Using Charlala for Card Talk

Card Talk:

In the world language classroom, Card Talk is a great way to facilitate conversations that are unique to each group of students that you get to work with. The traditional approach to card talk is to give each student a piece of paper (card) and markers, some sort of prompt, and a few minutes to draw. At the end of the drawing time, you show off a couple of cards around the room and spin a conversation about it.

The beauty of card talk is that you can spin it in any direction you want and reinforce important words and phrases in the target language, and each class period winds up with something different, making everything more memorable to the students because it's actually about them instead of a generic textbook. Some possible prompts for Card Talk include:

• What do you like to do?
• Where did you go last weekend?
• What is your favorite food?
• Where would you like to go on vacation?
• What do you wear in October?
• What do you like to do for yourself?
• What do you do for your loved ones?
• What is your favorite book about?
• What makes you happy?
• What makes you sad?
• What's in your locker?

The down side of Card Talk is that you can go through a ton of paper if you have a lot of students or if you do it very often.

This is where Charlala comes in.

If you're not familiar with Charlala, it can be used kind of like a doodling version of Kahoot, and it works great in One To One classrooms with tablets or touch screen laptops if you have a projector. You can tell students a prompt out loud, set a timer for them to draw their responses, and then everyone's drawing will be visible on the screen at the end. You can then click on one drawing at a time to zoom in and have a detailed discussion with the class.

How to set it up:

Go to app.charlala.com. You can set up an account for free. I used my Google account to log in.

From the upper left hamburger menu, select the Draw Room. There is a video tutorial that you can watch on the website, or you can follow along here.

You can set up "draw sets," but I typically don't. Instead, I just jump right into the DrawRoom session.

For card talk, I always use conversational mode. Click on "Conversational" FIRST, and then set the timer. When you select the mode, it sets the timer back to 180, so if you want to adjust the time, do that as your second step.

At this point, it will feel a lot like Kahoot or Quizlet Live. Students will need to go to charlala.com/draw and enter the room code. The most common issue is that students go to app.charlala.com instead. Students will get a doodle screen while they wait for their classmates to join the DrawRoom, and their doodles will disappear when you click "start." If you don't tell them this right off the bat, you will have some broken hearts in the room.

When you click "start," the official drawing begins! There is some cute, peppy music in the background, and it cuts off awkwardly after 2 minutes. 

At the end of drawing time, the students must click "FINISH" for their artwork to show up on your end. Have them do this before you click the "END" button; otherwise, their drawing will disappear.

Once you can see a thumbnail of each student's masterpiece, select "End Room." At this point, you can move forward in a number of different ways, but I like to have the class point to a person in the room whose masterpiece they would love to see closer. Next, you can click on their chef d'oeuvre to see it up close and discuss to your heart's content!

In a world language classroom, you can ask all kinds of questions to get the conversation going! I always begin by telling my French classes to look at the masterpiece (Classe, regardez le chef d'oeuvre de Bobby!) and applaud it (Classe, applaudissez!) From there, I begin asking questions.

I usually start off with basic questions in the target language about what students can see. For lower level classes, it's easiest to start with yes/no and either/or questions so that students can easily respond in the target language.

Classe, est-ce que c'est un pingouin? (Class, is this a penguin?)

C'est un pingouin ou un cochon? (Is this a penguin or a pig?)

Depending on where you want to go with the conversation, there are all kinds of questions you could ask about someone's Disco Piggy (or whatever else) Masterpiece.

What color is it?

What is the pig doing?

What kind of music does the pig prefer?

What is the pig wearing?

You can also ask students their opinions of things in the picture or have the group use their imagination to add more characterization.

What does the pig like to do?

How old is the pig?

What does the pig want?

Where is the pig going tomorrow?

What did the pig do yesterday?

The options are wide open from there, and it can be easy to spend ten minutes on a single masterpiece, but you can spend as much or as little time on each one as you like.

Book Post: The Labyrinth of the Spirits

My favorite book of all time (at least so far) is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and imagine my thrill when I found out that it would be continued into a series! Ruiz Zafón's gothic prose flows like poetry, fittingly translated from the original Spanish text into English by Lucia Graves, daughter of poet Robert Graves. The four books in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books cycle can theoretically be read in any order, although I feel that they are most impactful in the order in which they were written. All four stories take place in Spain around the time of the Spanish Civil War, each telling a different character's story at a slightly different time, but inevitably interweaving to create a rich narrative tapestry.

