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It was really nice to meet all of you, members of AANARE! Hope you had a great time, and we're sorry to those who couldn't make it. A big shout-out to Dr. Heesung Hwang for facilitating the AANARE 2023 meeting with such expertise, and for organizing the much-loved raffle drawing, which has become "a beloved tradition" among our group! :)

*AANARE closed Facebook group link is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/585743225566603

You are welcome to share your news, publications, and any resources related to RE on our Facebook page!

We are AANARE!
“The Asian and Asian North America Religious Educator (AANARE) Working Group welcomes everybody who is interested in the exploration, development, and enhancement of Asian/Asian North American perspectives in religious education.  As a Working Group of the REA/APRRE, we gather to provide one another collegial support and to stimulate thinking and discussion for the generation of new scholarship and resources.”

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Check out this new book from some of our respected colleagues: https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/themen-entdecken/theologie-und-religion/praktische-theologie/58294/educating-religious-education-teachers

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International knowledge transfer in religious education (RE) is still a fairly new topic. Many scholars in the field consider this discussion of prime importance for the future of both the academic discipline of religious education and...

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Dear Earth: 2024 Theme Brainstorming Session July 25 at 12 ET

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Dear Earth: 2024 Theme Brainstorming Session July 25 at 12 ET

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From Dori Baker bakerdori@mac.com

Wanda Stahl and I will be co-hosting a zoom call on July 25 at 12 ET to gather ideas for our 2024 meeting theme Dear Earth: Innovating Religious Education through the Lens of Climate Justice.

Please email wjstahlme@gmail.com to let us know if you'd like to join -- or  recommend someone you think should be there.

We need your imagination and creativity to help us generate ideas for exciting plenaries, novel ways to gather virtually, and advice for infusing the meeting with art and activism. We seek ways to welcome inclusivity beyond academic and institutional life and ways to deepen engagement -- all the things that will help REA live into its best hopes and dreams one year at a time!

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REA Annual Meeting 2024

8-12 July, Online

Dear Earth

The world is on fire: we know it in our bones and feel it in our hearts. Science, sociology and other disciplines describe dire scenarios as oceans rise, cities warm, and species decline. We know humanity's most vulnerable populations will suffer most severely. These challenging times demand our attention as religious educators, in and out of institutions, to mitigate harm when possible, create new rituals of grief and lament when needed, and stir human creativity on behalf of all beings.

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The world is on fire: we know it in our bones and feel it in our hearts. Science, sociology and other disciplines describe dire scenarios as oceans rise, cities warm, and species decline. We know humanity's most vulnerable populations will suffer most severely.

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The Association of Partners in Christian Education holds an annual meeting for CE practitioners and church leaders. REA members are often presenters, bringing scholarship into conversation with practice.

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Association of Partners in Christian Education

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Just in Time January 5, 2024 through January 17, 2024 - $495.00 APCE and MOU Member Registration Rates
Early Bird On or before November 30, 2023 - $395.00
On Time December 1, 2023 through January 4, 2024 - $445.00

On Site January 22, 2024 through January 25, 2024 - $495.00

Just in Time January 5, 2024 through January 17, 2024 - $680.00 Non-member Registration Rates
Early Bird On or before November 30, 2023 - $580.00
On Time December 1, 2023 through January 4, 2024 - $630.00

On Site January 22, 2024 through January 25, 224 - $680.00

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2024 Annual Event - Association of Partners in Christian Education

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The Spirit calls out to us...... in our wandering and wondering... in our weariness and wanting... in our waiting and worryThe Spirit calls out to us... "Come, all who

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IACS Virtual Symposium, 20-21 & 24-25 July 2023

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IACS Virtual Symposium, 20-21 & 24-25 July 2023

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The International Association for Children's Spirituality is meeting later this month and participation is FREE! Follow the link to see the schedule of sessions, papers, and pre-recorded presentations. Register for live online discussions by emailing your name, institutional affiliation, and geographic location to IACS@RealKidsRealFaith.org. Zoom links will be sent in advance of the gatherings.

