About

Today is Tuesday, May 13, 2008.

The Parable of the Classroom
Is hell exothermic or endothermic?
The Parable of the Pebbles
Appropriate Payment
(NON)BIBLICAL PROVERBS

Back Where I  Come From...
I was born and raised in Loup City, Nebraska. Just in case you didn't know...Loup City is the Polish Capital of Nebraska.  The town has a big sign, right next to the highway announcing this claim to fame. Every year the town celebrates Polish Days.  Every other year, they crown Miss Polish Days.  Miss Polish Days is a cross-dresser.  It is one of the funniest thing you have ever seen.

Much to the disappointment of numerous people I have met throughout my life, I do not have Polish last name nor am I Polish.  My parents are both imports to the community .  My dad is from Pleasanton, Nebraska.  My mom is from the sandhills north east of Lake McConaughey.  My parents now have lived in Loup City longer then they have lived any other place in their life so we are thinking about adding a couple of syllabals to our last name...something like Kleinowski.

School
I graduated from high school in 1992 from Loup City Public School...home of the Red Raiders!  I feel pretty lucky when it comes to school.  I was fortunate enough to live in the same house and go to the same school for the entire thirteen years.  My mom taught me in first grade and thus, she taught all of my friends as well.  My dad was my teacher for three years in high school, and thus he taught all of my friends as well.  I had my godmother for a teacher one year for two different classes in high school.  My dad even taught several of my friend's parents as well.  AND now my parents have started teaching some of my classmate's kids.  People always ask me if it was weird having your parents be your teacher.  My comment is, "isn't it weird not to have your parents be your teacher?"  If you have always lived in the situation  where your parents were going to be your teachers, then that situation where your parents aren't your teacher is abnormal.  A lot of my friends growing up had their parents as teachers. I always felt sorry for the people whose parents were not teachers...how did they get their homework when they left it at school?  The only people that I ever saw have any problem with it was when a person's parent became a teacher when they were in middle school or older.  I loved knowing almost all of my teachers as people, too.  Now that I am a teacher I forget that the students puts a certain aura about a teacher because they don't know them as people.  I suppose this is mostly because  I never  gave my own teachers that aura.

Teachers
    I remember all of my teachers.  Every single teacher I had impacted in me in someway.  Most of the teachers I had were excellent teachers...Mrs. Janda, Mrs. Irby, my Mom, Mrs. Mroczek, Mrs. Damratowski, Miss Alta Landon, Mrs. Timm, Mrs. Florence Landon, Mrs. Kizer, Mr. Morris, Mrs. Beitler, Mrs. Glinnsmann, Mr. Kizer, Mr. Burman, Mrs. Peters, Mr. McCartney, Mr. Young, and my Dad.  These teacher were all very good.  



College
I went to college at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. I loved going to college.  Before I graduated from high school, I had no idea where I wanted to go.  I scored really high on my ACT's so a lot of schools, were sending me there information.  Curiously, enough, UNK never sent me anything...not even a postcard.  When I decided to apply to UNK I figured I could go there for a year and then figure out what I wanted to do.  I wanted to go to UNK for at least one year becaue we had a family legacy there.  I was the fourth generation from my family to go UNK.
 So I went to UNK, I joined the Honor's Program because they paid for my room and board.  I had heard from some people that the classes were super difficult and the advisor for the program was tough, too.  In all of my honor's classes that I took, while I found them interesting I never found them to be super difficult. (Of course, nothing is super difficult when you compare it to physical chemistry.) In general, my instructors were more interested in talking with intellectual students then piling on tremendous projects. I heard of some bad honor's classes...but I always found the easy ones.  Thanks Dr. Umland who let us write about whatever we wanted to as long as the topic wasn't safe, Ms. Daake who was easy enough to get along with, Dr. Benz (for tolerating our class's juvenile like behavoir because you let us have way too good of a time and yes, I know I was the only one to go to all of the bonus point experiments), Dr. Benzel (who said he wanted us to think for ourselves and gave me a C. But when I regurgitated his thoughts and ideas, I got an A.) and Dr. Emrys (who cut me some slack because I was in my last semester before my degree was awarded and everbody else was just freshmen. Yes, I planned it that way.) By far the person that most impressed me in the Honors Program, was Dr. Jussel.  A lot of people in the program didn't like him, but that was because they crying babies who had never had to work for anything in their lives and they were used to mommy or daddy taking care of all of their problems.  Whenever I went to see Dr. Jussels for advising, it was so easy.  I would say I am taking this, this, and this.  He would say what about that.  I would say I am taking that next semester.  I suppose if you went in there expecting him to tell you what to take it would be quite as pleasant...but he got an assistant at the end of my freshman year and  most of the freshmen got passed to Jane except me an a few others.  While I was in the Honor's Program, I met many interesting people. 