Title: The Labyrinth of the Spirits

Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Premise: 

This story encapsulates both the beginning and the end of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, telling the origins of Fermín Romero de Torres, the future of Daniel Sempere's family, and interweaving a new character, Alicia Gris, into all of it. Daniel, who the reader meets as a child in the antebellum Barcelona of The Shadow of the Wind, is now an adult, grappling with rage from recent discoveries about his family's history. In a flashback, the reader learns more about Daniel's beloved and mysterious friend Fermín's dark past, showing his connection to Alicia Gris. By the 1950's, Alicia lives a dangerous and intriguing life in Madrid, but she is brought back to Barcelona to help solve mysteries that hit closer to home than she might have expected.

My Thoughts:

I love this book. Since I have been reading my way through this series for well over a decade, I had forgotten a lot of details leading up to this story, so I buried myself in a pile of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's books in order to reread bits and pieces along the way. I'm not gonna lie -- I reread at least 50% of each of the earlier books from the series during my process of piecing all of the details together. No regrets.

As I was reading the series, I have to admit that The Angel's Game and The Prisoner of Heaven were nowhere as good as The Shadow of the Wind, but looking back on it all, the middle two books played integral roles in developing the world inhabited by these characters who I love so much. Since each book highlighted a different character at a different point in their timeline, I got to understand and care deeply about everyone. By the time I got to The Labyrinth of the Spirits, I was thrilled to piece everything together and fully understand how it all fit together, but there was no way to be emotionally prepared to let them all go. Did I cry at the end? You bet I did!

Bottom Line:

The Shadow of the Wind got a run for its money as my favorite book of all time when I read The Labyrinth of the Spirits, but the latter would not have the same impact without the influence of the former. Both books are dark, mysterious, and flow poetically from the pages like espresso from a moka pot. This is not a bright, sunshiny day kind of book; The Labyrinth of the Spirits is best suited for a cloudy winter day. When reading in the evening, you will crave white wine with this one.

Book Post: Emma

I'm starting off my book posts with what I finished most recently. I read my first Jane Austen title while in France, but really got into her novels over the last year or so. My friend Megan is owed all credit for my Austen kick, and she is the absolute best text message buddy for this type of literature, because she will switch from deep literary analysis to vulgar battery of our least favorite characters faster than Vonnegut can switch his readers from laughing to crying. If you do not yet have one, I recommend obtaining your own Megan ASAP.

Title: Emma

Author: Jane Austen

Premise: 

Emma Woodhouse lives with her dad in Highbury, England, in the early 1800s. They are a well-to-do family, and with Emma's mother long passed away, her older sister married and moved to London, and her governess recently married and moved to a nearby house, Emma is pretty used to running the show. She fancies herself a matchmaker, royally screws up some pretty important situations, and learns some difficult and important lessons along the way.

My Thoughts:

For me, this book had a slow start, but really picked up for the final third or so. Realistically, it probably wasn't the book being slow -- it was me. I felt unreasonably tired after reading just a few pages at a time, and then I finally pinpointed the issue: names. I have always been bad with names, and there are tons of them in this book. I eventually started listing them in a notebook, filling up a few pages with my "Who's Who," and I could finally cruise through the narrative.

I love the development of the characters in this book. This probably doesn't come as a shock to anyone, but this Austen lady really knows how to develop some characters and make the reader feel deeply about the story! I honestly didn't love any of the characters at the beginning of this book, but they grew on me as more was revealed about them and as they grew into better people. Most importantly, Jane Austen is an expert at creating characters that we love to hate. A lot of characters out there are the worst, but good ol' Jane's worst characters are The Most Worst. My favorite Most Worst character in this book really brings the word impertinent to life. Only Jane Austen can make me care about someone's level of impertinence.

Bottom Line:

Every book is right for a certain mood. Most books, in my opinion, are ideal for a rainy day, snuggled up on the couch with a cup of coffee and a puppy warming your feet. Being a British tale, rain is always fitting for this one. I also recommend a cozy cup of black tea within reach, maybe even a whole pot if you're in it for the long haul. If you enjoy music while you read, I accompanied this one with the Pride & Prejudice soundtrack on repeat.

Emma is a sweet, clever, sometimes frustrating, and overall wholesome read. It provides some good eye rolls about silly people. It renews one's love of love. It strengthens one's belief that people can better themselves and that good things come to good people. If you need a break from dark and heavy stories, Emma is here for you.

Let's Talk About Books

Why hello there! It's been a hot minute since I've opened up my blog, and although my European adventures have been on hold since I last posted here about them, there's plenty of other stuff that I'd like to write about.

