watch James! 

We ended our visit in VA with my nephews high school graduation... those pictures are coming soon. 

For now, it's great to be back home, back in my own bed, and getting back to our "routine" of sorts!