My good friend Jeff Ommert was in charge of the Honor's Newsletter every month.  He somehow coererced me into writing a top ten list modeled after his favorite late night TV personality, David Letterman's top ten list.  Of course, my list did not have to get passed any sensors, it did have somewhat of a college flair  about it, and it was written in hopes of surprising many and offending a few .  So, on occasion, some of the more conservative Honor's students would get fired up about something on one of my lists.  They would fire off a letter of complaint to the editor who was Jeff.  Nothing could make Jeff happier than receiving one of these letters.  He loved them...because then we got write a rebuttal.  I always waited for Dr. Jussel to come down on Jeff and me because of some of the things we put into the list...but he never said anything about it.  He actually loved it when we included him on the lists.  During the midst of preparing one of our rebuttals, I happen to stop in t the Honors' office for something.  At that time Dr. Jussel said something to me I will never forget, "Now remember Crystal, you need to fight issues and not people."  I will always remember that piece of advice.

 I graduated in May of 1996 with a Bachelor of Science in biology and chemistry with an emphasis in molecular biology.  I received my teaching certificate in November of 1998, and began teaching at UNPS in March of 1999.



Work...the kind I got paid to do.
I baby sat a lot in junior high and high school.  I don't think I charged enough.  I enjoyed baby sitting most of the time.  Sometimes when the kids were really naughty...There was this one particularly naughty child I had to babysit.  (Curiously enough, I recently found out he was in major trouble with the law and most likely headed to the state pen.)

On the weekends and during the summer, I worked aa a local cafe called the Hotel.  The people I worked for were this side of crazy and so were a lot of the regulars.  But it was a great job because as long as I was there to work the Sunday rush, I could pretty much work whenever I wanted.  I can say that without a doubt my job never interferred with the things I wanted to do in school.  The money was pretty good, too.  I also got some really great recipes and made some good friends.  I also learned some very valuable waitressing skills that I would use for the next 12 years of my life.

The first year I went off to college I did not have a job. That was nice because I  just had time to get adjusted to school.  That next summer I worked at the Drive-In Cafe in Loup City and took 10 hours of Organic Chemistry in Kearney.  At the Drive-In , I got to cook rather than waitress.  It was a nice change. I was nearly crazy by the end of the summer but I certainly had accomplished a lot.  Taking organic chemistry over the summer gave me a huge cushion academically.

I kept my job at the Drive-In Cafe through that Christmas.  Then I  went to work for the new Target that opened up in Kearney. I was a cashier.  I learned a lot about how a big retail store was operated.  I definitely gained numerous insights that I still use today everytime I have some sort of problem/issue with a major retailer.  Unfortunately, working retail does not pay very much.  In fact, the pay is poor and so are the benefits, and I don't know how any adult can survive off a retail job.  The only major advatage to working retail over waiting tables was that you did not smell like food when you left your job.

In May of 1995, I started working at Perkins Restaurant and Bakery  This was a decent job; I kept it until I got my teaching job here at Macy.   Waitressing is a good job for someone who isn't quite ready to grow up yet.  Unlike most of the world, your pay depends on how hard you work.  If you need a lot of money, you work hard and make a lot of money.  If you don't need so much money, you don't work so hard.  People who work in food service, especially in the kitchen, are a special group of people.  Who else would want to stand on the line that was over 100 degrees Farenheit cooking  pancakes?   I was really quite fascinated by how much of the food at Perkins was pre-made and just microwaved when someone ordered it.