How many years has it been since my last post? How much has changed? Beaucoup. Since returning to the States, I began teaching 8th grade French (currently in my 6th year of teaching), took up running (currently training for my 2nd half marathon) and painting, married the fella that I began dating just before writing my last blog post, and bought a house with him. A lot of amazing things have happened in my life over these years, and I feel incredibly blessed to look back on it.

One thing that has not changed is my love of reading. I've thought on and off for quite some time now about writing a book blog, so why not start now? Some of my posts will be about books just after I have read them. Some posts will be throwbacks to books that I read a long time ago but hold an important place in my heart. Some posts will have absolutely nothing to do with books. We'll see what happens.

There and Back Again: July 16th, 2013

The irony of this post's title is not lost on me; Tolkien truly hated the French.

At the beginning of the year, a version of me that retrospectively seems exaggeratedly younger than I am now left the comfort of her home country for the adventure of a lifetime. I spent an amazing semester based in France and branching out to nearby countries at every given opportunity, but all things ultimately must come to an end.

I haven't added a word to this blog in quite some time, so my catching up starts with my final couple of weeks in Europe, which turned out to be an absurd culmination of the best and the worst of the trip. Let's start with the worst.

As most of you that have spoken to me since my return already know, I got really sick in Europe. That upper respiratory infection from the week in Spain and Portugal was already uncommonly poor health for me, but the end of my semester put that sickness stint to shame. During the finals period, which would already have been unpleasant enough due to excessive amounts of studying for these foreign exams and the hurt of having to say goodbye to all the amazing friends that I had made throughout the semester, injury was added to insult. Not only did I get shingles (a disease that you may be familiar with from your 80-year-old grandfather having recently contracted it), but I also got an ulcer. At the same time. Yup.

Needless to say, this situation was rather unpleasant for me, but looking back at it, there never really was a better semester to get so sick. With the American medical system, we are largely conditioned to try to walk off most any illness we contract unless we think that we legitimately might die from it, because let's face it, our health care is expensive. In France, though, medical care is much more accessible to the public, making it far less daunting of a task for a young foreigner to finally make her way into the doctor's office and get some treatment before her condition gets irreparably bad. Realistically, I probably should have gone to the doctor about a week before I ended up going -- you know, before I lost 10 pounds from being unable to eat anything -- but chances are that I would have put it off even longer if I had been in the States at the time. I'm not sure how differently it might have ended if that had been the case, but I'm just glad that I was someplace where I could get the help that I needed without the fear that it was excessive or a luxury. I'm better now, and I have the socialist health care system to thank for that.

About two hours after getting out the hospital, I completed my last final exam of my undergraduate career (langage et cerveau, or language and the brain, by neurolinguistics class), and I had a couple of days to rest up a bit and pack before greeting my parents once more, saying my goodbyes to my France friends, and starting off on the final legs of my European adventure. The transition was bittersweet, and I still wasn't anywhere near 100% health wise, but this was where the amazing things got started up again.

Seamus and Ryktica, as I like to call my parents, took me on a perfect parisian redemption trip. Just as a review of the first trip to Paris, half of the group got pickpocketed, the other half got sick (strongly recurring theme for me), and I never saw the Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, top of Notre Dame, or, ya know, any of the cool and stereotypically standard stuff that you're supposed to see in Paris except for Shakespeare and Company. Paris Take II fixed all of that, and Shakespeare and Co. was still magical, plus I ended up running into somebody I know outside the shop (shout out to Mackenzie McDermit, who solidified my parents' ideas that I actually know everyone on the planet). The highlight of this second attempt at the city, though, came from a magical moment while watching one of the most magical movies ever: Midnight in Paris.

I only have one movie on my laptop, and that is it, so the three of us found it only fitting that we should watch it together while reposing after a full day of parisian adventures. I knew that the movie would go through the midnight hour, but I wasn't wearing a watch, so part way through the movie I turned to good ol' Seamus to ask him what time it was. He showed me his watch, and it was exactly midnight in Paris. It was perfect.

In other news, Ryktica took selfies in front of the Eiffel Tower.

We soon moved on to the land of Harry Potter, Doctor Who, and the Beatles: London. We rode double decker buses. We got rained on. We went on walking tours. We saw Big Ben. We got rained on some more. I turned 21, and on that day I was able to reincorporate tea into my diet, and that night we saw Spamalot and walked along the moonlit banks of the Thames. I felt immensely grateful to be there.