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This is the second of six posts on the public-facing Real Kids Real Faith website related to the research and innovation work of the Children's Spirituality Hub at Union Presbyterian Seminary.

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Breathe in slowly, and feel the air move into your body.

Breathe out slowly, and feel the air move out of your body.

Breathe in slowly, and feel the air move into your body.

Breathe out slowly, and feel the air move out of your body.

Sometimes we feel small and powerless

Forgotten and alone.

Then we look around us and see others who need a helping hand.

We decide to be strong like lions, to soar like bald eagles.

We ask God to show us how to help.

We are no longer alone!

Sometimes we feel small and powerless

Forgotten and alone.

Then we look around us and see others who need a helping hand.

We decide to be strong like lions, to soar like bald eagles.

We ask God to show us how to help.

We are no longer alone!

Us.

Others.

Earth.

God.

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Movement Meditation: Empowerment | Real Kids Real Faith

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Being a small person in a big world can be overwhelming at times. Children may feel overshadowed by the adults around them....

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REA will be renewing our website this year. If you missed the Website Renewal Committee introduction at REA2023, the video will be on the schedule soon. If you have a suggestion for the new website or want to be part of the Website Renewal Committee, please send us a note via our interest form.

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Here are the links from the publications session that I shared in the chat.

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From Tulsa Regional Gathering Opening Ritual.  May every child have...

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From Tulsa Regional Gathering Opening Ritual.  May every child have...

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Embodied Prayer Video (sample from Erin's/Karen-Marie's paper)

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Embodied Prayer Video (sample from Erin's/Karen-Marie's paper)

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This is the first of six posts on the public-facing Real Kids Real Faith website related to the research and innovation work of the Children's Spirituality Hub at Union Presbyterian Seminary

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Movements can be powerful teachers. Our bodies remember and repeat motions associated with specific practices, such as eating, playing an instrument, swinging a bat, pledging allegiance, or meditating. These motions also elicit various emotions. Big movements can evoke a sense of openness, exuberance, questing, or engagement. Smaller movements may stir up feelings of intimacy, comfort, calm, or tentative seeking.

Invite children to meditate on the spiritual theme of 'connection' with this movement meditation video, or watch the video yourself to learn the movements and then use the script (see Related Resources) to guide children in the practice. There's also a seated version of the meditation provided below for those who would find that format more accessible.

Breathe in.Breathe out.

Breathe in.Breathe out.

You are amazing just the way you are.

You have the power to connect with others.

You have the strength to care for the earth.

You are God's child held in God's embrace.

You are amazing just the way you are.

You have the power to connect with others.

You have the strength to care for the earth.

You are God's child held in God's embrace.

You.

Others.

Earth.

God.

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Movement Meditation: Connection | Real Kids Real Faith

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Movements can be powerful teachers. Our bodies remember and repeat motions associated with specific practices, such as eating, playing an instrument,...

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A word cloud capturing the hopes that the Board professed for the REA this coming year.

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Emerging scholars and practitioners: Did you know that REA offers $3,000 grants for innovative RE projects?

Established members: Do you know emerging scholars or practitioners who would offer compelling RE project proposals?

The Wornom Innovation Grant is available for any and all innovative projects that connect theory and practice. ANYONE, not just REA members, is eligible to apply!

Applications are due in the spring each year -- so you have until Spring 2024. But if you are interested in learning more about this grant now, please email Josh Lunde-Whitler (jlundewhitler@gmail.com) ASAP! We'd love to help prospective innovators think through and develop their projects in advance.

You can also look at the Wornom page on the REA website here, and download the attached flyer (above).

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Conference Opportunity -AYME October 2023 in Chicago

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Conference Opportunity -AYME October 2023 in Chicago

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I (Theresa O'Keefe) wanted to alert you all to the fall conference for the Association of Youth Ministry Educators. October 27-29, 2023 in Chicago.  I'm on the AYME board and think it's a great organization and the only place that focuses scholarship on youth and young adults.  So if you've research interests among that age demographic, this is your place.