While it was decent, it was far from ideal.  Whenever I have worked in food service, it has always been characterized by a very harsh unpredictable environment.  In general, food service does not attract very many long term stable employees.   But if you can function in that environment and keep yourself together, you can make a pretty decent living.  Despite all the crazies you have to work with.

My Dad

My Dad is an interesting fellow.  His loud booming laugh and his enjoyment of a good joke are his most famous attributes.  My Dad has been teaching at Loup City Public School since January of 1970.   He never thought he would stay there that long...but now we figure he will stay there  until he dies.  He loves his school, and he loves teaching.  Truly my Dad's passion is teaching.  He really loves what he does.

I had my Dad as my teacher for PE, American History, and Governement.  My Dad is a fantastic teacher.  He was so good that I didn't have to take any notes in American History class in college.  I just got out his chapter reveiws and easily aced the class.  In government, we had to write a paper at the end of the year.  He had us do such a good job on that paper, I used it twice in college and I loaned to a few friends.

My Dad treats everybody fairly until you give him a reason not to treat you that way.  I like to think this is where I get my sense of justice and fairness from.  In my own experiences, I have never really cared wht the rules were as long as they were the same for everybody and they did not change without appropriate notice.  When I was in third grade, we  divided up into teams for a spelling contest.  My team was annilating the other team.  Then when were just about to the end the teacher changed the rules so the other team could win.  I was very angry.  I remember telling her she wasn't being fair.  But she didn't seem to care.  I never thought very much of that teacher after that.  Well, it turned out that I had made an impression.  So much so that she went down to first grade and told my mother what had happened.  I don't know why she couldn't have just said she was sorry to me after school. 

My Dad has this saying he likes to use, "Know the rules.  Play the game. Participate with enthusiasm."  I like that saying a lot.  It really speaks to how we should all live life. 

My Mom
My Mom is an amazing person.  She has also has a long tenuar at LCPS.  She started teaching in the regular classroom in the fall of 1979.  She taught first grade for 20 years.  Then she switched to sixth grade.  Currently, she she is the reading coach fro the elemenatary school.  My mom is a great teacher, but she doesn't love the school quite as much as my Dad.

What my mom is really passionate about is her family, cleaning, and her flower garden.  She really goes out of her way to support all of us kids in whatever we do.  My mom was one of those super moms.  You know the lady that did everything, and looked good doing it.  She was at everything all of us kids did.  She even came to my speech meets.  Nobody's parents came to speech meets.  She always got us what we needed and usually what we wanted as well.  A lot of the times I don't think I am grateful enough to my mother for everything she did/and still does for me.  I don't think I have any idea about all the things mom did for me.  I wasn't really into clothes shopping when I was in school, but somehow mom would get me what I needed.  Do you remember book orders?  I love books, and Mom knew it, too.  I always got to order three books.

My mom has the cleanest house I have ever seen.  It is show room quality clean. I know my mom is a disappointed in my own cleaning skills, but I do have have great admiration for her cleaning skills.

My mom and I do share a passion for flower gardening.  We really have a chance to connect when we talk about plants.

My Brothers
I have three brothers: Benjamin, Nicholas, and Ryan. Benji is about 7 years younger than me, Nicholas is about 8.5 years younger than me, and Ryan is about 11.5 years youner than me. I spent a lot of time from age 7 through high school graduation helping my mom take care of my brothers.  Enough so that I have no desire to have any children of my own.  I helped out with my brothers and that is more than enough for me.  I thought my sister was doing the same thing...helping out with the boys.  But it turns out, it was mostly me. And maybe I didn't help as much as I thought I did, but I had a great sense of responsibility  and guilt for not doing my what was asked or expected of me.  I think it was too much to put on a little kid, but we didn't have much money so there wasn't really anything else we could do and I don't think my parents realized how many things I felt responsible for even though I wasn't.