The very last city that we went to visit was a lesser known town in the north of England, but still held great importance to my father and myself. Seamus and I made our pilgrimage to Liverpool, the Beatles' hometown. We only spent a single night in the rainy little city, but we certainly made the most of it. We saw the band members' childhood homes, the famed locations of Penny Lane and the Strawberry Fields orphanage, and the locations where the music started. I ended up having my first beer as a 21-year-old at the Cavern Club, where the Beatles had their first gigs. Yeah, I'm just that cool. You have my permission to be jealous now.

And so it ended for us where it began for them. We flew back to the States, and it was time to face culture shock once more.

Yes, I know that I've spent pretty much the entirety of my life in the US, but after so much time in France, certain things were surprising to adjust back to upon my return. For one thing, American openness had me thrown for a loop. I had forgotten that it was normal to smile at a stranger on the street, so it took me some time to not be creeped out by others doing that, and it still takes conscious effort to reciprocate rather than just naturally scowling at every stranger I see. I'm also adjusting to not being able to blatantly people watch the way we do in France; over there, you can just kind of openly stare at people and it isn't weird. That's not so much the case in this country. The one thing that would never have occurred to me as a culture shock that I would face has nothing to do with personal interactions, though. As it turns out, light switches took some adjustment for me. In Europe, all of the light switches are the flat ones that you can basically just slap with your hand and be done with. Since those exist in the States, too, they didn't take any adjustment when I first went to Europe. Coming back, though, I hadn't run into an american light switch all year, so I may or may not have slightly injured my hand on a number of occasions by just trying to slap my bedroom light on. I'm incredibly smart that way.

At this point, save for the mornings when I wake up and am unsure of what country I'm in, I've gotten past the vast majority of the culture shock, and I'm starting to see how my time in Europe has changed me. There are some obvious things, like the series of shingles scars running down my leg, but other things have taken me some more time to figure out. For one thing, I feel a lot more confident now than I was before I left. Instead of thinking of myself as a young and helpless kid, I now know that I'm capable of navigating foreign countries by myself, both geographically and in terms of leading my life. I also feel a lot less awkward in my own skin now. One of the most striking compliments that I received while overseas was that I seemed so confident, and that helped me realize that I wasn't just weird and annoying when I opened up and acted like myself, but it could actually be a good thing. I also feel more confident in my appearance now, which does feel kind of superficial to put down in text, but not only do I feel capable of putting myself together well now, but for the first time in my life, I don't feel so self-conscious about being unattractive. Maybe this just came along with growing comfortable in other aspects of my life, but it's been a meaningful transformation for me. Finally, as I've started the next stage of my life in graduate school, I've begun to actually feel like an adult. I know that I will always have more growing up to do, even if I make it to 100, but I see myself as more than just a kid.

It's been a wild ride, and I've learned so much more than I could put into words on this blog, but it's time to move on. Thanks for reading.

The Frenchest Fry

NOTE: The following story is entirely fictional and bears only loose connections to reality. Enjoy.

Once upon a time, the quaint town of Aix-en-Provence sat quietly and peacefully in the south of France, filled with old ochre buildings and plane trees smiling over its residents. The sun shined on the town's numerous fountains, and most of the excitement in the area came from the Mistral's winds ripping through the streets.

One January day, a wide-eyed and severely jet-lagged me arrived in the city, not yet knowing what the semester was to bring. I spent the next few months wandering around the city, occasionally branching out to other nearby countries, getting to know the cultures and languages as well as I could. I tried local the local cuisine, attempted to function in a foreign university, and spent a lot of time looking words up in my French-English dictionary, until one spring day when I was faced with a dilemma.

With my days in the country winding to a close, I needed to try to fit in as many missed french experiences as possible, and I realized that I had yet to eat some truly french French Fries.

"This is a disaster," I lamented to Nathan in the kitchen as he mixed the batter for some banana pancakes. "How can I hold my head up if I go back to the States without eating the Frenchest Fry? And where am I even going to find it?"

"Well," he replied, "French fries were actually invented by the Belgians. It's only the style of frying them that's French, so the most authentic fries would actually be in Belgium."

With this nugget of information, I knew who could help me best: RyanAir. Their cheap and jenky flights could get me there pretty easily, so I headed straight to their website to look up flights. The only thing that could tear my eyes from the artificial glow of my laptop screen was the presence of an additional voice in the kitchen.

"Ooh, you should throw some of this in there," Hannah commented to Nathan while rooting through the fridge and spice rack. "And is there any Sriracha around?"