Our friend and colleague Sarah Farmer is the conference leader, and the theme is "Multicultural Ministry in the Church and the Academy."

The invitation for paper submissions is here.

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Hi everyone,

A reminder that this WG is meeting on Tuesday, July 11th from 9:30 p.m. - 10:30 p.m. (Eastern Time). Looking forward to seeing many of you.

Alfred

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Please share links to books, articles, websites, social media sites, journals, and other materials related to children's religious education. This list is already seeded with several resources you might want to check out.
Find the Resource List here.

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Hello, STUDENT members!

I am excited to invite you to the upcoming Student Gathering!

The meeting is scheduled for July 14th (Friday) from 1-2:30 pm Eastern Time (U.S.). I can't wait to see all of you there.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the student representative, Garam Han (garam.han@garrett.edu)

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Inspired by paper presented by An-Hoa Nguyen on moral agency, just love family faith formation, and Vietnamese immigrant children

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Inspired by paper presented by An-Hoa Nguyen on moral agency, just love family faith formation, and Vietnamese immigrant children

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Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

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"Vuong writes about the yearning for connection that afflicts immigrants. But 'ocean' also describes the distinctive way Vuong writes: His words are liquid, flowing, rolling, teasing, mighty and overpowering. When Vuong's mother gave him the oh-so-apt name of Ocean, she inadvertently called into being a writer whose language some of us readers could happily drown in...Like so many immigrant writers before him, Vuong has taken the English he acquired with difficulty and not only made it his own - he's made it better." - Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air

"With his radical approach to form and his daring mix of personal reflection, historical recollection and sexual exploration, Vuong is surely a literary descendant of [Walt Whitman]. Emerging from the most marginalized circumstances, he has produced a lyrical work of self-discovery that's shockingly intimate and insistently universal...[The] narrative flows - rushing from one anecdote to another, swirling past and present, constantly swelling with poignancy...Vuong ties the private terrors of supposedly inconsequential people to the larger forces pulsing through America...At times, the tension between Little Dog's passion and his concern seems to explode the very structure of traditional narrative, and the pages break apart into the lines of an evocative prose poem - not so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning." - Ron Charles, Washington Post

"In order to survive, Little Dog has to receive and reject another kind of violence, too: he must see his mother through the American eyes that scan her for weakness and incompetence and, at best, disregard her, the way that evil spirits might ignore a child named for a little dog. There is a staggering tenderness in the way that Little Dog holds all of this within himself, absorbing it and refusing to pass it on. Reading 'On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous' can feel like watching an act of endurance art, or a slow, strange piece of magic in which bones become sonatas, to borrow one of Vuong's metaphors." -Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker

"Ocean Vuong's devastatingly beautiful first novel, as evocative as its title, is a painful but extraordinary coming-of-age story about surviving the aftermath of trauma...Vuong's language soars as he writes of beauty, survival, and freedom, which sometimes isn't freedom at all, but 'simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there'... The title says it: Gorgeous." - Heller McAlpin, NPR.org

"A stunningly written journey that...explores how race, masculinity, addiction and poverty are seen in our country-all topics that feel especially significant today." - WSJ. Magazine
"Hands down, the book that carried me through the year was Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. I'm willing to bet this book carried legions of us, with the brutal and yet also tender beauty of the poetics, the intimacy between bodies, the weight of the heart suspended inside longing. This is a book that multiplies meanings, but at the center is a queer coming-of-age story as well as a bicultural family history. The shadow of a mother-son relationship and the shadow of the America-Vietnam relationship haunts the story. I fell in love with the narrator a hundred times over. I also felt suspended between the atomized mother who cannot fully understand the language of her son, a son's attempt to both inhabit as well as break free from his own family history, and the force of nature it takes to wrestle the gap. The language went into my body." - Lidia Yuknavitch, Vogue.com

