Peking Acrobats

I attended the Peking Acrobats and as I was sitting there enjoying the amazing stunts I realized that this could be a very good educational experience for me. I first listened to the musical instruments and how their folk music was very different from American styles of music. The Instruments were very different and the techniques for playing the instruments were also very different. I noticed that women were playing the string instruments and the men were playing the percussion instruments. Then in the stunts they always tried to get it right even if it was a very dangerous stunt. One man who had a balancing act flipped bowls up and caught them on his head. He had a problem catching the 3 bowl combination and kept trying until he got it right. If something didn't happen right they would always try to get it right before they would let the audience applaud for them. I believe that never giving up is a part that has been integrated into their culture for a long time. I really respect their effort for accomplishment. If I could create an environment in my classroom to have students keep trying until they succeed, it will be a very good life lesson for them. This experience for me has helped me to really think about traits that other cultures have that would really aid me in my quest to help students become the best that they can be.

New Eating Habits

After last week having better learned about my spiritual living I decided to go more on the physical aspect of my life. This week I made an effort to eat a fruit and a vegetable every meal. I have discovered that the Cafeteria really does a good job of giving us great vegetables to eat. However, I found it hard on day 3 to keep on eating those apples and bananas that we only have. I had a large variety of vegetables to choose from and then a very limited selection of fruits. Once leaving Luther I found it even harder to make this effort to eat a fruit and a vegetable at every meal. I found that at one meal I would eat a fruit and at a different meal I would eat a vegetable. Then I also got in the debate if a tomato was a fruit or a vegetable with other people. I found though that eating healthier allowed be to get better sleep at night. I was also more alert during my classes during the day.

Attending New Church Services

I have attended 2 different church services this past week. One was Vespers Wednesday night at Decorah Lutheran. It was interesting to be at a place off- campus and then try to fit in with the local patrons. Then I also attended Campus Palm Sunday worship. I have never heard the reading of the passion quite like how they did it. I also thought it was interesting to see how these new Lutheran Worship practices differed from the Catholic structures I have been brought up knowing.