Irene Visits Stratford Road

Although we were very lucky, a big tree fell down in front of the home of our neighbors Allan and Melanie. It's tragic to lose another big, beautiful, leafy tree, but lucky that it fell away from, rather than on top of, their house! Too bad it didn't fall 20 feet to the right! (There is an enormous, half constructed, cinder block house next to where the tree fell.)

The B103, A New Discovery

U.S. WNT Voted USOC Team of the Month for July

The U.S. Women's National Soccer Team has been named the United States Olympic Committee Team of the Month for July.

The U.S. team captured the imagination and hearts of a nation with its dramatic run to the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup final that took place on July 17 in Frankfurt, Germany. The U.S. team reached the final with two emotional knock-out round wins, first defeating Brazil in penalty kicks in the quarterfinal after equalizing through an Abby Wambach header in the final minutes of overtime despite playing almost an hour down a player. The U.S. went on to beat France in the semifinal with two late goals. Even though the U.S. fell to Japan in penalty kicks in the championship game, the team's performance in the match and throughout the tournament earned it a legion of fans across the country and the world.

Every month, each National Governing Body may nominate one female, one male and one team per discipline. A voting panel selects the winners from the pool of nominees, with online fan voting via Twitter accounts for 10 percent of the total vote.

Swimmers Rebecca Soni (Plainsboro, N.J.) and Ryan Lochte (Daytona Beach, Fla.) were selected as the U.S. Olympic Committee's Athletes of the Month for July as both came off multiple gold medal performances at the 2011 FINA World Championships.

TEAM
1. U.S. Women's National Soccer Team
2. Women's Swimming 4x100m Relay Team
3. USA Softball Women's National Team

US WNT Will Play in September!

From ussoccer.com:
U.S. Women's National Team to Visit Kansas City and Portland in September for First Matches Following FIFA Women's World Cup

The U.S. Women's National Soccer Team will return to the field for the first time since the conclusion of the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup when it faces Canada in Kansas City, Kan., and Portland, Ore., during friendly matches in September.

USA to Play Canada on Sept. 17 at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park on FOX Soccer at 6PM
and on Sept. 22 at JELD-WEN Field on ESPN2 at 8 PM.

2011 FIFA Women's World Cup and the US Women's National Team

If you ask me what I did this summer (2011), an honest answer would have to be that I became obsessed with the Soccer Women's World Cup. The World Cup is a series of international soccer games between countries that takes place every four years. I remember enjoying the Men's World Cup games last year, but my involvement with the men's teams in no way compares to the depth of my admiration of and love for the women's teams. I love the power, strength and committment of these players. They are beautiful, smart, strong and interesting women who love soccer, as I do, and who are great at playing the game (unlike me.) The tournament was broadcast by ESPN, and while some might have complaints, I enjoyed the coverage, the commentaries, the interviews and the replays. I especially enjoyed the stories of the teams: Japan was unable to practice on fields after the tsunami, and the players could only run to prepare for the tournament, for example. These stories brought the players to life for me. Now, as a devoted and avid fan, I feel as though I know some of them.

My favorite team is the US team. I also fell in love with the Japanese team and, ironically, these two teams played in the final. In the end, if the US was not to win, I'm happy that Japan was the team it lost to. I also felt the nature of the Japan win was random, as any soccer fan knows, because to win in PKs does not mean the stronger or better team won, at all.

In this article, I will try to upload some video highlights of goals, the most exciting and spectacular momemts for me.

Muhlenberg College

Back on the college search:
We didn't tour this school, but Jeremy is there for four days for a soccer camp to train and to be seen by soccer coaches from a variety of D1 and D3 schools. Muhlenberg is a small (2,300) LAC the perfect distance from NYC, about 2 hours despite traffic to NJ. Is there ever a time there ISN'T traffic in the tunnels?

From the description of the school, Muhlenberg seems to be a well rounded little college that prides itself on its sense of community. It offers lots of business majors and has finance as well, but also seems strong in the arts. It is not Greek-free, but does not seem dominated by Greek life. According to College Board, 45% of applicants are accepted, but based on Naviance, accepted students had fairly high GPAs and SAT scores.

Jeremy was assigned to a room in a quad the likes of which I had not seen before: he has a single room in a little suite of 4 rooms that share a kitchen and a living area. His building, South Hall, looks brand new and is constructed of those horrid cinder blocks, but is clean, airy and spacious. We suspect it is not a frosh dorm.