"Wait, when did you get in here?" I inquired.

"Oh, you know," she replied, immediately returning her attention to the food. I really didn't know, though. As I looked through my planner for a decent remaining weekend to head to Belgium, Hannah turned her attention to me once more. "What are you up to?" My answer merited no other response than her swift grimace and review of RyanAir landing quality. "Every time they're about to land, everything is going great, then it's like the pilot just gives up and drops the controls a second before touching ground. I feel like I'm gonna die every time."

My mind was suddenly plagued with flashbacks to every RyanAir landing that I've ever experienced, which invariably aligned with her description. This reminder, along with the fact that I didn't have enough free weekends left in Aix, brought me to the more practical decision to simply find french fries in France while I was still there. For the moment, though, my attentions were better devoted to the pancakes in front of me.

After breakfast, the next stop was the Parc Jourdain, a prime people watching spot and a favorite locale for studying and enjoying the sun. Upon reaching my destination, I greeted Savannah and Victoria, and we pulled out our Langage, Culture, et Société notes in preparation for our sun-soaked study session. After a good half hour of productive studying, we digressed by catching up on what each of us had been up to, and I brought up my culinary conundrum of the day.

"Study abroad problems, amiright?" Victoria began. "Okay, but really... ummm have you tried that one place on the Cours Mirabeau, Les Deux Frères? Is that what it's called? Is that a thing?"

"I'm pretty sure that's a thing," Savannah chimed in.

"Thanks, pal!" Victoria chimed right back.

"Any time, bud!" Savannah continued. "Anyhow, what kind of fries are you looking for? I mean different places have good fries, but just different types."

"French ones," I specified. "The frenchest ones I can get."

Savannah rolled her eyes and moved on to more productive topics, and we continued much in the same fashion until the conversation fell into a lull and we took back to studying, breaking up bouts of productivity with lighthearted conversation each time that our collective attention span waned too much. After a few hours of this, we had taken in more sun than actual studying, so we parted ways and headed in the directions of our respective apartments.

On my way back, I took a stroll along the Cours Mirabeau, considering each overpriced restaurant that I passed for its fry potential, but remained dissatisfied with the cost-benefit analysis as I ran it through my head. Feeling a bit let down by the picturesque street, I adjourned to my apartment.

Moments after I entered the building, my phone began to ring. I looked at the screen before picking up, and it read "Unknown Caller," so of course I knew who it was before I hit the green "accept call" button.

"Hey Maddie" It was none other than the man of three names, Brandon/Victor/Paolo, otherwise known as BVP. "Do you guys have any dinner plans?" We did not. "Then could I come over tonight and make something for dinner?" Indeed he could.

He arrived within minutes with a baguette in hand. It was still a while before the time to start cooking, so we made a quick Monoprix run to spend altogether too much money on the cheapest ingredients available (comme d'hab), and I once more took the opportunity to seek advice about how and where to find fries of the proper level of frenchness. He couldn't think of a solution to the perplexity, but he did sing me a pretty song while charmingly throwing my name into the lyrics, which at least made me feel a bit better for the moment.

Once we returned to the apartment, he took to playing Battle Tetris on Alyssa's laptop while I tried doing some internet research on where to find the best fries in Aix. As we we sitting, we suddenly heard the door opening and felt a cool zephyr blow through the apartment, and we knew. The bros were coming.

Sure enough, our neighbors Sam and Sean, along with Other Sam (a.k.a. Joe) and a marigold clad Toler, appeared in search of Cody.

"Dude, is Cody around?" Sean asked.

"Not that I know of," I said, only to be proven wrong as my aforementioned roommate suddenly emerged from his room that I had previously presumed to be vacant.

"Hey, we're about to head over to Pascal's for dinner," Sam said to Cody. "Come on."

"Hold on, I'm gonna grab some shoes," Cody responded. "What have you guys been up to?"

"Gossip Girl, bro."

They soon filed out the door, and after a moment Cody dashed back in for a moment to grab his lighter, and was gone once more. I returned to furiously looking for really french-sounding restaurants in the area, and heard the door open again. I thought it odd that Cody should forget something twice rather than his standard single return before making it out the door, but then I looked up and saw that instead it was Alyssa returning from the APA office with the remnants of a crepe in hand and the entirety of a Mickey coming in behind her.

"What's up?" my blondest roommate inquired.

"I need to find some really French fries before I go, and there's almost no time left! What do I do?"

"Maddie, breathe. You've had moules frites before. You've also had the fries from Nabab and the falafel place. Point is, you've already got french fries covered."