"To read On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is to experience a beginning again and again. It is to see the world as an open field, full of possibility." -

"A riot of feeling and sensation...delirious and star-bright...Vuong is pushing the boundaries of the novel form, reshaping the definition to fit the contours of his restless poetic exploration, using language to capture consciousness and being. The text spasms with memory like synapses firing in the dark...To read this book is to fill your whole life with it, albeit not briefly. Vuong's is poetry that lingers in the blood long after the words have run out." - Barbara VanDenburgh, USA Today

"Vuong is masterly at creating indelible, impressionistic images...Vuong beautifully evokes [Trevor's] seductive power over Little Dog: This is some of the most moving writing I've read about two boys experimenting together...The book is brilliant in the way it pays attention not to what our thoughts make us feel, but to what our feelings make us think. To what kinds of truth does feeling lead? Oscar Wilde famously quipped that sentimentalism is wanting to have an emotion without paying for it, but Little Dog has paid and paid, and the truths arrived at in this book are valuable precisely because they are steeped in feeling." - Justin Torres, The New York Times Book Review

"Vuong as a writer is daring. He goes where the hurt is, creating a novel saturated with yearning and ache...He transforms the emotional, the visceral, the individual into the political in an unforgettable-indeed, gorgeous-novel, a book that seeks to affect its readers as profoundly as Little Dog is affected, not only by his lover but also by the person who brought him into the world." - Viet Thanh Nguyen, TIME

"The novel is expansive and introspective, fragmented and dreamlike, a coming of age tale conveyed in images and anecdotes and explorations...Just as he fuels his prose with his poetry, Vuong takes what he needs from lived experience to animate his storytelling with visceral beauty and a strain of what feels like uncut truth...For the duration of this marvelous novel, Vuong holds our gaze and fills it with what he wills - the migration of butterflies, love in a tobacco barn, purple flowers gathered on a highway." -Steph Cha, Los Angeles Times

"[Vuong is] a remarkable storyteller... Depictions of poverty, queerness, and the immigrant experience are vivid, exacting, and humane... This book is no ordinary novel. This thing feels alive." - David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly

"The novel's overarching structure is an ingenious representation of our failure - as members of families and communities, as fellow citizens - to understand one another...[This is] a distinctive, intimate novel that is also a reckoning with the Vietnam War's long shadow...Vuong is a skillful, daring writer, and his first novel is a powerful one." - Kevin Canfield, San Francisco Chronicle

"A bildungsroman that vacillates between moments of piercing tenderness and savage brutality, set against quixotic hopes of the American Dream and the devastation of the opioid crisis. Vuong's deeply felt work might just be the first great fiction of this modern, homegrown travesty, but it's also a story that is enriched by both the beautiful and the ugly currents of American history." - Chloe Schama, Vogue.com

"A diary of life on the margins of American society...For all that Vuong has to say about history, queerness, and American culture, everything about his book feels specific and personal." - Boris Kachka, Vulture

"Lyrical...With this book, [Vuong] is creating an account of lives that are at once overlooked and thoroughly American. These days, this feels like a political act."-Wall Street Journal

"Stunningly lyrical...We are witnessing something necessary and powerful with On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, which asks us to search what is human in us and ask what it really means to be alive, to seek truth within the mess that is life." -Philadelphia Inquirer

"Dazzling...We see the power and purifying rage of Vuong's prose." - Julie Wittes Schlack, The ARTery on WBUR.org

"[A] raw, fearless debut...In prose as radiant and assured as his poetry, Vuong explores the ability of stories to heal generational wounds, and asks how we can rescue and transform one another in the wake of unimaginable loss." - Esquire.com

"[ On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous] captures a peculiar kind of American immigrant experience with all of its cultural ambiguity and heartbreak intact. For all of its pain, it never loses sight of the privilege of being alive." -Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A candid meditation on masculinity, art, and the inescapable pull of opioids...Vuong peels apart phrases and reconfigures them into new, surprising ideas." - ELLE