My favorite was the common room steps away from his suite. It has a full kitchen, including a dishwasher, a TV, VCR and huge glass windows which offer a view of the mountains.

My Favorite Neighborhood Houses

Summer is here and I am finally able to return to normal (non-teaching) life. One of the things I have had time to discover is the Ditmas Park Blog, a blog about my neighborhood. Reading the various posts about residents and the stories of their houses motivated me to write a post of my own listing my favorite houses. I'm including my own because it looked especially nice in the afternoon sunlight on the day I shot these photos. I don't know all of the addresses, but I think I can recall the streets.

My house, Stratford Road

My neighbor's house, a beauty!

Elsa's favorite, East 17th Street

Bungalows on East 16th Street-I would so LOVE to see the interiors! Are they Arts and Crafts?

My abosulte favorite of all, East 17th Street

A new favorite on East 18th Street

I also like this one, but I would ditch the flag.

Albemarle Road classic-I LOVE the colors!

Warren Wilson College

We decided to visit this unique school outside of Asheville, NC because we were so close. It is a very special place in which students experience college through a triad of academic work, community service and crew work. The enrollment is under 1,000 and every student has a job, from blacksmithing to haircutting, to make the campus run. Interesting! Big on sustainability, organic farming and recycling, I'll bet graduates have built in work experience that makes them especially desirable to future employers.

Photos are of: the admissions patio, the blacksmithing cottage, the newspaper and crew assignment cabin and the library.

Guilford College

The highlight of this spring, for me, is our mother-son road trip to North Carolina. For this we had to purchase a newer, roadworthy car. Our plan was to visit old friends who moved here from South Carolina and to see a few colleges along the way. Initially, we planned to drive west from UNC at Chapel Hill, and see that school, Elon, Guildford, Davidson and Warren Wilson. Of course, everything took longer than planned and we just focused on Guildford and Warren Wilson.



Guilford was founded by Quakers, originally as the New Garden Boarding School in 1834. It became Guilford College in 1888. It's a unique and attractive school with a rolling green quad surrounded by older and attractive brick buildings. The school sits on 340 acres, 200 of which are wooded and contain a lake and hiking trails. There are approximately 2,800 students, but some are high school/early college and others are adults returning to school. The student-teacher ratio is about 18-1, but the largest freshman seminar only has 36 students. There are several different housing options available for freshmen, including co-ed living. But there is no greek life at all. The people are warm, welcoming and friendly and although Jeremy and I were on separate tours, we each experienced the best tours we had ever had. (This was Jeremy's third school visit.) Guilford offers several majors that are of interest to Jeremy. They seem to have a big focus on the arts and an active music scene. My tour guide, Leah, showed us two places that make Guilford special to her. The first was a little one room house, sort of for worship, but for many different religions. It serves as a tea house, a place for Quaker meeting, a place for Friday Shabat, and a space for meditation. It has a fire place and comfortable couches. The second place is a student run organic and fair trade coffee house that is open seven days a week. It serves coffees, teas and foods and the profits are used to put on school-wide events and sponsor special activities. Leah made us promise to buy our afternoon coffee there instead of at Starbucks. After our tour we ate a great lunch in one of the three dining options. We left Guildford excited and encouraged that we had found a great option for Jeremy.

Couch To 5K, One Year Later

QUESTION: It's been almost one year. Is Jenny still running? ANSWER: Yes! But not as far and not as often as she used to.

Still, I believe strongly in the Couch to 5K program. It's a great way to get started and to build strength and stamina. For a while last spring, summer and fall, I was running 2.8 miles twice a week (before work) and 3.3 miles on the weekend. My husband also began running during the summer and eased himself into bwtween 2 and 3 miles per day. On week days, I got up at 5:45 to run and then shower before leaving for work by 7:45 or so. Once winter came and darkness hit, it was harder to get up and out in the dark and cold. My running reduced to one day per week. I did, however, run in two 5K races and one 4 mile race in December, the Jingle Bell Jog. This year, I joined a Y with an 1/8 mile indoor track, the idea being that I can run after work twice a week while it is still dark outside. I can also run in the cold, rain or in very hot weather. We'll see how that goes.

Am I a runner? I belive that I am. I even have some nifty running clothes now.