I paused for a second. "...Oh." I thought it through, and as usual, she was right. I guess that as long as I'm having french fries in France, they're significantly frencher than anywhere else in the world, so I'd already had the frenchest fries on earth. As I took this unnecessarily long moment of reflection, Alyssa and Mickey took to an even more drawn out game of sloth tag. It was a glorious moment in the apartment, made even better once BVP got to work on dinner and the place was filled with the scent of delicious things.

With my renewed peace of mind, I was able to enjoy a delicious meal of BVP's carbonara, because italian food definitely made the most sense to complete my french experiences, and at the end of the night, I was able to go to sleep and peacefully dream of the Frenchest Fry.

Graduation Day: 4 mai, 2013

Today is graduation day. It's a day when people get dressed up in spiffy caps and gowns, surrounded with family and other various loved ones, celebrating everything that they've accomplished in the past few years. It's the day that people either walk up on a stage and shake some hands or snap some pictures of those that they're proud of doing the same. Save for being surrounded by loved ones (because seriously, the people that I know here are pretty awesome), I'm not doing any of that stuff. I'm slightly too in Europe and stuff to do that stuff, so I'm going to blog stuff instead.

My graduating class at Indiana University is celebrating in caps and gowns today, and although I don't get to be there for that, I'm very much okay with missing out on it. My semester doesn't actually end for another two weeks anyway (silly France), so I have yet to complete what my peers have done, making it feel a bit imaginary for me. What I'm really missing out on this weekend is the celebration of someone else that has done so much more than me.

My older brother Cole is graduating from Auburn University tomorrow, and I dearly wish that I could have been there to snap pictures of him in his cap and gown, but now I have to find another way to show how proud I am of my big bro.

Tomorrow, Cole celebrates something real; he has finished his four collegiate years, during which he not only studied and took exams, but also grew into somebody that I'm even prouder to call my brother than before. My friends can attest to how much I brag about my big bros, and now anyone reading this gets a good taste of that.

Cole has always been the funniest Stuart, but as he has grown into who he is and matured during college, his humor has developed in complement. Part of this is due to the amount of knowledge that he's accumulated in these four years, which is to be expected during college, seeing as he was and English major and thus learned more words and how to use them in increasingly clever ways, but due to his unrelenting passion about what interests him, he also researches whatever band or idea piques his interest. He uses some of this researched information to make his famously clever and hilarious quips, but also applies it wherever applicable in his life.

Anybody that has ever attempted to argue with this guy certainly knows that going against him tends to be a losing battle. At first, it can take a while to figure out why he's so hard to beat -- is it because he stops blinking and intimidates you with the glaring intensity of those ambiguously blue/green eyes? Does he have mind control powers that make you suddenly capable of only producing sub-par arguments? Honestly though, he's just so knowledgeable that he can support pretty much any argument with the facts that he can come up with off the top of his head, and when combined with his quick wit, it makes for a lethal combination.

These argumentative tactics could easily make a person intimidating to encounter, but Cole is also generous with what he knows. Especially when he knows that I'm curious about something, he makes the effort to share new information, teaching me things that I never would have known without my brother. How much do you know about the Wu-Tang Clan? Had it not been for Cole, I would know nothing about them, likely never developing an appreciation for rap music, but he broadened my understanding of the world (or at least of the musical world) and taught me some things that I'm honestly pretty proud of knowing. He also taught me everything I know about basketball, so I can understand what I'm seeing when I watch Bulls games on TV. He makes me smarter and feel cooler than I could be without him.

If I hadn't taken an entire class on the Beatles, Cole, you would undoubtedly smoke me at Beatles Trivial Pursuit.

One thing that I personally keep learning more and more, especially since Cole and I started college, is just how supportive and wonderful of a brother he is. He was my first friend. He has always kept and eye out for me, and was definitely not shy about doing so whenever boys are involved in my life, but it took me until college to really start noticing what he does for me. He teaches me things and shows me cool music. When we're in different states or countries, he finds ways to give something as short and simple as a text message the heartfelt warmth of a hug. He makes time to hang out with his little sister even though he has a lot of well-earned friends that he needs to make time for when we're home. He sticks up for me when he notices that I'm being picked on and don't have the presence of mind to defend myself, and I can never put into words how much that means to me.

All in all, Cole has been an amazing brother and person in general, and this man that I look up to so much absolutely deserves to be celebrated today. I love you, I look up to you, and I'm proud of you. Congratulations, big bro.