"An epistolary masterpiece...Fearless, revelatory, extraordinary." -Library Journal (starred review)

"Disarmingly frank, raw in subject matter but polished in style and language, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeousreveals the strengths and limitations of human connection and the importance of speaking your truth." - BookPage

"[Vuong's] first foray into fiction is poetic in the deepest sense-not merely on the level of language, but in its structure and its intelligence...The result is an uncategorizable hybrid of what reads like memoir, bildungsroman, and book-length poem. More important than labels, though, is the novel's earnest and open-hearted belief in the necessity of stories and language for our survival. A raw and incandescently written foray into fiction by one of our most gifted poets."-Kirkus (starred review)

"Casting a truly literary spell, Vuong's tale of language and origin, beauty and the power of story, is an enrapturing first novel."-Booklist (starred review)

"Sometimes a writer comes along and stops your breath. I'm reading On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and there is so little air moving through my body as I read. When writing is this good, who needs air?" - Jacqueline Woodson, author of Red at the Bone

"A bruised, breathtaking love letter never meant to be sent. A powerful testimony to magic and loss. A marvel." -Marlon James, author of "This is one of the best novels I've ever read. I always want my favorite poets to write novels and here it's happened. Ocean Vuong is a master. This book a masterpiece. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is an ode to loss and struggle, to being a Vietnamese American, to Hartford, Connecticut, and it's a compassionate epistolary ode to a mother who may or may not know how to read. I dog-eared so many pages the book almost collapsed-I almost did." -Tommy Orange, author of There There

" On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous will be described - rightly - as luminous, shattering, urgent, necessary. But the word I keep circling back to is raw: that's how powerful the emotions here are, and how you'll feel after reading it - scoured down to bone. With a poet's precision, Ocean Vuong examines whether putting words to one's experience can bridge wounds that span generations, and whether it's ever possible to be truly heard by those we love most." -Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere

"This book-gorgeous is right there in the title-finds incredible, aching beauty in the deep observation of love in many forms. Ocean Vuong's debut novel contains all the power of his poetry, and I finished the book knowing that we are seeing only the very beginning of his truly magnificent talent." -Emma Straub, author of Modern Lovers and The Vacationers

"Ocean Vuong runs up against the limits of language-this book is addressed to a mother who cannot read it-and expands our sense of what literature can make visible, thinkable, felt across borders and generations and genres. This is a courageous, embodied inquiry into the tangle of colonial and personal histories. It is also a gorgeous argument for astonishment over irony-for the transformative possibilities of love." -Ben Lerner, author of Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04

"One is not often given the chance to apply words like "brilliant" and "remarkable" to any novels, certainly not first novels. Thank you, Ocean Vuong, for this brilliant and remarkable first novel." -Michael Cunningham, author of "[ On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous] is one of the most beautiful novels I have ever read, a literary marvel and a work of extraordinary humanity. It is about who we are, and how we find ourselves in our bodies, in each other, in countries, on this earth: truly a masterpiece." -Max Porter, Grief is the Thing with Feathers

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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong: 9780525562047 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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"Vuong writes about the yearning for connection that afflicts immigrants. But 'ocean' also describes the distinctive way Vuong writes: His words are liquid, flowing, rolling, teasing, mighty and overpowering.

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Leave a message of gratitude to departing REA Networking Coordinator, Mary Hess!

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Sunday, November 19
6:30 - 8:00 p.m.
Location: TBA
An informal gathering and conversation about teaching and learning
Sign up via email (kmyust@upsem.edu); limit 15 participants

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Monday, November 20
11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Theme: Religious Education in Higher Education

See session description.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Here's an example of a lightning talk.

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Please check the REA2023 Announcements and add any announcement you would like to make to this padlet.

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Please check the REA2023 Announcements and add any announcement you would like to make to this padlet. Loading the schedule... If this takes too long, please ensure that you have Javascript turned on in your browser.